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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-06-08 Budget Mtg MinsMeridian City Council - Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 A Budget Workshop meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, June 8, 2016, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Genesis Milam, Ty Palmer, Luke Cavener, Joe Borton and Anne Little Roberts Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X_ Anne Little Roberts X _ _Joe Borton X__ Ty Palmer X_ Keith Bird __X__ Genesis Milam __X__ Lucas Cavener _X Mayor Tammy de Weerd De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and call this meeting to order. For the record it is Wednesday, June 8th. It's 8:00 o'clock. We will start our budget workshop with roll call attendance -- Madam Clerk, I will go ahead and call it, since I can't see you. Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda De Weerd: And we will start with Item No. 2, adoption of the agenda. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Borton: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 4: City of Meridian FY2017 Budget Presentation Workshop De Weerd: We will just dive down into our budget presentations. We are starting with Fire this morning and so I will turn this over to Chief Niemeyer. Niemeyer: Good morning, Mayor, Members of Council. Real quick just some housekeeping. I do want to thank the police department. They provided the -- the donuts for you this morning. Chief Lavey wanted me to make sure that you Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 2 of 79 knew you were appreciative of that and I will have -- we had a little Outlook faux pas this morning, so I will have some of my staff coming in as we begin today. I do -- before I -- before I start I have about 40 minutes of presentation. I hopefully have about 20 minutes to ask questions and to have some dialogue. I know Councilman Cavener yesterday asked Todd a question about what this two days was about and kind of what are we gaining for it or looking for and for me, hopefully, it spurs some questions that you can follow up with that, that I can answer, or comments you may have in your presentation -- whether that's today or next week or in a couple weeks, great. You do have a handout of our presentation in front of you, hopefully, to make some notes on it and if you have any questions certainly follow up with me and I will be happy to meet with you and can answer any of those for you. So, really, kind of a similar theme that we have seen in the other presentations yesterday from -- from Tom and Jeff. Kind of looking at then, now, and, then, into the future. So, I will just roll into that. A quick overview of the fire department divisions that we do have and the administration. We have seven folks, myself, two deputy chiefs, Which is Chief Jones and Chief Palmer. We do have one division chief open position right now that we are accepting applications for. That was the old deputy chief of planning. We dropped that to a division level and, then, we have three admin support in Judy, Christy and Emily. In our operations, our line folks, we have 60 employees. We have three battalion chiefs, 18 captains, 18 engineers, and 21 firefighters. That covers three shifts as you know, A, B and C shift. Training we have one division chief. Prevention we have two fire inspectors Joe Bongiorno and Kenny Bowers. And in our pub ed we have one and a half positions. Pam Orr and, then, Charmaine Schuler, who we recently hired as a part-time employee that is working with Pam . So, the service area relationship with the Meridian Rural Fire Protection District -- in Chief Lavey's presentation yesterday we looked at the square mileage and the population of the city. Twenty-nine square miles, 91,000 people. As you all know, we have a joint powers agreement or mutual agreement with the Rural Fire Protection District, so that way we cover 60 square miles. You can see in the outline there in our service area population is about 103,000 people. It's also worth mentioning every year we have a rural contribution cost-sharing per the agreement. We have a formula that Jenny has now taken over. Did a great job this year. Their contribution or cost share is going to be about 11 percent as we go in. So, 11 percent of our overall budget the rural district will be contributing to. Just a quick update -- and you all got a copy, other than Councilman Borton, my liaison that had his stolen or something. We are going to get him another copy. The west regional master plan has been completed. It's a big document, 190 pages. You all received a copy in your box. We will be talking about that tomorrow. So, if you guys could read through real quick. I plan on presenting in July -- about July 19th to, hopefully, give you enough time with all of this going on to read through it and make your notes and really what we are going to talk about when I present the master plan addresses is some of that growth that you heard about yesterday and how we are going to approach grow and some of the things we would like to talk about, along with those service level discussions. Where do we want to set Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 3 of 79 those service levels and expectations and so we will have a very deep conversation about that July 19th. So, looking at the past a little bit, a review of the FY-16 request, the budget year that we are in currently, we want to thank Council for their strong support of getting those two fire engines replaced. That was our big ticket item last year and by big ticket I mean over a million dollars for those two apparatus. As I talked about when we presented this, we do have an aging fleet and so getting those replaced is a priority to make sure that the tools that are going out to the fires and the calls that we have for service like the one we had yesterday, we have the right tools going and that they are reliable. So, those engines -- just an update real quick -- are currently being built at Pierce. We just got an update. They will be here early September. Our goal was to get them here before October 1st. Much like what you heard from Tom in pre- ordering large apparatus like that, it takes about eight months to build a fire engine, so it does take a while. Pierce is the manufacturer that we use. They are the most used manufacturer across the nation, so as you can imagine there is a backlog, especially now when the economy is a little bit better and folks are trying to get things replaced. So, we do anticipate those arriving early September. We will keep you, Council, updated on the progress. And, then, a couple of other G-100 items worth mentioning. We had two Ford Explorers that were replaced. Those are our fire inspector vehicles. They were replaced with F-150s, so that the turnout gear and the equipment could be stored outside of the compartment -- we call it the -- the patient compartment. But the cab of the vehicle. Those were 27,840 dollars each. Those are non-response vehicles. I know at the director's meeting when we talked about vehicles and the cost of vehicles for public safety, that cost goes up when you make them a response vehicle, so when you add the siren package and the MTD and some of those things. These are non-response vehicles. And we also -- this picture is not great there, but we didn't replace all the unserviceable fire hose nozzles. That was about 14,000 dollars. That's an update on our G-100s -- are replacements. And, then, looking at our enhancements, we really had just one enhancement that went through. That was phase two of the AED program. So, Chief Jones has purchased those AEDs. They are out. And, then, a piece of that is working with the Parks Department, which we have been doing, to put two AED stands in. A reminder those are very similar to what you see at Boise State with the call boxes. And so I believe -- Steve, you can correct me -- we are putting one at Kleiner and one at Settlers. Okay. So, we are working with the manufacturer to get those done. We will have those done by the end of the budget year. So, that's an update on that enhancement. We had a couple that weren't funded. We had three float personnel and the division chief of logistics and we did have a cubicle modification. It was kind of merged into an overall City Hall design modification request that I believe Stacy handled at the time. So, here now, going to the request that we have before you this year, this is by far our number one need and our number one request. It was our number one as we submitted our budget to the Mayor and, then, prepared for the discussions around the table at the directors meeting. Before I really get into all that, I do want to follow up on a question, again, that Councilman Cavener asked and it was how did you all Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 4 of 79 decide which ones you put in the funded and which ones y ou didn't put in the unfunded and -- and I will say working with the director team it is a team effort. It's easy to come in as a director knowing what your needs are and being ready to articulate and debate and all that, but at the end of the day we do a good job as a team recognizing each other's needs and so to the best of my ability that's - - that's how I would answer your question is how did you decide . It's kind of a negotiation and understanding what the needs of everybody are as we move through that process at the directors level. So, as far as the shift training, we have about 240 hours of required training per year for each firefighter. Councilman Bird and I had a conversation and the question was asked how much of that can be done online and through remote capabilities and through technology and it's about 20 percent that we can do in the station online. There is another approximately 30 percent that the captains at the stations can handle, but there is a large amount of facilitated training that we need a boot on the ground to go out and deliver that training. It does complement the city's strategic plan as we went through that and identified those items that we felt that this request would complement. We did initiate a short-term solution two years ago and that was to use our current personnel on overtime to meet that need. It was talked about in negotiations. I think Councilwoman Milam was a part of that negotiation and so we have been using field training officers on overtime, but we knew that was a short-term solution and I would like to get away from using overtime as much to -- to meet our needs. I don't think that's a great business model. The master plan as we go through that it was recognized as a prio rity focus. We know it's needed to maintain that -- that skilled workforce. Part of the interesting thing for me when we went through the master plan process we had a citizen task force group that met throughout the process, throughout the plan. They met three different times and the company ESCI asked them to prioritize for us what's most important in their eyes and it was that skilled and competent workforce that they rated as number one and that ties directly to training. If we train and we train hard and we train a lot, we will be a trained and competent workforce, so when we have that occurrence it doesn't happen every day, we are ready for it and that's -- that's what training does for us. And I will defer to Todd if any questions come up about how that was plugged into your manual. We worked together on this. But this request we have asked our training overtime budget to be reduced by 40,000 dollars. I can't remember how it is in your manual. I know Councilman Borton and I had a conversation about that on how it shows up. I believe it's under wages. The wages line, Todd? Okay. We feel that the use of overtime can be decreased if we have a dedicated person to it. And just a side note. Live fire training. That is the best training by far that we can get for our firefighters. When we go into the burn room or we have live fire burning and we can attack that fire when we are lucky enough to get a house working with homeowners or mainly developers that want to get rid of a house on a property that's being developed, we do live fire training. But there is some very specific requirements to be able to do that and that's an instructor ratio. I am one that I don't like undue liability, so we will follow that requirement to a tee and that -- that requirement is anywhere from a four to one to five to one instructor ratio. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 5 of 79 In other words, for every four man crew you have to have somebody there as an instructor. That's a big OSHA deal, it's a big NFPA deal and I don't want to be the headline that said we didn't do that and we have somebody get hurt. So, that's one thing I have been very adamant about. We do that with the -- with the burn room over at Station One as well. We make sure we have the right people there when we burn. Our number two request -- and I think this is a success story. This is a shared position cost request to the EMS JPA. When we set that up four and a half years ago, that Joint Powers Agreement, you know, there was some -- there was some benchmarks that we wanted to achieve. One was standardized training. One was to standardize the protocols -- the medical protocols. One was to establish a joint response plan, not individual response plans. As certainly as we went through that we said how can we also share in the responsibility of certain things. Quality assurance, quality improvement, is a state EMS bureau requirement. We have not been meeting it. Boise has not been meeting it. Star has not been meeting it. The only agency in our JPA that has come close to meeting it has been Ada County Paramedics. They have one dedicated QA position currently. The reason for that is they also do billing and so under the billing rules and regulations they have to have somebody doing quality assurance. As we met as a JPA, we are moving towards the implementation of a centralized records management system. In other words, we are all writing reports in the same reporting system. We are not separated like we are today. So, with that it became obvious that now is the time to ensure that we are doing quality assurance. It's in our medical supervision plan. The doctors -- the two medical directors that oversee the entire system are heavily supportive of this request. At the chief level, at the administrative committee level within that JPA, it was unanimously approved by the fire chiefs and , then, that was taken to the JPA board and followed the process there and was unanimously approved by the JPA board. Our representative to the Joint Powers Agreement is Mayor de Weerd. I believe Mayor Bieter is on there. I'm trying to remember all the folks. Two county commissioners. It's made up of elected officials that made the unanimous decision. So, we do see this as a win. It is containing costs for all of us by sharing the cost of a position, as opposed to each one of us having to get our own and fund our own. Our number three request is a fire and EMS programs training captain. This is very different from the first request. We have several programs -- training programs within the fire service. One is the 14-week recruit academy in which we have to dedicate an instructor to. That's above 560 hours in that annual plan. We have basic life support EMS training that is a program -- our ALS training is done through the system, through the JPA. But our basic life support training is done in-house. We have a 12-week officer development academy. This is something we started about four years ago where we are putting our future company officers into an academy and giving them the tools and the things that they are going to need ahead of the promotional testing process, but that's about 448 hours. We have a nine-week engineer development academy, that's 360 hours. Both of those are in the collective labor agreement. And, then, we also have the Heart Safe Meridian CPR program. Again, this request -- we have been using overtime to fill this Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 6 of 79 need at the academy. For those of you that were at our awards banquet you saw Glenn Wilson get a meritorious service award. Glenn is one of our engineers. He just successfully passed the captain's test. Glenn is one that at our last academy we took off the line and put into the academy full time and it costs money to backfill his position and so, again, we were using overtime to meet that need. That was the direction we got four years ago. And I would like to get away from that. And so this request has a reduction of 60,000 dollars to the training overtime budget. So, between those -- those two training positions we are reducing our overtime budget by 100,000 dollars, so, we are trying to give back a little bit where we can. The number four request is three full-time firefighters. Again, this was a 2016 request that went unfunded. Todd and I have been working for six years now and I want to applaud him, because I have asked a lot of hard questions, namely because you have asked me a lot of hard questions when it comes to shift overtime. We have six years of data that shows we have a vacancy rate of about 22 percent or .22. What that means is ideally you would want four float personnel per shift to cover that vacancy, that no vacancy rate. Right now we are at three. I know the question has been asked -- I remember Councilwoman Milam asked me this two years ago -- what's the magic number that you decide to hire staff, as opposed to continue just paying overtime to cover the required shifts. To me that number is the .22 and when you can look at what your trends are and, then, look at what you have as far as for full personnel, that's -- that to me is the magic answer. I tell you, Eagle fire just spent 30,000 dollars. They paid a consultant from Boise State to do a study, 30,000 dollars to come up with the same vacancy rate that we have . So, we didn't pay 30,000 dollars, it was just six years of work between Todd and I to come up with that. And this is something for discussion, but we believe we can reduce the -- the shift coverage overtime budget, which is at 468,000 dollars right now, by 200,000 if we add one more person per shift . That's been done through a data analyst and looking at the data to -- to come up with that. We are fairly comfortable in that. The one caveat -- and we discussed this at the director's meeting, that it doesn't take into account some of the unknowns. So, when we have somebody get injured and they are off work for six months, that doesn't take that into account. When we have somebody leave in the middle of the year, either retiring or moving on to a different department, we have a vacancy, then, for six months. So, it does not take that into account. With that my plan would be, if that occurs, I would come before Council, explain what the issue is, the unplanned vacancy and, then, request a budget amendment if that occurs. So, that was our -- our proposal with that three full-time firefighter request. Just -- I know we -- we sometimes like or don't like comparing with other -- other organizations. You will see this in the master plan. Right now our firefighter per thousand rate is about .67. If you look at Caldwell right above, they are at a .69. If you look at Nampa, which we closely relate to, they have five stations, we have five stations, we are very closely related as far as the size of their department, right now in Nampa is at a .89. So, we are certainly not asking for anything outside of the norm in any way. We are a little bit understaffed and I think that shows in our overtime budget. Our number five request is Fireview Analytic software. Data drives Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 7 of 79 everything these days and I enjoy data. I know I was talking to Councilman Palmer a little bit before we even started, we talked about data a little bit and how data does drive a lot of decisions, because they have to tell the story. We don't have a great way right now to capture that data. Fireview Analytic software is being used by two other departments in Ada County very successfully. It helps bring all that dispatch information out of our CAD system into one place and help analyze it and help tell the story. So, we are requesting Fireview Analytics. That is the company. I will give you an update. Last week Matt Tenold from IT came down and he had found another software that could do similar stuff that I had not seen out there. So, we are getting a demo of that next week. So, there is a chance that we may move to that if it's cheaper and still achieve the same result . But right now Fireview is -- is the one company that does the best job in the fire service as far as bringing in that data. And, then, the last one that we have is command training headsets. We have adopted what's called the Blue card command training program. It's a standardized program that we have brought into. I will mention that all the other departments in the valley, except for one to our east, has bought into that blue card command system. So, one of the things that I heard when I first came in -- the Mayor and I had a conversation about this, kind of trying to standardize what we do on the fire ground, so it's not different from one jurisdiction to another, one station to another here in Meridian and this has brought standardization to how we run a fire and how we communicate on the fire ground. So, we have bought into that. The challenge with it is when we do that you use radios to communicate. They are in cubicles and they use radios. We have been using our 7,500 dollar portable radios and the other big challenge is when we do that we have to tie up a dispatch channel t o do it and that's the only way we can communicate to those radios. This request actually would be dedicated to the command training and it's more in line with what you see in the NFL with the headsets, where you have one coach and, then, the defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator, et cetera are on headsets? It's a much cheaper option. If one breaks it's not 7,500 dollars to replace it. It's about one hundred dollars to replace. So, we think this is a very good request. The unfunded request -- and I just wanted to hit on them a little bit somewhat in priority order. As we went through our process -- and I know Todd mentioned this yesterday and did a great job -- that public safety fund allocation for us is a big deal. You will see a slide later that I talk -- I'm going to talk about how much we are looking at in the next five to six years in fire and engine truck replacement and it's a scary number and without planning ahead for that and setting aside money to help plan for that future, I think we are going to be very challenged. The other one is the city capital improvement and know Todd somewhat mentioned the city replacement fund or looking into that. For us that's a big deal as well. Replacements -- I think you saw a number yesterday it's 2.3 million dollars, if I remember right, of citywide replacements this year. That number is just going to continue to rise and so having those funds set aside ahead of time and planning for it I think is very important. The other unfunded and request -- I can tell you the logistics chief position was our number to request coming into the process. We are in great need of somebody to manage logistics. And logistics Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 8 of 79 in the fire service is station maintenance and management , fleet maintenance and management, equipment maintenance and management. We have been meeting that need. We have got about seven people trying to do all pieces of those jobs. Battalion chiefs have been assigned certain things to take care of. But, more importantly, I have got two deputy chiefs and Judy managing a lot of this and it's taking away from their current jobs. This was our number two request and I was prepared to articulate that and I will give some credit to the Mayor. I have been talking about, with each one of you, some future endeavors that I think make sense for us in working with partners and working with other agencies where we can find commonality and logistics is one that we have some common things there. Nampa fire has that same need. Caldwell fire has that same need. I know the Mayor has spent some time, she got org charts from -- from those two cities and when we met to talk about this request , she kind of put me to task and said put your money where your mouth is and work with those chiefs and see if we can do something together to meet the need collectively with logistics to manage equipment, to manage stations, and manage fleet. So, we took that to heart. That is why I'm okay having it unfunded and okay not bringing it for consideration. We will bring it back for FY-18. Just an update on that. I did talk to Chief Mallot, he was in my office yesterday and we talked about this specific position and he is very supportive of doing something together with that to meet both of our needs. So, I think that's positive. I took it as a positive and we will continue to look at that. Firestation Wi-Fi, this is something that was unfunded that we worked with Dave Tiede on. We do not have Wi-Fi in our stations. The other city locations, like City Hall, the training center, some of our other city facilities have Wi-Fi. For us right now it's not a critical need, but coming up it may be. The county is looking at going to what's called Station Alerting. What that does is when the call comes into dispatch and they enter that address and the information in the dispatch center, the way it works today is they enter all that and, then, they have to push buttons and get on the air and announce that we have a call, et cetera, et cetera. What Station Alerting does, as soo n as they enter that address and the information, it alerts the station in a digital reader board and you have bells that go off in incremental tones to alert the crew that you have a call. So, for the departments across the country that have done that, it's shaved about 40 seconds off their time chute time, their reaction time. That's a big deal. When you talk about seconds for us, every second is a big deal. If we can shave that much time off the alerting process, that's money well spent in my opinion. So, that will require Wi-Fi to do. So, that's why it's -- it's mentioned here for the future. One that I don't have that I do want to mention . It was in Chief Lavey's presentation and it reminded me when we talk about that fiber connection to the dispatch center and getting that fiber connected to our system, that's very important to us as well, along with law enforcement. Probably more so for them. They do a lot more records management and they need information quick, but we also rely on that -- that connection to the dispatch center to get our response information into the station. So, for us that's also going to be a big deal moving forward. The other things that we asked for was a receptionist. We pulled that, but just to make Council aware that as we grow the impact on our Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 9 of 79 admin support team has grown as well. The walk-ins, the number of phone calls, setting up tours, setting up ride-a-longs, it takes quite a bit of time. What we are finding is because of that time folks that are supposed to be doing one job aren't able to. Emily is as our records -- record clerk. We have had a presentation to the directors meeting that lasted -- did that take, Jaycee, an hour and a half? I don't know where she is. On records management and records rete ntion and having somebody dedicated to focus on that , that is Emily. She hasn't been able to do that as much as we want her to, because she's answering phones and she sits out front. So, that is coming for us. The other items that you have -- I know Councilman Palmer asked me about a hooligan tool. Those other items that we have, we can absorb -- we are going to try and absorb in our FY-16, FY-17 based budgets, so we are going to work hard in that. We have been working with Todd and Finance to make sure we can get that done. So, that's the reason those were pulled. We are going to try and work that within our base budgets. So, the future and the challenges ahead. I know everybody has talked about that so far. I'm sure Steve will as he -- as he follows me up here. Growth is affecting us, just like everybody else, and certainly there is a -- there is a balance there. I sat yesterday listening to the presentations and as a director certainly empathize with the other two presenters, with Tom and with Jeff as they talked about growth and the challenges with growth and trying to keep up. As I sat back also I tried to put myself in your shoes, where it maybe can be a little bit overwhelming. For us we saw last year a 17 percent increase in call volume with the growth. This year so far from January to today we have seen about a five percent increase, which may not sound like a lot, but we know that the summer months are our busiest months and that's where we really see our bumps. We are anticipating or trying to project about a ten percent increase. It would be higher, but with the new dispatch system going in place and with the Joint Powers Agreement the work we have done there, there are calls today that we are not going on that we did go on last year. Some of the very non-acute calls. Through that process of setting up the new CAD system and working with our partners , we are not going on some of those non-acute calls, they can simply be handled by the ambulance. So, we have dropped some of our calls through that JPA and that's why you're seeing not the big increase that -- I was anticipating we would be about 18 percent this year, but as we look at the data some of those calls that we went on last year we are not going on this year. So, I think that's a positive. But it's still a pretty big increase in call volume. We are working to try and get you better information when you make decision about growth. We met with Community Development, to Caleb and some of the folks in that department . As we look at that planning and as we look at the pre-planning meetings that occurred before you all look at a development. What we have focused on in the past is merely water supply and access. So, we talk a lot about road widths, like we did here a couple meetings ago and we talk about water supply. What we haven't done a great job of is identifying for you what kind of target hazard we are looking at when you develop -- when you approve that development. So, if we are looking at a 1,200 dollar -- a 1,200 residential development, 1,200 house residential development, our impact as far as hazardous is pretty low. It's medical calls and Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 10 of 79 it's maybe a structure fire, as opposed to an industrial park that you all are considering. That hazard is a lot higher for us and it affects our response. But also we are going to look at trying to identify for you what's the anticipated response time of the development that you're considering and does it meet what we were talking about as far as service levels. I think that will help you to say, well, you know you have a ten minute response time to this development and at least make people aware. So, I think we can get better tools in the future, understanding when the need for a new station is established, so, too, is the need to support some of those stations in logistics training and clerical. Again, we are trying to work with our partners to see if we can meet that need together, but that does have an impact. I think Jeff mentioned that yesterday as well. And, then, on our business side, as we grow our businesses at some point it's too overwhelming for the two inspectors we have and we are trying to hit a benchmark and articulate that as how many businesses can one inspector handle in the course of a year and help better educate and I think we will get there through that master planning process, but that's just some of our challenges with growth coming up. Fire Station Six was mentioned by Todd in his presentation. That is coming. It was scheduled for 2015 in the CIP when I first came in as the fire chief. Obviously, that's been pushed back and we understand, but there is a need. We purchased the land about six years ago. It's at Overland and Linder. Currently we only have one fire station south of I-84 and that's a challenge. I have got some -- some maps before you. You can kind of see that area on those maps and -- and what the growth is looking like in that area. We have a pretty large development going in off Overland Road. So, Fire Station Six is in need. It also was identified in the master plan, as you read through that, that that should be a priority to take a look at as far as meeting the growth standards. Here is another picture of that map for the audience. Let's see if I can -- yeah, there we go. As you can see, we have got a little bit of urban population currently. The yellow is some suburban population. We also know that this is going to grow out here and we really have no other great way to cover that, other than from Station Four, which is way over on Eagle Road. But with that we know there is a cost. Station design, we can use impact fees to do station design. One of the things through that master planning process that we identified is this is an area where we can design stations together and share in the cost of that. Our history has been every time we go build a new station we hire an architect and we have them redesign a station. It seems a little silly. We believe we can build a template that will work for no w and into the future. There is an interest on the part of the other fire chiefs to do that as a collective and share in the cost of that, which will help reduce our cost a little bit. The engine that will go in that station is about 700,000 dollars. That will be impact fee eligible. The reason it's 700 and not 520, like you saw when we approved the replacements, is it's a brand new engine. So, it needs brand new equipment. We don't have the equipment right now to put on that . So, that's the cost there. The station build -- when we went through the impact fee process -- correct me, Todd -- two, three years ago, we did get an update on cost to build a fire station. Then it was 2.2 million dollars. I am fearful that with the inflation since then it's Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 11 of 79 going to be a little bit more than that. I'm anticipating it to be more than that, but that's what we had three years ago when we went through the impact fee study. And, then, Todd mentioned the personnel, 12 firefighters, about 1.3 million dollars. So, it is a big ticket item. It's a need, but it is something that -- that's on the horizon that's coming. I hate to mention seven and eight right after my fight on six, but the reality is we are seeing significant growth in the southeast and in the northwest. The southeast we just met two weeks go, Steve? On the parks - - we met with the Parks Department. They were doing a big meeting -- collaborative meeting on the 77 acre park that they are looking at. The potential to partner with the Parks Department to put a station in that park location does meet our needs in the future. I think it's a good idea to have a station located near a park that's a heavy populated area and we also worked and we have realized the effects of putting fire stations on main arterials and that's not a great place to put them. So, working with parks -- and ACHD was at that meeting. We recognize that there are some residential collectors that we can come out on it and, then, to an intersection, which kind of meets our future need very well. There is a possibility there of partnering with Kuna Fire Department as well. I did reach out to their chief and said are you interested in having a discussion, possibly a joint staff station and they are interested. In the northwest -- and I will show this slide next. There is another great opportunity and there is a lot of build out in our northwest, as you know. So, if you take a look there, that's the anticipated growth. That was a COMPASS 2040 TAC population. You will see this in the master plan. But just as a visual, we are talking about this area here and we know at Black Cat and McMillan right now there is a significant development going in. In meeting with Chief Malott in Nampa there -- it would be their northeast corner is going to grow out significantly. We have a new high school going in out there. So, they are going to see a lot of growth there. I met with Chief Timinsky in Star, who met with his city council and his planning department for the city of Star and they are planning significant expansion and growth out here right off of Chinden at the far southern edge of their border. So, as you can see, if you -- if you bring that together there is a great opportunity there to meet all of our needs and not be redundant in what we do, but share in what we do and still meet the needs of each one of our communities well and meet those response expectations. So, I mentioned that as it's coming, but I think there is some partnership opportunities there and I'm about partnerships. I have said that before you before and I will stay true to it. Where we can, where it makes sense, we are going to look at doing that. The replacement of existing apparatus. This is still a very big deal. Through 2022 in our CIP we have a total of four engines and the truck, believe it or not. I know Councilman Bird you will probably almost faint when you hear the truck is almost due for replacement, but it has been that long and we are getting the hours up on that truck and at some point it's going to need to be. I do think we need to consider all options. I know Councilman Borton and I have had this conversation and I did with Stacey when she was here and Todd I really haven't had a chance to -- about potentially leasing of fire apparatus. It may or may not be the way to go, but as we look at how much it's going to cost us, 3.8 million dollars in replacement apparatus, I Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 12 of 79 think it's time to look at every option and make sure that we are making the right decision for us moving forward. It is worth noting that does include the cost of replacing the brush trucks, the water tender, any staff response vehicles. Obviously, those brush trucks and the tender can last a lot longer than the engine. They don't get used as much, so they can be extended a little bit. And, then, lastly -- not really a challenge, but worth mentioning. I think just continuing for us in the fire service to keep an open mind on how we are going to meet growth needs. I think there is always going to be some traditional approaches that we are not going to get away from. You know, when we have fires it takes fire trucks and firefighters to deal with those and that's -- that's not going away, nor do I want it to. But I think as we move forward and say after the base needs are met how do we continue to meet the needs . That's where we need to keep an open mind and at least consider all options and look at them. You'll see in the master plan report the mention of ARVs. You have already had a presentation on ARVs. I still believe in that program. Peak activity units and joint station staffing, I think collaboration is going to be key moving forward. I think that we can do things better in the fire service together, especially in some certain areas and those areas are really training, logistics, purchasing, prevention and even administration. While we still maintain autonomy, we can still work together to keep our costs contained and I'm looking forward to that. So, with that I'm glad I got to present in the morning and not say good afternoon when I started presenting and I would certainly answer any questions now or in the coming weeks. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: And this isn't new to Mark. We have discussed this. I hope -- I hope you haven't taken out your overtime -- your 240,000 out of your budget. I would leave it in there, because I know you're going to make this happen, but this will be a first time we have added -- personnel that we haven't added overtime and I would lot sooner see come October '17 -- when I get my printout of walking up to you and saying, Mark, good job, you just saved us 200 to 300 thousand in overtime, but, then have you come and say I need a budget amendment for 300,000. I would a lot sooner see it left in there, because you never know -- we hope we never have any serious things that -- that would cost us some employees for four, five, six months and stuff like that, but it can happen. So, I would just as soon leave it in there myself and I'd lot sooner see you give it back to me than come and ask for a budget amendment and when you compare department sizes with Nampa and Caldwell, you got to realize that about 95 percent of Meridian's homes that you're covering have been -- aren't 50 years old, where you look at Nampa and Caldwell probably 75 percent of their homes are 50 or older and about 50 years ago builders got smart and we started using Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 13 of 79 materials that help with fire retardant and stuff, so I don't worry about the comparison on stuff like that. As far as personnel goes, Mark, I think that that's up to the administration of the fire department. If they need it and they prove they need it, as I have told you many times, if they are working I have no problem with it. If they are sitting around you don't need it. Niemeyer: I appreciate that, Councilman Bird. We have had that recent conversation. De Weerd: Other questions? Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: So, Councilman Bird has been around a lot longer than I, but I have to slightly disagree with what he said. If -- a lot of -- a lot of study has gone into this, obviously, a lot of work and number crunching and the -- my question is, though, if the main reason to hire these three additional firefighters is to save on overtime and it doesn't, then what? De Weerd: Well, Council Woman Milam, I guess one of the conversations I had with the chief and why I felt this was warranted putting in the Mayor's budget at this point, is this -- this gives us an opportunity to really test the theory. We will be adding nine -- 12 new firefighters next year. If this doesn't show that it actually does what we think it will, those three firefighters are going to be used for the new station and get some -- at least three firefighters an opportunity to integrate before you have to put 12 on. So, you just add nine more. Or this will actually prove what we think that it possibly could do. So, I think it's an opportunity to test something that has been contemplated and debated and considered for some time to give it a chance. Milam: Madam Mayor, thank you for that. It really answered my question and it wasn't -- I didn't ask -- am I again, it think it is a great idea and I do want to try and see if it works, but my question was if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, then, what? And we have a reasonable answer. So, I think that's great. And I have one more question. On your fire sta tion wireless, that seemed like it was kind of a critical thing -- if it's going to save 40 seconds of -- why is that unfunded for such a small amount? Niemeyer: Council Woman Milam, I may not have explained that well enough. We don't today have that station alerting system in place. That is something being discussed. It's a big cost item, so in our discussion we are looking at an AFG grant, is a FEMA grant, to help fund that, as far as the equipment goes, and, then, our piece of that would also be putting the Wi-Fi in the stations. So, we don't have it today. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 14 of 79 Milam: Okay. Thank you. Niemeyer: Yeah. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: A comment and a question. First a comment to Madam Mayor and Mark. I applaud this approach with these three officers. I think -- this is my third budget hearing and every year Mark and I have met and you preached it time and time again -- I think if we had more officers we can reduce our overtime and I think this is a strategic approach to prove that you guys are able to do what you say you can do and I believe in it. My question was about last budget year there was some discussion -- I think led by Councilman Borton about holding back funds each year to save towards the purchase of more apparatuses. I don't see that as an enhancement. I don't know if it's a piece of the budget that I just missed -- and if I did, then, I apologize. Niemeyer: Yeah. I'm thinking maybe I will tag team with Todd. I believe that was presented by Todd on day one is how do we make that decision as a city to set aside funds into, A, the public safety fund and, B, the city's CIP -- the capital improvement fund. What's our mechanism to do that. So, I will turn that over to Todd. Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, Mark, appreciate it. The public safety reserve fund that you speak of, that Mr. Borton presented last year, currently we are presenting that to you as an unfunded item . Part of the supplemental documents that Jenny provided yesterday, towards the bottom of the report you will see that the public safety fund is acknowledged in our budget process and budget decision making. At the current time for the Mayor's proposal, we put that on our unfunded list. When we discussed the allowable property tax discussion, again, we will bring that up to you as a funding priority number one for us. If Council does give us the direction to utilize the allowable tax, we would like to fund the public safety fund as the number one priority on our unfunded list. Cavener: Thanks, Todd. Lavoie: Thank you. De Weerd: Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, chief. We are going to take a five minute break as we transition. (Recess.) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 15 of 79 De Weerd: Okay. We will go ahead and get started again. We have our parks team here, so I will turn this over to Steve. Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Before we get started on the budgets, I just wanted to let you know of an opportunity we have coming up in a couple of weeks. We are going to be holding a small ceremony in Kleiner Park to put in a memorial bench, a tree, and plaque for Eldon Gray. He was one of the trustees for the Kleiner Park trust, who passed away around Christmastime, and the other trustees and Parametrics have joined forces and are helping to fund the improvements to put this memorial in. So, two weeks from tomorrow on Thursday, June 23rd, in the morning at 9:45 a.m., if you're available, I just wanted to extend the invitation . Many of you will be at the AIC conference that day I know, so if you can't make it that's okay, but I certainly wanted to -- to make sure you were invited. So, I wanted to pass that on. De Weerd: It's the 23rd? Siddoway: 23rd. June 23rd. Two weeks from tomorrow. 9:45 a.m. We will be meeting at the large shelter, kind of across from the senior center. That memorial will be going up in the arboretum area in that part of the park. I can follow this up with an e-mail as well. Bird: Please. De Weerd: Hey, Steve, just as we talk about this, that shelter has always been something that's been really close to Alvin. Do you to want name the shelter? Siddoway: It's certainly a possibility. They all have numbers, not names today. Why don't we give that some additional thought and we can talk more about it. We have got the street named for him beside there as well and I know he has a bench in the Rock of Honor, too. So, let's -- let's just get together and talk about what makes sense. De Weerd: Yes. Siddoway: Okay. So, if there has been a theme to the presentation so far as I have been sitting in and listening, it's responding to the needs of growth, the demands of growth, and we are certainly feeling that as well. I think that Public Works, Police and Fire have done a great job kind of laying that out. I don't have specific slides to talk about those, but some of the items set out to me in Jeff's presentation, 1,056 new single-family homes and 414 new multi-family units last year alone. Those -- those are the kinds of things that we are seeing and experiencing and just knowing that more and more people are coming and enjoying the -- the parks and recreation services that we offer, we are certainly seeing that growth. We presented our strategic presentation to you just last Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 16 of 79 month, a few weeks ago, and showed the growth in our sports and reservations and all the other activity guide registrations and things like that and all of those are creating new demands that we are working ha rd to respond to. We are very proud of the role the -- the part that we have in the awards that have been already mentioned -- I know you're very aware of. But public safety and parks are often two of the most cited reasons behind those . We are grateful for our partnerships with the police and fire. Police helps us patrol and keep things safe. Their bike patrol is one that we are particularly grateful for and working with Fire to get the AED programs out into the parks are great as well . Our presentation for you today is in three sections, similar to what you have been seeing from others. We will start off talking about the current fiscal year. We want to report back to you on how we are using the dollars that you have approved for FY-16 and, then, the current year's enhancements and we want to prevent our FY-17 enhancements and, third, we will give a look out into the future as to what we see coming. So, in the current fiscal year already approved we have an enhancement for Hillsdale Park. That is the -- the park that's going to be in south Meridian next to the Hillsdale Elementary School and the YMCA partnership. The status of that project is that it is currently in design. We are looking at a possible bid date of this winter in December and construction starting next spring. The recreation fieldhouse development enhancement for 2.75 million gave us the additional funding we needed to reach the four million dollar mark to work on acquisition of a fieldhouse and just a few weeks ago Council approved the purchase and sale agreement for the Home Court as our solution to the fieldhouse needs that we have been working on for several years. Our closing for that property is scheduled for September 30th of this yea r. The next enhancement was one that we presented last year, but, then, withdrew, but I just wanted to remind you that we did present the operations of the -- the Home Court to you last year, but, then, said we -- we want you to be aware this is coming in FY-17. We don't need it in '16. So, we presented it last year, held it to this year, so that one will be part of our '17 request. We also created a new position for the recreation manager and Colin Moss was promoted into that position earlier this year. Next we had an enhancement to take our part-time fabrication design specialist position and make it full time. Jeremy Aldridge was promoted into that position. And, then, we were very blessed this year to have approved more funds than usual for pathways and Jay has been working diligently on making great strides in getting the new pathway segments connected, particularly on the Five Mile Creek pathway. We have several sections that are in the works along Linder Road. Our plans are at 50 percent along east James Court on the east end of Bud Porter. Those are at 75 percent. Both of those projects we are anticipating going into construction later this year. Along Pine Avenue we have been coordinating with ACHD on design and we -- those plans are also at 75 percent. The construction on that window will be part of the road project in -- in FY-18. Not listed here, because it wasn't specifically part of the enhancement, but you may be wondering about what we call Segment H2. That's the -- the piece along with Five Mile Creek or -- from Badley to -- to Fairview. That one was originally part of this enhancement, but we were able to get it funded through Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 17 of 79 a CDBG grant. That one is also moving forward and we -- those plans are actually the furthest along. They are at 90 percent. We are working on getting the easements we need to also move forward with construction this summer. The next one is also a pathway related one, but it's the Rail With Trail. The funds there, as shown, are design funds and will help us design the project that will be moving forward in FY-18. The Council ratified the state local agreement with ITD just a few weeks ago on May 24th and that project is moving forward as well . The next item is the 77 acre park, the big one down south, our next regional park. We think of it as the Settlers Park, if you will, for south Meridian. South Meridian currently doesn't have a large regional park and this will fill that need. We have the funds for design and construction documents and constru ction management services to get through those phases. Those agreements have recently been approved by Council and we are in design. As Chief Niemeyer mentioned, we have held our initial kickoff meetings with multiple agencies and are getting that moving forward. Some of the smaller enhancements include a shade structure that was funded and we are currently working on getting that shade structure added to Bear Creek Park. We also have the funds for an ADA transition plan, which is currently on hold, but we will move forward as soon as we -- as soon as legal receives the settlement agreement between the city and Department of Justice. We are ready to move forward on the ADA transition plan. And, then, the last couple -- we did receive some funds to do some modifications to our front counter. Those came in under budget and are complete. And we also had funding, which I know Roger Norberg back behind me was very grateful for to get that -- the Ventrac mower to help mow the slopes, particularly out at Ten Mile interchange and that has been purchased and is in service at this time. So, that is our overview. Hopefully that gives you some sense of how we are using the dollars that you have approved for us in the current fiscal year. Now we want to look at the next fiscal year and our needs going into FY-17. So, the first of the six that we want to present is related to the purchase of the Home Court YMCA as our fieldhouse. We already have the funds for the capital. We need to get the operational funds and staffing. Originally this enhancement was submitted with two full-time employees and five part-time employees. In our balancing discussions with the Mayor and Council, as drafted today it has been reduced to one full-time employee as the evening site supervisor and three part-time employees, which are the score keepers and those folks that we need to run our programs there. We want to talk about the second full-time employee and the possibility of -- and whether that should come back in. I have a coming slide that will talk about that, but we -- this is what we can get by with, but we wanted to talk about those additional needs. So, it has the operating -- the capital outlay and the additional revenues that we intend to bring in with the operation of that new facility. Our second enhancement is related to pathway connections. Typically we have a 100,000 dollar request on an annual basis. We have reduced this slightly from that, partly because we have funds and projects that we are currently working from FY-16. We don't want to lose that momentum. We would use these funds to focus on construction documents along Five Mile Creek between Ten Mile and Black Cat. It's a section that we have a good Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 18 of 79 chance at getting grant funds to construct, but in order to make that a competitive project it needs to be shovel ready and we have those construction documents done and ready to go. We would also look at a small pathway connection across an ACHD storm drain facility that is near McMillan Road and that's -- that's a really small connection that's a gap in our system and one that we might be able to get done based on recent developments with ACHD. And, of course, we continue to look at signage needs along the pathways and those key locations to get directional signage so people know where to go and how to stay on this pathway network as it gets better connected. The third one is for a neighborhood park in Bellano Creek Subdivision. The name which we intend to bring forward to the Council soon, as proposed by the developer out there, Thomas Coleman, is Rita Husky Park, named after the original landowners of that area. The -- the funds to construct that park will be needed in -- in FY-17. We are currently actively in design for this project and will be bringing the draft design to Council for design discussion soon. The -- the enhancement for this one includes the construction as the main and you can see it's primarily funded by impact fees , but there is some seasonal labor and some operating needed to operate that park when it comes online. Our fourth enhancement request, which is kind of funny to call this an enhancement, because it's actually a cost savings, but, nonetheless, just to make you aware, we have been using ACTIVE Net as our software for -- for years. There are some things that we found that it can't do that we see as less customer friendly and we have been actively researching options over the last six, eight months, looking at many different demos and the one that folks seem to like the best is this one by Peak Software called Sportsman. It is the software currently used by the city of Nampa and they seem pleased with -- with how it works. We currently pay ACTIVE Net over 13,000 dollars a year in transaction fees that the Peak Software does not charge. There is also an online convenience fee paid by our customers, not by the city at all, but last year they paid almost 7,000 dollars in those online convenience fees that this software also does not charge. So, in year one we would have about 12,000 dollars in fees that includes the original purchase of the software and training. From year two and beyond that drops to 3,400 dollars and if you compare that to the 13,000 that we are paying in transaction fees, the city will realize about a 10,000 dollars per year savings by switching to this software. De Weerd: Steve, would you also save that on the customer end, too? Siddoway: The customer fees completely go away. De Weerd: Cool. Siddoway: Our fifth enhancement is seasonal parks labor and this is one that is completely tied to the -- the growth that we were talking about. This particular enhancement has nothing to do with adding new parks, things like that. This is a response to the increased demand on our existing system. Last month we presented a number that over the last five years we have noticed a 70 percent Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 19 of 79 increase in shelter reservations just as one matrix. Now, that does include the addition of Kleiner Park in 2012. So, in order to factor out any new facilities and just look at just growth-related demands, I went back and looked at 2012 through '15 after Kleiner Park was already online and year over year every year adds more than a hundred new shelter reservations comp ared to the previous year and those same trends happen with the demand for restroom cleanings and trash emptying, field reservations and other demands. So, just to maintain our level of service, to keep our parks clean and green the way we want to for our citizens, we need to add two six month seasonal employees to the summer labor pool. This last one is one full-time groundskeeper and this one is related to new facilities. So, we are in the next year bringing online three new neighborhood parks. The Hillsdale Park in south Meridian. The Bellano Creek neighborhood park or Rita Husky Park that we just talked about. And, then, we are working with Brighton Corp on the park in Bainbridge Subdivision. We have talked about it before under the name of William Watson Park, although I understand that in talking with Mr. Turnbull that that name may change, so -- but the park -- those three neighborhood parks are coming online in FY-17. We would like to add one full-time groundskeeper in response to the demand s created by those new three -- those three new neighborhood parks. So, those are the enhancements that we are requesting for FY-17. Looking at -- this is where I wanted to come back and talk about the -- the Home Court facilities manager. That position was cut from the -- the balanced budget that was proposed without the three percent. If the three percent is taken, we recommend and have in there that Home Court facilities manager position. The -- the give and take is this: Operationally, the YMCA will still be in there in that facility for the next year, year and a half, and will have staffing in that facility while they are in operations, particularly in the daytime. However, beginning October 1 we are responsible for the facility. It is ours. Responsible for the maintenance. Responsible for the upkeep. Responsible for the scheduling. And working with all the outside groups that are scheduling that facility with us. We actually intend to be in front of you soon with proposed fees, because as you might imagine those groups that need it in the fall after we take over the scheduling are trying to plan now and they need to schedule those facilities with us today. So, there is going to be quite a demand for scheduling needs, maintenance needs, things like that, that will still have to be undertaken, even though the YMCA is still in there. So, that is why we -- we do recommend that if three percent is taken that is on the list of slightly less priority than funding the public safety fund. I think that was number one. But we do have that on the -- on the proposed list. The other staffing and operations that were cut from this year's request I think can legitimately be put off until FY-18. They include these other part -- two part-time employees. The tenant improvements to -- to improve what we call the fifth day where we want classrooms where the YMCA is -- while they are in there we don't need the -- the tenant improvements, which we had over 200,000 dollars in that line item originally and cut that part out. We have partially funded the fiber connections IT to -- to bring fiber out there. We will need the remaining funds in FY-18 and, then, we will want to get Lenel security upgrades on the doors after the YMCA Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 20 of 79 moves out. So, those items will be coming in FY-18, but are not needed in FY- 17. We had two additional enhancements that were proposed, but unfunded in the -- the balanced budget. One is to provide an additional shade structure. We have been looking at either another shelter type shade structure in Heroes Park or looking to do something with a large tree grid in the amphitheater area of Kleiner Park. If funded we would look for additional shade. It's one of those items that came out strong and our recently adopted ma ster plan and the public weighed in and said that that was one of the priorities that they had and it's been one of the priorities for our commission, which is why we prepared it and presented it. And, then, the last one is a cubicle, which would be used here in City Hall for a site supervisor and to be shared with volunteers and other needs . We currently just have a desk set up in the corner. If not funded we can continue operating that way. If it was funded we could just get a better setup. So, that's where we are with those unfunded items. So, looking out to next year at what's coming. The first and biggest item is moving from design to construction for that south Meridian regional park. Most of that will be park impact fees. We have been saving up for it for a number of years and we would see that moving forward in FY-18 for construction. We will need a Groundskeeper III position with that south Meridian park coming online. The Rail With Trail matching funds, that's the 37,000 dollars that you heard in your presentation a couple weeks ago when Jay presented to you about the -- the grant for the Rail With Trail and that would be the small piece to get the 500,000 dollar grant from ITD. We have the annual pathway connections. The shade structure. We also have a lifecycle capital replacement schedule that we have worked out with -- with Finance over the years where we have ages of all of our assets and we have a capital -- a potential capital replacement coming up in FY-18. Of course we will make that call as we get closer as to whether it can be put off or not, but we won't just ask for it just because it's on the schedule, but it is on our schedule to plan for and make sure that we are aware that it's coming. And, then, we have vehicles and equipment replacement items and, then, new items related to the new park coming online. Looking out beyond that at the -- the CIP for the next five years, there is a -- so, that's a small amount of the FY-17 unfunded at the top. You can see the large amount in FY-18, which is largely the -- the impact fees going to the 77 acres. I know that the -- the overall citywide CIP is not fiscally constrained yet, but we have actually taken a crack at trying to fiscally constrain ours based on anticipated impact fees and historic General Fund budget. So, over the next five years we see about 15 million dollars of needs , about two-thirds of which would be covered by the impact fee fund, but five million of which would come from the General Fund. Now, as we were discussing this in the director's meeting one of the interesting topics that came up was impact fees and the effect on the General Fund that came with splitting the single-family and multi-family impact fees and reducing those. So, I wanted to present this to you in -- more informationally. Our current impact fee went down from 1,300 dollars a few years ago down to 1,080 dollars. The decision was made by Council in May of 2014 -- actually, the decision was made a few months -- a couple months before. That's when it went into effect. But in 2014 the multi-family impact fee was reduced Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 21 of 79 from 1,080 to 767. There have been 798 as of two weeks ago -- multi-family permits that have been pulled since May of 2014 . So, the foregone impact fee revenue that would have been paid by development, but needs to be made up by the General Fund in order to maintain existing levels of service, is just about 250,000 dollars. So, that's just an example of the effect of reducing the impact fees on the General Fund when those decisions are made and I think that's all I -- so, I will pause there and ask if there is any questions. But just wanted to present that information to Council. This is my last slide. Items that are not in that five-year CIP, because we have tried to do some balancing, we don't think they can be funded right away, the Borup-Bottles property in the -- in west Meridian, that's a big 47 acre park over on Cherry Lane. We have had that -- well, we had the Borup piece of that for a number of years and we have added to that recently. That means that will be developed we think in the five to ten year time frame. Margaret Aldape Park, we have been working with the Ewings on a great -- our first-ever Boise City Park -- sorry -- Boise City -- Boise River -- De Weerd: Oh, my God. Bird: You're at the wrong park. Siddoway: There you go. Boise River Park. One of our -- continuing the theme of jewels along the Boise River, this is going to be a different park than any other in our system, way more geared towards the natural amenities that already exist along the river. We are very excited to be working on that. And, then, finally, future phases of the 77 acre park. You know, one thing we know from our experience with Settlers Park is a park like that is not built in a single phase or even two phases, so while we have some significant phases certainly pla nned in that five year time frame, we do expect that there will be additional phases added over time to that 77 acre park in south Meridian. De Weerd: Meridian Settlers took 15 years? Siddoway: Yes. Yeah, it kicked off, you know, right around 2000, 2001 and with last year's completion of the -- the tennis courts we had fifteen years right there, with multiple phases along the way, including Adventure Island Playground, MYB, and other phases that happened along the way. So, with that I have staff up here to help me answer any questions, but we look forward to the fiscal year '17 and the continued improvements to the park system and the things we are able to bring our community and I will stand for any questions. De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Madam Mayor. Steve, just a question. You had mentioned the Pine Avenue pathway. Siddoway: Yes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 22 of 79 Palmer: I -- the neighbors were upset about something. It was really confusing. I was only there for about the first ten minutes of the meeting, I had a Council meeting. Have their concerns been resolved or where are we at with that? Siddoway: Jay attended that meeting. Gibbons: Councilman Palmer, that meeting started out kind of -- kind of ugly. The neighbors were very upset, because we had created a pathway crossing where the pathway -- the current -- the existing Five Mile Creek pathway hits Pine, we were going to cross with pedestrian operated beacon and, then, have the -- the pathway on the south side that would have been -- be on the south side all the way to Locust Grove and the impact to the neighbors were pretty significant and so before -- prior to that meeting there hadn't been any outreach to the neighbors from ACHD or anybody during our planning process and the design process and so we held that meeting and we have since the 75 percent review meeting we have met with -- as staff with ACHD we have resolved those issues. The pathway continues on the north side. We will have a crossing down by the -- the ACHD storm water pond. We will have a five foot attached sidewalk on the south and the neighbors are -- that's more palatable to them. I have followed up with the -- with the gentleman who hosted the meeting, as has ACHD staff, and we are planning another outreach as soon as the plans get readjusted to show what we anticipate -- or what we have agreed to and promised to present to them, we will be back later this month and have another -- I will keep you in the loop on that as well. Palmer: Awesome. That makes my day. Thank you. De Weerd: Other questions from Council? Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Steve -- and you may have explained this. On priority number one you got building maintenance for the Home Court -- Siddoway: Yes. Milam: -- at 55,000 dollars. Siddoway: Yes. Milam: Is that based on something specific? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 23 of 79 Siddoway: Yes. So, we have been gathering actuals from -- from the YMCA -- about 25,000 of that 55 is the annual floor resurfacing and, then, the other 30,000 is everything from -- from general building maintenance to snow removal in the parking lot. There is a large number of items that are -- that are in there. Maybe I will just ask Garrett if he remembers some of the -- the list that's in the -- the building maintenance. Gibbons: Councilman Milam and Madam Mayor, yes, it's mainly around the flooring, 20 to 25 thousand dollars a year. Snow -- snow removal, lighting fixtures, some replacements, bleacher replacements, just -- items such -- such things like that. I don't know what else there really is -- part of that, but the main piece of that is the floor maintenance. Milam: Thank you. And, then, you have an FTE to work th ere -- did you say evenings -- Siddoway: So, one -- so, there are eventually two FTEs needed. One is the -- the facility manager that will be at the level -- basically as a rec coordinator for that facility and, then, we have an evening site supervisor. If you think of the current setup with schools, with Garrett running the -- the overall program and if you -- if you have met Ross, Ross is our evening site supervisor and he -- supervises those evening programs. It's a similar relationship here. There would be a facility manager that's in charge and, then, an evening site s upervisor that's there in the evenings to make sure the -- to run the programs. Milam: But you're just asking for the one -- Siddoway: Right now we are just asking for the site supervisor as the highest priority and the facility manager to be added if the three percent is taken. Milam: Madam Mayor, one more question, Steve. So, as far as the shade -- Siddoway: Yes. Milam: -- so if you were to do trees at Kleiner Park, that cost the same as building a structure or -- Siddoway: They are similar. Now, there would, obviously, be some slight differences, but the reason why it's -- we would be looking to get big trees -- bigger than usual. If the intent is to try to add instant shade, it just hasn't been designed yet. It's still an idea between Mike and I that we have been toying with. I know that there is -- you know, during the summer when it's hot one of the deterrence is the lack of shade out there. So, how can we add shade that doesn't interfere with site lines and the ability to view what's going on on the stage -- that's something that we would need to work with and design, but we think that, you know, we could find large trees that were -- was it four inch trees Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 24 of 79 we were looking at, Mike? So, four inch caliper trees that would be out there and be bigger than -- than other trees that we would normally add in a park setting. Milam: Thank you. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Steve, a question for you related to pathway connectio ns as Council continues to fund pathway connections, eventually we are going to get to a point where a lot of those pathways are going to require repair and maintenance and I'm just curious for future planning and thought, where do we need to start being concerned about repairing and maintaining some of the current pathways that we have been installing? Siddoway: Excellent question. I will start off and, then, see if Mike or Jay wanted to chime in, but with each of our pathway enhancements we do add a small amount in for the maintenance of them, but I think what you're getting at is the longer-term resurfacing replacement. Cavener: Correct. Siddoway: That was actually quite a big discussion during our master plan last year and one of the things that was in that plan that you may recall was the discussion of -- is this entire network of pathways going to be owned, operated, and maintained by the city or is it a smaller subset and others will continue to be maintained by HOAs and the latter is the direction that we went in the -- in the master plan. We are -- we are focused because of the long-term ongoing costs on -- on the primary network being Five Mile Creek pathway, Ten Mile Creek pathway, the Rail With Trail -- and was it the Meridian Loop or -- and so there is a handful of pathways and the others will continue to be required, but would stay in the purview of the HOAs long term. So, that -- that's one way we have to -- to help manage those long-term costs. Anything else to add? De Weerd: Any other questions? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Just a comment. Made a little trip here over the weekend to all the parks, Steve, and, again, as we have -- the whole Council -- Mayor and Council have conferenced you guys every time, they were not only being used, which makes my heart really jump, but the -- the class of park that you have got out there is unreal. Our employees take such pride in those things it is unbelievable. And, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 25 of 79 please, pass that one again from -- I'm sure from all of us. It -- it was amazing to just -- it makes you feel so good -- for somebody that's lived here, you know, and, basically, when I come on board we had one park in '98 and that was Storey Park. Siddoway: Uh-huh. Bird: When we were starting Tully and to see -- and to see people -- all the people enjoying it -- and I don't care whether they are from Timbuktu or from Meridian or where they are from, but just to see it being used and the -- the facility -- the shape of the facility and the way it's maintained on weekends is unreal. Siddoway: Thank you, Councilman Bird. The parks are heavily used. They are loved by this community and we take great pride in them and do everything we can to keep up a high level of service . Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. If you have any other questions moving forward -- I know we have four or five weeks until the July workshop, but, please, feel free to reach out to us and we will be glad to work with you and help answer any questions. Bird: That's when the red pencil comes out. De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Appreciate all of you. (Recess.) De Weerd: -- Bruce and Caleb. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Members, I -- you know, so I don't forget to say this, that I just want to say one thing. Thank you for listening. It's amazing the amount of listening you have to do there and , then, on top of it you're processing. So, I don't -- seriously, you're doing a much better job at this job than I think I could. So, appreciate that. There are a lot bigger presentations, a lot bigger requests, perhaps a lot more data than you will be getting in this presentation, but thanks for listening to everything large and small. Appreciate that very much. So, next slide, please. Okay. Familiar sort of -- we will be going through rather quickly -- we are going to be talking a little about what we have done with the budget that you have given to us previously. Going to go over some of the revenues that we have been able to return to the General Fund over the last ten years. Some efficiencies we have been able to attain. A few other successes -- again what we have done with the budget money that you have given to us. We do have three fairly simple small enhancements and invite your questions and direction at any point in his presentation. Always like to flash this. This is not -- this -- I love this -- this slide. Really what it's showing is the revenues that were returned to the General Fund and as you all know typically those are used for -- to contribute to the -- to the CIP, the capital projects. But Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 26 of 79 what I like about this slide is it really shows pre-real estate recession -- pre the great recession going into those lean years where things were zeroed out and, then, coming into the -- the current years where we are back to -- in '13 we were - - in terms of revenue we were just about at those pre-recession levels. Things have -- it's a different type of real estate market now. I think we know it. It's a little less crazy. It feels a little more sustainable. We will see if it, of course, is or not, but we are just feeling maybe a more solidity to the business that we are doing, less -- less of a bubble. But this adds up to about 14 million dollars that we have returned to the General Fund in the last ten years. Some efficiencies. Really proud of what we have been able to do with the -- as you all know, we have contracts for most of our building department functi ons, so that's the plan review, the various trade reviews, and for inspections. But because we do have Brent Bjornson and Sam Zahorka, our building official, and his staff member, we have been able to, along with our front counter staff, build in some very, very exciting efficiencies. So, for sign permits and fast track commercial occupancies -- really, the very simple occupancies, previously we were able to turn those around in two to five days for both of those types and we are able to do those in many cases over the counter now. So, the idea is we bring that back from our consultants with our in-house folks and use them to try to expedite those fairly simple permits. Instead of throwing them into a first-come-first-serve queue, we are triaging them and able to handle them faster. Had really good response to these -- these programs. I think we owe it to our customers. We haven't taken this hill yet, but it's coming soon. We want to be able to do the same -- same day, same visit turnaround for those smaller residential projects and that would be some additions -- some remodels and simple things like -- like patio covers, for instance. So, that -- that will be happening. We will be implementing that soon. Another efficiency that we have implemented is we -- we -- previously we -- if you need to schedule an inspection you were -- the -- the cut-off time for that was 8:00 a.m. the day of. We moved that back to midnight the night before and what that's done for us is we have really pushed our customers now to use Accella -- yes, we had some of the old guard that love to pick up the phone and leave a voicemail or talk to -- to Mindy, for instance, but that's not very efficient, and so we have really pushed folks to use Accella and to have that cut off at midnight the night before and what that really does for us is it means our inspectors, instead of coming into the office, picking up their inspections for that day and, then, going on the field, they are starting their work day with their mobile offices in the field. Much, much more efficient. So, those are some of the efficiencies that we have been able to build in. When I talk about also successes -- here is proof; right? There is a lot more I think we could point to and with justifiable pride, but just -- just three. So, with some of the budget money you have given us, the Idaho Avenue placemaking, the lighter, cheaper, quicker project, which we think will be a way to jump start the already exciting things that are happening in our downtown and along Idaho Avenue and that's -- that's really being implemented in phases this month -- yeah. As we speak. And we know with a lot of the new businesses opening -- Frankie's Java, with Blue Sky Bagels coming soon -- there is really a new vitality about our downtown this simply helps Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 27 of 79 to reinforce that -- that vitality. Something I don't think we have briefed you all on is something called Op Sites. Op Sites is an online application, we work with a company and it allows us to take available sites w ithin Meridian and highlight them. I'm sorry you can't see in the lower right-hand corner of that graphic, but what it does is it allows us to push data out and this is not just a matter of putting it out on the website, what Op Sites does is they have lists of thousands of developers and property investors around the country and we have a project with a -- let's say a spec industrial building that we are working with a developer to find a tenant for, they are able to send that -- an email blast out to -- with links to this data for that particular site out to that particular development . Ditto for a hotel site. We would have hospitality developers and that. Commercial and retail. So, the idea is to specifically gear our marketing efforts for sites to those developers that are interested in those things. And the third success I'm going to highlight just briefly is -- we have a very solid plan for the Ten Mile Urban Renewal District. Obviously, that's going to be up for discussion next week, but we are proud of the work that's been done and the collaboration with MDC on that -- on that effort. Again, if that is implemented it could result in quite a nice new piece of our urban fabric for Meridian, something that's been long overdue since we completed the specific area plan back in 2007. On to enhancements. We talked about Accella. Accella does allow us to do electronic document review, but we thought it was important to really take the implementation seriously. If you remember, those of us that were around with say three years ago, Accella, as an overall software package, had a bad rap. I actually heard a couple of department heads say Accella doesn't work. Well, the problem was Accella was implemented incompletely and -- and incorrectly in some ways and really want to acknowledge -- I do this every chance I get -- our IT folks for -- and Jaycee Holman for the leadership to recognize that Accella -- there was nothing wrong with it, it wasn't broken, it simply had never been implemented properly. So, we went back -- IT went back working with some power users, including some in Community Development, and reconfigured Accella -- in my view they actually implemented it correctly this time around and it works and it works very, very well for us as an enterprise solution. This is what we feel we need to do for electronic document review. We need to really understand, first off, working with a business analyst and project manager, what our business needs are. How do you know if you have been successful if you haven't spec'd out what your targets are, what you're trying to achieve, and this will result ultimately in enhanced customer service for -- for all of our customers. There are a lot of implications for document handling within the city outside of Community Development as well and, then, we know that at the end of the day we will have taken all of the requirements of all users into account for this effort, not just within -- not just within Community Development, but elsewhere. So, we want to kick this first phase off with a 31,500 dollar one-time -- well, it's phase one. So, we will be looking for some money the following year to really lay out and map out what Accella electronic document review should be and make sure that we are hitting those targets correctly and we really appreciate the -- the help of Public Works. John McCormack has really taken us through project management 101 in terms Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 28 of 79 of the right approach to getting this done and when we feel good about it. Enhancement number two. Really, our break room has not been -- De Weerd: So -- Bruce. Chatterton: Mayor. De Weerd: What sections are your enhancements under? Chatterton: They are all under 1900. De Weerd: Okay. Chatterton: Which is Community Development. Thank you for pointing that out. It should be in these slides. We are also requesting a water f iltration system for our breakroom. We have several of these in -- elsewhere in City Hall breakrooms. I think the picture on the -- at the bottom there is from Public Works and I think the one -- the one on the right, that's what it looks like below -- below deck inside the cabinet beneath the sink. I believe that's actually the Mayor's office. So, what this does is it eliminates the need for -- for bottled water occasionally -- I think Meridian's municipal water quality is very high, but occasionally you do get necessarily a whiff of chlorine and our -- rather than the bottled water, which we currently provide for customers and for staff, this would have allowed us -- you know, really, the courtesy of getting filtered water to our staff and our customers. And, finally, we are very serious about records retention if we need to be. We have to be. It's the law and the city is implementing its response to -- to that law, really getting those policies and procedures together, so that we can -- can stay in compliance with records retention. So, again, similar to -- in the Public Works, they had, I believe, a temporary employee for about two years. This is similar. This would be an exempt employee for one year working under our Administrative Assistant II, Kim Tabarini, to create that records retention system for Community Development. For a small department we create a heck of a lot of records. There is probably more than any other department for our size. To categorize those records, schedule them for destruction, all the kinds of things that you're seeing and to deal with the scanning backlog. So, that would be 38,500 dollars. Again, nonbase, one time. Those are our enhancements. Happy to answer any questions about -- about that or anything else you've heard this morning. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 29 of 79 Borton: Just on the last slide. Is the records retention attempt to implement the existing policy or it reads -- creating a system that's different -- Chatterton: Council Member Borton, that's a good point. We are -- like a lot of departments, in process of making sure we are ready to schedule it. I guess we wouldn't really be using it to attempt to create the system, it's to implement the system. Borton: Okay. De Weerd: And I would say Jacy Jones came in and talked to the dire ctors in terms of records retention and how this is -- this is an ongoing issue I think that in our Community Development Department it's getting on top of it to -- to be able to maintain and just like Public Works and -- and when they hired their contract labor to -- to get on top of all of their paper and implement their -- their maintenance schedule and get everything all in line. Records retention and all of the recent legislation and new -- new regulations on this is creating a real work for -- in each of our departments and so I think at some point if you want your head to spin we will have Jacy Jones come in and talk about what the clerk's office and the city attorney's office have pulled together, so that we can comply with the -- the new laws in records retention. This will help Community Development really get on top of things. So, if -- as you well know, because you get your packets every meeting, they create a lot of paper. Right, Caleb? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: And Bruce. Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Just a comment. Bruce and the whole team, I commend you on bringing forth a contracted person, as opposed to creating another new full-time or part-time employee in the city. I think this is forward thinking. The problem, we are going to bring in the right resource to solve that problem and, then, we can move on with our day-to-day businesses. So, I appreciate this forward thinking mindset. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Well, we will take a break. (Recess.) De Weerd: Okay. We will reconvene and I'll turn this over to Robert. Simison: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. So, I was asked to get us back on schedule. So, I'm going to take about the next hour of time going over none of my enhancements for the Mayor's office. So, it should be a good time. We will start with January 1st, 2015. Just real quick. I know you Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 30 of 79 have heard about this -- these items from other people. Just some of the accolades from last year for the city and the one that I don't think anyone touched on was the -- the Forbes top 25 retirement communities. So, we are being recognized from -- on all ends of the spectrum. The US Census officially made us the second largest city in the state. We have heard about the growth numbers. All that being said, when you're still coming up as the number one place to live America I think that the city leadership, directories, departments are all doing a fabulous job handling what they are seeing in front of us and I'd like to think the Mayor's office, we do our part to help move that forward on a variety of different levels. So, what I want to go over -- that last year, you know, we haven't had any enhancements in the Mayor's office for the last couple of years, but we are still improving and getting more stuff done in the office and if you look at last year, you know, just the effort that goes into, you know, putting on an event like the Meridian Road interchange ribbon cutting, the fact that we are able to do these basically for free compared to what the state might have spent on these, is still -- it takes time and effort and coordination with our community partners to make that happen. For chamber. Roaring Springs. Connecting Idaho. The others from the business community. But it's really a great way to thank everyone who was involved in getting the Meridian Road interchange completed. The Youth Farmers Market, you know, we -- we did a -- the pilot program last September. You are all aware it's coming down the road for this year. So, we -- we have been working -- you know, Danielle has done a great job in working with the contractor that's going to be turned over to the Parks Department to help facilitate it for the year, but we have done a lot of the legwork to get it where it is, working with our community partners, finding buy-in from people and many of you I know came to the one that was in September where we saw about 300 people come. So, we -- we hope to have a great turnout for this year and good quality vendors. We really -- we did Do The Right. You know, we did our second one this year, but that's still something fairly new to the community and -- and that's something that I know Ken is going to be working -- he's already started work on gathering together a committee to really make it even bigger next year, you know, and it's not just about making it bigger, it's getting more involvement and more activity, more engagement from the business community, more engagement from the school's, more engagement from the HOAs. So, that's kind of where we are and it kind of comes into the -- the Mantra of what we are trying to do in the office and us, you know, do what we do better. You know, we - - we want to continue it expand what we are doing and expand our outreach, we just don't want to add more stuff , but we want to make sure it's targeted, it's got a point, it ties into our community priorities that we hear about. A couple of new programs I just want to mention, because I know you know about MYAC, you know about the book club. The youth scholarships were just in front of you. Just want to focus on the senior a dvisory board. You're probably familiar with this group that's been put together again with Ken and the Mayor, about what they have been able to accomplish. This so far with working with our Police Department on safe driving classes, working with our Fire Department in bringing CPR classes, volunteering at trunk or treat. Helping -- volunteering at other Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 31 of 79 events. They are working on a resource guide that they hope to have completed this year using CDBG funds for the community. The walking club, I know Danielle just give you an update from that, so I'm not really going to do well too far into that, talk about phenomenal participation and attendance by the schools, we got two more schools that are out there and, again, that's part of doing what we do better. We got two more schools that we want to engage and get every elementary school in Meridian, which is a stretch on the Mayor's calendar, but we are going to make commitment and make it work. Just want to point out as it relates to this, just -- we brought in over 60,000 dollars last year in sponsorships and grant funding to really -- to pay for the things that -- a lot of the things that we do. The CEO kids book club, which is a partnership with the library, the city doesn't see those funds, but we do a lot of the work to bring that into the library to help fund that program. State of the City. The funds that MYAC'ers have raised and -- you know, from their events and activities and the grants from STAND to, hopefully, Idaho Power and others -- a lot of what you are seeing being done is being funded by others in the community. It is city staff hours to help make that happen, but other people's dollars, because they see the value in the partnership in making that happen. And what do all these programs have in common? They really are community priorities from our city survey, listening tour, but it's more about working with the community outreach engagement . You know, it's complimenting and our town halls, our Coffee with the Mayor, listening tours. State of the City. Neighborhood Star Award that we work with the police department on. It's really about connecting to the community in a variety of ways. That's -- that's what we are doing and while I have said, you know, we are not working on taking on more, we are just trying to do what we do better to improve. One area that we have identified that we need to try to find a connection is a way to connect with our middle schoolers. You know, we have got a lot of -- we have got a lot of -- we have got a couple of different programs for the elementary, we have got MYAC, which is great for the high schools, but we have the middle schoolers and, you know, I think the -- the police have talked about the importance of the SROs in the middle school. Well, if there is anything that we in our office and the Mayor can do to help find a way to engage that group in our community we want to do it, but I think that so far we understand -- this is a big challenge. They may not be as enamored with the Mayor as elementary are and they are not as flexible as high schoolers are to be active and independent of their parents. So, how do we do that. But that's the challenge that we are going to be working on as an office here in the not-too- distant future. And speaking of challenges, here are just a couple -- I think there is a city as an office -- just to reiterate to be aware of -- you know, the courthouse is a challenge. Just a reminder. You know, that's something that we are involved, as well as other people are involved in that -- in that discussion. 2026. That's a large amount of our time, as well as Community Development with Caleb in trying to work with the community, work with your legislators, work with HOA members along that area. Faith. Courthouse. Legislative issues. Allumbaugh House and the crisis center. And these are all things -- again, that's something that's going to be coming forward before you here in the next month a Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 32 of 79 little bit more information about what's going on in there . So, these are just some of the challenges that are on the horizon on the larger side of things. I want to speak specifically about one item, the Strategic Plan. That -- that's a challenge. You're going to hear from Other Government here shortly where you will get kind of into a few more details, but from the Mayor's office there is 18 total items the Mayor's office is lead on in the Strategic Plan. Eight of them are high priority. Six of them are medium. Four of them are low. Many of the ones that we are lead are really citywide action items. They are not just about the Mayor's office, they are about each of the departments that have to play a role and be part of that. Unfortunately, there has not been any new resources put into the implementation of the Strategic Plan oversight. That's something the city is really, again, needs to focus on is if you're going to work the plan and do the items in it, you know, how are we going to make that happen. You know, there has to be something to look at that. Specifically, you know, if you just looked at some of the -- the main things right out of the gate, you know, we need to organize, modern, advance, evaluate the Strategic Plan, you know, bring it back to Council for yearly updates, update the plan, look at the implement, the move forward on the key objectives such as priorities in government, cost of level of service. You have heard a lot about level of service from the department's about maintaining that level of service. Well, part of the Strategic Plan's ambition -- determine what your level of service should be. Who is going to do that work? These are things that we -- we have to help -- we have to start working towards that, so that rather than just saying this is our level, we have to make sure we know what our level of service is and that, again, will be coming up shortly. So, we need to look at the developing performance management plan, the key performance indicators in alignment with the strategic plan and, then, integrate the plan into the city culture. Those are all functions of just -- at the highest level. That's not even talking about working some of the individual objectives in the plan. We have all started on it. I have started on it. I'm doing what I can when I can. It aligns with all the other duties, just like the other pe ople in my office, we have some things that started -- supposed to start in 2016, you know, we hope to get to them this summer, you know, six months after the plan's start date, but it's -- it's a lot of work to implement and work the plan and I think that is something I'd like to mention to the City Council and you will hear more about a couple of those here in the next five minutes. So, with that, that's where we are. No increases, no enhancements for the year. We are trying to do more with what we have and I think we are doing a great job leading in the various areas that we are and with that I will stand for any questions or comments. De Weerd: Council, I would just add one more thing under our base budget. Under the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council you will see a decrease in almost every section except in the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and that is in anticipation -- we worked with our liaison, our Council president in this year and the year prior we saw the value of -- of having our executive council travel to the National League of Cities and participate with other youth across the country and develop leadership opportunities, but also see what other youth councils are Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 33 of 79 doing across the nation. We see that there is a value -- that there should be some skin in the game from the city to -- to help with funding that. Not to relieve pressure to fundraise by the youth council members for those that are attending, but to reduce some of the stress of the huge amount of what we ask them to fund raise for. So, that is in the base budget. I wanted to point that out specifically as well. So, we would entertain any questions. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: And don't have a question, but look at that team. What a great team you have. De Weerd: I know. Aren't they cute. Milam: Good job. Bird: Come one, guys, we can't let Robert get off without -- Simison: Don't worry, the time is coming up. De Weerd: Thank you. Bird: Thanks, Robert. De Weerd: Okay. Next is our Other Government. Other Government is -- so, under the Other Government tab in your binder. Lavoie: Okay. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I will go ahead and start off with the Other Government portion. What we are going to do is follow the lead with all the other departments , show you kind of what we have done with budget dollars at work. Councilman Borton and I can work on this presentation here. So, last year Council provided the staff with a 20,000 dollar budget to engage the citizens with what -- what's known as participatory budgeting process and I'm happy to say that in 2014 Council Borton learned this and brought it to our attention and he engaged the Council and the city staff to take this on and with the help of a very energetic, awesome Ken Corder of the Mayor's division, he has been a huge, huge benefit to this team. He has led this process with the MYAC team in a positive, energetic way. It's been a great experience for myself. I'm sure Joe can agree with this. I know Ken has been very excited about this and the MYAC crew, they have engaged -- they have taken this on, they have exceeded our expectations every single day. So, starting in 2014 Councilman Borton had attended the National League of Cities, learned about this, and I can say since then, as of April 2016, the process has completely gone full circle, has gone through the whole cycle and MYAC team has actually decided on a final Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 34 of 79 project to propose to you Council next month -- or this month I believe. I can give you a sneak peek at the -- the item that they have agreed on is called the adult obstacle course. The ballot process ended up with a vote to select the adult teen obstacle course. We are currently working with the parks division to finalize the location, a specific park to install this obstacle course. So, again, I know I left out a lot of the details in how we got there. Again, I will -- I will be more than happy to get into it. I was trying to, you know, keep it brief, but if Mr. Borton would like to add any topic, share any discussion. He has been a huge part of this. He has been the champion of this process. Again, we selected the -- the Youth Advisory Council to be our citizen group to help us with developing this process and in my opinion it's been very successful. It's been a very positive experience for myself and the kids and, again, I sit here for any questions, but, hopefully, this month you will hear a more detailed description of how we got there, the processes we went through, and the adult teen obstacle course and what we are going to do with that with the help of the Parks Department. De Weerd: So, Councilman Borton, do you have anything you would l ike to add on your dollars at work? Borton: Madam Mayor, just -- just really briefly. I thought it was wildly successful and -- and can be improved upon. One of the things that the test population that MYAC did through the process and Todd, Ken and I monitored, were ways to improve it and fulfill its ultimate mission, which is to give a potentially unrepresented -- or unrecognized need to our community. To give it a voice. To give it an opportunity to be funded, where we might not see that as being a need. So, the youth group did a fantastic job in shocking everybody with what they brought forward as an apparent need for their population group, which will be described in a couple -- couple weeks back to the Council. So, I thought it served its purpose fantastic and it's an opportunity to fund it again. It's not funded right now, but you will see it in the unfunded listing as something that we could continue and I believe it's also being presented at AIC next week. Robert might know more about that. Because, again, this is the first city in the state of Idaho to provide a democratic voice to a portion of its population and allow it to speak on what could be funded to improve the city. So, I think it's a great program. Bodnar: So, we requested a -- the Meridian Arts Commission requested a budget amendment last year for 40,000 dollars and so to give you an overview of what that was for and where it's gone now, I just want to give you a status update. So, I came before you a few weeks ago on the public art at Fairview and Main. This was a Meridian Development Corp project that they came to us -- to the Meridian Arts Commission asking if they would help with it. So, we requested that 40,000 dollars spending authority to complete a project with them as a partner. Once the project is complete that will be reimbursed by the Meridian Development Corporation and that agreement has been in place since last year. We are currently seeking public input for artwork designs from C .J. Rench to see Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 35 of 79 what the public has to say about the designs, if they have preferences, so that MAC can consider that before reaching back out to C.J. with a contract. But he did verify that he could complete the project under budget within this fiscal year , which is pretty outstanding, because most artists can't. He is in a position where he can fabricate in his art in his shop, so -- most artists have to contract that out and the process is a lot longer. Anyway, pretty spectacular. So, we are on track for getting public input and MAC will be discussing that input on Thursday at their meeting. The timeline to have the art end of the fiscal year September 30th. Originally C.J. said he thought he could get it done by the end of the summer, but this deadline just gives us a little more wiggle room with a little bit of delay in making sure we can have public input before we reach out with a contract, so he knows exactly what to expect. Again, like I said, once the project is completed MDC will be reimbursing the city for that 40,000 dollars. That's where we are with the previous budget amendment from FY-16. Are there any questions on that? Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: On the off chance someone is watching online -- Bodnar: Yes. Borton: -- isn't there an opportunity now to vote? I thought I saw -- Bodnar: Yes. Borton: -- something online to select your preference? Bodnar: Yeah. It was sent out in the city newsletter. It's on the Meridian Art Commission Facebook page. It's on Twitter. It's -- it's out there. So, I would recommend going to the Meridian Arts Facebook page, because it's pinned to the top of the page and you can select and get your public feedback and, again, that's just citizen recommendations and, then, MAC makes their recommendations to City Council. The ultimate decision is in your hands for those artwork once you have that feedback. But, yeah, go give us your feedback. Thank you. De Weerd: Nice plug, Mr. Borton. Bodnar: As far as appropriations, last year the City Council approved the Meridian Arts in Public Spaces ordinance. So, this slide is more informational and is included for transparency reasons, since it was adopted last year, of an effort to help fund ongoing public art. There is a lot of opportunities for larger pieces of public art that are difficult to fund within one fiscal year, so this is a Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 36 of 79 funding mechanism that MAC can use. It's similar to an eight percent for art ordinance, but a lot more restricted, because other cities use Enterprise Funds, also revenue from Enterprise Funds as well. So, we don't go that far. Anyway, this slide is just to help provide some information to the new City Council who haven't heard about the Meridian Art in Public Spaces ordinance and to update any new staff or citizens also is what that ordinance does. Essentially, we ask for a one time spending authority each year and its 50 percent of the current population of the city and that is actually a number that was -- the population was actually updated after that number was provided, so we could have asked for more. The ordinance was approved in April of last year and City Council has -- on an annual basis can appropriate those funds based off of the COMPASS population estimate. The way that MAC intends on spending that money is by using funds from the Art in Public Spaces program to fund five traffic boxes each year, getting to hopefully 25 boxes from that fund by fiscal year '19 and we do have sponsorships, so those help add other additional boxes, but 25 boxes is a good goal for what we can spend from the ordinance that you have allotted. We also intend to install two art installations in parks by FY-19 and one major downtown installation with funds from this ordinance. We have had a great partnership with the Meridian Parks Department and Meridian Parks Commission over this last year and we have actually established a roster of artists that we can use and I already have qualifications for for park identity and Public Art in Parks. So, that should help kind of streamline that process and make it a little more efficient. Are there any questions about MAC or do I need to explain it a little more detail? De Weerd: Any questions on this, Council? Okay. Holman: Now it heads to me. This is enhancement number two in the Other Government section in your binder. It's for a priority of government exercise or to fund hiring a facilitator for priorities of government exercise . The enhancement is for 75,000 dollars. It's under our strategic plan, objective 3-E-2. The strategic plan that was adopted last year. This is really the first step to hire this facilitator, run a priorities of government exercise and the steps following after that would be to, then, use that information, establish levels of service and, then, ultimately get to a priority based budgeting process. The priorities of government exercise basically goes through -- you solicit input from the community and get their insight on -- and what they have for expectations and priorities for our city in what they think that we should fund in our budgets. The facilitator that we would hire would be tasked with establishing the process, developing the scope, creating overall goals and objectives and framing up and managing the project. The next step after going through that exercise would be to implement the project by gathering data. Their expertise and experience would determine kind of how that process is laid out. It could include running focus groups, doing surveys, whether they be written or phone surveys, possibly Town Halls. Basically figuring out a plan and developing a project plan as to how to bring our citizens into the process of our budget, which I believe has -- I have heard has been highly Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 37 of 79 desired and something that is not utilized fully I think in the process we do now . Once we go through this exercise, the input that we have from the cities and their priorities and their expectations becomes the filter by which we -- everything goes through first before we establish the budget with the Mayor and the directors and, then, ultimately the Council. So, my caution would be -- I think this is -- this is a highest priority in our strategic plan. It's the first step in establishing the levels of service and, hopefully, going to a priority based budgeting process. It will be a big shift in the way that we have done it . It will take commitment from everybody to -- to shift to this new way of thinking, but I believe it will utilize and really get our public's input and buy-in and just more involved in the process. So, anyways, basically, that is what this enhancement is for. Any questions? Little Roberts: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Jaycee, how does it differ from the data gathering that we just did not too long ago -- what was it, about a year ago and, then, did the -- like sessions at the Mayor's house and things. I mean it kind of seems like that was information gathering from what the citizens wanted and it seems like this is kind of -- Holman: I think this is more -- and I wasn't part of any of that, so I can't really speak to what happened at the Mayor's house and all that information gathering, but this is more specific to expectations and priorities as it pertains to budget and I might see if Tom Barry wants to come up, because he's got a lot of experience with this and can speak much more clearly to this. Tom, do you want to come up and -- he's got the most experience with this process. He can probably answer some more questions for you, I believe. De Weerd: Well, I would just add, the listening tour is something that we do annually by pulling in citizens from the different regions of the communities that represent various stakeholders to just give feedback on three simple areas. What do you like. What don't you like. And would you want us to -- to do more of. So, it's -- it's pretty basic. The first year we did it was in response to the citizen survey to see if the results that we got were in line with what they were hearing within their various circles of influence from the schools, the faith community, the business community, the HOAs and other various stakeholder groups. So, it is different that that was on an elementary level. The priorities in government is going to be at a much higher level in taking elements of our strategic plan in it and seeing -- prioritizing what each of our departments are doing to see where resources are allocated and where it relates to and mandated. Is it business necessary? Is it a community priority. So, I will turn that over to Tom. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 38 of 79 Barry: Well, thank you, Madam Mayor, and I think Mrs. Holman did a fantastic job explaining that in the enhancement setup, but I don't know that I have a whole lot more to offer to drone on about your particular question, other than to say that it would be a much more -- as the Mayor said -- high-level, maybe much more inclusive, much more accessible for the entire community, a way of getting at what the community's broad-based priorities are and how they feel the city should be run with regard to the level of service and the types of services that we would be providing in the foreseeable future. So, the idea is that this process sets up the -- or sets the stage for the city -- particularly at the Council level to understand what the community's values and priorities are across the board and allows for the -- not only education and outreach of what we do as a community, but, really, this involvement -- this tremendous involvement opportunity for inviting the community in and being a part of the budget development process through the initial setting of priorities that we , then, as directors and the Mayor align with your help our resources, whether they be human resources or whether they be financial resources or whatnot. So, we feel -- and this has been done around the country in different ways and in different form s. So, we feel this will be a great way -- particularly in regard to some of the Council's recent interest in getting more involvement from the community on major initiatives and strategies that we have as a city. So, this would be a great benefit for the city and give a lot of information to the City Council in helping to guide the way that we provide services and as to what level we provide services. De Weerd: Thank you. Barry: Uh-huh. De Weerd: And it's a great question. We do have a team that's going out to discover more of the process and what information it can provide, but it is the first step in defining that level of service and, then, ultimately, our goal is to get to priority based budgeting, so that as the budget comes in front of the Council you see where resources and funds are being spent. So, either time or money and how it relates to -- is it -- is it a mandated activity? Is it a community priority? Is it business necessary. Or is it not tied to anything and should we continue doing it and this will also fit in a transparency report that can be presented to our citizens on where are your dollars being spent . So, there is a variety of steps to get to that place and this is really that first step that was considered when the strategic plan was brought to Council in helping us to further define and identify where our time and resources are being spent. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 39 of 79 Cavener: Either Tom or Jaycee or even you, Madam Mayor. Tom, you mentioned that this has been implemented successfully in other municipalities across the state and country. Barry: Uh-huh. Cavener: Is there a place that we are looking to model this after or are there some communities you can share that have done this and it's been really successful for them? Barry: Actually, a fantastic question, Councilman Cavener. The Mayor alluded to the fact that there is a small team of us going on a bit of a roadshow here -- I think it's planned for next week in fact -- to go to the various cities that have implemented this or some fashion of this. Washington State, we are fortunate, our nearest -- one of our nearest neighbors, has done this on a statewide level and many counties and cities in the state of Washington followed suit . So, we are actually planning to visit about six different entities over a three or four day period and talk with the principles that led this project in each of their jurisdictions. From that we intend to find out what sort of the do's and don'ts, the benefits, the cost, the -- everything that we can about how well or how maybe not so well this initiative went in their communities and, then, we are planning to bring that back. The whole idea was to present this as an enhancement and today's request to go on this visit and, then, have the information pulle d together to give you even more specific details when we see you in July for the continuation of this discussion and I expect that we will be able to much better answer your question as it relates to other jurisdictional experiences in regards to this exercise. De Weerd: Any other questions? Borton: Yes, Madam Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: The -- enhancement form references this as being 50 percent General Fund and 50 percent Enterprise Fund? Is it a 150,000 dollar expense that's being split? Seventy-five thousand to be split? Barry: Yeah. So, Councilman Borton, the 75,000 is to be split. Now, again, this is a best guess at the moment in regard to what the project kind of looks like from where we are sitting. When we talk to folks on our visit, if they give us some sense that it can be done for less or done for more, we will bring that information back also. But the request that's been put in front of you today for the 75,000 is the total cost that we believe at the moment this would cost us and, then, you would take half of that and apply it to the General Fund and half of that to the Enterprise Fund. So, what is that, like 37,500 I think for each. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 40 of 79 Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Borton: Is there -- is there a reason that the other half isn't listed as an enhancement when we do the Enterprise Fund? Probably, but -- it seems appropriate to be in both. De Weerd: Generally we -- we list it as one and show the financial split. Borton: Right. De Weerd So -- Borton: But it's technically an enhancement for Public Works as well? Barry: It is. And I think the goal there -- and Todd can probably speak more to this -- is to make sure that if we -- if we fund projects through multiple sources and one enhancement gets moved forward and the other doesn't, then, there is a risk of not having the full funding to get the project done, so the idea is to keep the -- keep the project as one enhancement, but, then, denote the various funding sources for that particular project inside that enhancement. Borton: Okay. Madam Mayor? The last question is -- there is no fiscal year funding anticipated in 2018. Barry: Uh-huh. Borton: Is the hope that this is the type of project that can be completed within one fiscal year? Barry: That would be the hope. I will tell you that I -- I'm doubtful that it will be something that we can get done in one fiscal year. We will know a lot more again as we meet with -- with others, so it depends -- you know, this project we are going to need to scope with -- with you on the City Council, because there is different sort of levels by which you can institute this type of work. You can do sort of a low level, sort of reconnaissance involvement piece or you can do a pretty robust piece, which would be say, for example, Town Hall meetings and roadshows with the community, extensive surveys, those types of things and depending upon how we scope the project we will maybe be needing more resources in the future or -- or perhaps not. So, the idea, again, is to get started. This is seed money if you will and, potentially, completion money, depending upon how far we want to take the exercise . The idea being that as we get a facilitator on we learn more information, we can scope this thing out in a way that the City Council can support and, then, decide at that point in time if any Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 41 of 79 additional funds may be needed in the future. But I would say, you know, if you were to do a full robust -- like if you were to do all the bells and whistles on this kind of thing you could go 18 months, maybe 24 months in -- in a full project. If you cut that back and you say, you know, we want to get information -- good information, but maybe not take it to that level, it is possible that 12 to 18 months would work as well. Borton: Okay. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. Hood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I am going to call a quick audible and I think reverse the slide order here. I'm going to talk about an enhancement for monument signs, but I do want to provide a little bit of background, kind of the rest of the enhancement is going to set the stage before asking and getting into the details of what -- one of these more permanent signs and, then, one of those that's constructed. We did follow up after 2011 with a contract with Idaho Electric signs to do the design and engineering of the monument sign, the brick signs, and so we have that already in hand and we do hand those out to developers like CarMax and Knightsky up at Chinden and Linder. I drove down Fairview last -- last weekend and I didn't see that they had started, but the agreements earlier this year you all approved the agreement for them to go ahead and construct both of those new signs out there. So, sometime in the coming months we will have some of these in the ground, but right now there aren't any that exist, but we do have money this year to construct as well and Max Jensen is the project manager for one of the signs that is going to be constructed in front of St. Luke's on Eagle Road, so you will see that location is called out here as well. If the clicker works. So, this sign is -- will be constructed at St. Luke's. We have al so talked with Winston Moore about potentially constructing another one. Not quite sure if that's going to happen this year or not. They actually have a hotel that is looking at going there, so there is some due diligence and they are running it through the hotel to make sure it wo uld be okay or not. But they are open to that as long as the hotel is, with kind of having that companion sign on the other side of the interstate and, again, there are about 45,000 in this year's budget for those signs as well. So, looking to spend those before the end of the year. So, really, the request this year is to carry that forward and continue to implement that plan, work the plan, for construction of signs, again, just to quickly go back and refresh what the request is for 16 foot wide by nine foot tall brick monument sign. The books -- sorry. The potential locations that we are looking at Overland and Meridian -- again, I mentioned Eagle and Overland if it doesn't happen in this fiscal year and, then, really targeting probably the Ustick and Eagle corridor near Lowe's, just north of the Kohl's complex there, again, working with Winston Moore. Steve Eddy also had some property there to put up a sign at some of these locations and, then, the Ten Mile Interchange and the reason we have six or seven locations identified is because we haven't talked with all of those potential property owners about feasibility. We, obviously, need to have a willing Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 42 of 79 property owner that will grant us the easement and allow them to construct this on the property. So, that is the background information and the request on the enhancement for FY-17 and I will stand for any questions. De Weerd: Well -- and that might be important to note on CarMax and Knightsky, they both offered to provide a sign and so they are ut ilizing the design that the city came up with. So, those -- those came through the development process and their desire to provide community identity and show that they are in Meridian. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Caleb, I think the Knightsky one is done. I remember seeing the brick going up and I'm like, oh, that must be the sign and, then, saw the rest of that -- I don't know if it's complete, but the sign is on there. De Weerd: Awesome. Palmer: I do have a question. Did we -- did they offer or did we ask them to offer? De Weerd: They offered. Hood: And, Madam Mayor, I can maybe supplement that answer a little bit. I mean we did -- we let them know that we have this sign plan, it is in our Comprehensive Plan as well that talked about implementing this sign -- this sign plan. So, it is something we told them that was going on and requested that they offer it up, if you will, so we partnered with them, you know, and offered the design to them so they wouldn't have those costs to -- to -- to include in their project, so we can share those plans. There are properties to -- to, again, give to applicants that do come in in the future to construction these, so it's a partnership. They did offer, as the Mayor mentioned, but, obviously, we made them aware of the plan and that we would encourage them to do so. And I may - - if I may, just -- Madam Mayor and Councilman Palmer and the rest of the Council, the idea with this is, again, the ones that are annexed and are already in the city and developed, like, again, Kohl's and some of the other Winston Moore properties. We don't have them coming back to ask for anything, so there is no opportunity for them to really offer. I mean we could go and ask them to offer it up, but the idea is some of these other ones that are out on the periphery over time, you know, this is something we would be looking for others to offer up as those properties are developed and wouldn't be funded through the General Fund, it would be funded through development and be part of that agreement if the Council annexes a property into the city. So, I just wanted to kind of point that out, that this plan doesn't anticipate the city funding a hundred percent of the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 43 of 79 purple signs, it's -- I didn't count them. Forty percent? Fifty percent? Something like that. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: The signs are beautiful. I think if we are going to -- if the signs are going to be there that we need to be paying for them. I hate the idea that we say because you happen to want this property to develop we are going to politely ask you to offer it, but we are requiring it, however you want to word it. That's what's taking place and I think that's wrong. I think if we are going to put the signs -- if we are going to require them to be there, we need to pay for them. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: We have never made that a requirement of any conditions of approval. They have offered to put in -- and, in fact, I don't recall Knightsky, but I do recall CarMax, there was never even a mention of us partnering with them or a nything, they were willing to -- to put it up, they liked it, and it had nothing to do with their approval. I would never stand for something like that myself personally. De Weerd: Well -- and I require both -- or I remember both of them and they were very proud to -- to have the opportunity to show their location and -- yeah, I didn't know it was -- certainly it was on our map, but I met with them before they even applied and they wanted to show where they were residing, so -- Palmer: And, Madam Mayor, follow up. That's great. You know, I think if we are -- if we are going to ask them, but I think it's -- at any point any one of the future ones says, you know, we would rather not pay for that sign, then we say, okay, no problem, please provide us a place where we can pay for it and put it up should we choose to do so later. De Weerd: I do require -- I do recall one that wasn't as enthusiastic and that was the one on Ustick and Chinden, so -- but they are not paying for all of it, they -- their developer came back and said we would like to pay for a portion of it and so that's what they are doing. Bird: But we did not make it a requirement for the development. De Weerd: No. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 44 of 79 De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Quick question for Caleb, just because my eyes are blurring. You said the city is looking to cover 40 percent of the time out of the General Fund, give or take, how many is that? Is that -- I can't tell what white dots mean and -- Hood: And maybe -- yeah. So, they are -- and they are all -- the purple are the -- are the key ones there. Again, I'm not going to count them real quick. I can, but let me just -- maybe just back up to the methodology, because you don't see them at all the entryways, at every section line road coming into Meridian. So, back in 2011 when this plan was developed we put the major roadways. I mean the Chindens, the Usticks, the Interchange off ramps, where you get the biggest bang for the buck. Most people are entering along those corridors. Fairview. So -- and they are, basically, again, companion on each side and they are going to be on the coming in side. We are not welcoming somebody -- not looking on the wrong side of the road, so 22 -- it looks like roughly 22, 23 signs. And the one I -- the other one I will point out that shows that's existing is the -- the metal sign that's by Kentucky Fried Chicken that isn't -- it isn't the same design, but we didn't want to put another welcome sign that, essentially, serves the same purpose. It's not of the same design, but that -- that one exists. So, roughly, again, 22, 23 more to go. And the 40 percent was just me kind of looking at that, so -- you know, somewhere in there. Forty, fifty percent. Cavener: Thank you. Bird: Any other questions, Council? Milam: Mr. President? Bird: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Caleb, so are we only putting these signs where we can't annex outside of them or -- Hood: Mr. President, Council Woman Milam, no. These are the ideal location s for welcome signs into the future ultimately. So, we did ground truth them to some degree and say, listen, we aren't going to be able to put it here, because it's down in a hole, but if you -- and this is at a high level; right? But it's -- in GIS you click on that and it has more of a description, hey, this should go on the north side on this so and so property, 20 feet back, you know, those types of details are embedded in this map when you look at it electronically. But it can move. I mean these -- these are basically as close to the future city limits as possible. But like CarMax as an example, you got a bank and a vacant lot. Those are also in Meridian. It was the first viable opportunity and someone offered to build it. So, it's not right on the city limits. So, these can kind of -- as was mentioned, if Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 45 of 79 someone says, you know, I don't want your sign on my property, we can move it down one or over -- you know. So, there is a little bit of give and take there. Milam: My concern would be to the west or the south, where we are still annexing and -- big pieces of property and, then, we move our boundaries out and, then, it's like, you know, you drive in a mile and it says welcome to Meridian and you have already been in Meridian for a mile. Hood: I'm sorry, so, yeah, I didn't answer your question, then, previously. So, the way we are approaching that is with the metal signs and we have got a partnership with Ada County Highway District, 2000 -- so, again, so we did that sign plan in 2012 or 2013 and we purchased -- and I don't remember how many it was -- 60 metal signs that -- the two foot by three foot. They are our logo and we purchased all of the hardware and we handed them off to the ACHD sign shop and they put them all in the ground for us where the city limits were then. And, then, on an annual basis I contact them and say, you know what, we have annexed property out here, to move the one here down a mile and a half, this one over here half a mile and this one -- so, occasionally we will move two or three a year just to kind of match up with the city limits and, again, those flow out, then, until we hit one of these purple and, then, we say, okay, take down the metal, we have got a development in the city, build the ultimate sign and for those roadways that don't have -- I will use McMillan. Don't have a ultimate monument sign, that metal sign will forever be in place at our ultimate city boundary. So, we will still have something along all the roadways coming in to Meridian's major arterials. Some of them are more grandiose than others. Some of them will just be the two by three metal signs over time, but we -- it's a minimal cost to move them out on a fairly regular basis to reflect current city limits. Milam: Thank you. Bird: Any other questions, Council? Thanks, Caleb. Appreciate it. Have we got anymore, Jaycee? Simison: Council President, Council. As I said, you would get more opportunity for me, so here we go. So, I -- you saw something very similar just a few minutes ago when I presented on the Mayor's office about the strategic plan. So, where are we going? Obviously, we -- we have -- we are trying to work the plan. So, here is another item of working the plan. What you may or may not have recalled is when we presented the plan this last year Council moved up one item to a high priority and that was this item improve citizen access to government. So, in the 2014 city survey 52 percent of the people responded to raise the public involvement in decision making as excellent and good. Fifty-two percent you can argue whether or not that's positive or negative, but it was one of our lower areas overall in the citywide plan, especially in the communications arena. So, in the strategic plan we included strategic objective 2-A-2 based on that information as a way to bolster our city's effort to create greater engagement and participation Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 46 of 79 from citizens in the planning, operation, and decision-making process of the city. Not unsimilar to, you know, what we are trying to do with the other item to focus on our priorities of service, budget -- priorities of budget, levels of service discussion, but this is I think just more nuts and bolts. How are we engaging and communicating with the city on a day-to-day basis. So, as I mentioned, City Council elevated this to a high priority and tactics for this item include inventory to determine the effectiveness of what we are currently doing. That process has started with the departments, kind of identifying the ways that they are interacting and communicating with the community. Research other government entities. Identify desired improvements. Have the GAK analysis and provide recommendation of needs and create a plan to implement identified recommendations for improvement and, then, schedule periodic evaluation of this process to make sure what we are doing is the right way to do it. I'm committed to doing as much of this as I can, you know, myself and working with others, internal staff, toward making improvements, but I also am a firm believer that if we only look at ourselves and we don't have other people look at us, we are missing something. You know, you need to have other people sometimes look at what -- how you're doing your operations or how you're interacting with the community and see what other options are out there and we know there are other options, but we will probably need some help to do that, to make that jump to -- if we want to use a service like govdelivery.org, which helps make some of those connections or something else or if we just, you know, do something simple. Because I think I have got great ideas. I tell myself that every day and I try to bring them to work and, you know, one of my great ideas is let's take video testimony during City Council meetings. There we go. We have improved our citizen access. But I think there is a lot more to it than that and -- and we need to have other people help us look and see what those ideas are. So, that's what this strategic objective is about and what the request is, the 25,000 dollars potentially for a facilitator. If we can do it for less we will certainly do it for less, but it depends on how much we feel like we can do versus we need someone else to do and I could see if we do it for less and there is its viewed that there is a need for some sort of purchase of a service that would help, some of these funds could be utilized for that if at the end of the day that is an identif ied way to help improve citizen access. But for now this is our best guess to start as a placeholder. And with that I would stand for any questions you might have. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Not a question, but a comment. Kind of Luke's comment about using contracted facilitator versus adding permanent staff. Obviously, this is another Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 47 of 79 good example of it, but I also agree with you in the value to the city of having an outsider, so to speak, examine our processes and this example of citizen access to government, but there are opportunities where we can benefit and how the process improvement where we might not recognize there is a deficiency. To your point, you know, looking at our own operations we might miss it and there are a variety of opportunities where the city could benefit from that. You know, you don't know what you don't know and having this type of opportunity to get valuable feedback and make change, I don't think this is the only example of where this might be fitting, but the philosophy behind it makes great sense. Simison: All right. Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Emery: All right. It's my turn. I will keep my mouth close to the microphone so everyone can hear me well. Good morning. All right. So, I'm going to go over -- I'm going to remind you of our goals -- our communication goals and I'm going to go over last year's enhancements and the enhancement for this next year. So, before we look at the report I want to remind us of our goals and our goals are to have a consistent voice in the community, that's really important, and our core messaging comes from our brand, which is Built For Business, Designed For Living, our message is Premier Place To Live Work And Raise A Family. But everything we do is based on the CARE values, Custom Service Accountability Respect and Excellence, and that carries over into our communication efforts as well. So, I'm going to kind of go through this a little quicker than I would, just because you guys heard from me about a month ago on all of this. But it's a good reminder. Your budget dollars at work in fiscal year '16, we had the website redesign. We increased our presence on social media and introduced advertising to get more people on our Facebook page to let them know that we are out there and that has helped. We have actually doubled our numbers on social media and in -- on Twitter and Facebook we have a lot more people following us, which is great. We developed a social media best practices. We implemented a communications plan and a process to streamline efforts for all of the departments and that's really gone over really well. Everyone is adapting to the process and it really helps streamline those communication efforts. And we welcomed to 1841, a dedicated communications budget. So, that increases our transparency in that world. One of the big enhancements for fiscal year '16 was the quarterly newsletter. We are really excited about this. This provides -- provided funds for us to do a quarterly newsletter included with utility bills . It helped us meet the goal of reaching a broader audience and build more awareness. One of the more difficult parts of my job is that it's always changing and people are always getting their information in different arenas and so we can never just use one avenue to communicate everything it is that we do. So, I've heard really good feedback from this. We were able to reach 30,000 households every three months. Three thousand electronically and, then, we also post it on the website and share it on social media. So -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 48 of 79 De Weerd: Kaycee, I -- I just -- something came to mind when you said 30,000 households, because -- do we even have 30,000 households? But we have some other communities that have signed up through the RSS feed for this and when I was at the AIC meeting last week or the week before when -- time flies when you're having fun -- I got comments from several mayors and one of the AIC staff who subscribe to this on how great a job you do in our communi cation in keeping our citizens informed. So, I wanted to make sure to share that with you to let you know that you're informing our citizens, but other interested parties that want to see how they can better communicate with their citizens as well, so kudos. Just wanted to share that with you. Emery: Well, thank you. That's fantastic to hear. We have done three of these quarterly newsletters to this point, October, January, and April and we -- right now always finding the success matrix when it comes to communications is difficult and -- but I will tell you one success matrix we have been able to find from this is we sent out an article about the courthouse issue and we received quite a few phone calls, as did the commissioners, so that was a really good way of gauging how many people are actually looking at these, but not only looking in these, they are also taking action and wanting to be part of the issues that the city is facing. So, that was really -- that was really interesting to receive all those calls and see how many people were engaged with the newsletter . We are looking forward to continuing this in 2017 and we also welcome any feedback you might have. Another big communication initiative we introduced in 2015 is the welcome to Meridian program. I call it the W2M, but, then, that's just another acronym to add, so I will stick to Welcome to Meridian. The pilot ran in the summer of 2015, with State of the City funds and we sent five -- we sent the packs to 500 households and when I'm talking about pack, I'm talking about there is a thumb drive with a Welcome to Meridian video and a testimonial video and, then, there is folders with additional videos, such as the It Starts At Home series and, then, additional documents, such as the annual report, so that people have all of that information at their fingertips, plus a nifty little fun thumb drive with our branding all over it. So, we -- the feedback we received from people that saw the Welcome to Meridian video at the State of the City, we also share it on Facebook and on Twitter and YouTube, a lot of people told us I didn't know that we had that service available to us or I didn't know that that was going on. So, it was really good feedback to get from people letting us know that this information is really valuable to them and in the testimonial video was our largest Facebook post of the year with 30,000 people reached and 15 ,000 views and 132 shares. So, that one was a huge hit, as was the Welcome to Meridian video as you see there on YouTube. So, why this program? Aside from it being another medium to connect with residents, it also immediately welcomes our residents. Yesterday there was a lady here out in the lobby who said I just moved to Meridian, can I go into the City Council meeting and see what's going on? I just showed up, I wanted to go to the art reception. So, people want to belong to a city when they move in here, they want to belong to a community and they also want that Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 49 of 79 information right off the bat. So, this really gives them that sense of belonging right away and gives them all that information. It also helps us meet the goal of being a responsive government. Help educate and improve citizen access to government, which is part of our strategic item 3-A-2 and we are continuing this effort this summer with State of the City funds again. The program will cover 920 residents. Now, looking forward to fiscal year 2017, this is a budget enhancement we are asking for the new utility billing software will allow us to pinpoint -- so, from the current ones we've done we've just sent it to new residents, but that could be people moving from within the city to another home within the city. The new utility billing software we are getting will actually help us to pinpoint brand new residents to Meridian. So, that helps us kind of hone in on where we want this program to focus on and so we will focus on those residents, so we plan to reach 1,500 homes in 2017 and that's approximately 125 homes per month. The information I went over includes the Welcome to Meridian video and a lot of additional information. One thing we would like to add -- we want -- we want to gauge their -- their feedback, we want to figure out what kind of matrix we are getting from this, so we plan to include postcards with paid postage to get their reaction to the thumb drive and how we can either improve the program or if they find it helpful. So, why the budget enhancement? This is my final -- final thing I want to say is we look back at the citizen survey. Residents listed communications as a high priority for investment. Emphasis from city leaders and improvement. And that's really important. That's really important feedback to have, because when you look at all the decisions we are making here in these workshops about what we are going to fund, what services we are going to continue, what amenities we are going to add, they are really important decisions, but the residents need to know about what we are doing and we need to find every way we can to communicate that to them . So, my focus is doing just that, getting the message out there in a lean way that serves our taxpayers. That's all I have. Do you have any questions for me? De Weerd: Thank you, Kaycee. Any questions from Council? Bird: I have none. Emery: All right. Thank you. Holman: I only have one slide. I'm not a big PowerPoint person, so we are not quite at the path forward yet, but this is for Support Services Department it's been about six to eight weeks I think since the reorg and I was made the Support Services Department director and we put Finance, IT, Clerks and HR together. About -- probably about three weeks ago my office moved out of the clerk's office and up onto the third floor. I'm across the hall from IT now, what used to look like a little closet now is a closet with a window. It says one is the loneliest number. I'm all by myself up there, but -- Councilman Bird has been up there and, Councilman Palmer, you have been up there, but if you're on the third floor stop by and say hi. A few changes. I meet with each of the department heads -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 50 of 79 some of them weekly, some of them every couple of weeks, where they just keep me informed as to what's going on , so that I know what's going on in the departments operationally and we get together once a month, the four department heads and myself now, and discuss things that are cross-functional between the departments. There is a lot of things we do that cross department lines from a support services perspective. IT, of course, you know, they pretty much have their hands in everything, so we have got, for example, time cards, that affects HR, Finance, IT -- everybody. Public records requests. We are working on -- IT is writing a software application for us to help automate that process and help us retain those records and it's a pretty -- it's a pretty big project that Jacy has been heading up, along with IT and Legal and -- anyways, just all of us getting together once a month . Sometimes it may be a longer meeting, sometime shorter, but it allows us to kind of look at all of our services as a whole. So far I'm enjoying it. I can see the benefits of moving out of the daily operations and being able to actually look at things from, you know, a little bit different perspective and more of a big-picture perspective. Some of the things that I'm working on -- just myself personally and each of the departments will give you their updates of -- of what they are working on and what they have accomplished, but I have started the process of looking at citywide policies. So, I have gone through and put the whole list of our citywide policies together, did some research, found out when were they first adopted, by what resolution, how many times have they been -- been amended, by what resolution, and we have got -- you know, how long has it been since we have looked at this policy. So, now that I have categorized all of that I'm going to start going through them one by one and finding what's outdated, what's redundant, what may be -- and, hopefully, not in conflict with another policy, but it could be if it hasn't been looked at since 2002. And, then, going through each of the department -- any of the SOPs and policies within each department, I'm going to start going through those and seeing how they interrelate and refer to or work alongside of our citywide policies. So, it's a pretty big project that I'm in the beginning stages of that and I just sent out the quarterly dashboard to all of you last week. I compiled that information from the different departments and tried to put it together into a comprehensive document that I'm hoping that you find helpful. I did get some feedback from Councilman Palmer and any feedback you have on that would be excellent. But those will be going out quarterly, hopefully getting out to you within two weeks of the end of a quarter. So, your next one you should see around July 15th for quarter three. I'm still working on -- one of the things that I'm still working on from the clerk's office is dog licensing. That is something that we have taken over from the police department. It's moved from there over to us, so that was a process in and of itself . But now using -- I know you have heard Accella a lot. Well, now we want to put dog licenses in Accella. So, we are taking really a paper intensive and manual process and making that an automated process , making that something we can actually store people's information and one of the big complaints that I heard a lot is why do I have to send in my paperwork every year as to whether my dog is spade or neutered. My dog is still spade or neutered as they were last year. That has not changed. Well, because when Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 51 of 79 you have got 6,000 dog licenses or however many and all of that paperwork, it's not easy to go back to that and find that . With Accella we can track -- we can track that information. We can track when rabies expire. So, hopefully, people will not have to be sending this information in every year and we can alleviate a very common citizen complaint. So, it's -- police traditionally did it, because they used to handle animal control and it didn't really make sense for them to continue doing that anymore. So, we brought that into the clerk's office and I started that process, so I'd like to finish that process, and the next steps right now -- I'm out meeting with the different veterinary clinics and talking to them about automating and having them e-mail us information into a template that we have created that we can, then, import into Accella and also to put a face with the name -- with the individual, the clinics and with the Idaho Humane Society, so they know who they are working with in the clerk's office. One of the next steps will be -- I'd like to make some tweaks to the city code for dog licensing. I will be working with Legal on that. I am right now soliciting input from the different veterinary clinics and the people who are kind enough to sell an d issue dog licenses on our behalf and they have had some really good input. So, we did go out and have a meeting with the Idaho Humane Society a few months ago . Their director has a desire to meet with us and our Legal Department before we move forward with implementing any code changes or talking about code changes, because they would like to get some consistency across -- across jurisdictions with dog licensing. So, definitely willing to go out and meet with them and talk to them about what some of their needs are and how we can make it easier on them. So, those are just some of the things I'm working on. Oh, another one is the emergency preparedness committee. We have kind of -- I have taken over as the chair of that committee, scaled it down, just five kind of key core group, and, then, we have contacts or points of contact within each department that we can use to solicit input from and also to communicate information back down . We haven't had our first meeting of the smaller committee yet , but we have just kind of tried to narrow the scope of what we are trying to do and have one -- a couple or three items that we would like to -- to handle and get completed on this list, first one being some sort of a notification system for employees. So, I'll give you more information on that in the future. But that is just something else that I'm working on. The reason that support services has come kind of at the end of everybody else's presentations is because the decisions that you make and departments make with their budgets and their needs really, then, comes down to the decisions that we have to make as support departments. All of those other ones affect us. So, for example, Finance, I mean as we plan and we build new homes and have new rooftops and new commercial accounts -- I mean they are billing for more customers in their utility billing department , you know, any -- any financial transaction -- any transaction, almost any decision we make affects us financially and, in turn, affects the Finance Department. HR as we expand our employees, as we turn over employees, all of those decisions affect them. IT, of course, we get new employees, we are supporting more electronics that go along with said employee. If we expand existing facilities there is usually infrastructure that's going in there and more facilities to manage. As we are building more Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 52 of 79 facilities and spreading out across the city, almost every decision you make affects -- affects IT. And I saved the clerks for last, because I really wanted to get a little bit more into what the clerks do and the reason -- I like to take the opportunity to get in front of you and talk to you about them, because I think they work -- I know they work a lot in the background . You don't see the volume of work that they are doing in the background to make these meetings and everything you do run smoothly. By nature that's what they do. So, hopefully, I'm not stealing too much of your presentation, Jacy, she usually puts together great ones, but one of the things that I have committed to the clerk's office in the next year really looking at is going through their job descriptions and rewriting them from the ground up. They have gone through a tremendous amount of changes just as I became the clerk in 2008. Three and a half years ago we had Information Services. So, that kind of shifted and Jacy stepped up and was promoted into -- into being a Senior Deputy City Clerk and, then, she was the manager. Now, she was managing staff and does performance evaluations and doing all of the personnel stuff associated with that, so that I could focus on being in a director position. Then with this realignment she's -- Jacy already managed the whole office very, very well and the operations, but as I step out of that office, see, that's another resource that was taken away. People a lot of times, if they can't find -- find Jacy to ask her questions, they come to me. So, we are looking at the next year -- back to the job descriptions. I guess I got a little off track there, but we have kind of got these job descriptions that were created back in -- my guess would be somewhere around the early 2000s and we have kind of edited them over the years and the job s have changed a lot over the years. I mean we have brought on temporary use permitting, which was something that definitely impacted that department. I mean it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, but Nancy's job as a licensing clerk used to be kind of , you know, doing liquor licenses and -- well, this now Nancy is running meetings. I mean when we have these big events coming in, she chairs these big meetings of all the city departments, the outside people that are having these events, so that job has really changed and just the tweaks to the job description -- have probably updated it, but I really want to look at these jobs from the ground up and rewrite them and look at, you know, what are these jobs now. So, I have committed to that with Jacy. I think by nature they absorb a lot of stuff. It's really difficult to quantify what the clerk's office does. It really is. They are doing -- gosh, I think it was -- by the dashboards I just sent out I think they do just shy of 7,000 phone calls in a quarter. I mean that is -- and it's not usually -- phone calls aren't normally, hey, let me transfer you to another office, they don't do that. They normally walk the person down to -- if it's lobby traffic, there are walking them down to the department they need or they are sending this person off to whatever department they need , even if it's something that doesn't have anything to do with the city, they generally will take the person all the way to where they need to be, get them the information, get them handled and it's really difficult to quantify. How do you quantify that level of service? I think we have -- they have one of the highest levels of customer service in the city. I would argue that. People send people to the clerk's office when they don't know where else to send Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 53 of 79 them and they don't even know if it's something we do or what department it is and a lot of time is spent on the phone ferreting out that information and helping our customers. They are front line with our citizens and I just think, you know, a lot of times they are in the background. I want you to just recognize them and see what they do. So, I would like to look at those job descriptions over the next year, get them updated to actually what they -- what I feel like they do. With the loss of me in the department -- when we first talked about -- the Mayor came to me with this reorganization and we discussed whether -- do we need another position in the clerk's office. I couldn't answer that and say yes. I couldn't say, yes, taxpayers, we need another position, because we were still integrating the new position that you gave us last year into the department and so I couldn't feel secure in saying that. And Jacy has worked with these changes now. She's shifting some duties around, they are doing some cross-training, moving things around. She's now attending the meetings at night and -- and clerking those meetings. So, over the next year we are going to look at all of that and see does the redistribution of duties make this a more efficient process? Do we need another position? I don't know. And she can get into a little bit more of that. But, you know, with temporary uses, dog licensing, passports, everything, they quietly and continually take on more work and do a great job of it and -- and do, to me, an exceptional level of customer service if you look at the customer comment cards that we get from everybody. They are generally very -- I don't know if Council gets copied on those, but they get a lot of really positive feedback from our citizens, so -- anyhow, that was my plug for the clerk's office. Anyhow -- so, moving forward -- moving into the rest of this discussion -- I think the clerks are next. She's going to go through her department and, then, we will go to the rest of the support services departments. Are there any questions before I move on to them? No? Jones: Yes. Perfect. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council. I appreciate Jaycee giving me a nice preface like that. In fact, I'm going to keep it brief today. You heard from me in January and I covered a lot of this information and like Jaycee said, as we are navigating the reorg we are still learning exactly what we will need in FY-18, so this is probably the only time that you will hear me be brief when I address you ever, but -- it's not a skill I have, so -- so, for FY-16 budget dollars at work, we had two enhancements. We were able to add a new assistant city clerk position. We hired Charlene Wey and she was our admin and was able to move into that position and, then, we were able to get Barb Schiffer from the Community Development Department into our office , which has been really wonderful for us. The second enhancement was to redesign our front counter. I think everybody's been by and had an opportunity to take a look at that. But by creating a work station up front we have one employee who is able to fully dedicate their time to our customers. Between our phones and the walk- ins that is a full-time job in and of itself. So Barb Schiffer now sits up there and she does a wonderful job and it's actually streamlined operations for our office in general. Part of -- I guess the only downside to the type of customer service that we offer is when a member of the public comes in the door, all of us are known to Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 54 of 79 stand up and head to the counter. While that's great customer service wise, it's not so efficient to have three or four people all go to the counter at the same time. There is all kinds of studies on productivity that will tell you that even stopping and breaking away from your work like that several times a day, there is time lost transitioning in and out of that. So, Barb has been able to focus on the customers and, then, she's done a really good job in -- in pulling us into those conversations when we need to be a part of them. So -- and while I'm up here I'm just going to take a moment to shout out to our team . As Jaycee said, I think we have an amazing team. The staff in the clerk's office work incredibly hard. They are -- it just -- very ethical, very focused on Meridian. They believe in what we are doing. So, I think as far as customer service we really have an exceptional team and the right group of people in those positions. So, as the -- one of the things that we talked about when we originally asked for assistant clerk position was that we estimated that that employee would generate 15,000 dollars annually in passport revenue. Since the reorg as Jaycee spoke about, we have had to refocus the attention of that position and we are working on cross- training in some other areas. So, I do want to bring that to your attention. We are not going to gain 15,000 dollars annually from -- from that second position any longer. She's generating about 50 dollars per week instead of 300, which sounds kind of scary. All of that being said, our passport numbers are still up by the appointments that our full-time agent is processing. So, you have the complete projections for FY-16, but just right now as we stand, we are still at 576 more applications at this same time this fiscal year than we were in FY-15, so I don't anticipate the loss of Charlene's focus to passports really being an impact budgetwise overall, just because we are -- Sherri's busy all the time with passports and we could do more if we wanted to be open more hours , she could absolutely crank out more of those. So, as Jaycee discussed, we are going to absolutely monitor our processes over the next year as we shift duties around and look at our organizational structure. I'm not going to speculate too much on what we will ask for in FY-18, because I don't feel like we have full information on that. I would suspect we will ask for another position and as we look at those job descriptions, at the very minimum I would expect reclassifications of some of that. We have all of our assistant clerk positions are classified the same as admin ones and if any of you have worked with Nancy Radford in a TUP process, I can absolutely tell you that the work that she does is not admin level work in any capacity. So, my hope is that as we look at those job descriptions, we can really reclassify our positions and closely aligned them with the work that's actually being done. There is -- it's just -- it has really morphed I think in the last several years. So, we hope to get caught up with that and I give an update I believe January of '17, so I'll let you know what I'm looking at more accurately at that point, so that you have some information ahead of the budget workshops next year. So, that's it. I told you I would be brief. Let me know if you have got questions or feedback. Ritchie: It's almost afternoon, so I will say good morning. Almost afternoon. While Todd is getting everything started for me, I want to thank you all for your Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 55 of 79 time this morning. I, too, will keep it brief. As some of the information that we are going to walk through you would have had an opportunity to see this information as a part of the Todd and Crystal roadshow that we gave to you in April, so some new information, some same information, and, of course, stand for any questions that you may have . So, here is what I want to share with you today. I do want to take a moment and provide you an update on our department. I do want to give you an update regarding the merit recommendation for FY-17, as well as the market recommendation that we are considering for FY-17. Through the standard process for the budget cycle every year we do bring in front of you position reclass recommendations that we have reviewed and in addition have some equity adjustments as well and, then, we are going to provide you a little bit of information regarding healthcare rate updates for FY-17 and, then, of course, to model Todd, I will not stand for questions, but I will sit for your questions. So, the first thing I'd like to talk about is our department and kind of give you a little bit of an overview of what we have accomplished, where we are at and where we are headed since the beginning of the fiscal year. Along with what Jaycee communicated to each of you in regards to the implementation of the support services division, that did have a direct impact in our department and so we did have some structure and staffing changes that were in alignment with that reorganization. So, I'm pleased to share with all of you -- and I may have mentioned this before -- that we did promote Laura Lee Berg to a senior journalist in our department. We have also had an opportunity to promote Jessica More to our HR coordinator position and, then, we are very excited to be back filling her position of an administrative assistant and our new admin will be joining us next week. So, we will be coming around to all of the departments, we will get to the Council as we can, to introduce you to our newest team member as time allows. I, too, want to follow the stage that Jaycee and Jacy set up and state that if you look under our accomplishments -- I'm not going to read all of this with you, but I am going to highlight a few and the biggest one I'd like to highlight is that we have continued in human resources to operate understaffed for half the physical year and that's huge with a small and lean staff that we have with the amount of work that the departments and the employees require of us. So, I do want to take a moment and say thank you so much to the team , Laura Lee, Jessica, Christena, we have all pulled together to continue to do what we do for each of you individually as Council Members, the Mayor, her office, as well as all the departments. Without the team we -- I couldn't have done it and I have been there. So, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. In addition to that, we also implemented our employee hotline this year. The compliance line. To date we have had one report that has been utilized through the compliance line. We have continued to communicate and educate the city employees of that option that is available to them through other mechanisms as well to report any concerns that they may have and, then, in addition to operating understaffed for half the physical year, collectively our team has hired 70 employees since October 1st . Of those numbers 21 -- excuse me -- yes. Twenty-one of those individuals have been full- time employees, regular year around into the departments, and, then, to date we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 56 of 79 have got 49 additional employees, whether they are regular, part-time, seasonal, interns, et cetera. That is a lot of work. That is a lot of work on the departments, it is a lot of work for Human Resources. The majority of that work has fallen on Laura Lee Berg and myself, with great support from Christena who has stepped up outside of her benefits roll and utilized experience that she brought from her previous employer to help us meet the needs of the hiring needs for all of the departments. So, we are very proud of that. So, currently what we have in progress -- some of this Jaycee has alluded to that she's looking at in regards to some of the efforts she's working around city policies and department policies for consistencies across all of the support areas that we work collectively together towards. So, we are going to be -- we are in the process of working out a policy manual update. We are in the process of selecting a recruiting module th at will better assist us in servicing the departments in their hiring needs. The process that we currently have in place today is a balance between automated and somewhat manual and I know specifically the Public Works Department would be excited to get a more automated system on board that will allow us to be more efficient in our recruiting and hiring needs and , actually, you know, fill seats with people that the departments are desperately needing to continue to maintain and move the support and the services that you all ask for. We are also looking at purchasing a web-based tool. Currently the training that comes out of the Human Resources office is all instructor-led. We do recognize that not all positions and/or people prefer to be in a classroom. Operationally sometimes that just does not make the best use of our time . So, we are looking to purchase a web-based tool and, then, implement some web-based training. Hopefully our goal would be to start that this fall and , then, move that into the first quarter of next fiscal year. And, then, in addition to that, as you know we are currently performing a compensation review, which is why I'm with you today and, then, in addition to that a benefits review for our rates for FY-17. As the Mayor mentioned yesterday, some of our numbers are moving targets, they are not yet solid based on partial information that we have received and I'm going to go into that in a little bit more detail here shortly. Looking ahead to FY-18 we have identified several other projects that we feel would help improve either our internal processes or joint processes that we have with departments in the service that we provide to the leaders of the departments that we support and the employees that we are here to serve . A couple of those that we listed for you today is we are looking to implement a supervisor tool kit that would be available to supervisors and managers on the ins -and-outs of things that they need to know or the guidance of HR policies and things like that to help them on a day-to- day basis as they do manage personnel staff. I mentioned the web-based training. We would want to implement those modules and make that as a secondary training options to individuals who are either unable to attend an instructor-like class during the hours that we offer or ideally some individuals prefer the web-based option versus to being in a classroom. So, it's a complete preference option for them. The policy manual review -- so, the -- the policy manual update that we are looking -- that we are working on currently is not updating the language and making sure that it is in current practice and that the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 57 of 79 information listed is in current form . The policy manual review is taking the manual as a whole and really looking at each individual visual policy. In addition to that, we also want to separate out the policies and the procedures into two separate forms of document for you. And, then, several of the departments have been asking from us is there anything that we can do about the PAR forms. We currently use a triplicate form -- PAR form, which is Personnel Action Request form I believe. Thank you, Christena. And it's in triplicate copy. We keep an original. We route one to Finance. We route one to the department. We make copies for employees. It's very manual. It's very paper driven. You can imagine the amount of files of paperwork that we have in Human Resources that we are responsible for. So, we would like to start working towards getting more automated and seamless in that area. So, this is going to look familiar to you. I brought this to you in April during our roadshow. We talked a little bit about compensation, why we do what we do. First and foremost why we do it is because we prefer and desire to be an employer of choice in the Treasure Valley. The goal of our compensation program is to attract and retain our talented and valued employees, but in order to do that we must remain competitive. You know, there is a cost associated when an employee leaves the city and that cost can be significant to replace them when you include all of the recruitment dollars, the advertising dollars, the salary of employees come together to interview, to create interview packets, to develop questions, to sit on the panels. It's very time-intensive and can be expensive and sometimes the replacement is thousands of dollars to the loss that we -- we feel when we see an employee leave. We are a pay-for-performance organization for our general employee pool. The information that I'm sharing with you today does fall in line with our compensation policy within our SOP. In addition to that it also follows our salary administration guidelines, which I have shared with each of you individually prior to the meeting today. We are a pay for performance philosophy and organization. On occasion, as needed, while you study the market, we will come forward with a recommendation for a market adjustment. That, too, was also covered under our compensation policy and salary administration guidelines. I don't quite remember who said this a little bit earlier, so I'm going to repeat -- I'm not sure who said this, but we are a premier city. To be a premier city we do need to have the best employees here. We need to be able to attract them. We need to be able to retain them and in order to do that we must pay competitively to make sure that we can position ourselves to do that. We do need the best employees here at the City of Meridian and we do feel that we have them here with us today. So, I would like to talk to you a little bit about the merit recommendation. This is more -- or more or less an update for you today. As I mentioned to you in April, we were monitoring the -- the information and all of the factors and data that are included when we come forward to you with a final recommendation and all of that -- excuse me -- all of that data is not yet available to us. We do have partial information today. What you have in your budget binder, which Todd shared with you yesterday, which is a placeholder for a two percent merit pool based on the partial information that we have . The remaining information is anticipated to be available to us in June and so I will be Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 58 of 79 back with Todd on July 20th to provide you that final recommendation . So, that leads us into a market adjustment recommendation and as I have already mentioned, our policy -- we also have a responsibility to monitor our competition and the markets on -- annually to determine whether or not we would feel it's necessary and time for a market adjustment to our employee salary ranges. This is a standard part of the budgeting process. It's generally considered the cost of doing business, just as the economy rises and you pay more for fuel, you pay more for supplies, you do the same thing in salaries. So, under our compensation plan and guidelines, if we were to move forward with a market adjustment, it would actually be an adjustment to all of the pay ranges here in the city. The exact amount of that increase would also be provided to employees , so that they maintain the same progression of growth within the salary range that they currently have today. It also avoids any concerns that employees would be falling further behind the market, which would be contradictory to why we would be making an adjustment to begin with. So, currently in the budget binder that you have today we have a placeholder for a one percent market adjustment that we are asking for you to consider. Again, this information is not final, as we don't have all of our data yet. We will have it this month and I will be back with Todd on July 20th with a final recommendation for your consideration . So, during the annual budget process we do come before you with position reclassification recommendations. As a part of the process the departments, in preparation for the new fiscal budget year, has an opportunity to come forward to Human Resources with a request for positions that they would like to have reevaluated for a classification or grade assignment and under our current structure . So, reclassifications are needed anytime a job description is reviewed and updated and the intent of the departments is to review and update those job descriptions to accurately reflect the current job duties, responsibilities, requirements, qualifications, et cetera. And so as a result of any type of degree of difficulty, a level of accountability, or the qualification requirements that do significantly change in the job description, we in HR do take a look at that for the potential for reclassification. We have done that this year as well. We did receive multiple requests from the various departments that were reviewed and as a result of that review we had eight positions that did result in a higher grading of classification or a higher classification of their position as to where they are today on the kinds of levels charted and each of those do have a budgetary impact. And so here what you have in front of you is what does that budgetary impact look like . So, the departments that the positions are housed in that we are bringing forward to you for consideration for FY-17, we had six positions in Public Works. However, I do want to note that one of those positions did result in a classification change, but not necessarily a monetary change this year. We handled that monetary change when we hired into that position, knowing that this position was going to require a reclassification. So, they were hired higher within the current salary range that they had available to them. So, that has a total amount for Public Works of a little over 21,000 dollars. The Community Development Department has one position that we would recommend a reclassification with a budgetary impact for and a little over 2,600 dollars and the Fire Department had two and Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 59 of 79 you will see there that's a little under 9,000 dollars. So, the total budget impact that we are recommending for these reclassifications would be in the ballpark of about 32,515 dollars and you will see there that does include the benefits and PERSI information that we receive from the Finance Department. So, then, that takes us into equity adjustments. Again, equity adjustment is a part of the annual budget process and we come before you every year with this information if applicable. The equity increases are occasionally required when competition pay rates move significantly enough, however, the positions assigned market salary is appropriate. Now, we are dealing with competition. We are dealing with other people who are hiring those positions and willing to pay more to get those people and so with that our salary administration guidelines do provide us the opportunity to review that on an annual basis associated with the budget for next year. We did receive two requests in our department for review. We reviewed both of those requests. One of those requests we felt was resulting in a potential budgetary impact and we are here to present that to you for consideration as well. That one individual position is within the Public Works Department, specifically in our Water Division, and the amount of the proposed adjustment, including benefits and PERSI, is a little over 1,700 dollars. So, that takes us, then, to the healthcare benefits. So, the healthcare rates. So, this information is going to look familiar to you. I shared this again with you this past April during our roadshow. As we all know, the costs of healthcare are significantly rising due to the cost of medical technologies, prescriptions, services, et cetera. I had mentioned to you in April that we were intending to see -- or had forecasted to see a five percent surcharge to cover the ACA pass through charges. I explained a little bit more about those in April. And since I was last in front of you to today we have been communicated with that we are going to see a reprieve and that surcharge is not going to be applicable in 2017. What that does mean is it's probably going to follow in '18 or '19. Okay? So, we need to plan for that, but we are going to have a reprieve in '17. And I shared this information with you previously, because our rates are driven off of our experience rating and are experience rating in 2015 was 102 percent. So, as you know when I communicated previously, the benefits committee has been working diligently since January to -- to compile and bring forward to you the best possible rates with the best possible benefit package that we could. We have been working towards a no change to the -- excuse me -- a no plan design change with a possible increase to the health savings account contribution. As you know, we did go out to market. We went out to market with five -- Christena? Five different service providers. When we met with you in April and what you have in your budget binder today is a nine percent placeholder for what we were anticipating we may experience with those quotes. The market quotes are becoming available to us. We don't have all of them yet. We should have them all by the end of next week. But the initial quotes that we have received are suggesting extremely positive results for us. So, we are very excited to continue to navigate through that and come back to you in July with a very positive number. And with want I will sit for any questions you may have. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 60 of 79 De Weerd: Any questions from Council? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Not necessarily a question, but, Crystal, maybe it would be helpful for us as we are evaluating the budget over the next few weeks -- as soon as you have information that you feel comfortable being able to share with all of us related to healthcare, as opposed to waiting until the 20th -- Ritchie: Okay. Cavener: -- that would be very, very beneficial for us. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Crystal, so what is your new admin -- what is her name or his name? Ritchie: Well, we were hesitant to announce a name, because as -- Milam: Oh. Ritchie: -- time will tell we expect her to be here on Monday, however, things can change between now and then, so I would like the opportunity to come back and rather than make that public until she's actually here and with us. We have no indication that she won't be, but we will make sure to send out an announcement as well. Milam: Thanks. De Weerd: Any other questions? Bird: Sounds very good. Ritchie: Thank you. Bird: Now we get David. De Weerd: Our new director got us significantly behind schedule with her five minute report. Tiede: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, happy to be here today and grateful for the opportunity to discuss the FY-2017 budget for Information Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 61 of 79 Technology. First of all, I'd like to start off with our FY-2016 budget dollars at work. We had a couple enhancements and one amendment that was actually presented by the Police Department, but I wanted to mention it, because it was IT that drove that. Our first enhancement that we had for FY-16 was our storage area network, an expansion to that device. The storage area network is really the main repository for all of our network storage, our servers, everything. So, again, we needed to add space to continue to address the growth that the city has on their daily needs. So, we have got for that -- we are partially complete, still have a little bit more work to do there before the end of the fiscal year. The next enhancement we had was for the net motion virtual private network. A virtual private network is a device that will allow you to connect over the internet - - over the internet to a regular network. So, in this case we were looking for a way to give better connectivity to our field users, so that they could be in the field and, basically, be in the office at the same time . They could do their work like they are in the office. So, that has been deployed and has been a substantial benefit for our water workers out of the field, our community development inspectors, and our Public Works inspectors. We also recently expanded that to our code officers and that has been a great improvement for them and just improved their quality of what they are able to do in the field, so --and, then, the last one was, again, that amendment for CradlePoint wireless routers that came to you a couple months ago. That was to allow us to outfit a number of patrol vehicles with wireless routers to give them better connectivity in their vehicles to the CAD system. We have rolled out about two-thirds of those right now and we also have an enhancement -- or police has an enhancement to add more for the rest of the fleet this coming year, just because of how much of a benefit that has been for the fleet, so -- next I wanted to talk a little bit about a few of our accomplishments, just highlight a few, and we have many, many more and I could go on for hours if you'd like, but I figured you might want to take a break for lunch or something. The first one is the computer-aided dispatch system that has been rolled out for Police and Fire. IT was involved in many aspects of that from the front end to helping develop an RFP selecting vendors. We were also involved with testing, configuration, and setting up training environments. We also had to work with Ada County and the City of Boise to establish connectivity and security between our networks, so that they can all talk and interact with each other for authentication and other needs and so that has all been taken care of and, then, we also did integration with our e-citation program that was developed with -- by our software engineers in house. It needed to integrate with this new CAD system as well. So, that has also been completed. The next accomplishment that I wanted to mention was our Lenel security system standard operating procedure. We have a quite large system right now for our security system with Lenel and it started with City Hall when we built this building, but we have expanded out to almost every other facility in the city. So, wastewater, water, parks and rec, fire stations, police -- they all are on this system at this point. So, when we first built the system it was kind of small in scope and scale and as it has evolved we have had to address how we handle that moving forward. So, this was really an effort to minimize risk to the city in Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 62 of 79 areas that we hadn't planned on in the first place, but also to improve security and streamline processes. So, that has been completed and at this point IT and HR work together to maintain the system and it is a lot more efficient overall . The next item I wanted to mention was the Accella reconfiguration or reimplementation. I like the word that Bruce Chatterton use. He used rehabilitation, because it really did come down to going through ea ch individual process and figuring out how do we make the system efficient. We gained a lot of efficiencies by doing this. For example, planning went down from one --38 workloads to two, which simplified their processes, but also simplified all the downstream processes of other departments that interact with -- with the Planning Department on the various land use items that they address -- or take care of. We are also able to implement a consistent user interface, which helps with users being able to interact with each other and understand different areas of the system, how they use it and also increases support effectiveness. And, then, we were able to take a lot of processes digitally completely, instead of trying to mix and match paper and digital with what worked in the system prior to us doing this. So, anyway, a good -- good change overall and we are very happy with the outcome. The next time that I wanted to mention was the True Bill system, which is the utility billing system that is going into place right now. I'm sure Finance will mention it as well. IT has had their hand in it as far as installation and configuration. We have also worked on a lot of integration pieces, working -- we will be working on shortly integration with the accounting system, but to date we have done integration with meters and MXUs, GIS, and, then, also shut off and turn on areas of the application, so -- anyway, the next item that I wanted to mention was our mobile device standard operating procedure. This was developed to address some of the duplicate devices that we had throughout the city, but also duplicate services. We have a lot of data plans and cell plans and as you can imagine it's a b ig expenditure every month through the city. So, we went through an effort to go through and streamline that process, make it easier to hold departments accountable. With this we took the system digital as well and so there is reporting functions in there that the Mayor can run that we can provide to department heads. So, data at their fingertips and we can have a better handle on all the different needs that we have throughout the city and, again, be better stewards of the taxpayer dollars, so -- the last item that I wanted to mention as far as compliments go is we worked with the Police Department with their remodel and training facility to have a server room built at the Police Department. Prior to this we had a handful of servers down in a closet in that -- in that facility and it was not the most -- or the best environment for that type of equipment, it reduced the life of that equipment, it caused other issues -- anyway, with the remodel we were able to have a server room built that would meet that and the purpose of that is to really serve as a disaster recovery -- recovery facility for IT needs. So, basically, if this building -- we are in some kind of scenario where it was not available to us for whatever needs, we can actually bring up 95 percent of our infrastructure over at that facility and continue to keep the city operational from an IT standpoint. So, good win for us. Getting into our FY-2017 enhancements. We have three enhancements. Those will be found in Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 63 of 79 the IT section in your budget book. The first one is for a network administrator. This need, like all of our needs, are really due to the growth of the city and as the core city services grow, the Police Department, Public Safety, Fire, Parks, Public Works, Community Development, so do the support services and we are at the point where we feel a need to address some of those through positions. So, the network administrator is really -- really comes down to very -- increase in services that we have been delivering for the city. For example, the Lenel security system that we put in the building years ago when we moved into this building was not something that IT had planned on maintaining at the time, but because it's a technical system and is IP-based, we got it. So, we do maintain it at this point, but it is one of those services that was not planned for. There is plenty of other examples there. I won't go into a lot of detail, however. We also need to continue to deal with the growth of the city. As services expand, like I mentioned, we continue to expand infrastructure to support that. So, as facilities come online or we deem that technology is needed in other areas of the city to improve or create efficiencies, then, that falls back to IT to help adjust -- you know, help accommodate those. So, we have continued to extend our network. We have continued to add servers, storage, and the like to keep up with those needs that are created by the city's growth. And, then, the other key area that we really want to address with a network administrator is diversifying our risk . Right now we have a lot of responsibilities falling on one position -- well, 1.5 positions and because of that when we have turnover it creates risk to the city , because we cannot maintain that level of service without having the personnel to do -- to do that work. As you -- some of you may have heard, we lost our systems administrator here a few months ago , Chad Neal, and that -- that's the risk what we are talking about here. Adding this position will help alleviate that. We will be able to share some of those responsibilities and backfill and train as needed and be able to address that risk better, so -- the next position that we are asking for is with web developer and that is enhancement number two in your budget book. Currently the city uses a tool called a CMS, Content Management System. The name of that product is called Actron and all the other departments maintain and manage their website pages. What that means is it is difficult for them to maintain them, but it's also difficult to maintain the uniformity across them and I know Kaycee has talked a lot to you about branding and what we present as our message out to the community, but this really comes down to doing th at more effectively. The IT Department sat down with all the various departments that maintain the website in some form or another with their folks that actually do it , a lot of times the administrative staff , and found that is difficult for them to maint ain it. It's not intuitive. They need training and support on a regular basis, just because the tool is not easy for them to use. So, we collected all the information and said does it make sense to replace this tool with a new tool at significant cost to the city and continue down this path or does it make more sense to hire a web developer that would actually be the point that would maintain that . From our standpoint it makes sense to have a person to do that, rather than having all the other resources throughout the city trying to handle that and not be able to do it as effectively as we could having a technical resource that could do that, so -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 64 of 79 benefits that we get out of this is we will be able to give back some staff time , we will be able to enhance level of service that we provide on the city website. We are -- at this point we are constrained to what the tool can do as far as what we can do on the website, so some of the cool new things that you see on the internet aren't available to us because of limitations of what our tool will let us do, but with a web developer we will be able to expand that and be able to buy off some of those cooler features that would be beneficial to our constituents . And this has been a need for quite a while now. Just kind of background. We actually did ask for a web developer -- it was I think a web -- or the name of it was website content engineer at the time back in -- I think it was fiscal year 2009 or 2010. At that time it was decided that we would try this route as far as the content management system goes and at this point we feel web developer is the way to go. So, anyway, just a little bit of background. The next enhancement that we have is for an IT security assessment. That is enhanced number three in your budget books. This is kind of like what Finance does with an audit. We are looking to address different areas of IT security on an annual basis and figure out how we address those. So, as an example we could be doing things like security awareness training for end-users or we could be looking at, hey, look we have security holes that we need to plug up . But those would be the outcomes of the things that this assessment would go -- or, you know, give us. The assessment would likely be done by a third-party contractor, so that's why it listed as professional services in the budget enhancement. They would come in and help us identify risks and, then, help us identify mitigation plans on how we address those and, again, we would be focusing on different areas annually, so one year it might be security awareness for employees, another year it might be vulnerabilities of system -- IT systems in the city or could even extend out to other areas. Trying to think of anything else. Oh. Another -- another area that we will probably tackle is social engineering and that sounds really technical, but, really, what it means is a lot of what hackers or people that are trying to exploit companies or whatever are doing is through social engineering, which is, basically, using an employee to get into the system somehow. So, whether that's getting their password or figuring out how they -- when they come into work, so they can follow them in or whatever it is, but figuring out where those holes are, so we can -- we can train people, make them aware and make sure that they are using good practices, because in the end our security system -- our IT security is only as good as what our employees are doing. So, we need to make sure that we can tackle those issues and address them as needed as well. Moving on. The road ahead. As we continue -- the city continues to grow we also continue to grow and we feel that we will have a need for another manager position in the IT Department in the near future. That is not this next fiscal year, that will be FY- 18 or '19, but wanted to give you a heads up that it is something that will come down the line. We are also looking at an IT strategic plan and figuring out how that will align with the other strategic plans, but also the other department initiatives. Really in the end what drives IT is the -- the individual departments throughout the city. We are there to make their jobs easier and more efficient and improve what they do. And, then, the other items that I had on the road Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 65 of 79 ahead were CIP items. Just, again, more of an FYI. The CIP will be covered in more detail later this fall, but here is a heads up. One item on here is a network update. This building is about eight years old now and most of that work that went into it was with the building. On network equipment we try to extend the life out to about ten years -- eight to ten years and we are having equipment that fails on a more -- more often, but also we can't accomplish things that we need to with it. We have also found out that some of our products are actually being discontinued and it makes it really difficult to get them replaced under warranty when they don't exist anymore. At that point the warranty is not valid, so -- every five to six years we try to look at doing an upgrade to our Microsoft Office product, which is used across the city. It's about that time again. So, that's another item that's a placeholder on our CIP. Our storage area network, which I mentioned, we added to this last -- or this budget year is getting close to its end of life, so that's another item that's on the CIP. With that particular device it's a five-year lifecycle. We have the option to extend our warranty out, but doing so will be about half the cost of this product original -- of the original purchase, which is pretty crazy for one year of warranty. So, at that point it will be weighing does it make sense to do that or just replace it at that point. But it's on our CIP as a placeholder. We have a few fiber items that are on the CIP. I think the biggest one is we -- we did this whole plan a couple years back where we got fiber connectivity to all the city facilities and ideally we would like redundancy in most of those areas. We have a little bit of redundancy, which is great, but there are a couple outlying areas that don't have the redundancy, so that's what the placeholder was. We actually put that placeholder in when we got funding for the fiber project a few years ago and it just kind of pushed it back, because it's -- it's a -- it's a need, but there are other needs that seem to be a priority every year, so -- another item on our CIP is an enterprise -- or an ESRI enterprise license agreement. ESRI is the GIS software that all -- geographical information system software that all the departments use throughout the city. That's used for land use, to fire response times, to police analytics on crime -- across the board. GIS is a very powerful tool. It's being used more and more throughout the city. Currently we buy concurrent licensing, which allows so many users to use the product that they get in time, which is great. Better than buying a license for each individual, but we are getting to the point where within a couple years it will actually cost less for us to just buy a site-wide license to allow anyone to use it versus buying these concurrent licenses. Now, the only kicker with that is ESRI's license model changes once we get 100,000 p eople. So, as we continue to grow this could be a moving target. The other placeholder on the CIP that I wanted to mention is the enterprise documents and the only reason I wanted to mention it to you is because it is a big ticket item, but also plays into what we do with record retention across the board. The city is implementing records retention and executing it on a regular basis now, but it's not a very easy process for any department to do at this point. A tool like this would change that drastically and affects the resources that the city needs to execute that, so -- the flip side of that why -- why we think this is needed is a document management system will allow us to integrate other large systems like Accella, our enterprise land management Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 66 of 79 system, or Public Works has an management system -- it would allow basically all those systems to share a document repository and, then, again, apply retention to one place instead of having to do it manually everywhere else. So, really needed at some point in the future. That's why it's on our CIP. With that I sit for questions. De Weerd: Thank you, Dave. Questions? Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam. Milam: As far as the web developer, what would the difference be for outsourcing for web development, as opposed to creating a new FTE? Tiede: Council Member Milam, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, we did look at that and consider that as an option . However, it didn't -- from our standpoint the cost associated with that was higher than actually an FTE and the level of service that we could get was lower. So, that is something that we should consider, but at this point it didn't seem to make much sense to us to go that direction, just because, again, higher costs, lower level of service and we are constantly making adjustments based off of feedback from citizens, from the Mayor's office. To have all of those addressed by a third party in a timely manner is going to cost us a lot more than if we have somebody in house that takes care of those. So, that's why we recommended this direction. De Weerd: Any other questions? Okay. Thanks, Dave. And last, but not least. Lavoie: All right. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I know I stand between you and lunch, so I will make this quick and brief and luckily many of the slides I'm presenting to you were presented to you in the middle of April, so it's going to be a recap, a rehash of what we just informed you about . So, what we will do is today we will just talk about out budget dollars at work, just like every other division has presented to you over the last two days. I will talk about some of our achievements and accomplishments and , then, we will review one enhancement that we have and we will give you a snapshot of what we are looking at for the road ahead. So, again, budget dollars at work. We did not necessarily get any budget dollars in fiscal '16 dispensed, so this represents kind of from '15. You helped us acquire a new city staff accountant that helped us develop a contract management database . The contract management database is in use by all the departments. We have hundreds of active contracts currently residing in this database. The database does benefit the city with insurance management, risk and compliance management, financial management, timeline milestone management and, then, general overall contract management. This one central database is available to all city staff members, even to Council. If you wish to see the content behind any contract that we have actively -- that we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 67 of 79 have currently active, you can access this database and pull the actual contract up, see the milestones, see the financial impacts and look at any points of contact for that particular -- for that particular contract. Quickly go over some of the achievements and accomplishments. Accounting division, we implemented new software called Grill Point. We are working with the Enterprise Fund right now to help them integrate this software into their practice. It allows us to utilize Microsoft Excel in conjunction with our financial system. Again, Microsoft Excel is -- I guess more commonly used financial tool within the accounting world, so we are able to use that to get the financial data to the departments, so that's moving on forward. Purchasing division -- two months ago you approved our purchasing policy that worked in conjunction with the Public Works Division, Parks Division and Legal Division, to name a few. Getting a purchase policy following state code and integrates the best practices in the industry. As Dave mentioned from IT, True Bill. True Bill is a big project going on within the Finance Department. Our utility billing software is old and this is our new update. The project started in FY-14 and we are looking to go live August 2016. We are very excited about this. So, we are at the very -- we are at the finish line, guys. We are going to be there. That's going to be a positive solution for the city and the citizens for years to come. It's going to be an updated look. It's going to have the ability to set up recurring credit card payments, which a lot of our customers like. It's going to be able to access water and sewer usage amounts, so now at home you can see what your -- what historical sewer and water usage amounts look like. And, then, it will also show your comparisons year over year as well. So, data at your fingertips. You have heard data, data, data by many departments. Again, we are trying to provide the data to the citizens, so they have good information, so they can make decisions. Again, Finance Department does have one enhancement to present to you . I'm going to hand this over to Jaycee to present. Holman: This one is in your budget binder. It's under the Finance section and there was only one enhancement, so it is enhancement number one. This request was for an open data solution. We looked at -- it's a company called Opengov or a software solution called Opengov. We are asking for money to fund this cloud-based solution. It would be used internally, but would also reside on our website for our citizens to externally go in there , use it and manipulate our data. This is in alignment with strategic plan objective 3-E, responsive government and enhancing transparency. Used basically to analyze and share financial data. The city's current budget is public. We do have a lot of information online, but a lot of it is static in the form of like pdf reports, things like that. Reports with statistics, charts, et cetera, but no real easy way for the public or us to analyze, compare and drill down into the information. This tool, Opengov, will take csv files, which is basically the information out of our accounting system and Excel files, turn that data into really slick web charts that anyone can reformat, compare, contrast, as I said drill down. It's very intuitive. The user interface is amazingly simple. I put the link to Opengov actually in that enhancement document. I would between now and when we meet again next Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 68 of 79 month go to Opengov site, go to -- they have a section called case study, kind of shows how the different cities have implemented it, how they are utilizing it, the way they set it up and it also has direct links to about eight or ten different cities websites and you're going to their open data portion of their website . You can manipulate those cities data and look at -- that's the best way to get a feel for what this will do and I don't know -- Councilman Borton is the one who brought this to our attention. I don't know if there is anything you would like to add, Joe, on this solution. Borton: The only thing to add is it ties in really well with the level of service, the work that’s going to be done, because as those levels are established for the variety of departments, many, if not all of those can be utilized with this tool and the public can see how we are doing and we can report how we are doing, for better or for worse in meeting those levels of service. So, it's great timing. Holman: Yeah. And this is -- it's 6,000 dollars one time fee for the set up. It is 15,000 dollars annually in maintenance, but from everything that Dave and I have looked at it -- I think it will be a relatively easy implementation and you can just set up auto updates, so it's updating information nightly if we want as far as having the most current data. I don't think it's going to require a lot of staff time on the back end. So, with that I will stand for any other questions about this. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Jaycee gave me kind of a demo of this and I loved it, not only because it -- I think it will really help the public be able to see, you know, the raw data, the information, but I really feel like it will increase their participation in the budget process because of how simple it is to interpret the information that would be available in this situation. Holman: And as I did a little research on this also, got just the internal use also that the department heads, as you're preparing presentations and you're trying to put together graphical data for presentations as a visual easy to interpret complex information, it would be I think really beneficial for staff, along with the outside public, so -- De Weerd: Along with Council. Holman: Uh-huh. Absolutely. You would be able to direct constituents that have questions and you can direct them to a very easy to use and easy to find tool, so -- De Weerd: Any other questions? Statements? Okay. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 69 of 79 Lavoie: Thank you, Jaycee. So, I will go ahead and finish off our presentation with the road ahead for the Finance Division and I have had a couple of enquiries this year from fellow council members and you asked can we make this digital, can we get this book in a digital format, online, and the answer is yes. So, again, we will work with you guys to look at software and right now we use Excel, Word, PowerPoint. Last year we had 251 files that made up the budget and if we get one software package I think we would support that and , again, it sounds like something you're looking forward to, so we will be researching that with you and we will be presenting our results in the near future . You've heard it. Growth is driving the services division as we want more data or as departments want more data. That puts a bigger demand on the Finance Division, so we will continue to look at the demands from the other departments on our staff and , again, I put it up there as a placeholder. We will be looking at potentially adding another financial analyst to the team, so we can satisfy the request by all the divisions with their analytical needs and their data development. Last item is a lobby remodel. You have seen a few lobbies being remodeled over the past few years . We have checked them, we have looked at them and we have to say we like them. We think they are more efficient, more functional, more -- better ergonomically for our staff members. So, again, next year will be promoting to you -- or proposing to you a remodel of our lobby to match kind of what you have seen in the clerks and the building division , so we can meet the needs of our -- not only our staff, but also our citizens. And, then, we will look at a possible office layout as well. So, those are the items that we have on our radar at this moment. I know it's 12:30 almost and it's lunchtime, but I will answer any questions if you have them. De Weerd: Council, any questions for Finance? Okay. You want to grab a plate and have any final conversations, questions, while you eat and we will get you out of here at 1:00. (Recess.) De Weerd: Council, we will go ahead and get this meeting back on schedule and ask for any discussion from Council. Further questions, information you would like to request from Council, look at each of the enhancements if you want at this time and see if you have any further questions and/or look at what is in the end funded enhancements and -- I will turn this over to Todd. Lavoie: Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. Again as the Mayor stated, this time we have is -- we have 21 minutes left on the schedule itinerary, so, again, we wanted to leave you, the Council, the opportunity to engage us as staff members to answer any questions that you have . I would like to also bring up the topic of the allowable tax discussion. During our budget roadshow in April we brought this to your attention. I would like to see if we might be able to discuss that here today as well, so we can have direction on how we develop -- or how we move forward with the fiscal 2017 revenue numbers. So, again, if we can open that as Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 70 of 79 a discussion item I would promote that maybe Councilman Borton can help with that discussion. Open it up for me at least. I got to put you there. So, again, we are looking for direction. Right now we have zero percent as recommended or as requested by Council. If we were to consider taking a one percent tax increase, I presented that on the screen for you. You also have it in your workbooks. A one percent increase will be a little over 260,000 dollars. If Council directs us to have access to the two percent that would grant us an additional 520,000 dollars to the revenue source. And if you were to grant us the full allowable three percent that would give the General Fund an additional 781,000 dollars worth of revenue. So, again, if we can maybe discuss that, see how you guys -- or see how we currently stand on this allowable tax amount, I would open it up for discussion and if we can get maybe some direction for us, the Mayor and I can build a budget for you for the July 20th workshop. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Excuse me, Todd, but I would also like to know what impact with a one percent raise, a two percent raise and we know what a three percent raise is, I would like to know what those numbers are, too. If we -- if we give -- what we give the employees, one or two percent. Lavoie: Councilman Bird, we can definitely get that to you. It's provided to you in your workbooks as well. Supplemental documents. But we will bring it up here. This is what the document looks like in the back of your book. Right now if you look at your General Fund -- just as an example, if you look at the General Fund summary sheet you will see a placeholder at the very top. It should say three -- you will see a spot on your General Fund summary sheet that says 398,169 dollars is the estimated cost for a three percent adjustment to the city's wages. So, Mr. Bird, as you requested if you want to know what a one percent cost is you can -- you can utilize the spreadsheet that's available to you . The answer would be roughly 132,000 dollars for the General Fund. At two percent would be 265 and, then, the three percent, which was presented to you in your budget binder, is at 398. So, we have the one, two -- or you can see multiple percentages there and -- Bird: I missed the page. I'm sorry. Lavoie: Oh, no problem. So, it's available to you. We could discuss this if you wish to as well. Bird: I think -- I think we can discuss it, because just without the -- without the police -- without the police COLA deal you -- we are -- we can save 400,000 dollars between a one and a three percent increase and I -- and I -- with the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 71 of 79 retainage that we have been -- that we have within our departments, I don't think people are living -- are leaving because of the wages, I think the -- I don't have any problem with the adjustment where we might be way under, but I would -- I would feel that -- that our wages are very, very compatible with the private and I know -- and while I would like to get three, if we have to gut money, I would have no problem doing that. That's my thoughts. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: As I think will probably often be the result of this discussion moving forward, perhaps a counterpoint that we have heard from every director I think repeatedly to this presentation that we are growing, but we are constantly asking our employees to do more with less. When the economy went south the -- the Council at that time made the decision to only do a one percent. Our economy is doing well. As a result that has added increased demand on our employees. I think the budget that the Mayor brought forth, taking the zero percent property tax increase and presenting us a balanced budget that includes a two percent increase for employees is warranted, it's well deserved. I think there are other places that we will have this discussion, are there things that are unfunded that need to be funded? Are there things that are in the budget that need to be unfunded? I think that's the discussion that we need to have, but I would be very cautious about wanting to change the recommended wage increase form. De Weerd: Council, I think last month we talked about retention and how important it is and the cost of replacement. You also heard some comments about the challenge of hiring qualified employees. I believe that's why the compensation plan was put in place to make sure that we address and make sure that our most valuable asset, which is our employees, are taken care of and they stay within a market that's -- that's reasonable. We do have tools in place to look at are we within the market, are we competitive, and are we doing what we need to do to create a culture that we do have retention of our qualified employees. That's why we established the compensation plan to begin with. We do know in most cases it takes up to two years to replace an employee and that's if we can find a qualified employee to do that. So, our compensation plan was to protect our most valuable asset, our employees, and -- and you have the report in front of you from our HR Department that we need a one percent market adjustment and recommending a two percent merit and that would be in keeping with our compensation plan. So, I stand by the recommendation that we have in the budget before you and certainly we stand ready for any questions if you should have them. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 72 of 79 Borton: Not necessarily a question, but I -- I tend to agree with -- with Councilman Cavener with regards to the compensation and the employees and taking care of the most valuable asset. Weather the placeholder at three percent is allocated one percent market adjustment and two percent merit may be for another day, but the sum total of three percent seems to be appropriate to include for the reasons that Councilman Cavener brought up. One of the things that I noted to Todd's earlier comment in tracking through the binder and the discussions over the last couple of days is the relative linear growth of the cost of doing business -- or the revenue stream, excuse me, for the city and the kind of non-linear expenditures. The swing as our city grows are much more wild with the addition of capital costs and -- and most notably the last couple days some of the personnel costs. So, I love graphs and love the graphs that Finance puts in these things, but I see the available revenue year over year is relatively linear and these expenditures that we have been seeing and the cost -- necessary cost to maintain our levels of service, our obligations to the public, swing more wildly. We are now going to be faced with -- with the possible addition of nine patrol officers or 12 firefighters, two examples of large swings that come on board relatively quickly. The city has done a really goo d job, as the Mayor pointed out earlier, spending less in some years and when necessary having reserves available to -- to capture those swings and fund those necessary expenditures. I say all that, because your question about the -- the statutory ability to take that -- up to three percent addition, in light of what's been presented in the binders in the last couple days, I think that three percent is critical and three of the items, in my opinion, that are on this particular list in front of us, they are unfunded enhancements, but in my opinion I don't think they can ever be unfunded. Going forward the capital improvement fund transfer, replacement fund transfer, and public safety fund transfer I think are above the line up front allocations of revenue before we even get to enhancement discussion. There was talk of it last year with regards to the public safety fund and there was an allocation of one percent of revenues towards that. This I believe represents, for illustration purposes, the same one percent figures of 370,000 dollars. When we look at -- unrestricted fund balance, to me it's really not unrestricted. It is restricted and I think we just need to acknowledge it as such, because -- and we have heard about it the last couple of days -- we have within those unrestricted funds, we truly have them restricted. They are allocated. We have upcoming c apital improvement expenditures. We have replacement costs and we have these public safety costs. So, it's not available revenue. So, I think it should be saved and allocated to these three funds, whether it's, you know, one percent each, which may even exceed the three percent, but it makes us a little more realistic with what the unrestricted fund balance truly is. I think it's smaller than what we represent right now, because we need to acknowledge these expenditures are coming down the road, so I think in light of this tremendous growth and these necessary expenses, we owe it to the public to maintain those -- our city the way we are doing and I think the three percent is a cost of doing business to maintain that. How it's allocated may be a continued discussion. In my opinion it's those Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 73 of 79 three funds -- those buckets need to be filled up first, because if -- I don't -- I don't think that's money we actually have available to spend, because we need to insure it and reserve it for those costs we know are coming down the road, so my two bits, three percent needs to be included in the budget. How it's allocated you know where I lean, but either way the sideboards for a January -- or a July 20th discussion would include that revenue source. Maybe this is for a budget workshop. Both of them. Palmer: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Palmer. Palmer: Madam Mayor, on the topic of revenue, there is three letters that -- everyone is probably really tired of hearing come out of my mouth, but here it goes anyway. Ten Mile Urban -- or URD, what -- theoretically say we -- we don't do it, Todd, and they decide to move forward with their entire plan anyway. Do we know a number or do we have any kind of way of estimating what revenue to see in the General Fund based on rebuild and when that might start coming in? Lavoie: Councilman Palmer, the answer is -- we could calculate the numbers, yes. Do we know what the future holds on that property? I might have to -- I could lean on Bruce Chatterton to help us out here, he knows what's coming down the pipeline, but the way the property tax calculation works is whatever the value of the property is it's multiplied against our levy rate to an extent. So, it's -- we can mathematically tell you the estimated value of property income on any value of any development within the city if we have a development p lan in place with a value associated to that development. So, we know if it's a hundred million dollars in development, I can give you an estimate on the potential property taxes generated by that development, yes. Do I know what's coming down the future, I do not. Palmer: I guess if -- if you can take the time and come up with a super ballpark guess for me, it's not like today -- two weeks or something, just, you know, if we have an idea that, you know, what we can anticipate -- so that we know that -- you know, because we are going to be providing police services there anyway, without revenue for an indefinite amount of time. Lavoie: Councilman Palmer, I can definitely work with the Community Development team, especially Bruce Chatterton, to see if we can use the crystal ball as you speak, because if we don't do the URD, we may not have any development for ten, 20, 30 years. If we do process the URD, we kind of have a guaranteed production or products in place for the next ten, 20, 30 years that's going to stimulate that area, which we could see other revenue sources from the surrounding areas of the URD. So, it's a big crystal ball you're asking us to work on, but we can try our best, but the answer could be zero, because no development may show up there for ten years or it could be a very, you know, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 74 of 79 grand number. But, again, I will work with Bruce Chatterton, we will see what we can develop for you and your fellow Council Members between now and July 20th and see if we can come up with something for you. Palmer: Madam Mayor, follow up? Yeah. Because worst case scenario is zero, best case scenario is -- Lavoie: Fantastic. Palmer: -- the best case scenario is. Lavoie: We will work with the Community Development team and see what we can put together for you. Palmer: Thank you. Lavoie: You're welcome. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Question maybe either for all of our Council or maybe Councilman Borton. All of your points I agree lines 19, 20 and 21. I don't -- I don't look at those as unfunded enhancements, I don't look at them as enhancements either. I agree with Councilman Borton's point, those should be factored in before we ever move forward on the enhancements. So, my question I guess maybe for the Council or maybe specific for Councilman Borton is where did those three items place on our priority list above the current funded enhancements and -- because while I -- I can understand the thought of taking the three percent to take care of those three particular items, are there other monetary vehicles that we can use? Are there current funded items that become unfunded to find cost savings to fund one, two or all three of those partially or fully? Our Council's taken the three percent I believe 13 of the last 15 years. Bird: We have always taken it. Cavener: I think there has been two years I found in the past 15 years where you haven't taken it. Bird: Yes. Cavener: So, point being is we -- our taxpayers every year have coughed up that extra three percent. Those extra couple of Dutch Bros every year, but when you factor in two Dutch Bros on top of two Dutch Bros and two Dutch Bros, it adds up and -- and while I appreciate wholeheartedly the Mayor and staff's ability to bring Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 75 of 79 up for the budget without taking the zero percent, if we can maintain that budget somehow, I think that's the right move. I think that all three of those items, lines 19, 20 and 21 offer careful consideration, but do they need to be at the full amount through the one, two or three percent? Can we take a one percent and look at some of the current enhancements that are funded, make them unfunded and provide some cost savings to fund these three things that I see as a major priority and that's something I would ask I guess all of the Council Members to look at between now and then. De Weerd: And I would hope that you would keep in mind that 18, 20 and 21 -- Cavener: Sorry. Nineteen, 20 and 21. De Weerd: Or 19, 20 and 21, we don't have a number under the replacement aspect at this point, but those are capital. They are the same. Levels of service are determined by people and much of what you have in the budget in front of you are those people who look levels -- maintaining levels of service. Things don't matter if you don't have people in place to make sure that the services are delivered. So, as you look at that, we have a commitment to a capital improvement plan that is no fiscally constrained yet, but what that doesn't anticipate is the price of staffing to -- even if you build the capital improvement, you have to staff it in order to maintain that. So, while I think that we need to have a commitment to that transfer for our capital needs and replacement, but it's -- it's the people -- the people out on the streets delivering their services that are our major expense and to me maintaining those levels of service are worth two or six Dutch Bros and our -- our citizens continue to -- to say we want to save community. Well, it's not going to be if you don't have the people out on the streets. We -- we appreciate our parks. We love our quality of life. Well, it takes -- it takes an investment to get there. One of the things that I asked Todd to do is run something that we have done in the past, taking a house in the south central and north and showing the assessment, what the tax levied at the city level would be and how that changes and we will bring that back as well, but that was a plat that's going to -- to be variable, depending on if it's residential or commercial and I don't know where the -- the decreases and increases are and how it will impact the -- the residential taxpayer. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: You brought up some of the points I was going to, but the funded -- the funded enhancements that they brought forward is something they need to share. These enhancements are something planning for the future, but I -- I firmly believe that we have got to -- the reason we have done so well with our replacements and stuff is because we have kept -- we have tried to keep a kitty ahead for the major purchases. We have got to put -- we have got to put some Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 76 of 79 enhancement in there for the public safety fund, the replacement fund and th e capital improvement fund. It don't have to be that amount, but it's got to be -- it's got to be something and we have got -- that should be done yearly and while I -- the funded enhancement they brought forward and in my -- in my view the three percent -- I am -- I am partaking that three percent to help make sure that we can do this funding here on these three items. I think -- I think every year -- you compound if you don't take the three percent, you compound it and it adds up pretty -- it's a lot of Dutch Bros coffee, which I have never bought, but, anyway, I - - I think -- I think we need to stay with it, because our taxes are still low and that's -- I worry more about the mill levy than I do what -- what we take, but we also have got to look ahead to make sure that when we need a new fire truck or when we need a ladder truck or we get a good buy on one -- that if Mark calls one of you guys and says, hey, I got a good buy on it, that you have got the money there to purchase it like we did. So, I -- we have got to put some money in those three funds and I would hope we would do it on a yearly basis. I don't care whether it's 50,000, 100,000, 300,000 or whatever, it's got -- they have got to be funded. That's my opinion. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam. Milam: We had agreed last year that we were going to -- Bird: That's right. Milam: -- put it in every year, so -- I agree with Councilman Borton and Councilman Bird. As you know this is going to cost me personally 30 Dutch Bros a year, so I'm -- I don't want to take the three percent, but I think that if we don't take the three percent we are setting ourselves up for a future problem in our public safety fund and our -- you know, those funds do need to be funded and I also am in favor of snacks for budget workshop and I would like to see participatory budgeting funded as well. De Weerd: She's kidding. Cavener: No, she's not. She wants both. And she should. She wants snacks. Milam: It's not my priority. Borton: Madam Mayor? Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: With regards to this -- this three percent, my opinion would most likely be different if our city was in a different stage of growth and maybe other Council Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 77 of 79 Members would be -- feel the same. Different communities have different needs and I think our unique situation has the unique need and -- and I don't take that decision lightly by any stretch and I don't necessarily even -- I don't think of it as Dutch Bros, which maybe makes sense, kind of a unit of measure, but it's somewhat a luxury to many of our citizens -- you know, what we talk about is $9.70, it's still their money and it might be utilized for a greater necessity for their life. So, I know we use that phrase to try and measure how small it is, but it's a big deal and it's the citizens' money and -- and they entrust us to use it wisely and it's those unique needs that our city is in now and unique growth and opportunities with being the number one city and being wildly popular and successful that I think creates that landscape and necessitates its use. In a different context it very well might not be appropriate, but that's the reason for -- and each year it needs to be assessed annually like it is here, not an ongoing, build it in no matter what. I think we do need to kind of pause and reflect and see if our needs truly warrant it. This year I think they do. De Weerd: Council, any -- I know we have our directors in here. Any specific questions for any of the directors? Additional information you need for your review of the budget? We will be coming back and giving you updates as we get the compensation information, the benefit information. We will have the city of Boise come in and give an overview of prosecution services and I -- is there anything -- Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Borton: Just real quick, what we are looking at as some examples of how different needs to be filled in. I don't know where that came from, who created this. Is it a recommendation or just an example or -- De Weerd: No. This is a recommendation as our impression was to come with a zero, taking no three percent, and, then, this kind of was to illustrate if Council decided the one percent, the first thing we would -- we would fund would be the public safety fund. If it was the two percent would be the public safety fund and whatever is left in the capital improvement fund transfers. If it was the full three percent we thought it important to look at the fiber communications network to connect to dispatch and to fund the person with Home Court to make that whole and we understand that that person would be hired probably -- it wouldn't be that full cost, but in normal practice we think it's important to show the full cost impact on an annual basis, not some under -- we think it's only 27, because we only will have them for three months and, then, you get hit with the big -- big number the following year. So, we want to show the full commitment and so the three percent that is the recommendation what would be added to the current list that's under consideration at this point. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 78 of 79 Borton: Is that you and the directors -- De Weerd: The team -- the directors team. That's what we -- and, again, I think one other reason for the Home Court personnel is this is a commitment that was started last year and we want to make sure it's fully committed. Borton: Madam Mayor, one last comment, which is so often about the process being split as it is, rather than just doing this and trying to decide on July 20th , is Councilman Cavener asked great questions that we might not necessarily answer right now, but we are going to be able to get some questions answered from directors and see if there may be an enhancement that we collectively say should be removed and Councilman Palmer's questions regards to seeing how the Ten Mile area may or may not affect potential revenue. Those -- those are the kind of things that are important for us to get back, get our questions answered before we are making the July 20th decision, so procedurally I love this split process so we can get this information. De Weerd: Okay. Well, very good. If there is nothing further we will go ahead and wrap up our first phase of budget workshop discussions and we will schedule in the follow-up, since I had mentioned and -- Todd? Lavoie: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the Counc il, I just want to -- I just want to reiterate what Councilman Borton and the rest of the Council Members have been saying. The city staff is here for you guys. Please engage us over the next 30 to 40 days, ask us the questions, ask us for clarification. At the end of July 20th we want to make sure that you guys are comfortable with the budget that we promote to the citizens, because at the end of July 20th we want to have a balanced budget. We want to have a solid budget that we promote to the citizens the following week and, then, after that we will establish a public hearing for the end of August. So, again, please, engage us. Please send us questions. We will communicate with all of you with the answers, so you're all on the same page. As the Mayor stated, we will work with HR to get the benefits, we will work with HR to finalize that wages. Again, all the enhancements that have been presented to you over the last two days are in conjunction with our strategic plan. They have been vetted through not only the Mayor and the Finance Department, but all the staff members. So, again, just work with us, we will work with you, we will get you the answers you need and, again, appreciate the time over the last two days to get this where it's at and, agai n, a very large thank you to the entire city staff for getting the budget to where it's at today as well. We appreciate it and ask us questions. De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Well, if there is nothing further I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop June 8, 2016 Page 79 of 79 Borton: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 1:12 P.M. 1@hO-RE�ORD11�tG 9 E OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) ATED q& /o/ �( / YOR Y DE WEERD TE APPROVED ATT C.,(AY COL'8s,L61TY CLERK of o f C W ID ,1AN SEAL l l DATE APPROVED