08-26-19 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember Dr. Oliver Davis stated, I think that this is something for us to consider. That we pass that with that kind of situation because I see that's where we have our strength to ensure that we don't pass it and then come back and ask for that to happen afterwards. I don't see the strength of that. Committee Chair Karen White stated, We will get with Bob and make sure that our attorney is a part of those discussions as well. So, the issue as we look at this is that there are two (2) taxing units that would fare well from a financial perspective. Those would be the County and Mishawaka. So, it only takes two (2) entities to really pass this, and if I'm looking at it correctly and based on some past conversations the focal point of this is that South Bend has more calls for service, and that we need to be paying our fair share. I don't know if that's correct or not. Mr. Parker replied to Committee Chair White, So,the County has made statements in the past that if the assessments were done on the basis of call volume, we would be paying a larger share of the total assessment. This is because we have a higher share of the actual call volume than the County or Mishawaka. I haven't seen the numbers so I can't actually confirm that's true. Committee Chair White asked, So,do you have a sense of what really encouraged the need for this proposal? I've never answered that. Mr. Parker replied, So, I don't have a sense for why the proposal was coming now other than the PSAP interlocal agreement was originally set up as a five(5) year agreement, and it is coming up this year. It was set up in 2015 so it's coming up again in 2020. So, that might be the invitation to look at the funding source. I did also want to mention that we were asked as the City to put together what it would look like from a financial perspective and an operational perspective. If there was an alternative here to pull out a PSAP and have a stand-alone South Bend call center. We did do a financial analysis with several assumptions regarding the amount that we did not spend on particularly personnel's largest cost. Then we have the financial analysis that Renata Matousova, Director of Financial Services for Public Safety with the City of South Bend put together for the stand-alone PSAP. On a yearly basis between salaries, technologies, supplies and services the actual total annual operating cost comes right at about what our assessment is for the current PSAP. Right at about 3 million dollars,and that's roughly in line with what we would expect if you looked back at 2014 which is the last year that we did run our own call center. The cost was right around 2 1/2 million dollars, factoring in raises and inflation 3 million dollars seems reasonable for what we can expect it to cost. That would be in addition to sort of the up-front cost of at least 1 'h to 2 million just to kind of get going, and we timed for about a year. I also asked Chief Skwarcan of the South Bend Fire Department and Chief Scott Ruszkowski of the South Bend Police Department to speak more on this. Committee Chair Karen White then opened the floor to the rest of the committee members who wished to ask questions. Committemember John Voorde stated, I'd just like to quickly hear from Police and Fire about how you feel about the current service?There were stories from some time ago about all of the dropped calls and everything else. Are you satisfied with how this has played out? EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www southbendin.gov 5