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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-30-17 Personnel and Finance (#4) U d W DoE 1865 OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLER,CITY CLERK PERSONNEL &FINANCE AUGUST 30, 2017 5:00 P.M. Committee Members Present: Karen White, Regina Williams-Preston, John Voorde Committee Members Absent: Gavin Ferlic Other Council Present: Dr. David Varner, Jo M. Broden, Tim Scott(late), Oliver Davis (late) Other Council Absent: Randy Kelly Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Alkeyna Aldridge, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer Presenters: David Cangany, David Pinckert, Scott Ruszkowski, Ken Glowacki, John Murphy Agenda: TRANSPO Police Department Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 5:00 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. TRANSPO David Cangany, President and CEO of TRANSPO located at 1401 S. Lafayette Boulevard, stated, This is my fifth(5h)time coming before Council to present the TRANSPO Budget. Our proposed 2018 operating budget is just over$10.6 million. I'm pleased to say we are maintaining the current level of services we provide and we are also looking to optimize our existing routes to maximize efficiencies and increase ridership. Route 15A will now allow us to service the VA Clinic in Mishawaka as well as Route 12 servicing the new Four Winds Casino. We are also looking at ways to increase our fare box revenue. We recently renegotiated our contract with the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College and that lead to a twenty-five percent(25%) increase. There are also opportunities to increase services with IUSB, Bethel College, Holy Cross and South Bend Community Schools. Transportation continues to be a challenge for our School Corporation and we have been in conversations with their Administration to figure out the best way to address those issues. I'm also pleased to announce that we are launching a Game 455 County-City Building•227 W.Jefferson Boulevard•South Bend,Indiana 46601 Phone 574-235-9221 •Fax 574-235-9173•TDD 574-235-5567•www.SouthBendIN.gov JENNIFER M.COFFMAN ALKEYNA M.ALDRIDGE JOSEPH MOLNAR CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK OPERATIONS Day express for Notre Dame home football games. Through sponsorships, this is not costing TRANSPO a single dime. It is free and open to the public. Lastly, we are going to take a look at our existing fare structure. We last launched a day pass in 2015 and that went well but the last time we looked at our fare was back in 2010 and we still have one (1) of the lowest fares in the State of Indiana. We are happy about that we but we want to take a look at that and see if it is still in line with what we should be doing. Councilmember Tim Scott arrived at the meeting at 5:05 p.m. Mr. Cangany continued, We have also been very proactive in reducing our operating costs. We've made a commitment to compress natural gas to help reduce operating costs. We have twenty-two (22)natural gas compressed buses. We used to hire lobbyists for$100,000 a year and that has now come in-house as we have really good representatives and senators in D.C. Almost ninety percent (90%) of our budget is out of our control. Wages, benefits, fuels and insurance takes up the majority of our budget through our collective bargaining agreement. When it comes down to it,the controlled costs demand increased creativity. Operating expenses are down from the past year. Our labor expense is relatively flat. Our veterans are starting to retire and so those folks replacing them are coming in at a much lower wage. After five (5)years, of course,they will be at the top rate but for the first couple years we have some type of relief as we have a newer workforce. Last year we signed on to the St. Joseph County Health Plan and that saved TRANSPO about $300,000 just in health care premiums. We are now in partnership with the county and that is great. With the conversion to compressed natural gas as well as the decrease in diesel prices, our fuel expense continues to go down. Revenue is split fairly equal. About one third (1/3) comes from local dollars. We receive no direct portion from the City of South Bend or the City of Mishawaka. We get our local dollars from property taxes. We levy and collect property tax. We receive about twenty percent(20%) of our revenue through the State through the Public Mass Transit Fund. We did see about a five percent(5%) increase in that Fund. That is making a move in the right direction. Federal Operating Assistance has us take the capital dollars and convert them to operating dollars. That is not sustainable but it is working for now. Passenger Fares account for approximately fourteen percent(14%) of our revenue. We still own the Main/Colfax garage for a couple more years. We receive about $200,000 a year from the City in a lease payment for that. One (1) of the biggest challenges facing TRANSPO is our aging bus fleet. Over fifty percent (50%) is still beyond the normal useful life. The Federal Transit Administration benchmarks twelve (12) years or 500,000 miles as a proper time to dispose of that vehicle. We still have about twenty-five (25) vehicles that are older than twelve (12) years. We continue to tackle that and chip away the number of vehicles needing to be replaced. There is still uncertainty about Federal funding as well as State funding. We will continue to look at ways to reduce expenses and are also preparing for the 2019 property tax caps. Mr. Cangany went on, We have many priorities in 2018. We will continue to look at the diversity of our contracting agreements. We are also looking at Workforce Development Partnerships to help people get in the door for the hiring process. Any time we buy a capital item,the Federal Government generally bonds eighty percent (80%) of that cost and we are responsible for the local match which is the remaining twenty percent (20%). Committemember John Voorde asked, What are the hours of operation for TRANSPO? 2 Mr. Cangany replied, We run Monday through Saturday. Monday through Friday operates from 5:50 a.m. to 9:20 p.m. Saturday operation hours are about 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Committeemember Voorde followed up, What does the Notre Dame service involve? Mr. Cangany replied, We run a dedicated route on campus called the Sweep,that is our number seventeen(17). That goes between Notre Dame and St. Mary's. We also run a late-night service Friday and Saturday evening from 9:00 p.m. until about 3:50 a.m. We were able to secure a twenty-five percent(25%) increase over the course of eighteen(18) months on that agreement. Committeemember Jo M. Broden asked, Where was the biggest growth in your advertising? Mr. Cangany replied, We receive fifty percent(50%) of the revenue for advertisements. In the old agreement we only received about thirty percent (30%). Committeemember Broden followed up, Do you do your grant-writing in house? Mr. Cangany confirmed, Yes, we do that collectively as a team. Committeemember Broden then asked, What does the utilization of the Sweep Route look like? Mr. Cangany replied, I can provide you ridership information. Part of our agreement with the campuses is to provide those numbers. I would like to see the route redone. Committeemember Broden asked, What is your relationship with South Shore? Mr. Cangany replied, We help one another. We service the Airport every thirty minutes so we help take folks to and from the train. There are definitely increased opportunities for us to work alongside South Shore. We might pilot a program for Sunday service to and from the train. Councilmember Tim Scott asked, Are you fully staffed? Mr. Cangany replied,No, we are not. Councilmember Scott followed up, How many positions do you have open? Mr. Cangany replied, I have twenty(20)positions out of one hundred and twenty (120) positions total. Councilmember Scott stated, There is a bus stop right at the roundabout off Portage Avenue. It used to be in a convenient location and now it is not. Mr. Cangany replied, We are moving that. We had to hire a contractor to install those signs. Once that takes place, it should be taken care of in thirty (30)to sixty(60) days. 3 Councilmember Dr. David Varner asked, Is there any reason you feel compelled to subsidize the Sweep Route? Mr. Cangany replied, A lot of contracts were put into place prior to my arrival so as they start coming up for renegotiation we are playing hardball with a lot of renewals. Committeemember Regina Williams-Preston asked, Has there been any headway on bus shelter installments? Mr. Cangany replied, Some bus shelters are part of the City's Department of Public Works. TRANSPO does have plans to put more out but we have to figure out our priorities. Having reliable vehicles is the number one (1) priority for TRANSPO but passenger amenities are also a priority. Bus stops got rolled out but we needed a local match available for bus shelters. We have close to $100,000 raised for a local match but then there is also engineering site work that needs to be done. It really is an exercise trying to stretch our monetary resources. We are going to incrementally roll out the bus shelter process. The locations in the grant that was previously approved are predetermined. We have no say on where they will go. That list can be made available upon request. Councilmember Broden asked, How attentive are you to the ADA compliance of your operation? Do you have an advisory board for that compliance? Mr. Cangany replied, We don't have a specific advisory board for that but we have the TRANSPO Board. We have a full board but we regularly seek comment from individuals to make sure we are in compliance. Police Department David Pinckert, Pension Secretary for the South Bend Police Department, stated, I've been around for a number of years. He passed out a copy of the 2018 South Bend Police Pension Budget(available in the Office of the City Clerk). He continued, In the back of the packet is the list of names. The first section is a list of retired officers that we are paying and what their salary will be next year. There are two (2)pension plans involved with the Police and Fire Department. The twenty-five (25) Fund is the old pension plan. In 1977 the State of Indiana passed a new pension plan. So anyone hired since April 1, 1977 is automatically in the seventy-seven(77) Fund. However when they passed this legislation, they offered all the officers in the old plan a chance to convert to the new plan. They paid a ten thousand dollar($10,000) stipend for each decision made to convert. We had one hundred and five (10 5) officers convert to the new plan out of approximately two hundred and forty (240) enrolled in the old plan. We still have the two (2)plans going right now. We budget for and fund the old plan. Those in the seventy-seven(77) Fund are paid by the State of Indiana. Down the road there will not be an old plan anymore. Everyone will be paid by the State of Indiana. Since 1989, any officer that converted to the new Fund is still paid by the City of South Bend and I don't know why. At the end of the year, we do pension relief and get the money we spend reimbursed back. I'm guessing the State is waiting for the old plan to be eliminated before taking them all on the payroll. With the new plan, the officer has to be fifty-two (52) years of age to draw their pension whereas in the old plan there was no 4 age limit. He then detailed the minute differences between the old plan and the new plan. He went on, The budget we are proposing for next ye is $6.5 million. That is up $159,000 from last year primarily due to the two percent (2%) raise coming next year. A lot of this depends on attrition and quite frankly the passing of the retired officers or their widowed spouses. There is always a question of whether we have enough money for it. This year, we started at a balance of $792,000 in the Fund as we saved$450,000 in miscellaneous and interest. Our reimbursement is always paid a year behind. I'm projecting this ye that we will have a balance of around $830,000 in the Fund. Next year we won't get quite as much pension relief. I'm figuring there will be roughly a$399,000 balance at the end of 2018. We've been hanging in here without asking for more appropriations. Right now we have two hundred and four(204)retirees and widows in the old Fund. We have one hundred and twenty-nine (129) in the new Fund that we don't pay. In sum, we have three hundred and thirty-three (333)retired police officers and widows. We are paying about two-thirds of those. To my knowledge,there is nothing in the legislature right now to change the pension plans. Councilmember Voorde asked, What is the Drop Program supposed to accomplish? Mr. Pinckert replied, By the entering the Drop Program,the State and City then have an idea of the numbers with regard to who is retiring soon. Councilmember Voorde then asked,And so once they declare, they don't have to indicate how long they will be in the program for? Mr. Pinkert responded, That is incorrect. Once you enter the program, you are required to indicate how many months you anticipate having left. However, you have an opportunity to opt- out of the program but once you opt-out, you cannot reenter. It is voluntary but we encourage the officers to enroll in it. Scott Ruszkowski, Chief of the South Bend Police Department located at 701 W. Sample Street, stated, There are other members of our team here to answer any questions. This presentation is based on our data from 2016. CC stands for Citizen Complaint and Al stands for Administrative Investigation. We had 103,183 calls for service. 23,671 of those calls generated case reports. There were 2,536 arrests,not counting warrant arrests. There were seventy-two (72)uses of force out of those arrests and only three (3) complaints from use of force. There were twenty- nine (29)public complaints and thirty(30) administrative investigations. I know Councilmembers have expressed concern about use of force but these are incredible numbers. Our vision is to constantly strive for excellence in the quality of police service to help ensure a safe community for everyone. We cannot do that by ourselves. We achieve that by community outreach and community inreach. We are a branch of our community and we are part of the family. We focus on Recruiting, Retaining and Rewarding and that equals Reinvigoration. Reinvigoration is tied into the morale of the police force. We have increased our in-house training. Because we are a Regional Training Facility we have historically focused more on everyone else and not ourselves. Not pushing anyone aside but we must start focusing on ourselves more. The number one (1) mantra is accountability. We've focused on a number of different ways to better our efforts in recruitment. We do job fairs and go to schools as much as possible. We attend every single community meeting. I am frankly disappointed with the lack of 5 media at Board of Public Safety meetings. They only show up when something is wrong. That just demoralizes the Police Department. We are a great department and we have the stats and numbers to prove that. Ken Glowacki, Director of Accounting and Budgets for the South Bend Police Department located at 701 W. Sample Street, stated, The Police Budget has many different expenses and many different Funds. Of our $36.6 million budget, almost$29 million is funded from the General Fund, $4 million is funded out of the LOIT Fund, about$1 million comes out of the COIT for automobile maintenance and gas. PSAP is funded from the EDIT Fund, Fund#408, and that is $2.464 million. There are still some additional non-reverting Funds that come in through fines, fees and services. For example, accident reports, gun permits, fines like impound fees account for roughly $700,000 of expenses. The $36.6 million is up about$300,000 from last year. We have no capital in the budget mostly because our vehicles are leased so we don't purchase them outright. We have $2.5 million earmarked for PSAP which is what the County charges us. That is the fee for the entire City including Fire,there is no separate charge for their Department. The total for Police Operations is $34.1 million this year compared to $34.2 million from last•ye. Salaries and benefits for sworn police officers account for$28.1 million which is up $300,000 from last. This is the largest portion of our budget. Civilian salaries and benefits is about$2.5 million. Supplies costs about $800,000 this ye down from$1 million last year. In that supplies line, $500,000 is for gas. We use 275,000 to 285,000 gallons of gas a year. The price of gasoline is the biggest factor in what our yearly expense will be. The reason we are down on that number from last year is merely the cost per gallon is lower this year. Services account for$5.2 million this ye compared to $5.4 million from last ye and that is attributed to our reserve from general insurance. That is down from $1.2 million to $600,000 this .Year. We are budgeting for a total of two hundred and forty-five (245) officers. There is no change in rank. Of the one hundred and sixty-two (162) Patrolman First Class that we budget for,roughly thirty (30) of those are investigators. After January when we were at about two hundred and fifty- three (253) sworn officers, at the end of August 2014 we were at two hundred and thirty-one (23 1) sworn officers. And even if they are sworn in, that doesn't mean they are available for duty. Some officers could be on medical leave, military leave or otherwise not available. Chief Ruszkowski stated, The bare minimum we can put forward in the community is about two hundred (200) officers and that is not great. Mr. Glowacki continued, We have projections out to 2021 but that is unrealistic. We have eight (8) recruits in the Academy and we are looking to hire about nine (9) more recruits in the October/November timeframe. We are hoping to get the total number of sworn officers to two hundred and forty-three (243) by the end of 2017. I'm thinking we will have close to fifteen(15) to twenty-five (25) officers per-year in the drop program, and that means we have to have recruiting classes of twenty(20) to twenty-five (25) to stay at the level we are at. I may be over- simplifying the math but that is what we are faced with. We also have approximately eighty (80) officers that have met the minimal requirements for retirement and at any point they could leave. Chief Ruszkowski added, We've projected that at least one hundred (100) officers will become eligible in the next four(4) years. 6 Mr. Glowacki stated, This emphasizes the need to have recruitment classes and retain them. There have been steps toward increasing our capacity to retain officers but it is not easy. We used to have small recruit classes but having fifteen(15) or twenty(20) officers leave, per year, is a relatively new occurrence. Chief Ruszkowski stated, We had twenty-four (24) lateral transfers apply for the Police Department. These are individuals that have already gone through the Academy and were ready. One (1) made it on our Department. Some of the reasons people withdraw are unknown to us and we don't know how to predict that. All of this information is available at www.southbendpolice.com and we are the most transparent Department in the City of South Bend. He then briefly discussed a few specifics to a couple line items such as car maintenance, staff titles and time and pay logging. He continued, We are going to have to replace our radios soon and the estimated cost is $2 million. We have also requested another Armadillo vehicle. Committeemember Voorde asked, Has there been any thought to have a non-sworn officer crew to handle special events? Chief Ruszkowski replied, Yes in fact that is included in our part-time officer types. We are looking at everything. We have over three hundred (300) events a year that we staff. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked, Has there been any consideration for anyone to be cross trained as a Police Officer and Fire Fighter? Chief Ruszkowski replied, I haven't talked with anyone about that. There are State requirements for being both and I think that would be difficult to do. I could talk to my fellow chiefs in the area and all options are on the table. Councilmember Davis followed up,Are there any Cities that use TIF Funds to pay for police? Councilmember Scott asked, Is there anyone on payroll to help write grants? And how is Kronos working for you guys? Chief Ruszkowski replied, Yes we have a grant writer and have recently applied for a few grants. And Kronos is working well, it is saving a lot of paper. Going from no computer system to a computer system was helpful for us but we are still learning. Councilmember Dr. Varner asked, What Fund are your technology expenses coming out of? Mr. Glowacki replied, They are coming from the General Fund. Councilmember Dr. Varner followed up, What is the total budget request for IT Funds through all the Departments? I will talk to Admin and Finance about that. Councilmember Broden asked, What does the $400,000 increase in PSAP help with? Obviously underpaying your work is not good. Why is the lump sum coming from you if Fire is included in that too? 7 John Murphy, Chief Financial Officer for the City of South Bend with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City Building, stated, We put in a placeholder number. The PSAP Committee has provided different budgets based on different staffing levels so we will decide in early September where that budget will be. We don't know exactly what it will be but we put in the twenty percent (20%) amount to have something in the budget. That is paid out of the EDIT Fund and that is why it is one (1) lump sum. Councilmember Broden followed up, But don't we know the request in front of the County with regard to their budget? Mr. Murphy replied, We don't. PSAP sets a budget and there is a complicated formula for allocating the funding through the different sources. We haven't received the allocation formula yet. We have asked for it but we haven't received it yet. September 7 is the next Executive Committee meeting for PSAP. Councilmember Williams-Preston asked, What does community image look like to you? Chief Ruszkowski replied, Quite frankly if we had one hundred (100) complaints, we should see one hundred(100) accommodations. People think we don't care and that is simply not true. A simple walk-up to a police officer and thanking them would be wonderful. Sue Kesim, 4022 Kennedy Drive, stated, There should be a City morgue. There is so much time and resource spent on traveling back and forth from the morgue. Sharon Banicki, 3822 Ford Street, stated, Aaron Perri,the Director of VPA makes $117,000 a year as opposed to our Chief of Police who makes $100,000 a year. Chief's three (3) division Chiefs will make $84,000 and Aaron's Deputy Director is making $97,419. Maybe we need to look at boosting their morale and salary instead of VPA. Who can play at the parks when they're not safe? The Committee then briefly discussed the Shot Spotter Program and some community resident confusion with regard to that program. With no more discussion, Committee Chair White adjourned the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 7:07 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, Karen White, Committee Chair