Note: Mayor Jen Grigoraitis taped her 2025 State of the City address recently on MMTV instead of spending money on a traditional ceremony in Memorial Hall. These are her remarks.
Hello Melrose, and thank you for taking the time to tune in to the 2025 State of the City address.
Many thanks also to the team at MMTV for hosting this address.
As I begin my second year as your Mayor, I am honored to serve and lead this community that we all love.
I hope to use this State of the City message to talk with you about the challenges facing our city and the opportunities to work together for the common good, as well as things we can do to stand up for our shared values and make a difference right here at home in Melrose, in our Commonwealth, and in the nation.
As the Mayor of Melrose, I am pleased to report that in 2025, the state of our city is strong.
However, we also face some challenging fiscal headwinds and political uncertainty, particularly at the federal level, that are cause for concern.
Looking back on the last year, for a bit of a review, I am proud of the accomplishments of this great City during the first year of my mayoral administration.
With the support of the Melrose City Council, we took steps to tackle a set of connected challenges: affordability and housing. We doubled the cap on the senior property tax work-off exemption, ensuring that older residents can earn up to a $2,000 property tax abatement in exchange for volunteer work with City departments—staffing which also improves the responsiveness and effectiveness of City government, even during a time in which many of our departments are weathering budget cuts with smaller full-time teams.
During a time of rising rents, median home prices, and mortgage rates, our newly revived Affordable Housing Trust is developing the tools and policies needed to make sure that residents can afford their lives here. The Trust Fund secured an award for direct technical assistance from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership to help identify goals, strategies and necessary procedures to focus the board’s efforts as its work begins anew this year.
We renewed the Melrose Community Power competitive electric supply program, which provides more stable energy rates in a time of market turmoil and gives our residents the option to draw from greener power sources in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower their carbon footprint.
Thanks to the leadership of our Health and Human Services Department and the Board of Health, Melrose continues to be a regional leader on tobacco control policy. As the manufacturers of tobacco, nicotine and vaping products continue to prey on the health and wealth of our young people, our Nicotine-Free Generation policy drives another nail into the coffin of this predatory industry while protecting our children from addiction and lifelong health problems.
In recognition of the high-quality and reliable work of the Melrose Cultural Council in support of local arts and culture initiatives, the City directed the $20,000 available via the Melrose Messina Fund for the Arts to the Melrose Cultural Council to improve and streamline their common mission of grantmaking for community arts and culture endeavors in the City of Melrose.
Within City Hall and City departments, the highest priority of my administration has been to deliver high-quality, high-impact services to the people of Melrose. We have worked to improve the frequency, quality and clarity of community communications, issuing weekly email newsletters and submissions to our local press, a monthly bulletin on the activities of local non-profit organizations, and regular episodes of our local access show here on MMTV, the Melrose Minute.
We’ve also made the accessibility of our communications a top priority, adopting new integrated accessibility tools on our city website in advance of a larger review and overhaul of the site.
Our City departments have continued to improve service delivery:
The Department of Public Works has increased access to the City Yard for yard waste drop-off, recycling events, and other services based on resident requests and feedback.
The Council on Aging has continued to grow membership rolls and program opportunities at the Milano Senior Center.
My office has launched monthly office hours for direct engagement with residents on the issues they hope to address.
These efforts to make the City work better for all would not be possible without important management and oversight work also undertaken by this administration.
Under the leadership of our Chief Financial Officer, the City has received a clean audit report from an independent auditor and delivered balanced and responsible budgets.
Our Human Resources team launched the City’s first comprehensive employee handbook in years, setting clear policies and expectations for employee conduct and management.
I have proudly hired or promoted seven Department Heads, which follow retirements or resignations by others, during my first year in office. In gratitude for their excellence and commitment to this community, I would like to acknowledge those individuals:
- City Auditor and Chief Financial Officer Kerri Golden
- Fire Chief John White
- Parks Director Rob Carillo
- Veterans Services Director Gayle-Jean Angelo
- City Clerk Tanji Cifuni
- Director of Planning Lori Massa
- Chief Information Officer Tom Smulligan
But in the finest tradition of New England local government, the most vital members of our City government are the dozens of appointees, elected officials and others who form the civic backbone of our decision-making and government oversight– many of whom serve our shared community as volunteers, without compensation. I am proud that in the last year, I have made 23 new mayoral appointments and 25 reappointments to our crucial City boards and commissions. These appointments and reappointments resolve backlogs of empty seats and lapsed terms reaching back years.
Above all, our City’s greatest resource and accomplishment is our people, especially the people who come to work for us and serve the community each day.
Last year, we settled 18 months of contract negotiations with the union representing the uniformed firefighters of the Melrose Fire Department. The three-year agreement provides increased wages and other benefits for the City’s dedicated front-line first responders and equips the City with new tools to address chronic firefighter and paramedic staffing shortages.
And this week, I am proud to announce that the Melrose School Committee reached an important one-year contract extension for teachers and paraprofessionals in our schools. In addition to addressing the cost-of-living crisis facing our educators, this critical agreement ensures that the next school year will not be disrupted by labor actions or contract breakdowns– as we have seen in so many other cities and towns.
The City government is nothing without the community it serves, and Melrose City Hall continues to support and promote an incredible number of community events, including the following from the past year:
- Elementary DPW Day
- 8th Grade Civics Day
- Melrose High Grad Night
- Pride flag raising at City Hall
- 4th of July
- National Night Out
- Summer Stroll
- Welcome to Kindergarten
- Victorian Fair
- Downtown Trick or Treat
- Home for the Holidays
And ensuring that Melrose voters have a strong say in the direction of our city, state and country, the City successfully conducted four elections this year: the March presidential primary election, June special municipal election, September state primary election, and the November general election. Our democracy depends on the integrity of our elections, and I am grateful for the efforts of our election officials and poll workers.
In spite of the achievements, we celebrate during this State of the City address, we must also acknowledge the substantial challenges which faced Melrose this year, chief among them the austere and limited budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
I began my mayoral administration by seeking a Proposition 2 ½ override from Melrose voters, and I continue to believe that our current revenue stream and levy limit are insufficient to the needs and priorities of our city.
While we aggressively sought grant funding and state earmarks for our key budget priorities and made sure to exhaust every available penny of expiring federal funds, our budget, although balanced, is still woefully underfunded to address the full slate of the community’s needs.
With the failure of the override in June, we had to make significant budget cuts.
Melrose Public Schools laid off more than a dozen educators and eliminated 23 unfilled or proposed positions– including teachers, paraprofessionals and special education staff across the district. We increased class sizes, reduced substitute teacher availability, eliminated educational technology purchase and repair budgets, and reduced curriculum materials across grade levels and subject areas.
On the City side, the override’s failure led to the elimination of positions such as the Sustainability Manager, who previously aided residents and local businesses in accessing energy credits and improving energy efficiency; the Economic Development Director, tasked with improving and growing our city’s base of local businesses; and the Social Services Coordinator, who would have worked across departments to deliver vital aid and services to our most vulnerable neighbors. We reduced the budgets for the Council on Aging and the Veterans Service Departments, slashed police, fire and public works overtime, and implemented salary freezes for over 60 non-union City employees, who did not even receive a cost-of-living increase.
Moreover, the hard cuts we made in the FY 2025 budget have, in many cases, left our community less ready for an uncertain future. We made no investments in climate resiliency and extreme weather mitigation, including tree planting and storm drain management. We underbudgeted for increasingly critical capital improvement needs in our city buildings, facilities and technology. We created no budgetary cushion for the impact of pending collective bargaining agreements.
And that is where we find ourselves, as a community, right now.
So, as we enter the budget development and deliberation process for Fiscal Year 2026, I am sorry to report that the situation is even more dire. Costs are growing far faster than revenue and the levy limit has become insufficient for our community needs. And we have already cut all we can without impacting services.
Because rising costs are outpacing flattened revenue, the City will face major downsizing this summer—including overtime cuts, programming reductions, and employee layoffs.
For this reason, I am creating a finance task force, led by our Chief Financial Officer and the School Department Business Manager and including the superintendent of schools, me, and several members of the City Council and School Committee. This task force will take in public feedback and develop a potential revenue plan, including seeking a Proposition 2 ½ Override in November 2025.
The FY 2026 budget will also be informed by direct input from residents, including a budget survey my office conducted this January. Over 240 residents, local business owners and employees, and other community stakeholders responded to this feedback and articulated their desire for increased budgets for public schools, public safety, and public works; and in some cases, the areas in which they believe the city can handle additional budget reductions. We will continue to solicit public input through surveys, information sessions, public Q&As, and our city website.
The budget, and by extension the property tax override I anticipate seeking later this year, is the top priority of this administration in 2025.
But it will not be our sole priority. Amid swiftly moving, radical and unprecedented shifts in federal policy, we will be closely monitoring the impact of decisions in Washington on the people of Melrose. Whenever possible, we will join state officials to protect the rights of our most vulnerable residents. And we will work closely with our outstanding congressional delegation to make sure that the federal government knows the true needs and wants of cities like ours.
We’re going to keep following through on our commitments on important building projects for our city’s future. This spring, we’ll open the newly renovated and restored Melrose Public Library. We’re grateful to the community, especially library patrons, for supporting this project over the years and for patiently awaiting its completion, and we’re so excited to celebrate the grand reopening of our beautiful library alongside the Melrose Board of Library Trustees.
We’re also proceeding with deliberation and purpose on stage 1 of the Public Safety Building project. In 2023, Melrose voters approved a debt exclusion to fund the largest single public infrastructure project in our history: the construction of a new police station and the rebuilding or renovation of our three fire stations. We are currently working with a variety of stakeholders towards finalizing the designs of the new police headquarters and the Tremont Street fire station, with construction anticipated to begin this fall.
My administration will continue to work closely alongside our City Council and other boards and commissions on continued improvement to City code and ordinances, including:
- Modernized Liquor License Regulations
- Tax Credits for Senior Citizens
- Veterans’ Property Tax Abatements
- Zoning regulations for Accessory Dwelling Units, like in-law apartments, which are newly allowed by right under Massachusetts state law
Before I conclude, I want to address our City’s history. On May 1, 1850, residents of “North Malden” founded the Town of Melrose, and this May, we will celebrate our community’s incorporation– our 175th birthday– with local history education, recognition of our community’s many civic volunteers, and grateful reflection on the things we love about Melrose.
As we assess the State of the City, let us take time to speak to our values: Melrose should be a City that provides great education for children and a great place to live for people of all ages; that supports a thriving civic, non-profit and business ecosystem; that employs talented and dedicated public servants across departments and professions; and that thoughtfully stewards the wealth, health and resources of the community.
With all of you, the state of the city can remain strong– as our motto says: “One Community, Open to All.” But we need your help. And I hope you will continue to stay engaged and stay committed to the city we love so much.
Thank you.