Streets, Parking and Engineering were sent home to come back tomorrow. They have a 10 minute recess. It’s currently 20 minutes to 8:00, they will probably start budget at 8:00. The first 3 hours of the meeting is here.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Dan Rolfs speaking as a MPSE representative, reminds them of the equity issue from their recent resolution, moving up the 1.15% pay increase due to health care increases, they think it can be done under the levy limit, there is a millino dollar savings due to employees changes in health care and there is $2M before the hit the levy limit.
OVERVIEW
Dave Schmiedicke from the Finance Department says that there are transition issues, they have new staff, 4 new women in their office in addition to a new system and new methodologies. There will be questions about the changes, they expect that. The agencies also have questions as well.
Transition issues
They have a new computer system with a new chart of accounts, so they mapped the old system and new system to see a good comparison between 2014, 2015 and 2016, they thought they could do that in the new system, there are some anomalies, but they can fix things. One of the big changes is how they record services between departments – streets would plow snow for Metro and bill them, now the salaries will be direct billed as the work is occurring. The other goal is that they only enter it once, there isn’t a series of accounting transactions. Salary and benefit estimates come from the system, not by the agencies. That was not precise with health insurance and that was just a percentage of salary, so that information should be better. They are standardizing how agencies do this and are breaking down services into smaller areas so you can see performance measures for the areas. They did have issues between 2015 and 2016 budget – especially with interdepartmental charges. There will be some comparison issues. Another area is position control , its been done by HR for years. The big issues is with pooled employees. They will have to fix it as they move forward, recruit classes are another issue. They have some reconciliation issues where they might have changes, one is in the CDBG, there is an unexplained $400,000 change with request and 2015. Engineering is the most complex, there are 5 agencies in one with multiple funding sources. They have a chart of accounts issues with too much levy support for positions. It doesn’t change the funding available, the numbers are close, but they have to continue to work through.
Background
He goes over property values, we have recovered to the highs. Residential is up 4%, commercial which includes multifamily apartments is up, TIF is up 30% mostly in TID 32, so net taxable property up 3.8% and home value up 3/5%. Expenditures are up $6M or 2%, fund balance has $0 applied. Revenues are up .9%. Tax rate is 209.4M levy with under 1% or 9.44 per $1,000. These are estimates and they will change. Taxes on the average value home, is 2,323 or $66 or 2.9% increase. Those numbers will also change. Average value home hasn’t recovered to the high water mark but it is close. An average value home is total parcel divided by the number of homes. Three assessment areas are similar, Sunset Village, Far West side and a few blocks off the square. He talks about tax affordability, you need $60,000 income to afford the house and the census average is lover than that. They did a property tax estimate on anticipated increases by all governments and that is at 3.? percent. You’d need a 1.3% increase in housing to pay for housing. Inflation for 2016 is about 2% and wage growth a little over 4%. The levy limit can increase (sorry missed a bunch of details, he has a handout that will likely be up tomorrow to see all the details) I can’t get all the numbers as fast as he’s reading them and read the handout and presentation. We have 211.5M in levy and 209.5 is in the Mayor’s budget. It can be carried over to next year or used this year. There are a few issues, the Treasurer has issues with not being notified about the E-form so not all the forms didn’t get filed on time, but the maximum levy limit could be $417,000 lower, and might not count until 2017. So they only have 1.5M. Estimates of debt will be $75,000 lover due to real numbers based on what was issued last week. He shows levy increases (average 4.63%) over the past years and tax increases on average family home.(average 3.4%)
He goes over the Room Tax changes and says that they will try to find other Room Tax and tourism generating activities (like the Room tax) – 70% has to be spent on tourism and approved by Tourism Board – they are using it for Overture. The Urban Forestry Special Charge is also an issue, it started later than anticipated, if they annualized the amount they pick up $1.5M and it reduces forestry charges. Metro Transit has had a fund balance increase of $4.5M. They used half million to look at fares in an equity basis. They also had a change in property insurance and they have some major increases and they will look at that in 2017 and they used $220,000 to deal with compensation adjustments. Ambulance fee will be standardized, raising the resident fee to $1000. As we expand our services on the periphery we are having issues with more nonresidents and it increases revenue by 200,000. The towing fee increase of $15, it will be $65 now. It’s still low compared to other cities. I could get the recap, but there is $9.5M in increased costs, there is the increases, so 5.5M in growth so there was a 3.7M and offset, shifting Overture to Room Tax, the Forestry Fee and Metro Fund Balance makes it all work. We’ve had 12 – 16% growth in the room tax, we assume 11% in 2016. There is a new presentation of the Room Tax so you see how the state looks at it. You’ll have to look at the chart.
QUESTIONS
Mike Verveer asks for the presentation to be emailed. Verveer asks where the capital assets and supplement, is that done? Schmiedicke says they have to generate a report.
Mark Clear asks if they could schedule a meeting to ask questions in the next week or two. Schmiedicke says he can sit down with people individually.
CLERK – page 52
Maryibeth Witzel-Behl says presidential election and voter ID and some other legislative changes that have made voting more complicated, so they have over $1M in officials and additional funding in voter education.
Marsha Rummel asks about alcohol licenses and why they have not been raised. Maribeth says that there is a cap by the state. Rummel asks about the economic refund of $7500
Rummel asks about how they can get the agendas up more timely. Maribeth asks for the committee chairs to approve the agendas sooner.
Verveer asks when we cut back on the grant for the alcohol licenses. Verveer says they looked at it in the last few years, he says Mark Woulf could look into it and some communities charge the whole $10,000.
Verveer asks how many additional elections officials they need given the changes – minus the presidential year. Witzel-Behl says in Feb in one year they had 9 additional employees in April for the presidential primary they have 10 in each of the voting places with the chief inspector. In 2012 they found the chief inspector got stuck doing other duties. In November they will have 12 employees if there is one ward, 4 additional if there are 2 wards and for campus there will be 8 additional.
Mayor says that he has asked the clerk to do on-going analysis to determine how many poll workers we need to make sure there are no lines more than 30 minutes in November, the cost may be staggering and they might have trouble recruiting people to do the work. As the rules shift and more obstructions are put in place, this is our obligation.
Verveer clarifies and repeats the numbers, there are some other higher turn out wards that have additional officials as well.
Mayor says that in some place, like campus, its not the number of voters, but people who have not registered or its their first time voting. The voter ID doubles the length of time it takes to check in.
Verveer says that he works on campus for elections and he sees first time voters all day long, he asks if 20 election officials will be enough if the UW doesn’t change their ID? Witzel-Behl is asking how many people they can fit in their space, and if they could fit more. If their space is too small they will need to evaluate that and move the polling places.
Verveer asks if they will wait more than 30 minutes. Witzel-Behl says February is going to be hard to compare to NOvember sin February is higher voter rates.
Mayor asks if they can pre-screen voters in September or October and give them a receipt that they could use on election day. Witzel-Behl says they will be checking id’s separately in a separate book and give them cards that say they were checked.
Barbara McKinney asks how they can move the polling location. She says they need the help of the alder to change the ordinance and find a space. We can’t compel people to do it and we don’t pay, its just a service they offer.
Mayor asks if they can be in a religious institution? Yes. Do they have to be accessible? Yes Can it be a private space? Yes
Clear asks what the impact of not having Special Deputies and on-line registration. She says it will lengthen the lines because you need a current address, if you are a homeowner you are ok, but if you don’t update your address every year when you move you won’t be able to register online and will have to register at the polling place. They will have to make sure they bring the right documents and it will take more time.
FLEET
The make a motion for the budget. Oops.
Vandebrook says there are more squad cars and other vehicles that are increased. There are depreciation costs and fund revenues. Everything else keeps things steady.
Mark Clear asks about the depreciation costs. Schmiedicke says there was a deficit of $3M last year, there is a discrepancy of the asset base that Fleet uses and Accounting uses, Finance is using common depreciation and useful life, Fleet uses what is actual. They have been billing debt service to the agencies, they aren’t removing enough through debt service. If they don’t address it they will decrease the general fund. This is a multi-year effort to recover this. A cash balance will build up in Fleet.
METRO
Chuck Kamp says that the service expansions from the NRT service are non-peak changes that are listed in the budget. They are leasing a new space for safety issues, they hope to be in the new facility a month or so from now or less. They will be looking at equity in any fare increases and they are hiring more people to clean the buses.
Mo Cheeks asks about how frequently the buses get cleaned. Every 3.5 months is a thorough cleaning, they wash them every night. The two part time cleaners will make that every 2.5 months. Their surveys say that people complain about the cleanliness of the bus. Standards are 2 – 3 months.
Barbara McKinney asks about their participation on the Neighborhood Resource Teams – Route 17 has grocery stores and goes from North to East and doesn’t have 7 days a week – it would provide the same level of service. The Owl Creek weeknight and midday service is also in the supplemental, they have to work out the details for spring or summer of 2016.
Mark Clear asks about bike racks – a bus passed him today because there weren’t enough. How are the bikes being used. Kamp says they are looking at returning to three, there were issues with the lights going through the bikes when three were on there. They are hoping that they will get good reports on the racks. Clear asks if they are seeing more use. They say yes.
Verveer asks about the deasel fuel prices. Kamp says we are locked in for 2016 and 2017 – they say its about $2.96 and then it goes to $2.70 in 2016 and 2017 it will be $2.40, there will be a savings of $440,000. Verveer asks if we are doing well. Kamp says we have some partners that can’t pay their bills if there are fluctuations, the predictability is very important to them. Dave Schnmiedicke says prices have gone down since we locked, we would be better on the spot market now, but the future looks better. For Metro we erred on a conservative approach to lock in, they got stability, they might have gotten better prices. Fleet stayed on the spot market, Fleet got a better rate.
Verveer asks if the state aids are flat? Yes, there is no increase, last year was 4%. But there has been no decrease? Right, no.
Schmiedicke shows a graph on the diesel prices.
Clear asks about the $1M difference in revenue – Schmiedicke says it is the application of fund balance. Half million for general fund and $250,000 increase in insurance and $225,000 in compensation issues.
FIRE
They talk about 13 recruits, funding for paramedicine, new fire administration facility and increase in ambulance fee, that is their highlights says the Chief.
Marsha Rummel says that your agency overview is the most unique in the budget – its a piece of art. Clear says that Koval has to step up his game. Chief says you don’t need a dictionary to get through it.
Verveer asks when medic one and 9 can return to their stations. Chief says med one will stay at station 3 and med 9 will move to station 4, its been positive to have that temporary move. Med 8 has gone from 300 to 200, another has gone from 160 to 200. Med 1 is around 200. Verveer asks for that in writing. He can email them, but from an operational standpoint it is working well. Verveer says that his constituents are worried about not having a downtown ambulance. Chief says move back date will be first or second week in December. Verveer asks if there is a reserve at station 4. That will be moved to station 1 – that is where the tactical paramedics are. Verveer asks about the squad at 4, it will go to station 9.
Mayor says not everyone knows where these are. 1 id Dayton, 4 is Monroe, 9 is Midvale and Regent, 3 is Willy St. Chief says that there are some that are for special requests and they have one at east and one west. East is at Lien Rd.
Clear says this doesn’t impact west. Is there more pressure on Med 2? It hasn’t yet this year, its more Station 8 on the east side, they are going to watch those closely, they will move resources where it is needed most. 200 calls per month is their goal. There is no standard on EMS calls like there are on fire. How many calls are too many, they don’t know. It can happen any day. Clear says its more about response time. Cheif says outlying stations have longer call time, hey don’t know what the American Center will do, bu that should help.
Shiva Bidar asks about the conveyance fee, we aren’t changing processes for uninsured, right? No. The policy is the same regardless of residency? Yes. She asks how many don’t have a 3rd party pay. Mayor says its 2 – 3%, either private pay or medicaid, medicare.
Bidar asks what coverage will be for ??? – Chief says that there are strict guidelines in the grant, they have a care program they started, but aren’t ready to release that yet. They will look at the facilities, multi-family dweeling units, they look at high volume residents, 1902 Londonderry has a lot of 911 calls. THe engine company will talk to people and refer for a follow up. Social services or medical needs. Mayor asks if people are falling? No. Companionship? Yes.
Matt Phair asks for more details on this. Chief FErenzie (sp?) explains that there was a program for geriatric patients and they have a staff person that was interested in it and worked on it elsewhere, so they will do a home visit 24 – 36 hours after discharge for clients that the UW selects and then they do 3 follow up calls, this is supposed to reduce re-admission. This person will track it and this person will also do outreach to people they see 20-30-40 times in a year. They don’t have capacity or time to follow up, so they are developing partnerships with clinics so they can refer people working with public health. They need to meet the grant requirements, but they also want to address the high utilizers in areas they have a lot of contacts with. Phair says there is a small number of frequent flyers? Not necessarily small. They looked at the top 20 users in 18 months and they produced 650 calls. There is a significant cost to do business that way. PD and Public Health is addressing it. All three have combined resources in several areas, this is an opportunity to do it at a low cost.
Verveer asks about a thought that station 13 was in the wrong location given today’s needs. Do you have an opinion on that and could you approximate how many calls a day they get. Do they have 0 calls some days. Chief says its hard to know what his predecessor and alders thought was needed. 13 is on Metro Terrace off Milwaukee St and Sprecher Rd. Mayor is showing the map. He says his opinion is that if he was in place then it would be elsewhere but we can’t undo that. One thing they did discover was that when they opened that station their response time improved city wide by 30 seconds. Station 5 (Cottage Grove Rd) was taking a beating before that. The calls are as expected, but over response time is down. Chief says that it singlehandedly saves the Apollo Way neighborhood from destruction, we would ave lost close to 30 single family residents. He says that paid for itself there that night. Verveer asks if the firefighters are bored. (Laughter) Station 13 is going to Jupiter Drive and will be needed for Royster’s increase in calls to Cottage Grove Rd, this takes the pressure off station 5.
Denise DeMarb asks if station 8 was up (Lien Rd), what would that have meant. He says 3.5 minutes later. She says that is 12.5 minutes longer than south of the beltline
POLICE
Gross – he’s pleased as punch. They will have 461 commissioned officers. They are happy. This is all on page 113.
Mayor asks about fall academy in 2016, will they be full officers in 2017. Yes. What is the forecast on retirements. Chief says everyone is getting old. Sue Williams says over 100 people could retire today if they wanted to, age 50 or older. Clearly not everyone is. The average each year is 17-20, eventually the bubble will burst. Terri Genin says more are interested and going to retirement seminars. Mayor asks what kind of notice they generally get. Williams says usually in the fall, maybe late summer. Some wait til early in the year. A few people are rumored to go in the spring. Mayor says that given the number of eligible retirees, we might find ourselves in the next few years to make budget amendments to accommodate the retirees.
Cheeks asks what the number is citywide. Mayor says there were a bunch after Act 10, it has slowed down since then, the non-uniformed city employees think the same as uniformed employees. He expects it to pick up again.
Bidar asks about how long it takes from budget approval to patrol on their own. Williams says there is an ongoing recruitment process that closes in 2 weeks, this is for the 2016 class, and then they do testing, written, oral, ride along, background checks, meet with chief and offered position in June, but don’t start academy until September, for some it is a year long process. They don’t graduate until June after class and field training experience. They will be on the street June of 2017.
Matt Phair asks about the mental health officers and how that is working. What have they been doing, what is your honest assessment. Chief Koval says they get rave reviews, statistically they have taken over 50 emergency detentions since they began. More officers are on their beats and done over 200 consults with Journey, he says it has paid for itself and he would like to grow it because of its effectiveness.
Rummel asks about the vehicle towing fees. Are we being conservative, should we consider more raises. DAve Schmieidicke says that some cities in WI, we are below Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine, so some room to go up further, but it is a significant increase but it hasn’t been increased in 20 years.
DeMarb asks how mental health officers have paid for themselves. He says that patrol officers have more time for calls for service.
DeMarb asks how long they have been on duty? Since February. DeMarb asks what special training they have gotten. Koval says they are a leader and one of 6 in Wis that is a leader. They feel they are obligated to provide their own scenario based training and other agencies are using their training. They are a pioneer in this area. DeMarb says she was at East District and a woman came in frantic, her life had been threatened and a mental health officer went and talked to the man while the lady came in and it was amazing to see them in action. The fact that the police had that training and wanted to be in that position and it was good.
Phair asks about this being borne out of desperation and we had to step up – where are we at on this? This is great and innovative, but this isn’t what police officers do? What is your assessment about what we need as a community? How can we support you? Koval says more money has been dedicated to have a clinician assigned to help staff lines and get people out in the field. Ironically the law suit is going to court that you authorized about Mendota. This summer it couldn’t be more acute, he was out to dinner and got a picture of 8 officers and 4 cars in front of Winnebago. The need has not abated.
Mayor says they had a meeting last week, Lt Schwartz and non-profits met last week and they will add trauma as a presentation at the Neighborhood Conference. The biggest cost to city government is trauma and they will have a special session on that to engage people on a broader scale. Trauma around domesitc violence, substance abuse, mental health – all aspects. Koval says they want to go back to collaboration with a Journey clinician and cut down amount of time it takes to do an intervention.
McKinney commends approach to trauma informed care – that addresses so many needs and as we drill down and look at the effect of looking at people in a different kind of way. When you address that you can be more effective in community policing, it is so critically important.
Bidar asks about data around kind of mental health situations you are responding to. Winnebago is one piece, but what DeMarb is talking about is day to day. She’s like an idea of the different kinds of cases. What she wants to hear is how they are working with programs to make sure we have holistic care. Koval says they can do that after a year.
Verveer asks about line items for overtime, that is always an issue, where can we find that in the budget? That was not on the supplement – $2.9M is provided and that is an increase of $281,000 over last year. Laura Larson says that it is included in the salaries, it is included in salary major. They can provide a greater level of detail with that info. Verveer asks if it is a lot of work.
Verveer also asks about the positions in the police department, is that the crossing guards. Why aren’t they hourlies? Larson says that the transition required it, it has no impact on their pay, that was done before her time. The funding will provide the existing level of support. You can see the supervisor role in the personnel, that is the 2 FTEs.
Verveer asks about overtime and the supplemental for weekend/overtime is. Genin says that the contract allows for 8 hours time on holidays – but it will cost more this year due to where the holidays fall. Verveer asks if the funding in the budget is consistent with the Downtown Safety Initiative? The request was the same level as this year – that is the same for Downtown, special issues and West.
Verveer asks about the budget highlight on criminal background checks? Is this the fingerprinting fees, or is this for taxi licenses and landlords? Taxicabs and bartenders and licenses that the city provides, when they have to give a recommendation. Those fees are higher, they were higher, but they are being charged $7 by DOJ for each one. That’s new? They just learned of it in 2015. Verveer asks why this is showing up here. Schmiedicke says that the cost will be incurred by police and recover the revenue and they will have to do a fee increase to cover it – there will need to be an amendment. Williams says this is in the works. Verveer asks if they still do third party finger printing. Williams says they fingerprint for people at no cost, they only charge when they are being charged. Can they get a 3rd party background check? If people ask they still do it, Williams will check. Teri Genin says that people don’t ask and do it for no cost themselves, their line item for that is insignificant because they don’t get many requests.
DeMarb asks about overtime, its gone up $300K fomr 15 – 16? Special duty and grants are included here – they didn’t ask for any increases except if there was revenue. DeMarb pushes. Staff says it will be paid. Verveer says that is when they come back and ask for it. Schiedicke says they have been trying to reduce this by $100,000 a year.
PARKS
It’s been over 5 hours. It’s 10 minutes to 10.
Baseball jokes.
Staff says that it is continuation of services except of movie night funding for Neighborhood Resource Teams.
Mayor asks about Emerald Ash Borer and our commitment to meet a timetable. Eric Knepp says that they have a mitigation strategy with per-emptive removal with aggressive plan to replant within 12 months and treatment of 45% of the street tree canopy. They got through 8600 trees, they will treat 1/3 more next year and then east and west. They are able to treat every three years instead of two and that is good. They have issues with keeping pace to finish street trees in 5 years. They need overtime to meet that commitment. There are issues with getting staff to fill shifts and that has put them behind. This will be issues down the road and they might need to contract out.
Mayor asks about contracting out to work with private sector. This was premised on agreement with 6000, Mayor has directed that we not contract out but we have to stay within budget which means we can’t do it on Sat and Sun and that is why they will fall behind. Knepp says they will continue to work on it. They will miss about 400 trees this year, that is not a low number of work.
McKinney asks about splash park attendants being replaced by parks rangers. What safety issues might arise? What does routine monitoring mean? He says that there have been few incidents for safety or welfare. There was a band aid or two dispensed and they got more complaints about the attendants than not. The complaint was that staff was sitting there with no one there. The number one safety issue is to test the chemicals every two hours. Someone will be on site every two hours. They won’t go far. They are trying to be efficient and effective. Missed a bunch. McKinney asks what the impact is. Knepp says they continue to work for ranger funding, they get a lot of calls on noise, etc. They are taking the resource from acquatics at 13.62 adn giving it to rangers to 15.83/hour for shelter reservations, disc park and ?
Verveer asks about Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) – he says that it is welcome news to his constituents that they aren’t removing the trees so quickly. Are there health concerns of trees? Knepp says that Ash trees can be a hazard before they can see it, they hope they will catch the sick trees, but the whole program is designed to deal with year 3 or 4 of the infestation. All the trees need to be gone in a 9 year period and the further you push the more risk we have. There is a reason to stick to the plan, long term. Verveer asks if they can beef up the inspections of the trees with yellow dots? Knepp says this will compromise other services. Knepp says that if you call something in it is done quickly and well. Verveer asks about the Borer being confirmed at Goodman Field, is that 100% on the south side? Yes. We have suspected findings in Nakoma and near Olbrich. They are hearing from private contractors, the Goodman area is confirmed, effectively it is everywhere in the city, today. With the way it can travel, the way we move trees, we probably brought it to Goodman before we knew. Verveer asks if the priorities change. Knepp says no, the only place with advanced decline is the North side. The maps have not changes. We have a patterned approach and they hope to communicate well over the next 6 months. Verveer asks when they will get a staff report. November before budget is the plan.
Verveer asks about supplemental request for walk and roll. Is Trek no longer sponsoring Ride the Drive. Knepp says they are only supporters of the downtown – that meets their demographic. There have been no sponsors for the neighborhood events.
Verveer asks about supplemental request for parks worker classification. Knepp says that months ago they started to address seasonal staff issues, they have had a hard time recruiting and keeping talent. They are working to get seasonals to permanent part time positions. A week or two before the mayor did the budget they withdrew it because they didn’t have agreement. They want to continue the discussion. Verveer asks if we have trouble recruiting seasonals? Yes. Do other departments? Yes. They have 295 – 315 seaonsals, most other departments have 20 – 25. They did better in the down market. The market is tightening. They filled their last position on August 30th, which basically missed the growing season. Verveer asks if this is not competitive? Knepp says the hour cap – $13.73 but only 1200 hours, so they make other options. That is a handbook (i.e. union) issue.
DeMarb asks about Goodman Pool, what is the capacity – how do they get 20,000 a year in 3 months? Knepp says that is lessons, swim team. The capacity is 1,000. They meet that 20 – 25 days a year. DeMarb asks more questions about capcacity – they are at capacity when the weather is right. If we get warm weather, we get more people, this last summer it was cold. They could get more people in, they ahve days where 2000 people come and days when 50 come. DeMarb asks about needing more pools, there are none on the East Side, plenty on the West Side. She wants to know where they need pools. Knepp says they can give you data about where people come from, Northside and Eastside take a lot of lessons. Membership is most dense on the Southside. DeMarb would like that data.
ENGINEERING
Landfill
Continuing routine efforts there.
Rummel asks about not collecting a fee and we are going back? Rob Phillips (City Engineer) says they cut it, they are using utility reserves, but they will have to raise it again in several years.
Sewers
Rob Phillips says continuing last year, a few areas that they could point out. They are reclassifying two positions for about $9,000. They also converted 4 hourly positions to permanent. Like the Parks Division its hard to find part-time staff.
DeMarb asks to explain part-time to full-time shift. Phillips says that they have 4 seasonal positions (April – Nov) and converting to full time to get better qualified staff and not retrain people. Kathy Cryan says that they have more snow removal and more ash trees on stormwater parcels. They keep increasing the work and to get and keep trained people and you have people do the same job with lower wages and no benefits. DeMarb asks what that costs? Mayor says they should explain how the positions are funded. Cryan says they reduce some wages and they are taking the rest from utility reserves, there is no impact on the levy. Mayor says there are several sources of revunue depending upon what they do at various times of the year. Mayor says that this is why people are envious of Engineering. Phillips points out they also get to stay until 10:30 at night at BOE.
Cheeks asks about services outside of the city? They provide services for MMSD (sewerage district) as well as landfills, town of Westport and other areas.
Verveer asks about workload on private property sewer laterals, did they do much work? Only 5 – 8 per year in the public right of way, not on private property. Verveer asks about the sewer lateral insurance. 14,000 households have enrolled. Verveer asks if there has been a reduction. It’s been 3 years, they are happy when they need it. Even just a back up call is $150, and they pay $70 a year. It makes sense depending up on the material and age of the home.
Verveer asks about Madison Waterways newsletter – Verveer asks about getting it electronically. They do it yearly and they mail it. That is funded through the utilities? Verveer asks if all residents would like them or are they just homeowners. Phillips says it is useful to businesses as well. Verveer says that the condo owners and renters don’t get it. He talks about a requirement of the Water Utility to not just send to the bills, but all residents. Renters are over 50% and 3/4 of them relate to renters and we are disenfranchising them. Could the utilities afford to send it to all households and businesses. Phillips says it wasn’t their intent to exclude people, they will take that back and see what they can do. It is a challenge to get lists. Usually you get 100s mailed back as invalid address. Verveer suggests using water utility list. They say they did start with their database. Greg Fries says they started with Water Utility list and will have to check with them.
Clear asks about the sewer insurance using the city logo, are they allowed to do that? It’s good marketing but seems disingenuous. Clear asks if they can negotiate that. They say they have another year on the contract. Mayor mumbles something I didn’t hear.
Stormwater
Phillips says there are some reclassifications. Greg Fries says there are two handouts. One is an hourly engineer they want to be full time, she does compliance and meets with residents on erosion control. She reviews the plans, checks on them and field compliance. She also does storm-water review on developments and redevelopments. The stormwater regs are quite complicated, they call and ask what they need to do so they don’t waste their time, its complex since local and state laws are different and it can be complicated.
Rob Phillips says the other highlight is a long term hourly to a landscape architect and two LTE staff to maintain public managed lands to a prairie style. He says they mow once or twice a year, they piloted 100 acres that was successful and that is only spot moving certain areas that have invasive plants, it is more selective. Fries says that the management means you need to be more active several times a year to manage the weeds before they go to seed. You hit the areas before they go to seed or wait until they have dropped. He says you spend less money, but spend it differently. He has handouts. They do some weed control that is not controlled by mowing. Some are managed by burns. They do that every other year. They will be doing more of that for species like wild parsnip. Several of thee weeds are very difficult and you have to go back year after year to address them. They need to educate the public on some of the weeds.
Mayor says that where there is Japanese Knotweed they have to prove that it is free from this weed so they don’t go through the house. DeMarb says if you want to be scared google it.
DeMarb asks about marsh restoration and getting grants to do that, is there money out there. DeMarb says they have marshes that can benefit from restoration. Fries says the grants are not for wetlands, but for treatment facilities. But you can’t build treatment facilities in wetlands. They are still looking at wetland restoration on Starkweather Creek behind Swiss Colony – that was separated and now it is a nettle wetland and they are looking at reflooding it and restoring it. They don’t do a lot of that, parks usually does that.
Rummel asks about “management” do they have programs where they have “friends of greenways”? Fries says yes on the Southwest bikepath. Two years ago they had an instance where they treated something they shouldn’t . . . and . . . I spaced out . . . Si Widstrand helps reach out to get groups to volunteer. He says that Si is a member of some of the groups and pulls groups in and reaches out to city staff and helps them to do things and leads the volunteer effort. Some of this requires certified applicators in some instances. Widstrand can do that as well. Rob says they have adopt-a-median programs as well.
Rummel says there are some areas of the bike path that are managed by volunteers and some that are not and there is a big difference. Engineering will be doing some work that parks doesn’t have equipment to do there.
Engineering and Green Power
Kathy Cryan says that they are excited about this, they want more in house generation of renewable energy, they have in house staff capability. Their master electrician has experience in this. They want to leverage that expertise and hire another person to work under him and oversee two trainees that would perform installations on city facilities with a target of 50kw in that 6 months and converst some hourly funds to have a permanent engineer. They do it start to end in house, provide employment training and get them in a career path or get them to move towards becoming an electrician.
DeMarb says this is about solar on city property and training people to do it. It’s 6 months, they will be working on roofs. If this continues then 2 more people would be trained? Phillips says it is a one year pilot.
Phillips says the development manager is before you. Development has picked up quite a bit, the person who was doing this they moved on to parks, we were falling behind and we have had problems managing this with one person in peak times – they want two people in the position. During peak times they work full time and then at other times they can work on capital projects or erosion inspection.
Verveer asks about why Janet moved to Parks. He says he has met with her many times over the years. Verveer says the handout doesn’t match the supplemental and the budget notes. Phillips says it was a late submission. It is 100,000 but there were changes to positions and they only need 42,000. They had an engineer 4 working 90% on development and 10% central park. The added an engineer 3 60% on private development and 40% on utility erosion control, the new development manager would work 60% private development and on capital projects, and then a new engineer is work 100% erosion inspection and if you total them all up.
Verveer says he understands the need and the net impact is 42,000 and that will be paid through charges to developers. Develop manager and coordinator are the same position. Larson says that in the salaries in the budget includes 100,000. Verveer asks why that isn’t on the supplemental request.
Everyone is struggling to explain this . . . .
Larson says they budgeted the full cost because of general funds that will pay for it.
Mayor asks them to work on it tomorrow. $71,000 is salary and the rest is fringe. Verveer says that the numbers don’t add up. Schmiedicke says they will work it out. Mayor says Phillips doesn’t need to come back tomorrow.
Verveer is asking more questions I can’t follow without handouts and the budget in front of me. There is a new position, revenues will go up, but they won’t cover it. Verveer asks if building permits can cover it.
McKinney asks about how often they add staff. Verveer says every year. Mayor says as there is more private development, they comparably add to the staff to go with the growth. Phillips says they have 8 people doing architectural design projects, 2 positions were added last year. Fire admin, Midtown and now MMB.
Rummel asks about page 67, she says Planned Unit Developments should be changed to Planned Developments.
They move to recess til 4:30 tomorrow. 11:05pm.
