[Milva McDonald]: All right. Welcome to the March 21st, 2024 meeting of the Charter Study Committee, Article VI Subcommittee, which is on financial procedures. This is our first subcommittee meeting, and we have one other member, Jean, who was unable to join us. So the first item on the agenda is regarding I just thought we would review the budget discussion because we did discuss with the whole committee some of these matters at the March 7th meeting. We did discuss the city council budget amendment, but it's been re-raised. I'm just throwing that out and we can open the discussion with that.
[Eunice Browne]: I went looking for the budget amendment, and I found something, and I put it in our drive, but it didn't look like what the call-in center had up on the screen last week. What the call-in center had up on the screen, the heading said, I think, charter amendment, but it more resembled the budget ordinance that they had been working on. So I'm a little confused.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So there has been some confusion because there is the charter amendment that was proposed and then there's also this ordinance which they're working on or they've been working on for a while with the administration.
[Eunice Browne]: That actually passed its first reading on Tuesday night. And so the next step in that, for anybody who's going to be watching later, is that the second reading, I guess, is what goes into an advertisement in whatever newspaper where the Somerville Journal, I guess, is what they have. Somerville Journal, Medford, whatever it calls itself. And then it comes back to the council for its third reading to go in effect. So my estimation would be that it will probably come back for its third reading. I think the council meets not April 2nd, but April 9th and probably the 23rd. Yeah, I didn't know that. Come back one of those.
[Milva McDonald]: So I don't know if that's standard for ordinances, but yeah, it is. really for them to go through that many?
[Eunice Browne]: It's a first reading and then the second reading. I think Maury can probably attest to this too. Second reading is it goes into some newspaper or something, and then it goes back to the council floor for a third reading after that, and then they accept it. Then I think it's probably, 60 days for it to go. Okay. So, so that's not really.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, that doesn't really pertain to us. Although, definitely some of the issues I think that ordinance addresses like the timeline we would be looking at the, the amendment, the really the main content of the amendment that is at issue is. the ability for the city council to move money in the budget. We discussed it at the March 7th meeting, and we voted unanimously to not put that into our draft charter. But we have a member who wants to re-raise it. I feel like we should probably wait for her to hear what she has to say. But I just wanted to talk to the subcommittee about it because If we've been charged with looking at Article 6, the decision for us is do we investigate it because Gene did offer to do research and whatnot. But, or my feeling is that even if our subcommittee feels like we want it, that that's a good idea, I feel like we need to go back to the committee, the whole committee first, because the whole committee voted no on it. So my feeling is we can't really raise it, we can't open it up again without having the whole committee say, yeah, sure, let's learn more about it. But I wanted to just see how you all felt about it because Gene brought it to our subcommittee.
[Maury Carroll]: I mean, I for one would like to stand behind that vote that we talked, you know, I mean, that's my feeling. I understand what the city council is trying to do. I don't believe it's healthy, and it's the right way to move. You're going to get into all kinds of jockeying around. You're going to end up with a stalemate, that we want this, no, we want that, and we feel as though we can do this. So I think there has to be one final answer to all of this stuff. And the way it's laid out, and the way it's laid out, I think, in the majority of cities and towns in the Commonwealth, is the mayor or the city council or select men or whatever form type of government you have, the final say goes with the mayor on the budget.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, in mayor council governments, there is no city in Massachusetts that allows the city council this power other than Boston, and it's very new in Boston. So, and as we talked about in chapter 44, section 32, specifically says the city council can't do this. So, We are trying to get a special act charter and it's not unheard of that the state might say, well, you know, it for this special act will allow it. But besides all the reasons you just mentioned, Maury, putting something in the charter that is actually state, that state law states is not allowed to me is also a really good reason not to do it.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I think my feeling is, you know, we, we had a pretty good discussion about it, you know, with the committee of the whole couple of weeks ago, we had the Collins Center there, you know, giving us some guidance. You know, I mean, I know that I have said, you know, regarding other things that may not be in the charter, you know, that I would like to see in the charter, other various topics I've said, you know, well, just because it's not in the charter doesn't mean that it can't be, why can't we be trendsetters? But I think some of the things that I've brought up are probably not already governed by state law. I think going to what you said and the fact that no other community does this and it is governed by state law, then, And the call-in center doesn't seem to recommend it, then I think we should, as Maury said, stand behind the vote that we took. On the other hand, we did have a member bring it up again. This is going to, in the, Progression of going from where we are now to. Going to the ballot, it has to go through the city council. So, to be able to say. You know, we gave it a good hard 1. Deliberation research, et cetera. And. you know, this is what we arrived at and back up and have all of that research backed up with yet another committee of the whole vote, which I think will probably turn out the same way. You know, I don't know. I think it's, it's a bit of a, you know, conundrum. Then we can go back to the city council and say, we took a deep dive into it and, you know.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. I don't know what that deep dive is going to look like, and I think that's one thing Jean is going to have to tell us. What kind of research did she have in mind? I mean, she's going to have to go look at other states to see if, or she could look at Boston, or look at other states because it's not done in Massachusetts, so you couldn't really find out or look at the federal, you know, the states, you know, federal or state or state government. So it sounds like we're maybe a little divided on whether we should reopen this. So what I think, what I'm going to propose is that we ask Jean what she has in mind in terms of specifically where she wants to research. But before she does that, I do think we need to ask the whole committee, since the whole committee voted no, I think the committee has to say yes or no to reopening it. I don't know how you guys feel about that.
[Maury Carroll]: Go ahead, Eunice.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think I would go along with that. OK. Maury?
[Maury Carroll]: Oh, I'd definitely go along with that. Yeah, you know that. You know how I think generally pretty good. We've been doing this for a while. But to the point that we just talked about, I get a kick out of the city council because you know, as you well know, we asked for a home rule petition to get the charter revision started and they all now get the signatures, you know, but they turn around and get their little amendments that they want to make, that should, to me, you want to make these amendments? Put it in front of the voters, you know? You can't pick and choose any longer, and that's what they're doing here. But as far as, I just have to say that about that, because it irks me so much when I think about, you know, we didn't have to go through all of this that we got through just to get to a simple charter review, not saying anything's going to even change. But you know, they just go ahead and want to move things around. It's very frustrating. But as far as, yeah, put it back in front of the whole committee. We did take a vote, you know, if it's, you know, a 10 to 1 or 11 to 1, you know, Jean's done a tremendous amount of work. She has a great head on her shoulder. But, you know, sometimes, you know, hey, not everything we want to see happens, happens. You know, that's why we're a committee of 12 people, you know, to move forward. So, but I say definitely put it in front of the whole committee.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So let's, um, I, I mean, our, our next full committee meeting is the first Thursday in April. I don't know if we are going to meet before that, but if we do, we can talk to Gene about it then. But even if we don't, um, I think we'll just, uh, like I said, I don't feel like we can go ahead and pursue this without asking the committee since the committee did vote on it.
[Maury Carroll]: I agree.
[Milva McDonald]: So, okay.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. All right. I think our meeting schedule for the next, you know, between now and the 4th. Is a bit tight because we also have another subcommittee meeting next week as well on Wednesday night. And then the Easter weekend and everything, you know, a lot of people may have other things going on. You know, by the time we regroup, it's Monday or Tuesday and then we're together on Thursday. So.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, okay, so that sounds like a good plan for that particular issue. Now, just looking at, so this is our article six. I mean, the thing that we have to sort of decide is how are we going to tackle it? We also, we're going to review, I mean, just looking at this, You know, it just lays out in state law the submission of city budget to city council procedure for approval, rejection, or alteration. And it pretty much lays out what happens in Medford and pretty much every other city in the state. So, you know, this we can just review on our own. It's just good to know. Because we want to think about whatever we put in the charter, we want to make sure that it We want to probably make sure that it doesn't contradict anything in this, right? Right. And allowing the city council to move money would contradict this. Where does it say it? They can't originate appropriations. They can't increase the full amount of the budget. They can reduce appropriations, but they can't increase them, basically. So those are the sort of the basic rules. So in terms of, you know, what a lot of other subcommittees have done is kind of use these drafts and create a draft of the charter. And then ultimately, when we get that draft finished, the Collins Center will look at it and hopefully tell us if there's anything in it that's like, you know, could cause problems or et cetera. This is a complex article. We can, as a subcommittee, decide. We're just going to kind of recommend. We're going to make decisions and make recommendations on kind of the main issues, and then we're going to let the call-in center tell the call-in center, okay, here's what we decided, and then let them draft it. We could do that.
[Eunice Browne]: One of the things that I took out of, I didn't have time to go, go back and listen to that section of the meeting, but I did read the, I have the minutes in front of me here. And let's see, where is it? Colin center advises not being too specific about the budget process and the charter. That was an interesting highlight.
[Milva McDonald]: I think that would have applied to probably most sections of the charter too.
[Eunice Browne]: So go ahead. There were that specific in that one. I guess I'm a little bit perplexed about some of the things that I'm looking at that could go in the charter that other communities have done and other thoughts that I have. you know, how does, what's the difference between the charter and this ordinance that they drafted? The ordinance, you know, I'll give them credit for is pretty good. And it certainly, you know, seems to address a lot of the timeline and, you know, requests and things, you know, not just during budget season, but, you know, throughout the year, to keep, you know, to be, for them to be aware of the financial health of the city. And then that makes it easier getting to budget season. So, you know.
[Milva McDonald]: So an ordinance is a piece of legislation. It's like the constitution and laws. The charter is the constitution, the ordinance is the laws. So an ordinance can be changed, you know, by the legislative body, the charter, can't be changed so easily. And ordinances are like policy, they can go, they tend to go into more detail. But what we've seen, and of course, Medford doesn't have this section in its charter now, we're just going by state law. But what we have seen is that we can, you know, there can be things in the charter that will lay out a timeline, right? I don't know. And when the call-in center said maybe not get too detailed, maybe they were talking about like a level of detail that the ordinance goes into wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for the charter. Maybe that's... But, you know, we can look at that ordinance and use it as a guide, or we can just say, you know, our process is our process, and we are going to research what a reasonable timeline is and make our own decisions and recommend that. So, you know, there's a lot of ways we can go about this. I mean, we can see just from this, this first section is pretty standard. Yeah, pretty standard. I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on that.
[Maury Carroll]: That's what I mean. We should take a look at the ones that are really simple here, saying, OK, we need a little tweak here. This is great the way it's written. Get those off our plate and then go with the longer ones.
[Milva McDonald]: These are just differently phrased. I think this one looks good to me. The only difference between this one and Pittsfield is that this one says the last day of June and it doesn't say June 30th. So we'll just say that. So I just put that in black. We're moving right along. We're almost done. We got six what? Finished in five minutes. Now this one annual budget meeting establishes the timeframe for budget meetings and any required participants. So it looks like, unless I'm mystic and I could have made mistakes when I put the document together, Weymouth doesn't have this. So this is not like a requirement, but I think, you know, I don't know, we'll have to discuss. Is it a good idea to have an annual budget meeting? And as the Cotton Center said, this is more, it's not really about next year's budget, right? This particular meeting.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, I think what they said, um, uh, any January budget meetings would be a discussion of how the current year's finances are going and projections. Um, but there's, you know, you still have a half a year left. You know, and you, and there's also in terms of. You know, money coming in, they have the. Chapter 90 funds, I think it is, different sources of revenue from the state that they're not fully aware of until sometime in the middle of the spring. I think they start hashing things out.
[Milva McDonald]: So this particular meeting that would be before the process of actually, it would basically be sort of like, let's all get together, review, the current financial situation in the city and look at forecasts. And it's sort of just like getting everybody together to talk about that. So to me, what this does is it helps the communication between the branches of government.
[Maury Carroll]: It's- That's what I like about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, right. So do we agree that we think it's a good idea to put this in?
[Maury Carroll]: I like it, and I think 60 or even 75 days before, because as Eunice just said, there's certain monies and so forth that come in later that help them establish, really pull the strings tighter on the budget. But a little feel-good session, as you all say at NOVA, that they all can sit down at the table and let's not be yelling and screaming and pointing fingers. This is our situation. This is what we're up against. This is what we did good this year. This is what we did bad. Exactly.
[Eunice Browne]: I like it. I think the city council and the school committee, I think anywhere that we can add in there that gets them collaborating, I think is a win. After some of the things that I think have gone on the past couple of years, distinctly remembering After some of the violence at the high school over the last, you know, 18 months, you know, Councilor Scarpelli saying if we had only known. We could have helped more. So, and maybe allocated some more money for whatever it was that might have stemmed the tide. I think anything that we can put in the charter anywhere. gets them, gets the bodies, the three bodies collaborating, I think is a win.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so we could look at some other cities to see what they say for this, but interestingly we have Melrose, which doesn't, it just says the mayor shall call a joint meeting before the commencement of the budget process. It doesn't have a timeline or anything, it just says before. Pittsfield says at least 60 days before the beginning of the fiscal year, which I'm trying to figure that out because isn't the fiscal year July 1st?
[Maury Carroll]: So you're talking somewhere in April, because May would be 60 days before the beginning. So May 1st would be 60 days. So you're talking a meeting in March or April.
[Milva McDonald]: So this is probably, this is, I mean, the state law, I mean, if we looked at the state law, the budget, you know, I mean, people in Medford want to talk about wanting to move the budget process earlier, but I believe it's pretty much June, Sometime in June that it's due, right?
[Maury Carroll]: In fact, this year, the budget that was submitted this year was the earliest budget and I think in about 30 years that was submitted, you know? Yeah. The old way of doing things was at the 11th hour, come up with the budget and then hold everybody at gunpoint to approve it or the city would be in a shutdown.
[Milva McDonald]: So 60 days puts it at what, May 1st, we said?
[Maury Carroll]: May 1st.
[Milva McDonald]: Which is probably later than, you know, that would be, I mean, it's reasonable if you consider that the budget should be done by the end of June. But doing what Melrose does leaves it sort of open. It could just be before. Or. Should it be like, what's 90 days would put it at April, beginning of April?
[Maury Carroll]: What do you think? I like a timeline, because that holds their feet to the fire. Other than that, they can all say, oh, we don't need a meeting. We've all talked and all that. This way, you're doing something. And give them a window. Between 90 and 60 days, a meeting must be held between the mayor must call for a meeting between the city council, school committee, and the mayor's office. in preparation for the upcoming budget.
[Milva McDonald]: So you think 90 days? I mean, should we say at least?
[Maury Carroll]: I'd give them a window between 90 and 60. No earlier than 90 days, no later than 60 days before the beginning of the fiscal year. OK. You know what I'm saying? If I'm saying it incorrectly.
[Eunice Browne]: OK, so no. But then if we actually put actual dates on that, then that would have to be somewhere between April 1 and May 1.
[Maury Carroll]: Exactly. May 1st puts you at 60 days out.
[Milva McDonald]: I guess saying at least a certain amount basically just gives a deadline. It means that it can happen earlier, right?
[Maury Carroll]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: But it can't happen after. So do we need to put the window or should we just say, just give them the deadline?
[Eunice Browne]: What I would like to see is this going in a different tactic. First of all, Melva, could you make that a little bit bigger? Sure. Some of us are blind as bats. What I would like to actually see, fiscal year, let me talk this out for a minute. Fiscal year starts July 1. What I would actually like to see would be a meeting between the bodies somewhere in January or February. Uhhh... after, say, January 15th, maybe, because that would give you a look at the finances. And I get what the Collins Center is saying about the earlier makes things difficult. But you've got July, August, September, October, November, December. You've got the first six months out of the year. And from the school side, you've got September, October, November, December, four months where the students have been in the classroom. So if you did it, let's say after January 15th, and I think we'd need to get some input from the finance director, is how long does it take him to wrap up December to have numbers, to have some sort of a, Overview of what the budget was from July 1 to December 31st, or if we moved it to. February after February 15th, maybe after. You know, uh, winter break. then you'd have six or seven months and they'd be able to say, this is what we have spent thus far. We're on track to stay within the budget or we're spending way less or way more or we're okay for this year, but I think for next year, we're going to need a higher budget of X for Y. And that would help. Who would it help?
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, you have a point. The mayor makes the budget. And the mayor has to hear from all the departments, right? and all that. So I guess my feeling is if we're going to use this language to review the financial condition of the city, that could maybe be done in January. But revenue and expenditure forecasts and other relevant information in order to develop a coordinated budget, I don't think that that would be available in January.
[Maury Carroll]: I don't think that's enough time myself.
[Milva McDonald]: So it could happen in January. It wouldn't be this purpose. OK. I see your point. And so if we talked to me, if we were going to do one for this purpose, we need to make it later. But if we talked about doing one in January, it would maybe be another section. for a different purpose. But if Article 6 is about financial procedures, I feel like what we would be talking about in January is just informational. It wouldn't really be about creating the following year's budget.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, I think then maybe what we can do and what I would actually like to see both in the legislative and executive and school committee sections of the charter, I would like to see the three bodies collaborating a couple of times a year. Maybe one of them would be the budget meeting, which would come maybe in March or April. Then another, and that would go into Article 6. Then another meeting, at least one more at some point in the year that would just be a, here's how things are going. Here's the kinds of things, maybe a portion of the meeting, a top level of the budget, Some of our security cameras are coming to the end of their lifespan. I think we're going to need to do something with those next fiscal year, bigger things. Then just a regular, here's how things are going. That would then go in Articles 2, 3, and 4.
[Milva McDonald]: You're saying that there should be a requirement that all the bodies have to meet? But I feel like we have to put a purpose in.
[Eunice Browne]: State of the city? State of the school committee?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I don't know. The thing about the school committee, the city council has no relationship with the school committee, other than approving the budget. Correct.
[Eunice Browne]: That's correct, but. I, for 1 after having watched a whole lot of stuff. Would like to see the bodies collaborate more for the. good of the entire city and the good of the students.
[Milva McDonald]: So that would be something that- I just don't know what the city council could do about any information that they receive. I mean, part of the reason that the school committee issues come up at the city council is because the city council has public meetings and some people go there, but the city council doesn't really have power to address those issues. they could maybe put some kind of pressure on, you know, and make statements about it. But in terms of the actual working of the government, what would the city council be able to do about any of those issues?
[Eunice Browne]: Well, I think hearing them and, you know, some of them can be addressed with more money than, You know, they're the ones that allocate the. The money, you know, or they're the ones that could. I, I've just heard time and time again. That if the city council knew that X was going on. In the schools that perhaps they could have. Helped perhaps they could have yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: And I'm wondering what that means. Like, if they knew about, you know, some of the issues that were happening in the schools with the fights, what would they have been able to, like, what could they have done? I don't know what that means. Like, and I don't know if there's anything that we could put in the charter that would you know, that would address that. But I don't know. Let's, I mean, in terms of the, what we know that the city council has power over in terms of relating to the schools is the budget, because they vote on the budget. They don't appropriate, they can't create appropriations. But we, so we are, we are talking about right now, an annual meeting of the three bodies. So that is hopefully going to make it through at least in this section. And then for the other sections, we can talk about it more, we can look into that more. Because collaboration is definitely it's one of the issues that we've heard people say they want to, you know, that they want to see. So the timeline Maury's suggesting the window. Do we want to create the window or we just want to create the deadline?
[Eunice Browne]: I agree with Maury. The window holds their feet to the fire more.
[Maury Carroll]: It gives them a little flexibility too.
[Milva McDonald]: In a way, you could say the deadline gives them more flexibility because- Yeah. Because with the deadline, they have to do it no later than this date, but they can do it any time before that. And with the window, they have to do it within that window, right? See what I'm saying? Yeah. So if the charter says they have to have the meeting, they have to have the meeting. And if we say at least X days, that's the deadline. They can do it any time before that. But if it's, so. Yeah, putting the window saying no earlier than this time.
[Maury Carroll]: I think the reason I put that in there, I thought of that, was to eliminate what you said earlier. What good is a meeting in January or February when you're only six months into the program and you don't know what's coming up? Exactly. It's just where you're three quarters of the way through it if you've got a pretty good feel for what's in front of you.
[Milva McDonald]: Yep. So that's an argument for putting that, I think.
[Eunice Browne]: So that would make it somewhere between April 1st and May 1st. And May 1st, yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: If we picked 90, let's see, June 1st would be.
[Maury Carroll]: You go 75 days if you wanted.
[Milva McDonald]: This would be April 1st.
[Maury Carroll]: April 1st to May, between April 1st and May 1st, they have to hold that meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. Do we want to make it so that they can hold it in March if they want to? Mid-March, is that? I mean, I don't need, you know, again, probably any of these, we probably, once we say what we think would be good, we probably have to talk to the financial office about all of it.
[Eunice Browne]: And hear from them. I was going to say the same. I mean, we could sit here, you know, till the cows come home, you know, debating a window or timeframe or earlier or later, but going back to what the call-in center said, given the streams that come through and things, when are they going to have enough information to make the meeting valuable?
[Milva McDonald]: This basically says they can't do it before April 1st and they can't do it after May 1st?
[Maury Carroll]: Yes. It's in that four-week window, that 30-day window.
[Eunice Browne]: March 15th to May 15th? Yeah. I feel like the May 1st is a good no later than. Well, from what I gather from what the budget process is looking like now that we're kind of just about up against it, watching the school committee meeting the other night. I believe the mayor said that they're having their 1st. Budget meeting coming up. I think it was my. I think it was the first week of April. The second, third of April, first week of somewhere around the first week of April, I think, because then they're having a full committee meeting, I think Monday, April 8th. So I think their first budget meeting is just prior to that. And then the way that the city council seems to be arranging their budget timeline going. Even though it hasn't passed yet, the new ordinance. They already crafted their budget priorities that are going to the mayor actually by tomorrow. Then budget meetings with the department heads are going to be held between April 15th and May 15th. I think between April 1st, and May 1st or May 15th, maybe?
[Milva McDonald]: Right now, we have April 1st and May 1st. For this particular meeting, I think no later than 60 days is probably good for this particular meeting. Because, you know, as you say, Eunice, the budget process is kind of starting up already in mid-April.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Right? Basically starting next week.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So you wouldn't want to do this after May 1st. I mean, unless we want to push it back to 75 days and make it no later than April 15th.
[Eunice Browne]: Where is, do I have a copy of the ordinance here that they're?
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, what do you think, Maury, about April 15th, making it no later than April 15th? Do you want to? I mean, what if there was some year that things were just sort of happening so that it was harder to do it earlier, right? I guess that's why I feel like 60 days is more reasonable. But what do you think?
[Maury Carroll]: 60 days since May 1st, right? Yeah. I think within that timeframe, no later than that, they should have a meeting. Now, whether we want to put a timeline of when they should accomplish this meeting, do they want to go 120 days before and give them another month and no later than 60 days? That gives them plenty of time to get together, plus they have a pretty good feel of the condition financially the city is in.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, so right now we have no earlier than 90 days before and no later than, no earlier than 90 days and, let's see, and no later than 60 days, wait, before the beginning of the fiscal year, right?
[Maury Carroll]: Yes, prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, yep.
[Milva McDonald]: The mayor shall call a joint meeting of the city council and school committee before the commencement of the budget. This is an annual meeting that's before the commencement of the budget process. If we have it April 1st and they want to start in March, what do you think?
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We want to go March, April, May. We want to go change it to 120 days. OK. Do you agree? Why don't we go no later than 60, prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, the mayor? Before the beginning. Right. Take that out and go prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.
[Milva McDonald]: Or prior to the beginning.
[Maury Carroll]: of the fiscal year.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, we can say prior to instead of before.
[Maury Carroll]: Before the beginning. Something doesn't sound right in there. Maybe beginning before the fiscal year or something.
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. Well, the beginning of the fiscal year just means July 1st, right?
[Maury Carroll]: Okay, so let it go right there. That looks fine.
[Milva McDonald]: So no earlier than 120 days and no later than 60 days before the beginning of the fiscal year. If we put a comma, that will help people too. The mayor shall call a joint meeting of the City Council and School Committee before the commencement of the budget process to review the financial condition of the city, revenue and expenditure forecasts, and other relevant information prepared by the mayor in order to develop a coordinated budget. I think it's good. And we're going to check all these dates and, you know.
[Maury Carroll]: That's just going to go in front of the whole committee to let them. And I'm sure we have some other suggestions.
[Milva McDonald]: So, yeah. And once the subcommittee picks these numbers, I mean, I think we should probably go to the financial department. And once the financial department says those are, yeah, that can be done, then we can bring it to the whole committee.
[Eunice Browne]: My question though, is it says, you know. Before the commencement of the budget process, so if they do it, you know. If they come up against that 60 days, of course, you know, giving them that much of a window, you know. Then they have some wiggle room to play with, but if they, you know, but it up to, you know, the 60 days, which is May 1st, which is a little bit over a month from now. You know, as we said, the budget process. You know, for the city council, it's. pretty much started with the city councils, you know, sending their requests to the mayor this week. And the school committee meetings starting next week, you know, by May 1st, they're in the thick of it.
[Maury Carroll]: Oh, you hope they are.
[Eunice Browne]: Right. Really? What can I hope?
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, you know, this is basically giving them flexibility. Yeah. So that if there's a particular year where, wow, something happens and we can't start till, you know, and, but it's, I don't know, that's, it's no later than, but they definitely can start earlier.
[Maury Carroll]: Exactly.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I mean, I think it's reasonable, you know, Melrose gave no timeline, they just said before. That gives the most flexibility, right? It just says there has to be an annual budget meeting before, before, you know, the process is started. I mean, you know, that's an option, but we were kind of saying we like to put the deadlines in. So we'll check the numbers with the financial department and see what they said. All right. Submission of the operating budget and budget message. Establishes process for budget development and time frame for budget submission. So this is a big one.
[Eunice Browne]: Can I interrupt you for just one second? I have printed out hear the article six, the comparison with the three different communities. Okay. After the 6-1 fiscal year with Melrose, Pittsfield, and Weymouth, there comes another section after that. I didn't see it on what you have up on the screen.
[Milva McDonald]: That's because I know what you're talking about, the school committee thing? Yeah, the public hearing. That was in Pittsfield. I'm thinking that I somehow, when I made the document, I put it in the wrong place. Because it doesn't seem like it should have gone where it was. So what I did was I moved it down to, it was Weymouth. Yeah, it was purple, so yeah, it was Weymouth. I moved it down here because I don't see that it could go in those two other sections. As far as I could tell, it was the only one that had a whole separate section on that.
[Eunice Browne]: Right, we're going to get to it.
[Milva McDonald]: So, yeah. I didn't see Melrose or Pittsfield having that separate section. Right. And the other thing that has is budget message. I don't see the others having budget message. Which is, so I mean, maybe what we should, let's look at the first two first since they're shorter. So Melrose, not less than 45 days before the beginning of the fiscal year, which would be, let's just, May 15th, is that right?
[Eunice Browne]: Am I calculating that right? Oh, okay. I'm just, I'm trying to find out where you are on, I've got it in front of me.
[Milva McDonald]: Not less than 45 days before the beginning of the fiscal year. Yeah. So that would be May 15th. Okay. So that means by May 15th, the mayor shall submit to the city council a proposed. So that's, that's actually, um, earlier than it has been done in Medford in the past, right?
[Unidentified]: Yes, it is.
[Eunice Browne]: So when Brianna did it last year, it was right around the middle of May.
[Maury Carroll]: Right in that window.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, and okay, the budget message piece is in this section for Melrose. The budget message shall explain the operating budget in fiscal terms and in terms of work programs for all city agencies. It shall outline the proposed fiscal policies of the city for the ensuing fiscal year, describe important features of the proposed operating budget, and indicate any major variations from the current operating budget fiscal policies and reasons for the changes. Complete fiscal plan of all city funds shall be in the form the mayor deems desirable. And here's where they have the school budget. The school budget as adopted by the school committee shall be submitted to the mayor within a reasonable time before the submission of the proposed operating budget for the city council. So the school committee that says has to submit it before It doesn't give them a deadline, but it just says a reasonable time before May 15th. And the mayor shall notify the school committee of the date by which the budget of the school committee shall be submitted to the mayor. Okay, so it gives the mayor the ability to tell the school committee, you need to get it to me by X date, right?
[Maury Carroll]: Right. She's going to have her budget fund. The mayor is going to have their budget fund by X amount of dates. So you need to have this so I can include it in the entire package.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. Right, and they shall coordinate the dates and times of the school committee's budget process under the general laws. That seems pretty good, but let's see what Pittsfield says, at least 30 days. So they say, Melrose says May 15th. Um, Pittsfield says basically June 1st, right?
[Eunice Browne]: And our friendly budget ordinance over here says, uh, presentation and review of comprehensive budget process. The mayor will submit the comprehensive budget proposal to the city council no later than May 31st of each year. Okay. The mayor will make a presentation. So they're going, they're going 30 days. With a considerable amount of work done prior to that point. So basically, when they get the comprehensive budget, it shouldn't be because they'll have already gone through the meetings of all the department heads by then. Right. It shouldn't be much of a surprise to them.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay. So for us, We're looking at one community that says May 15th, another one that says May 31st. This looks like it's pretty much the same as Melrose, except Pittsfield does give some more specific numbers for the school committee. The school budget shall be submitted at least 30 days. So this basically says that the school budget has to be submitted to the mayor on May 1st. But it also says the mayor shall notify the school committee of the date by which the proposed budget.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, those seem a little... They're a little contradictory, but they're also saying this is the final timeline if no one does anything about it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, right, right. I think that's what it means. Yeah. Okay, so those two. And then Weymouth says not later than 75. Ooh, wow. That's... Wait, before that's.
[Eunice Browne]: That's like April 15th.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I mean, women is maybe smaller. Maybe it's not as complicated. I don't know. Don't they work off a town meeting. Well, it does say town council, so they might. Yeah, I think they're different. So that could be why that seems too early, right? And then the other thing is they say that the mayor shall provide for publication in a local newspaper of notice and a general summary of the proposed budget.
[Eunice Browne]: I thought the other two did something like that too.
[Maury Carroll]: I didn't see anything.
[Milva McDonald]: No. No, they just say the budget message submitted by the mayor shall explain the operating budget. I don't know that Mass General Law said that. Let's see. Oh, yeah, so the 175 days, looks like it comes from within 175 days after the annual organization. Oh, wait, that's... That's within 175 days after. So that would be January, right? Within 175 days from January. So that's like about six months.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. I mean, that's not helpful.
[Milva McDonald]: No. I was just going to see if they said anything about. No. Okay. So let's look back. Oh, my rail just changed. It's not in your way, right? OK, there we go. OK, so Weymouth, as we've talked about, is maybe a little different. And they also have, so they just put it in different sections. The other two included budget messaging and school, It just did it within the same paragraph. And this is pretty much the same thing that the other said. This is pretty much, this looks like maybe it's a little more detailed, but it's, yeah, I don't think property tax levies were mentioned in the other ones, were they? No. No. Then there's this whole school committee budget. This also has the thing about putting things in the local newspaper.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I know the school committee, I know by law they have to do a public hearing. I know that I've heard them talk about that a few times before. Make sure that they get that in there.
[Milva McDonald]: My feeling is that the more simple one is probably better, but I don't know how you guys feel, like using either Melrose or Pittsfield as a model.
[Eunice Browne]: I think, you know, well, I mean, the mayor was able to do it, you know, last year, you know, somewhere in the May 15th, May 20th category, which is the earliest it's ever been done in decades. The usual process that I've. you know, seen over the years, you know, when things don't go totally amiss and totally off the wall, like they've done a few times in the last few years, but over the last, I don't know, seven, eight years that I've been paying some attention to it over a couple of different mayors is that usually the budget would be presented somewhere in the vicinity of the, 1st of June, you know, a little bit. Before a little bit afterwards, and that then follows with. budget meetings, they don't call them hearings, budget meetings over the course of much of June, including a Saturday usually, a Saturday morning, one Saturday morning, maybe two, with the parade of department heads coming through and presenting their budget and the council is having the opportunity to ask questions and then the budget gets voted on in the final Tuesday meeting of the fiscal year, which is usually around the 26th, 28th.
[Milva McDonald]: This particular section is just about submission of the budget and the budget message. I mean, when we get to the next section, it's going to address other action on the operating budget, sort of what you're talking about. What I was saying was I personally think for this section, the Melrose or the Pittsfield, which is more sort of streamlined, I like their text models better than the Weymouth one. But I don't know how you guys feel. And Melrose and Pittsfield are pretty much exactly the same except for the timeline. So if we agree that we like the Melrose and Pittsfield text, we can keep that and then just decide what we think we should include as the timeline. Does that make sense?
[Maury Carroll]: I like it.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. OK. So I'll just use the Melrose. I'll get rid of Weymouth. So the first question is the, well, unless we don't like 30 or 45 days and we want to put something else, but I don't know what else we could put. So 30 or 45 days, right? I mean, yeah, 30. Melrose has 45, which means that the mayor would have to have the budget submitted by mid-May.
[Eunice Browne]: And if they're doing if they leave their collaboration to the school committee. Their collaboration meeting with the school committee to the last possible moment. Um, then 2 weeks is, you know, right? They do that. You're saying 30th. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. So if we're actually allowing May 1st as a potential annual budget meeting date, it would be pretty hard to do the budget in two weeks, right?
[Eunice Browne]: But on the other hand, I mean, that's their own fault if they do that. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: I guess so. I feel like 30 days is reasonable because, again, it's not less than. It doesn't mean it can't be submitted earlier. but if there's some reason that some year it's going to be really hard to get the budget in by mid, you know, done by mid-May, you know, I feel like the 30 days, I would go for the 30 days, but I don't know what you guys think.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, I'm going with that.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, and it doesn't preclude them, like you say, doing The ordinance that they seem to be following now that should go into effect shortly, if they're doing the department head budget meetings throughout the month of May and they see 25 department heads parade through in May with their budget, then when they get the entire budget book on June 1, it shouldn't be a shocker to them what they're getting.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. The only other question is, Pittsfield gives a school budget deadline, at least 30 days. Melrose just lets the school committee and the mayor work it out. What do we think about that? I think we should have Paulette. The school budget has to be submitted before the mayor submits, obviously, the proposed operating budget to the city council. This one just says a reasonable time. I like that because the school committee is not going to fail to submit the budget in time. They know they have until a certain date because that's been already outlined. How important is it to then, within that, say, well, the school committee has to be by X date? I don't know. What do you think, Maury?
[Maury Carroll]: I kind of go along with your thinking on this one. I think they, let's face it, all three different phases of the government here know what has to be done. Excuse me. But, you know, I think they can have, I don't think they have to be, I don't think, I think what you're saying is fine.
[Milva McDonald]: What about you, Eunice? Do you agree?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I think I do. And I think it might be something that maybe we either when we beforehand or in our next group meeting or whatever that we highlight to Paulette's attention. Um, and feedback, she's she's the expert in that area. Yeah, or, you know, and she'll see this when, you know, when we submit it to right and maybe just call our attention to and say, have a look at this and see if it. Makes sense.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, this gives the school committee the most flexibility. So the only thing I can imagine her saying is like, well, gee, a deadline would have really helped. Maybe that's what she would say. I don't know.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah. That's easy to do.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. OK. So section 6.4 establishes the protocols for adopting the budget, including holding of public hearings, ability to modify and reject, and time frame for adoption and posting requirements. So that's what 6-4 does. So each of these Melrose, it's broken down into public hearing, adoption of budget, same with Pittsfield. Pittsfield has an additional section, which we'll look at and Weymouth, Again, you know, Weymouth is a little different. I feel like we should just take Weymouth out because it's so different. It's town.
[Maury Carroll]: It really is. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Let's just get rid of Weymouth.
[Maury Carroll]: We seem to be more in concert with Marrows and Pittsfield, what they're saying.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Well, Weymouth, I think, has a different form of government. I'm not sure why the Collins Center included Weymouth. I know. I don't know. I don't know either. I think there might have been other better choices. Unless they wanted us to see a contrast.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, maybe. All right. So Melrose has for the public, let's go one by one. So public hearings. The city council shall publish in at least one local news publication of general circulation in the city, a notice of the proposed operating budget as submitted by the mayor.
[Eunice Browne]: That's going to be my newspaper thing again.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, the notice shall state the times and places where copies of the entire proposed operating budget are available for inspection and the date, time, and place not less than 14 days after its publication when a public hearing will be held. So let's see what Pittsfield says. pretty much the same thing, right? Exact same thing, actually. So for us, it's a question of do we want to keep it in there? And it might even be that this is part of state law, and that's why it's in there.
[Maury Carroll]: I don't really know. Well, I think we just, you know... My only fear, what do we do about the local news publication, seeing how we don't have one? That is a problem.
[Eunice Browne]: Right now, I mean, like I said, with the budget ordinance, and I think the leaf blower ordinance, and they worked on the food truck ordinance last night, any of these ordinances, have to be, like I said, there was one reading last night for the budget ordinance. Any of these have to be publicized. I believe the clerk has been using, I think it's the Somerville Journal slash Medford, whatever.
[Maury Carroll]: No, Somerville News.
[Eunice Browne]: Oh, is that that one?
[Maury Carroll]: I think so.
[Eunice Browne]: Um, where the stuff has to be publicized because I think that that's probably state law.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, I, I, I believe you're right in what you're saying that it is state law.
[Milva McDonald]: Go ahead. When they shut down Medford Transcript, they did supposedly merge it with that Somerville paper, right? So theoretically, there's Medford News in there.
[Maury Carroll]: So whatever paper is correct, it's either Somerville News. I thought the Somerville Journal was gone. That was always the bigger publication in Somerville.
[Eunice Browne]: I think that's a larger problem statewide because, I mean, the local papers have gone the way of the dinosaur, so.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, so in this day and age, does putting something like this in the charter create a potential problem if there's no local news publication of general circulation?
[Eunice Browne]: That was my point. You know, what do we have then? Patch.
[Milva McDonald]: That's, but that's circulation. And yeah, general circulation, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like this is something, I mean, we're going to leave this in, I think, right? But what I'm going to do is, I mean, do you agree that we should leave this in?
[Maury Carroll]: I think something in there to notify. We just have to.
[Milva McDonald]: But I think- This is what we want to find out more about because- But I mean, state law supersedes anything in the charter.
[Eunice Browne]: And so if you look around and the only two newspapers in Eastern Massachusetts end up being the Globe and the Herald, then This stuff isn't like The Globe or The Herald, I don't think. No, it isn't. But that's a problem for state law, really. Yeah. Right. If we don't have a newspaper, we don't have a newspaper.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I think we should decide to leave that there and just maybe I put that in yellow so we could ask a question about it. Maybe there's a way, You know, maybe there's a way to change it so that it's not, it doesn't seem so connected to print media. I don't know. We'll look into that. All right. So, adoption of the budget. Let's see how these two compare. First one was exactly the same between Melrose and Fitzfields. For this one, we thought, The city council shall adopt the operating budget with or without amendments not more than 45 days following the date the budget is filed. I believe Pittsfield did say what we decided on, which was 30 days. That would mean the budget would be submitted no later than May 31st. That doesn't make any sense because That must not be, because that's past June 30th, right?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I mean, what do we do, go budgetless for the first 15 days of July?
[Milva McDonald]: Melrose has it being submitted earlier, but here's Pittsfield, it also says 45 days. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if the budget doesn't get submitted until 30 days before the beginning of the fiscal year, which would be like... June 1st, right? June 1st, yeah.
[Maury Carroll]: Not less than June 1st, it says.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, I know. Okay, this does say not more than 45 days.
[Eunice Browne]: I think these two are identical.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm assuming that the date the budget is filed with the city clerk is the same as the date that it's submitted, right? What do you think?
[Eunice Browne]: I don't know.
[Milva McDonald]: Do you think that it's a different date than, I don't think, than the date the mayor submits it to the city council?
[Eunice Browne]: I think that's a pretty important thing for us to find out before we go with any one of these.
[Milva McDonald]: Because it doesn't say not more than 45 days following the date the mayor submits it to the city council. It says not more than 45 days following the date the budget is filed with the city clerk.
[Maury Carroll]: You think we should ask Adam for 15 minutes of his time, have these little notes that we need to have clarified and sit down with him?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know if he'll say the same thing you said about the- Or maybe Nina would be able to tell us. Yeah, Nina would probably. I mean, this is a simple question. What we want to know is, is the date the budget is filed with the city clerk same as the date budget is submitted to city council, right?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I would send that paragraph to Nina in an email and ask her to offer some clarity.
[Milva McDonald]: Right. So because this submission of budget says when it has to be submitted to the city council, and the dates of that do seem a little bit different than this adoption. But 45 days, we can look at other charters, but the two charters from cities we have here both say 45 days. So that does seem pretty standard. So other than that, I think that the language is completely the same. So we can just get rid of one of these. Because they're the same.
[Eunice Browne]: And then what's this available?
[Milva McDonald]: Pittsfield has an extra thing, which we'll look at in a second. But let me do this, and then I'm going to put, because we want to know what this means, I don't know that we're going to put this in yellow. Just so we can understand what that means.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. Now, it didn't become yellow. Why didn't it become yellow? I did something wrong.
[Eunice Browne]: I don't know how you keep it all together, Melva. I had to shut myself by now. Oh, there we go.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. All right. So that's good. So we sort of want to, I mean, likely we're going to keep it this way because it seems standard, but we do want to understand what we're recommending, right? So we want to know about that. And this was only in Pittsfield. Oh, this just is about availability of the operating budget. In addition to any other posting requirements under the law, immediately after submission of the proposed budget to the city council, the mayor shall pause the entire budget document to be posted on the city's website. I do too. Said proposed budget document shall remain posted during the city council review process contained in this article. After the enactment of the budget, it shall be posted on the city's website and shall remain there throughout the fiscal year. I think that this maybe already happens, but I think it's good to put it in here.
[Eunice Browne]: It does already happen, at least under Marilonga Kern, it has been happening. But I think she's doing that because she thinks it's a best practice. Putting it in the charter will require anybody in the future to do so.
[Maury Carroll]: Awesome. Yeah.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, that's good. I agree with that. So that's a good thing to keep. Excellent. All right. Capital Improvement Program. Ooh. Establishes the protocols for creating and adopting the capital budget. Okay. So I can't say that I'm not a money person, but we'll see.
[Maury Carroll]: Currently, the city has been working on capital improvement programs every five years.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Maury Carroll]: So this says every- It's a five-year plan of where they want to be from such and such a date to five years from when, so.
[Milva McDonald]: So this is interesting because Melrose says every three years, right? Right.
[Maury Carroll]: Yep.
[Milva McDonald]: It still says every year? Yep. Okay, so in terms of- Scroll down a little more right there.
[Maury Carroll]: Then it says right there, what does it say? A list of all to be on during the next five years. That's kind of the way the city's been doing it here, every year with a five-year plan.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay, so this capital improvement program is submitted every year, but it's- I believe it has been.
[Maury Carroll]: It's an update on the five-year plan. We got this out of it.
[Milva McDonald]: Okay.
[Maury Carroll]: That's how I've been doing it all the time.
[Milva McDonald]: So that Medford's current process is more like Pittsfield. Let's just look at what Melrose is doing. Yeah. Every three years, And also a list of capital improvements proposed to be undertaken during the next ensuing five years.
[Maury Carroll]: They're both saying the same thing, but a little differently.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, except in Melrose, the capital improvement program is only submitted every three years. And in Pittsfield, it's every year. That's a pretty big difference. Don't you think? Oh, yeah. I don't know what I think about this. I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to really, I feel like I would want to talk to the financial department, maybe. What do you guys think?
[Eunice Browne]: Going through their budget ordinance process, which has been Um, I think that, um, it's kind of contentious between the administration and the council over their last many meetings. Um, Particularly since last fall. Um, a piece of it. Has to do with, um, capital improvements, revolving funds and. both the chief of staff and the budget director, finance director, have raised a lot of concern that given this, and maybe this is neither here nor there with what we're trying to do, but just to add a little bit of more context, Because of our antiquated systems and staffing and so forth that a lot of this is very difficult for them to do right now. Right as the chief of staff stated in a recent meeting. Is that when an ordinance goes into effect, it's. You know, kind of like a law and, you know, if they don't do it, they're essentially breaking the law. Yeah, so. She had a lot of concerns over, including things that they can't do. Right, that makes sense. What we put out there, if what we, if the charter that we're creating actually goes into effect, it's going to be a few years down the road anyway.
[Milva McDonald]: So maybe by that time they will be able to do things, but you know, well, I mean, I think that that ordinance is going to go into way more detail than the charter in general. But, um, so I don't, uh, anything we put in the charter, I think needs to be able to be implemented, implemented at any time. Um, I don't know whether there's any stuff about capital improvement in the budget ordinance. I'm guessing there is. But I feel like I just need to know more to know whether I think Every year is a good idea. It seems like the five-year window in terms of, you know, sort of laying out the capital improvements is, that's in both, right? They talk about, but the difference is every year, every three years. Maybe there's some cities that do it every two years. I don't know.
[Maury Carroll]: Would it be? Yeah, but on the last paragraph of the murals, it says the mayor shall annually revise this information. You're right. So they're basically saying the same thing a little bit differently, that every year the mayor has to talk about the capital improvements and how it's proceeding forward or falling behind.
[Milva McDonald]: But the mayor doesn't have to submit that to the city council every year. under Melrose, then the mayor has to like be responsible and kind of keep track of all the capital improvements. Right. But it doesn't have to submit the right to the city. Yeah. So I don't know which is better. At this point. I just feel like I need to know more.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, is it you know, could You or someone have a conversation with either Nina or Bob Dickinson or have one of them come and give us 15 minutes of their time at an upcoming meeting?
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I can start by I guess I can make a list of these questions that we have and ask, you know, submit them to the chief of staff and the chief financial officer and ask, just ask questions about that. And then if we feel like we need more than that, we can invite them to a meeting. Okay. So I feel like... Unless one of you feels like you know about this and we should do one or the other, I feel like I've got to leave these here until we know more. Yeah. So I'm leaving that.
[Eunice Browne]: Out of the scope of what we're capable of at the moment.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, yeah. And Weymouth says every year too, but we're going to take out Weymouth because we decided we're... We can also look at other cities as we're going. Okay, independent audit. This is, you know, just an annual independent audit, which we do now, but... Wow.
[Maury Carroll]: We're supposed to do. They haven't had a... Oh. I think they went... I don't know if Brianna's done some, but I know prior to Stephanie and Michael, I think it was 15 or 20 years that there had been no audits done. Oh, jeez. By an outside agency, and that was a... That was a contentious point at some times. So I think you need this in there.
[Milva McDonald]: I think you're right. So these are exactly the same, but I do see one difference, which is Pittsfield says, at least every five years, the city council shall conduct a competitive procurement process to retain these auditing services. So that's kind of interesting. I guess what that means is... The City Council will hire the auditor.
[Maury Carroll]: Correct?
[Milva McDonald]: That's what it sounds like, although let's see. The City Council, yes. And that every five years they have to... So that basically what it seems like is they can't just use the same firm every year without...
[Eunice Browne]: Without. In Melrose, it says the award of a contract to audit shall be made by the city council annually, no later than September 15th.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, they all say that, but Pittsfield adds that they will do a competitive procurement process, which is, I'm gonna actually just look it up because I know what I think it is, but, um,
[Eunice Browne]: I mean, they're basically going out to bid to find out if the auditor that they've been using for the past four years is giving them the best price for the best amount of services. So I suppose it can't hurt. And also to, you know. I think it sounds like a good thing, right? Yeah.
[Maury Carroll]: I think five years is too long, myself.
[Milva McDonald]: Well, I think it's OK for them. If they've got a firm that's working well and all that, then do you think they should do it more often, Laurie?
[Maury Carroll]: I would suggest, just thinking out loud, every three years or something like that. Just think five years is a long time. A lot goes on here. I look at even the way our city is being run right now. We haven't had a city solicitor for, what, two years, three years, and you have an outside law firm in here, and legally they can't be doing things without the city solicitor, but yet we seem to bypass that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've heard that it's getting to be more common for cities to contract out for legal services, but.
[Maury Carroll]: It just seems so expensive.
[Eunice Browne]: But they haven't overseen the bills, so we really don't even know.
[Maury Carroll]: And I understand it's a whole different world today where you need more than maybe one person as your legal counsel, so who knows?
[Milva McDonald]: Guess what, you guys, we have 10 minutes left, but this is the last section.
[Eunice Browne]: Can I just go back to the auditor for one second? Do we need to put in anything or is there anything in state law that would supersede that nobody from the auditing firm shall have any ties to Medford or any of its municipal employees?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. That's very vague to me. We'd have to really think about what that would mean because ties, you know what I mean? You have to, it has to be defined if we're going to do something like that.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you all know kind of what I'm getting at, you know, just like a relative, anybody that would, you know,
[Maury Carroll]: But I hear what you're saying, Eunice, but I also hear what Mill was saying is you have to define it. Is it an immediate family member that works for the city and also has some sort of jurisdiction of an appointment of a company like this to, I don't know, I think it's kind of tricky.
[Milva McDonald]: And I also, I mean, would conflict of interest laws prevent, theoretically prevent this kind of problem?
[Maury Carroll]: It may. I would think so.
[Milva McDonald]: I would think so too.
[Eunice Browne]: So would an auditor that we hire, we hire, you know, ABC auditing firm and, you know, whoever from the firm is assigned to our account, do they then have to go through conflict of interest training to work on a municipal account?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't know. City employees have to, I don't know if contractors do, I don't know. But I put in the notes, look into conflict of interest prevention. We can try to find out if that's something that we should look into. OK, this is a restatement of prohibition of expenditures beyond appropriation. So it looks like these two are the same, exactly the same. Yeah. Weymouth has some other stuff, as usual. Wow. Gotta love Weymouth. So this is her personal liability. Wow. I don't know. I think the less complicated is probably better. I agree with you.
[Maury Carroll]: Less said sometimes, better off. As long as we're covering all bases, which it certainly appears that we are.
[Milva McDonald]: So, since Melrose and Pittsfield are the same, and they do reference Mass General Law.
[Eunice Browne]: And if we need anything else in there, Collin Center will tell us.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I'm just wondering if some of the stuff that's spelled out here, town officials, shall submit an allotment schedule of the appropriations of all personnel categories. Wow.
[Maury Carroll]: Wow, that seems like a lot.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. I think I need to read that one a little bit more. You can read it more and bring it up if you want next time. I think I'll pass on that one. So we're good.
[Eunice Browne]: I saw a meal last night. I'll read it tonight. Maybe I'll fall asleep.
[Milva McDonald]: We have a draft here. We just have one section, the capital improvement program that we have questions on. So we don't know exactly what we should do yet. Although I think we could probably do this, I think. Because the language is the same, it's just the timeline that's different. So we could do this and then.
[Maury Carroll]: Yellow out.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Every three years and not less than 120 days. Okay. So, we'll do this yellow this and say, and then this, let's see. And then I'm just going to do this, because this one says at least 60 days before the start, so I will. I'm going to do, what did I just do? What did I just do? Every three years and not less than 190 days, what did it say? for every year? Okay. Oh, don't go back. Where's my, where's my, sorry guys. Okay. I just want to see what they're laying, what did Pittsfield say? Not, I can't remember what they said. All right, so that way we still, we have it, we just don't know, we just have to fill out. All right, so we have a draft with questions in yellow. I will share, I will write minutes, I will share this, and I will, and Gene.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, maybe you want to send this to Gene and let her maybe put her two cents in, Melva.
[Milva McDonald]: Jean can take a look at it. And then, and I will contact, I'll ask the questions that we have of the chief of staff and we'll see where we get. And maybe we'll have more questions or maybe not. I guess our question now is, do we want to have another meeting just to finalize this before we send it on to the whole committee?
[Maury Carroll]: We could have a quick meeting, see what the results of answers to our questions and so forth. And if you need me to go with you on these, if you have to go to city hall or whatever, let me know. I'd be happy to.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. I mean, we could. We could we could make an appointment with Nina or I was going to just write right to her.
[Eunice Browne]: But yeah, I have a pretty flexible schedule too.
[Milva McDonald]: So I mean, I'm happy that it feels right as well. Okay, I'll contact I'll contact Nina and see what she says. Okay. Because it might be nice to go in and talk, because then if questions come up.
[Maury Carroll]: I like to sit down and look them face to face instead of behind a keyboard myself.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. No, that's good. So what are we talking? Let's see. Today is March 21st. How about Today, I don't know if Jean is usually available on Thursdays or not.
[Maury Carroll]: Want to check with her and get back to us?
[Milva McDonald]: All right, why don't I just do, I will do, how about I do a doodle poll? Yeah, I can't do next Thursday. Can you do a doodle poll, Lori, if I send out a link to a doodle poll? Have you ever done a doodle poll?
[Unidentified]: I'll try.
[Milva McDonald]: All right, how about I will, I won't do a doodle poll, I'll just send out, I'll send out an email with possible dates. Okay, yeah, there's not that many of us, so I have a comment from the public to that.
[Eunice Browne]: I want to add. Okay. I don't know if you guys remember from our very first listening session back in June, a gentleman by the name of Paul Garrity got up and spoke at length and asked some really good pointed questions of us. I didn't know him until that night.
[Maury Carroll]: I've known him for years.
[Eunice Browne]: He grabbed me at an event last summer and asked me to keep him updated on the budget stuff. I think he sat in on one of our recent Zoom meetings. I can't remember which one it was.
[Maury Carroll]: I think it was two months ago.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, but I gave him a heads up in an email the other day that we were starting the budget discussion today, and evidently he's not here, but he did write back to me and said, thanks for the update. I would like to offer that there would be a detailed discussion, and maybe this doesn't fall into our purview, I don't know. I would offer that there'd be a detailed discussion on requiring the implementation and maintenance of a unified systems-based budgeting process, ERP, enterprise resource planning software. The systemized process would include all city and school department, as well as office of the mayor, the city council, and school committee. If you recall when he spoke that night, he talked an awful lot about process and system.
[Maury Carroll]: He talked about those programs too on our meeting at the city council and in the council chambers, he did speak of that. He's spoken to me on two or three different occasions regarding the software and so forth.
[Milva McDonald]: What is that called?
[Eunice Browne]: Enterprise? ERP, I guess. Enterprise Resource Planning.
[Maury Carroll]: Got a second ago.
[Milva McDonald]: OK. Is that software, or is that just a?
[Maury Carroll]: I think it's a software package, if I heard them correctly.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I didn't Google it, but. I mean, I don't know that we could put a specific kind of software in the.
[Maury Carroll]: I don't think we can.
[Milva McDonald]: in the charter, but yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: This goes back to what they've been talking about between the city council and the finance department and the chief of staff with our- No, it's a process.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, it's a software system, yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: So I wanted to- No, thank you. He went on to ask about recalls as well and I invited him to our public engagement meeting next week, so.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, so what he's advocating is not just, he's saying that there should be, that the actual sort of tools that are used should be linked. I think that's what this would do. It would make the business of branches of government linked technologically, you know, the rules of information, etc.
[Eunice Browne]: I've worked in education, higher education and secondary level private education for many years. And, you know, the registrar's office would have a software system, the admissions office would have a software system, the nurse's office, you know, all of it, the academic office. So it's I called in and said, my family is moving, and my son Johnny is moving. And I told the nurse's office that wouldn't filter out to all of the others. But when you get an integrated system, you tell one, they all know.
[Milva McDonald]: Right, right. I get that. I don't know if it's right for government. I would have to learn more about it. But the branches of government are supposed to be independent. I mean, they're supposed to work together, but they're also supposed to have independence. Because that's how their checks and balances, right?
[Eunice Browne]: But then again, the issue that we had recently that made the paper with the firefighters RetroPay and things like that, part of the problem allegedly that it wasn't being processed as quickly is because it had to go through like three or four different systems and then be hand checked. So maybe, I don't know, maybe that, maybe if we had what he was talking about, it would be a whole lot easier.
[Milva McDonald]: I'm not saying that it wouldn't be, but I don't know if it would be a good idea to have it for the different branches of government. Like I could see, I mean, the mayor's office has a ton of departments that it has to oversee and all that. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, that's, They're separate branches of government. You know, that's how the governments work, right?
[Eunice Browne]: Maybe something for us to just, you know, I don't mind taking another look, taking a bit of a look at it and bringing it back.
[Milva McDonald]: I mean, we can look at it, but I don't think we can recommend a specific software in the charter. Do you? I don't know.
[Maury Carroll]: I don't think that's the role of the charter.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, exactly. We definitely can put things in the charter that encourage, you know, the branches of government to interact more.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, intergovernmental communications, you know, and so forth like that.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, and I think we, you know, that's why we put the annual budget meeting in there. Are they having something like that this year?
[Maury Carroll]: I'm not sure. I haven't heard of anything.
[Eunice Browne]: No, I, I, I don't know. I think, you know, it seems like what they're doing, you know, the school committee is starting their process next week. Um, and their process has changed over the last few years as well, um, from what it used to be like. Um, and then the city council, uh, they had two meetings where they listed out their priorities, which are going to the mayor actually, uh, by tomorrow. And then I don't remember what happens in between, but they're starting their parade of department heads coming in between April 15th and May 15th. With the city council. Right. With the city council. And then the full budget coming. Yeah. Well, they usually do that in June after they get the budget. So they're doing the. Department heads between April 15th and May 15th. I believe the budget is due to them. By May 31st, June 1 and then after that, if they feel like they need to bring in a department head. For a 2nd time, or if the mayor feels like. you know, such and such a department head should go back to the city council. That can happen in June. So I think it means that June isn't going to be, it used to be that, you know, June, you know, was like a total madhouse to getting it, you know, all the department heads in. That's why they were having Saturday sessions. particularly because the police and the fire, some of the budgets can get in and out in 10 or 15 minutes, and they do eight or 10 of them between six and nine at night on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. But the police and the fire, And they would go on a Saturday, you know, and you, the police would present from, like, 9 to sometimes 1030 or 11 o'clock. And they would go on a Saturday. five-minute break the fire department would come in for another hour and a half and then the next Saturday they do the DPW and under the DPW you have not only the commissioner Tim McGivern but you have water and sewer and wires and trees and so each of those little niche areas would come in as well. So it was a madhouse in June to get it all done. Yeah. In April and May.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, I am. Well, it's a big job every year, no matter what. So anything that can be done to improve the process is good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I think, I think we made a lot of progress.
[Eunice Browne]: And I will eventually was going to be probably the most complicated we knocked out.
[Milva McDonald]: I know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's good. Um, We're doing really well, actually. We're getting close. Okay, so I will send the minutes. I will send out a schedule or suggestions for another meeting date. And I will contact Nina to see if she's open to meeting with us to answer some of these questions.
[Maury Carroll]: Okay, great. What are our upcoming meeting dates? We have something next week.
[Eunice Browne]: Public engagement group.
[Milva McDonald]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, a pretty good working draft of the whole charter.
[Maury Carroll]: I would think we would.
[Milva McDonald]: Then the summer is going to be writing the final report.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, it sounds like in our meeting on April 4th, we should have two and three done. Hopefully. Elections is 7, right? So I think I did some of that.
[Maury Carroll]: Yeah, we already did that right?
[Eunice Browne]: Nova 7, 7, just bringing it to the entire committee for any review or tweaks. 4 should hopefully be done if not by April 18th meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: That may be, yeah, I mean, you guys are going to are going to present in April 18th. The question is going to be, you know, is it going to mean we have to go back to city council, but we'll see. And then 6 is almost done 6 and then the, the, that sort of. Administrative one, five, we'll have to look at that. That might just be mostly standard language. We'll look at that and see if there's anything in there that we want to look at more closely. And then we have the one definitions and whatnot, which is again, mostly standard language.
[Eunice Browne]: And then I think, isn't there a nine and a 10, which are kind of basic?
[Milva McDonald]: There was, yeah, there was one that was the thing about.
[Eunice Browne]: Oh, reviewing the chatter and things.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, you're right. We have to do that too. But but it was mostly basic.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. Yeah. Most meat on it. By by the second May meeting, I think all the stuff with the most meat on it should be done.
[Milva McDonald]: I think so too. So very exciting. Thank you so much for your all your participation. And this is Great.
[Eunice Browne]: Thank you to our leader. Like I said, don't know how you're keeping it all together. And then I saw that you're doing some art stuff too. Copious free time.
[Milva McDonald]: Oh, my pottery. Yeah. You got to do that. Keep me sane. Something's got to. All right. Have a great rest of the day. Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Take care guys. Bye.
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