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Minutes -- Thursday, June 4, 2020Special Meeting of the Beverly City Council MINUTES — Thursday, June 4, 2020 @ 7:00 PM Remote Meeting on Google Meet/Hangout Called to Order @ 7:00 PM Confirming Member Access: Council President: As a preliminary matter, this is Paul Guanci, President of the Beverly City Council. Before beginning the meeting, I would like to announce that this meeting is being recorded by the City of Beverly and livestreamed by BevCam on both Channel 99 and via BevCam's YouTube channel. I am confirming that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. • Members, when I call your name, please respond "Here" • Staff, when I call your name, please respond "Here" • Anticipated speakers on the agenda, please respond "Here" Introduction to Remote Meeting: Guanci: Good evening. This Open Meeting of the Beverly City Council is being conducted remotely, consistent with Governor Baker's Executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the current State of Emergency in the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of COVID -19. In order to mitigate the transmission of the virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings, and as such, the Governor's Order suspended the requirement of Open Meeting Law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The Order allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as adequate alternative public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting may feature public comment. For this meeting, the City Council is convening by telephone and video conference via Google Hangouts as posted on the City's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and televised live, and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other participants or viewers may be able to see and hear you, and anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. You have the option to turn off your video if you are participating via computer. All participants should keep their microphones or phones muted unless recognized me to reduce background noise and feedback. Please wait until the person speaking has finished before speaking so we can clearly hear all participants. • Finally. each vote taken in this meeting will be conducted by a roll call vote. Meeting called to order at T OOPM Roll Call: Stacy M. Ames, Kathleen M. Feldman, Timothy P. Flaherty, Julie R. Flowers, John P. Frates Jr., Scott D. Houseman, Todd C. Rotondo, Estelle M. Rand, Paul M. Guanci Also Present, Mayor Michael Cahill, Finance Director Bryant Ayles, Budget Analyst Gerry Perry Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag: Councilor Houseman Presentations, Awards & Memorials: Mayor Cahill, FY2021 Annual Budget Mayor Cahill: I present to you our FY2021 Budget. Thank you to everyone for all your help. I am very grateful to all of you and the work that you have been doing during this challenging time. I would like to thank every employee in this community from the school side delivering critically important education to our kids and to the City side for delivering critically important services to all of our residents. Line by Line department by department we have gone through our budget our people have done outstanding work, not spending and turning back nearly 2 million dollars in budgeted money just in the last quarter of this fiscal year . These same department heads and their teams have tightened their department budgets and have put Mr. Ayles and myself in a position to propose this budget a budget that delivers all the same core services of last year despite the anticipated loss of revenues. This FY21 budget will insure our high services that our Beverly residents need and deserve. This budget assumes an overall reduction in local aid of 17 '/2 percent of FY20 budget levels, this is consistent with recessions in the past and what legal economists are predicting. Our budget projects there will be a significant reduction in the revenues of meals, rooms and motor vehicle excise tax revenue that the city will collect in FY21. We also know in this economical challenging time that building activity declines so we project that there will be a reduction in building permit revenues. The noted reduction is 4.6 Million dollars which required all departments to refine budgets. Cut expenditures from last year's budget. Unforeseen costs most likely won't be absorbed. Carving out flexibility in budgets in precious years, this means tightening our budgets in each department. However the key is we have kept staffing levels the same and this is important to our residents to have the same standard of service. We will benefit from a one year reduction in our debt payment $496,000 dollars. Will help absorb some lost revenue. An increase in debt cost in FY22 relating to final borrowing for our new middle School and total borrowing for our new police station that is being built. We have been fortunate to invest in our sidewalk and road infrastructure in FY20 was our most contribution in many years. Fiscal climate reduce this investment by 350,000 in FY21. Health Insurance Benefits, unfunded pension liability, previous collective 2 bargaining costs and additional cost 1.4 million new funding for our schools. All of us together have made sound financial decisions over the years. As a result we built our reserve balances a stabilization resource balance designed to help during these economic challenging times. We will draw just over one million from the reserve fund to keep our school and our city services at the high quality that they have been. FY22 will be most difficult budget in many years. We need to be mindful that the reserves that we built carry us through the next few years. I look forward to working with all of you on this budget process in the coming days. Thank You Guanci: Thank you Mayor. We will refer this to the Committee for Finance & Property Guanci- Motion to adjourn Houseman: So moved Flowers: Second Roll Call -Ames Y, Feldman Y, Flaherty Y Flowers Y, Frates Y, Houseman Y, Rand Y, Rotondo Y, Guanci Y Approved 9 -0 Motion to adjourn Meeting 7:16PM 3