The small-departments budget hearing on May 20 had a little of everything Everett budget season usually hides in the weeds: useful program details, a few honest admissions about old messes, and one more round of council drama over staffing that should have been sorted out cleanly weeks ago.
Start with the Council on Aging, because unlike a lot of budget testimony, Dale Palma actually described what people are getting for the money.
Palma said he was “super excited this year,” and for once that did not sound like empty brochure talk. He walked through new programming at the Connolly Center: Spanish-language programming every Tuesday, health talks with “pizza and presentation” on topics like depression and diabetes, a weekly blood pressure clinic, therapeutic massage, and a salon setup so seniors can get haircuts and manicures at “severely discounted rates, definitely not salon rates.”
That last line was Everett in one sentence. People still need basic things. They just need them at a price that does not insult them.
Palma also said Portuguese-language programming has expanded, with English classes right after, and that the center is trying more integrated multicultural programming with translators. His summary was simple enough: “It doesn’t matter what language or culture. We’re all one.”
Fine. Leave the bumper-sticker part aside. The practical point is that the center is trying to get more people in the door and less isolated.
The biggest concrete update was transportation. Palma told the council, “The most exciting news… is that we purchased a van. Thank you all for your money last year.” The city is now trying to hire two part-time drivers, ideally people with AED and CPR training. He also said he wants the center open a couple nights a week, which makes obvious sense if the city wants to serve people whose families work during the day.
Then came veterans services, where the most honest comments of the night may have belonged to outgoing veterans official Corbelli.
She said straight out, “I feel like our events are very dated.” She went further: “Our events are merely for the folks who go to the Conley Center is what it seems like.”
That is the kind of sentence public bodies usually spend six meetings trying not to say.
Corbelli’s point was not anti-veteran. It was anti-stagnation. She questioned the value of pouring money into sit-down daytime events for the same shrinking crowd while younger veterans with jobs, spouses, kids, and actual schedules are nowhere to be found. As she put it, “They are married. They have children. They have homes. They have functional lives, so they are not available on a Wednesday at 12:00 to come down to have an hour lunch with us.”
Exactly. If the city keeps planning everything for whoever is free at noon on a weekday, then it should stop pretending it is doing broad outreach.
She also raised a budget point that should have been fixed already. Veterans Day and Memorial Day used to be separate budget lines and are now merged. Corbelli said it “would have been beneficial” to keep them separate for “better visualization.” She was right. If you cannot tell what each event costs, then you are not really budgeting. You are just paying bills and calling it oversight.
Councilor Guerline Alcy Jabouin asked a basic question: how many veterans does Everett actually have? Corbelli’s answer was: “Unfortunately, I do not have a number for you.” Not entirely her fault, since self-identification is inconsistent, but still not great. A city that talks constantly about serving veterans should probably have a better handle on the size of the population.
The solicitor’s office budget was where the old-city-hall cleanup became explicit.
City Solicitor Jacqueline Munson said the office is launching an internal audit reaching back “preferably back to 2008,” covering “legal opinions coming out of my office… all of the outside counsel bills, all of the contracts.” Her reason was blunt: “When I don’t know where cases are and when I don’t know who outside counsel is, it’s important that we have that information.”
That is not a normal sentence in a healthy government.
It is, however, a useful one. Better to hear the mess described plainly than dressed up with consultant fog.
Munson also said the office is adding Assistant City Solicitor Mark Assad on June 1 and wants a new deputy city solicitor position. She argued the budget is up 13 percent overall while reducing operational cost by 38 percent, mainly by bringing more legal work in-house instead of paying outside counsel anywhere from “$200 an hour to $800 an hour” in six-minute billing increments.
That math is not complicated. If the city can handle more work internally with competent staff, it should. But the audit matters more than the staffing pitch. Everett has spent years operating like records and legal exposure would sort themselves out eventually. They do not.
The clerk and records discussion had another useful admission. Sergio Cornelio said he will be the sole records access officer for the whole city and that Everett handled “1,100 ish public records requests last year.” He also said a new FOIA portal is coming online to replace FOIA Direct and create a repository for repeat requests so staff stop redoing the same work.
Good. Public records should not function like a scavenger hunt.
Cornelio also defended the roughly $9,000 RAO-related increase by saying a separate part-time legal-background hire would cost “anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000.” Fair enough, as long as the new system actually improves response times and does not just give the city a shinier excuse.
On elections, Cornelio clarified a structure that too few people seem to understand. “There’s a board and then there’s the director. The director oversees the staff, handles the day-to-day stuff. The board sets the policy and runs the actual election.” He added, “I don’t run the day-to-day operations of the elections offices.”
That clarification was needed, especially after councilors raised concerns that when commission members do not show up, everything still seems to land on Cornelio’s desk.
The hearing ended with the council getting tangled again in its own staffing choices. Several councilors argued against cutting support tied to the former legislative aide role performed by Mr. Sayer, especially after Mike Mangan’s appointment as assistant city clerk. Anthony DiPierro said, “I’m opposed to the cut as well,” arguing the council has a $600,000 budget and could find the money. Michael Marchese and Vivian Nguyen both made the stronger argument: institutional knowledge matters, and there is still a support gap for the council.
They are probably right about the gap.
But this is also the bill coming due for a sloppy process. If Mangan was going to absorb these duties, that should have been explained clearly when he was installed. Instead the council rushed the appointment, brushed off concerns, and is now rediscovering that jobs contain actual work.
Funny how that happens.