AI-generated transcript of Committee of the Whole Meeting via Zoom

[Unidentified]: Test one, two.

[Zac Bears]: Medford City Council Committee of the Whole May 20 2025 is called to order Mr. Clerk please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan. Vice President Collins. Councilor Lazzaro. Councilor Leming is absent. Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Tseng. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Present. Six present one absent the meeting is called to order. There'll be a meeting in the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole at 6pm in the City Council Chamber second floor Medford City Hall 85 George P. Hassett Drive Medford MA and via Zoom. action and discussion items. 25 039 annual budget process for fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget meeting three. It will be the third preliminary budget meeting of the fiscal 26 budget process. The mayor has communicated the following departments will be present. Chevalier, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Library, Human Resources, Planning, Development and Sustainability, and the Liquor Commission. The police were on the agenda, but the chief is not available, so that has been moved to next Tuesday, the 27th. We'll be starting at 5.30. along with DPW and the schools. So with that, we will take Chevalier first, and I'll just read quickly. We had fiscal year 2025 budget, 32,000, fiscal 2026 budget proposed 32,640. And with that, we have Director Riggi, and I'm gonna ask you just to describe the budget, any changes, some fiscal 25 accomplishments, goals for next year, and if there are any key needs and priorities that aren't funded this year that you'd like to see funded in the future. And I will go to our Facilities Director, Paul Ringy.

[Paul Righi]: Thank you, President Bears. The budget that's reflected shows the personnel budget for the Chevalier Theatre. What our plan is to actually move that personnel line item over to the facilities budget. since he's part of the facility staff. So that would come for fiscal year 2026 as part of the facility's budget. The rest of the funding that we use at the Chevalier is in special funding accounts. Part of that money is used for general wear and tear and upkeep to the building. Part of it's used to enhancements like the new LED lighting in the ceiling and the new video signage outside that we did. Previous projects were redoing the masonry on the front facade of the building. I'm looking in the future. We're looking at emergency lighting that is needed inside the theater at the seats because it's lacking when the show lights go down there, especially in the balcony area. There is not emergency lighting strips. We had installed some emergency lighting strips. on the main floor of the theater. And now we find that there is a need for the second floor. So that will be a priority for fiscal year 26 to do. And we're hoping to get funding from the casino mitigation fund that we could actually repaint the entire interior of the theater. Right now it's a salmon and green, which is not conducive to show. So I'm hoping that we get the $350,000 that we requested so we can do that work in the theater.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Director Riggi. You brought up something that's a great note for everyone. We're talking about the general fund budget, but that's not all of the money that our different city departments and schools use. So thank you for mentioning what's going on with other funds from the state and casino, etc. Do we have any questions from members of the Council for Director Riggi about the Chevalier budget? Seeing none, do we have any questions from the public either in person or on Zoom about the Chevalier general fund budget? Seeing none, thank you very much.

[Paul Righi]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Next up we have the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office Budget. Director Nwaje is here with us on Zoom. Thank you for being here. We're making you a co-host. I think you had a presentation. You might want to share it. I'm seeing a thumbs up, so you'll be able to unmute and share your presentation, but I will just quickly read off We had a fiscal 25 budget of $118,502. A fiscal 26 proposed budget of $120,911. And this is an increase of $2,409. There's an increase in the permanent employees for a COLA increase and an increase of $1,000 in office supplies. And those are both fixed cost increases. With that, turning it over to Director Nwaje for the presentation and also, you know, the general prompt is just to talk about the budget change, any other details you might want to share about the budget, talk about any accomplishments of the previous year, goals for next year, and items that are key needs and priorities that were not funded this year that you'd like to see funded in future years. And with that, I'll turn it over to Director Nwaje.

[Frances Nwajei]: Thank you so much for allowing me to do this via Zoom. I think that some of the questions will be answered through the PowerPoint. Just let me know if you can see it.

[Zac Bears]: Yes, we can. Thank you.

[Frances Nwajei]: All right, fantastic. Thank you. So again, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a space for all who live, work, learn and do business in the city of Medford. And the way that we do that is by upholding the civil rights laws, ensuring that there's access to our programs and access is beyond the physical. It is anything from somebody needing a large print document so that they can file for an abatement. And that document is actually a state form. It doesn't come in large print. So we've got to figure out the best way to handle that situation so that we can assist the constituents. For the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, our work is regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability status, language ability, socioeconomic status, immigration status and political affiliation. It's really important for people to know and understand that it really is a space for all people and sometimes that can be misinterpreted. We also continue to address inequities, whether they're institutional or systemic, through our work within our own City of Medford agencies and departments, as well as external work with state and federal agencies. Some of our collaborations have included the library, Medford Community Media, who I have to thank Kevin Harrington for his support in one of the accomplishments, the Medford Fire Department, Police Department. public schools, the senior center, the Office of Prevention and Outreach, and that's just to name a few. Our external partnerships include Boston Center for Independent Living, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the MassAbility The Job Accommodation Network, which is huge for a lot of the ADA needs that take place throughout the city, whether it is a constituent who is in need of accessibility services or an employee who is in need. the MCAD, Mass Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, for always fulfilling my interpreter requests, Medford Housing Authority, Medford Health Matters, the Mass Office on Disability, New England ADA Center, who is our go-to resource, Tufts University, and of course, my strongest community partner, the West Medford Community Center. As you know our office has put on a variety of events. We hosted the first salute to our veterans dinner back in November of last year and this was done in collaboration with the office of veterans affairs and it was a dinner because we were trying to target veterans within a specific age group. Those are the veterans that under-report and under-utilize services. So that was why it was done in that format. Lunar New Year hosted in collaboration with Medford High School Asian Club, the Black History Month Community Event, the Black History Month Employee Luncheon, where we had Oma Moses as a guest speaker, Medford Connect's partner retreat that was done in partnership with the Office of Prevention and Outreach, and the Disability Fair hosted in partnership with the Commission on Persons with Disabilities. and just, you know, just put in some corresponding flyers to break up the verbal. So our upcoming events include the Pride flag raising ceremony and festival that is taking place on Friday, May 30th. It starts at 4.30 and that would be followed by the Juneteenth flag-raising celebration. That's on Wednesday, June 18th, and that starts at four. And if you remember last year's event, I will say remember to bring your dancing shoes this year because we have confirmed with a band from Texas, so. flyer for the Pride event and thank you to Councilor Lazzaro for being kind enough to share remarks on behalf of City Council at this event. And Juneteenth is in the works. So our accomplishments so far, and remember the work of this office is very fluid. It's responsive to what is happening in the moment and time, and also a lot of projection and forecasting. So just like the tide, it comes in, it goes out, and it shifts and changes. We were able to acquire upgraded accessible listening devices, which we now have in the sort of hall chambers utilizing ARPA funds. So that was where Medford Community Media was instrumental. We also acquired accessible seating in the chambers because all the chairs that we had for guests, none of the chairs had any arms. So we were able to utilize some ARPA funds to bring those in. Completed the MCAD training series for the entire Medford Fire Department. Completed the TRIO series of trainings for SEIU and Teamsters employees at Medford Public Schools. And that was done in partnership with Teamsters Union and SEIU. So thank you to both Brian Hatch and Joe Montana for their willingness to support that. And we started the foundational build of the diversity dashboard. So what is the diversity dashboard? It's a voluntary self-identification and affirmative action capturing system. It utilizes the criterias of identification that are already identified by the federal government. So if we had online systems, these forms would already pop up, but it allows people to self-report, which is, you know, the real, where the real value is. The dashboard was created with support of a student intern from Tufts University. The dashboard can be, the information that goes onto the dashboard can be done in two ways. Paper copies, so paper copies are on hand city side and also on hand school side. Or a link can be sent and the employee can enter the information directly into the online system. The dashboard is beneficial because it's a real data set. It's a snapshot of who we are as an employer. Granted, it's a snapshot based on the number of employees that choose to participate, but it is still a snapshot on who we are as an employer, It can be utilized when we're discussing benefits, when you're reviewing hiring trends and practices, when you want to look at where are you pulling your talent from. And the ultimate goal is for this to continue to be built out and live on the ODEI webpage and be utilized as an interactive tool. So it's still in the infancy stages, but the foundational build is done. It is working. It auto-populates. And as time moves on, you know, we will be able to build out more and add a variety of different criteria. So example of screenshot from the dashboard itself, right? This is based on, I believe it's 172 respondents. If we're just looking at gender distribution, as you can see from the chart, we are a heavily female employer. That's what the data shows. It's 74%. look at veteran status out of 156 that chose to respond. really don't have that many veterans. And it could be a variety of reasons. Veteran status is always underreported for many reasons, primarily stigma associated with hiring veterans, difficulty in converting military resumes into civilian resumes. That's why it's really important to ensure that When you are in talent management, recruitment, you understand and you are out with your other counterparts and your other colleagues and you are connected with the important agencies such as veteran services that will do that type of work and help support their veterans in getting their desired jobs. And then if you take a look, this one is about disability. It was simply a yes, no, I wish not to disclose. So again, we primarily are an employer that does not have a lot of employees with disability in comparison. So I'm going to stop sharing because I would like to use this opportunity now to introduce you to what the online version looks like. So what happens is the Microsoft online form auto-populates, and then it also creates Excel spreadsheets, which can also be utilized. So here, this is the map. As you can see, our heaviest respondents came from the school department. 57% of the 172 responses received were from school employees. So thank you to the school department for that. When you look at again, you look at gender. shows right there, female 72%, male 23%, gender non-conforming 2%, and I do not wish to disclose 1%. And I wanna add that gender non-conforming was a risk that ODEI took. The federal forms actually don't really give you much leeway. It's either male, female, or I choose not to disclose. And in respect of all the other identities that are out there, we felt that it was important to have something that people could check beyond I choose not to disclose. And as you can see, race and ethnicity right here, 172 respondents, 83% identify as being white. So this is who we are as an agency. and 98% identify as not being a veteran. So less than 2% of our employees are veterans. Pardon me for one second, I've got to find you again. Right, so we are back to this. There we go. So, you know, at this point, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion would like to advocate on behalf of the Commission for Persons with Disabilities. As we review the functions and the duties and responsibilities, it is important to note that beyond bringing the lived experience to volunteer to be on this commission, there is also a tremendous amount of technical knowledge that is required in order to be able to fulfill the role. This information is taken directly from the ordinance, section 2-303, 2 and 4. in order for commissioners to ensure that there is compliance, they must actually attend trainings. Powers and duties, section 2-304. Again, in order to understand how to review programs, policies, assist with implementation, commissioners have to go to a two-day CAM training. I look at the Commission for Persons with Disabilities as an extension of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It is three different full-time roles in one umbrella. An ADA need for an employee is very different from a need for a resident, which is very different from a person with a disability that is not able to access a business that is in the city of Medford. It does not matter whether or not it is a private business. I really do rely on the commissioners for their support. The camp training, as I said, is two days. It is six hours each day. So if people are employed, they're taking time off work. A lot of times I cannot get to the meetings. I'm fortunate to have Nick for 15 hours a week, but one two-hour trip to the state house and back is his four-hour workday. So, it's nice if there are conflicting meetings happening. I can take 1 and it can take another 1. 1 of the commissioners can take another 1. So, as a result, I feel that I would not be doing my due diligence, especially based on a SWOT analysis that was done last year. If I did not advocate on behalf of the commission. by requesting a stipend for the commissioners who are serving so that they can acquire the knowledge needed to fulfill their role. That is really where the equity and inclusion lies. And so, as I like to say, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we have a tissue for every nose. But we also say, let love be your superpower. Let courage be your guide. Let hope be your light. Within you lies the power to do what is right. And on that note, thank you all so much for your time. I'm open to questions.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Director Nwaje for the presentation. Do you have any questions for the Director about the budget for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? See no hands, I do have a couple of questions for you. Number one, I just wanted to thank you for the advocacy for the Disability Commission. That's much appreciated. I hope we can support that advocacy as well as part of our request for the budget. I did have a question around that and some other things. Is there any impact on your office of the uncertainty around any federal funding and programs or any outside grant funding?

[Frances Nwajei]: I mean, yes, I mean, there is definite impact because you use the key word, right? Uncertainty. I think that what we have to continue to do is forge ahead. This is very similar to 2008 when Massachusetts had a recession and Governor Deval Patrick had to freeze everything, right? We continue to do what we can. until we can no longer do it. Because the unknown is too wide, it's too time consuming, and it will drain the energy from you. I do believe that there are organizations out there that are holding strong, right? And that are looking at other avenues. But if federal funds do get pulled, Yes, the organizations that receive federal funding that distribute that funding through other sources, so that work such as what my office does can get done will be affected. That is the unfortunate reality.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. I'm going to go to Councilor Lazzaro, and then I have one more question after that. Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you. I just wanted to echo President Bearsar's appreciation for your advocacy for the Disability Commission. And I would 100% agree, it really seems like staying the course and sticking to what we believe to be the right things to do for our residents and the employees of the city and the people that need representation and can benefit from us continuing to do the right thing for them and moving forward and forging ahead is really the way to ensure that we can keep, you know, enjoying the benefits that we've enjoyed thus far until we can't, if we can't, you know, cross that bridge when we come to it. And I really appreciate that energy. So this budget looks totally appropriate to me, and I appreciate the presentation as well. It was really helpful. Thank you.

[Frances Nwajei]: Thank you, Councilor.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Council is our director knowledge I just had one. One and a half more questions. I just noticed the self-response on the demographic snapshot. Definitely, you know, we were missing a lot of men, we were missing a lot of police, fire, DPW, and I'm wondering, do we have any kind of strategy or thoughts on how to try to get a little bit more engagement from those areas in that survey?

[Frances Nwajei]: I think the real issue is the trust that people have. I think that this is very new, right? We're asking people to put something on paper. What does it mean? Why do you want and why do you need all this information? My hope is that now that we at least have some responses, it can be used to show that this is not information that is, you know, going to be harmful to you in any way. This is information that we can utilize so that we can become better. We can actually become what is known as a model employer. So maybe every six months sending out the link as well as the option of utilizing the form could work. I've not really given much thought to that yet because my mind has gone to the build out already. But yeah, that's an idea every six months, you know, a brief reminder. I think that we will start to see an increase because it seems like newer employees who are more accustomed to forms such as these, right, are the ones that are completing the forms. Continue to work on relationship management with the police department, with my fire department to see if I can increase on the responses, but it would be nice because I do believe that we are not at 1.8% for veterans. We are higher than that because our veterans are primarily in our law enforcement and fire department.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Yeah. That was a thought that I had had as well. So great. Any further questions for Director Nwaje? Seeing none, Frances, thank you so much. Much appreciated.

[Frances Nwajei]: All right. Thank you all for your time. Take care.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks. All right. Next, we will take up HR Workers' Comp. Sorry, Barbara. We'll get you out of here. Just really quickly, thanks for being here Director Crowley. Just going to go quickly through this we have HR and workers comp the budget for human resources fiscal 25 was 269 480. And for fiscal 26 it's proposed at 324 93 for an increase net increase of 51,013. which is pretty significant. The main thing are some fixed cost growth. There was an employee hired in fiscal 25, and the fiscal 25 budget was lower than the expected pay for that. There were also COLA and step increases, and inflationary costs for office supplies and advertising and recruitment. And there's a new expense called case management at $10,000. And that's explained as an amount that's added for various medical expenses for the city. And then we also have workers comp which is going up from 788,000 fiscal 25 to 928,000 fiscal 26 that's $140,000 or about 18%. So with that I will turn it over to you. to talk about the change in those two budgets, any other details you might want to share, talk about some of your accomplishments for the previous year, some goals for next year, and then what needs and priorities are not funded this year that we need to see funded in future years. And with that, I'll turn it over to our HR director.

[Lisa Crowley]: Thank you, President Paz and Council. Sorry if you can't hear me. I'm losing my voice.

[Zac Bears]: We might need to move you closer or move you further.

[Lisa Crowley]: Move me closer. Here we go. So some of the highlights. for this past year where we were able to ratify five contracts with fire clerical, DPW, parking and traffic supervisors. So that was, so that we have done since last June or July. We're now currently working with the library and dispatches on renewing their contracts as well. And we have a few more to go through the police and superiors. We've also established a master tracking for all employees which we didn't have prior to my arrival. We like to call it the Enzo project because we had an intern who started it with us. His name was Enzo. So that is a lifetime tracking of all our current employees. from their steps to their start dates to when they get promoted, what their current position is. If somebody asks how many clerical personnel do we have, we can take that in a snapshot. So that's something that we've developed and we've been updating as we do any kind of changes for personnel for the HR office. So that was pretty exciting because we didn't have that data. before, so it's very helpful. We've created a new hire process, which we've been working on for about the past year. We didn't really have anything that was streamlined or standardized beforehand, so we are working through that process, which is very helpful when we're posting and we're looking for qualified candidates where we're posting, how we're posting, working with the DEI director to make sure that we're trying to cast a wider net. So we're looking at how our job descriptions are labeled and looking for really the minimum requirements for the job. A lot of our job descriptions were updated where they said you needed a master's degree, but really you may have not even needed a high school diploma. So when we limit or we expand what the education is beyond what the education is needed, we shorten that net. So we're trying to cast a wide net and get the qualified people in for each position. We have developed an internal process for updating our policies and procedures. That's a process where when we're developing, we talk with it up hot and as we work with the administration, most of the time we actually have to send them to the unions for their approval, give them 10 days to respond. so that we can come up with a comprehensive policy. So we've been working on that. We're working on updating our quarries every three years. That's by state and federal law. You need to update everybody's quarry, whether they're an employee, they're a part-time employee, a full-time employee, every three years. So we have it on a rotating schedule. So you may see yourselves even in three years asking for a new quarry. We've also completed an I-9 audit. Those are really important because if we ever get audited by the government, the cost for just one wrong I-9 is very costly. So we went through every single personnel file and they're kept separately. So we went through every file to make sure that every personnel in the city had an updated I-9 or actually had an I-9 in the I-9 jacket. So we've implemented partnerships with JJ Keller, who is the safety training for our DPW employees. We have been hearing that employees like the training, they want the training, they want some professional development. So in last year's budget, the council had approved us updating that training, so that has been very helpful moving forward. We also partnered with Trolliant and they are doing our state and federal compliance training. It's very helpful because it's online and they can start and stop. So if police and fire are starting a training and they need to stop to go on a call or what have you, they can stop the training and pick up from where they left off and still get full credit when they complete. There's a back portion to that where I get notification when somebody hasn't completed their training. So we'll send out a notification saying, you started the training on May 1st. It's May 15 you still haven't finished. What else you need we give them time, you know time restraints for that. So that's very helpful so that we know that everybody's completed the required trainings that they're they're supposed to be doing throughout the year. So goals for the HR department. We want to develop a comprehensive employee handbook. We do have a handbook. I think it's outdated, and it's not complete. So we're working on that. We're working on a newsletter that will come out every month, spotlighting various projects throughout the city, employees, 20 year employees, 10 year employees, giving them some information about the benefits that we offer, how they can link to different things like FMLA forms and workers comp forms and whatever they might need, and some educational training that we have linked to that. So if somebody really likes the training in the library, they can just do it at their own time. If they want to, it's more voluntary than something that we're going to require them to do. And some trivia and some fun facts as we go along so that the first newsletter, I think, is set for June or July. Excuse me. We are also working on implementing, hopefully, Some kind of HR system that we can use that is more online to apply for a job instead of being so paper heavy. So we're looking into that as well. more training for our department heads and our middle management. We are partnering with Adam Sutton Consulting, and they do half-day retreats with department heads, and they do, you know, education, and we find out where our weaknesses are, and then we kind of tie it together so that we can funnel that down through our employees. working closely now that we have our new solicitor, that our departments will work very closely together. So those are just some of the ongoing projects we're trying to also make sure that when we ratify a CBA or a collective bargaining agreement that we get one agreement instead of having like four or five MOAs or side letters that everything's complete one place so that's pretty much where we're trying to go this year seems it's a lot of work it's not a lot of tasks, but it's a lot of work to each task. If I can get to the increases in the budget, excuse me, like you said, President Bears, most of it is personnel. We went from a full part-time to a full-time HR administrator, and some of those funds were upper funds last year, so we have to absorb the full cost of that position this year. Also, just market increases with advertising, supplies, where we post. So it's really just market increases, not much more increases to the budget, the HR budget. Unfortunately, on the workers comp side, I'll probably talk about them together. That's a little bit harder to budget, right? Because we never know who's going to get hurt. The problem with that is we also pay for the medicals. There's no way to really budget it. So we kind of do like a three-year back look to see what it looked like. When I got here, it was under-budgeted by a lot. So last year I had to kind of bridge that gap. And then this year I'm trying to finish the bridge of that gap. So that's really Worker's Comp. We pay about, right now we pay $8,335 a week and workers' comp payouts. So that's about $433,000 a year. And that's just, you know, we can't really budget for when that will go. We do have a couple of people on there that will be lifers, that will be on there for life. So that's where the increase of the workers' comp into us as well.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Do we have any questions?

[George Scarpelli]: Councilor Scarpelli. Thank you so much for your presentation. I know they just clarify, you know, it's like one of my big sticking points is. ratifying contracts. And I know that it's good to see that we're moving forward. So I appreciate the hard work, but I know that. So it's Medford, patrolmen, supervisors, library, dispatch, and building, correct? Are those the last ones that we ratified? Are these the ones that are still open?

[Lisa Crowley]: Still open is superiors, police, inspectors. Dispatch is just up for renewal and libraries for renewal. So we're working on those as well.

[George Scarpelli]: Are we getting close?

[Lisa Crowley]: dispatching library. I hope so.

[George Scarpelli]: Okay. Other ones still have some time.

[Lisa Crowley]: We're still working on that. Okay, so I know some of them are in fact finding right now.

[George Scarpelli]: So I know that, you know, I work in a municipality next door, and I just saw what What neighbor community just offered their police department and with four year retro, and it's a lot of money.

[Lisa Crowley]: So I

[George Scarpelli]: be interesting to see how we can fund that.

[Lisa Crowley]: We're trying to be as fair as we can.

[George Scarpelli]: Not easy.

[Lisa Crowley]: No, it's not.

[George Scarpelli]: I think the other issue and concern that I've had for a long time is, and it might not fall with your department, but it'd be interesting to know, as we've had so many concerned issues with legal issues with grievances through our employees, not particularly anyone in personnel to keep it confidential. Is there a line here that does it come out of your department for arbitration costs, for attorney's fees?

[Lisa Crowley]: I believe that comes out of the legal budget. I mean, I'm the one who handles them, but the results come out of the legal budget.

[George Scarpelli]: seems pretty substantial. So from what I've gotten for legal documents from union representation, and it's a lot of money.

[Lisa Crowley]: It's a lot of work.

[George Scarpelli]: And it's a I would hope we could find a way to tighten up these legalities in these, these battles that go back and forth with, I think losing and then appealing and then so it's something that you know, when we look at good money leaving the city, I think that a lot of it has to do with fair labor practice and making sure that we're doing the right thing with our employees. So I appreciate your input, and I think that's important. It's something that I'll keep asking as we move forward, because I think that if we look at many of the lines, and if we look to the actuals and month to month, and we see where monies are going, there's a lot of legal departments that are getting. chunks of chunks of money throughout the community. And even though we did get a $7.5 million increase in an override and still have money in free cash, and even though that's supposedly not a lot of money, I guess we're still in fiscal constraints and supposedly in some dire funding needs. So be interesting to see where we can, as we move forward, where we can recover and what we can do better to make sure we're not using funds that don't need to be spent.

[Lisa Crowley]: I think building those relationships, we're starting to build relationships. I appreciate it. And I'm hoping that the solicitor's office will be able to make those even stronger.

[Zac Bears]: I hope so. Thank you.

[Lisa Crowley]: Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, I have a couple. Give me a second here, get some feedback. Could you talk a little bit more about the case management line item?

[Lisa Crowley]: Sure. So the case management is, so when we're working with our workers' comp, sometimes we need investigations or nurses to work on the cases because the employees aren't being very responsive with their physicians. And instead of us just saying, okay, we'll wait for you to get your doctor's note, and they stay on long, we can hire a case manager who can actually not violate any HIPAA laws and actually go out and talk with the doctors to try to get their information so we can make sure that the employee is up on compensation is really doing what he's supposed to do to try to get back to work.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Along those lines, do we expect a much smaller increase for workers' comp next year, or how much of the gap have we closed?

[Lisa Crowley]: So I don't see workers' comp going down. I'm hoping we can kind of level it off. The school department has their own, so I'm not sure how their claims are going. But we seem to kind of find some kind of place right now where we don't see it moving too far. Somebody could get hurt tomorrow, and it could be catastrophic. So it's really hard to judge.

[Zac Bears]: Is there any way, I mean, this is supposed to be a form of insurance, right? Like, seems like we're paying a lot of money.

[Lisa Crowley]: So if you're talking about like using their health insurance opposed to using their workers comp?

[Zac Bears]: Just in general, like their workers comp, like, you know, is there a better deal out there? Are we getting the best deal?

[Lisa Crowley]: So I mean, I think every time that you look at that and you go out and you try to bid, sometimes you can get more rates, but they're pretty standard across the board. We just went from Metatrol who stopped working on the 111F to Future Comp, so that actually helped us save money because they were already working on our workers' comp side. So to bring in the 111F, there wasn't a lot of more additives that they have, because they're already charging us to run the program. So we actually saved a little money doing that and switch.

[Zac Bears]: What's the difference between 111F and the workers comps?

[Lisa Crowley]: So 111F will be police and fire. It's just chapter 111F. Oh, OK. Got it. Got it.

[Zac Bears]: Got it.

[Lisa Crowley]: OK. Workers comp on the city.

[Zac Bears]: So now it's everyone in the city is on the same.

[Lisa Crowley]: Correct.

[Zac Bears]: All right. OK. Two more things, just in general. seems like we've been able to fill more open positions than over the previous years.

[Lisa Crowley]: I don't know if you want to talk about that. Yeah, sure. So, I mean, with the help of now another full-time staff member, that's really been helpful. I think I had the numbers here somewhere. We've brought on about 32 professional staff, including department heads, and maybe about 20 to 30 new police officers and firefighters. And we're just putting 13, 12 now, possibly 13 firefighters into the academy over the summer. So we'll be increasing those numbers by 13, and we have a few coming out of the police academy. So because of the extra staff, we're able to turn that over much quicker.

[Zac Bears]: Okay.

[Lisa Crowley]: Great.

[Zac Bears]: Last question, classification and compensation study. What's the progress on that?

[Lisa Crowley]: And when are we going to be able to implement it? So the project actually started, I think, before I started, and it started out as the city trying to find out if they had any outliers of somebody who's really underpaid or within the comparable cities. Preliminary numbers that proposed that have come in as methods kind of right in the middle. We're not on the upper high, we're not on the low, we're kind of in the middle. So which was really good for us, that we found that we don't have a lot of people that are underpaid, even though we have people complaining that they're underpaid. The study shows that we're pretty much in the middle. So with that information, now we have to really solidify the job descriptions because you can't look at a compensation study after that until you know what the job descriptions are. And some of us are from the 80s. So we're bringing those up to date. We've done the employee questionnaire So right now, the employees have reviewed their job descriptions, the department heads have reviewed what the employees say they do, opposed to what they are actually supposed to do. We did an administrator review, myself and Nina reviewed all of them as well. They went out to the comp and class, which is call-in center, and they drafted. Now we have final drafts for us to do a final review on for the job descriptions. Once we get that finalized, we're hoping to have that done by September. It's a lot of work. There's like we did 125 titles, I believe. We have to send them out to the unions, because now the union employee or union position, I should say, not employee. The unions now have to look at it, give their comments, see if they agree with it. Then we get that back. We look at them, see if we agree with what the union said, send it back to the Collins Center. They have to revamp it and send it back to us for a final review. So hopefully in September, we'll have some more information on where we are. It's a long process. I understand it's been a long process, but I think it started, then it stopped for a little while because there was nobody in the office to run it. And then when I came in just about two years ago, That was my second initiative to get it started. And so although it seems like it's been going for a very long time, it was a big chunk of time where nothing was happening because there was nobody to manage it.

[Zac Bears]: Got it. Thank you for that. In a final report, will we be able to see both the compensation elements as well as the new job descriptions? And that will be available to us. Great. And it sounds like if we're really lucky, January?

[Lisa Crowley]: Sure. If you put me before Frances next year, because her presentations are amazing, and I'm tired of following them.

[Zac Bears]: Everyone's jockeying for position in these. I've already disappointed Barbara. So, you know, I don't even want to know what happened with Richly. But no, thank you. You know, I appreciate the hard work. Any further questions on our HR or worker's comments? Seeing none, thank you very much.

[Lisa Crowley]: Thank you, have a good evening.

[Zac Bears]: All right, library. We have director Barbara Kerr and we have Grace David from our trustees here and maybe lost a trustee. Sorry about that.

[Barbara Kerr]: Bonnie had to go to the band concert at school.

[Zac Bears]: We gained one, we lost one.

[Barbara Kerr]: John Grace Caldara who are two of my five.

[Zac Bears]: Great. I'm turning you down. We had a way up for Lisa. Okay, so you'll be good.

[Barbara Kerr]: It's a new system.

[Zac Bears]: That's great.

[Barbara Kerr]: I have stats. Well, first I need to read.

[Zac Bears]: We want to hear the stats. We love the stats. All right, I have what I have here. Alrighty. Library, Medford Public Library. We had from the general fund, subsidy general fund, fiscal 25, $2,247,934. We're looking at for fiscal 26, $2,324,029 for an increase of $76,095 or about 3%. And we have there, an increase of one position, it looks like, which is good, although I'm sure you'll tell me maybe that that's not coming from the general fund at all, or maybe it's a typo, I see. What position is it? It's a professional assistant, it says, that we're going from 14 to 15. Seems no one knows about that except for what's on the sheet. But we can come back to that. But as I said, there's a net increase of 76,095. Most of this is in our fixed cost growth, the vast majority, with step raises and COLA increases for permanent employees, an increase in rates for part-time employees, longevity and a sick leave buyback estimate for fiscal 26 retirements, contracted services increase for some stormable landscaping and other service costs. increase in the price of office supplies, increase in the price of cleaning supplies, an increase for the audiovisual budget, physical media being in high demand, and AV costs being cut last year or reduced from the initial proposal last year, $5,000 increase, for library books and periodicals, and then there's one new expense, continuing education, the PLA convention in 2026, the big national conference for public libraries, multiple staff are attending, so there's more expense. So with that, we have Director Kerr with us, and we're going to be The prompt is just three things, talking about your budget and what the change was, two, talking about accomplishments for the last year, goals for next year, and three, what are key needs and priorities that you'd like to see funded that we weren't able to fund this year?

[Barbara Kerr]: So Nina and I are still working on a couple of personnel things. Okay. There was a children's department position that's been vacant for a couple of years, so we're trying to make that work. We would also very much like to get the hourly part time rates to the equivalent of the same full time jobs. That's not going to happen this year. I think they're going to get a small increase, but that's sort of my long term collaborative maybe we could all work on it because Right now, we have somebody who she works for us for $19 an hour. And when she substitutes at Winchester, she gets 35. And that's pretty much the way it is across the board. Our part-time salary rates are very low. And we're a revolving door. We've been through so many people. It's like, why would you stay here if you go to Winchester? Because it's more fun here. But I think they're, in order to work for us full-time, part-time, you have three part-time jobs, or you have somebody at home who's paying the bills. And so we don't keep people forever. So that's something we would very much like to work on. To get that to happen would be a very substantial increase. I think this year is going to be a smaller one, which we're working on. So hopefully that will work. And I think we're also working on the children's position. So that's good. But the other stuff, pretty much everything we asked for in our expenses we got, which was terrific. And you want the stats now? Here's the stats.

[Unidentified]: Let's go. Yeah, how do we do it?

[Barbara Kerr]: So we are crazy busy. And there are 370 libraries in Massachusetts. And we were 18th in terms of circulation, 13th in total programs. 8th in teen programs, although they tell me they're actually 7th because Bellingham cheated. And then they were counting attendance at a drop-in afternoon, which is just wrong. And then 9th in children's programming for ages 0 to 5, and 23rd for programming for ages 6 to 11. And we had 860 programs last year with an attendance of 16,000. So we are very busy. And it's been a very good year. We got a Cummings grant that is actually funding two people for the Makerspace. So the Makerspace programming has tripled since they started. They're a bit compulsive, so it should really only be doubled, but they want to do everything now. And we're also able to do a part-time programming librarian from that grant. And that's been very good too, because with all those programs you need somebody to expedite to manage things and do the scheduling and the publicity. And this year we also started 55 plus programming, we have a senior advisory board who They heckle each other a lot. They have monthly meetings, but they come up with program ideas and then we work the staff works with them to fit in great here. Now that I am a senior, I appreciate the heckling. And I was going to mention that I'm planning to retire next April. This might actually be my last budget hearing.

[Zac Bears]: We've got to lead with that.

[Barbara Kerr]: It's time. Well, I was going to but I got so excited.

[Zac Bears]: Too excited about all the great things you're doing.

[Barbara Kerr]: We had 202,000 people come into the building last year.

[Unidentified]: Wow.

[Barbara Kerr]: The fairytale ball is coming up in a couple of weeks, and that's usually 700 people, most of them under the age of 10. I got strep two years ago. I'm hoping not. I'm planning not to this year, but I said I wouldn't go last year because I didn't want to get sick, so I will be braver this year. What are other things? 55 plus. Youth services is trying to do a lot more outreach, so we've added some part time people so they are doing a couple of them go once a month to after school programs and Nicole who is the head of youth services has a deal with the librarian at the high school which is great she goes and she presents to every single class at the high school. And they like us. She had teen trivia night Friday, and apparently all the sixth grader boys came. And it was very loud, and they all sang along to things. But it's good that they want to be there. And now that there are fewer early release days, everybody's much calmer, because that was interesting. So that's good. With that, I took out my dinner. Oh, so we also got a Bloomberg digital, what is it? digital innovation grant for $200,000. With that, we're going to be digitizing a large portion of the local history collection, which is terrific, because right now, in order to do research, you have to go in there and handle everything. So this is good.

[Zac Bears]: I heard you took my microfilm.

[Barbara Kerr]: I'm sorry, your microfilm is actually in boxes in the back hallway, but it's going out today. And then you'll be able to do it from home in a few months. No, it'll be great.

[Zac Bears]: You remember, yeah.

[Barbara Kerr]: So they're taking the microfilm, the yearbooks, a lot of the town reports, the lists of persons.

[Zac Bears]: The budgets, please. The budgets.

[Barbara Kerr]: Yeah, I think the budgets are in there. The budgets and some of the real older, delicate stuff that is unique. So that's great.

[Zac Bears]: Will the maps go too?

[Barbara Kerr]: Not this time, but we're going to keep digitizing stuff. A lot of the maps are online anyway. They're in various places. But check our website. There's a map section. So that's been good. And so the stuff has got off to be scanned. And in the meantime, they're going to build a, they call it, it's called the DAM, which is a digital asset management platform, which is good when you're getting aggravated. You can swear at trustee meetings. What else? ESOL, we started having, we did citizenship classes and we funded an ESOL class last year. We did that again this year. We're also hosting two or three, like a city class, English at Large and the Welcome Project. And we've added a lot of the foundation has given us some funding for foreign language books. And the teens, they've added a lot of books in other languages in teen. So I was there one day when the eighth graders were there, and the teacher saying, you have to take a book. And one of the kids took it, and the librarian checked it on. She said, you know, this isn't Portuguese. And he's like, whatever, went out the door. So that's good. 55 plus. We also got a coming to rent. Did I say that? Yes, coming to rent with the Makerspace. So the Makerspace programming, it's great. And we are getting really good attendance at everything. I think that's pretty much. So next year, we're going to continue with all of this stuff. But the long term is the hourly part-time rate, if we can get that to. to a level equivalent with other libraries, I think we'd have more luck getting qualified people and maintaining them.

[Zac Bears]: Great. And I see everyone, you're all here on my board. I just wanted to say before we hear questions from councillors that it may be your last budget meeting, but we will have you back before you retire to celebrate the incredible work that you've done.

[Barbara Kerr]: I'll bring more statistics.

[Zac Bears]: Great. I'd love to hear.

[Barbara Kerr]: bring the young ones on the staff and get them to act them out or something.

[Zac Bears]: I was thinking you could do a story for for every year of the decades of service that you devoted to the city and our community or something you know maybe not every year but that might be too too in depth too much work we know everyone's very busy up there but mostly I was saying that to say that you've devoted your life to this library and it's thriving and Thousands of people are deeply appreciative of that. So we will.

[Barbara Kerr]: I never thought we would be this good. I knew we had the potential, but it's really rewarding. Thank you to you and your team.

[Zac Bears]: And I have no hobbies. You've given a lot to the city, so we will celebrate you. You'll be back here, and you won't have to do a presentation for money.

[Barbara Kerr]: Unless I want to.

[Zac Bears]: Unless you want to. You can write your own ticket. So with that, I'll go to Councilor Lazzaro, Councilor Callahan, Councilor Scarpelli, Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: Thank you for being here. I did have an opportunity to join one of the trustees meetings. And you did mention the request for an increase in the hourly pay. And I'm frustrated because it's not that much. It doesn't cost that much compared with the rest of the city's budget. I know this is a hard time for all of us, but I am hopeful in the future that this can be something that we remedy. It's very basic and it does have lasting impacts because when people move on quickly, it costs a lot to train new people and that impact can be felt. We might as well keep the people that we have, that we know are good, that you've invested in and you've trained. The library is such a gem in town. I am a big fan. I use it a lot. And I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for still having the diary of a wimpy kid book number question mark in my home. I think one of my kids has it in their backpack.

[Barbara Kerr]: I'm going fine free July 1st. See, that's great. That's great for me.

[Emily Lazzaro]: That's great for my kids. Pay up. But I do think this is something that we should be able to accomplish. It's not a big lift. So thank you for advocating for that. And I think we can continue to put it in our requests as a council. I mean, we've put in our requests as a council, fully fund the library and all of their requests consistently. We'll continue to do that. But I mean, we can keep beating that drum. And we will, Bob. Thank you. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: I was just hoping, I know you're excited about statistics. You brought them here. You want to bring them up next time. And I'm so excited. I'm hoping that you can maybe just email the clerk, and then he can forward some of those to us. Just the ones you mentioned today. Don't go to any extra trouble.

[Barbara Kerr]: I can send you a comprehensive thing. We do a state report that has everything. So I can send that out.

[Anna Callahan]: I especially like the rankings and the program it provides. the part-time pay as compared to Winchester and if you have anybody else to compare to. And I really would like you to include the fact that people work for us because we are more fun than other cities. This is my theory. Thank you.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you Councilor Callahan. Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Tseng.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Council President. Barbara. I was gonna say if you have another year maybe you can work on your Sunday disposition. It's just terrible. So angry. Seriously, don't you just want to get up and hug you I just I I so appreciate you. I think that, like Councilor Lazzaro said, have a book from 1982, The Outsiders.

[Unidentified]: Good choice.

[Zac Bears]: We're expecting to get back a lot closer. We can fund the part-time employees with this.

[Barbara Kerr]: There is a maximum fine, which nobody knows about, so.

[George Scarpelli]: I have a few, just one question. I know that one of the biggest things we always, we were nervous about as we built this new library and how we're going to maintain it. And it sounds like, you're doing an amazing job, and the team's doing an amazing job. Do you see anything that, especially, I appreciate Mr. Riggi now, and him being active and involved. Do we see that that's being up at the library, the plant itself is being kept to its standards?

[Barbara Kerr]: Yes, it helps having a young custodian who's tall. When we moved in, we had Fred, who was a lovely man, had a lot of health issues. And Peter's Peter's a bundle of energy. So he paints and he cleans and he keeps track of stuff. And he fights with different vendors. And it's good, actually. And then part of the deal with Bloomberg was the creation of a maintenance plan. So That was very complicated. The guy who works for the foundation is doing it. So we do have that. And that's very helpful, because it's got a lot of information and recommendations. And I think the building's in good shape.

[George Scarpelli]: And solar, that's still up there?

[Barbara Kerr]: We are genuinely net zero.

[George Scarpelli]: Excellent. That's a great sign.

[Barbara Kerr]: We're one of only nine. We were actually featured in American Libraries this year in that they had an energy issue.

[George Scarpelli]: Solar's amazing. So on a serious note, though, On a more serious note, we often sit up here at city councils and thank people that have left us and we can't celebrate them while they're here. I would hope that this council would work with the mayor and administration that the day you leave your position, you know, you're not leaving our Method Public Library, that we have something named after you. I would hope through as we move forward and that there is something that the name Barbara Kerr is never forgotten when people look up and say hey who's Barbara Kerr, because I remember the real thin times and you kept things going when things are really bad. You hear horror stories now and, you know, we stick our chests out when you hear what's going on in Stoneham and you feel so bad. But even through the toughest times, you've always kept us above ground. So I think we can never forget that because no matter what, I mean, my kids, if it wasn't for the method public library, and they're 22 and 19 now, and they spent every single week in the library from their most precious years. And personally, as a father, I can't thank you enough and for fathers and mothers all over the city than what you've done for them. So I can't thank you enough. And, and I will hope that my colleagues join me when it's time and that we do find something that speaks to what you've done for us here in Medford and the Medford Public Library. So thank you for everything.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Charlton William Bloomberg, Barbara Kerr, Metro Public Library. There you go.

[Barbara Kerr]: You know, get a really big stuffed animal.

[Justin Tseng]: I would ask you to put Barbara Kerr first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

[Zac Bears]: That's me.

[Justin Tseng]: I mean, you know, money isn't everything, Bob. Well, maybe it is, but... Councilor Tseng. Director Kerr, I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to making our library run and tick every single day. I know Lots of parents using the library here. I'm using it as a young adult here. And it truly is a gem in Medford Square. It's something that a lot of out-of-town residents come to me and say, oh, did you guys know about your library? I'm like, of course I know. I know about the library. And I think there's a lot to be said. Because even though we got this brand new library, I remember how much work you put in to meet with us. I remember meetings with me and Zach in previous years, really making sure that we're not just level funding the library and really trying to improve funding for the library. And I know as we talked about with hourly wages and stuff like that, there's still ways to go. But I wanted to thank you for your hard fought advocacy for the library to get into a good position. And for you to know that we will always have your back on the side of the rail as well. And be it planning for the future with increasing pay. I know a lot of residents are clamoring about trying to get extra service on Sundays, which I know you've talked to us about, which you can feel free to address people watching at home if you want to about that point. We've traditionally had a tight budget. We still have, you know, some of that tightness this year. But, you know, I think a lot of the work has to be done planning long term into the future. And I think you're helping a lot with setting that groundwork. Thank you.

[Barbara Kerr]: And I should mention, I have a really good staff, not that I haven't always, I haven't always, but Right now, they're a good bunch, who are probably not watching this, so don't tell them I said that, but they're really very invested in doing a good job, and they love the teens, which, you know, somebody has to, which is what she says to me sometimes. That got recorded and now it's going down in history.

[Zac Bears]: Not just recorded, it's broadcast.

[Barbara Kerr]: It's really... I like teens.

[Zac Bears]: I didn't read it, but we are streaming on channel 22, channel 43, YouTube and medfordtv.org. And you can join by Zoom if you'd like. You can even call in and if you'd like to submit written comments, you can email. a her to be set mentor dash ma.gov and he'll forward them along. At least it's a funny last meeting.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. We love a candid testimony. Thank you for being here. I always appreciate your budget presentations and the overall update on how the library department is doing. You know, I don't have a lot of questions on your proposal. It was very comprehensive, mostly just want to, especially if this is the last time you're formally giving a budget presentation to the council, which I'm pretty sure you need a two thirds majority vote of the city council to retire, if I'm not mistaken. So we'll see about that. But would be remiss, yeah. Yeah, we're all putting resolutions on the agenda. But would be remiss not to take the opportunity to thank you for your extremely impactful hard work on behalf of our library. It really is incredible. I have been going there a lot lately. I use the printers quite often for work and other projects. I always admire seeing how many people, how many types of people are using the library any random time that I go in there. And that is a testament to the service that we are able to provide to our community because of the work that you and your team have done over so many years to grow this library into what it is today. And I hope that as we go forward into the future, the administration and future city councils will remain in partnership with the library department so that we can continue that kind of really bold master planning to see what our next really big strides for the library are. Having it open seven days a week, I think is top of everybody's list. And just to continue letting our public library be a model for other community libraries throughout the region. Always appreciate your advocacy for your staff. It is a great staff. It's an incredible staff. Everybody there is so friendly, so helpful. I know that really resonates with everybody who is a patron there. And I know that you and your team are always trying to advocate to make sure that our compensation that we enable for library staff is as competitive as could be. I'm not surprised to hear that it seems that a lot of people work at Medford Public Library, because it's a wonderful place to work and I know that we're always trying hard to make sure that they are also duly compensated competitively for the very, very competitive leader level work that you and everybody else on the team is doing. So I know that we'll remain in partnership to make sure that that is getting better year over year, as well as overall library services are getting better year over year as well. So just thank you so much. I really do. It sounds corny. It sounds like I'm exaggerating. But every time I go in there, I'm like, wow, this is our library. This is awesome. These people are awesome. So thank you.

[Barbara Kerr]: It came out good. I knew it was going to, but you know.

[Zac Bears]: You did all right. Thank you.

[Barbara Kerr]: Originally, we had a design for the front desk that had a lion that ate you if you had overdues. But the very serious woman from library commissioner said, don't do novelty things. And she thought we were serious. It's the best part of it.

[Zac Bears]: Do we have any more questions for Director Kerr? We've seen them from the Council. Do we have any from members of the public? Or would the trustees like to say that we have a trustee coming up?

[Grace Caldera]: I've only spoken here versus Zoom once. Hi, Grace Caldera, trustee. Can't thank Barbara enough for everything that she's done with the library, and it's been an honor to work with her. And then just up here to sort of reiterate some points, which you all also know. The Head of Children's has been vacant, and it is one of the most trafficked areas. And so the department is, busy all the time and you see nannies and you see families using it. And it really does require someone who's dedicated to watch over it and to continue to plan programs. I know we're already ranked ninth in children's. It'd be really awesome. to see that go up and what we can do when you have somebody fully dedicated to that department. I know we're still in talks with the city about that, but wanted to reiterate that one, as well as circling back with the part-time pay. These are librarians. They have a master's degree. they are doing the same work as the full-time librarians. And so I know it is in the long-term plan, but definitely something that I think we should continue to work to get there and closer and stay competitive to keep staff here to allow us to hire people quicker and not take so much time going through retraining people over and over again for these positions. And I also want to flag in all of this. I know Barbara sort of just mentioned we have two people who are a couple of people who are grant funded right now. And so while they're covered by the grant, it is something to think about what that would take to move them over to the city budget and start planning for that future so that those programs and what they run, especially in the maker space can continue going forward.

[Zac Bears]: Great, thank you, Grace. All right, seeing no further questions or comments on the library. Oh, David's coming up. All right. Welcome.

[David Chia]: Hello, my name is David Cha, 14 Holton Street, and I am the chair of the trustees. First, I want to thank all of your support. I know that we've been very happy in the past with your support, and we hope that it will continue. I want to put, you know, when you talk about thousands and tens of thousands and even millions of dollars, it's, Maybe you've got a million dollars in your pocket, but just to give you a better sense, and for the public, when you talk to the public about how much the budget allocation for the library is, 2.32 million. It's basically about $8 per household per month. And once you walk into the library, Everything is free, and I'll just give you a very specific example, it just happens, I'm also on the board of an a cappella choir, and we had a concert there on Sunday, Saturday night, we charge $25 per ticket in another setting. Sunday, it was free, because that's part of the package of going, having a program in the library. And so that was roughly 50 people who were not paying 20 to $25 ticket. So that's over $1,000 that Medford people did not have to spend to go to that concert. And that's just one example of, you know, the over 400 programs, all free. And so for that $8 per household, not per person, per household, per month, it is one of the great bargains, if not in Medford, then anywhere. Another issue I want to, Councilor Stark-Pelly was asking about how well we're keeping the place up. And as trustees, that's something that we're very concerned about. It's great to have a new shiny building. You cut the ribbon and then things slowly become worse. As trustees, we're really looking at making sure that it's maintained. In fact, one of the things we did early on is we went from five to six nights a week of having the people come and do the cleaning. We're looking right now, it's taken a while, looking at a technology plan. Computers, printers, technology gets old very quickly. The library is three plus years old, so the computers are three plus years old. We don't want everything to fall apart. So that's something that we're also looking at very seriously. Again, we appreciate your support. We hope to get the support. I won't repeat what Grace has talked about in terms of the salaries. Other than to say that the turnover, I mean, we just promoted someone to be the program manager who's just energetic and really a good fit. But even so, she's only part-time. And she's still got to work one, I think maybe even two other jobs to make her living. And we wouldn't want her to disappear because someone else is going to offer her a full-time job or a much higher paying job. So those are the consequences of being penny wise and pound foolish. So I want to thank you for this time. And again, thank you for your ongoing support. Thank you, David.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Any more questions or comments from the council, trustees, Director Kerr, or members of the public? Seeing none, I thank you all very much, and we'll keep fighting. We'll go now to Planning, Development, and Sustainability slash Boards and Commissions. We have our Director Alicia Hunt with us. And we have, we'll do PDS first then we can go through the commission budgets. But we're looking at fiscal 25 budgeted $819,207 fiscal 26 budgeted $917,163 for an increase of $97,956. No change in the number of positions on the services summary. The main increase is fixed cost growth, which is the staff planner salary coming off of ARPA. And three other employees shifted in percentages with funding. So they were added to the general fund and the COLA increases and step increases at $77,956. And then We have a new expense in professional technical expenses of 20,000 regarding continuation of the zoning work into fiscal 26. And an increase in legal fees since PDS is covering legal fees for the appeals to boards and for support for Medford Square. And I guess that's Medford Square RFP. Great. All right. And with that, I'll go to Director Hunt. We're going to ask you just if you want to talk about the specific budget change any more than that and the other details, talk about your accomplishments in fiscal 25, your goals for fiscal 26, and then what are some key needs and priorities that aren't funded this year that we would like to see funded in future years.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, Mr. President, thank you. Just to be clear, I am not as funny as Barbara Carr. It just is not possible. She is a hard act follow. Just like she didn't like following Francis, like Barb is a hard one to follow. So, but I love the library. I can't go into the local history room and not get sucked in. So to talk about this budget. I think that it's really useful to just sort of explain a little bit more the whole change the staff shifting stuff. We've made a lot of great hires in recent years in planning, and one of the hires that's notable is Laurel Siegel is managing our CDBG grant. And part of that is we are benefiting from the fact that Laurel was a practicing lawyer for 29 years before she became our CDBG manager. So one of the things she's helping us do is fully understand all the laws and regulations, especially in the shifting landscape of HUD. HUD does monitor the grant every three years, and so we can expect future monitors. We've had the most recent one was looking at how we spent our Community Development Block Grant coronavirus funding. And so it went fairly smoothly. But with that, one of the things Laurel has flagged is that we like to have our staff working on a lot of things, including we've had her helping us with additional work, and she has flagged that we should be very cautious about where we are paying staff full time in part time with CDBG funds that we are clearly documenting that everything they are doing is CDBG related. So one example on this is that we asked to move her salary 10% of it. So just a couple of hours a week to be not CDBG funded, so that over the course of the year, when we asked her to do things like help us with the Gaming Commission grant. that that is covered. We have some other source to say that's covering that. And so it's truly not a like, well, every week she's gonna do two hours that is not CDBG related, but rather over the course of her year, as there are things that are not truly CDBG, we have another source that we're funding that from. So the other two, we've been funding parts or all of multiple positions. So when I actually took over planning, The administrative assistant head clerk was 80% funded by CDBG. So that's one of the positions that we have been shifting over the years, because she certainly does not spend 80% of her time supporting the low and moderate income work. The housing planner is 100% CDBG and the economic development planner has been 100% CDBG. And as you will notice that several of our small business programs are for low and moderate income people and have income limitations. that is because the funding to support those programs are coming from CDBG. And so as over time, as we say, well, this program was wildly successful, but we'd like it to be accessible to more people, we would need to bring in outside funding that's not CDBG to expand it. That's one of the things we've heard about the pop-up. The pop-up is being funded so it's to help lift people out of poverty. And so that's low and moderate income business owners or people who would like to start a business, but they personally are lower moderate income can can do that program. So that's something the economic development planners running a hunt clearly that is CDBG, but when we ask her to work with other small businesses where the owners are not low and moderate income. that really we should be not spending CDBG money on that. So part of this is shifting some of her funding to the general fund, so that as she does her hours over the course of the year, she has a place to put hours that are not CDBG. So that is really the bulk of this, and it was the climate planner that was partially funded through ARPA. We actually have a national grid grant, sorry, Mass Clean Energy Center grant that is paying about half of her salary, and that grant was for three years. So we've had ARPA paying the other half of her salary last year, and she's moving to the general fund, because we need the work of the climate planner, she's doing amazing work for us. And she does all the building energy stuff like all the solar and stuff like that. In addition, she's not like literally just climate. So I think that's sort of like in a big picture way, what we're looking at. for this, and then there's some additional funding. One of the things I've been saying is when there are appeals to the planning board or to the zoning board, my office pays for the legal defenses of that. As we're doing the RFQ, we'll need some legal support. We will be asking the developer to cover a lot of our fees related to the RFQ, but we did want to make sure we had a little bit of cushion there for covering stuff. But in general, we do a lot of matching grants and a lot of little overruns. I know Amanda was here the other week to talk about Carr Park and having linkage for unexpected costs. But at Gillis Park, there was some signs that went on the outside of the park that weren't part of the grants. And we said, oh, jeez, we didn't factor those in. And so my budget picks up the signs. We pick up little things. that it's not worth going and asking somebody else for money. It's a couple of thousand dollars here or there. But these projects tend to have that. And we've been covering some stuff on the EV chargers as well. Now we've moved a lot of that to the revolving fund. So that's freeing up some of that money. So every year we kind of find there are different little things that we just sort of cover and take care of in order to keep everything moving smoothly. The zoning project, we've asked the zoning consultant to do a lot more meetings than we had planned. So we're covering like an extra not quite $10,000 from my budget from this plant professional services so that we didn't have to say, oh, wait a minute, we can't afford that. We're like, no, no, we need a little bit more outreach. We've got money for a little bit more outreach. So basically that's the, the big picture here. And you'll just notice that the full time total the bottom that reflects all the full time staff, all their salaries. CPA manager is on here as well. And CPA will be a separate budget that is in the city council budget separate from here, but she is part of my office. I manage the CPA work. I managed her. So her line item is showing here, but she's fully funded as well from the CPA. So that's why the full-time total is a lot more then the general fund is because of the number of staff that we are funding through CWG, CPA, Clean Energy Grant, and actually National Grid has a grant that we're funding a little tiny bit of the economic development planner with this year. So I'll let it go there. That was a lot. Great.

[Zac Bears]: Do we have any questions? Councilor Lazzaro.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I just want to say thank you for your presentation. Your department does quite a lot. I understand there's some squidgy stuff with the numbers and how they're funded, and that is really helpful context for us. I just appreciate that. And I appreciate you coming down. And thank you. Pretty much level funded. Absolutely. Thanks.

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for the presentation. I don't have a lot of specific questions. I feel like I talk to you constantly. So I feel like if I had questions, I'd probably ask them already. But just because I feel like in the day-to-day, maybe it doesn't get said often enough, I feel that the Department of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, I have constantly been in awe of just how much this department handles and bottom lines. It really is. My goal is not simply to butter up department heads in budget hearings I really do mean it, it is quite amazing to me how much your department handles and that is a testament to your incredible staff and the curation of that staff and a really high level of resourcefulness so thank you. Um, really from the bottom of my heart, it is very it's wonderful to get to see the impact that it has in our city. Um, of course, being closely involved with the zoning project, we've discussed the need for additional funding for in this associates really happy to see, um, that increase. And I think as everybody knows throughout this process, we've continued to iterate and tried to make space for more community forums, more Q and A's more outreach. And I'm really glad that we've been able to collaborate within us to find a mutually agreeable number so that we could add on to this process what the community needed to see. So thank you for helping shake that out as well. Appreciate it.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Great. Any further questions on the PDS core budget before we go into some of the commissions?

[Alicia Hunt]: I think there actually realized one thing that I should just add when CDBG grant was in front of you the numbers were still tentative and I'll just let you know that. very recently in the last couple days, we were notified officially about our CDBG allocation, and it is up a teeny tiny bit from last year, so it's not down. And so we were stunned, but it means that we can afford everything that was put in front of you. And we are not concerned about that for this coming year. It's a formula, we don't apply for it. It's probably because we have a higher percentage of low-income people in the city of Medford, and not because of anything that we did. I just wanted to let you know that that is actually finalized.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right, we'll go to boards of commissions next to Bicycle Commission, no change. 1500, 1000 for public safety supplies, 1000 for travel conferences and training. Any further comments or questions by members of the Council on the Bicycle Commission? Seeing none, we will go next to, one second here, Zoning Board of Appeals, 12,500 in fiscal 25, 12,500 fiscal 26, no change. Any discussion or questions on the Zoning Board of Appeals? Maybe we could use this opportunity to talk about the difference between the Zoning Board and the Community Development Board a little bit. So the Zoning Board considers appeals of building department decisions.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So if a building is not in compliance with zoning, the building commissioner says you're not allowed to do this, and he denies it. We've been working with the technicalities of it, but basically then the applicant can, if they choose to, go to the Zoning Board of Appeals and ask for an appeal, and they can get that if they meet certain legal tests. So it's not at their discretion, it's not because they love the project. It has to do with shape, topography, and soil conditions, whether they can get a zoning appeal, a variance, and then they do that. The zoning board does hear some special permits. And so often that would be by use or in some complicated things around non-conforming properties. So for the most part, what they do as they make legal decisions about whether this meets legal tests, we usually encourage all applicants to the zoning board to consider hiring a lawyer and if they are more than a small single family, if they're a single family home, our staff helps them through the process. If they're more than that, then they should have a lawyer because they're making a legal argument for what they want there. So that's a zoning board. I will say that when we have had a comprehensive permits known as 40 B's. They also hear those and under our zoning, they also hear any cannabis locations. And so we actually are eligible for three cannabis locations and one is open. One has been through the ZBA process and has been permitted and is under construction. And the third tells us that they are actually preparing documents to come file in front of the ZBA. And when they do that, it's not just a legal test, but it's a more broad examination, sort of like site plan review, like how does this fit with the community? What are you planning at this location? They look at more details than just the legal test, if this is allowed. So we are expecting that this year.

[Zac Bears]: Where's the under construction?

[Alicia Hunt]: The one under construction is at the VFW. So that's the zoning board. Would you like me to then just speak to the community development board so we can look at what's next?

[Zac Bears]: Community development board, fiscal 25 budget, 8,900, fiscal 26 proposed, 9,800. Looks like an increase in the stipends. I don't know if you want to speak to it.

[Alicia Hunt]: It is not an increase in the stipends. It is an increase in the number of positions on there. So, because we added some... brain just dropped the word associate associate alternates in this case they're alternates. And so on the Community Development Board, an alternate if a member is not there an alternate can vote in their place. And if they've been following if they've been at the previous even if it's a public hearing and they've been at the previous meetings and somebody's absent they can then step in and become a voting member. So we now have two alternate positions on there and actually we kind of had a cushion going on for a little while. We've actually added those a little earlier but the finances didn't line up which was fine because we had a chair who worked for the state and she was declining her stipend because she felt it was a conflict of interest. She couldn't take a payment from us and from the state. at the same time. So now she's no longer on the board, we are working to fill her position, and then we would, with a full board, will actually need the full amount of funding. So the Community Development Board is what is often referred to as your planning board. So they have a say in zoning, so they are also reviewing all the zoning and making recommendations too, as you're well aware. And then the other thing they spend a lot of time doing is site plan review. So they look at the outside of projects, larger projects. They look at the look and feel of it, the plantings, the pedestrian access, the traffic access. They're the ones who ask, you know, we would really like you to do stuff for the crosswalk at this location and we'd like you to put in a pocket park. One of the big things that we're very happy about is if you look at Wegmans and there is a new little bank in the corner of one of the parking lots and next to that is a lovely little park pocket park with a walkway and bushes and trees and benches and you we've I've seen people sitting there the CD board basically said you're putting a bank in the middle of a parking lot you don't need that much parking we'd like you to put in a pocket park. And they basically said, okay, and they put in the pocket park because we asked. So that is the board that kind of asks for these things. They have some leeway in what they're allowed to ask, like how far it has to have nexus, it has to be like right there. They could not have asked them to redo the park up in North Medford. They could ask them to put in a pocket park adjacent to their building. So that's what they do a lot of. Most developers who have anything to say about the process of going through site plan review have said, wow, they actually made this a better project. I didn't realize that people would want a path through there or want to access it from this direction and you pushed me to put more bike parking in and we needed it and stuff like that. So that's the kinds of stuff, like at BJ's now, where there's the gas station as part of that site plan review, they requested a sidewalk all the way from Mystic Ave to the building. So you can now actually walk on a sidewalk down the side of their property the entire way. And you couldn't do that before. There was no sidewalk at all from Mystic Ave to that building. In fact, there were no sidewalks in that parking lot at all. So that's the kinds of things the CD board does, I will tell you that they have now been meeting twice a month, pretty reliably, because there has been so much in front of them. They also hear all Dover cases. So if there's an as of right something coming out of tops. or because it's educational in some manner, like we saw with 21 St. Clair, they are the board that would hear that as well and review sort of how this fits into the community and what are reasonable things to ask of that as well. So yeah, so they do a lot, but they do a lot more the feeling of this? Does this look right? What does the community need to make this a better project for the community? And they have the ability to ask for making this a better project where the zoning board has very legal parameters that they work in. So by the way, there's an opening on the CD board right now. If you know good people, we are taking applications again, both for a, I keep saying an associate, an alternate position and a full-time position. And we are working, we actually by law on our CD board have a governor appointed position, and we are working on trying to figure out how to get that position appointed. We usually recommend somebody, but we need somebody at the state to bless that position. So anyhow, but we need an applicant to fill it. The last person I recommended to fill that position, she decided she couldn't fill it because of changes at the federal government and her life was too busy. Only good news, we hired her. She's staff in the city of Medford now. So she was an excellent applicant, but now we need another person to fill that position. She's our new housing planner. Great.

[Zac Bears]: All right, next we have our Conservation Commission, fiscal 25 budget 7500, fiscal 26 budget 7500, no change.

[Alicia Hunt]: They do Wetlands Protection Act. So they also issue permits on behalf of the city of Medford, anything close to water, wetland, river, that's what they do.

[Zac Bears]: Right. Historic District Commission 5000 fiscal 25 5000 fiscal 26. Any questions? Councilor Callahan?

[Anna Callahan]: unclassified, which is almost tap.

[Zac Bears]: That's historical commission. We'll get there next.

[Anna Callahan]: Oh, I'm so sorry.

[Zac Bears]: Did I skip historical?

[Alicia Hunt]: No.

[Zac Bears]: I did. No, I did, I did skip this one, sorry. Historical commission or historic commission, 55, sorry, 35,000 fiscal 25, 35,000 fiscal 26, Councilor Kiley.

[Alicia Hunt]: That was unclassified. That's what you were saying, which I didn't see on this board and we do on that one. Really, it's more professional services, and I am unclear of why historically, one is, they have it broken into two places but for that we hire professionals who do. I can't remember the exact form numbers, but they get forms for properties to determine if they're historic or not or what the history of these things are. And they also so they also one of them they use for that and the other actually they've been going out and getting grants to do historic assessments of the community and typically the grant is requires a match, and I can't remember if it's the 15,000 or the 20,000, that is the match for the grant that they get, but they tend to get the same grant every year and then they do studies of different parts of the city to increase our historical knowledge. And everybody's, I think this board is clear the difference in the Historic Commission and the Historic District Commission. We have historic districts. Historic districts are a way of protecting properties in the look and feel of the community. The Historic Commission speaks to older. So if you wanna do anything to a property in the Historic District Commission, you need permission. In the Historic District, you need permission from the HDC. If you have a building that is over 75 years old, and you want to tear it down or make significant change so you can change a lot about it, but if you want to like really change it, then you have to go to the historic commission for permission, they cannot actually tell you no. They can tell you there's an 18 month delay, and they can then negotiate. If a developer says but what if I do it like this or what if I document this so a great example was the herb chambers the building next to it that got torn down. basically the Historic Commission said, we really want you to document that old building, but we see why it doesn't make sense to keep it. So they said, great, we'll document it. And the Historic Commission said, great, you did that really fast. Your 18 month is lifted, that only took you one month, go ahead, great, do your construction. So that's typically, and they'll work with developers as well, to sort of say, could you change it a little bit and make it look a little more historical, and then we won't delay you. So that's them.

[Zac Bears]: Great. And then historic district commission also no change. I think you've described both of them. No, it was at the end, I skipped over historic.

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, historic commission is no change, right? Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Do you have any questions on historic commission or historic district commission?

[Alicia Hunt]: And I'm just gonna plug my staff. We support like five or six other boards that don't have budgets. So they're not in front of you tonight.

[Zac Bears]: And what are those?

[Alicia Hunt]: Off the top of my head, the Energy and Environment Committee, the Climate Equity Commission, the Community Garden Commission. Those are the ones that get in front of me a lot, but I know there's more than that. Oh, Bicycle does have a note. That's one I often, because we don't staff them. Oh, the Affordable Housing Trust. The CPA is a separate budget in front of you. It's like, OK, now I'm up to five. I forgot. Affordable Housing Trust, the Climate Equity Commission. Yes. And then the Community Garden Commission, they have revolving funds. So they actually collect money in from their gardeners. And so we actually manage their finances, but the finances are not allocated through this body. It's just they collect fees for using the plots. And then when they want to spend on like compost for the whole garden at once or upgrading their shed or they need more shared tools, they go to Home Depot and we pay out of the revolving fund that's set up for them.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Great. Well, thank you, Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening.

[Zac Bears]: And we're on to the last. We have Chief Steph Mazarian to talk about the License Commission. We have a fiscal year 25 budget 5800, fiscal 26 proposed 5800, no change. Madam Chief of Staff, if you want to just tell us a little bit about what the License Commission does and what it's been doing and its goals for the future.

[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, Mr. President. Um, so the for the members of the public, the License Commission is the liquor license body for the city of Medford. And so the any liquor license any party that's interested in, um, holding a licorice license or presently holds a liquor license and needs a liquor license renewal. would need to appear before the Liquor License Commission. I'm not intimately familiar with their procedures, but I understand they are looking at some new potential changes to policy and acceptance of statutes that is presently being reviewed and maybe before the council at a future time. It has something to do with extending hours of the ability to serve liquor. That's all.

[Zac Bears]: Great and about a council is our.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I just thank you for presenting and for staying to the end to talk for like one second. I also thought this would be an appropriate time to mention that I had a quick conversation with our academic development director last week about something I happened to read on the reddit post and wanted to correct a misconception. Somebody had said Medford only has a certain number of liquor licenses for bars and restaurants. and they've hit their cap. So like they can't do that anymore. And Sal helped me, verified for me, which I thought was true that that's not accurate. We don't have a cap on liquor licenses for bars and restaurants. That's not the case in Medford. However, he said, what we do have is a cap on package store licenses. So they have what amounts to a sanctioned market for like selling liquor licenses for liquor stores and grocery stores that I think is kind of a bummer, but it's not a hill I'm going to die on right now. But like Wegmans, when they opened and they wanted to sell alcohol, bought a liquor license for like $300,000, which is super weird. And that is something that we all know now. But that's not the case for restaurants and bars. Places come, they present to the license commission, they acquire a liquor license, that's allowed. Anybody can try to do that, open a bar and restaurant in Medford, we're available for them to do that. It's not capped.

[Nina Nazarian]: It's a very interesting phenomenon that happens in a lot of cities and towns that you just mentioned, Councilor, yes.

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Is there, and this is actually to my fellow Councilor, is there a, I was just actually looking up this exact same question. It looks like the special act that passed in 2012 said that they have to have a 50 seat minimum for restaurant liquor licenses. Did you talk to Sal about that at all?

[Emily Lazzaro]: I didn't specifically, I'm sure he would know, but I didn't mention that specifically. He didn't seem to be, he didn't seem to think that there was any kind of restriction actually. So, I mean, I would ask him that.

[Zac Bears]: And this might be a question for Alicia as much as it is a question for you, Nina. In terms of bars, is that, do we allow that? Did we change the zoning to allow that? Or does Mrs. Murphy's technically serve food?

[Alicia Hunt]: OK. Right, a conversation we recently had. So I think what you're getting at is, do bars have to serve food? And so we have been having a conversation with the Liquor Commission to get some clarity around this, because there is some feeling that that is a Medford rule. And there are some that that is a statewide rule. And we've been trying to find something on the state website that says bars must serve food, or that they don't have to. And all I've been able to find our news articles saying that like Massachusetts repealed a law about serving food in bars. During the pandemic. And we're really actually trying to get some clarity around that right now. They that Mrs. Murphy's is a restaurant. At this time, they have been requiring all Medford establishments that serve alcohol to serve food, and we're trying to just get some clarity around whether that's a local decision or not. It has been the policy in Medford for as long as anybody can remember. Perhaps that helps.

[Unidentified]: Great. What?

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, the brewery does not count because they are a brewery and they are covered under different laws than any other bar or restaurant bar because they're a brewery.

[Zac Bears]: And they're covered under special zoning definition here, too.

[Alicia Hunt]: They have a special zoning definition here. They're different. It's completely different than a bar, legally, if not in effect.

[Zac Bears]: Great. And just want to send thanks back. I know we're working. with the clerk's office and planning and Daria and the licensing commission on this whole question of getting into a good, better place on aligning our common mixtures licenses and the liquor license and the ABCC piece and everything else, and Councilor Lazzaro, thank you too. So thanks for that. Do we have any questions, further questions about the Liquor License Commission for the Chief of Staff? Seeing none, do we have any comments from members of the public? Seeing no one in the chamber, no hands on Zoom, do we have a motion? Motion to keep the paper in committee and adjourn by Vice President Collins, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes, meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Zac Bears total time: 20.36 minutes total words: 2916	Emily Lazzaro total time: 4.93 minutes total words: 761	George Scarpelli total time: 5.39 minutes total words: 876	Anna Callahan total time: 0.6 minutes total words: 122
Justin Tseng total time: 2.06 minutes total words: 333	Kit Collins total time: 4.08 minutes total words: 761