Music It is April the 12th, and this is a special meeting of the Committee of the Whole Work Session. And so we'll go ahead and start our meeting. There's one item on our agenda, and that is to hear the administration's proposed restructuring plan. And I believe there are three presenters, Commissioner Jane Driscoll, Transition Team Leader Chris Frost, and the Mayor's Financial Advisory Task Force person, John Kubine. So, Commissioner Driscoll, are you starting us off? And I believe everyone has a handout in front of their place. Welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, I am Jane Driscoll, Commissioner of Finance, and Chris Frost is here with us today. I would like to let you all know that John Kuban had a family issue come up, so he will not be able to be in attendance, but did offer to make himself available if any of you had any questions in terms of follow-up. So he does apologize for not being able to be here today. We were getting an electronic version of this, so you could see it on the screen as well, but I believe you received an email that had an org chart as well as some narrative, but in addition to that, you have an updated version that was placed in front of each of you that outlines the proposed organization chart for your consideration. These documents are a reflection of adjustments presented by the mayor and is consistent with the proposed budget that he will present to you this afternoon. The basic themes of this organization are threefold. Compliance with the charter of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, efficient consolidation or distribution of operational functions, and thirdly, establishing a foundation for an organization that can be responsive to the community as we move forward. All of the commissioner-level positions provided for in the charter are included in this structure, and all are currently filled. Importantly, and as you are well aware, the previously unfilled role of chief administrative officer, the CAO, required by the charter, is being filled in this administration, too. I was just going to walk through each area with you, and then Mr. Frost was going to make some comments as a follow-up, and then we'll take questions at any time, obviously, that you have. When we look at the CAO's office, in terms of compliance with the charter, as I mentioned, the CAO role has been restored and filled. We are reinstating the office of CAO to include the Division of Historic Preservation, which is currently under the Department of Public Works, the Division of Planning, which is also under Works, the Division of PDR, currently under Works, the Division of Community Development, which under the original organization was under the Department of Finance and Administration, as well as the Divisions of Risk Management and Human Resources, which were under the Department of Public Works. the Department of Finance and Administration. Excuse me for interrupting. Sure. As you go forward, I've had a request from the Council to see if there's someone in your office who could print out the current organizational structure so that if, as we're going through, we can have them side by side. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I believe I was at the Division of Computer Services and Government Communications and Enterprise Solutions, which all are under the Office of the Chief Information Officer currently. So that's how the CAO's office would be structured in the budget today. In the Mayor's Office, changes inside the Mayor's Office include the creation of the Office of the Chief Development Officer, Both the mayor and current and past council members have expressed a solid commitment to improving the performance and outcomes of economic development and planning. Accordingly, the mayor has elevated the traditional economic development role to this chief development officer. You have the proposed org chart on the screen for your review. So just to review the restructure of the office of the mayor, It would include the creation of the Office of the Chief Development Officer, which would include the functions of the Office of Economic Development, which in the prior order chart was under the Office of the Senior Advisor. And then it would also have the existing functions of communications, policy, and government relations, special projects, and council and community relations. In addition, this organization reflects consolidating the role of Commissioner for Public Works and Environmental Quality into one position. The Mayor's view is one executive with the appropriate skill sets can manage director-level positions for all the divisions that are included, and that it would further coordinate environmental issues with the planning and development ones. So by creating the Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works, we merged Department of Public Works with the Department of Environmental Quality, including the following divisions. Division of Environmental Policy, Waste Management, Water Quality, Division of Engineering, Division of Streets, Roads, and Forestry, and the Division of Traffic Engineering. It should also be remembered that an independent department for environmental quality was created just four years ago, so this organization is not new, it's just offered as a more efficient and cost-effective for our current circumstances. So again, the combining of those two departments into one. There are also some smaller changes that are being suggested to rename the Department of Finance and Administration to the Department of Finance and that it would include the divisions of budgeting, accounting, purchasing, and revenue. The division of budgeting is currently under the Office of Policy and Budget in the Mayor's Office. We would also maintain general services to include the existing divisions of facilities and fleet and parks and rec. We would also maintain the Department of Law to include the existing divisions of corporate Council litigation and claims management. Also suggesting streamlining the Department of Public Safety to include the Division of Building Inspections, which is currently under the Department of Public Works, and the existing divisions of Code Enforcement, Community Corrections, Emergency Management E911, Fire and Emergency Services, and the Division of Police. This organizational structure proposal also maintains the Department of Social Services to include the existing divisions of adult services, family services, and youth services. There are, as a result of this proposal, some abolishments, which would include the, as I've mentioned, the Office of Senior Advisor would be abolished, reinstate the Office of Chief Administrative Officer, and the Office of Chief Information Officer, and all divisions and offices previously under the Chief Information Officer would now report to the CAO. The administration is asking for your consideration of these reporting adjustments. However, we are also asking for your support as we move through the budget process to be open to some additional structural proposals. Obviously, any additional changes proposed would be through a collaborative process, and we would provide a meaningful crosswalk on the divisions affected to this body as we move forward. You may ask, why weren't these changes included as we progressed through the budget process? We wanted to ensure that we took a thoughtful approach to any further changes. Therefore, we took a snapshot in time in order to complete the budget by the timetable required. Many factors would contribute to any additional suggested changes. We continue to deal with the current year shortfall, continue to deal with transition report issues that require further study, ongoing investigations in certain areas, and in the mayor's first 100 days, additional concerns and issues have surfaced. However, there was a need to hit the ground running to deal with our economic situation, and some operating changes were required immediately, particularly to accommodate the restoration of the CAO office. There are two examples that we are finalizing and would like to work with you during the budget process. The first is the potential move of human resources. This area is especially important to our government, and changes to our approach is significant to successfully deal with our structural deficit. Many of these personnel matters involve legal issues as well. To that end, we are looking to move this division under the direction of the Commissioner of Law, And we are further looking at moving payroll within human resources to finance. Payroll is housed in the financial functions of many organizations. The second area is in economic development and the potential move of planning, historic preservation, and the PDR program to report to the chief development officer to further coordinate between the development and planning communities. In summary, the CAO structure and reporting relationships discussed today, besides the two additional ones, are consistent with responsibilities discussed by the CAO and commissioners during their confirmation hearings. The structure presented today is consistent with the mayor's budget that will be presented to you in a few hours. The structure today is a result of our ongoing review, and we ask that you consider additional adjustments that will be brought to you in order to continuously improve services and enhance efficiencies. We pledge that any additional changes, with any additional changes, will come transparency and crosswalks to existing structures. Just in closing, we have many challenges. To deal with all those challenges, flexibility is the key. Together, the administration and you can address them. Ultimately, it is your decision, but we thank you for your consideration of this structure. And unless you have specific questions, Mr. Frost was going to follow up in terms of his perspective, and then we can answer questions. Vice Mayor, I'm not sure what you would like. Thank you very much. Thank you for providing the current, the copy of the current organizational structure. We do have three Councilmembers. Do you want to go ahead and let's hear from Mr. Frost and then ask all questions? Or will that a technical question? Okay, Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner, could you just repeat those proposed shifts that you just went through? I didn't get them all down. Sure. And again, we are still finalizing. We just wanted to be up front with you that we've identified some additional changes during the budget process, but because of the point in time, we're not officially bringing those to you. I just wanted to reiterate that point, but yes, those changes are two. Three, actually moving all of HR with the exception of payroll processing, the financial piece, under the direction of the Commissioner of Law, the payroll piece of HR under my direction. And then the second area in economic development would be to move under the chief development officer the area's divisions of planning, historic preservation, and PDR. Thank you. And unless there are two more, Council Members, are yours technical, or would you like to wait until after Mr. Frost? Okay. Mr. Chris Frost. Thank you, Commissioner. Good morning. Good morning. I'd like to follow along with Commissioner Driscoll and highlight some of the changes and some of the reasons for the changes. In general, I think that most of the changes that are made in the current budget reflect the reinstitution, reinstatement of the Office of CAO. Comparing this structure with the structure that existed the last time we had a CAO, there are a number of similarities. So let me go through these changes and at least give you some, my take on the justification for them and some of the history that I've uncovered in prior administrations where there was a CAO. First, the specific changes in creating the CAO. When you look at what, during the Isaac administration the last time we had a CAO, what was included under that function, you see that prior included under that function were the PDR program, government communications, HR, risk management, historic preservation, community development, and planning. All of those functions are restored to the CAO's office. Those were the old Office of Administrative Services functions. So by reimplementing the CAO, we've restored those functions back to where they originally were. There are two exceptions to the Office of CAO. The first is that originally the last CAO was also responsible for the budgeting function. The second was this CAO is responsible for the functions that were previously held under the Office of Chief Information Officer. So first with respect to budgeting, particularly in this time of fiscal crisis, it makes some sense to align the budgeting function with the finance function and to tie those two together. Those are two sort of, you know, the finance function is responsible for things like revenue and other things. And so putting budgeting there seems to make a lot of sense, particularly. particularly now. The second, with respect to the computer functions of the government, the decision was made not to fill the role of chief information officer. That, of course, creates some cost savings, but also requires that the functions that were originally under that chief information officer, those are computer services, enterprise solutions, and government communications be moved to some responsible individual. Recognizing that these functions really affect all aspects of government seems to make some sense to roll those functions under the CAO's office. In addition, the move of HR particularly to the CAO and the contemplated move of the HR function to the law department reflects sort of a consistent theme throughout the transition reports. There were several transition reports that came back and said we really need something done about HR. It takes too long to fill positions. It's not responsive enough. And so given that sort of strong theme that something needs to be done with HR, it made some sense to move that function to someone who could focus on that particular function at the time. It may make some sense to go ahead and it probably does make some sense to go ahead and move it over to law given the pervasive legal character of HR responsibilities throughout the government. This also provides a home for the risk management function. While there are some ongoing discussions about how risk management should be structured, and I know that there have been some discussions among counsel in the past, this places risk management under this function while those concerns and those considerations are going forward. That is also consistent with the former CAO role. Risk management was a function that was under that supervision. The second major area are the changes related to environmental quality and public works. This change aligns the environmental policy, waste management, and water quality divisions back with public works. where they were prior to the last administration. Again, it's fairly consistent with the move to a CAO. If you look, what has changed is there have been a number of functions that were originally under public works that have now been moved. Those would include historic preservation, PDR, planning. Those functions have now been moved out of public works under the CAO, freeing up some time for the Public Works Commissioner to include within her portfolio the environmental quality divisions. And it's consistent with Public Works under the Isaac Administration's organizational chart. There we didn't have an environmental department per se, but we did have sanitary sewers, solid waste, and landfills all under Public Works. So it's a function that naturally fits with Public Works, and it's a function that the appointee of Public Works is capable of handling. And there are nice alignments as well with the engineering function. And so that's some of the justification for that move. The third is a change to public safety, which now aligns building inspection, formerly under Public Works, with public safety. Again, that change is consistent with the structure that existed under the Isaac administration prior to the new structure without a CAO. under the last administration, and it ties well with the code enforcement function, and as well recognizes the public safety aspects of building inspection. The change to the mayor's office, the institution of a chief development officer, is, again, consistent with the institution of a CAO structure. The prior administration, the ISAC administration, didn't have a chief development officer, at least on the org chart that I looked at. So this is a new position, new as of the Newberry administration. It was aligned with the senior advisor. We no longer have a senior advisor. We have a CAO. And so it makes sense then to move that function over to the mayor. It is consistent as well with a strong theme of the transition reports. Both of the economic opportunity work teams emphasize the role of the mayor in economic development. And in fact, one of the work teams specifically recommended further reorganization of the economic development function to include planning, PDR, historic preservation, all under one rubric, a change that Commissioner Driscoll said is something that's still under consideration that may come on down the line as the budget process rolls out. In summary, most of the changes reflected in the budget stem from and are consistent with the Council's reinstatement of the CAO structure, in large part, this budget resets that structure to the one that existed prior to the elimination of the CAO position. There are a few exceptions. Budgeting is aligned with finance to respond to the fiscal crisis. The CIO elimination reflects a decision to save money and recognizes the importance of that function throughout government, and economic development, which both reflects the change to the CAO structure, but more importantly, implements the clear directives of transition team reports. These additional changes, change of HR to law, again, reflects the intensely legal nature of human resources decision-making and policies, and the move to payroll is consistent with the rest of the finance function. Be happy to take any questions that you all have. Thank you very much, Mr. Frost. And we do have several Councilmembers who have questions. And we'll start with Councilmember McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess my question, Commissioner, is as of today, are you, is anyone inside government, inside any of these departments operating under this structure? Is it who's reporting to whom right as of today, this moment? Have we started to align these types of things and people are starting to report to you that are under this structure or, you know, in any other? Under the proposed structure. Yeah. You all are operating under this proposed structure. That is correct. Today, already. With the exception of those additional changes. Okay. So I think that's pretty important for the council to understand that we're the ones that changed the structure, but yet the administration is already operating under this structure. There's something to think about as we go forward. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Appreciate the information and the updates and getting us to the additional chart from the current structure that we're operating under. A couple things. One, what is the cost savings of the new structure as compared to the old? Did we eliminate positions in the mayor's office and commissioner level? What are all those savings since we don't have seven commissioners? Surely there's some savings by going to this new structure. Do you have an idea of what they are? I don't have a specific position by position. I can tell you the mayor's office, when you combine all the pieces, there is a cost savings. Obviously the CIO not being filled is a cost savings. the combination of directors, the public works and environmental commissioners is a savings. We can outline those for you. We didn't put dollars, because as we were working through the budget, we were doing a lot of cost-saving measures, so we didn't highlight those out specifically, but we'd be glad to do that for you. How soon can you get us that list? because I think one of the most important reasons to change any organizational chart and become more efficient is not just workflow but financial, especially as we're preparing to hear the mayor's budget address at 3, the financial impact has got to be a savings in here somewhere. I would highlight that and get us to maybe today or by the end of the week. Sure, we'll work on that today. Okay. And then the second thing is moving building inspection into public safety. I have a lot of concerns about that. I don't know if Mr. Maloney wants to address that. But the planning committee has not reported out yet, but the council did, through its work on the building inspection task force that I chaired, and once the planning committee reports out, I'd like to separate the function of building inspection from a building code. What I want to tell you. Hold on, hold on, one second. One second. I know you're ready to jump at me quick, but give me one second. The building code piece and then enforcement of zoning. So are you going to heed that recognition? Are we going to split those? We're going to separate them. And the reason why we're separating them, as you know, I work for the state. We have a – Lusington has a memorandum agreement with the state of Kentucky to do building inspection. And any time the state can come in and take over this. And the problem I've learned is our building inspectors are doing planning reviews. What happened is if we end up bringing the state in, we would have to get rid of these employees in the state to care less about our plan reviews. and that's why we're starting to try to split these two, put plan review back in the planning and inspection and keep building inspections for public safety, which is in the cabinet for public protection, and then we're trying to keep those similar to what the state. I don't think it's ever going to happen in my time or anybody's time, but all we're trying to do is protect the future if something does happen down the road and somebody does come in and take over the state or a governor decides to take over our building inspections. that our zoning issues will be gone and there will be no one to enforce our zoning issues. And by law, the state doesn't have to do that. And that's why we would recommend the split up. And when you had your planning committee, we think that was a good idea to make those two split up. That's why we made that recommendation. So to be clear, I think Councilman McCord asked, you're currently operating under the proposed organizational chart. So building inspection is reporting to the Commissioner of Public Safety and zoning is no longer building? Well, not yet. That is going to be an ongoing process. We have met. We are working with that to make that change. We met with Chris Kane. Okay. And that is something that you all have recommended and it's a step right to do. And the state is also going to say we don't care about the zone issues. So is that reflected in the budget that the mayor proposed today to move zoning to planning and planning will inherit those employees to enforce zoning? That's the ongoing process that we're working on. And as she said, there's other things that we're working on that is in the moving zone. That wasn't mentioned. So it is one of the other pieces to the puzzle as we work through the budget to move those employees. That's what we're intending to move those over, yeah. To the planning department and that budget piece. So if it's not reflected in the mayor's budget, I guess we'll have to do some budget amendments to move those salaries over. We'll go over there. But right now we've got to make sure that we can do it, and that's what we're doing now. Okay. I assume you report and communicate through our council link process. When we bring that up, we're going to let you guys know why we're making these changes. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A couple of questions or issues. I missed where risk management was going. It's under the CAO. And it continues to be under the CAO. That is correct. For some reason, I picked up going to law, and I'm going to take maybe some exception to that. That's fine. What exactly are the duties of the enterprise solution arena? What happens there? Those are the folks, for example, that work with our PeopleSoft system. They'll be, as we move forward to any changes in that system or reports that we need from that system, that's an example of one of their duties. So they focus on enterprise-wide technology solutions across government. One of the reasons we created a CIO was to have a forward vision of that whole arena of computer involvement of one kind or another. And I'm sorry to see that CIO go away. I would say probably every corporation with revenues over $100 million in the United States has a CIO, and we're backing away from that. I guess that's all right now. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Or Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I guess many of my questions are going to be for the CIO. I guess I'll pick up where you left off with the state taking over local government's building inspection process. Has the state taken over anybody's? They took a couple over last year. They were in violation. That they were in violation, so that's why they took it over. Are we in violation of anything that you know of? We're not in violation. Have you heard anything from the state that they're looking at taking hours over? No. Okay. One thing I'd ask for is an organizational chart for each one of these departments and divisions that the proposed changes are going to take place in so that we can understand who's going to be working where. I'm particularly interested in risk management and how that shakes out, what employees are in there and where they are. Also, I'd like to hear from you. With all respect for Mr. Frost, he's the chair of the transition team, but you're the CAO. So what I would expect it to have heard today was not that we're making all these changes because previous administrations have these changes, but that we're making these changes because it's going to make our government more efficient, more effective, and it's going to save dollars. So can you elaborate on these changes, on how you guys think this is going to make our government more effective? Well, I mean, this is an ongoing process, like I told you all before. When we first met in the commissioner's meetings, we were making these changes, and when I did the commissioner's orientation. But we see that there's a lot of potential, especially in economic development, with that department that we can move planning in there and also PDR, all those kind of things that can generate funding for this city or economic development. And I think those we think will be more efficiency there. For instance, law, we think it's great to have HR under law because, as you know, a lot of times, nine out of ten times, we end up having to go to law if we go through HR. And we think for them two working together would be a great cost and won't be another layer of going to see somebody and then cut over. This way he was taking a lot of efficiency out and they're going directly to each other. It's not only cost savings we've done here is efficiency. And I think that's the main thing that this mayor wants is to make sure this government runs efficiency. And he's trying to make it into a business kind of way of doing it and doing them both together, government and business. I think Witness Reorg is going to be an ongoing process. Like I said, some of these things that are going back to what we have to put back under me, but we are going to make those changes as we go along, and we will be in front of you guys to let you all know and hear your recommendations before we make any other decisions like that. Okay, and I appreciate that, but I still haven't heard, you know, they went through and described all the changes that you guys are proposing. I don't think we've heard how it's going to be more efficient and how it's going to be more effective. I know they're getting ready to put together some spreadsheets on the dollar savings, but can you elaborate a little bit? I know you talked a little bit about HR being under law, but the rest of these changes, what's going to make it more efficient and what's going to make it more effective? Well, for instance, like, I mean, Jamie, we want to get up and I'm going to be glad to go over this together. I like the community development. I mean, that used to be in the CAO, That's one of my strong points that I bring to the table, and I think it would be more efficient for me to be that under me because I understand how that process worked. But I'll let you. So if I can interrupt just a second. So what's going to be different because that's coming under you that's going to make that more efficient and more effective? Are you going to be involved in a day-to-day operation of it? You're going to be looking at the grants they're going after. What's going to make it more efficient? It would be less people to get to go, less layers to go over. They go directly to me instead of going through certain layers to get to certain points like it used to be. Now we're trying to cut the layers down, and I think that's what a lot of people have is time. And when you go through a layer, it takes more time to get through. By going this process, it's going to speed up the time, the complaints, and the concerns that the citizens or the employees or you guys have. I think it would be more efficiency than what we had before. Okay, so then it sounds like if we're taking out layers, then part of the efficiency is going to be in people, so that we're going to have cost savings associated with that, it sounds like. Is that correct? There will be some. Again, with the combination of public works and environmental quality, which is another good area to talk about efficiencies, when you have one leader in that area and you're talking about project management and how engineering can be more effective throughout all the divisions as we move forward on sewer projects or road projects, et cetera. I think you'll see in the budget, and it's kind of hard to separate out because we looked at it in one total picture, but we had those reorganization proposals in mind when we were looking at staffing levels and appropriate staffing levels and whether we could abolish funded vacancies, for example, in areas. So I think you'll see that when you see the budget in certain areas. But certainly cost savings, one director, one leadership, when you talk about being able to relate environmental issues with planning issues, community and development issues, and you have one person at the helm making those decisions and moving forward is an efficiency. That's just one example. Excellent. So can you do us a favor? Councilman Stenet asked for the financial efficiency that we're going to gain. Can you tie that with the positions, these changes, so we say, okay, now that we're going to move this over to the CAO, it's going to eliminate this position, and that's part of the efficiency? Well, again, I think you'll see those vacant, if they're vacant, or if they're eliminated positions, that will be reflected in the detail of the budget document. No, but I'm kind of simple. It would help me out a lot if I could just have that where you do those lines. A crosswalk, sure. Correct. That might take longer than today, but you can get the savings of the major positions today, and then we can work on that. Okay. And while you're on that, I don't think you guys have provided yet the documentation that shows what's mandated and what's not. We had a draft worksheet that you should have gotten that was what we collected during the budget process. It is certainly not a final product, but you should have received that, so I will check on that. Okay. Continue. I think that we're going to go through some of these other efficiencies, I think. I don't know. Did you want to say more in relation to Council Member Meyer's question? I mean, what would you want to make? More efficiency. Yeah, I just was hoping to hear. We heard that we're doing all these moves because before the last administration, this is the way it was. That's fine. But I'd still really like to hear how we're going to gain efficiencies, why you guys are really doing it. I think you have more of a reason behind it than just before the previous administration, this is the way it was. So that's what I want to hear from you because you're the one that's really going to run the government day to day. So when you look at these, because you're going to own this, you more than anybody, How do you see this making things more efficient? And what are the outcomes for our government and our citizens as a result of it? Well, I think with the vacancies, we're going to save costs, but we're also going to have to have people step up and be more efficient in what we do. And more people are going to have to take on more responsibility. And by cutting these layers down, that enhances supervisors and commissioners to be able to do more than have a bunch of layers to go through when we start cutting back on staff. And as you will see when we start budgeting today, the mayor will be able to present that to you all today. And I think, to me, this is an ongoing process. I see a lot of potential with y'all's help and us as we go through the links and some of the ideas where we're going to be able to show you why we think law and HR works well or other departments, that we can do things that we haven't done before. And when they were in before, you couldn't do that. By doing this, you open it up and be able to cross things in a lot easier than what they used to be. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, I applaud environmental quality and public works being combined. having dealt with the streetscape, et cetera, so much of that is commingled. And I think that that will be much more efficient and serve our citizens much better. I also, building inspection is there in large part to protect the public, to make sure that buildings are built to a standard that's safe. And they're not a zoning department. And so I also applaud moving building inspection with public safety. Code enforcement often overlaps with building inspection, and I think that there's the potential there for them to help each other out more efficiently and effectively. And that's something I've said for when I was running the first time. So I really like what you're doing with this. And I also think that efficiency is not only a cost savings, but it is also a service to the community. when you are dealing with something that, like right now, the Maxwell Street renovation or the South Limestone Main Street, it's, well, it's been very costly. But beyond that, it has disrupted lives. It's disrupted businesses. So efficiency isn't just dollars and cents. Its efficiency is also about better serving the community and the citizens in a better, faster, more productive way. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Oh, excuse me. Mr. Frost wanted to say something. Yes, if I could. I'd like to respond to Council Member Lawless as well as Council Member Myers about efficiencies. I think that part of what we're doing, what's being done here, is about cost savings. I think a substantial part of it is what you see here is one step in a process that should align these functions to be much more effective for the citizens. As I understand the budget process, it requires a starting point, and the starting point came very early in this administration. It seems to me that the justification for going back to a structure that people were familiar with and that is a structure that this council at least implicitly approved when it approved the CAO's position is a good starting place. And I'll focus specifically on the move of the planning and historic preservation PDR programs under a development officer. Whether that results in specific cost savings in terms of reduction in employment or other cost savings is one thing. Quite another thing is how effective that planning function actually is. And while that move has not been completely taken in this one cut, this is at least a starting place for the budget and provides, I think, a good platform to move forward to those sorts of effectiveness changes. As well, the move back in environmental quality does reflect perhaps not cost savings particularly, although you do pick up a commissioner line there, but does have some effects on combining governmental functions in a way that should promote efficiency. Thank you. And now, Council Member Lange. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think I'll address this question to the CAO, Mr. Maloney. So I just have a couple of questions. I think the first question relates to not having a CIO, and we've invested multimillion dollars into upgrading our computer systems, our software, and our ability to manage and look at the cost of operating the government. And I realize CIOs are expensive, but we have a huge investment in our computers and software. Do you have a plan to add a CIO, or are we just going to try to go along the way we are now? Well, what I want to do on that is, as you know, the economy is bad as it is right now. We can't invest in anything. We've already invested in what we have, and I commend the staff we have now can do what we have. And I'm really impressed with what they have. They met with the transition team, and the transition team, I talked with them. I said, do we need to fill this position immediately? They said no, because you've got really what the economy is bad as it is right now. The investment for something like that, you don't have the money. But the staff that we have or what we have right now are capable of doing what they're doing. I see down the road when the economy picks back up and technology starts to pick back up and change, I see this position possibly coming back up. But as of right now, we thought this might be the best just to hold this off and now let's get through these tough times for the next few years and maybe come back and review that again. Well, it's just my concern was we've invested millions, maybe $20 million. I don't know the exact total, but a substantial amount of money, and I'd just hate to try to save a little bit of money by not hiring a CIO. and maybe we get off track on our accounting system, our enterprise system controls, and that could cost us a lot more in the future. That was just a concern that I had. The other question I had, are there any management positions currently open that are not filled, that aren't reflected here, or do you feel like you have all of your positions filled at this time? The only one we have right now that's not filled is the Commissioner of General Service, and we are waiting until this budget passes, and then probably once we get that on board, then we'll bring someone on. And there are some other positions down that we have, directors positions, that are very few positions that are vacant. I mean, after you hear the mayor's speech today, he will be able to tell you what are available and what are not available. Okay. And then the other area that I have concern about, and I have spoken to Commissioner Taylor, and I mentioned to the mayor, I mentioned to you. First off, I think Cheryl Taylor is one of our brightest commissioners here, and she was with us before, and she's back again, and we're happy to have her. I'm just worried about the responsibility for all of the work we're going to be doing under the EPA consent agreement to inspect and upgrade all of our sewers and storm lines, and then add on to that, you know, streets and all that on top of it. and have you looked at the workloads and you have some way we're going to help her manage that? We are working with her now and helping her, and I've got a couple of people on my staff. Cheryl's got a great plan on how these things are all going to come in place, and our staff is working with her, and she's getting some help, and that's an issue that we're really on top of, And I commend Cheryl on her ideas and how, like I said, it's an ongoing process. We're going to be making changes there, too, because there's a lot of potential for cost efficiencies. And not only that, but personnel. She's pretty good at running it. She runs it like a factory, folks. She knows where everything is, and I'm impressed with what she's put there for us. Okay. And then the other question I had with regard to the issuance of billing permits, Could you tell us who's responsible for that and how that will be overseen? The building permits will still be under building inspection. This is an ongoing process that we're working with consultants and also with our staff on how we're going to make this more efficiency. And we feel that our building inspection is pretty good right now. They have a pretty good turnaround. It's just planning. We're going to be a little bit more aggressive because we don't want to hold up, and that's where we're going to be spending a lot of our time this summer and trying to get our planning and working with, hopefully, when we make these changes within economic development and their ideas, we think there's potential for some good improvements in those areas. So someone has a set of construction plans, and the site's zoned and the development plan's improved. they would just go directly to the building inspection department and they would review it initially. As long as everything's stamped off, building inspection, and they get that turnaround of those buildings. And that's what we're trying to make it similar across the state and do it that way, take zoning out of their hands. Okay. That's all my questions. Thank you very much for your answers. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Don't go away, Richard. Thanks for coming up and helping us understand the new proposals and all. I've got a number of things I want to sort of try to understand. The chief information officer concerns me a little bit because I think that in previous administrations, We've not had adequate accounting systems that reflect really what our current amount of balances are or what we owe or who we paid or that kind of stuff. And my concern is that we're not going to have sort of a single focus to be able to drive those systems and to be able to integrate them. So the computer service is going to be reporting to you. What is going to be your interaction with the computer service? Well, and that's the other thing. You're taking a layer. I'm going to be working with Jane and what's the information on the budget, because you know they're going to have an impact on the budget too, on people's stuff and all that. With me and Jane working together, we think this is going to be a lot more smoother deal in getting the numbers. And the great thing is when she was in Louisville, as you can go back and look at her report, she had numbers out to everybody every month. You're going to get numbers you never had before. And I think that's the one thing this council's been asking for. And that's when I was on the council. We never got the numbers like we should. And I really feel with this system and with Jane here, I think we're going to be able to do numbers that we've never done before. And I think, Jane, you want to add on to that or something that you can get on? I think what's important to me as we looked going through this reorganization is looking at enterprise solutions and the support capabilities that they have as we move forward with the enterprise-wide financial system. As you all know, there have been some issues in the past, and we're looking forward on how we can do more intelligence reporting and gain more information from the system. But we feel like our relationship with enterprise solutions, and just initially talking about where we need to go with PeopleSoft in the next generation, that they're able to work with us in a sufficient manner. I will tell you that I do want to develop a stronger relationship with that group in terms of the financial system and what our needs are and really have a liaison with that group. So that's how, from my perspective as a finance director, commissioner. But obviously we have a lot of technical things, having the computers talk to each other, being able to migrate information from one set of systems to another. The fact that our previous CIO was snapped up by UK almost the second he left makes me concerned that that's a position that we really need. So let me move on to a couple others. Richard, I too have some concerns about environmental quality in public works. I agree. I would describe Cheryl Taylor as one of our rock stars, and I believe that. She's just extremely capable, and I'm very pleased to have her back. Given that moving planning, for example, up to the CAO's supervision is a way to elevate the importance of that, combining two departments that were previously separate into one department seems like it might reflect a lower priority, Considering that we have the consent decree that has approximately $300 million of projects coming down the pike in the next 10 years, I'm extremely concerned that we're going to be spreading Commissioner Taylor too thin and that the consent decree has an enormous amount of projects involved. It's going to be very complicated getting them all coordinated in connection with the other things, the environmental policy and waste management. So I'm concerned about that we're just sort of dumping these two departments together and therefore reducing the importance of what we do in those departments. So I look forward to talking more about that. Vice Mayor, I don't see a clock. Just stop me if I run out of time. I don't see a clock either. You've got about a minute and a half left probably. Are we over? Okay, well, if we could put the clock up, that would be helpful. I'll come back in because I've got a couple more questions. Thank you. Okay, very good. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gordon. I want to start off with a couple of comments. I want to thank Chris Frost for his leadership in guiding the transition team. I know it was very helpful for me as a new council person to take advantage of the transition team, And I think many of the council members took advantage of that opportunity. And it kind of foreshadowed some of the changes that we kind of see now. To CAO Maloney, Richard, your experience, I guess, on the legislative side and the executive side, you've seen these reorganizations before, and that lends me great confidence into your leadership and kind of getting us right on this ship. I have two questions, however, that I would like to pose to you and to Finance Commissioner Driscoll. You know, the Council's deliberation of this plan and the effectiveness of this plan, only time will tell. But just based on your experience, I have two questions. First is, in your opinion, will the implementation of this restructure increase the overall cost of service delivery? provided by the government? And secondly, do you think that this restructure will pose an undue administrative or operational burden on our division directors and our employees? I think, again, when we were building the budget, certainly this reorg is not at additional cost to this government. In fact, there were savings in several areas, but again, they were combined with other initiatives that we took during the budget review process, and that will be demonstrated in the budget that you'll receive today. So definitely it comes at a lesser cost. I think it also builds capacity. For example, the opportunity in working with you all through the budget process of the potential move of payroll to finance. There's so much interrelation between accounting, for example, and payroll. And I'm not talking about the human resource part, the hiring and the EAP programs and all that, but the strictly financial payroll piece. It's such a huge part of our budget. And I think the capacity for better knowledge, better information, capacity building in both the payroll staff and the finance staff, I think that's an opportunity for potential savings down the line. Now, what about the employees and the division directors? How? I talk on that one. Since we've been working with employees, they like this setup better. And the reason why I like it, we're getting a lot of information from directors. They have a lot of experience and a lot of ideas. And before they didn't, they didn't feel like they had that opportunity. And they kind of like, they feel like they're getting a lot of input. They're getting more information than they ever had. When we had this budget discussion, they never had this. It's been a long time. And they know this process, and they really seem to be more to it than they had before. And I'm getting a lot of good feedback on that. Okay. Well, Richard, I do thank you for bringing this to us. As we all know, and we're here at 3 o'clock, this government does not have a day or dime to waste. And just so as long as this restructure does not cost us resources we don't have and waste us time, I definitely look forward to learning more about it and hopefully supporting it. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Hi, Richard. Hello, Councilman Henson. Overall, I think this plan makes perfect sense. I do have a couple of questions. The chief development officer, who's in that position? Right now it's in the mayor's office, and that would be Kevin Atkins. Okay. Okay, and you propose changing this chart to where community development, historic preservation, planning, and PDR? Community development will stay under me. The rest will go under Kevin or whoever's in that position, which I think is Kevin. And those will go over there. And I think that the mayor, when he presents a speech, will tell you the reason why he thinks this is a great deal. So would that be like a commissioner-level position? No, it would be a position that under the mayor's office. It would be an officer under the mayor's office. That's correct. Yeah. And zoning violations would stay with planning? That's what we're working on now. Which would go with Chris King. We will go under a catalog. So I guess my question would be, how do we know he's qualified to oversee these? Well, the directors are the ones that are going to be overseeing those positions. So it would be Chris King, whoever's in there, who's the head of the directors for, will be the ones to oversee those. What this developer is going to be doing is make sure these jobs get done, which I don't believe we've had in a long time. That position is going to move. We've got to get the economy moving again, and that's going to be that person's position to make sure all these things are being done so we can go on and get the economy moving again. And I think that's what this mayor wants to push for. Can you give me some kind of time frame? I know that you all have been very, very busy and moving fast on a lot of issues. The moving parts, that's all the place. Every day is something new. The zoning, when that might be. Well, we have had meetings for the last two or three weeks since Kevin's task force has made recommendations. We are putting proposals together. We hope next week to meet with the mayor on some ideas on how we can make some changes. And hopefully we like to have everything done by June, end of June when this budget goes in for next year. That's what I go. And that goes back to what we're saying. This is a moving process. process, that there will be changes in the length, that we will give you heads up as we go along. Okay. So you don't anticipate a real long length. No, I think we're going to try as quickly as possible to get that done. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to first say thank you for putting this together for us today. I'm not sure until we see some numbers with it, how it's all going to shake out, and I'll look forward to getting that. But I will just say that I appreciate the fact that you all tried based on what you heard from our employees, because this happened during the transition process where you interviewed employees directly, and it's my understanding that they were sharing with you efficiencies that could be realized within their divisions and that you all listened to our employees and made these changes. So I guess time will tell, as Council Member Ford said, but once we get the numbers, we can kind of see how things fall in. But I hope that the employees, too, appreciate the fact that you all took their feedback into consideration. And I guess the question that I have, just one, is we made a lot of changes, organizational changes, I know during my last term on council, And I was just wondering if you all looked at some of those changes, because I know some are still under the divisions that they were changed to. If you all looked at those changes that had been made and whether or not you considered putting them back or just left them the same and are going to deal with it later. We're looking at all. We think there are potential for some changes in those divisions. And when we make those decisions, we will come to you guys to tell you, explain why we think, and then we will help you all support. But we will be bringing, even in the division, we think there are some potential changes. Well, we think it needs to be done. Okay, great. Thank you. Actually, next is Council Member Stennett. He somehow accidentally dropped off the list but didn't mean to get off. So, Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to go back to something Council Member Henson alluded to and talking to several people offline while this meeting has been going on. You said we're going to move the historic preservation planning and PDR, which would also ultimately hopefully have zoning enforcement under the chief development officer, correct? You want to have one with that again? The intentions are to move historic preservation planning, which would also hopefully eventually include zoning enforcement as well as PDR underneath the chief development officer. I guess from where I sit, we confirmed six commissioners. I mean, they can tell you how grueling that process was coming before 15 council members. that oversee the rest of the departments as well as yourself. You can tell how hard that was. I'm not sure we've had the same luxury to know the background of Mr. Atkins. I mean, he may be a great candidate to oversee those positions, but to me, planning and zone are very important as we move forward in this city. I'd like to know his background and why you all chose to put it underneath him and what he brings to the table to oversee those departments, because quite frankly, those are departments that need some serious direction into our future in management so that we do not make the same mistakes we've made in the past. So if you can get us that information, because in all fairness, we did confirm yourself and the other six commissioners, and if that's going to be a commissioner-level type position, I think we need a background. Okay. Thank you, sir. Councilman Burmert. Thank you. Ms. Jarvis, I have a couple questions about the HR part of this for Leslie Jarvis. Yes, sir. So when a reorganization happens, what are all the pieces that make that happen? I guess there is a change in PeopleSoft, is that correct? Well, there would be a change in PeopleSoft from the standpoint that you would be restructuring the positions and the reporting who they report to in the organizational structure. If you're shifting any of the positions to a different division, then there would be a budget shift as well for those dollars. Okay. And does something happen on their paycheck, I mean, on their pay stub or something like that? Or does it say who they work for, or is there anything that comes out on that? I don't believe it's on their pay stub. The information is in PeopleSoft of who their reporting structure is and who their supervisor is and who approves that pay, but I don't believe it reflects on their pay stub. Have those pay changes been made in PeopleSoft? The report to and who approves their time, that has because someone has to approve their time. Okay, so the PeopleSoft accounting system reflects the new organizational structure? Not all of it, no. But some of it? Some of the pieces have been moved. And I guess in other things is that some people will be physically moved to different places. Does that happen as well? Or folks are going to generally keep their same offices? Some people could be moved to a different location. And PeopleSoft does reflect the physical location of people who are assigned elsewhere. And have anybody been moved to new offices? Not to my knowledge. Okay. Thank you. And in clarifying in the organizational structure, some of the folks that have been moved, for example, human resources is reflecting currently under finance. We are reporting to the CAO that move has been made, but we're not reporting to law yet. So I wanted to be clear on what moves have been made. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Graham, I have a question for you. So what does the charter say about reorganizing? What's required to a reorganized government? It basically requires council approval, and although the charter sets out sort of a basic structure when the merger was done, it also gives some flexibility to you all to approve what you would like the structure to be. And so what kind of vote is required from us? I believe it's a three-fifths, I believe. A three-fifths, okay. As I understand, some of the reorganizations are already taking place. Change has been made in the PeopleSoft system to reflect different reporting and different structure. Is that an illegal reorganization under the charter? No, it's not, because I believe you would have to have, for time entry purposes, you have to have accountability with time entry. And so I think any changes that have been made thus far would reflect accountability-type changes, but not official move changes that you all would have to approve. So what you're saying is that essentially this reorganization could be undertaken without the council's approval? No, I believe you all have to approve all reorganizations. I think what the CAO has said is this is an ongoing process, and any future changes that are put in place, you all will see those and have to approve them. Well, I guess what I'm confused about is when does it actually happen? Because if folks are currently reporting to new people and if changes have been made in PeopleSoft, what's left to be done? I'm not following. Well, I think any official news as far as the reorg, you all would have to approve those. I think there's, in life, you know, you have some human elements and some shifts that have to occur, and sometimes those aren't instantaneous, I think, is probably what's being reflected. And so it's your legal opinion that everything that's been done is consistent with the charter? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Actually, I have another minute. Richard had one more question. We'll have to make it quick. So who are the commissioners going to be reporting to in each of the departments? We have six departments in the new structure. Well, as you know, Shell Tanner will be over the public work and environmental. Who do they report to? They report to you, to the CAO. And so also, I guess I'm a little confused. I'm not sure I understand what the new, new structure is going to be. But certainly, I guess, a lot of these planning and government communications, enterprise, and there's going to be a significant number of other folks reporting to you as well, I guess. And then we have the ED. What's going to prevent you from becoming the bottleneck? That's my concern. Well, when I told you, when you confirmed me, I had a similar setup with the state. I had a director for building, a fire marshal, and I had computers, I had administration, and I had all those folks. The only difference I see different here is a lot more people underneath them, but I still see the similars I have about the same amount of people that I communicate with daily that I don't see a big problem with. But it's just going to be a lot more people. That's the only difference, and that's going to be where their jobs are is to go and do those kind of superpowers. And when it comes to this, I did the estate, and like I said, I was impressed. I mean, I was pleased with what I did, and we were able to save a lot of money and did a lot of cross-training. I see the similarities of what we're going to do here. That's why the mayor asked me to come back. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Lawless. I'm sorry. I just want to add to that. I heard a lot of watching this upstairs. I just want to make sure that we're clear from what Commissioner Graham had said. The reporting of time and the sign-off of time has been done in Peoplesoft, but there has been no budgetary move yet. Once the budget is approved by you guys and formally submitted, that will happen. Any reorganization at that time will happen with the budget load for FY12. So just to be clear, there's been no money movement. It's only been the approval of time. And, Chad, just for Councilmembers who may not know you, your Enterprise Solutions. That is correct. Yes. Sorry, I just want to make sure that was clear. That didn't seem to be a clear point to Councilmember Martin's point. Thank you. Councilmember Lawless. Thank you. I guess, Council Member Martin, if I recall last year when the mayor had presented his budget, and in that there was reorganization, those people were notified and given 90 days before the council heard anything about it. So that's not unprecedented. But I punched the button because I, too, am very interested in and excited about what the plan is going to be for planning for our community. So I know that you all are still working on that, but I think that has been an area inside the urban area that has been really not done in a visionary look at the whole picture, spot zoning, et cetera. So I'm very excited to hear how that's going to, as you all get your arms around that, how that's going to shake out and how that's going to be what's going to happen with that. So thank you, and that is of great interest to me and to the district I serve, and I think probably to the entire county. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and I'm really not sure exactly who I should, maybe to you, maybe to the CAO. Do you anticipate us approving this in total or position by position? We have some issues that we probably could approve 80 percent of it, but there's maybe 20 percent sitting out there that people still have concerns about. Well, we would like to get it off Thursday night, And that's what we would put up, I believe, what we're pushing for Thursday night for the first reading. And then if there's any questions or anything for the next couple of weeks, we'd be glad to answer them. And hopefully that'll answer some of the 20% that you all have concerns out there in the next couple of weeks. I'll leave it to my colleagues as to how they feel about that. If anybody wants to jump in, I would favor it. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I don't want you to interpret my comment to think, you know, I don't think there's a lot of merit in your reorganization plan. I think it would be appropriate that we get the budget and we have time to digest the numbers, look at the staffing levels, et cetera, et cetera, before we made a motion to move this forward for approval. That's just my sort of response. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And just to add to that, I would also ask that you guys could provide that detailed information in terms of people moving, bodies moving, and that org chart to go along with that. Thank you. And if you could also add the savings that you think this is going to bring, that would be helpful as well. Thank you. Are there any other council members who have questions? Any other comments? If not, thank you very much for bringing us this information. And the information that's been requested, do you know about when that might arrive for council members? If we can go back and do an assessment of the crosswalks of people moving, I think it's a matter of being able to extract that information from the system. We can get back with you by email if that is appropriate. Yes. In terms of the time. That would be fine. Okay. Thank you very much. If there's nothing else, do I hear a motion to adjourn? Moved and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? We are adjourned. I'll keep a part of you with me And everywhere I am there you'll be Cause I always...