Music Thank you. Thank you. If you can, can you hear, please? Hello, Council Member Henson. Greetings. Greetings, everyone. For our viewing audience, this is a meeting of the Committee of the Whole, which is gathering more regularly than usual on account of the budget that the Council is now reviewing. And the purpose of our meeting today is to hear reports from our council links committees. And today's reports are from our general services links and our public safety links. Council Member Lane is the chair of the General Services Link, and unless I'm missing something on the agenda, we're ready to go to that. Jerry is here. I'm doing the right thing, right? Okay, thank you. Just want to make sure. Mr. Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Chair, we have an overhead presentation today to go over the expenses and revenues for the General Services Committee. And I serve as the Chair as the 12th District Council Member. Cheryl Feigel and Doug Barton are on the committee with me and Scott Seymour was the aide to the Link Committee. We can go to the next page please. Okay, the General Services Committee is, excuse me, the Department of General Services is managed by Commissioner Kimmerer Cole. And the General Services has two divisions. One is Parks and Recreation. The other is Facilities and Fleet Management. And both of these departments are being reorganized to improve their operating efficiencies. The proposed fiscal year annual budget for General Services is $30.92 million. And that is a .53, about $530,000 deduction in the budget spending for fiscal year 09 versus 08. And those expenditures are broken out as follows. The Commissioner's Office is spending $1.87 million. The facilities and fleet management is budgeted at $10.4 million. And Parks and Recreation is at $18.65 million, for a total of $30.92 million. This is the second largest department in the urban county government with approximately 11% of the total expenditures in the general fund. Can you slide that down just a little bit please? Okay there we go. This is the budgeted full time equivalent employees by department. And I think you'll notice that the total department has downsized by 14.1 employees, one person less in the commissioner's office, 9.1 less in facilities and fleet management, and four less in parks and recreation. That is equivalent to a 3.7% reduction in the total number of employees working in the Department of General Services. This is a chart which shows how the department is organized. The commissioner is at the top. The commissioner has a staff of eight. There are a total of 211 people working in Parks and Recreation and 148 in the Division of Facilities and Fleet Management. This shows the reorganization for the Department of, excuse me, the Division of Parks and Recreation. And previously there were five divisions. Those have been restructured into three divisions. The Parks and Recreation is managed by Director Jerry Hancock. And you can see that there's now a Deputy Director for Recreation, for Enterprise, and for Planning and Support Services. Those are broken out. I have no trouble reading those numbers. It looks like 41 in the, thank you. 41 in personnel in the recreation area, 83 in the enterprise area, and 78 in planning and support services. Here's the operational sections after the reorganization are enterprise and this department manages revenue generating services like golf, aquatics, extended school program. The recreation department manages community centers, recreational programs, natural areas, and special events. And planning support services handles design, construction management, landscaping, and the maintenance of the facilities. and one of our first recommendations is under this reorganization plan which was recommended by the master plan for parks and has been adopted by the department is that we would re-title some of the employees at no change in compensation just so that the job titles will be consistent with the new organizational plan. The other recommendations, which we are recommending is the reorganization to the three versus five operational entities. And as I said, that's in accordance with the master plan. We're also recommending cross-marketing promotions between parks, businesses, non-profit organizations for advertising prizes, signage events, underwriting, et cetera. And I think another important issue is although we have tightened our budget this year, the parks department has maintained the same programming that it had in the last fiscal year, so we have not cut the number of activities in the parks. This was part of the government's strategy when we have a recessionary period, when people's budgets are tight not to cut back free and less expensive events in our parks system. As part of the budget recommendation, we are recommending that we increase the expenditures to add a Deputy Director of Enterprise position, the cost on that is $95,000 plus. That includes the benefits. This job position was already authorized but was not funded in the Mayor's recommended budget. Next slide, please. We're also recommending annual fee adjustments that should be made by the Parks Management and approved by the Commissioner based on market conditions and the revenue estimates that are based on the adjustments would be approved when the Council approves the annual budget. At this time, we were suggesting that we revise the budgeted income levels for operations in the parks at the golf courses and this was agreed to and recommended by the Parks Department. so what is going to happen is revenue that is currently budgeted as income from the parks for golf courses it will increase 140,000 from 3.7 million to 3.84 million and in parks and recreation in the parks area will go from 1.3 million to 1.41 million now the I think it's important to that these increases are not actually increases in fees but rather an increase in the estimate of the usage levels at the parks and the golf courses and the head of the parks department felt that these numbers are reasonable because we've got some preliminary estimates of usage in april which shows that we're running ahead of what our forecast was for this year and therefore we feel comfortable with these estimates for next year this is an increase in 5% in revenues from Parks and Recreation and that will be in our final recommendation next sheet please and this is the facilities and fleet management and it's divided up into three departments also and the building maintenance and construction there are 79 personnel deputy director fleet management has 41 personnel and then the supervisor for security has 19.4 personnel. And there's an asset management team that reports to the director of facilities and management. And this is going to provide additional services in the evaluation and analysis of our properties and our operations. Next please. Okay, here is a quick breakout on what some of the operations after the reorganization of the department. This reorganization was structured in fiscal year 09, has been going through sort of an ongoing process. But anyway, the fleet manages services, repairs of all vehicles, facilities manages, cleans, innovates and operates all of our real estate property, security inspects and secures real property facilities and controls access into the government center and the Phoenix building. And then the asset managers are staff positions that evaluate the properties, they manage uses, leasing, rents, disposal of surplus property, contracts and the acquisition of properties. All these are in the budget for the fiscal year of 10, so there's no changes there. Here's just a quick overview of comments and recommendations. The first comment is that the real estate assets of the urban county government have been under managed for probably several decades, and so the Commissioner and the Facilities Team are in an effort to get a better control over the properties. We are recommending that we evaluate all real properties to determine their highest and best use, the condition of the property and the current utilization. We also recommend that we review all lease agreements for properties and we would add that many of the properties do not have written agreements. And we recommend that we enter into a written lease agreement with all non-LFUCG tenants occupying city-owned buildings. And there are some not-for-profit organizations, charitable organizations that are just using our facilities without any time of agreement. We're recommending that we estimate the market rental value of each real property asset that is being used by these non-LFUCG tenants. And then further, we recommend that we allocate by using cost accounting the operating expenses applicable to each real estate property. That would include utilities, repairs, maintenance, security, and all the other various expenses. And one of the things that I found out and our Links Committee found out is that many of the billings are consolidated for utilities and so we're not really able at this time to adequately estimate the cost per property. This is a continuation of our recommendations. We would like to have each user of the urban county's real estate pay its occupancy costs and that would include like insurance, maintenance, utilities, janitorial. Right now a lot of these are lump sum numbers so they're not spread around on a departmental level. So it makes it impossible to really determine how individual buildings are being used, how efficiently they operate, if they're energy efficient. And so we cannot really manage these properties adequately without more cost information. We are also recommending that we, after we complete the evaluation of the properties, that we perhaps dispose of surplus properties because the average cost between $5 and $7 a square foot in occupancy costs for each building. And if we have surplus properties that we don't need, we would reduce those occupancy costs whether they're occupied or not. And then secondly, if we have surplus properties that we could sell that we don't need for the urban county government, we could put this property back on the tax roll so it would be operating in the private sector. And it would also create employment opportunities for businesses to say occupy some of the property or just in renovation, et cetera. We're recommending that the asset managers create a criteria which would define what is the surplus property because there's sort of a gray area there, what is our surplus property list. And then once that's been defined and perhaps even brought before Council for discussion, that we prepare a list of recommended properties for disposal. We would recommend that in the fleet area that all public safety vehicles be serviced by fleet services with the exception of heavy and specialized equipment that would be vehicles like EMS, fire engines, mobile units, etc. And those could be excluded, the specialized upon the request of the police department or the fire department. The idea here is we have the capabilities to service all these properties and we're currently doing this at different venues, which is a very, duplication of services is not a cost effective way to do that. The other benefit is in some cases we have certified firefighters or sworn officers that may be involved in these duties and that would make them available for regular duty. And then we would recommend that we link the existing communication services for public safety that would be police, fire, 911, EMS, etc. and to coordinate the equipment, facilities, etc. with the centralized control. Right now we do not have that capability and this is in the process of being analyzed but we think that this is a good goal for the long term and to coordinate that with fleet management. The new system would make direct communications between all public safety divisions possible. We would also recommend that we centralize accounting for all fleet maintenance and fleet operating costs so that the maintenance and operating efficiencies can be evaluated and analyzed by managers. Right now, we don't have enough detailed information on individual vehicles that we can tell whether whether one vehicle is running efficiently and what the operating cost per vehicle is. And then secondly, we would recommend that we charge back fleet maintenance costs to each department of government. There again, creating an opportunity for that division of government to bear the cost of their vehicles and to be able to manage those costs more carefully. The next recommendation would be to approve a capital line item for soft cost. That would be for site size, design, et cetera, for the new City Hall. This would be budgeted, but the expenditures would be approved by Council before expenditure. And that is a capital line item. And then we are also recommending that we consider the acquisition of PeopleSoft real estate and fleet management accounting modules so the Department of Finance and Accounting can establish accurate cost centers for each real property and the Division of Facilities and fleet management will have the tools necessary to manage the maintenance and operational expenses. And it's my understanding that the CIO will be making a recommendation for the PeopleSoft real estate and fleet management software. Okay, we don't need that sheet. I think that's probably the end. I know we have the summary sheets that will go and see if we can get those up on the screen. Okay. Okay. The first sheet there is for the Commissioner's Office. And we're recommending the budget for that as recommended. There's no changes in cost. I think the key item here is that the Commissioner has reduced the number of staff from 10 to 9 people, and the amount of spending for the Department has been reduced by $64,000. Okay. Okay. For the Department Division of Facilities and Fleet Management, We are recommending no change in that budget. And the key items here is that this current budget recommends a hiring of two part-time security officers that will help us improve security in our buildings. And the total expenditures are reduced by $473,000 from the fiscal year 09 budget. And this also continues the FY09 Reorganization Plan. And then our last sheet here is the Division of Parks and Recreation. And in this particular case, if you look down at the bottom, you'll notice that we're showing the addition of a Deputy Director for Enterprise and to add back security for the Gainesway Center and then we're also showing a subtraction which is essentially a credit from the additional revenue forecast from the Parks Department. So the net cost for parks would decline by $117,300. And I guess in closing, I would just like to say that this is me individually, not as the Chair necessarily of the committee, but I felt like the Administration done a a very good job in working through the budgets. There's absolutely no fat in there. So there wasn't a lot that we could cut. But I do think that in closing that the recommendation in particular if we could get the real estate module for PeopleSoft so we could start implementing that over the next year, that we get a substantial payback on that software by having better better operation and better cost effectiveness in our operations. And I guess we're open to questions. And I might say Council Member Feigel or Council Member Martin, if you'd like to add some comments now, feel free to have. Would you like to say anything? No, I would just add to Council Member Lane's comments that I think the administration had really cut out about everything that could be cut. So our job became very easy after that. But we feel like this is a good budget. We feel like the organizational changes that have been included in this budget are very good and will contribute toward efficiency and cost effectiveness. And so we feel like this is the best budget that we can get this year. I just want to thank Council Member Lane for his thoughtful leadership on the General Services Link Committee. It's great to have numbers people around, and his financial expertise is a terrific asset to the Council. I also want to thank Commissioner Cole, who patiently walked us through the operations of her department and the various pieces. And I'm very impressed that she's developing procedures for tracking and managing real estate in a professional and business-like manner, likely for the first time in the city's history. And so we really don't know what we own, and so it's going to be really an important step, and it's a very substantial amount of work to try to get that information captured. The general services budget requests fell within the fiscally prudent limitations on the mayor's budget, And I, for one, appreciate the program and personnel sacrifices that were made to make this possible. I mean, it's a lean budget, and to cut that much out from last year is a significant amount of belt tightening. But those are the times that we're in, and I think they have done a terrific job in making that happen. Thank you, Mr. Martin. I was just going to acknowledge Mr. Beard and Mr. I didn't see you checked. So Beard, Ellinger, and then Blues, and then Stenet. How's that? Does that work? Are we electronic? Now we are. I guess I'm acknowledged at this point. Actually, this involves the PeopleSoft situation, as we were discussing that last evening also in our linked meeting. Rama, maybe you can answer this. It was thought, at least by some last evening, that we owned the real estate software at this point. it's the implementation costs that we haven't got budgeted. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, so we aren't acquiring anything in the way of software. It's already there to be implemented. That's correct. We own the license already, and we have paid up for the first year's maintenance of that as well. So that's it. We already own it. And I assume Metaformers would be involved in that one also? They are currently to be involved, and it's scheduled. in our implementation plan to start on the 1st of January. And that's because for some of that we need some finance resources. Sure. They'll be freed up only in January. We just weren't clear the way this was worded, whether we were right last night or hearing or whether this was different. So I guess we were right. It's all dollars anyway, so it would make a lot of big difference. but there's more curiosity than anything else. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Ellinger. Thank you. Mr. Hancock, I guess this prior question is related to you. When you all increased the estimate on the revenues, $250,000, a 5% increase, where did you come up with that number? because I think some of our budget is predicated on spending the $250,000 on the two new employees, I think, it appears, or at least to reinstitute the security guard for 36 and then a deputy director for part of that, too. And I think when he was saying, he said that we had the estimates are showing that we have more participation. Yes, in effect, what happened was you all approved some substantial increases in fees and charges last July, from which we had not raised rates for several years. As a result, we saw a variable 5% to 10% to 12% decline in participation last summer and last fall. That has begun to turn around so that in January, when the revenue budget was first put together, we weren't clear what the result would be. But now in May we have four months, two good warm weather months to look at our actuals. And we're much more confident that our revenues will be at what you just saw than we were in January. So the increases that are included in this are a result of our looking at our actual performance since January. We're confident we'll make the numbers you've just seen. We were not confident of that in January. So will you make that, and I don't have 09's budget with what you had the revenue projections, but are the revenue projections going to hit 09, then that's going to make you think that 010 is going to be better then? Yes, our 09 fiscal year through June 30 revenues will be above what we forecast for 09 as well, and that gives us additional confidence that in year 10 they'll be higher still. Okay, thank you. Mr. Blues. This is, my comment is not directed to the link here, but is connected to Council Member Lane's report, because the general government link took up the the request from the CIO, IT, Computer Services, and it's a fairly complex and extensive proposition. They include the two modules that Council Member Lane referred to, the real estate management one and the fleet management one, and there would be two others. There's also connected to that a proposal to create a new division of government called the Division of Enterprise Solution. The LINC received a proposal on that three days ago, and we have that report. we're not at all certain about the full price of the modules, the personnel costs, the maintenance costs, what all we own and what we don't own. In effect, Vice Mayor, we think we have more on our hands here than what a Link can report out. And we're hesitant to make a recommendation from a Link Committee to the full Council on creation of a new division of government. So what we would request would be a presentation by IT on all of these PeopleSoft issues so that both the LINC and the Council can have a more comprehensive and complete and specific picture of the long-term master plan of software issues of personnel. So that would be our request to have that session. Hopefully we can schedule it conveniently that could better inform us on these issues. And perhaps Councilmember Myers and Councilmember Beard would want to add comment on that. Mr. Beard. Well, just that it's a, no pun intended, but it is a big enterprise in and of itself. and to handle it at the length level without the rest of the council being involved. We don't feel comfortable. We think that the rest of the folks, you all need to be in the middle of this also because it changes the ballgame significantly, and it will change. Obviously, once it's done, we're going to be seeing it each year and probably expanding. We all, of course, support and came up with the thoughts that we would like an opportunity to let this be presented to all of us and everybody get a feel for just exactly where we are and where we want to go. Mr. Lane? You're referring to the Enterprise Department. It's in the Parks Division. Okay, well, that was actually part of the master plan for the parks, and that was presented. Are you talking about a new division? Are you talking about in the parks department? No, totally a new division in IT or involved in IT under Rama. All right. Okay, well, we have a new prize. Nothing specifically with parks. Nothing specifically with your link, actually. Okay, all right. That's what I was questioning. I wasn't sure about what you were saying there. But we could put that under Jerry. I bet he'd like to have that. We do that by passing notes. We don't do it publicly like this. Okay. All right. Mr. Myers? Yeah, I would just have to concur with what my two colleagues said, and that will give us a chance for not only the council, full council to hear, but the public to hear also. And I think it's really important, once we latch our wagon to PeopleSoft, which we already have done, we're going to have it forever. And so if we can get sort of a 30,000-foot view of the final end game, what's going to be there, and what that does in terms of value for the citizen and for our government, I think that's the opportunity that we have if we have Rama come in and present. We fully support what he's doing, but we want to get all the information out there. So procedurally, what does this need? Anything? Any action? Procedurally, I think what we would, I mean, we can still do our report out on the 26th. I think it would be very helpful to us as a link and to the Council as a committee as a whole to have a presentation between now and then if we can schedule it. Between now and the 26th. Right? Dr. John L. Between now and the 26th, yeah. Dr. John L. Well... Dr. John L. I know next week is a difficult week. Dr. John L. Today's the 14th. All right. Why don't you get with the council administrator and see if, what do you want to, what's the sense of the council? We want to schedule it now while we're all here. Do we agree that we need to do this? I don't see any nays, so I hear mud as well. So this is the... It's usually the 19th. Oh, that's right. Yep, we're out of town on the 19th. I hear a suggestion for tomorrow. That's the... Yeah, Mr. Myers. Yes, sir. Mr. Ramah, could you come up to the mic for just a second? The big number for the personnel is there already, right? That's correct. The placeholder for the personnel is there. So we don't necessarily need to decide this now, right? Are you talking about the Division of Enterprise Solutions or funding the modules for real estate management? Both, really. The funding for the division is already there from its mostly existing personnel and cost cuts that we have incurred and moved into that division. So the other one is not in place in terms of the capital cost for the implementation. But in terms of the budget process, do we need to determine that capital cost now, or can we do that a couple of weeks from now and still get... If you can add it as a late item, I have to probably ask if Bill O'Mara is here. So there's no rush to get this meeting by the 26th? That's what I'm... I'm advised by my capable budgeting people that you can bring it forward as a late item, or you can come forward as a new budgeted item in 2010. Okay, I don't think we want to kick the can that far down the street, but maybe if we waited until the first week of June. instead of trying to get this meeting in before the 26th, is what I'm saying. So could we schedule a presentation the first Tuesday? That'd be the second. June 2nd. At work session. Can we do that? Would you be ready to go on June 2nd, work session? Work session, sure. Okay. I'll be ready for that. And you want a complete presentation for the Division of Enterprise Solutions and the ongoing modules that are going to be implemented. I'm sorry? I think we buy into the modules, but I think it would help if we got that sort of 30,000-foot view of what all modules we need to do, what that brings us at the end of the day. Thank you. And we'll give you more than 15 minutes. Thank you, Vice President. Can I ask a question on that? What kind of budget impacts are we looking at with that then? That way affecting this budget? This is left to the Council. I've broken it down into two parts. One would be a capital expenditure of $750,000. The other one would be about $405,000. So if you're looking at a seven year bond package on that, You're looking at about $120,000 on one per year for seven years. The other one would be about $64,780 for the other. Okay, thank you. Mr. Blues. Council members, we will put the document that we received from CIO in everybody's mailbox. And that will describe the proposed division of enterprise solutions. All right. Thank you, Mr. Blues. Mr. Lane. I just wanted to make a short statement about the real estate module. In that right now we have almost no information about any of the properties that we own or manage. We don't know the cost of utilities. We can't allocate some of the expenses for it. We don't know whether we have leases. We have almost no information whatsoever. So to have the software where we could start data entering all that and building a database, I think it would be helpful. I only bring that up because at the cost of approximately $60,000 a year, our cost savings could be substantially greater than the actual cost of the software itself. Okay. Finally, Mr. Stennett. Are we going by the list now? I'm back to you. I don't know. Good. Sounds like Mr. Beard wants to say something. Nope, we're not back to the list. It's all right? Okay, good. Mr. Stennett? Oh, wow. You're on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Go ahead. Back on the list. Council Member Lane, the number you added back in there, 247-300 for parks, Is that just for programming and not the golf courses or for both? Yeah, that was for both. There was money for golf and money for parks and recreation. Okay. So it's for both. Well, in the mayor's proposed budget, to bring them even, I assume you want to bring them even as to what they were in 09 was the goal? No, it was not. So you don't want to bring them even as what we projected in 09? because based on 247 you're still decreasing what we project we'll receive in 010 from 09. Right. I thought Jerry just stood up here and said we would expect we're way ahead of 09 so why are we going to project a decrease for FY10 if we're ahead in 09? I'm a little confused. Because the mayor has a decrease of $273,400 in both funds. We don't want to make it whole as receiving the same in 09. I mean, I would be receptive to that, but I relied on the recommendation of the director of parks to give us his best judgment on that. But we could always override that. And while they're looking for that, the other question was on the fleet management division that we created through last year's budget, how many of those positions are vacant? Do we know that? I know the director is vacant. I think there's one position that is vacant. Well, there were seven we've added in the budget. You might want to ask Kimra to address that. She's probably talking about the revenues right now. But I know the position of the manager of fleet facilities is an open position they're recruiting for at this time. So if anybody's in property management and interested, it would be a good idea. We wanted to get an idea of the number of jobs that are open in fleets and facility management. Banking positions that we added in last year's budget, new positions, how many of those have we filled to date? I was going to laugh, too, but I didn't want to do it. Can you tell us? Because my concern is we put money in personnel costs for those, so where is that money at? That lapsed. Is it still there? The money is, you did put money in the budget. Because we almost took it away from you at the last minute, and that's why one reason I'm bringing it back up to balance the budget. I have been working very hard in filling these positions, and I keep having more vacancies come up than what I can get filled. So I still have all of those positions plus some others vacant at this time with the exception of one. Okay, so all seven that we added are still? We filled one of them. I have made offers on others, but. I know you have one out for closes Friday. I have one that closes Friday. I have two that closed a week and a half ago. We're working on it. I did hold up when the revenues were going down. I did hold them for some period of time because I didn't want to hire new positions and then turn around and be in a financial situation where we couldn't fund them. Okay. Kimmerer, you know, I know this sounds a little bit bizarre maybe to say this, Could you list or mention the seven positions that you have open now? Because, you know, we are in a down market, and there's probably some people out there that know somebody who might be interested in a job. I think it would be helpful just to mention what those jobs are. I can get a list and run through them, but we do have one that is posted right now. It comes down tomorrow, so if you have the qualifications, please get online and take a look at it. but it is for the director of the division, for the director of facilities and fleet management. And that web address is lexingtonkentucky.com? Yes. And if you look at the Lexington Now link under job postings, you can find the detail on that position. That is the only one of the positions that's currently out there. But over the next month or so, please go back and check frequently because we will be posting up positions that have real estate experience, project management experience, administrative officers, and those type positions. And I may have misspoken. Is it lexingtonkentucky.gov? Yes. It's gov, G-O-V. Thank you. Yes. Commissioner, on that topic, though, if I'm not mistaken, the mayor has to approve any hirings going forward because we're cutting several positions out of the budget that are vacant. Are any of those going to be cut out of the FY 2010 budget? Are they all in there? They are all in there. We did include the funding for each of those positions. Okay, so the mayor will still have to approve each of those hirings, as he has said the policy would be for every division? Yes, that is true. We would submit the paperwork for the mayor to approve, but we did fund the positions going into the next year. But we will take a look at it before we go to posting for each of those positions and decide, yes, it's the time right to go forward. And you feel strongly that we can hire all seven in the next 12 months? Yes, I do. Okay. And then on the parks parity program money that's in there, do we have a list of what parks that money will be used for? Or have we not decided that yet? There is not a list at this time for the money that's in the 2010 budget proposed. Thank you. And did we get an answer on the golf course from parks revenue? Unfortunately, I don't have the answer to your question, but I'll tell you what I do have. What I'm looking at is page four from the Mayor's proposed budget packet, which you, Councilman Stinnett, correctly pointed out had some anomalies in it. For instance, under program collections for parks, that's all of our programming, recreation stuff, the 2010 estimate was 796, and that clearly is a number that's too low. We've revised that, that you will presumably see. That number will become $883,000, so I'm increasing that by about $85,000, and I'm increasing as well as swimming pool collection number from $520,000 to $540,000 under the column that says FY 2010 estimate. The golf number that you specifically asked for, we showed at $3,685,000. That's a $47,000 increase from the FY 2009 projected. The FY 2009 projected, as you know, was probably put together in January of 2008 before the increases after which we saw a 10 or 12 percent decline. So comparing our FY10 forecast with the 09 forecast ignores the fact that we had a substantial increase in a drop in activity and play last summer. Right. Well, you know, from where I said I don't like using the projected number. For one of the reasons you just stated, I'm using the adopted number. What we adopted, this council adopted in 2009, was $3,837,600. Right. And what the mayor proposed was $3,685. Do you not feel it will be at least $3,837,000, which would be a flat revenue projection? I wish I had for you a piece of paper that showed me what we did through June last year, but I don't have that piece of paper with me. But, again, you adopted a forecast before or at the same time you adopted a fee increase, which hurt our revenue. Those two things were simultaneous and they impacted one another. But I'd be happy to share with all of you what our new June 08 through April 09 and projected 09 golf numbers are. I don't have them with me and I apologize. Well, if you could do that for the parks program and in the golf and just, I mean. I'll do it for all four of those categories, for all of you, before tomorrow. It's easy. We have it. I just don't happen to have it with you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm not sure who is to answer my question. It has to do with the increases. So maybe Jerry, it might be you. You mentioned a number of 520 and 540. I think parks or pool revenue over here. Yes, pool revenue will be higher than last year. Okay. And that's just based on the numbers and that's not based off any fee increase or anything? That is correct. Just a business as usual with the same prices we had last year. Okay. So is that changing any pool hours? I'd heard a rumor that pools would be closed one day a week in certain parks. Is that the case? The mayor is proposing to you approximately the same number of dollars for parks programming as was in our budget last year. If that passes, we will be open, all of the pools will be open seven days a week as will our other facilities. we will provide the same level of programming. There have been any number of scenarios that brought us to where we are today as you all know and we looked at the idea of closing golf courses on Mondays or pools on Mondays or closing smaller pools. None of those things have had to be put in place. So if you approve the budgets that's in front of you, we'll have the same facilities, the same days and same hours as last year. Great and And with that, one of the recommendations that was in the links, and this might be a link question, I can talk to Council Member Lane if it is. There was something about retitling current employees. How does that work? If you have, is everybody a clear-cut change of name, or are there any positions where you could have a couple of people vying for the same position? What we're proposing and what the LINCS Committee is recommending is adding or essentially funding a vacant enterprise superintendent position and retitling that and retitling another superintendent position. And we're going to mix the portfolios of what reports to those three individuals. Other parts of the master plan organizational recommendation include combining some positions, eliminating some positions, creating other positions. We're not bringing that forward to you today. What I'm asking is that an existing unfunded position be funded, allow me to move some reporting relationships around, and then retitling those three positions accordingly. Okay. The difficult, longer-term process in parks will come to you later after more review. Do any of what you are bringing forward in this budget have to do with extreme sports? No. Okay. Except that that person would then report to a different titled person. Okay. Thank you, Jerry. That is not going to happen now. Okay. I also had another question related to fleet, and this might be, Kimra, it might be for you, I'm not sure. But last year we did some major things with selling a lot of our fleet vehicles at auction, and I was just wondering kind of a report out of how that's going with, you know, folks turning in gas mileage and such, or, yeah, I guess mileage versus the fleet expense, and if you have any idea of whether that was a productive move for us or not. I would suggest to you that it was productive. We've had very few complaints, and we have had very few people request for personal mileage reimbursement to use their own vehicles. I think what we've seen is more sharing of the vehicles that are out there. Okay. We were in a LINCS meeting earlier today and found out that we had a commissioner that's no longer with us that evidently had not shared that some of the employees could do the mileage reimbursement. So for a full year, you've had employees that have not been claiming mileage that now realize that they can. Do you think this is a common miscommunication within government, and that could maybe explain why the numbers are low? I'm not sure how to respond to that. It wasn't a new policy that we put in place. It was something that was already available for employees. We just promoted the use of it versus having additional fleet vehicles sitting and not being fully utilized. Right, and I'm not suggesting that it was new, but it was one that they would have had to have tapped into if they were used to using a pull vehicle that they never would have had utilization for previously. So can we do something? Can I suggest that we make sure that all commissioners and directors speak with their employees and notify them that that mileage reimbursement is available to them? I don't want employees to feel downtrodden by the fact they're using their own vehicles and not know that there's opportunity for the reimbursement. Yes, we'll be glad to do that. Okay, thank you. Oh, and Kim, before you leave, one of the expenses was for a security guard. Have we, within the budget, is there something for some kind of security gates at the front door or anything? I know we've talked a little bit about that being a possibility. Is there anything in the budget this year for that? That was actually in the 2009 budget, so we're in the process of purchasing some additional security devices at this time. Will that be up and running by July 1? We are hopeful that the installation of most all of this will happen while the council is on break. Okay. And then the additional security dollars that you see in there will help to man some of those devices. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Camera. exercise time back and forth. You know, and this is not the first time I've heard this, that we don't know what real estate we own. We don't know anything about our real estate. We don't know anything about our leases. How are we going to data enter anything if we don't know anything about it? We are learning a great deal about all of those things. I would love to tell you that we've got 100%, but I don't believe that we do. Had two folks that have spent the majority of their time since July putting together all that information. They've been doing the research at a grassroots level as well as through PVA office, county clerk, risk management, accounting, accumulating. What we have is a lot of information that has been accumulated by a lot of different departments, divisions, or entities within Lexington for different purposes, but none of it has been centralized. What we're trying to do is centralize all that. We've been capturing that at this point in an Excel spreadsheet. You all have seen printouts in the agency oversight committee and some of those from that Excel spreadsheet, it's a massive document that is not user friendly and is not set up to be a tool to allow us to manage our assets moving forward. I understand we had that conversation too. We had on this hand the Excel spreadsheet and on the other hand the module and we signed off on the idea of the module definitely. I was just wondering if we don't get the data, you can't get the data into either one of spreadsheet or the real estate module, we aren't any better off than we were when we started. The folks that we've hired since the budget year of last year, that's what they have been doing is gathering all that information. So we do know a lot more. We have some centralized files that are set up. As leases become, as they expire and are up for renewal, we're going in and renegotiating them and taking a look at all of the details behind the lease and making sure that we're implementing them properly. But we just don't, the real estate module would be a tool that would then allow us to do that, not only in the upcoming years, but forever, because then it'll hook in with the financial system for LFUCG. Just a matter of curiosity, where does the original lease and or deed reside at this point? Where should it reside? Anything that has been through council, which hopefully all the ones that we're aware of have been, the originals reside in official records with county clerk. So we have a copy of that, and we've set up files for each of our properties and each of our leases, but the official records are the official records of the government. I just, fire protected, I just wonder what kind of shape they were in as far as that's concerned. Somebody else may know more about how county clerk protects their records. I'm not sure. I would guess so. Anyway, thank you. Mr. Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Jerry, could you come up for a second? I have a couple questions. One about the swimming pools. Okay. What is the calendar for closing the pools this year? Normally there's a step system where a portion of the pools close at one date, and then a second closing happens at the end of the summer. Yes. At the risk of being a little bit incorrect, we close all of the pools except Woodland when school goes back. When public schools reopen, we close all but one pool for what we call our postseason. And that pool will stay open until Labor Day weekend. It will close at the close of business on Monday of Labor Day. And that's a change from previous years? No, that's been that way since I've been here, which is now 10 years. It seems to me that I recall that we had four pools that stayed open past a certain date. There was a shutting down of pools, and there were four that stayed open. Woodland may stay open the latest, but it's not all the pools closed except for Woodland. The reality is that our managers, who are primarily school teachers, go back to school, our guards and concession people go back to school as well. I understand that, but I'm asking, it's not been in the past that all the pools close except for Woodland and Woodland closes on Labor Day. That's not correct. I think it's a... Somebody have a fun guide? I think I have a fun guide. Yeah. I thought Southland was open. Southland stays open later. Woodland stays open later. Castlewood stays open later. because my question has always been why Tate's Creek being an aquatic center, it doesn't stay open with those other pools that do. And the reason that I'm asking that question is, one, it's an aquatic center, but also that would also give you parity around the city. And I always ask this question too late. The budget's already passed, and I can't get anything done about it. So this year we're going to do it before the budget's passed. What I want to see is parity in the city so that when we close down the initial round of pool closings, that there's a pool that has sort of the vicinity of the four corners of the city, if you will, stay open until that final date. And typically, Tate's Creek Pool has not been one of those, and I don't understand why that is. Well, I don't see in front of me the closing date, so I apologize for that. Our aquatic centers are Woodland, Castlewood, and Tates Creek is considered an aquatic center as well. Right. And Southland. And Southland, yes, I'm sorry. And Castlewood, Southland, Woodland stay open later than Tates Creek. Or, yeah, Tates Creek. And so what I want to do is change that. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't see the closing dates on here. I apologize for that. I should remember that well, but I don't. And I'll just have to send something to you to tell you exactly what the closing dates are. But I know that we keep Woodland open as the postseason pool because it's in the center of the city, and we keep that open until Labor Day. And I believe in the past it's been Castlewood and Southland, is it? Southland stays open also. So this year... In previous administrations, it's been a struggle back and forth over which should be the postseason pool. We've done a variety of different things each year. But for the last five years, I believe, we've centralized on Woodland because it's in the center of the city as the one pool kept open until Labor Day. Okay. So for clarity, that might be the case. I don't think it is. But if that's the case, Southland and Castlewood still stay open later than the rest of the pools. Now, Woodland may stay open the latest of all. Yes, it does. But those other two do stay open later than the rest of the pools. What I want to do this year is add Tate's Creek Pool to that list. If you only keep the central pool open to the very end, I understand that. But if you're going to keep, if there's a staging of the closings where Southland and Castlewood stay open because they're aquatic centers, what I want to do is ensure that Tate's Creek has an aquatic center and has the only pool on that side of town, it stays open along with those other three. I can assure you that if we were to keep pools open after we close the neighborhood pools, that it would be one of those. But there's a significant cost to us to do that. I understand that. As well as a terrific inconvenience of not having the guards and the school teachers to manage them and keep them open. I understand the inconvenience, but I'm looking out for the citizens. And in the past, you've had those other schools open. Well, the point is, if you can't find guards, you can't have a swimming pool open. They're all going to band practice and football practice and all the rest of that. They're not available to work. Okay. I don't cut you off when you speak, and I'd appreciate it if you don't cut me off when I speak. I'm sorry. What I'm saying is, as a policy change, I want Tate's Creek to stay open with Castlewood and Southland this year and years moving forward. So if I need to bring a motion to do that, then I can do that. If you want to wait and get the information on what you intend to do this year, that's okay, too. But what I'm saying as a policymaker, that's the policy change I want to see happen. Okay, so I'm not telling you that's what we're going to do. I'm saying to you, what is your plan? The previous plan has been that three of those aquatic centers stay open later. That's a fact. And so I want you to do that research and bring that back. Do that. And then what I'm seeing secondarily is that this year I want Tate's Creek to stay open along with Castlewood and Southland. So when you bring that information back at the next work session or whenever we do the next round, I want you to bring back the information on what it's going to cost to keep Tate's Creek open. I'll do that. Thank you. The second question I have for you is, if we pass this the way that this is set up, Does this usher in the organizational change that you asked for in your Parkmaster plan? No, only the highest level of it, those three positions that report to me. This whole thing has to do with the position of the superintendent of enterprise, a position that I held for eight years before I became the director. That position has not been filled in the last two years, and as a result, golf and aquatics and concessions and rentals are reporting to me. I'm asking, as a result of the master plan presentation, which came late in February, after the budget was largely put together, that we consider funding that position so those four functions can report to someone else to give me some relief as well as to give better attention to those four functions. So I'm really asking that an existing but vacant position unfunded in 2009 and in the mayor's proposed budget for 2010 is unfunded, that it be added. That's the one single piece I'm asking for. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member James. Hey, Jerry, don't go too far. the position that you just talked about the one that wrote report to you it's vacant is someone acting in that position at this time no okay and i have a question that has to do with um this is probably camera or the chair um of the committee the links committee under the recommendation related to the user of each LFUCG real estate to pay occupancy costs. Can you tell me, would that count for, like, the neighborhood shelters and such? Was that included in that? I think the best example that just came up, I believe the Family Health Center, which the University of Kentucky is operating in conjunction with our county government, There was an article in the paper saying something about we were breaking even over there, and then it had an additional item saying, however, it doesn't include the cost of the real estate. And I think there's about $300,000 a year. So what we're trying to do is define what those costs are on a billing-by-billing basis so we can allocate the costs there. And then we would know exactly what the cost of each facility is for operational expenses. So that's what we're doing. It doesn't mean that we necessarily are going to charge somebody because we're already paying those bills, but it would mean that we would know how much we're paying in support of one of our operations or if we're giving free space to somebody. So it does include the neighborhood associations utilizing the government buildings and parks? Would you restate that, please? That does include that assessment would include the neighborhood associations, say, for example, in Douglas Park, in Marlboro Park, and such? Right. Any property that we own, we would try to break out the operating costs on a property-by-property basis so that we would know what our costs are on a property. That way, if some organization is occupying that building, then we would know if we're giving them free rent and we're paying maintenance and repairs, what those costs are and what our contribution to that organization is. Right now it's all in just a big pie, and we don't know who's getting what, and we can't allocate those costs effectively. Is there an intention that if it's so found that the neighborhood associations, in a financial way, are not contributing the amount that the occupancy costs would be, that they would then have to pay that expense? That's not the intent here. The intent is you can't manage the cost of operating a building or a car unless you know what those costs are. And so if we don't have the accounting that tells us what it is, then we don't know whether this building, suppose there's a water leak in the building and it's costing us $1,000 a month for water, which should be $50. Well, we don't even know whether we've got a leak over there or not. So you can't manage property unless you know what the costs are. That's essentially where the starter is. Now, it would be up to the council to decide, you know, how much we want to spend, and that would be some future decision. But that's not the intention here. The intention is just get the cost so we can manage better. Okay. Commissioner, did you want to say something? I saw you come into the mic on that. I agree with what he said. It doesn't mean that we have to charge that, but we would know what is it costing us to operate that facility. It would be up to this body to determine then what did we charge, if anything. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. I don't see anybody else showing up on the monitor. Anybody else have any comments? Hearing none. We're ready to move on to the second item on our agenda, which is the Lynx report from Public Safety. Councilmember Crosby. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Well, first, before I get started, I would like to thank Councilmember Stennett and Councilmember McCord for serving on this link. We had to meet a lot, not only with the different divisions within public safety, but we had to meet also quite a bit outside of our regularly scheduled links meetings to discuss different things that came up along the way. And so I really appreciate all of their help. It was really nice to have the chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee on our link because he's like a walking ledger. He can pretty much cite anything from the budget. So, Kevin, thank you for all your insight on everything. And I'm sure you'll see we'll be putting the recommendations, our report out up, and I'll be making comments as we go along. And so I'll try to go slow because a lot of my comments will be of interest to you all as we go through this. I'll also just ask that Kevin and Jay, please chime in wherever you feel like appropriate. As you can imagine, with the three of us, all who like to talk quite a bit, we gave a lot of input, and so I would appreciate it any time if they have any comments to make that they just join in. That may come during the Q&A more so than now, but again, if you all feel like it's appropriate, please chime in. And we're going to go ahead, if we can go to the first, or I guess the second page. That might be kind of hard to read, but you all have copies in front of you. And we're going to go ahead and start with the Division of Police. And before I get started, a few council members, when we had our presentation on the debt and capital projects, we had some questions that had come up regarding some projects that were specifically listed in there. A few council members had asked about the audiovisual equipment, furniture line item, trucksters, ATVs, mowers. And so we went back and asked the police exactly what is this stuff in here for. And this is a result of the asset forfeiture fund that the police get. Most of this money comes from narcotics. It is federally and state regulated. and because of the implementation of STARS and PeopleSoft, this is something that they have to put in as a line item within the budget. So you will see that our first recommendation is going to come from the asset forfeiture fund. We would like to propose that the police purchase six radar trailers for use by council districts. The cost of those will be $69,000, and the funds will come from this account. This is something that we have checked and that they can spend some of this money on. The trailers will be shared by neighboring council districts, and you can see how we've broken those down. 2 and 11, 1 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7, 8 and 12, and 9 and 10. We tried to break down these council districts geographically and make it convenient for, one, moving the actual radar trailer around, and two, as you all know, right now, with the one that's available to us for use, with 12 different districts all vying for the one that we can share, it just doesn't seem to be enough. The cost of these trailers individually are $11,500. Just kind of going along with the Division of Police, they have an authorized strength of $595. They actually have 558, and right now they're budgeted to where they can hire 11 more officers for fiscal year 2010. And right now they've applied for additional officers through the COPS program to help hiring. And we should know probably by the end of this month for the first round with the stimulus package. They think they've applied for 50. They think they might be able to get 20. This program lasts for three years. After that, obviously, we would take on all responsibility for funding those officers. If we don't get any with the first round of COPS, there is a second round of COPS. And we'll ask the commissioner maybe afterwards, but it's my understanding that this takes place around July. So with that being said, we are hoping to be able to get some additional police officers through the COPS program. If this does not happen, right now we are not making the recommendation that we add additional police officers through our link. We're hoping that it will pan out through the COPS program. But if that does not happen, we are going to make a recommendation that we're going to have to come back and revisit this because we are going to have some needs for additional police officers. One thing that kind of came up during our meeting with police over and over again was just the innovation of this division. Chief Bastin mentioned that he was looking for a temporary labor supply for special events. He mentioned they were looking forward to the World Equestrian Games and a lot of different special activities that go on in Lexington. And one of the things that they've been discussing is that they might possibly use retired police officers, that they can use these officers at an hourly rate. They don't have to pay benefits on these officers. They'd be able to – they've talked to the FOP, and they seem supportive of this, and it also doesn't affect their collective bargaining contracts. So at this point, that looks like something that might be a great alternative for some of the special events that we have coming up. So let's see here. With that, I'm going to go ahead and move along to the Division of Community Corrections. And as you can see, we have no proposed changes at this time, but I just wanted to kind of give you all a few updates from this division. First of all, they added a nurse practitioner to the staff, which has reduced the outside hospital stays and reduced overtime because of the reduction in transports. They're going to use grant money to hire a full-time social worker. Currently, they've been sharing a social worker with Commissioner Helm's office, but they're going to use some grant money to hire their own. As all of us know, they've been having some issues with the retention of their officers, and they've changed a lot of their hiring practices. They've been doing extensive background checks for their officers. They've been doing more of kind of front-end preparation by taking them on the tour of the facility before they even start the job. And once they get on board through their training and everything, they usually pair them with an officer, and they kind of work in a mentor-type program. So they've been seeing some great numbers with their retention and quite a bit improvement. They've also been more aggressive with their overtime and their leave because they had a lot of officers taking advantage of the Family Medical Leave Act. So they've been really aggressive towards monitoring that. So at this time, we're recommending no changes within this division. Moving on to the division of Enhanced 911. At this time, we're not proposing any changes, but we have a big but with this. No jokes. And I kind of took note when Council Member Lane was talking about his recommendation with his link about existing communication services for public safety, police, fire, 911, demon, EMS, and coordinating all the equipment, facilities, et cetera, within centralized control. We talked extensively about this and the upgrade for a new radio system to more effectively communicate between police and fire. this project would require $10 million. The breakdown is basically $300,000 for radios, and the rest is for three to six towers. And then we would need an additional $2 million to $3 million in three years. Sorry, I guess about three years. We have discussed this in the past. We put it in the budget, I guess, last year, and we haven't done it yet. It's been kind of put on hold. And I think from our understanding as a link that the mayor's office has been meeting with individual council members discussing the Emergency Operations Center. And it's our belief that possibly we all need to be on the same page as to where this project stands, the EOC, before we can move forward on a $10 million project with radios. And so as far as us adding this into the budget at this juncture, we're not making that recommendation, but we are in a very short order of time asking that the administration meet with us and we determine what we're going to do with the EEOC because, obviously, if we're going to be moving with that in the next two to three years, it may not make the best financial sense for us to spend $10 million this fiscal year for something that perhaps we would have to spend another few million dollars on moving once we do have the EEOC up and running. And also by that time, the technology perhaps could change, and we might have to be looking at another few million dollars even for an upgrade at that point. So this is absolutely a huge need. We do believe that this needs to be centralized, and we have to have this discussion. If we are not going to do the EEOC and it's going to be 10 years down the road, then we need to do this now, and we have to discuss it now. But we have gotten really no guidance from the administration about the timeline, and we, in fact, just found out Monday that they were meeting with several different council members, but we had not really been involved in those discussions. So I guess for I see Commissioner Bennett in the room, maybe we could all try to have a meeting and get on the same page, and then we'd be able to make a formal recommendation as a whole on that. So with that being said, we'll move on to the Division of Emergency Management. And really the only thing that I want to bring to your attention with DEAM is that they had a part-time CSEPP coordinator that was left out of the budget, and that's going to be added back in as a late-item addition. and this is 100% grant funded, so you'll notice that there's nothing there as far as any monetary value just because it is 100% grant funded. She asked for three more people as their staffing levels are down to 1989 staffing levels. She said she'd be happy with one person, but we just felt like right now we couldn't make any changes with staffing within that division. We were hoping that maybe there could be some, as we've heard in other divisions where, just for example, like Commissioner Helms' division is where they're utilizing social workers to help out in other areas, that perhaps she might be able to talk to some other divisions and maybe we might be able to get some people cross-trained to help her out in that area. Moving on, we're to the Division of Fire and Emergency Services. And I really want to thank our Division of Fire and Emergency Services. We probably met with them the most and probably had the most extensive discussions with them regarding their budget. And before I get into what I think is on everybody's minds with some of the overtime issues and some of the positions, we do need to propose that we add back two contract items into the budget. The first one is $100,000 for personnel protective equipment. That is a collective bargaining contract item, so we need to add that back in. The second item is $35,000 for college scholarship reimbursement. The other one is that we propose to continue funding for the paramedic nurse. This is not a contract item, by the way, but this is to propose that we continue funding for the paramedic nurse coordinator, for paramedic training and continuing education for $11,850. Her salary was cut in half in the mayor's proposed budget. This was part of their seven-and-a-half reduction plan, as they assumed they would not have a recruit class. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about a recruit class, but we're going to recommend that her salary stay the same. Now to the overtime issue. We're going to propose that a transfer of $1.28 million from the overtime fund be transferred to the regular personnel fund. This will allow for a recruit class of 15 to start July 6, 2009. and during this time, the department will continue to perform background checks, polygraphs, and psychological evaluations in order to start another recruit class of 23 to begin on August 31, 2009. In order to meet the department's full staffing goal, they plan to suspend the paramedic requirement from the recruit academy. This will shorten the training from 44 weeks to 18 weeks. We're also requesting as a link that a quarterly report from the division regarding overtime and training be provided to this council. We're also proposing out of our link that the use of the unspent portion of the 2006 B bond issued for the construction of the Veterans Park Fire Station be used, that we have $60,000 for the design of the relocation of Station 2, and then also $125,000 go towards reducing the debt service for the FY10 general fund. This will free up $125,000 of general fund to use for other items. Everybody get all that? And then moving along, we'll go back to questions. Okay, did you want to save your question? Okay, we're going to move on to animal care and control. This budget was cut by 10% as they were listed under partner agencies, and they should have only been cut by 5%. Previously, they operated with six officers, and they were funded for an additional six officers in FY09, and their adjusted budget in FY10 requested to allow for 10 total officers. We're requesting that we keep their budget up to where they can have 10 officers as they were in FY09. Having 10 officers has proven it's reduced their response time from 97 minutes to 12 minutes. Their animal intake is up 13%. And just to give you an idea of their complaints that come in, In January of 2009, they had 1,400 complaints. In February of 2009, they had 1,300 complaints. And in March of 2009, they had 1,500 complaints. We're proposing to add $110,180 back into the budget to continue funding for a minimum of 10 officers. Next, we're moving on to the spay and neuter fund. In the FY10 projected budget, the mayor's proposed budget only lists $12,000, but it's projected that they'll get $32,000. This should be a neutral break-even line item. So basically what we're doing, for example, in FY09, they projected that they would get $42,000, and they currently have collected $24,500 at this point. So our link has decided or has recommended that we should just get a quarterly report regarding the spay-neuter fund and just hope that this should break even. Last, we're going to move on to the Division of Code Enforcement. And I have to say for the most part, this director was very pleased with his budget. Currently, he has two vacant positions, and he basically stated that he would be willing if we could convert the control, excuse me, the code enforcement officer to a nuisance officer for cost savings of $6,010. And so we have requested that we add on two nuisance control officers. Our second, and that would be $93,800 for two nuisance control officers. We also are proposing that we add $11,100 to move this division into a more secure location within the Phoenix Building. After talking with this divisional director, we determined that they're located on the first floor of the Phoenix building, and they run into a lot of issues with irate citizens, and they've also had issues with people coming in and being able to just freely go back to wherever they want in their office, go through files, they've been threatened, and it just makes sense that maybe they'd be moved to another floor. So for their safety and security, we are suggesting that they be moved up to another floor. And it's also our understanding that they've also talked to tenants on other floors who would love to be on the first floor because they deal with the public more in a more non-threatening division within government. So with that, I'll open the floor. It looks like we already have questions, so I will open the floor for questions. and probably Commissioner Bennett and maybe some of the five people may be ready to come up to the mic because I'm sure they might have some questions. Thank you. Okay. We're showing Council Member Gordon, then Blues, then Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. My first question is about code enforcement. the $46,900 each for two nuisance control officers. Is that the total cost, including benefits? Yes, ma'am. For each? For each. Okay. Two of them together would be the $93,800. And that includes benefits? Okay. on fire and emergency services. Let's see. On the item, did I understand you to say that the link is recommending suspending paramedic training? Yes, we are. That was actually a recommendation by the fire chief, and I know that they are here, if they want to come up and comment, but we basically received about four, maybe five different recommendations from the Division of Fire and trying to work with them to get them back up to where they need to be with staff and also working within our budget, and that was the recommendation. The last recommendation that we got from them that they actually suggested, this was not something we created. it was their plan and what they could come up with within the budget. And so I don't know if Chief Hendricks might want to comment more on that. But Kevin actually, I think Kevin has a comment too. Do you know legally, since there's an ordinance in place, would we just vote as a council? If that's our decision, would we vote to rescind the ordinance or to just put the ordinance temporarily on hold, or how would we? Well, I think we probably have to decide that as a body, and my guess is, I mean, I would hope that maybe we just put it on hold. Or is that a yes? I'm looking at the parliamentarian as I'm. Well, I was just going to say two things. One, I don't think we said not to do paramedic training. I think we said they can get on the, after they finish their fire, they can get on the apparatus and fill in one or two days a week. And Chief can clarify that. I don't think we'd be in favor of suspending. I don't think we got the law opinion yet either. The second thing is the second class of 23, I think we want to try to put an emphasis on lateral transfers from other departments if we can, or the first class, whichever one you think we could get from other departments so we don't have to go through a full-fledged training, and we can save some money and get them on the line faster too. But we were going to leave it up to the chief to work those lateral issues out. Actually, the recommendation that we made for the 15 and the 23 does not include the lateral entry because this is a group that would be hired from the existing list. So the existing list has very few people who would qualify in a lateral entry capacity. There's only one paramedic, I believe, on that list. There's perhaps five or six, I would guess, that perhaps may have some fire training. But, again, those qualifications have not been, so I want to be sure and clarify that. It would be our intent to look diligently at the next hiring list to see what things could be utilized in a requirement before entry onto the list or being considered for qualifications as firefighters and paramedics. But to the original question, the 15, clearly the thing that makes this plan work is the sooner we can hire people, the sooner we can cut down the overtime. And the message has been clear. If we can, our overtime is costing us about $100,000 a pay period. If we can get those people as soon as we can into that new budget, into class and out of a lesser pre-entry class, 18 weeks as was described by Ms. Crosby, then we can get those people on the line and reduce our overtime that much more quickly. The only reason for the staggered time is that we think 15 is the reasonable number that we could get qualified for all the things. It would take a little more time in terms of background checks, psychological checks, all the things that go into the preentry process to get those folks ready in time for the later August date. So in terms of the paramedic training, can you talk about that? The paramedic training, the plan actually calls for no paramedic class within this calendar year, within this next calendar year, because the overtime would not allow for it. They would, any time you're training people historically, they have been trained on overtime. So it's not an eliminated cost. It would be a deferred cost that some, perhaps all of those people, could be trained as paramedics at a later time. But we're just recognizing the need for compromise and to try to get restored to full strength as rapidly as possible so that we can eliminate the strain on the budget. And this is the compromise that we propose. So, I think in the beginning, Council Member Crosby, was your number 558 filled positions? Is that sworn? Is that sworn, Chief? Filled positions? Actually, it should be 545. 545 is sworn. Correct. Do you know or do any of your chiefs know your hunches? How many of those are paramedic trained at this point? At this moment, it's something on the order of 200. So not half, not 50%. Correct. And then on the item for the 38 new recruits, is the $1,280,000, does that also include benefits? It does include salary benefits for a year. It even includes their turnout year, cost to put them through the class and onto the street. And do you know offhand how many applicants are on the current list? I do not. 200? 200 are on the list. So if we fill these 38 positions, there are 200 applicants? Is that what you're saying? There are 200 remaining of the people who applied originally. Our ordinance calls for two hires off one hiring list. So the theory that you would publish a new hiring process so that you don't get so deep in the list, if you will. but that's in ordinance form Okay, thank you Councilmember Gordon, the 558 was with the police Oh, I'm sorry, yes it was Sorry, that's okay You didn't say, so what's the number again for fire? 545 545 is sworn Yes, ma'am And what's the total number? We've got about 20 civilians 17 17, excuse me Thank you very much. Thank you. And that includes everything, office personnel, maintenance, vehicle maintenance, everything. That's all the civilians. Thank you. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Mr. Williams. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Crosby, what's the total budget impact? Just the sum of the increases. Go ahead. Thank you. Council Member Blues, just working down the list, make sure everyone understands on the list, the $69,000 for police will be not included in general fund. The $100,000 for personal protective equipment, we have normally bonded in our bond package. So you're looking at $35,000 for the scholarship reimbursement, the $11,008 for the paramedic, the $1.2 is a wash. The $60,000 is coming from a bond proceeds or money left over in a bond. The $125,000 is credited back to the general fund because it reduces that service. The $110,000, $180,000 would add the $93,800, and the $11,100, so you get a total of $261,930. Thank you, sir. And a question about the radar trailers? Yes, sir. What are radar trailers? The radar, you know, they sit out on the side of the streets, and when you drive by, it flashes your speed limit. Oh, okay. Yeah, so. How many radar trailers? We're asking that we're proposing that we purchase six radar trailers to be used by districts or we'd share them. And we've paired them up. You can see we're 2 and 11, 1 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7. Got it. 8 and 12. How many do we have now? We have one for the city. And one of the things, this is a suggestion by Council Member Stenet because obviously traffic is such a huge issue in all of our districts. and to have one that you sort of rotate throughout the city is of limited effect. One of the nice things about the capabilities of these trailers is that they can calculate what, as they're sitting out, they're calculating, can give you as a council member the statistical data of what they were measuring. And so now for constituent purposes, you can say, hey, the average speed was this. This is when we monitored it. And by having two council districts paired up in close proximity, Now it's just down to a council member working with a colleague as to scheduling that and so forth. And, again, it's taken out of asset forfeiture, so it's not an impact to the general fund. But we really saw this as a way to get at probably one of the biggest problems we have and a way to address it in a very efficient manner. Great. Thank you. And one more question. I know you mentioned the retention problem in community corrections, But I just wondered whether there were, as you looked into the division, whether there were any, you know, any measures that might be taken that might have a budgetary impact. I mean, you mentioned that they've changed some practices and policies. But let me put the question in a different way. you didn't see that there were any needs that they had that would cost money that would help to keep officers? One of the things that they've done, Director Bishop has done a really good job of at least trying to address the population issue, a lot of day reporting and things like that to try and keep that lower. one of the other things that he's done is because there's such a high attrition rate they've changed a little bit of their policy so when somebody applies for going into the academy they have to actually be spend time out at the jail see what they're getting into that type of thing to try and help lower that one of the things that is a big unknown council member blues that this council needs to be aware of as well as everybody inside a government is that the health care costs cannot that's what's killing them out there. And basically it's not an 80-20 rule, it's more of a 90-10 rule in that when an inmate is out there and has kidney dialysis or pancreatic cancer, we're on the hook to pay for all of that. And so within the population there's a very small amount of people that really drive that cost up into the millions and so forth. And one of the suggestions that we had was to Commissioner Helm that the partnership that was formed at the Family Care Center with UK, that we look at something very similar for the jail, bringing some resources in. But that's the one cost, Council Member Blues, that is probably the biggest unknown that could affect our budget in a really dramatic way that we can't really account for going into a budget cycle. But it is good to know that that's something out there they're trying to address. They're working with the judges to also try and release people before they have to go in for surgery and things like that. Council Member Crosby. And I was going to add, too, that they also have a – the state's going to start reimbursing again. I guess they were reimbursing and they stopped, and now they're going to start back again for their catastrophic fund for those, you know, critically sick people. And they said that very soon they should start seeing that benefit again, which will help their budget out tremendously. So that's another positive thing that we see happening with the jail, with some of their health care costs. And as I mentioned, adding this nurse practitioner has really helped them out tremendously because it's allowed them to take care of a lot of things in-house before they weren't able to do that. Another thing that they've done is they've expedited their triage. So when people are coming in, before they even come, they're in communication with the officer. They know whether it's going to take longer to check them in or if they're going to be a quick check-in. And they're able also to get that officer, if it's a quick check-in, back out on the streets a lot faster than they were before. So officers aren't waiting for hours at a time while they're trying to check people into the jail. So they've really become a lot more efficient in a lot of their practices. And we didn't see anything that really jumped out glaringly at us. Obviously, as every division is preparing for the World Equestrian Games, I mean, the one unknown that they do have is they're planning for something that might not happen. They don't know how that's going to affect them with a big major event in town and all the different languages. And so they're doing their best, just like every other division, in preparing for that as well and some of the language barriers and so on and so forth. But, again, nothing really jumped out from the cost analysis that they were doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Council Member Beard. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This is probably a question for David Jarvis. I'll wait for you to get up there, David. What is the specific difference between a nuisance control officer and a code enforcement officer? The grade is a housing inspector would be a 113 in, and a nuisance control officer is a 111 in. The housing inspectors actually go out and inspect for housing violations, you know, gutters, paint, that sort of thing. Nuisance control officers inspect for weeds, trash and debris, junk vehicles, the things that drive all the neighbors crazy. So that's the difference there. And we really could utilize two nuisance control officers more than one housing officer and one nuisance control officer, and we'd save some money in the process. They are sworn officers. Absolutely, both are. I thought maybe that was the difference. One was sworn and one was not. And with a little extensive training, we can cross-train them to do both, but a nuisance control officer is a lower grade. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. At one point, Council Member Beard, is these were two positions that were cut out of the budget, and all we're simply saying is we want to put them back in and keep them. I would agree. Thank you. Commissioner Bennett just reminded me that they're also with the housing officers or certifications they have to go through to be certified to do housing inspections, and they don't have to go through that with a nuisance and control officer. So, again, you know, a little bit of a savings, and we can get them on the street a lot faster. Thanks. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Council Member Crosby, for your work on this. I'm ecstatic about several parts of it, including the nuisance officers for code enforcement. Hooray, hooray. I can hear the clapping through the third district as we speak. I'm also excited about the radar signs. I think they're a great traffic calming device. And I have a couple of questions. One question I have is for the chief of – I wanted to know on the paramedics, how many paramedics, including you and your staff, are we paying assigned and unassigned? The only ones that get assigned to pay are those people who are directly involved with everyday patient care, meaning those that are assigned to the ambulances. So this would be 27 times 3 for the three shifts, and the shift leader, the captain that's assigned in a separate vehicle to oversee EMS operations, three of those, and the one person that works a 40-hour week related to that, so that would be 95. Okay. To get assigned pay. I do not. Okay, so nobody gets unassigned pay? Yes, there is unassigned pay for paramedics who maintain their certification. Yeah, okay. And so how many of those? The difference between that earlier number that I quoted, probably something in the neighborhood of 100 or perhaps 110. So more than we have that are assigned. Yes, ma'am. But there's a significant difference in the pay. Right. But they're not working as paramedics, but we're paying the paramedic wage. That's not true. They're working as paramedics every day. They're just not necessarily making the ambulance runs and assigned to an ambulance every day. Okay. I'm curious about that and would like to get more information because it seems like a pretty big budget impact, especially when there's overtime. What approximately is the difference in the pay? $10,000. $3,900 difference. A year. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Jarvis, could you come up? Could you also explain the nuisance officers, do they have anything to do with right-of-way sign collection? Absolutely. That's who picks up all the signs in the right-of-way. So those are the guys we put in the pickup trucks that we funded about two years ago. So we use those quite frequently. Can you, I know you gave me some numbers the other day of how many signs you guys picked up last year. Could you let everybody know how many that was? We started out about 10,000 a year and I think word's getting out a little bit. So we've narrowed it down to probably about 8,000 a year. And I personally pick up about 50 a week myself. I'm in full support of giving you these two officers and new trucks and whatever else you need to do the job that they do. But there's been a lot of conversation about how we get to a point where we can start doing something different to mitigate the sign issue. And we had a meeting with the county prosecutor before. Sure. How is that working out where you're starting to send letters to people and letting them know that we can find them? It has had an impact. Some of the more frequent offenders that we had have tapered off quite a bit. Now we get just the randoms here and there, the people that are having the sales over the weekend and that kind of thing. And we are still in conversation with the county attorney to come up with a plan to formulate how we would proceed with prosecuting them. What we have to do is we'll have to go out and file a criminal complaint, go through district court. And we are working that out now. And I think we have another meeting scheduled with your office to discuss that, to formulate a plan. And there are some council members that are going to be meeting, I think, in the next week or so with some of our state contingency and are going to have conversations with them about how we can change that fee and get that moved up. I guess I just want to kind of take this opportunity and put it out there for people to know that we're going to be more and more proactive about this issue and address it more aggressively. Oh, absolutely. And I think especially with 2010 coming, I mean, we've got to clean them up. We can't have all those signs out in the right-of-way and the site triangles and all that. I mean, it's very unsightly. Right. Well, I just want to appreciate what you're doing and put a plug in to get these two people back into the budget. Thank you. Then I have a question. I think it's more for the lien. Back when there was a document presented to us in one of the Committee of the Wholes for Budget early on, and it was a debt and capital projects, and it was dated April 28th. And I asked a couple of questions about some things that are going to be bonded, I think, for police. And one of them was that. Council Member Myers. You were talking when she actually said that the first round. Yeah, it was the first thing I said. Actually, since they implemented the STARS and PeopleSoft program, that's from the Asset Forfeiture Fund, and that's generated mostly through narcotics, and it is federally and state regulated, the monies. And basically because of STARS and PeopleSoft, they have to put that in as a line item. And the $69,000, for example, for the use of radar trailers, that's where that money will come from. It's just a placeholder. They have to do it. budgeting requires them to do it that way now because of PeopleSoft, but that's just how it's listed. They have no intention of buying furniture or ATVs or anything like that. It's just how it's listed. And probably if they are to get new police officers through the COPS program, most of it will go towards equipment. Right. And I heard all that. And I have a copy of the ordinance that says the state statute and the federal statute on how that money is supposed to be managed. My question has to do more with, I understand that in STARS we have to label it as something. My question is, why don't we label that? And I understand also that we don't know how much we're going to collect. So what I would recommend, and I actually had a conversation in the sidebar with the mayor about this. What I would recommend that we do is whatever the number they come up with that they think they may collect, set that money aside in the budget for things that they know they're going to need, which are some of the laptops that they have in this same budget and things like that. And then if the occasion comes at the end of the year or by the last quarter of the year, they haven't collected what they thought they would collect, that in this budget we do a different placeholder and put aside the money that they're banking on collecting, and then they have a real, instead of a placeholder for that money, they have a real line item in the budget for things they need. and then the last quarter if they haven't collected what they thought they were going to collect then we would pull the money out of that other line item and go ahead and pay for those items. I guess they could change it but I think a lot of times they don't know what they need when they don't know if they're going to be getting a training class or how many but there probably are some things that they definitely know. For example if we vote to do the radar trailers they can add that in as a line item but certainly I think probably part of the issue is there are things listed like furniture that looks a little crazy in this type of budget year and that's probably maybe where the hang-up is with some of us when we see that and everybody's being asked to cut back, cut back and even though we know what it is, it still looks kind of like a crazy line item in the budget so I guess it's just hard for them to project what they're going to need when, for example, I mentioned a training class, they don't know what they're going to get But I don't think it's unrealistic to possibly, maybe Commissioner could answer this better than I can or somebody, Mary, I don't know, but maybe they could put in computers or something if that would be more palatable to. I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying do something that's more palatable. I'm saying be proactive and put this money in the line item where you need it. And I'm saying because at the end of the day, they know what they need. to in their operating expenses for example. What they don't know is how much they're going to collect. What I'm saying is use this fund to actually do something that they have to do in their regular operating budget because what that means then is that they can cut that money out of their operating budget and put that somewhere else in the general fund and then if at the end of the year when they get to that final quarter if they haven't collected what they need to collect to do what they said they were going to do we pull that money back out and move it over there. So really what I'm saying is you're doing a more proactive way of budgeting. Instead of fattening the budget by saying we need these things to our operating expenses, and then we're going to add some things over there that we might like to have, and then label those with the money that we may collect, you're actually having to use that money that you're going to collect for something that you really need. That's where I'm going with that. I see some heads nodding to understand what I'm saying. I would want to point out that they do not spend the money until they have it. Unlike the rest of our budgets where people are spending money based on a projection, they generally know they have the money before they spend it for the various items that they have. And usually they're actually spending money they collected the prior year in the current year for the most part. Sometimes that's not the case and they spend current year money. The issue that they have is really with the capital items. I mean, they can make an estimate of what they think the operating is going to be, and they can adjust that within. Capital items have to come to council, and they made this guess. In reality, we talked about in the link meeting maybe doing capital a little differently and only doing the budget amendments as they figured out what they needed to buy in capital and bringing it to you through the year for whatever capital items they find out they actually need and that they know they have the money to spend for. You actually raised an interesting point. You said that in some cases, you know, they usually don't spend the money until they actually have collected it. And oftentimes they're using last year's money. That's correct. Why not do it that way, where you collect the money for this year, at the end of this year, you know what you collected and you budget that into your real budget for the next year? I'm not saying that they don't spend some of the current year's money as well, but they do generally, they're working off of a fund balance from the prior year. in addition to this year's money. Do you understand where I'm going though? I do. Do you, with your accounting background, have a suggestion that could help us get where I'm visualizing? Well, of course, currently the way they use the money is as they go through the fiscal year, things that aren't budgeted in the general fund that they need to do, that's their resource to do them, as long as they're within the narcotics ordinance, statutes, about how to spend the money. If they come upon something and they go, you know, we need to do this, but we don't have the money for it, but it is within those guidelines, because that wouldn't be supplanting, then they go to that fund to do the things. And there's been quite a big shift over the years, particularly for training issues, knowing that they don't have general fund dollars for training, they spend this money for the training that they need. And I guess that's really my point at the end of the day. What I would rather see them do is put together a budget request for what they need and not sort of have a placeholder for things that they'd like to do later on. And I'm not saying that flippantly. I'm not saying that they just kind of willy-nilly say, well, hey, we've got the money over here. I don't think with the operating, I'm sorry, I don't think with the operating, it's a, we think we're going to. Much of the operating, they generally have an idea of probably what they're going to wind up doing in the next year. It's capital that they don't necessarily know about. Is that correct? When you say it's capital they don't generally know about, what do you mean? Well, like, you know, something breaks down and they didn't know it was going to break down, so they don't have any money in the budget for it. And it is something that falls under those guidelines, and they need to replace it. They'll replace it out of these funds. Do you have a recommendation for us that could help get to where I'm thinking that would just help tighten that up? Or do you think that the way they're doing it is the best way to do it? Well, I think that the way it's done at the moment, because they put in capital items that they don't really know whether they need, I think we should not do that. The operating piece, I think, is good. I think the capital piece we might want to look at doing as we go along through the year, as they figure out what they do need and they come to you and say, you know, we need a new trailer or we need a new whatever, rather than trying to guess in advance on capital because capital is a big guess. I think that... provides more transparency and accountability if then you have to come back to the council and say this is what we want. That was my biggest concern. I knew they weren't going to buy furniture and remodeling, but my biggest concern was then when we pass that budget, then when they decide to do whatever they do with it, then there's no oversight or accountability to that. The thing that STARS required was, STARS requires you to have a budget everywhere or you can't spend your money. So that was one of the things that made us need to put budgets in place for this fund as well as some others that you've seen that are new to this system. One final question. In that process because STARS requires you to do that, what was the thought process in coming up with furniture and remodeling as the placeholder instead of something that is normal everyday things that they need? I can't answer that. I don't know the answer to that question because I didn't put their budget together. Okay. Thank you. Can I mention something? Sure. person that's in there, it is a cost. It's about $22,000. Thank you. Thank you. I did mention it in the committee. It is grant funded. Unfortunately, we made our budget adjustments. We took the money to pay the person out, but left the credit from the grant in. So right now we have the credit, but no money to pay them. So there is a cost, but it's about $22,000. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Martin, then Mr. McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to thank Council Members Crosby, Senate, and McCord for all their hard work on this. I know a lot of thought went into these recommendations. And, again, it's good to have a good number of people around. I was just wondering about the six trailers. I think those trailers are a great idea. But just thinking about the numbers, we've got six trailers times 365 days a year. That's a lot of road monitoring, I think. Do we have that many roads in Lexington? Well, you know, we originally were going to do 12, but, you know, one for each district. But, you know, the point is, if neighborhood traffic is our number one issue and visibility is key, having something out there that we get a report from one that people see and brings their awareness to slow down, that's what we're trying to do. And between two council districts, I guarantee you, at least in my district, I can move it weekly for calls of we need selective enforcement. Would you rather put a police officer out there or a trailer? I mean, that's what it comes down to. Well, I'd probably rather put both out there if we could, but the trailer we'll probably have to suffice with. It just helps. It's an aid. But we have a personnel cost with that. Is that right? Someone, will there be an increase? There's already one gentleman who moves as assigned to that route to move that around. And that person will be sufficient to move these six additional trailers around? I would hope so. And let me address that. One of the things, again, the innovation that Council Member Crosby was talking about with police is in the Bureau of Investigation. They've implemented a volunteer program where they're taking certain volunteers to help work some of these things that you don't need a sworn officer to do. This is another area where they're looking to potentially use volunteers. You can use people from streets and roads because it's literally just hooking this up to it behind the truck, setting it in place, and turning it on. So it doesn't have to require a new police officer or even a police officer. And, again, as Council Member Stenet said, one thing about selective enforcement that I think folks need to know is when a council member puts in or a neighbor puts in for selective enforcement and wants that police officer to sit there, they can sit there until they get a call that's a much higher priority. And so they may sit there for 45 minutes, write a ticket, and then there's something major that happens that pulls them off of that traffic watch. So even having selective enforcement with people is a little bit more difficult. That's part of the reason for the recommendation. The second question I had was, thank you. The second question I have is regarding the proposed transfer of funds from overtime to the regular personnel account. Do these additional recruits, does this number include, and Council Member Crosby or Stenet, does this number include any pension impact of these additional hires? Yeah, it includes benefits in that number, and it will have a pension impact because as we hire new people, they will go into the current pension system. Thus, the need, if we're going to change the pension plan for new hires, needs to be done before we hire these folks. Otherwise, they will be in the old pension. So does the number that's listed here, the $1,280,000, does that include the pension impact or is that additional? Yeah, it's all their benefits. That includes all the pension? Foul and benefits. And just as a side note, we did request that it be transferred over into personnel. So, I mean, if it's left in overtime, then there's that flexibility. Well, maybe we might just hire, you know, five instead of 12 or whatever. This makes it more, I think, concrete that it's put into personnel, and that's why we wanted it transferred for one, and then two, also to get reports back on how it's going. And so is there an effort, an additional effort about, I guess, trying to look for efficiencies in personnel and staffing for these positions? Is that? Can you repeat your question? I'm sorry. I'm throwing out to the links committee, or I can ask the chief to come up when you can ask the chief. But my question is, is that, you know, we're looking at 15 recruits and another class of 23 recruits. I mean, are there any staffing efficiencies that we can get out of better management practices? Well, I would. That would be for the management to answer. Chief? The numbers are pretty simple. We're averaging eight people on overtime every single day presently. And we've been in that position. and we've been in an automatic overtime position almost since the start of the last budget year, of this current budget year. One, two, and the numbers have just continued to increase. This gives us some people, essentially a cushion of people to utilize for vacations and all the other things that people are off for before you get to an overtime situation. That's it. we've just been in a zero flexibility position for now in excess of nine months, almost 11 months. I'm not sure what management, how could I answer your question better? Well, I'm trying to understand, first of all, how are the people allocated? How are the firefighters allocated? And do we allocate them different than folks do in other cities? Are we using more folks either per station or per run than other cities use? I'm trying to get a handle on our staffing. That would be impacted by this. The answer is yes, yes, and no. And I don't mean to be flip at all. We do not meet the minimum recommendations for engines and ladders in our minimum staffing of three. We exceed what most cities do in terms of ambulance staffing in that we have three more than two. and we do not send the number of people that we assemble on a run is determined by the number of companies that we send to that. So that's a number that could be altered simply by, they're still there, they're still being paid, but the number of people that we assemble on a run is determined by how many people that we send of those that are on duty. Well, and I appreciate it. I'm new to understanding how our public safety works, and I appreciate your answering the questions on it. Yes, sir. And I recommend to any or all of you, please come to our Citizens Fire Academy. Many of those questions are answered. For those that have been fortunate to come, I think they'll let you know that it helps a lot. But we'll be happy to meet with you individually and supply you with anything you'd like. Thank you, Chief. Council Member Croglie, I guess my last question is where will the 261-930 come from? Is that something you have or Council Member Senate or Council Member McCord? No, I personally have it, but I think the process is we wait until all the links are finished. We don't have it in our link. The best we could get was the 125 out of it. But after all five links are finished, then we add up the totals and we see where we're at. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to comment, too, based on some of the comments the Chief made and your comment about kind of how do we know about management practices and where we stand. Just as a follow-up, the link felt very strongly that the fire department needed to be able to get up to their authorized strength to be able to take care of a lot of the issues they're facing with their overtime. It's kind of like the dog chasing their tail around. They can't ever catch it because they're always short. So we believe that if we could help get them to authorize strength through the plan that they helped come up or they did come up with, that this would, you know, what is perceived to be possibly a management issue because of the overtime problems, it would probably work itself out in this budget cycle, and definitely we will see it in the FY211 budget cycle. and that's one reason why we asked or made the recommendation in our link and felt strongly that we would get quarterly reports from the chief just to see how things are going with the hires, with the overtime. So instead of in the past we've been reactive where they've had this such a shortage and have been in this situation, we've had to react, react, react with budget amendments where we felt like as a link this is a way that we could be more proactive And if there is a problem, adjust during the budget cycle, adjust during the year versus waiting until we're almost to the end of the year into the next budget season and think, oh, no, we've got a problem. It didn't work. So that was why that was part of our recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thanks to all the folks who have worked on this budget process, not only the council members but the staff as well. I know this is a very grueling process, and this being my first time through the process, I think it would have been a whole lot more fun if we had had a little better budget. But with that said, I would like to ask a few questions. First of all, because I am a new council member, I need to know what STARS is. I think I know what it is, but I'm not absolutely sure. Just let Rama answer that. We blew that name up. Don't forget, we're not supposed to be using that. That's right. It's no longer STARS. It was the first phase of the PeopleSoft implementation. We just call the product PeopleSoft. Finance was the first part of that, so it's been referred to as the STARS project. since then it's gone on to be called STARS. The project we're on now is called Synergy, so we just call the whole product PeopleSoft. Thank you. That clarifies a lot. I'm old school. Because that's not at all what I thought it was. I have a question about the forfeiture, the asset forfeiture fund. I'm not sure who needs to answer that one. Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry. I just had some questions about the asset forfeiture fund. That's hard to say. Okay. I had thought actually the stars had something to do with that. But I understand that you are regulated by federal and state statutes. But I wanted to know a little bit more about it. Is there any way year to year that you can anticipate how much you might receive? There is no consistency? No, there's no consistency. It's based on your activity during the year, how lucky or unlucky, to use the terms loosely. you are in your enforcement actions, so there's really nowhere to predict it. So there's a real big deviation from year to year. Yes. Okay, so I think I was kind of agreeing with Council Member Myers on maybe trying to project that and build it into your budget, but, you know, if you really don't have any tracking that gives you some history to base that on, I don't know how you could do that. You really don't, which then requires you to do one of two things, either budget conservatively to make sure you don't overspend your budget, or budget aggressively but spend conservatively so in the end you wind up not spending more than you get. What they've chosen to do is to budget conservatively, recognize additional revenues if they get it and when they get it and as they need it, and then spend it at that time. That ensures that we never spend more than we collect. And when you do collect the funds year to year, do you completely expend those funds within a year? No. For example, if you look, if you have the big budget book. I don't have it with me. I'm sorry. For example, the state confiscated fund. Fiscal year 2008, they actually wound up with a fund balance of almost $400,000. So they didn't spend all they had available. That was then carried into the 2009 budget. My guess is they won't spend everything this year either. So you will carry a balance forward? You carry a balance forward, but in the end, you're really supposed to spend it within a three-year period, what you collect within a three-year period. So you kind of got to keep not only an accounting of what you have today, but how long you've had it. Well, is there a reason then that you only chose to spend, it looks like, $69,000 out of that fund? Well, I mean, I'm sorry. That's – I apologize. That's okay. I'm going on what the Lynx has proposed. That's additional. So the $69,000 would be additional spending. Yes, that's additional spending they proposed. The budget as it currently stands, depending on which fund they're taking it out of. The federal fund, at this point, they have budget to spend all they collect. It is at $961,000. The state asset forfeiture fund, they budgeted collections of $300,000 and expenditures of $150,000. So there's a program, $150,000 fund balance in the state asset forfeiture fund. Okay, so the detail on what you've actually budgeted that money for is there. Yes. I apologize. In each of the funds, that's fine. I don't have that book with me. Let's see. Does the council generally have to approve those expenditures from that fund? Yes. Okay. Let me back up a step. You approve the budget for the expenditures. You don't approve each individual expenditures, but you do approve the budget amounts for each of those line items. Okay. So then if at the end of the budget cycle, if mid-year, if something comes up that you feel like you need to fund through those funds, does that have to come back to council? If it's not been previously budgeted, yes. Okay. I have another question about FIRE. Do you want to try to go for that one? Depends on your question. Thank you. Chief Ryle, tax in it, or he can answer, either one. The chief is fine. Thank you. I think there was some concern about having a lot of trained paramedics that aren't assigned to the EMS routes. But it occurred to me that, and correct me if I'm wrong, in many instances the fire truck may be the first to arrive on a scene. That's correct. And if that occurs, are those EMS personnel on that fire truck, the paramedics that are trained on that fire truck, are they allowed to go ahead and administer care to those people who have called for emergency care? Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. That's the way our system is based. And in fact, nine of our engines we guarantee every day to have a paramedic on board. So that's 27 more people minimum that are being utilized and not being paid assigned paramedic pay. In addition to that, there are persons on other engines, other ladders, in bureau cars, in some of our chiefs. All of those people have paramedic-level equipment assigned to them that they can operate as first responders as well, and that includes myself. I have a paramedic kid, an AED in my car as well as do those other folks who have that. So we're really getting some additional paramedics on the cheap because we aren't paying them the full scale pay. And the other thing that I didn't mention about those is that those 95 that are being paid to operate, obviously those people have time off as well. So you have to have other people that can stand in to fill their jobs. Those come from the people who are in an unassigned status as well. So, yeah, we get a lot for our money out of those people. And there are many systems that pay differently and for which they are paid what the equivalent of assigned pay would be for the rest of their career. Our system is one that does not do that. Oh, thank goodness. Another question, though, and this is really just for my own curiosity. I don't, first of all, I don't know how many ambulance or EMS vehicles that we have. But secondly, how frequently, if you can kind of just ballpark it, how frequently do our fire trucks respond before the EMS vehicle gets there? Is that a frequent occurrence or is it just occasionally? Yes, ma'am. I don't know that exact percentage. There are about 10 codes, and I'm speaking of the way the computer dispatching, that get an engine or ladder automatically. Those would include, obviously, a vehicle accident, a vehicle accident with entrapment, chest pain, difficulty in breathing, an unconscious patient, a fall greater than 10 feet. There are numerous codes that automatically get an engine or ladder company. There are certain lesser codes, perhaps a person that's been sick for a day or a couple of days, that would not routinely get a first responder at the present time. Okay, great. You're actually a little more sophisticated than I realized. Okay, I think that's all the questions I have for the fire department. Thank you. Just one additional point to make sure your question was answered. We currently have nine frontline emergency care units that are on duty at all times. We also have reserve units that we can put on duty as needed as the call volume requires, but we have nine frontline ones. Okay. Thank you. And I have one question for code enforcement. I have talked with you many times about. You'll get used to that. Yeah, about the complaints. And I guess I'm also glad to see two additional people in that department. You're enforcing on a complaint basis, is that correct? Yes and no. We have teams. The mayor created the NET team in conjunction with the Clear Police Unit. We do big comprehensive sweeps. We'll select a neighborhood and do a comprehensive sweeps. We've done nine of those so far. So what we do is normally on a day-to-day we do complaints. That's what we answer. Each inspector is assigned a sector of the city. They're responsible for doing a comprehensive in their sector every year, and then we have these two teams we set up. We have our net team, and then we have the inspector themselves. So we do comprehensive inspections and complaint inspections, but normally on a day-to-day basis we're complaint-driven. Okay, so you do have a comprehensive suite once a year per sector? we've done nine comprehensive sweeps since we created the team. There's the game day team that we do in the U.K. area. There's the net team that we do with the police clear unit. We just currently finished up one. We did the Georgetown Road area, and that was large, very large. And we go door to door, and we do inspections door to door that way. So you all kind of work together when you do those comprehensive sweeps? Absolutely. We assemble the whole division, and we select the neighborhood and do those sweeps. And then, again, the inspector themselves, they do the comprehensive sweeps in their sector, and they actually go into the units, a lot of apartment complexes and that sort of thing. So we have a smaller comprehensive team, and we have the big comprehensive team that selects entire neighborhoods. Okay. One question, and this may be a difficult question. I started to ask you if there is any particular area of town where you get more complaints, but let me be more specific. Sure. Do you feel like that, or is it measurable that you receive significantly more complaints from areas around the university? Lately we have, yes. There's been more attention drawn to that area, and we have received a lot of complaints about nuisance-related issues, trash and debris, weeds, junk vehicles, you name it. Recent being within the last year? Within the last year, yeah. Okay, but prior to that? I think it was pretty spread out prior to that. Of course, you're going to have the inner city areas with certain idiosyncrasies, the complaints you get there. Then you've got the suburbs. A lot of the foreclosed properties now are coming to light. We're seeing a lot of properties that people have walked away from. So we're getting a lot of grass and complaints, trash and debris. There may be certain areas of town that we deal with more junk vehicles. Over in the Cardinal Valley area, we have a lot of junk vehicles that we deal with or in the Ward Drive area. So really it's just very spread out. Okay, I was actually just trying to get my head around what percentage of our resources are actually being spent toward the university. Depending on the time of the year, quite a bit. We've assigned two full-time officers just to deal with the U.K. areas, and normally that was part of a quadrant, but now we've narrowed that quadrant down to include a very narrow strip of U.K. So we spend a lot of time in the U.K. area. Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Stenet. I'm going to yield to Council Member McCord first. He's dying to speak. No, I just wanted to ask you a question at the end of my comments, and so I thought it would be easier to do it this way. Going through this process, a couple things that I think I want to bring light to for all those in the room and those watching is, you know, So if public safety is going to be our top priority, which budgetarily it is as far as a percentage of the budget, but if we really are going to say that this is what's important to our citizens, then we need to really focus on what is going on inside here and making a statement as a council that this is important to us. I think the police trailer issue is a creative way to operate inside of our budget, do something that we all have issues with and using it in a creative way. And again, I compliment a lot of these areas that like corrections that have found very innovative ways to keep their costs down. One thing I want to bring light to counsel, this 911 issue is a big time issue. And because it's not, we say, hey, we're not recommending anything right now. I really want it to stick with you. We've got a major decision to make with 911. Do we spend $10 million on a radio system that allows our folks to talk or police and fire? They can't really talk to one another right now. There's not a lot of redundancy. There's a lot of issues there. If we have a 9-11 type event in Lexington, we've got some serious problems. Do we spend $10 million on that outside of an EOC? Do we roll it into an EOC? Are we buying something that in 18 months, technology-wise, is going to be outdated? So this council really needs to take a hard look at that. From the nuisance officers with David, you know, you're doing a phenomenal job. You and your group do a great job. I want to say it publicly, but this is another area where for a very low cost, I think we can get at a lot of these neighborhood issues that we've got. With regard to fire overtime, you know, this council over the last couple weeks has been dealing with this. This is a recommendation that we've worked with fire with the commissioner. Here's how we get at this thing long term. And the bottom line to it is that that quarterly report out is going to be key and for all of us up here over the next year to really watch what is that trend inside fire so we don't end up in an end-of-the-year thing. But what I want to set up, Council Member Stennett, I want you to speak to, if you don't mind, is something that you and I have worked on for two years, very hard and heavy, and that's this dog issue. You know, we've been dealing with tether dogs and with SOAR and with animal care and control. But one of the things that this council needs to know is last year we went from six officers who had a covering the entire city. We've got 10 officers on the streets now. They have finally moved to a proactive state of 1,300 to 1,400 calls a month. And for us to take a major step backwards and go back to six, especially after what we've heard with a number of folks in this community about how they feel about animals and dogs specifically, I think is a major, is something major for us to take a look at. So, Council Member Stenet, I know it was kind of in the mix of all this stuff, but if you don't mind in your comments, I'd ask you to really clarify how this recommendation came about, kind of what was left in and out of the budget, and just speak directly to that. So, with that, I yield to Council Member Stenet. And I'll yield to Council Member Myers. So you're done speaking? Well, I'm done. I don't have anything else to add. Vice Mayor Gray. Council Member Crosby. And just to put into perspective, Council Member Crosby, Councilmember McCord did mention prioritizing the budget and just what we do spend on public safety and just the importance of it and I neglected to say that the Department of Public Safety accounts for 54% of our FY 2010 budget so I just wanted to make sure that everybody was clear of that percentage and from the FY 2009 budget, it was $145,880,000. And for FY 2010, it is proposed at $150,234,720. And this is a 3% increase. So I just want to make sure everybody understood, like Council Member McCord said, this is 54% of our total budget. Thank you. Councilmember Lane. Commissioner, could you come in just for a sec? Yes sir. Okay, for the firefighters that are in the budget I think it's 1.28 million, those are partial year salaries and benefits. What would be the total annual cost for that? What would flow over into the next fiscal year? For the first 15 recruits, the one that are starting the first part of July, that's a full fiscal year number. I think it may be one pay period short, but it's essentially a full fiscal year number. For the other 23, I believe, it's about a 10-month number. I'll have to get back to you on the full year's impact on those. Okay. We can do that. That's not going to be helpful. We can do that quickly. you know, and thinking about what it's going to do to next year's budget. Then the other question I had, and you might want to refer this to the fire chief, but how many employees does it take to fill one shift for one week? I'm going to defer to the chief on that one real quickly. That's 131 per day. That's with nobody off. No, I just met for one position. So in other words, you've got a position at a fire station. How many employees do you have to have each week to fill that position? Because they don't work seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It's currently estimated we're hiring at a rate of five to fill four. In other words, when we hire a company of four, 12 people, three times four, we hire 15 to staff it. We think that's probably an underestimate given the additional time off that they've negotiated and so on. But historically, for probably the last 15 years, that's what we've hired. Would you repeat that one more time? We've hired 15 people to staff 12 positions. probably more accurate would be at least 16, perhaps 17. All right, so if you have a fire station, how many employees do you have on duty at a fire station at any given time? Do you have a minimum staff at a station there? Minimum of three if it's a one company house. Okay, so you're saying if you have three people there all the time in a given month, how many employees do you have to fill each all three positions for a whole month? I'm trying to get an idea of what the ratio is between the shift and the number of employees per week or per month. Several ways to look at that. Again, in terms of what we hire to staff a company, that's what I was speaking of before. There are three on duty at any time. Right. So any time one of nine would be off, currently someone's coming in on overtime because our minimum, we're at our 131 minimum. We don't have any people to let them off. Let's see if we can state it another way. All right, do the firefighters work 56 hours per week? Is that right? They do. All right, so if you have, I could probably run a calculation, and I could multiply the total number of hours for three people for a full week, and then divide it by 56 and I give you the number of firefighters for it at that station. 168 for three people and times times three on that. Alright well could you rather than take up more time on this could you maybe just send a memo to the council and give us the idea of how many firefighters it takes to fill a slot for an entire month Sure. Thank you. We'll work with you anywhere we can. Any other questions? I want to tag on to that. It looks like we're running out of time, but I'd like to tag on to a little bit of that and what Council Member Martin was asking earlier, because I will share with you, Council Member Martin, that after three years, I don't know that I'm much more informed than you feel like you are today about some of these issues. And they are, from a management point of view and a responsibility point of view, I think that they are really meaningful questions, just like the one that Council Member Lane was asking. I've asked a couple of times in these meetings about span of control, about the numbers of trends in terms of our hiring on frontline firefighters, the ratio of management to frontline, the ratio of the new specialty or specialty positions like community services, all of which are very worthwhile, and nobody really challenges that. But the only time institutions really examine their cost basis is during times of adversity, financial adversity. That's the only time, whether it's public sector or private sector. And institutions and public institutions rarely examine, even in difficult times of adversity. And I think that could represent and does represent a failure on the part of us not to do it. And that's inconvenient and it's sometimes difficult language to use, but it's also the truth. So I just ask that I'm footnoting in a sense and reinforcing what Council Member Lane has said and actually dialing it up a little bit to say, can we please get data that illustrates over time the growth in numbers, in headcount, in full-time equivalents, for the full department and break it down into the units and the specialties. Okay, so we know, have a sense of, and why we are doing what we're doing. It may be very, very good reasons, fully defensible, but as council members, as ambassadors in the community, we do need to know and be able to articulate and illustrate why it is we're doing what we're doing with our numbers. So thank you all very much. And thanks again to this links, Council Members Crosby, McCord, Stennett. Thanks to you all for your hard work on this and to the staff and to Tim, to your department and chief, to all your folks. Thank you all very much. I just wanted to answer one question Council Member Lane asked. The full year's salary for those 38 people would be $2,014,000. That's if it were for a full year. Right. Thank you very much. And we project that would be effectively the fiscal 11 impact of all those people, and we project that there will be more than that in savings and overtime from having those folks on board. Okay. Okay, if the questions that I was asking, if you all have that, then I'm good with that if you all have got it easily accessible for us. I think it would be easier if we could put something down on paper for you. Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Do we need anything else? I know, Vice Mayor, we average $36 an hour for overtime pay right now currently. It's basically a two-to-one deal for every dollar. It costs us $2 to hire overtime versus $1 to hire somebody, a two-to-one ratio. Well, I'd like to see those numbers real, real, real, real carefully. And I'm sure they can get it real, real, real. Because I don't really always understand that. Okay. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. All right. A second? Yes. All right. All in favor, please say aye. All right. All opposed, no. Motion carries. We are adjourned. Thank you.