Wow, don’t show up 10 minutes late on budget night! I walked in during amendment one, they had already finished the other 7 agenda items. This is kinda quick and dirty, mostly unedited but spellchecked! 🙂
Amendment 1 Building Inspection Zoning Administrative Assistant Alder Verveer (41,000) 0 (0.44)
Add $62,000 in Building Inspection to create a Zoning Administrative Assistant position to assist with the development review process. Increase assumed revenue from Building Permits by $103,000 through increasing the Zoning Review Fee and initiating an Early Start Permit fee; the proposed fee changes are subject to Common Council approval of an ordinance revision approving the proposed modifications.
I missed that start of this one, sorry. The discussion is about needing a person to review plans so buildings don’t end up 3 feet over where they were proposed to be and so they can get the plans reviewed more quickly. They have many plans that need to be corrected to match what was approved by the plan commission.
Amendment 2 Civil Rights Racial Equity & Social Justice- Staffing and Training Alder McKinney Alder Eskrich, Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Carter 100,000 0 1.08
Add $100,000 to the Department of Civil Rights to support Racial Equity and Social Justice (RESJ). These funds will be used for the creation of a 1.0 FTE Program Assistant 1 ($70,000) and increased funding for training and programming ($30,000).
Barbara McKinney has a substitute that is passed out. She explains her amendment it to add $115,000 (150,000?) to support RESJI to create 1.0 FTE program assistant 1 at $70,000, a reclassification and increase funding for training and programming ($30,000). She reads the description from her new amendment and I’m unclear what the changes were. This will result in 2 full time positions and add $51,000 for training and non-personnel expenses.
Mayor asks for them to withdraw the initial amendment.
Marsha Rummel asks what the additional costs of $40,000 would be spent on. They have only $20,000 to train now and with more money they will be able to train more people, especially those on 2nd and 3rd shift. They have 33 facilitators and not all of them can train, only 7 are skilled in training. All 33 need to be up and running. They can’t do the equity analysis without dedicated teams and she can’t do them because she is only one person and often has to schedule them much later.
David Ahrens asks why we would re-classify the position?
McKinney says its one of our number on goals and the person in this position needs to be at the table, in the room, to hear the needs of managers and to formulate plans to move forward.
Ahrens asks if she can’t get in the room because of her classification?
McKinney says its her understanding but defers the question to the DCR director.
Norm Davis says that they can meet with directors and departments. He says that it might be appropriate to study the position to see if she is doing work at a higher level than where she is classified and that might be the case here.
Ahrens asks if the money for the re-class is here?
Someone said yes. They struggle to find the language in the amendment. They say its embedded in the salary. Lots of mumbling off mic.
Ahrens asks the Mayor about putting a re-class in the budget before a study has been done.
Mayor Paul Soglin says that its been 48 years in he was first familiar with teams in the City of Madison where people at all levels work together. He says that how someone is ranked has not changed how people are treated. He says that he doesn’t accept the argument that you need a certain status to talk to someone in the department or another department to be able to communicate effectively.
McKinney says that Racial Equity piece under the Civil Rights Department is responsible for coordinating across all staff levels and the training. It is her opinion that we have to make a commitment to racial equity as a paramount goal for City government and in doing they have to look at the responsibilities of the coordinator. She says that reclassification will look at it, this will cause and evaluation of responsibilities and compare to other positions. It is imperative that we say this is the position and these are the duties and that is why she wants to reclassify.
Sarah Eskrich appreciates where this amendment is coming from, but she is concerned about the council involving themselves in the classification of positions. She thinks this is a place to highlight the discussion about roles of people in the government. This is not a precedent they want to set and move forward with lightly.
Shiva Bidar Sielaff asks about the process to review positions and what triggers a reclassification.
Mayor says HR isn’t here. Bidar says you are probably familiar. Mayor says that it is triggered when the department head thinks that the scope of the job is no longer classification of the incumbent. If HR agrees that there is a need then they look at it. Bidar says that seems consistent and there is a process. Mayor says there are usually 2 situations where they work outside their class – one is where there is disorganization (other workers not doing what they should be) or that the job has morphed. Sometimes you create a new position, sometimes they reclassify.
Motion passes.
Amendment 3 Community Development Division Increase funding for Childcare Stabilization Alder Eskrich Alder Bidar-Sielaff 75,000 0 0.81
Increase the funding for the Childcare Stabilization Program by $75,000 from $110,000 to $185,000.
Eskrich says that Denise DeMarb articulated well the need for this amendment and hopes they will support it and thanks DeMarb for her work.
Motion passes.
Amendment 4 Community Development Division Neighborhood Planner Alder Eskrich Alder Bidar-Sielaff (46,500) 0 (0.50)
Reduce funding for the Neighborhood Planning position within the Community Development Division to assume the position will be filled for half of 2018. Also, update the functions of this position to include the following duties: Implementing the CDD Funding Process Study Recommendations, including a focus on neighborhood center development and funding streams. Classification of the position will be subject to City policies and procedures.
Eskrich moves adoption of item 4. She says this is a clarification around the narrative to get back to the original intent. She says we have a lot of work to do and we need to fill this position. She asks for their support.
McKinney agrees with Eskrich on the need to thoroughly look at the position. She also asked the director to look at what a community urban planner would do. She says that there is a lot of work going on around community space and we need someone with expertise to engage the community. She does not have a substitute item, but she is working to design what the position will look like. There were two failed attempts to recruit. There are needs and the library process sets the tone for what we are looking for. She doesn’t have a substitute but she will be encouraging the director and HR to have this position funded.
Matt Phair asks Jim O’Keefe about the half year position – when do you think you will fill the position? He worries that we are too early or too late.
O’Keefe says they have been working with planning and have a better idea of what they want, he thinks they could hire someone mid-year, and maybe more quickly than that.
Motion passes.
Amendment 5 Community Development Division Beacon Day Shelter Alder Wood Alder McKinney, Alder Eskrich, Alder Rummel, Alder Phair 40,000 0 0.43
Increase City funding for the Beacon Day Resource Center by $40,000 from $110,000 to $150,000 annually. This funding will be ongoing.
I spoke against – they didn’t go through the same RFP process as others and are using the political process to get funded. If they compared this $40,000 to the other proposals this summer, is this where they would spend the money?
Zach Wood asks Jim O’Keefe why they didn’t need to go through the RFP process.
Jim O’Keefe says that this was different and this first appeared in the 2013 budget and has been in the budget and it has been treated differently. The results will be presented to council on October 31st.
Marsha Rummel asks Jim if there is any new information about storage. What is our plan?
O’Keefe says that $135,000 was set aside for the day resource center and a portion of that funding was part of the $135,000 and having that funding was conditioned on having storage. Decisions were made by the county and the provider not to have storage and they withdrew $25,000 of support and that is how they got to the funding. The $25,000 was combined with the request for proposals but there were no viable proposals to provide storage. The current operation will come to an end on December 31st and there are no alternatives in place. They have been spending time analyzing the use of the space and figuring out how to make accommodations. He says they might be able to use St. Vinny’s. Rummel asks where it is located. Off Fish Hatchery Rd.
Verveer asks if there was any plans for long term storage. Have there been talks about building a separate storage building? O’Keefe says Catholic Charities is well aware of the need and we fought long and hard to include it, but the decision was made in deference to the implications that storage in that area might not allow the approval of a conditional use permit so it didn’t delay the facility coming on line. He says they are aware of the need and hopes that soon we will return our attention to find a solution.
Zach Wood says he has had conversations and he isn’t aware of the outcomes.
Verveer asks if Wood would be opposed to having an amendment. Wood says that he would like to have storage and he understands the obstacles and he thinks there is no reason why its not there. He says it would be ok to urge it, but not require it.
Verveer makes a motion to urge Catholic Charities to implement overnight storage at the Beacon day resource center.
O’Keefe says that $25,000 that was offered to the Beacon originally and that money has been reallocated unless the council allocates more money.
There is not objection to incorporating the amendment.
McKinney says that overnight storage is critical and she wants to make sure Catholic Charities will consider this, she would be remiss if they didn’t remember the earlier conversations about storage and showers, etc.
Denise DeMarb says its been a while since she was in the conversation. In the many meetings she had, the county never intended to have overnight storage at this facility. AS it exists there is not space and there are concerns that needed to be worked out, they need personnel to staff it, there are concerns about when it will be open. What we are talking about is sleeping bags and their worldly goods and its not just during the day that they need to have things stored, it might be second shift. There are many things to be worked out, but at not time was there any intent to have overnight storage at this location. It would be too expensive. If it comes back its not going to be $25,000 and the county won’t chip in.
Rummel says that in her conversations with neighborhood and interested groups and it was always raised for overnight storage, they always said right now. They never said never, but they also didn’t promise anything. We pushed them when the architect was working on it. They were willing over time to look at it but there is nothing short term.
Motion passes.
Amendment 6 Community Development Division Children Savings Account Exploration Alder Rummel Alder McKinney, Alder Cheeks 30,000 0 0.32
Appropriate $30,000 within the Community Development Division-Community Support Services (Early Childcare Unit) to secure a consultant contract to draft a project plan establishing Children’s Savings Accounts for all kindergarten students in Madison’s public schools to attend college or continuing education. Funding for the consultant will be one-time in 2018.
Rummel moves adoption.
Mo Cheeks says that there has been discussion over decades about this, only 4% of families have savings accounts for their children. THere has been discussion about creating a savings account at day for for college. This has happened throughout the nation, to ensure that the community has a stake in the child. This amendment is a consultant to develop a project plan with best practices that all the relevant parties could create in our community. The research is quite impressive – children with college savings accounts are 4 times more likely to go to college and 3 times more likely to graduate – when controlling for socioeconomic factors. Staff can manage the contract and he’d appreciate their support to see if Madison can be first in Wisconsin to do this, Milwaukee has been exploring it at well.
Eskrich appreciates this amendment but she has concerns about where we are at in the budget and she appreciates that the budget is where we can work on our priorities but she is concerned about capacity to take on this work or if the legislative analyst could assist in this.
O’Keefe says that his answer would be different if they had to do the work, but they are being asked to oversee a contract and oversee the RFP process. He says they have the ability to do that. The staff says that it seems feasible, she doesn’t have the expertise and no one on the staff does and given the work they are doing now, it would be a big undertaking if they did it themselves.
Eskrich asks that she has concerns about the work being done outside our processes. She says there is a lot of work going on and she hopes that in the future the work would come through the staff.
Ahrens asks about discussions with the Madison School District. Cheeks says yes he has talked with them. Ahrens asks what the city’s role is if the School District will do this work? Ahrens also asks about them just doing it. Cheeks says that he spoke with Superintendent Cheatam and they have been doing work on it, there was some level of appetite to do it internally and that was preferable until they dug into the precedent of it. The role the school district plays is not the choice that all the other communities have done. Ahrens asks if its the municipalities that do this? Cheeks says yes, in partnership with the School District. Ahrens asks about the boundaries of the city and the school district being the same. Cheeks says that is something that they will look at. Cheeks says that at the end of the day these are our kids. Ahrens says that we are a city and we would be managing bank accounts for kids from Verona. Cheeks says that is what they will look at.
McKinney says she was excited about this and she recently heard that over 50% of the School District are kids of color and we just passed a resolution to support and stabilize childcare. She says that when we look at a commitment to create strong pathways for our students and this is a companion. This is a was for people to see college as a possibility for their children. Like we have invested money for violence prevention and other things, we can begin to build hope that our kids can go to college. She asks her colleagues to evaluate the possibilities.
Motion passes.
Amendment 7 Direct Appropriations Transgender-Inclusive Health Benefits Alder Verveer 0 0 0.00
Add language to Health Insurance-Domestic Partnerships within Supplemental Compensation to include Transgender-Inclusive Health Benefits. Under this program the City will provide a reimbursement benefit for employees to receive transition-related health care.
Verveer says that they discussed this with HR staff and we were able to briefly offer these benefits but they are no longer available to do the interpretation of the ACA, so this would be a program to apply for a reimbursement like they used to do for domestic partnership benefits. He is adding to the mayor’s budget language on domestic partnerships.
Motion passes.
Amendment 8 Economic Development Division Holding costs for City-Owned Property Mayor Soglin 0 30,000 0.00
Appropriate $30,000 from the General Land Acquisition Fund for holding costs associated with city-owned property in the Owl Creek neighborhood.
Rummel moves adoption.
Eskrich asks why this wasn’t in the original executive budget. Schmiedicke says it was an oversight, it should have been.
McKinney asks what holding costs are. Schmiedicke says that the city holds property to sell to a developer (snow removal, moving lawn, appraisals)
Motion passes.
Amendment 9 Engineering Engineering – Facilities Management Positions Mayor Soglin Alder Eskrich 0 0 0.00
Create two new FTEs in Engineering Division-Facilities Management for work associated with facility capital projects planned in the 2018 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). The two newly created positions are a 1.0 FTE Engineer 1 and a 1.0 FTE Program Assistant 1. Additionally, authorize a double fill for 1.0 FTE Engineer 3 with an Architect 3 for all of 2018. Reduce the hourly wages budget by $13,335. The estimated cost of these positions is $219,213; no additional appropriation is required, costs associated with the positions will be absorbed by adjusting salary allocations to the capital budget.
Eskrich moves adoption.
No discussion, motion passes.
Amendment 10 Engineering Creation of Environmental Sustainability Project Lead Alder Eskrich Alder DeMarb, Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Wood 0 0 0.00
Create a 1.0 FTE Environmental Sustainability Projects Lead within the Engineering Division. No additional appropriation is required, this position will be fully charged to the Sustainability Improvement program in the Engineering-Facilities Management Capital Budget.
McKinney asks for staff to talk more about the position.
Eskrich says that this is to support the work to get to 100% renewable energy/zero carbon footprint. Jeanne Hoffman is at capacity, and we made a commitment like for racial and social justice equity we made a commitment to this and she hopes they support this. She thanks DeMarb for her work and the committee.
Rob Phillips says that the Facilities and Sustainability section is very heavily weighted to facilities, but Jeanne Hoffman has taken on a lot of initiatives to go in the direction we want to go in the city. We could use more help in this area and there is a lot this position could do – including research and data analysis and we are always receptive to more help to meet our goals.
McKinney says that we forget that constituents are watching us and that explanation is helpful. WE increase the workload without looking at their sustainability and this does that.
Ahrens is opposed to the amendment. The problem is that this comes from our sustainability fund and we are using it for other purposes, we took $400,000 out of the fund for consultants and now we are taking another $100,000. There will be little money to tackle the expensive task to improve our city’s footprint. He’d asks that they money for this come out of the general fund.
DeMarb agrees, however, it was explained to her that during the time the plan is being worked on this is appropriate to use the capital budget. Once the plan is adopted they should take the funding out of the operating budget. Wood moves that at the time the consultants work is adopted the next year the position comes from the operating budget – however he never said a word, DeMarb and the Mayor made the motion for him.
Motion passes.
Amendment 11 Fire Special Teams Training Alder Skidmore 55,335 0 0.60
Appropriate $55,335 for Special Teams Training in the Fire Department’s Operating Budget.
Skidmore says that there were three items that Chief Davis requested and he did this on their behalf and he defers to the Chief.
Eskrich asks why this wasn’t in the budget, it appeared to be. The chief refers to their budget analyst. She says that this wasn’t included in the budget, she says that the training will need overtime – previous contracts had premium pay for the teams and they increased from 1% to 3%.
Bidar asks what the cost of overtime was in 2017? She says $45,000. Bidar asks if it was not budgeted separately. She says that they have extra overtime due to many reasons but this is on of them.
Motion passes.
Amendment 12 Fire Fire Data Analyst Position Alder Skidmore Alder DeMarb 62,460 0 0.67
Add $64,460 in the Fire Department’s budget to create a 1.0 FTE Data Analyst position.
Skidmore once again says he defers to the chief. The Chief says they worked with Public Health and one of the issues the police, fire and public health have is real time data. He requests the position to beef up the data analysis. There are a lot of areas EMS crosses over in drug and alcohol abuse and violence. He says they have tried to use public health staff but there is a huge delay and public health helped them come up with this position.
McKinney asks if the position could be in public health? She says there will be shared data gathering, would this position fit there. The Chief says that they arm wrestled over the idea and they think its a better fit in fire, cuz of the real time impacts. They will better be able to work with people in their field if they are housed in fire. If they are not in our office that would be a challenge.
McKinney asks a question I got distracted and didn’t hear the answer.
Rummel asks what our approach is, to give everyone a data analyst? Schmiedicke says that the they will have a position to look at how we apply data, this position works directly with the data, same as with the public health positions. He says they will find they want to look at this more comprehensively to decide if we have enough staff capacity for this. Some places there is more resources than in others. WE have a lot of tools and data and in strategic management we are trying to look at what data we have and the gaps to see if it gets us where we want. Laura says she worked with HR to look at the strengths of the data analysts and we don’t have a job spec or series of positions that are in this area. She says that we should be forward thinking about how we recruit for these positions so they can work with data needs as it arises. Do we need a career series for a data analyst?
Phair says that position seems to be what they want to be doing in public health, so why put this in the fire department. Janelle Heinrich says that there are internal operations and quality assurance piece to look at data internally and we haven’t looked at it in the bigger picture. The Chief won the arm wrestling. She says this will help build capacity. Public health has one person in their department that looks at data but they can’t do fire’s work too. The partnership is in how they use the data. Phair says we need a data system.
Eskrich is concerned about the position and how it is coming about. She says there is several issues they are talking about and they need time to step back and continue the work Laura Larson highlighted about personnel and technology to make sure we have the right people and the right tools. She doesn’t support it at this time, not because there isn’t a need, She says they need to be intentional and strategic here. She says there is amazing technology available to look at these problems, she says we are in the middle of a transition and opportunity to do that strategically and in a smart way. They should give the staff the time to do that. We need shared resources to do that and we don’t know where that position should dit. We should have the larger discussions first. She hopes her colleagues won’t support it.
DeMarb says there is a lot of excitement to look at the data in other ways and there are leaders bringing this over and people are excited to look at their operations differently to make sure they are achieving their mission for our residents. They are in an uncomfortable in between of where we need to go and not quite sure or able to staff it up because we don’t have all the answers. There are probably lots of items that could be looked at throughout the city from the lens of data and are we really doing what we think we are going. She says that the group that belongs in the finance department. She sponsored the amendment, because she appreciates the work fire is doing and their enthusiasm to do better, and she will defer to the finance committee.
Bidar supports fire’s enthusiasm too, but they need to look at data analysts throughout the city and the platforms they use. We have a silo’ed way of doing things and she thinks that if we continue to create the positions this way we will perpetuate things we are trying to move away from. She says we need to pause and look at the bigger picture. She says that departments have data and want it analyzed but we don’t always know what we want to come out of it. She encourages them to continue to explore other platforms.
Rummel says the fire department is cutting edge in the way they want to encourage and she says that they need more paramedics too and it would be great to have a mental health ambulance and that is more direct service. She says the work is exciting and hopes finance puts this in teh priority bucket moving forward.
Skidmore appreciates the support for fire and data and appreciation for collaboration and cooperation. WE need more study and information but there is a need now because of the need for paramedics. Who will take ownership over this?
Laura Larson says that the work is happening around how to incorporate data into our culture is well underway, they have been working on the strategic planning portion to look at outcomes and they are looking at organizational infrastructure and in 2018 they will be looking at refining the services and connecting them to outcomes and establishing metrics. They will be going through that process in 2018 which will be a critical year.
McKinney asks staff to explain the next time we will have a checkpoint on this project, when will we get an update. Larson says that scheduling efforts are underway.
Motion fails unanimously.
Amendment 13 Fire Fire Recruitment Process Alder Skidmore 65,775 0 0.71
Appropriate $65,775 for applicant recruiting, testing, interviews, and pre-employment expenses in the Fire Department budget.
Skidmore moves approval. He refers to the chief again. He defers to the budget person. She says very little that doesn’t just state the obvious.
Eskrich asks about the amendments on fire and is wondering why these items were left out.
Schmiedicke says that the amendments were not brought up during the budget process.
Eskrich says that she didn’t hear the need and wants to know why they didn’t hear about it. Chief says it was an oversight on his part. When Rita Johnson ran it she could run the shell game and now we need a line item for it.
Motion passes – no no’s.
Amendment 14 Information Technology Eliminate Communications Manager Alder Eskrich Alder DeMarb, Alder Rummel, Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Wood (90,000) 0 (0.97)
Remove $90,000 (and the corresponding FTE) from the Information Technology budget for the creation of a Communications Manager position.
Eskrich moves adoption. She says they are adding a lot of positions and this was a position to remove to pay for the others. She says she engaged with the mayor during the hearings and she thinks there is capacity of the staff to work with departments that don’t have the positions. She says this is a cost savings in line with their priorities.
Mayor asks if they can outline the process they went through.
Kronenberger says that they met with PIOs (public information officers) and there is a gap and over time they need someone to coordinate services, there are huge gaps. They did an analysis of the content and level of writing agencies are using and they need to look at how to hit the level to best communicate to the public. Also the expanded use of social media and need for public engagement and crisis management communications is growing. They think IT is the right place for this.
Mark Clear wants to retain the position, it is half baked, but that’s ok there is work to be done and there is time. He is not even sure that IT is the right place. He says the communications are silo’ed and we have no strategy and he thinks this is a good start to work on it. He says there might need to be more than just coordination of the PIOs. He urges them not to support the amendment.
McKinney says there is no job description for the position and no strategic communication system. They had a conversation about the reclassification. Creating a position without knowing the needs seems premature.
Bidar also asks them to support the amendment. She says we need a little fiscal restraint and make some choices. In the priority list of all priorities this would be nice to have, but at the point it is at right now – not very clear – she does not think they are ready for it. She doesn’t want to create the silos where there are PIOs in some departments and not others. Other organizations have departments of communications where the PIOs have a portfolio of various departments. We have disaster plans and we have ways to communicate and she thinks that might have come across wrong to the public.
Mayor asks if there is objection to speak from the chair – no objections. He says this is not half baked or not thought out, that is an insult of the PIOs and the IT department. We have multiple job descriptions for PIOs an we will use that . Initially this PIO will serve all the departments, many of which are desperate, that don’t have one. This is for all the other departments and that experience will let us know if we need another officer. Careful thought was given to the location or the position – because of other assets in that department. Mayor says we are doing a major disservice to the public for those departments that don’t have a PIO – Civil Rights, Planning, Economic Development. He says that if there is one thing he didn’t understand when he returned to office it was the nature of communications in this new age of social media and the change in the traditional press and how they cover them. The function has changed significantly, we have to do it ourselves and that is why we have incrementally added PIOs to the critical agencies of the city. We need an individual to do this for all the other agencies, it is a well thought out plan, we know how to write the job description and classify it.
DeMarb asks if they considered a Department of Communication. Mayor says yes. DeMarb asks why they didn’t do that. Mayor says because of the disruption that it would have caused. He says 4 agencies have PIOs (police, fire, parks, water) and they seem fully occupied with serving those agencies. They felt it was less disruptive to add a person and see how it works instead of reorganization where things are going well. All of that was considered. They looked at other cities, this was the least disruptive.
Roll Call: 5 ayes, 1 no (I missed who, couldn’t hear)
Amendment 15 Mayor Reduce Travel & Training Budget in Mayor’s Office Alder Rummel* Alder Ahrens (30,000) 0 (0.32)
Reduce the travel and training budget within the Mayor’s Office by $30,000 from $57,000 to $27,000.
Ahrens says that he looked through all the travel budgets and he found that the disparity between the current and expended. He says in other departments there are discrepancies of 300% and $100,000 between what is spent and budgeted. He says its real money, water utility is consistently budgeted at 3 xs what they spend, streets is 5 times, mayor is 2 times. This is a characteristic of our budgeting and he thinks it needs to be looked at. There is a problem in a substantial issue in many departments. He would like to put this on the table. He says he’ll withdraw it. Rummel won’t make the motion and wants the body to vote it down.
Eskrich votes for it. Rummel joins her, the rest vote no and it fails.
Amendment 16 Parking Residential Parking Permit Program Alder Verveer Alder Wood 0 0 0.00
Add a highlight to the Parking Utility’s budget: The 2018 Executive Budget increases the Parking Utility’s salary and benefit expenses ($395,000) to reflect the cost of the Parking Enforcement Officers (Police employees) enforcing the Residential Parking Permit Program and other time restriction parking regulations. These costs have historically been reflected in the Police Department’s budget. To fully fund the program, including enforcement, by permit revenue the annual permit fee would need to increase from $28 to $105. Any increase would require an ordinance change adopted by the Common Council.
Verveer moves adoption. He says that the parking utility gift to the police department budget enforces not only RP3 but street sweeping, snow plowing and 48 hour storage. He plans to keep working on this issue – he won’t support the increase to $105.
Motion passes.
Amendment 17 Parks Landscape Architect Mayor Soglin Alder Verveer 0 0 0.00
Add 1.0 FTE Landscape Architect position in the Parks Division operating budget and reallocate the percentages charged to capital for employees in the Planning and Development team resulting in no additional levy support for the position. No additional appropriation is required.
No discussion, passes.
Amendment 18 Police Naloxone Replacement Dispensers Alder Eskrich Alder DeMarb, Alder Verveer, Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Wood, Alder Palm, Alder Martin, Alder Ahrens, Alder Clear 10,000 0 0.11
Appropriate $10,000 for individual dispensers of naloxone in the Police Department Medical Supplies budget.
Eskrich moves adoption.
McKinney supports this, but she wants to know if we have data on this that can be shared. She says the overdoses seems like not enough. Should we be moving in a direction.
Chief Sue Williams says they have administered over 50 doses in 2017. The money in this amendment will help replenish as well as the stuff that expires and they think this will be an ongoing need.
McKinney asks about the epidemic that we are facing as a city and a nation.
Mayor says we are part of a regional coalition and there will be a conference the 1st Friday in November at American Family and he asks Bidar to expand.
Bidar says that Chief Davis has been working on this too, She says we can see it in the daily calls. She says this budget amendment adds this to the base budget. She says unfortunately if this is not enough we may need to add more and she welcomes the police to ask for more.
Motion passes.
Amendment 19 Police Increase City Match for COPS Grant Alder Skidmore Alder Verveer, Alder McKinney, Alder Ahrens 400,000 0 4.31
Appropriate $400,000 to fully fund the City match for 15 Police Officer positions requested in a 2017 COPS Hiring grant application, should the grant be awarded. The proposed amendment reflects the local match for the requested grant; should the grant be awarded the Police Department’s grant budget will be amended accordingly to reflect the full award.
Skidmore moves approval. He says that this would fund the 15 officers match – it was only partially funded in the Mayor’s budget. We don’t have to spend the funds if they don’t get the grant. This amount is below the full amount required so we won’t be supplanting the funds. It is not spendable right now, the council would have to take another action to allocate this. If they decide to defer half of them, we might. This doesn’t require them to spend the money but allocates it if needed.
Eskrich moves referral of the amendment to council. Mayor seems confused, says it is not in order. He suggests is that they defeat the motion and reintroduce it at the time the budget is before the council. She says that she wants to refer because it is an important discussion with a big fiscal impact and they might hear about the grant any day. She wants to have the discussion when they ahve full info before them. WE might not hear by the council meeting, but she says it is more responsible to wait for more information.
Wood asks how close they are to the levy limit, Schmiedicke says $532,000 roughly.
Clear asks Chief Williams if it is safer to get the grant if we aren’t doing anything to supplant or is it far enough into the process that it doesn’t matter. Williams says the current amendment and the executive budget does not put the grant in jeopardy. They do anticipate hearing something any day, but it could be mid-November.
Rummel says that she is struggling with item 20 being proposed for elimination. She says she thinks we need the police officers but she wants to support the violence prevention. If we don’t get the grant we will need to revisit it. If we support this then we are saying we don’t want to support violence prevention efforts in public health and that seems like a clear need.
Skidmore says that he appreciates Clear’s questions and they worked hard to make sure the don’t give the appearance of supplanting. He says he wants to show a commitment to hiring the officers. He doesn’t want this to be an either or, but a both/and. He says he supports the next amendment as well. He feels strongly that we need to do both violence prevention and properly equipped staff for police. He is struggling with how much to spend and we haven’t been talking about debt service. He says this is a struggle. He supports this and thinks its important to move it forward.
Bidar says that she doesn’t want it inferred about support if people want it discussed at council. She says they should wait for more info at council. She thinks the whole council should discuss it. There is a reason why we have the council take on these discussions. WE don’t know if there will be additional amendments by other council members. If we know by then we may have council members who might want to do more, she just wants more information, this is the most significant amendment taken up today and wants it discussed at council.
McKinney says 19 & 20 are pressing items, one thing is clear that sending a clear message related to the needs of the city and our constituents and she wants to be clear this is for patrol officers and that we have the opportunity to make the decisions later. She says the message is we listened to constituents and we will get to re-visit it and to debate it. The message from the finance committee to night is that we recognize the need and as a body we can move forward and say we have heard you. For this body to pass this amendment is critically important to let the constituents know we are supporting this.
Phair agrees with Bidar, this is a huge discussion that would play out better at the council, if you do vote on this, he suggests they table it to discuss number 20 first.
Rebecca Kemble asks about supplanting – what happens to the money if we don’t get the grant. Schmiedicke says that it is at the discretion of the council. Kemble asks if we would do an amendment to remove it? He says yes. The mayor jumps in and says if they don’t get the grant and do nothing, then the money can’t be spent because the grant hasn’t been met, but the $350,000 will have eaten up the levy. Does the council want to use the levy room on anther amendment.
Rummel says that she lives in an odd district and most of the discussion about police is about gun violence and they are afraid because it is random. She is not hearing we need more police, she is not hearing we need 15 or 23 officers, but that we need to address the violence, and she thinks that is in number 20. She wants them to understand that dilemma. She thinks she supports the officers, but she thinks she is agreeing the whole council should take it up.
Skidmore says that he hears that we need more patrol officers. They have had a 70% increase in gun violence and we are at a record number of homicides and the efforts to address the chronic offenders worked and if they hold the officers hostage they are sending a strong message. He urges to move the motion forward and not hold it hostage to something else.
DeMarb says its insulting that a member of the council would insinuate that we don’t thin the police are important, it is horribly insulting to her. What she says is being asked is for referral so they can all talk about it. No one is saying to cut the department. She doesn’t see any harm in kicking this forward to twhole council and remains insulted that someone would insinuate our police department is not important to us.
McKinney says we are on item 19 and 18 items before us we have made a decision to fund or not fund and now we are down to 19 and 20 and we are wrestling back and forth. If we move forward with amendment 19, will there be an opportunity to discuss how we spend this money. Mayor says yes. She says moving it forward does not limit a detailed and robust discussion later. There is confusion about if that is true or not . .. Mayor says that he won’t argue, but tell them the conclusion of his thinking, he says that when the opportunity came to make the COPS grant application he asked a bunch of questions and the most important part was if they had to accept it all in one year. He says he was looking 2 – 3 years out and spending on all aspects of the city because he didn’t want the police eating it all up. He supported the grant because they could accept it over a few years. He put in his budget a portion of the grant hoping for a phasing, that is what is in the budget. Now, its getting late in the grant announcement phase for the COPS program and hopefully we will have an answer before the council acts on the budget. None of us can make an accurate prediction because its a new administration and they are operating at their own pace and have their own values. There are several possibilities of what might happen – we might get the entire grant, we might get a portion, we may not have an announcement until after the council acts and we could get rejected – before or after the council acts. He says its complicated, given that, that is why he put what he did in the executive budget and then they can make a decision. They could debate this for hours and hours because each of us has a different position on all the various outcomes.
Rummel says if this is adopted and its embedded in the budget, then an alder would have to make an amendment to discuss it. If adopted it goes to sleep unless someone takes an action.
McKinney, Skidmore and Verveer vote aye, mayor doesn’t vote, motion fails. Rummel, Eskrich and Wood vote no.
Amendment 20 Public Health Remove Funding for Violence Prevention Program Alder Eskrich Alder DeMarb, Alder McKinney, Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Carter (250,000) 0 (2.69)
Remove $250,000 of City General Fund appropriation for the Violence Prevention Program from Public Health.
Eskrich make the amendment. She says that she appreciates the discussion they are having and this work is not easy. The decisions are challenging and don’t feel great. She supports pursuing the public health positions to address violence, this amendment is to realistically assess when they need the money to support those initiatives coming out of this work. She says that the money won’t be put out the door in 2018 – just last week they decided to spend the money from last year. From a timeline perspective, they aren’t able to put $250,000 out the door in 2018. She wants to remove it in 2018. She says that the money in the budget for public health is not cost allocated with the county. That is not good precedent. She says there are other buckets supporting violence prevention. She says when they start doing the work we will need to figure out how to fund it and figure out who are partners are. She supports the public health work, but she wants them to support the responsible approach to budgeting.
Mayor says that many of us that opposed the merger of City and County Health Department and one of the issue was that we might not have alignment in programs. He says that Neighborhood Resource Teams were not supported by the county but they eventually established Joining Forces for families. Not all the money is equally distributed between the city and county. That is why they can each do their own funding and take care of their problems which in our case are particularly urban – we are the urban core of the county. The hiring of these positions comes under the county procedure and it can take 9 months or longer. That is why he talked to the county executive about this and got assurances that the procedure would be expedited since its our money and our proggram. A year ago the council basically endorsed a portion of the 15 point plan, there was no structure, no analysis, and he had to figure out how to implement it. They go great cooperation between agencies, including county, and we develoepd the rapid response. It was done with the leadership of Gloria Reyes in his office, city and county staff and it wasn’t easy. Once they got it launced and started going for the expenditure of the funds, they ran into strong difference, but they implemented it. Simultaneous they looked at other programs as models to emulate, they found programs with both – they didn’t like the Cartive use of data, and if you’re going to do ti community based, they decided a critical missing oppononet was staff in public health to administer the program and a data expert. A portion of that recommendaiton is this deletion in 20. This program is going to be operational next year. THis program is oging to be able to take us to alevel of not jsut responding to shots fired but to working with the individuals who are likely to participate in those acitvities and this is designed to stop the shootings before they occur based on what you id’d a year ago and take it to a more sophisticated level, to meet the expectiation of treating violence as a public health issue. WE could be here for years if we are waiting for the county to join in. Yes he is concerned about how the service will be delivered outside of the City, but if we sit here and wait we are losing time and lives and he doesn’t believe that we are so cynical to believe we can’t have this operational by next summer. THere is no reason not to trust the exectuive and his commitment to hire in an expedited process. We can fill this position in months, in the county they freeze the position and hold it to see what happens while it is vacant and that is why it takes 9 months. The county doesn’t need to do that in this case. He urges rejection, that we keep our commitment and we find an effective reoslutiont o provivde a safetr community and cut our long term expenses to hire more officers.
Rummel passes.
McKinney has a substitute to reduce the amendment from $0 to $50,000. Removing $200,000. She says the reason she wants to speak to it is that she attended a conference and it is clear that treating violence as a health issue is a prioritiy, the $400,000 she recused hereself is proactive. She says this is proactive to the causes of violence in our community. She talked to the public health director and if they remove all the money she won’t be able to do the things they expect. Where does that budget come from to build colaitions, if there is no budget. What do you need ot move forward to do evidence based decision making. By removing all the funding how will they present informationso they can make decisions if we don’t provide support to do that. She asks Heinrich where the funds would come from.
Heinrich says that they don’t have funds for community engagement in the way they see the need to build a coalition of partners. To host meetings, interpreters, room space, etc. Generally that funding comes from grants.
McKinney says that she agrees that funding the $250,000 will not happen, but at least let us provide Public Health with the support for them to do the very in depth community engagement to bring back what we need and move public health to the center of the discussion. It is a deep dive and we are at the tipping point of really looking at this. If we are going to look at violence as a public issue they need support.
Phair says that there is a lot of agreement in the room about the issue. If not a full consensus its close to support public health in being the center of violence prevention work. Whatever we do with this amendment it doesn’t speak to the support of public health working on violence prevention. They are ready to do this work, its going to be difficult. It’s buildling trust, its neighborhoods and high level stakeholder work. Whether they are to the point where they want to put a plan togehter, we are getting to teh end of 2018. The money in the budget is the cart before the horse. How would they do that work, how would it work with Community Development work? Maybe we’ll get outside money? There are so many questions and there is no reason to worry about $250,000. THis isn’t putting this off, its doing it the right way. He hopes that they understand that if the original amendment passses it is supporting public health even more. He says its extending the work of last year and will help create a sustainable model for violence prevention. He thinks the department can do the work with the resources they have currently, he wouldn’t support either amendment. He says they can come back for a budget amendment in the future if they need to. Support the Mayor’s initiative.
Bidar urges them to vote against this amendment and vote to remove the $250,000. She says that the council has to approve the comprehenisve program. The underlying amendment is sayind that they can’t hire two new positions, have them get up to speed, engage steakholders at the grass roots level, the grass top level and the mainstream services. She says that they will need to create policies and have shared data at various levels. She says that violence prevention is a pubic health issue, but its not possible to create the trust that is needed in 6 – 8 months and have a comprehensive plan done with them and then get the money out the door. She says two full time staff is a huge commitment, and we’ve already made that decision since no one removed the two full time positions. Their work is bringing people together and be the convenor. YOu know that is a lot of work and its tough work. She says this is not going to happen. Space and interpreters are not needed for $50,000. A department of this size can absorb the minimal cost that will not be $50,000. If this is done and before us in August she will be delighted and will make the biggest argument for the amendment. It’s not until everyoone is around the table that you know what you need. WEshouldn’t be thowing money around it not responsbile to the taxpayers. When the comprehensive plan is done, she hopes that the room is full of supporters.
DeMarb thanks the mayor for including it in his buget. EAch and every one of us are concerned about violence in the community. HOw could we not be happy about all that is happening. She is curious if public health will review what had been done to date. Mayor says they have already done that. He says they have had joint meetings with Community Services and that colllaboration exists. She says that an amendment that is labeled remove violence prevention can be spun, and she doesn’t think that there is one member that would say they want to remove funding for violence prevention – we are all grateful for the 2 positions being reallocated. They all want the money, in good time. She belives in violence prevention and it should be lead by public health and she believe sin the police department to work on violence prevention in good course. She says this will be a huge lift for the public health department and there is a lot they will need to figure out. She wants to give them room to do this, they believe in getting staff what they need to do this work and she wants to give them more time even tho there is urgency. She says that she added to the budget and her constitutents tax burden but she also wants to find things that won’t be needed.
Rummel asks about how the comprehensive plan would be done. Mayor says part is to hire the staff and some is for the field work. He says that if either of the amendments are adopted, how will this work? He says public health staff is competent but we will need dthese people to develop the plan. He hasn’t quite figured it out since the whole thing has been derailed.
Rummel asks about the 2 positions, is that separate from what we are discussiong. $250,000 is nonpersonnel spending and then 3 positions are in the budget. Rummel sasy that wasn’t clear. She says she asked what happens if they start 3rd quarter and they said it would only save $20,000 and that doesn’t make sense. Larson says they don’t know how much it will cost for the re-class. She says that the 2 positions will be $5 – 10,000 range for the city share. Rummel says people could be on board in June, and some of this work could start before July, but how would that work?
Rummel asks Heinrich but the Mayor answers that they don’t wait until January 1st for some processes. He says as asoon as the buget is adopted they will immediately start work on the two positions so as early as possible in 2018 they can go out for the positions. THey will build the program off what they arleady know. With two new people they will have something by midyear. Rummel asks if we hire. Mayor says the county does. Rummel says that it could be a year before the people are up to speed. Mayor says we won’t wait until the people are hired, we will be working before they get on board. They don’t have to wait for people to be hired to start developing the program. So when they get here they can absorb the work that is done. Mayor and Rummel are going back and forth.
McKinney says she is struggling and removes her name as a co-sponsor to remove the money. She is embarrassed that she had to come with a substitute to allow the department to move forward. . . . sorry, took a break . . . she withdrew her motion and there was no objection.
When I came back Bidar was asking if they could have a comprehensive plan in 6 months. Heinrich says a draft version in 6 months or so with recommendations for programs and activities – it may be boosting what is happening.
Bidar asked about the public health model – hotspotting and data analysis – is that a good description. Violence is a disease or illness, determine who is at risk, look at populations that have a high risk and what those risk factors are. HOtspotting is a component and looking at data from all sectors is a piece. Heinrich says that sharing the data isn’t the issue, its id’ing the right data. Thta is the long haul to identify the indicators. I’m missed some . . .
Phair says there are two things going on in the budget. He doesn’t understand the problem even tho he has worked on it, we need to invest the time to figure out the issues, that will take time. Some of that is staff time, the other $250,000 is for “stuff” in the budget, but he doesn’t know what that money is for, before the staff does the work, collects and compiles data and builds trust. WE should let the staff do the work, and then work from there, please. (He has several comments about how ugly this is going to get)
Rummel says now that she rediscovered page 260 she says that the money won’t be spent until there is a plan.
Aye – Eskrich is the only one, motion fails. No votes are McKinney, Rummel, Verveer, Skidmore and Wood.
Amendment 21 Traffic Engineering Pavement Marking Supplies Alder Verveer Alder Zellers 25,000 0 0.27
Appropriate $25,000 for pavement marking supplies in the Traffic Engineering Work Supplies budget.
Passes without discussion.
Amendment 22 Transportation Transportation Department Alder Rummel Mayor Soglin, Alder Kemble 50,000 0 0.54
Add $50,000 to the Transportation Department for salary costs in 2018.
Passes without discussion – Eskrich says no and I think Wood did. Mayor votes aye just in case.
Move referral to Oct 31st council meeting.
