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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006 07-11 Budget Meridian City Council Budaet Workshop Meetina July 11, 2006 The Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting was called to order at 8:15 A.M. on Tuesday, July 11,2006 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle, and Joe Borton. Members Absent: Charlie Rountree Staff Present: Bill Nary and Will Berg. De Weerd: I apologize I wasn't here at eight. I thought you guys were just going to look at all the additional information and then we would be starting at 8:15. That is what I get for supposing. So, do you want me to get this going? Bird: We are ready. I don't know about the other two. De Weerd: We are ready? Okay. I will go ahead and call this meeting to order and ask Mr. Clerk to call roll. Wardle: Oh, Madame Mayor, we have taken attendance and all - Bird: We are one step ahead of you, for once. (Inaudible speaker): We are down to the Police Department. De Weerd: Well, that is a good thing. Wardle: We are wrapping it up. De Weerd: Good job. Bird: We decided everything goes in the three of us and the rest don't get any. De Weerd: Well, wasn't that nice of you. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X X Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 2 of 161 Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Item 3. Presentations and Discussion of the City Proposed Budget per Departments: Parks Department De Weerd: We will start with a presentation with the Parks Department. Strong: Thank you Madame Mayor, members of the Council. I appreciate the opportunity to go first and as indicated in the slide, the National Recreation Park Association's slogans this year - Bird: You are going to have to speak up. Strong: Is it just distance? We will start over. Thank you Madame Mayor and members of the Council. This year's National Park and Recreation Association slogan as it starts in parks so I thought that since we are first on the agenda today, I would use that as a way to kick off the presentation. I want to review our mission and vision as a department and talk a little bit about some of the things that we have accomplished in this last year to start with. As a review our department mission is to enhance the communities quality of life by providing well designed and properly maintained Parks and Recreation opportunities for all Meridian citizens. Our visions to ensure that the best possible use of resources as public demand grows to build facilities and offer new programs through private, public partnerships by using grant funds and promoting collaboration with service agencies to provide exceptional parks and recreational programs for the community. Our operating philosophy is that we are a caring, creative and hard working professional team dedicated to providing meaningful park and recreation services to our community. As we perform our work throughout the year, we keep the city focus areas in mind of planning for community growth, providing service with the available resources working toward organizational excellence and always being conscious of being good stewards of the public trust. A few points that are emphasized from the National Recreation Park Association that signify or emphasize the importance of parks and recreation services throughout the country. The first one is quality parks and recreation create desirable communities and it fuels economic growth in communities. Active users of public parks are less likely to report feeling depressed. They benefit from lower body mass index and blood pressure than people who use parks passively or not at all. Forced open space and wetlands control erosion and help clean the air, mitigate global warming and help shelter and cool homes. So, the parks certainly has value to the community and is something that we feel proud to be a part of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 3 of 161 providing to the City of Meridian. So, a few things that we did this last year. It has been a busy year. We added new staff in 2006. Two new positions. A recreation coordinator position as you recall last year, was discussed at this same meeting and we added a parks maintenance foreman and just a couple of things that they have accomplished. When we talked about the recreation coordinator last year, we said that some of the things that we wanted to accomplish by adding this position was to increase recreation program revenue, increase overall program participation and increase the number of collaborative relationships we have to offer recreation services and we wanted to increase the number of community partnerships. So, some of the duties that we identified for the recreation coordinator was adults' sports program and as you recall we had a part time adult sports coordinator for a number of years so that those responsibilities were combined into this position. The Recreation Coordinator coordinates the use of department facilities with community organizations, coordinates outside tournaments with various organizations, assists in the planning operation of special events and coordinates volunteer programs to facilitate the needs of the entire department. As this slide - I don't know what this slide just did - the first slide that went right past and I am not sure how to get back there was showing revenue to date through the end of May. This is the projected revenue through the end of the year and as you can see we expect total revenue to go over $100,000 this year in recreation services, which is considerable higher than previous years. As you look back through 2001, 2002 those in previous years have been our higher years for recreation revenue. This year we have had an increase in general recreation programs that also increase in the number of teams that play in our adult leagues and team sports. So we expect to end out the year with the best revenue or the highest revenue that we have ever had in the recreation services area of the department. We also added a recreation foreman this last year and this position has been instrumental in providing the day to day oversight of the maintenance functions of the department and in the process of doing that it has freed our Parks Superintendent for more time to focus on the number of construction projects that we have undertaken and to pay more attention to arborist responsibilities as Elroy is our City Arborist also. As you recall these are the duties that we posted last year for this position and Mike Barton, the fellow that we hired to do this and he has fulfilled all these duties very well. He schedules the crew, directs onsite supervision, oversees and participates in maintenance and repair park irrigation systems and equipment. He also receives and participates in the maintenance of park landscape areas. He also maintains one small neighborhood park and will fill in where needed when other employees are off work. It is a hands-on position. So, it is not a stay in the office type of position. Some of the construction projects that we have taken on this last year are listed there - Champion Neighborhood Park and Season's Neighborhood Park, both of these parks are either complete in phase 1 as Season's Parks indicated and Champion Park is near completion in total. Heroes Park, Meridian Youth Baseball complex, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 4 of 161 Kiwanis Park and Adventure Island Splash-pad are all scheduled for completion by the fall of this year. They are all under contract or soon to be under contract for completion of that work. The Father Gill Pathway renovation has been completed just this last week. We have downtown tree box replacement on schedule for ten to be completed in August and ten more to be completed in September. So, it has been a busy year for construction. This is a current picture of Champion Neighborhood Park and as you can see the restroom building in the background, that is near completion. The doors are not on, but the roof is on and they are finishing inside the building. The playground structure is in that fenced area and it is in a complete - the basketball area is across the park to the east and the parking lot is in. So, the park is complete and the grass is mature and they are coming along very nicely. This is a picture of Season's Neighborhood Park, actually it is two pictures put together to show the parking lot in a view to the north through the park. If you look straight ahead on this picture, that is where the restroom and the shelter facility will be constructed in this next year, just beyond the parking lot area. The playground will be off to the left and will be installed this fall and actually the area of where it goes is already - the cement is in and it is just waiting for the equipment to arrive. As I mentioned, we planted up to 20 trees in downtown tree replacement and the reason that we are staggering the work, just so that you understand this, ACHD requested that we only do ten trees at a time just for impact of traffic through the downtown corridor so that we don't tie up traffic anymore than is necessary. De Weerd: Doug what kind of impediment do you have to traffic? Strong: Well, we do work in the street so we have to put out barriers and route traffic around - the curbing is being replaced in some cases and just the tree box is right out to the street curb. Also an impact on parking along those areas, so traffic has moved other places for parking. De Weerd: Now, our new park or our new tree box design, we heard about standards that ACHD had yesterday - are those compatible? Strong: I will let Elroy answer that. Huff: Madame Mayor and members of the Council I have those standards and those came to me after I had redone this particular design, but we have incorporated that in so that in so they would be met and I am still working with ACHD on exactly what we will have to do down here. They have some new standards for out on streetscapes and subdivisions and things like that. This is a little bit different down here. We have a lot more hard-scape, so we are working with them on figuring out what we actually need to do. I think everything is going to stay about the same. They are going to ask us to do some vertical and some horizontal landscape material that is root barrier based that they can kind of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 5 of 161 control those root barriers and where they go. I am working with them on that. So, we will see when we get that first one going just exactly how that is going to shake out, so. De Weerd: So, in simple English, yes it is compatible? Huff: Yes. De Weerd: Thank you. Sorry, I was a little bit lost. It is the morning I guess. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Doug are we doing the labor on this or have we subbed it out to private - to replacement on this or are we doing it in-house? Huff: Councilman Bird, that goes out to contract and what we do is we purchase the tree grates and the frames, we have those and the frame is poured into the concrete, but a contractor does all that work. We come back in and we put the soil in and we plant the tree and we put the grate on. We don't require the contractor to do that. We just got them working on the hard scape and the underground stuff. Bird: Have we looked in, Elroy, to have - to just buying the material and having a contractor completely do it where we are not in and out and you don't have two different crews done there working on, you know, depending on one crew to get done before the other one can come on or anything like that? Huff: No. Well, we use our - once the tree boxes are put in and the hole is open then we install that little bit or irrigation that is in there that goes around inside the box and we usually install that and we put it in the soil and plant the tree. There is some technical stuff there and I have found in order to keep a certain amount of, we think, control over how those go in and how that is done and we maintain those anyway and we prefer to plant them at this point. I certainly could do it the other way and put that out. That just pushes that up some more cost wise. Bird: I would be very interested. I don't know about the other two Councilmen and the Mayor, but I would be very interested in keeping track of what it has cost this way against having a bid from private to do the complete deal. Because if you give them specifications they are going to put that in the same way as you are or anybody else, you know, unless they are not doing their job. I am sure we have got a bunch of qualified people that could do that. I think in the long run it Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 6 of 161 would save - not only be able to do it quicker, but also save the city money so we could do more. That is my opinion. Huff: I don't have a problem of taking a look at doing it that way. That is fine. Bird: Okay, thank you. Strong: Thank you, moving on. This is a picture of the Father Gill Pathway renovation and actually this work was completed just this week and you can see on the left the picture of what the root damage was to the pathway that we showed you last year and the new pathway is on the right and it is in and, I think, essentially complete at this point. There was a little bit of challenge with this project because this as you will notice is not our standard ten foot wide multi-use pathway. This pathway is one of the older city maintained pathways that we have. It also as you can see down through that corridor is not wide enough to put in a ten foot pathway, so we had a little difficulty finding even somebody that could do that narrow stretch of paving with the right equipment, but it is done and it looks very good. So, it has improved the pathway so there is not the hazards that there was before the roots. Fire Station 4, I think everybody is aware of this project with completion of Fire Station 4 and this is a picture taken just this week to show that the landscaping is coming along and maturing considering some of the early problems that we had with the landscape, but it is coming along very nicely and is a nice addition to the neighborhood and actually the pathway down where it goes into the neighboring area there they have taken the fence at the end of that pathway, so it is just a continuous connection right into the neighborhood. So, it seems to be well received by the neighbors. As we discussed last year, we have a landscape maintenance contract that is maintaining all of the downtown areas as well as the fire stations throughout the city under contract. We will continue that contract this year or we are proposing continuing the contract into 2007 and we will look at other areas that we can include in the contract. As most of you are aware we have been working with the Legal Department and our consultant, SSC Research and Consulting to update park impact fees as well as fire and police impact fees and looking at a fee for the first time and work has progressed very well in this particular contract and it looks like that the final draft will be ready for public hearing on July 25th. We have entered into a contract with Alta Planning Design from Portland to complete our master pathway update and plan. They will begin their work July 2ih. We actually put this out for bid twice to get enough responsive bids to do this project so it has taken us a little while to get it under contract and started, but we will be under way with this project in partnership with the Planning Department to get this done. Some of the challenges that we faced this last year just - as we discussed in Council meetings and other opportunities where we have had the opportunity to talk about some of the things that we have had to address in this last year was certainly the wet spring weather delayed a lot of the construction Meridian City Council Budget WorKshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 7 of 161 projects, not just for us but for people all over Meridian or the area. During that time we saw a real significant increase in construction costs for many of our projects. We have had a turnover in our Recreation Superintendent position. We are happy to have Rhianna Thomas on board and we are working to stabilize that recreation position and get things growing in the recreation division. We have been working towards creating agreements with the School District for the use of their facilities and we are seeing some positive change in this area in this year and it looks like more opportunities are presenting themselves to get some good solid facility use agreements with the School District. We have been working increased recreation programs with essentially a limited budget and facilities and as I showed you earlier the revenue that has been generated this year, we plan to have that help support the increase costs of providing recreation services over the years ahead. Onto what we are asking for this year - the enhancements - De Weerd: Doug, if you would allow me to interrupt you for a moment. Strong: Certainly. De Weerd: I would like to tell you and since I see your parks foreman here, I have received a lot of calls on the condition of the parks that are very complimentary. I think this was the first year that I haven't had some phone calls about weeds or dry spots or - and maybe it is because people are too busy. But, I have been out there in the parks and they really look good. I also would like to compliment whoever you have on contract here at City Hall and some of our other public buildings - I used to have to go out and sweep off the shrubs because we have some very busy spiders around here and they do it as their weekly maintenance and it just is really nice to show pride in public facilities and I think we are really meeting and exceeding public expectations on that. I know we did talk to you - I passed along some concern about our vacant property and keeping the weeds down and being an example on that, but I could tell you that what we have developed is looking very good. Strong: Well, thank you. I appreciate that and just further comment on that, we are proud of what we do and particularly with the lean staffing we have in the department. I think we get a lot of good out of the employees that we have and they do a good job. Some of the issues that we had early on with the contract maintenance that we had have been resolved and we are pleased with the turnaround in that - we weren't 100 percent pleased when that contract work started in the season, but we have seen some very positive changes. Again, it comes about with staff working with the contractors to make sure that they understand what our expectation is. I am glad it is being noticed. Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Meridian City Council Budget WorKshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 8 of 161 Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: I don't know if this is the right time to ask questions before you get into these requests, but I will ask them anyway. One of the things that you had on the previous slide on creating agreements with the Meridian School District, can you give me a thumbnail sketch of the who, the what, the where and the why - not the why, but the when? Who is talking to the District? When have they been talking and what are they talking about? Is there any specifics on how that relationship is being developed? Strong: Madame Mayor, Councilman Borton actually we have been - our primary contract has been with Scott Stewart, who is the School District Athletic Director or Athletic and Activities Director for the School District and Colin and I have met with him several times and set up agreements for use of gymnasiums for like adult basketball, adult volleyball. We have worked with him to negotiate use of softball fields, which we ended up not needing, but any of the facility use we have been directed to work through Scott's and he deals with school district wide facility issues. There is also talk with Linda Clark. They Mayor has talked with Linda Clark about future issues and we still need to talk further to see if we can get more of a generalized agreement rather than to having negotiate another agreement for each facility that we want to use and that is still pending. That will start with the superintendent on down. Borton: Are you getting some sense that they are open to that type of general agreement for city wide use of school facilities, scheduling and things like that? Strong: Well, I hope I am not optimistic, but my sense is that they are. I think that they are very interested in working with us. They certainly are dealing with their own challenges for demand on their facilities as well. We are just another entity that wants to use what they have. But, it looks like our interest as a city are receiving a higher priority with them and particularly when we were looking - when we were negotiating this spring with Scott for use of soccer fields because of the construction at Meridian High School because it took out their soccer fields, we have allowed them to use the soccer field at Settler's Park for their soccer play, but in that discussion or negotiation we said, gee it would be really nice to have another gymnasium to use during the winter months so that we don't have to compress our schedules so much for basketball and volleyball that we can actually have both going on at the same time at different sites and cover it in a different span of weeks, so that we don't have volleyball teams that don't play for a couple of weeks at a time just because of gymnasium availability and he was very agreeable to that. Like I said, my sense and maybe it is an optimistic Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 9 of 161 one is that it certainly is improving and I think it is improving because of a very willing communication from school district personnel and so that we have additional recreation staff to help pursue these issues and follow through. So that has helped. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: While you are on the subject of gyms, I think we got a big help in the AAU volleyball and basketball by the Yanke family building the four court deal over here for AAU, which will relieve Bill Berg and (inaudible) gymnasium space at the middle school. That is what that facility was built for and off the subject, if you ever get a chance go over there and take a look at it. Go look at a beautiful gym and four beautiful courts. De Weerd: I know in talking to Lynn Yanke she said we would be more than willing to talk with the city about some city use. So, you do need to contact them. Strong: Actually I guess part of my optimism is fueled by the fact that Leann is a Meridian High School graduate and I expect that to have some leverage when we talk to the school district. Like I say, maybe I am just optimistic. I don't know. Let's see, where are we here? De Weerd: Yeah, we have a high school graduate on Council, so - I guess that is a stretch, isn't it? (Inaudible discussion) Strong: Yeah, we should have plenty of leverage there right? Okay, to continue on, one of our first general fund requests that is listed here is the dollars for recreation programming extension. We already kind of touched on this, but our goal certainly is to expand our recreation services and opportunities for citizens and like every healthy endeavor, we want to encourage healthy active lifestyles for people in the community because they have opportunity to participate in recreational activities. The cost of the program expansion will be offset by certainly by program registration revenue and as illustrated earlier we have seen dramatic increase in revenue this year with just that increased effort and our expectation is that we will be able to fund this proposed recreation program expansion with program revenue. Next request is for an active net scheduling software - because of the increase in our league play in recreation, we would like to add this software, which is designed to schedule leagues and tournaments. It is compatible with the online participant registration and facility reservation software that we installed in 2006 and actually the cost in the enhancement is for Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 10 of 161 training staff to use the software. It is internet access, so it is not software that we own, so it is just for training to become familiar with the use of the software. The Maxicon Weather Station, we discussed this with you last year. We would bring this proposal back because we would like to add the weather station and we actually have identified a site inside the fence at the Police Station for locating the weather station where it would be secure. The purpose of the weather station is to certainly to maximize weather conditions, like the wet spring that we had this year and it actually compensates for humidity and rain and other factors and it incorporates that into the weather cycles of the irrigation system and we think it will reduce our water usage by 20 to 30 percent with the use of the weather station. The staff is already trained to use the software and accommodate the information in their daily setting of the Maxicon system. We are proposing adding another large park mower in this next year. With the construction projects that I pointed out earlier, we will have about 80 acres of additional green space to maintain this next year. We would like to add an 11 foot wide mower - the large mower that we have currently is a 16 foot wide mower, so this one a little bit smaller, a little bit more versatile to get around in different areas of the park, but it will help cover the additional acreage as well as future acreage that we will be adding as the years go by. It also, the mower that we have is getting use and hours on it, so it will help us maximize the life of the existing mower by not running it all the time. Huff: Madame Mayor, members of the Council just a couple more points on that mower. We are in kind of a situation where once you gain a certain amount of acreage, if you don't have a backup mower when one goes down you get to where you can't even take all of your other mowers out and in a week's time stay anywhere close to where you want to be without a lot of extra wear and tear on those and that is why we are looking at this other mower. We have looked at several other ways to go about how to do this and we think that when we get this kind of acreage that we have got to have some kind of backup and that is part of the reason that we are looking for this large mower now - this extra mower. We even contacted the company that provides these mowers. They have a lot of them in southern Idaho and we asked them if there was anyway that you guys could get a mower somewhere in the Boise Valley because there are a bunch of them here. So, occasionally there is something broke down on them or they are out of service, is there anyway you can get a spare up here so when we have something out of service that we could use one? They said no we are not planning to do that. So, we are doing everything we can to cover the amount of acreage that we have and still get it done on a timely weekly basis. We looked at several other ways to figure out - we looked at do we hirer out some neighborhood parks and have those mowed and trimmed and weed-eated and the sidewalks blown and we looked at the costs of that verses this mower and one man and we stayed right here. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 11 of 161 De Weerd: Thank you. Strong: So, the next request goes along with the mower - the distances that we are now covering to get to different parks - we used to run the large mower down the roadways in the community and this summer we started trailering the large mower that we have. When we add this additional mower we will need another trailer to tow it to the park locations that we will be mowing and one of the things that we talked about as kind of dividing the city north and south and heading mowers out in two different directions to cover parks either north or south of the freeway. So, this additional trailer will be used to get the large mower to those sites. We have a truck to pull the trailer with. We don't need a tow vehicle to get it around; we just need a trailer to get that accomplished. We are requesting an adobe in design software. This software will be used to publish our department's quarterly activity guide. Currently we are paying an outside contractor $500 to $800 a quarter to produce our activity guide. So, we feel that this will give us a little bit more control over the production of the activity guide and we will be able to complete the publication in a more controlled timeframe. The idea behind this request is that it will help us control some of the costs and the savings that we get from controlling those costs we can increase the distribution of the activity guides to the community. Wardle: Doug, do you have someone in-house that has the training to run a design? Strong: We will have - the training is a part of the software package, so we will train one staff person to do this. Wardle: I guess one of the questions - having this software - do you have someone with the graphic design skills in the department that will be running that? Strong: Not currently, no. Like I said the training will be a part of the software package when we get that. I am going to turn this over to LeAnna and let her explain. De Weerd: Good idea. Thomas: Madame Mayor, members of the City Council this particular program created by Adobe Design and I don't know how familiar you might be with it, but they have several different programs available and I worked with it previously on a real minimal level, however, it is very user friendly and that was one of the premises that I was looking at when I had some challenges with our activity guide that I encountered a few months ago and what other options there might be available for us and in doing some research on the different software and Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 12 of 161 programs that are available for these types of publications. It is something that is very user friendly and can be picked up very quickly and I have contact with others who have used it and had much success with it. It turns out a very professional looking guide and one of the things that Doug already mentioned, I think, would be an advantage of having this program available is that it would cut down on the time and the going back and forth and back and forth that you often have to do with a contractor on a project like that. Obviously, they have other projects that they are working on and it has given us more control of putting it together and patching exactly the way that we want it so it represents what our department really wants to put out to the community and I think we can do a better sales job with the public as far as the final product that we would have. So, I am comfortable with the training that comes with the software would be suitable for my limited abilities in training that I have had in graphic design. I don't have a background in that, but having just worked around that particular program, I am comfortable that I could make the most of advantage of that and also be able to assist others that wanted to learn the software and be able to participate in the publication of that document as well. De Weerd: Thank you, Leanna. Did you have any other questions? Wardle: No, just a comment about the end design program. It is - having experience with it, it is the highest level of graphic design and page layout that you can purchase on the open market and currently, as I understand it through some of the college programs, it is a two year college program to learn how to do it. While I agree it is an exceptional tool, it is not a Microsoft Publisher work based program where you can just drop into it. So, I would say you may still need some additional outsource contract time until we can get the full training of the program. Strong: Thank you. Any other questions about that enhancement? Okay. The next request is for a ball field groomer and this piece of equipment is a specialized ball field grooming piece of equipment. It has some hydraulic drag on it and part of the reason that we are looking at this is that we have spent a lot of money bringing in diamond dust star ball fields to improve the playing surface of the fields and when you do that they require more specialized grooming to keep the field surface playable and soft so that it doesn't get hard and a specialized ball field groomer will help us maintain those fields at a higher quality. So because of our expanding leagues and use of ball fields we feel that we need to kind of move to the next step for ball field maintenance and over time probably will have to add another one or two of these particular ball field groomers as time goes by, but this is in an effort to improve the quality of the maintenance that we provide in our ball fields. During the summer months, one of our seasonal employees, the primary task is to groom fields and line fields for league play and this is something that they would use. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 13 of 161 Borton: Doug, does the School District have one of these? Bird: No. Strong: I don't think so. Borton: Have you had any discussion that they have an interest in using it, sharing it? Strong: I have no discussion of that type with the School District. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: Doug, I suppose we will need a trailer now to tow it to different fields? Strong: We already have trailers that will haul - Bird: What field is the -I mean, I have got a real problem with spending $14,500 for a groomer when I have been involved for 25 years with a baseball field that is considered to be one of the finest in the Valley and we have never needed a groomer. When I played ball at Boise and Nampa, we were the groomers when we got done with the game or before the game. I think until I see - I can't support something like this, Doug, until I see - when I go by Tulley Park five nights in a row and I don't see any games going on over there - I haven't been to the other, other than Storey Park. 1 think we could put $14,500 into a better use to be truthful, right now. I think with that gold dust and stuff that all you need is a harrow and something to pull it with and every park has got a mule or something there that could pull it. Strong: Okay. Well, our next request is for a utility vehicle and this is a small utility vehicle, much like our mules that we have in the park and this is needed because of increased park acreage that there is many tasks that we do in a park where using a full sized pick up is not really suitable for getting around as far as interaction with park users and patrons. So, we had originally written a request for two utility vehicles and we paired that back to one for this year to add to the number of utility vehicles we have and it is a need because of new parks or additional parks that we are adding to maintain this in this next year. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 14 of 161 Bird: You say it is a small- now what are we talking about a little Luv Pickup or something like that or are we talking about one of those larger, I call them mules, I don't know what their real names are, I just call them mules? Strong: Typically, the utility vehicles that you see in our parks now are the Kawasaki mule. One of - a new type of vehicle that we looked at are the small and I will call them Japanese pickups that you see around town. There is a dealer that brings them in. They are actually used. They import them from oversees and they have got maybe 20,000 miles on them, but they actually have a cab and a heater and windshield wipers and I have seen them in other communities where they actually add snowplows to them and things like that. They come in four wheel drive, if you need them or two wheel drive and actually the price for them is about the same as buying a mule. But, they offer greater versatility because they can be used more comfortably year around. Bird: They are street legal and they can be used in different types of weather. Strong: They can be licensed to operate on the street. I believe the closest example I have seen is down, close to the corner of Meridian and Cherry Lane. There is a furniture place down there that had a sign in ,the back of a little tiny pickup that was sitting there and it's an example of what we are looking at. Bird: I know which one you are looking at. Strong: They would be used primarily within the park. We wouldn't put somebody in one to get around town necessarily, but if they need to go on the street they can be licenses and be street legal. So, that is what we are looking at. Now, whether we end up buying one of those or not, would depend on availability, but either that or we would stay with the standard utility vehicle that we are currently using like the Kawasaki mule or the Polaris Ranger. There is a variety - Bird: Can you buy one of them for $6,250? Strong: Not a brand new one. Bird: That is what you have got in the budget. If you find some used ones, would you let the American Legion know? Strong: We are basing that price at looking at these small pickups that come in as imports and that is the price that we got from the local dealer that brings them into the country. Meridian City Council Budget Work.shop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 15 of 161 (Tape turned over - side two) Bird: While we are on vehicles, Doug, how many pickups do we have sitting down at your lot that aren't being used on a regular basis? Strong: I don't believe we have - well, we have one that we have gotten from the Water Department that we are in the process of renovating, I guess would be the best way to say it. We have had to reupholster the seat and do some other work. Many of the pickups that we get, we go through a process of making them serviceable once we get them, but that is the only one that I am aware of that is not currently being used, particularly during the summer months. We just surplused an old truck that we took out of the fleet that we didn't have any intent to use this year. So, we try and keep all of them serviceable and in use. Bird: Well, I think we need to look at all of our departments and the vehicles that aren't being used, I think, are costing us money and we need to move them down the road if we don't need them. De Weerd: I would say for the most part in parks they get all of the vehicles that are handed down to them, so they take what they get. Strong: These are pretty well depreciated out and not cost the city too much money, I wouldn't think. But, when we get them we do have some initial cost often times to put brakes or tires or do something to them, but it is certainly less than buying a pickup and we are very willing to continue to do that. De Weerd: We appreciate that. Bird: And while we are on vehicles, Doug, do we have - are all of yours signed up? I think most of yours are all signed up aren't they? They have got signs on the side of them? Strong: We have two that we need to get Parks Department on verses Water Department, but they all have signs. They obviously are city pickup. Bird: Okay, thank you. Strong: I would point out that the Taurus car that we got from the Police Department doesn't have a city sign on it. Bird: It will, right? Strong: Yeah, we are not a detective anymore I guess. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 16 of 161 De Weerd: You don't need to be undercover. Strong: Okay, we talked about downtown tree box replacement. This is the enhancement request that is in the 2007 budget request. We talked earlier about what we are still hoping to accomplish with our 2006 budget. This is an ongoing project. The significance of this request is that the Meridian Development Corporation has been requested to provide an additional $20,000 for downtown tree replacement that we will be using in this next year so that they are a partner in some of the downtown tree replacement projects that we have going on. Borton: Doug, can you tell me a little bit about that relationship with MDC and the tree boxes and is it something that MDC provides some funding and helps the city when the city does it and organizes it and makes sure it is accomplished or -- ? Strong: I am going to let Elroy - Huff: Councilman Borton, I went to an MDC meeting last year and we were discussing tree boxes and downtown stuff before we got further into the new streetscape design and they offered to put some money towards that one thing with downtown tree grates and tree renovation and so we kind of took them up on that and they have been very gracious about that and just recently I have ordered 20 more new tree grates and that money that they are putting forth will take care of most of the cost of that. I think for 20 tree grates it is about $25,000 for those and they are heavy cast iron. They are going to be around here for an awful long time. So, that part is all good. At least we are working back and forth with them on that. I have been talking with Clair Bowman quite a lot about how we are doing things and working with them on the tree streetscape plan and where all this stuff fits in. De Weerd: I guess Councilman Borton; I will say that for their Board's discussion and from the city's aspect as they move forward with the streetscape, they need to address who maintains and who assumes the responsibility. They are designing and adding additional work to the Parks Department and I think that and other models throughout the state that the downtown urban renewal area takes care of that. So, I believe that is being discussed by the Board and certainly needs to be an item of consideration by this Council. We did reduce the amount in previous years so that instead of them giving the money to us, we will give it to them and in my recommendation this will be the last year that we would be a participant, but this should be an MDC thing. Strong: Another request that we have added to our 2007 budget request is the purchase of soccer goals so that we could begin to offer adult soccer league programs. We have done a survey of current program participants and this was Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 17 of 161 one of the highest areas of interest by the respondents of that survey is that they would like the opportunity to participate in adult soccer league, so we are looking at buying goals that we can then have at fields and use. This would be in conjunction with goals that we would use that the PAL organization has at the fields as well. They also have goals at the fields, but we have run into situations in the past where we had requests for the use of soccer fields and because goals were being repaired or some other situation that we actually had to go out and hunt up goals from other sources to actually provide for play. Something (inaudible) this year would give us greater flexibility and goals that we would control within the department. De Weerd: Doug, would this be a cost that would be recouped through a league fee? Strong: Yes. There would be a registration fee established for the program to cover costs of officiating and equipment. De Weerd: Thank you. Borton: That actually brought up a question on recreational program expansion that we talked about at the start. Is this part of that? I noticed in that first one it didn't show an expense of - one time of capital expenditures for the program expansion, but is this one component of those expenses for that expansion, which are (inaudible) fees? Strong: Well, we didn't look at it that way. I think that is something certainly that we could consider. We have been talking about adding soccer goals for a while, so we added it as a separate enhancement, but as the Mayor has pointed out it is something that we could simply purchase with revenue from registration from the program as well, whether we look at it as a specific enhancement or we just put it in expanded recreation services. We could go either way with that. Borton: As long as it is recouped. Strong: We need to establish higher budget expenditure for programs for expansion to buy equipment to hire officials and I think during the course of the year and as we are addressing currently, we want to track revenues so that when we are about to run out of budget dollars, we come back and amend the budget to reflect the increase in revenue and therefore, the expenditure that goes along with that. De Weerd: Doug, is there a recreation business plan that has been put together so as you come back with those budget amendments, there is kind of that justification or rationale for the additional expenditures and the offset of revenue? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 18 of 161 Strong: We don't currently have a recreation business plan. What we have talked about is adding a section in our Comprehensive Plan or action plan that deals more specifically with recreation services. If you look at our current action plans, it is mostly facilities or parks oriented in the way that it is written and presented and Leanna and I have talked about adding a chapter in that Comprehensive Plan that would be more specific to recreation services and a long term or at least a five year plan for expansion of recreation services. De Weerd: I understand that there is a formula that Leanna used as an inter- program. I think it would be helpful in planning future programs and that sort of thing to develop a plan so there is a better predictability there and justification as we get in front of Council. Strong: We agree whole-heartedly. It needs to be done. A couple of years ago, we brought an enhancement request to build a bridge across the Five Mile Creek from the 8th Street Park to connect to the Bud Porter Pathway into Tulley Park. We are bringing that back because this is kind of a continued issue with just safety and crossing that Five Mile Creek with kids that come from the neighborhooq that are trying to find their way to school and other routes. We thought this would be a good year to propose this because of the construction with the new Water Department building and feel that this would be a good coordinated project as the Water Department construction of that building takes place and we can realign a pathway out of 8th Street Park across the bridge and into the Bud Porter Pathway into Tulley Park. So, we have brought this back with - actually with our Parks and Recreation Commission and this is an item that when we talk about goals from year to year comes up every year as something that has kind of stayed on the radar screen with the Commission as well. Bird: Then somebody won't have to crawl across the ditch and fall on his head, will he? Strong: We can provide a bridge. We can't make people cross on the bridge; I guess would be one way to say it. Actually, there was a bridge for that fellow very nearby and he chose to go through - (Inaudible discussion) Strong: With the increase in multi-use pathway and we have about five miles of multi-use pathway now that we are responsible for maintenance of and we are at the point where want to add a broom to our equipment lists so that we can remove debris from the pathway as they are used and when you are out using a pathway there is a variety of - or there is several times throughout the year where you see that the pathways get either gravel dragged out on them, like Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 19 of 161 along the Five Mile Creek pathway or the Bud Porter Pathway, where Nampa Meridian ditch riders go down to maintain where they will drive with one wheel on the pathway and one wheel off and they drag rock and debris and goat heads up onto the pathway. So, a broom would help us for several times a year that we could just run a broom down the pathway and remove debris. Winter time it is also useful for removing snow at least small skiffs of snow, if you have several feet of snow it wouldn't work, but for much of the kind of seasonal snowstorms that we get around here it would also remove snow on pathways in the winter time. Bird: Doug, before you go on, would you - on that broom would you talk to Kenny Hamilton at the speedway? He has got a little setup that has got a broom on it that he uses out on the track to brush the dust and stuff off. See if you could use that and see what kind of a cost he has in it. Try that and - I know he would let you use it to try it on the - have you seen it Elroy? Huff: Yes, I have. Bird: Is that kind of what you are looking at? Huff: It is similar to that, yes. Bird: I think we could almost work out something with Kenny if you are not going to use it on - I am sure you are not going to do it weekly or something, are you? Strong: No. Bird: I know we could work something out with Kenny that - I mean, we don't have that many miles right now of pathway. One of these days we will have. But, go take a look at that and see what - he got it from Indianapolis Speedway so see what they paid for it. Strong: We will take a look at it. Bird: I think you need to groom at least two or three times a summer - the pathways. I firmly believe that. Strong: Yeah, I think a lot of bicycle riders would appreciate fairly often- sweeping. Borton: One thing that I would like to see is the kids that damage the parks and I know this can be set up real easy - part of their punishment, through restitution rather than mom and dad writing the check or in addition to is the requirement that the kids show up at your department at 8:00 and you hand them a broom. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 20 of 161 There is enough kids that if you hand them a broom and you say I will see you at 5:00 and sweep this pathway. See you later. You don't have to stand there and supervise them. You can come back at 5:00 and have them do it. I would just as soon see the kids just sweep this thing and if it takes them all day, then it takes .. them all day rather than pay for a broom. Bird: You know, it does work, too because that is what we used to do at the Speedway when we had little kids break into our concession stand. We would bring it up there and make them help us clean up and stuff and the four or five that we have had that I have kept in touch with have turned out to be awfully good citizens. Borton: I would ask before to try and have those kids come and apologize to Council and that was maybe a little harsh. Bird: Can you legally do that? Borton: You can ask them, sure. You can ask. Bird: You can't demand them, though can you? Borton: There is a mix of things. I think you can. When they damage the parks, it is one thing to fix them, but put them to work, too. Strong: I like all those ideas and I think it is certainly something that we will follow up on. The significance of this enhancement request is that we certainly want to make you aware that we are at a stage in multi-pathway development throughout the community that as the more sections that we acquire to maintain, we currently have very limited equipment to maintain the pathways and need to start thinking in terms of what do we need to do to do a good job to maintain pathways. We added a parks security cameras to our requests, party related to what you were just talking about, is to provide a better surveillance in parks that we know are currently experiencing vandalism problems. We have identified Settler's Park and Chateau Park. So, these are cameras for those two parks. We want to deter any vandalism as much as possible, but we also want to be able to identify people when vandalism does occur. It is similar to what we already have at Tulley and we got this price from the same security company that provided the cameras at Tulley Park. Bird: Doug, are you pulling the lighted softball fields? Strong: I am not at this point. It is actually the next one that just came up and this request came from a discussion with the Mayor and Linda Clark with the School District to partner on the development of four softball fields at the new Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 21 of 161 Heritage Middle School and light two of the fields that could then be used by girls fast pitch. The thing I like about this particular opportunity is it is another foot in the door with the School District to partner on a development project and it would be my intent to create a development agreement that would identify how much we can use those fields and our ability to schedule the fields and to maintain those fields during the summer months when they are not being used by the School District. Bird: Doug, I have got a question. If we are going to spend $200 on lighted fields, why don't we light some of our existing fields and let them play ball? Like I said, I drove by Tulley which has two softball fields and I don't know why the girls can't play fast pitch on it. Maybe they have different rules or something, but why would we not want to light up our own fields instead of going out there? About 53 percent of my tax dollars, property tax dollars go to the Meridian School District and only 21 percent goes to the city and don't get me wrong, I have probably done as much raising money and stuff for the School District as anybody in this room and I don't have nothing with helping it, but I do think our tax payers in the city deserve to have lights on their fields that they can use before we go out and light fields for the School District. Strong: Well, currently the only lighted city field we have, as you are aware is at Storey Park - Bird: -- and we didn't pay for that. Strong: And those fields are used primarily in the softball season and then in the fall for our fall leagues. Typically during our summer baseball I softball play, it stays light so late into the evening that lighting the fields has not been an issue in many of the fields that are used. It is those early spring (inaudible) like the senior softball and then late fall, like church leagues, senior league softball teams that run out of daylight by the end of the day. Bird: But, Doug, you are not going to get those fields for city until after May and you are telling me that is when we don't need the lights. De Weerd: I guess I will step in because this is something that Doug also inherited. We were looking at responding to initial or I guess, really stepping up and showing a true partnership with the School District. These are five softball fields, but they are not specific to just women's fast pitch. They are certainly multi-use and they will be available to the city as well. So, certainly as the city looks to attract tournaments, we can use a multiple number of fields within the city and this certainly would be, I guess, more conducive to those kinds of tournament play. But, also in that this is at a middle school that does not have softball leagues within the school itself. It is not a high school where they would Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 22 of 161 be dominating that and that is one of the primary reasons that we really saw this as a potential partnership with the city. That was the discussions that we have had and this was the idea of the initial kickoff partnership, the more formalized one that we could show how those partnerships could work with the School District. Bird: I am not disagreeing. I don't know if they - I don't think they need lights at a middle school, but we have got five softball fields right now within our park systems, good softball fields that we paid good money for. We just brought in gold dust last year and I know what we spent for that and what we put on it. Why don't we want to light them first instead of the School District property? I am partnering with the School District every December when I go down and write out a check. Strong: Councilman Bird, one thing that we have talked about in lighting in our own fields is like at Tulley Park and Bear Creek is the proximity of the neighborhood surrounding the fields and the appropriateness of lighting those fields as well. There are some new directional lighting systems that are supposed to work in those neighborhoods. I don't have any direct experience with that, but that has kind of kept us a little at bay of proposing adding lights in those fields because of how close the neighborhood is. Bird: Have you seen what is going in out there? You don't think there are going to be any neighbors out there. De Weerd: Keith, it is the School District's opinion that the placement of those fields would not compromise neighboring subdivisions and this would go in first. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I have some of the same concerns as Councilman Bird. One thing that I would like to see is something more formalized in writing about this relationship because I see an awesome opportunity. I know we talked about it, Doug, when the District sort of relinquishes to a certain extent the control, the scheduling or the use of this field or all their fields within city limits - how broad this could be to allow your rec programs to control the scheduling. This particular issue I know is fields of a certain dimension, which provides a type of service for some (inaudible) that isn't available just because of the dimension of the field. I would rather not include this in the budget, get something formalized, have the District really get some official of the (inaudible) - yes, we are going to allow you to schedule these fields or these times or you control it and hear is how it is going to be maintained and who is going to pay to mow it, sweep it or whatever you have to do it and then come back and as part of that if there is a budget enhancement request - these lights fit into this broader program that is Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 23 of 161 formalized. It sounds like the relationship -- that you have done a good job with Dr. Clark and Scott Stewart - sort of set the table for that, but it would be so helpful to get that set because as new schools come on and there is requests for more lights, backstops or dugouts or whatnot just so we know who is responsible. De Weerd: I guess this is the first attempt at a formalized relationship with shared facilities. As you pointed out the School District does want us to do the scheduling and so this is what we have been working at the last seven years to gain with the School District. So, this was also their good faith effort in trying to find a project that would serve the community as well as the School District and so I guess it's my opinion that it is more than just the lighted fields. It is the scheduling that they are turning that over to the city and saying let's see how it works. I think other relationships in some of the other schools will follow. So, you know I guess this is certainly like I said a recommendation that Doug kind of inherited through other activities and in response to working with the School District on this and it certainly the ball is in your court, but I would say that this is just more than lighted fields. Borton: But, the field is from my understanding that can't be used for really anything but women's fast pitch. It's dimensions don't allow to be used for adult softball league. De Weerd: I understand differently. Borton: Is that case? Doug do you know? I thought they were different distances from the mound, from first and third - Bird: There is a difference, but just like ours, you can do it by moving it. I think they are universal. Strong: As clarification, I think that the other two games that can be played would be little league and men's fast pitch on the dimensions of this field without making changes and distance from pitching and rubber and distance to fences. It is a 200 foot fence verses a 300 foot fence. Bird: I would be interested in continuing on with what Councilman Borton was saying. I am interested in knowing who in the schools is going to use that if it is going out to the Junior High and how many fields are you going to light for $2,000. I have got an idea it is only two, I know it is. De Weerd: It is only two. _.~ Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 24 of 161 Bird: Who is going to use it for school? Is it for Rocky Mountain High School because middle schools, sixth, seventh and eighth grade don't have fast pitch softball? Strong: Madame Mayor, members of the Council these are certainly all really important questions and I unfortunately don't have the answers to all of it at this point. I see the Fire Department here and that always worries me when they arrive because they are probably next and I am going to run out of time here. I have got some more slides to go through, so I certainly will work on putting together an agreement with the School District towards the end as suggested so that we clarify some of these issues and bring something back that would be more detailed than what we have currently. De Weerd: And certainly Council, we can see if we can get Dr. Clark to come in and help enlighten you. Strong: I think this issue came up because of some pressure that is being applied on the city from a girl's fast pitch team currently and it certainly is an opportunity to address some of that concern, but maybe there are other opportunities that can grow out of that as well. Our Park Impact Fee request. This is our request or enhancements that we are asking for from Park Impact Fees. First request is for additional funds to go into our land purchase account. This year we are requesting $550,000 with funds that are currently in that purchase account, this will for the first time bring our account to over $1 million. It is starting to look like enough money that we could buy a park. Unfortunately, with today's prices it is a ten acre park and what we started out with $200,000 a few years ago, we could have bought that same ten acre park, but we are catching up and it does give us some flexibility in that account. De Weerd: You know, Doug, the other day I did hear a developer saying that prices looked that they are not only stabilizing, but they are probably going to come down and he is keeping an eye on it, so that he can start picking up maybe some of the parcels that people decided that it is just too much. Strong: Well, I think this does put us in a position also that when we can negotiate like purchasing three acres of a six acre park or things like that that we have money in the account that we can do that and we can do some bartering and come up with park acreage. So, I certainly don't think that we need to paying $110,000 an acre or $100,000 an acre or whatever it is, but that is kind of where we are and that is what we are facing if we are going to buy acreage of any significant size. We are going to have to be creative about how we do it. This is at least a dollar amount that gives us something to bargain with that we haven't had in previous years, so - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 25 of 161 Bird: Doug is ten acres - that is awful small isn't it? Wouldn't you prefer 15 or 20 acres? Strong: We would. I just- Bird: But, I am like the Mayor I know that - in fact, I know that there are a few developers out there that they are scared to death that they have some land that this cost and probably will only be worth this cost. Strong: Well, it had to plateau sooner or later and hopefully, it is approaching that now. Messina Meadows Neighborhood Park. We have two parks that - this is one that we are getting through donation to the city for the land the green up. But, we need to add the picnic shelter, the restroom, play equipment, picnic tables, drinking fountains, items like that to complete the park. This year it will be greened up. Next year we want to come back in and put the hard scape in the park. The discussion with the developer is that they would do this construction as a part of the development of the park and then we would pay it out in impact fees when complete. Heroes Park we are looking at just continuing on with some of the phasing projects that we have identified in our agreement with PAL, adding a picnic shelter and some of the other amenities to make the park usable by the public as well as by PAL. I have indicated there that the construction of the restroom and concession buildings at this park are still, by agreement the responsibility of PAL to complete. We need to continue that work in 2007 to make it a city park. Bird: Doug, have you put a time limit on the construction of the restroom and concession? Strong: We have it is in our agreement and I think they have two years or something to finish that. Bird: From when? Strong: From this year, I think they have until 2008 as I recall. Bird: To have it done? Strong: I would have to check the agreement. Bird: I don't think we want to have the park open very long to the public without having restroom facilities. Strong: Well, and they don't either. They know that when you have got a lot of kids playing soccer that restroom facilities are going to be an issue. So, that is Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 26 of 161 something that we have discussed and they want to get done as quickly as they can. Our next item is a maintenance building at Settler's Park. We want to finish a maintenance building there because of the additional acreage with the completion of the Meridian Youth Baseball Complex - the park is our largest park in the city and we need to be able to keep equipment there rather than going back and forth in some supplies to be able to maintain the park properly. Adventure Island Playground, we are very close to finishing this project and these are some of the last details to kind of finish it out as originally planned with climbing rocks and swings and benches and bike racks and garbage cans and some of the other features that as we continue to phase this project some of these areas have been trimmed out to be rising construction costs and we want to come back and complete them so that it was done as it was planned. On this particular - Seasons Park, you see in your enhancements that we were asking for a picnic shelter and I discovered this weekend in preparing for this that we omitted the restroom on this request. So, I am requesting that we put the restroom back in because it doesn't do any good to have a neighborhood park without a restroom like we just discussed. It was on oversight when we put together the enhancements and the cost of the restroom is the same that we just talked about as with Messina Meadows. With the Completion of a picnic shelter and a restroom it will complete Seasons Park. We are requesting the completion of construction documents for that village square, the southeast corner of Meridian Settlers Park so that we can plan a budget within the next year to actually begin construction on the amenities that were approved to go into that corner of the park. We are asking for a large picnic shelter at Meridian Settlers Park, but they are mentioned with Seasons Park -- because of the oversight of the restroom and what I would suggest if we are going to negotiate something out of the budget that we hold off on this shelter until next year's budget and build a restroom at Seasons Park. Primarily, I thing the sense in that is because we are doing construction designs for the SE corner we can incorporate the shelter into the completion of that corner in the 2008 budget request. If we had to negotiate something, I would prefer to fund the restroom at Seasons Park and take this picnic shelter out if we had to swap things out. I am assured by Stacy and Reta that we have adequate park impact fees to fund both, but I will leave that to your discretion. My recommendation would be that we build a restroom at Seasons Park. We want to do a site master plan for the McDermott and Cherry Lane property. This would involve coming up with a concept plan much like we did with that SE corner of Settlers Park based on public input and what the public would like to see in that 30 acre undeveloped park site that is still outside the city limits. So, as a quick summary, we feel that this is a conservative budget to maintain our current service level and yet it addresses growing community population and demand for a growing Park and Recreation system. We are working to address our CIP current goals that are addressed in CIP. Partnership agreements are being addressed. We intend to continue our contract services to maintain smaller areas and fire stations within the city and we will work to Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11,2006 Page 27 of 161 continue to balance parkland development and the need to acquire parkland. The questions might be moot at this point, but that means it is the end. De Weerd: You have never known us to wait to the end to ask questions. Strong: Well, it is always a dream, I guess. De Weerd: You could always try. If you don't try, you would never get it. Okay, Council any additional questions? Bird: Doug, I do have a question. I was going to ask and we went on by, but you want another (inaudible) trailer, but you have only got one vehicle to pull it. So, why can't we take one mower to a park and dump it of and come back and get it because we are going to have to bring that same truck back to tow it. Strong: We actually have two trucks to tow. Bird: You said you only had one. You had a tow truck. Strong: Well, what I was saying is that we don't need a truck to tow this additional trailer that we actually have a truck in our fleet currently that will tow both of the - Bird: (Inaudible) you take away my argument. Strong: The reason that that is important is we like to send them to different directions as well because it is hard to get around in Meridian. Bird: I would like to have also - it has been successful to have our smaller play stuff mowed. I would like to see outside (inaudible). I would like to see a bid to do our larger ones. I know Boise has used this outside sources to mow their larger ones too. Strong: Well, we are looking at that and I would like to have Elroy comment because he has been doing some looking at it. I have talked to Jim Hall about what they outsource and what they don't and they have some very specific criteria of what they will do. Some of what they outsource as larger areas is simply because of distance to travel to get there and the cost of that. I will let Elroy - Huff: Madame Mayor and Council members I won't keep you too long. I did a little study this spring on what it would take, for example, if we hired out five or six of our neighborhood parks that are kind of beyond the perimeter or outside of the city, where we would have to road further to get to them. I talked to a couple of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 28 of 161 companies about that. One company that is very reputable, I said what is it going to take for you to come mow, trim and weed eat six or five of these parks in different areas of the city? I got back about a $100 an acre figure per week. That is based on 46 acres. Now sometimes you can beat that, depending on who puts in the bid. I always work with the higher number end on this not knowing what is going to happen in our Valley with fuel costs and everything else. So, I actually figured up again this morning looking at it based on $90 an acre, but if we took our neighborhood parks and the perimeter and as Messina comes on and probably another one up north that is getting ready for development or getting ready to come into a plat and those kind of things happen and we would be in the range of somewhere between $130,000 to $150,000 a year for that. I am not comfortable with that at all. There might be a company out there that would lowball that enough to get that down in the $130,000 range I would say that is possible in the 34 week season. That leaves our staff to take care of restrooms and shelter and irrigation maintenance and things like that. So, I was looking for somebody to come in and blow and go on that. We tell them what height to mow. We take care of the fertilization and weed control. But that figure of around $90 an acre is pretty real right now and I don't like it a bit. There certainly somebody out there. We ended up with a pretty low bid on our maintenance contract this year. That has been real interesting. Bird: It has been satisfactory? Huff: It has been a challenge. It has worked out okay. We had to baby sit that a little more than we thought we would have to. We were concerned that that price of $29,000 was lower than we thought it would have come in at originally and sometimes you don't have any grounds to change that or grounds to challenge that. So, some of the suspicions that we did have came to reality and we had to work with them and we are going to keep them on. Whether they are a contractor for us next year I can't tell you. They are timely in everything that they do. There are some things that they are having some struggles with and we are working with them on that. But, as far as taking some load work off of my crew, that has done that job that we were trying to get done and that is fine. Bird: What is your cost per acre and having your own stuff, having a $40,000 or $50,000 mower sitting six months out of the year? Huff: I realize that it does sit. I wish I could just give you that figure, but I can't. Bird: I think that is something that for next year - I want to see some costs come in of what it is costing us now. I don't - put the pencil down to it. I know accounting would probably say well you spent this much or that much, but it isn't 100 percent that that employee could have been doing something else in that park that wasn't actually mowing. That is what I am going at. But in the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 29 of 161 construction business you have to line everything out per job and how many hours. I would appreciate that because I might be in left field and it wouldn't be the first time, but we might be cheaper to do it ourselves and buy this equipment and leave it sitting for six months than to hire out, but we need to know what it is costing us. Strong: Councilman Bird Reta just said that from what they have in their records is about 5,500 per acre, current cost. Bird: How are they getting the employee cost and the sitting and the insurance and all that included in it? Cunningham: Yes. Bird: How are you keeping the employee cost exactly to that? The employee is over there and he has to go for half an hour and dump garbage? (Inaudible) De Weerd: We need you on record. If you will speak into the microphone please? Cunningham: Councilman Bird, take 100 percent of that personnel cost for maintenance and then operating and then we just divide it by the number of acres that they are maintaining. So, we are not actually taking any equipment depreciation in that. Bird: That is what I thought. Cunningham: We could put that together. Bird: How about repairs? Cunningham: We include repair costs. Bird: Repair --? Cunningham: Yes, all operating expenditures. Bird: Down time? Cunningham: Yes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 30 of 161 De Weent And so we can compare apples to apples can you then reduce that on a per acre per week kind of cost? Cunningham: Yes. We can calculate like that. Strong: Madame Mayor, members of the Council just another item with contract services. One thing that we discovered is that when we get bids for this and we included fertilization in the contract this year and the contract identified four times throughout the season that they would fertilize and they put a dollar amount on it for that. That is one area that if they come in with a low bid that they can actually hide some costs by missing one or two cycles of fertilization and that is one of the things that we had to work with our current contractor on and it became particularly evident with Fire Station No.4. We took fertilization out of the contract and we are doing it ourselves because we felt that that wasn't being accomplished. That can be a substantial dollar amount when you take our fertilizer. Some of the struggles that we have when Elroy says that it has taken some babysitting is those kind of issues that we have to stay on top of and actually with the City of Boise, they don't include fertilization in some of their contracts either for the same reason that it is too easy for the contractor to save some dollars there and you don't even know. De Weerd: Well, if what figure you bring back is just an apples, apples comparison, however, you want to separate that out. We just need to know what is our cost and what is the contracted labor cost, so that they can make some good decisions. Not that they don't make good decisions. Thought I would clarify that. Strong: Well, I have all these highly qualified staff here if there are any additional questions. Now we know that we have gone over our time. De Weerd: Is there any other pressing questions, Council? Bird: No. Thank you for the presentation. It was very nice. De Weerd: I did hand out an attachment that I got out of the Parks Commission packet that compares - (New tape) De Weerd: We appreciate Leanna, Elroy and Mike that you attended with Doug and Diane if she still is sitting over there. (Five Minute Break) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 31 of 161 (Reconvene) Fire DeDartment De Weerd: Okay I will go ahead and call this meeting back to order. The next department up is Fire. So, I will turn this over to you, Chief. Anderson: Thank you Mayor, Council. I appreciate your time to look at the budget requests for the Fire Department. I would like to start off by saying that this year the Fire Department, I think, is being frugal with their requests and realizing - De Weerd: This time, you are saying? Anderson: Yes, this budget year. Bird: You are always frugal, aren't you? Anderson: Realizing that last year, I think, the Fire Department the (inaudible) of Fire Station No.4, you know we hired 12 new firefighters and getting our ALS program up and running and a new fire engine purchased, I noticed a sizable amount of the city's assets committed to the Fire Department last year and we realize that that can't happen every year and so we know there are needs in other departments and so I think keeping that in mind, we have always said in the past that ours will kind of go in cycles and that when we open the Fire Station, those are the years that we will be coming before you asking for more staffing and more funding, but this is one of those down years for the Fire Department (inaudible---) obviously that money should go to other departments, so hopefully as we go through our enhancement requests, you will see that I believe they are very reasonable and you shouldn't have just a number of enhancement requests for projects that you saw in the Parks Department, so ours will probably be a little quicker and easier to go through. So, I would like to start off with kind of summarizing some of the capital needs that we are looking at probably over the next 10 year period and this ties in with what we have been looking at as far as impact fees and those kinds of things. You have seen some of this presentation before in our strategic planning meeting. Starting off with the mission statement of the Fire Department obviously is to preserve the lives and property by providing services that prevent controlled fires and accidents and other emergency while maintaining the highest standard of professionalism, efficiency and effectiveness. I apologize for the organizational chart. It appears a little bit blurry up there on the screen, but you have handout that is probably too small for you to read too. There might be an organizational chart that could be provided to you by Finance or somebody else. It basically starts off with the two blocks in the upper portion there, being our Merit Council and our (inaudible) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 32 of 161 Commissioners and then going down through the Fire Chief and the two deputy chiefs and the assistant chiefs. We have two admin secretaries and a public education specialist and then the four fire stations and each station has a Captain in charge of that station (inaudible). Services that we provide are a little more extensive than just fighting fires like a lot of people believe. We also respond to vehicle accidents and perform extracation. We do hazardous material spills and we respond to meth labs along with the Police Department. We do technical rescue, such as trench rescue in (inaudible) space, water (inaudible). You are well aware that we do the emergency services and ALS advanced life support (inaudible) and also our expanding on a daily basis into areas of public education trying to prevent fires in the first place and emergencies from occurring. Plans review, code enforcement, life safety inspections, companies are out performing inspections on a daily basis and then typically anything else the Police and EMS don't want to do that is when they call the Fire Department and say can you handle this, including - after the storm on the Fourth of July we got a call from the Sr. Community over here off of Meridian and their flag pole had been damaged and we went out and repaired their flag for them and got that up and running. We do a little bit of everything. De Weerd: We will let the Parks Department know. They will be appreciative of that. Anderson: Hey we got a microphone on now. Over view of the Fire Department, it includes both the city and the Rural Fire District. Totally now we have somewhere around 77,000 is the population served by the Fire Department. We responded to almost 3,100 calls in 2005 and that averages almost 8 % per day. There are 42 firefighters total. With the three shifts that equates to about 12 to 14 firefighters on duty each day depending on vacations and sickness, minimum manning is 12. In the 2006 budget for the Fire Department was $4.7 million dollars. The challenges as you can see here is the responses - I guess the demand for our services continues to climb. I went back and tracked this on a 15 year history here and you can pretty much look at the bars there and that in 15 years has increased over 300 percent and it averages right at 20 percent a year is what our call volume is increasing at and we are right on track with that same 20 percent again this year. One of the things that the Fire Department, I guess judges itself on is our ability to respond in a timely manner and that is critical when we know that fire doubles in size roughly every one minute that it is allowed to burn unchecked. So, the national standard is to be able to reach all areas in your response area within five minutes. Because we are a city and a rural fire district, obviously in the rural area that is not possible, but in the city you can see the bottom line there that we are meeting that five minute response time with a four minute and 57 second average response time. In the rural district we are still a little greater than that. We are six minutes and 21 seconds. When you average the two it comes out five minutes and 16 seconds because obviously we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 33 of 161 have more calls in the city than we do the rural district. There are always budget challenges. I realize that. There is a desire to keep property taxes as low as possible. Budget dollars are always tight and new growth is adding strain to already strapped budgets within the city. As we continue to grow, I have a couple of maps here and the one on the left represents the Rural Fire District boundaries as they currently stand right now with the red dotted line that goes around the edge of that and we have four fire stations. As we plot that area out and we look at the need for future fire stations, we try to space those fire stations no more than three miles apart that way they have no greater than 1 ~ mile travel distances and that allows us to maintain that five minute response time. There has been a lot of talk recently about expanding some of the areas of the city's area of impact and referral area. As we do that, keep in mind that that also will add to the need for additional fire stations. So, the future map on the right shows what might happen in the area south of Meridian in the area between Meridian and Kuna. Currently, we have one fire station on the south side of the Interstate, Station 4 and probably if our boundaries remain unchanged, we would need an additional two stations. But, depending on how far south we go that could mean four additional fire stations at build out. One of the challenges that we face, obviously just like the Parks Department is being able to buy the land that we need now for the future fire stations and typically we don't get land for a fire station until we are pretty well built out in an area and that makes it very expensive land normally. It is the land that is least desirable. It is the land that needs two or three feet of fill dirt hauled in before you can actually use it or it has got a canal running through it that is going to have to be tiled or rerouted or something else. So, we are actively out there looking and pursuing looking for ground at all times and in fact last night at our Rural Fire District meeting we had a realtor visiting us and we are looking for land for future fire stations in the southern part of our district right now. But, that is a challenge and we need to try and find land prior to the build out or prior to all of the good land being purchased so that we can get desirable sites. It is very common in the fire service and you probably read in the paper over the last few years about Boise relocating fire stations and that is very expensive to do. So, by good planning, initially we hope to avoid situations where we are coming back to you guys asking you to relocate a fire station because it is not in a desirable area that still serves the needs of the department, so it is critical that we be allowed to do these land purchases ahead of the development. De Weerd: Ron, I guess this question pertains to kind of your challenges on your incidences and response times. By response times you really have been able to accomplish the improvement because the different locations of the stations located throughout the area as well in the increases of the incidences. They also proportionally to the number of stations and number of personnel, we are way ahead of it in terms of what we have added in. So, as you look to expand or add Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 34 of 161 on another facility, how is response time and number of incidences in each part of town taken into account before you decide to open up a new station? Anderson: Well, there are a number of factors, I guess, that go into the decision about opening another fire station and response time is one of those factors and response time sometimes is just based off of the simple distance that you have to travel, but it also in Meridian's case, can be compromised because of the increased traffic flow, so when we get on sections where it is very difficult to get through and the traffic gets bogged down, that also slows up our response times and even though we have lights and siren and opticom, we still when we have to jump into that center lane and travel down a busy road, we reduce our speed accordingly and so response times get compromised because of that and those intersections, you still have to come to almost a complete stop to make sure that you get through them safely. But, in addition to the travel distance and response time, we also have to look at the number of homes or businesses that have been built in that area and then they look at the water supply that is available in that area and that is a big determining factor on whether you need to build an additional fire station. The more area that we have developed out, rather it is in subdivision or commercial area, when it has water supply in and it's greater than 1 % mile travel distance to the closest fire station that actually works against the city in our rating process. So, we look at an area typically when it starts to become about 50 percent developed. We look at whether the water system is in. We look at our response times and those are all factors that help drive the decision about whether we need to open a fire station in that particular area or not. But, you are correct when you say that Meridian's response times have been going down because 20 years ago, we still had that same land mass that we have today that we to cover out of a single fire station and now because we have four fire stations, obviously they are getting spread out more and that reduces response times until we can get the first unit on the scene. So, those response times are continuing to reduce, but what we also see is they will reduce initially and then as traffic congestion builds, they start to creep back up again on us and then when we open another station then they drop down again. So, it is kind of an ever changing deal there so, we have to monitor those response times consistently. Hope that answered your question. De Weerd: To a certain degree. We will work on it. Anderson: Is there something that I could clarify more? De Weerd: No. Anderson: Up here I just show a slide with Fire Department needs and again, this is based over the next ten years. We are not just looking at this year's budget, but at some point in the future Meridian is going to need to purchase it's Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 35 of 161 own aerial truck. The closest aerial trucks that we have are in Nampa and in Boise. Nampa's is located at their downtown station and Boise's is located at Station 6 over on Franklin Road, east of Cole Road. The survey and rating bureau only recognizes truck company service if it is within a 2 % mile radius. Any building that is over 35 feet in height that is built in the City of Meridian or any building that requires greater than a 3,500 gallon per minute flow, will work against us in our rating and those buildings require, even if they are sprinkler buildings will require the services of a ladder truck. So, right now we are relying on mutual aid and automatic aid from our surrounding cities to help us with that. For example, every response we do out at St. Luke's Hospital we get a truck company dispatched from Boise along with that. But from survey and rating standpoint, they don't recognize that at all. We know in practicality that that truck can be invaluable if we have a working fire there, but survey and rating will not recognize that because it is not within the 2 % mile radius. So, hopefully sometime in the future whether it is impact fees or what that we can use, we are going to need an aerial truck. Those are not cheap. Our estimates right now are somewhere in the neighborhood of about % of a million dollars. We also need to look at having our own training facility. In the past years we have relied heavily on Boise and Nampa to use their training towers to help train our firefighters and we do our recruit classes there, but as they grow and get more stations and more firefighters what we are finding is quite often when we call them up and ask them to use their towers they say they are not available. The skills maintenance for firefighters is very high. They have to practice the skills that they learn in recruit academy almost on a daily basis to stay proficient at them. Right now we rely upon just going out and drilling in the streets or empty parking lots or getting abandoned structures donated and those types of things and they are not always available to us. At some point we need to look at building a training facility. We are working right now with our partners the Rural Fire District and it looks like they may have the funding. This year we had put in an enhancement request for a training facility and it looks like the Rural District possibly may be able to fund that this year in it's entirety as it has been removed from the enhancement request here. The bottom two pictures obviously show that we are going to need more stations and we are going to need more firefighters, again at the appropriate times. So, that is something that we will continually monitor. We . know that the area in the North Meridian planning area, that a lot of that land mass has been actually subdivided now and it is a just a matter of when they build the houses. Obviously, if we have a slowing in the economy or interest rates go up that can affect when we will need that station. But, we know we will need the station. We have a piece of ground donated up there and we are also again possibly looking at our Rural District partners to help us with the funding of that station as they have with the last two fire stations. Bird: Can I interject, Ron, if you don't - they would like to build this in fiscal year '07 and they would fund the personnel for fiscal year '08 and then the city Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 36 of 161 wouldn't have to start until fiscal year '09 funding the personnel. I realize that that is two years away for us, but something that - I don't know if Ron has got the same desire to have it built right now as they do, but they seem to think that they need to have it out there to service their rural northern people that are not in the city now. I will let Ron expand on that, but we would not be responsible on any cost of that until fiscal year 2009. De Weerd: Is that north or south? Bird: That is the north one, Mayor. That is the only ground that we have got and they felt they needed to go north - Ron, interject if I am not right. Anderson: Yes, we had a meeting from Doug Young from the Idaho Survey and Rating Bureau and he come out and he laid out some of the things that I was just talking to you about, water supply and build out and those kinds of things. There had been a question whether to build a fire station to the north or the one to the south first. After listening to Doug Young from the Survey and Rating Bureau it became very apparent to everybody there that the station to the north would do the most good and it really would the most good for the City of Meridian because of the number of new subdivisions that we have in that particular area and would do more to lower our rating. Because that land has already been approved and subdivided and sewer and water is available, we have the land and I think it is probably prudent for the Rural District to push ahead with that fire station. It probably would not actually be built and ready to open until the fall of 2008 and they are willing to fund the staffing cost for the first year. So, that would mean the city would not pick up the staffing cost until the '09 budget, which would be the fall of '09. Which, I think is a very good deal for the city and it would help probably lower our overall rating. So, I think we would be foolish not to do that and I would imagine that the Rural District is going to look to you guys for some type of confirmation that yes, you are willing to accept that before they are going to go out and build a station because they don't want to have a station sitting there empty. So, they need to have, I guess, some type of a fairly firm commitment that you guys would be willing to take the staffing cost on into the '09 budget. Keep in mind, when you take on the staffing cost, they still are going to pay their proportionate share of that staffing cost so you are not paying 100 percent of that. They are still going to pay their proportionate split of the funding formula even in '09. Bird: Ron, didn't you mean that they want to open it up in the fall of '07 and they will fund '08 and then we take it over starting in October of '08 through the fiscal year of '09, right? Anderson: I thought they were going to fund it through '08? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 37 of 161 Bird: They do. Starting in October of '08, it is done and then we take it over - but they were going to open in the fall of '07, weren't they? Anderson: I think you are right. Bird: So, we are getting it. But, Ron - 100 percent - I got the feeling last night that they do want some assurance. They don't want to fund it one year and then find out that we are not going to fund it so they close it down. I mean, that isn't fair to anybody. I think it is a win, win situation for the city my self. Anderson: Here I just quickly show you the aerial truck. That would have the greatest impact on our ISO rating. Typically those are staffed by four firefighters each day, which would mean a total of 12 and the cost of the truck is roughly three quarters of a million dollars. One of the things that we are exploring if we do do an aerial truck is possibility of using the same staffing that we use currently at Station 1 on an engine company and transfer them over and make a truck company out of them and buy an apparatus that can be used for either a truck or an engine, which could save the 12 additional staff personnel salaries, which would make it a little more feasible to put a truck company in service in Meridian if we do that. Building new stations - these costs are pretty accurate having just built Station 4. That building cost does not include land, however. It is about $1.1 million to build the building. About $410,000 to buy the fire engine and the buy the equipment that goes on it and then typically you need about 9 personnel and the staffing. The training tower is needed to maintain our skills, keeps companies in our fire district instead of going to Boise or Nampa to train. Cost is roughly $500,000. If you look at the three options there of an aerial truck, a fire station or a training tower and you add in the operation and maintenance and you add in the personnel costs, you can see that aerial truck is $1.9 million as compared to opening a fire station, which is about $1.9 million. It's slightly less to do an aerial truck than it is a fire station and then the training tower was a half million. Again, keeping in mind that this year we new that we got a fire station and 12 new guys last year, so we chose the cheapest option, the one that didn't require a lot of continual operation and we requested the training tower in this year's budget in the enhancements. De Weerd: Ron, on that slide the difference between the fire station and aerial truck is the aerial truck has a four man crew and you are basing the fire station on the minimum three? Anderson: Yeah. Exactly right. De Weerd: Okay. Meridian City Council Budget Wor1<.shop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 38 of 161 Anderson: I know you can't read this very good on the Power Point presentation so you have a handout that shows this and this is basically the same information that we provided to the consultant working on the impact fees as far as what the Fire Department's capital needs would be over the next 10 years. And again, this is dependent upon that growth and if growth slows here in the Treasure Valley and in Meridian in particular this is based off of our current growth trends and during that next ten years if things continued as they are today, we would probably need to build three fire stations, buy the apparatus, hire the personnel - we probably would have to put the aerial truck into service and we would need a training tower. So, that CIP for the next 10 years shows all those things being in there. But, I want to point that out to you guys because I guess one of the things that I always lacked when I was on the Council was I always got these one year snapshots and nobody ever told me what the big picture was; what is going to happen next year? What is the Fire Department going to be back asking for next year and it is kind of nice to know what the requests are going to be year after year just to see what your entire capital needs are going to be. So, that is why this was provided. De Weerd: Now, Ron, also in your capital or CIP here we have a training tower listed. So, what would we do with the Rural Fire District is the impact fees would be collected. There would be a certain pay back to the Rural Fire District is that correct? Anderson: Yes, Mayor there are actually probably two options available. You could either do it that way or if we know for sure now that the Rural District is going to fund that, we could simply remove that from the CIP and also from the impact fees which would lower the impact fees. At the time when we were putting together the impact fee, CIP a couple of months ago we didn't have the firm commitment that we have today from the Rural District and that is why that training tower was left in there. So, we have two options. Either leave it and then we repay them or we remove it and they would just pay for the entire training tower at this time and we would wipe it off the CIP completely. Bird: Ron, that would basically be the same thing with Fire Station 5 - if they build it and we have got it involved in here, we would pay back with impact fees, I'd hope, wouldn't we? Anderson: Yes. Bird: Because we don't want to take that off of our impact fee, where the training tower is a one time small shot. Anderson: The training tower, I guess, based off of our meeting last night that I feel fairly comfortable that they are willing to move forward with that right now at Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 39 of 161 the present time where Station 5 is more a year or year and one half type of thing down the road, where I feel more comfortable removing the training tower and leaving Station 5 in the impact fees. Bird: I agree with you. J think it is pretty sure because I think you have the go ahead on a RFP, didn't you? Anderson: Yeah, we are going to work on that between now and next meeting. So, if I could turn your attention now I guess to this year's enhancement requests and Stacy wanted me to clarify. J just got the numbers put together yesterday. The funding formula split between the city and the Rural Fire District - every year is based off of two factors and that is the population of the city, the population of the Rural District and the assessed value of the city and the assessed value of the Rural Fire District. So we get those numbers and then we average those and that determines what the percent that the Rural District funds out of our budget and last year they funded 20 percent and this year based off of those new numbers that percentage is going to lower to 17 percent and that is because those two factors that we used for the equation have changed and the city has annexed property that used to be in the Rural District and the assessed values have changed. So, that is going to mean that the city share of our base budget is going to increase by an additional 3 percent. Stacy you had that number, right? It is 133,000 according to Stacy. More that the city will have to pick up verses the 20 percent. In our enhancement request, the first request is for a Deputy Chief of EMS. What we have found since we implemented our ALS program is that is a program that requires constant attention and oversight. Every day as our paramedics go on calls, those charts need to be reviewed to make sure that the proper procedures are being carried on in the field. We review those and pass those on to our medical director. There are a number of oversight things that have to take place on a daily, weekly and monthly basis from attending meetings with all of the EMS providers in the Treasure Valley to the hospitals where we transport our patients and continuing education that has to be overseen and all those types of things. So, we had asked for this position in last year's budget and you guys couldn't fund it last year, but you gave us money for a consultant. This year we would like to ask that that position be funded. It is something that is badly needed to oversee our EMS program and to ensure it's success. We have invested a lot of time and energy and money into our ALS program and I would hate to see it fail simply because we can't provide the oversight of it and we would like to add that position and would answer any questions you guys might have of it. Bird: What is the dollar volume, Ron? That is the one that we have got - we have nothing under that. We have got it under a fire inspector. Is that supposed to be moved up one line? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 40 of 161 Anderson: Yeah. Actually if you flip the page I think it is on your actual enhancement request and it would show the salary and the one time cost. So, it is basically $125,000 is the cost of - the total hard dollar cost salaries, benefits, equipment and all those kind of things. If we do that, then you would reduce the $93,000 that is in the number request because that would be a wash. We are looking at a restructuring in the department and doing away with an assistant chief position and moving the chief assistant position to a fire inspector position. So, the number one Deputy Chief would be $125,000 and then the fire inspector would be zeroed out on your chart there. The second request is for that fire inspector position and to our best knowledge we have somewhere over 1,000 commercial businesses in Meridian right now. Part of the fire code requires that we go into those businesses on an annual basis and perform inspections to make sure the building is being maintained as it was originally intended and that the fire suppression system, sprinkler systems, fire alarms are working and housekeeping is being kept up, exits are not blocked. Currently out of those 1,000 businesses we are only able to hit about 300 of those a year. So, the fire inspector position would give us somebody who would work full time on that effort to go into existing businesses and provide those ongoing fire inspections. Doesn't mean that we will reduce our company inspection program by any means, we think that is a very valuable program and it gets our fire companies out into the businesses, makes them familiar with what is in their district. But, this would be somebody that could probably fulfill a niche there that would probably accomplish another 500 or 600 of those inspections a year, possibly more, which would get us a lot closer to fulfilling those 1,000 commercial businesses that we have in our city now. Bird: Ron they would have to have about four a day. Is that possible to do? I mean I know your goal is to cover everyone of them and each year we are going to get more, we hope. Is one guy going to be - I think it's a great idea and a great program and still have the engine companies go too and letting them get familiar with it because they are the first ones on call. Anderson: Yeah, it kind of depends on the occupancy. I mean, if you are doing a Citi Corp or something that may take somebody an entire day or a couple of days to do that, but if you are doing a little mom and pop retail operation then yeah you could probably do four of those in a day. So, it kind of depends on the occupancies. Our third enhancement request is a video conferencing system and one of the things that we are finding is as we start to grow and spread out in Meridian is that training is important and that we keep training up in the communication, but to do that a lot of times we have to pull fire stations out of their fire district and when we pull them out of their fire district, that defeats the whole purpose of building substations and then we are right back to where our response times are increasing. So, the video conferencing system actually will enable us to keep fire companies in their districts more and we can do training Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 41 of 161 and communication meetings and things like that with them right at their station. Several of the departments in the Valley - Nampa, Caldwell, and Middleton are now starting to use this video conferencing system. We can tie into that same system and so it may be an instructor in Meridian who is delivering the class to all those other departments or it could be an instructor in Nampa or Caldwell who is delivering a class to over firefighters as they are in their own fire station and has video and audio capability and they talk back and forth and ask questions right as if they are sitting in the class. That is what that request is for and right now we would tie in our four stations and set up our station one as a classroom setting. The training tower request we have already talked about. The other is cad zone software. One of the things that we need to be able to do as we are out doing these company inspections is also to create what we call a pre-fire plan or a drawing of the building that shows where the gas meter is and where the electrical shutoff is and where the fire sprinkler hookup is and where the roof access is and those types of things. Those are actually counted by the Survey and Rating Bureau when they look at our training and our pre-fire planning. We have no good way of doing that right now other than taking a blank piece of notebook paper and drawing out. So, this software program actually enables us to draw those on a computer where the firefighters can draw those and then they can be downloaded into the fire truck so that the computers in the fire trucks would have that information when the firefighters get on scene and they would have a drawing of the actual building that they are responding to. The sixth request is Station 1 when it was built in the dining room - probably in hindsight wasn't the best idea, but they put carpeting in the dining area and then they bought chairs that have rollers on them, so they roll around so it has worn all the carpet down and loosened the carpet and we had it re-glued last year and it just keeps coming loose and is wearing really thin and what we would like to do is remove that carpet and then tile that area so that we can continue to keep our stations looking nice and in the other stations that is what we have done, we have tiled that particular area, but in this particular line item there is not enough money in our station maintenance to do a special project like that where you are tiling, so we were asked to put that in as a request instead of a building maintenance item and that is why you are seeing it as an enhancement instead of just a normal wear and tear or replacement. Borton: Ron, you don't just want to get rid of all of the chairs? Anderson: I think the same thing would happen even if it was the scoot kind of chairs. But, yeah, I appreciate that but I don't think they would want to stand the whole time, though. Bird: Who was in charge of that building design? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 42 of 161 Anderson: I think it was some Councilman at the time. I don't know who it was. Then the last item is a transfer into our fire truck fund. Meridian has for years maintained the fund that they contribute on an annual basis and put funds in and that way when we need to buy a fire truck, we have got funds set aside for that. As you know we have four front line pumpers right now and those fire trucks are going to wear out and you saw the cost earlier of about $365,000 is what a fire truck costs right now today. So, it is important that we continue to contribute to that fund and maintain it so as those fire trucks need to be replaced, we have the funds to do that. Because if we have to replace two or three fire trucks here in a couple of years, that will add significantly to the cost in the capital category. So, with that I will shut up and let you ask me questions. Bird: I have no questions, Mr. President. Wardle: Questions, Mr. Borton? Borton: Nope. Wardle: Thank you very much. All right, I would like to thank Chief Anderson, Deputy Chief Silva for joining us today and putting together a comprehensive and on-time presentation for us today. Bird: Mr. President, before they leave I would like for Ron to take back - what are your thoughts on that building number 5 that he could take back to the Rural? Wardle: My immediate thoughts - Bird: -- that is what we are asking for. Wardle: -- Chief Anderson are if the Rural Fire Department will be able to fund it, gain us a year, help us increase fire safety it is a priority that I think the city needs to take anyway and needs to fund in fiscal year '08. I would look to do that additional station regardless. If we can get it a year early and get some additional safety and be able to walk right into a program, I think it is great. My personal opinion. Bird: Are you the same, Joe? Borton: Yep. Bird: I agree 100 percent with what Councilman Wardle said. So, I think you can take that back to them Ron. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 43 of 161 Anderson: Thank you I will pass that on to the Rural Commissioners and I am sure that will please them immensely. Wardle: And the community. De Weerd: Okay, thank you Chief. You let him off without drilling him? Bird: We have already cut all of his budget, so heck we didn't have to grill him, we just cut it. De Weerd: You are very fast. Bird: We got our fence lateral sharp for the planning too. De Weerd: They are obnoxious, just to warn you. Bird: Who is holding the fort down? Canning: Siddoway. Bird: I can't believe that. De Weerd: Oh, that was nice. Okay, well next on our agenda is the Planning Department and I will turn this over to Anna. Plannina DeDartment Canning: Madame Mayor, members of the Council I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce the Planning Department to you since they are all new faces. So, come on you guys standup, here we go. Some of them are seasoned. They have been here for a while, but you probably haven't seen much of their faces so that would be Sonya Watters. De Weerd: Well, there is the first seasoned one. She is an assistant planner and has been doing increasingly complex staff reports as time goes on. Then we have Kristy Vigil, who is also one of our assistant planners and is doing staff reports these days as well. Vigil: And a little seasoned her self. Canning: You guys can sit down once I call your name. How is that? Then we have Matt Ellsworth, which I think some of you know. He is in the comprehensive planning division. He has been with us since February, so he is like an old timer at this point. He has been just doing a phenomenal job juggling Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 44 of 161 studies and keeping up on dates and coordinating with folks. He is doing a great job with contracts, too. Next to him we have Justin Lucas and Justin started about three weeks ago, is that right? Justin has a master's degree in planning. He is one of our associate planners. He has a little work experience both on the development side and on the city side and he is jumping right in. Bird: Would you re-pronounce his name. It is Justin? Canning: Justin Lucas. Next to him we have Kirk. Kirk is our intern that you recently approved a position for an intern and he is learning about planning and helping us out with a little visual preference thing that we are going to give for my billboard and says you are going to say what we like for the City of Meridian and he should have that to you soon. He has been having fun with that and he is also helping with presentations these days and getting some of the files out of our cabinets. So, a mix of administrative and planning functions and seems to be happy. De Weerd: Now is that part of a college requirement? Are you getting credit for it or- (Inaudible discussion) Canning: He has a master's in public administration and kind of found out about planning late in the game, so he wants to learn more about planning. We are hoping we can keep him around for a while. Then next to Kirk is Amanda. She comes to us from Latah County, so she has experience as a county planner. She was little bit surprised by the workload here. We knew what she was getting into, but I am not sure she did. That is the new crew. The three folks that are not here are Steve Siddoway, whom you are well acquainted with, Caleb Hood and Barb Shiffer our administrative assistant. De Weerd: I guess Amanda since you have a vandal up here and I was raised in Moscow, so you have some Latah County (inaudible) - Canning: Not only is she (inaudible), but she is also a Meridian High School graduate. Bird: She didn't go to Idaho, did she? You are Bronco? Hess: No. Canning: She is a vandal. De Weerd: Right thing on this side, wrong thing on that side. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 45 of 161 Canning: Okay, there is one more missing, Jenny and she is on her way. She got stuck at the counter, so when she comes I am might take a break in my presentation and introduce her. De Weerd: Thank you for joining us. It was nice meeting all of you. Nice seeing the seasoned ones too. Canning: All of them have masters. Justin has a masters, Amanda has a masters and Kirk has a masters. None of them had any work experience, but great educations. Bird: Well, at least they have the knowledge of how to do it. Now they need to learn how to do it. Canning: Yeah, they will get it quickly in Meridian. And Jenny has masters, also. We have way too many master's degrees in the office at this point, but - all right, now to the more mundane part of it. The Planning Department continues to be a busy place and last year was one of starting off in new directions. We had the new UDC and we had all the new studies that we started and it looks like this year will be a year of refinement, trying to finish up all the studies that we have started and also an emphasis on design, which falls into that. In addition to efficiently processing voluminous numbers of development applications in the current planning division I am really excited about what is happening in comprehensive planning division. We have got a lot of exciting studies under way, including the Ten Mile, the south Meridian and also the medical district. So, we are moving forward on all fronts. I was going to take a little bit of time and talk about the comprehensive planning division first. You will see a flurry of pubic meetings this summer and fall on those three studies I mentioned. The consultant teams look great and things are really working well, but they are looking forward to the opportunity to talk to the stakeholders and the landowners in that area and find out - did Jenny come? Here we go. Come on up here, Jenny. This is Jenny Veatch and she is an associate planner and she used lived in the Boise area. She was a school teacher. She decided that she wanted to go back to school for planning, so she actually went to Canada for her master's degree and she is back here and keeping very busy. De Weerd: It was nice to meet you. It is nice to put faces with names. Canning: They will see your name a lot, every week. Okay, that is everybody now. We did ask for a couple of enhancements. Several of the enhancements, actually relate to the comprehensive planning division. The Ten Mile study enhancements - I think we took a lot of time and talked about those the other day, so I wasn't going to spend a lot of time to date. They included the design Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 46 of 161 guidelines portion and then some more market analysis. And it looks like that study is going to do a lot of the market analysis that we were looking for, not just for that area, but for the industrial study as well. So, it is doubling up on that. De Weerd: Anna, I might add and I have already kind of mentioned this to Council that when I was in D.C. I did have meetings with our congressional delegation and they are very interested in the Ten Mile area plan and would like to be kept apprised as to the progress and - Canning: Okay. De Weerd: Because what I have really (inaudible) it as is really bringing that as a showcase to the road improvements or the interchange that is going on. Canning: We can call them and see if they want to be included as stakeholders or in the agency meeting. So, I will have Matt get the contact information from you and see how they would want to participate. De Weerd: That is great. I think the more we can keep them informed because we did get that earmark as well as our other legislative representatives in the Governor's Office. I think it is - and I also talked to Dave Eckern, who did not have much information on this at all, just kind of heard in passing, so I think it would be to our advantage to really keep them in the loop. Canning: Okay. Logistically it looks like we are going to be able to coordinate the public meetings for those, the interchange and the specific plan and we are going to be able to coordinate those and do them at the same time. Whether ITD wants to do it, we don't know, but logistically we know it will work, so we are hoping that they decide to do that. Wardle: Anna, if I could make a comment. We had our kickoff meeting for the specific area plan last week. One of the things that I brought out of that meeting is I guess I didn't really realize the full scope of what is going on, but to get this interchange done and just to plan for the specific actually type of interchange and where people are going to get on and off and how they are going to connect is very, very complicated at this point. I could see without the city's attempt to make it easier for the public to interact I could see a holdup in design from the Transportation Department for a number of years just based on what I saw from out there. I think they had six initial designs and every one of them looked absolutely opposite of the other. Canning: Yeah and that is what the other consultant team is working on, the one that we would be coordinating with. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 47 of 161 De Weerd: I had a meeting yesterday afternoon with someone, Rosemary and Vance and they confirmed what you just said because of the efforts of the city we will help in making sure that we can streamline this process as much as possible. They already realize that they have a very aggressive timeline and a timeline that is unheard of in many cases, but what the city is doing definitely compliments it and might help it through some of their processes. Canning: Yeah, that is really going to be a fun plan to work on. We are all very excited about it. Medical district, economic development and this one it is a little loosely defined at this point. We are committed to helping Ms. Brown on her portion with studies that compliment her work. One idea might be since these medical district concepts kind of have despaired areas is looking at some of those connections and how do we provide those connections, whether it is through signs, whether it is through circulation study, whether it is through public transit or whatever we need to do in support of that and that one is still pretty loose? I will admit that we haven't had an opportunity to closely refine that with the Economic Development Coordinator. If you feel uncomfortable with the fact that it is not tightly defined, I can bring that scope of work back to you before we hire anyone. I just wanted to make that commitment to you at this point, but we have the funds there to do some of those more planning related studies in addition to what she is working on. Finally there is the E. 3rd Street extension and this 3rd Street extension was talked about a lot during the Downtown Meridian Transportation Management Plan and this would - it was ultimately decided not to be the preferred alternative, but it was noted as being very important to the future circulation and in the downtown area to have that one road that went through that wasn't Main or Meridian basically. So what these funds would do is come up with a right-of-way alignment, lane configurations and how to get across the railroad crossing. So it would be determining where that would go so that ACHD can get it on their capital improvement plan so that they can start getting development to pay for that as it goes along or to have that impact fee eligible if it becomes a project. Bird: Anna, E. 3rd Street extension? Now where is that going? Canning: It would go basically from Franklin to Fairview. Bird: From Franklin to E. 3rd, you are going to go right through 2 % Street and go right up through there? Canning: Well that is the big question. It has got to swag at some point and where does it swag and how do you accomplish that? So that is what the study is all about. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 48 of 161 Bird: I have a problem with us putting the money out on that, but of course, our people don't think we ever put any money out, but anyway. That is something that we need to get with ACHD, who would be in charge of that and why is our taxpayers when we could use it somewhere else, why is our taxpayers being asked to fund some kind of a study that seven to eight percent of their taxes is going to ACHD, which is supposed to be done there. Canning: It is the development services fund, which it typically has some excess revenue, not that we need to use it all. I am completely comfortable with that. But, if we wait for ACHD to do it, we are worried that the opportunity to may be lost. Bird: What is the advantage for us right now to do it? Canning: Well, as development picks up in the downtown and it looks like it is picking up in the downtown we get more and more requests on a regular basis just to talk about the downtown area. There is that one large piece of property in between 2 Y2 and 3rd, in particular and if that ~ets developed then that really blocks a lot of opportunity for extending E. 3r or like those apartments that Charlie was so fond of that got put on the backlog - that would have been the logical - if you extended 3rd Street instead of swaging it, it would have gone right through there, but we approved apartments because we didn't have a plan in place. It is really just the timing and getting it so that we don't lose the opportunity. Bird: I don't know. I think there is other sources that we could - or better things to put on the mat at this time. I would like to see some development downtown before I - I mean I have heard a lot of talk and I am seeing no walk, other than (inaudible). De Weerd: Are you part of that talk? Bird: I am part of that talk sitting right over there. Have been for three years. De Weerd: Now it is three years. Canning: Well, I will move on to the current Planning Department and you know I did a few steps, but I just had to bring these. These are from the development monitoring report and I just love these figures. These are my favorite drafts ever. This really goes for all the Building Departments, Planning Departments and Public Works. So those two just show that for residential units by city limits, I mean, Meridian is the turquoise blue line that it just off the charts on the residential units and on the residential and non-residential platting again, Meridian is just off the charts. I love the data highlights. Meridian far outpaces other Ada County cities in building activity. That says it all right there. Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 49 of 161 Bird: What - have you seen 2006 so far? Canning: I have looked - I did do that. I looked at 2006 for just the number of applications that we have taken in and because the development review is so cyclical, I just looked at January to June from last year and January to June from this year. Last year there was 186 applications. This year there is 254. So that is a 37 percent increase. That is a - Bird: Our residential building permits have been down quite a bit. Canning: They are down, right. But the planning permits are still up. What we might see is a reduction in the number of lots, but given - one project that we have got going in the south, I don't think you are going to see any reduction in numbers this year at all. Bird: Thank you. Canning: So last January I had a new position approved, thank you. And we are fully staffed and it looks like that we can handle our current application load. So having said that, I do have an enhancement request for a Principle City Planner. My thoughts were to have those funds available this winter to come back to you either with - well, a couple of different options. The first one I am thinking of is once the Ten Mile Specific Plan is done and we have the basics of some design, principles or guidelines or whatever we want to call them, to hire somebody with some architecture experience to really develop an architectural review plan for the city; whatever form that takes, whether it is staff level, whether it is a hearing examiner level or Council level, or Commission level or whatever we end up doing. But to have somebody come in and work on developing that plan and then implement and do the staff reviews. So it would be - that would take some stress off the Comprehensive Planning Division and some stress off the current Planning Division. It would be kind of a split position and they would be implementing the emphasis on design that we have been talking about. The other thing is if it things pick up and I know that the Building Department is slowing down, but if for some reason it spikes again it would be nice to have those funds available for another current planner if we need them. Again, it doesn't look like we are going to need another current planner right now. I think we are good. Bird: But you would like an enhancement in case you need it and I agree with you 100 percent. I don't want you to get behind or under staffed. Canning; On this one similar to the medical district, I would feel more comfortable if I come back to you when I have a definitive idea of what I want to Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 50 of 161 do and to present that to you. So, I wouldn't hire somebody without you kind of approving the jOb description and - Bird: But, you want to leave the enhancement in the budget? Canning: Yes. I want the funds there - Bird: -- are you saying it is the medical district? Canning: Yes. Bird: Okay, that is what I thought. De Weerd: You wouldn't expend them then until you came back and you had Council's support? Canning: Yes. Bird: I agree with that. That is great. Wardle: And as Anna and I discussed on the - one of the things that this Council has discussed from the Planning Department is the need to have some sort of design review process without going to some of the other stringent sort of cumbersome processes that we have seen in the rest of the Valley and I think the only way that we are going to be able to get there is to have a staff member be essentially in charge of that design review process to take comments from the Council and essentially create themselves a position with a job description as defined by the director. So, if we ever want to get there without going to - my personal preference would not be to go to a full blown committee and certainly not to come to the Council with every design review question. So it seems most logical to leave at a staff position with some expertise. Canning: I did put it at a Principle Planner level partly because we had such a difficult time finding associates with any experience at all and just if I am (inaudible) an architect or someone of that nature that has the experience in both architecture and planning I think I am going to need some funds to go with it. Bird: That is great. Put them on there. Canning: Okay. Then finally my final enhancement is some additional funds each year for a training program and what I did is we sat down and we figured out kind of how much it would cost for each person to develop a three year training plan. Then with that three year training plan, they would go to one national conference and - so you would go a national conference the first year Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 51 of 161 and then a regional the second and the third years and then you would have an opportunity to go to a couple of local ones, which are really quite cheap. They are usually one day conferences like that - do a three year training plan - training has been haphazard. It is just kind of whoever speaks up ends up going and I don't like doing things in a haphazard way. I would rather have it all planned out. I like this idea. It came to me because I have two of my two seasoned staff members, Kristy and Sonya that are in a three year program right now. This is their third year with the Northwest Community Development Institute. Just to know that every year they are going to go for a week and they are going to learn a lot of great stuff about community development and planning and has been really - helps me since they don't have a background in planning. I have been really happy that they have had that opportunity. So, I wanted to provide that same kind of basis for all the staff and hopefully to provide some incentive to stay when Boise City offers them more money. Bird: And you would be making the selections for the training that they would want to go to? Canning: Yes. Bird: I mean, they wouldn't just come in and say we got a training here and I would like to go to it? They have to come in and say or prove to you that it is going to be worthwhile to the city for them to go? Canning: Definitely. And it is in their PAD's actually already. So we would work on developing that and then the only problem is me, I don't go to enough conferences because I can never find one I want to go to. That is it. De Weerd: Council, questions? Well, that is great. I did have a request from the VIP program to go at 11 :30 because they are doing the presentation at the Chamber luncheon today - public transportation and what their task force recommendation is. So, Will would you be able to do your presentation at 11: 15? Berg: Yes. De Weerd: We had better take a break. Wardle: If we can discuss briefly the 3rd Street extension. One of the things that I look at with this program are that the City of Meridian is not the transportation agency. We are not the road building agency. We aren't the urban renewal agency, but we are the agency that plans for the area and we will be approving development, whether it be commercial development along that 3rd Street corridor or multi-family or single-family, whatever it is. I don't see either MDC or ACHD being able to do any planning within the next year to two years based on ..- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 52 of 161 that 3rd Street extension. So I have kind of a problem - I mean I understand it is partially our responsibility, but not solely our responsibility but I don't think anyone else will do anything with it unless the city steps up to draw, essentially, a road map to where that is going to go. So, I am open to suggestion on how we get it done, but I just don't see anybody other than Development Services being able to do that. Canning: What we have seen is that if we commit some funds towards something, usually ACHD is able to jump on the bandwagon and support us in some fashion, whether they have got a few extra dollars and because we have a plan that is in place, they can go put in a light or they can go acquire property. So it is having those plans in place that gives them the ability to kind of step out of the box when they have funds free up unexpectedly that they need to put somewhere. It certainly has seemed to work to our advantage. I think we are hearing rumors that ACHD may be doing less and less for us unfortunately as their budget gets constrained. De Weerd: I guess to underscore what Shaun has brought up and Anna has been stating is that we really saw that when that application came through with the ugly duplex that we will lose opportunities to extend that if we don't have some kind of a plan and it has to be a plan that is well thought out and not arbitrarily drawn. That was the problem with that. Bird: I have got one final say on it and I have no problems if the majority wants to put it in, but I have seen five downtown studies. I have yet to see one implemented. The only thing that has been implemented is a split option, which wasn't - weill guess it was a halfway study, but we didn't pay no $20,000. That is all I am saying. You get a study, be prepared to implement it as a Council. I am not going to say I agree with it. I am not going to say I am 100 percent going to implement it. I know we are sitting there with one big property owner that we will all blue as her shirt before it is sold. So, I have no problems spending the money if we have got it, but I also want to say that there are other things next winter or something that Anna might think $20,000 would go better for. Canning: Well, we wanted to pick something from the Downtown Transportation Management Plan so that we could continue to move forward on the foundation that that plan set. This was one of the first stepping stones. I don't have that plan memorized. If Council would like me to come back with something else, I can go talk to Steve and have - Bird: If you feel comfortable and want this, stay to your guns. Canning: Okay. -- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 53 of 161 Borton: Anna is there any opportunity for MDC to share the expense? That is within their district - with that plan? I mean it is going to impact them. Canning: I can ask. I am not all that familiar with - Wardle: I can comment just briefly on this - when Anna and I talked about the 3rd Street extension the Planning Department in their scope will essentially design where the road will go and what acceptable land uses would fit within that corridor. I think at that point then it is up to, in my mind, MDC and ACHD to implement getting the road to connect, either through right-of-way acquisition, you know you talk about one property owner that mayor may not be in the development business. Those kinds of things, I don't think the Planning Department's scope of work. I think that is where the partnership falls in and that is where MDC commits some funds and talks to ACHD about partnership. That is just kind of how I see the implementation fall. Borton: But there is going to be money expended at study today. It is money expended to some third party, the consultant services, right? Canning: Yes. Borton: They help make those decisions? Canning: We would need help with roadway alignment and you know how roads move and the line configuration, it is much more transportation engineered like. It would typically be a study that ACHD might undertake, but again we don't see them moving very quickly to do these things, but we've seen that if we spend the money to do this part, they are able to fund the other parts much more quickly. Borton: I don't disagree. I see the value there. I just didn't know if there was a way to share the expense. Canning: We can try. A lot of times - Bird: I think we got the answer yesterday. Canning: A lot of times ACHD we will run a scope by them and they will ask - they will note that there some other things that they would like to see done and sometimes they are willing to participate in funding that portion of it. Borton: Well, I meant MDC, not ACHD. Thought that maybe MDC would pony up because it is in their area. ...~ Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 54 of 161 Wardle: I can tell you that the MDC Board quickly distancing itself from additional studies; however, I can tell you that at some level I am certain that the MDC Board will be on board with this project. Whether they can commit funds to it at this stage - I think this is stage one. I think that even if they don't commit funds at stage one, they would take it over at stage 2 or stage 3 and get it done. But we can certainly make the request. Canning: We just roll up snowballs and push them towards MDC and ACHD. Bird: I would think that there is somebody in there that doesn't want to bring a study forward. Borton: Thanks Anna. Bird: Thank you Anna very much. I am for it if you are for it. De Weerd: Ten minute break and then we will hear from the Clerk. Bird: Then we are going to have who? De Weerd: The Clerk. (Break) De Weerd: Okay, our next department up is City Clerk. City Clerk Berg: Thank you Madame Mayor and Members of the Council. De Weerd: It is nice to see you on the other side. Berg: I handed out just basically our same mission, vIsion and operating philosophy and I know it may seem boring or redundant, but I want you to kind of look at those things because those things are very important for our staff to follow and analyze and if we are going in the wrong direction then we sure need to know what direction we need to be going in. But those are some things that we hold and try to focus on and of course, our CARE values and our customer service is some of our primary roles and objectives. Our office is a support center for the whole city and we really try to emphasize being the hub of that information source and so this year I only have asked for one real enhancement and that is an additional Department Specialist. We are finding out that - and if you looked at the last page of the handout I gave you, we are finding out that most of our time anymore is spent on processing planning applications, getting ..,~ Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 55 of 161 those applications from the Planning Department, processing them and sending out transmittals, sending out letters, noticing, getting back information, gathering that up for the Planning and Zoning Commission, for the City Council, for the citizens, following up with the ordinances, recording of the documents and then (inaudible) that information throughout the process for the departments, for agencies and for the citizens. We are just spending more and more time from the other things that is kind of taking over our labor intensity, which is the licensing and permitting, the retrieving of documents and the intranet information that we are going to start working on; which is basically a place where we will have all of our public documents for inter city use by other departments. So we need to really start working on that, but a lot of the focus and with the workshop that we had prior one of my questions to you was to strive for record's retention. The legislature had put the burden of the City Clerk's Association to set up a guideline for policy for all of the cities in Idaho to adopt and that is one of our goals too. But with that comes the workload in making sure that those things are in place. We want to try and become more and more of (inaudible) retrieval and more of an electronic retrieval, but all those documents have to be scanned in or stored electronically so we can pass that information on. So going with that goal that I think was supported in our workshop prior to try and focus on the retention and the retrieval process of all of our documents city wide and not just what is in my office. We are striving for that. That is the only real enhancement that I have. If there are some questions concerning that - I would like to also mention a little bit of the organization of my department that I have changed a little bit. Is there any questions as far as the enhancement? De Weerd: Council any questions? Borton: Is there a master plan to be a paperless operation at some point soon? Berg: Councilman Borton, I don't know if there is a plan to be completely paperless because I don't see that ever being that way with some of the documents that we have, I mean from plat maps to building plans, those will probably just be stored, but I think the concept of paperless would enhance us as far as retrieval. There is things in there, state statute that we would have the ability that if we don't want to store this permanent document, we can send it to the historic archivists and let the State store it, but we could keep it electronically and I think there are some of those plans and guidelines in the guide book that we are trying to create as an association for that. But somewhere I don't think you are ever going to get rid of total paper. Yes, it would be nice, but they haven't documented all electronic documents as to be a permanent record. A lot of those documents are for retrieval purposes, just like on Laser Fiche and being able to pick it up electronically and read it and transfer it. .- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 56 of 161 Borton: So this new position's primary duties would be for that document retention? Berg: Yes, Councilman Borton that will be primary - not saying that person, maybe another person in my staff, but we will have on person just solely digging up the old minute books, making sure those are scanned and archived so you can do word searches and find those things. I know as even downtown is developing more we are looking back what was that conditional use for or why was that condition put on there or why did they build it that way? Trying to find those old documents are really tough and a lot of times I don't think files were kept as much as the minutes in the minute books. So even though we say that we are going to do it, it just seems like the burden of the application processing, the permits and the day to day operations, we just don't have a person designated to just doing records. We just need to focus on that. I guess to answer another question that might follow up; I think it is the same thing as what Anna sees. If Planning drops off then we will have to deal with that positioning or letting someone go because I think a few people in my department are specifically related to how much workload is created by applications. So, just as an organizational aspect is what I have done in my department is I have moved Sharon Smith to a Sr. Deputy Clerk positioning so that we have some kind of organizational structure to set forth. Sharon can take on more of the supervising role and Tara can deal with more of the operations. But, they are still working together. The plan is not that they are separated, but they have to be able to cross train each other and know what each other is doing. But we just kind of found out that that supervision role that Sharon has more of a grasp on it and so we kind of positioned it that way, so she is a Sr. Deputy Clerk and Tara is just the Deputy Clerk; not to say "just", but that is the way the positions are separated. Any other questions? De Weerd: Any other questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Did you - I think it is important as we look at the City Hall project and its essential that we have a well thought through filing system as we move into a consolidated building where all of us are under one roof and Will is tasked with that and so his staffing is also looking specifically at how best to position us so when we are in a building, we know where everything goes and we have a consistent city wide system as well. Berg: It will probably be a better situation being under one roof, in one building with some of the records that we have, but I still think it is the same goal to retrieve that document. Everything about that subject matter is in one folder, so electronically people when they pull it up they have everything. It is not saying Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 57 of 161 well do I need something from the Public Works Department or the Planning Department or does the City Clerk still have that agreement? So, it is all in there. So hopefully the plan is to make sure that everything is there in one place and can be retrieved by whatever department or person that wants it or by City Council members too. I guess to follow up on a couple of other things, since we had the upgrade on our Laser Fiche, we are going to set some goals to train the Planning and Zoning Commission to be paperless and use the laptops for their meetings also. We had to wait until that update was done so we didn't have to retrain again. So we have that accomplished and completed and we will start that, but it is the summer schedule so it is unique in making sure everybody is there. So, we are going to start doing that. One other item I was just going to bring up was the elections. The code has changed for City Municipal elections. It kind of conforms with the county elections. They are actually going to be starting a month earlier in the process of petitions and absentee voting and preparing ballots. So in actuality what started in September will be starting in August. So, next year we will be beginning the actual hands on elections a month earlier; even though preparation and things are done before that. So that kind of takes a more of a split between two different budget years as far as some of the expenses. The actual election time is in one budget year, but sometimes the preparation and getting ballots ordered and things are in another and it will be more so this coming next fiscal year. If that makes sense. Any other questions? You know my number and you know where my office is. And you know where I am on Tuesday nights. De Weerd: Thank you. Well I see that Roy and Shirl have joined us and are here to talk to you about the Boise Valley Economic Partnerships program, the Valley Initiative for Prosperity. Thank you for joining us. Boise Valley Economic Partnership Stark: Madame Mayor and Council Members, Roy Stark today with the hat on of Boise Valley Economic Partnership and what a difference a year makes. Last July we were in the preliminary stages of just forming the structure for a major first ever fund raising campaign for our area for economic development and historic development. I remember the summer of 2005 because it was dang hard to get our structure in place during the summer because people go crazy in the summer time around here. They leave town. We had a heck of a time getting people together last summer. But it seemed like after Labor Day, everyone was back in town and we got our structure in place and in the meantime, maybe beyond our wildest expectations, but here we are just a smidgeon under $5 million pledged (inaudible) in the bank from our business community and the government agencies for the Valley Initiative for Prosperity and we are truly entering a new era of economic development in the Treasure Valley. We are way behind, though, of other communities around the west and in the country Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 58 of 161 who have been doing this for quite some time and so we do have a program to develop and have to work out a plan on expenditures for the next five years and you know what? We have to document our results. We will have to return time and time again to the investors with the documentation of our successes or else they will not invest anymore. So we are prepared to do that, but I handed out to you is a kind of a colorful, glossy report for BVEP for 2005 in that it doesn't show a heck of a lot of successes, but it shows a heck of a lot of information because the Valley Initiative for Prosperity dominated the 2005 year, raising that amount of money. If you open up the document to this you can see in the middle lower portion the list of successes by the Boise Valley Economic Partnership in the 1,500 nearly 1,600 jobs and the $54 million in income that will now be distributed across the Valley, this will grow tremendously with next year's report and the report beyond. That is what the investors are paying for. Boise Valley Economic Partnership does not take credit for retail jobs, restaurant jobs and those jobs that come with the growth of a population, We are going after the targeted higher paying jobs and at take credit for jobs of $15.50 an hour and above. Over on the right hand corner there you see the BVEP financials, a program that has been in the $300,000 range for quite a while. An amount of money that really pays for answering the telephone and providing information to site selection consultants and companies requesting information for our area and also paid for retention, but pretty basic of a program. Skipping over 2005 you can see that the years funded from the Valley Initiative for Prosperity will be in the million dollar range and expenditures with a ramp up in staffing and program expense in external marketing to let people know what we have to offer. We are going to be doing things that we haven't done before, such as attending some shows around the country where people are interested in expansion attend. We have attended trade shows in the past and we will do that again, but I wanted to tell you a little story that is included in that external marketing. That is about a year ago I came across an article on the internet that the site selection consultants around the country were ranking the top 50 cities, in which of course, we are on their radar screen to talk to their clients about for expansion. Of course, sometimes we get kind of prideful here on our number one rankings, number two rankings, number four rankings and so I went down this list of the site selection consultants cities they were most particularly interested in. When I say Boise, I mean the Boise Metro Area. Not even on the list. We deal with a few site selection consultants that are familiar with our area and they liked us a great deal, but there is a lot of them out there and when they did their own survey on the top 50 metro areas of which they were on their radar screen, we weren't anywhere. So, you know what we have to do? We have to go out and visit them. We got to go out and get their attention. Shirl probably knows who they are more than I do, but there are a lot of them around the country and we need to go visit them to tell them about our area. That is listed in the expenditures under external marketing. We need to do that. I am here to answer your questions. We are here to ask for your investment. What we have - maybe to get a little bit further detail, Mayor, in the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 59 of 161 coming months, we have a - I think the last part of 2006 will be very busy with new staffing. We have an offer for an executive director just made last week and haven't heard back yet when that person will accept or come on board and then we will work with that person on additional staffing for Boise Valley Economic Partnership and the program and we think that the Boise Valley Economic Partnership Executive Director will be a true economic development leader, not only in this area, but really for the entire state because that person will have _ (Tape turned over) Stark: -- it kind of breaks down into $5,000 dues and $40,000 for the Valley Initiative for Prosperity or you can think of it as just one payment. With that amount of money it gives the City of Meridian is that it puts you in with the big boys? Can I say that, Mayor? De Weerd: Sure. Stark: That puts Meridian in with a level that we call our major investors, which will have several meetings a year from an advisory point of view that will review the program at the highest level as you can get. If Meridian comes in at this level you will join a major investor's group with meetings of the Mayor or designee of the following companies and governments: Idaho Power Company, St. Luke's, St. Alphonsus, Intermountain Gas, the Idaho Statesman, Home Federal Bank, United Heritage, Franklin Building Supply, Hubble Homes, Washington Group International, Wells Fargo, Building Materials Holding Corporation, Blue Cross of Idaho, City of Boise and Micron Technology. That is our major investor list. That is where the City of Meridian will be with your investment. In addition to that we anticipate City of Meridian involvement in our new business attraction committee and in our retention expansion committee. The third committee proposed under Boise Valley Economic Partnership is the venture forum and that would be by invitation only. Otherwise, Madame Mayor, the City of Meridian will be where it would want to be as a major player in the Valley for economic development with your investment and with Shirl's help we will answer your questions with a little bit more detail about the external marketing campaign, our successes or our recent visits and that sort of thing. De Weerd: Council, do you have questions? No questions? Borton: The brackets that are given I guess for the Initiative for Prosperity, is there a bracket higher or a bracket lower? I mean, what are (inaudible--). Do you want to go a notch higher or a notch lower? Will you gain or lose? Stark: Madame Mayor, Council Member Borton the list I gave you is a five year commitment of over a $100,000. Many are in that area. Boise City is proposed Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 60 of 161 to be a $250,000. We have a major investor and we are very, very pleased with Micron Technology's pledge of one half million dollars. But otherwise it is maybe Micron Technology, then Boise City and then a whole lot of them at $100,000 plus that I mentioned. Otherwise it goes below $100,000 to any level. I think our lowest level that we were talking about to some small business people for at least a commitment of $1,000 a year for five years. That was the lowest we would go. Shirl? Boyce: Shirl Boyce, Boise Valley Economic Partnership. One of the things that happened was when we had the consultant from the National Community Development Services come in; they looked at the individual communities and the businesses and suggested a funding level. Then they came in and then they begin the negotiation process. I think that is where you were trying to go what are the levels? What are the distinctions? Why are the distinctions there? It is kind of based upon their assessment, their economic assessment and the size of communities and the size of businesses and whatnot. But, it is also a negotiated thing as well. If I might, Mayor, I would like to add one more thing to what you all know that there are some things that are going on right now in anticipation of the new executive director. One of those is it is a major effort that we need to focus on and that is the branding of the area. So that when we do go out into this country, we want people to understand when they hear whatever that brand is, they will know that that's us so to speak and so right now I am working on a and this will be available and presented to the new executive director and the work is going to have to be done anyway. That is a request for qualifications and that is we will send information out to the firms here in Idaho and our area and across the country that specialize in branding and going through the whole branding process and it is really important that we do that because as well all develop the collateral materials for the City of Meridian and some of the others that we need to have that brand in mind so that we all are talking I guess in essence from the same page. It is really going to help us and so there are some things that are being done as we speak trying to have things as ready to go for that new executive director when that person comes in. De Weerd: Shirl could you tell us what is the percentage split of public / private dollars in this campaign? Stark: Madame Mayor when we designed the program, we were hoping for 80 / 20 split with 20 percent being the public sector. I haven't worked the details, but it is probably around there. It is probably maybe less than 20 percent because some governments haven't come in as high as we had hoped and so I guess between 15 percent and higher would be the public sector side. De Weerd: So that is a good leverage to the dollar. Any other questions, Council? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 61 of 161 Wardle: Ray if you could just briefly for discussion purposes kind of outlay some of the expected benefit of this program. I know it is essentially an ongoing program, but in the five years, what activities do we or should we expect to see and then what type of a dollar expenditure, dollar recapture are we looking at? Have you done some -? Stark: Madame Mayor and Council Member Wardle the goals for the Valley Initiative for Prosperity with the use of the $5 million and the goals were also in negotiation with the national consulting firm that reviewed our ASO and they do this all over the country for a living and so we - they knew our area and what we could achieve and the immediate goals for the five years would be 5,000 of those higher paying jobs that we talked about. The $15.50 an hour jobs, which by the way correlates with state government policy as well with our Department of Commerce and Labor. Those 5,000 jobs would create an additional 6,000 jobs for a total of 11,000 jobs, but the capital investment goal is $650 million of new capital investment associated with that. In - Shirl I am not familiar with any other particular measurable goals. Boyce: The one is - well excuse me. Madame Mayor and Councilman Wardle there are $650 million in capital investment and that is one of the goals. I was just looking in the VIP return on investment the total payroll which will go into these annual payroll from direct and indirect jobs will be about $300 million that would be going back into the economy. Net personal consumption expenditures would be about $166 million; deposits potential for financial institutions out of this would be about $49 million and so there is quite a bit. These are at this point, guesstimates; they are kind of based line. Hopefully as we bring or as businesses come in we will see those numbers rise. We will become even more significant. One of the things that we will be doing too with this is that as we can see the economy as doing some things like this is we will be looking at where also some of the roadblocks are in terms of achieving this because there will be some of those, but we think that these are the goals that were laid out there by NCDS were based upon the 18 months that we did with the cluster analysis and the targeted analysis and we are finding that to be very accurate. Let me explain. What I mean specifically about that - last week we had a company from the east in Indiana that makes a particular product that is going to ship it, be common carrier to the area here and then we will trans load it to their own vehicles, their own trucks and they will take it to markets in Seattle, Portland and Salt Lake, which is - and this is something that is really interesting. It is a whole new perception of our area. So these are the kinds of things - distribution centers is what this is really saying and that it is an important piece of business that will help this bottom line. So these things are beginning to happen by this program and going out and letting the people know where we are, who we are and this branding is a very, very important piece of it. One of the things that we Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 62 of 161 will do too and I know I am jumping around a little bit, but we will be having what we call fam tours, if you will and bringing those site location consultants out here. So that you all will get to meet with them and we will all get to meet with them and so we will let them know first hand what is happening too. I went off a little bit, Councilman Wardle - Wardle: Thank you. De Weerd: I guess, Councilman Wardle my nutshell answer to that is we are .Iooking at family wage jobs and being attracted to the area and it is not just new business attraction. I guess since BVEP has coined me as the czarina of attention or something like that I am more interested in the business retention aspect and how we can grow our own businesses that are already here and assure the quality of jobs that we are also growing in that. So it is that family wage job that we are really looking at and is the only job generation that you will be counting to their targeted goals. So that what the nutshell and certainly the thing that I am most attracted to. They will bring them in. They will work with the businesses and we will close the deal. Wardle: Thank Madame Mayor. I would certainly agree that a $5 million investment for a $650 million capital expenditure on top of a $300 million per year payroll seems like a good leverage of certainly the city's funds, but also private industry response are funding over 80 percent of the program. De Weerd: Are there any other questions, Council? We appreciate you joining us and I know you have another meeting to run off to, but thank you for your time. Our next department is Finance and so I will turn this over - Stacy I do see that Valley Ride is here - because we don't want to rush you. Kilchenmann: That is fine, I will go after them. De Weerd: -- and by doing this we even gave you more time. So, Valley Ride if you would like to address your requests this year as well? Vallev Ride Kerias: Rany Kerias and I am Deputy Director for Valley Regional Transit, which provides the Valley Ride services. Currently, we are providing two different types of services. We have an express, which is providing about 4,300 hours a year and a limited which provides about 6,500 hours per year. The average rider ship on each of these services since our service restructure, October 1 st is ranging between 11 and 14 percent so we are on a pretty good trend, which is what we expected. The consultants have said about a year we would start seeing some Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 63 of 161 pretty good service trends. From a financial aspect - does everybody have the funding summary? I have brought copies with me if you need them. . De Weerd: We would love the funding summary. Kerias: Some notable points on this is that the VRT planning or administrative dues request has gone down significantly, just a hair over $19,000; but the service contribution has gone up approximately $25,000 over 2006 and the reason for this - there are a few reasons, but one of the main reasons is that we are - we wanted a reel on our budget to support what we are actually doing and the level of planning over the prior years has gone down significantly. The support for operations obviously is our focus right now. Another reason for the increase is that we recently went through a financial management oversight audit that was required by the FT A and one of the outcomes of that was that we need to allocate more expense. Some of the expenses that we had originally thought were planning expenses, they considered operating. So there was I would say a whole sale shift from planning expense out to operating and that is another reason for that pretty significant increase. It changes the match that we have to pay for the federal funds, but that is all reflected in this shifting. Also our revenues over 2006 were increased by about 25 percent and that is because of the positive change that we have seen from the route restructure, we have seen a pretty good increase in revenues, which has helped covered some of those costs. We had a small issue with some fuel tax where we had a state audit and the outcome of the audit was that we are not tax exempt from state fuel tax, so we had to absorb some of those expenses in that. There is approximately a three percent increase in purchase transportation, which is our contractor that is actually supplying these services and that was just figured into the contract, so there is no extraordinary increases. We have been able to pretty much handle the fuel increases over the last few months and just absorb that into our regular operating budget. That is pretty much it. That is a snap shot and Kelly said she would be back sometime within the next year to discuss service enhancements. I am not familiar with what she has on the docket for that. That is about it. De Weerd: Council, do you have questions? I guess, Randy, my question is I know the two pieces that we help support is the limited and the expressed. Can you tell us a little bit about that and I know we have heard about it in the past, but just a general overview? Kerias: Sure. The peak bus, which I believe is the express starts in Nampa and it comes through the park and ride at Gold's Gym and then it heads on downtown to the City of Boise. The limited stop comes in behind Winco, goes to St. Luke's, Call center on Overland and then heads to the town square mall and if you want anymore that is why I brought Steven because he has more detail on those. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 64 of 161 De Weerd: Well, we had to figure out a way to bring Steven in. That was my question. You are on the Board aren't you Joe? Borton: Yeah. De Weerd: Do you have anything that you would like to add? Borton: Randy do you have figures that indicate the number of individuals getting on or getting off at specific locations? Kerias: Yeah, we have - we do have some, but I would like to say that the build out of the system that captures the rider ship data in Nampa. We have some general idea. It is not as specific in Boise because we don't have a fair collection system in Nampa yet, but just a box that they drop the money in and the drivers you know tally them up. So essentially or from what we have right now, in the first eight months of year we have transported about 3,100 individuals per month and one other - and we are estimating about 800 of those are dropped off or picked up at the Gold's location, roughly. Borton: How did you get that figure of 800? Hunt: Steven Hunt and I called Nampa actually to just get some anecdotal information as to how much rider ship was generated here in Meridian. They said about 20 people per day get on or off at Gold's Gym. So, 20 people a day is going to be about 40 trips because you count trips. Trips are when you get on and off and they are not person specific. So, 40 trips a day by 5 days by 4 weeks is about 800 trips per month and that is current. So, it is just this last month - I didn't ask for historical data on that, but he said about 20 people a day and I am assuming that is for our current month. So, 800 trips a month on just the 40 that is on that express route. Then we didn't get any data from them about the 42, which is your limited stop serving Central Valley Business Park and then St. Luke's Meridian and Silverstone. De Weerd: You don't know how many of those 800 are actually Meridian? I think because of the Gold's location we serve Kuna. Hunt: Right. One of the important things that I think our rider ship does show to us is that the routes are becoming more and more relevant over time and that - Kelly will come back and talk about service enhancements, we are talking about bringing in more express services that are more for Meridian. In other words they are on the north side of the freeway, they are going to focus I think more on the Meridian populations as opposed to the 40, which has the one stop; which is an okay location, but I think as you all know it is hard to get over there. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 65 of 161 De Weerd: Yeah, it really is hard to get there. Hunt: That is why we have had the 42 and you are aware of this, Mayor De Weerd, come onto the north side of the freeway and goes to Central Valley Business Park. De Weerd: Are you working with the employers that are in those locations to really maximize and encourage greater user ship? Hunt: Mary is our marketing coordinator and I know she has been working with some employers. I don't know if she has been specifically targeting the 42 on its service at Central Valley as of yet. One notable point and the one issue that we are facing for 2007 is that we have a capacity issue on 40, the vehicles are at their limit and some of the trips people are standing. So that is something that we are looking at right now. There are some federal monies out there that we might be able to capture and maybe shift some vehicles around, but that is our short term issue that we are facing right now, which is good. De Weerd: That is a good problem to have. Hunt: Yeah, exactly as long as we don't keep it in that state too long and people may stop riding if they have to stand every time they want to take a trip. De Weerd: Okay, if there are no further questions, we thank you for your time and appreciate you coming. Okay, Stacy. Finance Department Kilchenmann: Okay, Will handed out a couple of my enhancement requests. I am going to talk about the general fund one first and then hopefully I will have time to go over the enterprise one briefly. Okay, what we are requesting is an accountant in the accounting position and this would be a degreed accountant and at the top of the handout, I have the growth or the change in the city budget since 2001 to 2006 and you can see that it has gone from $32 million to $89 million. The total number of city full time equivalent staff has gone from 164 to 260 so that is almost 100 staff increase. Well, the core accounting staff and when I am talking about the accounting functions that I am talking about that this position will impact are those in blue at the right - payables, cash, financial reporting, budgeting and payroll. You can see that we have actually decreased because we tried the contracting and we took away a position to do the payroll contracting and that didn't work and we brought it back in-house. So we will essentially be asking to be back where we were before we tried that. Yes, we can admit our mistakes. But, the other thing that this shows is that this tremendous growth in the city really impacts us; the payroll increases, the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 66 of 161 number of payables that we have has increased, the accounting structure and reporting is more complex. Also the audit standards are a lot more complex and we are having to spend a lot more time with the audit - like we have to do a special investment policy, investment reporting that is a lot more complicated than it has been, etc. We also are doing MDC's accounting, which has gotten more complex and currently because really the only two accounting people we have with accounting backgrounds are Reta and myself and it is just getting to the point that we can't both do all the functions that we are doing. So, in my enhancement request, I included the job description of what this person would be doing and I also have asked MDC to contribute to the position; I think it is $10,000 and they haven't gone through their budget process yet, so I don't know if they are going to contribute or not, but hopefully they will. They sound like they will. Their reporting and processing is taking more time. In the past year, just quickly we don't really have time to go over everything we have done in the past year, but two functions that aren't impacted by this position are the billing function and the new purchasing function. Our first ever purchasing agent is back here, Keith Watts. He doesn't have a master's in planning, but he does have lots of government experience - he is not the maintenance guy. So he has already hit the ground running and making a lot of changes in how the city does purchasing and he is here today to get the first info on all of the big projects and contracts that are approved and presented. We have improved our standard financial reporting. We keep trying to improve that. We are busy working on the fiscal impact and the long term capital improvement plan. We worked on special projects with the impact fee. We have contracted to do the fiscal model or the financial analysis model where we will take certain types of development, drop it in the model, figure out what the expected revenue will be and on the other hand what the expected costs will be. We have done a lot of things in our Utility Billing Department to improve efficiency. I am going talk in the next part about what we are doing as far as online payments, taking credit cards and so forth. We are working on a huge project, which will save time to automate our timecards from the manual process and that has been a big joint effort between ourselves and the IT Department to do that. There will be huge step into current century when we can get that done. On the back I have the organizational plan for the Finance Department. We have kind of done some reorganization. The two positions in yellow are the ones that we don't have. The account is the one that I am requesting currently and probably not until 2009 because there won't be any place for them to sit; we will need to add an accounts payable type person to help with processing payroll or not payroll, but payables. So are there any questions on this piece? Bird: Didn't Keith tell you that he could find stacking desks and chairs? Kilchenmann: We could do that. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 67 of 161 Bird: No this is very good. Borton: I take it from your comment, MDC hasn't contributed in the past to your- Kilchenmann: No, they have not. It has been small when it started out and it was just very - just a couple of hours. As they have grown the demands have grown and they are now having their own external audit so we need to prepare the management and discussion and analysis for that and the financial reports and so forth. Borton: Your enhancement amount - Kilchenmann: What you see is the total of $67,000 and then if they contribute that would be reduced by $10,000 and we split that with enterprise. Borton: When I look at the wages I am just wondering can you get an accountant for that cheap. Kilchenmann: That is what our HR Department told us we could. I don't know. I am a little skeptical. Wardle: I guess my question on this, Stacy, is are you looking for a degreed accountant or someone with a CPA certification? Kilchenmann: Just the degree. Wardle: Okay. Kilchenmann: Okay the next piece is the piece that you will actually see it in the enterprise fund and it's $50,000 for credit card fees and if there is one tiny little question, our Billing Manager will answer it. But what that is it's really a guess on how much it will cost us to process credit cards because we don't know how many people will sign up for the service and what we are doing is we are going to take - we already have the machine and we are going to take credit cards over the phone and in the office and the rate is 20 percent for the swipe and then $1.69 or --- 1.69 percent - oh, didn't I say that? De Weerd: No, you said 20 percent and I was thinking wow. Kilchenmann: Okay, you are right it is $.20. Bird: I was going to say we had better get rid of that. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11,2006 Page 68 of 161 Kilchenmann: Then we are also doing payments online, which has been - I get emailed on this all of the time and we are doing that through the company that does our billing. We have already - they have already done the programming. We did that - we got money last year with IT to do that and so instead of IT doing it in-house, we are actually having them do it. So you will be able to go online and pay your bill and then there is a transaction fee to that, but on the opposite we are not having to open their envelope and process it manually. So like I said the $50,000 - Idaho Power told us the only probably like 10 percent of their customers do the online payments. We are not sure how it is going to come out. Bird: If it is 10 percent of ours - what is our customer base right now? Kilchenmann: We have like what - 24,000? Bird: So, you say 24 and Idaho Power is getting about 10 percent Stacy? De Weerd: How many customers are doing the bank-? Kilchenmann: The direct deposit? De Weerd: Yeah. Holman: Okay, Jacy Holman. We have about I think it is between 14 and 1,500 customers a month who use the direct pay between the two billing cycles. Bird: Then if we added another 2,400 if we stayed at the 10 percent with Idaho Power. Kilchenmann: It has been the biggest request we get -- is for people to be able to do that. To be able to the credit cards for people who are out of state and we have a lot of investors that live out of state and the house changes hands and right now we don't have a way for them to pay unless they send a bill and I think this will make them very happy. Holman: I think it is very important from a customer service standpoint to do this because we get people especially - I would say the day or two before shut off day they have until 2:00 Tuesday to pay and this gives them a better option. We have military people who call that are traveling out of town in and out and we have people, like I said own out of state and they are dealing with rental property and they don't want it shut off. Then also just people that travel in general. One of the other enhancements that BDS is also tacking onto this is to allow online statements. Well, we can email statements to people. They can open their email.click on that email that takes them directly to their current statement and the ability to pay that statement, which we have had a lot of requests for that. I Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 69 of 161 get a lot of people and they are angry saying when are you guys going to get with the century and start taking debit and credit cards and start doing online stuff. I think it will be the most beneficial will be from a customer service standpoint. De Weerd: Thank you. Yes,Shaun? Wardle: So we are currently not taking credit card payments? Holman: No, we don't take debit or credit cards right now. The only service we offer is what is called auto pay where they give us a voided check which gives us the routing and account number. Wardle: I am on it, yeah. I guess one of the questions I have is as an enhancement to essentially customer service or what I know are difficult customer interaction where you have someone who is delinquent and about to be turned off and may not be able to pay cash or check, but has credit card payment. Do you see that as helping to have one more option not to have to turn that person's water off? Holman: Oh, absolutely. We get people that - that is their only option to use their credit card and it is sad that people are in a position to have to put their utilities on a credit card probably due to their other choices in life, but it definitely and some people really struggle and we had people go four or five days without water because they can't come up with it. Normally, they have bounced a check with us, so now we won't take a check anymore and so they have to do cash or a money order and it is difficult for them. So at least it would get them maybe through it. De Weerd: Well, I think when we added that direct payor the auto pay it was kind of the first step in this direction. You can see the one - the elected officials that are on that don't want to see ourselves on the shutoff list. This is our guarantee. Any other questions, Council? Bird: I have none. Thanks Stacy. De Weerd: Okay, it is 12:15, Council our next presentation is at 12:30, would you like to take a 15 minute break, get your lunch? Okay. (Break) Public Works Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 70 of 161 Watson: Thank you Mayor, Council Members before we start I have to handout little door prizes. It is a blatant attempt at kissing up. I try to set myself apart from everyone else. Bird: How come all of your cars don't have that on there? Watson: I could only afford ten of them. So you all get five and one is on our door. I haven't placed the other four yet. Bird: How many cars do you have there now? Watson: With inspectors, I think ten. De Weerd: Well that is how you figured out how to ask that question of Brad, huh? Bird: I drove through the lot the other night and I did for the parade to see if we could park in there - we had to and I was shocked (inaudible). Watson: Well, I will get started. As usual we always want to thank Mayor and Council for the support over the last year. Every year we come and say it's been a very challenging year and it is no different this time. It has been very busy with a lot of development, a lot of big projects and as you will see shortly a lot has been accomplished and a lot remains to be done. De Weerd: So you are thanking us for the challenges we give you? Watson: Sure, yes. Life would be boring. The staff in meeting these challenges has been very industrious, innovative and conservative and we will go over a few of the accomplishments, I wish we had time to go over all of them, but this is a big department, there is a lot of things that go on that nobody ever sees that are worth telling about. I just don't have time for those right now and as Councilman Wardle said before this started you haven't seen a lot of me over the last year. Len has taken over as City Engineer and attends the Council meetings and in reality that is a good thing. That has allowed him to get more into the day to day operations of the Engineering Department and has allowed me to focus on things that I should have done once Gary left, but wasn't able to. So things like financial planning, working with the Water and Wastewater Departments more has really, I think, maybe they disagree has been a very good thing. John and Rick along with Len have taken big steps over the last year just internally doing some things with their teams to make them more efficient, proVide better service and kind of a buzz word, but team build. These are the three managers that operate the whole Public Works Department, Engineering, Water, Wastewater and those are the three people that I talk to almost daily and really manage all of the system. They Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 71 of 161 do a whole lot; way more than we could even imagine. I just want to mention a few other managers real quick and some are here and some aren't. We have Chip Hudson he is our Assistant Water Superintendent. He makes sure that everyone can take a shower in the morning and that there is fire flows, somebody opens up the hydrants. Dan Higgs he is our Wastewater Superintendent. He makes sure that those showers have somewhere to drain to. We have Kerrie Glen, who keeps the Engineering, Building Divisions humming along under mountains of paper and information with a minimum of fuss. We have Bruce Freckleton who is the gatekeeper as I call him for all new development and finally our other manager, Clint Dolsby who spends more money than the rest of us combined and doesn't feel bad about it either. I really appreciate what these guys do and lady as well as the whole department. Again, you would be shocked if all of them were in here right now. There is about 73 or 75 Public Works employees department wide, plus four Building Department employees, plus 15 to 17 contract employees in Building. So it is a pretty big crew. We also want to thank Reta and Stacy for all the help, especially this year; it has been quite challenging to say the least. This presentation looks really long from what I gave to you and it is and I apologize we will try to get through it as fast as we can without glossing anything over. If I need to slow down or any of the others need to slow down, just let us know. We will be switching off as we do every year, so whoever is most appropriate to present it will be up here and hopefUlly that is not too distracting. Before we start I have to introduce the other attendees from our department. We have Kyle Raddick our newest staff engineer. I stole him Charlie's operations at lTD. We have Max Jensen who we stole from Taracon. De Weerd: From where? Watson: From Taracon a geotechnical. De Weerd: Well, welcome both of you. Watson: I just want to get this one part out of the way, the backhoe request. Can you hit the hot button on this? We think we can get a lot done with this. We only need one. The Black Cat could be done in about two weeks, I think. Bird: Water doesn't need one too? Watson: Oh yeah, this is just water. Wastewater is next year. De Weerd: Wow that is impressive. Is that used so we are getting a good deal? Watson: Yeah, this isn't even brand new. This is German made. The delivery is a bit of a problem. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 72 of 161 Bird: Wouldn't take it long to destroy Meridian, would it? Watson: Okay, I am sorry we don't have enough time for this. We will just jump right into the presentation. These are the strategic initiatives for the Public Works Department. I presented these or at least briefly went over those at our workshop on May 30th. The top one is really a catchall for dealing with growth and it consumes probably 90 percent of capital budget, quite a bit of operational budget in the staff engineering time. I am getting the project built. The second is primarily operations and probably consumes 75 percent of our operations budget. The third and fourth of public outreach and regional leadership are miniscule in terms of budget. They don't even register at zero if you round off they are .02 or something like that. Then departmental excellence that is kind of the initiative that encompasses customer service, response times, efficiencies and that sort of thing. We hope that all of these enhancements somehow tie back into these and I think they do. This slide is to just show you - I already mentioned how big the department is. I don't think people often realize how buried it is too. We have so many different functions in this department and I probably should know more about each one of them than I do. Some I do, but when it comes to somebody like, oh, even a mechanic I know roughly what they do day to day, but I am not sure. John does and that is what matters. We have lab analysts; people that check lift stations, engineers, fabricators. I think bio solids operators were at the bottom of the list? We focused on doing some department wide inner divisional things this year and you can read those for yourself. The one that I would probably note the most is the safety program that we formally implemented this spring; Employee Safety Committee was formed; two people from the three divisions and is really quite active. You will see some enhancements later in the presentation for safety expenses and part of that goes to our ongoing contract with a safety director. We can't warrant a full time employee at this point and time, but with all of the construction, all of the activity we do need that person looking after us a little bit. Bird: Who do you contract with Brad? Watson: (Inaudible) Blank is the company. Bob Conkey. In terms of engineering, again you can reduce for yourselves that we probably have, I would think, probably the most sophisticated water and sewer models in the region; maybe sewer is a little debatable. (Tape turned over) Watson: -- the thing this does for you is helps us evaluate incoming development applications very, very quickly and accurately. De Weerd: We can break when we get to water. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 73 of 161 Watson: As you probably know, we have completed design of Black Cat Sewer project that was bid recently. We successfully bid a multitude of projects, until I handled one myself here in the last couple of weeks. Our new purchasing agent, as luck would have it, fortunately he caught it. I will leave the projects to Len, Clint and Kyle from now on. We have completed master plans at Water and Sewer and we are completing a facility plant for the Wastewater plant that takes us beyond the 90,000 population. I will touch on that a little bit more in a minute. De Weerd: Dr. Clark do you have a timeframe to go (inaudible)? Watson: We are going to get into the water side of things. We have been very busy over there too, setting meters, opening accounts, doing service calls. One leak that turned into a little bit of an incident, which was successfully handled - the focus of this is that we have zero permit violations. The other focus of this is that through the installation of all the PRV's, which are pressure reducing valves we have been able to squeeze more efficiency out of the existing supply and get water where it needs to be to provide fire flow. So, instead of just drilling a new well every six months we are utilizing what we have better. It doesn't mean we don't need new wells, but we are getting more from what we already have. Just a few water projects here real quick. You know we are doing this because you have run into road closed signs all of the time. Ustick Road was kind of a nightmare when we closed that, but we needed to do it because development was coming and ACHD was coming. This is an interesting project. It is a big Ustick reservoir site. It is Well 20 B; there is a well 20 so there are two wells inside that building now and each about 2,000 gallons per minute, I believe. So the building was expanded to get that second well and they drilled into separate aquifers. When we did the test well it was a very significant aqUifer or a series of aquifers so we have now tapped two out of the four. Bird: What depth is that, Brad? Watson: It is not the shallow. They probably I would guess one is around 350 and the other is around 600 because there is a really deep one at about 800 to 1,000 and then the shallow one on top. Bird: What does the tank hold again? Watson: Two million. Bird: Two million gallons? Watson: Yes. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 74 of 161 Bird: And it is full all of the time, right? Watson: More or less, yes. Bird: Or pretty close to that, I guess; unless, I guess an overload flow or something? Watson: Right, unless there is a significant flow event out there. Bird: Thank you. Watson: And then Well 26 was completed on N. Locust Grove, close to Chinden. Then our final water project that we will highlight here is the Water Division building. If there was ever proof that we don't treat our own projects differently than the general public, this one was it because it sort of got bogged down in the permitting process. It had to do with fire, sprinklers and fire hydrants and some red tape having to do with some storm drainage facilities that we (inaudible) with ACHD and yeah - it is going to get built though. We are advertising next week. Bird: For bids? Watson: For bids. Bird: Good. Have you had much interest? Watson: I don't think we even - Bird: Have you (inaudible) the plans out on the street yet? Watson: That is going on next week. Then we will hit the pavement. Bird: I am interested to see what kind of interest we have (inaudible). Watson: Yeah it will be interesting. I think that does it for our water projects. The next one would be wastewater. De Weerd: Okay, why don't we break right now? Dr. Clark we appreciate you joining us. We had our Parks presentation earlier this morning and an enhancement request for $200,000 for the lighted fields and raised some questions and so I thought maybe you could give an overview of the project itself and the importance of the partnership. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 75 of 161 Clark: Thank you and I appreciate - I left the Eagle Island Planning Committee to come, but it was very interesting. This was the day in which there were reports on recreational facilities, sports complexes, walkways, pathways and all that sort of thing. So it really was a nice segway into these brief remarks. I was interested that when the director of Boise Parks and Recreation gave his report he reported that the City of Boise has 59 baseball fields and 37 softball fields. I think that - well, just kind of file that away for a second. I am here as Mayor De Weerd said to talk about kind of a unique thing that with which we want to partner - that we want to partner with the city on. I have been concerned for a while and that concern was heightened with a visit some patrons that we really had not attended to girls' sports in an equal way with those of boys; specifically in the area of softball and baseball and it is kind of - we have fields and whoever uses them, uses them and at the high school level we have separate baseball and softball facilities, but at Middle School High School it is pretty much whoever schedules them or gets their first uses them and so on. Currently the District cannot host a state softball tournament without partnering with Boise and splitting it between Centennial High School and Timberline. As you probably know in the plans for the refurbishment of Meridian High School and the upgrading of that facility, there are two girls softball fields and we are just replacing the ones that they have had that they lose during the construction phase. But, as we were moving along very rapidly toward the bids for Heritage Middle School, it occurred to me that we had an opportunity, a very small window of opportunity to perhaps correct this situation a little bit. So, I spoke with our architects and with our construction managers and we determined and I - did you actually see the --? So you actually have that and if I refer to that you know what I am talking about? We worked with them to reconfigure the layout of the fields at Heritage Middle School. It is very difficult for us to do this at a High School, but at the middle school we have a little more flexibility and so as you will recall from the plan we - this is the building. This is McMillan Road and this is Meridian Road. We were able to reconfigure the layout of the fields to move the football fields toward the back and to configure this four field softball complex with an additional fifth field back here. We had to move very quickly to do that and when I met with Mayor De Weerd we talked about it. The School District has already moved the dirt around, changed the plan, began the construction of the dirt and the commitment that we made was that we would do all of the layout of the field, we would put in the fencing, the very small dugout area with just chain link fence and so on and we would rely on the softball community to come together to do upgrades and so on. In addition, the School District will do all of the stubbing of the light fixtures, sewer and so on for the possibility of adding concessions in the future. So what we came to the city for was really to partner with us on this so that it was a joint use facility between the city and the School District to address the needs of girls' softball in the community and to talk to Mayor De Weerd about the possibility of the city putting in the lights. The School District could not put in the lights to start with. We will have to rely on the softball community to raise the funds to do that Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11. 2006 Page 76 of 161 over time and of course as you well know since you sit here all of the time it is much easier to put those lights in as we are in the construction phase in a subdivision that is being constructed than to have to go back later and come with that proposal to add them after folks are in their houses and so on. So, we believe that this will move us forward in addressing the needs of a softball in the community and I would just like to suggest that I believe this ought to be the first of more formalized kind of partnership that we have with the city in terms of addressing these huge recreational sports based needs where we can do some joint things together. You all currently know that there is a lot of use of our fields for city recreation, for softball, for baseball, for soccer, for lacrosse and so on. We think that there are some opportunities coming as we build new buildings and do some modification of existing buildings to more formalize that and allow the city to maximize it and not have to go out and build those facilities on our own. So I would just submit that this is the first of those partnerships and we hope that your budget will allow you to move forward with it with the lighting. I am glad to answer any questions that you may have. De Weerd: Thank you. Bird: Yeah, I have quite a few questions. First of all why would we put a four- plex out at a middle school that doesn't even play softball? Clark: Councilman Bird that is why we put it at a middle school because we have the space to do it there and there isn't specific need for varsity and junior varsity sports. This will become a community softball complex primarily and will allow for daytime and evening softball activities. We couldn't put it at a high school because the demands of the high school are so great there is no way for us to put this kind of a complex at a high school site. Bird: My question is, is it feasible to have the kids - and I don't know the financial figures, but they have got to be better - I know it was so much better to bring the football teams back to their home fields and they go to Boise State; the revenue became better and you didn't have to payout $3,800 to $4,000 a game for rent, but here we are putting it at a middle school that doesn't even have or offer softball or little league or anything like that these fields are going to be suited for, so we are going to tell Rocky Mountain or Meridian or whoever if they have a home game they have got to travel out to the corner of - is that the wrong idea? Clark: That is not what would happen. Each of the high schools has a softball field and they host their home games at that softball field. The only time that we envision our high school teams would use this complex would be if we hosted a state tournament. What we are doing here is building a facility for the community, for community softball. We are able to do that at a middle school Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11. 2006 Page 77 of 161 because they don't have demands on their fields for varsity and junior varsity. We would not moving Rocky Mountain, Mountain View, Meridian High to this field to play their home games. We just felt that it was an opportunity where the School District could use the land they already had, develop this for community use. We will do it without the lights because it is just mostly a matter of us - it has some additional costs to us, but it is mostly a matter of rearranging. It also, the middle school P.E. program can run perfectly well on this with this kind of a configuration. It doesn't make any change to their program. But we would not be going to that mode where we brought high school teams - Bird: Are you lighting the new softball field at Meridian High? Clark: I believe that we are lighting the softball and the football at Meridian High and at Rocky Mountain. Bird: How about the baseball field? Clark: Baseball and softball at Rocky Mountain and at Meridian High School. Bird: I heard that the baseball field was not getting the lights lit. Clark: Well there is a lot of confusion about that because the bids came in so much over. But our board made the decision to - they felt they had made a commitment to baseball and softball and so they are taking that overage out of the land acquisition money. Bird: So basically this four plex, other than for P.E. use would be controlled and ran by the City of Meridian? Clark: That is possible. On one of the initial conversations that we had with the Mayor was should the Recreation Department do the scheduling of this field and we haven't, you know, not knowing what the city's commitment was in terms of the partnership, we didn't move forward with that, but that would be an ideal thing. It truly is a joint use thing because its intent is to step forward and say how can we use publicly funded fields to meet not only the educational need, but also the community need? How can we continue to expand the green space? How can we continue to expand the recreational area in a joint kind of project? So in mind that - having your Recreation Department schedule this field would be an ideal part of that partnership. De Weerd: Any other questions Council? Borton: Madame Mayor. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 78 of 161 De Weerd: Mr. Borton, yes. Borton: Dr. Clark I am so pleased to see you here. My question I had initially was, I think you just answered it was the ability for the city and the District to work together with scheduling and use of these fields and you heard the Parks Department's presentations on the difficulty of finding open space, the expense, let along finding it and I know the District is faced with that same challenge. What you are saying and presenting just opens the doors to such an awesome opportunity to be so efficient with those limited resources. This could be the very start of a continued relationship with additional school sites and facilities and shared resources. It seems to be that they have done right in the most efficient use of taxpayers' money, they have done right. So they have done right. So the fact that you came here on such short notice to present this to me demonstrates the commitment the District has in accomplishing this relationship and - Clark: Councilman Borton and Madame Mayor, I think we have a lot of good partnerships with the city now, but I also feel that we need to step that up, (inaudible) a notch and say how can we do things jointly that benefit the patrons and the taxpayers who are paying the bill. One of the issues I have and I think, Councilman Bird, this might also speak to your question is I hear a lot about school facilities sitting empty for significant portions of the year and the day. This kind of approach and one that I think will be announced with the Library District in the next day or so are ways to address that. To say these facilities aren't going to just sit empty, they are there for the use of the community. We have a lot of use of our fields and frankly sometimes scheduling that is very difficult. This more formalized kind of approach provides opportunity for the city to expand what they are offering to the community. It also helps us address the use of our facilities and how they are scheduled and so on. I think it is - I am excited about it. De Weerd: Anything further? Dr. Clark we sure appreciate you coming here. You can say it better than any of us can so. Clark: Well I do want to say, Mayor De Weerd and Council I know that this is a big amount of money. I probably know better than anybody what $200,000 means in a budget. But I believe that it would be an investment that will pay huge dividends over time in terms of expanding all of the good things that Meridian has to offer and also addressing equity issues that we believe are out there. De Weerd: Well, we believe that you have been a catalyst to opening these partnerships and expanding the use of your facilities to the community and we appreciate that, especially when we are all crunched in our budgets and in the use of our facilities. We appreciate this partnership. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 79 of 161 Clark: I did feel somewhat heartened listening to the delays in the building effort. However, I probably will be back soon to ask you to speed that process up on some projects that we have going that are pretty important. De Weerd: Bruce you have been notified. Clark: Thanks. De Weerd: Thank you and again, we appreciate that. Thank you, Brad, for allowing us that interruption. Watson: You are welcome. Sometimes I would rather talk about baseball fields than sewer, too. We will get back to wastewater and some of those selected activities. Again, zero violations for I don't know how many years in a row. One thing that I think you all heard about was that the Wastewater Plant received the Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association safety award at the conference last October, which was really a big deal. We have completed the North Slew Trunk. That is the one that is north McMillan, south of Chinden. The big victory in that was taking the Vienna Woods lift station off line and the associated odor problems that were caused on the White Trunk last year in the summer before. De Weerd: Was that in Heritage Commons? Watson: Yes. That was where the Vienna lift station discharged to. De Weerd: Yeah. That is good news. Watson: I will just flip through a few of the wastewater projects here. This is the big one going on out at the plant; the first phase of the big expansion. They are about 30 percent through budget wise; some of the components are actually quite a bit ahead of schedule. Should be able to put some of them online yet this year, which will really help out. The Black Cat lift station is complete and operational. Obviously these are pictures of the pump gallery. That is about 30 feet below ground. We are hoping to arrange to get Mayor and Council out to visit that. We will have a ribbon cutting and punch and cookies or something. De Weerd: That would be neat. Watson: Yeah, I would enjoy taking you out there. De Weerd: The hole was impressive. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 80 of 161 Watson: It was a huge hole. It was a crater. Here is a picture of the recently completed standby power plant out at the wastewater plant. It has four big caterpillar generators and should keep us going for a long time. Bird: Is the fourth one online already? Watson: Right, all four of them are installed now. Here is just a little recap and some lead into some of the issues we have. As you all know, calendar year 2005 was an extreme building year. It was way above anything that we experienced. The projection for calendar year 2006 looks closer to the 2004 levels, but it is still really high; probably 50 to 70 percent higher than what we were doing in the early part of the decade. In terms of just infrastructure growth, every year this shocks me at how much line has been put in the ground when you look at the statistics, but since January 2005 about 120 miles has been put underground again judging by the road closures you can probably believe that. Wastewater flows; the top line shows last year, 2005 and 2006 projected in the dark blue is what actually occurred in 2005. Obviously you can see what development is doing to the wastewater plant. That is a big jump. All those lines were taking somewhat small bumps every year and then over the last year it really raised the bar. Could you hit the hot button up there, Len? I guess just to illustrate what we are doing to get ahead of this is Carello is doing a facility plan to take us past 90,000 populations. These are the preliminary alternatives that they have come up with that we have reviewed with them, showing how that site will be built out. This is what they would call 10,000,000 gallons, probably like $40 million expansion which would take us to a grand total of 19,000,000 gallons and if we go beyond that this is a 20 MGD expansion that could be put on that site using the conventional treatment that we already use. On the next slide is one of the other alternatives that they are evaluating is the MDR treatment that you have heard a lot about over the last year. They are evaluating that as one of the alternatives. This just shows that it will obviously fit on the side as well. Borton: Has that land been purchased? Watson: Councilman Borton, yes it is. The yellow outline is what we own. The light blue is the 50 foot buffer, which mayor may not be sufficient, but even with that you can see that there is some - it could be tight, but you could squeeze that down some more. Bird: Were you not looking at some other land out there, Brad? Watson: We have off and on tried to push on that front a little bit and that was with limited success. We are not done, but we will continue. It would be very nice to have a little bit more buffer around that ultimate plant. This is somewhat rudimentary benchmarking that I looked at. I looked at several different things, Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 81 of 161 statistics, but these were two that I thought exemplified what has gone on in the Public Works Department better than anything else. The accounts, the number of water and sewer accounts per employee continues to rise. Also, the number of permits processed per employee in the Engineering, Building Department continues to rise, although it went down a little bit in FY 06. We project it will be back up in 2007. What this tells me is that we are not loaded, employee wise; but the number of amount and magnitude of activity continues to rise per employee. So, I just want to keep that in mind. Now we get to the budget growth over the last few years. This is something that Stacy doesn't have in her figures. What I have done here is taken out the general fund expenditures; I have taken out depreciation; I have taken our water meters, which is a pass through cost to really look at what just water, wastewater and Public Works base budget costs are. I did get these numbers - I extracted them from her data. The top line shows the account growth over that same period. In 2005 we did bump right up against - we had a budget growth nearly equivalent to an account growth. Other than that it has been quite a bit below. This next slide is just another way of showing the same thing. The yellow shows the overall Public Works strip down base budget growth over the last four years and what we proposed for FY 07. Note that engineering, in fact, there is a decrease. We have eliminated several positions and had some savings in other spots so it will actually go down in 2007. When I say we, I mean engineering. I lecture these guys. We are not a we, they thing. So, I sometimes fall back into my City Engineer roles. The operating budget that we are proposing this year and again these do include everything that is on the finances sheets. You will see that engineering is a three percent decrease; water about 4.2; wastewater 6.2. These are, I think, accumulative it is a 3.9 percent increase, which I presume faithfully that it is quite lower than growth. When we did the rate increase earlier this year, we showed a five year surplus on the operating fund of about $300,000. That was based on some budget figures for FY 06. I went back and looked at these last week and projected out the remainder of FY 06 and it looks like - well my first cut said we would actually have about $1.4 million left over. But, I know we have some chemical expenditures and fuel things that are coming up over the summer. So, I looked at that and actually estimating we will have a $1.1 million savings in operations by the end of this fiscal year. That is the good news. Our utility sales revenue is falling short of the budgeted figures that we came up with a year ago. There are several explanations. We have talked about this and brainstormed a little bit. We had a wet spring when people a lot of times start irrigating in even March, which seems weird to me, but April as well it was raining and they did irrigate. The other thing that we have found through CH2M Hill's water master plan is the (inaudible) water consumption is going down, whereas it used to be in the neighborhood of 180 gallons per person per day. It has dropped almost 25 percent to 140 gallons per capita per day. De Weerd: And really that is good news if you look at it environmentally. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 82 of 161 Watson: It is good news. Water conservation is one of the things that we want to promote. It would be nice if it dropped a little slower so we could maybe plan a little bit better for it. Our water conservation campaign has not been real extensive. Rick does have that verbiage in his consumer confidence report that goes out once a year and there is some information on the website, but to date it hasn't been a huge focus. Rick had an interesting idea last week that maybe it is the culture of the people that are moving in from out of state, where there was water conservation - Arizona, California and they are bringing that with them. De Weerd: I thought it was our parks getting them on pressurized irrigation. Watson: Well, this is based on billable water. De Weerd: Well, you have tried to bill them. Watson: Okay, Len. So, where do we go from here? We look at these revenue figures, the budget figures and what we really need to do and will do is do a cost of service analysis. It is a little bit more detailed than what we have done in the last couple of years to look at where those costs are and how the fee structure should be set up. There has been a rather sharp increased administrative cost from the general funds for transfer of some Public Works Administration type stuff and a few other things, appreciation is one of those. Those have risen pretty sharply over the last three to four years. Obviously operational costs have risen; fuels, chemicals, power and even personnel. Personnel has gone up. We have had to compete and bring people in. The bottom bullet there is we do expect a more significant rate increase than we have seen in the last two to three years. We will be working on that this fall. Let's move over to the capital budget unless there are any questions on that? De Weerd: Council, any questions at this time? Watson: Just a few slides on the capital budget. We went through and because of what you had - the summary you have in your packet shows an upside down, I can't remember now - almost a million dollars on the capital side of things. We went through to look and see where we could return money at the end of this year on nearly or completed projects and we found about a quarter of a million that we will be able to turn back in. These are simply to illustrate that we are very dollar conscious in these projects and what we are doing. The phase 1 project that we showed earlier is a big project and there were certain components of that project that seem to keep escalating in price from the planning stage three or four years ago to most recently. What we have had to do is remove one of those components out of the project to save about $5.5 million. That is the dryer. You may have heard about it. It was the thing that was going to take the bio solids Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 83 of 161 and dry it and make it into little pellets that could be put on lawns or parks or something. We have taken that out of the budget. At some point and time, we will probably revisit it. But, just to get this in the ground and do what we absolutely needed to do, we have cut that out. The flip side is, maybe not this next year, but the following year we may have to contract with SSC to haul that off to the landfill - as agricultural land is developed we are running out of space to land apply. That will add some operational costs, but when you look at 25,000 to 50,000 verses 5.5 it is not too hard come to that conclusion. So all of that was just to kind of set the stage for the enhancements that we will get to right now. Is there any questions you have right now, if not I will turn it over to Rick and he can go through Water Division? De Weerd: Council, any questions for Brad? Borton: I do. De Weerd: Yes, Joe. Borton: Was there some component - I remember when we were looking out there and they were talking about the dryer - could have or maybe would have been generated in some of those (inaudible--)? Watson: Councilman Borton, Mayor yeah that could have eventually happened, but that wouldn't be a near term thing. That is something where you have to develop a market by giving it away and ultimately if it becomes a desired product you can market it and sell it. But, even then that revenue would not compare to $5.5 million, I don't think. De Weerd: Okay, Rick. Water Department Clinton: Madame Mayor, Members of Council I appreciate the opportunity to present these enhancements. De Weerd: We have already seen your backhoe. Clinton: I wasn't going to mention that backhoe, but Brad beat me to it. Can you hear me okay. Enhancement number one is a part time water service connection coordinator. This was originally a full time position, but we have taken it back to a part time with the hope that next year we can increase it to a full time position. Essentially the primary duties of this individual is going to be in data entry for the cost connection control program and then it will also back up our other two office personnel. We just have seen a very substantial increase in call volume down Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 84 of 161 there and I think that probably - I have got some statistics this morning. I believe last May when we had a department report from the Water Department that we were somewhere around 600 work orders that we had done in a year's time and then this morning the number was 999 work orders for one month. The second one is for an additional water operator. Water operators do pretty much all of the nuts and bolts of our activities at the Water Division. Enhancement number three is phase 2 and what we hope to be the final phase of the improvements to the new Water Building and I think the next slide will kind of depict what phase 2 encompasses. During the phase 1 construction will be parking, employee vehicles and the fleet vehicles over in kind of the north end of the park and once we get this established then we can move back onto the existing facilities that are currently occupied by the Alignment's College. Enhancement number four is for consulting. I was thinking a little earlier today that this is probably the lowest number that we have seen in consulting in probably at least three fiscal years. We have scaled this back quite a bit. Enhancement number five is capital outlay for wells. We had some over runs on some previous wells that we had to borrow money for and now we are trying to re-establish what we expect to be the cost for wells 27 and 28 and as I recall this won't fully fund well 29, but it will get us started on some preliminary work on it. Well #6 is a new ground reservoir. This will provide the preliminary engineering geo technical investigations and design services for an additional reservoir south of the Interstate and this was identified through our master plan. Expansion of the radio read programs - Bird: -- excuse me, what size? Clinton: Two million gallons. Grady: The existing is two, but this would be two to three, certainly wouldn't be less. Clinton: Expansion of the radio read program this is just to add another 2,250 existing meters to retro fit them with the radio read technology and our goal here is to avoid adding additional personnel and ultimately get to a point where we can actually take one of our current meter readers and move them into daily operations as an operator. Enhancement number eight is well rehab. I think you may be aware that currently well 17 and we are in the process of rehabbing it and it ran a little bit more than the 100,000, but we are hopeful that we will be able to rehab some of the additional wells before we get to the point where they are so costly. This enhancement was removed. Water line extensions - just more expansion throughout the city and trying to have funds available when Highway District projects necessitate that we should be replacing our water lines as the roads are rebuilt. Water main replacement - this is for areas, I think, in the older sections of town excluding the urban renewal area to replace some of our older aging water mains and this is separate from the new development Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 85 of 161 areas. This is more of a retro or a rehab of the old areas. GIS program - this is intended to equip our field personnel with three laptop computers that will give us much better real time information on locating water mains in the field when we have dig line locates this is going to really enhance our ability to have the same information that the Engineering Division has as far as what is in the ground. Right now we are a little behind them when they find a project until we get our maps updated; so this is going to benefit us significantly. De Weerd: Now is that also the same in Old Town, being able to locate lines? Clinton: Yes. Essentially what that will do is that will give us the current mapping in GIS format in the three vehicles out in the field. Urban renewal is and I think you are all aware of what that boundary is and this is just additional funding to replace water mains in that urban renewal area in addition to the carry forward. Wardle: Is there a - I know we have talked about it in the past and as we go in and look at the infrastructure within the urban renewal district, are we looking at partnership opportunities with potential irrigation water to move some of those properties there or even working with - I know even Idaho Power has been looking at whether their grid infrastructure is adequate? Not that we want to locate water and power at the same time. Watson: Madame Mayor and Council Member Wardle, I did take note that in February, I think it was you mentioned that at one joint meeting at - I haven't got too far on it. We do have one member that attends a Utility Coordinating Council monthly and I did have him put together a contact list of these different people so that this summer I could get with them and start investigating that. So, I do remember that you asked that question before and it will get answered. Wardle: Well and I appreciate it and I think that we are going to find out that we know better than almost anyone else what our Old Town infrastructure is and one of the things that we have talked about even just recently on some of the Public Works projects is anytime you close a road in in the downtown core, you significantly impact any type of traffic you may have. So if we are going to be doing construction if we let other agencies know it would help kind of lessen that impact I guess is my thought. Watson: Well, you are absolutely correct. Clinton: And there has been an effort by the Utility Coordinating Council for sometime to coordinate projects like that and even do some joint trenching which in some cases it isn't necessarily always the best thing to do. Well, I believe that concludes the requests for the Water Department - or I am sorry, the Water Division unless there are any questions. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 86 of 161 De Weerd: Council any questions? Thank you, Rick. I know this is the favorite part of your job, John. Shawcroft: It is; I haven't done it for a whole year and I have missed it. I am going to do the Wastewater enhancements for the upcoming budget year. Wastewater facility as you could tell from phase 1 construction is growing by leaps and bounds, so we need staff to operate that equipment. Fortunately it is all adjacent to each other so we are not looking at vast distances, but just the workload per person is going up. So we are going to try and cover that with this and wastewater operator. They will work at night which should enhance our safety. Right now I have got a guy that works by himself from two in the morning until seven in the morning. So this will close that gap. Laboratory analysts - originally we were looking to hire this analyst and we mayor may not, depending where we shake out. Our lab supervisor left us recently and so we are going to do some juggling and see where we wind up. Wastewater Plant upgrade - this is the facility plan for what comes after phase 1 a & b. The current construction should get us around 9 million gallons per day capacity. This will take us beyond that. It is coming up rather rapidly if our growth continues. The need for this will come right on the heels of completion of what we are doing now. Does somebody know about Black Cat lift station? Watson: I will jump in right quick. This has been a long, long project. This all started with a little idea to get sewer to the area of the Ten Mile Interchange and well you have been here almost every step of the way to hear all of this. Where we are now is we have, as you all know, awarded the contract early this month, late last month to Summer Construction for phases 2 and 3 of that project. We have successfully completed the lift station and phase 1. It sounds like easements are coming through on these next phases. The good news is the bids came in significantly under estimate. So, we are wanting to reduce this enhancement request of $1.2 million - that portion of the project will take it from Overland Road to the intersection and Meridian and Victory. That will relieve a huge bottleneck that we have in the south area. This is by far the biggest enhancement you are going to see anywhere in this today. So, if you have any questions or if there is any discussion to be had on pace of development of the south, this would probably be a good time. But, that is where we are on that one. Actually Len if you want to move to the next slide real quick. And you can look at this some other time or at leisure, I am sure you are fascinated with numbers, but this details the history and kind of the whole Black Cat complex of projects. When we talked about the Black Cat Trunk, it is not just a single project it is actually seven different ones here and you know we have won some and lost some in terms of budgeting, but some of those original estimates were done four years ago. They were actually 2001, but- (Tape turned over) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 87 of 161 Shawcroft: ~~ that Mile Creek metering station replacement we have in our permit the requirement to monitor and record the flows in Five Mile Creek through a construction and various activities adjacent to the structure is settled and we have unfortunately been unable to calibrate this particular meter. The good part is that as the flow drops in the winter it becomes closer and closer to reality and that is the critical time for when we have to meet our dilution factor. So we know what that pOint is, but we are still going to have to go in and see if we can salvage this or build a new one or whatever we got to do to record, actually find out what the flow is above the outfalls so we know what our dilution rates are. Another deleted one. Another withdrawn one - capital equipment, we have a service truck we use to pull - it has got an auto crane on it. We use it to pull heavy pumps out of lift stations. The existing one is one and this is to replace it. Bird: Is this to replace the equipment of an old truck? Shawcroft: This is the crane itself on the truck. Bird: Yeah, for $10,000 I didn't think you were getting much of a truck. Shawcroft: No, I don't think you are going to get much of a truck. This is GIS. This is the same as the Water Department's enhancement. It is to actually get the locations of our infrastructure down to where we can go out and just find them instead of having to hunt through maps and things. Ten thousand dollars maintenance pre treatment software - both of these activities need some new database software and what we are trying to do is see if we can find a particular program that might do both functions. So until we get that one to shake out, we won't spend any, but that is for when we do shake it out Here is another south area trunk lift station project. Is that yours? Watson: Yeah. Madame Mayor, Council Members this is a very scaled down version of what we originally submitted in April. I think it was around $10.7 million that was on the original enhancement sheet. This would be for preliminary design and design, probably not construction if any at all of the south area regional lift station located in the vicinity of oh, say for example, Mason Creek and pumping north to Black Cat. We have got it in there if you want to include it in the budget for next year, we can discuss whether to proceed with it at a future time and talk kind of overall master planning strategies, but you know I will leave it at that for now. De Weerd: Yeah, I think Brad it is probably going to be more appropriate when we get a land use piece back to have that discussion. l Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 88 of 161 Shawcroft: This one is $5,000 for travel PNCW Way Leadership. I have the _ I am going to be fortunate enough to go through the chairs of PNCW Way, which is my professional organization of water and wastewater professionals. Way back when I was a young pup and learning the wastewater trade those guys who had come before were doing this kind of stuff and then I woke up the other morning and found out I was one of the older guys and so I am trying to get back into - this is a good opportunity for Meridian to get its name out there and demonstrate that it is supportive of not only leadership, but participation in the community and so that is what that is all about. I will be Vice-President in October and it is a four year commitment and so this is just to make sure that I can actually make some board meetings once in a while. De Weerd: Well and I think John has minimized the importance of this achievement of his and that he is recognized as a leader in the industry and we can gain a more in-depth knowledge of what other people are doing that you gain through networking and going through these leadership roles. So, you know you are to be commended, John, for this achievement. It is quite the feather in your cap. Shawcroft: Scary as hell, though. But I think I will enjoy it absolutely. Thank you, Mayor. Mercury fish tissue sampling without being long and drawn out the state has put mercury - it is a water quality issue that is air based. The problem with Mercury and the watershed is that it comes from things like (inaudible) plants, industry in China, industry in California so as a water quality issue there are no water quality controls. So what the state has decided to do is to do fish tissue sampling to see how impacted the water is as far as (inaudible) lighted mercury. So we know whether or not the fish are safe to eat and those kinds of things. What the state has proposed to do is to form this coalition and those entities you know can either join it and the state will do the sampling and we just contribute financially or they will give us (inaudible) and we would have to go out and do it anyway. So this is considerably less expensive and achieves the same thing. Public education outreach - the Water Division has been way ahead of us in this endeavor and we are going to try and play catch up and see if we can participate and start teaching the public what we do for a living. I guess that is the summary so I would entertain questions and - De Weerd: Council any questions? Shaun? Wardle: Madame Mayor I am interested in, I guess to maybe understand a little bit more about what kind of public outreach you will be doing. Shawcroft: A lot of that will be pre-treatment oriented. Things like teaching the public what should and should not go down the sewers; what kind of chemicals that can be safely handled; what should to SSC; what they can send to us. Even Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 89 of 161 down to how are we handling the mercury issues and what is the impact to the public, because we will be out there doing pre-treatment program in the community to alleviate any mercury entering the watershed through sewers. Wardle: I was wondering and was hoping what you were looking at - I think it is a specific component that has recently been talked about and newsworthy is expired pharmaceutical products and they are actually (inaudible) and plant and downstream and some of those kinds of things. Shawcroft: They actually pass through and are starting to see some changes in the environment. Particularly with some of the cosmetics and the birth control stuff and they don't have an answer for that yet. So there needs to be some reassurance. De Weerd: And you have been seeing some of the pre-treatment education in our water bills, on the website and those kinds of things. I have gotten good comments about that where I never knew you weren't supposed to do that. Shawcroft: Well, we are still behind the Water Department. They have been ahead of us and we need to do more. That is in recognition of that fact. De Weerd: Very good. Thank you. Watson: Mayor and Council Members if I could just follow up on that that this is kind of my pet thing that I wanted in this budget. It originally was 7,500 per division and just because of the environment of the budget, we kind of scaled that back, but it is not just pre-treatment issues. It is backflow with the Water Department. It is water conservation. It is stuff as simple as construction safety for kids. I have had initial contact with SSC to cooperatively do a news letter and get some of our stuff in their news letter. You will soon be seeing a contract that I will bring to you where we contract with necessity and use their public relations person to help with some of these things. She is very experienced and very good at what she does. That is kind of the background of what we are trying to do. De Weerd: Now, Brad, how would that coordinate with the city news letter, City News and that sort of thing? Watson: You know the subject matter could probably be in both. I think the audiences may tend to be different when somebody gets that news letter from SSC, they know that more than likely it is an environmental type document, whereas some things probably won't catch a person's eye in this overall city news letter, but maybe. We could certainly do it on a case by case basis. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 90 of 161 De Weerd: Well the more places that we can place it the more likely it will be read. (Inaudible discussion) De Weerd: Usually Shelly's pictures catch people's eyes. Watson: Okay, we will switch onto engineering. Len Grady our City Engineer will come up and take care of those and - Grady: Most of what we do is distributed amongst the Water and Wastewater Divisions, so what is remaining here is basically what we need to support those divisions and make sure that construction proceeds promptly and efficiently. The first enhancement was the vehicle and judging from the conversation we had earlier today, I am really glad we withdrew that. Collection of GIS data - as we get into a faster paced environment we need fast access to better and quicker data. This is just to pay - basically get that information from Ada County quicker and more efficiently; especially with water and wastewater getting onto the GIS platforms, I am sure this will pay dividends. We are ready to take the next step in the GIS arena. The first - way back when we started this program, we purchased hardware and software and the idea was to get a person who could come in and sort of gather the information, gather the data, do a lot of the I won't call it grunt work, but a lot of the time consuming stuff. We are really ready now for somebody to come in and turn that whole program on its ear. This would be a fairly high powered person to come in and really take that whole program to the next level. Basically this is Auto CAD maintenance to continue and make sure that we are up to speed on our Auto CAD software. Same with GPS. These are for the little hand held units that we take out in the field and survey and all of the water and sewer, etc., this is basically maintenance to get it up to snuff. This is really the big ticket item this year. Our existing wide format copier is just about done. It is very expensive to fix it. It is very unreliable and it is extremely old technology. We want to go ahead and get a good high quality digital copier and then stuff like our record drawings can go right into the GIS system and people can have better access to it. So this is all part of that GIS surge, I guess is the best way of putting it. Bird: Len, you would put all of your (inaudible) and everything on this so that you could locate immediately with your GIS? Grady: With the GIS you could click to that particular project and it would bring it up. So this would be a digital format. Plotter, we withdrew. Our existing plotter is nearing the end of its useful life. We think we can live by another year so that has been withdrawn. Safety program - we discussed that with the other divisions and as you mentioned this particular enhancement and as you Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 91 of 161 mentioned this particular enhancement is to hire some temporary people to go back and to start getting those record drawings into the GIS system. A color laser printer - I guess a couple of three years ago, we got a fairly nice color printer. It is our only printer and we noticed the other day when it was down, we come to a screeching halt. So this is a really significantly lower quality, but it is a backup, a redundant - probably not the right word redundant emergency. We do take advantage of consulting for our GIS. Now if we get the right person on the program or maybe we don't need the full 5,000 on this GIS, but there are a lot of consultants out there with some pretty interesting stuff and they can sure help you out with a few thousands dollars and give you a nice boost on your projects _ just on call consulting for GIS. I don't really even remember what that was. Public outreach we have discussed and that is it. Personnel wise we are up to speed. I think we are good to go for next year. De Weerd: Thank you, Len. Any questions from Council? Bird: I have none. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Joe. Borton: Len on that priority number 4, the Auto CAD software - it was reduced, I think by Brad - a one time expense and the ongoing was cut in half. Is that -? Grady: The original enhancement for that Auto CAD was to try to get everybody on what is called 3-D civil Auto CAD, which is a very powerful version of Auto CAD and we would be standardized throughout the office. We certainly can continue with multiple versions of Auto CAD. That money is just to continue the maintenance on the existing Auto CAD versions. Does that make sense? Borton: So over time is it less expensive though to bite the bullet to the network conversion now verses continuing with the individual licenses? Grady: Probably not. I think it is nicer to have everybody on the same platform, the same version of Auto CAD, but it is something that we can do without. So at this point, especially with our attempt to try to trim this budget down, we are certainly fine for another year and we will reevaluate it next year. Watson: Madame Mayor, Council Members the one thing that Len alluded to was personnel wise we seem to be okay. We have in fact cut two positions that were budgeted from last year, a Special's Project Coordinator and one of the field inspector positions that we never filled. So the staff size is actually going down even with the increase or with the GIS programmer that is proposed. We Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11,2006 Page 92 of 161 are going to turn now our final component of the budget presentation, which is building and there are only two enhancements in it, but one of them is kind of a jaw dropper so to speak. So I thought I would kind of do a lead in for the whole thing. You have probably heard about this nearly million dollar budget request that we had for what we call an enterprise wide solution, but- De Weerd: I don't know I tried to keep it a secret. Watson: Well it is no secret anymore. Bird: Would you say that again? De Weerd: No. Watson: It was - this enhancement was for what was called an enterprise wide solution. This all came about from looking and struggling with the existing building permits software that was at one point crashing almost daily. I think there was some data lost at certain points and time. So we had our building coordinator starting to investigate software packages. Everything from the very Simple band aid to something that we thought, ultimately, would benefit the whole city. We tried to have a little vision there. The process, I think, kind of got away from us and we didn't intend it to, we were just trying to start the discussion. We had a vendor come in from California in April and invited IT and Finance and MUBS and Water, Wastewater, Public Works obviously, Building to just come in and hear this guy, not that we had selected this or thought this was the way to go, it was just an attempt to ask questions and see if this was even conceivable. Well, it seemed like within a week everyone thought we were going to buy this software and force it on everybody. That was never the intent. What we have done and backed up a little bit and Bruce will go through the specifics of a reduced enhancement here shortly. But, in the background here is what I would suggest that we do because this won't affect just Building and Public Works. I think it is something that may ultimately not be feasible, but I think we need to investigate it. This would be a platform that would be used, especially in a new City Hall where all the information, all of the data whether it is GIS, customer complaints, billing records, project applications and you can go to one inner face and find this stuff. It could be very useful. So here is what I propose and I talked to Terry Paternoster yesterday about it and he seemed to agree with the concept and I think he will be here a little bit later tOday to talk about it a little more; but, to form a team of people from different departments that can kind of come together and look at the different user groups throughout the city and what they need, what do they do day to day, what doesn't work for them, what needs to be shared between departments or even other agencies. We do all of that and we come back to Council and report what we have learned, maybe next spring potentially. Interview potential vendors, not hire them or to buy anything from them, but to Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 93 of 161 see what different products they offer and if that fits the needs of what the users have told us they need. There may even be the possibility of visiting certain cities that use this program to see if it works. You can talk to a vendor all day long and it is the best thing that you have ever heard of. Until you go and talk to the people, the billing clerk or the permit clerk or the GIS tech and get the real scoop, you don't know. So we may look at doing something like that if it's warranted. My hope is that by budget enhancement time next spring, we would collectively have a fairly clear direction on what we are doing; what departments would be involved, which ones wouldn't and bring that forward. After the budget presentation next July, if it seems favorable then we can start developing an RFQ, RFP and maybe issue that sometime in July or August and then by the time that funding, if you approve it next year is available and if that's the direction - there are a lot of "ifs" in here. But, we could move forward in the fall of 2007 with implementation in the spring of 2008, which would coincide with City Hall occupancy, I hope. So hopefully that answers your questions before Bruce gets up here and presents his options. If there are any questions on that process, I would be glad to answer them. De Weerd: Council? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: I think it is a very good approach. Watson: Thank you. We will turn it over to Bruce now and he will go through the building activities. Freckleton: Thank you, Brad. Good afternoon Mayor and Council. You guys look like you are holding up good for your marathon session today. We changed our color scheme up a little bit, just to make things interesting here. We were going with black and gold and now we are going with blue and orange. As Brad mentioned, we are very busy. I just wanted to give you a little bit of a synopsis of what we have done through May of this current fiscal year. 1,703 single family permits that valued at $344 million compared with last year, 1,945 at $364 million and our commercial permit activity and total permits you will see there. I think the one thing that this slide represents or demonstrates is that the construction values have gone up considerably, even though our permit numbers are coming down a little bit, you will see the values are coming up. So, that is a pretty good illustration. This slide is basically a four year comparison on our permit activity for a single family. This is through May. Before we came over here today, I looked at the updated numbers for June and as you have heard our numbers have fallen off on our single family permits. In June we issued 60 less permits than we did in May. So we are slowing down a little in the single family arena. Commercial numbers, we have actually taken a jump in June. We issued five Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 94 of 161 permits more in June than we did in May. It is kind of early to tell, but a lot of times that trend when you have big booms or big jumps in the residential and then they start falling off and then you see your commercial to climb. I don't know if this is indicative of that, but we will certainly keep an eye on it. This is the slide that represents the break down of activity for the fiscal year, the maroon represents the residential and the yellow is the commercial activity. Our number labels didn't come across, but at the end of June our residential numbers were 79.5 percent of our activity and commercial was 20.5. At the end of May it was 82 percent was residential and only 17.8 was commercial. So there is that flip flop thing again. Bird: Bruce on this chart it looks like 2006 might be about equal with those in 2004 in residential. Is that your take also? Freckleton: Yeah, it is. 2005, like Brad said earlier, 2005 was a booming year and with projections it looks like we are going to come in around 2004 numbers. As Brad mentioned, enhancement number one is in regards to our building permit software. We purchased our existing software approximately seven years ago. It worked great for us for a few years, until things started getting really busy and the volume climbed to the point where we just basically out grew the software. They weren't able to keep up with upgrades and it was a small company out of Bellevue and I think their entire staff of this company is about ten people. So it worked pretty good for a while, but the last couple of years have been kind of painful. We started experiencing problems about a year and a half ago and the system was crashing almost daily and when it would crash we would be down for a good 45 minutes while we rebuilt the database and basically all activity stopped. We couldn't sell permits. We couldn't do anything. We just didn't have the level of customer service that we want to provide. In May we spent $3,000 on a band aid for this software. We sent our data files up to Bellevue and they worked on them over a weekend and did an in depth rebuild of our database and sent it back to us and since then it has worked pretty well. We have not had a whole lot of problems. The other thing that we did at that same point and time was IT came over and moved the software off of our main Public Works servers onto a stand alone surplus machine that we had laying around and so we are currently running on a surplus machine, on a band aided up software. IT has spent countless hours working on this software and it is their recommendation that we do something different. So like Brad said, we did bring in a vendor - just one of them that we had been looking at kind of gave us an overview of what an enterprise wide solution is. We have problems. De Weerd: He was just trying to emphasize the problems in software. Freckleton: The benefits of an enterprise wide solution is that it is a single software package that can handle basically all functions of the city business. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 95 of 161 When we transact business in the Building Department, we sell a permit. At the end of the day our clerks have to reconcile what we take in every day with the receipts, the money, everything is transferred over to the Finance Department hard copy. They have to hand enter information in and there are just many points of potential human error in this process. At the end of the month we have to do a reconciliation of our records against their records to make sure that we are matching up and when there are errors, we have to coordinate the corrections back and forth to make sure that they are coded to the corrected accounts and so forth. That whole exercise takes more time and we potentially have delays in making payments to Ada County Highway District, for instance when we collect the impact fees for them. We need to know the number so that we can transfer the funds to ACHD. We also have delays in transferring or making payment to our contract employees because they are paid on the number of permits that we do and the dollar amounts. Like Brad said, we are trying to think forward to the new City Hall to getting together in one building and how we can increase efficiencies between our departments and this enterprise solution seems like something that I feel pretty strongly we should explore. What we have done in our enhancement here is we have created two different alternatives. Alternative "A" is if we were to replace our existing software with a stand alone building permit software, not an enterprise wide solution. There is plenty of them on the market and we could and do that and get up and running to provide that 24/7 access that our customers have been asking us for, either web based or via the telephone. That is alternate "A". Alternate "B" is to try and limp by with our PT Win, our existing software; add some third party software to it, an add in program that would provide the 24/7 access that our customers have asked for and the remaining dollars would then go towards step one towards an enterprise wide solution. In other words we may look at buying servers or the software necessary to start moving towards the enterprise solution. We just kind of needed to throw two alternates out there and try and get a feel for what direction you Mayor and the Council would like to go towards a new City Hall and an enterprise solution. Grady: Bruce, just emphasizing on that if we get bogged down with alternate "B" for example, you know it looks like it is going to be a couple of years before we can get any sort of consensus, we still need to move forward with alternate "A". That is why the money is there for alternate "A". Our preference is to go with alternate "B" and work towards this enterprise solution, but our existing platform we just don't think it will last two to three years. So if we get bogged down, we have a fall back with alternate "A". Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. ... Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 96 of 161 Bird: What about the 765 - the complete setup? Freckleton: Well, the enterprise solution - Bird: You think it is too early for that? Freckleton: I do. I think we were a bit premature. I think we definitely have got people talking, which we got everybody's attention. Bird: We can take it all out of Finance then. We could split it between the Mayors and the Finance. Grady: That case in point, we have that fault back with alternate "A" in case we do get (inaudible). Freckleton: Okay, enhancement two. I am hung up on alternates. Enhancement number two is in our Building Department we have three current full time employees and one interim full time employee and this enhancement is to extend the interim position beyond September 2006. That is basically it. Short and sweet. Bird: What is your pick on the first one, "A" or "B"? Freckleton: I would like to head towards an enterprise wide solution. So that alternate "B" gets us started in that direction. I think you will hear Terry this afternoon talk about the benefits of those enterprise solutions as well. Grady: Just to make sure we are asking for a budget of a $150,000 that we can go either way. Bird: I got that, but I just wanted to know which was your way to go because they are the same price. Borton: Is that $150,000 is that done - is it going to be a module of a future enterprise wide or if in two years or more when we go enterprise wide, is the $150,000 expense wasted software? I mean is it going to be a smaller component of a larger upgrade? Freckleton: Madame Mayor, Councilman Borton it definitely would be a component towards the ultimate solution. So yeah it would be our goal that it would be a stepping stone towards the ultimate and not just a throwaway cost. Bird: You wouldn't just be throwing a $150,000 down the tube? Freckleton: Correct. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 97 of 161 Borton: Unless we chose a different vendor, then I guess it could be? Freckleton: Yeah and again, we haven't settled on one vendor. We have looked at three different packages that are kind of the industry leaders right now and they are all very similar. De Weerd: Okay any other questions Council? Thank you, Bruce. Watson: Madame Mayor, Council Members we are actually ahead of schedule. I just want to point out and thank these guys here. The original budget that I saw way back in February and March, we are like $20 million lower than that now and what we submitted in April we are $15 million lower. They have done a good job of looking at things very hard and with a little help at times, but that is what it is all about. So, they should be commended. Also I want to thank specifically those three sitting over there - John, Rick and Len and these guys. Well, everyone that remains here helped a lot putting this presentation together and hopefully it worked for you. If there is anything you don't like about it, let me know for next year. I guess that is about it. I really appreciate your attention and the questions and all of the support. Thank you, very much. Bird: Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Keith. Bird: Brad you and your employees and all of your personnel from top to bottom can be proud of your department. You guys have had a tremendous workload. Your facilities are first class. I have said it before, you can go out to that Wastewater Treatment plant and it is like walking through some first class retail office. There is no smell. It is clean. Your Water Department is the same way. I am proud to be associated with employees in facilities like that and it starts with you and works down and I appreciate it, Brad. Thank you. Watson: Well, thank you. They do take a lot of pride in what they do. De Weerd: And this is our opportunity to give you the recognition and the appreciation that you all deserve so thank you for all you do. Okay, we will take at least a 15 minute break. How about at 2:25? (Break) Meridian City Council BUdget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 98 of 161 Police Department Wardle: Welcome everyone back to our budget hearing and open up with the Police Department. Musser: Council President Wardle, Members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. We will move through the budget fairly quickly today for our proposal on it. I understand we are trying to put everything into one day, so J am going to do what I can to help out and move us along. First and foremost just as an overview, we are still serving the community with 82 members, 62 sworn officers, 4 reserve officers, 14 (inaudible) staff. We are attempting at this time to proceed to bring on 8 more officers with a little bit (inaudible--) that will probably occur sometime near the end of this fiscal year as we move forward. Currently we are working on more of those (inaudible) coming on at this time. We continue to partner with our citizens for volunteer programs and for 2005 had over 3,119 hours and I was hoping to have some 2006 hours today, but apparently the volunteer computer, which is one of the ones coming up for replacement choked on us again. We will look at that as we move forward. Noteworthy accomplishments that we have had for FY 06 - a successful first meeting of about meth in our community through the Mayor's Anti-Drug Coalition. We seemed to have real good forward movement with that project and with the members that we have brought on board with that project and it seems to be a very positive thing for our community at this time. Our K-9 training facility was started - I put up here that it is nearing completion; we have a few other items to do, but I am not going to really address those with you at this point in this budget presentation as I think we can get those completed in our current budget that we are on track with right now. So, that will be for a different time. We have reorganized the department in order to move forward to more effective services. That has been a real plus for us at this point. We initiated crime analysis function and still working through that with (inaudible) coming closer to one day being on our website for us. Changed the (inaudible) on our police vehicles, as you can see by the background there, new design, added two new Honda 1300 C motorcycles to the fleet as well; all of which has been very positive at this point. An animal adoption program has started with volunteer partnering, with volunteers partnering with us. They also helped us spruce up our in pound facility. I don't know if any of you have been out there, but they have made it look a lot better than what it has been in the past and have done a lot of work around there, but we have some more to do and J will be addressing that here shortly. Our crime prevention program has (inaudible--) and very successful National Night Out program (inaudible--) and our neighborhood watch program is moving forward as well. General information - from 2004 to 2005, we experienced a slight increase of reported crime. Total crime reported for 2004 Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 99 of 161 was 2,631 offenses. For 2005 we are up to 2,808 with (inaudible) of 177 reported crimes during the period. During that time we also had an increase in population of over 10,000. Overall this increase in crime coupled with the population is approximately 1.7 percent overall and we just take it against the increase in population. So Meridian relatively remains a very safe community to be in and we are trying to do our best to maintain that. (Inaudible--) from 2004 to 2005 also increased; it went up from 36,930 to 42,926 calls for a 16 percent increase. The busiest period for calls in 2005 was between 10:00 a.m. and 5 p.m. with a peak for highest volume period of time being between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Most of that is related with some traffic issues and stuff. For our enhancements I have a total of 11 to present to you today. The first one being patrol officers, initially we had requested 9; however, we have settled on 6 and looking at a total of $547,336. Also includes two new patrol vehicles with the net costs. Narcotics officer and we did have some discussion on this. Our narcotics officer will be $111,702 and also includes vehicles in that cost too. I did note that this originally replaced our staff sergeant request. My understanding from the Council once we had done the reorganization and they requested a staff sergeant position was that I needed to bring that back before the Council as an enhancement this year. However, it seemed to already have been included in our base and we moved forward on it and I was confusing the issue at times with Finance by continuing to give it to them. So, what we have done is we have the position, we just need to get a body and the best fit for our body right now is to bring on another narcotics position, so we did move this up to that position. If there are some questions on that I would be more than happy to answer those towards the end of the presentation. We also have evidence tracking and this is a computerized system that involves bar coding for our evidence property that we have in house right now and anything that we will be bringing in in the future. This is an important element for us to be able to look at, to be up and running for the bar coding system because it will provide a much better and more efficient system in terms of tracking our evidence, controlling it and spending less time doing hand to hand inventories as we do now. On the plus side if we have this up and running in the (inaudible), it is also a great way to be able to look at what might want to do for our own city wide inventory process (inaudible--) instead of what we do now on hand to hand inventory. That is $12,800 for that system. Also requesting a crime scene investigator at $57,373 - crime scene investigator is a wee bit of a (inaudible) number there. This isn't the same thing that you see on TV. with Las Vegas, Miami or New York. This person will be capable of being able to do some processing out in the field in terms of collecting and packaging evidence, printing or dusting for prints or attempting to lift latent prints from crime scenes and that type of thing. (Tape turned over) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 100 of 161 Musser: -- handling evidence, making sure that we have inventories maintained and we can track it and the other item we are looking at is currently we only have one non-sworn staff member assigned to evidence handling at this time and that is Rosa Tores and if Rosa is not available, we have to rely upon Detective Jim Miller and that he will be able to do it and then I am the next one in line. This will allow us two people down there for better access for court requests (inaudible) on the evidence in case Rosa is gone or we have Jim out as well. So as we grow, it is a problematic area that we need to address, which is part of the reason we have this request in here for that person. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: Chief that request for $57,373 that does not include a car, does it? Musser: No, there is no vehicle included in that. Bird: Would there need to be a vehicle if they are going to a crime scene? Musser: At this point we do have one vehicle that they are able to use since one of the vans was rolled out and we also if worse comes to worse can borrow a pickup just to transport heavy items back and forth if we need to from Code Enforcement. So we are able to provide at this point. Continuing on to number five is a Victim Witness Coordinators and we are requesting two of those. I have made a note here that we have $55,718 which had previously been assigned to a Boise City Attorney contract. I know that you went over the contract with Boise City here just recently looking at what we are going to do for next year. This year we currently have one Victim Witness Coordinator that we did provide money by their contract for us; she was trained; she is up and running and doing very well for us. We have also included the cost of additional person in this request along with some capital items in terms of furniture and user facility to get them up and running. The town has now become large enough; we are diverse enough and also busy enough that we need to seriously look to having a Victim Witness Coordinator for everything that we have going on. (Inaudible--). The Record's Clerk is number 6 and we are requesting two of those for a total of $97,433. The main reason for this request is to provide us with additional personnel to work an extended period and to approximately 12 to 0200 at night, primarily for data entry and I do have a work hour analysis of the supervisor in records that didn't complete and right now they are about 13 hours from (inaudible--) with all of the stuff that they have to be able to track and keep up with. By bringing on two other people just for the data entry will help out with that, we can actually get just slightly above the curve and will add about 1.2 hours, I believe it was of available time that allows them to work on some other issues. So that is part of the reason Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 101 of 161 we are looking at that, the other one is that it also keeps the sergeants out in the field during the swing shift, which falls into part of our busy time is currently once the records shuts down at 7:00 and the personnel go home at night, the sergeants have to respond in to making (inaudible) on stolen property, runaways, stolen weapons or transactions or that type of thing. They also have to respond to or answer any queries we get (inaudible--) stolen property or anything else that we need from other agencies (inaudible--). Volunteer Coordinator is number 7. We reduced that from a full time position to a part time and looking at $26,820 overall for that request. Volunteer Coordinator will help us stay on track with our volunteers, help us implement guidelines for our volunteers to be able to perform their services and help expand services that we currently have; it will help us track the hours much better than what we are getting right now and in general just more of a focus on where we are going with volunteers. So that is why we are looking at that one. Number 8 is a Community Services copier for $1,950. This would make one of my Lieutenants very happy. Also it provides us the copiers for all of our three positions so that we would move forward and be a little bit more efficient in terms of getting the paperwork out. Right now community services, houses, ordinance, code enforcement (inaudible--), volunteers are crime analysts and the Records Division. Records Division has a copier downstairs, but the rest of the division is located upstairs and they are usually traveling to find the available (inaudible--) and this would allow them to network in and have a centralized copier printed (inaudible--). De Weerd: Chief, excuse me. Is that a lease or are you buying it? That is more of a lease price, isn't it? Musser: Mayor, Members of the Council that is a lease price for that amount for the year. We would bump in on the same lease that we are currently using with one more (inaudible). The ninth enhancement is training equipment. We would use this area significantly -- the $2,800 - one of the things that did help us is we did receive a donation of a wrestling style mat, which would be used in one of the rooms out at the new K-9 facility when we are doing hands on training. This request basically covers additional blue added shields that we use for baton training and a whole padded suit, what is commonly referred to as a red man suit that is used for defensive tactics training and provide a little protection for (inaudible--). Number 10 is some (inaudible) construction equipment at $13,150. This is a little bit spendy, but the overall emphasis on this is that we use to (inaudible) that we currently have in stock. Those are the laser range indicators that we use for traffic enforcement. They also measure out distances - by applying a piece of hardware component that is computerized. It is a little hand held type of a (inaudible), small computer. It will take any information as you are measuring out those distances and help put together everything else (inaudible) software so we can get it back out of the machine and be able to plot the points where the vehicle was involved in either a collision or going off road or other Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 102 of 161 significant things such as (inaudible--), where scuffs occurred or skids. All total $13,150 gives us the software and the hardware that we need to be able to put this program together and take our action investigation to the next step. Borton: Chief, is this replacing some existing software equipment you have now or is this adding something that is not available now? Musser: Councilman Borton this is all brand new. We don't have this technology at this time (inaudible--) and watched the cities that are using for the last couple of years and the bugs were worked out and that is why we are here with this now, but it is brand new. Number 11 is an animal shelter expansion. We have 3,500 in (inaudible) that we are looking at that will continue to be ongoing and a remainder of $140,000 from capital improvement funding, in order to expand out and add an additional amount on a building similar to what we already have onto it will probably put it in an "l" shape out there to the existing building that we have now because we are becoming sorely overcrowded at times with our dogs. The recent Fourth of July, we couldn't (inaudible--) relatively full for the last two to three weeks and it would just give us some more space and that is one area that has significantly grown as the rest of the city has, but I remember talking to Councilman Wardle here recently and he had (inaudible--), but it seems like a lot of people have a lot of dogs in town. It would allow us a little bit better handle on being able to care for and impound those dogs until we get them to their owners or adopted out. The overall (inaudible) request for the Police Department is $1,000,009,998. I did work hard from our initial submittal of over $1.4 million. The Mayor and I met on that. We made some cuts with staff and I think we delivered those cuts, but still be able to improve services and move forward with the growth and all that we do have at this point. That basically is the sum of where we are headed with our request for this year. (Inaudible) replacement, though is another one of those big items that you usually see from the Police Department. We are looking at $248,000 for a total of 8 vehicles at this point and certainly we could replace some of those with the Chrysler (inaudible) if so approved. Bird: If the price is right. De Weerd: Be careful, you will start getting Parks hand-me-downs and that would be really bad. Musser: Anyway, out of those vehicles that we do have listed here, Unit 124, Unit 126 and Unit 127 are all marked units; they are Crown Victoria's, two of which are currently over the 80,000 target. The other one when we compile the information to go with this budget was at 69,000 and we totally expect that vehicle by the time we reach October to be at the 80,000 mile mark at that point. We are looking at $36,000 a piece to replace those vehicles (inaudible--) already Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 103 of 161 on the vehicles. We also have two unmarked vehicles usually following that. One is a '97 Chrysler LHS and the other one a 2000 Dodge Intrepid and those both have remained unmarked vehicles and we try to come into that price to $19,500 on new (inaudible) and fits into those as well once we can get the green light from you. We also have two additional unmarked vehicles. One is a Plymouth Voyager Van and the other one is a Jeep Cherokee. Both of these have seen better days, in particular with the Cherokee which we have used undercover (inaudible--). We are looking at $42,000 for replacement on those because what we are trying to do with some reorganization and reassignment of personnel in CID. We are looking to take these existing unmarked vehicles and convert them to marked vehicles for better use by SRO and the patrols and get better use out of both of them (inaudible--). The final vehicle is a '97 Chrysler LHS, again an unmarked vehicle looking to see if we can do a replacement on that for $17,000. That vehicle doesn't use as much in the way of running your light (inaudible--) this is a services vehicle so it won't be used as an emergency vehicle. So there will be a little bit of savings there on that. My other capita replacement involves computers, those little items that I mentioned earlier (inaudible--). I have $25,720 related to computers; remember these are regular desktop computers or laptops. The prices vary depending on what type of computer we are looking at; $2,285 reflects the laptop, where the $1,400 reflects a desktop computer. We also have 8,000 listed. We do have one of the servers that we have had prior to entering into the new building; it is becoming due for replacement and the price quoted from IT on that would put us $8,000 out to replace out that server. In addition of the computer item we have a printer. This is a rather specialized printer for our (inaudible) cards; the I.D. cards that are used throughout the city. The one we have has been having some breakdown problems, it is slow. We are looking as the city grows that we need to increase the potential for our 1.0. cards and potentially for more employees coming on and we could probably upgrade this printer as well; however, they are cheap and we are looking at $4,750, but that is because they will do a number of things for us. We can run through the magnetic card reader types in it and we can also print multiple items through the card as well. So that pretty much completes where we are at with capital replacement both in terms of vehicles and computers and bringing it forward. Some additional items of note, the first being one of the initial enhancements I submitted in had been a request for an adjustment to the police wage scale. The main adjustment to that was to be able to extend it on out from the nine steps that we currently have, which ended seven years for officers that come on and move it forward so that we can cover a total of 15 steps over a period of 19 years of service. In working with Finance and with HR, this looks like a doable item for us to take this off from this year's budget, the impacts were $14,517 just for FY 07 and this - basically the proposal that I am looking at here is set on three main items. Number one the retention the employees have for five to seven years of service, so if they feel like we have something to work towards further out - it is also pride, recognition and acknowledgement of time Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 104 of 161 served through expanded wage scale and finally as we move to a new section on it, it provides a mechanism to extend to current police wage scale into a better based format. Something I know I have heard the Council mention on numerous times is that they would like to see us be able to do that. What we are intending to do with this wage scale and we do have an attachment of the proposal attached behind your page that reflects this slide is that after step nine in the beginning of step 10, which is in the ninth year, we are going every other year now for any type of increase that they are eligible for. We do have access if they are based upon (inaudible), but they have to (inaudible) if they have the personnel evaluations that reflect exemplary performance, they would be able to get half that step and then be able to pick up the remainder once they reach that ninth year in there or if they want to remain as competent employees that perform at that satisfactory level, in two years they could be there (inaudible--). But I thought it was important enough to be able to look at some access for encouraging our officers to stick around and not look at other departments like Boise or elsewhere in terms of what they can make over time. This does put us in a very competitive light with Boise City at this point and our officers in this tenth year who make just a wee bit less than what a PO 3 would make with an advanced certificate you would make over in Boise; but within the eleventh year you would be making as much, if not more given where Boise's differential pa~ and their specialty pay is and certainly by the time they get down to that 19t year, which would be quite a while before we have anybody giving that; 2018 is what I project (inaudible--). They should be well above Boise by that time, so if you - it does provide some access. We are also including some masters certificate is (inaudible) certificate level for a patrol officer. That doesn't start until the 13th step or 15th year because typically officers aren't eligible for it until they have a minimum of 15 years experience in with an advanced period. So we are looking at being able to implement that. One of the key issues that we have at this police (inaudible) range is that we have a number of officers that have already been here a number of years, however, one thing that I have found during my time as an employee with the City of Meridian when we made adjustments to wage scales - because of my time in (inaudible) immediately popped up to the top and then have nowhere to go. One of the things that we are looking at is this allows our employees now to have a point to start from (inaudible--) years at this point, but this becomes the starting point and they move forward. So for those, for instance, that have over ten years right now, they would start if they are eligible for it, have this tenure step and then continuing up the process from there. We are not going (inaudible--) they start beginning which is step 10 and they move forward at this point. That does provide us access to be able to implement this without a significant impact to the city's general fund (inaudible). There was another budget request that we have included in our proposal initially; however that was routed to Developmental Services. I don't know if it was discussed. I had some indication that it had not been earlier by the Planning Director. However, what we are looking for is a Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 105 of 161 supervisory position for Code Enforcement. It is paid out of Developmental Services fund. Currently I have a Corporal on temporary assignment there working as a supervisory and is doing an outstanding job; however we would like to push him back into doing (inaudible) police work and get a (inaudible) that can handle our Code Enforcement and to make it even better (inaudible). That is what we are initially looking at. This request is for $67,193. There had been a vehicle initially included in this, however, on discussion we are going to (inaudible) not request another vehicle in addition to this one in addition to just the personnel that we are requesting for this position. So you should see some reflection on it for the $67,193. And with that, I would answer any questions that you may have. De Weerd: Council do you have questions for the Chief? Bird: I don't. De Weerd: Any questions Joe or Shaun? Wardle: Chief one of the questions that came up just a minute ago was our policy for replacement of patrol vehicles. Could you explain a little more about that 80,000 mile mark? Musser: Councilman Wardle, Members of the Council, Madame Mayor initially what we had set for the targeted policy or practice to be able to follow which we (inaudible) our vehicles at 80,000 mph based upon a national recommendation from the Michigan State Police in conjunction with their studies that they do every year out of Detroit. Started at 80,000 miles, they also look at the total overall engine wear in terms of hours and all of our vehicles do have (inaudible) meters, however, I can't speak to where our hours are right now. {Inaudible--). According to Lt. Lavey we are averaging 36,000 miles a year on patrol vehicles and if you figure that out on a vehicle, (inaudible--) three years, we are going to exceed the 80,000, but (inaudible--) 100,000 mile mark, which is a strong recommendation for municipal departments that we seriously consider replacing vehicles at 80,000 miles pursuant to the (inaudible--). Again, we have got these rules available and we have had them available in the past to the Council. On the low end of things they say we should start considering it at 70,000, but we have pushed towards the 80,000 and try to do it between 80,000 and 90,000. Bird: Madame Mayor if I could - I think the Mayor was involved in this, too. We as a Council three or four years ago ask the Police Department to not let their vehicles get so many miles on them that they were to put it bluntly a hunk of junk and every time you went over a bump you wondered if you were going to be on the road or whether you weren't going to be on the road. So we had asked because what happened is we had gotten so far behind that we had to really bite Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 106 of 161 the bullet one year and Chief Musser and Chief Worley and them have kind of tried to keep our vehicles from falling completely apart and getting them replaced and we worried about the hours. I knew we had hour meters on them. I would have guessed just off - that if you had 80,000 miles, I would hate to guess how many hours you would have on that engine. I mean, do you have any idea, Chief on an 80,000 mile, how many hours you would have? (Speaker unknown): It is 15 miles on every hour on a car. Let me say this again. It is 15 miles on every hour that is put on the car. We originally had the hours in (inaudible--). The other thing that we need to find out is that every year our maintenance (inaudible) were in the red and for the last two years (inaudible--). Bird: Yeah, we had really let ourselves get into a - which, all of you officers that were here in which all of you were, realized that we were driving some cars that if you were in a pursuit I don't think you were the safest guy out on the road. De Weerd: Nor was the public. Bird: Nor was the public, you are right Mayor. Musser: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council I just pulled up that sheet on the G100 replaced the (inaudible), but we do have a vehicle mileage; there is a slash mark (inaudible) that goes to Bower's that we have on those vehicles right now (inaudible). Let's say for instance, I am in 124 and the vehicle is currently 69,765 miles, it also has 6,583 hours on the engine (inaudible). Our other vehicles, the 126 is at 80,000 plus miles, has 7,139 and Unit 127 which was over 81,000 miles is right at 7,000 hours on it. De Weerd: Thank you. Any other questions, Council? Wardle: Madame Mayor one of the questions I had for the Chief when we were reviewing budget was the crime scene investigator and I have to admit that I probably got the image that most people got and that was - I don't perceive that we have that many crimes that need that much investigation and more of the televised Hollywood sort of version of that. The Chief explained that really that individual and their main focus is evidence and the proper collection treatment of evidence and how the current evidence room that we have and you see a couple of other enhancements to help our inventory tracking and evidence tracking so it is probably a less glamorous function than the title may instigate. But, certainly it seems like a necessary position as we grow as a community. De Weerd: Thank you. Okay, anything further? I think Chief next time you will need to take a shower next time you present. So someone might sit next to you. I didn't know our (inaudible) was way back here, so none of us could see it. But Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 107 of 161 we do appreciate you and your leadership team being here with us today and I appreciate all you do. Thank you. Borton: Chief, for what it is worth I am really glad to see this. I probably know the least about the way the compensation formula is set, but an opportunity to make the changes of your ward, for all time dedicated service is phenomenal. Musser: Councilman Borton, Madame Mayor, Members of the Council, I appreciate those sentiments, it has been something that I have wanted to do for a number of years; sometimes the timing hasn't been absolutely right, but I felt like it was very worthwhile to bring forth again. I will have to give some credit where credit is due and that is to Reta, who helped us put this deal and to plug it in and work it over and basically made it work for us. As usual she was magic with her calculator. Bird: Even though she doesn't want to sit by you. De Weerd: Okay. Is there anything further? No? Okay. Thank you so much. I might tell you the Fire Department dressed up. And thank you, Lieutenant Lavey for holding up your department. (Inaudible discussion) De Weerd: Okay, we are going to go ahead and turn this over. You are going to hear from the City Attorney, IT and HR. Attorney. IT and Human Resources Nary: Thank you Madame Mayor and Members of the Council. This is our second year of a budget presentation for the combined Human Resources, Legal and Information Technology Departments. I will reiterate with the other directors that sit today. Thank you for your support and your assistance in the last year. We think you have done a lot of really good things that have been of great benefit to the city and we appreciate your help and assistance in all of those things. We have got a very good presentation, I think, for you and our budget I think is going to be acceptable to you. Some of our presentation highlights that we have for you today - each of our separate sections of our department we are going to highlight who we are, where we are, kind of where we have been and we are going and the CARE model that we talk about a lot; customer service, accountability, respect and excellence, the behaviors as a city have adopted and embraced as our way of doing business is really what our department is about. It is really the service that we try to provide both internally and externally to be able to get the job done and provide the necessary tools for the departments to get things done, as well as response to the public as needed to make sure that we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 108 of 161 have access to us as well as we are responsive to those needs. I know it has been a long day. I wanted you to have a moment - it is not as cool outside as that picture there, but- Bird: These weren't in Hawaii was it? Nary: The Human Resources section of our department is made up of myself, Nancy Powers our HR Analyst - De Weerd: You never change. Nary: I know. You could cut and past me from every picture I have and it looks exactly the same - Audi Clinton who our HR Benefits Specialist; when we took the picture our part time office assistant had left. We have made an offer and hired a new Office Assistant that should begin working for us shortly. She will be moving over from the Parks Department to our department as an Office Assistant part time. We are in the bank. As you can tell by our sign, as the Mayor said a moment ago, you can see why people might think we are the bank. Our box and our sign is a little tiny one below the reader board. So some people can see it and some can't. But that is where we are. HR in the past - in the past and I mean over probably four to five years ago before very compliance oriented as a new HR Department for the City of Meridian has not been in existence for a very long time and as a new department a few years ago, it was very compliance driven and probably necessarily so because it hadn't ever been instituted and the necessity of getting in compliance and making sure you are meeting all the state and federal regulations in regards to all of the different federal acts was probably the most important thing to do and that was where their main focus of their attention was four or five years ago. A problem sometimes was the city wide communication was sometimes inconsistent and that is a problem that we have been working on since I have been on board in the fall of 2004. Because we started a little early some of our staff didn't realize we were starting early, so they are able to make it now. Also, with that inconsistent communication sometimes the HR Department was disconnected from some of the other departments. Well I found when I came on board in the fall of 2004 was there was sometimes a mistrust with HR; there was sometimes, I guess, a lack of respect sometimes for what HR's needs were and what they were trying to accomplish internally and again not a very good communication model between other departments and the HR Department and that disconnection can be very troubling, if not sometimes fatal to an operation. So that was a problem in the past that we have worked to remedy. Employees full potential not always realized again; if you are focused on compliance you are not looking always at the larger picture of what employees can do, how to we find the best fit for departments, the best fit for employees that belong here in the city? Legal and HR was not always on the same page. Our legal as you all know our legal function was handled by an Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11. 2006 Page 109 of 161 outside contracted law firm, so they were not an in house entity. They were not always very good at communicating what the needs were on both ends. There were some issues there; again, communication was probably again the key and the problem. And of course, long term vision for the city's future was always a concern. Here is just a snapshot of some of the things that the HR functions that our office does in the course of a year. We have got over 700 applications in 2005. Our online application is now live in 2006. It has increased our responses on applications and it has decreased our foot traffic. Both things are okay. I mean both things are finally - it seems to work very well for folks. It was interesting when I first started here in 2004 how many people in the course of a day would come in just to actually physically hand their application to somebody. They felt the compelling need to make sure somebody received it and stamped it and held onto it for a second before they left. Now they email it to us. They get a response that they have got it and that is good enough. It cuts down a lot of time wasted and maybe waste is not the right word, but a lot of time used in having to have all of those contacts over a very small piece of what we do. About 700 applications in a year and a workforce here that we have is about 250 people. It is a fairly significant amount primarily Nancy Powers our HR Analyst handles the bulk of those applications as they come in to process them and get them to the Departments for the next stage in the hiring process. We have 40 work comp claims last year, only five or so remaining open. There is a lot of paper and time that goes into processing this and that. Audi Clinton handles a majority of that for us as well. Our Office Assistant was able to assist in some of the paperwork and process of that as well as freeing up some of the other time, so that Audi could concentrate her time on dealing with those types of employee concerns. We have had 81 new hires in the last year. That is for new positions that were authorized, as well as for positions that were replacements and that incorporates pre-employment screening, finger printing, new hire orientation and Audi again handles most of that setting up the drug screens that are done; setting up the finger print time and doing that and getting the information to where it needs to go to get those background checks completed in a timely manner; getting the new hire orientation and all of those people that come in and we do that as the employees come on board so there is a lot of time that is spent in making sure we bring new employees into our workforce in a very positive way. Forty-four separations and terminations in the last year; COBRA for employees that have left, we had 93 letters and that is just a mandatory compliance requirement that we have to have to make sure people get the information that they are entitled to maintain their continuing medical coverage; FMLA requests of varied types in the last year; thirty-one different responses on those. Again we as a staff I think we work very hard on long term needs of the city looking at again the vision for the future of where we would like to be as an employer and where we would like to be as an organization. Employee wages - I would say a big part of what we look at and what we have really concentrated some on this past year - we hired a consultant this past year to look at continuing to address the changes in both the Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 110 of 161 way we do our job classifications and the way we structure our pay. If you recall, some of you last year we had taken a very cumbersome system, job classification two years ago and paired it down. We took 31 different job classification and we paired it down to about 11 and we took our pay scale and broad banded it all into larger groups and categories so that we didn't have quite the amount of levels in the organization for jobs and classifications that most people couldn't understand. What we did this year is in using a consultant is we looked for someone to help us, not only validate the work we did, but also make sure that we had a defensible system that could stand scrutiny from anybody; whether it is the Department of Labor, whether it is the Human Rights Commission or whoever it would be and they made some suggestions and that is what is in front of you and one of the suggestions was taking our jobs to another, I guess, another manageable way of looking at it and created this kinds of level chart. We sort of did it in this fashion. We didn't call it quite so specific as this, but what we did is we got each level of position and tried to find a way to classify jobs from both administration Parks and Recreation, Public Works, Planning and Public Safety across the board into similar levels of responsibilities or expertise. So that is the chart that is in front of you. I didn't put it on a slide because the print is so small I didn't think you would be able to see it, but trying to look at a way to uniformly create a system that would be fair and equitable, so if you were in an Accountant position, which is a level "I" and an Assistant Planner position, but what we have tried to determine is that the level of experience, expertise, abilities, certifications, whatever are comparable across the board horizontally here and that is the intent of this chart. Then what we did with the assistance of our consultants is then to create equity in our wage scale. Our wage scale for the most part was equitable from the second tier from the top and the second tier from the bottom was fairly equitable from the low end to the high end of the range of pay. There was a fairly evenly spread gap, but on the two top ends or the top end and the bottom end the gap was larger because as we could group some of those jobs together that this (inaudible) had gotten too large. So what they had recommended and the last three pages of this handout are simply the hourly, the monthly and annual rates for the same grade level positions; they're all exactly the same numbers, they are just broken out in three different formats, but what the intent was just to create a uniformity so that the percentage grade difference between the bottom and the top was the same from the "A" to the "0". There are some as you have seen the kinds of levels, there are couple of levels that are blank and the intent of that was to leave some room for growth in those areas, so that is why there are two areas that have no positions classified in them currently. I have sent these to all of the different directors to review and to make recommendations as to where some of these jobs may fall into so that it isn't something just created by HR or a consultant, but this is with the input from all of the directors. We tried to group people by classification and expertise and certification. I think it is a very good system. It is a very easy system to administer going forward and that was kind of our intent over the last few years Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 111 of 161 was to create a system that all of us could understand. That was kind of the problem, I think, in the past is it wasn't very understandable or easily explainable and what happened then is that people intended to want to scurry outside of those boundaries. This system that we have put together is something we own, we can administer from Human Resources without having the need to go through a consulting process every time to do it. It is very simple to do. It is very orderly to do, so I think it is a good way to about things and so we have done that this year and that is what is in front of you and the Police step adjustment, Chief Musser already spoke about; we did support that. We do think that is a good way to both incorporate the step system that the Police have been using as well as with the merit system that we think is important and you as the Council have concurred with in our past strategic planning meetings, that you support the idea that we continue to move forward and support merit as a means for increases and pay annually. There was a three percent market adjustment. There was a slight adjustment then to the overall budget. That three percent, after you get to this equity adjustment to make sure all those pay levels are uniform, we took all the entire pay scale and moved up three percent and that was to keep in line with the market locally to make sure that our pay is within a target realm with all of the other both city, state, county and within at least a market share of the private sector for some of our positions. So that is what this hourly, monthly and annually rates reflect is that three percent increase; they did build that into your base budget so that is in front of you and the five percent merit pool that we are advocating and supporting is supported by Finance. They do believe there is adequate funding to be able to continuing to do that. That was the merit pool we had in FY 06. There is a couple of reasons that I think it is important to continuing with that. First, the dollars are available to advantage that and continue to do that within the city's means. I think that is an important consideration. Obviously, that is what your number one consideration is can it be supported? Secondarily, the Fire Department, they have a fixed wage scale. Theirs is based on a contract. They have one more year in their contract and it expires next year. Theirs is a five percent across the board. That was the reason we were recommending a five percent merit pool to continue. Third, we found it works. We found in this past year and the way we set up our merit pool and the way it has been administered we have had I hate to say universal support from employees, I don't know that anybody universally supports those types of things, but we have had a lot of internal support. I think we have found it has been, if you talk to the directors a valid way to recognize meritorious type of work and being able to find a way to reward good work and that is what it is for. In the past, the merit pools have been much smaller and when they are smaller, there is not much distinction between satisfactory work and outstanding work and that is not going to get us where we would like to be as an organization. So we are supportive of continuing with that merit pool for at least one more fiscal year. The benefits - the annual premium for medical benefits - yes, that is not typo, it is two percent less this year than it was last year. Mercer, our consultant that we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 112 of 161 use for medical benefits was originally Blue Cross had recommended a zero increase as Mercer worked through the numbers with them and was able to point out that the reserve that Blue Cross was trying to, I guess, capture was probably too large and not necessary and that was the reason they were willing to live with a two percent decrease. That is unheard of -- in this market today it is absolutely unheard of to have a two percent decrease. I think there is a lot of reasons for it and a lot of the things that we have been trying to do internally, I think playa part of that. But, we have had real good experience with our employees in the last year and that is to be commended to everybody for really being able to bring that to you with a decrease. De Weerd: Bill I think it is also important - your Benefits Committee and Audi in particular the Health Fair that was launched this year and just bringing awareness - also the and I guess Mercer was Marsh or something changed there? Nary: Yes. De Weerd: Is that they also go and talk to people who do have a larger health issues and help them in how best to manage those and so there is more one on one counseling so there has been a huge attempt and a lot of effort going out to how can we start turning the tide of the increases that we have been seeing with our benefits in general and this is really exciting to see. Nary: We get tremendous value from the relationship that we have with Mercer as a consultant. They are truly - treat us as if we are their only client. We are certainly not. We are not even closest to the largest client, but yet they spend a lot of time providing us information and service; many of it not necessarily covered under their contract, but because that is just the organization that they have. So they do provide us a lot of value and I think that again has helped us in bringing our costs of benefits down. The flexible spending program, I believe has been a very big success for us as a city. We have added the Bennie Card in this last year and any of you that are on our flex spending program know you receive the Bennie Card. It is easy to use and that is exactly the purpose of it and most employees have found it to be a value to them because it is easy to use. And Audi can correct me - I haven't recalled many conversations with people who got it wrong and messed it up. I think we have had a couple, but not very many. It is generally pretty easy to use it and so we have 95 employees enrolled into it now and so we are almost to half of our workforce, which is great. Each year, each new employee tends to sign up for it; as we add staff they tend to sign up for it. Most people as it becomes easier to use, I think it has been more of an attractiveness - that Bennie Card addition this year, attracted more people to come - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 113 of 161 De Weerd: That was huge. I am already through mine. Nary: Yeah, most people burn up pretty quick on that. I am the same way. Borton: A benefits question - when you look at the wage expenses in the budget, it only shows $10,600 as a (inaudible) insurance cost. Nary: Per employee. Borton: Right. That is an average of what? I mean, if medical is a couple grand, do you know where the other $8,000 --? Nary: Well that is that $2 million - (Tape turned over) Nary: -- life insurance, disability; yeah, long term, short term disability. So what are some of the things that we have done I guess as assets that we think to the city? Classification of the position system is simplified. We have a more orderly system of pay. We have the online employment application; now we have increased the services for flex spending, which was increased our enrollment and we have established a Wellness Committee with membership from each of the departments and as the Mayor pointed out this year we have our first Wellness Fair. It was a huge success. We had more than 20 vendors. We actually are larger than the space that we have. We are having to consider next year of where could we hold this fair because we have such a turnout of both employees as well as vendors. I was there for about an hour and one half and I know the Mayor was there that day and everyone of the vendors was thrilled to have been there. They appreciated the city's effort of putting it on. They appreciated the turnout for it and I know no one appreciated it more than Audi because she was the one who was in charge of organizing it and we were concerned never having done it before and how many people would show up and if you ask 20 people to come to your house and nobody shows up, it is a little tough to want them to come back and instead our turn out was very good. The employees appreciated it and again I think as the Mayor stated, it gets people thinking about their health. We had some follow up with that. We have an onsite nurse that has come once and will be coming again through St. AI's and they are offering that as basically an assistance to the employees who blood tests taken so that they can find out what they can do if they had high blood pressure; if they had high cholesterol and what types of steps can they take and St. AI's would provide that service as a follow up to the Wellness program. So it is a good asset to the city. We are going to continue doing that - the Committee they have already agreed as a Committee to purchase blood pressure cuffs for each department 50 that Meridian City Council Budget WorKshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 114 of 161 employees who have high blood pressure and have the need to get that checked will have the ability to do that in the departments. De Weerd: We will have one for Council Chambers- Nary: Yes, I think we can put one in each of your drawers if you would like. We can get an extra one for each drawer. Bird: At my age I can go to the Senior Center. De Weerd: I might add that St. AI's was very impressed with the turn out. They said it is really amazing that the city is really making this a priority and a very visible priority and they were very impressed with the turn out and the commitment from the leadership. Nary: So the future - what will we do? HR will continue to provide innovative proactive support and leadership to the city as it grows. Affordable benefits - we are looking at retirement options now. We are exploring the possibility to bring a retirement program online with the city. We are still in the exploring stage. We would like to continue to do that. We think that would provide, again, greater options for our current employers, especially for long term employees. I mean we all know that PERSI is available to our public employees, but we are also looking is there other ways that we can provide longer term assistance or needs to our employees, especially in the years of health care. The biggest concerns of retiring employees are how can they afford their health care? The problem that you see in many work forces, both public and private is when that is a concern what do you do? You just don't quit working. You just work until your 68, 69 or 70 years old and it isn't necessarily always the best for the employee to do that. What the Benefits Committee we have been looking at is an ability to give people options. We don't know yet if we can put together a program that is affordable, but we are looking to be able to see if we can because it would allow people maybe to be able to retire when they are eligible to retire, rather than having to work longer just for the sake of their health care. It doesn't necessarily benefit them or the city for them to not at least have the ability to make a choice and so we are looking at that and seeing what we can do and if we can bring something to you. We had committed to the Fire Department in the Union negotiations that we would continue to look for that and if we could find something that was affordable both for the city and for them, we would bring that forward. We are not there yet, but that is what we are doing. Maintaining and enhancing your greater workforce continue to be employer of choice. Recruit, retain qualified employees - that is a big deal of what we do. One of the things that we believe as a Department and I believe is that one of the ways you avoid some of your personnel issues, long term issues, internal issues - if they are finding good people who fit your department. Not always is the number one person that ranks Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 115 of 161 out on paper the best fit and the best person that is going to assimilate into your workforce, understand your needs, your culture and the way you do business. So we spend a lot of time in our staff, both myself, Audi, Nancy and working with the different departments in trying to find people who kind of fit where they can go and where they can work and what would work out best for the city. It is not an exact science, I wouldn't say we are always 100 percent successful, but we spend a lot time and effort trying to look for that. I think it is really important. I think most of the time in my experience has been difficulties internally don't come from people who can't turn on the computer and answer the phone. Most of it comes from people who can't fit into the workforce very well and that is such an integral part of how we do business everyday, we think it is important on the front end to work very closely with the departments to address that at the hiring stage, not later on. The only enhancement we are asking for HR this year is Aspire On - last year's contract, I believe $66,000 so there is a slight increase. Aspire On - in the 11 years I have been working in the Human Resources field is one of the few consultants I have ever worked with that truly is imbedded and engaged with what we do. They have ownership in the outcomes of the city. They have a great desire to be on board and helpful in any facet they can to assist this. They provide leadership training as you know because we presented it to you. We, through the last few years worked with Aspire On in a variety different (inaudible) of training from the top level of management to all employees within the city to new supervisors having continuous training through them. They helped in part on the strategic planning. They help us as department directors to stay focused on the long term goals and strategic needs of the city. They help with departments with communication and that is one area that they have a great deal of expertise and the departments that have used them to assist their department to deal with internal communication found great value in the work that they have provided. They have helped us create the PAD's and the evaluation tools that you have seen that we have added to our workforce. We are still working through them. I think we are probably going to be still working on through those for a while longer because it does take a while to change the mindsets of how we do things, so we are still working through that and the last thing is coaching and the reason I bolded that is because that's a great deal of what they do. They provide a great level of coaching to all of our departments and directors to be able to assist them in all levels from top to bottom and if we didn't use Aspire On, we would end up having to hire someone else to do the same thing and in my view as a contract service, you keep a contract service if they provide you an affordable price and they give you service that is of value to you and Aspire On does both of those things for us and so that is the one enhancement that we have asked to continue in the next year. The last one for HR - challenges - again continue to provide excellent service with limited resources. I think that is in every single slide you saw today. We all recognize we have limited resources. We understand that. We have a small workforce. I don't know if you as the Council realize that very often. If you look at our neighboring cities, the City of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 116 of 161 Nampa has a few thousand more people than us and they have more than twice the number of employees we do. The City of Boise is certainly larger, but they are not ten times larger than us. They have over 2,000 employees. We have 250. We are a very frugal workforce and what we do and that is okay. It has worked out very well, but we do need to always be looking at how do we continue to maintain that and maintain legal compliance, address personnel issues - one of the things that was the idea of combining the Legal and HR Department was to be able to address those personal issues before they become lawsuits. We haven't had any lawsuits since I have been here. I think it is not just for that reason, but it helps to be preventative and proactive on the front end and we have been able to do that. We assist the directors, hopefully by providing timely and responsive support and we also do the same by providing timely, relevant training to employees. That is the little legal side. We are also in the City Hall Annex. Here is the past legal issues - many of you are familiar with them. We had limited access to Council by staff. It was expensive. I tried to use as many dollar signs as I could. I think that is how many they have in the newspaper for expensive restaurants. We are one of many clients and sometimes we didn't always feel like we were treated as if we were a very high paying client. Unlike what I said earlier about Mercer where you are certainly not their highest paying client. Previously we were one of their highest paying clients, yet we weren't getting the same level of service that we thought we should have. Legal advice is sometimes inconsistent because of the different attorneys that they had, staffing different functions, it wasn't always quite the same information you would get from the whole firm. It wasn't very service oriented. There was no real investment with the city. It was very crisis oriented. You call the attorneys at your last resort because they were expensive, it wasn't a mindset or an attitude to call them first. The attitude was to call them because we have already got a lawsuit or we got a letter or we got something and so it was always crisis oriented. Presently all of the civil administrative code related legal issues are handled by our in house counsel. We have two and one half attorneys; myself, Ted Baird and Emily Kane. The city is the client. Probably for all of you or for anybody that is not a lawyer that may not mean much for lawyers, that is a big deal. Knowing who the client is and whose interests need to be served - with your legal staff that is not an issue. They always know the city is the client, the protection of the city's interest is number one. Direct open contact with attorney, staff and public - I think we have been very successful at creating a better model of a public service law firm by being very open, being able to have daily contact, email contact, voice mail, cell phone or any means that people can get to us and get information to us and back and forth, we respond to. Both to the staff, the other people in the city as well as the public. We answer a lot of public information types of questions such as who is doing this? How does this work? I don't understand this and we answer a lot of those things that weren't being done by your legal staff before. The first year we saved around $90,000. It probably was a little higher, I was being conservative in that estimate, but in looking at Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 117 of 161 what we have spend for legal services now verses what we were spending for legal services that is a pretty conservative estimate, but that is a pretty good savings in the first year and those savings continue. Service oriented relationship with attorneys, as I said we have spent a lot of time and take a lot of pride in making sure we are responsive to the needs of our customers. Both internally and externally our staff spends of lot of time, you know from a legal side, Michele Albertson has probably talked to virtually every employee in the city more than Ted or myself or Emily as she is our point person. Michele resolves a lot of issues just by herself with that, but it is our way to make sure that we are responding to those needs as they come up. Litigation avoided by legal preparation - we again haven't had a lot of litigation to deal with in the last couple of years. A lot of that is being prepared upfront. We spend a great deal of time -- Mr. Baird just came from our prep meeting for tonight's Council meeting. We prepare for every Council meeting with just our legal staff; with our Planning staff; with Public Works staff; we prepare for the Parks Commission meetings the same way; we prepare for Planning and Zoning Commissions. We make sure before those public meetings occur, we have at least tried to flush out what issues exist; what can we do to address them so that your time isn't wasted when you get here and that your questions have been thought of, researched, dealt with upfront and as I encouraged all of you before, if you have any of those things you need to bring to us upfront before the meetings, please feel free to do that. That is what we are here for. This isn't listed as an enhancement, but the prosecution services by Boise City Attorney is an ongoing need. They have submitted us a new bid for this year of $200,197.00. They were here last week so I am not going to reiterate what they told you last week. We get great value for what they provide. I have said to you before and I will say to you again, I cannot provide the services that they provide to the city for the price they are asking. I cannot put the same level of service together. We could hire brand new attorneys and bare minimum be able to perform the service for maybe fractions pennies less, but you wouldn't find the service or the satisfaction that you get from the services they get now. Eventually I think the wheels would fall off the bus. That was the way things were being done before and the Police Department wasn't happy about it. I don't want to go back there. I think what we get from Boise City is of great value to all of us, especially the Police Department who has to work with them daily. I think it is money well spent to continue to provide that service through them. The Legal Department - again we really stepped up our consistent communication with Code Enforcement, Planning and prosecution. As all of you know Code Enforcement has really ramped up over the last year, year and one half. We are continuing to be very proactive in the Code Enforcement arena. Code Enforcement and our department and Planning and the prosecution are in pretty constant communication about various issues. The recent issue regarding some weed cutting that had to occur before the Fourth of July because of a citizen's need is an example of the need for that communication to be ongoing and we do take a lot of time and effort to continue Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11,2006 Page 118 of 161 to do that. I see that growing as the city gets larger and as we get even a larger Code Enforcement emphasis on things. Proactive ordinance revisions - you know we have rewritten the pawn brokers, the open burning ordinance, the vicious dog ordinance, the closet bar ordinance and so we have been very active in getting the ordinances updated as we need them. Meet customers on their turf - again, for most of you that may not mean a whole lot; from attorneys it is a big deal. We spend a lot of time making sure that we go to them. You know we don't sit at our office and tell every single customer, every single employee who needs something, well you just make an appointment and you come see us when we have time. We will say what time can we meet you. We will come to your office, let's address your problems, figure it out and let's move on. That is something we again are very proactive about. We think it is important and we think it has been a real value to all of the different parts of the city to do that. Responding timely - again, legal advice is great. If you don't get it within some reasonable amount of time when you need it doesn't help you very much. We spend, again a great deal of effort making sure we are being able to respond as timely as the customer needs it. Again, we work very closely with Code Enforcement and we think we are probably going to be enhancing that time and effort that we are spending with that in the future. The long term needs or the long term future - again maintain limited outsourcing. My goal is to continue to limit the need for outsourcing case work. Occasionally we are going to need it. We use it a little bit this year and we will probably use it a little bit every year. The less we can do that, the better in my book. The more that we have done by our own people who are invested with what our outcomes are, I think makes it a better organization. That means we want to have diverse talent on our staff to meet ever changing needs. We may have to expand several services at some point to keep up with the needs internally. That is still cheaper than hiring attorneys at $90 to $100 to $150 an hour. If we need that Police, Attorney and the criminal staff at some point will probably make more sense to be done internally. Today right now for the price that the City of Boise is providing those services, we probably can't do that but at some point we probably could. Those are things that we keep on our forefront for us to look at and see as we go forward. Challenges - there is the City Hall project that we have been working on, you guys have probably heard a little of it, we have been working on it for a while. We are probably going to be working on it for a little bit longer. The architect contract, we think, is final. We should be bringing it to you here either tonight or next week. The other - the construction management one is quite completed yet, we will be working on some other phases of that project as it gets going. We are going to be working on online access to an updated city code. We are looking to try to improve how we get access to the city code. We currently use a vendor through Sterling Code Codifiers. We are looking at ways that maybe we can improve that. Impact fees is huge and it is an ongoing need. I mean, we are spending a lot of effort right now and in six months we are going to start over again and work on it again. It is an ongoing need and an ongoing Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 119 of 161 requirement that we are going to have to continue to be a part of. Further code updates - we are looking at some updates with Code Enforcement to again make it a better useful code. We are working on a vendor and solicitor ordinance to address some of those concerns. We are looking at that for the fall. We are going to be bringing the public hearings ordinance back to you here shortly as well as some public records copying fees. Now we are suddenly getting those voluminous copy requests and as we told you a while back, we had never implemented any fee schedule for that so we are working with the departments to get that accomplished. Retaining, expanding our personnel needs as work loads increase and that obviously a big concern of mine is always making sure we keep abreast with how our work load is so that way we can give you plenty of time as the Council to know when our needs are starting to get a little hectic for us that we are going to need some assistance. Almost to the end. The last - and I will also in a minute I will turn it over part of our presentation in IT to Terry Paternoster. Terry is our IT Administrator. Some of our IT folks are up here in the front row. There is McKay and Shaun and David and Nick are all here today. This is your IT Department and if you notice on that slide, three of our folks are part time. We do a tremendous amount of work and these guys do a tremendous amount to keep all of these computers running; to keep our network going; to keep all of our systems operating daily for 200 plus employees with these guys work, again, part time and two full time people. De Weerd: They all look the same age. Nary: Three of them are almost the same age. We are very fortunate to have such very talented people to work with us. I can't say enough about how much - you know for a period of time in the winter time, both David and Terry were off for a while; they both had new babies this year and these guys, pretty much Nick and McKay help keep things going. As all of you know, it doesn't matter what business you are in, if you don't have a computer after a while there is not much else you can do. You can only answer the phone so much. There is only so much you can do without it. So having all of those things working really makes a big difference and we are very fortunate to have these guys, all five of them working for us. The IT Department is - the IT Division is over in City Hall. In the past and maybe Terry this is the point where I will turn it over to you. Why don't you talk a little bit about where IT has been and where we are going? Paternoster: I do want to comment on the nice dress of the IT folks today. Typically I compare what we do to kind of like oil in an engine. You know when we are working we get dirty. So this is about the best you see us. As far as the past goes, this goes back to about four years ago as to when the city first got an IT Department and to kind of outline some of the problems that we experienced when we first started is we had no inner departmental network and so we had no network communication between any of the locations among the city and so the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 120 of 161 Police wasn't connected to the Fire; the Fire wasn't connected to City Hall; Parks wasn't connected, etc., which was a big limitation for us. It didn't allow us to really optimize the resources of the city. Some of the other limitations were no centralized email. We had license compliance problems because of certain security limitations, which is addressed down below that we had limited or no security. Updates weren't uniform and so basically we didn't have servers and weren't really utilizing technology to allow us to better serve the city and so one of the first things that I did when I started with the city four years ago was to try to analyze what were the risks that we had in our environment and how could we leverage some of the services and technology that we did have to better benefit the whole city and that included coming up with a standardized disaster recovery plan and purchasing and developing a vision for the city's future. It is a lot more exciting to talk to you about where we presently are because there is a lot of changes that have taken place over the last four years. One of the things that we have done is we have limited the number of DSL connections needed throughout the city. When I had first started four years ago, every location pretty much had some sort of connectivity to the internet, to the outside world and the problem with that and really one of the limitations with that in the past was it is kind of like a bank that has a vault, you know where all of your secured data is contained and you have eleven different doorways into that information. It only takes one of those doorways to be unlocked to really get into the security and to really violate and access your security information and potentially put your whole organization at risk and so what we have done is we have limited the number of DSL connections and actually have optimized that by providing services to the users where when they come in we can control what type of sites that they can go to to a certain extent. So we can limit so employees going around on the internet aren't exposed to pornography or you know obscene resources, gambling sites and other things that we don't necessarily want employees to just stumble upon or have problems with. Some of the other things that we have done is we have improved the perimeter and internal security and what I mean by that is you know four years ago, like I said we had multiple DSL connections and so there was a lot of doorways of opportunity for people to come in and get into our system. Not all of those were as secured as they should have been at the time. In addition, every user was pretty much allowed to do almost anything they wanted onto the machine, which kind of leads into the next one a little bit is that it also created license compliance issues because when I started there wasn't a mechanism in place to allow monitoring of how many licenses that we owned. There wasn't a method in place to say, you know what we have the software, you know who can install it on their machine and who can use it? So we have implemented and this is something that I will credit partially to Shaun is that Shaun actually has developed us a license management tool so that we can track our software licenses, we can manage it, we can figure out how many licenses do we own. We also have controls in place through our security policies that control the computers as to what users can do so that users can't just happen to pick up the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 121 of 161 desk from home and say weill have the software application at home and we will just bring it in and just run it at the city. You know we have been able to implement security and one of those security controls also comes into place through one of the enhancements that we were given a couple of years ago is through creating inter-connectivity between the different departments. Through a wireless area network we have been able to actually streamline some of the processes because instead of having several isolated networks, the city is now on a single wide network that every user connects to so it doesn't matter if the user is at the Police Department or at Public Works or Fire, any user can log onto a machine at each one of those locations and expect a standardized experience. They are going to have an idea; they are going to get their drives mapped; they are going to have access to their resources; they can come log onto this machine, which wasn't here even a couple of years ago. So when they want to give a presentation they can log on as themselves and actually give you guys a presentation. Some of the other things that we have done is that we have implemented a shared calendaring system and email through using Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to really optimize the process that the different departments get to use as far as scheduling conference rooms, being able to email people directly to just all sorts of things that you can do. It keeps track of all of the employees because one of the problems that we had before was that we always would have to send out updated email lists of everyone's email addresses because they weren't kept in a central repository, where now they are. Disaster recovery - up until about a little bit over a year ago, we didn't have a disaster recovery plan in place as far as information technology is concerned and you will see that one of our enhancements directly goes to this issue is that disaster recovery has become something that as IT we are saying how can we protect the city in the event that something fails? Which is real because like I said, often times I look at the IT Department as kind of like the oil and the engine. Once the oil goes away the engine doesn't run very long or very well and so without really having something in place to protect the city when something goes wrong, it really impedes the performance of the overall organization, which is really our ultimate concern is how can we make sure that the organization runs? Purchasing, disposal and replacements are standardized is four years ago we didn't have standardized purchasing, you know departments pretty much purchased anything they want. You know if I want a computer from Dell, I will go buy a Dell computer. If I wanted a Gateway, I will go buy a Gateway computer. If I wanted to go to Office Depot or MPC or wherever, they could pretty much do anything they wanted. Through standardizing purchasing we have actually been able to save the city money because the average cost of a computer not only because technology has went down a little bit in cost since then, but also by leveraging contracts and centralizing the purchasing. We probably knocked down the cost per machine by about 30 percent. We know that every machine is legally licensed because we purchased the software at the time the machine is accessed. When we dispose of computers we actually go through a process and Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 122 of 161 this was Nick's job for this year and I think it was Shaun's the year before where we actually make sure that the machines that give to the Boys and Girls Club or that you guys approve for disposal that we make sure that they are wiped clean so that when they go to somebody else somebody can't down to the auction, purchase the machine, take it home, fire it up and have City of Meridian data on there. It is important to recognize that even though the standard user doesn't necessarily have stuff that isn't public information, we do have certain parts of the city like Police work where sometimes they do investigations through the internet, they pull up sites that have pornography on them because that is part of their investigation and if we didn't go through this process of going through this disposal and making sure that these machines were clean, theoretically it could be definitely a news story. So we go through that and one of the things we did is we have a standard replacement policy and so if you want to know when a machine is going to be designated to get disposed of and what plan on replacing, you can know that. We have a plan that goes out for the next five years and so we know basically which machines every year will be replaced. We have a vision. We have worked carefully on trying to define a vision that will lead the city into the future and meet the goals with the new City Hall as we continue to have growth. IT cares. We have several and this is kind of a continuation of the last slide is that we have several city owned web servers and websites and so when we first started a few years ago, the only domain that the city owned was that it complicated cLmeridian.id.us. Right now the city owned the City of Meridian.org, City of Meridian.net, you know so there is multiple pathways for people to find us and get to us. They are a lot easier for people to understand. We also have a geographic information system, aka GIS, which is used over at the Public Works Department to basically keep track of the maps of the city. Once we got the WAN in place and we had this interconnectivity between the different departments, we were able to have a remote access and so other departments, not only the people that work at the Public Works Building have access to that application, but also people like in Economic Development in the Mayor's Office and the Police Department can get into it. The Fire Department can get into it. You know I think constantly we are always getting new requests. It seems like (inaudible) and just kind of to give you an indicator of that, there is a part of this component that is a license component that is called a terminal service license. A year ago we had ten of these terminal service licenses that were used for people getting into the GIS system. Today we have 50 because each machine who accesses this must have a license and there are so many users that have requested access to this we have had to go off and purchase 40 additional licenses in order to provide that additional access. That is just an indication of the type of growth that we deal with. We also have service request tracking system and so when an individual needs a service request, so let's say that their email is not working they can go onto a form and submit a request that allows us to track that request so it doesn't matter whether or not there is just one IT person around or that all of us are around, we can go in and we can look at the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 123 of 161 available request and we can assign it to a user so somebody can take custody of it and then we can track the resolution of that issue to make sure that it has been done. Since this system was implemented and programmed by McKay about a year and one half ago is when he finished it, I think we are coming up on about 1,700 requests that we have handled during that time period. The other thing that I think is important to recognize is that that 1,700 request that has been actually tracked, but in addition to those 1,700 requests, I would say that the average requests that we handle from user requests are probably 50 percent of the total requests that we handle because we do handle requests that come through, you know whether somebody sends us an email, somebody comes over, gives us a call, you know Peggy stops by and says we need to do something, there are multiple ways that people come and ask for requests. I think the big thing is this wireless area network that we put into place - through implementing this inner-connectivity between the departments I think has really been key in streamlining the performance and optimizing the service of that the IT Department can provide. Like I mentioned earlier, prior to having this type of connectivity between these buildings, we were really disabled. Basically we had multiple networks that we had to go over and repeat the same task on over and over again. If the user had a problem and we needed to help them, we had to hop in the car and drive over there. We now utilize tools and resources that allow us to have a user click an application on their desktop, which gives us remote control of their machine so that we can, with them, make the fix without ever leaving our desk, which I think has been a great enhancement for the city. In the future, I think this says it pretty clearly that IT must be prepared to keep pace with the city's growth. I think one of the limitations that we have is we need - we have multiple points of failure within our system currently; although we have been able to leverage a lot of the opportunities and the resources that we have been given, our system is made up of a lot of single points of failure and what I mean by that is that our WAN - if something goes wrong with our Wide Area Network, with our wireless network it goes down and we don't have an alternative method to make sure that connectivity takes place and so let's say that over at the Public Works Department that the wireless receiver on that side happens to be defective or it goes defective for whatever reason. Well, until we can get somebody out to replace that unit, they are basically down. They don't have email. They don't have access to all of the services we talked about. They don't have - they are not working. So they are standing around and not doing - you know you can only do so much filing basically and I think that this was clear because about a month ago, the wireless network went down for one of our subscriber stations and Bill in the Legal Department and HR was down for two days until we could get the part ordered and get it back up and running. So, one of the things that we are definitely looking at is getting some redundancy. Within our backup plan we need to have multiple servers so that if the email server goes down it is not down until we get it up. I think when I was checking the numbers on how many emails that go through the city, I think that we have over 4,000 Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 124 of 161 emails that hit users everyday. So that is 4,000 emails that aren't going to be answered; aren't going to be addressed and that is a communication drawback for the city that unless that is addressed, we don't have a mechanism in place to quickly get that up and running. We have tried to purchase utilities that allow us to hopefully get it up quickly, but that is no guarantee. The other thing is is that we need network monitoring services. Really one of the benefits of network monitoring is that it allows us to know what is going on in our network and currently we do have certain limited tools that are provided through like the windows infrastructure that allows us to monitor that goes on with the network; how much resources were being used so we could better plan, but that is something that really needs to be considered in the future and unfortunately as David can attest as he has been looking at them, the good paCkages that really do everything you need are upwards of $100,000. They are not inexpensive. One of the other things and this is definitely coming up when we are looking towards the new City Hall is getting a new phone system. Anybody that has used our phone system or has tried to make even minor changes like doing your speed dial will attest that it is not easy. It is a nightmare. It is very difficult to do even minor things with it and so we are looking to get a new phone system when we move into the new City Hall and basically the buzz word is VOIP and that stands for voice over IP and the advantage of this and the reason I mention this is for the IT Department is that it leverages our current network infrastructure to allow us to run phone services over those same lines, but it also allows it to be just treated like another application, just like email or anything else within from an IT perspective, so that IT can manage it, but not only that the tools and the resources that are built into these systems allow users to do everything from being able to set up their own rules for forwarding calls, so if it doesn't answer in two rings, forward to my cell phone. If it doesn't go to my cell phone, go to my voicemail and once it hits my voicemail and somebody leaves me a voicemail, send that to my email so that I can get into my blackberry device so that I can say hey look somebody just left me a voicemail so that I can respond immediately. So there is a lot of cool things that you can do and the reason that it is also up here is that it is another one of those high dollar items that we wanted to make sure that you know Council was aware for the future because it is probably upwards of a quarter of a million dollars to implement that type of technology. Address change incrementally - that kind of brings me to the enhancements and I think I kind of addressed these a little bit, but one of the things that this first enhancement is is that it is a disaster recovery network storage system and as you can see it has a one time cost of $120,000. What makes up that cost is there is basically two server units and there is a high speed wireless connectivity and what we want to do with this is we want to have a server at City Hall and a server at Police Department and have these two devices talk back and forth with each other so that if one of them was to go down, that data would be at the other location so that we could quickly get that data up and recovered. Right now we basically work off of a tape backup system and Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 125 of 161 because of those tape backup systems, if something fails we are reliant on like if a fire happened at City Hall we would have to make sure that we have a different backup system; that we could get one in and order it and that would probably take a couple of days; we would have to make sure that the tapes survive. We would lose data for sure because our backups are done every night and so if the tape backup failed the best we could hope for was last night's backup, which means we potentially lose whatever backup was done. If it happened over a weekend, we could potentially be back to Thursday, which means that we don't have that data recovered for all of Friday and however long it takes to get the system back in. To me this is a very important item for the city because this is just kind of - this is a minimal expense. I mean, this is really minimal to ensure the reliability of our data. As far as I am concerned our data is our number one asset for continuing our long term productivity and continuation of business. Without this data, we have millions and millions of dollars of time invested in this data and to me it is just critical. The next one is a network specialist with a GIS emphasis and as I previously was talking about this geographic information system that is over at Public Works is Public Works approached the IT Department about six months ago because due to the growth and the implementation of the GIS system and other departments utilizing it, they don't really have the resources in place to maintain the system management of this application. So they approached IT in order to have us monitor the system, take care of the user permissions, make sure that things are setup and secure so that somebody can't overwrite somebody else's map; their base map; their layers that they put on it so that way each person's information is protected. They want information technology to help them with long term planning. How can we better utilize this GIS system since this is such an integral part of every single department and the other thing that goes along with this network specialist with GIS emphasis is that the GIS portion of this particular position will probably only account for about, well I would say 25 percent of the time of the actual employee, so about 10 to 15 hours per week. The remainder of the time is going to allow us to accommodate future growth of the IT Department. One of the things that we are up against as that the city continues to grow we have basically done the minimal things to get us to a corporate level network. We have our own email. We have data connectivity. We have security in place. We are doing backups so we have disaster recovery, but for the city to continue to grow technology has to be used based on the city's vision, not based on IT's vision. Up to this point, IT has pretty much been driving the changes that have been made as far as saying these are the standard things that need to happen in order to make sure that the city gets to the starting point. But in the future, it is not okay to have IT drive that vision. That vision has to be set by the city so that we can help departments achieve their goals because like an engine, we are just the lubrication that keeps the engine running. So through this position it is going to allow me to streamline and to offload some of the processes in the work that I do so that I can better help departments with the vision and make sure IT grows and Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 126 of 161 utilizes that and also to help David with some of his tasks because he is burdened. The next item is an IT database application developer and this kind of goes along with one of the last slides that we have that talks about personnel, but currently the city has multiple applications that we have developed. We are working on a timesheet application right now. We have the online employment application. We have our website. We have - you know we talked about project management. We are talking about trying to leverage the current applications that the city owns and be able to share and have optimized functionality between applications. Right now we have a lot of independent applications like the Case lie system that does utility billing and the accounting system and there are processes that can be programmed to allow us to save labor and at the same time be able to have both of those systems communicate together, but to do that we really need a full time application developer to maintain that. We have used part time staff, you know interns and we have used volunteers, but for the city to really continue in the future we need to have this brought in house and we need to have somebody to do this as their full time job that unlike a part time employee, who maybe will leave after a year or two, we need somebody who really looks longevity, you know and is looking to help the city grow and so like it says here, we are looking to expand the internet; we also have an intranet, we have been working on and help to do web pages internally and eliminate the outsourcing and approve accountability. So back to the personnel- some of the issues that we are addressing is that we have a small full time IT staff. I think like Bill said that Nampa has only a marginal in citizens, but twice as much in employees. For their IT staff in Nampa they actually have four times the number of IT workers than we do with only a small amount of additional citizens. We also are utilizing high school interns and although high school interns, the city has done very well with our high school interns, I will give our high school interns a lot of credit because without them we couldn't have got to the point we are at. The city, in order to grow really needs to have full time staff that can be accountable. We also have used volunteers for some of our web site services and I think that volunteers, you get what you pay for and I think that the problem with volunteers is that we get stuff, but there is a lot of time that is invested behind the scenes; where just for our current web site, there has been probably over 500 hours of IT staff time put in just to get the web site up to the point it was, even though it was supposed to be done through volunteers largely. So it really doesn't come without a price. It maybe didn't come without a budget item, but we really did pay. Resources to address change - we need to implement policy changes and streamline some of the IT functions and just keep pace with city's growing needs. Nary: Thank you Terry. I would repeat one thing Terry said. I mean we have been blessed with really great high school interns. These guys aren't high school students anymore they are college students. But, they all three of the four of them sitting here came to work for us as high school students. We were pretty lucky and I think we need to continue that program because I think it is a great Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 127 of 161 asset both for the Charter High School as well as the city. But, I have said it to all of you, we can't continue to rely on that good fortune annually to hire good high school students to help us maintain our system. We need to be more on top of it than that and having full time accountable people is the way to go. It is not going to eliminate the program. We are still going to continue to use high school students, but we think that long term needs for the city and that is where we need to be. (Tape turned over) Nary: -- everyone in our department has had an opportunity to proVide input to our presentation today. I appreciate all of the input, especially the queen of PowerPoint presentations, Emily Kane for helping put together this presentation for us. Emily is great at doing these. But we have a great bunch of people doing a lot of different things everyday to make sure these functions work. So you haven't had a lot of questions, do you have any questions now? De Weerd: Council any questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: I think you might have talked them to death. Nary: So then we are at the end. De Weerd: Bill, I would like to say that we appreciate everything your division does. I mean quality work, quality people and it is very much appreciated and as Emily put in her presentation, I have been so impressed with everything I get from her. It is so well summarized and put together that - well, you and Ted too, but I am so impressed with the team that you have assembled. You and Terry that you can continue to function and provide great support internally and externally with a small staff. It is very impressive. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes, Shaun. Wardle: I would like to say that I agree and certainly your departments do a wonderful job for the city and for all our employees. The one thing that I would like to say and just with the interaction that I have had in the last year with the legal staff has been - for all of the attorney jokes that I may crack every now again has been great and certainly think that that level of service has helped me perform effectively in my function for the city. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 128 of 161 Nary: Thank you. De Weerd: We thank all of you and we appreciate you dressing up for the presentation. Mayor's Office De Weerd: I will give my budget presentation and answer any questions you might have with the other budget or other government section that has all of the commitments that the city has made in COMPASS memberships, Valley Ride and all of that. Then I will conclude. We appreciate your commitment and your dedicating a day and it looks like we might do it in a day and taking the opportunity to listen to all of the departments and their accomplishments; the direction they are going for in the future and kind of taking a look. We did take great pride that we delivered you a 2007 budget in the black. That budget focus was to maintain and enhance services; continue to be effective, efficient and that we work within our resources available and maximizing the partnerships as you saw in the Fire Department with our rural partner in the Parks Department with our schools and in several other departments with our private partnerships that we were able to bring you this budget in the black and in meeting our focus areas. The Mayor's Office consists of 2.5 fie's. We have two full time and one part time. We also have a city staff, Shelley Houston in our office who is city wide focus on communication. Bud Henthorne who is our America Corp person who focuses on our youth programs and Cheryl Brown who is under contract with our economic development and those three are located in my office because of their importance as a whole to the community in serving several initiatives that the Council and the Mayor felt were very important in communications and valuing our youth and in bringing in quality jobs to our community. This is a mission statement that you have seen and I can say that our city staff, many of them can recite it and they know that their jobs and their functions really are tied to Meridian being that premiere place to live, work and raise a family. These are focus areas as you saw threaded throughout the presentations that you received today. These were deeply ingrained in the direction that these departments have been and also the focus of where they are going in the future and really are taking that from blue print to showcase theme in bringing our city up to the next level. City wide achievements - a number of these were talked about, but certainly we wanted to make sure that they were highlighted, that 2005, 2006 we have a lot to celebrate and again what we do with some limited resources, but we think that we get quality work out of it. Out of our office last summer we worked very diligently with the School District in filling out a very extensive application process for the 100 best communities for young people, which we are recognized for several reasons in the commitment to youth here in the city as well as with the School District. Our city online news letter has been very well received and I believe that Teresa and Shelley are growing the database on the people that Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 129 of 161 receive that almost daily. The fundraising certainly put us on the map with the city achievement awards with the Association of Idaho Cities and it is exciting to announce that we will be building the first habitat home in the City of Meridian because of these kids and their passion for that project. You can read the rest of them, but there is some examples of stepping up the commitment to our community, the visibility and in keeping this a good place to live, work and raise a family. Just a couple of slides on the quality of life, the community involvement, safety and services, parks, pathways and open spaces. Certainly, I don't want to ignore our greatest challenge and probably one of the greatest time eaters for my office and that certainly in addressing the traffic issues and looking for transportation solutions. As I have told many of you, we worked very hard in this over the last year and in my follow up and you can go to the next one with the congressional delegation when I talked to him a couple of weeks ago. They have recognized they have heard a number of the solutions that Meridian is seeking that it is not just the federal dollar that they graciously earmarked for us and where we are showing our stewardship to that faith they had to earmark funds. But also in looking at 20/26 intersection improvements; looking at timing of those so that one project doesn't interfere with the traffic flow of another one. So they have been impressed with how our city has stepped up to accept some of the challenge of being the keeper of the cross traffic of the entire Valley. So as you can see this was a picture that we are celebrating. This was the official kick off to the Ten Mile Interchange environmental work. Next month they will start off with a public hearing and we are off and running with the Ten Mile Interchange project, which is kind of the cornerstone to the commitment from many partners to making sure that our traffic challenges are met. I thought I would go over a number of what our office does so to give you an idea of some of the workload and challenges that we have. You know what the Mayor does, but this just kind of is a summary to what my time is and that of Peggy and supporting me and meeting the duties that you expect of me as well as the citizens. We have employee oversight; the duties that I share with you is long term strategy planning; the budget development; implementation of the policies and ordinances that you pass; facilitating your meetings as well as working with the directors and their down lines to make sure that we are all on the same page and heading in the same direction. Public functions and initiatives - again the contracts that are located out of our office really focus on this. You will hear of a couple of enhancements from the individuals in which carry out those tasks, but these are some of the areas that we have a high priority on, which is Meridian's Promise, the Youth Council, the Faith Community and creating quality jobs in our community. Again these are our most precious assets our youth. The community recognition that we received with 100 best communities for young people; the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council; the commercial development and as you heard from the Building Department it is continuing at a steady pace and we liked to hear the news that the percentage of residential to home growth is hopefully starting to shift to a healthier balance of just houses to commercial. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 130 of 161 These are my board involvements - these represent commitments on my behalf to represent the city and with the exception of probably friends of Meridian Parks and the rest of them are very youth oriented and have quality of life and job related functions to it. Regionally I represent the city in all of these and what we try and do is reach out into the CARE values as well. Customer service, accountability, respect and excellence and I failed in this regard. My representation on these are very important to me. I don't think that I can pass on a lot of the information that I get and the enhancement request that we are requesting is to help better that communication and enable you to learn a lot more than just reading the minutes because minutes don't always tell the story and that we can provide more information to the Council that can be brought into decisions of land use and transportation as well. These are my statewide representation involvements as well. Key day to day functions - in transportation, the City Hall project and business and downtown redevelopment and looking for opportunities to bring that additional converse to Meridian. Internal initiatives are a lot of what you already heard today and in trying to really set a direction for the future and make sure that everyone in the city knows the role that they play within that. Many of these are accountability tools and communication tools to help with that. The external responsibilities are being the spokesperson and the figure head of the city is also one of my responsibilities and I try and make it to as many of those as I possibly can and we certainly have had a lot of opportunity for meetings this last year. I don't see in the important functions or challenges that face our Valley or our community that that will lessen either. We do have four budget enhancements in the Mayor's Office and one in Economic Development. The position, I will have Peggy address and then ask for Bud to talk about Meridian Promise and the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and in those endeavors - one is certainly a break even, it is just kind of a pass through and then ask Shelley to talk about the State of the City, which is also a break even, a pass through of funds. Then I will ask Cheryl to talk about the Economic Development enhancement and then I will close. Gardner: It is not often I want to come to the Council and say these are the things that I can't get done because there is just not enough time. But, today that is what I am saying to you. I feel like since I have started I have put in consistently 50 to 60 hour work weeks and the Mayor lives here and when she is not physically in this building, she is on her email system at home. So, you know I know that she is putting in many more hours than I and the support that she needs to in order to really represent the city better than what we have is just lacking. I just can't get to those things. She really needs someone that can spend the time doing the research and the analysis and reporting and having some more direction over the staff that is here. She needs someone that can fill in for those meetings when she is double booked, which often happens and be able to report back to her what is happening in those areas. Last year in 2005 I handled 6,345 emails.This year to date I am already at 4,559 and that is not Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 131 of 161 including the junk mails that I delete automatically. That is just - those are the emails that I have saved in correspondence with staff and correspondence with citizens and in addition to that, I feel like one of my prime responsibilities is to citizens who walk in the door. A citizen who makes a phone call to the Mayor's Office and I feel that if I can serve that citizen at that point then that saves you time and saves the Mayor time. So those are the areas that I would like to be able to spend my time doing a better job. When I worked in a previous job I was clerical staff and support for nine social workers. I didn't have the level of work that I have here in supporting one there. So because of her commitment to the community, I think that she really needs the support and expertise that I can't and don't have time to provide. I guess that is it. Any questions? Wardle: Questions Council? Borton: It talks about the little stuff - what is the plan where this person would go physically in City Hall? Gardner: We would reduce our staff by the part time person and so we would still have the desk and computer available at that - Borton: Is that the desk that is back by Cheryl? Gardner: Yes. Borton: But this person would work back there or --? De Weerd: Yes, we will still work in that area. (Inaudible) Gardner: And the reason I say that is because in the time that Tammy went to the AIC Conference and was on vacation for two weeks, I thought okay I have got three weeks and I can really play catch up and yes, there were things that came up during the time that she was gone that I was working on and that you know she was in contact with me, but to take three weeks to try and get caught up and get your filing done and those kinds of things that is sad. The last night before she came back, the Friday night and I was going to be gone for a couple of days, I worked until 11 :00 that night. So there are many nights that she or I are here working late and the job, I feel like, I want to be able to do a better job. I don't like to be feeling like I am not doing a good enough job because the amount of work is there and you just can't get it done. I have never worked at a job where I felt like I just didn't have enough time. I enjoy what I do. If I felt like I was spending a lot of time, you know, getting around to the directors and doing those things to make things even better for my position or even being able to talk Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 132 of 161 with the staff that we have in the building, I don't have that kind of time. So, anyway, I am just hoping that we can get this one filled. Henthorne: Well, if I believed in luck I would say that I am the luckiest man alive. When I found this position in December, it was like being drafted to the Super Bowl team just in time to go to the big game. I feel like I am on a winning team. I feel like I am on a team that is really doing some good things and making some good progress. I feel like you have got a great coach. Our coach can be like any coach tough as nails. She can also be very caring and very compassionate and it is good to be a part of what is going on here. In particular as you know I work with Meridian's Promise. Again when I came on my Ameri-Corp position is supposed to be a 35 hour a week position that lasts for a year. Instead coming on three, four months late we are still going to be finishing those hours on time by September so there is lots to do. It is all a blast to do it. It is all fun work and especially because we are making such good ground. Our Meridian's Promise board is a group of people that are very excited right now about where we are at and where we are heading. We have been building relationships with businesses in this community. We have been building some really great relationships with the faith community of Meridian. In addition to that we have built relationships with youth organizations like Healthy Families, Healthy Youth and the Nampa and Caldwell and Eagle Youth Councils. Okay, Reader's Digest - that group has positioned itself through those relationships to do some really awesome things in the coming year. I am really looking forward to what that will mean; and the Youth Council as well we are in a position to do much more in the coming year to accomplish much more in the coming year than even we were able to in the previous year and I feel really good about the success of the Mayor's Youth Council this past year given the awards that they have won and given the time constraints that were on them having me start so late in the year. I think they have done an outstanding job and any questions for those two groups? Wardle: Mr. Borton. Borton: Bud on the Meridian's Promise - the additional (inaudible) is for Ameri- Corp - it said it adds ten and subtracts five and increase web development and base. I guess I am trying to figure out where - De Weerd: Yeah, I am not sure about the web (inaudible) either. I was going to ask that same question. But on the $10,000 we have a part time position and that is Teresa and that will go away if we get the full time position. Bud's position and that part time position was the two summer interns, so we consolidated it into that. Bud's position was a part time position that we had for nine months and that $10,000 we have had budgeted the last two years, but last year we wrapped that into his position to supplement what the Ameri-Corp program did not pay. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 133 of 161 To make it so - because they were paying just under $6 an hour and in order for us to get someone that had a commitment to youth and actually could be effective in what we are looking for we wanted to pay around the $10 an hour area. That is what that $10,000 is. Just each year we have made it an enhancement so we could come back and in answer to the value of that program. Borton: This supplements the Ameri-Corp (inaudible)? De Weerd: Yes. Wardle: So I guess my question for Finance would be we have slotted this enhancement, but for essentially legitimate purposes. It is a standardized base budget that we have approved to prior fiscal years, correct? De Weerd: Yes, but one that should be- Bird: One fiscal year. De Weerd: Well, the Ameri-Corp, but before that we had the two summer interns or the nine month part time position. I don't know what the web site thing was and I am sure Reta may not know either, or do you? Cunningham: It was actually put in several years ago and added to your base budget and it (inaudible--) development -- $5,000 and then last year you asked for the $4,000 for Ameri-Corp in professional services. De Weerd: Okay, so we didn't change our professional services. We carried that forward. Cunningham: The professional services - you actually - you told me on this particular enhancement that you were willing to give up $5,000 of your professional services. De Weerd: Yeah, for this. Yeah, that continues. Wardle: So for clarification it was a line item as web development professional services, Mayor's Office being transferred to Mayor's Office, personnel costs in this enhancement, correct? Cunningham: Correct. De Weerd: Okay, Shelley do you want to cover the State of the City? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 134 of 161 Houston: I will be quick. Historically, the State of the City address has been a joint effort between the City of Meridian and the Meridian Chamber of Commerce with the Chamber of Commerce concerning it is one of their featured events - they have handled all of the publicity, taking the reservations, arranging for catering, you know having the say so on the location, choosing the menu items and kind of directing a lot of those decisions and it has kind of increasingly become frustrating to work where sometimes the right hand doesn't always know what the left hand is doing because we are each holding pieces of the puzzle and trying to put together this large event. So we have come to the conclusion that it probably would make more sense if now that we have got the suitable staff and someone with experience in event planning that maybe we kind of take this on and be the sole coordinator for the event, which means we would handle all of the advanced preparations as well as the actual implementation of the event and therefore, maintain a little bit more control, not be constrained in some of the choices we make and the reason an enhancement would be necessary is because although we will ultimately make back all this money in ticket sales and sponsorship revenue, we anticipate having some upfront expenses. That could be things like having to pay a deposit to the caterer or the cost associated with the printing of the invitation and reply card or some of the publicity needs. So what you are basically seeing is money that we feel that we may potentially need upfront to be able to secure all of the pieces and parts of this event and then hopefully then will more than replaced by revenue from the ticket sales for the event. So that is the concept. Does anyone have questions? Wardle: Shelley I have one question and not that I disagree with this enhancement, but I know that the Chamber of Commerce in the past has done this event and I know from my time on the board that it was not a past (inaudible) it was a cost recuperated and have we talked to the board about our (inaudible) or is this --? Houston: Mayor, I think had the conversation. De Weerd: The board has agreed that this is something that the city should be doing. I think and it is a personal opinion, but much of their profit was made from the city sending our employees there, even paying for the minister to do the invocation. So you know I see this as the goal of a break even and to open it up and make it affordable and open it up to all of Meridian businesses to participate, not just Chamber members. So what we are trying to do and the ultimate goal is to involve our community and we have had a number of people that have stepped up and said they want to volunteer in the planning of it and not only citizens, but also Meridian businesses who haven't been Chamber members and so have not been allowed to be a part of it. I mean they could attend it, but they couldn't be a part of it. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11,2006 Page 135 of 161 Houston: Anything else? Wardle: Yeah, that answered my question certainly. As I mentioned, I agree that this event has grown, I think, out of the scope of what the Chamber is or had ever thought it was going to be. Houston: Well and really they are just a three person staff, so you know an event like this is kind of a blessing and a curse. So, it is a lot of work, but this seems kind of like the logical way to go and I think because I was on board that was one of my first big events here at the city, we all now have seen the entire cycle and what is involved and it was especially successful. So I think that puts us in a really good space to go ahead and try it on our own and still expect to draw a nice audience and a good outcome. Wardle: The only additional question I have Shelley is in your experience in event planning, do you think that we can make this affordable and make it a zero net cost to the city? Is that feasible? Houston: It is very possible. We can look for sponsorship opportunities for the various elements of the event and now that it is going to be ours, we will have that flexibility. So there will be fewer constraints that way too. Wardle: Thank you. Borton: Shelley I would say to you and to the Mayor that this, I thought, was just amazing - the State of the City Address. You can - I have been to several where they just stand up and give a speech and it is dry and short and boring and this was awesome. Houston: Yeah, I think we are in good shape. I know. (Inaudible) Wardle: Cheryl Brown come on down. Brown: I feel like I am going to Daddy to raise my allowance. So, Daddy's I need a raise. If we really want to step up and compete on the next level with our economic development, we are going to have to increase the budget for economic development. As you have seen the demands of everybody's time trickle down through the whole office, it has gone to every person in the office. We have a wonderful opportunity with our medical district and that is why I would really like the help. This could be huge and this will be huge for the whole state and I really would hate to put this on the backburner because something else demanded more of my time and I am going to give you an example of this. You Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 136 of 161 know what I do? You know the different projects I work on. I am just going to give you an idea as I was trying to work on the medical district today. I have had phone calls wanting me to come to Rotary and speak to Rotary. I have set two meetings for the medical district and that is alii got done for that today. I worked on two other projects in Meridian. I worked on another project for downtown Meridian that was in need of help. They were struggling, so I had to take time away to work on that; work on staff report and interview with Idaho Business Review - a legislative Adhoc Committee; correspondence, I have been working with one at a state developer and two local developers today and the budget report and a couple of other projects that are already going on in Meridian. I would really hate to see our districting particularly the first one that we are getting off the ground with it being a medical district take a backseat to some of the other projects that demand my time as well. So I am asking for some help to beef up our economic development because I know it is important to the city. I know it is important to the Mayor and I, too, want to do the job right and make this a very first class development. Right now, I explained to you we are at $3 million square feet just in one development alone and the developer is estimating a $500 million project and that is in one development by itself. So there is significant cost on your return here that is going to be coming back to the city. Wardle: Council? Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Cheryl this $500 million investment - when is it going to start? Brown: I am anticipating an application to the city the first week in August. Bird: For this $500 million development? Brown: Yes. Bird: It is going to go all at once? Brown: Yes. Bird: What if - I know these districts are nice, don't get me wrong, but what jf other developers are - or they decide they want to go somewhere else outside of the district that we determine? Are we going to tell them that they are not welcome in our district or in our city? Brown: I am not - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 137 of 161 Bird: Am I being unclear? Brown: Yes. Bird: If some medical facility doesn't want to go within your medical district - are you going to tell them not to come? Brown: No. No. No. Bird: And this is what this $30,000 request is for? Brown: Yes, it is. Bird: I can back this request strictly because I feel that it is something - and I think that you are the type of person that will implement a study where and speaking for myself we haven't always implemented studies. My favorite saying is we have studies to see what the study was about. I think you would - I think it is a great idea to have it in one district if we can do it, but I certainly don't want to see us penalize somebody if they don't want to come into that district. Brown: And that wouldn't happen and it is not just that one district. Bird: It is looking at the whole city in general. De Weerd: Mr. President may I also respond to that? Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Keith this is to - I guess you look at it in terms of a three legged stool. With the efforts of the Valley Initiative for prosperity is getting them here. This is the deal closer. The other two legs of the stool. One is Cheryl who implements and who works to close a deal with the businesses that come here that we send the information out to, but this is more developing a strategic approach to identifying the types of employers that we want and looking at the type of infrastructure and that is not just roads, but infrastructure that that kind of targeted industry will need to locate and developing a plan to make sure that that is there. Identifying the types of businesses that would make a district successful in working with the marketing efforts and networking with the businesses that we have here and learning more about the vendors and suppliers that they need to be located here that will make them more successful in creating a synergy that is very healthy to the business community in growing the kind of quality job, the kind of family wage quality jobS that we are looking for in this community and so its more of a targeted - it is kind of like Boise Valley Economic Partnership told Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 138 of 161 you earlier today. It is not to be exclusive of anything else. It is to just really target the kind of industry and business that we would like to be here and in working with those business developers to leverage their efforts in bringing in the kind of employer or business that they want in their development. So it is more of a strategic approach, Keith, than what we are doing right now. Right now Cheryl is overwhelmed with just the hands on once they are making sure that they are successful. Did that answer your question? Bird: Well, I thin it definitely does help and like I said I can back this, but as I said earlier, Tammy and you know as well as I do I have heard a lot of talk, now let's see the walk. We have had (inaudible) a walk, but we have been blessed with some very, very good developers that have brought a lot of nice things into the city. Now it is time for us to do it. With this $30,000 the only request I would have on it is when we get the RFP out there that Cheryl works with our Council President to get the RFP out and yourself and get it out and let's get it done and get what we want back in here so that we can start implementing it. Let's don't wait six months after October. Let's have it ready to go October 1 st. De Weerd: We are with you, Keith. Wardle: Mr. Borton. Borton: Mayor would it make more sense to - in light of the Planning's budget request of $30,000 for someone or a consultant to study district options to (inaudible) single department perhaps have a budget line out of a $60,000 - (inaudible--). Does that make sense? De Weerd: I guess the consultant and maybe you may want to make it a one line item, but the request from the Planning Department is different and its design criteria and the types of uses that usually fall in that and how to make them - you know make sure that our ordinances - so it is more of an ordinance side type of thing and more of the design criteria and I know that is not what it stated, but Matt and Cheryl got together and clarified it. It just wasn't reflected or changed on that enhancement form, so - and I think even some of the work that is being done in the Meridian Specific Area Plan and the design criteria that they will be working on over this next year can help fold into this. We would just like to see that sooner rather than later because again there is an investment by these business park developers to develop a certain kind of quality and you want to protect that investment in your design criteria. There is more of a sense of urgency than what you have in the Ten Mile area because there is nothing happening there. Wardle: Councilman Borton just to clarify - a portion of the Planning Department's request was really designed to be a supportive role in the sense Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 139 of 161 that their expectation is that we are going to see a lot of action in the first quarter of the fiscal year; actually the first half. They feel that they need some funds to implement some of things that come out of what Cheryl is doing within the economic development side and so there's was, I guess, in speaking with the Planning Director more of a reactionary we are going to need some funds to implement design guidelines and streetscape and criteria and transportation plans and all of those things. Was that your understanding, too, Cheryl? I guess in my mind it makes sense to split them; although I do feel that a portion of the work that is being done has a direct correlation to development services and therefore, should look to part of that budget to find some of those activities. Bird: Mr. President. I can tell you what you could do if you have got - I have to agree with Councilman Borton to a degree. Even though they are different studies, what we have done in the past is we put the money for studies and stuff under the Council's budget, under the Council and then when we got ready and we put them together then we release it then. It wasn't hit with each department, I mean it was for all departments to be used. I don't know if you could marry these two requests together or not. If you could it would be nice, but- De Weerd: Well, I guess what I hear both Keith and Joe saying is there are intricate parts of a goal and one might cost more than the other or you don't know how yet until you get it out that the numbers will come back. So by putting it in a line item, you have a little bit more flexibility you as a Council that when that contract is let then you can either approve it or not. So you have a little bit more flexibility in that as well when you put it out for bid. Borton: That makes sense. Bird: I agree with that Tammy, but I think we have got enough time; we have got enough good heads here that we can maybe - sometimes if you get your RFP's and get enough work you can get a per job cheaper and still get the quality and the quickness. Both projects need to be done quickly. I mean not just Ten Mile needs to be done quickly -- (Tape turned over) Wardle: -- the amount in there for the study currently? Kilchenmann: First of all I just wanted to clarify that this is a different fund, Council's general fund and this is special service's fund. I mean we can set up Council - we can set up another fund under Council so you just essentially have two funds. You have $25,000 in the base budget for consulting. Wardle: In just general? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 140 of 161 Kilchenmann: In just general funding. Wardle: We have $25,000 which is not - we don't have an enhancement put together for that currently. That is our standard base budget. This is development services - I guess my recommendation would be if you are going to group the two together and place them as an individual line item that you leave them in the development service's fund, which is under Planning and certainly they still approve all of those. Bird: I think it is something that we need to look at. Wardle: We need to get clarification. The $30,000 request that we have in front of us, Stacy is listed under one time general fund dollars. Kilchenmann: It should be development services. Wardle: So it should be reclassified to - Kilchenmann: It is under - De Weerd: It is on your summary for special services on that summary sheet. So you have the one for Planning for the criteria and the uses and Ann's request and then further down on that summary sheet you will see the VIP program and the economic development request for the $30,000. If you heard Ray the VIP program is not $30,000 it is $25,000 additional. In addition to what we have already committed. I did have one last slide and the goal for that slide was to show you kind of the budget to a pro-population and our expenditures. The top line in 2001 if you compared our expenditures per population we were spending $457 per person of population. In budget year 2006, you had a per person cost of $247 and that is operating and capital expenditures. As you see in the city population grow, in the next several lines, you see the amount of employees and in 2001 per 1,000 we had 22.5 and in 2002 we had 22.84 and 2003 we had 21.89 and in 2004 we had 22.88 and 2005 we had 23.76 and in 2006 we had 25.6. So just to put some perspective to your numbers. We appreciate your time and I don't know how you want to go about deliberations on the budgets other than just start with the first tab in the book and work backwards. Wardle: Thank you Madame Mayor. Any questions for the Mayor or the Mayor's portion of her budget in her department's before I get to the next (inaudible)? I would suggest that we take a five minute recess, allow all department heads to have one final five minute lobby if they choose so. Then we will reconvene and take an estimated less than 40 minutes to lock the fiscal year of 2007 budget. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 141 of 161 Bird: What time are we going to dinner? Wardle: We are going to be at dinner at 6:00 and it will take 3 minutes to get across the street so we are done by 5:55. (Recess) De Weerd: You need to speak into the microphone. I guess my first question before you start is did the negative 2 percent with the benefit contract with what whoever they are now, I keep thinking Mercer. Is that reflected already on this? Kilchenmann: It is not. What I would suggest is we not go all the way back to taking the whole two percent out, we go somewhere in between just because of the simple fact if our history does worsen, which is more likely that it will then we would have to put it back in. De Weerd: So keep it as projected- Kilchenmann: We can either keep it or we can lower it somewhat, but it stays in the insurance line so it is not like it is going to spent for anything else. Nary: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council the other thing I guess I would want you to consider for a reason to leave it is as I told you we are looking at a retirement program which we haven't fully discussed yet. There may be some upfront costs (inaudible) money that may be necessary for that. It would only be used again for the same purpose. So if you leave that money that we had anticipated spending that we are not going to have to spend now, then if the need arises whether it is the insurance need or something else in relation to this retirement then there would be the money available to be able to implement something like that rather than going back to the general fund where the dollars may not be quite there at that point. De Weerd: Does that work with the Council? Bird: Yeah, I have no problem. I think that is a dang good idea myself. I just as soon leave the insurance as it is and take that two percent and see what we can - because we did promise the firemen and I think we do need throughout the city, I think it is a very good enticement for employees some kind of retirement if we can possibly afford one and I think that if we can save two percent on insurance and put that in some kind of a (inaudible) then I am for it. De Weerd: Well and that will come back in front of you at such a time when recommendations develop. So the first thing is the merit of 5 percent. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 142 of 161 Wardle: Madame Mayor if we can have Reta or Stacy walk us through the total revenue projection and total budget as is currently - Kilchenmann: So the number that she has in the square is the general fund revenue and the reserve revenue is park impact fees. So we keep those separate. Cunningham: And then Mayor and Council I did subtract $133,000 because of change; we actually projected the rural share at 20 percent and since it went down to 17 percent, we had to reduce our revenues. So we made that change. We actually net out with $444,000 in the black. Bird: Well we are over in general fund? De Weerd: Yeah, that you could put towards the building fund, towards city hall or- Kilchenmann: Yeah that was one thing that I would suggest that maybe when we get all done is that we take the excess and transfer it to the CIP fund, which we can formally do in the budget process. Bird: You bet we can and that is what it should be on. De Weerd: We do have a city hall project where we don't know where it is going to fall out either. Cunningham: The other change I made was the Fire Department, they wanted the EMS position at $125,000 and then the inspector position of $93,000. They would zero out by re-c1assing or re-organizing the assistant chief. Then we also added $1,700 to their base for alarm services and they just found out dispatch is going to be $1,700 more than I had in the base. De Weerd: Boy, what are we doing going the other direction on the Fire Department? That was just in jest, Keith. Cunningham: The next thing on the insurance, just for your information, on the insurance last year we were $9,550 per employee. We upped it 10 percent, so we are at $10,600. De Weerd: Anything else that they need prior to - oh, probably the Historical Preservation Commission - did everyone get that enhancement sheet. That was 2006 and Will do you want to speak to that? Berg: Yes, Madame Mayor I can and I am very sorry for the late enhancement, but it just followed exactly what the enhancement was last year for the consultant Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 143 of 161 to do the survey of the houses around. That was very successful. This year she is finishing up some stuff again and then they are starting again with a plan for next year and would like to continue that. De Weerd: So it mirrors their request of last year for the same type of projects? Berg: Yes, it does. Exactly the same type of project and their base budget was the same with that enhancement of $6,000. De Weerd: Okay so what we had budgeted was $1,700 and their request is - was it $11,700 Will? Cunningham: Yes. De Weerd: So it is $10,000 more than what we have in the budget, is that correct Reta? Cunningham: Actually in the base we put $5,700. They actually asked for $5,700 for ongoing expenditures and then they want another $6,000 for a one time money again. De Weerd: And is that already in here then? Cunningham: The $5,700 is (inaudible) and the $6,000 is down in the enhancement lines and it is subtracted out of the bottom line. De Weerd: Okay, Council on this first listing I guess I would open it up for discussion on any concerns, additional information you need or anything that you would like to take out. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Can you highlight the city hall at $7 million - can you give me a nutshell description of funding for that? Is that in addition to some other previous allocated funds which total what now? Cunningham: We actually have budgeted in the 2006 budget $9 million and this would be in addition. It will become another capital improvement fund. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 144 of 161 Bird: So help me God don't you take this personal, but I have a problem with us giving our scholarships. I don't have a problem with you giving out scholarships or myself giving out scholarships or Shaun, but I do with the city and it being taxpayers' money. I will be glad to go help you raise money for scholarships, but I as a taxpayer - if my kid has got a good grade point and goes to Mountain View and I feel that he is entitled to a scholarship. If he doesn't get it then I am going to feel that my tax dollars were wrong. I think we are opening this up and I know you have talked to me when you started this and I didn't think very clearly and now I have some real concerns on it; not that I have anything against scholarships, I think everybody knows that. De Weerd: Okay so for your discussion then, Council there is $2,000 in the base budget that is for the existing two scholarships that were funded last year and these were to balance it to one of the other five high schools that we had representation on the Council for and the other was a community service one at large. The Youth Council also had wanted to start fund raising towards an endowment and I know that Stacy had put out an email regarding that request from them that they wanted to start fund raising and eventually that this wouldn't be something that was out of a taxpayer dollar. It was solely funded out of the endowed amount that they would like to pursue. So Stacy maybe first you can - can we do an endowment and second see what the rest of the Council thinks about scholarships? Kilchenmann: I don't think we ever resolved all of the complete issues with doing an endowment fund. We probably can do an endowment fund. It just depends on what kind; if we do an interest only we would have to have investments that would have to be managed for interest and so forth and so on and that probably would be more complicated. De Weerd: You know we have the Friends of Meridian Parks, which supports Parks and (inaudible) so we may even do it through their status and they can't hold money, but it would be expended out. So I think it is something that they could do under their charter. Kilchenmann: Yeah, you could easily set up a separate entity, like a lot of these are and they can do an expendable or non-expendable endowment where they either can choose to expend the principle, which they probably need to do otherwise the amount that they could earn in interest would not be enough to buy a book probably as they get started. So that would probably be the easiest thing is to have- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 145 of 161 Bird: This is for Stacy or Bill. Couldn't the Youth Council themselves start an endowed fund? They aren't, well I guess they are supported by taxpayer dollars and I think I just answered my own question. De Weerd: And they bought the charitable giving write off too. Bird: Yeah, I will donate to an endowment for a scholarship and would be glad to do it. But, J just don't think it is proper and I - when Stacy sent out the deal that she emailed us I replied to her with this basic thing saying that I didn't feel comfortable with having an endowed fund or a scholarship fund with taxpayer dollars. I would be glad to help raise some. Kilchenmann: Bill, correct me if I am wrong, but I think the city could contribute to it like we do to the Senior Center. You know we could say this is our contribution to this fund for students of Meridian schools. Bird: I agree 100 percent. If it's legal, Bill. If it isn't legal - Nary: No I don't think there is a problem with that. Bird: Okay, I have no problem with that if it is going to somebody else that is going to dish out the scholarship. I don't want it to look like the city is dishing out the scholarship. We can help with the endowed fund. But I don't want just the city to finance it either. Let's go out and raise some money. De Weerd: Shaun. Wardle: Madame Mayor just to - while I understand some of Councilman Bird's sentiments, we are looking at a line item that we funded last year. I agree that there is a better way for us to distribute these funds so that they can be matched or leveraged, you know, from private interest also donating to match these funds, but from my perspective just the additional $2,000 enhancement to even up the funds that were committed last year doesn't seem out of line. I do agree that we probably need some more discussion as to how we are going to do that, but for purposes of this discussion I am fine with the additional. Nary: Mayor and Members of the Council was the last thing what Stacy or you were talking about was having the Youth Council be the entity? De Weerd: No, Friends of Meridian Parks. Nary: Some other entity? I mean certainly the way you have done it last year and we are proposing to do this year, I think you are perfectly legal to do. I think what Council Member Bird is talking about is a policy choice that you as a Council can make. We can certainly explore a better longer term option. I don't Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 146 of 161 know that this is a good long term mechanism every year - you are going to have to have this same discussion and decide policy wise verses an existing entity that can gain the 501 C3 status or has it already and that could be the partner to do that and administer the funds and have the accounting being done and the city is simply contributes to that probably would be a better long term solution. We can certainly explore that option with Finance in trying to come up with something so that the city really gets to where Councilman Bird wants to be of - Bird: I agree with Shaun. I have no problem putting the $2,000 in it. I have a problem with us distributing and selecting the deal. I would like to see it go to somebody else to do. Nary: You could certainly, if you want to, empower someone else to do that process, but because it is tax dollars in the pot you have the final say. It is like you do with the recycling funds where the SW AC makes those decisions, but you still have the final say. Certainly we could do that. That is a good interim fix to it as well. De Weerd: If you approve the requested amount, we can bring back a couple of options. Borton: Madame Mayor I think that is the best route. There are lots of options. The Meridian Education Foundation and there are other areas where it could be channeled through. I don't have a problem with it right now. I agree with Councilman Bird I don't think the city should set up for the fund (inaudible--). Bird: I agree. Let's run it through and Tammy you can work it on and see what we can do and bring it back. De Weerd: Okay any other discussion and the items that are in that top tier? Wardle: Madame Mayor just one of the things that I have on the database application (inaudible); certainly the IT Department made a case to have that enhancement and one of the things that I would like to see in the future for that enhancement is once we have rewritten every database we have, what are we going to do next? My question is that is a full time employee that we are adding to the base budget and I agree that we need some cleanup of our current database and that we have been kind of passing it along with interns, but there is only a certain number of times that you can rewrite databases without going completely back to the drawing board. Bird: Well, Shaun I have a question for you then because I am so ignorant about this. Is there anybody out there that you could hire as a subcontractor that could Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 147 of 161 do that and then be done with it once we get the database in? Is there something like that or would we have to hire a full time employee? Nary: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council it might sound that simple and fine and it really isn't. This is an ongoing need. You know right now for example, some of those applications we have talked about are things that we as a city felt were necessary and we used our interns to create them, like the online application. We had an offer from another entity or from a private consultant type to put that process or that form together for us for $14,000. The City of Boise just hired a consultant and theirs is a more complicated system they want for $300,000. We paid the McKay about $2,000 to do it. But we are not going to run out of needs within the database system that we have or the needs to develop programming within the foreseeable future. That is just not going to happen. So the problem that we have had and don't want to continue is hiring somebody piece meal for one project at a time because we run into the problem where there is no long term accountability. You know we are fortunate in rehiring Shaun this summer because some of the programs that he had needed some debugging and he worked on those. We didn't have to hire somebody else to teach him what he did to start over. So we would rather have someone that is more invested, but we are not going to run out of long term need. It is just not going to happen. I just point that out in the sense that this position either will become or is already database management as well. It is not purely application development. De Weerd: Any other items? Borton: Madame Mayor one item that jumps out to me is the Executive Assistant for the Mayor's Office. That person's role relates to what Peggy's role is now and is that something that those two positions should be filled by a single body? De Weerd: Also in the packet of information that you got you have each position and the differences of each of their duties and that sort of thing. With all of the day to day, the calls and the emails and the filing and the scheduling and all of that is a full time job in and of itself and managing the oversight of the staff and in supporting of the minute notes and the agenda materials that I need that that is what I spend a lot of my evenings and weekends attempting to do and have not done a stellar job at keeping you all informed of the meetings that I go to or even the follow up that is necessary between meetings. That would be more what that position would do. It is more detailed. It is not secretarial. It is research. It is finding additional information and it is everything that we had listed in it and we tried to show how different each of those are by some of those bullet points and the job description as Mr. Nary had submitted had developed was also in the packet of information that you have. Bill's office also did a survey of what other similar sized communities are doing. Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Coeur d'Alene, Nampa, Boise they all have larger staffs and so it is the amount of the work that Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 148 of 161 is inherent to that of an elected official and one accountable to the citizens and there is a lot of phone calls. You would be surprised at some of the things that they think the Mayor's Office can do and we respond to all of them. Bird: Madame Mayor a follow up on that. You knew I was going to ask this. In our job description for him or her, I see a lot of the same job descriptions that we were given for Shelley's job. De Weerd: I could give you a copy of Shelley's job and I could guarantee you that it is not similar. We made sure as Bill was completing that that Shelley is a support to every department in their communication needs both internal and external and the only line item on there in that list that we did is speech and more it is not developing or writing speeches for me, it is developing talking points for myself or the Council Members when they go out and address a particular group or that sort of thing. But, it is not really in line with Shelley and Shelley has no interest in this. It is a lot more technical than the position that she filled was ever intended to be. Because that was a question that you raised that is why we also put her job in the bullet points to also distinguish some of the differences between what her position is and it is not a support position within my department. Wardle: Madame Mayor one of the things that I would just like to point out within this position is that as we have seen in the past, even in this city and most currently at the state level that the Executive Assistants and people within an elected officials office serve at the pleasure of that individual and at the request of that individual and at the pleasure of the Council. De Weerd: That is in the job description. Wardle: Okay I just wanted to make that clear. De Weerd: In fact I think it is almost one of the first sentences. Bird: Shelley's job description was not that - Shelley is an employee. De Weerd: It is because Shelley's is different. It is a city wide job. Any other questions on that or any of the other enhancements in this category? Berg: Madame Mayor I just wanted to note on the record that Charlie Rountree is present. De Weerd: Thank you Mr. Berg. Okay if there is nothing further we can move to the PD. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 149 of 161 Borton: Madame Mayor how does the process work? When you have discussions do you decide and solve the category and then move on? De Weerd: Yes and then it changes the bottom line, so if you add or delete you always want to know where you are. Borton: I am a big fan of not hiring people in a real crude, crass way. I (inaudible) and I don't disagree necessarily, maybe I don't understand the positions and the duties to be filled. I know you could probably hire six more people at anyone of these departments and they would be busy. However, from what I have heard and from what I reviewed I could do without the database application developer and the Mayor's Executive Assistant position to me seems to be that role and Peggy's role combined as one. I don't know how that is solved. I don't like having two. De Weerd: I don't know if you have anything that you want to add, Bill that can help distinguish the two, but I do know that just the points that are listed under Peggy's is more than a full time job. Nary: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council the position that Peggy has is Administrative Secretary. We have Administrative Secretaries in other departments as well. Right now, she can only provide support, assistance to the Mayor only because of the time that all of that takes along with the other duties that she has. I guess the way that I have always distinguished these two jobs, the main criteria is this Executive Assistant position is intended to not necessarily always be in the office, but basically providing a different level of support to the Mayor as the Mayor stated; whether it is research; whether it may be attending a meeting; whether it be going with the Mayor to certain functions and things, but you are always going to need a person in the office to greet the public, answer the telephone and provide that support assistance, whether it is correspondence, emails or whatever. I think the intention is is by having the Executive Assistant and taking some of those duties that Peggy has been trying to do along with the support functions and removing that other part time position from the Mayor's Office currently that she can provide some minimal support assistance to the other functions in the office that now she can't do at all. She just doesn't have the time. So I think they are distinctly different in what your skills that you are looking for and maybe Councilman Borton to answer your original question, if you had a different skill (inaudible) could one person do this? No I don't think so because you are looking for two different things and you will always want someone to greet people and be there at 8:00 and open the door and answer the telephone and address citizens concerns and provide correspondence to the Mayor and schedule the Mayor's calendar. But you are also going to want a person to be able to do beyond that to gather information, prepare information for the Mayor so she can be prepared and as the Mayor stated in most of the cities Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 150 of 161 we found when you have a full time Mayor, the volume of work is so large that having that staff assistant is what all of the other cities have recognized as well. The cities that don't have it, generally have a part time Mayor. De Weerd: I guess I would add to it is it is not just Peggy. It is me and I am working a lot of additional hours that I would like to pass some of this to someone who is capable at that level of doing it. That is getting better communication of not much of the outcomes and the meetings that I go to to you and that is not a secretarial function and where I said I failed on the accountability I try and weed through all of my stuff and get you the things that I think is pertinent, but I know I don't do the job that I would like to do. I know you probably feel already inundated with paper from my office anyway, but there needs to be quality to it so that they can put talking points to you and help weed through some of that and give you summary instead of saying here is your packet read it. I know you don't have time to do that. Nary: Most of our other departments have the City Engineer, Lieutenants or a secondary person to assist the Director in accomplishing both the long term, larger strategic goals as well as the day to day goals. The Mayor's Office is a department of the city as well and the Mayor doesn't have that. Bird: Madame Mayor as I told you when we brought this up, Tammy why don't we, if Councilman Borton and Wardle and Rountree will agree let's give this a year's trial. Let's try it for a year. I am like Joe, but in the same token and to be flat blunt I am going to protect Peggy. That woman does one heck of a job for us guys. You guys don't know the work that she does helping us out too. Wardle: Madame Mayor if I could address specifically with the Council that when the Mayor brought this initial request to me as her liaison, I immediately - I think I told her that she needed to delete that immediately, I believe, was my response. As I began to understand the workload and what the Mayor does I started to think of additional things that I could do or that this Council could do. We have kicked around in the past expanding this Council from four members to an additional number of members. We have talked about elevating the position of Council President to be more available and to work more than some of the other Council Members and I will be honest with you, I failed to come up with a good strategy that could meet the goals of this Council and support all the rest of the city and so in that respect, I think I thought that this became a worthwhile solution to try because we are not doing everything that we need to do in respect to getting the communities message either to the community itself or to the stakeholders within the Valley of the State and the other areas. I feel that my time as a volunteer, what I feel is a volunteer position on the City Council, even though it is a paid position it is a lot of time and effort that I am not doing the best job that I possibly can and I am just trying to find more time to do that. I will be honest in my time and I know that I haven't found that. I know that we all Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 151 of 161 struggled with the same sort of how do we best get our message to the community and this seemed like a logical solution for the Mayor's Office. Like I said I did not agree with it individually initially. Bird: I say let's give it a year's deal. That is my - Joe are you agreeable to give it a year? Borton: If you two agree that that would be unanimous. Bird: No, it doesn't have to be - I am agreeing with you and I said the same thing to Tammy when she brought it to me. But, at the same token, let's see. I think we are going to be overloaded. I firmly believe that. But, I also know that Tammy, if she figures that out she will come back to us and tell us. Borton: Fair enough and I do agree in recognizing that Peggy goes above and beyond in everything she does. Bird: She has been a - you know the Clerk's Office is great, but there are things that Peggy does for me as a Councilman that I certainly appreciate. I am going to be loyal to her. Rountree: Who is running the meeting? Mr. Wardle? The Mayor? I apologize for not being here today. You will see me on the news tonight. So if you get to see the ten o'clock news, for your information the Governor has signed into Executive Order the office of Drug Czar. It is official and has appointed Jim Tibbs as the new Drug Czar for the State of Idaho. So that stayed up my morning and some money that we had to put forward. Bird: Is he going to stay on the Council? Rountree: He is going to stay on the Council, but he is going to give up some of his other duties. Anyway, not to take away from this session. On this particular one I know that Tammy and I had talked about this in the past and being involved in some of the activities that - just a few of the activities that she is involved with in full force whether it be COMPASS or whether it be other meetings with other associations or cities or groups or whatever plays full, I would appreciate the need for support. I would agree that I would like to see the idea of a year trial - I think that is a great idea and let's put together five or six things to measure it on and see what kind of success there is and at the end of the year if we hit those goals, five or six goals or five or six measures, we move forward. If it doesn't seem to help much, maybe we will take a look at another solution. I guess I am not particularly fond of the solution Shaun was offering in terms of a more Councilman or more time on the part of the Council other than the time we can Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 152 of 161 allot because I don't - you are getting to a position where you are either going to have retirees or you are going to have people that don't have jobs. Nary: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council it is unusual in personnel positions, but if you want to fund this as a one year position and then require it to come back that is certainly within your purview to do it. It is not common on how we do these. My only concern on you doing that is hiring that person for the job. There are people out there, I guess Governor Risch is a testament to that that will take a job knowing there is some deadline that is going to end to it. But you may have a difficult time filling a job if you fund it in that matter. It is an at will position. Certainly you and the Mayor if you don't feel the job is vital and useful and necessary have the ability to have that discussion. It is an at will position. It is at will to the Mayor. There is no job security. I am just concerned that if you spend a lot of your discussion on this as a one year experiment, I don't want it to impact us being able to hire a quality person because then we set ourselves up to fail. I don't know that that is really what you want to do either. The only other thing that I wanted to say maybe in response to Councilman Bird was it was certainly never my intention as the HR Director to set up a position because of anything to denigrate Peggy's contribution. I think and my perspective has always been was the skills that we are looking for are just different than the skills that Peggy brings to this job and by creating this position we allow Peggy to focus on and use the skills that she is best to do and that is greeting the public, responding to the public's needs, getting the Mayor's correspondence and doing those types of things that really do fit her skill set. So I hope that - I never intended it to be viewed any other way. Bird: Oh, no I realize that. I have no problem saying that we are funding that for one year. I think that all five of us up here go by our word. We are going to take a look at it in a year. Now, whether we have to fund it for 50 years - if it doesn't work out we can always take care of it. We don't have to fill it. De Weerd: You know, Keith because it is associated with the term of the Mayor, kind of like Peggy these two positions are if you show your value you stay, if you don't you are done with the term of that Mayor. You could also work it in that sense too. Is that kind of what you were suggesting Bill? Nary: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council that is what I was suggesting because I just would be afraid that if you funded it as a one year experiment and then said next year you have to come back and refund the position again, that may impact us hiring somebody. If the position is tied to the Mayor, it is at will to the Mayor anyway. It isn't any different than the current positions that you have that are like that that are tied to the Mayor specifically. If it isn't working, you are going to know it; she is going to know; you are going to tell her about it and she is going to bring it to you. I don't see that as a big concern or shouldn't be a big Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 153 of 161 concern. I just don't want us to have a hard time hiring somebody because they are going to say I read your minutes, your Council is not really that supportive of it, I don't think I want to quit my job to take this job that next July they may just on a whim decide they don't want it anymore. That is my only concern. Bird: Well I don't think any of us said we didn't want to fund it. We said we would take a look at it at the end of the year, right? Nary: And you have every right to do that. I am just saying that you have the option to do it more strictly than what you are talking about, I would just be afraid to do it that way. De Weerd: It is five minutes atter six. We have gotten - well, I don't know if we have gotten through the first one yet. So where are we at in the first one? Are we taking out some of these items that you have discussed? Wardle: Madame Mayor in the interest of time, we do have, I believe in our quarter - I guess my question is we can either break now and have something to eat, come back and try to get this done or put it to the end of our agenda or we - Bird: How big is our agenda? Nary: One public hearing that might be lengthy and that is all. I mean, you have other public hearings, but only one that might appear to be lengthy. Bird: Well, let's recess for 45 minutes. De Weerd: I will entertain a motion to recess to reconvene before our regular Council agenda. Rountree: So moved. De Weerd: Okay we will go into recess. (Recess) Wardle: All right. We are going to call this meeting back to order and get moving through our process here. So, Stacy I believe the Council has no additional questions - (Tape turned over) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 154 of 161 Wardle: -- on this side. Is that correct Council? We can move onto the next area. Police Department - Council any additional questions that we can answer or concerns within the budget from the Police Department? Bird: I did not see any that I had any problems with. Borton: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Borton. Borton: It says up on the top that 12 officers - at least what I am looking at it says nine - Bird: But there is only six. Borton: Stacy if you could scroll up to the top, the first entry? It shows a number nine. Wardle: The department has withdrawn three of those officers, is my understanding. Bird: But I think the $547,336 is for six of them not nine. Wardle: Stacy can you - Kilchenmann: Yeah, it should be six. Rountree: Mr. President. Just an explanation on the animal shelter expansion for $140,000 in capital. Wardle: We didn't address this as specific, but as a liaison I can say the current animal shelter that we have as the Chief pointed out over the Fourth of July - a number of animals escaped and they collected them and it is full and they cannot accept any more additional animals at its current time. They have an addition, which is withdrawn, but an additional K-9 officer and I expect to see that probably in the next year's budget year for that to potentially be incorporated. They filled the two full time positions that they have and as I understand those two officers are busy 100 percent of the time. I don't know if I answered your question directly to the animal shelter, but we are busy and as I understand the Police Department is busy performing that function but has really nowhere to put the dogs. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 155 of 161 Rountree: It starts to get to the point do we send the Fire Department to get cats out of trees? I mean that is a lot of money for that service. Now at what point do we say no? It is one of the subjects that it is tough to say no to. I understand. Wardle: I would agree in the sense that I think just in my experience in the city and the large number of animals that we have had from my experience just walking the streets and just visiting the neighborhoods it seems to be an issue that I hear citizens wanting addressed quite often. I believe this also helps upgrade the condition of our current shelter, which I believe we have taken some public comment on in the past as well. Rountree: Okay I just wanted clarification. If you wanted to move on - Wardle: If there are no other questions we can move on to the Fire Department. We do have Chief Anderson here if we want to put him back over the coals - Borton: Stacy you had made a comment before the surplus is part of the process and can be allocated to a capital improvement plan? Kilchenmann: Yes. Borton: Can part of that be applied to the fire truck fund? Kilchenmann: We can do that. Borton: Does that have to be done now with a decision here or is that done later? Kilchenmann: Actually and Will can correct me if I am wrong, you could do that later. What you are approving today is setting the maximum budget that you can accept. So if you come back in and we get to the hearing and you've decided that you want to take that surplus and put part of it to the fire truck fund and part of it to something else, you can do that at that time. Wardle: Council any additional questions? Rountree: It looks good to me. Wardle: The training tower has been withdrawn and will be funded in the current budget year by the Rural Fire Department and we have given some direction in regard to Station #5 to the Chief. Moving onto the Parks Department. We have had a little bit of discussion here Council. The items that I recall off of the top of my head - the ball field groomer in addition to the - if you could scroll down for Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 156 of 161 me, Stacy - the pathway (inaudible). I think we had some specific discussion on those two items. Joe do you have any --? Borton: (Inaudible) in my perspective is something that could and should be omitted. Councilman Bird had the constructive idea to actually utilize some resources available at the Speedway perhaps and I would like to see the kids that do vandalism in the parks (inaudible) to groom in the morning and that would be part of their community service. Either way (inaudible--). Bird: I agree. (Inaudible discussion) Wardle: So if you could zero that out for us. Bird: I feel the same way about the ball field groomer. Borton: Are we moving it? Bird: Yes. I don't think it is an item we need right at this time. They are going to have to show me a lot more ink and a lot more activity. Wardle: Mr. Borton any thoughts? During our discussion I believe the director placed this on our radar as something that we need to consider in the future. He admitted that it could potentially be removed from this budget year without really adversely affecting his department's performance. So I would agree with Mr. Bird (inaudible). In the future we probably need to look for an additional request for the department similar to this. Borton: Agreed. De Weerd: Council if you would look at the list that you were given. It is low on the priority list in particular the ball field groomer and the broom was twelfth for park staff and seven for the Parks Commission. Wardle: That brings us to - well, we are not done with Parks yet. I believe we have one additional item to discuss and that is the lighted softball fields in conjunction with the Meridian School District. We had a presentation from Dr. Clark during the lunch time. Council additional thoughts we haven't really discussed it since then? Rountree: Give me a 40 second overview. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11,2006 Page 157 of 161 Borton: Councilman Rountree the idea Dr. Clark was gracious enough to (inaudible) and come and describe in person as well would be at the new Heritage Middle School and that the city will be contributing $200,000 to light two of their four softball fields. As the start of what we hope will evolve and continue to be a joint use relationship and the idea would be that the City of Meridian would have the (inaudible) in control so to speak of these fields to be utilized for city purposes. (Inaudible--) Middle School as opposed to a high school and then the (inaudible--) and be more available for city use and it would also provide a recreational opportunity for the citizens of Meridian (inaudible--) - softball in the league that may not be fully available right now. So maybe in a nutshell you are getting four softball field complex, two with lights for $200,000 that sits on School District property. De Weerd: Mr. Rountree it also would be in terms of the city would be the scheduler of that as Dr. Clark also noted is that this is kind of that building block of more joint use partnership between the cities and the schools that are being built within a community and how we can jointly look at each other's goals and utilization of open space and this is kind of that key jumping point. Rountree: Comments on that is that I think there is a couple of issues I would have. One is maintenance. If maintenance is going to be the responsibility of the school and if they perform here as well as they have done in other facilities like this, I wouldn't be for it. Also the city in past years probably with the exception of Keith and I recall the amount of money and it is not a lot, but money is invested in the high school in other facilities with the idea that the city would get some use out of gymnasiums and that sort of thing that never came to fruition. If we do this I think we need a fairly ironclad agreement with the School District that we in fact do have certain roles and responsibilities and certain rights to use. So with those caveats, I have been pushing for this for years. I think it is a good idea, but I think there are some things that need to be in place before I would be willing to authorize the expenditure. De Weerd: Council and certainly I know that Mr. Wardle had asked that question of our legal and what kind of an agreement would need to be developed in conjunction with that. That is something that Mr. Nary could come back with if you wish to at least keep this in as an approved budget item and come back with further details on it. Bird: Madame Mayor. I have - in the first place I believe two softball fields (inaudible--) cost you $200,000. You could light two baseball fields which takes about four more poles, four more stands and about 30 feet taller poles. De Weerd: Keith that was just an estimate. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 158 of 161 Bird: Well when you say $200,000 it is $200,000. My biggest fear is to spend regardless of whether it is $100,00 or $150,000 and I don't believe those fields will get that much use and we have got about four within our city that if we think they need to be lighted, we should light them. Wardle: Madame Mayor my comments on this and while I don't have the institutional memory in regard to cost relationships with the School District, I certainly was one of those kids that was able to take advantage of those recreational opportunities. In my opinion this amount of money up to $200,000 will essentially buy for the citizens the ability to schedule and play on those already planned four softball fields and with, I think, some help from the Legal Department, Parks Department and the Mayor's Office and some political will from the Council could really springboard into a relationship that will be beneficial with the School District. I do agree that we need something that is very definitive that can move on in the future in regard to a partnership agreement. Borton: Mr. President one thing that I would add and as we go through the process, I would be curious to see - I am fine with the $200,000 and I don't know and maybe we need more information down the road as to whether or not lighting one field verses two makes sense and there is probably additional information we can get from the other stakeholders and softball players that Dr. Clark referred to who will also be contributing to this joint effort. Kilchenmann: Madame Mayor if I could just add you could require that information in time before the budget hearing if you wanted to change this - we can pass that information onto Parks and have them nail down some of that information. Wardle: If I could just have Stacy to clarify that we can set this tentative budget and at the time of the budget hearing we could delete that, change the amount - Kilchenmann: Yes, you can always go down, but you can't go up. Nary: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council in addition to that at the budget hearing that if you want to move it, set it as Meridian School District partnership for recreation account instead and put it your account, put it in the Mayor's and you have all of those options in moving it around to get more definition as to what you would like to have. Bird: Mr. President my preference would be to just leave it and let's go. Like you say, we have got another hearing and in the meantime I want to do some checking and - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 159 of 161 De Weerd: Council would you like to continue this at the end of our regular meeting for special services and enterprise funds or did you have any issues with those? Bird: I would prefer to go on here so that our girls don't have to stay. We shouldn't be that much longer, should we? Wardle: I would prefer and I guess just for the audience we are finalizing our budget procedure and our budget hearing that began at 8:00 this morning so we are going to try and move through and set a tentative agenda before we move onto our next meeting and I apologize for the delay. We have been at this for a little bit of time today. De Weerd: The next fund they have special services. Council were there items within the presentations that you heard today that you need further information or discussion on? Bird: I didn't Mayor. The only thing, like I said earlier, we have that East 3rd Street extension study and let's do the walk this time, not just the talk. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Borton. Borton: If you can scroll down a little bit - the (inaudible) initiative indicates - De Weerd: Yeah, we changed it after their presentation. Okay if there is nothing further we can pull up the enterprise fund. Reta in the request from the Building Department on that 740 it was changed to 150, but what we need to know from Council is if you agree with that and if you wanted option "a" or "b"? Bird: "B" is the one that can go into the - as I understood it, wasn't "b" the one (inaudible) that could set up the big one? "A" was just a temporary fix, wasn't it and they were both the same price. I thought we were going to - I thought that's what they recommended, maybe I am wrong. De Weerd: I just wanted to make sure I had clarity on that. Rountree: Len looks like he wants to make a comment about that. Grady: As far as the 150, what we were asking for was the $150,000 and if we can come to a consensus on the enterprise solution then we would go with option "b"; if that fails we want to go with option "a". So we really want the $150,000 Meridian City Council Budget Workshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 160 of 161 and our preference is to push for "b", but if for some reason we can't get a consensus then we are forced to go with "a". Bird: It is the same price (inaudible--). Grady: Exactly. De Weerd: Thank you, Len. Do you feel comfortable moving to enterprise? There were a number of items that were withdrawn. Do you have any questions about any of the items that still remain? Bird: Nope, I didn't. I think they did a good job. Kilchenmann: Madame Mayor one more fact to add. Reta reminded that we still have to do the carry forward, so what we will do is when you get done with what you recommend we will go back and make sure all of these numbers are right and we will check the carry forward and then we will bring it to you next Tuesday and then that is when you will approve it for public notice. De Weerd: Okay that sounds great. Okay if there is nothing further Council I will let accounting bring that back next week for your final approval to send this to public hearing. Bird: Sounds good to me. What do you need? De Weerd: We need a motion to adjourn our special meeting. Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. De Weerd: Okay all those in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:05 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) Meridian City Council Budget WOrkshop Meeting July 11, 2006 Page 161 of 161 APPROVED: ~ce TAMMY DE ERD,MAYOR 7/24-/tl7 DATE APPROVI;PIIIIIII" \ \ \ ", / <,I" ,..,,;; ~_~f/f,.,. <.... ....J v , .f,._. <':\, 1/" '" /' a ~cfiPC.1f1..t)>.. ~ .~~ 2 ~ <'6 ~ SEAL