[SPEAKER_06]: Medford City Council Committee of the Whole, April 30th, 2024. It's called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_07]: Councilor Cownie. Vice President Collins.
[SPEAKER_04]: Councilor Lazzaro. Present. Councilor Lett.
[SPEAKER_07]: Present.
[SPEAKER_04]: Councilor Stroud.
[SPEAKER_07]: Present.
[SPEAKER_06]: Present. Four present, three absent. The meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting in the Medford City Council Committee Hall at 6 p.m. in the Medford City Council Chamber, second floor, Medford City Hall, 85 George B. Hassett Drive, Medford, Massachusetts, and by Zoom. The action discussion item for this meeting is the annual budget process for Fiscal 25 preliminary budget meeting. This is the third preliminary budget meeting of the Fiscal Year 2025 budget process. The mayor has communicated that the following departments will be present. The executive department, the Oracle Mall Commission, the Licensing Commission, and the Recreation Department. We will be hearing from those budgets tonight. We also have a budget meeting tomorrow night with several more departments, and we'll be having further meetings over the next couple of weeks. Just as a reminder to everyone about the budget schedule, we are following the new budget ordinance, which is soon to be finalized. It is actually up for third reading tonight at the City Council regular meeting at 7 o'clock. The budget schedule as follows is that by 1 March, the City Council—individual City Councilors will submit their individual budget recommendations. for consideration by the council. By Friday, March 22nd, 2024, the council will go to submit a collective budget recommendation to the mayor. That has all happened. We did receive a response from the mayor. From April 15th, 2024 to May 15th, 2024, we'll be holding preliminary budget meetings with our department heads. That's what this meeting is, and we have had two already, and we'll have several ahead of us. And then by Friday, May 31st, the mayor will submit the budget to the city council for final consideration. Um, so far at the meetings, we've been hearing from our department budgets. Um, we did also last week here from the finance director who did give a presentation on the revenue projection for the fiscal year. Um, but as I said, we are hearing from departments tonight and generally I've been asking four questions to every department. Um, just, you know, what was your budget requests and what, what does it consist of? Uh, was there anything that was not requested this year that your department might be looking for in future budgets? Then you can share anything you'd like to share about your department narrative, the work you've done over the past year, or what you're planning to do over the next year. And then I'll just remind everyone that after the formal budget is submitted, I'm guessing, given the budgets we're seeing tonight, that there won't be much change between tonight and what ends up being submitted at the end of May. But if there is some change that either we wanted to ask a question about, or if the administration wants to have you come back, we may invite you back in June. But we may not. Also, if you guys would like to be invited back, if there's something you don't have tonight, like a narrative or some project you want to talk about, we do want to give everyone the opportunity to share what their department is doing. So that's basically how the process has been working this year. It's a little bit new, but with that, I'm happy to take, unless the Madam Chief of Staff will take the Recreation Department, and we will hear from our director, Kevin Bailey. We have, as far as I can tell from here, we have the Recreation Department. Top to the bottom line budget for the general fund is 312,685, and that includes the permanent employees, the part-time employees, and basically the only change here is there's been a somewhat small increase in the pay for the employees, and there was a slight reduction in the sick leave incentive and the stipends, and that the total change in the budget is $8,850 and that is all fixed cost growth he raises for non-unit employees. So with that, I will go to you, Kevin, if you want to say what your request entails, if there's anything that you may want in the future that we're not requesting this year, and then share a little bit about what your department's been up to and what you plan to do over the next year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect, yeah. I actually have a budget narrative that I will present in just a few minutes. But I think a lot of the questions you, a lot of the information you just gave about what our summary is for the FY25 budget will be. As far as requests, the only thing that we did request, like many other departments, is asking for another staff member for our department. You know, we are a growing department. Every year we are becoming larger and larger. I think the Different responsibilities and facilities that our recreation department has been given over the years really warrants us to become a larger recreation department. When we first started seven years ago, we were really a small, small rec department with only a director and assistant director. But I think the expectation was us to really just run programs and to operate the pond and the pool in the summer. As you know, looking back at seven years from now, not only do we have the pond and pool, but we also have the recreation center with the gym. We have a lot more programs. In addition to that, we are running a summer camp. and we have Hormel Stadium, we have Laconia Rank, we have the Cotton Shell, so we are continuously growing. Comparing us with other state recreation departments, I think it's more than fair to say that we should have more than four full-time staff members. So one of the requests that I have been looking at and talking about through our department is to have a office manager. Thinking about what we can get for basically the biggest bang for your buck, if we can get an office manager to be at the recreation center doing the office hours, answering the phone, helping us get ready to pay bills and to help get our payroll ready and reconciled for either myself or our assistant director to sign off, would be the best help to the department. really what we're seeing is myself and our assistant director is bogged down with phone calls emails trying to keep up with that but also just being in the office and doing a lot of administrative work that if we can get someone to kind of take some of that workload off of our plate it allows us to be out more at the facilities and to be running some of the uh higher programs that is either difficult to find a perfect example of that i keep on getting emails to run babysitter training classes and it's something that I'm certified, I can teach, I can run it, but I just can't find the time to do it. You know, I find myself a lot working on the weekends and stuff playing catch-up with administrative duties, so that was our request, but as I said, it's a request that every other city department is also requesting for staff, so it's understandable, but I think that would be a huge help to the recreation department. Another thing to add is we have been trying to use part time staff for that, which has been very helpful. But there is a lot of training on how to request a purchase order to have me sign it, or whether it's to fill in park permits and how to use our operating system. Part-time staff is very helpful, but the reality is when we're working with usually college students, by the time we teach them how to do the software and they're able to do a lot of this stuff on their own, they're graduating and they're getting a full-time job. So having someone that's consistent in that role will be helpful.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thanks, and I just want to recognize that Councilor Tseng is with us on Zoom. Councilor Callahan has joined us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure, Councilor Scrivella. Thank you. You don't care.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do have a budget summary, but if you want, do you want me to go through it first and then okay. So I do have just kind of an update about our where our department is kind of standing where we do each year but a little bit more detail this year. But as we are moving into our seventh round, our seventh year as a full time recreation department. This year really faced some real challenges and our biggest one. was having two of our employees on extended time off. That led to our program manager position that was eventually opened up. And after about eight months without having an employee able to perform that role, we were able to hire Krista DeVoe, who is our new program manager. She was just hired at the beginning of April, so she's only been with us for a few weeks, but she does have a background in program management. She has worked for various towns around the country, so she has a lot of experience in program management, but she also holds her master's degree in therapeutic recreation and also holds a director certification from the American Camping Association. We were amazed during the hiring process. She really checked off almost everything that we were looking for. So we are expecting great things already just in a few weeks. After school vacation, I met with her and she has tons of different program ideas and really been evaluating the programs where they're currently at. and ways that we can improve it. So we are really looking forward for the next couple of months, things to be coming out program-wise. Um, even though we were really short staff and our main goal for this year was really just to maintain the level of programs and services that our department has been running, uh, even being short staff and working off of a skeleton crew. Um, even though we were short, we do have a lot of different achievements that I would say would move the department in a forward direction for the future. So there's three different things that I do want to highlight for achievements that were part of our goals in FY24. The first and foremost, one of the biggest and exciting things for me is the Friends of Method Recreation. For Councilors who have been in this role for a couple of years, you know we keep on rolling this over year after year because it is a challenge to get a board together and to establish the 501c, but we do have that board and we were able to submit our bylaws and our information to the IRS and are waiting for approval. But I do have to thank our board members, Brett Hauser, Kate Yenrick, Heather Boudette, and Amanda O'Leary are our initial board members right now to kind of help get this stuff established and get it operational. Already this year, we were able to raise over $700 in scholarship funding. And then we also have done other things, such as last summer, if you remember, we accepted 50 life jackets from the Method Kiwanis. The life jackets were used for both the pond and the pool. This year, they donated an additional 50. So we have new life jackets for the pond and pool, which is great. So that was all through the Friends of Method Recreation. This spring, we've been able to start using our financial aid and our scholarships. So far to date, we've given over $682 in financial aid, and the majority of that was starting this spring with our new financial aid process. So that was one of our large, what I consider a win. The second one that we were working on is working towards making our communication to the public in different languages that represent the city. We had a lot of help with the Method Connectors team. And with that, we were able to get language writers. We have two of them. During the summertime, they were both at the pond and the other one was at the pool. And then during the academic year, one was at the recreation center and the hockey rink. and that really just helps our frontline staff if somebody comes in with a language barrier to have a tool to be able to communicate with them. The other things that we have done is in the recreation website if you go on to it recently we do have a section now that tells you how to translate our website into multiple languages. The software that we have already has that capability so just working with the connectors team and having that posted up front on the web page We are trying to really use QR codes and direct people to our recreation website. So if there is a language barrier, they can get it translated and easy to see the different programs and events that we have to offer. With that, I do have to thank our liaison from the Connectus team, Charbel. Charbel and I meet each month and we kind of go over what our needs are and a lot of the different goals and achievements that we've made with this really came from the Connectus team, particularly with Charbel being the point liaison person for us. The last one that we also had as a goal was to start using surveys and trying to get more community feedback and the types of programs and help kind of make some decisions on how we operate as a recreation department. We were trying to look for a larger goal of having a bigger survey. I will say not having the program manager, we kind of put that on hold. Krista, our new hire, already has a draft going, so like I said, she's hitting the ground running. But we have used our newsletter, we've used Constant Contact for a weekly newsletter, and we started to do surveys. Some of them might be interested in programs. For example, earlier in the fall, we did a survey for a cricket program because we had an opportunity to run cricket. We didn't get a lot of interest, so we decided it wasn't really the best decision of using all of our time. Crickets for cricket? Cricket, yes. Nice. But we did also do other surveys too, such as the wrestling program. The wrestling program came out as a survey. It was originally an idea from parents at the high school that their children are in a wrestling program. Using the survey, we got a lot of interest. We decided to go ahead and run it, and we're running a youth wrestling program this spring. Some other things that we've also done with that is just surveys on making a decision on where our movie nights are going to be or what movie we're going to display. In years past, we've always done this internally as a department and figuring out what type of movies we're going to do. This year, we were able to do a survey and break it down to the three. So it is the survey that's really choosing the movies that we're going to have this summer. Those are just a couple of ideas that we've done with surveys. Looking forward to FY 25. We do have four goals for primary goals department. We do have other sub goals that I'm not reporting today. But what we found is achievable. is can be a challenge for us. But I do think we'll put the department forward. First and foremost, this month, we did just receive a 12 passenger bus that was used with opera funding that is going to be shared with the Council of aging and with our recreation department. It is a shared bus, but I think this does open us up for a lot of different programming ideas. And we've already have started to work with ideas on how we're going to include more field trips during our school vacation weeks, during school half day programs. We're also going to try to implement this summer into our summer park program and have kids being able to go to different locations throughout the city and utilizing that bus a little bit. Our second goal is to utilize the recently renovated street hockey rink that we finished this fall and to use home stadium to develop a intramural program for our middle school students. Our third goal is to enhance our summer park program and our saga week program. And this really came about we Danny and our assistant director and myself went to the state conference, just a few months ago, and we had a couple of sessions that were specific towards camp, and these presenters. typically present from the American Camping Association. So we got a little glimpse of what that conference would look like. And I got to say, I think we got a lot of knowledge. I think we came back with a conference really excited to try to implement some of these things. And I think our goal this year is to work with the American Camping Association to attend more of their conferences and to become a member to really enhance a lot of the camp and the saga week programs that we have to offer. And our fourth and our final main goal is to offer free swim lessons. This is a big goal of mine. It's something that I think As many of you, when you are working in your fields, there are certain things that you want to achieve in life. And for me, as the rec department, this is one goal that I've always wanted to do and I'm very passionate about. This year, we did try to go with certain grants and to try to offer free swim lessons. I know it is achievable. I know there are grants out there that I am very confident that we would be able to get awarded. However, one of the things that we've done over the years to make our swim program affordable at Tufts Pool is we have our lifeguards trained internally by May at the beginning of the season and run an internal learn to swim program. In order to qualify the grants we have to be a nationally recognized swim program and that would most likely be American Red Cross since we are already an authorized provider. So this is still a challenge of a goal. It's not an easy one. This year we need to get our staff, we need to have a few more on staff that are water safety instructors and be able to run the National Recognized Program in order to receive those grants. So there will be some legwork, but I do think it is achievable that by the end of next summer, we can make the swim program at Tufts Pool that is currently $35 for two weeks, that we can make that a free learn to swim program that I am very passionate about. Two rather quick things. The next one is our program highlights. I do have an end-of-the-year report that I am working on that I will have published on the recreation website in the next couple of weeks. It is a little challenging trying to do an end-of-the-year report when we still have a couple of months to go. But we do have one outlined and ready to be posted. But one thing that you will look at our programs overall, we do have a slight decrease in our program enrollment from this year. But some of that is expected, obviously having a program manager out for eight months, there were certain programs that we did have to cancel that we would normally be running. But again, that was pretty minimal, considering. The other thing that you will see in our report since FY 22, we've had a steady increase in drop-in programs. So this should be an expectation. We're seeing ourselves when we get emails from the public, a lot of the requests is for us to offer more drop-in programs or offer more times, whether it's women's basketball, pick a ball. All different drop-in programs, people are asking for more of that. And I think that should be happening. As we get more established, more people know about our programs. People are coming into the drop-in. There's enough people to run a pickup game. So these programs are running. People are excited for it. But obviously, that takes gym time away that would normally be a program. So when you do look at our program enrollment, even though there's a decrease, that is expected with our drop-in programs increasing. Another fun little thing that I noticed, I know everyone thinks recreation and pickleball, but that is our highest demand of drop-in programs. It's actually twice, it's double the amount of people participated in our drop-in pickleball program to our second highest drop-in program, which was basketball. Obviously for us, we try to balance to make sure that we're not heavily focused on one particular sport or activity, but pickleball is certainly a big aspect to the recreation department. The last and final part is our budget narrative. Council bears I think you already gave a pretty good synopsis of what our budget request is. Just some quick things to when you are looking at our budgets for the actuals you are seeing a large decrease in our full time budget and that is because of the. vacant position for the program manager. The position was only vacant for a few months, but there are other times where that person was on leave without pay. So there are several months that you would see that we didn't have to spend money that was budgeted for. What you will see, and you're getting the reflections of FY24 for the calendar year, what you're not seeing is the overtime pay in our part-time employee line. I am expecting to be slightly above the budget. Obviously, being short-staffed, there were some additional overtime that was unexpected. And when you look at our part-time staff, I believe we're still about $10,000 left in the account. but most of the part-time staff is accounting for our lifeguards, our bathhouse attendants, our park rangers that work in the summertime. We do have a few weeks that are still left in FY24, so I do think that will be slightly above, but we have used additional part-time staff, particularly in the fall when we were really short staffed to kind of help offset some of the administrative duties on that. Um, overall, though, at the end of the year, I still think we will. I'm certain we will be lower than what is currently in the budget. We talked about the stipends. There is still $3,000 left in our stipends account. That was because of one certification we expected a person to renew, didn't. So because it was expired, they didn't get an extra $3,000. And then moving into FY 25, we're leaving that because our new program manager projecting that she will not have her pool operator license by the beginning of the summer. But I will anticipate following year, we do want her to have that CPO license so that she is able to handle a lot of the pool chemistry and troubleshooting, particularly with that position working nights and weekends. our sick leave incentives. This is just we reduce it by looking at previous years of how much we've how much we've actually had to pay out and sick leave incentives. The reality is every single manager on our team have children. So I think we can all agree that it's an unreal expectation that all of us are going to take no sick time. So we were able to reduce that amount and be realistic on what that budget would be. And when you do look at your full time increases, that is part of the negotiations with the union teams, just local 25. It is still under contract negotiation. I'm not a part of that discussion. So that is one part that I probably will not be able to answer too much with the council not being a part of the negotiating team. I leave that for questions.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great, thank you, Kevin. I will go to Councilor Scarpelli, and then if anyone else wants to join in.
[SPEAKER_05]: Kevin, thanks so much. Thank you. It's one of my initiatives when I first started to bring forth the vision of a full-time recreation department, and you've taken that vision that we had years ago and done Yoman's work. It's been amazing to see what you've done for not a lot. Thank you. I can honestly say that because I'm reviewing my budget this year, and I'm embarrassed to see what we have and how you're functioning. So I give you, you and your team, pat on the back. You and Mr. Folsom really done a great job, and I think that people should identify that. One of the constants we've seen in the last few years is how amazing the recreation department's been. You know, we could talk about the little things, but that would have been bigger things in a negative way. You know, the lives we've, your life got saved at the pool and the pond and understanding what, how you prepared for that and making sure that we did what we had to do to fund that. So, you know, I didn't hear any, the good part is this, I didn't hear anything negative here. that you look like you're going to be okay. One thing that I did see in one of my initiatives that we met to talk about what we were looking for, I looked at something close to my heart, which is recreation. And we have probably the most expensive administrative assistants in the country. Between your salary and the salary of your assistant, it's kind of... It's kind of we're losing money and what we can be doing. And I brought forth the idea that we had when this came about last year with the Elections Commission and talking about the elections office and not having enough work throughout the year. and how great would that be to find maybe if the chief of staff can forward this to the mayor's office and look at a part-time position, even if you have someone working in your office, I know because I understand it, someone there at 8.30 in the morning till 12.30, just to prepare your signatures for what you need for payroll, returning emails, returning text, phone calls, that I would imagine would open up so much of your day and so much of your week. and I could see the benefit. I see a lot in addition to an addition, and it's a minimal addition, especially when we're talking about what we're seeing in the elections office. And granted, some months might be slower, some years might be slower, but what a way to take the opportunity of, you know, cross-training someone to work in that role. I think that I would love to see maybe a little bit more work done before we sign off on the budget. And hopefully that can come to fruition because it'll pay off. And that's one thing that I fear is that working in recreation, always having someone on the other end of the phone when kids are out at programs, or parents have questions, it's imperative that there's someone there. It's a safety, it's a reassuring factor, and it's a more legitimate factor, knowing that there's someone that's going to be answering the phone, and it's not going to be your director, your assistant director. Especially when, like you said, we do the, if I don't want to step on your toes, but we do a robust babysitting program, 25 students at $50 a time. And we do it every other every other season. And what we're seeing is it pays for itself. Especially if you're already trained to do it, it cuts eliminates the middleman. So I don't really have any other questions except for you know, a pat on your back and for your staff, I think that you guys are doing some amazing things. I hear a track meet, I see middle school programming, I see adult programming, I see drop-in programs, I see week vacation programs, I see programs that other communities don't do that we're doing here, so I give you a lot of credit, and something that I don't think everybody here knows, but Our Director of Recreation is also the leader in the state, the field of recreation and aquatics, correct?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the Massachusetts Rec and Park Association voted me in as the aquatic representative for waterfronts.
[SPEAKER_05]: Right. So waterfront trainings and stuff. So that's another, you know, feather in our cap in the fact that, you know, I was taking advantage of Kevin for a few years calling him. uh helping with my aquatics questions that you know you're always willing to help as a as a brother recreation employee so um I think the other piece too I'd like to I brought this up years ago and uh I'm not sure if it's a violation or an ethics issue but I don't care because I think it's important because I think looking at years ago, I asked for the city to look into making Cornell Stadium's parking lot into a solar parking lot and see the benefits financially, what it can do. And I hear that they're talking about maybe the schools coming forward, and that's such a great idea. But imagine if we could put the fourth cab, if we can look at that parking lot and how we would fund the hockey rink. Because I can only imagine. I would assume the electricity costs would be over almost $200,000 maybe for the year.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you took the word. I was going to say, if it was anything energy wise, put it to the rink, not to Hormel Stadium. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. So if we can find a way to do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: it just benefits. And then if we use some of that money to bring it back into the recreation department for what you're trying to do, I think that's an added benefit without costing us anything right now. So, you know, if we can, for the record, Mr. President, if we can ask, maybe do an energy assessment over at the formal parking lot, and then, again, requests the administration to see if we can do a dual position with another department, which we've heard with the elections department for administrative assistant that would support the recreation department. So thank you very much and thank you for your hard work. I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. Thank you guys so much. Just to clarify on the energy assessment for the parking lot. Yeah, it's for overhead
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, overhead, it's pockets. They can, if you want, the Lincoln Sudbury High School, if they want something to... to see what it looks like. Even Stone Zoo has it now too. So it doesn't touch the trees. It doesn't affect parking spots. All it does is puts a covering over that we can capture that energy that could feed the hockey rink and save us a lot of money. And that would be super if we could see if we can do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a motion to request an energy assessment for the Hormel parking lot for solar to power the the hockey rink. Second. There's also a motion, or the same motion, a request to consider a split position for administrative support for the Recreation Department, potentially split with another department. Thank you. By Councilor Scarpelliglia, seconded by Councilor Leming, and we'll take the motions at the end of the meeting. Any further questions for our Recreation Department? Councilor Lazzaro.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not a question, just a comment. I just wanted to say I love the idea of the free swimming lessons. It's so important for public safety and health to make sure our residents are able to swim. And I really support that. And if you need any backup or, you know, letters of support where you're writing grants or anything like that, I'd be happy to help. But that's an awesome initiative. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. I just wanted to thank Kevin for all the work that he has done for us, our city. I mean, My colleague, Councilor Scarpelli, is such a leader in this field as well, and for him to seek such high praise of Kevin, I think is further proof of the really excellent job that our director is doing in our city. Something that we've been talking quite a lot about that the Council is working on with Kevin is, of course, the Youth Commission, and I'm very excited to see where that goes as well. but I wanted to thank him for the work. I think Councilor Scarpelli answered or asked the main question I had about staffing, administrative staffing, which is, you know, I've heard some parents calling about. And so I think that's, you know, helpful. I'll happily support that motion as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Tseng. Any further questions or discussion? Kevin, will you do Hormel tonight?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Sam, I can present on that as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll just very quickly say that the Hormel budget for the Hormel Commission, if I can get to it, is budgeted for no change, $3,900 for stipend for the boards and commissions, and then a $1,500 stipend, I believe that's for the staff support for the Hormel Commission. And if there's anything else you want to talk about Hormel Stadium or the commission?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to keep this one very simple. No, the homeowner commission, it's a pretty simple budget. We have three commissioners on the board plus a secretary. When you are looking the FY 24 actuals, you see that there is a decrease in that and the projection and that's because one of the board members have recently moved. So there is a vacant position. That's why for FY 25, it is the same request as FY 24 with the expectation that we will have a new board member soon.
[SPEAKER_05]: Councilor Scarpelli.
[SPEAKER_06]: Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Scarpelli.
[SPEAKER_05]: The press box has been pretty dangerous. And I guess we've had visitors there. Squirrels. Squirrels, they have their own, their address there now. Do we have any talk? I know that there was some talk that we were supposed to do some renovations, but that hasn't happened, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so we did have some plans of doing some repairs to it. I wouldn't call it a renovation. I think we do need to look at replacing it completely at some point. Obviously, if we do a full renovation of this, we would have to also make it ADA accessible, which would include an elevator. So it is pretty costly to completely do the press box. With that said, we certainly need to do repairs to keep our animal friends out and to make it safe. So we have been working with the DPW department. They are in the process. They have purchased some of the material and I have given them a budget to be able to do a lot of the work basically completely replace the roof and to re-vinyl side the press box and stuff. So while it's not a full renovation it would look a lot better than where it currently is. There has been some staffing issues under the DPW department which led us to doing some just quick repairs. There has been some repairs to it for this season where all the holes where animals have been getting in has been completely closed. I will say for the past two months, we have not had any visitors in the press box. And that's just from the quick repair for DPW. But I am still hoping that when DPW has time to be able to do the actual work of replacing the roof and the vinyl siding and make it aesthetically pleasing as well. As you know, when you first walk into Hormel, that's one of the first things that you see when you drive into that parking lot area. And it's something that I really want to get taken care of as soon as possible.
[SPEAKER_05]: If I can, I know that the only reason why I bring this up is that former alumni that done very well for themselves, reached out and asked if there's anything they can do financially, or they also are in the business that possibly they would like to commit and help. So if there's any way that if you want to leave that charge and see what that would entail, and I could put everybody together, I think that'd be great. I think the other issue too, that they brought up was the audio system. Yeah, I was gonna bring that up.
[SPEAKER_03]: So from what, If we're referring to the same thing with the audio system, there's been times where the audio hasn't been working. And that is actually from our visitor friends coming into the press box. As you know, squirrels like to eat wires, and they've been eating wires in the microphone and ruining the speakers. So that is one of the main reasons why I also said, put the money in, do work that is necessary in the press box, because we're spending money on the other end of constantly repairing the sound system. With that said, our last repair, our manager, John Curley, did speak to them about the issue of squirrels getting in and chewing on the wires. And Not only did we fix it, but we also did conduit like enclosures so that animals can't get access to the wire itself. So we haven't had issues recently where we did have it last year. So I would like to say that this has been a solution. Obviously, we need to go through at least a full season to know that that is certainly a fix. But we are trying to address that to make sure that animals are not chewing on those wires.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as we can see, I mean, Homel is now, it's not just the high school's field. I mean, we're hosting professional teams, our marching band and color guards, we're doing multiple rentals now there. So I think it's beneficial that we, you know, are cost effective, that we make sure we do that. Are they still bringing out that 1902 speaker? before games you know that gigantic it looked like a megaphone they're not that i know
[SPEAKER_03]: We do have a sound system as a backup that we use as a rec department for like city events and stuff. We do store that down in our office so that if we do have an issue with sound, we do have a backup plan. A lot of my background used to be at MIT for their sporting events. And I've just learned from that job, I always have a backup plan. And we are trying to do that with Hormel. Not the same budget as when I was at MIT, but we do try.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's kind of backwards, isn't it? Thank you. If I could follow up on Councilor Scarpelli's question about the sound system at Hormel. I'm glad to hear about the conduit, and I think our videographer, Shane, may have had something to do with some of the repairs, so thanks, Shane. But I think there's also, you know, The band had their great award-winning show last year, and I think the cheer team had a song program as well, and the sound quality itself was just really underwhelming, I think is a fair comment. So if there is any sort of ability to maybe try to improve on that front, I mean, I think it's fine for like doing vocal announcements and kind of doing the play-by-play, but when you try to pump music through that thing, it's pretty rough. And so I know that that was, you know, something that I think would have been nice to, if it was a little bit of a higher quality, I think it would have been nice for everybody, at least I was at the Thanksgiving game, and you know, when we win a Thanksgiving game, which is starting to happen more, it's nice to have that for everyone who's also showing off their big shows at halftime and stuff like that. So I just wanted to throw that comment in. But I'm glad to hear that at least we're not chewing through everything at this point with our squirrels.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, and to your point, just I would say, in all honesty, I think the first thing we should focus on is getting the press box fixed, make sure no animals are in there, and then work on the sound system, because I don't want to improve the sound system and then find, you know, that any animals are eating it still. Absolutely. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Great. Any further questions about the Hormel Commission, Hormel Stadium? Seeing none, thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Danny. Thank you. Glad to have you here. And if there's anything you want to come back in June and talk about, we'll be more than happy to have you.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if not, thank you for having me tonight.
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll see you in a few months. Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. All right. The last two budgets we have for tonight are the Executive Department and the Licensing Commission. And I believe we have the Chief of Staff, Nina Nazarian, present those budgets. I'm guessing you want to take executive first. So I think I have here, I'll just read it off. You have a total budget of $667,696.68. That's up from $640,390. And these costs are salaries, non-union increases, and the ending of ARPA. 10% of the communications director's salary is in ARPA. And it also looks like the special project administrator position is going down in terms of hours, and some of the positions in the executive department are funded by outside sources. So it looks like all of the growth and costs for the department is fixed cost growth for staff for their pay. And with that, I'll turn it over to you to share whatever you'd like to share, and also to let us know if there's anything. I mean, obviously, it's the executive department, you would probably know best about your own department of, you know, if you're going to request from the mayor for the mayor to put something in the budget. But if there's anything in the future that you're considering for your department that wasn't included this year, we'd love to hear about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, thank you very much. I think that the overview that you provided on the executive budget that's presented tonight is pretty clear and spot on. I don't necessarily have much more to add to that. I also, you know, given the timing of these presentations and given the timing of how we've done these in the past, the mayor would present the entire budget, talk about highlights throughout the organization, things that our office has worked closely with other offices on to, you know, get off the ground. I'm happy to either, you know, entirely skip over that section or just do some very, very high-level items, because, you know, that will all be presented at a later time when we do the full-budget presentation, when the full-budget book is before the council. You know, again, I'm happy to go through any item that the council has any questions on, and I'll pause now in case there are questions, but I'm happy to go through just very, very quick high-level highlights on FY24 and follow the council's lead on what you'd like. Again, this is just a different process, so it makes it a little... It almost... And this is... I'm... I'm glad we've worked together to develop a budget ordinance that begins this process early. None of us feel we're in a rush. So it's just that this particular department being discussed earlier, it just puts things at a different timing and shifts things in a way that makes it a little, I don't want to say unusual, but that's the best word I'm able to come up with right now. different than the history.
[SPEAKER_06]: So if you want to treat this as the nuts and bolts and leave the big show for the big budget presentation, I certainly wouldn't mind because we are at 653. But if you'd like to share highlights, we've invited every department to share that as well. So you're welcome to do so.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll do very, very, very high highlights. And that really is not even, you know, in, in fear of actually leaving very, very high highlights off, because as I attempted to think about how I would present tonight, you know, there's, there's inevitably a chance that I missed something that I should be recognizing, but I at a at the opportunity to at least touch on some of those high highlights. I will do so and hope that anything I missed obviously would be captured by a future presentation.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sure. Go right ahead. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, thank you. So as the city council knows, you know, the mayor's office has worked cooperatively, both in her capacity as chair of the school committee, but obviously in the mayor's office, just in general, to get a application before the Massachusetts School Building Authority to have that accepted by the school building authority and continues to work cooperatively with schools to further that top priority of, I'm sure, the mayor, this council. I know the mayor and then I'm sure this council of, you know, having a new high school building for this community. The office worked closely with the finance team to have a recent bond rating reissued. We had to do that because we went out to permanently bond and anytime permanent bonding is essentially required than a... bond rating call occurs during that bond rating call, the community has an obligation to present a variety of answers for questions that the bond rating agency has. With the help of the mayor, the finance team, I'm, again, pleased to announce that the city reaffirmed the second highest bond rating, which is a double A plus. It's really something that community Medford size should be very proud to have and proud to maintain. It's not necessarily easy. It's also not necessarily easy to get to the next step, but we have our sights on that next step and are planning towards those next steps as well. Our office obviously worked to fill a number of vacancies. We have filled the human resources director vacancy. We had filled the Economic Development Director vacancy, the Building Commissioner vacancy. I'm happy to announce that our new Elections Manager will begin on Monday, May 6th, and also the Veterans Services Director vacancy. So just a very high level of department head level positions. We the office worked with the health department office of prevention and outreach community liaisons and Medford connectors to enroll non English speaking residents into the city's reverse 911 alert system, allowing for targeted messaging across the community. So that's something certainly that I think. should be highlighted. There's a number of infrastructure projects that the office has been working closely with the DPW and engineering office on, with regard to 3 million in funding to repair nearly two miles worth of sidewalks throughout the city. Among that also, another item at a high level is 500,000 on extensive patchworking across the community on 34 streets identified by the pavement assessment plan. the office worked with the parking department to install new state-of-the-art meter, both kiosks and meter heads at all of our squares. There's still more work to be done, so that continues to be reviewed and hopefully projected into the future. Then I think just to kind of ended off again, you know, these are just my selected highlights the best I could, but we've worked with the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability and our fleet team to have electric vehicle charging infrastructure installed at the Yale Street lot, West Medford lot, Tufts Park, Roberts Elementary and Brooks Elementary. So happy to answer any questions. And again, I think the council, I know the council will receive a more thorough presentation of the executive budget and all the work that the executive office has done to collaborate with departments and internal and external stakeholders, including the council. So thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can. Thank you. Thank you for being here this evening. Again, I applaud the eight double plus rating for the bond. I think that's important. I think a lot has to do with the amount of money we have in our free cash. So kudos to the community for investing their money into that part. So that's a feather in the city's cap. I think that's very important. I just hope it doesn't affect us negatively when we look to balance our budget coming. FY 25. When we see the mayor, I think there's a lot of questions I have, especially with the new growth as we're going through. giving understanding, so if you want to prepare for that when we get here, the understanding of the lack of projects that we're seeing, the lack of new tax revenue, and I think the lack of movement in Method Square. I think that, I believe it was her, at the mayoral debate she talked about these jobs that were already shovels in the ground, I believe I can bring that up. I think it's going to be important to see where the mayor stands when she gets here, but. Knowing where that is, especially when we're looking to our fiscal future is going to be very important. I think that if we can as well, uh, the home rule petitions that are out. I don't hear much from the mayor and where she stands with those, so it will be nice when she comes as that presentation as we look at our fiscal future. I think it'll be important to see where the I'm just a little curious that we have, if you can just educate me in the Director of Communications, looks like 94.5, Director of Community Affairs? That's correct. Okay, 94.5. Then we have Special Projects Coordinator, it's a small $13,000, looks like a stipend. And then does that look like we're hiring another communications specialist at 75.3? Is that what the increase says, is that someone moved?
[SPEAKER_02]: Mr. President, through you to Councilor Scarapelli, no, that's essentially our second comms staff member that has been ARPA funded and is now shifting to being partially ARPA funded and partially on the Barr Foundation, which is a grant that was secured by, essentially led and spearheaded by the Office of Prevention and Outreach and in collaboration with the Mayor's Office, Health Office, Planning, Development and Sustainability. So it's an existing FTE.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so that's great. So that's funding sources. That's, that's good to know. Just that when you when you look at the budget, and when you're hearing it, I know that I got phone calls today that there are going to be massive cuts in the secretarial staffing at the high school I'm hearing. huge cuts that that emergency meeting today and I just want to make sure that as we're looking at and I'll say this to all the the department heads moving forward and especially at the school department here with the executive department is making sure that we're looking at our executive offices and making sure that they've tightened their belts as much as they could because it looks like we're losing frontline employees again throughout the city and we've seen level funded here at this office. So I could appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_07]: So thank you, Mr. President.
[SPEAKER_06]: Seeing none, would you like to present the License Commission budget? I see it here as budgeted fiscal 24, 5,800, 5,400 for stipends and 400 for office supplies and budgeted for fiscal 25, the same amount, no change.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, thank you, Mr. President. And essentially, there's no change to the licensed commission structure staffing, not staffing, but appointed body. And therefore, there's no change to the proposed budget this year over last year.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great. Any questions? I'll be asking for all these commissions of these all method residents managing the staff to the chair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mr. President, through you, to Councilor Scarapelli, I can't say that with 100% certainty. I'd have to review the matter, but I don't have detailed information on that. Some positions obviously would require to be, and others may not require to be.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, if I can, I think that if you would have that ready for us with next meeting is the big much meeting, because that's one thing that I look forward to making sure that all of our commissions, our method residents, to have people that live in different communities and sit on commissions that are making big decisions for our community, I think is kind of, you know, it doesn't pass the test to me. So if we can have that prepared, that'd be appreciated. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. President, I'm happy to get that information. I just timeline just a little bit more flexibility. All right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. Sure. Great. Any further questions for the chief of staff on the license commission? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, can you redirect the motions for the meeting? Great, is there a motion to refer that motion to the administration and to adjourn?
[SPEAKER_05]: I make the motion to refer that to the administration and adjourn.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll motion to refer that to the administration for a response and to adjourn by Councilor Scarpelli, seconded by Councilor Fleming. Too late.
[SPEAKER_07]: Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, I mean, affirmative. None of the negative. The questions are referred to the administration and the meeting is adjourned.