Committee of the Whole

City of Gahanna 200 South Hamilton Road Gahanna, Ohio 43230 Meeting Minutes Monday, December 16, 2013 Immediately Following Regular Meeting Council Committee Rooms Committee of the Whole Stephen A. Renner Brandon Wright Beryl D. Anderson Karen J. Angelou Brian D. Larick Ryan P. Jolley Thomas R Kneeland Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 ROLL CALL: Present 6 - Stephen A. Renner, Brandon Wright, Beryl D. Anderson, Brian D. Larick, Ryan P. Jolley, and Thomas R. Kneeland Absent 1 - Karen J. Angelou ADDITIONAL ATTENDEES: Dottie Franey, Alan DeLoera, Karl Wetherholt, Lt. Spence, Chief Murphy, Sue Wadley, Isobel Sherwood, Kimberly McWilliams, Mayor Stinchcomb, Jennifer Teal, Joann Bury, Anthony Jones, Shane Ewald, Press, newly elected council members Jamie Leeseburg and Michael Schnetzer. ISSUES - From Previous Committee 2014 Appropriations Kneeland said he sent out an email regarding the appropriations; he reviewed line by line and came up with list of questions; reviewed big dollar amounts; provided his feedback; wanted others to include their issues. Larick said that was a good place to start; Stinchcomb responded to Kneeland's questions; Renner asked the process of tonight's meeting. Stinchcomb said appropriations were prepared prior to the election; tonight should be part of a process and that this proposal is a bridge to 2015; every year they have been reducing; this was a way to move forward; Council has a duty and responsibility to make cuts and re-craft the government; she doesn't think they can get that done tonight; thinks this a good starting point; some funding can be a placeholder; taking care of City is an ongoing function; realizes that Council has to vote on January 2; difficult to strike one or two line items to pass it. Jolley said he is open on how to proceed, but realizes that this will be a long process and not get done at tonight's meeting. Kneeland said he would like answers to his questions (attached); one of his main concerns is seminars/meetings and training costs. Tech maintenance for legislation software; additional software; Teal said cost for each individual contract reflects in the department's City of Gahanna Page 1 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 budget in many dept. Franey said each service is broken out; pay for annual maintenance and continue to operate current system; support for calls, etc. Sherwood said Seminars and meetings; is an account for Council, i.e. MORPC, OML, new member training at OML, this year spent $500 for various trainings. Teal said Mayor has centralized seminar/meetings line items; for development and the needs for training; majority of training is in the Mayor's office; some have their own line item; centralized training pool; largest pool of those funds to identify what need for additional support or training for current jobs or very specific licensure or mandated necessary tools; both processes are centrally managed and invited trainers to recoup costs. Kneeland would like to see the $75,000 for seminars/meetings and training broken out by each department. Stinchcomb said a lot of the funding is centralized; she said that included police department, mayor's court and other costs that are centralized; continue to invest in our people; meetings are where they are getting training; several professional organizations that each department receives for each employee. Teal indicated that training is more job specific; seminars/meetings are more broadly-based; departments are getting the tools and knowledge that they need to do their jobs. Kneeland said he is struggling with the amount of money that is spent on seminars/meetings and training; Stinchcomb responded they can break this line item out, so that Council can see where the money is being spent. Tony Collins said they count on their people to be able to perform their duties; learn beyond best practices; get ideas from seminars/meetings & training specifics; need his leaders to be trained on innovative ways to generate revenue; gain professional development; remaining professionals on board need to have tools and leadership training; we count on them to provide services; he said they have list and can provide Council with the information on the training, etc. Stinchcomb said she has gone to conferences and conventions; Council used to go to National League of Cities; private versus public sector there is a lot to be learned, there are a lot of break out meetings and there is a lot of useful technical training that employees take back City of Gahanna Page 2 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 to their department to provide residents with the best service. Larick believes seminars/meetings are more discretionary in nature; realizes seminars/meetings are helpful, but there is a need to cut costs right now. Collins said his staff went to leadership and development in downtown development; heard about trends and new leadership development skills; believes need training for his leadership staff. Jolley said that he does not think reviewing line by line is beneficial; would like specific goals to review; have sit-down conversations with what goals are going to be put in place; he sees no measurable goal on what the target could or should be; this year will be transitional and need benchmarks to identify what we are gearing toward; without those conversations cannot move forward. Kneeland said he would like to go through appropriations so that they can fund the right things and most importantly, do not want to lay off employees. Jolley said we are not laying anybody off for 2014 and they need more detail to move forward. Larick said he would like to hear the explanations regarding the questions raised by Kneeland; be helpful and get understanding and more detail; may resolve some issues. Leeseberg said if we cut all the training asked how that will impact the employees; would like to hear from each department regarding the cuts, if any. Stinchcomb said if going through line items helps she has no problem doing that; she believes that bringing in each dept head to discuss their departments with Council is a good idea; proposed discussing the beginning of next year to understand these line items in the future. Staff addressed the following from Kneeland's list: Microfilming we do by law. Planning Commission was cut already. Resident's Survey; survey the residents; unbiased opinion of what the residents think; a lot of questions that benchmark our public survey; believe in surveys; last one 2012. City of Gahanna Page 3 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 Printing; for all of the City. Employee reimbursements are for college. Office expense; every office has specific expenses; Teal said operational costs fall into those accounts. Public Information: contract services, printing, design work, technical pieces; some web content. Tech Maintenance: software. Promotion: ads, water bills, put in professional or promotion city wide. Office expense: anything related to running the office day to day. Mayor's Court Contract Magistrate: local mayor's court saves them from going downtown work; by law need magistrate. Emergency Service: Franklin County for emergency and securities; Gen. Williams said $7,500 goes to Code Red, $7,200 for testing and activation program for sirens; share each jurisdiction pays to county. Finance: Contract Services; pay RITA; proud RITA has reduced collections; every year they hold back 3% and true up when they do their annual audit; would like to bring on fee based RFP and looking at potential partners. Tech Maintenance: Software support; finance system; federal and state account provisions; done financial statements in house; keep the person up to date so you don't have to outsource. Auditor: Elections; getting cost data. Human Resources: Sunguard, access for payroll and employees; training; hire or promote; action improvement plan; self insured with Worker's Compensation; independent medical, second opinions; fingerprints; driver abstracts. Parks & Rec: Contract services; Tony said contract tree and turf care; anything working on parks; bring back at later time for plan for 2014; looking at City of Gahanna Page 4 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 revenues to help support some of those costs. Training for Parks & Rec: For insecticides, pesticides, etc. need training. Operating equipment: Leaf blowing, trash cans, picnic table, shovels, brooms and things routinely need replaced. Seasonal Escrow: Costs going out; but will have return on certain costs; operational equipment is tents, tables, equipment for recreation programming. Golf: Capital maintenance; improve restrooms; improvements are needed in order to gain revenue in facility. Parks Facilities: Overtime, City's Parks Foreman; Steelworker's contract; removing snow at any park or rental facility; called in anything related to the facilities; training for his certifications required for his job. Pools: For facilities; chemical pumps and things to replace; replace pumps, lifeguard chairs. Gahanna Pool: Based on replacement, painting 50 to 70 percent of repairs. Stinchcomb asked staff to get list of events that will be terminated ; wants Fourth of July privately funded. Larick asked about services at the Fourth of July; providing police services so that we are still supporting the event; pay police overtime. Collins reminded everyone they have been reducing costs; charged CVB for those services; 2014 they are expected to pay for those services. Larick asked if funded privately, what would police coverage cost; Spence said about $5,000. Spence said adequate funding to police at that location; difficult place to direct traffic; worked at a fraction of the costs; cost increases when it's on a City holiday; special duty rate applies. Larick suggested $5,000 stay in the line item for Fourth of July event; City of Gahanna Page 5 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 positioning the city that it would be supporting the event; even privatize. Development: Overtime; allowed for development and building; seldom use it but there if necessary; community support, monitored land fill; Promotion is annual dues. Building: Technical Maintenance is software; training is for certifications. Police: Overtime (OT) Grant; city receives multi-jurisdictional and joint investigations requests. OT is special events; required to provide certain level of presence, tracks every detail, cash payment or compensatory time; periods; any cash payments for officers. TRU; incurred for tactical missions; marked cars left at parking lots for increased presence/security; increase around holidays. Tech Maintenance is all services explained; police software; data accounts through Verizon; radio system infrastructure; criminal specialized software in the PD. ER services; related to the 911 expenditures; mapping component; maintain AT&T for 911 trunks in case service disruption not covered; access controls in building. Training; for sworn staff; state mandates; CPE (continuing professional education) for new officers; police academy; firearms training; contract out with range services for firearms training. Fingerprinting fees; web check service offer to public; report to state; or would have to contract; do offset costs; makes money off service. Equip Replacement Program; went to digital system; state maintains infrastructure; build in life cycles; management of radios; putting those into a bank; quite costly; vehicle fleet replacement; 2011 no vehicle purchases; 2012 vehicles are aging; mileage on each car; crime analyst. Prisoners: Operational expense; arrest take them in and charged per hour; fees anticipated going up; budget shortfalls coming in over budget; responsible for medical; automatic trip to hospital costs the City money. Comm/dispatch: Related for OT for dispatchers; operate communications center; there are 10 positions; staffed at 9 and operating at 8; are understaffed; need 16 people for full coverage and no OT; significant turn over; 3 moved out of state; number of pregnancies increased; highly technical City of Gahanna Page 6 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 job; paid for holiday OT. Spence said for every project tried to build in maintenance dollars; built in 3 additional years of use; can't really budget long term for expenditures down the road; draw a line how much is built in; have built in video system; live scan terminal; vehicles working with service dept; extending maintenance out; no additions to vehicles; over 100,000 miles; bringing forward. Larick asked if an item occurs; request reimbursement; items out of the ordinary can't be supplied with LETF funding. Teal said Department of Justice came in and audited their records ; they scrutinized every penny and we have to be very conservative and avoid anything that is out of the ordinary for LETF funding. Larick said can't be successful without using consultation service or dedicated expertise; dedicate finance portion on how to assign or define a dollar amount; learn and get where they want to get; asked Council what they thought on this matter; $100,000 to bring consultants. Stinchcomb said supplementals have always been frowned upon; but it should not be; as each need is identified at the time of supplemental. Jolley said he doesn't have a number. Leeseberg said it needs to be defined and if it goes over then we come back to supplement. Renner said there are circumstances that you need to supplement; he recognizes in 2014 there will be digging and doing the research; indicated we need to have an independent review and Council needs a benchmark to compare; he would like to see a consultant review our information and give us target amounts; especially since we have deficit. Stinchcomb said operational costs are not high; and the City is facing a $7 million gap between resources and needs in years 2014 through 2018, but it is not a deficit. Renner said still have huge capital projects that need to be cut; operational costs need to be reduced; where are the problems and what do we need to look at; can't be in this habit in defending all these expenses; need to cut expenses; what is going to fall if certain costs are cut; innovate and make do with what is left over; only several City of Gahanna Page 7 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 categories that can be cut; entertain the idea of consultant to tell us that we need it; and hard data to back it up. Teal indicated they are making targeted reductions to begin to fill in that gap; that's why they get defensive when questioned on their budgets. Larick said he agrees with hiring consultant; said one of the things is to look at efficiencies and cost of services; having a need for external; getting insight on how we do things; processes and procedures; identify a means of doing better with what we have; don't know what questions to ask because we don't know what is wrong type of situation; consultants maybe beneficial; from a dollar stand point; know today that this is something we need to fund for and be proactive; wants to step into 2014 with funds to start external expertise. Stinchcomb said she is not against that suggestion to pay consultant; she is not against looking at efficiencies; she wants to give her employees credit for making cuts since 2008; keep cutting and eventually not be able to perform. Leeseberg said bringing in an expert isn't saying that people in the City didn't make cuts already; but an expert will come in to get a different set of eyes; identify things that are untouchable; simplify frame work. Jolley said all realize this is uncomfortable; support, admire and respect administration and none of the decisions are going to be made lightly; not going to get everything perfect the first time; discussing these items is not an attack; he said do they want to add money and/or put money in the fireworks line item. Teal believes the money for the consultant should come out of Council's budget; Council concurred. Jolley said he doesn't have a problem with having money for security for the Fourth of July. Spence said that if they are providing traffic and duty; just because there is a crowd at a football games, could be asked to do security; this could snowball; if it's private vendor; caught in the middle if asked by someone else for an event. Jolley said if CVB providing agreement with vendor; we have partnership and sign as private enterprise for security. City of Gahanna Page 8 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes December 16, 2013 Larick said figure out the details for a private event and support Fourth of July event for security. Kneeland thanked everyone for their input. After discussion on the matter, Council would like to start putting $100,000 in the consultant account. After discussion on the matter, Council decided to leave carry over amount as is for 2014. Teal said she would make the amendment to add new consultant line out of Council's budget. Meeting adjourned at 10:37 p.m. City of Gahanna Page 9