Finance Committee

City Hall Meeting Minutes 601 4th Avenue E Olympia, WA 98501 Finance Committee Information: 360.753.8447 Wednesday, January 14, 2015 5:00 PM Room 207 1. ROLL CALL Present: 3 - Chair Jim Cooper, Committee Member Nathaniel Jones and Committee Member Cheryl Selby 2. CALL TO ORDER Chair Cooper called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 3.A 15-0045 Approval of December 10, 2014 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes The minutes were unanimously approved. 4. COMMITTEE BUSINESS 4.A 15-0049 2015 Technology Budget and Plan Information Technology (IT) Director Shawn Ward indicated technology is funded through a variety of sources within the City’s budget. IT operations and maintenance are funded by the General Fund, the technology life cycle program is funded through interfund charges to each department, a small number of projects are funded directly by the department (parking) and finally the IT planning and implementation program is funded by contributions from both Utility Funds and the General Fund year-end savings. Mr. Ward noted The IT planning and implementation program is not funded for 2015. This program was established to allow the City to invest in capital technology solutions which are often high dollar acquisitions or require project timelines in excess of one year. These technology projects most often include the replacement, modification or expansion of existing systems or the addition of new technology systems. Replacing the City’s 20+ year old financials and replacing the parking management software are high priorities for the next three to five years. Some of the 2015 technology projects include: · Citizen request management solution · Parking Management system replacement · Public Access geographic information system · Intranet system replacement · Network firewall redesign and replacement City of Olympia Page 1 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes January 14, 2015 · PC lifecycle replacement · Unified Communications upgrade The Committee appreciated the presentation but stressed in the future the funding should be a part of the base operating budget not funded with year-end savings. The information was provided. 4.B 15-0047 Review Parks Workforce and Asset Management Program The Parks, Arts and Recreation Department has been developing tools for managing park maintenance operations and an asset management system for organizing major repairs and reconstruction projects. Both Parks and Public Works staff utilize a workforce management and deployment software allowing them to track labor for 17 maintenance tasks across 1000 acres of land over 42 park sites. Staff walked the Committee through the first six months of data. The Committee indicated they are interested in a future report when more information is available. The information was provided. 4.C 15-0043 Oral Report: Indirect Cost Allocation The Committee had asked for a review of the current cost allocation plan and possible additional allocations. Staff reviewed the current plan and showed the Committee what numbers would look like for each department if we began allocating costs to individual departments. The Committee also asked for a comparison of how other cities account for operations & maintenance costs, capital repairs and any debt service. Staff did an informal comparison of other cities and found they are handling indirect costs basically the same as Olympia. The difference is really with counties. A county is much more likely to distribute all costs to other functions (elected officials). Staff noted the State Auditor’s office reviews our indirect plan to ensure the costs are justifiable. The information was provided. 4.D 15-0064 City Funding Needs and Schedule This item is scheduled for the January 27 Study Session. The Committee and staff discussed what information they wanted presented and what direction they wanted from the Council. The discussion was completed. 5. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 7:00 p.m. City of Olympia Page 2