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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010 07-06 BudgetMeridian City Council Meeting -Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 A Council Budget meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 8:07 a.m., Tuesday, July 6, 2010, by President David Zaremba. Members Present: President David Zaremba, Charlie Rountree, Keith Bird, and Brad Hoaglun. Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy De Weerd Zaremba: Good morning, everybody. I'll open this special meeting of the Meridian City Council. Today is Tuesday, July 6th, 2010. It is about seven minutes after 8:00 o'clock and we will begin with roll call attendance, Madam Clerk, please. Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda: Zaremba: Next item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Hoaglun: Mr. President? Zaremba: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I move adoption of the special meeting agenda. Rountree: Second.. Zaremba: We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 3: City of Meridian FY2011 Budget Meeting Hearings: Zaremba: Next item is the City of Meridian fiscal year 2011 budget meeting hearings and we will begin with Stacy. Thank you. Kilchenmann: What we are going to do is I'm going to briefly go over the revenue assumptions that we used for FY 2011 and, then, Todd is going to go -- give you just a broad quick overview of the budget and the budget process and briefly that new material he might have given you and, well, we will segue right into parks. So, basically, the economic assumptions I looked at is there are some signs of stabilization, as we all Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 2 of 89 heard, but I think the consensus is still that the economy has a long way to grow -- a long way to go before we are what we can consider not in a recession. Meridian surprisingly had growth -- does lead the valley and you heard some of the last growth number released in population, but it's still erratic. The number of residential building permits sold by May 31st was actually up 48 percent compared to last year at the same time, but the commercial buildings permit sales were down 36 percent compared to that time and we kind of got into this with the assumption that we are not -- we are not forecasting or expecting a big housing boom again. So, you know, this is stuff that you have all heard. May's unemployment did improvement a little, but we are still at nine percent, which is the highest Idaho unemployment has been since June of 1983. So, jumping right into the General Fund revenue, just the fuel that drives us in the General Fund are property tax. So, if we took the full amount of property tax that we are allowed, it would be 69 percent of our projected FY 2011 revenue. If we forego the allowed three percent increase in property tax, it will be 67 percent of our total revenue. There is some -- there is events that happened this year in the property tax -- in the property tax law. One of them was the unprecedented drop in the taxable value. It dropped 12 percent for tax year 2009 and, then, another 9.6 percent for tax year 2010. So, this is -- this is really a dramatic decrease in property values. Of course, we know when values drop it drives our levy rate up. Another big event was House Bill 645 that passed in the 2010 legislation. This allowed properties that were ag and, then, into development property, to be moved back to ag retroactively. So, what this did is it dropped our new construction value to 123 million. It was 143 million and it dropped it down to 123 million. So, we lost 19 million. And I have been contacting Ada county to get the detail or the explanation of how they did that and they said they are really busy, because they are doing their examiner board hearings, plus their IT department didn't have time to do any reports. I'm not really sure what that means or how they calculated it, but when I find out I'll share it with you. And, then, they -- our annexation -- we are at five million means how they calculated, but when I find out I'll share it with you. And, then, our annexation, we lost five million in our annexation. So, to levy or not to levy. That's our big question. We are going to take the three percent or we can forego the three percent. And I think we have pretty much all come to the -- we have come to the consensus that we are going to forego the three percent, so that's what this budget is built on. And this -- this is hard to read. It didn't come out too well in Powerpoint. But our maximum property tax, if we just did it the normal way, would be 19.5 million and when we let go of the three percent it's about 18.9 million. So, each percent that we don't take is about 185,000 and our levy rate does go up, even if we don't take the three percent, they are right under the .004, but just barely. We also have to remember we still don't have final taxable value numbers for Ada county, so these are still -- they are close, but they are not exact, because we won't get those final numbers until like October. So, even if we did take the three -- the full three percent, almost every residential -- every residential property that I looked at would pay less than they paid last year, because of the decrease in market value, but the commercial, although their property values decreased -- or their calculation, which is a different calculation, it's an income calculation, they are kind of taking a shift in the property tax, because under all the scenarios I looked at their taxes will go up. It's going to have a shift from residential to commercial. The commercial share of the tax burden -- actually, this is backwards. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 3 of 89 The residential share of the tax burden, they take the biggest sharing of it from traditionally, going from 67 percent in 2007 to 49 -- 59 percent last year. So, then, the other big piece of our General Fund revenue is state revenue sharing, and it will be ten percent of our FY 2011 General Fund revenue. In 2008 it was up to 14 percent, because it was significantly higher. AIC did some estimates last year, they set an estimate for '11 at 3.5 million and I'm like I don't know where they got that number, because I think that's way too high. So, what we are looking at is 2.7 for our 2011 budget. Our actual to date is about 1.4 million, so we will probably end up with about three million this year. Then, the Enterprise Fund is the revenue -- the utility revenue calculated with the third year of the rate increase not factored in 2011 and just some slight growth in utility accounts, but number of utility accounts, they are growing pretty slowly at about two percent a year. Then, the infrastructure funding, which is the connection fee revenue, year to date they are calculated in the budget and you can see by that schedule that they are tracking about where we budgeted them. We -- we are not planning for an increase in that source of revenue. If it does happen it will be great, that will be gravy, we are not budgeting for it. And, then, interest income has been a component of our Enterprise infrastructure funding and this -- well, we have no interest rate, so we are not expecting a lot there. We are very conservative there. And, finally, Development Services, their residential permits sales in 2011 are based on sales of about 600 permits, which is about where we have been in the last couple of years. So, we are just staying at the status quo, same for all the individual permits, plumbing, gas, electrical, fire, et cetera. So, just -- and -- it looks like it's back to residential. And in the commercial we budgeted 550 for this year. I think we could end up at only 300,000. So, we went ahead for 2011 and we are keeping that forecast low at 300,000. It's hard to project commercial revenue, because it varies so much on the size and type of the project. Oh, are there any questions on those revenue numbers? Zaremba: Stacy, let me state for the record that Mayor De Weerd has joined us and she will take over the meeting. De Weerd: And just my apologies, I had thought that this was starting at 8:15, so apologize for being late. Rountree: Stacy, I have a question. When you explained that residential revenues -- or taxes would go down, but commercial might go up, just for the record I have to assume that that's because of the way the state legislature handled property taxes in the last couple sessions; is that correct? Kilchenmann: The reason is everybody's property values dropped, residential and commercial, but commercial property values dropped less than residential did. So, proportionately they dropped less. So, in some years they might -- or they dropped, yeah. Some years they might take -- they might switch -- it usually switches so residential pays more, because it's -- properties are going up in value and commercial generally stays about the same. Does that make sense? Because we are taking that big piece of property tax we are taking and we dividing them among everybody and so just where your property value comes out is where your piece of the pie is. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 4 of 89 Rountree: But the cause is state tax law; correct? Kilchenmann: Well -- Rountree: Not the City of Meridian or the city -- Kilchenmann: Oh, no, the city has nothing to do with it. No. Most of it is the way the Ada county assessor values property and, then, of course, the way our law is structured. Rountree: Yeah. I just want that clear. Kilchenmann: Okay. Any other questions? Bird: Stacy, you stated that you thought the taxpayers would all be paying less because of the valuation of their property. Even -- even raising our mill levy from 3.4 to 4.0 is going to be a savings to us? Kilchenmann: Yes. Bird: How big? And what price houses did you -- range did you take your sample? Kilchenmann: Well, I went from 120,000 to like 450,000. Bird: Which one of your six charts did you figure the budget on? Kilchenmann: What do you mean? Bird: Uh? Kilchenmann: I don't understand. De Weerd: The most recent -- Kilchenmann: Oh. Well, the one that's in -- the one that says don't take the three percent. The 18.9. All the assumptions have been that we -- that we will not take the three percent. Bird: So, we will go with -- our mill levy would be 3.9. Kilchenmann: Yes. But that could change -- Bird: It's amazing. That's the one I liked. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 5 of 89 De Weerd: Well, Council, last year we brought you a budget that was balanced with a consideration -- even though we balanced it without the three percent, with the consideration of the three percent going into the Public Safety Fund and this year we didn't even contemplate that. So, this year the budget in front of you is without taking the three percent. Kilchenmann: Right. Yeah. We didn't even look at taking -- we never considered taking the three percent. As ready as you will get? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I'll go over some of the supplement information I gave you guys this morning. The first sheet should be a schedule that we will try to stick by. The second stack of information should be your new summary sheet. That is based on the latest information that the Mayor and the directors have been working on to balance the budget for you. The third stack of paperwork might be the budget presentation that I'm giving for you this morning and I think the fourth stack of paper is an actual budget paper that was written by a BSU student. Last year a student -- I gave you the same report by a different student, so I thought I would just go ahead and give it to you again. It's good reading. It's a different perspective, you know, outside the city. That gives you an idea of how we are doing and whatnot. I think those are all the supplemental information pieces that I have given you. The first few I'm going to go over with -- with you is just standard practices, policies that we have within the city. Most of you know all this information, so I will go through them pretty quickly. The budget policy, you know, we go through this annual -- we have a 12 month budget cycle. The chief financial officer, she is responsible for delivering a balanced budget to you and that's what we are here for today. If you have questions, please, let us know, the directors, the city employees, you know, that's what we are here for. Please ask us any questions that you have. City Council, you guys get to have the overall responsibility of approving a budget, asking all the good questions. The Mayor, she -- her responsibility is to deliver an executive budget, which is in front of you today. She has worked with the director of the city employees, the finance staff, to get to this point. She works during the month of -- between March and today working on every single line item, trying to get you guys a balanced budget and that's what we have for you. Again, the budget process, Council has overall responsibility of approving everything, they have budget -- the decisions that are made must take into consideration the law set forth in governing bodies. The budget must reflect ethically the best interest of the citizens and, please, ask questions of us. You know, that's what we are here for. And this is a quick timeline of what the budget process is. We start the budget process in January with the preliminary base budget being delivered to the directors. In February the directors go over the base budget and determine what kind of changes need to be made. In March I hold some meetings with all the directors to fine tune some of the base budget items. In May that's when the Mayor and the directors start working on balancing a budget, going over the enhancements, liaisons, as you're familiar with, you work with the directors to go over the enhancements and that gets us to today, which is the presentation and, then, in August we will do a public hearing and, then, in September we will actually approve the budget that we feel is, you know, is acceptable. This slide here represents a quote from the -- the budget paper that was delivered to Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 6 of 89 you by the BSU students for 2010. It is a graduate program by Dr. Hill for public administration. Just a couple of quotes that I pulled from his paper. The last one is overall in times where government mismanagement is a daily headline, the City of Meridian can be proud of their budget strategies and financial management record. Taken from the paper, this might be a good time to go ahead and pat Stacy and our team on the back here while we can. De Weerd: We will pat you on the back, too. Lavoie: Thank you. So, I'm going to get into the budget that is presented to you. I'm going to go over some of the -- a very broad perspective of what's going to be delivered to you over the next two days. As Stacy stated, the budget that you have in front of you does not take into consideration the three percent property tax. The budget has a proposed three percent merit pool value inside of it. Bill Nary will go over that in a little bit more detail in a little bit. There is a special thing that -- or an item that happened this year, the storm water protection program was budgeted in General Fund was removed this year and it will be presented to you again by the Public Works division tomorrow. Twenty-two employees received market adjustments in their fiscal year 2011 budgets. A special note. The janitorial contract is going to be decided on July 17th. For the time being I have put in a place holder inside this budget. I think it's on the high side. When the new budget -- the actual contract comes in I'll lower it to the actual contract amount. So, I think we have enough money in the numbers I'm presenting to you, so when we actually get the contract it should reduce the budget by a few dollars. And the good thing is the police building, we will be paying that off, so we will be debt free of that in fiscal year 2010, so the budget you have in front of you has no more interest or principal payments. So, that's a good thing. All right. The numbers. The proposed budget that we have in front of you is a little over 60 million dollars. The General Fund is looking at about 27.5 million. Development Services Fund is a little over two million. And the Enterprise Fund is about 30.5 million as well. The graph that you have just shows you the breakdown of how each department impacts the entire city overall. Over the next two days you will be presented with enhancements to request 14 and a half new FTE. General Fund will be requesting 13 and the Enterprise will be requesting 1.5. There will also be 24 vehicles that will be requested, either new and/or replacements. The General Fund will be requesting 21 vehicles. Development Services zero. And the Enterprise Fund three. Within the proposed budget there is about 850,000 dollars worth of annual replacements. That includes computers, vehicles, furniture, other computer- type products, servers and whatnot. You can see how that's broken down. And, then, in front of you over the next two days about 15 million dollars of enhancements -- new enhancements will be proposed to you. General Fund will be 2.8 million. Development Services Fund, 35,000. And the Enterprise Fund will be a little over 12 million dollars of enhancements proposed to you over the next few days. This is just more graphs that kind of show how the budget is broken down by the General Fund. In this case if you look at General Fund, 39 percent of the proposed budget is police, 28 is fire, and, then, 13 is parks and, then, the remaining will go to the Admin Fund, the Building Department Fund, Planning and Econ. The Enterprise Fund, you can see it's broken out 50 percent wastewater, 30 percent -- 36 water, 11 Public Works, and three percent MUBs. Now, Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 7 of 89 these are the graphs based on the presentation and the budget that you have in front of you today. More graphs. The top line item -- the top graph shows a total city budget that's proposed to date. The far right, almost 60 million -- about 60 million. This is the overall budget. This is personnel, operating, and capital. So, you can see where it's going now for the last year. Overall, bottom left-hand corner, this one shows the budgets by fund. The total General Fund, Development Services Fund, and, then, the Enterprise Fund. And, then, the bottom right-hand corner, this is just your personal and operating, no capital included. You can see personnel and ongoing -- ongoing operating have -- are still -- it's a slight incline from last -- last year that we propose to you. At anytime feel free to ask questions and I will try to explain it for you. So, over the next few days there will be about 850,000 dollars worth of replacements being proposed to you. The two graphs kind of show you the -- the top left-hand corner graph shows you the total city replacement budget over the last five years, with fiscal year 2011 at the far right column and, then, the bottom right-hand graph, just takes that top left-hand graph and puts it into three funds so you can see each fund independently of itself. Enhancements, again, there is going to be 15 million -- a little over 15 million dollars worth of enhancements proposed to you. Total count will be 72 enhancements. General Fund, again, almost three million, will be presenting 28 enhancements. Development Services Fund will be presenting two. And the Enterprise Fund will be presenting 42 enhancements over the next two days to you. Again, the top left-hand graph just shows the total overall city enhancements being presented to you. Again, this year is about 15 million. Bottom right-hand corner is the same graph, just broken out by fund. So, a few departments that will not be presenting enhancements, so they may not have a presentation for you today. If you have questions regarding any of these departments feel free to ask us and we will try to get a staff member in here to answer the questions for you. And a little bit of humor to lighten the day. I will stand for any questions. De Weerd: Counsel, any questions? Rountree: I don't have any. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Todd, I was going through the budget looking at enhancements and different things and for capital replacement, that's a -- that's abig -- big item, because a lot of those things that we have capital replacement, it's -- are big dollar -- big ticket items. But do we have -- and, of course, one of the departments, water, sewer, wastewater, the -- that's just a big area. Do you have a breakdown of -- what I'm curious about is we get the request and there are millions of dollars and this might be a better question when Public Works comes up and does their presentation, but I wanted to find out from you, since we are -- you see the budget overall, is -- in capital replacement, when we get these requests, they are for X million dollars, but how much is being spent from that -- from that particular fund? In other words, if we take water and wastewater, what type Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 8 of 89 of completion rate is occurring within those budgets? So, if we get -- and I have a number here somewhere. If we get a request for 12 million dollars and last year was a request for ten million capital replacement, what -- those are big numbers, but if only 60 percent or 40 percent is being completed, why should we consider giving another 12 million dollars when they still haven't completed what they requested last year and we are just adding more money and it's not going out the door for these projects, which we approved the previous year, but do we need to slow that rate of money going in, because they need to catch up? Any thoughts on that and what you see from your vantage point? Lavoie: Well, that's a good question. We every year -- and every month Stacy puts together finance reports that will show the budgeted amount for all financial statements for all departments. They will show the capital amounts budgeted and the amount spent year to date and, then, the budget remains. We are currently in the process of doing what's called carry forward, which represents the amount of capital which you're referring to, Brad. The amount of that is not completed. That must be requested to take over to the next fiscal year to complete the projects. I can get you exact numbers. think last year we carried about 12 million dollars of unfinished product -- or projects. I think the year before that was around 15 million dollars in capital projects. I can quickly -- I can -- I do -- we do an analysis of that in the finance division, so I have the data available, I can get you that answer. Off the top of my head I will probably say General Fund is pretty close to about 80 to 90 percent efficiency completion. They completed most of their capital projects that are presented to you guys. Development Services Fund is almost a hundred and Enterprise Fund -- again, I'll have to get the fine numbers, but I would say maybe around 50 to 60 percent -- 50 to 70 percent is where Enterprise Fund sits. But I can get that -- that number exactly for you, because every month we do a capital analysis, we track every single capital project that was presented to you and follow the costs and, then, that we can see how we were doing every single month and if people ever have questions on what we are doing, we can answer those questions. So, I can get you -- that data for you. Hoaglun: Yeah. I wouldn't mind, Madam Mayor, and, Todd, seeing that. I think we do the Enterprise Fund tomorrow, so -- Lavoie: Okay. I can have that ready for you tomorrow. Hoaglun: We have got some time on that. Okay. Thank you. Lavoie: I can do that. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: This is kind of a follow on, I think, of that same question and within that breakdown of what out of the budget is getting spent and what isn't and carry overs and Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 9 of 89 stuff like that, I am aware of a number of Public Works projects and we will say water and wastewater, including the sewer lines all over the city, many of their projects are five year or ten year projects and we are talking about a fifth of it being in any one year's budget or a tenth of it if it's a ten year project and I guess my question is what -- what is the relationship between -- if this is -- if what we are looking at for the budget this year is one year out of a five year budget, the numbers that Brad and you were talking about are -- is a fifth of it getting completed this year, I think, and so any clarity that can be brought to that when we are discussing it tomorrow -- some of -- some of the projects are long range projects and -- and won't be completed within o.ne fiscal year, so I think that's part of the question. Hoaglun: Yeah. Madam Mayor. That is a good point. And are we budgeting for the full five years in that first year or are we budgeting for the one year, knowing it's a five year deal -- it would be helpful to know how we are budgeting that, because that's something we have to take into consideration. De Weerd: Council, we have had that discussion with the Enterprise Fund and they are getting better with their enhancements to start showing you -- this is year three of a five year phase. This money has been spent to date, et cetera, and they are continuing to do enhancements. This is a conversation that I know Todd and Stacy ,and I have all had with the Enterprise Fund. In terms of replacement, they also have -- as with the General Fund with our police, fire, and parks, in looking at replacements, there is a policy and the Enterprise Fund they have kind of done an extra step developing a weighted criteria as -- that I'm sure Mr. Barry can go over that with you as well. But it would be good to have those numbers and if Stacy or yourself can let Enterprise know these specific questions have been asked and they would like answers in the presentation tomorrow. Lavoie: I can do that. De Weerd: Anything further from Council at this point? You know, Ithink -- and, again, apologize, I was here a few minutes late, but Todd spent a large amount of time with each of the departments in looking at the five year trends and really trying to get a performance based budget that is in front of you and, you know, I just, again, want to thank the entire team, the Finance Department, the different departments in the city in really sitting down and taking a critical look at every line item and trying to our best ability to really make it performance based, take out the buffer, and, you know, this year we have -- we have asked that even more so from our departments. There is a discomfort level in that what if we carve out too. much and, then, they are coming back to you saying we have adjusted this one line item or move money from here to go there, but we have assured them that that's okay. We want to get as close to that -- that actual cost, so we have better tracking of how we are accounting for every dollar and so this year we are as close as we have gotten to that point and we will see how it all works. But Ithink --Ithink you have a good budget foundation in front of you. So, thank you, Todd, and all of our department directors and their staff for really taking a Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 10 of 89 serious look at this, sharpening their pencils and we think this is a good realistic budget that you have. Zaremba: Madam Mayor, on that line, I also would compliment Todd and the whole department. I sat in on several of Todd's meetings with my liaison departments and really thought the process is an excellent process and the materials that he provides to the departments, not only on base budget, but trends and suggestions about what he thinks maybe needs to go up or down based on things that he and the other people in the department have seen, I believe were taken well by the departments and I know I appreciated that insight into things and it isn't just a meeting where he's sitting there saying you got to cut this, you got to cut that. He looks at a trend, if he says there is something that probably should go up, he says that. If he thinks there is something that should go down he says that, and, then, they discuss it and it's a realistic discussion based on facts, not guesswork. And I really appreciate the process and Todd's work in it. De Weerd: And we appreciate the bumps and bruises that sometimes Todd gets from the process. But, again, our compliments and thanks. It's good to have the dialogue and I think that each director can stand in front of you and answer any question, because they have engaged their staff in finding out why certain things are the way they are and it's been a good thorough process. Okay. Thanks, Todd. Lavoie: Thank you very much. Nary: Good morning. De Weerd: Good morning. Nary: Welcome back. De Weerd: Thank you. Nary: While we get technically suited up here. De Weerd: It's nice to be back. I will mention, if you notice I have orange on today, even though the U.S. soccer team has been bumped out of the World Cup, the Dutch have not, and there is a game at 12:30 today, so go Holland. Nary: I don't have a lot of fancy charts and graphs, so this won't take very long. De Weerd: Yes. We are glad we moved away from the concept of paying you by the word, Bill. Nary: Thank you, Todd. Mayor and Council, I just want to talk about a couple of different things on merit and reclass that are part of your base budget that Todd already brought up. This year in trying to evaluate the three different pools of money that we Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 11 of 89 use for both general employees, police and fire, in trying to evaluate what the appropriate, if any, increase that would be -- could be budgeted. We looked at a couple different things. We looked at the marketplace and we all live in the same marketplace, so we recognize there is some difficulties out there in the market for jobs and availability of jobs, as well as pay. We also looked at the last couple of years and how we have progressed as a city in a variety of different areas, including pay. The police pay plan, for example, we changed the plan program in FY-09. Excuse me. We did not have any increase to the pay plan in FY-10. So, part of the attempt from HR was to put money back towards the police pay plan going forward into FY-11. In looking for general employees last year you recall we did one percent in the fall and, then, we did another one percent in the spring based on some projected numbers that we anticipate that would come in in regards to property tax revenue sharing and sales tax and we were still able to do two percent overall for employees across the board in FY-10. In FY-11 it was strongly felt by the directors that amerit -- a merit program needed to be reinstituted as we had a merit program for about the last five years and in trying to find an appropriate level to do a merit as you get lower in the percentage amount, it's very difficult to have any meaningful merit base, because if the bottom isn't zero, then, you're going to have to have something higher than two percent to make it a realistic merit pool and one of the concerns of the directors was to not have the bottom be zero. Sorry, my voice is a little scratchy. So, in looking at both government, state, as well as the local marketplace, we looked at from zero for -- for many of the employers out there today, up to about three to three and a half percent is what our survey showed the people were able to do. We felt three percent -- we could build it into the budget and, as Stacy has told you, we have put three percent into the merit pool, into the police, into the fire, without taking the additional three percent property tax that's available. So, we felt really strongly that the employees of the city have done a great deal to tighten theirs and be fiscally responsible to our taxpayers and this is an opportunity that even with the savings or even with not taking the allowable increases, we can amend and still have a three percent merit pool and, therefore, put our merit back in front of our employees, which, again, all the directors felt it was very important. The police pay plan is different, it's not based on merit, it's based on grade and based on position and time in grade, as well as a couple of other factors and those things -- again, we hadn't done any increases in the last -- it would be two years that we didn't and an increase this year and, then, fire, as you know, we are in the midst of negotiations now, but we felt comfortable at three percent to carry us forward into those as we have told the fire union in the past, what we are able to provide for all employees is the same we provide for fire and so we felt three percent was, again, appropriate for them. The last slide there is just the total number of employees that we have today. Questions? Rountree: Bill, in going through the budget, the three percent itself does not reflect in most cases when you look at the percent increase in terms of salaries. My assumption is that's due to reclassification and it goes both ways. There are some departments that show less than a three percent increase in total salary burden and some that show significantly higher than three percent. Is that the cause or -- Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 12 of 89 Nary: Yes. Some of it was going down, obviously, I believe were probably based on the less employees and not hiring for a vacant position and some of the other -- some of the reclasses -- that's the next one I can tell you. There is a reclass amount that ends the base budget of 83,641. What we did -- every department during the -- the escapes me. I think it's March. In March and April, make requests for reclasses of positions based on either change in duties and responsibility, combining job in a different -- and from one position to another and so every department makes those requests. They also asked us to look at different positions, so more global the -- for example, the police department, the records clerks, they asked us to look at all of the records clerks to see where they are in .relation to the marketplace. There is also a relation to other employees in the city and so what we did is we do that with every department request. Some we have approved, some we have denied. We felt they were out of market. We felt the increases were -- had been appropriate in the past. There has been a few positions -- there is some of these ones where there was 22 different employees, some of them are groups of employees that their position, because of the way we have changed our pay raises over the last few years, we have moved our pay raises up, but we haven't moved the employees equivalent with the pay range, so if they were making above the minimum, when the minimum moves they just got closer to the bottom and so we had a number of employees that have stayed on the very bottom of the pay range for the last three budget cycles, because they were already at the bottom. If they were slightly below it, when the range moved, they just moved back to the bottom again. So, that's where these different enhancements have come from. But to answer your question, I think the ones that have gone down are just ones that are vacant positions they are having to fill. Bird: Excuse me. I'm like you, Bill. I can't talk. That's bad when I can't talk. But anyway -- Rountree: It depends. Bird: I want it to public -- De Weerd: That's debatable. Bird: -- publicly be known that -- that I'm not for the merit. I want to see an across the board three percent. I think everybody knows how I feel about merit increases. It's not what you know or what you do, it's who you know. That's my personal opinion. I want to see a three percent right across the board. It's like the firemen and -- yeah. De Weerd: Well, I guess, you know, the directors have all had discussions about it and feel that the current policy set by City Council and a merit base program is -- is the preferred route that -- and preferred and desired route that they would like to -- Bird: I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I just wanted to publicly -- Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 13 of 89 De Weerd: Well, I just wanted to remind you that the city went to -- went from across the board to a merit base by Council action, so -- Nary: Yes. Zaremba: Madam Mayor`? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: And this is just kind of a side comment, but having been an employee many, many years ago, I know I always appreciate the thought behind any raise. Also having been a business owner a couple of careers back. I'm also aware that a one or two percent raise ends up not meaning much. I remember one time I had a manager that wanted to give a nice raise to. I gave him a two percent raise. It pushed him into another tax bracket and he ended up -- I was paying more, but I was paying it to the federal government and he was making about five dollars a week more than he was before, which wasn't that much of a raise for him, but it's just -- you try and do what you can and it seems to me it does need to be up in the three percent range somewhere, because any less than that tends to disappear by the end of taxes. Nary: I would agree. Hoaglun: And Madam Mayor, Bill, is there going to be a discussion at all where we think the benefits are going to be going in terms of cost? Is that something you guys have been able to get a handle on yet or is it still a little early? Nary: Yes. As part of our -- Council Member Hoaglun, as part of our presentation this afternoon with HR and IT, I'll bring the benefits as well to you. The three percent also helps offset some of that cost to the employees as well, because the employees share the same cost of benefits annually, they said it doesn't change. When they go up a little bit, it goes up a little bit for the employees as well. That three percent helps offset that, too. But we will have that this afternoon. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further? Nary: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Well, that caught us up on our agenda, so we have parks up. Siddoway: All right. Thank you, Mayor and Members of the Council. We were before you last month with our strategic presentation and I will begin this morning in where we left off there with our present challenges and opportunities. We have talked about the terms staycations before and that people are staying home for their vacations and using our parks and we are seeing an increase in our usage of the parks and we know that the demand is high. You see that notably in the base budget with just our restroom Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 14 of 89 supplies, but people are staying using our facilities. At the time our impact fee revenues are down due to the slower growth and that's true across the board for the city. One of our opportunities would be repairing for new park improvements, such as Julius M. Kleiner memorial park and you all have been invited to the groundbreaking later today at 1:30 at the site and we have shovels for you and hope to see you there. We are also working on locating a new maintenance facility site, as Councilman Hoaglun brought up during our last presentation and we also discussed that project management workload that we are faced with. We are making progress on that and, actually begin reviewing applications for that position this week. And, then, as you know, the two graphs at the bottom, those two are gym and field space as we presented last month, showing the increase in use of both the gym space and our use of the existing softball fields. We do have several recent accomplishments that I want to touch on briefly. We added the winter disk golf courses. Two of them. One at Settlers Park, one at Bear Creek Park, each of them has nine holes. We recently completed the Gordon Harris Park shelter. There is a photo of it there. It's unique in our system and adds a different character to that park compared to other shelters that we have. We also just installed in Centennial Park the Neo 360 that you can see pictured over on the top right. De Weerd: You'll have to go down and play on it. Siddoway: I was going to say, it met some of the toughest critics I know of, I took my kids there last weekend, and they -- they want to go back and I think Allison tells me that summer camps that she runs in the community center there, that the kids are just dying to go out and play on that piece of equipment. It's -- it's a lot of fun. We also added gaming tables, one each in both Centennial and Generations Plaza and, then, Heroes Park phase three now has restrooms. The new maintenance shop and concessions building, pathway, playground, and picnic shelters and getting a lot of use from the surrounding neighborhood. We have also installed a donation box in the Bark Park, so we can start soliciting funds for our future dog park and implemented a citywide recycling program for both printer cartridges and cell phones. As you have seen around downtown, we have new banners up this year in conjunction with MDC and got the new summer banners. We also have a total of three sets, including the Meridian Promise Banners and the winter banners, we get to change those out on a regular basis. And we have received three awards over the last year. One from Nickelodeon for best park in the Boise area for Settlers Park and Adventure Island playground and, then, for Settlers Square phase one and one last month from AIC for the same project, which are the new tennis courts and horseshoe pits in Settlers Park. As a department we strive very hard to be fiscally responsible. We are always looking for ways that we can cut costs, save money, and I thought I would give a few examples. We know that a couple of years ago -- and we finished last year the installation of security cameras in the park system. We have seen a correlating drop in our vandalism and we think we can attribute that to the fact that those cameras are there and signed. De Weerd: And a fine police department. Siddoway: And a fine police department. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 15 of 89 Lavey: That's what I think. Siddoway: In FY-08 we had over 4,000 dollars worth of vandalism related expenses and FY-09 it dropped to 276 dollars and so far this year we have only spent just over 100 dollars. We are also with Colin's help making a concerted effort to engage volunteer groups and so far this year we have logged over a thousand hours of volunteer efforts in our park system, which saves us as a department over 16,000 dollars so far in seasonal labor costs and things that we would have incur in order to do those projects on our own. So, that is a direct savings to the city and our department. We modified the use of score keepers in our volleyball league this spring, saving approximately 2,400, almost 2,500 dollars in our spring 2010 league and give Derrek a credit there for making that change from score keepers to having the referees keep score. And, then, the janitorial service at the shop, which is sort of changing from last year, but we maintained that reduced janitorial service saving approximately 2,000 dollars for the janitorial budget. We presented our enhancements to the parks and rec commission. They asked that we divide them into two groups as we presented them to you. The first group being those related to parks and recreation activities. We have ten of those total, two of which have been withdrawn as you will see and leaving eight to discuss in that category. And, then, the other three are related to median type projects, one of which we need to discuss and possibly withdraw as well. So, t will hit each of those one at a time, rather than reading the last slide to you. The first enhancement is for personnel operating costs at Julius M. Kleiner Park. The total is for 199,858 dollars. This is for personnel needs, including additional full-time grounds keeper, seasonal labor, and splash pad attendance for three months. It includes operating needs and under capital it does include one three-quarter ton truck with tool boxes and one thing that I wanted to discuss with you, as we have been sharpening our pencils and looking for potential cost savings, if we were to down size that truck from athree-quarter ton to a half ton truck we could save approximately 3,000 dollars from this enhancement and still be able to tow a trailer, things like that, as long as it wasn't too heavy. I feel that that could be done. If we were down sized to a Ranger, we would save an additional 2,400 dollars, but could no longer really tow anything. So, my recommendation here is starred, that we would down size that truck from athree-quarter ton to a half ton truck and knock an additional 3,000 dollars off of this enhancement request. The enhancement, I believe, also shows the additional amenities request for 80,000, but we withdrew that in our balancing meetings and that should no longer be on the table on this point. Regarding this amendment, I just wanted to remind you that we were before you in January to talk about this, so that you might anticipate the enhancement coming. There was over the winter what I think was a fantastic effort between our park staff and Rita in the finance department conducting an analysis of actual costs throughout our park system, using the hours logged, charts that are kept by our staff, and, then, looking at the -- the cost per acre. Pardon me. Not only for every park rolled out, but for every line item. This enhancement for Julius M. Kleiner Park is based on that analysis and I've had some question about the enhancement that we had last year and how this one relates to it and if there are any double counted numbers and the answer is, no, there are no double counted numbers. The amounts that are requested in here are simply Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 16 of 89 taking the results of the analysis with the Finance Department, subtracting out the enhancement from last year and this year's enhancement simply requests the difference. So, questions on this one? Rountree: Madam Mayor? A process question. With Steve's suggestion in reducing the size of the scope of the pickup, a reduction of 3,000 dollars, do we instruct Todd to factor that into the spreadsheet as we go through or do we wait until the end of the day and try to remember that we are going to do that? De Weerd: No. I think if you all agree, Todd can make that adjustment as we -- in real time, right, Todd? Lavoie: Yes, Madam Mayor. I can go ahead and make the changes in real time. I have it on the screen on my other -- I have the file on this screen, so if you ever want to do the numbers I can swap it over so you can see what the budget looks like at anytime. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Just on the subject of the truck, I'm sure you have thought of this, but does it have other uses, like plowing snow or anything that -- does that make a difference to it being athree-quarter ton or a half ton or -- Siddoway: Yes, sir. It will -- the next -- it's a good lead into the next one. We do have a three-quarter ton truck proposed with the next enhancement, which is the city arborist position, because that's going to need to haul sprayers, be able to lift tree wells and we think we can use this truck to help with snow removal in Kleiner Park. So, I haven't downgraded this one, but that we can downgrade the one and still be able to plow snow just fine. Zaremba: Great. Thank you. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. Steve, back to Kleiner Park. On that full-time grounds keeper, when do you anticipate, if we were to give approval to that, that position needing to be filled? Kleiner Park -- it's not going to be online right away. Siddoway: Right. We would not need to fill that in October. We would need to fill it next summer in anticipating for the -- the park coming online at the end of next fiscal year. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 17 of 89 Bird: Council, I -- for a person that's going to take over the running of a park, I would like to see him come on early enough that he could get his feet wet as the construction goes, so he knows all the ends and outs of where the equipment is -- so that he can be up to speed with the -- what we got going at that. So, I would plan on it for a full budget year. I wouldn't think we would be making any savings. Siddoway: We could advertise it, then, during the winter, bring them on in the spring, so there is still much of next construction season that they would be on board. De Weerd: Mr. Bird, I appreciate those comments and for this position, typically, the finance department does do the whole position, so it's full -- it's fully in the budget. Rountree: Fully funded anyway. De Weerd: Yeah. Bird: Fully funded in the budget. I understand that. But I don't think we need to -- think we need to get somebody on board that can over -- kind of be with the construction out there and find out where the sprinklers are and everything else, so he don't come in and get -- our record of as builts are so good that he could be 30 miles off from where he's even at. So, I would -- that would be my recommendation. Siddoway: Thank you, Mr. Bird. Bird: I know it's funded. Siddoway: Yes. Okay. De Weerd: Thank you. Siddoway: Our second request, then, is for the -- the new city arborist position. This would be a new position. As we talked we have over 2,000 trees in our existing system and Kleiner Park alone will add approximately a thousand new trees. This position would -- Kleiner Park will be the catalyst for the need of this position, but this isn't a Kleiner Park position. This position would be used citywide, including Kleiner Park, but elsewhere also to develop a community forestry management plan. They would track irrigation, pests and diseases, future planting sites, et cetera, for those trees. They would administer all the requirements for planting, pruning, protection, and removal of trees within the public right of way and publicly owned property. They also would conduct education and outreach regarding community forestry, which is one of our requirements for the Tree City USA program, and do the work orders, conduct tree appraisals -- one of the important things to me is this downtown tree well program and carrying that forward in a significant way and to assist with the species diversification throughout the city. In terms of capital outlay, there is the one three-quarter ton truck and -- any questions on .this one? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 18 of 89 Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Bird: Steve, I know you said earlier you need the three-quarter ton truck for this position, because of having sprayers and stuff inside of that. I think a heavy duty half ton, two wheel drive -- I can't imagine we having too big of equipment inside of a bed with tool boxes and stuff on there, too, can you? Would a half ton work? Siddoway: The -- you know, I'm going to look to Mike and Elroy to give an opinion on that. I know it will have to be fabricated up with some kind of a winch system to lift the tree grates and things like that, which are quite heavy. You want to come up, Elroy, and -- Elroy's fighting that same cold, so he's going to have a -- Huff: Sorry about the voice today. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, that price that I have in there, the 26,000 on the three-quarter ton truck, that's also related to a future snow plow truck for that park. So, we are getting double duty out of those. As far as that in with those things, that's a tow truck, so you get the tow truck, you get the future plow truck, you get things that will be used on the tree wells downtown. I have got to work up some kind of a booming system to pick up those over 250 pound tree grates off the back of there to be able to handle those safely, be able to administer that. And so there is several things involved in there. As far as the 26,000 goes, that's a list price. Put it in at the beginning and, then, didn't change it. We think we can get that truck for less than that, but that number hasn't been changed. Siddoway: In terms of three-quarter ton versus half ton, then, three-quarter needed -- Huff: If I were doing it I would stay with the three-quarter ton four by four and I wouldn't change off that, because of the uses that we are going to do with it. That's the comments I have. Any questions I will be glad to answer that. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Rountree: I guess I'm confused what we are doing here. What I see in the enhancement is for a position that's more of an administrative oversight kind of position and we are looking at capital equipment that's more labor intensive. So, are we looking yet another part-time employee or are we looking at reassigning employees in the parks department and, then, I would ask are some of these things that are identified here in terms of work assignments being contracted out now and is there some analysis that says, you know, we are saving over contract or are we better off contracting these things out on an as-need basis. Where are we going with this? Huff: Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, want to make sure that we understand that as far as I'm concerned this position is not completely administrative. It's hands on. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 19 of 89 And the -- if I can get all the things that you asked about. As far as contracting out and doing things like that, we do currently contract out some spray work that are things that are bigger than we can do or things that we would not specifically want the liability for, so we hire those out. There is some things that we do in house between tree planting and tree removal and things like that on the smaller trees that we now have. We may do more of that or choose to come back to Council to buy some equipment sometimes to work trees as they get bigger. I want to make sure that we understand that that's more hands on and less administrative. Did I answer that okay? Miss anything? Rountree: Well, I'm just -- I just kind of quickly ran the numbers through my head and if we are looking at just a thousand new trees and if a person was to attend to spraying, feeding, pruning those thousand trees, if you could do five a day, that's ten months worth of work for one person if that's all they did. So, I still see contract activities doing a good share of the work. So, again, my question is how much is hands-on and how much consists with the individual, too? Siddoway: There will still be contract work, Councilman Rountree, and especially with larger work, but if -- if we do in the future look to acquire equipment that would allow us to do larger work, that would come with also a cut in the amount of contract work that would be done. But the -- the smaller tree work, structural pruning, fertilization, things like that, are largely done in house right now and would continue to be. Rountree: Okay. Huff: Any other questions? Also in conjunction with that, as far as part of the administrative part of that would be the long range management plans with the -- with the thought where the Council has already approved. It takes a little while for me to learn how to not use that. I have not used that -- those packages before. So, those all have to do with developing that and that's more the administrative side of it. There is plenty of work there. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Bird: Elroy, you said that this truck you had planned on using for plowing snow out there; is that right? That price, that 36,000, is that including the plow? Huff: Well, I got the 26 -- is that what I got on there? Bird: Twenty-six I mean. Huff: Yeah. Twenty-six. That's a list price for the truck. It does not include the plow. Bird: No, it don't include any other enhancements. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 20 of 89 Huff: I think we will get that truck for -- we have been getting those trucks for about 19 or 20 in today's market, so we would be able to take care of whatever improvement that might be needed for that. Bird: How much does a plow cost? Huff: About 4,500 for a good plow. Bird: And how many days did we plow this year? Huff: Well, less this year. Siddoway: During December there was probably, what, three, four days. Huff: It depends on just what happens with the weather. Siddoway: Thirty in a season? Bird: Thank you. Siddoway. Okay. Moving on, then. The third one is for Storey Park master plan. It is -- a master plan is needed -- or a plan is needed for our -- the undeveloped land that currently exists at Storey Park. Getting a plan for that area can assist us with any decision making for any potential land swap that may occur there. This enhancement would give us professional services to develop up to three concepts plans for the space needs in terms of the park programming, circulation, and related layout issues. We can look at how it would be developed with the land exchange, without a land exchange, look at various options in terms of programming, whether it's softball fields or football use -- multi-fields. One of the things that we originally had in our capital improvements plan for this year, but has been re -- we changed it and shifted it to a couple years out, is the replacement of the older outdated restroom and park shop facility there. We didn't think it made sense to just reconstruct it in its current location and that waiting a couple years makes more sense to relocate that with whatever future amenities are designed and planned for that area. So, we have delayed the reconstruction of that restroom and would use this to help to form where it ought to be based on additional future amenities in that park. Questions or shall I keep going? De Weerd: Keep going. Siddoway: Number four is for our maintenance shop construction documents. The 105,000 dollars would be for the construction documents specifically. We have outgrown our existing facility. We talked about this last month and with the split corridor phrase two coming and planned for construction in 2013, that property becomes valuable for different -- for other uses other than the park shop. So, we are actively looking for where that shop should be. Our CIP envisions the construction documents and land in 2011 and shows a number of 405,000 dollars in that CIP. This Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 21 of 89 enhancement is just for the 105,000 dollars, leaving 300,000 for potential land acquisition, but in discussions with finance and Stacy, it was determined that the land would be a separate 2011 amendment after an actual site is identified, because we do not have one ready to present today. However, we are working on a site and I want you to know that. We have been doing some concept planning for the park. You can see on your screen some of the -- the concepts that have been developed in the last couple of months. We did first look at 8th Street Park as our first choice of a site. We have determined that we don't fit there, because of sewer easements and other space issues that we have to contend with there. We have looked at other sites along Pine Street, but that site that you see there we have determined is not available to us. So, we are currently going out and we are working with commercial real estate professionals to identify potential sites and use that to form our process moving forward this summer. So, the enhancement, then, specifically for construction documents for -- for the maintenance shop that would be designed to be on a site that is -- we are working to determine right now. Questions on that one? Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Just an observation and this is something I did a few months ago when I was thinking about this subject. I did take a map of the city and figure our impact area and what we can grow to and if you just make an X from corner to corner, the center of that comes pretty close to Linder and Franklin and I'm just thinking eventually when there is a Linder overpass having a facility that has to serve all over the city, that's the center. Just an observation. Siddoway: Yes. De Weerd: That's the first time I have heard anyone mention the Linder overpass. Siddoway: And that area -- Zaremba: If we took the three percent increase, could we contribute to that? De Weerd: No. Zaremba: No. Okay. Siddoway: I appreciate that perspective and that is an area that we would most definitely consider, out near SSC and the bus barn, the uses fit very well with our use as a park maintenance shop, so -- so, we will consider that area moving forward. Thank you. De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 22 of 89 Rountree: Madam Mayor. How far is this shop maintenance construction document going to go? If you don't have a site you can't really even do your foundation plan, so -- Siddoway: We have to have a site. Rountree: Yeah. Siddoway: That's why we -- that's why the heads up. The site itself would be coming as an amendment, but we could try and budget for that now. It is in the CIP, but as we talked it was determined that we should bring that forward separately once we had an actual site in mind. Kilchenmann: Madam Mayor. I actually -- we probably should have gone ahead and put the whole 405,000 in. It's all -- it's an item that was all chosen to come out of fund balance, so regardless of where we put it, it won't really affect the budget too much, but we initially had this in and, then, Steve -- he did bring up the question of, oh, well, we can't really do a construction document without a site and we were already down the road and so it's my poor advice that he just put the construction documents in and not the land. Rountree: And that's the first time, uh? Kilchenmann: Yes. But I admitted it. Rountree: Well, Idon't -- I don't disagree with the need, but if we are going to do it, let's do the right phases first. So, if a first phase is site acquisition, then, let's get the site and, then, do the plan, let's not do that plan so we can do them yet again. Kilchenmann: We can easily just put that in there, because, like I said, it is from fund balance, so we can -- we can put it in now, it's not going to change the bottom line that we have gotten to. That's probably what we should do. Siddoway: I would agree. That would be great. Rountree: Well, of course you would. Siddoway: Yeah. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Rountree: I think that's a good idea if we are going to do it, but -- Zaremba: I agree with all that. The one thing I would add, I guess, in confusion is in order to decide what size the site should be, we do need to have some preliminary idea of what the building is going to need to look like. I mean what has to be there, what has to be accommodated, and, therefore, how many acres do you need. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 23 of 89 De Weerd: Well -- and I think that's -- that's abenefit -- or beneficiary of this -- this activity that Steve and Tom Barry and others have gone through in putting some preliminary designs together, as you can see on the slide in front of you, they have given a lot of thought into layout, what needs to be there for current and future needs and so I think they have a good idea of what kind of footprint that would be needed and even something to lend into some of the construction document needs. It was that whole item of we need land first and I think that Councilman Rountree raises a good point. We were just not -- I believe that both can happen over this budget year 2011. Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I would point out that the concept planning work that we have done shows us that we need about four to five acres of land. I think about four and a half is what's shown on that site or is it three? A little less? Is it less than four you think? So, three to four acres, if I have got my acreages right, but that was the purpose of doing these concept studies, it was seeing, okay, what -- how much space do we need. So, somewhere in that four acre .range is what we are looking to acquire in order to -- to have the space needs met. Zaremba: Thanks. Siddoway: Okay. The fifth request is for Settlers Village Square phase two. This is a tennis area and is for the tennis partnership. As you know, we currently have on the books plans that we -- to construct outdoor tennis courts. The cost of those outdoor courts would be 1.3 million dollars. The -- oh, you have had a presentation a couple months ago from Joann Kurtz, who is proposing a potential partnership to construct indoor tennis. What we are proposing with this enhancement is that 500,000 dollars of impact fees be set aside in 2011 for future phase two construction. This money could go towards our own improvements if the partnership is not successful, but they could be used now to show our commitment toward this potential partnership and used as .seed money to help them generate donations toward this project. The amount is in the capital improvements plan and I think I have some diagrams. So, you see here on the left the plans that we have had on the books for the outdoor courts. The area for phase two is circled in red and, then, the other two drawings are of how that area might be laid out for an indoor tennis facility, as was presented to Council a couple months ago. So, this money would be used to say, okay, we have committed this much funds so far. This partnership could, then, say -- show a commitment from the city and, then, solicit donations toward tennis improvements for the project. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think our partnership -- I think we are showing a commitment given the land. think you and I discussed partnership on that. I feel that by giving them the land, which is paid for by taxpayers dollars, that's -- that should be our partnership. They are the ones that are going to benefit there. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 24 of 89 Zaremba: Just to clarify, by giving them the land you mean allow them the use of it. The city would still own the -- own the dirt. Bird: We furnish the land, they furnish the -- Zaremba: Allow them to use it. Bird: Yeah. De Weerd: Well, we have yet to have such a partnership. Bird: That's my biggest complaint and you know it. Siddoway: Well -- and my thought, Madam Mayor and Councilman Bird, as this was developed several months ago, was that, you know, if we are building our own we would be spending 1.3 million dollars. So, taking the 800,000 out, I was still hoping to realize savings for the city and -- and do it that way. But I think that's up to Council. Zaremba: Madam Mayor and Steve? Siddoway: Yes. Zaremba: Have you thought of any deadline for their commitment? I mean is there a drop dead date we are going to move ahead, you know, in spring of '11 or -- Siddoway: They are working some proposed language right now and we have met a couple times with legal to craft some language that would set benchmarks for a proposed partnership and I would envision that coming forward to you in the next few months. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: As the enhancement item indicates, there are anticipated those kinds of revenues in the impact fund and I guess I question budgeting acommitment -- or an intent. I think we could have a policy that says we intend to use impact fees in the amount of a half a million dollars at such time as we might have a project move forward. But to budget an intent with money we don't even have at this point, in order to make the budget work that money has got to come from somewhere and I don't know that you have got to have a half a million dollars you want to put up to make the budget work. So, why are we even budgeting an intent, as opposed to adding it to the CIP and saying as funds are available and as projects advance, then, we can consider this project. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 25 of 89 Siddoway: Madam Mayor and Councilman Rountree, let me turn to Todd to help clarify this, but the -- the comment that he made in there about not having enough impact fees was related to the fact that we were requesting a million dollars -- 500,000 dollars for this, 500,000 dollars for land acquisition, and we only had half a million. So, we do have half -- we do have 500,000 dollars of impact fees and the -- by withdrawing the land acquisition enhancement there should be enough to cover this one. Is that correct, sir? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Steve, I guess that is correct. The notes that you -- that Steve is referring to that might be in reference to your question, those questions were asked at the beginning of the enhancement process and at that time, as Steve stated, there were two enhancements that requested impact funds and during our conversations I informed Steve that we did not have enough funds in our impact model to finance both funds available to finance this a hundred percent for fiscal year 2011. Rountree: Madam Mayor. I guess a question for Todd. Is it fiscally responsible to budget this money or can the impact fee just be the holding place for a half a million dollars, the CIP be the plan of where the money is to be spent and, ultimately, when the planning brings this to fruition, we have committed that those dollars will go there, as opposed to tying the money up in a budget. Process procedure accounting question, not for Steve. Kilchenmann: Councilman Rountree, to my mind if the partnership is not likely, I probably wouldn't budget it, but you can -- we can make certain policies about how much of the impact fee we set aside and we don't spend. I mean we do that with our unreserve funds and say we are not going to spend down a certain line -- you know, to a certain amount. So, we certainly can say -- because we watch the fund balances all the time, that we are not going to spend below 750,000, we are not going to spend below a million and as the project becomes more realistic or it looks like it's going to happen, we can designate parts of those fund balance for those projects and carry them in fund balance. So, I guess it's really a philosophical question for the Mayor and Council what technique or what you're comfortable with. De Weerd: And I guess, you know, in considering having this with some of those questions as well in mind, it's -- it's a commitment to Settlers Village Square phase two, whether there is a partnership or not, it has been a desire of the Council to have this kind of facility, so I guess in the CIP and in consideration of this -- this request, it's -- it's a commitment and it's something that I think creates an audit trail that, you know, it's tied to this phase and not just whatever and it is philosophical. Kilchenmann: That's correct. If you just -- or it's .not spending below a fund balance, you're using notes outside the accounting system. If you're actually budgeting it, then, you are making a commitment and that it's tied to a particular project. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 26 of 89 Rountree: If we are to, then, budget this, that would be my preference, that it be in terms of the development of phase two and not necessarily the partnership, because if the partnership fails, I still want to see our commitment to getting that finished. Moved forward. Siddoway: And if the partnership fails I will need to come back and ask for an additional 800,000 dollars as well. So, yeah. And it could be a next year thing. I would not see that happening this year -- this year if it failed. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: I would agree with Councilman Rountree a hundred percent. I don't see any problem with budgeting this as our phrase two, but -- and I don't think we sit for four or five years developing some partnership, given the timeline if it don't happen next year. Siddoway: Okay. Bird: I can tell you those courts are being used. Siddoway: Oh, they are. Yeah. Very much. Okay. Number six is regarding pathway connections. We have just over 100,000 dollars shown for pathway connections that we would construct. In going over this enhancement with the Mayor, she asked that I -- we meet with the parks and rec commission and get some specific ideas for priorities where the funds could be spent and I have those to show you, but before I do I would note that there is a 100,000 dollar annual amount projected to go toward pathways in the CIP. So, this first option is down at Tuscany Lakes, south of Victory and east of Locust Grove. Adjacent to the property that's recently been purchased by Public Works for a future water tank, the line in yellow shows where an existing pathway follows the Ten Mile Creek, fails to connect over to the property line and this is one that the parks and rec commission looked at this spring and is a potential site where we could make a short improvement to connect into a larger system -- let me draw here and you can -- you can see the existing -- you can see existing pathway here that -- that follows the Ten Mile Creek south and you can also see the pathway that exists here. Public Works would be constructing a pathway along here, leaving this area unconnected. So, that is one idea where we can connect a larger system with a smaller improvement. A second option is the ACRD storm drainage pond at Ustick and Linder. Ustick and Linder received a recent intersection improvement and that storm drainage pond was -- was put in. Five Mile Creek is along the south there and we do have plans for a future pathway through the energy efficiency block grant funds. We are looking at doing planning and design work in front of Bridgetower beginning this fall and this would allow for a connection there as well. The third idea -- we wouldn't be able to do all of these, but the third one that we would like to explore is along the South Slough there is existing South Slough pathway that follows here and there is an existing bridge that sits in this Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 27 of 89 location with some improvements. We could connect over that bridge as probably the first thing to look at and, then, as a part two of that, there is a potential connection to the south that would tie into the Bud Porter, which exists down here. So, those are three options that I wanted to throw out as specific areas where we might use this and solicit any comments or feedback on this. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Steve, in option A -- Siddoway: Yes. Rountree: -- in your discussions with Public Works do they intend to advance the pathway through that newly acquired parcel? Siddoway: I believe it would be a requirement of their CZC and I kind of had a heads up on that, but I don't think they have started actually planning the site yet, but they should be aware of it. Rountree: But you'll probably see that that happens? Siddoway: Yeah. I would appreciate that. Rountree: And on Option C -- Siddoway: Yes. Rountree: -- that bridge you refer to, I'm not familiar with it. Is that in public right of way or is that a neighborhood ownership? I guess my question is do we have access to it? Siddoway: Yeah. It would require an easement -- Rountree: Okay. Siddoway: -- that we do not currently have. Rountree: Okay. Siddoway: But we have to work on an easement to get across it. Rountree: Okay. And that gets me to my last question of -- of the combinations of options. Can you do two for the 106 or just each option is roughly 100,000? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 28 of 89 Siddoway: Yeah. Well, these specific options have not been costed yet. We got these from the commission this last month, but the -- I believe what we determined -- it's in the enhancement -- the number of lineal feet or -- the amount of -- no, it wasn't lineal feet. The amount that would actually go towards asphalt was in the neighborhood of 50 or 60 thousand and it depends on constraints. We have got a bridge involved and we have got to put hand rails. Thank you. The -- so, the 100,000 would include construction documents and surveying, sediment and erosion control, the easements, signage and striping. The asphalt pathway construction would be about 60,000 and the number of lineal feet that we can get will depend on factors that we still need to develop. But we do have a breakdown of the amount that we would expect to go toward actual construction. Rountree: So, by giving us options are you seeking input or are you just -- Siddoway: So, if you have -- if you have a specific favorite that you would like us to prioritize, I would like those and we will look at those first and we will do as many as we can. Rountree: Well, my priorities would be A first, C second, then, B quite a ways away. Until we can resolve something with ACHD in that settling pond that they have created over there. Siddoway: Okay. Any other comments on priorities or thoughts? De Weerd: Sounds good to me. Siddoway: Okay. All right. Item number seven is for a field house fund. We talked about this as a rec center when we met last time. And at Charlie Rountree's suggestion, we had changed the wording from rec center to field house, hopefully, consistently throughout the request. We originally had this in for 75,000. We have cut 50,000 out of it, in both the CIP and the -- the budget request. The 25,000 would allow us to develop a concept design for this field house and what it would be. Excuse me. The CIP does envision setting aside funds on an annual basis for a one and a half million dollar field house facility. We talked last time that that is not the 15 million dollar rec center that you see on the top photo, that's why it's got the little line through it. Just so we are clear, we are talking about something smaller scale and simpler that just gives us an indoor gym space. It's primarily for basketball, volleyball, and dodge ball uses for our existing sports needs and -- but it could also generate revenue if we choose to rent it out for birthday parties, town meetings, other gatherings. De Weerd: Steve, has that gone through design review? Siddoway: It has not. This -- this sketch right here is one that actually got -- was built in Orland, California, and Garrett was involved with its construction down there. That's why we used it iri here, simply to show we know that the cost of that one was in line with Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 29 of 89 what we are talking about. But this doesn't have to be the design. But it will be smaller scale like that. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, why don't you get hold of Mike Ford out at Yanke and get the -- get the plans for the home court over here. Siddoway: Okay. Bird: That's four full size basketball courts, as many volleyball courts as you want in there, dodge ball. I think it's just a fantastic building and I will guarantee you they didn't pay 1.5 to build it. Siddoway: Okay. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: This is from way back. When I was on the Planning and Zoning Commission an application came through for an indoor soccer facility that I'm thinking was somewhere in the neighborhood of Franklin and -- De Weerd: It's over by the police department. Zaremba: I don't remember where they were going to put it. But I'm not sure whether it ever happened, but if it did is anybody tracking it and -- De Weerd: It did happen. Zaremba: Is that a good building or -- De Weerd: It's -- yeah. Always busy. Zaremba: And that would be another type of building to look at, I guess. De Weerd: And their cost point, yes. Siddoway: Okay. We can use that in our investigation. So, yeah, we are not proposing to fund the 1.5 million dollars this year, but 25,000 would allow us to investigate exactly what you're talking about and come up with some -- some designs for your consideration. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 30 of 89 Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, do you have a site? Siddoway: We do not have a site. Bird: That's -- that goes back to the old thing of your maintenance building. Siddoway: Well -- Bird: How many acres do you need and where are you going to do it? Siddoway: We could design, in concept, the structure and, then -- we would not be able to start budgeting for construction documents that would include parking layout and things like that, but just in terms of conceptualizing the building, we can do that without a site. Just like we are doing right now for the -- for the maintenance facility and, then, the next step is we need the actual site in order to do construction documents. This wouldn't be construction documents. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Zaremba: I don't -- I have no idea whether there would be any advantage to co-locating them, but if it were cheaper to buy seven or ten acres and co-located them, that might be a thought. Cheaper per acre. Siddoway: Well, another thing to think about is, you know, if we want to grow this vision in the future, do we want to have more land than would be needed for just this. Those are all discussions that we would have as part this process in the future, but we may want to think about future expansion and not just meeting the initial field house needs. Okay. I won't spend a lot of time on this one, but -- because it's been withdrawn. But we have determined that we have a need for a new park system master plan. You're probably familiar with the existing action plan. It was adopted in August of 2003. That plan has largely been implemented. As we have gone through it, it's actually quite gratifying to see how much has been accomplished over the last seven years and looking forward to the next ten we want to be thinking about what our needs are there and think strategically and so we know this is a need, but this is a need that can wait another year and we would anticipate coming back and talking about this in a future year. The second one, which has also been withdrawn, was a 500,000 dollar land acquisition. As was noted, there was not enough impact fees to fund both the phase two and the land acquisition fund and last year we were able to acquire 77 acres in south Meridian, so we have removed this one. The last one that is parks and recreation related is fora 12 passenger van. We withdrew this one last year. We have changed it Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 31 of 89 this year from a new van to a used van. The reality is if this one were removed we -- just like last year, we could continue operating our program, as long as we keep our rental money. However, I would say that this is -- this should be a long term cost savings for the city. If we can avoid, you know, renting as many vans as we do. Plus logistically we have -- the van rental place in Meridian closed their doors last year and every time we need to rent a van we either have to go to Boise or Nampa to pick them up. We would use the van for our various camps and recreation programs, such as Outdoor Adventure Camp, the Bogus Basin Discovery Camp, snowshoeing trips, rafting, hiking, and field trips for our after school program. We would also be able to use it for our commission pathway tours, et cetera. So, questions on this one that I can answer? De Weerd: Steve, I think it's also important to note that after -- was it three -- three years -- three, four years the van would be paid for in what we have been paying in leasing? Siddoway: At least four to five. Because we have 5,000 dollars budgeted currently for rentals We would still need to maintain about a thousand of that, because there are several instances -- there are hand -- there are instances where we need more than one van. But the majority of our needs are for a single van and about 4,000 dollars a year could be given up from our base budget if this were -- if we had this vehicle available to us. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: While I know that you would have it paid off probably in four or five years, you have no idea what maintenance and repairs are on those vans. They are -- it's not like a pickup or a car. How often do you use them? How many -- how many times did you rent last year? Siddoway: Allison, would you come up and help address that? Kaptein: Good morning, Mayor, and Members of the Council. We -- Councilman Bird, we use a van six weeks consecutively for Outdoor Adventure Camp five days a week. And, then, in addition to that we do probably three rafting trips, three hiking trips, three snowshoeing trips each year. And, then, another week long camp, the Bogus Basin Mountain Discovery Camp that occurs after Adventure Camp, so -- so, I'd like a school bus, but those are a little bit harder to come by and probably quite a bit more pricey. So, I don't know, three times nine -- you know, nine incidental times and, then, the seven weeks of camp. Siddoway: About 50 times? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 32 of 89 Kaptein: Yeah. And, then, Colin also just -- well, actually, I haven't talked with him about the Fourth of July event, but I believe he was planning on using it for a parking lot shuttle and I don't know if he did. He says yes. So, we have used it for other things other than just the camp. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Steve, have you personally or did you ask any of us to talk to Commuter Ride? They not only have new vans, but they have used vans. I suspect you could probably get a new van through their purchasing process, since they buy numbers of them every year or have them identify some of the better used vans that would be made available to the city at a nominal fee, if not just transfer title. The other option I would suggest is that Valley Regional Transit is in the process of cycling through a number of buses and some of them are -- I don't want to use the term short buses, but smaller buses. Siddoway: Yeah. Rountree: That, essentially, will be probably given away in terms of cost. So, you might want to explore that, there may be one or two that are particularly good. I know they have a lot of miles on them, but they are in service every day, so some of those bigger vehicles you can get a lot of miles on. De Weerd: Highway miles. Rountree: And they are typically highway miles. So, there is a couple of options you might want to explore. I'm not saying take this out of the budget, but you might be able to get a gem through one of those two. Siddoway: Don't just go down to a dealership, let's start with Commuter Ride, start with Valley Regional Transit, and see what's available. Rountree: You know, fora 15 dollar title transfer or whatever it costs, you might have a van that has 80,000 miles on it, but if you're only using it ten weeks a year and you're not taking it too far out of town and you got a cell phone, you're probably okay. De Weerd: There is kids on it, we'll make sure it's -- Rountree: Just an option. Just check it out. Siddoway: No. I appreciate that. De Weerd: It's an option. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 33 of 89 Bird: And ACRD buys a lot of them, too, you know. They are buying some, by being together we can, you know, maybe save some money. Siddoway: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you, Allison. Siddoway: Okay. Moving, then, into the -- the median related enhancements. The first is for the maintenance of the Ten Mile interchange landscaping. We discussed this one with you last November, with ITD, in relation to the agreement. The Ten Mile interchange is currently under construction. The landscape portion of that project is anticipated to be completed this fall, the last time we checked. So, I believe they are still on schedule. Do you have any new news on that, Mayor, or the -- De Weerd: I just got back from vacation. Siddoway: And we need to be ready to maintain it. We would be maintaining it by contract. We did put that out with our contract bids to get prices. As you know, it includes 24 acres of grasses on slopes adjacent to the freeway that need to be maintained and the landscape medians themselves, both within the interchange islands and Ten Mile Road from the interchange north to Franklin. Any questions about this one? Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Zaremba: Actually, a process question. Probably for Stacy. An item like this comes through as an enhancement, but we know it's going to be an ongoing thing and I'm probably going to ask this question later when we have some Public Works things going on as well, but when we see this as an enhancement, that's because it has not happened before, but won't it eventually be a base budget item? Kilchenmann: Yes. After you approve it this year it will become a base budget item. Zaremba: Okay. And is that -- some enhancements are a one off, one time thing, but -- Kilchenmann: Yes. Zaremba: -- is that standard procedure for ongoing -- Kilchenmann: For personnel and operating for ongoing, yes. Zaremba: Okay. Thank you. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 34 of 89 Rountree: Madam Mayor -- and this is probably for Stacy. I have under other government in my book two items, one is the south Ten Mile -Meridian -- it's not maintenance, but it's the landscaping and irrigation and also have Franklin Road. Shouldn't those as well be under parks and rec? And, if not, why not? Kilchenmann: That was a philosophical discussion and I believe the parks commission felt that those weren't necessarily -- Steve can probably explain this as well as I can, but felt that they weren't necessarily park priorities, that they were more general city priorities or responsibilities, so we moved them. We did not move the maintenance, because parks -- the parks department oversees the maintenance and we have historically eliminated this cost of being in the parks department budget. So, we felt like for consistency and accountability we wanted to keep the maintenance in the parks department. But bottom line, whether it's in another government or parks, for us it didn't make a difference. Maybe Steve can address that, too. Siddoway: Another reason why the -- the other two are in other government is -- this hasn't been fully flushed out yet, but there has been discussion where those are construction document design type projects and Public Works has staff that are doing similar projects on roadway projects for water-sewer coordination. It might work well to have them take those over with input from us on the planting material, things like that. Having funds in other government would allow either us or them to -- to manage that and -- but the maintenance funds themselves needed to be in our budget, which is why they are there. Rountree: Madam Mayor, just a note of caution, that Public Works is civil oriented, not maintenance oriented, and flexibility oriented, so I would think that you might want to rethink your philosophy on that, because I think you're going to want to have detailed input in irrigation system design and detailed input in how the thing's going to be maintained in terms of how it is built. So, I just -- Siddoway: Yeah. I totally agree. Rountree: Because you're going to get it. Siddoway: Yeah. De Weerd: I think it's been a balance of that different expertises and, you know, Steve and Tom have been to bring their -- their two expertises to the table and right of way knowledge that Public Works brings to it and all of the issues regarding working with the districts and right of way related issues versus the maintenance and operation piece. So, Mr. Rountree, that's an appreciated comment and one we still haven't resolved in who does what, other than having everyone at the table having those discussions and finding that balance between one expertise and the other. Rountree: So, being under the category of other government, is it the responsibility of the Mayor to make sure that all that coordination takes place? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 35 of 89 De Weerd: I'll make sure the responsibility is appropriately placed. Kilchenmann: Councilman Rountree -- Rountree: Who is liable? Kilchenmann: Our construction project person is in other government, too. Steve will make sure it's done. Siddoway: Max is. Rountree: Max is? Kilchenmann: Max. Yes. Rountree: Okay. Okay. Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, and Councilman Rountree, it was an interesting discussion by the parks and recreation commission on, you know, they oversee parks and recreation and their goal is to provide space, activities, amenities to the citizens of Meridian and their discussion got into -- when it came to landscaping and medians, yes, it's nice, we may have expertise to take care of the trees and irrigation, different things like that. What are we providing our citizens in terms of their mission of open space, amenities, and recreational activities. It's an area of no use in terms of -- it's something nice to look at, it presents itself with a good impression of --for folks entering the City of Meridian, but in terms of parks and recreation, what are they benefiting their citizens with in terms of their mission? So, there was that discussion. And the other thing was they felt -- they felt -- I don't want to say put upon, but they have their priorities when it comes to providing parks and recreation and, then, these come in of you're going to -- you know, Steve has directed you're going to maintain this landscape, it's going to cost you 52,000 dollars and they are having to move that from their priorities of what they see as parks and recreation. So, they were struggling with that a bit on, well, wait a minute, this is not what we are about and so there is that discussion and I think down the road that is something as we grow and median -- medians are landscaped and it becomes a bigger budget item, how do we balance that with parks and recreation in terms of those issues of amenities to citizens for their use and enjoyment, so -- as opposed to landscape medians. It might be that parks has the expertise to do it, but do we do it in a different category, so we can -- we can look at it as two separate components, so -- that's just something that they were looking at and struggling with right now, so -- Rountree: Madam Mayor, my suggestion is that the Parks and Recreation Commission has a charter for that, to take on the maintenance of landscaping and that sort of thing for the City of Meridian. So, I think the commission can divorce themselves from that. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 36 of 89 The bottom line is that if -- if it's going to be yours, then, it's going to be yours, you need to be involved with it up front. Siddoway: And as a result of the discussion that Councilman Hoaglun's referring to is why I have structured my presentation with the recreation items first and the median one second. I need to cover all of them, but this way you know that those first ten were the priorities of the commission. Okay. The second one -- or the second median related one, the 12th overall, is the Ten Mile south medians. So, the Ten Mile interchange south to the realigned Overland Road, I understand that ACHD is constructing that road improvement with medians. We originally developed the enhancement based on fully developing those medians. The enhancement was at 106,965 on the second page of the description of the enhancement you can see, you know, three options for these medians. In our balancing efforts we have reduced that to what we believe are the bare bones at 28,513. That would, basically, put in only the sleeving, the top soil and the rock mulch, no irrigation, no plant material, and it would just, basically, save that area as medians that could be planted and irrigated in the future when the city chooses to do so. So, the bare bones enhancement that would do the sleeving and the rock mulch would be 28,513. If you wanted to fully develop those medians, this one would be 106,965. So, I believe in the current budget that's proposed, the 28,000 dollar version is what they have; is that correct? Yeah. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: This probably isn't the place to discuss such minor issues, but by rock mulch are we talking about something like perma bark or -- Siddoway: Yes. Zaremba: And I guess my comment is as a median strip or an island -- I have perma bark in my yard and it tends to move around. As a median strip with trucks going by and wake turbulence, the air turbulence behind them, that stuff could be blowing all over the road. I'm wondering if we need, in the medians, to be looking at something that's more solid. I know people think the -- Eagle Road near the hospital is ugly, but it doesn't blow around. Just a comment. Siddoway: I haven't noticed rock mulch to blow myself, but curious what you're using that is blowing and -- Zaremba: And I have the larger -- I have the larger rocks and it -- I'm just thinking in a place where large trucks would be going by, I think it would move around. Bird: I have it in my -- and I love it. Siddoway: Yeah. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 37 of 89 Zaremba: As a matter of fact, they have it in the Albertson's parking lot and it gets blown around in the parking -- I don't know whether it's blown around or tracked around, but -- Rountree: Right. De Weerd: It's tracked around. Zaremba: I'm just thinking of a loose material may not be the right thing to put in a median. Just a thought. Siddoway: We would design it so it wouldn't blow around. Zaremba: Okay. Siddoway: And we can talk about that -- Zaremba: Maybe the curbs need to be higher to contain it or something. Just a thought. Siddoway: We would also envision a mow strip between the soil and the actual curb that would help to contain anything that would move, but -- the line drawn through a lot of those elements because they were part of the 106,000 dollar full version that are no longer part of the enhancement that you have, so -- the last one, then, is related to Franklin Road. It is for 16,500 dollars to do landscape and irrigation design work that would roll into ACHD's construction plans. We would, then, use those plans to bring to you in future years the actual construction costs and maintenance separately. I was present last month when Council discussed the Franklin Road medians between Linder and Ten Mile and if I understand correctly, current vision is that they will be postponed and if that is the case, then, we can postpone this enhancement as well until they are coming back online, so -- De Weerd: Yep. Siddoway: So, cut 16,500 dollars. De Weerd: Todd will do that with a big smile on his face. Siddoway: So, in summary, our enhancements for parks and rec related enhancements we would request that about 489,000 would come from the General Fund. We have actually reduced that by 3,000 dollars just now, the half ton truck, the impact fee fund, we have 105,000 and the fund balance had 105, but we will actually make that the full 405, .based on our discussions. Median related requests, there were three for a total of 97,723. Two that were withdrawn and we are, actually, going to withdraw one of those three median related enhancements for Franklin Road. Additional potential base Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 38 of 89 budget reductions. The Mayor has been, you know, hard on us, looking at our base budgets, which is good, we have all been really taking a very serious hard look at these budgets. One of the items that was asked was in our recreation clothing expense, could we accept a decrease from 1,500 to 1,200 dollars. The answer is it really depends on the number of camp registrations. This is the fund's line item where our camp T-shirts and things come out of, but if the current trend continues, we would be fine with 1,200 dollars and so this is one of those areas, like the Mayor mentioned, where we are just trying to get down to the -- down to the zeros as close as possible and I think we could accept that reduction in that line item for 1,500 to 1,200 dollars. If the -- if the registrations increase next year, we will have to find a way to cover it or come back at that time. The second line is the advertising promo and public ad budget. We have 2,000 dollars in the base budget right now. The question was asked whether it could be decreased by 250 dollars. The answer is we would actually -- we would propose to keep that 250 dollars in this one. We are making efforts to increase our promotional efforts. We are working this year with the Mayor's office to identify parks and rec related film footage that they have taken, we are trying to add to it this year and, hopefully, do some type of PSA next year, that little extra would help us to accomplish that. We could -- if it was important to cut that 250 dollars, we could continue our existing efforts and be whole without increasing our promotional efforts. But we would -- we are working right now to -- to do so. The last one in our equipment under 5,000 line for parks and recreation from 30 -- decrease it from 3,700 to 3,000 and that one we can take that cut, so I would propose that we reduce that line 700 dollars to 3,000. And with that -- Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: On that last one -- Siddoway: Yes, sir. Zaremba: The thought comes to me about Kleiner Park again coming on line sometime in fiscal year '11, I'm assuming. And the maintenance facility that's going to be over there and the small equipment that -- do you have separate line items under Julius Kleiner Park for any small equipment that would need to go there or does that need to come out of this fund that we are looking at on this page? Siddoway: There is -- there is funds for equipment 5,000 -- 5,210 for that. This is 5,200, which is our parks and rec admin and we cut this one and still be fine with Kleiner Park. Zaremba: Okay. Thanks. Siddoway: So, that is my last slide and I will stand for any final questions. De Weerd: Questions from Council? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 39 of 89 Hoaglun: Madam Mayor and Steve, just to talk about a big ticket item and that's the arborist. That's a position where it's a matter of when, not -- not if. I mean if the Council says can't do it this year, you're likely to be back next year, it's just a matter of time. We have got a growing forest, if you will, and -- Siddoway: Yes. Our urban forest is growing. Our management needs are growing. We do need to separate those duties out and it's a matter of when and not if. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, I see you have gotten your replacement -- excuse me. I can't talk. You got a replacement of the one ton utility truck. Siddoway: Yes, sir. Bird: And it's got 35,000 miles on it? Siddoway: Yeah. Bird: What's it costing us in repairs a year? Siddoway: Mike, I may have you come up and talk about the repairs. It is -- it's a -- Bird: Why do you need to replace -- Siddoway: Twenty-one years old. Bird: Why does it need to be replaced? Age don't mean a thing if it's running and workable. Barton: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, it's the -- the age of the vehicle -- and I can get you the exact repair costs if you would require that. It's a 1988, '89 GMC that is -- age is catching up to it. We have -- we have had numerous repairs with fuel lines and rubber components wearing out. The springs are sagging. That's the red service truck. Bird: I know which one it is. Barton: It -- we are -- not only are we putting money into repairs as it ages and deteriorates even further, we are anticipating that it will cost even more money in the next year or two and we feel that we are just putting good money after bad with a vehicle that age. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 40 of 89 Bird: Mike, I see in your repairs you have budgeted 9,500 bucks. Now, is all 9,500 going into this vehicle or is some of the other 25 vehicles being repaired? Barton: No. We have the standard allotment for vehicle maintenance and vehicle repairs and that standard allotment applies to all vehicles. De Weerd: It's -- yeah. Bird: And I agree we'd all like to have newer rigs and everything, but with 35,000 miles on it how much is it used? We have had it -- we have had it since 2003 and how many miles was it when we bought it? Surely you have got a sheet that says that, because you had to -- Barton: Yeah. It's a -- it's an infrequently used vehicle and it's -- it's something that when we need the service of that vehicle we really need it. It has a mobile welder on it, a larger air compressor for construction related repairs that we do in the parks. It's -- it's something that -- that when we need it we really need. It's -- part of our intent, too, is that one of the construction maintenance technicians right now is currently using two vehicles, one of them which is set up for splash pad service and other lighter type activities and, then, we also have this red service truck. So, the intention is to combine both of those uses onto one vehicle and increase its versatility. That will free up the truck that we can put into service and use as a seasonal janitorial crew or something of that nature. Bird: That could go out to Kleiner, then, the smaller one? Barton: Yeah. The smaller one. Part of our Kleiner Park enhancement -- Bird: So, we don't have to purchase a new one for Kleiner`? Barton: Well, we still need the -- we still need the two, but part of our enhancement for Kleiner Park includes quite a bit of seasonal labor. Right now we are -- we would have those seasonal employees show up for work on that site. If they -- if they had to leave for any reason, if they had to run an errand or go back to the main maintenance shop, they don't have a vehicle, they would be in their personal vehicle. So, we are trying to position ourselves to free up vehicles where we can, so we can staff that park without requesting more vehicles and combining the uses of that service truck, the two service vehicles that we currently have into one, is part of that positioning. Siddoway: Madam Mayor and Councilman Bird, the request for the seasonal labor did not come with an accompanying request for a vehicle, so that vehicle would be able to be used by -- Bird: I know, Steve. Mike, can this old one last us another year? Barton: Yes. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 41 of 89 Bird: I think there is 36,000 we could use in different places in the parks other than that. mean if it was something that was out on the road every day, but I can guarantee you I know about how many times it's out and it's not every day and if it costs us a thousand dollars to repair it, we just saved 35, so -- I wouldn't say -- right now I wouldn't take it out, but when we get down to the end, that would be one item and I hope you guys understand that, because, you know, once a vehicle is set up with everything, you can kind of spend some money on transmissions and motors and stuff like that when you have got the rest of the vehicle all set up and don't have to replace it, so -- anyway, thanks, Mike. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Zaremba: Just as a thought and particularly if it does get put off and this may be way off, but if it's -- if it's a vehicle that has special use equipment on it that doesn't get used all that often, I might wonder whether it really needs to have a motor and a cab and all that. Could this go on a trailer? Barton: That's definitely worth looking at, yes. Absolutely. Zaremba: Just thought for future. Barton: Yes. Siddoway: Any final questions or comments? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: No? Bird: Thanks, Steve. De Weerd: Thank you. Siddoway: Thank you very much. Rountree: Thanks for being first. Bird: Yeah. De Weerd: Yeah. Congratulations. We do -- we alternate those desired spots, so you gentlemen over there might have it next year. We will take a quick break. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 42 of 89 Kilchenmann: Let's try to make it maybe just like ten minutes, since we are running behind schedule. De Weerd: Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Ten minutes. You heard the finance director. (Recess from 10:22 a.m. to 10:34 a.m.) Niemeyer: Are we good? De Weerd: Thank you. Yes. We are great. Thank you. Niemeyer: Bad news out of the way. De Weerd: Yeah. Niemeyer: Deal with the good news now. De Weerd: Yeah. There is some strategy behind that. Niemeyer: Do it and get it over with. Bird: Well, you have got a perfect budget, because I'm the one that lined it out with you and Ron. De Weerd: Oh. Bird: It's the fire department, so we are just -- Zaremba: It's going to be a hot presentation. De Weerd: Boy, you better come up with some, you know, fast balls on -- go ahead. Niemeyer: Good morning, Madam Mayor and Council. Before I get started real quick, I do have something to present to you. This is part of the strategy as well, but understand you already have one, Madam Mayor, so I'll give these to Council. On behalf of the fire department and the police department, I'd like to give each one of you a challenge coin that we just did for our public citizens' academy. It's been a great venture with the police department and certainly look forward to continuing that in the future, so -- Bird: This is a new one. These are different than the old ones. Zaremba: This is beautiful. Bird: I have got one of each, but they are separate. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 43 of 89 Zaremba: Uh-huh. I have one of each of the old ones. Niemeyer: The other bit of good news is that my presentation is fairly short. I asked Chief Lavey -- I said how long is yours, because I'm feeling a little inadequate here and he said about the same, so we are on the same page here. If you go through -- just to give you a quick overview, currently we now have 57 full time firefighters and 24 of those are paramedics. Councilman Bird was at their swearing in ceremony that happened last week and we certainly appreciate him being a part of that. They are now out in the field, so you will see our three new firefighter paramedics out there. We also have 16 part-time on-call firefighters, seven admin personnel, one public education specialist, who is now out of her office, she's going to be out for her health for about three weeks. We have five fire stations, a fire safety center, and a training tower. Our fleet vehicles, we have five front line engines. You see Engine 35 pictured there with the new blacktop. One aerial ladder truck. They actually came over this morning and helped us pull the ceiling and take care of business. Two reserve engines. Two brush squads. Those have not been used so far this year to any extent. We are expecting a pretty good brush season here shortly with the wet weather we had earlier, now things are drying out. One water tender. An air supply squad. A utility pickup truck. And six staff vehicles. Just a quick review of 2009. We don't have the numbers for 2010 yet, obviously, but 2009 statistics, we had 4,284 responses. We did get out and perform 859 inspections. As far as citizen contact, we had 56,712. The station tours there, that's a big part of what we do on a daily basis. The folks love to come to the fire station, so we open those up. We had 146 station tours, 382 car seat inspections -- that's another program that we started about two years ago and it's become very popular. And, then, we also interviewed 24 juvenile fire centers through our fire prevention program. As far as an enhancement update -- Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Niemeyer: --from 2009, one of our enhancements -- De Weerd: Mark, hold on for a minute. Niemeyer: Sure. Zaremba: Just to step back -- and this is kind of a sideways question. On the inspections, when you go out, do you record the type of business and who the owner is and. emergency contact, kind of stuff like that? Niemeyer: We do. Yeah. Councilman Zaremba, that's a great question. We collect all that information and put it in our data base. The one problem that we run into and we are working on this is that you may have a block of businesses within a strip mall and we have the contact information for the owner of the entire block, but those occupancies change and the occupants change. As a business goes out and a new one comes in Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 44 of 89 and so getting that updated information, that's a struggle for us as far as that particular business. So, we are working on ways to correct that in our database, but -- Zaremba: Which I think would be great and I actually asked that as one of my typical sideways questions. I know our economic development group is trying to collect that kind of information. Is there a way to coordinate this, so that -- Niemeyer: Absolutely. Zaremba: I mean it's an issue we have not gone to getting permits for -- for the city businesses, but we are trying to collect that kind of information for economic development purposes and if you're already out there collecting it, maybe we can put those two databases together or something. Just a thought. Niemeyer: Certainly. Yeah. We would be happy to look into that. There is no sense duplicating efforts. So, to review the 2009 enhancements that you all approved, we have the training officer position and he was hired right away. That was Chris Amenn. Recently promoted. So, we are going to be filling that position in the immediate future, looking for someone like Chris. Chris brought a lot to the table and we are very happy to have him as a division chief now, but we are looking for somebody of his mind set, somebody who is looking at best practice, so that we are following a standard in setting a standard for ourselves. We have the three full-time fire paramedic position and we hired those and, like I mentioned, they are now out in the field and our cardiac monitor that we had as an enhancement in 2009 was purchased in March of 2010. The majority of that purchase was off a state EMS grant and so we recouped 15,000. The total cost was 16 five, so -- here is a budget comparison from 2009 to 2010. You can see that we went up about three percent and as with most departments our biggest cost is in personnel. You can see it's overwhelming over the operating expense. So, our 2011 budget enhancement request we have a division chief position, refurbishment of two fire engines, one's a 1993 Pierce engine and one is a 2000 Pierce engine. And, then, also our strategic plan development and I will get into each one of these here. The division chief position, first and foremost, this position will be one that provides on scene command and control on a 24 hour basis. You're all aware of the discussions over the last few years regarding battalion chiefs and the need for battalion chiefs and that guaranteed command and control response on fires, on vehicle extrications, on haz-mat incidents, as well as that field supervision that we -- we don't necessarily have today. As we look at this, when I talked to Chief Anderson and we started going down the division chief path and I agree with him wholeheartedly, to give this a try, because believe that we can combine that command and control response and that daily supervision, along with other responsibilities. I think it's a good program and we will see how it goes. That position will also oversee the daily scheduling and coordinate daily activities. Right now that's a shared responsibility amongst the deputy chiefs and myself. It will provide consistent shift supervision. It will also oversee our fleet maintenance and station maintenance as our fleet grows older and our stations grow older, that has become a regular occurrence and currently that his a shared responsibility between Chief Silva and Kenny Bowers and I think that really just one Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 45 of 89 person overseeing both of those will be a lot more efficient and effective and, again, I think this position will improve overall operational efficiencies. As far as our two engine refurbs, one is a 1993 Pierce engine, it has about 119,000 miles on it currently. Currently that particular engine cannot house all the equipment that we need to have on afire engine. It's a smaller engine. This refurb will allow the compartments to change and allow for the extrication equipment to be housed on that -- on that apparatus. It also will delay purchasing a new fire engine for replacement. That's the advantage of a refurb is that it delays that -- that complete replacement at about half the cost of buying a brand new fire engine and we think it's a good program. We have worked with Stacy to intermix refurbs versus replacement and try and alternate those. The other is a 2000 Pierce engine. This is Engine 32 that's out at Station Two. It currently has about 122,000 miles on it, Again, refurbing it now will extend that anywhere from seven to ten years, depending on how many miles we put on it to where we don't have to do a full replacement at twice the cost. So, the advantage of the refurb, obviously, is you extend the life span of the apparatus and you save some dollars on the front end. There you see a picture of Engine 32 and, then, on the right that was Engine 38 formerly Engine 311 that we sent back two years ago, I believe, to have refurbed. We have been pretty happy with the results of that. Bird: Mark? Niemeyer: Yeah. Bird: Madam Mayor. Sorry. Point out that by refurbing these two engines we -- it's costing us less than what one new engine would cost us. Niemeyer: It is. Anew engine is roughly in the ballpark of 410,000. We can do the refurbs for around 200,000, depending on what we need done to the apparatus. De Weerd: And that's also in the capital improvement plan? Niemeyer: Yeah. Bird: You bet. Niemeyer: And, then, the last enhancement is a strategic plan development. I firmly believe that this is going to be the cornerstone moving forward. It develops a game plan, a road map that everybody knows where we are going, knows what initiatives we are going to take and what projects we are going to undertake. I believe it's also a great opportunity to get involvement of both our employee group, elected officials, other city departments that we interact with on a daily basis, as well as members of the public and all of those I plan to have involved in the development of strategic plan, so that we get input not only from our members, but from the elected officials, from those other departments that we do interact with and have responsibility to, as well as the public, to know do they want out of their fire department. So, again, this was an enhancement that we originally had in as the accreditation process. As I sat down and looked at that Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 46 of 89 felt like that is the big picture step, but that's down the road. I think having a fire year strategic plan moving forward is much more important and so we changed this enhancement from the accreditation to the strategic plan. That will play in nicely if and when we go to accreditation, because one of the requirements is you have to have a strategic plan developed before you go there and so this is that first step in moving towards that. And the future challenges that we face and will continue to face, much as other city departments do as far as increases in population and call volume, as we -- the economy turns and we start to see that rise in population, which I'm thinking we will. We are going to stretch resources and response times. We will be aware of that. have sat down with the Mayor and we have looked at and this will be part of the strategic plan as well, where are we going to put new stations and is there opportunities to collaborate with other agencies when we look at those stations to try and maximize dollars and maximize efficiencies. So, something that we will look at. Increase in response times -- again we can collaborate with our partners to make sure that all areas of our district are covered adequately and in good response times. And, then, additional dollar loss and we can mitigate this through increased prevention and our goal is to sustain a 90 percent savings -- dollar savings in loss and I think right now we are at 91 percent. So, we are certainly getting that and we plan on continuing that through good prevention, as opposed to great suppression and we hope to prevent the fire before it even starts. The change in the community, suddenly we are looking at Ten Mile interchange, just like everybody else is, to determine what kind of growth we are going to see there and what challenges are we going to face there. We will keep working with finance and with planning to look at how that's going to project out. And, then, funding for capital replacement, that's -- that's everybody's challenge as dollars are tight and things need to be replaced, we have to make sure we are looking at funding. We are looking at grant possibilities. We are always looking for grant possibilities, much like other departments, so we will continue to do that. And with that I would stand for any questions. De Weerd: Council, questions? Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Rountree: On the division chief position, you were talking about command and control, major function of that particular position. Will that still be something that will be shared by the other deputies? Because it seems to me like that's the responsibility above and beyond the ability of one individual for the number of calls that you have. Niemeyer: Yeah. Councilman Rountree, that's a great question. We just promoted Chris to a division chief. He's going to oversee our EMS program, but he's also going to be that command and control. What I would like to do is to be able to assign them to a shift. One of the things that we have right now that creates somewhat of an inefficiency is that because you spread that out and you keep rotating your deputy chiefs and your fire chiefs and now the division chiefs, there is no consistency shift to shift on what the Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 47 of 89 expectations are, because it changes depending on who the person is. So, what I would like to do, what my plan is, is to assign a division chief to a shift, so that entire shift has one point of contact to go for command and control, daily operations, daily scheduling. I think that will improve efficiencies. Rountree: Thank you. De Weerd: Other questions? Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I'm not sure I totally understood, but does that mean there needs to be four battalion chiefs? Niemeyer: What we are looking at right now is three division chiefs -- Zaremba: Different shift assignment. Niemeyer: -- over the course of time. Zaremba: Yeah. Niemeyer: Again, we have Chris's position. With this position that will give us two. So, a deputy chief can fill that third role for now and, then, we can assign them A shift, B shift, C shift and so each shift will have their assigned point of contact and right now it's kind of everybody is their point of contact and that creates some problems. De Weerd: He is a new guy and he should be given the treatment, so any other questions? Rountree: So, where can we carve out ten percent? Niemeyer: If that's the direction, I'll find it. Rountree: That's the right attitude. De Weerd: Yes, sir. Bird: He would be here all day trying to figure out how to carve out -- Rountree: Madam Mayor, I do have one question about the refurb on a '93 vehicle in terms of the chassis and that sort of thing. Does anybody else have experience -- does the factory have statistics on the longevity of a vehicle that old with a refurb? I know Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 48 of 89 they do a great job of going through them, but, still, that's -- that's a lot of miles on that -- thatframe. Niemeyer: Councilman Rountree, that's a great question. I don't have a great answer for you right now. We do have a pretty good asset in our department and that's in Parry Palmer. He delivers fire trucks for Pierce and so he's very familiar with it and what we were going to do is if this refurb goes through -- he has arranged to where the Pierce rep will come out to our department, look at both vehicles, and we can certainly invite all of Council and the Mayor to participate, and go through it and answer all of those questions with us. I believe that the life expectancy on a refurb is roughly seven years on average is what they anticipate getting out of a refurb. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: The one we had refurbed, it was an '83 or '87, wasn't it? And the frame and everything was -- was okay on that I think. I think before they refurb it -- they tear it down to the frame and check everything out. Niemeyer: They do. They pretty much make it a skeleton. Bird: Yeah. They get it to a skeleton. Niemeyer: And rebuild it. Rountree: Keep the original brake system. Niemeyer: Brakes are not a good word with me. Back in the shop today with brakes. Bird: Thank God it's under warranty. De Weerd: Anything further from Council? Rountree: I have nothing. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Lavey: Madam Mayor, Council, thanks for the opportunity to present here today. I kind of fibbed to the fire chief. My presentation is about an hour long. Actually, it's only three slides. And I do recall in a director's meeting that the fire chief did say he'd give up one of those refurbished fire trucks for my position. So, if that 1993 chassis cannot be refurbed -- De Weerd: I remember that, too. And there was a vehicle that you mentioned, too. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 49 of 89 Lavey: He doesn't remember that, but I recorded it. Bird: Well, all your cars -- all your cars won't purchase a new engine, so one or the other. Lavey: True. One of the things that I said at the beginning of our -- the budget process with the directors was every single item in my budget I could cut today and survive. Now, of course, I don't want to do that, but I still maintain that position, that if I have to survive I can cut everything in here, except for two items, and the reason why is because of the grant that -- we will get to that shortly. If you recall over the last several months -- or, actually, over the last several years, I have come in front of Council with some strategic planning, some presentations, and that kind of laid the foundation of some of our needs and future needs and we keep putting off and putting off and now it's time that we really have to look at funding them this year and one of the other things that I talked about was the COPS grant that we submitted for 2009. I believe that Mayor and Council has the information that -- that we should have been awarded our grant last year, but due to some methodologies and that's when those budget analysis people get involved and play with the figures. De Weerd: But they admitted the mistake. Lavey: They did and they actually decided to make good on it and they are going to fund us this year. One of the requests that they asked us to do is go back and update our application. Well, their definition of update and my definition of update is two different things, because I pretty much had to submit an entire new proposal. But the good news out of that is that we used the funding figures of the potential three percent merit added to the police and some other changes in the budget that the funding increased by about 50,000 dollars. So, with the federal government taking a look at that, I anticipate that increase from -- increase from 726,000 to I believe it was 775,000 over a three year period. Where I mentioned that we could cut everything, except one, it's the -- it's the grant. You will find that there is an enhancement -- we will get to it in just aminute -- that has a one time cost of 86 -- actually, a one time cost of 76,000 dollars and some ongoing costs of 10,000 dollars that I need to -- to make this grant function. As you recall, the wages and benefits are a hundred percent, no match for three years. However, we do have to supply the cars and equipment. And, then, the other thing over on my desk there I have a pile of documents that -- that recently just came in and it's for our indoor multi-use training facility. As you recall, we put out an RFQ, we ended up getting seven returns and those RFQs are for proposals to design the training center and we will be meeting with purchasing tomorrow to go over the scoring. So, I'll have more on that later. De Weerd: I like how everyone has renamed their CIP item. Lavey: The aka the farms. Bird: Okay. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 50 of 89 Lavey: As I just mentioned, the COPS grant comes to about 84 -- don't -- don't quote me exactly on these figures -- so, about 84,000 dollars. I think it's like 86,000 dollars. And I already mentioned that 10,000 of that is ongoing and the other is a one time cost. The other position that I really have to have this year is the CID sergeant. This is kind of a -- two reasons. One is the current supervisor has 17 people that he supervises. One person supervises 17 people. So, I need an additional supervisor to take care of some of that span and control. The other thing is is that supervisor -- the new supervisor position will also be supervising those four additional grant people that we bring on for a proactive enforcement team. So, those are really kind of the two key positions that -- or two enhancements that I need. Now, everything else, you know, comes down to funding and if you say I can't have it, I can't have it. If you tell me I have to cut five percent, ten percent, 20 percent, I'll sure do that. If we need to cut it all, I'll do that and survive as well. But -- but there is a major need. Laid the foundation the last couple of years for the traffic sergeant position. Currently the -- the daytime sergeant supervises the neighborhood contact officers, the day shift officers, anybody that's on special assignment or light duty, and the traffic officers. So, they are supervising in any day up to 19 people. As you recall, traffic is one of the main issues that we deal with in Meridian and I think that we need a dedicated person to supervise that unit. The NCO- SRO sergeant position -- both of these -- both of these personnel divisions are being supervised by other people at this time. If I was to dedicate a -- an NCO-SRO sergeant, he would already be supervising eight people. Span and control recommendations is somewhere between five and eight. I want to skip back to -- I'm going to skip animal control and cover the other two items, just because I think we need to lay a little bit more groundwork in animal control. The video equipment. The video equipment is going to be upgrades in the interrogation rooms. We are finding that we are having some technical difficulties providing the courts with the proper audio and video. We also have a polygraph room .and other areas in the building that never had video equipment installed. So, this is -- this enhancement covers those upgrades, covers those additional points of safety. One is the lobby of the police department. No camera is in the lobby of the police department, therefore, anybody coming to the front counter is undetected. There is also no camera on the prescription drug facility where we actually dispose of the prescription drugs. It's locked, but it's -- there is no camera on it. And, then, we are also finding that the police department is a common place that the courts order for custodial visits and we are often having a lot of domestics right in our lobby or in our parking lot. So, that's what that is. And, then, the phone system upgrade, I tried to cut this out a couple days ago and they wouldn't let me, so -- it's one of those things -- it's needed, we cannot add new positions in the department, no phone lines in the department without adding to the IT phone system. IT has advised me that we ate all their licenses, so they have no additional phones or licenses and so any additional people, which, as you see I'm adding several, we will need to have phones for them, but we are finding that the system is antiquated, it's unsupported, the company has went bankrupt, it's not real compatible with what we already do and it's a matter of -- of paying the technician 90 dollars an hour to come in and repair it, whereas if we did convert to the IP system, then, we have in-house people that can take care of that. So, it leads us to animal control. Back when I came here 15 years ago we had one animal Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 51 of 89 control officer, one truck, going around picking up dogs in the city of 31,000 people. Four years later we added a second body and we had one truck running around the city picking up dogs for about 34,000 people. Today, if you look at the census figures, we are at about 68,000. If you look at our estimated figures we are somewhere around 80, 85 thousand. We still have one truck and two people going around picking up dogs. I know that dogs are not a favor topic for some -- some groups of people, but there is a need there and it comes down to customer service. It's not a secret that I have been trying to get out of the animal control business for a couple of years now, to the point where we have explored contracting with IHS. IHS came in with a proposal several years ago of 225,000 to pick up the dogs in the City of Meridian. Actually, that would cover cats, to, which is also another area that we often get comment cards on. The problem that we ran into is that any dog that was picked up would be taken out to Dorman and I did not want to do that to our citizens. If your dog was impounded you would have to drive clear across the city out to the Boise -- out to the airport to pick up your dog. So, as you recall over the last couple of years we have been exploring a potential partnership with IHS to actually build a building out here at -- in west Meridian, because they have a need, and, then, also to partnership with us to maybe take over the animal control responsibilities. Since, then, the economy has tanked and IHS is struggling just to survive, to the point where they are discussing not doing animal control at all anymore and just running a shelter. One of the things that will be set forth that we already pick up our own dogs, but the other municipalities who do not do that would be hurt. Therefore, I do not want to stop doing something and, then, have to start it up two years from now and say, oh, by the way, we can't do that for you anymore. As you recall just last week IHS has turned over the responsibilities of the leash law back over to the city of Boise in the foothills and into the dog parks. So, what we have done is we have wrote an enhancement to add two additional animal control officers at a one time cost of about 45,000 in there for a vehicle. You're still going to find that with that enhancement and what we currently pay in personnel and our base budget, we are still coming in what -- just a little over what IHS would have contracted for us in the first place. Taking in consideration inflation and growth of the city, I think it's really kind of a wash. But I still believe we can provide a better service to our citizens. I still want out of the animal control business, but I still believe that I can provide a better service for our citizens than a stranger can. So, that's there. And that's open for discussion as well. And one of the other key things I'd like to point out is that because we have not seen any growth to that division is that we have police officers that are covering when animal control is not there. So, you're paying police officer salaries to do animal control duties. Not very efficient and two things happen, either you do pay a police officer to do that or the call waits until animal control is on and, therefore, you still have inadequate customer service. So, that's the enhancements. This is -- my liaison has already mentioned the vehicle request and so this is what's coming next. We have several items on our capital replacement this year. Eight of them are the Optiplex computers and this is based on an IT recommendation. We have had a major discussion in the directors meeting on whether these needed to be replaced this year or next year. This is still an unsupported system anymore and they are telling us that these are dinosaurs and -they need to go. I am not -- I am just techno savey enough to make myself dangerous, so I have to rely on their recommendation for those. I do have a little bit Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 52 of 89 more insight on the 12 Panasonic Tough Books. These are the computers that we run in our patrol cars. For multiple years now we have held off replacing these computers. We have just foregone -- foregone that. What we have now found is that we have added so much technology in, mapping systems, GPS systems, automatic vehicle locating systems that these computers no longer -- or our current computers cannot support the new software that's -- that's coming out there. Therefore, it's time to be replaced. I discussed with our liaison several months ago. A rotary scanner. A rotary scanner is a microfiche document where we actually take every report and we convert it into a digital format. The one that we had broke. We had to go purchase a new one and this would be a second one. So, we would actually have a backup and, actually, have two systems running at the same time. Smart board. Currently in our briefing room we have a smart board, which is a computer monitor, computer, and projector all combination that we use for briefing, we use for training, and we paid about 11,500 dollars for this -- I don't know how many years ago. This has been in for repairs numerous times, because of the constant use. The last bill was 800 dollars and they still haven't got it correct. I estimate we have paid about five or six thousand dollars in repair costs. Current plan is to replace that system with something much cheaper recommended by IP. It's a 3,000 dollar replacement over an 11,000 dollar replacement. Our suggestion is that we keep the smart board, not dispose of it, move it upstairs to our second training room, which currently has no system like this. And it would be used less often and less prone to break. And, then, it leads to us to the -- the ten vehicles. Out of those ten vehicles, six of them are patrol fleet, four of them are admin or support positions. I have asked our admin sergeant to provide me with the documentation of every single one of these vehicles. I can tell you that when we provided the mileage it was a year ago or nine months ago and that every vehicle on there is looking at an additional 25 to 35 thousand miles added to it. We did not include the vehicle hours and if you would like the vehicle hours I can get those, because every car does have an hour meter in it and it just -- Ford recommends or suggests that for every hour on an engine is 15 miles on -- in an actual car and you're going to find that there is some cars in there that you're going to say why in the heck are you replacing those and I have told this story over and over again now. These cars run 24 hours a day and we are hard on these cars. So, you're going to find 2007 cars on there that need replaced. Can we wait? Yeah. It's one of those things that is a -- it's a pursuit raised vehicle, there is a safety concern on our part. Can we wait? Sure. Are we taking a gamble? Yes. I can point out to you, too, that our maintenance costs have increased 70 percent over last couple of years because we have held on to these cars and it's time to get rid of them. You're going to find some other admin cars on there that are approaching up to 11 years old. One of them currently does not have a transmission. Another one has a transmission that's going out. Another one that has an engine that's about ready to go. I had singled out a couple of cars going I think we might be able to make another year on those. One of them has 55,000 miles on it. This car is ten years old. But if you listen to this thing run, it's not going to run much longer. It also has many electrical problems. You cannot start the car without actually doing a couple different things. You have to push several different buttons and close the door and -- before the car would even start. We had decided to not -- its pretty pathetic and it's my community services lieutenant who parks right next to me, so it's entertaining for me, but it is pretty pathetic. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 53 of 89 And so that's where we are sitting at with the cars. I am, as promised -- I have nothing else to say and I'll answer any question that you have. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Chief, these cars you're getting rid of, are you selling them, I hope? You're not giving them to other departments? Lavey: Well, I gave one to Mr. Nary, but he will tell you that he got a bill for 1,500 dollars to replace it, so he called me up desperately asking for another car and I told him I had one that I would not give my worse enemy and I .had another one that was doable that he looked at and I think he's driving it right now to try to get by. I would not recommend these cars to anybody, other than the auction. I have made that suggestion in the past and other city departments have taken the cars and, then, they come after me, because, then, they have to put several thousand dollars on -- Bird: I agree wholeheartedly with you. Auction them off, so -- Lavey: We actually -- we actually auction these cars off and get a pretty good price on the actual patrol cars. We actually get somewhere between eight and a thousand dollars for patrol cars, because they go to taxis in New York City. As far as the Intrepids and those other cars, we get a couple hundred dollars tops and that's it, so -- Bird: We have probably got 30 within the city we can take with us. Lavey: That's something we do -- we do have that offer. We have the auction that if you -- if any other city department wants to get rid of cars, we will clear them out at the same time, so -- Zaremba: I want to know if Mr. Nary got a car that still has the lights and sirens on it. Lavey: You know, the police department may be crazy, but we are not that crazy. De Weerd: Yeah. No, we wouldn't dare. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Bird: He can't run code three, uh? Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 54 of 89 Zaremba: You may know about this and have checked it out already, but it comes to mind that six months or so ago I saw an advertisement someplace for light bars that go on top of emergency vehicles that had a solar panel built into them that can keep the battery up while the engine is off and we have talked about city cars going to turn off -- turn off the cars when they are -- when they are not operating and I know that's difficult, because there is all this equipment in the police cars. I don't know what those cost or whether they are a good idea or not. Is that something you have heard of investigated or -- Lavey: I have never heard of that yet, but it wouldn't surprise me. I can tell you that with the new technology on the light bars we don't have that same problem, because we used to have light bars that drew anywheres between 27 and 35 amps and now with the new LED light bars they draw about one half an amp to one amp and so they don't drain the batteries quite so often. One of .the things also is that for like the K-9 cars, we can't turn the engine off regardless of it. But as far as the other thing -- other patrol cars, that's one thing we can sure take a look at. You know, it's one of those things that the light bar isn't the only thing draining from the car, though. The police radio drains much more and -- Zaremba: I had the impression that it would power the computers and all the equipment that you would need on -- it doesn't just power the light bar. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if it did power the light bar, but it was intended to power the computers and all the other stuff, radios -- Lavey: I could pass that on to our fleet sergeant and have him take a look at that. The only caution that I would have is that is just one more thing to put on the roof of a car, which we are running out of roof space it is, but it does make sense as far as when you're looking at trying to be as green as we possibly can as well. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I'm going to -- I'm going to go in the animal control direction. De Weerd: Surprise. Rountree: Surprise. Surprise. I appreciate your comments about customer service, but I guess I have a different view about who is a customer and who isn't and I believe that if an individual has let their animal go at large I don't believe they are a customer, anymore than somebody else who is in violation of an ordinance of the City of Meridian. So, the inconvenience of them having to go retrieve their animal is just, in my opinion, just a minimal punishment for them not taking care of their personal property. That's just a philosophical position. This whole issue of animal, animal control, and what's our responsibility and what's the individual owner's responsibility is something that's perplexed me for years and continues. It's getting even more complicated when you Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 55 of 89 start thinking about the city boundaries and the spotty nature of our community with respect to what's the city and what's the county and who is responsible, when, where and why. My question is does the county -- does the county offer any support in this area, other than a little bit on IHS and is that something that has been explored in the past or is that something that we need to explore? Because it seems to me if there is ever an issue that's across jurisdictions, that's one and I think that's one where the county should start playing a better role. Lavey: Anytime that we involve the -- well -- and let me clarify. The -- the county does not have animal control. IHS is a separate entity, not run by the county. It's a contract sort of thing. So, it's not the county per se. The county has a contract with IHS and they pay about 600,000 dollars a year to get those services. Anytime we have IHS help us in any way whatsoever they bill us. We get a bill. And so to answer your question, yes, they do come out and help us, but we pay for it. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I'm trying to remember now where the discussion came up. It may have been in a parks department thing with the dog park discussion, but -- Lavey: I wasn't going to bring that up. Zaremba: But somewhere a statistic was made that according to some national figures we are only licensing about a quarter of the dogs that should be living in our city and, therefore, we are missing a lot of revenue that could be helping with our animal control facilities and, then, I'm just wondering how -- how do we find out who is not licensing their dogs, unless we catch them loose sometime. Is there -- is there or should we have a program to force people into compliance with licensing their pet? Lavey: Councilman Zaremba, the Mayor and I actually had that discussion. There is a couple different comments that I will make on that. First of all, I don't believe we are even covering a quarter of the dogs. And, really, where they come up with the -- the number is they took what's the average family -- number of dogs that are owned times that by our population and that's where they come up with the figure of about 15,000 dogs estimated. That's a rough rough figure. But we only have about 1,200 that are licensed, so even if we have 15,000 dogs off of that, we are still missing a bunch of people. A couple things that we have put in place already. One is I have instructed our animal control officers to cite every single dog owner that comes to pick up their dog that's not licensed. I don't care if they said I'm going to do this or do that, because what's happening is these people are actually betting on the fact that their dog is only going to get picked up once in seven years and so once in seven years pay 35 dollars to get your dog out, it's much cheaper than licensing that dog for seven years. One of the things that we discussed was putting a reminder in the utilities fliers, but that comes at a cost. I mean that costs about 800 dollars for that mailing. One of the things that we Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 56 of 89 talked about is going door to door, but that comes up with staff time. The city of Boise does actually have -- IHS actually goes door to door and knocks on the doors and puts notes on your door saying we have some sort of indication that a dog lives here -- guess that would be the barking, and -- and leaves a note saying this is how to get your dog registered, licensed. We discussed maybe looking at social groups or clubs to do that. I really don't want to take a citizen and put them in that -- or used in that environment, because sometimes, as you have seen, the dog owners can get kind of testy and one of the things that we talked about is with additional staffing is in down time we could actually use them to go door to door or at least sit at the pound and actually write citations for those people that get their animals impounded. And, then, one of the things that you're probably going to see from me in the near future is a potential increase for impound costs, because I believe with Councilman Rountree that the person that needs to be penalized, if that's the word you're going to use, as the person that actually is the one that's creating all the work for us, not the people that actual license their dogs and doing everything right. So, if your dog gets impounded, because you're irresponsible, I think you're the one that needs to pay for that and that additional funding would help supplement anything that we add on here as a city. So, it really comes down to quality of life. What sort of quality of life do we want our citizens to have and what sort of dog issues do we want to have in town. You know, I have been to cities that dogs run amuck. I can tell you that as I drive through the City of Meridian I don't see dogs running around, because we address it fairly quickly. We are just to the point where somebody needs to increase that -- that control and that enforcement, whether it's the police department or a contract somebody, I am surely open to that, but need to do something, because 14 years is too long. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Hoaglun: Chief, the -- to stay on the animal control theme here, I suppose when police officers have to go take care of dog problems, that doesn't make them a K-9 officer, so that's not an issue, so -- which is good. Although they do have to deal with dogs. But what is the impact to the shelter if we had another vehicle out there, they are an employee, that's running of dogs, what does that do to the shelter? Where are we in capacity? Are we putting ourselves in a situation that creates another problem? Lavey: Well, it's one of those things that it's very unpredictable, because I can tell you that like on the Fourth of July our shelter gets occupied quite fast and it really comes down to day to day. We can look at how many dogs we have impounded -- I don't anticipate us impounding anymore than we do now, I just anticipate us being able to -- for example, we have no animal control after hours, after 6:00 o'clock at night, and we have no animal control when they go on vacation or when they go to training and so the police officers have to actually do that. So, I don't anticipate having anymore bodies out there picking up dogs, because they are really going to be covering what the police officers are already doing, the big difference is instead of paying 25 to 28 dollars an hour you're going to pay considerably less to get someone to pick that up. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 57 of 89 De Weerd: Anything further from Council? Bird: I have nothing. De Weerd: Thank you. Lavey: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Council, at this time we will hear other government and thought Robert could come up and talk about the city surveys. We did have a sub committee that pulled together and we have mentioned this to Council, this is just a follow up to that. Simison: Mayor and City Council, Ifound -- I had 25 minutes, so I will be sure to use all that time for you to talk about this. De Weerd: Do you want it supported or what? Simison: Well, of course. Okay. Well, as this says, it's an enhancement. This is for a city survey. We have talked about this in the past, about some of the values and desires amongst the directors and departments to do a citywide survey. We have done surveys in the past, you know, many of you I'm sure are aware of the ones that have been done in the last few years by the parks department, the police department, by economic development, and those were primarily done through survey mailing or passing out individual surveys to people that people run into and see that are available as people go through their departments. What the directors -- and, obviously, our -- probably individuals from other -- those are not specifically valid surveys, they tend to get people that are very hot on specific topics or are the biggest users of those groups. Without looking at the community as a whole is what the community may want to see or what the community may want from those type of surveys. So, with that in mind, the directors have been looking at this for at least a year and, you know, they have come through and said, you know, we -- if we are going to do this, you know, we really want to look at this in the right way. We want to get a good cross-section of the community and in doing a comprehensive city survey that this is something that would be done, being statistically valid, random dialing to the households, but the intention is to go comprehensive survey, the citizen satisfaction in a comprehensive way with all major city services, with the intention of providing insights to aid in short and long term planning and budgeting decisions as part of the strategic plans that all the departments are doing and the information obtained would provide that insight to help establish further direction for key initiatives set forth in the city's strategic plan and department budgeting as they come through each year. It also gives the public information on programs accessible they are finding where funds are well spent or not. So, there is many different functions that survey could potentially provide. Some of the key objectives -- and this would be for -- largely gathered through discussion, as well as looking at what other communities expect to get out of their city surveys and some of Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 58 of 89 the key objectives -- you can see them there in front of you, but it provide for performance measures for citizen focus and gathered the data from them for that information. Provides another way for them to give input on the things that are being looked at. Integrates research into strategic planning for the different departments, so they are -- I don't want to say that they are not guessing, but really look and see what the public wants. You know, a lot of people look at where they are currently spending the funds at if this is what the community feels are the priorities or not. And these are a few of the other objectives that are out there with measurement on issues, benchmarking key measures, looking at priorities for services, information to aid in short and long term planning. So, again, it's very -- we have had this discussion, but wanted to at least get it on the record for everyone to see why we would be looking at doing a survey of this magnitude. Through the discussions, if this was approved to have a survey that would begin in the early fall as soon as the budget begins, so that it can be done before the holidays, because that's really what is recommended and so you would be aware of the anticipation would be is they recommend doing two surveys in back-to- back years to gather the information to have -- establish a baseline and, then, do them every other year after as a follow through to what needs to be done in future years. And with that I will be prepared to answer any questions, along with Chief Lavey, who was also on the team that put this together and city attorney Mr. Nary. De Weerd: Thank you, Robert. Any questions from Council? Hoaglun: Quick question, Madam Mayor. Robert, how big of a survey are you looking at doing? How many questions do you anticipate or items? Simison: Part of that depends on the amount. What we put in here is 25,000 for the survey. It's the thought on the very edge of being able to get us a survey of probably about 45 to 50 questions and with the economy we might be able to get a few more than that. One of the companies, for example, city of Boise uses their surveys, it costs them 30 to 35 thousand and they can get up to about 65 to 70 questions, but these are primarily all over the phone, the questions that are being done, and so it's really -- you know, this time can be a factor, we are right now 25,000 hoping for 45 to 55 questions, a 20 minute survey, with 400 plus responses, to give it a statistically valid point of about plus or minus five percent. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Rountree: Robert, I assume part of that is for the survey design, but who -- who was going to -- not oversee, but guide the development of the questions? Simison: That would be whoever was chosen for the RFP and that's why it would be imperative to get them on board as soon as possible. De Weerd: No. Our department directors -- Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 59 of 89 Simison: Yes. The department directors. Rountree: The department directors already have in mind the kinds of things they want answers to or they will in order to provide the contractor the information to design the survey. Simison: Correct. De Weerd: We have narrowed some of those and also looked at some other community surveys to get a better idea of what kind of information has been collected by others, how they have been framed, to even prompt some of the questions of -- additional questions or results that we may want to track and those kind of things. So, the subcommittee has looked at a number of points and, again, it will go back to each of the departments of what is important to them as it relates to the focus areas to the direction being plotted and moving forward to program efficiencies, effectiveness, and programming. Simison: And part of that is, obviously, dependent upon how many questions, you know, are going to be asked in the survey. Obviously, the more money you spend the more questions you can ask, up until a point where people are no longer interested in taking the survey, but that -- there is going to be a certain amount of baseline questions throughout -- you know, probably over half just to establish what it is, you know, probably about another half trying to get more specific into, you know, specific responses on particular programs and issues. And just to give you an example of what this -- some of that information that has come back, at least in the city of Boise, they use their survey to go to their new automated trash collection system. They use that as the tool to go out and gather the information to make the switch before they did it. I think those are some good examples about if -- utilizing this tool correctly, having along-term strategy and vision on things and soliciting feedback. That was a great example of changes that can be made based upon a survey and reaching out to the community. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I think it's a good idea. The point has been raised about how many questions you can ask and I'm thinking for myself in a telephone survey I probably wouldn't stick around for 40 or 70 questions and I'm just wondering I think the park survey was done online. The only issue there was there was no control to make sure somebody didn't answer multiple -- one person didn't answer multiple times. Simison: As well as there is no way to know that they are City of Meridian people that are taking the survey and a lot of those things, but that's information that is provided by the four different companies we have spoken to. They have all said most people, if they are willing to take a survey, will do it in 20 minutes. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 60 of 89 Zaremba: Okay. Simison: And it's with their help that you design the questions, you know, yes-no questions, you know, simple rating questions and so you can get through a lot of questions very quickly. It's really when you get down to the questions where you say what would you like to see in Meridian? Those are things that -- Zaremba: Yeah. Have to think about. Simison: Those are things that eat up time and you might get one or two of those there at the end. But they are primarily going to be yes or no and it will take a lot of work on the department's side and the city staff working with people to come up with something that can be done quickly to get all the best answers. Zaremba: Uh-huh. De Weerd: Anything further? Well, we are at a breaking point. Stacy, do you have anything further you need at this point? Kilchenmann: No. I think we got through everything we planned and a little more, so we start again at 3:00 o'clock and we will be starting with IT and HR and, then, we will have -- we will move Planning up that should conclude our day. I don't know if you wanted to go through the General Fund budget -- the whole summary at the end of the day and make adecision -- it would probably be the easiest. Rountree: That would be my preference. De Weerd: That seems to be the preference, yes. Well, thank you. We are adjourned for lunch. (Recess was 11:36 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.) De Weerd: I will go ahead and call this meeting back to order and our -- next up I assume is Bill Nary. Nary: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. My voice hasn't gotten better, so I will try to keep it short and sweet. De Weerd: Brief is good. Nary: Brief is always good. A couple of slides. This is a background. Our vision statement is still the same for the city. Our mission statement as well. And looking forward out to 2025 as a city. Here is our department. You have seen this before. All the different pieces and parts of our department that you have seen, but to keep it shorter I didn't have the wheels turn or anything this time. But one of the things we Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 61 of 89 have talked about for the last couple of years and part of this morning's presentation we talked about reclasses, market adjustments and such. Part of it was reorganization and this is the current structure of our department and for most -- most management techs will tell you this is really not the most efficient way to run things, it just happened to be how things evolved over time with our department. So, essentially, about half of the people that currently are in the report to me and the other half report to Terry. This doesn't -- this works just fine. As we get larger and more diverse in the different things that we do, it's a little bit tougher to keep a handle on things and be, really, the type of leadership that we think would make amore --abetter department and a better place to work and a more efficient department as well. So, the formula is to move to a structure that looks more like this and what it is, just quickly, the legal section would still be reporting to me, as well as Terry, and, then, we would have two other managers, Michelle Albertson, all of you know, Michelle basically heads up our legal support services, she does all of our development agreements, she handles a lot of our contracts and makes sure things get onto the Council, she does our contacts a lot of times with developers with development agreements, but she now would also oversee our support staff. We have done some combining in the last couple of years of things and we have combined some positions together in both support as well as HR functions and, actually, this proposal eliminates one position that we don't think now, based on our workload, that we really have to have, which is an office assistant position. We can combine some of these different duties under one person and Michelle would do that one. And, then, also under our HR side, Crystal. Ritchie has been with us now for a little over a year and a half, would become our HR manager, she would handle the daily operations of HR with an HR generalist, we actually had an opening that closed about a week ago, we had 180 plus applicants to review for the position, people from varieties of different backgrounds, some with no experience, some all the education background experience and some with real life experience. So, we will see what shakes out of that, but HR functions would be handled daily with Crystal and, of course, most of the things that rise to the level that I interject with are things that have risk management implications, termination, suspension, things like that that have liability attached to them anyway. So, that wouldn't change. Mike Tanner -- all of you know Mike. Mike is our -- would become our applications manager. Mike's been our lead developer in a lot of our different programming, one of our award winning programs this year from AIC was one that Mike had developed for police. Mike would oversee the development side, the programming side of IT. Terry would still be in charge of IT as a whole, but he would also oversee, again, the daily things, assistance, administration, network specialists, the tech support, those kinds of things. We feel this will be much more efficient for us as we grow and as the city evolves in being able to handle the various areas that we have. Questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Okay. Nary: That's a little hard to read and that's why it's also in front of you. I'm sorry, Charlie, did you have a questions? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 62 of 89 Rountree: I do. On your proposed organization structure, you identify high school interns. I support the intern concept, but you might want to broaden your horizon in terms of either trade school or college or whatever. To me it would be just student interns and where ever you might find the best candidate. Nary: Well, what we have -- and that's agreat -- that's a great question and what I could say -- we, actually, have three interns currently. Two of them that has been high school. We've had one from the technical charter school for a number of years now, we have been hiring. And, then, our third intern position that we have had is the one that is identified as McKay. McKay is a college student at BSU. McKay had left for awhile and come back and he's still getting his degree at BSU, so even if he's paid under our intern program, McKay is in a field and the programming that we don't necessarily want to change over and turn over yearly, whereas the other intern positions we actually do like to provide that educational opportunity for the interns and so those people turn over more and so McKay's position currently is a college intern, we just don't necessarily want McKay to go away at the end of the school year, we'd like him to stay a little longer. This is a little hard to read up there, but, basically, I can give you -- this is to -- your earlier question was regarding our renewal of our benefits. Again, thanks for the work that we do with Mercer we were able to bring in our benefit package renewal at under what we had planned and under what had been proposed in the budget as they were building the budget early. We had a six percent increase request from Blue Cross. They started at over 11, so -- and comparatively around the marketplace that's avery -- that's avery positive renewal. Other cities have seen renewal requests from Blue Cross between 15 and 25 percent. But because our usage has been limited, they are tagging us with anything right which shows the speculation about the change in health care in this county and they haven't tagged any of that yet, so we have looked at some alternatives in considering in whether to bring some -- a program called HR Aviva, which is a retirement account type of program that you use for health currently or in the future you can roll it over and carry it with you. Our concern was, as a benefits team, was that if we were to implement that with the changes in health care over the next couple of years the potential could be that we would bring forward a program and in a year or two we couldn't fund it and we didn't want to start a program and create an entitlement that we couldn't fund in two or three years. So, it's not going to go away, we are not proposing it this year. We are proposing we are going to still consider -- we are going to monitor it for the next year, there are a couple of cities that have this program in place, they have found it to be successful, have found it a way to slow down their increases a little bit and provide incentive to employees. But we are not ready to take it to that yet. As you see on the slide, when you go back, they did look at two different plan redesigns from Blue Cross that change our deductible, change our -- some of our limits, but don't take our out of pocket -- it doesn't change our out-of-pocket expenses. If we were to change, as you see here, option one, then, the increase would only be 2.8 percent, so it would be about half of what's proposed under our current structure -- De Weerd: Bill, I think you're giving us a lot of credit when you say and you will see, because -- Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 63 of 89 Nary: Well, it's in front of you, too. It's on the paper. So, that one you could probably see better. And, then, if you look at the second option, two, it has actually a one percent decrease, but, again, it raises the deductibles, it raises some of the -- the different costs to the employees. Our benefits team did not recommend that. We wanted to bring it to you. Obviously, it's your decision, but our benefits team had recommended -- and partly because with some -- you have either the philosophy of change a little at a time and people get used to it, or change it when you have to. And the benefits team's view is we don't have to change it, we did plan for it to be greater than this, it's significantly less than what we thought it would be and, therefore, changing it incrementally to folks sometimes is more troublesome and bothersome to employees that just changing it when you have to. So, our recommendation was to maintain benefits at the same level, at the same -- the same deductible that exists today and that's a six percent increase. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, question. For the benefits, have you been -- had a chance to look down the road very far to 2014 when the health care changes kick in and one of the changes it recommends that part-time workers, if they work 20 hours and work for 30 days -- and this would hit a lot of parks -- temporary parks employees where we have to offer benefits or health care benefits and that -- that would impact the bottom line and so -- Nary: Exactly. Well -- and that's why I say, Council Member Hoaglun, you know, we have looked at -- it's also speculative and it -- but everybody's is. We know there is going to be changes that we are going to have to look at a different plan and that was part of the reason why the benefits team did not feel to incrementally change it now, because we could foresee that going down the road change is going happen, but to change it this year a little bit, to change it a little bit more in 2012 and, then, 2013 and, then, 2014 didn't seem like the right feel to folks. But, you're right, we do know there are changes coming and changes coming in January of 2011, but Blue Cross has absorbed those into this rate increase. So, for example, 26 year old dependents are covered -- you're covered until you're 26 as a dependent starting next year, that's an increased cost, but Blue Cross is going to absorb that into that six percent. So, there is a couple of things that are coming. You know, it's going to be very active in the next couple years in trying to see what plan design makes the most sense for the cost that we have -- what we have to provide. Hoaglun: Thanks. Nary: As you see in the other ones are fairly small. Again, these were all lower than anticipated, back to a net zero increase. We didn't have a couple of other -- Blue Cross did offer a program, but it was net zero, so the benefits team didn't recommend that. Willamette Dental was actually looking at a 22 percent increase, but was able to eventually leave it a seven and a half percent increase, that's a new plan we started offering a couple years ago. Allows employees access to orthodontics that aren't offered under the Delta Dental program, but they can get orthodontics through that. We Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 64 of 89 have -- I can't remember the number, I didn't bring it with me, but we have a small number of employees, but it doubles from the first year, so, hopefully, we can get a few more people involved in that one. Blue Cross VSP is our vision program. That was 5.98 percent. We have a fairly small increase compared to the marketplace. Flexible spending program, there was no increase for that. United Heritage Life Insurance, there was no increase for that. Last year they committed to a two year rate, so there was no increase for them. Same with the short-term disability, long-term disability. EAP had a four percent increase. We are seeing a higher usage of that. We did find that having limits has been attractive for employees to be able to use that service and what we found is the average employee is running about three. So, it really has worked out fairly well. Those that have needed a little bit more assistance in that area have been able to get it. Most of the folks have been able to do it at a fairly small number of visits. Last one, PERSI, is one, again, we don't control. PERSI had imposed those -- a higher rate that was effective I think this July. Yeah. This July. So, those would be effective. Talked about the same, but I don't know that they did. I have never heard it. Yeah. They had a discussion earlier about delaying them, but as far as I can tell I have never heard anything different, so, anyway, this was the benefit renewal for the year. This was what was recommended by the benefits team to you and, again, Finance was able to fit that into what was the base budget that's in front of you. I'm going to let Terry talk about our enhancements. We have three enhancements this year for our department, all of them are IT related, so I'm going to let Terry explain them, because he can do that better than me. Paternoster: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, how are you? De Weerd: Hi, Terry. Paternoster: So, as Bill mentioned, we have three enhancements for the IT department and I'll start at the top, just go through each one, if you have any questions feel free to stop me or I can answer them at the end. So, the first one is for a web filtering software. As a city we have a policy that we filter certain web traffic. Currently the way that this actually is implemented is that we have an appliance that we use to filter the web traffic. It's really manual and antiquated in how it works and, basically, what happens is that we go through them and we review logs of past Internet usage and, then, based off of sites that we have seen not in alignment with appropriate use, we actually go through them and we write rules and we block the traffic. This has proved cumbersome and difficult in the past and so what we are looking to do moving forward is to purchase an actual subscription based service that does web filtering for us and so based off these categories you can go and subscribe to it and, then, it determines what's inappropriate and not inappropriate and rather than us going through and defining the rules manually and taking up a lot of staff time, we would just subscribe to a service and so that's the first one, which is the web filtering software. The second one is GIS support and this was a 25,000 dollar enhancement. Initially when we put in for this enhancement we had asked for monies to contract, but after some analysis and some consideration, we changed this to a part-time consulting -- I mean a part-time employee for 25,000 dollars. Based off of talking to Rob Sosnowski„ which is our developer slash GIS programmer, Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 65 of 89 he feels like that we are going to be able to get somebody qualified for 25,000 dollars based off of his experience of working at ITD and some other organizations and using part-time staff and, basically, what this is for is we have a Meridian GIS team that's been put together, I think you guys have been apprised of that. I know Councilman Zaremba has been to a couple of meetings and it's represented by each department within the city and, basically, what that group has come together is to really try to educate and train and make people aware of the opportunities that go on within the GIS system. Along with that there has been about a hundred different opportunities that have been brought to the foreground as things that people would like to see happen, but right now there is not really resources in place to move that along, so what we are hoping to do with this enhancement is to try to get the ball rolling to do a few things, which is, basically, to clean up and migrate some of the passive data we have, to actually do some data creation and, then, also to do some map creation for some of the departments. We are hoping that with this 25,000 dollars that we will be able to get about a thousand hours of part-time service from somebody throughout the city. The last one is the Qwest offer, which is, basically, an active directory auditor. In a nutshell, active director basically is the service that sits at the core that manages user accounts and policies. There is some basic rudimentary tools that come as a default from Microsoft that you get with this, but the challenge that we have is that it doesn't have a lot of add-ins or the additional tools that help you to figure out exactly when something's changed to change that -- what happened and so what we are seeking for with this enhancement, the 6,500 dollars, is to purchase a tool that will help us to be able to audit the changes that have taken place, basically, changes from when someone changes a user account, reset the password, to somebody deleting a set of files on the network. So, I will stand for any questions. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Terry, on that GIS support, I believe we have in another department a request for a GIS support person -- intern in another department and why -- why would we -- why wouldn't one department, which I would think would be yours, would control the GIS -- I mean your committee can do it, but why do we need to have two GIS support people? Paternoster: Well, (think -- Bird: We have two different departments. I know we need a support person. Paternoster: Sure. I think that's a valid question, Councilman Bird. The answer to your question, I think that the services that are going to be provided by the two different departments are different. I mean within the IT department where we are looking at it is we are really looking at the higher structure of the data and so we are trying to make sure that the data actually is clean, that it's functional, the tools are being developed to allow people to better utilize the GIS infrastructure without having to go over it with other tools. My understanding with -- what Public Works is requesting with their GIS intern is, Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 66 of 89 actually, to help get GIS data inside the system, which we are very supportive of, because we do see that that is a necessary function that needs to take place of inputting, you know, wells, manholes, and other information inside the GIS. So, I think it really is two different functions. Bird: Okay. You answered my question. Thank you, Terry. Hoaglun: Terry, to go back to GIS. Can you explain a little more detail for me what you're going to get? You mentioned a thousand hours from this part-time employee at 25 dollars an hour, versus 25 dollars an hour that you can get from a contract service. What's the difference? Is it more the ability to communicate within the department or -- Paternoster: Well, the contract services -- the contract services are actually for GIS support services, are closer -- probably closer to 75 dollars an hour. I know that we bid three different services earlier this year and so we would only get about a third of the number of hours that we would if we would have went with the contractor versus hiring somebody part time. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. De Weerd: Any other questions? Zaremba: Madam Mayor, I will ask one. On the web filtering software, is that something that would be, then, recurring in other years? Paternoster: Yeah. It's -- it is. It's a subscription based service and so it would be something that we would have -- there is a portion of it that's an up front set up fee and, then, there is a portion of the enhancement that is for reoccurring subscription costs for each year. Zaremba: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Nary: The next one is our prosecution and police services contract. This year it's a 4.16 percent increase, so significantly lower than we have seen in the last few years. That was helpful. We are still -- we are still having to wrestle with the issue of doing this as a contract basis or to hire people ourselves. Monetarily right now probably this -- this may be the last year that contractually it makes sense to continue with the service, but anticipation there is another five increase, they are probably going to push it more toward being able to afford to provide the service ourself without paying for an outside person. What 1 wrestle with is having a service like this internally that we don't see these folks. You know, the court still is downtown. There is still issues going on with the court that you're aware of, but court is still going to be held downtown, not here in Meridian and so having folks that don't spend much time here and have to go, downtown, the way the court system is currently set up where there is nine different Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 67 of 89 courtrooms every day, on two different floors of the building, makes it very cumbersome for employees -- basically, to have two employees try to manage that daily, whereas, versus our current contract where Boise city already mans those courtrooms and they don't have to provide additional staff to do that. But I'm going to meet with the administrative judge and the trial court administrator over the next year to see if we can parcel out Meridian's cases in a fashion that would make better sense, to, then, have our own employees be able to go to court, be efficient, spend the time there that's necessary and, then, go back to the office and prepare for the next day. Right now it's such a fractured system and it's geared more towards the city of Boise than it is toward the smaller agencies, it doesn't make sense logistically to try to put people out there that work for us directly. But costwise I think we are probably a year away from the cost being a wash on whether they work for us or work on a contract, just whether or not we can get the courtroom system set up so that it makes it more efficient. I just hate having -- having done that myself in a courthouse that was much smaller and very easy to cover five courtrooms in a two or three hour period, now you have nine courtrooms on two different floors of a very large building and it's not very easy to have people running back and forth. So, that's -- that's the real problem in trying to make it work. If the court will be supportive and give us -- or at least parcel our things out with Garden City, so that way at least two agencies are going to get done efficiently at one time and Boise city and Ada county could be done separately, that would make more sense. The court hasn't seemed to want to do that. I'll see if we can make that happen and I think long term that would make more sense. Here is some different challenges for the future, if you have questions about it. One of the things I wanted to do, because they did take the time to come down here. Could everybody stand up for a second? I don't know if everybody knows the folks that are -- this is a lot of our folks you don't see very often, so wanted to make sure you have a chance to see them. This is almost everybody. Yeah. Almost everybody. So, anyway, I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to see who actually works upstairs, because, like I say, you don't get to see all of them. Things are different. Things that we foresee that as we go forward are going to be challenging for the city and for us as a department to meet. We plan on meeting them. don't think that's an issue for us. If you have questions about anything I'd certainly be happy to answer them. And that's all I have. De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Any questions for Bill at this time? Bird: I have none. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I guess this is as much a philosophy question or practical question. On the prosecution contract with the City of Boise, if we were to bring prosecution in-house we would be talking about probably hiring one specialist, maybe two. My understanding is that what we get with our contract with Boise is a whole range of specialties, little pieces of each different person that has different specialties and I'm -- I wonder whether -- even Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 68 of 89 if the costs were equal, it might not be wiser a little longer to keep that ability to scatter through their employees, instead of having one or two specialists. Nary: And that's a great question, Councilman Zaremba. One of the things we have always looked at is not just providing prosecution efforts, because the city of Boise provides us more than just prosecution. If we only wanted to do prosecution, we could hire two people and a support staff and just go down to the courthouse every day and go to courtrooms and take care of business. But Boise provides our department greater service. We have an on-site prosecutor two days a week who interacts with our police command staff, as well as our line staff, through a-mail and through their presence almost daily. They provide training. They provide on-call response. They provide public records response and so the key is really finding the right folks to be able to do that, because what my intent would be, if we are going to do this internally, then, the police department isn't going to see a change in service, because the service they get is greater than just progression. So, you're right, but what Boise has done is they have assigned a primary attorney to, essentially, be the police attorney. And that person does the police work and the different police issues and policy issues that come up. So, our intent would be is if we were to look internally, we would probably need two prosecutors and a support staff for that person -- or for those prosecutors, as well as a police attorney to provide all the internal services that we get now that, really, the city of Boise kind of absorbs it in their contract. We don't pay directly for that. We really -- the money we pay them monthly is really funding one staff person and two attorneys and it doesn't really fund the ones that come out to the police department. So, we would be looking to recreate the service and finding the right people. There are plenty of people out there that could perform that service for us, as well as prosecutors, it's just finding the right one. Zaremba: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Nary: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Our next item is the Planning Department. Oh, I'm sorry. Tom is going to do streetlights. Barry: Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. We have one enhancement for you in other government. It's a street lighting program enhancement. And as you know our current street light program in budget incorporates only the expenditure of maintenance and operations associated with streetlights, so we have no program currently that allows us to go out on our own and to finance and install new streetlights in areas of the community that streetlights are needed. So, with this enhancement we are making that request and, actually, for the enhancement Tim Kerns, the Public Works utilities and transportation coordinating, will make the pitch to you and run through very quickly a couple of -- two pieces of information related to the enhancement. So, without further adieu, Tim. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 69 of 89 Kerns: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, the enhancement I have for you today is for street lighting for new installations and it's in the amount of 50,000 dollars and this would be for constructing new street lighting facilities in areas of the city that have deficient street lighting. The purpose of this is to help the City of Meridian meet minimum guidance lighting levels that are set by AASHTO, which is, actually, what our city standards are for development. Enhancing street lighting for Meridian helps us, because it increases visibility for both drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians and it's essential for safe movement of traffic. So, the goal of this enhancement is to help us reduce the number of miles of dark corridors that we have in the city by hopefully five percent per -- over afive year period and also to insure that motorists in Meridian, as well as cyclists and pedestrians can get to their -- to and from their destinations within the city in a safe manner. So, just as a little comparison, if we were just strictly looking at our arterial corridors within the city, if we were to apply those standards and come up with the number of lights that we should have that AASHTO recommends and, then, look at how many lights we currently have on these corridors now, we are roughly about 25 percent of where it's recommended that we be. So, there is a lot of room for improvement. But, anyhow, I will keep it brief, so if there is any questions you have specifically relating to this enhancement and how it would go forward, I can answer those questions. De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions? Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. Tim, have -- is there a plan in place already for that first five percent of where they are going or does a plan have to be developed yet? Kerns: It would -- there isn't a set in stone set of roadways that would be the first candidates. However, there is a set of criteria that we could follow for determining what those areas would be. Basically, areas that have noticeable problems with crime, accidents, corridors that lead to school throughout that children travel to school and any corridors that we have identified as being a big benefit to cyclists and that cyclists are currently using, such as Pine, which is probably our main bicycle route, so -- Hoaglun: Thanks. De Weerd: Mr. Bird? Bird: I didn't have any. De Weerd: Okay. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: When I read the request there is certainly reference to meeting AASHTO standards, which, typically, would be applicable to arterials and maybe even collector Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 70 of 89 streets. Has the county not adopted those standards -- not only currently, but previously and is there a way to get them interested in at least on those arterials and major collectors that they participate in this, as opposed to having the city to bear the cost? Kerns: ACRD currently does use the same standards. However, they have -- it's important to remember these standards are a guideline, like many other standards, and they -- ACHD feels that intersections are the only locations where they need to provide such lighting and they believe that, essentially, the lighting we get from the headlights of our cars are good enough for the rest of the street, so that is their current policy that their staff has to abide by and making a change like that to their policy would require, you know, their permission to act to decide that that's important. Rountree: Now, do they take that same position when it's a federal aid project? Kerns: I'm not aware of any federal aid projects where they have included lighting. We have gotten some from ITD, but not from ACHD. Rountree: Okay. Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further? Thank you. Okay. Tom, you might just talk about the increase in the line item under streetlights if you would. You provided a quick response to my question about the increase of -- Barry: Yeah. My understanding, Madam Mayor, is that the increase is related to a general across-the-board ten percent increase associated with energy cost that I think the Finance Department had plugged in on our behalf. So, I think it's as simple and straight forward as that. Todd, did you have anything else? De Weerd: So, Idaho Power is increasing their rate by ten percent? Lavoie: Madam Mayor, the increase to the electricity that I put into the -- particularly 2011 base budget was ten percent based on our conversations that, you know, I had looked into -- or have had -- and data I have looked into historically. Unfortunately, with this current weather pattern, if you talk to Idaho Power, they will tell you one thing. If it was a hot summer there would be a different number. So, it all depends what time and what part of the year you talk to them, but historically I have averaged ten percent for the city budget and so far to date we have done pretty well with those estimates. De Weerd: Well, at some point I we that, instead of paying it to Idaho efficiency strategies, so that that fly our long term bottom line and costs take a look at that and start that Ion long term strategy that we started to ald really like to see the city be maybe proactive in 'ower, I'd like to see us maybe invest in energy rtens with maybe capital investment, but affecting and maintenance. So, it would be good for us to I range with energy efficiency block grants and the move towards. This is an ideal area. I just hate to Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 71 of 89 see ten percent increases across the board every year and not have any control over that, so -- Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Some of that work is being done in Public Works now. Looking forward in the future I don't know if you want more information now or if we can provide you information in a-mail later, but Mr. Kerns, who was just speaking with you, evaluated maintenance options with Idaho Power to also renegotiate some of the contract rates associated with us taking over maintenance of certain streetlights and also we have some LED and other types of alternative lighting that we are piloting currently to really determine, if, in fact, we can, from a capital and operating costs, to bring back some efficiencies, which might lessen those costs in the long term. De Weerd: That's great. Thank you. Okay. Council, if there is nothing further on this item, we will move to Planning. Rountree: Madam Mayor, before we go. For Todd or -- where do I find out that item in the summary? De Weerd: Which item? Rountree: The streetlight enhancement. De Weerd: Under other government. Kilchenmann: Well, actually, they have their own department. They are not really under other government, they are like -- they are behind -- they are behind Public Works. Zaremba: Third one down on the third row. Kilchenmann: Yeah. They have their own tab. They are in alphabetical order. Todd has put all of the departments in alphabetical order, so -- Rountree: I'm talking request for budget enhancement. Street lighting. Bird: Here is street lighting right here. That's the enhancements, Charlie, on the new one. Right here. De Weerd: Yeah. That's it. Rountree: So, where do I find it on the summary? Bird: Right here. Bottom line. Rountree: No. That's -- okay. Okay. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 72 of 89 Friedman: Madam Mayor -- De Weerd: Hi, Pete. Friedman: -- Council Members. This is going to be a team effort. I'm going to give you the presentation of our overall FY-10 budget and Caleb will be providing the details on the enhancements that we are requesting. Bird: Which year are you in? Friedman: Well, we are currently in the 2010, but we are looking for 2011. What would like to do is kind of just briefly go over our approach for next year's budget. It was, really, a three part approach with minimal enhancements, reduced operating expenses, and reduced personnel costs. Our personnel costs are being reduced through three actions. We are, actually, going to be receiving some funds back fro Department of Energy for administration based on our energy efficiency block grant and those funds just go into operations. In fact, they are specifically not allowed for grant administration. They have to be used for the operation of the department. And we are splitting those funds with Finance, although we are taking the lion's share. Secondly, we currently have an unfilled full-time assistant planner's position in the budget and we are proposing to reduce that to half time. And, then, as you know, Matt's going to be leaving us, so rather than refill that associate planner position, we split it into two part- time positions, therefore, we were achieving some savings from the salary end and we certainly were achieving savings, because it will be part time, there will be no benefits for either one of those positions. So, overall our planning budget reductions are going to be, essentially, nine percent in personnel -- nine percent personnel and 60 percent reduction in operating costs. The enhancements, which Caleb is going to go into include a HUD consolidated plan of 20,000 dollars. The fields public participation plan and it's really not an enhancement, these are equipment replacements in the amount of 5,400 dollars. We originally had planned to have that, but that was withdrawn and that there has been consideration of coming back and taking another look at the South Meridian planning area, to take a look at that area that we left as future -- future planning referral area, but we have withdrawn that, so we really are just coming to you with these two enhancements and one replacement. So, at this point I will turn it over to Caleb and he's going to go over those enhancements. Hood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I have got the two enhancements that Pete just mentioned and I'm going to go into a little bit of detail with you on. The planning department is requesting 20,000 dollars for FY-11 for consultant services to update the city's CDBG consolidated plan, also known as the con plan. This will be a one time expense request. I want to just give you a little bit of background and a summary of the con plan. Our current consolidated plan was approved by HUD in 2007 and covered the program years 2007 through '11. So, it's approved, essentially, through the fall of 2012. The required components of the consolidated plan that need to be updated and which we believe are appropriate for contacting -- or contracting out some expertise, rather than handling in-house, include things like a homeless inventory, Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 73 of 89 the needs and assessment for homelessness. Housing needs, including public housing needs. Special needs populations. Housing market analysis and analysis of any barriers to affordable housing. This consultant would help gather the information I just mentioned and recommend priorities and objectives and strategies to include in the plan, which staff would, then, put together. Pete mentioned the enhancement and it becomes even more comparative, because Matt is leaving and we are in the process of hiring apart-time CDBG administrator, rather than afull-time employee. Matt was involved in other planning related activities and whereas a new hire will focus solely on CDBG administration. The administrator must keep next year's activities moving forward, maintain compliance with other aspects of the program and also work to complete on the other required components of the con plan that we aren't contracting out. So, there are other duties that our part-time employee will be doing. Staff does not receive the funding. We will need to rely on existing resources we can find, we are just not confident we can do it in house and to meet HUD's criteria and get our con plan certified by them. So, that is the first request and I will pause for any questions you may have. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Hoaglun: Caleb, real quick. If we go for a contract for that, do they come with a guarantee that it will be accepted by or certified by HUD or is that kind of a hire the best you can and keep your fingers crossed. Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Hoaglun, you know, that's a good question. I don't know if they could say that there are no guaranteed certification and we would be hard pressed to get something from HUD saying that if you hire that consultant we will certify your plan. But think we can probably write something into the contract that says you will deliver these things and there may be some tweaking. Towards the end of this process there is some back and forth, then, with HUD. They may ask for some additional information, we can respond in kind of some of that back a forth, but I think we can handle probably most of that in house. Hoaglun: All right. Thanks. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further on that? Okay. Thank you. Hood: And, then, the second enhancement is for 15,000 dollars for, again, consultant services to conduct a public participation effort, which they quote holders in the northwest. I have got a map here that I will show you real quick. Bound by Can-Ada, Chinden, Ustick, and Black Cat. The request was originally for 30,000 dollars, but we have scaled that back to 15,000 dollars. Again, this is one we don't have the resources in-house to conduct the involved public participation efforts without the consulting assistance. The public outreach effort includes an education component, as well as developing a vision for an ag and research related business options in the area. We could use this as an opportunity for dialogue with property owners and other stake holders in the area for what and where land uses could and should be used in this area. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 74 of 89 This would be done in conjunction with the city's economic development administrator, with the long-term goal for the enhancement being the creative sustainable economic base, they have diversified and targeted businesses and industry growth through this specific area plan. So, that is the synopsis of our second enhancement request for FY- 11. De Weerd: Thank you, Caleb. Questions from Council? Bird: I have nothing right now. De Weerd: Thank you. Hood: So, Madam Mayor, Council Members, just to summarize our budget request for the next fiscal year, our total planning department enhancements and replacements is approximately 40,595 dollars, but our overall reductions to last year's budget is 88,408 dollars. And that's the conclusion of our presentation and I think I would be happy to answer any questions. De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions? Bird: Madam Mayo? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Does this -- this is more of a statement than anything else. In the first place -- don't want to have you take it personally, I think the world of all you employees and stuff, but as I look over the chart, our revenue in that department is -- is to the point that we should only -- well, in the past if you go to the chart you should probably only have about five or six full-time employees. We have, I believe, seven and a half, eight employees now. I -- and, then, we are asking to out source stuff because we don't have time when the chart surely -- and, people, you can pat yourself on the back, because in '06, '07, and '05 we did a tremendous job with very little employees. But now -- and this is the biggest thing we have -- or I have, explaining to our taxpayers, why -- why the applications are down, but our employees are still up. And I'd be the first to tell you I don't want to -- I won't, but (wouldn't -- I don't want to see anybody laid off, but (want -- don't know why we have to have out sourced stuff when we have got that type of staff. Canning: Madam Mayor, may I? Councilman Bird -- and you're correct when you look at those first charts with the stack compared to total applications from the beginning of the 2000s on it does look as if we should lay off more people, but I do want to remind you that we do a lot more functions than we did in 2001. We have taken over the community development block grant program from the attorney's office. We have added a design review program. Our transportation efforts we consolidated throughout the city and have taken over from the Public Works department. So, there is two full- time folks there that are working on programs that weren't even there before. So, that's part of it. Really, in current planning we have four people. We have Pete, Sonya, Bill, Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 75 of 89 and Christi in processing those applications and I think if you look at it that way, that there is consistency. With regard to the expertise needed, the consolidated plan housing needs assessment by -- by moving to a part-time position it helps to do one thing, it helps to mainly make sure we don't spend more than we are getting for the administration of that grant. It levels that out. But it also means that I have a new employee who has got a great manual to work with, because Matt's leaving us with a really useful manual, but she will have limited time and a steep learning curve in front of her and in -- maybe not her. Whoever it is. Him or her. And, unfortunately, it comes at the same time where we have to get this consolidated plan done. I think that that money -- we can use grant administration money for that one, so I think that that one's particularly important, because I'm not sure we could get through HUD effectively with the time and the resources we are going to have for that person. The field district, the money for that, we did reduce it from 30 to 15 thousand and perhaps you're right, perhaps we could make use of our own staff and resources for that one. When we did the south Meridian area plan and had the help from Linda Friese-Martin, I felt like that organization really helped us to reach out to those homeowners in a way I wouldn't have known how to do and I thought that that expertise was particularly helpful. It's not a planning expertise, as much as it was a public out reach and participation and that's what I was hoping to do with those funds. So, that's my thinking behind the two enhancements. Bird: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Any further questions from Council? Hoaglun: Just to make sure I understand this, Anna, as I'm looking at the budgets over the last several fiscal years -- I mean from -- one from FY-09, almost -- the 929,000, reduced that last year to 713, or a 23 percent reduction, and, then, you are going down to 686, which is another almost four percent reduction in personnel costs and, then, operating costs some similar numbers where it actually, from '08 to '09, there was a 57 percent drop, down 15 percent, and now another 17 percent decrease. And I just want to be sure on transfers, to make sure I understand that right, because every now and then I run into things that are still new to me. And now those are transfers coming from General Fund and building permits? That might be a question for Todd. Canning: Maybe the Finance Department -- Kilchenmann: We can answer. The transfers that -- the transfers have changed every year, so I might have Todd -- or Rita help -- well, Rita, is actually the transfer expert, she makes them by hand every -- every year. Right now what we are doing is we transfer 25 percent of the clerk's office into the Planning Department and, then, we transfer three people from the Planning Department into the General Fund and we -- do we transfer the legals? And we transfer 25 percent of legal into the Planning Department. So, those are the transfers. And, then, we have also -- we have kind of encouraged the Planning Department, because they became -- they had several city dues in them, like -- I can't remember exactly what they were, but we have moved all kind of general dues Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 76 of 89 into general government. So, we tried to get it down to the basic -- just basic planning functions that they do and so -- but we are still doing those legal clerk transfers, which, you know, those are philosophical, too, and probably open to discussion at some point if we really need to do those. In the end it all nets out when we add the two funds together, but -- Hoaglun: Well, what about the pair to be named later? I mean what do we do with that? I mean -- Kilchenmann: The what? Hoaglun: The pair to be named later in the trade of -- Kilchenmann: That would be -- that would be half grant fund and half General Fund. Hoaglun: Okay. I think I did -- in all seriousness I think I did follow some of that in going around, so that -- and Iguess -- is there a reason, then, why from '09 -- there was a big drop from '09 to '10 and, then, from '10 we are going back up to '11. There has got to be some movement within there that caused that to drop like that. Is there something that you see or -- Kilchenmann: I believe in '09 we actually eliminated some positions. Todd, do you want to answer that? He's looking. You have to come up here. Canning: The three transfers. Kilchenmann: Oh. Canning: Last year the decision was made to move three of the positions from Development Services Fund to the General Fund under the -- the theory that there are some planning functions that regardless of -- if another application walked in upstairs that you would still need to do -- you know, still need to get out sign permits, things like that. So, even if another house or another commercial building wasn't built, there is still some planning functions that need to go on. So, there is my salary, as well as the administrative assistant and the -- one of the comp plan, I think it's officially it's Caleb's position, were moved to the General Fund. So, we still need to go fight with ACHD over it. We still need to -- they are just basic functions that need to go on. Hoaglun: Okay. Friedman: We still have, also, our -- we are also a service organization, so folks are still calling and walking through the door needing special attention, so -- Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Kilchenmann: Did that answer your question? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 77 of 89 Hoaglun: I think so. Yeah. That helped to figure out that -- why there was that V, if you will, in that transfer, too. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council? Bird: I have nothing, Mayor. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, we are well ahead of schedule. Council, we are at the end of today's presentations. I guess I would open it up for discussion. Do you want to have a quick break first or what would you like? Anyone need a break? Okay. If not, we can move into any discussion, additional information that you might need. Rountree: So, are you seeking comments on what we have heard so far? De Weerd: Yes. Rountree: Because we are not through this. De Weerd: No. We don't need to discuss anything -- Bird: We are through the General Fund. De Weerd: Yeah. Rountree: We are through with the General Fund. De Weerd: Well, not the entire General Fund. You did hear the Building Department. Rountree: Yeah. I know. But of what we have heard. De Weerd: Yes. Bird: Of what we have heard. De Weerd: Of what we have heard. Rountree: So, why don't we start on page one of the summary and work through those -- those items on there and -- De Weerd: Okay. Rountree: I guess if we can only get specifically to line items and replacements and et cetera, we can go to those particular budget items. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 78 of 89 De Weerd: If there is any questions regarding the capital replacements that are listed on this sheet, certainly, we can have the appropriate director address those. Rountree: Well, I'll start, I guess, if nobody else wants to. We have got the three thousand dollars that we have already identified in parks and that's in the capital replacement piece, so that's already been accounted for. Difference in trucks. And that's -- that's the only thing that I noted that we got specific on in terms of capital replacements. In terms of the enhancements, we haven't gotten through with all of Other Government. We haven't gotten through -- I guess we just haven't seen all Other Government. I have not seen anything on project management software. Haven't had the Ten Mile piece explained to us yet and probably going to eliminate the Franklin Road landscape piece in Other Government. But, still, unless somebody wants to talk to us about that. Lavoie: Actually, Council Member Rountree, Steve did present both of those enhancements to the Ten Mile and the Franklin at the back end of his presentation. think they were like slides number 12 and number 13. Rountree: As maintenance. These are as it relates to design and landscape irrigation. Lavoie: There was actually a third one called Ten Mile maintenance, which we discussed as well. So, all three enhancements were presented by Steve earlier today. The two outstanding Other Government enhancements that have not been presented to Council would be the project management software and the comprehensive storm water program, which will be presented by the Public Works engineering division tomorrow. Rountree: So -- Lavoie: I can answer any questions that -- Rountree: Under Other Government I have budget enhancement requests that are not the same budget enhancement requests that are in parks and recreation as it relates to Ten Mile and Franklin. So, which ones are we talking about? De Weerd: They should be one and the same. Rountree: Okay. If they are one and the same, then, that's -- Bird: They are one and the same. Rountree: Okay. Bird: I think we discussed that. Rountree: They are titled differently, but -- Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 79 of 89 Bird: They are titled different, I'm with you, but it says -- and project management software is from Public Works, which we will hear tomorrow. Rountree: Okay. Bird: But those two -- the storm water and the other stuff that's coming out of General Fund, not -- they are being presented by Public Works, but coming out of General Fund. De Weerd: It's a split. The storm water retention program -- or retention program, our storm water program, several years ago was discussed when -- I don't know if it was Brad or Len that brought it in front of us and they felt it was a General Fund program. I think that when Tom Barry came in there was a discussion and a belief that it was a slit responsibility between the Enterprise Fund and the General Fund and a discussion that that program should be 50 percent in each fund to the responsibility of this comprehensive storm water program. Mr. Barry will be discussing that program tomorrow. We felt it was important to hear at -- in a comprehensive request, so you know what the -- the responsibility to each fund will be and what that program is. In regards to the project management software program, it is a benefit to the Enterprise system, as well as the Finance Department. The Finance Department has supported this software to better track projects and true costs and I believe that this discussion has been in front of you on a separate agenda. I believe -- I don't remember if it was with the building department or not, but he will be discussing that tomorrow in his piece, because he has a portion of both of those items. Bird: Madam Mayor? Go ahead. Or you go ahead, Charlie. Rountree: Well, that's fine, we will finish that particular item tomorrow. De Weerd: Okay. Rountree: But on the stuff that we talked about today -- and the Franklin Road landscaping is out. De Weerd: That's correct. Rountree: And we will hear more about comprehensive storm water program. Bird: Ten Mile south landscaping and irrigation. Rountree: Ten Mile south landscaping and irrigation -- we did talk about that and I'm okay with that, as long as we are not talking about two different things here. De Weerd: No. Bird: Are you getting that out or Steve? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 80 of 89 Siddoway: Madam Mayor and Councilman Rountree, it was number 12 in my presentation, titled Ten Mile south Meridian landscape and irrigation. It's where we talk about the medians and whether to just do the sleeving and the rock mulch and not do any irrigation or planting. Bird: That's the 28,000, though, wasn't it? Siddoway: That's the 28,000. If we were to do -- Bird: And do all that. Siddoway: Correct. Bird: Okay. Siddoway: If we did planting and irrigation the total was 106,965. Bird: And we did want to -- you wanted to keep that in; right? Siddoway: Yes. De Weerd: Just -- yeah. Just the 28 five. Siddoway: Correct. Rountree: Okay. Going down that particular list, we -- and we have just heard in terms of new street lights, I'm still struggling with that one. If -- if our street provider says the streetlights they provide are sufficient to meet safe standards and we don't have any particular information right now before us in terms of a plan or approach or categorization, we are just going to pop 50,000 dollars in there to do streetlights, I'd just as soon not do that right now. De Weerd: Mr. Rountree, I appreciate that comment and it has -- it was a topic of conversation at the directors meeting as well and I believe there was a commitment between the police department and this program to focus on areas that have code enforcement and safety issues and that those would be a first and foremost priority. There have been some initial discussions, but no specific locations to -- to be tied to this. It was a reduced amount. The original amount requested was 75,000 and, again, it was to look at those high priority problem areas of our city that safety lighting was -- was the paramount motivating driver behind it. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: And that plan -- Mr. Bird. That plan would come to Council before any dollars were -- could be expended. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 81 of 89 Bird: I think you answered mine. I was going to ask Chief Lavey what -- what the darkness on the lights -- our street and stuff was -- did he see a problem in certain areas or -- or -- you know, I -- because I'm like Councilman Rountree, Ihave -- in these times I have a hard time putting that kind of money out for streetlights and I mean we don't have no idea where they are going to go, how many there are going to go or -- Lavey: Madam Mayor, Mr. Bird, I have to say the chief is kind of in the dark on that one. We brought that up as part of the 75,000 dollars and we just kind of came to a compromise as far as reducing that down. I am personally not aware of any specific area that we have targeted and say we absolutely need lights in this place. If I go back and ask my staff, I'm sure I can come up with that list. I'm sure I can come up with a list that's -- that's higher than the amount that we got here. It's just a matter of priority and it's a matter of time. We fully understand the reluctance right now and it's a matter of getting by and we will get by. It would be nice to have some funds that if we saw a major need we could do it now, but we understand also priorities and we just will go to whoever we are giving orders, so -- Bird: Thank you. Rountree: To continue on, I'm not sure that Todd intended the -- we think we have a problem, we don't know what it is, we haven't identified it, but we are going to budget 50,000 dollars. I appreciate the concern for safety and I think it probably is a real issue. Let's spend the money to identify the issue, so we can quantify what the problem is and if we have to to do a budget amendment to address an immediate problem, let's do it that way, but it seems to me if we are trying to get to a budget that addresses the needs that we have, it's these kinds of guesses based on some functions that we have got to get away from. But we mainly had the revenue there. If we have aneed -- not a desire and not a guess, we can address them. Iwould rather be on the low in terms of budgeting particularly in these times. If we need the money for the staff to get expertise in identifying if this was a problem or where the problems are, that's the item here. In my opinion. So, I'm not saying there isn't an issue out there, I'm just saying we haven't identified it and we are just guessing at a number. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree, Iwould --Iwould agree with you on that. When we had the discussion at the directors meeting that's -- that's been a strong sentiment is tying requests to the plans and I guess I was under the impression that a plan was being pulled together and I don't think that is what we heard today. Yes, Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Iwould comment that I believe there are two elements to this and in the capital element that would involve going out and putting new streetlights in places where they currently are not, I agree with what has already been said, but I think there is a smaller element currently listed at 2,400 dollars that is about replacing bulbs in existing lights and maybe fixing a fixture or somebody drives their car into it that should remain. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 82 of 89 De Weerd: No. That is -- that is only tied to the new enhancement request. It's ongoing. Zaremba: Okay. So, there is another maintenance plan -- Bird: Under streetlights there is a -- Zaremba: Okay. Lavey: Madam Mayor? Zaremba: Now that you mention that, I think I have seen that. De Weerd: Yes. Lavey: I would like to point out, too, when we had that discussion in the directors meeting I also was under the understanding that we had already identified areas and it was just today that I heard that we had not. So, we might want to question Mr. Barry tomorrow, because I thought there was identified areas, a plan in place, and that merely they just hadn't prioritized what those areas were. So, you know, I'm good with either way, too, but at least I was led to believe that we had already identified those areas, we just hadn't prioritized them and I could be wrong. Rountree: That would be great. That makes it make sense if we do. Lavey: You know, we have been struggling to make sense and I really thought we were making sense, so to hear today that we didn't have a plan really didn't spark with what we had been doing. That it didn't exist. Rountree: If that's the only issue you got in this thing, you guys have done a superb job. Lavey: No guarantees. Bird: We got the 5,240. We can always put it back in. Rountree: So, I guess at this point Iwould -- I'm inclined to reduce that. If there is some money needed to identify and refine the plan, that's one thing. If we have a plan what are going to do with the 52,000. Otherwise, take it out. Moving on through, my observations -- Zaremba: Madam Mayor, on that subject Tim has returned. He might be able to offer some enlightenment. Rountree: Well -- Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 83 of 89 De Weerd: Why don't we get to -- let's get through this list and, then, maybe go back. Zaremba: Okay. All right. Rountree: I'm still struggling with the city arborist at this point in time. It seems -- you know, we are looking for a tree pruner and an administrator. I'm not sure that I can get my head around that. I see the work's there. I see a lot of it could be contract work. Don't see any analysis whether or not we save money or not, but that's an area where we could probably put some people to work in the community that are not necessarily city employees by contract. We are going to add -- if that's where we are taking the three -- three thousand truck reduction on the capital replacement and we are adding in -- what is it, 300,000 for land acquisition with the maintenance shop and in the police -- just for conversation. These are just for conversation. I'm suggesting that we reduce by one the requested FTEs for animal control. My inclination is to reduce them both and at least recommend that we don't have shifts, maybe we can put -- have somebody available at least on holidays or some of the off hours. Those are the only things picked up on when I heard the discussions and made notes. So, pretty clean, in my opinion. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I can agree wholeheartedly with what we just discussed, the deletion of the Franklin Road streetlights, unless we get a better explanation tomorrow. I think the fire department was at the bare minimum. I have a problem right now of hiring a city arborist, because I don't know whether we need an administrator or whether we need a worker. Well, both of them are workers, but I mean some guy that goes out and works with his hands. And on the place I would definitely only consider one new animal control officer at this point right now. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, we need discussion on one item and that's the maintenance shop that parks has and I have seen it and it's inadequate for -- especially going forward what we are doing. But I just want to bring out the thought that once we commit to this path of finding a site and building a maintenance shop currently -- I don't know how many parks you have, Steve, but there is a few and I know out here in the plaza they are contracted to do -- to do the work, but once we have that facility, if we ever want to go back and say,-you know, maybe we ought to contract out all our maintenance of our parks when we got a facility in place, that's going to -- you know, Council is going to look at it and say, well, gee, what do we do with the infrastructure, we have already built this, I mean this is committing towards -- now, there may be some things that will make sense to contract out and I don't know if you want to weigh in on this, Steve, but this is kind of going forward and saying from this point forward on the whole maintenance will be done by city employees and maybe there will be special cases here, but I think that's where we are going with this, Steve. Do you want to weigh in on that? Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 84 of 89 Siddoway: I think the vision for moving forward is much the same as it is today. On the small sites, like City Hall, like the north curve, like some of the ACHD storm retention ponds, median landscaping, et cetera, we -- we contract those sites out and we would need to contract those sites out. When the sites get larger, neighborhood park size and up, which we have half a dozen neighborhood parks, let's see, four community parks and, then, two regional parks, it's actually more cost efficient to contract -- to maintain those through staff instead of contracted labor. So, that vision that we have been operating on under this past decade, we would continue to operate on in the future. Rountree: Madam Mayor, I'd like to comment on that and I agree with Steve a hundred percent. Even if you have a small park in like a neighborhood plot, it's more efficient, more economical, to contract out that neighborhood park -- small park or small parcel, whether it be a median or a lawn somewhere and try to do that with your larger park and it's better to do your larger park with your own staff for not only the reasons that Steve mentioned, but you also have city employees dealing with the public directly and better customer service, as opposed to a contractor who could care less and you get your expectations met and if you tell your guys you want it clean and green, get it clean and green. You don't have to go run down the contractor and say, well, you got it green, but you forgot to get it clean. And that's what you have to do continually if you're contracting it out. There are some specialized areas where contracting out is probably the best way to go, particularly things like pest control if you have to have licensed applicators and equipment and things you have to balance and do I have staff time, do I have resources to man the equipment, et cetera. So, in terms of just general overall maintenance and operation of a park system, I agree with Steve, he took on the big and the little ones you oversee, but you do those contract services. De Weerd: I think what would be helpful, Steve, as you move forward into the new budget year, that you share the concept plan and some of the areas that you have identified that are needed in this -- this new complex before you purchase or start construction documents, that you bring that to Council and have the conversation about what you found, what you feel your needs are, and that sort of thing. Siddoway: What the areas are that we maintain from that site. De Weerd: Yes. Hoaglun: Yeah. I think, Councilman Rountree, I agree with your assessment of it, but just want to be sure that parks, as they start down that path, all of a sudden aren't whipsawed back to say, well, maybe we need to rethink this, because there is a commitment here, both monetarily and time that if that's what we are going to commit to, we need to continue moving forward. So, I don't want us to not think about the other options out there and, then, kind of pull the rug out from underneath you. De Weerd: Well, I think one thing that the Parks Department has done is done an analysis on where it's more cost efficient to contract out certain areas and to do it ourselves and you have that almost down to a science and that's greatly appreciated. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 85 of 89 Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: One other thing and I would say that I don't believe you will ever be without employees in the parks, nor will you ever be without contracted labor. As you get bigger you have both. And so I -- under capital requests of the parks and rec, I think we can go another year with that '89 GMC one ton utility truck, if the rest of you agree with me. And if Mike and Elroy and Steve agree with me we can get one more year out of it. Siddoway: My response is, yes, we can get another year out of it. We do have a ten year capital replacement program and we have tried to balance that as much we can across the ten years, so knowing it is needed, we just need to know that we are delaying it and there would be a large year in a future year where more replacements would be needed, but we -- if this isn't the year to do it -- Bird: If this truck is only used as much it's used, Ithink -- I think we can get another year out of it, Steve, and I think it's 21 years old now, so the ten year is gone, so -- Siddoway: Yes, it is 21 years old. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: We just don't want to keep throwing money at it. Rountree: I agree. I missed part of that conversation, but I think it was David that mentioned the idea of looking at a trailer. Siddoway: Yeah. We will investigate that as well. Rountree: It seems to me that most contractors you see these days, with the exception of heavy equipment -- people with heavy equipment business, that have a truck specialized in dealing with heavy equipment, they do everything out of a trailer and I would suspect that we could probably trade this '89 vehicle for a respectable heavy duty enclosed trailer and maybe even some shelves and roll outs that would accommodate your equipment and not have a whole lot of extra money in it. But I don't know for sure, but I think that would be a lot more handy if you have got a couple of three-quarter ton pickups and that could back up to that and take it to whichever site it needs to go to. As you have indicated, that one vehicle doesn't get that many miles on it. It wears out because it's sitting there. Siddoway: We -- I agree that we can look at the -- the trailer idea, but I'm not sure -- we'd still need something to tow that trailer and the other ones are already programmed -- I guess we need to look at how often and see if we can do a smaller truck and a trailer for less than the large truck would be. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 86 of 89 Rountree: Probably explore that Siddoway: Okay. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Well, I guess I would ask Steve if he could come back maybe with that discussion point, if you can look into that this evening or bring that -- or tomorrow morning bring that to Council -- tomorrow afternoon when they reconvene, as well if you could bring back more information on the city arborist and some of the key questions and talking points that Council has had in regards to this position versus contract labor and when -- when is kind of that -- that breaking point of when it's needed as the kind of park comes on and those kind of questions. But I think you need to huddle and have a conversation, you and your staff, to help develop those questions and bring back some additional information for Council. Siddoway: Okay. And when are you reconvening on that tomorrow? 1:00 o'clock? De Weerd: We reconvene at 1:00 o'clock. Siddoway: Okay. Will do. Thank you. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Just to continue the discussion, I would chime in that I agree with much of what Councilman Rountree and Councilman Bird have said, but I would like to defend the arborist. I -- as early as I was on the Council and became the liaison to the Parks Department, Doug Strong and Elroy were mentioning at that time that this -- this is a position that was coming. In the three or four years even since, then, we have made an even greater investment in the trees that the city owns and locating them and I do believe that at some point -- and I feel we are reaching that point and certainly the day that Kleiner Park comes online, which may be halfway or three-quarters of the way through next fiscal year '11, which is the one we are talking about, that that position will be necessary in order to not only catalog, but to preserve the investment that's gone into all the trees that we will have by then. So, not that I expect it to be a position that has to be filled October 1st, but I would. like to depend that it does remain an item in the budget as an enhancement available to be hired sometime mid fiscal year '11 and I do believe -- I'm sure Steve will give us more explanation of it tomorrow as you have asked, but my opinion from having thought about it for several years is that it will be some administrative, it will be some hands-on, it will be some management. I mean they will get other people involved in -- I mean that person will get other people involved and I -- my thought at the moment is to be supportive of keeping that enhancement in. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 87 of 89 De Weerd: You know, I guess one other thing as you come back tomorrow -- Mr. Bird had mentioned something earlier about the Kleiner Park and the need to have staff on as that develops and it would go the same to the arborist position in terms of if we are thinking about a thousand trees being planted for the long term health of those trees we want to make sure they are planted per standards and a plan and those kind of things, so as you bring further information back the need for an arborist in this budget year versus the next budget year, that might be a talking point to address as well. Siddoway: Thank you. De Weerd: Anything further, Council, on the parks aspect? I think that's kind of where we -- Bird: I think we beat up on him enough, haven't we? De Weerd: There was -- there was no issues, as I understand it, in the fire department and there was one talking piece in the police department with Mr. Rountree's favorite topic of animal control. Certainly -- maybe not so glamorous, but, certainly, needed as we have a growing dog population and I think I said it several meeting -- several months ago when we had an initial discussion on the dog park, their owners are taxpayers, too, and it's not just the dog owners that land -- that we are chastising, maybe, and suggesting that they should be more responsible, it's those dogs at large and how it impacts the other citizens in our community, not just the dog owners, and so the burden that we place on sworn officers that could be out doing other things, I think we need to have that conversation in regards to an area that we haven't spent a whole lot of attention to, because it hasn't been one of our favorite topics. Lavey: Madam Mayor, Council, I'd just like to point out -- and this is just for information is all, because you know where I stand on it. Fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, police officers cover all animal control issues in the city and that's barring both -- if our employees are currently working, not sick, not at training, not at education. So, it just comes down to at what point in time do we say the time is right? Do we do it in-house? Do we outsource? We have already talked to you about the potential problems we run into outsourcing and we go from there. So, I would -- I'll settle for whatever I can get, but that's where it stands and we wouldn't have brought it forward if we didn't think it was needed and we will respect your decisions from there. Bird: Sleep on it. De Weerd: Any other -- any other information needed from Council on anything that you have heard today? Bird: Not from me. Rountree: Madam Mayor, I just want to compliment the directors and the finance people for putting together the budget and you as well. I think it's a great budget. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 88 of 89 Certainly we have found a few things to pick on, but to me they are not -- they are not inconsequential, but they are not of a magnitude that creates any kind of difficulty on my part for moving forward with the budget and budget process. I think we have it refined to a point where it is working and we are getting a terrific product to review and, hopefully, we can at some point in time figure out how to get some public input on it. De Weerd: Well, you know, we have talked about traveling shows and we did try a town hall meeting that was not so well attended. It's just not glamorous. Bird: Get one department upset and we can finally have somebody at the public hearing. De Weerd: Yeah. We have experienced that before. Bird: In my 13 years that was the only one year that we had anybody at the public hearing. De Weerd: We even had picketers. Bird: They didn't like Architectural Glass throwing the union out. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I would chime in and say I appreciate the process and support the process. Have been pleased with it. I don't know whether this is a suggestion or just a question, but one thing that might be helpful is perhaps one more column that says something like this is a split project. When we have things where -- either a capital expense or an employee expense comes out of two different departments, it's a little hard to track that and maybe another column that says shared with Public Works or shared with Planning or something like that. Kilchenmann: That's a very good idea, because it's hard to track it. So, we will work on that. Zaremba: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. If there is nothing further, Council, we have 25 minutes before our next meeting. I would entertain a motion to close today's meeting and -- or do we just -- Holman: Madam Mayor, we noticed them all as separate meetings. De Weerd: Okay. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Meridian City Council - FY2011 Budget Hearing July 6, 2010 Page 89 of 89 Rountree: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. De Weerd: We will see you at 5:00. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 4:34 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) -s~l-n- MAYOR T~C6IIMY DE WEERD ~'•'~'~~T ESQ 9Q9 UST 1S'! • P.Z` ~: //~~''~% AUNTY • ~~~~~~~`\~ //~~~~/UII~ X11\111\\\ ~~~_~_1: y r u DATE APPROVED HOLMAN, CITY CLERK