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OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK
KAREEMAH FOWLER,CITY CLERK
PERSONNEL &FINANCE SEPTEMBER 18, 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, Oliver Davis (late), Tim
Scott (late)
Other Council Absent: Randy Kelly
Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer
Presenters: Aaron Perri, Jen Hockenhull, Eric Horvath, Jen Gobel
Agenda: Public Input
Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at
5:00 p.m. She recessed the Committee and reconvened the Committee in the full Council
Chambers at 5:05 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to open the
floor to members of the public to speak on the 2018 South Bend City Budget.
Public Input
Sharon Banicki, 3822 Ford Street, stated, Going through the budget I've noticed in VPA there
are five (5)people being reimbursed $3,600 a year for auto allowance and one (1)person being
reimbursed $5,000 a year. In the Mayor's budget there are two (2)that get three hundred dollars
($300) a month reimbursed for auto allowance and three (3) at two hundred dollars ($200) a
month for auto allowance. Who is it and why?
Jim Bognar, 807 W. Washington Street, asked, I went through Fund#202 and did not find
anything related to achieving the goal of upgrading existing City-owned street lights to LED
Lamps to improve the lighting quality and efficiency providing a safer environment for walking
public. We have degrading lighting with AEP and City-owned lights. I also looked at Fund#251
for Local Roads and Streets. I did not see any expenditures that would allow for the
improvement of this lighting. I was advised to go to the Open Data Portal, which I did, and it is
very difficult to look at and narrow down. I am concerned as it does not seem that there is
anything specifically in the budget to talk about what we are going to do about City-owned
lights. The Council and The Administration need to take a look at this to see if there is some
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place to have a particular line-item for this as well as working with AEP to improve their
lighting.
Aaron Perri, Executive Director of Venues Parks & Arts with offices at 321 E. Walter Street,
replied, I can't rattle off the top of my head the names, specifically, of the folks that are
reimbursed but I would be glad to provide those. I think there were seven (7). The job
requirements of many people in our office have them moving geographically throughout the City
as we have spaces throughout. This is an alternative to providing a City-owned vehicle as well as
an alternative to providing mileage. This is a cost-saving measure.
Councilmember Oliver Davis arrived at the meeting at 5:11 p.m.
Jen Hockenhull, City Controller with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City Building,
replied, We can provide the names of the individuals in the Mayor's Office. The main reason for
the auto allowance is so that when folks are moving around on City-business,they don't have to
keep track of their mileage. At the end of the day it is effectively a cost-saving measure.
Eric Horvath, Director of Public Works with offices on the 13th floor of the County-City
Building, replied, To be clear, there are a number of different ways to fund lights. One (1) of the
ways is through projects as it would be project-specific. You'll see the new lights on the Jasinski
over-pass, on Olive and Sample, Downtown South Bend, and so on. Typically every year we ask
for$200,000 for a program called Light Up South Bend. That comes out of Fund#404 which is
our COIT Fund. We again asked for another$200,000 this year like we have for the past number
of years. We work with AEP to do about seventy (70) lights every year in different districts.
They do two (2) Council districts a year and typically put thirty (30)to forty (40) new lights in
each district. We will continue that program but in addition to that we also have a lamppost
program. That is a cost-share program and we offer bids every year based on applications we
receive. This puts a light in the front yard and helps with public lighting. The bids this year,per
lamppost, were eight hundred dollars ($800). That is a pretty typical cost. The resident pays two
hundred and fifty ($250) dollars and the balance is paid by the City. We are also looking at a
pilot program that may look at a different cost-share on that but those are two (2) programs
offered. Beyond that,we also utilize those funds as we transition a number of lights. About
eighty percent(80%) of the lights in the City are AEP-owned and twenty percent(20%) are City-
owned. We are in the process of transitioning the City-owned lights to LEDs.
He continued, We do have a 211 Driver that we recently asked to start. That is a person who is
on at night that receives certain calls if we have an accident, say, if traffic signals go down. They
are tasked with immediately putting up stop signs. When they are not responding to those calls,
they are looking for lights that are out to make sure we get that information to the right people.
Looking long-term, we will continue working with AEP for LEDs.
Bill Dunn, 1620 Southwood Avenue, stated, I have two (2) questions regarding street repaving. I
have recently heard the phrase smooth streets. Are we only selecting specific portions of a lane
as opposed to the whole lane? I've been told there are about 2,200 lane-miles in the City limits
and my quick math tells me that every street in town can count on being re-paved once
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approximately every seventy-two (72) years with the total amount we allocate for paving in the
budget every year. Am I misinterpreting that?
Ms. Banicki stated, VPA is asking for the lease of that$600,000 vehicle over five (5) years. Has
anyone gone to Elkhart to try and wheel and deal with them to see if they could do a partnership?
What happens if we don't agree to the vehicle? How many people do we have out,daily,picking
up animals and working on that?
Councilmember Tim Scott arrived at the meeting at 5:21 p.m.
Mr. Bognar stated, When Tax Incremental Financing came in, it was said to have the ability of
being used for improvements on things like sidewalks, sewers, lighting, and curbs. A lot of the
City area is a TIF District. I understand when new projects are done that new lights are put in and
that Light Up South Bend is doing well, but I am concerned that the majority of the lights in the
City are AEP-owned. I think it is important we have funds coming from many different places.
We don't have a way to consolidate everything we are doing. Has the Department looked at a
way to consolidate all the funding for the lights? It seems like there are bits and pieces in place,
but no consistency. When projects are done, we don't have any consistency with the lighting.
There needs to be more money added to this.Not necessarily from the City, but there needs to be
a strategy on the basic maintenance of the majority of lights that we have. There is nothing
wrong with the lamppost program. Could we incentivize using TIF Funds?
Mr. Horvath replied, We do have an updated and ongoing paving list. That list is based on the
condition of the roads we look at. We have what is called a PASER Rating that gives us the
conditions of the roads and we prioritize as a result of the rating. Unfortunately, we don't have
enough money to do all of the ones in poor condition. We have about 2,200 lane-miles in the
City and we do somewhere between twenty(20) and twenty-five (25) lane-miles a year with City
crews. That is $550,000 in the Local Roads and Streets Fund for paving material. In addition to
that there are costs for staff. We have started to look at the program and have tried to find ways
to give us additional life out of pavement. When a road gets really bad sometimes there is no
other way to do it but tear out the entire thing and re-pave. More often than not,we mill off the
top inch and a half or two (2) inches and resurface the street. We are also doing more crack
sealing and other pavement rehabilitation stuff throughout the City. Although we only do twenty
(20)to twenty-five (25) lane-miles,that does not include all of the other projects we are doing
where we get either grant money or federal aid money. We have been pretty successful in the
past couple of years in getting both.
He continued, We do have a new app that our crews use as they are doing the paving. They
update it in real-time. It shows a map and segments the projects that are in the queue. We are
doing our best to be sure it is accurate and up to speed.
Mr. Perri replied, We have been hearing a lot of good feedback regarding the vehicle. That is a
Mobile Recreation Vehicle that would go throughout neighborhood parks. It attempts to
accomplish two (2)main things. The first would be to address the issue of equity. We often hear
about parks when people point out how a certain park has this and why a different park doesn't
have that. In reality, we can't install everything in every park. The unique solution to that would
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be to mobilize a unique experience that would show up at different parks. That is a partnership
with the Recreation Division as well as the St. Joseph County Health Educators. The other thing
it addresses is the struggle of being relevant. By adding a new amenity that we can route around
the City to continually be present helps us combat that notion. This would actually be a lease-
purchase so the idea would be that we own it at the end of five (5) years. We would be working
with a company to help design the vehicle. It will be bid out through the Board of Public Works
process.
Jen Gobel, Manager of the South Bend Animal Care and Control with offices at 521 Eclipse
Place,replied, We have four(4) officers that service the City of South Bend. The number
fluctuates based on the day of the week. We increased that number in March of 2017 by adding a
fourth officer. In 2016 we were operating with only three (3) officers. Monday through Friday
we have two (2) officers that service the City from the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with an on
call officer from 5:00 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. to handle emergency calls. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and
Thursdays we actually have four (4) officers on duty from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and, again, we
have the on-call emergency officer from 5:00 p.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Mr. Horvath replied, We looked at trying to do some energy savings performance contracting to
actually use savings and take over all of the AEP lights. At that time there wasn't a tariff in place
for LEDs and now that the tariff has come out it is not financially feasible. We would need that
to work out financially but we would also need a willing partner and I'm not sure if AEP would
be or not. They would need to agree to allow us to take those lights over and I think it is a neat
idea. I would love to accomplish that someday. In terms of using TIF, if the light is in the TIF
District we could use TIF. That is a possibility and might be something we consider in the future.
The problem is a lot of these areas have the AEP lights. We need a more comprehensive
program. It would be nice to have a standard over time. We have tried to narrow down our
standards for consistency moving forward.
Committee Chair White reminded the Committee and Councilmembers to submit any questions
they have for the Administration on the budget, no later than October 23, 2017.
With no further business, Committee Chair White adjourned the Personnel and Finance
Committee meeting at 5:42 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Karen White, Committee Chair
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