09-19-18 Personnel and Finance (#10)

Home Browse Search

lato CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK City Clerk's Office Kareemah Fowler, City Clerk with offices on the 4th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I have two (2) positions I am currently asking for increases in, just so they are aligned with the responsibilities and the workload. One(1)is the Chief Deputy Clerk,and the other is the Ordinance Violations Bureau Clerk. We have reevaluated a few things in our office and we've taken on additional projects such as Amnesty Day and our internship program as well as GIS mapping for our Notre Dame Lawn Parking and Scrap Metal licenses and any other initiative that we need to do that for in-house for the Clerk's Office and the Council. Committeemember John Voorde stated, This is actually the third (3`d) step in a three (3) step program to adjust workloads and salaries and job descriptions in your office, right? There isn't much opportunity to compliment you on the work you've done,but I in particular,think that you've done a much better job providing complete and timely minutes than the last Clerk. Big upgrade! Fire Department Steve Cox, South Bend Fire Chief with offices at 1222 S. Michigan Street, stated,As you can see, we're just asking for a couple of things. For a department that has one quarter(1/4) of the staff of the City, we are very light on the administrative staff of the South Bend Fire Department. We have one (1) administrative assistant who we're asking to bump up from a one (I) to a two (II). We're asking at this time to keep that at a two percent (2%) pay raise, but we would like to raise the ceiling of that position. We've added some responsibilities to each of our civilian positions in order for us not to have to add an additional position. For instance, our Financial Specialist three (III) is handling APRA requests as a liaison to the Legal Department, which was not a responsibility that she had in the past. Our Administrative Assistant handles purchasing issues and such that she also didn't have as a responsibility when she was first hired in. Our Financial Specialist two (II) is also a team leader within our EMS billing section and drives the workload within there and is also our designated Compliance Officer in regard to HIPPA rules and other Federal regulations within our billing office. Additionally, each of our Accounting Clerks and the Financial Specialist have all received national certifications in EMS billing which was not a requirement of their job when they first hired in. We are asking that those three (3) positions be bumped up one (1) level to make their ceiling a little higher, in order for us to provide incentives for those individuals when we do performance reviews. Additionally, the community paramedic position is a new position, the only new position in our department. As I mentioned, this is a community outreach position within the Fire Department to create a preventive medical position. We know people are out there in the community in need of services,and that puts them in a position where they are utilizing the EMS system in a way in which it was not designed to be used. They frequently call 911 and use the emergency department as their primary care physician, and oftentimes the underlying cause of this isn't even a medical problem. Our community paramedic began as a pilot program in June, and we've already seen a decrease in multiple patients calling 911 using our resources, which further frees up our 911 resources for the appropriate types of patients. Initially when I presented this, I had asked for two (2) firefighter positions, but at this point we are asking for one (1). We'd be turning the pilot position into a permanent position. Department of Public Works EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011p 574.235.92211f574.235.91731TTD574.235.5567Iwww.southbendin.gov 3