City Council

City of Salem, Massachusetts “Know Your Rights Under the Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 30A ss. 18-25 and City Ordinance Sections 2-2028 through 2-2033.” The City Council Committee on Administration and Finance co-posted with the Committee of the Whole met in the Council Chamber on _June 5, 2025______________ at ______6:00_______P.M. for the purpose of discussing the matters(s) listed below. Notice of this meeting was posted on ___ May 8, 2025__ at ___ 2:39 P.M.__________________ (This meeting is being recorded) ATTENDANCE A&F – Merkl (chair), Stott, & Harvey. COW – Morsillo, Prosniewski, & Varela. From the city – Kim Emerling, Veterans Agent, Maureen Fisher, Assistant City Clerk, Anna Freedman, Director of Finance, and Mayor Pangallo. ABSENT WERE: A&F – Davis. COW – Hapworth, Cohen, Jerzylo, & Watson-Felt. SUBJECT(S) • Legislative City Clerk City Council Elections & Registrations • Veterans • Capital Improvement Plans Merkl - Administration and Finance budget hearing for our fiscal year 2026, proposed budget. The meetings will run through mid-June. The agendas are posted on the city calendar, which include a link to the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget, and the budget, in brief, an overview of budget priorities, timelines, breakdown of revenue sources, and where your money goes. These budget hearings are a great opportunity to learn about what each departments do, their vision for the department moving forward. And if anyone from the public has any questions in regards to the budget hearings, please email me at amerkl@salem.com . As I do every meeting I want to thank Anna Freedman, our finance director, and the city's finance team for all their hard work on the proposed budget. We are starting with Veterans Services in section 25, pages 579-581. Emerling - Our department is very small and stable. We've been the same team there for 6 - 8 years now, and that works very nicely. It's all very well coordinated. It's pretty much the same thing every day in and out. VA Compensation claims, pensions, education, benefits, whenever a veteran calls, or a family of a veteran calls for. You know we try and network in those benefits or letters, whatever we can do for them. Elizabeth, as you know, is my full time assistant, and she does mostly the paperwork that gets collected up for these Chapter 115 benefits that we manage; state benefits that we manage out of the city. She does that part, and I do mostly a lot of VA compensation claims with the most recent Hero Act and Pact Act passed on the Federal and State level. They've opened a lot of options, a lot more options for veterans to file for compensation claims. And we've certainly seen an increase in those. For the budget purposes, 115 has been stable for the last 4 or 5 years. We run about 40 to 45 clients essentially and consequently the budget has pretty much stayed the same for the last 3 years, and that's all we're looking for next year is the same as it's been for the last 3 years. We keep doing the outreach to increase those numbers if it's possible to just reach out to the community and neighborhood associations, and in housing to find those kinds of clients that may be eligible for these benefits that if we didn’t do outreach, they probably never will find out that they are eligible for it. The biggest increase this year is the payroll for Elizabeth. She was well below the average across the state for the new grade. She's been brought up to just get that equitably settled for her and everything else is pretty much level funded. Morsillo – About how many veterans do you help annually with housing? And is the housing permanent or is it housing at Lifebridge? How long does it take to find housing for veterans? Emerling – About 10-15 per year. We work with Lifebridge and the police to get services to any veteran that needs it. The housing is more permanent. If they are at Lifebridge, we try to get them out of there and into permanent housing as soon as possible. It is hard to say how long it takes, because each is in a different stage. It could take 3-5 months to even get them housing at Lifebridge and longer to get them signed up for VASH which is like Section 8 vouchers for veterans. We work with some landlords to get them temporary housing, but the Vets Admin requires the situation to be an emergency and be considered homeless for them to get Federal support otherwise it will go to someone that is in a worse situation. There is a house in Beverly called North Shore Counseling that has 16 standalone units that they can stay in temporarily and it won’t change their housing situation. Prosniewski – Thanks for all you do for the veterans. It is my understanding that no veterans fall through the cracks when you get involved in their situation. And we basically have no homeless veterans because of your services. We are talking about giving some tax breaks to a building in South Salem that used to be owned by the university, and they are talking about it being veterans and elderly housing. How big of a need do we still have for more veterans housing in the city? I think they are talking about it being 450-475 units. Emerling – A good rule of thumb we hope for would be at least 10%, of course, I would prefer it be 100% but that’s not realistic. Since they will be leased, then it is not necessarily going to help the homeless veterans or families that come to us for help. It’s great to have more housing for veterans in the city. Varela – Are you working on getting another space for veterans to congregate aside from the VFW? Emerling – The VFW is a great place for them to meet but we also try to get them to veterans’ events as often as possible. Stott - Motion to recommend approval for the veterans’ budget personnel line of $160,009 and an expenditure line item of $410,800 for a department total of $570,809. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 3-0. Merkl – We will move on to the City Clerk’s budget in section 2, page 273. Fisher - The city clerk oversees all 3 offices, which is the city clerk's office. the city clerk's general office and the elections office so that consists of 3 different areas. The city clerk oversees elections as well as the city clerk for the city council. and then the general clerk's office, which does services with the public with birth records, marriage records, death records and anything else that the public may need. We're like the heartbeat of the city. They always come and see us first and if It's not something that we handle, we point them in the right direction on where they need to go. I have some comments on some of the things that we have done and some goals for the future. We have a Spanish speaking employee that took and passed the bilingual assessment so they will be getting the monthly stipend. They had already been assisting with translations but now they will be getting compensated for it. We also use the virtual translator if needed. We have that at all our polling locations as well. Most of the transactions at the counter in the office can accept credit cards now except for a few things, one of which is the tour guide license because the company we use will charge a fee for every transaction. In January 2025, we did a customer service training through our insurance company, MAYA. We are doing another training in January 2026. There is also a state program, Maverick, for death certificates that everyone has completed. We are cross training everyone in the office as well. Our salaries have increased. We have a few union employees that just settled a new contract. Merkl – It is good that you are taking advantage of the training programs and that the staff is being cross trained. I like that the agendas now have a link to the backup documents. That is very helpful. Stott - Motion to recommend approval of the city clerk department personnel budget in the amount of $384,156 expenditures, in the amount of $13,870 for a city clerk department total of $398,026. Seconded by Harvey. Motion carries 3-0. Merkl – Moving on to the city council’s budget in section 2, page 265.