[Nicole Morell]: All right, the meeting will resume whenever, Madam Mayor, whenever you're ready. I don't think we have. We will reconvene as soon as the administration is ready. We did, I was embarrassed on them to get some food. So one beat, we're reconvening. Please continue or if there's something you want to start over.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: My apologies. Yeah. Okay, I'm sorry that the audio wasn't working. So good evening, President Morell and city councilors. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight about the fiscal year 24 budget. I want to first thank everyone who contributed to completing this budget and delivering it to your honorable body at the earliest date since I've been in office that I can recall, either as mayor or city councilor. Compiling this comprehensive breakdown of the city's financial outlook to countless hours of preparation, debate and insight from our department heads and clerical supports in our budget team, led by our finance director Bob Dickinson budget director Courtney Cordello and my team in the mayor's office, led by Chief of Staff Nina Nazarian. So as our communications team, director Steve Smearty and specialist Emma Tumblee for their work with our department heads on the narratives, goals and highlights, their expertise and guidance, all of their expertise and guidance have been an invaluable asset, not just to me, but the community. Before we dive into the nuts and bolts of this budget, I wanted to let you know that I share in your concerns regarding the future uncertainty that the city faces. a looming fiscal cliff, the exhaustion of our ARPA funding, and the rising cost of goods and services. But despite those obstacles and the challenges they present, both in the fiscal year 24 numbers and beyond, I know that all of us here tonight are doing what we believe is best for Medford, and my team and I will be here every step of the way to work with you as we advance. As we have all felt over the last few years, things have been extraordinarily challenging, fiscally and operationally. The entire world faced rising costs, stalled construction and several revenue loss due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, the worst is behind us. And while we are not free from the constraints that the pandemic has caused, we have been able to boost new growth and make significant investments in several critical areas that build on our promise for a better Medford. Due to smart financial choices and the efforts of everyone working together in City Hall, we have weathered what I believe to be the worst of the storm and set the city on a course for better financial flexibility. This was not easy work and it required many hard decisions and plenty of understanding. However, I believe they're in the best financial position since I've been mayor and that as a direct result of the decisions we've made with the council's important support in the prior three budgets. In fiscal year 24, we will not rely on the use of one-time ARPA funds to plug revenue gaps. But please understand that we are still using ESSER funding for our schools, which is set to expire on September 30th, 2024, and ARPA money for funding positions on the city side. The cost breakdown for positions for school and city equals approximately $2 million. We are hiring highly qualified candidates at a relentless pace despite a nationwide staffing shortage. We are making every effort to fill roles so City Hall can run smoothly in anticipation of increased service offerings. I hope it's evident from the book you have in front of you that the approach we took in fiscal year 24 budget is the most sustainable option for the future of Medford. and that you can glean reasoning from the decisions that were made, the challenges that may arise and the consequences of overextending our taxpayers. The work we are doing now for residents will be able to continue and grow as we present this comprehensive budget for the brightest future for our city. I'd like to share with everyone tonight a few brief highlights of the work we are prioritizing in fiscal year 24 with this budget proposal. We are continuing with the park upgrades we have done over the last several years, and we are beginning construction on $5 million worth of upgrades and renovations to several parks this spring and summer to enhance our amazing network of green space. Projects like rebuilding the baseball fields and loop path at Carr Park, renovating the Morrison Park playground, redesigning and expanding accessibility at Gillis Park, completed the Tufts pool renovation and a construction of the basketball and tennis courts at Hickey Park are some of the projects prioritized for this round of improvements. After releasing an RFQ for an architectural firm in fiscal year 23, the city selected the Gallant Architecture Studio Inc. TGAS to design and envision a new fire department headquarters. The firm will assist the city in preparing construction bid documents to be released later this fiscal year. In addition, there has been $3.5 million put towards fire department projects complete or near completion, as well as over an additional 20 million that has been incorporated into the city's capital improvement plan to be put into the reimagined headquarters. Two new fire pump trucks have recently been ordered to upgrade the fleet we currently have. We are closely examining additional fleet needs over the next couple months. Other projects at various substations include roof replacement and two other major projects which are underway or going to be underway to include replacement of the apparatus bay floor and replacement renovation of the windows at every substation and more. To further beautify and create green space, we are also working on implementing healthy, sustainable tree life throughout the city. We've secured state funding, CDBG and ARPA funding to remove approximately half of our tree stumps by the end of the season. We are also investing funding to plant over 200 trees in fiscal year 24, building upon the 180 we planted last year. These tree species are chosen and planted intentionally around the city where they can eventually thrive and grow into healthy, mature trees. Following the comprehensive pavement assessment that I commissioned upon taking office, 94 streets have been identified as prime candidates for crack sailing. Since the initial identification, over 30 streets were completed in the fall and roughly 64 more are scheduled for completion early this summer. While some streets require full milling and repaving work, a fair number of roads in the city are prime candidates for patchwork improvements per our assessment. I have tasked the city engineer and Commissioner of Public Works to get this work done in-house and with the help of outside contractors. We have committed both Chapter 90 funding and additional ARPA funding to tackle our roadways with this measure. Thanks to the council approval of a bond, we are investing an additional 1.5 million to repair our sidewalks and pedestrian pathways, which also includes buying equipment to allow some of this work to be done in-house by our Department of Public Works professionals. work to fully repave other streets throughout the city like Winthrop Street also continued this year. And with one of the biggest projects was, and one of the biggest projects was the initial repaving of Freedom Way. Thank you for accepting it as a public way. The high traffic road that serves as an access point to multiple schools and recreation facilities was a private way. The city is planning for a complete road rebuild in two years. Now it has become public. We're implementing key recommendations from planning efforts made by our partner, the MAPC or the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Medford Square to attract and incentivize new development on city-owned parking lots in the square while reserving parking for our seniors. Up to three lots will be redeveloped based on community input and needs, and we hope to release our RFP for this project in fiscal year 24. To fully activate this vital commercial corridor, we are building upon previous planning and development efforts in Medford Square to reimagine the untapped riverfront open space, landscape architect firm Copley Wolf was engaged by the city to generate new design concepts for Clippership Park and DCR owned Riverfront property in Medford Square. The firm built on plans to develop initial ideas for transformation of the waterfront area into a space that the Medford community can enjoy along with initial input from city staff. We are also sitting on a truly transformative and generational opportunity with 28 acres of air rights above Wellington MBTA station. For decades, the city-owned area went undeveloped, and we are taking the steps to activate that area and transform it into a mixed-use, transit-oriented residential and commercial destination. A request for information was released in the fall of 2022, and we are now working on an RFP to hire a consultant to help us draft an RFP for the site. To better serve Medford residents, the city launched a new comprehensive website platform in January, 2023 after a year of hard work. Having built out the new site over the course of months on the final site CMS engine, the city has completely overhauled the old medfordma.org website into a new fully functional responsive and dynamic user experience with enhanced clarity and ease of accessing important information for residents. This custom site was built with input from every department board and commission. The site furthers the city's communication and accessibility goals to ensure that every resident and neighbor can find resources in an equitable way and have the ability to translate all pages into our five environmental justice languages, Spanish, French, Brazilian, Portuguese, Arabic and Haitian Creole. All of the city's core service deliverables are crafted and implemented through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion. The city has expanded DEI training for all staff, city and police, including implicit bias and cultural competency training. And newly trained diverse student resource officers have also been instituted at Medford High School to better serve the diverse student and staff population. Medford's work with the municipal vulnerability preparedness continues as the city was granted over 400,000 from the state in December to expand climate resiliency efforts. with this funding, the city is enhancing its climate resiliency and emergency preparedness efforts through Medford Connects. Medford Connects, headed by the Office of Prevention Outreach, will seek to expand and strengthen resources for community members who are most marginalized to build the community's ability to withstand and recover from climate crisis in the future. We've invested in our schools, adding new curriculum for math, literacy, and health, and are actively engaging the students to help create and foster a better culture that supports education, community. It's a community that is inclusive, inclusive, promotes unity and uniqueness and makes everyone feel recognized. Partnering with the Medford Arts Council to create install this first city's first ever poet laureate tasked with increasing access to senior citizens, youth and non English speakers across various platforms. The search is currently underway for the next poet laureate to start on July 1st. We also have our by a wonderful artist, Jamie Chan. We've started to switch our fleet of vehicles to hybrid in many departments, like police, Department of Public Works, and parking, with much more to do. Because of the many tough but necessary decisions we have made throughout the previous three budgets, we've been able to nearly double our free cash reserves. We need to take a portion of that money and create the city's first stabilization fund to protect our assets and our people from unforeseen crises. Remember, though, please, these funds are one-time funds and should not attempt to rely upon for increasing the city's budget base. As I'm sure you know, this is just a brief overview of all the work we've been doing this past year and the investments we've made that will help build on the vision we share for our city's future. We've accomplished so much. We have faced up against a once-in-a-lifetime global threat, protected our community, our economic vibrancy, and our development goals. We have worked in tandem on a variety of critical issues, be it zoning reform, housing production plan, or the capital improvement plan. I want to thank the city council for being a partner in all this work. You all worked extremely hard over the last year to move forward many things including zoning reform. Thank you for approving the housing production plan and improving my request for an affordable housing trust. to those also to those councils, Councilors taking part in many committees and task forces such as the comp plan, the solid waste task force, the Green Line Extension Working Group, and the Community Fund Committee, a special thank you to you. My team and I look forward to working with you throughout the next to four weeks to approve a budget that works for all. I respectfully ask that we all remain professional and guided by our service to the community during this process. Most importantly, we treat each other with respect. You all deserve that and the team that works day in and day out at City Hall has earned that. So as you deliberate and discuss, please remember that because our community is watching. Let's show our community what professionalism looks like because it starts with us. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll go to Vice President Ferris and then Councilor Knight.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam Mayor, for being here. If you'll indulge me just a short minute, I have a short presentation. Took all weekend looking at your budget, Saturday and Monday, full days. Appreciate the proposal, and I think there's some good positives, but I also, I think as you noted in your speech, I have some questions and I have some concerns. Essentially, I think what the budget needs is funding additional urgent priorities now and also creating a long term budget plan. So you noted some of the positives. There's no longer a structural deficit and operating expenditures we're not using our money one time funds to pay for operating expenditures. There are still grant funded positions outside of the budget but you know while the Esther funding is expiring grant funded positions in Medford have kind of become the norm. If we if we think about all of the different grants that fund so many positions in planning office and health department and other places. So you know we have been doing that in the past. I also really appreciated the increase in revenue above the expectations that have been outlined in previous years I think that's a good sign. But my concerns in the short term are that we heard from the school committee, a number about $900,000 higher than the number included in the budget book that we received I know that's not final yet I know that's coming from the school committee next week, but it seems to me that that is a. area that we really need to fund today that the school committee and school system has made a priority. We also saw requests from the library trustees for their budget, and that's about $100,000 lower than what they requested. And, you know, the ordinary expenses budget, the non-staff budget for the library is actually still lower than it was in fiscal 2018 and is, according to the trustees report that I was reading, is based on the temporary space on Boston Ave and not our new space. So they've raised some pretty major concerns there. Something I think we all have talked about in previous budgets is the $50,000 that was appropriated last year and we're hoping will be appropriated this year so we can engage in phase two of zoning. And then for me, you know, Councilor Collins and I and Councilor Knight in the subcommittee on ordinances and rules have been working really diligently with your finance department on a budget ordinance. And something that's come up last year and this year is that there is a need for more staff support in that office to do more planning. I appreciate that Courtney is now the assistant finance director and the budget manager and that that title is being prioritized but I think for me, and from what I've heard from the finance office, having more staff there so that we can make that plan for big big challenges is important. Um, and then that really is my biggest thing. I know I'm a broken record in this room. I talk about it all all the time. We have huge things that we need to fund. You mentioned some of them. You mentioned fire headquarters, but the street and sidewalk management plan that came out, you know, that's 10 million more a year than we're spending now is what has been suggested. New Medford High School. And, you know, we've had a lot of conversations about the need for more staffing in a lot of departments, which you mentioned. and how to pay for fair staff compensation as well. So that's I know that is not been historically what our city budgets have had in them. And I understand that the past four years have had more and more information. There's more charts in this one than last year that I was really able to dive into and find some great information on. But that big picture of where are we going? How are we funding these major needs that we all hear about every single day? from basically every resident, whether they agree with one of us or disagree with one of us. That's really my focus and what I would like to see prioritized both this year and going forward. Um, you know, this is a short chart based on last year, you know, last year we had the structural deficit and you can see that this year we don't and I think that's fantastic. That's really good progress. I know that that's better than expectations because I remember last year we were saying we're going to be using ARPA next year for revenue replacement and we aren't. Um, here's the spending you proposed, and you can barely see it, but that's the tiny, tiny sliver that we'd like to see added on to this budget. At least I would like to see added on to this budget. That $900,000 for the schools, $100,000 for the library, $50,000 for zoning, and $100,000 or whatever number you come up with that's reasonable for additional staffing in the finance department to help with long-term planning. And the reason I show that is because here's the big chart. I have done a little bit of estimating here. This big red is what you proposed again you can barely see that tiny sliver of what I'm asking for additionally this year. But I did some estimates. A, fixing streets and sidewalks. I just pulled that right out of the road and sidewalk plan. That's a $10 million more than we're currently spending on road repair. A new MHS and fire headquarters. I know that you have some plans in the capital improvement plan to fund the fire headquarters with bonding. This would be if we were to maybe combine a new high school and fire headquarters through a debt exclusion. I looked at recent bond issues, some similar projects. I said 12 million, it could be a little less than that. But you know, that's basically what the annual cost might be. And you can adjust the financial planning on a debt exclusion, obviously, to ramp up to a certain level and then come back down. But that could well be the range of what a new Medford High School and a new fire headquarters would cost in a debt exclusion.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: What do you have? 212 million?
[Zac Bears]: I can't see it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm sorry.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, that would be 211. And up from 179 now I'm not asking for that this year. But the reason that I'm putting this out here this $31 million number is that's my best estimate of what we actually need going forward. And that's why I think putting that investment in the budget planning to say how are we going to get here right it's 9 million for more staffing and more compensation. 12 million for a new Medford High School and fire headquarters, 10 million for sidewalks. We don't have to do everything at once, but how are we gonna raise that money over the next five or 10 years? What is our plan? Do we have the staff that can get better figures than what I can pull together in a few days so that we know what do we need to spend? How are we raising the money? And then we can start actually telling residents, there's a plan to fix the streets. We know how we're gonna fund a new high school and a new fire headquarters. We know how we're gonna get the staff in this building that we need. So that's really the core of why I'm what I'm coming at. I think when I hear from so many residents that they're just fed up with the streets that they don't feel safe to cross the street, or drive their car or sidewalks they don't feel safe to walk down, or underfunded schools that don't have every the resources that are there for our kids, and especially I think fed up with. the feeling that the city doesn't have the staffing and the funding to make the plan for how we're going to fix those problems. You know, that's the frustration I hear most. It's not people wanting everything tomorrow. It's people wanting to know how and when we're going to get where we need to go. So, for me, you know, I've been working again in partnership with the finance department with my fellow Councilors on a couple of things that I've kind of now merged together to talk, talk about tonight. It's what I'm calling a Medford better future budget plan. It's a plan that would set clear goals to determine our spending needs and make a revenue plan and define those clear benchmarks so we know how we're, how much progress we're making. the city Council. Engaging in real collaboration by making the City Council a full partner in government, building that trust with residents hearing from city staff earlier in the budget process than we do today. And making the process more open and transparent by establishing clear timelines and starting the budget process earlier and making the request that departments make every year available to the to the public. I appreciate that we're starting this on May 30th. I think that's great. I'd like to start in January and February with you guys when you start talking about the budget so that we can have that process be open and we can work through it together. to give the council the ability to have our own research and legal support and also to confirm appointments to city boards and commissions. And it would also these amendments set some deadlines I would say the mayor will submit the budget by May 15 the council will act by June 15. If we don't act your budget goes into effect. We will never end up in that 45 day situation that we talked about last year. And the second piece is this budget ordinance that we've been working on with our subcommittee on ordinances rules with with Director Dickinson. We've had a great couple of meetings. I think we have clear agreement on the goals. I think Director Dickinson said this is how I'd like to do a budget. And I'm putting words in your mouth that you can correct me at any time, Bob, but that's that's I think it's in a report somewhere. And it would also require us to do these assessments of actually saying so what what is our capital need what is our operating need. How many staff do we need. What does it cost to bring everything to a state of good repair, then we have those goals and those benchmarks to get where we need to go. So, I'll close my presentation I hope it was shorter than previous ones that I've made to the council in the public before. I really think this is a way that we can come together, collaborate, involve the public, and create an open and transparent process to make a plan to fund the big challenges and big goals that we have as a community. And I really appreciate you taking the time to hear me out. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice President Bears. Madam Mayor? Sure.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That's a lot to unpack, but I'll do my best to just make some comments because I think think we have shared goals. We want our streets looking better than they do. We want to fund our schools and our library, of course. We also want to make sure I think my number one goal is if we are especially for successful this fall in our second attempt good attempt to get an MSBA loan for a new reimagined state-of-the-art high school. We are going to be asking our taxpayers, we're close, but I just say 200 million because it costs 350 million to do the Attleboro High School, which I've toured. And that was completed within the last 12 months. So with inflation, I'm estimating close to $200 million ask. from our taxpayers. I'm completely open with discussing whether or not it'd be a bond or a debt exclusion for the fire headquarters. I think that's just a matter of how much you want to add to the city's debt within the budget versus how much you want to ask taxpayers for additional funding. Because in the back of my head, I do have the concern that what happened in Newton just in March could happen to Medford. And I believe there is an appetite for new high school. I know there's potentially an appetite for new fire headquarters, but what is that additional ask that our taxpayers would be willing to fund in addition to their regular tax bill? So that's been on my mind a great deal. We went back and forth even in August with your request for a $12 million override. I wrote back and said that I would if you put it because I think there was three days, three days left to go before it needed to go on the ballot with not enough community awareness in my opinion, but I did agree to that 3 million because if you see this current budget here, that's what we're using an outside funding between with us or with us or funding and the positions on the city side. So it's about that $3 million. data point, which is kind of what I was focusing on. I know nothing was voted on, but I think we do have some time. We have an election in November, we have an election in March, and then we have another election in November. So I'm not gonna say what Kit said to me over the phone, but I'm gonna just say what I said to you, that I think when it comes to an override and when it affects every single taxpayer, when it affects every single person that pays a mortgage or their rent, or that needs to buy food for their family, even though there is an appetite with some, including myself, circle yes box. I think that we take the politics out of that and and have a meeting to really discuss how do we in this fall figure out what our taxpayers would and can afford. And we do that with whether it be by surveys, but we do it together school committee, city council and Maya and my office to really figure out how we best move forward, because I can't go ask the taxpayers for three, six, nine, or 12 in November or March, and then have to ask them, and then jeopardize a $200 million request for a debt exclusion the November after that. We need to think strategically, we need to work together, because we're gonna need to campaign together. And it's a topic that everybody wants to talk to about one side or the other, but the public needs to be informed, they need to give us their opinions, and they need to let us know what they'd be willing to fund, whether that's all of the above plus sidewalks and streets, and it's another 10 million a year, we need to know what our residents want. And I think whether it be a survey, public meetings, I think survey is probably the best way to go, and I'm willing to do that with you. Because I said before, I would have supported it with three days notice for 3 million to be able to, for the general fund, to not be in the situation we're in. Although I do think that now that we have ARPA and ESSER, the best time to plan for that is now fiscal year. calendar year 2024. But I definitely want to work with you and get that done because I we've been working so hard. Our engineer and our Department of Public Works Commissioner have worked tirelessly assess and also our other engineers on that street and sidewalk assessment. We've this year if we do we have a million we bonded for last year, a million and a half this year on sidewalks alone. We're going to do have record spending on sidewalks. And we also did here. from the council that you wanted a lot of this done in house. So we made sure that that $1.5 million bond that you approved last time also is going to go towards equipment because we have fully capable Department of Public Works professionals that are willing and wanting to do some of that work. So we're getting there, we're listening to the council, we're trying to make adjustments We're doing the patchwork, like I mentioned, we're doing the crack sailing. So we're doing a lot of work, but yeah, catching up on the 170 million in backlog from the decades of neglect has been, it's been a work in progress, but yeah, we do need to get there, I agree.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, no, and I really appreciate. I really appreciate this discussion. I think, you know, if you notice in here I didn't say let's do an override in my presentation, because I think what you were talking about having that public process to figure out what sustainable what's our plan how are we going to get there. That's what this proposal is that's what these charter questions are that's what this ordinances. It's taking that step back and saying, I'm happy to have a survey and some meetings. This is a process every year where we do that every year. where we go to the public we have clear goals we have clear benchmarks, we can say, we can say we have to prioritize right like, and that's that was the hard part you know, last year when we were talking about the override. We based it on the first budget ARPA number and then the second budget ARPA number came out and you came out with the 3 million. And, you know, the urgency was really there, but the foundation and the grounding wasn't there because we hadn't had the discussions we hadn't had the process so that's why right here. My thoughts are and I, you know, the council's been working I think really hard on this with, you know, not just the finance department on the ordinance but we've had worked with legal staff on these charter amendments to accept the changes that they proposed get them exactly right. This would create a process for us to have the discussion and planning that you just mentioned, and that's really my goal at this point. You know, if we say that it's the Zack and kid and or plan for the override then half people are going to be mad and if we say it's the other side than half the people are going to be mad and that's not a way to come together and really say, This is the number from the mayor worked through with the council work through different priorities. We know this is what we need now. We know this is what we're doing over the next five years. We know this is what we're going to fund with a debt exclusion this is what we're going to fund with existing bonding. This is what we're going to try to bring in with new growth to fund. Those are the questions that I want to answer. And I think the public wants answered and I think the public is willing both to say yes to some pieces of it. and also wait on other pieces of it as long as they know it's coming down the road. So I really hope you'll consider this as a process, the process that we can implement to actually have those conversations and come up with a plan that we can all work together to advance. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you both.
[Adam Knight]: Councilor Knight, Madam President, thank you very much, Madam Mayor. Thank you for being here. Last year, we sat here at one o'clock in the morning on the last day of June, your budget was not going to pass. And you got to deal with us. You got to deal with this council to provide the council with certain tools to do the job. I'm extremely disappointed that you have not lived up to the promises that you made this council.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: What promises?
[Adam Knight]: I believe in June of 22, you promised that we would have an assistant city solicitor for the Medford City Council. You said that this position was going to be posted in September and hopefully filled by November. The position was not even posted until February of 23. This was a priority for the council. And I find it very difficult to find truth in the statements that come forward when you say one thing and do another. I'm very glad to hear that you respect the DPW because the reflection that I get from the members is a little bit different and hopefully the future collective bargaining agreement will reflect the words that you just mentioned this evening. But ultimately, this council has been hamstrung for the past 12 months without effective legal counsel. It's something that we've asked for, it's something that you agreed to, and it's something that you haven't provided us. So I find it very difficult going into these budget debates to take anything that you say seriously, or anything that you say with a grain of salt to be truthful. When we've cut a deal, we had an agreement, and this agreement still has not come to date. The budget got passed, but the council still does not have an assistance that is solicited to provide the council with legal service and legal representation. That's something that was a priority for us previously and it's something that's a priority for us still to this day. In this one small item that could have been addressed a very long time ago, I think would have really mitigated a lot of the political problems that we have here in this community and also the council's inability to get answers to simple questions. So with that being said, I'm looking at the law department's budget right now, and we don't have a lot of fun. We have no city solicitor no assistant city solicitor, we're talking about saving money on a legal intern but we got no one in the office anyway for the legal intern to intern for, but yet I see the legal department's budget going up by $12,000. So these are things that confuse me. I see a lot of vacant positions in the budget that haven't been filled that I filled and that haven't been filled for an extended period of time. So, this human resource management aspect of what's going on in this community is something that I find very troublesome. But ultimately at the end of the day this council has a job to do they have certain functions. One of those functions is zoning one of those functions is ordinances and the other function is budget. And we asked for an assistant city solicitor to help us with zoning, and we asked for an assistant city solicitor to help us with witnesses, you promise those to us and we still don't have them here we are 11 months later. So I asked why, why haven't you been able to live up to the obligation that you made this Council.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Raul Council night we that night about 130 in the morning, there was whole list of things the Council requested, some of which I presented at 7 p.m. after your budget hearings, some that I agreed to at 1.30 a.m. One was a zoning consultant. There was 50,000 in your budget to do zoning work. One was to add assistant city solicitor to the budget, which we did. You may be correct, I think we did say we'd post the job in September. My chief of staff was out on leave, but we did post it. I don't believe it was February, but I can get that date that has been posted. City solicitor has been posted. City solicitor has been posted three times with changes, I believe, to the job description. The budget's going up because you did approve, thankfully, the COLAs for non-union employees. So we hope to get that squared away and repost and hopefully that position will be more attractive to a city solicitor or assistant city solicitor. We've had a couple interviews for both positions, but it is a very hard job to fill. There are vacancies in finance and solicitor roles throughout the Commonwealth.
[Adam Knight]: Can you provide that data to us, please?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: As well as assessors.
[Adam Knight]: the mayor did say that there's a nationwide shortage.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I didn't say nationwide.
[Adam Knight]: I can go back on my notes. I could put quotations around it. Yeah, I just like the mayor to provide us with the data. There's a nationwide hiring shortage. That's what you said in your opening statement. So if you could just provide us with that data because I find it very difficult. I find it very difficult to believe that $131,000 a year position in municipal government couldn't be filled within a year. I find that hard to believe.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We're getting applicants that don't even have a a legal degree, we cannot fill that position.
[Adam Knight]: So we're getting applicants for a city solicitors position that be the city's attorney that don't even have a law degree. I find that hard to believe that's a human resource issue that these applicants should be screened right out immediately. Immediately, but ultimately, the man made promises to this council, and we still haven't received Council Council night to a next next budget matter present. That's the point I'm getting.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I have the correction the job was posted in October. I think we were several weeks behind from what was said that would be a posting date. But to be stand here and be called a liar is and I know you say it every Tuesday, every chance you can get is just someone makes a promise.
[Nicole Morell]: It's out of line. She's addressing your question. Has she addressed it sufficiently? Or would you like her to continue?
[Adam Knight]: I just want to know why the position hasn't been filled. And all I'm hearing is excuses.
[Nicole Morell]: She's answering your question. Please let her finish.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I mean, I am answering the question, but it's it director. Thankfully, we have a great candidate who just accepted the role over about a month or two. We were struggling to find an assessor because there is a shortage in assessors. I sent the council an email that it's so bad in the state that DLS created a fellowship program. The fellows, there's 40, I believe it's 40 fellows that they are training currently And from the first day I asked if Medford could receive, you know, receive a qualified fellow to work with us in our assessing department and that fellow from Medford will start over the summer. So all 40 will be dispersed into different cities and towns. We have been able to hire such highly qualified candidates in so many positions that it's just, I'm extremely excited. That was on behalf of our Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Frances Wojciech. She led us to better teams, and now we are getting a plethora of candidates for almost every position, besides obviously IT's tough and solicitor's tough. And I don't want anybody to vote for me here, but anytime you need counsel at a meeting, we always will provide you with anybody that you need for any ordinance. I believe we have an attorney coming next week with regards to an issue that was brought up last week. So we are here to help the council as much as we can with legal services, but we are having a hard time hiring in that staff. I never promised that I would hire somebody on the spot. I promised I would post it, and we posted it a couple of weeks late, but we posted it. I've been trying to recruit on the streets, so if I see a qualified candidate from another community, other mayors will be upset with me, but we are trying everything we can. And then I just wanna comment, I know Councilor night mentioned Department of Public Works. And I do want to just reiterate that yes, they are professionals and they work extremely hard every day. We we have potholes being fixed on a weekly basis. I believe it or not, even though our streets are bad, we get compliments on the responsiveness of our Department of Public Works to see clicks see quick fix. What is unfortunate is that we are in contract negotiations with our Department of Public Works. And some members even call me and tell me that they're being they're being used because asking for 27.3% over three years is obviously a place where we can cannot go. It's giving us an extremely hard time, but I obviously think that is intentional and our members, our employees and his members are being used.
[Adam Knight]: Point of clarification, Madam Mayor.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Did you say being contacted by union members directly?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That's correct.
[Adam Knight]: So you're direct dealing with them?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm answering phone calls.
[Adam Knight]: You're direct dealing with union members that are represented?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They're city employees, Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Councilor Knight, did you have other questions?
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you for coming. Councilor Bears has brought up some good questions and Councilor Knight has brought some. nine and 10 questions. So my first question, is there a multi year financial strategy for the city? And when can that strategy be provided as a memo to this council?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We've done a little bit of forecasting with our CFO and CLA, especially over the next, you know, two to three years just to see what that number was. I asked for that once we were talking a potential override. So it's it is looking pretty on target that we could use an additional two to three million per year. We can get you some of those documents.
[Richard Caraviello]: There's a question that we've been asking and asking for the last couple of years. How much has been expended to payments to KP Law and what is budgeted for them this year? We've asked for the amount of payments made for them from 2020 to date. And we really haven't gotten an answer.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We I know we CFO Dickinson sent me the warrants that you asked it fast for for 2020 to 2022. And we did provide those to you. We also let you know that was 450,000 we spend in legal costs. and comparable to 16 communities we've researched were third lowest.
[Richard Caraviello]: So in legal three years, we've only spent $350,000 to keep you long.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No one year is last year 2022 was 2022 was 420 22 450,000 compared to Malden as an example of 1.25 million. But information. Council night. What's that compared to when we had in house legal counsel?
[Nicole Morell]: Do we have that versus in-house legal counsel?
[Adam Knight]: I know that we had- That's a question to be put in the committee report, Madam President. I'd also like to file a motion that said any question that the council asks be responded to in writing. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We had a full legal budget that you see before you today, plus I think it was 3,500 a month for labor council, plus a number of different attorneys that the city was using at the time.
[Richard Caraviello]: I'll give you copies after that. My other question is, We have $25 million in free cash. We made a request asking where that number came from and has not been answered, nor has the question been answered. How can we use those funds toward our budget?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We would use those funds towards a capital improvement planning. We would use those funds for stabilization account. We've used already 2 million of those funds for two new pump trucks. We would use those funds for emergencies, such as a data breach or a collapsed roof. That's why I'm asking for the stabilization account to be set up, hopefully by the end of June, because from July one to when free cash is certified, this year was March, 2023, we were not able to use free cash. So if a school roof collapsed, we would not be able to use free cash until it's certified. But if you set up a stabilization account, many cities and towns have, multiple. I know what Woburn has far more in free cash and even far more in stabilization counts totaling like $70 million and some cities and towns do it's your rainy day fund. It's be would not want to use one time funding because you're on the budget, you would want to use we pulled all capital items out. We have another million we want to spend in the next several months, maybe six to nine months based on the capital improvement plan. And there's I believe another I can't remember exactly the amount for next year, but probably 2 million. We have vehicles, we have maintenance expenses for city buildings.
[Richard Caraviello]: The first part of the question was, where did the 25 million come from?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm going to refer to CFO Dickinson on that one, please.
[Nicole Morell]: Dr. Dickinson.
[Bob Dickinson]: So looking at the figures, where did it come from? When we file our paperwork with the state and the state takes our own reserve fund balance and looks at accounts that we might have a deficit in and looks at What we have encumbered for POs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Obligations that we are going to, we might have to fulfill. Takes that out of what we have in a reserve fund balance. And that becomes free cash, right? Part of this question is how do we get the 25 million, I assume. In fiscal, I was working on these numbers today. In fiscal 2021, We're putting together the budget for 2022. And when that budget gets put together, it all gets rolled out into the tax recap. The tax recap was put together with some very, very conservative numbers. If you remember, in municipal finance, it's a cash basis. And it's a very, very, it's a year later that all these things flow through into free cash. The reason we got $10 million more in free cash at the end of fiscal 2022 from fiscal 2021 was a very, very conservative recap. Local receipts, for instance, in 2021, we actually exceeded local receipts by $3.7 million. So part of the $10 million is right there. We estimated $15.1 million in local receipts that came in over 18. And we also had significant turnbacks from the fiscal 2022 budget. There were a couple of things, not great things. For instance, there was nearly a million dollars in fire department salaries that were not paid out due to lack of personnel. When you have a turn back like that, it goes directly into free cash.
[Richard Caraviello]: That's where it comes from. Is that from other city jobs that weren't filled also? Excuse me? Does that come from other city jobs that weren't filled also?
[Bob Dickinson]: Yeah, well, it's across the board. We had significantly lower health insurance costs than were budgeted. So we've tried to be very conservative with that. You always want to put some extra money into health insurance in case, because that can happen rather quickly. But we've pulled back that number for the fiscal 2024 budget. So that's where, essentially, that's where all that money came from. We got more receipts than we expected. We had fewer expenses than we were budgeted. That's good. Just as a word of caution on free cash, we have significantly moved a lot As the mayor has said, we've moved a lot of the expenses that are one-time funding expenses, for instance, the $2 million for the fire engines. That's a good use for free cash. Obviously, a stabilization fund is a very good use for free cash. It's not even a use for free cash. It simply allows you to access what would be free cash In that period of time, after the end of the fiscal year, when free cash is not available, it's still available to be used. The council simply has to say, hey, the roof at the school got hit by lightning. We need to fix it. Let's take $1 million out of the stabilization fund and fix it. Because of what we've done with this budget, because we've gotten out of using one-time funds to fund our operational budget, capital expenses need to come from free cash. Also, because our revenue estimates, we've been trying to make sure that they are robust. They're still a little conservative, so we should get more money in revenue than we will end up budgeting in the fiscal 2024 recap. But we've also cut the department budgets wherever we could to make that whole thing work. So I do not expect anywhere near $10 million more in free cash for the next fiscal year when we do the 2023 state reporting. And then obviously we have all these uses for the $25 million that we do have right now. But that's, Does that kind of answer your question about where all this came from and how we're looking at it?
[George Scarpelli]: I won't touch too much on it. Okay, thanks. If I could point out information if I can. Councilor Scarpelli. Sure. Now, Ms. Dickinson, we asked for a resolution for you to break that down. See, this is the problem we're having. So can you break it down so we can see where the $10 million comes from? Yes. Okay, so for the record, we'd like to see that in print form. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Okay. Do you want to briefly take the motion from Councilor Knight? I'm sorry? We just have that motion from Councilor Knight. Yeah, do we want to briefly take that and then we'll get just to make sure?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I am.
[Nicole Morell]: So just on the motion of Councilor Knight that any questions be answered in writing, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Richard Caraviello]: How much money has the city expended to prelude the 40B developments and projects within the city? Is there a budget for the appeals that are pending? And how much of that money could have been brought in-house if we had a city solicitor or an assistant city solicitor working on it? We have two 40Bs that we're fighting in court, which probably could have been built if we didn't fight them right now. How much money do we spend fighting those projects?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If I may answer?
[Richard Caraviello]: Yes. Okay.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I don't have the exact figure on what it costs in legal fees, but that is included in the $450,000 breakdown for last year on legal costs. I do believe that you would need outside counsel to represent you on 40B negotiations. We have one that we've negotiated on Mystic Valley Parkway, that's gonna be approximately 350 units, and they've made great concessions. And we're working with the Fellsway project, although they're not budgeting much. And then we've been able to, with our process through 40B, we've been able to work with the developer on Mystic Ave to transform what could be housing into a life science billion dollar project. So we're excited about that. And I believe the value that we're going to bring in, um, for creating our glam analysis and working with these developers through the legal process. That was the only avenue we had to have any, um, stake in the game versus just all out building of whatever these developers wanted. So I think the community is going to be very happy with the results, and one that is following the process and moving forward with 350 units, 25% of which will be affordable. We're working on trying to get these developers to look at all levels of AMI versus just the 80%. So I think we're going to have great results, and it was well worth the money.
[Richard Caraviello]: So I guess my part of this question was, affordable housing was a concern of everybody in the city. Why did we fight these projects when probably missing Valley Parkway could have been already been built by now.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Our planning office residents are planning office and our residents deserve more they deserve to have the city be able to negotiate the best project for the best location for the best area. That one will be affordable housing. The day the Fellsway project, you have a lot of opposition from residents for that project. So we are working through trying to make it a little bit less dense to do some improvements on the Fellsway, pedestrian safety, vehicle safety, also traffic down down that one single road and it's blanking the road although I drive it all that was it real street yes it's just a one one lane can be a highway residents are always complaining about that street so we're with our ability to get these developers the table, we're able to ask for things that we that the city deserves and neighborhoods deserve so I think even though it's taken a little bit longer in time, you're gonna get to see affordable housing. You're gonna see it at all levels, not just the 80%. You're gonna see a little bit more green space in these projects. You're gonna see potential bike racks in these projects and more sustainable buildings in these projects because we're able to request it and we're able to negotiate better projects.
[Richard Caraviello]: I appreciate the green space and the bike racks, but it doesn't put people in the houses. So we'll skip, we'll move on from that. My next question is, how many lawsuits are pending within the city, particularly from former employees? And what has been the total amount of the settlements that have cases that have come to an end? And is there a line item estimated the settlements of pending cases?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You'll see it in your legal budget. There's a small claims line item and anything over There's two line items in our legal budget, so I can have the budget director or chief of staff find that to get you the specifics on the claims. We have, I believe KP Law has cleaned out a lot of our small claims cases. We're actually working on those quicker than we ever used to before. It used to take two to three years and you'd have to make the small claim and file suit. So we've been able to work through those.
[Nicole Morell]: Do you want the listed claims amounts that are in the budget? Sure, thanks. So the claims under 1,000, 50,000 as budget, or what was spent in FY23 is what you want?
[Richard Caraviello]: I was asking for the amount that cases that have already come to an end. And do we have a line item for estimated settlements on pending cases?
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, so we have for FY23 under 1000, it's $17,712.59, claims over 1000, it's $75,763.41. And then just the general claims, I'm not sure what that is, that's 302.39. And then what was budgeted at both years, FY23 and FY24 is for under 1000 is 50,000. And for claims over 1000 is 75,000. And then that general claims is 10,000.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Now that Sanctuary Medical has received their third recreational facility license elsewhere, what are we doing to solicit new applications and bring in missed tax revenue? And what is the status of the second licensing on Mystic Avenue?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I've negotiated five community host agreements, and I'm working on two additional community host agreements. Three were for retail, two Three were for retail, one was for cultivation, and the current two are for minority or previously incarcerated individuals for delivery companies. We have Theory, who's pretty much got through the application permitting process, and they've already broken ground. Sanctuary, who has, they had got an additional approval in Woburn, I believe, so they are working with another applicant and I'm working on the HCA transmission to that new applicant with them being a partner in it.
[Richard Caraviello]: Are we using the... The applicants that were here before we soliciting new applicants.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I know we have, I know we have a five or six last time is the person that finished, they're selling to an applicant, they've come in and asked me if they remain partners, Kate will they I allow it and I said, if you'll allow our community host agreement where we've I said that I would consider it. And they said they fully intend to, um, adhere to the community host agreement that I signed with Sanctuary. Okay Uh, what about the licensee on at the BFW on Mr. Gavin?
[Richard Caraviello]: What's the status of that?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I believe they're moving through the process as well. They were before the... If you want to move over so you can... Yeah, no, but then I won't look at you. They are moving through the application process too. I believe they were before our CD board recently, and I believe it got continued to the next meeting. So all three retail are being worked on as fast as possible. Cultivation, I believe, site, he got his funding for the brewery beer hall, and I'm just waiting to hear on his cultivation site. And then we have two HCAs drafted for delivery.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Caraviello, Vice Mayor Bears has a question on the same topic, if that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: First question, if you can get Paul money for the curtains, that would be huge. Okay.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I don't think I can get any more money from the HCAs, but we got it right in time to be able to sign three retail HCAs and be able to obtain the benefits and they're all adhering to them, which I'm very thankful for.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, which is great. And I just had two questions. So the first one, it sounds like the answer is, even though the state law changed, they're gonna voluntarily,
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: As far as I know, and the only one that I was concerned with was sanctuary which I almost told them, let, let your woman one, sell your woman one but once they brought it brought in a social justice applicant partner, and that was going to get the license and they were going to adhere to our current community host agreement. I was good. We're working, you know, we worked through that.
[Zac Bears]: Great. The other thing about the amendment to the law that did that is there's many things, but one of the other things is it allows for basically cannabis cafes and consumption. It looks like they were going to do a 15 city pilot. Now it looks like they're going to open it up more than that. I've gotten some business owners in town saying we'd love to do a one day pop up. We'd love to consider maybe a permanent establishment. Is that something that you've you're working on or would consider?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So first I'm hearing of people being interested and I haven't been approached. I've recently been approached for by retailers that didn't know we've already had our process but I haven't been approached by anybody that wants to do that. The main thing I'm working on now is the two delivery companies.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, thank you. Thank you. My next question, virtually no labor contracts have been settled yet. What is the plan for any retro pay once the contract is settled? And what are you anticipating as increases in this and future budgets?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That's a good question. We have settled labor contracts. We've settled most of the contracts on the school side. We've settled librarians on the city side, as well as traffic supervisors. And thankfully you approved the non union Cola's librarians, traffic supervisors and non union. We're all at 2% a year with obviously some other different adjustments within the contracts. We're working through the rest of our unsettled contracts fires making progress. They had a good proposal for us reasonable at the last mediation. We have mediation with fire in a couple weeks, and we intend as a city to put forward a strong proposal. That'll be our second mediation session. And then like I said before, the rest of the contracts we're working through summer and mediations, some are not. And we're having a difficult time with settling some of those contracts, but I do believe it's turned into a political issue. When I can't get a union to come down from 9.1% a year, when we're offering what we offered to all the other unions we've settled with, it's hard to make any more movement until we have reasonableness on the other side. And like I said, some of our employees know and feel that they're being used and it's unfortunate because they could really use those retro retro checks. They could really use an increase in salary like everybody else. I know there's inflation, but with city being able to tax the 2.5% and with all of our needs and historically going back it's well known what a city can afford. And it's very clear we cannot afford 27.3% a year. Plus additional increases and many, many other items.
[Richard Caraviello]: Do you have a line item in the budget for these increases? We do. And where is it? Is it on each department's page or no general page?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Any department that's settled, you should see the salary adjustments. But there is another section in the budget where we account for especially any retro pay and additional increases to the budget page six it's the contractual agreements line.
[Richard Caraviello]: I think Council of beers is brought up in the my questions on the on the fire departments. Where are the excess funds going from anything unspent from the fiscal, prior fiscal year? Please provide a breakdown. I think, I'm assuming this is where the 25 million came in, correct?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, anything that was unfunded.
[Richard Caraviello]: Did this go into the 25 million buck?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, that will be next March. This fiscal year will be closed out sometime in the winter or the spring.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, if you could provide us with a breakdown, I'll give you the question so you don't have to ask me again.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You're gonna get a transfer paper by the 20th, which I believe might be the day you take the vote. So you'll get a transfer paper, but we won't know. We can make sure when we do know what falls out when we didn't spend in the fiscal year 23 budget gets to you, but it wouldn't be before the June 20th. We won't know that information.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, I got two more questions. Donors or library are backing off because we're showing a lack of commitment from the city by underfunding the library. What is our long-term commitment to the library and the funding it needs? Where is it demonstrated in the budget? And I'll tell you that we are in the greater Boston area, we have the second lowest funded library budget in the greater Boston area.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I can have, I can refer to chief staff or CFO, but I know we have almost 2 million budgeted for the library. It's been a little bit difficult with the library budget because you've seen such large increases last year and this year because of the move, but the actuals are showing extremely low. So part of my role was reviewing each line item and each actual over the last four years and really trying to bring this down to somewhere where every every department got increases in certain places. We are I think that 100,000 figure Council beers had is a bit off because we did work with the director over the last week or week or two to make adjustments and give her additions to her budget where she had concerns. So there may be that may that 100,000 may be down to like 50 or 70, but we definitely care about our library. We worked very hard with the director. I know we can never fund everybody's asks. So what I did was reduced each budget by if one department had a 22% increase, we did say you have to bring that down a bit because police are only getting a 5% increase. So we really tried to be fair and even we need public safety. We need books for our students at the library. We need to fund our schools. It's one pot of money for a lot of needs within the community, but we care very deeply about the library.
[Richard Caraviello]: It's probably one of the most used buildings in the city right now.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I agree. My daughter goes there once a week. I have to pick her up.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, my last question. What are the financial ramifications of asking the firefighters and other municipal union members to use COBRA and receive reimbursements because of the lack of them having proper insurance?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: What's the what, the ramifications?
[Richard Caraviello]: What were the final financial ramifications? How much do we have to pay?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: On the fire, we didn't have any ramifications, but we made sure they got on during open enrollment.
[Richard Caraviello]: So it didn't cost us any money?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Not for fire, no.
[Richard Caraviello]: And you know, you talked about a little bit about the, about two and a half over and maybe bonding. rates are probably at its highest that they've been in many years. Inflation is at its highest it's been in many years. And I know we've talked about this and it's a big question about, do we do a 2.5 override? Do we do a debt occlusion? I mean, how much do we ask people to pay for in these tough times? I mean, not everybody is doing as well as other people. So that's a real difficult question going forward. So I think that's something that this council and this administration need to take in because I don't see rates coming down to those 2% like they were when we were bonding earlier. Maybe we should have bonded some stuff earlier. Fortunately, we're not fortune tellers. We can't see the future. So I think that's going to be a big concern when we look at the bond rates now.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, I agree with you. And we actually had a discussion about the fire design work, because we're only going to need so much money over the next six, six to nine months and don't, I'm not giving you I'm giving you approximates but we're gonna only need so much so we may ask the council to rebond again and it would save us 50 to 60,000. And that's just for the design of the headquarters which was the initial 1.5 million. But I think that that's a discussion that we have to have together because I don't disagree with Councilor Bears his points with regards to discussing, do we do an override, do we do it a debt exclusion, especially when it comes to the fire station. So if the numbers show the council and myself that it would be more beneficial to do a debt exclusion, then that's the way we'll go foreseen interest rates up higher than we can afford than I think debt exclusion is probably something that needs to be explored. They've been so low, so that's why I've always been saying over, that's why I've always been saying a bond, because I, again, just don't wanna jeopardize providing our students with a flagship school, and that's gonna be a $200 million ask of our taxpayers. Hopefully we're successful with that MSBA loan, which will cover half of it, which is total of 400 million. how much people can't afford eggs or gas and that's a discussion we have to have with the people and as a council and mayor together.
[Richard Caraviello]: And my last question, this has been a peep of mine since I've been on the council and you've been on the council, that we keep putting money into these old fire stations, Riverside Avenue, Salem Street, the Heights. We're throwing good money after bad. I mean, when does it stop that we keep fixing these old 100-year-old buildings? And again, I say that's, you know, that's been the peak of mine for even when you were on the council, and it still fathoms me why we tend to, you know, I know you said you had $20 million for repairs and things like that. Why can't we build two smaller fire stations in those older buildings? I mean, we keep throwing the million dollars. I mean, I can't, I don't believe that, I mean, I believe we can probably build a two-truck fire station for a few million dollars. It shouldn't be a $10 million project. And every year we keep throwing money at, especially those two. So that's it for my questions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, that's a good point. That's definitely on my mind. The substations of the fire department, they have been for a while. Headquarters is coming first. I don't know.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Thank you for being here. I appreciate, you know, you taking the time to get into the weeds with us, you know, early in the process. It's very appreciated. I appreciate the conversation early today. Obviously there's a lot to sift through. It's great to get to, you know, kind of have conversation at all levels about the budget proposal that's before us. I just kind of wanted to circle back to earlier in our discussion from this evening, because I think what I heard from your preamble, and the one I heard from Vice President Bears' preamble kind of had the same theme, exact same theme as what I heard, which is stabilization and planning, which makes me very optimistic. And I think we have a lot of strategies on the table. I heard stabilization fund strategy from you. I know that's been proposed. I know that's something that we tabled and are still considering kind of in the context of the other tools and programs and potential new structures available to us. And then some of the strategies that have come from the council side are, you know, potentially collaborating on a debt exclusion or override, which I know that you're already considering. These charter amendments to create an annual collaborative budget structure, empowering the council as a true partner, you know, kind of building that structure and capacity with the input of the council. Suggestions for building out the finance department, you know, attaching that implementation plan to the capital improvement plan. I see these, I just want to note that I see these as all orbiting around the same exact plan, which is stabilization. and planning. You know, so in terms of sort of lifting us out of the weeds for a moment and just recentering on those goals, my hope is that we can do it all. You know, I want us to be able to pursue in good faith all of these strategies, whether they're suggested by you coming from the council. I think that we really can pursue and implement and consider all of them. You know, and I'm glad that we have, you know, through weeks to continue discussing this budget before our planned vote date. I think that gives us, especially compared to last year, which I think was hectic for everybody, I think that gives us a really strong runway to put some questions and concerns out on the table and then have most of the next month to say, what exactly are we asking to change? How much can we move? of that is short term and one of that is long term that we're trying to bake into this project. You know, looking at it from the spectrum the perspective of my, you know, year and a half in this role, you know, it seems to me that when we only really get one month out of the year to talk about the city's long term financial health as a collaboration. That's really hard, you know, I think it's really hard to have, you know, that short of a runway to talk about our financial future. You know, for such a small fraction of the full year. I think that better partnership is available, you know, be beneficial for all of these players. I think that we all deserve that. I think that residents deserve to see that true collaboration that is, you know, all year long. It's not ad hoc. I think that that is sort of the goal of some of the long term structural elements that I know that I am asking for out of this budget process. you know, and my hope for the fiscal 24 budget process is that we can make some of these targeted additions that we need to see in the specific budget proposal and that also coming out of this, we can land on, you know, a tweaked process so that when we do encounter what's probably going to be due to circumstances for really difficult fiscal year 25 budget process because of that Esther cliff because the Arbor cliff because of the MVP grant cliff amid, you know, the existing economic hardships, inflation, everything that everybody's experiencing experientially in their household and in their city, that when we meet that, we'll already have the tools and the structures to be able to meet it stronger, because we know it's going to be hard, not because of anybody's decisions in this room, but because of the circumstances, the national circumstances that we're meeting them in. Um, so I have high hopes for this budget season in particular because I think it is really, you know, if there are big questions to consider for how we can go through the next hard budget cycle, you know, I want us to be talking about that. Now, so that next year. we're well-oiled machine. So that's why, you know, I think a lot of my priorities have already been mentioned by my fellow Councilors concerned about the library. It's great to hear that that discrepancy might be even shorter than we heard it was, you know, over the weekend. I'm eager to see the Medford Public Schools number and see, you know, how that fits in. I'm eager to see zoning put back into the budget. I think all of that is really doable. And it's my hope that, you know, over the next few weeks as a council and this partnership, we can, you know, both finesse this product and something that we can approve and end it, you know, feeling really great about the process that we're going to be able to kick off starting in the fall.
[Nicole Morell]: So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Collins. Any other questions, discussion from the council at this time? Councilor Scrapp.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam Mayor, for being here this evening. I think that my questions are going to be a little critical. And in totality, it revolves around the budget, but it mostly revolves around the relationship between this mayor and this council. Use words tonight like together, partnership, collaboration, listen to the council. Do you truly believe in those words?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I do. I believe it could be better though.
[George Scarpelli]: I think that's truly disingenuous for the fact that you've also ended that your dissertation with respect, respect for each other, having respect, respect, and understanding that this council has asked multiple, multiple occasions to work with your administration. A lot of the questions you answered tonight were very simple questions that if we had an open dialogue with the mayor and this council, that political infighting you're talking about wouldn't have existed. This body and your body are split, is divided. So when you come to looking at different budget questions and budget issues, I feel that they're disingenuine. They set a good story, I look and I talk to our city employees. You thank them, but the morale is horrible here. You say there's an issue with hiring in the process. I disagree because I, too, work in a municipality, and I, too, have talked to many different, for instance, solicitors. And I, too, try to negotiate a way to come to Medford. But the common bond was, and I find it frightening that you don't see or hear this because I do, is the fact that they feel that this is a volatile situation at City Hall. I look at concerns that we have with negotiations and It's funny that you can throw numbers around up here tonight, 27%, but every time we've talked to the chief of staff, try to gauge an understanding or even try to find a way that we can meet an executive session to maybe help us understand that maybe we can calm those negative discussions on both sides. But we were never part of that discussion. Matter of fact, Councilor Bears was actually invited to negotiation. He went, he was told he wasn't allowed to be in there. By the mediator. By the mediator, okay. But still, here we have, nobody reached out to Council Bears after that. Nobody talked with Council Bears and said, well, let's talk about what's going on in negotiations. Without giving us the specifics, just like you did tonight, you gave us more an understanding of what's happening as a leader of this community tonight in one hour than I've heard in a whole year. You've sat next to me for years, and we've talked about the lack of transparency. We've talked about the lack of congeniality, the lack of support from the main office. And maybe I shouldn't speak for the rest of my Councilors. They can say what they want. For this Councilor, I feel like you have abandoned us and the ability to do our jobs. If I should respond? Yeah, in a minute. I think, you know, I just want to make sure I get everything out. We called for a meeting. I still remember that fiery city council that was upset about a school issue. And she stood up front in front of everybody and felt comfortable in doing what's best for the kids. Well, this council did the same thing about safety issues at the high school. We called for a meeting to follow up with that. And the concerns and the answers we got back were that the meeting is now with the mayor's hands And because of this is what we were told the council volatility does not preclude permit you to come to our meeting, so we're not going to have this meeting. So when we look at, we look at deficits in the school system, and we have questions that now have to come up in this type of form. It becomes contentious. We start talking about consultants and what we're paying consultants. We're talking about the positions of what we have administrators that would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on the school side to not be able to do their job and bring in people from the outside. So these are questions that we talk about the budget when it comes to the budget season being prepared. This is what I get from my budget. That's how I'm prepared. Yeah, so it's unsettling to me that you presented that you're excited about the budget being the earliest it's come out in years. Sure. But at least we were getting information, financial information on a weekly, monthly level to keep us prepared or in the know when it came to the climate of this financial climate of our community. We haven't had that. You have a financial director that's told us he doesn't have the equipment necessary to provide us with the information needed. But all of a sudden, we have all the information we need in a budget. So the only way we can look at this with the lack of communication with the mayor's office, the only way I can read this, and it's not political, it's not beating one side to the other, the only way I can read this is for some reason, You as the city manager, the leader of this community and their boss, wouldn't allow them to give us that information when we ask. Well, that's what it looks like. Maybe it isn't, I'm not saying it is, but that's what it looks like, a perception's reality. Because it's simple questions when your chief of staff comes up here night after night, not to be helpful, not to be constructive, but more to be helpful. claiming that we're one way we're bullies and we are one way or the other. I might be you know me, I've been very passionate what I do here in the city. So when you when you ask a question, instead of the questions being answered, I have a chief of staff that comes up to defend every issue when all we want are answers. So This budget process, I'm appreciative that it's in front of us. We have a long, long way to go. There are a lot of questions that before I make a decision that I need to see in writing that are going to help me make a decision whether I'm going to support this budget. But I'm telling you, when you have unions that run the city to make sure it works the way it should work. And you hear the numbers that you're throwing around tonight. And then you're listening to the other side, there's such a gap, there's such a split, this community is divided, because there isn't there isn't a professional attitude between this body and your body. So I'm critical. I'm not being disrespectful. what I'm being is very thoughtful in my words and understanding how this one Councilor feels with the former city council that I work with and the leader of this community that to me right now isn't working in partnership with this Councilor. So I hope you can appreciate that. And I know you have rebuttals, but that's how I feel. And I appreciate your time.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, President Morell. I'll start with just I think your comments may relate to just you because I as a mayor and Steve Smearty as our communications director and Nina Nazarian as a chief of staff are constantly I mean, believe me, we could do it more, but constantly emailing you all of our press releases, personnel updates, updates, even on the assessor fellowship I mentioned before. And at the end, it's always, please call me if you have any questions, please let me know if I can answer anything for you after every single email. I have Councilor Caraviello who will come in and talk development with me when he feels like it. Councilor Tseng comes to visit. I speak to, of course, the president and the vice president, whether it be Zoom meetings or in-person meetings or on the phone, as much as they need it because they're obtaining legal counsel when you need it. I do know that our CFO and our budget director have worked hard on the budget. They were working hard to catch up before the budget. When I started getting the warrants, I was reviewing them myself and we were redacting them ourselves. and we were getting to them as fast as we could. I know we got you the legal ones from 2020 to 2022, several months ago. Then I think Councilor Bears, Vice President Bears asked that we start doing it a different way, which we then started doing. I can't apologize for anything you didn't receive. during that time frame where we didn't have a CFO, where we were struggling through a budget last year, where we were struggling all summer and fall to catch up and certify free cash. I do remember sitting next to you. I don't remember seeing the full picture myself ever. But I never remember such a hostile, passionate, display every single Tuesday and the last time I called you, I asked you to serve on a committee I begged you because I wanted you to be part, you know, you keep hearing from you you want to be part of the city successes, and I try, housing, thank you for proving the housing production plan. Thank you for approving freedom way to be a public public street. I thank you publicly and press releases, all the time I try to thank whatever votes have helped the city move forward. But no, no call back and I have one Councilor who calls me a liar every Tuesday night, I'm not going to call him. I'm going to put everything in writing. I'm an attorney, I'm going to put it in writing because he even said today that I didn't post the solicited job till February 2023, which is an absolute lie. It was just a couple weeks after he said we were going to post it. I'm happy to meet in executive session. That never came my way, but I'm happy to meet about union negotiations in executive session because it is important for you to know both sides. I just haven't got up here and explained our side because I'm not gonna turn this into a circus every Tuesday night with someone and myself just arguing back and forth. Morale may be low, but from some, because we haven't settled contracts, but I can guarantee you the people that are and that I'm listening to, and that's what I do. I listen to any employee that wants to stop by my office, stop me at the store, or give me a call. Morale is low because there was never accountability in this city. Morale was low because there was never HR. I hear from our members the problems, and I'm taking care of it. I've been doing it for three years, and I'm gonna continue to do it because that is what I feel is and will boost morale. Now when our members are being used for political purposes, that's where I have a huge problem. So my apologies that I didn't tell you tonight about the amounts that some of our unions are asking for, but I can promise you that any union that is being reasonable, that is working within the city's constraints has settled and will settle. We are working actively, but it is extremely frustrating in some of these negotiations when there's no movement whatsoever. And it's just this painted picture that the city doesn't appreciate its employees. And that's completely inaccurate. The city has never settled for 9.1% a year and never will. And if that's what's being portrayed so that your candidate can win, I don't know what to say. I'm not going to bankrupt the city.
[Adam Knight]: I do believe that's an inaccurate statement. I had negotiated a DPW contract. It is a question. It is a question. Can you please tell me what research you've done to ensure that no other contract has been settled at more than 9.1%? Because I personally negotiated one for 12 with the DPW when I was a union rep.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Adam Knight]: Okay.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: None of my 22 years as in politics have I seen those numbers and I wish we could I wish I wasn't the union rep.
[Adam Knight]: It was like only, you know, 1010 years ago. So she was on the council. She actually voted for the race that they got.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Madam Mayor. I don't remember that. But we're doing a salary income study to make sure we do it fair across the board because we're giving our library, our librarians settled for 2% our traffic supervisors, non union. Of course, we're working through numbers and our finance department is seeing what we can afford, and we'll do the best we can, but we cannot, we're using 3 million in outside funding for this budget on the, with the ESSER funding and some on the position side on this city side, we're going to have that cliff.
[Adam Knight]: So, you know, we're trying to be as fiscally responsible while doing the best for our employees as possible for information on that, Madam President, the mayor speaks about a salary and compensation study yet over the past year, we've had a 16 to 18 salary increase requests prior to the compensation study being conducted. How is that fiscally responsible?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We do we do one. If we can't fill a position we will do or with director of traffic and transportation that was a new the new title for the city. So there are situations where we've asked a few times for a change in calf or an additional position to be put into the calf.
[Adam Knight]: But the question was, how is that fiscally responsible about the compensation study to retain qualified
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: candidates for key essential roles. We have to do it.
[Adam Knight]: The traffic parking traffic record position was a new high. That wasn't a retention.
[Nicole Morell]: That was a new high.
[George Scarpelli]: So just two things. I appreciate the mayor asked me to be part of the program. I'll make sure I talk to the representative that I talked to about my family concerns why I couldn't be involved in that. Because I didn't get a return phone call I got a phone call from an outside person that asked me what happened so I explained it to that person. And I assumed it was getting back to you so even though you begged me for it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I was hoping you would serve on a committee so I could share in the credit.
[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, that one committee that you asked, and I was contemplating it, and I was addressed by... a citizen that said, you're not doing this council, explain to that person, or if you just let the man know that we're going through some personal issues. So that, I appreciate that because I think that's the way we have to do business. I have to talk to an outside resident. You can call me anytime.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I've never not answered your phone call, Councilor Scarpelli, never.
[George Scarpelli]: When he did that, that's when I had to do, that was that issue. The other thing is, I just want to make it clear, this council didn't vote for one non-union COLA. The council might have, but this councilor, would not. Um, when when you ask when we asked for information and we don't get the information that puts this Councilor in a bad spot. So when you talk about Madam Mayor, uh, having the ability to call for any legal services, and I'm not seeing as a and I would ask you to put your city council had on and if you were sitting here and you haven't seen a financial document and you had the responsibility to either figure out a legal issue on your own or without seeing what the ramifications were financially with bringing in outside legal services time after time and not understanding the ramifications financially. That's something I didn't feel comfortable doing. What I would have liked is a city solicitor that works at this council. So I think it's very, it's, these are the things, these are the, I think you said it earlier, that's splitting the sides, that you don't feel comfortable with being here, but what I feel that I feel communication, and that is, is I think that the biggest issue right now and having a representative, you know, take note for other communities other communities. They have representatives that work, maybe that's something if you reelected have. Let's hire a city council. consultant with the mayor that's sitting with us on a nightly basis that we have direct dialogue with. That's going to listen to our concerns and bring it back to you, not someone that's going to come up and get ready to fight because maybe there's one council you don't feel comfortable with, but I think it's just not fair for the rest of this council that you're not doing your job when it comes to this council because of the way you feel about one of the councilors. So, again, you made that clear. You made it clear publicly. So I just think that as we move through this process, I just hope we get the information matter present that we've asked for, so we can at least make the best decision possible for this community financially, now that we're getting a year of information given to us on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. So then we could read this document to make sure that we can have the correct answers questions tonight. So I'm sure we'll have plenty of questions. And thank you for your time, Madam Mayor.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Just want to comment on a mayor. You know, we do have a chief of staff who comes to at least once at one meeting a month who is very educated on what the city's doing and is always bringing issues to me and trying her best to get Council information when they when they need it so I just take it take offense to saying that she's always here to argue I don't have information she's here to put facts out.
[George Scarpelli]: Have you have you have you watched the meetings? Have you seen the dialogue between the chief of staff and this council?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Not people comment on it.
[George Scarpelli]: Yep. And I've watched the March meeting and it was upsetting. A lot of people on the other end, a lot of people, a lot of people when you when you when you accuse people and put them in a light that's so disingenuine, that it's actually disrespectful. So thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I had wanted to talk about the library and I don't want to talk about 10 other things. I just think you said something response to Councilor Scarpelli. I think it was. I don't think that may be how you feel. I don't think it's how everyone in the council feels. I just want to, I want to push back on it just a little bit, just to say we have different, I think we have We all maybe have different feelings about what the reasons are for why things are happening the way they're happening, why communication and collaboration aren't what maybe we all want them to be. I think we've listed those out. I just want to say, for one, I'd like to write the press release with you and not get it from you in an email. And I'd like to make the budget with you, not get it presented five months after you started. And I'd like to you know, engage you up front rather than say can we have your legal counsel and you know, that's what collaboration is to me, that's what partnership is to me and there's some stuff in here about the budget is just created collaboratively between these departments and you know between the Council, the mayor, the departments, all these things that says it's somewhere in here, maybe it's the online draft but doesn't feel that way to me. And for all of my, what I hope you believe is sincere belief, like that's all I want. So I approach it differently. I find different ways to come at it. We all have different views about, I can understand triage mode and deep under-resourcing, right? And that makes it really hard to be timely. So, you know, I can see that as a fair analysis of why certain things happen the way they happen. But I just wanted to say, I may not agree with the reasoning why or I may not take the same approach to convey how I feel about it, but I think there's room for improvement. And I'm trying my best to put out like a million ideas on the table to get there.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Well, I appreciate that because We've always got the budget beginning of June and work through it as a council so this is new that we're even asking people are asking to collaborate far far in advance and do that that work, which I know you're doing a lot of work so appreciate the ideas and we're definitely going to review them all.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you just just on the library really quickly. The trustees report that I read, they requested 2.063 million. The budget is 1.925 million. So that's about 140. I know that they asked for a new position and that that wasn't included. And I understand that there's not many new positions included in the budget. I think only two or three that I saw. But I do also want to make the point that if they had had their fair treatment since 2018, if their budget had gone up for the ordinary expenses, two and a half percent every year, which you were saying, that's what you're trying to do. their ordinary expense would be $519,000. It's $383,000 in the budget. And that's where this, you know, that's a little more than $100,000. The difference between the trustee request for ordinary and your appropriation for ordinary was about $83,000. So we go a little under, we go a little below, but that's where that $100,000 came from. You know, I've heard from trustees, patrons, donors, staff members, that's really, you know, they can understand we're in a tough position, maybe a new staff member is not a thing we can do right now. But that ordinary expense for the materials, you know, I got an email that said, you know, right now, we usually have three to four week waits on an ebook. And you think, why would you have a wait on an ebook? but that's because we only get so many copies. They said with this ordinary expense budget, we may be having months long waits for eBooks, right? So it's really just that level of service, making sure that this gorgeous new library that we've been able to build and build under budget and build with private donations is full of materials, has programming, has those things. So if it's a bit under 100, a little bit over 100, that's something we can work out, but that's just where I was coming from on that and I wanted to clarify.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We did reevaluate that last week and made adjustments and we'll take another look at it. Absolutely. Thank you. Yep.
[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions from the council at this time on the budget overview understanding we have a few specific departments here with us tonight as well. Thank you for your time. And I just have, oh, sure. One question. Yeah. And one, I think one, so just confirming. So that fellowship, you talked about that specifically the assessor's office. Is there anything, are they looking at fellowships, like all, all municipality jobs?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Do you know? I know that assessors seem to be at the top of the list, but then below that is, you know, solicitor, anything in finance, little tough to get a, you know, building commissioner, but assessor is what they heard us crying about for a long time. And that's, so this has been in the works for at least a year. So I learned about it in maybe September that they were going to start it and it's, it's going to be August when we get our, is it, Bob, do you remember, is it August when we get our July, July. So are these 40 people? They're all assessors or they're 40 students that want to get in the finance field, preferably assessing fields within the Commonwealth. And so they're training 40 and then cities and towns had to request or say they were interested, which we did right away to DLS. Great, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: And then do you know, can you speak to the number of positions that are currently funded by ARPA and ESSER that are in the budget, the total number?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I almost 600,000 on the city side and almost 1.3 million on the school side. And do you know what number? I wanna say it's like in the 20 range for the schools and about, oh gosh, 10 to 12 part time, full time on the city side.
[Nicole Morell]: And is the hope and the plan that all of those positions would be retained?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Well, the hope and the plan is that a good majority of them would be maintained for next year. Yes. And that's the goal of us trying not to use any revenue replacement this year. Our new growth is up over 500,000. We expect that and hope that it will go up a bit more next year. And then we have some talking to do on in other areas. But our hope is to retain our social worker and our economic development planner. Yes. Okay, thanks. I'm embarrassed.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, just really quickly. I just want to come to those positions aren't in the general fund budget, though.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: They're not in the general fund budget unless they are split. Yeah. And I believe we made some adjustments. So you may see the social worker. I think we're going to fund the recovery coach through the opioid settlement. So therefore, some of our social worker is in this budget. And we've got creative with those two. And then we've also got creative like a grants, a grants manager, we took the CPA Community Preservation Act manager, the CDBG manager and the federal funds manager, and we're gonna divvy up grant management between all three, because we believe they have capacity and they wanna learn and grow and help planning do that work. So in a way, we have a grants manager now, we have social worker there, we're tweaking with some of this outside funding. And that's why you see a lot of spending over the last several years, like when I came in CDBG, there was money from 2014 and on that we've been taking care of and doing a lot of work spending. So we're getting creative at the same time. Revolving accounts on the school side, you can also get a little bit creative with different increases here or there. So we've already been thinking about it and trying.
[Zac Bears]: That's a question I saved for Bob, but you just brought up the compensation study. Do you have a timeline on that?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, we have a special projects manager in HR that wasn't able to get to her work because we didn't have a benefits coordinator. Now we have a great new hire and benefits coordination. That's Jenny Richard, she started maybe two months of two months or so ago, right before open enrollment, and we have our new HR director. So we are transitioning to get them both comfortable. And then that's going to be our special project managers, one of two jobs. And then of course, anything else the office may need, like six months, 12 months, I'd hope so.
[Zac Bears]: Six months. Okay, thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: But I don't want to say exactly. I don't know. We're calling centers ready when we enable so we hope to get that done by the fall. Great, thank you winter. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions from the Council on the budget overview. Cancer Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Just one super quick clarifying question on the question you were just answering. You talk about deliberately not using ARPA for revenue replacement this year, is that to keep online. like 30 to 32 jobs that are still being funded by ARPA between the city and the schools. Is that what you mean?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Like that's our goal. That's our goal. So we will hopefully be able to retain as many as possible because we made the tough decisions which, you know, potentially every department, you know, every department could use like an assistant or we've kind of said no to most new positions because if we're going to add new positions, it's going to be next year with the positions we already have.
[Kit Collins]: Totally, I understand the strategy. I'm just curious about the cause and effect if it's specifically not using revenue replacement this year so that those funds are still available next year so that those funds go into free cash, like the mechanism is what I'm confused about.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, so we wouldn't use any funds, no funds, no ARPA funds would fall into free cash next year, unless we used it in revenue replacement and then didn't spend it. Our goal is to hopefully still not use any revenue replacement the year after. That's our goal.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, so not using revenue replacement this year means that that ARPA money can fund the positions for this fiscal year.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yep, the only thing ARPA is funding is the 10 or so positions that includes our five part time community liaisons, economic development planner, part of the social worker salary, if I have it correct, and the budget. And those are the positions that I believe that we would want to keep. But we'll be evaluating throughout the process. we're evaluating if there's vacancies, do we fill them? And if they, yes, if they're needed, no, if they're not. So we'll be making those tough decisions. Great, thank you.
[Kit Collins]: I just wanted to make sure I was clear on the application.
[Zac Bears]: Councilor Colle, just, I think if I may, I think the causal chain on that is we're not using revenue replacement this year. So barring disaster, all the positions in this year's budget are funded with general fund next year. And maybe the new general fund money can fund most of the grant funded ARPA ESSER positions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So our hope is to keep as many of those positions as possible next year through the general fund.
[Zac Bears]: But if I'm saying if we were using ARPA revenue replacement this year, we would increase that ceiling.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We need to think strategically. It's 2 million and if we don't fill a few position, it's down to 1.5. Our hope is to keep that in the general fund next year and keep these positions that we know are doing great work in the community.
[Nicole Morell]: And that that special HR project manager is an ARPA funded position. That's an ARPA funded position.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And that's special projects. So something like that may fall off versus Yeah, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Last call again for questions or budget overview. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate your response to even some of the challenging topics. So We will go to finance and auditing on page 106. We have Director Dickinson here. I would think the best way to accomplish this and the entire budget, unless anyone disagrees, is to hear highlights or anything that the directors wanna call out. We'll ask specific questions. I'm happy to read the total budget number. I'm not gonna read it line by line as we have in years past because that seems silly. So. For the Finance Procurement Department, we have, here's the total for expenditure summary. We have $723,871, up $76,400, 11.8% from the prior year. And we have Director Dickinson. If you'd like to share any highlights that aren't already called out in this, or if you wanna reshare some of the highlights that are called out in this, and then we'll take questions.
[Bob Dickinson]: I mean, highlights for the year. We remember our budget process last year. This is a little bit more regular. I'm glad with that. I have to compliment the assistant finance director and budget director, Courtney Cordello, who largely did all of this through the last few months, literally looking at every single line for the past five years and seeing where any possible negotiations about cuts could be done. So this is hopefully a lot more to the council's liking than what happened last year. Also, we are, Um, we should be done. There's a couple of details left on the audit that. should be done shortly, and the annual comprehensive financial report should be out soon. That's also better than last year. Free cash obviously was certified much earlier than it was last year. And I hope to continue that for fiscal 2024. So it's mostly getting our ducks in a row, getting these reports out, getting the state reporting done sooner and sooner. It's like a more comfortable system. Everybody knows what they're doing. And we fix, you know, and fix various problems in the system. And as to the budget, the finance and procurement is fairly straightforward. It's mostly the salaries of the people in the stairs, which you're all welcome to visit at any time. And then there's the major expense, and the expense lines is obviously the audit. and there's not much else in that budget, quite frankly.
[George Scarpelli]: So.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, Mr. President.
[George Scarpelli]: Bob, thank you for your presentation, but I find it troublesome that I don't see anything in this budget that's asking for new software, considering you said that the software that we have now doesn't allow you to give us the reports that we need and we ask for.
[Bob Dickinson]: Okay, well, that's... It can be difficult to get those reports, depending on what they are.
[George Scarpelli]: Is it the software block? The software is difficult. So why don't we ask for the software to get that information?
[Bob Dickinson]: Did you want my budget to go from $700,000 to $3.2 million?
[George Scarpelli]: Well, if it's gonna do your job to get us what we need, so to help this council do the right thing for the community, yeah. I would ask that then I would make that decision at a budget season to see how we can support you because that's what the chief of staff said the last time we were together. She said the reason why you couldn't perform your duty is because you didn't have the software capable to giving us what we have. Right.
[Bob Dickinson]: To a certain extent, I have to keep the lights on and the water flowing. Going forward, I would love to discuss, and I actually reached out to a couple of vendors about getting proper software to do this, but you have to understand that it's a multimillion dollar process, which will probably take three to four years. So I can't, I'm afraid I can't just snap my fingers and have new accounting software in the thing and then have everybody trained to do it. And, you know, have it be in place in even a matter of six months. It's just not possible. We have to keep payroll going. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: already. I don't know how to shut this off. This is a Shure 758.
[Bob Dickinson]: So yes, I will be working with vendors in probably this summer and next fall to get together proper proposals for what we need to get done. And I will be investigating financing sources to do that. But you have to understand that that's a very large undertaking. Will take a lot of time and a lot of money to do. And the ballpark estimate I have for one of these systems is literally $2 million.
[George Scarpelli]: So how are we doing our job, Bob? With an abacus? How are we doing our job? When you're looking at the communities that that is successful with the finance department, you see different benefits by monies that are being saved, or revenue that's being created, because they have the tools possible, right? At their disposal.
[Bob Dickinson]: Updating the software system. If I understand you correctly, I don't think that it's likely to somehow make us more money. If we get the proper software and get everybody trained on it, what it will do is it will provide us with, people will be able to do more.
[George Scarpelli]: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Okay, so if you have a staff that's sitting working on with archaic equipment, and software, I'm going to get where they're not even performing the duties that we're asking, right, that this is what I, you know, we're asking for pretty basic things, right?
[Bob Dickinson]: No, I know. And I appreciate I appreciate that. And I appreciate you bring this up. It is something that would benefit everybody. It would make the process of paying the bills, getting payroll out more streamlined. We would have better data on payroll, so we wouldn't have to chase down all sorts of data in order to, you know, make budget calculations for the next year. We're working incrementally on doing this already. I've already discussed this with our new HR director because we use a payroll system, Harper's, and there's basic data that's not, that has never been uploaded into that. So we can do that, that integrates with most of the municipal software that is out there. So we could keep using Harper's, we can make incremental improvements to what we're using right now.
[George Scarpelli]: So we don't have Munis, right? Have you heard of Munis? What? You heard of Munis?
[Bob Dickinson]: Yeah, I used Munis for 16 years. Munis is the one who will probably take $2 million.
[George Scarpelli]: but it makes everything so efficient and the whole, every department is aligned together. Everything you need is at your fingertips.
[Bob Dickinson]: Yes, I understand. I mean, I use Munis. I don't wanna be the guy who said, I use Munis, so we must use Munis. But in terms of contenders for replacing the software, the admin system and the soft right system, Um, it's very much a contender to do that, but again, you know, you're talking a system that's going to cost. I mean, just the yearly cost for the software and after we buy it and support is probably. I conservatively at least 50% more than what we're paying for admins and software.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, so what we want to get to is obviously what to say is if I came out of president is that maybe we should call for meeting after the budget and give us a realistic outlook of what we can ask you Bob because what's frustrating is that we've asked questions that we think is simple because in the past it's done. and the snap of a finger or what we hear from colleagues and neighboring communities. So I think maybe is really having that meeting after the budget and seeing what limitations you do have with your software and what questions we should ask because I think that'll handle that might, that might ease a lot of our frustration when it comes to, you know, when it comes to that.
[Bob Dickinson]: I'm totally open to that. Thank you. actually sent me the report that my predecessors sent you for the monthly warrants. I do agree with the administration, those definitely need to be redacted for certain information that is, you know, we don't want out there. But once I knew how to run that report correctly, then I've been running them, and you've been getting them every month. So it may simply be a question of me getting into the system and figuring out which reports what exact information you need and how to pull it out. Sometimes it's not, sometimes it's just not straightforward. I'm pretty good at doing that stuff, and I'd be happy to get you what you need. Okay, thank you. If I know exactly what it is, so. Perfect.
[Zac Bears]: Thanks.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. just a quick follow up on that one. The question will cause a ship. Is there anything in the capital plan over the next few years on the software that at least the capital costs of it?
[Bob Dickinson]: No, there is not.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. Um. Few quick questions. Well, I don't know if they'll be quick, but I hope they are. Um. This is on the general Basically, it looks to me like this budget is in surplus, at least as presented. The total revenues on page 56 are $194,281.98, and the total expenditures on page 58 are $191,192.937, and that's about $3.1 million difference. Is there a $3.1 million surplus in the budget? Yes. 56, there's a chart of total revenue, and then 58, there's a chart of total expenditures. And I ask this because I did this two ways. The other thing I did was I subtracted the state assessments from the total revenue on page 56, and that got about 186.67 million. And I subtracted the 179.150 on the transmittal letter at the front of the budget, and that gave me about 1.5 million. So I think the budget's in surplus, but I'm not sure by what amount.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think the budget is in surplus. Okay.
[Bob Dickinson]: what numbers you were looking at and make sure that we're on the same page. Just so everyone knows, this budget is slightly different from last year's because water and sewer was included with DPW last year, which I have said I don't think that's proper because an enterprise fund should be in its own.
[Zac Bears]: You might need to move the mic a little closer, Bob. Sorry. Sorry.
[Bob Dickinson]: Another thing we don't know how to do this, but yeah. But yeah, I'd have to.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I would have to. look at this more closely too.
[Zac Bears]: Just quickly could we look at page 56 and 58 and could you tell me I mean if you really can't tell me but it's just that total revenue source FY 2024 budgeted and total expenditures FY 2024 budgeted.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'd have to look in here and see what's missing from this, because the total expenditures are definitely budgeted at equal to the $194 million.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. All right, yeah, that would be great if we could get that back in writing whenever you can, quickly if possible. Because my other, the thing that draws me down is, takes me down that line is, you know, obviously the state assessments that comes right back out, that's not in our general fund budget. you know, right. But if I take this revenue number and I take out the state assessments, that still brings us significantly higher than the 179, 150, 897 that's on page six. So that's just my question. It's like two different ways I tried to figure this out. Both of them gave me relatively significant surplus, which if it's true, is great because we have almost exactly as much, you know, need that we would like to fund us as that amount, but, um, you know, just would like to. Seems like it may just not may not be there, but.
[Bob Dickinson]: There's a section when there's a section when I'm working on this that I mean, I have a spreadsheet that does this. There's a section in here. There's there's a bunch of. For instance. budget that doesn't include things that we would have to include on the green cap that we have to raise.
[Zac Bears]: OK.
[Bob Dickinson]: Snow and ice deficit is one of them. Yeah. The amount budgeted for overlay. Yeah, OK. That's in there. There's page libraries. Thanks, Kat. Back in Nantucket, I have my sound system. So I think next time I'm just gonna bring it. So, you know, hardwired SM58s.
[Zac Bears]: You know better than most how needy we are.
[Bob Dickinson]: So anyway, yeah. That information, I have that information. Okay. And I can send it to you so you can see exactly how these numbers were coming. I don't know why. I don't know where this is somehow. Except for except for those expenditures that aren't. That are part that would be an expense on the recap. Yeah, but aren't actually part of the budgeted expenses.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I would, um, and we put it for the record, but it's not a motion. I think that the numbers I would really like to see our actual general fund revenue after any state expenses or other expenses? Essentially, what are we left with to spend for revenue? And then is this 179, 150, is that the general fund expense proposed?
[Bob Dickinson]: Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, so just the revenue number comparison, the partner to that number. Okay. Great. Similar line of questioning, Do we have expectations? Are we expecting that FY23 is going to be another year in surplus that increases free cash reserve significantly?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, as I said before, probably not.
[Bob Dickinson]: Okay. To reiterate, when you do the recap, here's one of the things in the recap.
[Zac Bears]: Bob, I've sabotaged you. I think the battery's dead on both of these microphones. You're going to have to go back to the other one. I'm sorry.
[Adam Hurtubise]: This one was actually just turned off.
[Zac Bears]: I think the battery might be dead on them.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That one was red. This one's green. I think it was just turned off.
[Zac Bears]: Now this one's red.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Now it's red, too.
[Zac Bears]: So you're stuck back at this guy. Can we charge this guy?
[Bob Dickinson]: As I recall, this doesn't have a long enough extension cord. I do not expect that we will get that much added to free cash. I know we will get some added to free cash. There will be some, I hope, some turnbacks and expenditures. And while my estimate for local receipts is good, local receipts have been larger every year, so hopefully we'll get a little bit more revenue there, but it's gonna be nothing like $10 million.
[Zac Bears]: So like $2 million instead of $10 million? I know you hate me when I asked that question.
[Bob Dickinson]: My crystal ball is down, um, you know, a million or two. I, but don't quote me on that. I mean, as, as I was taught early on in my career, when somebody asks you what free cash is going to be, you see free cash is going to be what the state certifies it at. And you know, when you put all your paperwork in, so.
[Zac Bears]: That's my next question. Are we expecting to be earlier this year, this upcoming year than last year?
[Bob Dickinson]: Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Okay.
[Bob Dickinson]: Yes, I expect to keep pushing all this stuff up. Great. Sooner in the year. I still would love a stabilization fund.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Just so you know. Heard. Last question. I spent some time with the CAFR this weekend, and I know it's... It's an ACFR. ACFR.
[Bob Dickinson]: So I have to call it that for various reasons.
[Zac Bears]: Um. I know it's obviously there's a lag time on it a little bit. It's. What for fiscal 22, I think, or 21 or I don't know. In any case, it's for fiscal 21. Yes Um, is there any way we can and I know this isn't really necessarily your role. Maybe it would be even partnership with communications or somebody else. But is there any way we can take some of the information that ends up in there and incorporate it more into this budget proposal or communicated in general better to the community because I think there's a lot of valuable information in there that goes beyond just kind of the general fund explanation that we get in the budget that could really help us on a. Well, I don't see there's any reason that any of that information, I mean it's public, it's public record, the minute we get the 2022 act for
[Bob Dickinson]: there'll be a PDF with a link on the website.
[Zac Bears]: So- No, and that's how I found it. I more just mean it's a dense document. Could we do a top five highlights or key indicators for community fiscal health or something like that that pulls out some of the information that's in there that's not in the regular city budget and can give the community a better understanding of our financial status.
[Bob Dickinson]: I have no problem doing that. you know, if there are, I could take a look and think about points that would be useful that should be in this budget book. You know, as I say, it's public record, so there's no problem taking any stuff from there and bringing it out here.
[Zac Bears]: Right, great. And just putting the bug in your ear and, you know, we're gonna probably have many more conversations in the next few months about budget process, I would guess, because I think there's just really a lot of good work in there. that doesn't make it in here and doesn't make it on, you know, you have to open the 155 page PDF to find and then find the right page to find the right answer. And if we could make that a little more upfront, I think that could help people who there are people in the community who question, you know, the validity of the financial status of the city and information that is in that document, I think would go a long way towards providing that. So that's it. Thank you, Bob.
[Bob Dickinson]: Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Councilor Collins. Thank you, President Morell. Thank you, Director Dickinson, for being here as always. Appreciate your presentation. I don't have any specific questions for you. I just wanted to circle back to a point made by Councilor Scarpelli and Vice President Bears earlier in the meeting in the context of, I think it's really helpful to hear kind of the scoping and the numbers attached to some of the software that we might aspire to introduce to your office. I think it's, you know, again, like a helpful case study and example to bring up in this context of some kind of procedure that in some way, in some mechanism, some option would improve the operation of City Hall, no matter who is in that department. That is a larger leap than we're going to take in any fiscal year unless something truly miraculous happens at any point. that is exactly the type of thing that to me exemplifies the need to consider and hopefully you know enact as a council with the partnership with the administration some of the strategies that we're talking about in this better budget plan so that we can take that aspiration and say okay department heads aren't responsible for making their own appropriations they can't do that as a council we need to be able to say what would it take to have a finance department that's better resourced and better apart and better empowered to do good work faster on behalf of residents, on behalf of elected officials, over how many years? How can we do that? How can we think through that together and scope out that process? I think just for the benefit of residents trying to make this concrete, that's exactly the type of process that I would like to see our budgeting process evolve into so that we can have that kind of conversation. And it can be relevant as opposed to irrelevant because in this specific conversation, you know, we're never going to have a committee of the whole on your fiscal year 24 department budget and say, okay, great. At the end of this, we're going to resolve to infuse two and a half million more dollars into your apartment. That's not going to happen. You know, that's it. That's not what this is, but we need to have that conversation somewhere. And right now there's nowhere for this council to have that conversation. So I just wanted to underscore that point. And I thank you for kind of girding us with those specifics.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any other questions from the council? Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: When was the last time we did an independent audit? Did we do one last year?
[Bob Dickinson]: We have the audit for fiscal 2021. That was done last year. That was finalized in mid-June. Did the Council ever receive a copy of that?
[Nicole Morell]: They're online, right?
[Richard Caraviello]: I believe you did, but it's... Okay, I don't want... The world doesn't revolve online. Okay. I'd like to see a hard copy. I'll print one out for you and get it to you. Yeah, maybe your world revolves online, my world doesn't. Okay, that's... And I never saw that, and are we preparing one for this year also?
[Bob Dickinson]: Yes, of course. We do one every year. That's required by law.
[Richard Caraviello]: If you could distribute a copy of that?
[Bob Dickinson]: Sure.
[Richard Caraviello]: I'd appreciate that.
[Bob Dickinson]: I just, I give them to our beloved city clerk. Yes, please. They will. Thank you. All right, so hard copies of the audit when it's, when the act for when it's, when it's.
[Richard Caraviello]: For those who don't want it, that you don't have to give it to, I would like one for myself.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. I can, yeah, I can work with the clerk to get the number of copies. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Director Dickinson? Seeing none, thank you so much. I know we'll keep seeing you over the next few weeks, but thank you for covering your department. And we will go on to the Council on Aging, which is on page 197. All right, Council on Aging, and we have Director Pam Kelly, who's going to join us via Zoom. And the expenditure summary is $267,545. up $11,657 4.5% 4.56% from the previous year, and we do have director Kelly on zoom if you'd like to offer us any highlights from the past year or looking forward to this year, and then we'll go for questions from the council.
[Pam Kelly]: Thank you President Morell and city Councilors for allowing me the time to present the Council on Aging's fiscal year 24 budget. We are very happy with the almost near end of COVID. Our daily attendance has grown from an average of 104 seniors per day at the beginning of fiscal year 23 to an average of 174 seniors a day, which is about a 68% increase in the last 10 months. We have added many more programs, classes, outings, social events for the senior community. the city of Medford with 13,950 residents that are aged 60 years of age or older. Granted, we don't see all 13,000, but we do offer amenities, information services programs to anybody in the city of Medford that would need them. We have filled our new part-time social work position and that is going wonderful and it's been quite busy for the new position. So I thank you for listening to all of what we offer at the Senior Center. Many of you get our newsletter each and every month and see all of the available opportunities for everybody. We welcome you also to come to the Senior Center to participate and to see what we do there.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director Kelly. Going to Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. We have two Council on Aging repair and maintenance budgets here. One's for 1,300 and the other ones are 1,500. Are they two different budgets there?
[Pam Kelly]: Okay, with the 1,500, that is for the vehicle, the van repair and maintenance. And the $1,300 right above that, that is for our office copier, the actual lease on the copier.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, so $1,500 is for the van?
[Pam Kelly]: Yes.
[Richard Caraviello]: And $1,300 is for the copier?
[Pam Kelly]: Copier, for the monthly lease and maintenance and also supplies for the copier.
[Richard Caraviello]: And I don't see a line here for repairs on the building.
[Pam Kelly]: That now, I'm sorry, Councilor, that has been taken away from our budget is now in the facilities department. So we do not have to pay that any longer out of our budget.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: You're welcome. Questions from the council for Director Kelly. Any questions from the council for Director Kelly? Seeing none. Thank you, Director Kelly for being here. Thank you for waiting. Those are the only departments we have on the agenda for tonight. We already took a motion to get all of our responses to our questions in writing. I'm happy to, I can, let's see, I have it open for tomorrow night. We have Assessor, Elections Commission, Executive, Human Resources Law, Planning, Development, Sustainability, Police Department, Treasurer, Collector, and Veteran Services, and I do also note that we were going up against Medford high graduation.
[George Scarpelli]: So next Wednesday, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. So we do it if I can, Madam President, I know next weekend, I just want to make the public known that I have a trip for the following week on the week of the 12th that I couldn't change and that my daughter's graduation is next Wednesday. So I know these are important, but I don't think there's anything more important than my children, so I'll be attending that ceremony. So thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Of course. Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Do I have a motion? On the motion of Councilor Knight to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Collins. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned.
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