Committee of the Whole

City of Gahanna 200 South Hamilton Road Gahanna, Ohio 43230 Meeting Minutes - Final Monday, August 12, 2013 7:00 PM Council Committee Rooms Committee of the Whole Ryan P. Jolley, Chair Beryl D. Anderson Karen J. Angelou Brian D. Larick Stephen A. Renner David L. Samuel Brandon Wright Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 Present 6 - Stephen A. Renner, Ryan P. Jolley, Brandon Wright, Beryl D. Anderson, Karen J. Angelou, and Brian D. Larick Absent 1 - David L. Samuel Additional Attendees: Donna Jernigan, Mayor Stinchcomb, Brandi Braun, Dottie Franey, Karl Wetherholt, Anthony Jones, Tony Collins, General Williams, Joann Bury, Dep. Chief Bell; Press. ISSUES - From the Director of Development: School Project Fee Waiver Request Jolley called the meeting for Monday, August 12, 2013 to order; said before we start on the Agenda Renner has requested to make an announcement. Renner said that late today we received a letter of resignation from David Samuel; want to let everyone know that we will be putting out a media advisory seeking candidates at large; this will go out in the next couple of days and we will be conducting interviews; the tentative schedule is the resumes all need to be in by the 28th; Jernigan and I have decided we will have an Executive Session on September 3 and another one on September 9 to discuss the candidates. Jolley said Issues from the Director of Development on the school project fee waiver request. Jones said Moore Roofing Incorporated has requested that a fee be waived for work being done at 280 Chapelfield Road; they are re-roofing the entire school building for a project cost of $200,000; per Code section 148.13(c), he is requesting Council waive all or part of the permit fees; the request is to Council; the Administration is not making a recommendation; it comes at the request of the individual contractor who has already paid the fee to begin the work. Angelou said what is the hardship. Jones said there is no hardship that has been explained to us. Angelou said the Code says the fee is waived due to hardship; if there is no hardship how can we waive it. Jones said I would agree with that assessment. Angelou said have the schools made the request. Jones said the concern was with the amount of the fee; the individual had compared our fees with Columbus; they have a different fee structure than we do; they actually bifurcate roofing with it's own separate fee amounts; most City of Gahanna Page 1 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 communities like ours do this under Commercial Alterations; those costs tend to be more than the flat fee that Columbus charges; he was expecting a rate similar to Columbus here and it was not what he expected. Angelou said didn't he have the ability to see that in advance. Mayor said yes; it is published. Angelou said perhaps he should have based his bid on the fact that there would be a higher fee; without a hardship I don't see why we would do this; perhaps we should look at our fee structures however. Jones said we do that yearly and are in the process of doing that now. Angelou said I don't see this as a situation we could pass without the hardship. Renner said you are saying that the schools have not asked for this and this is a contract with the schools for Chapelfield Elementary. Jones said the school did ask prior to the payment of the permit; we indicated that we were not in a position to waive the fee; subsequent to their request the contractor came in and paid the permit fee and requested, after payment, to see if it could be waived. Renner said have we ever done this for anyone else in the past. Jones said we waived a fee for the schoolhouse that was before Council a few months back. Larick said that was the historical schoolhouse. Jernigan said yes that was the one room schoolhouse under construction. Jones said that is the only one waived under my watch. Renner said that is a different scenario. Mayor said that was my assessment as well; it is a charity project. Renner said no other times or cases. Jones said not that I am aware of but I will confirm that. Renner said I share Angelou's position on this; since it was a publicly bid project, all fees are known and should be built into his bid. Jones said I would hope so. Larick said what administrative fees do these costs cover. Jones said we have obligations to the Board of Building Standards; we pay 3% to them; we have a zoning review and an occupancy certificate that are issued; we have to do inspections and plan reviews; those two items are variable depending on the quality of the plans and the amount of work being done; those are our direct costs we incur for processing permits; some costs are project specific; some require multiple visits, others just one depending on the work. Wright asked since they didn't state hardship, does not waiving the fees jeopardize the project in any way. Jones said it is my understanding that the project would not be jeopardized in anyway because they had already paid the fees. Jernigan said the teachers are back in their rooms at Chapelfield so I believe it is probably done. Angelou asked if Moore Roofing is a Gahanna business. Jones said it is my understanding they are not. City of Gahanna Page 2 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 Jolley said you are going to check to see if we have ever done this before. Jones said yes. Jolley said if you could check specifically for any roofing done on school buildings or any other school related projects. Jones said it is important to note up until 2010 the schools were exempt from paying fees; our fee schedule exempted them; the rationale behind the change was the Clark Hall project; because of the time involved in those reviews we felt we needed to be paid for that. Jolley said it is pretty clear that our intent is not to put forward any authorization for this at this time; if you find additional information that has a bearing on it we would look at it at that time. Jones said I will provide a summary of all fees that have been waived. Angelou said and say what the new fees are. Jones said that will come out at the end of year after our final analysis; that way it can be Codified. Recommendation: No Action. PRESENTATION: Kaizen Event - Brandi Braun & Tony Collins Braun said we aren't doing a presentation; this is more of an update on the first part of a three part process; I will start then turn it over to Collins; this is something we did together thanks to the connection established by Larick and with the Mayor's support; we took part in an event with the State of Ohio Department of Administrative Services in their Lean Ohio Division; this is a department dedicated to creating process improvement throughout the State in order to become more efficient and save money; Collins and I participated in a Kaizen event; takes place over 5 full work days; Kaizen is a Japanese word that means literally to break and build for the better; our event was about State procurement where our role was twofold; first we served as a fresh perspective to the State team doing the analysis; we were to ask questions and bring up different ideas since we were complete outsiders; secondly we were there to learn the process and determine ways to bring this process back to Gahanna for improvement process all throughout the City; Collins will talk a little bit about what our next steps will be. Collins said we had been working on trying to get connected to the Lean Ohio Program for a couple of months; the two things we looked at here were first to understand this process and to understand the Six Sigma Program and what it can bring to local government; the second component of this is the Green Belt Training Program that we will participate in; we have decided we are going to go separately to Greenbelt Training so we are not away from our administrative team City of Gahanna Page 3 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 together, and we can take advantage of two experiences and see if we take anything different from them; mine starts next week; going back to the Kaizen experience, a couple of things we have already shared with the Mayor and our departments are, first is the overall process and looking at what we could implement in City Government to make things more efficient or more customer service friendly to our residents; so whether it is a building permit process or registration process what are the steps involved and how do we break it down; it gave us insight into a system that works very well for our organization; we were interested in bringing it back to Gahanna to see where we could apply it to improve our service levels; the second aspect is the actual process itself which lends itself to other methods; for example my staff is participating in a planning process using the charting method we learned through the Kaizen experience; it is not necessarily using the process like it is intended, but we are using the methods for another purpose; so the ideas have taken effect and my staff and I have found it an efficient way to communicate ideas ; I am looking forward to full implementation and Green Belt training to see what it can do; we will continue to share with our team members and the Administration the efficiencies we can find. Mayor said I understand this was at no cost to the City except for your time. Collins said that is right; it was hosted by the State; Lean Ohio typically goes around to the 27 agencies within the State; our experience was unique in that they brought 5 agencies together and looked at a function across the agencies; they were doing it and we were active participants. Braun said there is money in the budget bill for local governments to utilize; there is a big push right now to get local governments to adopt Kaizen or Lean methods; there is money available to local governments who want to apply this process; Gahanna is on the forefront since we are the first local government to participate at the State; we will probably be the first local government to come out with Green Belt training. Collins said a secondary issue that we did learn about was the procurement process since this was the process at the event; there is a new State purchasing program that is being rolled out and we will be eligible as a City to use it; it is an online catalogue or e-marketplace that the City will be able to purchase from; we had a chance to see how it is built. Mayor said can you share your anecdote that you told me about what they think of our system. Collins said they loved our system and were asking all about ours; their new system is very similar to what ours is. City of Gahanna Page 4 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 Larick said regarding the State purchasing program, is that an easier process that we could implement and makes it easier to acquire purchases and/or is there cost savings because it is part of a negotiated pricing structure. Collins said it is a price negotiation thing; buying power situation; there is a procurement system in place already; this one is new and is an online catalogue. Braun said they compared it to Amazon.com where it is really that easy to go in and put things in your cart and buy them. Larick said and the pricing has already been negotiated at the State level for the best price. Collins said they have a lot of very strict requirements as to what has to take place to order things; we would just have access to it and the good pricing. Larick said the other component is the training; a piece of that is the project; has there been any conversation so far about potential projects; or are you not there yet even though it is coming up quick. Collins said it is a conversation we are going to have after tomorrow; we are open to suggestions. Larick said the intent there is to get first hand real world experiences as opposed to practice in a lab environment; also to have the folks participating to bring back value to their organization; from my perspective and in the conversation I had with the Deputy Director on this topic with regard to working together more efficiently and getting more accomplished with the resources we have; some of these things are simply introductory to help get foundational experience, knowledge and understanding, and then from that, build a depth of more knowledge with the Green Belt training as an aid to that; my end objective is that we get into a performance measurement type environment in how we work through our day to day processes; to understand how we perform; to understand changes so if something occurs in a positive fashion, why; if it moves in a negative fashion, why; then make corrections and adjustments; if it moves in a positive direction how do we leverage that and expand on it; in the coming weeks, I have some thoughts and I am working on some information that will be beneficial and I would hope that as we move forward as a community that it would become important that we identify some funds; whether it be through grant structure; I have not read that the bill did go through but it is in process and we need to take advantage of those grant funds; and simply because of the financial benefits it would be worthwhile to carve out a small amount of money to make sure we can get some of this knowledge and expertise whether it is a consultant or program as we go forward. Anderson said my question is about training; since you are going at 2 different times, will there be 2 different projects worked on. Collins and Braun said yes. Anderson said so then after the training is there advanced collaboration or conversation with State agencies; or since City of Gahanna Page 5 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 the bill is about to pass is there a collaborative way with other locations to follow up so it is not just simply training but one with a support system as you go forward with best practices. Braun said the people at Lean Ohio have been very co operative; as we continue through the process of applying the principles in Gahanna and look for opportunities to create efficiencies, they are more than happy to help us or to put us in touch with other local governments that are doing the same thing. Anderson said sometimes when there is training like this there is a board or council of people available to reach out and help others; what happens after you do the Green Belt. Collins said that might be more defined after we get through that program. Larick said the training is introduction of knowledge to individuals; then it becomes our responsibility as a community or as an entity to determine how and at what depth we want to integrate this into our day to day stuff; the Department of Administrative Services does have tools and resources that at the moment, because we are on the forefront at being engaged with them, they have continually expressed a willingness to allow us to leverage; whether it is individuals with knowledge or tools or technologies to a certain extent, but at the end of the day it becomes our responsibility. Collins said this program has other levels; there is White Belt which is an introduction; Green Belt trains you to participate; Black Belt trains you to lead; Master Black Belt trains you to go out and run these programs; until we are involved in those programs we won't know to what extent they can help; we have all been involved in different public and private sector management programs and processes; some are very applicable; some aren't; this is one where we believe there may be some areas where we can use this program; not in all areas; there is not going to be a total change to all systems; there may be some good applications, so when we get those we look at them and decide whether going forward is what we want to do. Anderson said my last question is do other States do this program or is this an Ohio brainchild. Collins said my research has focused on Ohio; the Auditor and Lean Ohio have been doing some things around the Statehouse; we have some residents that have participated in this from different State agencies that I have talked to; I have not looked outside of Ohio. Larick said I have not looked at other States, but I do know that other municipalities and counties throughout the Country do have metrics based, performance based, data based management environments which this ties into; Kaizen is simply a tool; one tool of many. City of Gahanna Page 6 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes - Final August 12, 2013 Angelou said I think GE was a Six Sigma. Collins said yes it was; most of it is private sector. Larick said GE and 3M were the early ones. Angelou said you can see in them a good basis for a well planned company. Meeting Adjourned. Della Brandenberger, Reporting Isobel L. Sherwood, MMC Clerk of Council APPROVED by the Committee of the Whole, this day of 2013. Ryan P. Jolley City of Gahanna Page 7