General Government & Information Technology

General Government/IT Committee Meeting Summary Friday May 20, 2016 The following voting persons were present: Chair George D. Alpogianis, Village Manager Steven Vinezeano, IT Director Bill Shaw, and Cammy Fortuna. Staff present was: Steve Cusick, Marlene Victorine, Joe Annunzio, Cathy Spadoni, Kathy Barnat, and Katy Darr. No members of the public or press were present. I. Call to Order The meeting was called to order at 9:07 a.m. in Room 218 at the Niles Administration Building. II. Approve Meeting Summary – General Government/IT Committee – April 20, 2016 Unanimous approval III. Old Business a. Take Your Child to Work Day The date has been set for Friday, June 17, 2016 at the Public Works Facility. Informational packets have been sent out to employees that would like to participate in the event containing a waiver for the parents to sign and also a form for department head approval. Touch the fire truck, the senior center dog, and artwork projects are scheduled as part of the entertainment for the kids that day. b. Economic Enhancement Items Discussion A Donation Brochure is being put together containing a wish list of specifics within the Village as a guide to be given to businesses that will hopefully want to donate in the future. Letters for special events sponsored by the Village will still be sent out requesting donations. c. Discussion of Longstanding Contracts and Service Agreements When contracts are a year away from the expiration date, the Village needs to be proactive in getting the ball rolling to not allow contracts to lapse. A letter should be sent out to vendors, unions, etc. to say that the contract is expiring a year from now, and remind those business that we need to sit down six months prior to the contract’s expiration. Getting an early start in negotiating contracts can help to reduce fees through competition. Contracts must be vetted through the proper committees. IT has made contact with Community Development for new businesses opening in Niles so that those local new businesses can be included in the bidding process. The Village needs to support local businesses. A list is prepared monthly by Community Development showing new businesses in the Village of Niles. The New Busines list should be sent to not only Board members, but Department Heads and purchasing as well. A buy local ordinance will be on the May 24, 2016 Board meeting agenda. IV. New Business a. Discussion of Union Negotiations An informal letter should be sent out to the Unions a year prior to the contract expiration date requesting that six months prior to the expiration date negotiations need to begin. To begin the formal process of collective bargaining negotiations, the Union needs to submit the request to the State. Future contracts need to have language included as part of the contract that six months prior to the expiration date; negotiations should start with the initial requests. The Union contracts traditionally come through Human Resources. The Legal Department will assist Human Resources with a letter to the Unions and the Clerk’s office will prepare a letter for the Village’s other vendors. Draft letters should be ready for discussion at the next General Government/IT meeting. In addition to the Union itself, the letters will also be sent to the Union Representatives, the Stewards and the Business Agents. V. IT Project Updates MaxGalaxy went live on April 26, 2016, the operation is starting to smooth out, the new system is moving along quite well. MaxGalaxy has a stronger financial platform, including tighter controls and more integration of an accounting package into the membership system. Discussion is now taking place on the next steps of MaxGalaxy. Two of the next steps are digital signage and online registration and payment which is a new application on the website where people can register for a program or re-register online. A presentation to the Board and a press packet will be prepared in the near future, possibly to be ready for the July Board meeting. Training numbers for the new system will be ready by the June General Government/IT Meeting. The utility billing server has crashed and is unrepairable, no information was lost, just the application. IT is working on getting a fully functional new system up and running as soon as possible. Wide Open West is both a cable TV provider and a network infrastructure provider. The network arm of WOW is bringing in some infrastructure to connect Verizon cell sites. WOW is offering the Village free fiber to connect some of the Village buildings. As a result of this fiber we will be able to bring in greatly improved services and to build stronger disaster recovery capabilities. Family Services update – a prox card lock has been installed at the food pantry, more people will have access to work in the Food Pantry. Keys are not issued, but the Village is able to track who has been in and out of the Food Pantry. A better security system is in place, this has greatly improved operations. VDI update - Video desk tops have been put in place to help manage the complicated registers from MaxGalaxy. VDI will also allow a greater electricity savings. Electricity savings is being monitored in the Health and Wellness Building. The new WOW fiber will allow us to do more of this type of system at a cheaper cost.  A new overtime law is now in place, further study needs to be done. Hours and records for all employees must be kept. The new law will go into effect in December of this year. Part of the new law is that vacation time can be rolled over into the next year. The Village can determine the amount of time that can be rolled over. Biometrics was discussed as a form of time keeping. Many time keeping systems will be looked into before a final decision is made. Issues need to be worked out within all departments for various reasons when recording an employee’s time. VI. Open Discussion / Public Comment No open discussion and no members of the Public were present for Public Comment. VII. Next meeting to be determined – to be later in June VIII. Adjournment – Meeting adjourned at 9:53 a.m.