08-01-18 Personnel and Finance (Budget Overview)

Home Browse Search

®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK rental unit inspection, Light Up South Bend and, I believe alongside the Police Department presentation you will hear from the PSAP staff. We do have concerns about the increased cost associated with that but we also think we are seeing a lot more confidence in management practices with PSAP than we had even one (1)year ago. He continued, Council has pressed us on job creation and diversity in the workforce. What you will see is workforce development and small business development, fagade improvements and housing finance gap assistance. We know there are a lot of people in the community who are fully capable of purchasing and improving houses but still can't get access to credit sometimes. We think the City might be able to help step into that and Community Investment will go into more detail about that when they present. We are considering other unique approaches like micro- lending as we think it might help build a more diverse small business base in our community. When it comes to public spaces, again, My SB Parks & Trails is going to be, by far, the biggest thing you will hear about but you will also see us making requests to allow us to continue our work on the City Cemetery. We are also funding the Zoo Bond. There are some big picture long-term capital questions about the Zoo and some of their ambitious and exciting visions but there are some things we can help get underway right away. He went on, Council has asked, and again, we think this aligns well with the idea of vibrant and welcoming neighborhoods, about quality of life. So you will see funding for new housing construction, traffic calming, vacant and abandoned houses and supporting those neighborhood plans with TIF investment that aligns well with those plans. We have heard a lot about Bendix. It will come in the budget and it will not be a small item. Even though it is both Federal and Local, if you've driven on it, you'll note the conditions on that stretch of drive are in pretty bad shape. I am identifying this outside of the routine paving program because this is a large project. We already talked about the quiet zones, curbs and sidewalks and we are not approaching Council right now for increased rates but we are putting the rate increases that happened in the past to work when it comes to water and waste water. But, as I mentioned, we are also going to be raising the subject of the storm water utility fee. He continued, The Fire Department High School Dual-Credit Program is off to a great start. We have already accepted one(1)graduate into this Department and have two(2)former students who are in the recruiting process now. It is a fine example of how some of these partnerships with our education system can make the City Administration more effective and, we think, benefit the community. You're going to also see more development of our fiber-optic capacity and free Wi- Fi that, we believe, makes downtown a more digitally inclusive place. There has been a lot of usage. In data terms, three point two (3.2) terabytes have been used of our downtown Wi-Fi and that shows there is a lot of demand.Not to get too much into the weeds on the technology side but the ERP is kind of the technology heart of the City. You probably have heard various City employees cursing a program called NaviLine. We are migrating from NaviLine and it is quite literally the software equivalent to a heart transplant. That is underway and when we are done it will allow us to do some terrific things when it comes to recording financial data. It also helps with workflow management. He went on, I want to mention workforce transportation too because this is actually getting some national attention. Bloomberg Philanthropies selected South Bend as one (1) of the handful of cities it is investing in. The idea here is to work with area employers to create a fund for them to support rideshare services for their employees to get to work who would otherwise be unable, EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.91731TTD574.235.55671www.southbendin.gov 8