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CITY OFSOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK <br /> you guys do. So, goals and challenges. Right now, we're going to have a majority Council that is <br /> brand new, or almost brand new. We have four (4) out of five (5) that have not served on the <br /> Common Council before, so the key to this budget is to implement training and committee <br /> assignments with new Council Members. <br /> He continued, Our goals and challenges for 2020 include partnering with the Administration and <br /> Police and Teamsters on the collective bargaining negotiations, which I'm sure will be a little bit <br /> complicated with having new members that will need to be brought up to speed if they're going to <br /> serve on those subcommittees. We've got to look at voting on a vote of confidence for the tapes <br /> and legal action,which will probably come up again next year and could be significant within that. <br /> We'll continue neighborhood meetings,walks,and tours. I think that's been very effective this past <br /> year in the past term. Thanks to everybody who's been involved with that. We need to focus on <br /> infrastructure, quality of life, and public safety. That's been heard by this Council and I hear it <br /> from everybody who's running for Council about this stuff right now. So, we'll have that in mind <br /> and in our focus. <br /> He went on, We need to fill every board and commission with citizen appointees and do training <br /> for them. Of course, improved technology can better serve citizens. Anything that we can do, <br /> whether it's partner with the County, with the Clerk's Office on cameras, any other technologies, <br /> we'll look at that for the opportunity to make sure that we can get information out more than what <br /> we've been doing. I think going Facebook live has helped a lot with meetings. Any other <br /> opportunities that we have within that. We haven't had minutes approved for the last couple of <br /> meetings because we've had long meetings. The Clerk's Office does a tremendous job of almost <br /> verbatim minutes, I think better than a lot of Councils that I've seen across the country. That's a <br /> high standard and anything we can do to help support that, I think we need to do that. So, one(1) <br /> thing that we'll be looking at, and it's been on the list, is legislative support through electronic <br /> signatures and filing.This is something Kareemah Fowler and Dawn Jones and I have talked about <br /> and we'll look to getting that implemented and then we'll continue to search for opportunities to <br /> reduce costs wherever we can. <br /> He continued, So just to give you a preview, in pink(referencing a slide in a presentation which is <br /> available in the City Clerk's Office)is the little sliver and that is the Common Council budget. So, <br /> if you look it's point three nine percent (0.39%) of the total City budget. I just wanted to put that <br /> in perspective. And if you look at our budget, eighty percent(80%)of our budget is salary,wages, <br /> fringe benefits and professional services. So, it is truly the wages and the staff and everything that <br /> we're doing here for it. There is an increase and I'll get into some of those. The increases for the <br /> 2020 budget over the 2019, Council salaries are getting a raise by two percent (2%) which is in <br /> line with most normal people within the City employment. The Council attorney salary increased <br /> by two percent (2%). The total intern allocation that we have right now that is not nine percent <br /> (9%) on each individual salary, it's the total of that whole department is nine percent (9%). The <br /> interns have been working out great. I'll have a slide on that, but you'll see a ninety-two percent <br /> (92%) increase on education and training. That's a big jump within that small sliver and that's <br /> because we will have five(5)new members or four(4)new members,one(1)returning and it goes <br /> to what Councilmember Voorde was saying about going to AIM. AIM was such a great learning <br /> tool for myself. That's where we can send people for training and do in house training, we will <br /> within that. <br /> EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT <br /> 155 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 1574.235.9173 TTD 574 235 5567 we w.southbendin.gov <br /> 15 <br />