City Council

THE CITY OF [CITY OF ZANESVIL.!&J Zanesville ~1";N~UU~ Ways & Means Committee 401 Market Street• Zanesville, Ohio 43701 Phone: (740) 617-4875 Council - Mayor Government E-mail: Council@coz.org Zanesville City Council Ways & Means Committee Agenda Council Chambers, 401 Market Street, Zanesville, OH Monday, July 15, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. This meeting is open to the public to attend in person or remotely by using the information below. This meeting is for discussion pertaining to the upcoming Ordinances and discussion items of the Ways & Means Committee for review as follows: ROLL CALL MINUTES - Approval of the minutes of March 4, 2024. RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES None DISCUSSION 1. Muskingum County Arts Council Presentation 2. John McIntire Library Remodel Project Presentation The next regular scheduled meeting is 5:00 p.m., Monday, August 19, 2024 This meeting is open to the public who may attend in person or attend by phone or Internet using the information below. Phone 1-844-621-3956 US Toll Free or 1-415-655-0001 US Toll Use Access Code: 126 750 8098 # Online with WebEx- Enter zanesvillecity.webex.com in web browser. Enter Meeting lnformation-126 750 8098  SPECIAL WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE MEETING March 4, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. Mr. Roberts called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. and may I have roll call, please. Committee Members present: Councilperson Andy Roberts, Chairperson; Councilperson Mark Ballmer; Councilperson Joey Osborn; and Councilperson John Taylor-Lehman . Others present: Presenters Mayor Don Mason Fire Chief Jeff Bell Council Person Karla Frye City Traffic Craig Stemm Council Person Mark Baker Code Enforcement-Matt Schley Deputy Clerk Susan Culbertson Police Chief Scott Comstock Public Service Director Kade Haddox APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF THE WAYS & MEANS COMMITTEE FEBRUARY 20, 2024 Mr. Ballmer moved to approve the minutes as written. It was seconded by Mr. Taylor-Lehman . A voice vote was taken with all present being in favor. None were opposed. Motion carries. Minutes stand approved. Mr. Roberts: This brings us to our business. This is a meeting to review the budgets of the Public Safety Division. First up, we have Fire Chief Jeff Bell. ORDINANCES-There were none as this is to hear from the Department Heads on their budget requests. March 4, 2024 5:00 p.m. Fire Chief Jeff Bell Fund 270, Fire Operating Fund #275-Pg. 4 Jeff Bell: Good evening everybody. The microphone broke so the meeting continued without the main microphone. I think everybody can hear me. I will blame that on, I did it. I think everybody can hear me. This is my sixth time coming up and discussing budget. I can't believe I got the 5:00 p.m. slot. I thought that would go to Craig Stemm. I think he probably has had the most times up here bringing budget to us and all of that. We have been working with Kade, as the Budget and Safety, I say Budget Director and Interim Pubic Safety Director. I think we have come up with something and we put our list together with all of our wants and our needs and we break those down into the things that we need to move on with. Some of the things that helped us this last year helped with how we finished out last year and we appreciate the Administration and we appreciate Council helping us with the Sutphen Quint Ladder Truck that we purchased last year with ARPA Funds. That is a huge outlay for us that we were able to use ARPA Funds for and kind of take something off of our list that we were going to need to do anyway. I would also like to thank the Fire Department as we are looking forward to working with Matt Schley this year. We ended Page 1 of 10 up with three grants last year for our cot, for safety equipment when it comes to a gear washer, gloves and hoods, and anytime we can get some of the money in it is stuff that we don't have to purchase in the next year. So, it kind of let's redirect some of that money so we appreciate that and look forward to working with Matt's office this year and still hitting hard and trying to get those grants. Our large item purchases this year is we have a 2008 SUV that is our 40 hour Chief's car. I know Chad James over at our, we kind of honored him this last year. During the last twelve months he had done 835 inspection visits throughout the City as a one man inspection crew. With all the new staff coming in he does a wonderful job. He gets a lot of help and guidance from Craig Stemm and Jon Benson. I know they enjoy working with him. It makes his job a lot easier. I know we have the State Fire Marshall come down and work with Chad. Like I said he has a 2008 vehicle so our plan is to replace that this year. We are going to rep lace our generator up at Station Three. It is an original. Craig has worked with us and we finally just came off of it and said we are going to have to put a generator in there. We are just going to get a new one. He helped us kind of come to that decision and has been helping us that. Then our third large purchase that we have as we have been talking with some other chiefs throughout the state and stuff, we are very good at what we do. One thing that we are woefully, unprepared for is electric vehicles. It is something that we are used to fighting fires. Th is is a whole different thing. So, we requested $25,000 in our budget this year and we want to put it toward sending some people to training. When they get back from the training buying things like plugs that will lock out the cars. Fire blankets and stuff and some of the other small monitor systems that you can roll underneath the car to help put these battery fires out because they will just burn and burn and burn. We talked to some chiefs around the Columbus area and stuff and as we see more charging stations and that coming in we want to get ahead of it. So, we have been doing some internal talks and that is something that Chief James is passionate about and he is going to take on in the next year. Other than that, I think those are our big expenditures. Does anybody have any questions on our budget? Mr. Roberts: Chief, how are we running on overtime these days? Chief Jeff Bell: I would like to give you, right now at the beginning of the year, our overtime is good. As far as, when I look at the days we have to call people in to fill spots, because we are not in our vacation season. Ben Morehouse again, I thank the administration and stuff, Ben on his off days fell off a ladder and broke his foot. We just got him back so our numbers are up. Everybody is working now in a working position. We have one of our new firefighters and he has his cards now. So, usually, Mr. Roberts, we are very good in January and February. I don't know where it is going to be come summer time when vacations and stuff hit and those, but one thing we have to do is we have to break our overtime down a little differently now. Since we went to the time clocks and we are paying for hours worked we have to figure out to separate overtime. It used to be all overtime was overtime. Now we are going to have to take out every pay overtime is built into two/thirds of the department. Because two of the three shifts are working over that 106. So, I don't have a true number right now, as it takes a little more work to break that down. 2 Kade Haddox: Yes, one thing in the past that we haven't done, is technically, fire fighters by default fall on a 96/120 schedule. The default to FLSA overtime rules. Which means that anything over 106 in a pay period is overtime technically by federal standards. We were supposed to be doing a three or four week look back period for that, with some other built in pay options. I don't know if the City benefited or the Fire Union benefitted on the past procedure, but we are now compliant with FLSA on the overtime standards. So that is when the Chief says it is a little more difficult to break it out. Basically, on 120 week you get fourteen hours of built in overtime per the federal regulations is how it works now. Chief Bell: The offset to that was the Fire Department, to calculate correctly or to get past the look back, and I don't know when it happened, we were just paying the firefighters whether they worked the 96 or a 120 they were paying them 115 hours every pay. So, if you break it down, it is 112, but the three hours extra that they got each pay that were not worked, but was agreed upon created so it didn't have to have the look back is all that we could figure when we were going through and figuring that out. So, it Kade Haddox: Now, we are on short and long pays so you clock in and clock out and you get paid for what you actually work. Mr. Roberts: Gotch ya! Are there any questions from the committee members? Mr. Taylor-Lehman: Could you explain the 96/120 to me? I am new to this so. Chief Bell: No problem. So the way we work is we work three shifts. They work 24 hours on and 48 hours off. So the shift that came on this morning started at 7:00 a.m. and they will work until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. Depending on when that shift starts in a pay period, with our pay periods starting on a Friday. If you started on a Friday or that Saturday, the first day of the pay period, you are going to get five work days in that two week period. The other shift in that two week pay period because they do not start their first work day is the third day of the shift as they will start on Sunday. By the time they rotate out, they would only get four days that period. That is the 96 hours. So, two thirds of them are getting five days that pay and it just rotates, because it is 24 on and 48 off. Mr. Taylor-Lehman: So are their pays consistent every pay period? Do you average them together? Chief Bell: No, now we don't average them. Now it is what you clock in and what you clock out is what you are paid for. So they have to figure out to I need to budget this pay a little short because it is only going to be 96 hours, but I know the next two pays are going to be 120 hours. Mr. Taylor-Lehman: Okay. Thank you. Chief Bell: Yes. Mr. Roberts: Are there any other questions? All good. Thank you, Chief Bell. Craig, are you ready? Craig Stemm: Yes. Good afternoon. For those who don't know me, I am over the Traffic Signal Division. The Electrical Division is tied into that. Street lighting is tied into that and on the other side I do the 3 Electrical Inspections for the Code Division, but there really isn't any budgetary items in there. So the budget numbers this year were what Kade put in there and where we are at now is we had some carry over from last year. Because I ordered some Traffic Signal Cabinets in February and we didn't get them until Mid-December or Last December so the bills didn't come until the end of December so it came out of this years' budget. We had some work done on a line truck and had it recertified so that was another $10,000 so that was $30,000 out of that budget. Since then we have also en cumbered $70 plus thousand dollars for Traffic Signal Equipment, Signal Heads, LED Bulbs, and Traffic Signal Cabinets. Some of this stuff is starting to come in a little better, but these Traffic Signal Cabinets so we just ordered them in February and we probably won't see them until September, October, or maybe even November. We are sort of buying a year ahead. The signals were the same thing last yea r, they were nine months out. The only thing that is reasonable is the LED Bulbs. So we went ahead and got all of this stuff ordered. Once you take all ofthis out, we have funds encumbered for the Hamline Station. Fuel, electric and all of that. Traffic Signals the money is coming for that. We will pay the electric bills for the year and after that there is $97,000 left and that is pretty much what we will work on for the rest of the year. I think that will be adequate. We don't buy a lot of stuff and if we don't have to maintain the signals. Most of this money really goes to traffic signals. The electric side of it is all paid by other divisions whether it is City Hall or Sewer, Vehicle Maintenance and that covers all of that. Then there are two other line items. There is Street Lighting and there is the Main Account has $400,000 to pay the unmetered equipment and there is another $32,000 that we use out of and that maintains all the City owned street lighting. Like downtown here, Brighton Blvd. and all of that we maintain all of that. I think we are good on all of that. A couple of other things we do that a lot of people don't know is we put up all the Veteran's Banners and take them down and we put up the Christmas decorations and take them down. It takes a lot of hours sometimes, but we get it all done. Other than that, we are pretty good. The only other thing I really have is we had two projects last year that made a difference. One was the ODOT project on Pine Street and it was completely paid for by ODOT. It replaced three traffic signals over there. On West Main Street, Pershing, and down Eppley Avenue at the Fire Station. The one on Pershing was in really bad shape so that was all paid for by ODOT. They are all updated to the new standards. They all work really well and we got rid of some really old equipment. The other thing was part of the Maple Avenue paving project. The City spent a little extra money. I think it was about $130,000 to put radar on five different intersections up there as part of this project. Some of them we put loops in, but this radar really helps the efficiency. We put it at what I call the five worst intersections. To me it has helped to move traffic better most of the time except the middle of the afternoon when it is really heavy you can tell, you still can't go anywhere and the farther north you get. It got rid of all of that equipment there too. The contractor put it all in so I think we came out pretty good ahead too. Other than that, that is what we sort of do. That is where we are at. Are there any questions? Mr. Roberts: On the rad ar, do you guys (interrupted) Mr. Taylor-Lehman: That is just what I was going to ask. Mr. Roberts: I was just going to say, it can count cars in the line? 4 Craig Stemm: So there are basically three ways of detecting traffic. The original way was just cutting a loop in the pavement and you may have a six foot by twenty foot loop and your vehicle has to be on top of it. Then we also have some video cameras out there and you can see them on top of some of the poles like at Country Club and we just put some out at Northpointe and Fairview. I think I have one at Walmart. You can or they will just detect traffic. In other words, you can't or you can get video off of it, but there is not video coming back anywhere that you can see or anything. You can get on your computer and you can draw those zones. So, you may put a zone here instead of being in the pavement and once they are cut in especially if they are cut in before the final coat of paving goes down and if they are not in the right spot then they are never going to work right. That is where we are at for a couple of spots on Maple Avenue like at the hospital and at Dresden Road, but both radar and these cameras you can go on the computer and you can set the zone. If you want it up past the stop bar, you can draw it past them. People are always pulling past it, when you set this thing up you can make it 30 or 40 feet long and if a car pulls into it, it will detect it and put it into the traffic signal and go home. The radar does pretty much the same thing. You can get it on your computer and you can draw these zones by getting on the computer and everything is in the air. If somebody digs the street up it doesn't take the loop out. If something goes wrong you can get in there and replace it and make it work. The cameras are not terribly expensive. They are like $3,000 each. The radar is very expensive. It is a minimum of $25,000 for an intersection. Plus like up there on Maple Avenue where the contractor put them all in I would hate to think of what the total cost was probably $30,000 or $40,000 for an intersection. If we do it in house it is a little more reasonable, but it is the same way, it will detect that traffic. You can detect it back and draw the zones and change them and it just moves the traffic more efficiently. Mr. Taylor-Lehman : Because it is going to leave the light on a certain length of time, right? Craig Stemm: You can set that light, but once that car leaves that detection, we want it to go from yellow to red and then back to the other side. We want, say Maple Avenue, we want Maple Avenue to run as long as it can. If there is no traffic on the side street, we don't want to stop the Maple traffic, we want to leave it green. If a car pulls up on a side street, we only have one car, we will set it for five or six seconds and get one car out and things will start changing back. A loop will do the same thing as long as it is in the right spot. The gas company or water department or nobody digs it up, and it will work. Then you can make them zones where you want them. If any of that makes any sense. Mr. Taylor-Lehman: Yes, I got it. Craig Stemm: I should be able to explain it better, but it just works. Is there anything else? Mr. Roberts: You are doing good moving them, Craig. Craig Stemm: Thank you . Mr. Roberts: Yep. Matt Schley is next. What do you have? Matthew Schley: So, last year we worked, John and I worked together to get a number of our dilapidated houses taken care of. I believe the final count was about nine different properties we were able to take 5 down. Our goal was to get to twelve. We had twelve that were pretty rough. Our policy is and always will be that we don't take down houses that could be salvable, but these houses have been beyond saving. Think of fires, think of foundation problems, such like things of that nature. The cost for demolition is going up through the roof so our goal is to try to get the same number. Last year we had a couple that were pretty expensive. We had a few that exceeded $20,000. So, we are not proposing a budget increase on that this year. There are some other grants and such we are going to pursue to try to help get rid of some of this blight. Additionally we are going to have another employee who is going to be taking his inspector's exam. Eric Morrison, so, this year we have a little bit built in under contractual services to pay for his books, materials, testing, and things of that nature. So, that way we have a fully licensed second inspector. Finally, we have had a big, large amount of trash and debris that has been dumped in some of our neighborhoods. So, our weed and litter crews have been working tirelessly to try to keep that under control. For whatever reason this year, so far this year, we have cleaned up about four to five trash and debris encampments a week. So, that has taken a toll. That does take resources, time and effort. We are going to be working with some of the organizations that contribute to that to try to get that down or at least get to the point where there is less materials in some of these encampments. We don't really have any major capital expenses this year. We are going to look at next year just to keep everyone in mind the work truck that the weed and litter crew currently uses is not in the greatest of conditions so next year we are going to start exploring options to sunset the current vehicle and get a new vehicle for that division. Mr. Roberts: Are there any questions from the Committee? Do you have any idea what the, you termed that so well, the trash encampments. Matt Schley: I am trying to be politically correct on that one. Mr. Roberts: Do you know what the trash encampments costs the City of Zanesville? Anyone? Matthew Schley: We estimate about $150,000 in both materials and man hours. And I would say we have a crew of about nine people right now spending eight hours a day two to three days a week cleaning them up. So, that is, I just want to be very clear, that is not the norm so we are not exactly certain as to what is going on this year. It seems to have started late November of last year and it has just snowballed. We are not certain what is going on with that. Mr. Roberts: Are there any more questions for Mr. Schley from the committee? Thanks, sir. Mr. Comstock: Good evening everyone. I am Chief Comstock. There are a couple new members of Council since I have been here last. Everyone has seen the exhibit there for the temporary budget that Kade gave you. So, I will give you a little bit of the behind the scenes explanation and what I am looking at for this year. First off, Mr. Haddox and I work pretty well together. I think we both embrace that mind set of efficiency and minimizing waste. I am not a use it or lose it mind set when it comes to the budget, but I have been spending some money here as I have gotten my head wrapped around how the budget 6 operates and kind of doing some things. You will see an increase on the Capital Outlays, mainly last year, late in the year, that was used for various purchases of some equipment. Everyone had been coming to me with their wish lists, nothing was really big ticket. Mainly, it was a lot of technology upgrades as far as some of our cameras, and investigative type stuff. For this year, we could be looking at some expense on our MARCs radio systems, various replacements on dash cameras. There was an Ordinance from the end of 2022 for some cruisers that we were finally able to obtain this fall. So, I have five new patrol vehicles and one unmarked. We need to outfit those. That was probably my biggest requisition I was sitting on his plate. The two largest items are carry overs from 2023. First off is the implementation of our new software programs switching from CMI to Tyler. Most of that is going to be funded with out 820 Drug Forfeiture Funds just to keep from having to worry about financing that. The other big thing which is the Bearcat that I spoke to you on for the SRT Team. The bids came in on that. It was a little in excess, but we will probably get to that next Monday. Both of those things will probably be funded with a majority of the 820 Funds. Normal operating expenses, as far as, the $250,000 for the jail, mainly I am looking there at some improvements to the second floor renovations, simultaneously, second floor renovations out of my Police Fund for the Public Safety Building. There is flooring, asbestos and things like that that needs addressed. We did the first floor a couple of years ago. Also back in the jail we need a new server for the cameras. I have a couple of quotes sitting out there. My main thing is trying to move on quotes and not letting them expire. The last six months if you had a quote that was good for ninety days or six months and you didn't act on it; unfortunately, a lot of things went up 20% to 30%. So, hopefully that is about to plateau. Staffing wise which impact any questions on the overtime side of it. The jail is at 17 of 21 CO's right now. So we are doing pretty good. Dispatch, we just fully staffed with eleven communications operators. That was probably the biggest hit I took in overtime in the last couple of years. We were at a low spot of three operational non-stop working dispatchers late in 2022, but we are fully staffed now. On patrol I am still down a dozen officers, but we are recovering a commission right now and meeting all the service expectations. I have some FMLA's on the radar with babies and one out on injury and of course once you start vacation season and potential of a couple injuries anything could happen. We have a new rotation process on the ordering of overtime. It doesn't make the numbers change any, it just kind of helps morale, I think. But I think one of the big things I wanted to push this evening unfortunately didn't pan out like I thought it would on Saturday. I had a propitiation and I will share it with you briefly. We send new cadets to the Staff Patrol Academy. It is free. It is funding through the state. We get two slots per academy with a third on stand-by. The most we have ever gotten through the academy is four at a time. Usually we send one or two. We have been doing that for years. There have been alternative methods of getting people OPATA certified. Obviously, if I am hiring in a lateral or somebody who is already OPATA Certified he wins, the City wins, and they win because it expedites the process. But, we do take candidates that are not Police Academy Certified and we send them through. I have been working with Dr. Gibson, out at Zane State and a ball park quote on that would be about $5,900 to $6,500 to get somebody through the academy. So, if you just round it on up to an even $7,500 7 my hopes were after our tests on Saturday I might be asking for as many as ten people to go through the next academy. That is $75,000 and the equivalent of one officer at top pay annual salary. As it turns out, Saturday we only had six make it through and I am still waiting on the written. So, recruitment is still a challenge right now, but as far as major expenses, I am not going to be coming to you for cruisers for a while. We do want to kind of get on a consistent program of purchasing a couple per year that will kind of keep what happened at the end of 2022. A big portion of that was due to production, but we have five new patrol cars that are getting ready to be built. One of them is a detective car, unfortunately it kind of off sets one we lost in a total loss, but we did well on the settlement on that. Other than that, you know, most things are in the $8,000 to $10,000 range that pop up on my radar. They are usually pretty easy to plan out through the yea r and prioritize. Wish list, I really don't have anything big. The Bear Cat and seeing that get finalized and into production. That would be my biggest goal this year. Things that have come to me on the wish list, not necessarily on a wish list, but body cams. Probably a reality in the near future. It could be a large expense based on data and just implementing them . We need to get a security fence around the safety building. That is something we have been working on for the last couple of years. That would be myself and the fire department, and the courts budget. If you want to hear about some wild new technology for about $50,000 I can put a drone on top of the Public Safety Building and when we get a 911 plotting call that is either like an open 9-1-1 or we are not sure what is going on. The drone can launch from the top of the Public Safety Building and can be at the mall in three minutes. Quicker than anybody else is going to get there even running hot on Maple Avenue. It can access and survey the area and report back if it does appear something is going on. If there is a disturbance or no disturbance or an unknown. It is a pretty cool technology. It is something we have been looking at. It is not on my wish list . For $50,000 you can save a lot of man hours and liability from running all over the City when the drone can answer the questions for you. So, that might be something we look at a little more seriously. Mr. Roberts : With that, Scott, do you have to have somebody at a desk manning that thing? Scott Comstock: It is opt monist in the sense that it can launch and do everything itself, but yes, there needs to be an operator, basically a dispatcher would enter the coordinate of where it needs to go and then someone in the field could remote in and take control of it and even land it or it would return itself to the Public Safety Building. Originally, when I got the sales pitch I envisioned a half a dozen of these things up there running to all of our open 9-1-1 calls and whatnot; but they are quite a bit larger than that. The pad on the top of the building would be about the area here. (He indicated the area between the podium and where the Councilmembers sit. We would look at one and the technology is being used. A lot of departments on the east coast, we'll see. It is down the list, but mainly like I said getting our software program implemented and everything funded and then getting our Bearcat order in. Mr. Roberts: Hey, Kade, Transfer in from Income Tax what is the hit? Kade Haddox: For the Jail? 8 Mr. Roberts: Fund 201. Kade Haddox: Why, is it down? Mr. Roberts: You have it estimated at about $800,000 less than last year. Kade Haddox: That is my safe haven. Mr. Roberts: Okay. Kade Haddox: I usually increase those at the end of the year so I can transfer money in to build the $800,000 cash balance at the end of the year essentially because we do zero balance budgeting instead of budgeting for cash reserves. So, in theory, if I budget revenue at the exact same year after year and we bring in the same and we have expenses budgeted we would have zero dollars at the end of the year. So, revenue is how we build a balance. Mr. Roberts: Gotch ya. Kade Haddox: Speaking of that on the jail, this is probably the only anomaly you will see on any of the budgets with $500,000 Capital outlay to keep in mind that Council authorizes us to spend about $220,000 on new door locks to upgrade and that didn't get paid out last year. So that is the reason that number is so high is because we have some carry over expenses. So of the $265,000 we had budgeted last year we only spent about $30,000 and the rest is carry over to this year. Mr. Roberts: Are there any questions from the Committee? This group is quiet tonight. Thank you . Kade Haddox: I would just like to thank all the guys that came out today and spoke about the budget and helping put this information together. With dual roles, I pushed a lot of financial data onto these guys and giving them the responsibility of coming up with their own numbers and their own forecasts and things like that. I think it is about the same song and dance as usual so for the new members of Council when I took over four or five yea rs ago, my goal was to make budgets as repetitive as possible so these guys can expect a yearly amount that they are going to have in capital outlay instead of giving them half a million one year and coming back to them saying it is going to be $50,000 next yea r. I think you heard both chiefs and staff talk about regular vehicle maintenance, their regular vehicle replacement. That is how we have come up with over two or three years what we need to replace our vehicles on a five or six year schedule. So, some of those items have become more repetitive than in the past where we might buy five or six and not buy for a few years. I think it is easier from a budgetary standpoint and from a Council standpoint that that outlay is an expected number. So, I don't think anything anybody is getting is unreasonable. I think we are all practicing financial prudence. I think our departments are in good shape and we have great staff and I don't think we need or want anything that we don't really have. So, and for that I want to thank Council for it. 9 Mr. Roberts: Thank you, guys for coming out this evening and for talking to us about this. We appreciate it. It looks like everything works. Is there anything else from the committee members? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Mrs. Osborn: I move to adjourn. Mr. Ballmer seconded the motion. A voice vote was taken with all being in favor. Motion carries. The meeting ended about 5:33 p.m. Susan Culbertson, Deputy Clerk Andrew Roberts, Chairperson 10