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I wasn't going to include every single project, but I did meet with Rama and he has went over every project in there and does feel very confident they will spend all of the $350,000 doing a lot of upgrades and changes. I don't know. Rama, do you want to add anything or give a quick list of the projects that you'll be spending that $350,000 on out of your budget so Councilmembers can feel a little more comfortable with that line item? Back in February when Councilmember Stinnett got the report, a lot of what you had seen that wasn't spent was the funds hadn't been encumbered and we were in the process of hiring our network security engineer and we didn't want to go forward and make decisions without that person. We thought that wouldn't be in the best interest of spending that money wisely. Currently we have about, I think, close to $98,000 that's left in that account from $350,000 so since we last spoke. The future projects that are, we did a disaster recovery study. We have to audit that and make sure that going forward that's happening. Management from the mainframe is a priority since we're trying to consolidate our infrastructure. Active directory, currently we're on several different servers, we're consolidating that. We're working on a strategic plan for the city that will encompass an IT plan for each division and that's part of that. There's a business process improvement which will be part of the strategic plan which is a separate project and that will help us develop standards and consolidate software. Just to give you an example, if we have seven different operating systems, we bring it down to two. How do we do that and change the business process to get there? That's not going to be done in a year, by the way, it's a pretty complex process and what we've accounted for is just next year a small portion of it. The other one that's also in there is service oriented architecture which is a piece of bringing all different components that are legacy that are not supported currently into the newer framework that we're going to be following. So those are the projects that are going to be in there. Council Member Myers had a question. Thank you, Councilman Stennett. This is really not a question, this is a statement and I just want to say that I think the money the most well spent money that this government did last year was to hire Rama and all the changes that he's brought to our government and I just want to congratulate you on that. Any other questions on the Seattle budget? Council Member Myers? All righty. Thank you Rama, appreciate it. Moving right along, next is the Coroner's Office and again when we met with the Coroner we realized this is a bare bones budget and we had some reduction in funding from 2008 and so the link felt strongly in order not to lose any of the deputy coroners that we add that money back in to keep his current staffing levels and you can see that reflected there in the $47,000 and that's again to keep his current staffing levels to make him at 2008 levels. So that's not additional new staffing, that's to keep him at the 2008 levels. The mayor did include in their funding for restroom renovation about $30,000 which is a capital project and then a couple comments, there was a couple big needs out there. One is his HVAC system as you know can be very important to a coroner in his office and keeping it cool is in repair of a band aid repair of about $250,000 and looking at that and trying to compare it to the actual cost of the building he's in doesn't make a lot of sense, same as our own government center, keep repairing it if the facility is not even worth much more than that. So one thing the link does recommend is a site study immediately within 90 days after the budget to take a look at do we keep him in the same location or do we start looking for a new location for our coroner because putting $250,000 into an HVAC system just as a minor repair doesn't make a lot of sense and he really does need updated facilities. So we would support doing that and he would also like to see possibly the indigent burial study funded which would be about $10,000 which would be another option that the council can consider in adding it to the budget. Any questions on the coroner's budget? Council Member Blues. What would be studied? Location on where we would do the indigent burials. One idea would be to do it at the Eastern State Hospital and then take over those grounds where there's currently a cemetery there and they maintain that but he would like to find a permanent program and location to perform these burials. Anybody else? Okay. Well, let's see. We've got a couple more here. Circuit judges. We did not recommend any changes to the circuit judge's budget. However, it is important that one of the new positions that the mayor did propose funding in the FY09 budget is the current position of the domestic violence specialist that is previously grant funded. That grant actually runs out in October so it's a much needed position in their office so the mayor did pick that up in terms of a general fund expense now to keep that program going. Any questions on circuit judges? There were no recommended changes in the economic development office which brings us to our last page in our own council clerk's office. There was one minor change in their software maintenance that was inadvertently left out of about $450 in there. For the part of that, 380 is the database for the deeds and then also the code of ordinances that they have to maintain online. That addition was, again, $450,000. And then the most important thing, the most critical thing, as you know, Liz Danmore did retire and Susan has taken over as the council clerk. However, that leaves a deputy position that is funded in the FY09 budget to be filled so the link does recommend filling that immediately as soon as possible and I have had conversations with the administration and I think they would support that. We just need to get that done for Susan because if something happens to her, we don't have a backup right now. So I know our county clerk, Mr. Blevins, would be the official backup and not to put any pressure on him or Don sitting next to me, but I don't think he wants to come over here and read from those minutes or sign off on anything officially anytime soon. He respectfully declines, says he has a full-time job as it is. I understand. So we would recommend pushing to get that hired as soon as possible. Any questions on our council clerk's budget? In summation, and I'll open it up to Julian or Jay if they have any other questions, you know, one major thing, I know we've talked about this at the last CAL meeting, you know, one big disappointment in the budget process this year is the lack of information for the directors in their own budget. We need to change that. They need to know what their budget is and what each line item is because there is a disconnect. A lot of them are receiving their budgets and they really don't know how it was put together. They just receive them and then they have to be able to dictate that back to us, which is very difficult for some of them. So I would hope the commissioner, I know we've talked about this, we could have a different plan so directors do really understand their budget because there may be things in it they really just don't need in there and we could move it to the appropriate departments that really needed that funding. Jay or Julian, any other questions or comments? Council members? Vice Mayor? I appreciate your all the work that went into this. I think it's big for everybody on the council. I also recognize that there was a fast progression through one of the one of the many issues, council member Stanton, and that was the performance measures staff. I was waiting for you. Yeah. I know that we've had I just want to point out, recognize that this is not debate, but I think unless we get a particular issue on the table today, then it may well escape us. And I just my observation about this is I recognize that we've had, as we've gone through the results of the management audit, that there's been distress and there's been tension and anxiety associated with some of those recommendations. And I think part of the link, as I understood you to say, part of the link reasoning and the thought process on on suggesting not to undertake this study had to do with maybe perhaps too many already engaged. But my observation on this one is that, you know, we've been in been in this council now for 15 months, and when we first had our retreat and we talked about one of our six pillars was efficiency in government. And the way I view this myself is it's like we're flying a $400 million and flying a $400 million 747 without instruments, and frankly, that makes it very convenient for management, but it makes it very difficult for us as a legislative body to evaluate performance and to evaluate particularly not individuals' performance. And that's often the way that these are characterized. But what we're really trying to do is evaluate the operations of our government vis-a-vis others. And our ICMA will be perhaps a start on that, but at the same time, if we're not getting the actual operational infrastructure of our government buying into these performance measures, then it's going to be tough to really get any real leverage out of it. So I guess all of that is to say that I hope we can still take a look at this and consider it, because I'm thinking, you know, in the cockpit of that 747, you'd sure like to see a few instruments that are telling us whether we're doing better or worse in altimeter of sorts. I mean, I enjoyed Erin Rama's comments, and we've invested a lot, for example, in our computer systems, you know. That's the hardware and the software. And it's like the chips that are driving the hydraulic system for the wing flaps. But getting that data back up into the cockpit is what we're talking about here, and so I just hope that we'll think about that a little bit. Thank you, sir. These questions keep getting longer and longer, I tell you. Anybody else have any other questions? Just to point out, too, the final number for the link is on the front page. The 246 was the net number back to the general fund. So that's on the very front page. Some of you had asked me that. Any other questions? I rest my case, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thanks again. And next on our agenda is general services. And in case you are deceived by our clock, it is actually 1025 now, and I believe some councilmembers have said that they need to exit for meetings at around 11. So that's about 35 minutes from now. I know Councilmember Lane and I believe Dr. Stevens and Councilmember Gordon, you all need to be gone for 30 minutes at 11 o'clock, right? Okay. All right. Next on our agenda is general services, and Councilmember Ellinger is chair of general services, and so we'll follow just the same protocol. Where's Chuck? Chuck? Yep. Same protocol. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We'll try to make this. Ours was pretty short. I want to thank Peggy Hinson and Dr. Stevens for helping out, along with Shannon Settles as the aide, and also Commissioner Coyle and all the directors who worked with us. I gave you all a packet back before we – it was in your box before the last time when we didn't get through the first ones, and I'll start with the commissioner's office, which is in your budget book on page 202. And if you look at our front page, there was very few recommendations that we actually made, and we agreed mostly with the administration, but in the commissioner's office, some of this – the information – and does everybody have the packet that I'm referring to here? You just had – that's what I saw. A lot of people just had the one sheet, and there's – okay, okay, thank you. And in the packet, it should have – and I wonder if we want to have somebody make copies for everybody because it's more in-depth than just one sheet. Paul, do you think you could – I'll go through it, but while I'm doing that, if Paul would make copies, because included is our link summary. And Commissioner Coyle, if you could come down here because there'll probably be some questions, we might as well go ahead and get you down front here. There's also – we have the management audit recommendations that are part of the budget, and also part of this is also the proposed positions that are going to be created, the new proposed facilities and fleet management division, and then on the last part is going to be the fees and charges for the parks and recreation. So that should be all part of the budget for the general services in our packet here. Starting with the commissioner's office on page 202, there was a $1 million transit improvement that wasn't funded. That went towards the new transit center, and that was their plan on selling the transit center, so they decided that wasn't necessary. There's $100,000 that's included in the building security improvements for the 12th, 5th, the 2nd, and the 1st floors, plus the Fiends Building. There'll be metal detectors put in there. There was $70,000 that was put in the budget for telecommunications software that needed to be updated. Management of the phone system will be moved to IT. Tubby's clubhouse position will be moved to parks, and money for studies, appraisals that were in the CO's budget has been moved to general services budget. That was part of the commissioner's office. The next part is building maintenance and construction, and also fleet services. That's on page 207, 208, and 210 of the budget. There is no financial impact on this. I'll start with fleet services. There was a 10% reduction, which they said they'll try to make out of over time and part time. There are five vacant positions not funded. One of the issues that we'll be dealing with in the services committee, and it was part of this budget, was the 107 non-public safety vehicle surplus and sold to bring in approximately $300,000 towards the budget. And what will happen with this new budget is there are going to be a, the fleet services and building maintenance, there's going to be a new facility management division. And that was part of the management partners recommending using personal vehicles or rental instead of the fleet vehicles, and that was the ordinance that we're going to be dealing with in the services. We currently have 1,500 licensed vehicles. Now, in the building maintenance and construction aspect, there was around 21,910 difference in the budget. There was 142,000 of personnel was moved into the division, and that was the three firefighters who were the non-sworn. There are three fire positions and 24 parks positions that will be transferred into the division, and this will merge with the fleet services and the facility management division. The new positions will be needed for the division. And part of the packet, there are, you'll see in the sheet that's included, are the new positions. The next part of the budget is the parks, and Dr. Stevens will talk about the parks. There were significant changes to the parks division this year, carrying out the recommendations of the management audit and transfer their maintenance to the centralized maintenance and facility. This was okay with Mr. Hancock in the parks division, and I think that they were happy to give it a try. The also, there was a mayor's recommendation that several of the deputy directors or supervisor positions be eliminated, and that is a problem, I think. Perhaps we need a deputy director of parks. Perhaps we don't. That's an issue that probably we need to think about, particularly if we eliminate some of the other supervisors. As you know, there's been a recommendation that fees charged by the parks division, such as golf, pools, and so forth, in the past have been reviewed by the council, which usually led to a public meeting and a lot of confusion about the fees. It's recommended that the administration have the authority to set the fees what they think are comparable and appropriate. One of the functions of the parks division is the providing of therapeutic recreation. Many people who have disabilities are not necessarily employable and depend upon the parks division for continuing activity, which is a great social benefit to them, as well as to their general well-being and their physical condition. However, the position of therapeutic recreation supervisor has been recommended not to be filled. This person is important to that activity, and the link is recommending that we fund that position and establish it. And that would be $55,000, according to the new numbers I received from the commissioner today, to fund that. So just recapping with the general services, if you look on the one sheet that you had, and Paul's passing around the rest of it, in the building maintenance and fleet service, they moved both divisions to a new division of facilities and fleet management and create 10 new positions, and that's part of the list that's attached. And in the parks, you would move 24 skilled trade workers from parks to the new division of facilities and fleet management. And one of the issues that I think we probably need to discuss is the increase of fees at all pools and establish a fee for Douglas Park. In the past, there's never been a fee for Douglas Park, and there is one in this. And on the last page, you'll see, the last four pages, you'll see the division of parks records fees and charges proposal. So that might be something we need to discuss. And with Douglas Park, on the last page, page four, it's gone from zero to $3 and $4. And then the last issue was the therapeutic recreation supervisor position, which is not filled, and that was $55,000. That would be the one increase that we'd have to this budget. Are there any questions? Yes, Ms. James. I'm just curious how the fee proposals were determined for the pools. If you want, the commissioner can answer that. The fee proposals were put together by parks based upon what are the costs for each of the services, and then how much are we expecting to subsidize each of the activities. That is, there's a matrix that the council approved back in 97 that was used to establish the fees for all the activities that are before you. And actually, the administration can do this on their own if we so choose, but the councils in the past have always decided that we want to be in charge of setting the fees, but the administration, actually Commissioner Cole came to us back, and I'm not sure exactly when you did, but. It was probably back in February. Back in February, that they were going to raise themselves, but we decided that if we're going to do it, we want to do it ourselves. So, we've taken that responsibility on. So, these are the new fees and charges that are included. I have a follow-up question. Certainly. Commissioner Cole, is there, does it make any sense to stair-step in any way to go from zero to go to three or four dollars? Is that, does that seem like a significant jump from your eyes? What we did for the Douglas Park pool was to compare it to other like pools across the community and what are they being charged. So, I mean, if the council wants to stair-step something, that's perfectly appropriate, but we just looked at what are the comparable pools and what would be a fair and reasonable rate to charge. And what, which was the comparable pool for Douglas? I don't have that in front of me. If you look, it's the other ones that are three and four dollars. It would be number 76 item reference number, which would be neighborhood pools as well. It doesn't have the names of the pools. It just says neighborhood pools. I can find out exactly which pools, but there are three or four neighborhood pools that are all the same. Thank you. And Commissioner, you might answer this question. At this point, none of these have been raised. So, this wouldn't happen until we pass this budget. So, the fees actually wouldn't go into an existence until after July 1. Would that be correct? That's correct. We showed the fees effective. The fee changes for all, for the golf and pools to be effective July 1. Obviously, some of the other activities, such as camps, those fees were already set going into the season and would not take effect until the next year. Right. Are there any other questions from council members? Dr. Blues? Thank you. I'd like to know a little bit more about the proposal to move Parks Designer into capital projects management under public works. Parks now has considerable difficulty with all of the design and planning projects it has to do. And I'm wondering whether this proposed transfer is going to alleviate the situation that we now have. Commissioner, do you want to answer that or I can? I'd be glad to address that. Part of the proposal that is in the mayor's budget is to form a capital design group that would manage all large capital projects, including parks projects. And it would be located in public works. One of the number one concerns that I have received since I've been here from the council and from citizens is the time that it takes for us to complete projects. This is an attempt to address that for the entire, for all of LFUCG. But if we put the folks that manage capital projects together and that's what they focus on are just capital projects, it will improve our efficiency in managing them. And so this was to do that. Now, I understand that the public works is not supporting this recommendation at this time. So if that is not supported, then these parks designers and project managers would need to remain in parks and things would stay the same way that they are currently in managing those projects. Thank you. Any other questions? I think I saw somebody's hand raise over here. Ms. Crosby. Commissioner, can you just clarify, there is a program also for, for example, if there's kids who just cannot afford that there's like a, I guess for lack of a better term, a scholarship program where they can have access to the programs for free if they cannot afford the fee. Is that correct? That is correct. Thank you. We'll give Ms., we'll give the commissioner a second to come down here, the mic. The handheld wasn't working as well as we were hoping. So the commissioner. If I'm the last question, don't come down here. That's correct. Thank you. I think I'm working now. What's the process that they would have to go through to be able to receive? It is set up through parks, but basically if they show, demonstrate the need through the free lunch program or other ways, they just, they get a, they can qualify for a swim pass for the summer for the swimming pools. And then the other activities are subsidized as well. Mr. Beard. A quick question about parks, commissioner. I guess it was yesterday or maybe the day before I heard on the radio a commercial advocating the utilization of Avon golf course. Do we have a program for all the golf courses or is this just for Avon? I am not familiar with the ad that you heard. We do have some advertisements advocating all of our golf courses that are currently out there. They must be picking them one at a time, I assume, and rotating. Yeah, I haven't. I'm not familiar with the exact one, but we have been trying to promote our golf courses. You know, the Avon has kind of surprised me. It not being a huge winner either as we, our previous discussions concerning Meadowbrook and it kind of shocked me a bit, but. No, we're trying to do a better job of marketing them all. Great. Thank you. I think Mr. Myers had a question. Just, I wasn't quite sure. I don't know if I heard you speak on this issue or not, but in this report, it has a list of all the management audit recommendations that are part of this budget. Go ahead. What we did is we met with the commissioner and we went down through each one that there was something that was being done in this budget and tried to give an update of where we stood on each one. So, just to give you all a reference point of what is happening or what's going to happen in the general services with the recommendations from the audit, management partners audit. So, does the LINC have a recommendation to the full council as to whether or not these should happen or did you just put this in there to say this is what, if we don't do anything, will happen? Some of the stuff is being done and some of it's not being done. We just tried to give you an update of where they were at this point. And what was part of this budget and you'll see when we read through the different things or what's part of the budget, just like the $300,000 that's for the cars that are being sold, that's part of this budget. But some of the things are being done and others aren't and that's what we just tried to go through each one to let you know where they stood on each one. But you didn't actually take a position as a LINC on each one? Well, the ones that are being done, we agreed with on what's part of the budget. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Henson? Commissioner, I want to ask again about the fees and the scholarships. Can you tell me what the process is to apply for a scholarship? Um, I do not know exactly, but I can get that for you later today. Okay, because I think, you know, if we're going to increase the fees, we need to make it an easier process for folks that can't afford it. Absolutely. Okay. Ms. James? If I can respond, yeah, I'll just follow up on that. I will let you know that we, as soon as we saw that the fee potential, the fee increase potential, we started inquiring from our office about what the scholarship process was. And this might be something that you may want to help us work through before we do the final recommendation. Because one of the issues is, it's very difficult to find a scholarship form. And on the form, it doesn't have a contact name or number or mailing address or anything. You don't really even know who to turn it into. You have to, when I called personally, they said I had to bring the form to Picadome, out to Picadome, and bring proof of verification of income. That makes sense. And that it's about a two-week process to get approval. So I think we need to really streamline it. And one thing I was thinking is, if you can online enroll for parks activities, that maybe you could online apply for a scholarship as well. So if we're looking at potential increase, I'd really be interested and think it would be helpful for us to make that as much mainstream as possible. That's probably beyond the realm of this conversation. But since people were asking, I thought I would state that there is, there are some barriers to the scholarship and applying for that. And I'm even curious as to whether how many people have taken, made use of that. Because it does seem to be a barrier. Even from internally, it was a barrier. Well, I assure you, we'll work to see how to make that as user-friendly as possible. Because that's not the intent. Thank you. Mr. Lane? Yeah, I just had a sort of a question on the recommendation regarding the use of personal vehicles and rental cars. Did you all make a recommendation? Are you referring that? That's been referred to service. That has been put into the service committee. And we're going to be dealing with that today at 1 o'clock. And the Commissioner is going to come today with a presentation for us at that point. Okay. So we'll be dealing with that. All right. Good. Thank you. Mr. Blevins? Yes. Thank you, Chair. I'm having trouble finding your net numbers in your documents. Could you point out to us where, what additions you all and deletions you all have made? The only addition that we have included is going to be the Recreation Supervisor position, which would be the $55,000. Outside of that, that would be in the parks, yes, sir. And other than that, you've remained budget neutral? That's correct. Because in your notes, there were some cuts, I noticed, for example. One million in transit improvements or that kind of thing. Those are the things that they talked about that they wanted, but it wasn't part of it. But that was... And the reason for that one was we plan on selling the transit center. And they didn't want to go ahead and put money to improve it if we're going to sell it. Fair enough. All right. Thank you. Ms. James? Was there any discussion during your links of how many parks employees would be lost retirement or attrition? It is, but they're never definite numbers, and you can't ask that question to know. Right. I just, you know, it's just kind of a known thing that parks has one of the most, I don't know the right word, experienced. Or there are people that have been in parks for a really long time. If it's one of our areas that has people that stay around longest. So I was just curious if it came up. As you talked about positions being vacant. You have any answer for that? There is no way of predicting how many of the folks that are eligible to retire will choose to do so. I know that. I just was curious as whether any conversation had gone on as far as who had said they might be and just voluntarily not being asked. We have not asked employees. Right. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Myers? Yes. I have one more question. On this therapeutic recreation supervisor position, the administration recommended not to fill it. The link recommendation is consider this position and if it should be filled. Does that? I think the link has decided that we want to fill it. And it was with benefits. It was $55,000. The way it stands right now, it's an acting position. And that can only go on for a certain amount of time. And the commissioner, you might go ahead and explain that a little more in depth. But we think that it's something that the community would like to see continued at a full-time position. It was one of the positions that was vacant in January. So it was included as part of this budget as a reduction. There is someone who's been in an acting capacity. But the ability to continue that for a long duration in a position that is not planned to be filled is not possible. So I think there's been a lot of discussion about that particular job because it does give us the ability to expand our therapeutic recreation programs. We still, there's been some concern that we're not offering any programs. We're still offering the same level of programs that we have been. This position was put, was originally recommended to expand the programs to the community. Okay. So the administration, it sounds like, is fine with the recommendation to fill that full-time? Well, I guess it depends. I would love to have all the parks positions filled. It's a matter of where's the money come from. So I don't know what we're balancing that against. Okay. Mr. Beard. Thank you. This question about asking about potential retirees, I can see there would be no prohibition against us asking. We can't force an answer. But wouldn't it be time to start making a list, at least get some idea where we are? It's going to be a huge budget impact on us. And I'm hearing numbers now anywhere from 180 from the administration last time. I heard 400 this past week. So there's a big disparity there. I'm not sure I'm the appropriate person to address that. Maybe not. I think it all needs to address what we can and can't answer on that. But I think we do have some discriminatory issues that we have to deal with if we start delving in on that on retirement. Because if somebody then is not given a job that they wanted, it might be because we thought they were going to retire. So you have to be concerned about legal issues, I think. My question is, can they not give that voluntarily? I'm sorry? Could they not give that voluntarily, though, if they wish? I assume that they could voluntarily tell us that, but they could also change their mind. It would be non-binding. I understand that. But it's like flying half-blind as opposed to flying totally blind, I guess. I guess what we need to do is maybe talk to law and see what we can ask and what we can derive. But you're right. We're looking at numbers that we're making a budget that we really don't have any fixed. Right. Mr. Myers? I was just going to add to that conversation that with the State, what they do is if a person says voluntarily that they are going to retire at such and such date, then it's sort of just kind of put back there in the background until they give you a letter of resignation. Once they submit that letter, though, they cannot reverse the letter. And so I don't think there's any problem with asking people and allowing them to say, I'm thinking about it, looking into it, that kind of thing. But you can't act on that until they actually give you a letter in writing saying they are going to retire on such and such date. I think that's probably something we should follow up with the law department and see what we can do because it's going to be a big impact on this budget because it's put into how many retirees and what we think our natural attrition is going to be, and those numbers could be a big change if it's not what we estimate. Correct. Are there any other questions? Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I want to once again thank Peggy Henson and Dr. Stevens for their help on this. Thank you, Councilmember and Mr. Chairman. And next is Councilmember Blevins, Chair of Public ---- Chairman of the mouthful. Yeah. The mouthful link, Public Works, Planning, Environmental Quality. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I first want to say hearty thanks to Councilmember James and Councilmember DeCamp for their support and hard work on our link. We had a very successful link, I believe. Just to orient you to your materials, on the front page is just a reference for the list of divisions that are in these two departments, and at the very last page, the lower right-hand corner, you'll get the net recommendation of this link, and I intend to proceed through it pretty much directly. Unless otherwise mentioned, we are recommending accepting the Mayor's proposed budget for this link. Beginning on page 1, starting with the Office of the Department of Environmental Quality, Office of the Commissioner, they had about $30,000 in the Mayor's proposed budget for some remodeling activities in their new offices. The Commissioners agreed that they can defer that for a year given the tight budget, so the link is recommending deleting that $30,000 from the budget. And I'm going to go pretty quickly unless you guys raise your hands so that we can try and finish by 11. B, the Office of Compliance in the Department of Environmental Quality, we had numerous discussions on restructuring. Let me just preface this by saying that we looked in our crystal ball a year ago when we set up Environmental Quality and guessed as best we could how to react to our ongoing negotiations at the time with the consent decree and so forth. We did a pretty good job, but not a perfect job, and what we're going to see over the coming months as Commissioner Taylor gets her arms around the problem is probably some structural changes as they react to the actual consent decree that we have in front of us now. They're not quite ready to do that, and we're not ready by the time the link needed to finish its business, so what we decided to do was accept the Mayor's proposed budget for the Division of Compliance as is, knowing that the Administration will come to us at a future date, perhaps at the late items or perhaps in the future. Commissioner Taylor is going to need to work out that. That's just a heads up for that line item that we'll be seeing some activities there. Very similarly, it should be item C here. I've got a mistake. Waste Management. The new Director took office in January, did not have time to really get their arms around all the efficiency studies we've had from prior years, and so by and large, the Waste Management budget is a continuation budget. We believe there are some areas that they need to reorganize to implement some of the efficiency programs. Director Feist is very much in favor of doing those, but here again, we weren't quite ready with detailed plans that would affect this budget cycle. I would alert you to look forward to some recommendations coming from him at a future date. Stop for a moment on environmental quality and see if there's any questions. Moving on to public works and planning. The first one was the Purchase Development Rights Program. We are going to accept the recommendation, actually, of Mr. Van Pelt. He came forward with some really good ideas. The first one was to outsource the farm monitoring function. This is where he has to go and check on various things related to the program. If we outsource that, we can yield substantial savings. Let me drop down to item B first so you can see what we're going to do. What we're going to do is outsource the physical visits to the farms to a known person that is familiar with the program at a cost of $13,000, so we're going to add that budget item. By doing that and rearranging some clerical support work within the commissioner's office, we're able to eliminate on line A a support position in the PDR program. Net is we're going to eliminate one staff position and hire and outsource one small piece of the work. Any questions on PDR? Go ahead. Council Member Stennett. Which staff person is being reduced? This would be the administrative, I've forgotten the exact title, but administrative assistant to Mr. Van Pelt. So would that be his former job that he previously occupied? I believe that to be correct. But I can't. I'm seeing nods from the back of the room, yes. So he was in that job, and he's recommending cutting his old job. His old job. So we didn't really need his old job all that time he was in there? I can't say that. I think the rearrangement by moving his office to public works has yielded some sharing of administrative resources, and in addition, outsourcing the physical check of visiting the farms helps alleviate another portion of the work, and the net of all that is to eliminate that position. Okay. Thank you. Other questions on PDR? Moving on to streets, roads, and forestry, the first line item A was our cold sweat big surprise. Inadvertently eliminated or left out of the mayor's proposed budget was salt. We're down to 500 tons from last winter. We had a pretty tight winter. Normally, Mr. McMillan lets us know that we would have, say, 2,500 tons left for the beginning of next season. We have 500 left. The link is recommending a mid-level purchase of salt, which would be 6,000 tons. That would get us through a normal winter and leave us a little bit left over for next year. I want to warn everyone that if we have a tough winter, we will be looking at buying more salt. A tough winter can be as high as 10,000 tons. So we're aiming for the mid-level there, and that's at a cost of $300,000. Council Member Myers? Thank you. I have a question, and that is, if we run out of salt, which is basically what we're talking about happening if we have to buy more, how much increase are we going to pay because we're buying in the middle of the season when everybody needs to buy salt? I have no idea. Is there a way that we can get an estimate on that? Sure. I'll take that as an action. Thank you. Any other questions on the salts? Council Member Ellinger? What did we use last year during the season? I'm not positive, but I believe, and my Link mates may throw in here, I believe we used like $7,500 or $8,000 last season. It was my memory. Anybody? So that would put us at $6,500 then if we had the $500 left over plus $6,000 you were requesting? Exactly. And that you think will be sufficient then? What Mr. McMillan had recommended that we do was in the neighborhood of 5,000 tons and then buy more later. We already opted to raise it to 6,000 so that we would have some remaining if we have a normal winter for next season, a year from now. That's the normal carryover. So we didn't want to go high. We just aimed for an average winter. Will our new salt barn be ready by then? Yes. So we'll have to divide up the two between the two then? Is that how it works? Right. That'll make us more efficient. We have a salt barn on each side of town. That was one of the management audit recommendations, by the way. Right. Okay. Thank you. Other questions on salt? Moving on to B. In discussions with Director McMillan, we determined that they are leveraging trucks in a number of ways for bucket and I've forgotten the other one. It's a specialized truck and we determined that we are no longer able to support that and get work done, particularly in forestry now that we're requiring the street tree maintenance and parks, excuse me, not parks, street tree maintenance and maintenance of trees on LFUCG grounds. We're no longer able to support that work with the number of trucks we have. So the link is recommending the purchase of a single bucket truck that will extend to 70 feet and allow for the larger trees to be maintained. That will be a bonded item. So that's one of our recommendations. Moving on to C. As you know, we're taking over the downtown street tree maintenance from the Triangle Foundation who has funded in the prior years. For bare minimum maintenance of the trees in the coming year, this would be for light fertilizer, mulching and watering. We're recommending the addition of $10,000 to the forestry budget to maintain our downtown street trees that we just had planted over the last few years. Moving on to item D. As you know, we've implemented a program for street tree audits, I guess. I've forgotten the name of it now, but essentially we're auditing street tree health and for trees that are not in compliance or in a danger to the community, we are citing homeowners and property owners to take care of those trees. In some cases, they will not be taken care of and you need a budget for abatement funds when the city will have to go in and take down a tree because it's a public safety issue. We've decided to fund them $10,000 up front to help with abatements in the coming year. So that's what line item D is. Moving on to the second page. Same idea, based on actuals in the prior years for maintenance of street trees for property owners, there's a tree cost share program and looking at the actuals, we felt like the mayor's proposed budget was not high enough to deliver that program. We're recommending the addition of $20,000 to bring it to a total of $50,000 in the coming fiscal year. So let me stop there for streets, roads, and forestry and see if there are any questions on those items. Moving on to planning, we had a very good discussion with planning. I was very pleased with the free thinking that went on. We had a lot of good out-of-the-box suggestions. The director, Mr. King, was very cooperative with trying to figure out the best way to approach some of the issues that they had. The first one I want to talk about is item A. The management partners audit recommended the elimination of the strategic planning division. In discussions with Commissioner King, we could see why the management audit would recommend that because it's a relatively small management group and just from a general point of view, it's better to have larger groups with single managers than to have one manager with, say, three employees, for example. This is a critical group, however, and it would be a working management position that has been filled, in fact, in prior years by Mr. King himself and has delivered to us, to the community, a number of major initiatives, including PDR, and I can get you a long list of things that this particular group has brought forth. We agreed with his recommendation that that manager ought to be filled. It's an existing position that was not rehired as a part of the hiring freeze earlier, however, it was not included in the budget, so we are, as a link, recommending adding that position back for a total of $64,500, as you can see on line A. As a part of that, in line B, the director agreed that he could eliminate a staff assistant position that was funded in the budget, so we're going to cut that one, which is a net savings of $36,400. Moving on to item C. There were a number of planning initiatives that were funded. It's a sequence of studies and so forth. In going through those items, we asked the commissioner to prioritize what he believed to be the more important studies based on a priority order. Going through them, he also identified that he was able to leverage funding from another area, and he actually recommended one cut himself. The net of all that conversation is what you see on this line item. We do recommend the development tracking initiative for $50,000, the neighborhood assistance program for ND1 zone changes or overlays at $50,000, and then the complete streets design manual is going to cost an estimated $150,000. The total recommendation from the link is $250,000, which is a net reduction of $289,000. Dr. Stephens. During your conversations with Mr. King, did you discuss the implementation of the infill and redevelopment task force recommendations? We discussed them. I don't think they netted out in a budget recommendation either way. Council Member James. If I may add, we did this as far as the innovative planning initiatives and the strategic planning staff. We did talk a little bit about that in reference to the recommendations that had come out of infill and redevelopment, specifically would say the complete streets, ND1. You'll see those referenced in item C there of innovative planning. We also talked about how that strategic planning department and the manager would be very important as it holds Rachel Phillips and that division that works very strongly with the infill and redevelopment. So we did have conversation about it and try to plug that in as we talked about our discussion of what to fund and what to eliminate. So adding the staff person to the strategic planning subset of the division of planning would partly fill that need, you think? We believe so because at this moment, I believe Rachel's reporting directly to the director as opposed to a manager. And that's the division that would be helping most with the infill and redevelopment. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Vice Mayor Gray. This is the same. My question is related to the same issue. What projects are you recommending not be included or not be budgeted? Which specific? Are they small area plans or the ones that so the ones that we're underway with today are continuing to be funded, but which ones? Anything underway is definitely going to be continued. One of the our reasoning is very similar to what Councilmember Sennett was talking about earlier, that we have a number of things that completed last year or are in flight and will complete in the coming year. We felt like adding more and more studies was going to over-task the planning division department. So we cut several. I don't have in front of me the two or three that we cut. Can we? I can get you that though. Yeah. Do you all have it with you by any chance? I did not bring those with me, but I'd be happy to share. I'll get you that. Outsourcing the studies. So it's really a management function then. I'm sorry? The issue is a management function capacity that we have to manage the outsourced consultants. Well, and then and react to the results of those studies. The coming year will be reaction to a lot of studies of primary, one of which is the infill and redevelopment work that you all have been doing. Some of those recommendations, the reason I'm asking is many of the recommendations had to do with initiating planning studies that would then be implemented, you know, at a later time. So my question has to do with which ones are we? I believe the ones you're referring to are already in flight. And finally, anyway, these would have been new and unrelated to infill to redevelopment is my memory, but I'll need to get you the exact list. Other questions or comments on planning? Okay. Moving on to engineering. The first one is a recommendation. There was a recommendation by the management partners audit that we establish a capital asset management group. This is the idea of a group that's focused on all construction projects government-wide. Budget-wise, the impact of this was to create a new director level position and then rearrange staff accordingly. In discussions with the commissioner, they weren't quite ready to implement that. We felt like a delay of one year, one budget year was okay and would not affect, have a dramatic impact on things. So we're recommending not funding that director position this fiscal year. However, I want to make it clear that the link does strongly support some initiative similar to this after, say, in fiscal year 2010. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you. So if that's the case, then the two positions that were coming from the general services, they would just stay in parks then? Stay in place. Okay. Thank you. Other questions on that? Item B, we want to bring forward for discussion in the CAO. It's probably not appropriate today, but I wanted to prep you so that you can be thinking about it. As you know, management partners audit also recommends that our engineering staff begin reviewing, again, development plans and designs. Today, we just accept development plans and designs and ensure that they're complete in terms of their application and paperwork, but we don't actually do an engineering review of those plans and designs. The audit has recommended that we do that. We requested that Director Marwan Rayyan include in his budget an estimate for what it would take to implement that. He did not include it in the original mayor's proposed budget. Mr. Rayyan estimated something in the neighborhood of $150,000 in outside consulting services as a need to pull that off. That would come in the form of updated policies and engineering manuals. In further discussions with Joe Kelly and Commissioner Don Kelly, the collective wisdom was that the management partner's ongoing work with the building permit process will yield some of what we need in this area, and we will save a little bit and perhaps not need the entire $150,000. As a working number, and we have not finalized this, Commissioner Kelly recommended $25,000 be allotted in outside professional services to his office, to the commissioner's office, as a placeholder that will help implement this. The rest will be taken up by existing staff. We bring this forward as a link because we felt this was a policy decision as opposed to a budgetary, as well as a budgetary decision, and we look forward to debating this when we get to that point in the process. Any questions on that item? Moving on to traffic engineering, the NTMP program, and I've forgotten the exact acronym, but it's Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, I believe. This is the program that Brad Fraser oversees where we get speed assessments and studies done in neighborhoods. District Council members are very familiar with this as it's something we feel the heat of every day. This program was not funded at all in the Mayor's proposed budget. We are recommending adding $30,000 to the general fund in order to support initiatives in this area. I do want to alert the Council that we've gotten a little bit carried away with our recommendations for traffic studies. Currently, Mr. Fraser is backed up to October with studies, so we'll probably be discussing this in one of our committees in the coming months when he brings forward a recommendation on how to perhaps rein in the scope of what we're asking him to do. But for the time being, we recommend for fiscal year 2009, $30,000 to help implement those studies that are complete. Any questions there? Moving on to the final page, we discovered in Traffic Engineering's budget that there is, over the last few years, the actual cost of overtime has risen dramatically, indicating the need for an additional signal technician. We've increased the number of signalized intersections in Lexington by a substantial amount, and yet staffing has actually gone down. We agreed with the recommendation of the Director of Traffic Engineering to add a signal tech. So in order to do that, what you're going to see is a reduction in the overtime budget of $21,000, and we'll need to add back $30,000 total to net out the new traffic signal technician. If that doesn't make sense, I'll be glad to go over it again. So we're recommending the addition of an additional traffic signal technician for a net difference of $30,000 additional general fund money. Any questions on Traffic Engineering? Finally, building inspection. Building inspection has a need for a conference room for private conferences with developers who are bringing in and have sensitive issues with respect to building permits. We agreed that that's a need, but given the austerity of this budget year, we decided to defer the remodeling costs and ask them to make use of other conference rooms in the building. That's a net savings of $20,000, and as you can see there, our total net recommendation is a savings of $49,000. Council Member Stennett? Does the FY09 budget include the tablet computers, and have they been purchased yet? I don't recall, Council Member. I'm sorry. That's fine. Thank you. Other questions? I do have two final things to make you aware of. Today at work session, I'll be bringing forward a couple of motions that came out of our link, and I wanted to give you a preview. The first one is there are a number of movements between our various enterprise funds and the general fund. We felt we do not feel that there's anything wrong with what's going on, but it was complicated enough that we felt like it would be appropriate for the Council to see an audit of the transfers among all those funds. So I'll be bringing forward a motion to place that item into the Budget and Finance Committee after the budget cycle. This is just something we want to review. The second thing that came out is that solid waste efficiency, now that the new director is in place and very willing and anxious to get started on implementing some efficiency in solid waste, we would like to recommend that we continue on as a link and assist in developing those in the form of a task force, and I'll be bringing forward that as a motion as well today at work session. If there's no other questions, we're through. Any questions? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Blevins. Okay. Let's have a conversation now about next steps. In order to process all the information that we've got and all the, I guess, questions and issues, we're losing some folks today. It's been suggested that we take a stab at reconvening sometime next Tuesday, maybe perhaps Tuesday morning, or Intergovernmental is meeting Tuesday afternoon at 1, and Councilmember James has just gotten away from us. There's been also suggestion, Councilmember Ellinger just suggested, that we might be able to migrate into that time. Now, I'm looking at the calendar. That would be Tuesday the 10th, and so that we could the issue is whether or not we could reconvene for the debate on debate or conversation, however you want to characterize it on these issues. Next Tuesday would give us enough time to do it, perhaps. So beginning in the morning, right now we're also showing an Economic Development Task Force meeting at 1130 that day. Paul, have we got something? Is Paul here? He's not here. Okay. I'm not sure who's set for that right now. So, how do you all feel about that, convening maybe 9 o'clock next Tuesday morning? What time? 9 o'clock. Mr. Vice Mayor, we're going to be traveling out of town for three days this week, and I'd say we're going to be pretty busy when we get back. Yeah. I'd say we're going to be pretty busy when we get back. Yeah. I think it would be better to do the meeting on Tuesday afternoon and maybe work late if we had to. We've got a work session, and we've got a work session, and we've got a hearing that night, zone change that night. Yeah. Let's see who we've got scheduled for that. Who's scheduled? Have we got somebody scheduled for the 10th? Paul? Paul, have we got somebody scheduled for the Economic Development Task Force on the 10th? Okay. That's good. All right. So, let's shoot for that then. What about 11 o'clock maybe instead of 1130? Let me give us a little bit more time. 11 o'clock on the 10th. Okay. And then let's find out how long the intergovernmental is going to last, and maybe we can go into that. Yeah. We'll check with Council Member Ellinger's suggestion. We'll check with Council Member James and see if we might be able to, if we need it, that we might be able to edge into intergovernment that's scheduled for 1 o'clock. Okay. Yes, sir. Council Member Stanton. Just want to add, too, that if any Council Members have anything additional to add outside of what the link has recommended, we need to get that to Jerry by next Tuesday so that we can discuss it. So, if there's any other additions other than what the link has recommended, we need to get that to Jerry so that we can have time to fully discuss it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, sir. Council Member Ellinger. And what the links have added to, Jerry, are you going to be putting together a new budget for us so we know where we stand on money we amassed your list? Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Any further? Anything further to come before the council? All right. I hear a motion for adjournment. I hear a motion. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. We are adjourned.