By Alberto Gilman

The Somerville City Council’s latest regular meeting took place virtually on Tuesday July 14.  All eleven councilors were present. Moments of silence and approval of meeting minutes from June 11 followed shortly thereafter.

For the past several weeks, the Somerville City Council has been engaged in discussions over the proposed FY21 budget with a variety of cuts to various lines.

Ward 2 Councilor J.T. Scott discussed items 14 – 20 on the agenda, which covered the report of the Finance Committee meetings. “The number of people that actually tuned in, it was nearly 14,000 attendees, watched the meetings of the Finance Committee over the course of this budget season,” Scott said.

Scott also took the time to recognize his fellow councilors and colleagues who have worked on the budget through these meetings and other work. All eleven councilors approved all the minutes that were presented.

Next, Councilor At-Large Mary Jo Rossetti wanted to bring up some questions about Health and Human Services for Director David Kress. Budget Manager Mike Mastrobuoni spoke in place for Kress to Councilor Rossetti.

Councilor Rossetti expressed concerns over the Professional and Technical Services line. She wanted to know what the balance on hand was and was given an answer of a balance of $88,000 that had not yet been spent.

Her concern was that $127,503.26 unspent for fiscal 20 was then listed on the website. This math did not add up and wanted to know what had been spent. Rossetti wanted to propose more cuts. Mastrobuoni told Rossetti that Kress outlined where certain funds were going and due to COVID-19, and that many of the programs and other events were not able to take place. 

Rossetti proposed a cut of $50,000 to line 530000 in reaction to the following discussion over the previous miscommunication. Several councilors voiced their opposition to the cut. The motion for this cut resulted in eight against, three in favor. 

Following this motion, several councilors expressed their gratitude and praise for other councilors and colleagues on the work they have done of the course of the last several weeks on the budget.

City Council President Matt McLaughlin also expressed his appreciation for his colleagues and thoughts on the whole process of this budget season. “I’m very happy to have colleagues who really get into the dirt of it,” McLaughlin said. “I know a lot of people wanted us to get it done in June, and we just kind of all knew that wasn’t going to happen. We didn’t rush it, but we also got it done in a reasonable manner.”