City Council

METHUEN CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. GREAT HALL, SEARLES BUILDING Chair Zeigler called the Special Meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Members present: Clr. Beauregard, Clr. DiZoglio, Clr. Faretra, Clr. Finocchiaro, Clr. McCarty, Clr. Saba, and Chair Zeigler. Clr. Simard and Clr. Saffie absent Acceptance of Agenda MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Saba to accept the agenda. UPON VOTE: 6 yes, 1 no (Clr. Finocchiaro) 2 absent TO-23-6 An Ordinance to Create the Position of Second Assistant City Solicitor (Unaffiliated), with a Minimum Annual Salary of $75,000 with Step Increases of Approximately 5% Resulting in a Maximum Salary of $91,163 (sponsored by the City Solicitor) MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Beauregard to approve. Solicitor Rossetti provided background on the legal department ordinances. He would be looking at these, while looking broadly at the staffing of the legal department. Since they are back from a recessed meeting, he would like to address two points that came up in the last meeting when there was a discussion of the agenda. There was a reference and not sure if it was the legal department ordinances; but there was a reference or suggestion that these ordinances were brought in at the last minute and its back to old Methuen. He wanted to make it clear that he is literally the newest of new Methuen on this dais and rejects any suggestion of that. He also rejects the suggestion that the legal department waited until the last minute to advance these ordinances, one of which seeks replacement for Attorney McQuillan. He took the opportunity to publicly acknowledge and thank Attorney McQuillan for his service. His last day was August 31st. The legal department did not sit on these ordinances. He asked the following question “Why are we here?” We are here because the legal department is short staffed. Its infrastructure needs upgrading. “how did we get here?” How we got here is a tale of two years. He had in hand a report, the December 2023 Report of the Inspector General. This was issued right before he started here. This report was very critical of the legal department. Fast forward two years, January of this year, the Civil Service Commission published its report on the Civil Service’s investigation in the former hiring practices of the Methuen Police Department. In it the Commission praises several city officials including the legal department. We go from criticism by the state to praise by the state. “What happened to get there?” This Council was committed to a person to tangible reform. So was the Mayor, the Police Chief, the legal department, the Solicitor, and the Assistant Solicitor. All going in the same direction to get us to this point. And in that period and thereafter, the Council approved upgrades to both the physical infrastructure of city as well as the infrastructure of departments here. In the first part of our meeting in the last session this Council approved hundreds of thousands of dollars in physical upgrades with Chapter 90 funding in contracts. This Council also approved an AARPA of approximately a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for tennis court upgrades. And over time this Council approved a reorganization of the Department of Economic Development by splitting Economic 1 Development from Inspectional Services. This Council also approved a reorganization of the police department, an upgrade of the HR’s position. The legal department is the only department in this city other than this Council where the body enjoys direct appointing authority. The infrastructure of this department needs significant upgrading and that upgrading comes through the ordinances that are before Council tonight. The legal department is not looking for any special treatment because its department head is a direct appointee of this body. But, at the same time the legal department should not receive lesser treatment from this body. Legal is down to one attorney. Either the infrastructure of the department gets upgraded, or the city goes back to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on outside attorneys. A condition that has been corrected during his time here, while the city had a fully staffed legal department. Admittedly, this body did upgrade the Solicitor grid and the Assistant Solicitor grid last year, however, the Solicitor grid was advanced by members of this body in recognition of the fact that when he started in January of 2021, the Council was operating on a Solicitor grid that was almost a decade old. When that grid adjustment was eventually advanced, it was rejected by this body. The body then had to waive its one-year bar on reconsidering rejected ordinances, move to reconsider its rejection, then pass an upgrade to the Solicitor grid and the Assistant City Solicitor grid. Despite these upgrades, the numbers are just not meeting current market rates for an Assistant City Solicitor and City Solicitor. They are having a very difficult time trying to find a replacement for Assistant City Solicitor. The City of Lynn and the City of Newton just recently published postings seeking Assistant City Solicitors. The position in Lynn starts at $119,000 a year. The position in Newton runs from $119,000 to $128,000. He has the ads in his folder if anyone wants to see them. His motivation for being here tonight is not for his own personal benefit but rather for the long-term health and growth of the legal department. If, for whatever reason, he is not here tomorrow, this department is structured to bring in competitive and quality candidates who can build the department and represent this body and the entire city well. And to that end, straight from the get go he will announce right now if the Council feels better about the numbers, through this gesture, he is happy to recommend amending the Solicitor grid so he starts at instead of step III, at step II. This is not about his personal benefit, but rather to make sure this department gets fully staffed. He added that the CAFO and he each independently looked at the numbers and each came to the conclusion that the current budget supports all of these adjustments, even if the new hires come in at the maximum step of their respective grids. These are ordinances that pay for themselves in this current fiscal year. Specifically with respect to the second assistant city solicitor position, as the ordinance notes, he is eager to bring in someone who is relatively new admittee who has interest in policy and local government who is looking to grow a career in municipal law. He sees this as an opportunity to diversify the skill set of the legal department. Since he has been here, we have had two very experienced attorneys, who have helped this city achieve important accomplishments. At the same time there needs to be a mix of skill sets so as to maximize time that the more experienced attorneys have on more complex tasks, while the newer person can build his or her skill set by starting out with other tasks within the legal department. He has studied compensation for Solicitors and Assistant Solicitors. The grid presented to Council for second city Solicitor is competitive with the market in relation to the experience set that is described. He would like to take the opportunity to 2 discuss this with Council. There are a couple of typos on the Solicitor ordinance that he will discuss when the Solicitor ordinance comes up. Councilor Beauregard said that a good legal team can save a municipality millions, especially when dealing with some of the issues that we have dealt with as a city. We have seen a wholesale reform or revamping of that department structure starting when Councilor McCarty was the chair and, in his view, this represents an extension, broadly speaking, of the reforms of that department. It is an understaffed department. Council just heard from the Solicitor and he also heard from folks in HR about the struggles that we have had with attracting candidates for the Assistant City Solicitor position. The issue comes down to whether we, as a municipality, are offering to compensate perspective attorneys at market rates. He thinks according to the grids that we have now they are woefully below a sufficient water line for a city like Methuen. As we look at the long term here. It is critical that Council looks at this as a long-term decision. It is critical in his view, that this current Council before it disbands this year, it is important that those reforms be completed for the good of the city and for the things that we are dealing with now and in the future. Councilor Faretra agreed with Councilor Beauregard that a strong legal department will save the city in the long run. His concerns are, one is if we are struggling to get candidates at the current rates, we are going to add a second city solicitor at a rate lower than that. He understands we are trying to find a beginner candidate; but he is not sure even if a beginner candidate would be attracted by that. Second, we just did this eighteen months ago. He understands what the solicitor says and respects him for that. Methuen cannot as a municipality continue to give out 20% bumps in pay grades whenever it comes up. Council has a few of those on the agenda tonight. There is a higher than 20% bump here when it comes to the pay grade for the Assistant Solicitor and the Solicitor. It is later the agenda. He understands that the Solicitor and Ms. Duprey talked about how this is a cost neutral for fiscal year 24, but as a body we need to look further than that because it is not cost neutral when it comes to fiscal year 25 and beyond. He hopes that his fellow Councilors who are not going to be here down the road understand that whoever is back at this table in June 2025 is going to see a huge jump in this budget when all of these come in. He is in favor of bumping up some of these salaries, but not at the 20% number. He is fine with adjusting things slowly, but we cannot continue to throw 20% because nobody in this world that works in the private sector is getting that kind of bump anywhere. It is unfair to do that on the back of the Methuen taxpayers, to continue to adjust salaries, just because we think we need to get competitive with other towns. We have only posted the position once. We have only had one candidate since Mr. McQuillan left. He is not sure if the job is still posted, but when it comes to this first position that Council is talking about now, he would rather see two Assistant Solicitor jobs posted at the same rate. Instead of a junior and a regular and both of those kind of in the middle of where this second ordinance is for the regular Assistant Solicitor. That is where he stands on all three. Councilor Saba said some Councilors began in 2018 and when they came in 2018 the Methuen’s legal representation was in turmoil. We were weakly represented, and it costs us dearly. It cost us dearly as a city. Yes, Councilor McCarty started the ball rolling on that when we did a search for a new Solicitor. But before then, in 2018, our total legal output was over $750,000. He does not know the total amount because there were lawyers hired in certain 3 departments of this city that Council did not know about. We were over $750,000 and being poorly represented as a city. When Council began the search, they knew they needed someone to come in and rebuild our legal system. There were no limits or guidelines to go by. Council agreed on a rate to pay a Solicitor to bring a Solicitor in here. That was grossly underestimated. When we talk about giving pay raises and saying 20%, we are talking right now about bringing us up to the level we need to be as a city. We are a two hundred million dollar plus city. Our budget is going to go up, but also, we are hiring more, we have got all kinds of legal issues we are dealing with. It makes total sense to have an Assistant Solicitor and then another Assistant Solicitor who is second, basically a little above a legal clerk. Somebody that comes in and is going to learn the job. The Assistant City Solicitor needs to have the experience, but we can bring in someone that is also going to help because honestly, he does not know how they have done it with everything that is going on. He and the Solicitor have not always agreed, but when he looks at the position the city is in now over where it was when Council came in here in 2018, it is night and day by far. We should not look at this as saying, “well we’re giving a raise”. This is not a position that has been in place for forty years and we are giving raises. Now suddenly, we are giving a big bump. We are developing this and when he looks at these numbers and the fact that the Solicitor on the third item that is going to come up has said that he would help soften the blow, going in at step II. To him, when he read everything, he thought that is a very reasonable counter. He is fully supporting these. We need a second Assistant Solicitor. We need an Assistant Solicitor. We must pay to get quality people in here. He deals with attorneys all the time. He just settled on a business and paid his attorney in Boston $650 an hour. If you want quality, you are going to need to pay. He supports the wage classification increase on the Solicitor to keep him above the Assistant Solicitors. We are still once again just defining these positions. Let us not look at this as giving raises. He hopes Council does the right thing because they are setting the pace for the city. There are a whole lot of issues that are going to be coming up in the city and we need quality and experienced representation. Councilor DiZoglio said he looks at the role for the second Assistant Solicitor as more of a paralegal or someone that is going from paralegal to a law profession and that’s why he thinks the rate is aligned to where he sees it going. But something that has been said here tonight multiple times is fluctuating the costs of certain positions to benefit certain people. In this case, there are two vacancies for these two roles. That is when he sees it appropriate to restructure salaries is when there is a vacancy and not when someone is in the role and a lot of companies and he hears it in the public sector they’re not paying their current employees the new rates that people are coming in at because they are locked into that. You do not see people in corporate America getting their salaries just re-orged. They get merit increases. He was very critical on the school department just a month and a half ago on one position that saw a $60,000 pay increase. That is from an internal candidate into a new role. He agrees with the Solicitor – he likes the idea of going down in the steps and will make his comment on the Solicitor position when that comes up. This position is aligned correctly with the increase because there is no one in that position. We are not seeing any movement with the current head count of resumes and going forward if we allow ourselves to have this position realigned, we will see some success. Mayor Perry said there are a couple of things the Solicitor brought up and with all due respect, he wanted to address one of the comments that was made “off the backs of the 4 taxpayer”. He recognizes how difficult it is to understand sometimes. But you need to go back to the budget workshop and understand we forwent almost a million dollars in taxation that could have been done on the taxpayers but we recognize what a difficult time it is the Solicitor said that none of these would increase the FY’24 budget funding for the legal department based on this based on his concession this evening. I will add one additional concession there has long been issues between the Council and any administration over who the legal department reports to. He believes the Assistant Solicitor needs to report to the administration just to protect the city in the potential time of conflict. He would say that if Council could see their way clear, he would be happy to designate that the second Assistant Solicitor likewise with the Solicitor reports to the Council as Council employees. He has found in the last two years and established working relationship in the legal department between Solicitors Rossetti and McQuillan. Not once did they stop on an issue to say, “are we looking at this from the City Council perspective?” “and/or from the administration’s perspective?” They looked at it from the City of Methuen’s perspective each time. He reminded the Council of all the pending litigation. In his view, the Solicitor has done an excellent job in decreasing the need of the city on external legal fees. That is a trend we want to continue, not usurp. If it helps at all, he is happy to have the second Assistant Solicitor report to the Council as well as the Solicitor himself. He urged the Council to carefully deliberate we did all these items they are looking at tonight were deliberated in the budget workshop session. To his knowledge, there is not increase to any taxation capability. What we forwent almost one million dollars in taxation and that was with a good job by the City Council during the budget workshop. We cannot continue to ignore that other cities offer more competitive pay raises because that is how you get quality candidates. you cannot get quality candidates if you are offering well below market value. If we were offering close to market value that would be a discussion he would entertain. But we still are not in many cases and then we walk away wondering. The HR Director is there and can tell you if we are not going to offer close to competitive rates, we are not going to get candidates. This is not the first time we offered the Assistant City Solicitor’s position. Before he cojolled Attorney McQuillan into coming on board. We interviewed probably a dozen candidates for the Assistant Solicitor’s position, none of whom had any experience that would benefit, all of whom would be more likely for the second Assistant Solicitor. Councilor Finocchiaro commented that was helpful information. Roberts Rules of Order dictate that Council talk individually about each specific item. TO-23-6 is specifically to create the new position of second City Solicitor. She came in here willing to vote against this position, particularly because she promised from the floor her concern that she does not, she believes that it was very unwise for the City Council to have changed the structure of the law department so that the City Solicitor reports to the City Council and the Assistant City Solicitor reports to the Mayor. She said if this new third position reports to the Mayor, she would be an automatic “no”. she said if we make that under the City Council and the Solicitor, she would be open to this because she believes we need more assistants in the law department. The actual documentation in the packet does say that it is reporting to the Mayor. Depending on the amendments will depend on whether or not she will support the overall motion, but she will try to amend it to a version that she can support because she was in support, generally, of creating this position. But she is not in support of weakening the future Council in its already so very much weakened. The 5 City Council used to be able to counteract the strong Mayor form of government somewhat by having our Finance Head and City Solicitor in all their department report to the City Council and we no longer have that. To her, that balance is very important. One concern that she has, generally with this position, is the contemplation of the working on the job, learning on the job, somebody who doesn’t have any experience she doesn’t think Methuen is at a place right now where we can somebody who is going to be learning on the job. She would rather spend that money on outside Counsel in that case because we do not have the ability to make any mistakes with the high-stake issues that we have right now. That is something that we could do further down the road. She has some suggestions with edits. If they do not pass, then that will be reflective in her vote. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro the change, per the Mayor saying he would agree to this, on the job description, second to last page where it says reports to the Mayor, amend that to say City Solicitor and the City Council instead of Mayor. Solicitor Rossetti – Legal Point of Order – the issue there is while that can be a goal to work toward, the Home Rule Charter is presently structured so that the only positions for which this body enjoys original appointing authority are positions that are currently specified in the Charter for that authority. It is the Clerk of the Council and the City Solicitor. In order for the second Assistant City Solicitor to report to the Council, we would need to do a Home Rule Petition to amend the Charter to allow the Council to have direct appointing authority of the second assistant City Solicitor. That can be a goal that is worked toward. The Council can still pass this with the goal in mind of getting that petition deliberated and passed here, sent to the General Court for passage. He wanted the body to be aware of that before they consider the amendment. Councilor Beauregard asked if the Council could make an amendment to the job description (included as an exhibit) outside the ordinance which is the actionable item on the agenda. Solicitor Rossetti said the exhibit is deemed as a part of the body as a whole. It is incorporated by reference. The document is integrated. He does not know if it is the Council’s desire to amend the description or its desire to amend the text preceding the description. Councilor Beauregard said his understanding is the amendment would be to the job description itself. Councilor Finocchiaro said she is going off the Mayor saying that he would agree. She is not passing this without this changing. She is not passing it now and saying we are all agreeing to make that change later. If there is a place where you would like us to change this in the actual order verbiage, she is happy to do that. The main location that it was in was in the job description which is what would be posted. She is fine with changing that as well if there is another area that the City Solicitor would like Council to change in the actual order to match it, she will do that. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Faretra to change the job description. Councilor Faretra said when the Solicitor mentioned a Home Rule Petition to change who the second Assistant City Solicitor would report to would fall on the next Council. This Council would not be able to pass that Home Rule Petition and send it along because of the lame duck 6 status. He wants to clarify that before Council moves on with this vote. that is important to know if this Council would be able to push that forward or would that have to go on to whoever is sitting in this seat in January 2024. Solicitor Rossetti said the Council is authorized to create the position and it is the creation of a new position or an increase in salary that is covered by the lame duck laws. The Council can approve the creation of the position after two reads in the month of September. That same Council can then move to amend the Charter through a Home Rule Petition because the position has already been created. At that point, you are not implicating the lame duck law. He reminded Council, with respect to all the ordinances on the docket tonight, with respect to the Council rules just make sure to remind the members and I’m sure all of you are aware but it bears repeating, that a “no” vote on an ordinance triggers the one-year bar on your rules regarding review of a same or similarly worded ordinance. Councilor Mccarty wanted to make sure Council is not overstepping into executive functions here. Council is talking about a job description which is to make a hire which is an executive function. He wants to make sure Council is not overstepping their bounds as legislators. Solicitor Rossetti said to ensure that the authority you exercise is consistent with the Charter, Council would advance an amendment that specifies the process that we pass this, the body agrees to pass this ordinance, creating this new position. and within the current fiscal year, the body will promulgate a Home Rule Petition to amend the Charter so that the second assistant City Solicitor reports to the Council. Councilor McCarty said he doesn’t know if it would be cleaner or more appropriate where this is a first read, if it were to pass, when it comes back on a second read, if the Mayor could just make the edit and then Council accepts it as amended. Solicitor Rossetti explained the Council could make the amendment on the floor. Council could table it, pending an edited version coming before the second read, he thinks. It would be better for the body to make the motion to amend on the floor because it is all discussed in the open and is subject to the deliberation of the body. The reason he brought up the provision of the Charter is because essentially the Charter says “Mayor has all the executive authority, all of the appointing authority, except for the positions of which the Council has direct appointing authority. Right now, that direct appointing authority pertains only to the Clerk of the Council and the City Solicitor. That is why the amendment that is currently being contemplated by the body would require a Charter change to make it fully effective. Councilor McCarty said once this Council is gone, we have a lot of things we are facing. A lot times they talk about a lot of things at a meeting and then we forget about them. He would feel comfortable if Council went through the exercise making their intent known here and then on second read have the edit done and Council could accept it as amended. Mayor Perry asked the Solicitor if any of this gets easier if they call the second City Solicitor, instead of saying second assistant, the word assistant draws us into the Charter. Would if it were called the “associate city solicitor’, the junior position and specifically wrote the ordinance to say that it reported to the Solicitor and the City Council. He asked if that helped. Councilor Saba said he is not sure what that would do. This is like when we hired the assistant Solicitor under supervisory controls the employee works under the general supervision 7 of the Solicitor. The Solicitor works for the Council. Really the Mayor and nobody can order the assistant Solicitor or in this case, the second to the assistant Solicitor to do something that is not under the approval of the Solicitor because he works under the Solicitor’s authority. That is what we did with the assistant City Solicitor. We had to say the Assistant City Solicitor works under the Solicitor’s authority and there has not been a problem. Solicitor Rossetti explained it worked well when Attorney McQuillan worked in the position and the relationship that he has with the Mayor. It is a relationship where he is the department head. The Assistant City Solicitor works under the Solicitor and reports to him on a day to day basis. Technically the person is subject to the appointing authority of the Mayor. The Solicitor is subject to the appointing authority of the Council. That difference is appointing authority was never an impediment to a professional and productive working relationship. Councilor Saba said he thinks Council can vote on this tonight and again, as Councilor McCarty said, if the Mayor can update who the second assistant Solicitor reports to that will solve a lot of what Council wants and if they are looking at doing a Home Rule Petition, as the Solicitor said, Council can do that in November and December. 44:18 The Mayor and the Solicitor can work on this. For what Council is looking for the second vote. He is fine with moving forward tonight. Councilor Beauregard commented on his take of what the Mayor just said. Based on what he heard from the Mayor he thought – currently the Assistant City Solicitor reports to the Mayor and the City Solicitor reports to the Council. If in the title of the position if we remove any reference to assistant city solicitor which would be presumably on an org chart the assistant solicitor reports to the Mayor. If we call an associate or incorporate the junior name in there. I t could be someone who would be under the city solicitor, so we do not have to go through the pain of the Home Rule Petition. Is that correct Mayor? Would you say that sums it up? Mayor Perry agreed. Councilor Beauregard said that may be a simpler way to deal with this. Councilor Finocchiaro said No to the friendly amendment. She said her concern is that when you have a position that is already on the lower scale to begin with, the title of second city solicitor is something that is meaningful to an attorney that is just starting out so that the title is somewhat attractive so that would be her concern with just changing the title to something that isn’t translatable to other communities. The reason she put that forward to make that change and mayor agreed that is something he would do. It is really setting up the next Council to be in better shape than this Council when the first came in. this would go a long way toward that goal. It is very important for Council to be essentially focused on making sure that this Council can have their own voice dealing with legal matters because we are representing the residents. Many times, these legal cases have broad implications on their taxes, the way Methuen is perceived to other people and just as a community. For that reason, the law department is very critical to a city. That is the main thing that this City Council has, a small portion of the City Council that they inherited as far as ability to maintain that balance. It is worth trying to hold onto. That is why she is in favor of it. if it does not pass, even if it is tabled, the idea of tabling it she is okay with looking at it once it has been tabled and revised. But she cannot vote yes with the idea that second read we are going to make changes. She needs to see that up front. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: (amendment) 7yes, 1 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie)) MOTION by Councilor Faretra To Table. No second 8  Councilor Finocchiaro referred to required education and experience this is still a position within the city. To her to have someone in the position of legal, confidentiality, for them to have zero years of experience, to her is something she is uncomfortable with even if that means that we need to at a later date be asked to take a look at the salary, she would rather that than hire somebody with zero experience. It does say a range zero to five. MOTION by Councilor Finocchiaro to amend that to a minimum of two to five years legal experience. No Second MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Faretra to table. UPON VOTE: 7 yes, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) TO-23-7 An Ordinance to Amend the Wage and Salary Classification Plan for the Assistant City Solicitor – Unaffiliated by adjusting the minimum annual salary from $91,800. To $105,000 and Providing step increases of approximately 5% resulting in a maximum salary of $127,628. MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Saba to adopt. Councilor Faretra said he is put off by the 5% annual increases to get this to the $127,628. That is the only thing holding him back on this. He agrees with raising the minimum to $105,000. He would like to see a lesser percentage. He was doing the math earlier. A 4% bump would bring those numbers down a little then have the final number at $122,835 as the cap. That would be his preference. He asked if the Council could make that motion. Solicitor explained the body can move to amend on the floor providing there is a second. MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro to adjust the 5% to 4% to drop down the step increases just a tad and lower that cap to $122,835. Councilor McCarty commented he likes the amendment. However, he was going to make a similar amendment on the next proposal. He is looking for uniformity and consistency of a flat 5% across the board He is going to hold that at everyone in the department having equal increments. Councilor DiZoglio said he was going to motion to make it a flat 3% because that is the annual increase for most of the annual increase for the industry. He asked the HR Director if there is an industry average percentage. The Director said she believes it is 3% but she would have to look it up to confirm. But from memory she believes it is 3%. MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio to offer a friendly amendment to 3%, accepted by Councilor Faretra. Solicitor Rossetti – Point of Information – on the research that he has done you cannot paint with broad brush stroke an industry wide average on percentage increases while ignoring the market realities for the services of in-house attorneys. He would argue that the salary adjusts that Council is contemplating is well within the body’s authority will make it more difficult for the city to bring in quality candidates for the position of assistant city solicitor in relation to the numbers that he has respectfully proposed in the revised salary grid. Councilor DiZoglio said he is not going to disagree with the Solicitor on his research, but with the way our community is structured and the way he believes, we as a community, are open to change 5% across the board should be based on performance and we haven’t seen anyone in 9 this role yet to say performance is key so far and if we are going to talk about adjusting these things, we’ve adjusted it twice in the last eighteen months. Whose says Council cannot do this again in eighteen months when we find a good candidate and think they are valuable to the point that we can go up another 3%. He would be open to that conversation in the future, but Council does not have a candidate in front of them tonight. He does not know what the market is. You got one person based on the rates that were almost a decade old. You are right we adjusted it thirteen months ago. Adjusting it a little bit more to the additional 3% would allow us to say that has gone up a few percentage points since Council initially reviewed it. this opinion is going to be we agree to disagree. Solicitor Rossetti said he would hope they would a candidate for assistant city solicitor before the body contemplates another discussion in thirteen months about a possible salary adjustment. The reality is they posted in July a month prior to attorney McQuillan’s departure and got a very tepid response. He believes if the grid remains, we will continue to get a tepid response if the grid remains in its present place in the market. He does not believe that the percentage increases contemplated for possible amendment on the floor tonight will put the grid where it needs to be. He has never believed that employees automatically agree for a step increase on an annual basis. He thinks it must be by performance. He has no quarrel if a municipal executive believes in instituting a COLA adjustment. But in his view, the folks who come in and perform need to perform well to justify the step increases. It has not been his prior experience working for prior municipalities employees automatically get step increases on an annual basis. To the extent that allays any concerns on the part of the members here, that will be an operating principle he operates under as head of the department. Councilor DiZoglio commented if you find a candidate with four years of experience and some legal background, maybe worked in the role, they would more than likely be going to step III. The HR Director Gina said she believed Councilor DiZoglio would be correct in that statement. If we need to put them there to obtain the candidate’s employment. But she would defer to the department head. Councilor DiZoglio commented we could already be seeing a step III person at that price and at that rate, without any ability to adjust their salary in the future other than coming with another ordinance to adjust and reclassify their role. He is okay with the 3%. Councilor Faretra accepted the amendment on that. Councilor Saba commented that this is not the department to be pennywise. As the Solicitor said whether we start someone at step II or step IIII, it does not mean they are going to get a 5% increase the next year. Then if we, we are at the max of their pay scale. That would be for the future Council to determine how they are going to move forward. But the Solicitor posted the job. He did not get a good response. They are trying to correct that and get some quality people here. We play these little penny games. This is not the department for that. If you want to have the vote on the amendment that is fine. Council is here to try and work to protect the city moving forward on any increasing legal challenges. Councilor Beauregard commented he is line with what Councilor Saba is saying and he likes the direction Councilor McCarty is heading with his comments. 10  Councilor Faretra said he does not think a $13,000 bump in the base or step I in the minimum is being silly or being pennywise. That is a huge bump to attract candidates and bringing the max salary from 105,000 to 123,000 is an $18,000 bump. He does not see this as being cheap when it comes to this. It is trying to attract better candidates but trying to be somewhat fiscally responsible, but he does like what Councilor McCarty said going forward. Looking at 5% to 10% going forward does not set the city up going forward in a good spot financially. He understands the Councilor’s points about a strong legal department. But a $13,000 bump in the base and a $18,000 bump in the max does not fall into that category and that is going to hopefully attract some candidates. he does not think the difference between 122,000 max and 127,000 max. he looks at it as trying to reel this in somewhat in order for us to make it more feasible for us going forward when people are sitting here in 2024 trying to figure out how to pay for this going forward. Councilor DiZoglio referred to what the Solicitor said about COLAs. He doesn’t disagree with COLA. It might even be something we do consider in this vote to potentially make this level set come FY’25. And if the Vice-Chair would be on board with this, he would do the 3% decrease with a 2% COLA in year 2025. And then leave it there. Solicitor Rossetti said the Council does not control the salary of the Assistant City Solicitor. The Mayor would direct the salary of the Assistant City Solicitor. It is up to the Mayor who would order the COLA for employees. What he was simply saying in raising COLA was to say that he understands when an executive issues a directive that all employees, non- unionized employees enjoy a COLA of X%. That is separate and apart from a step increase. He hopes he did not say something other than that when he referred to COLAs earlier, but to the Vice-Chair’s point about why the numbers seem significant they seem significant because the starting point is below market. For example, the City of Lawrence will soon celebrate the six- month anniversary of its posting for Assistant City Solicitor, a position that pays up to $146,000. That position is still vacant. You are talking about a salary grid even the one that he proposed is still about $20,000 below that. He is not looking forward to and hopefully he does not have to celebrate the six-month anniversary of a vacancy in the Assistant City Solicitor position. MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Faretra to move the vote: UPON ROLL CALL VOTE (3%): 2 yes (Clr. DiZoglio, Clr. Faretra) 2 absent (Clr. Saffie, Clr. Simard) Motion failed to end discussion on 3%. Councilor Saba said Council voted a 225% pay increase for themselves. We could say that it is because we are vastly underpaid, but that is an example of there are some types, sometimes when you just cannot go with that standard 3%. The position is underfunded to begin with. We are trying to bring it up to the market. We have got to protect the taxpayers. We have got to protect the residents of this city. So, if we can justify a 225% raise for ourselves, then let us not be stuck on just that number all the time. Councilor Finocchiaro said Councilor Saba makes a great point. The 225% number is scaring her. For the record she did vote for that 225% increase. On this particular motion she seconded the original motion by Councilor Faretra for discussion to try and help out the City Solicitor to try and see if there might be some consensus because she knows that there is a wide variety of opinions on what we should do in these three cases. That was not an indication of her support. What she would be in support of is for us to take the job description and requirements 11 of this position and largely elevate it so that we are getting a very highly qualified individual. And increase the salary to commensurate with that experience. That is what she would have liked to see with this position. it was unusual to have somebody who was formerly in a similar position to have taken the position for that salary. It would be very, very unusual for there to be another person. If we are just talking numbers, she agrees with what Councilor Saba said and what Councilor Faretra said – if you are just looking at the straight numbers, she agrees they are very high numbers. We are talking about somebody who is going to be the actual City Solicitor, who is going to be maybe showing up on the city’s behalf in court without the City Solicitor at times or approving our contracts as to form. That is a really important position. We are talking about the other third position in the previous vote and we are saying oh, that person could be theoretically less experienced. The Assistant City Solicitor is a very important position. say our City Solicitor is out and there is an important decision that needs to be made and he is unavailable then he could be making decisions on court cases with this person. She is probably in the minority with that opinion. She would like for Council to attract top talent so that we are filling (the bench) for the future. She does not believe that this position with this salary as posted even without the change that people are talking about will do that. She is not supporting it for that reason. But, if it ends up tabled and those changes are made to have enhanced experience and that pay, that is something she would be willing to talk about. Councilor DiZoglio commented if we are going to throw around 225% and we talk about Lawrence, Lynn and Newton tonight, their City Councils make over twenty thousand dollars. If we are going to compare our legal department to cities like that and we are going to harp on $10,000 as a city for a City Councilor, you cannot compare it. You cannot because if you do, this Council should be making $29,000 year. That is not the case. If we are going to compare Methuen to Lawrence, Newton, and Lynn, then let us do it. But as a city we have an HR Director that is new here. We have a great legal team that we want to continue to push out. Let us start marketing it and let us find resumes and at 3% is still an increase to what it is today. If we are going to harp on 3%, fail it. Let us go to a vote and see if it passes at 5%. Councilor Saba commented that all he said was is we can give ourselves a 225% raise, you are talking, we spent now, it is 8:15 p.m. and Council has not even voted on our second item tonight. And we are talking a difference of 5% to 3% increase next year trying to fill our legal team. Let us have the vote. that is fine, but at the end of the day it would be very embarrassing for this Council not to invest in our legal department as many of us are leaving. Those of you who are staying will have to deal with that. Let us just do the right thing for the city. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: (amendment 3%) 5 no, 2 yes (Clr. DiZoglio, Clr. Faretra) UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 4 yes, 3 no (Clr. DiZoglio, Clr. Faretra) Failed TO-23-8 An Ordinance to Amend the Wage and Salary Classification Plan for the City Solicitor (Unaffiliated) by Adjusting the Minimum Annual Salary from $108,120 to $130,000 and Providing Step Increases of Approximately 6% up Through Step III, followed by an Approximate 10% Increase to the Maximum Salary of $170,000 (Sponsored by the City Solicitor) Solicitor Rossetti pointed out the Scribner error in the title – he tried to capture the current grid of the Solicitor $108,120 to $130,600 that was the pre-COLA grid1. The actual grid 12 is correctly stated on page 3, which takes us to the second and final Scribner’s error. That date 7/1/24 should be 7/1/23 (inside the grid). Chair Zeigler indicated Council will accept those as errors that will be amended. Council will be reviewing this as amended. Per Councilor Finocchiaro’s request, the Solicitor repeated the changes. Councilor McCarty said this is an amendment that jumped out to him. It was after he had spoken to the Solicitor, so he was not able to bring it to his attention. He noticed how the titles in the previous titles are 5% across the board for incremental step increases. He would like to mimic that on the Solicitor because he sees on the final two steps, they create expediential growth where it goes 6% to 10 %. He cannot help but to think that this position because it is a department head is eligible for that 2% COLA at the Mayor’s discretion for all department heads. He foresees that being built in under riding this table where we are going to see this table whether we accept it or deny it move at a 2% pace as the CAFO mentioned when Council took the vote in the first place. MOTION BY: Councilor McCarty, seconded by Councilor Faretra to adjust the annual minimum salary of $130,000 and providing step increases at approximately 5% resulting in maximum salary of $158,015. That is what it comes out to if you add the 5% from the minimum step through the maximum step. The minimum step remains at $130,000 Step I is $136, 500, Step II is $143,325 Step III is $150,491 and the maximum step is $158,015. If this amendment were to pass, he would like to see that reflected for the second read. That is his proposed amendment. He did the quick math on his end, but as far as the title goes, he would like to amend the title to mimic the prior two. By adjusting the minimum annual salary of $130,000 and providing step increases at approximately 5% resulting in a maximum salary of $158,015. that is what it comes out to when you add the 5% from the minimum step and then obviously just to get it out of the way, the minimum step remains at $130,000, step I is $136,500. Step II is $143,325. Step III is $150,491. And the maximum step is $158,015. If the amendment were to pass, he would like it seen reflected for the second read. That is his proposed amendment. Chair Zeigler - The math may be done a little differently because of the corrections made by the Solicitor. The minimum is $108,120 to $132,600 now as opposed to the $130,000 Councilor McCarty said if it is reflected in the record for the CAFO to give us the amended version for second read he will be satisfied. Solicitor Legal Point of Order – the ordinance, what has been proposed for an upgrade starts at a minimum of $130,000 so he thinks Councilor McCarty’s numbers are accurate. The $132,600 is where he is at presently at the maximum sector of the current grid. That may be causing some confusion. It would be we are starting at a $130,000 jumping point and then going 5% across the board and work their way up through the maximum step. Councilor McCarty agreed. UPON VOTE: on 5% passed unanimously (7 yes) JM proposed an amendment subparagraph 2 on page 3, it mentions step III. Motion to replace with step II. The reason for that is at step II, the – sorry I am looking for step I ($136,500) that still gives the solicitor a raise for this budget and we have room for him to grow at an annual rate of 2%, plus if there is a step increase in the future. If we start him at step III as it is written, that puts him at $150,000 and it does not leave much room to grow so he does not 13 want the Council coming back in 18 months and doing this all over again. He believes every position whenever there is a reclass or a new hire, they should start at the front end of the scale and work their way up. Chair motion to move the next step to step I. Councilor Finocchiaro Point of Inquiry this bringing up something that she wanted to clarify: For step increases, she understands that the Solicitor is a Council employee. Her understanding is once a city employee of the city reaches a certain step, unless there was a demotion or other issue, that we were not able to place them lower. The Solicitor voluntarily said he would move down to step II, which he could do if he volunteered. She is just trying to understand as this is an area, she is not an expert in. She would like to understand if Council can change the steps or not allowed to do that. Solicitor Rossetti explained that under the Charter the Council directs the salary of the city solicitor and the clerk of the Council. Councilor Finocchiaro asked: even in the case of steps? Solicitor’s response, yes. Council sets the salary for the Solicitor and the clerk of Council. Councilor McCarty No second to step I motion MOTION BY: Councilor McCarty, seconded by Councilor Faretra to amend to step II. As it is written right now it is at step III. Chair Zeigler clarified the Motion by; Councilor McCarty, seconded by Councilor Faretra to change it to step II. UPON VOTE: 6 yes, 1 out of room (Clr. Saba) MOTION BY: Councilor McCarty, seconded Councilor Faretra to adopt as amended. Councilor Finocchiaro noted the absence of two Councilors during this sensitive discussion. These are important decisions. We are also discussing our employee and just made some major changes. To her, a table makes sense. She would like the opportunity to hear from the other two Councilors on how they feel about this item and to also be able to put this change in place to better understand the Solicitor’s point of view. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro to table. No second MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Saba to table TO-23-8. UPON VOTE to table: 4 yes, 3 no (Clr. DiZoglio, Clr. Faretra, Clr. McCarty) TO-23-9 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management, to add the new position of GIS Specialist Requested by the Mayor and Director of Public Works MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to approve. Mayor Perry deferred to the DPW Director. He noted a position was called for when we did the external DPW audit. Most other cities and towns have one. He will have the Director spell out what the position actual does. 14  Director Bower explained GIS is a tremendously useful tool he did talk about it during the budget presentation. In DPW, basically it is a map of the whole city that has all our utilities in it, drainage, sewer, water, and we can use all the information out in the field. Most of our progressive communities have a very robust GIS system. We have committed to a six-figure investment in the upgrade of GIS in our city through AARPA and CIP funds. He had the experience at another community with a GIS specialist at the helm and he can tell you it makes all the difference in the world to have someone who is trained, has an education in the system to be there for us as we realize the investment in this. We are also making an investment through GIS as our basis in our work order system through AARPA and CIP that will be a tremendously useful tool for DPW. The GIS system is also tremendously useful for all the other departments in town: fire, police. He could go on and on about the various uses, but they are basically limitless. He encourages people to look just pick a random community closer to Boston, the front page will direct you to GIS, and most of them are very helpful and very robust. We have something now that is really sort of just the basic something that tells you the basic information. It does not really do a lot for us. Councilor McCarty commented he has used GIS as a Councilor to help constituents. It is a tremendous tool. It needs to be utilized to its fullest capacity. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS TO-23-10 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Unaffiliated, to add the new position of ARPA Construction Manager Requested by the Mayor, CAFO and Director of Public Works MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to approve. Councilor Faretra said considering we have about $30,000 left on the table after Branch Street and the small projects, this is necessary to ask our DPW Director and associate director to take this task on would be kind of big for them. He asked if we are unable to find somebody, since this is such a short window, is there a Plan B consultant, something that we can fall back on for the next couple of years if we are not able to find somebody to fill this position. Director Bower said if we were not able to fill this position, we would utilize the engineering company that is doing all the work for us, all the design work. They will be in a project management role for us and we would have to expand on that and use in-house people through engineering, himself, and Felix. Councilor Faretra said that was his only concern if we weren’t able to find somebody, how would we handle the projects going forward because as you look at that plan, most would fall under your department and we already know on some of the stuff you guys are stretched thin. He wants to make sure we had a plan in place if we were not able to find somebody. Mayor Perry commented the good part about the AARPA is the 46M that we are spending in infrastructure across the community. What several of the Councilors suggested and what they agreed with is this provides a central point of contact for water so when we do the water and sewer in the Arlington Neighborhood. Linda Soucy talked about somebody who could speak at meetings and talk about what is going to happen and when and what is the impact to the people and their stores and their houses. The impact of some of these projects are going to be significant. They agreed with Councilor Saba who originally talked to us about this. We 15 definitely agreed with him that one centralized point of contact for all the projects that are running, kind of like a public works conduit to run to the department to go back out to the constituents so that they are constantly updated and that would include all kinds of communications on social media etc., but also neighborhood meetings as Linda Soucy discussed. Councilor Saba commented this is a long overdue position when we are talking about that much money it is critical. He hopes that the posted salary will bring someone in whose got thorough knowledge of basics of civil engineering, considerable knowledge of government and municipal projects like this, knowledge of the laws, rules, and regulations, etc. With the money that we have, and we must get spent in the projects all over the city, this is a great move. Councilor Finocchiaro commented that this is a position that a lot of communities have put forward. Her concern would be that a lot of the communities have either posted it and not been able to fill them or got the position approved but have not posted it. Part of that reason is that the way AARPA works is that everything needs to be committed through 2024 and can be spent through the end of 2026 except for the amendments to roads and Title I funding and other things. That is a different deadline of September 30th. the concern that some folks have changed from when we originally were talking about this position is that if you have something committed at the end of 2024 and it is not spent on that actual item through 2026, then you’re going to lose the funds, unless they make a change to the law. If they do not that is often what happens with federal funding. Her concern would be with this position is we already behind on this. We are asking someone to come in and manage the remainder of 46Million dollars that needs to be committed by the end of this year. We do not have time to train you. That is a tough expectation. When this conversation was happening about potentially having this position was a long time ago when we first started to have those conversations. Councilor Saba was originally having the conversation in a finance committee. She will vote yes because these are federal funds, and she would like to do the best that we can. We are trying to spend these funds. The city needs to be thinking of and starting our backup plans now for how we are going to spend the additional monies because we are going to be able to spend money on roads because of the changes to AARPA that just came out. What is going to happen is every community in the Commonwealth is going to want to do the same thing. They are all going to rush out for the same contractors, the same paving materials, the same everything. It is really important that Methuen starts to work on that sooner rather than later Unfortunately this is falling into this person’s lap as well to have that backup plan so that we don’t leave any of this money on the table. It would make sense for us to have this through a consultant at this point in terms of how long it would take somebody to get up to speed. But she is willing to say yes and hopes that the Mayor will not hire someone unless they are highly skilled and capable and worth us tying up that amount of money so that we can make that effort. Otherwise she hopes it is converted to a consultant. Director Pat Bower clarified they are looking for a construction manager. We are in the design phase still on many of these projects. He feels that we are bringing that person in at just the right time so that they are involved in a lot of the design decisions. Their role is going to be out in the field, interacting with the public. They are going to be overseeing our contractors making sure that we do not have a lot of change orders. We are going to get someone who has a lot of experience with utility construction, horizontal construction. The timing is just about right. 16 Some positions advertised having different responsibilities, financial responsibility managing the financial part of AARPA. But we are looking for a construction manager. As far as timing goes, we are hitting it just right. Councilor Finocchiaro commented the timing to her was when the money first came out. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 7 yes, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) TO-23-11 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management, to add the new position of Safety and Training Coordinator Requested by the Mayor and Director of Public Works MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Saba to approve. Councilor Faretra said this position is needed. His concern is it should go under the HR Director because there is more than just DPW that could use this training. There are other departments out in the field that could probably use this as well. This is a good step forward. He knows this came up during the budget and there was an example the director used about one of his workers dropping a manhole cover on his foot. Then after the investigation realizing this could have been prevented by using this. This is a great first step. He would like to see this expanded in the future to cover those other departments that are in the field as well that could benefit for something like this. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Faretra to amend position to report to the HR Director. Solicitor Rossetti – Legal Point of Order – There would have to be a buy-in from the Mayor (at a minimum) because this is a position reporting to the Mayor, appointed by the Mayor. The Mayor has the executive authority within the city. He is not sure to what extent the Council can dictate the direct reporting authority of this new hire. Councilor Finocchiaro requested feedback from the Mayor. She is asking if that is something, he would be okay with. Mayor Perry indicated he would be against that now. The external audit of DPW identified this. This is going to be somebody who is specifically focused on training associated with our DPW. They are quite different from trainings elsewhere. We have stepped up our attempts to address training across all the other departments including regular annual sexual harassment training, OSHA training and other trainings. If the position turns out to be successful, he would be happy to consider it, moving it to HR next year. This year with the manpower we have in DPW and specific trainings that are associated with them that are not typically the expertise of Human Resources. He would prefer to start with this position within DPW. “Can it be a dual report?” sure absolutely. Originally, they had hoped to have the assistant director do this, but he is fulfilling a more vital need with what he is doing. It shows you how great the need is in DPW for well-trained leadership and manpower. His preference would be to start this within the DPW to have them report to Felix and Pat. But, happy to have them dual report to HR if that is the desire. HR Director Gina LaGreca explained this rightfully belongs in the department of public works at this point, at least to start off. That was a good point by the Mayor because it is more on the expertise of that field. It is important that this person is going out to job sites and evaluating things on scene. In the job description that is proposed, they ordered to investigate 17 certain workplace hazards and site hazards as well. It would be difficult for the HR director to monitor that at least at the beginning it is more the expertise of the DPW director who is more familiar with the OSHA requirements. She would be open to exploring it in the future. Councilor Finocchiaro said it is going to be very tough to ask somebody to come in and in some ways, to some people, be someone who is in DPW, yet seen as somebody who is making some of the members of the DPW maybe do some of the things they do not want to do or haven’t had to do. That position of doing some of those tough things is often coming from the Mayor’s office or coming from Human Resources. To her, it seems unfair to ask somebody to be in a position of brand-new to DPW coming in and then also having that difficulty of being the person going around telling everyone you should be doing this, we need more training on this. To her, that is a culturally difficult thing, particularly with the results of the audit for the department that we had, it was very clear that its important that we get some separation so that people feel more comfortable. For example, she would like for DPW employees to feel comfortable reaching out to this person and say not everybody agrees with me, but this is what she would like to see done, more training for this group. That is very tough to do if you are in DPW at that time. She agrees with what Councilor Faretra said and would be open to the dual supervision opportunity if somebody is the primary supervisor. She still thinks that should be Human Resource Director even though she is not the expert on the DPW related matters. What matters more is that you are the independent person. It is sort of Human Resources is the bad guy vs. the person who is coming in brand-new to the position. that is very tough to ask somebody to do that. If Council tables this, there is more discussion, and there are some changes made then she could support something that brings us a little bit more into Human Resources department or some changes that are made. If a table does not pass, she will not be in support of it. she would be in support of Council spending this amount of money in training or a consultant for this purpose. She is in support of us having this position. But it is important having an independent person or at least having some separation as much as we can do so that people feel more comfortable to say things, they might not have been able to say. Councilor DiZoglio said he looks at this role very similar to an EHS role, which is Environmental, Health, and Safety role, which usually does sit in a quality department within the DPW or a facilities type of role. However, they do have quality checks within an HR department. He would assume the trainings that are being created here, we would also be able to go through our LMS that we have recently put money into. Will we be considering partnering with this training coordinator to be able to have these trainings put into HR’s data base so that we can track what has been completed? This is a good, equal, medium because they still do have to provide certificates and additional clearances that these trainings have been done but also the safety aspect. He understands they will be monitoring and looking at flaws in your process. Director Bower said the data base, Human Resource is in charge or personnel. They will have personnel records for all employees. They will be tracking all the various trainings that employees have. He will be meeting with them regularly, involved with HR every step of the way. It is very common in construction to have someone in this role and he does not think people will be intimidated by someone. It will largely be a co-operative effort. If someone comes down and says, “You need to be using a trench box”, they need to be using a trench box. If someone made a mistake, that is why that person is there. That is why they are being brought 18 in to help Superintendents make sure that job sites are safe. He likes it in DPW and does not mind it expanded. There’s room for safety across the board for people who work out in the field. But he does see it as ultimately the information, the data, the personnel records residing with Human Resources. Councilor Saba said Council is overstepping their bounds here. They are Legislative and the Mayor is the Manager of the city and we talk about employees wanting to ask for certain trainings, that is all within the department. Council speaks to the department heads. We do not have employees coming before and speaking to us as a Council. He does not recall any time when that happened. We must stay in the lane here and approve the position if we want this position and let the Mayor and the HR Director and the department head determine who is going to oversee it. If it is going to be doing training in the DPW then the department head, the DPW Director, should be the one overseeing that directly. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: (change supervisory authority to HR Director) 6 no Clr. Beauregard, Clr. DiZoglio, Clr. Faretra, Clr. McCarty, Clr. Saba, Clr. Zeigler) 1 yes (Clr. Finocchiaro) 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) Amendment failed. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: (main motion) 7 yes, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) TO-23-12 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management, to reclassify Water Registrar to Utility Billing Supervisor Requested by the Mayor and Director of Public Works MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor McCarty to approve. Councilor Faretra said this is one of those he was mentioning about a large increase. Since this is not just a salary reclassification, we are also changing the job description and the title, will this job be posted? if we are changing, not just the salary, we are changing the whole description, this job should be posted if Council is going to amend all of this. He still has a sour taste when the water department was discussed during the budget meetings and about certain people getting preferential treatment when it came to the working foreman’s position. For this to go through, for him to vote yes on this, he would need to know that this job is going to be posted with the new salary and the new job description. Because just giving this job to somebody, changing the description, and giving them a new salary does not feel right to him. He asked the HR Director if this position would be posted with the new job description, title, and salary. HR Director Gina LaGreca said her understanding of this is that it would not be posted. It would zero out the current position and convert it into a new one. The current position would no longer exist and only this one would exist in its place. We are changing it for the current employee that is in there. Councilor Saba said Council approves salary and wage classification updates, etc. and we do not always post them. He is not sure that has a relevance. Council either approves it or they do not. he believes the current person is at the maximum category. He asked what category they will go to if Council approves this. HR Director said her understanding is that the person would typically stay in the step they are at. Director Bower agreed. He asked the CAFO Maggie Duprey that question because he was not sure. Typically, when someone is reclassified, if they are in the max, they will move to 19 the max. Councilor DiZoglio said he read, more than once, that there was an increase in duties. He asked Director Bower to explain the duties taken on to make it a utilities role. Director Bower explained the role itself since this person has taken the role has increased dramatically. It has gone up significantly in the number of accounts we have. We have over 15,000 accounts now. She is singularly responsible for making sure that all the water and sewer funds are collected. She does have one and a half direct reports. She has someone that she shares, and she also manages the meter readers who report to her daily. This is a tremendously responsible position. he has tried to upgrade this throughout the years, unsuccessfully, unfortunately. The increase in her pay is primarily because we have missed out in years passed in increasing that pay appropriately. Councilor DiZoglio said in previous years she did not get any COLA increases. Director Bower said that is correct. Councilor DiZoglio said middle management opportunity here. “Will the number of people that report to her stay the same or will there be an increase there?” Director Bower said for the time being, they do expect for her to have, unfortunately he is going to be coming to Council and talking about fees associated with stormwater. Those will go through her. you will notice that we did expand in that and that was the primary reason they went to a new job description because her role is going to expand to include stormwater utility as well. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 4 yes, 3 no (Clr. Faretra, Clr. Finocchiaro, Clr. Zeigler) Failed TO-23-13 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, unaffiliated, to add the new position of Cyber Security Specialist Requested by Mayor, CAFO and CIO MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Beauregard to adopt. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 6 yes, 1 no (Clr. McCarty) 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) TO-23-14 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Department Head, to add the new position of Director of Public Health Requested by the Mayor MOTION BY: Councilor Beauregard, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to approve. Councilor Beauregard this is a critically important position for Council to approve. and Councilor DiZoglio agreed with Councilor Beauregard and commented that given some of the issues around town this is what this Council and city needs. He is s huge advocate of this position. Councilor Faretra indicated because of the low attendance tonight he thinks this is an important decision as well. MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro to table for the full Council. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 6 yes, 1 abstention (Clr. McCarty), 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) 20  TO-23-15 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management, to add the new position of Building Division Director/Building Commissioner Requested by the Mayor MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Beauregard to approve. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 6 yes, 1 abstention (Clr. McCarty) 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) Chair Zeigler explained that a table counts as a first reading. TO-23-16 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management, to add the new position of Human Services Division Director Requested by the Mayor MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to approve. Mayor Perry explained the city has two building inspectors. He presented data and is happy to bring it to the next meeting that talked about the overwhelming number of building inspections that we are getting. We have grown by two to one in building inspections. During the budget workshop he spoke to the Council about how we work hand in hand with the Collins Center. We looked at a design and a delegation for the HSSI department and presented the restructure to the Council. We have some super achievers that are now working in Methuen on grant capabilities. He would hope they would be some of the people that would interview for this job. One of them is in the hall tonight, Kelly Townsend. Our HSSI approach has matured dramatically over the last eighteen months since former Director Zemel left. After he left, we sat down and worked with the Collins Center and looked at what most cities and towns in regards to HSSI and what we are doing is and the CAFO gave out a handout last week that showed there’s twin pillars in the HSSI kingdom, if you will, or department. One is the health area where they would have this position overseeing most of the health side and the other one that was just tabled. The building commissioner overseeing and working in the field with the two building inspectors and those two positions reporting into the Director of Health and Human Services. He could not agree with Councilor Beauregard more. We are currently working and Councilor Faretra is working with us on a Mental Health Task Force that is outlining just how serious the gravity of the problem is in the City of Methuen never mind elsewhere. To him, we mirrored the construct of the cities. We also considered how we thought it would run most effectively. We did not do this with one sit down session with the Collins Center. We sat down on probably on five or six different occasions to map through “what if” and how it would work most effectively. We need quality individuals, not just working on grants in the City of Methuen. We need quality individuals who can address our homelessness, who can address our addiction needs, who can address all the things. We talked last week about his frustration with the Commonwealth regarding talking a great deal about homelessness as a crisis but having no plan to address it. that is the kind of thing. I would tell you that the Department of Health looks at Methuen and sees what we have done under the direction of Ms. Townsend and believes that we are well ahead of our competitors. But that well ahead cannot be maintained if we do not have full time people working this on a regular basis. His one concern when it comes to Ms. Townsend and her department is all her employees most of whom are grant are stretched sixteen different ways on 21 issues. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Faretra to table. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 6 yes, 1 abstention (Clr. McCarty), 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) TO-23-17 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Schedule of Chapter 6, Section 6-5 of the Methuen Municipal Code, Unaffiliated- Police Matron/Monitor Requested by the Mayor and Police Chief MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to approve. 6 yes, 1 no (Clr. McCarty), 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) Councilor Saba Point of Inquiry – Council just tabled a majority of the items because they felt they didn’t have enough Councilors here, but yet we failed the salary increase of the Assistant Solicitor, a job that we couldn’t get candidates for. He cannot make the motion to reconsider. But if somebody on the prevailing side which was the no vote, it would make sense to keep that alive for the full Council at the next meeting to try to reconsider this. MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to reconsider TO-23- 7 UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 7 yes, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) MOTION BY: Councilor Beauregard, seconded by Councilor Faretra to approve TO-23- 7 MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Saba to table TO-23-7 UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 7 yes, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) Chair Zeigler passed the gavel to Vice-Chair TO-23-12 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management, to reclassify Water Registrar to Utility Billing Supervisor Requested by the Mayor and Director of Public Works MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro to reconsider TO- 23-12 UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: no Faretra, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to adopt TO-23-12 MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to table TO-23-12 UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 7 yes, 2 absent (Clr. Simard, Clr. Saffie) Any Other Business for the Good and Welfare of the Community - None Adjourn MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to adjourn UPON VOTE: 7 yes, 2 absent I do hereby certify that at a meeting which a quorum was present, the foregoing minutes were approved by the Methuen City Council by an 8 to 1 vote on October 2, 2023. Linda Gagnon, Council Clerk 22