Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-04-17 Personnel and Finance (#7) SOUTH u od W` \r¢►cs; a r^ Y i 2865 OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLER,CITY CLERK PERSONNEL & FINANCE OCTOBER 4, 2017 5:30 P.M. Committee Members Present: Karen White, John Voorde Committee Members Absent: Gavin Ferlic, Regina Williams-Preston Other Council Present: Dr. David Varner, Tim Scott, Oliver Davis, Jo M. Broden Other Council Absent: Randy Kelly Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Jennifer Coffman, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer Presenters: Tim Scott, Kareemah Fowler, Santiago Garces, Dan O'Connor, Rene Casiano Agenda: Common Council City Clerk Innovation/Technology 311 Call Center Budget Cleanup Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 5:30 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. Common Council Tim Scott, President of the Common Council with offices on the 4th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Our mission statement is to make certain that our City Government is always responsive to the needs of our residents and the betterment of South Bend is always the highest quality priority. We have had seventeen(17) formal Council Meetings to date from the start of 2017. We have had eighty-three (83) Committee Meetings with an eighty-three percent(83%) attendance rate for all Councilmembers. If a Councilmember is not on a Committee,they are not required to attend so it is good to see a high attendance rate for Committee meetings. We have put forward fifty-three(53) bills and have also passed fifty-four(54) resolutions. We have twenty-seven(27)press releases to date. We have started to display student artwork. We have had no violations of public meetings or public access. We are streaming Council Meetings on YouTube and Facebook. We have ClickShare for our presentations. We had a training day for 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 Boards and Commissions Appointees. We transitioned in hiring a new Council Attorney. We have also hosted eleven(11)budget hearing sessions. He continued, Moving forward we want to improve our messaging with citizens. We are looking at maybe holding Committee meetings on off-nights from our regular Council meetings but we have to look at having the right technology for that,taking into account ADA as well as security. We are in the process of acquiring everything we need for that. We are trying to improve our accessibility to the Council District Map. We are in the process of completing our active shooter training and that is coming up shortly. We are also leveraging a paid internship for communication and messaging. We are only point three-six percent (.36%) of the entire City Budget. Roughly eighty-seven percent(87%) of our budget accounts for fringe benefits, professional services and salaries. We are a fairly lean group with regard to our budget. The increase for Council salaries are two percent(2%). In the line-item it is stated at twenty-five percent (25%) but that is because all nine (9) members are now taking salaries. In the past there have been members that have not taken their salary. That is also reflected in our fringe benefits. There are two (2) additional Councilmembers that are taking benefits that didn't last year. We have $125,619 allocated for our legal services and that is mainly regarding the tapes. City Clerk Kareemah Fowler, South Bend City Clerk with offices on the 4th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Our mission is to ensure integrity, accuracy of City records and liaise between the Common Council,the City Administration and residents to foster relationships and common ground. We accomplish this mission by serving as responsible stewards of information and historical artifacts. We empower community engagement to support open and transparent government while striving for the highest degree of excellence in customer service. She showed a chart in the presentation(available in the City Clerk's Office) that depicted the roles and responsibilities of each member of the Clerk's Office staff. She continued, We are support staff for the Councilmembers because they are part-time. In 2017 we launched a system called Granicus. That is a City Boards and Commission software and we share that cost with the City Administration. That has been very successful. We also are in the second phase of the Fast Track Initiative. We have been working closely with the Common Council on that and other City Departments. We think that has been going very well. We completed the indexing of Historical Data. We digitized all City records from 1865 to present date. We began live-streaming the Council meetings on YouTube and Facebook as well as created an opt-in email distribution list for residents to receive emails from the Clerk's Office. We launched an internship program. We hosted a fellow from Myanmar and showed them how municipal government works in the United States. Along with the Common Council we launched our Art Display program. We completed our branding for the Clerk's Office. We began working on the Knowledge Based Articles. We also have the ability to complete verbatim legal transcript minutes. This year we had our first annual Boards and Commissions training for appointees. We completed Standard Operating Procedures for all members in the Clerk's Office. She went on, We have many goals for 2018. We plan to complete the Fast Track Initiative. We continue to look at ways to move toward a paperless Municipal Code as well as create the ability for electronic filing. We are working with the Council, IT and other City departments to figure 2 out how we can make that happen legally with electronic signatures. We have been working on that for about nine (9)months. We also have, in our office, the Ordinance Violation Bureau. We had our first annual Amnesty Day which was very successful. We rolled out the new parking program along with Downtown South Bend and we thought that was very successful. Collections are up. Scrap metal has gone well as we have seen about a$2,000 increase from last year. We have a few goals for the Bureau. We still haven't secured a new parking ticket system yet but we are looking to do that in real-time. We are looking into expanding Amnesty Day by encompassing all Ordinance Violation tickets, not just parking. We look to make a mobile app for parking as well. We are starting to map Notre Dame lawn-parking. The only major changes are the IT allocation,the cap for the Deputy Clerk position to raise it by$5,000 to $50,000, and changing the title of Clerk Secretary to Administrative Assistant I. Innovation and Technology Santiago Garces, Chief Innovation Officer of the City of South Bend with offices located on the 12t~'floor of the County-City Building, stated, I would first like my team to introduce themselves. A few individuals introduced themselves and provided their respective roles in the Department of Innovation and Technology, as well as the 311 Call Center. He continued, Our Department's goal is to empower our workforce to make sure our employees have the tools to make the best decisions. We do this through technology, data and strategic partnerships. We are making sure to build the right infrastructure to ensure the City is growing sustainably into the future. We are especially thinking about trying to make South Bend a part of the 21St Century Economy. He showed a graph on the presentation that depicted the different divisions within the Department. He briefly went over the broad relationships between the divisions. He continued, Part of our strategy has been to make sure that we're looking at all of the aspects of how our City coordinates with one another. We are also working on the CRM system that manages our 311 Call Center. We are creating the infrastructure to make it easier for the residents to report issues and concerns with City services. We also re-launched our Open Data Portal. We worked closely with internal Departments. We also launched a Police Transparency Portal. Our Geographic Information System is also getting revamped. Since 2013, we have been moving away from having large capital expenditures that are difficult to budget for. We are moving toward a model that accounts for all of the expenditures. We are utilizing the Cloud, subscriptions and are always making sure we have the most up to date technology. We are two point two percent (2.2%) of the overall City Budget. He continued, One (1) of the bigger changes from last year to this year is the Fully Allocated Model. There are certain expenditures that, in the past, different departments were budgeting for. There are about $1.2 million that had been budgeted in different departments and we are now handling that all in our budget. Some of the things that are driving new costs are new investments. We are looking toward electronic filings. We are budgeting for the membership in the National Network of Safe Communities which is the group that helps coordinate the Group Violence Intervention Initiative. We've finalized adding devices to our tech refresh cycle. We also budgeted for more safe storage with the potential in-car and body camera programs. We included a two percent(2%) increase for all of our staff. We added a new Director of Civic Innovation. We've increased the 311 staff to accommodate the higher call volume. Our operating budget went up by$1.2 million but that is just the accounting transfer as it is for things we are 3 already paying for. This Civic Innovation Director will be looking for grants and opportunities to engage in partnerships with our schools and local employers. Residents want to be more connected with technology. We are coordinating with Workforce Development agencies. We also need to make sure that all residents have access to all of the opportunities that are being created. We are working with Repurpose for Results which is part of Bloomberg Philanthropies. We are working on a new City website. Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions from the Committee and Councilmembers. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked,Have you considered links to different places or organizations of interest on the website? Mr. Garces replied, Yes, and we are gathering feedback from residents and members of the Council for that. Councilmember Davis followed up, Could you elaborate on the thing that helps residents pay their water bills? Mr. Garces replied, We conducted an analysis with the University of Chicago through a grant we received. We are in the process of exploring how to let our residents know they are late on their bill. We are working on a project to better communicate that. Councilmember Tim Scott asked, Is TeleStaff for the Police tied into the KRONOS System? Mr. Garces replied, Yes. Councilmember Scott followed up, What does the timeline look like for the KRONOS implementation? Dan O'Connor, Chief Technology Officer of the City of South Bend with offices on the 121' floor of the County-City Building, replied, TimeKeeper and TeleStaff are both fully implemented already. We are expanding the use of the KRONOS system and that is slated to be done by January 1, 2018. Councilmember Scott asked, How much time has been spent on PSAP and how much longer do we have to look at this? Mr. O'Connor replied, That is hard to quantify. They are in the process of changing some personnel and I presume my role will go back to being just a helping resource. Councilmember Scott asked, Are there grants to get for the Civic Innovation Director? Mr. Garces replied, We started tracking how many grants we are applying for. Councilmember Scott then asked, Do you have a metric of how many people have gone through training? 4 Mr. Garces replied, One (1) of the things we discussed in the last IT Governance meeting is the plan to launch an academy where we are training all City staff. Councilmember Scott asked, Are you guys affected by hacking? How much resource are we devoting toward that? Mr. Garces replied, We have invested for a number of years to be sure our infrastructure is secure. Mr. O'Connor replied, We do not house any servers in the City anymore. They are housed in state of the art data centers. With those agreements we receive their security. We do have layers of security in-house, though. We are constantly assessing that. Councilmember Scott asked, Are there other ways to communicate with 311? Mr. Garces replied, We are thinking about expanding 311 so, yes, we are exploring other ways for citizens to interact. Councilmember Dr. David Varner asked, What is the extent of the grant and the research you conducted? Mr. Garces replied, We found out about benchmarks and that helps us work on the critical aspects of our billing for utilities. Councilmember Dr. Varner then asked a few specific questions regarding MetroNet and the City's relationship with that. Mr. Garces gave clarity to Councilmember Dr. Varner's few inquiries. Councilmember Jo M. Broden asked, Can you explain our digital divide? Mr. Garces replied, That has come up through our budget conversation. We understand the divide to have three (3) components. One (1) of them is the connectivity so, simply,the access to internet service. Second is devices and having access to devices. The last piece is skills. We have been working with folks in the community like the library and schools to partner in solving those issues. Income level plays a part as does age. We are working to make sure we are all thinking about these issues. We hope the Civic Innovation Director will help spearhead a coordinated approach to bridge that divide. Councilmember Broden then asked, What is the next quadrant or area we are looking at in our City to receive data improvements? Mr. Garces replied, That is part of a larger collaboration that involves a number of institutions. I think the idea is to try out another location to learn more of what we have to do. In the next year there will be one (1)more location and we would then look to establish infrastructure in a few more locations. 5 Councilmember Broden asked, Do we have dollar amounts and numbers on the time spent from our IT Department on the 911 Call Center? I think that would be helpful as we go forward, especially as we look to renegotiate the Interlocal agreement. Mr. Garces replied, Our Business Analytics division has helped them and really, for us, it has just been wanting to make sure it is successful. Councilmember Broden then asked, Are your grant applications available online? What are we applying for and what are we trying to get at? Mr. Garces replied,Not yet. That is definitely a possibility. Councilmember Broden asked, What is involvement of the Council for the annual survey to assess resident satisfaction? Mr. Garces replied, There are several other cities that have integrated the survey into the performance management metric. We can get data that is statistically significant. For the most part,the idea is to use what has been used in other cities but by all means we welcome all Council involvement. Committee Chair White then opened the floor to members of the public. Sue Kesim, 4022 Kennedy Drive, stated, Seeing how hard you all work, I think the Councilmembers should be getting at least$25,000. I also think the City government's website should look like the County's. Sharon Banicki, 3822 Ford Street, stated, Recently someone tried to go online on the City website to register their rental property and it was a nightmare. Will the City Clerk's presentation be available for the public? Bill Dunn, 1620 Southwood Avenue, asked, Who can I contact to be able to better understand working with the Data Portal you have out there? In the annual reports a couple years back, one (1) of the goals was to have an open checkbook application. In 2016, it looks like that faded. I didn't see anything like that. Will that still be a reality? Mr. Garces replied, There is a comment section in the data sets so if you have questions or comments you can put them there, and they will be answered. We currently don't have a training program for the Data Portal but we are thinking about putting one (1) together. We are working on the open checkbook. One (1) of the challenges is making sure when we are upgrading systems that all the other interacting interfaces are still able to work together. Jessie Davis,P.O. Box 10205, stated, The old Data Portal was very easy to use. I could gather information for seven (7) years off of that. A lot of that information I now can't find anymore. One (1)thing was the accounts payable. Also, employee compensation is near impossible to find now. I am also curious about the data outreach to neighborhoods. 6 Mr. Garces replied, With some of the changes in the data sets there have been some changes in the way the data portal is connected to the sources. We are still working on that. Ms. Kesim asked, Is there anywhere online where citizens can see the breakdown of the 311 calls? Mr. Garces replied, In the Open Data Portal we look at 311 and the data set is titled Case Management Data. Rene Casiano, Director of Applications for the City of South Bend with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I will dig a little deeper into the issue Ms. Banicki is facing with regard to the online landlord registration. Committee Chair White adjourned the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 6:50 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, X44-� uZ4 Karen White, Committee Chair 7