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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-01-18 Personnel and Finance (#1) SpUTH,& ti x 1865 OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLERS CITY CLERIC PERSONNEL &FINANCE AUGUST 1, 2018 5:43 P.M. Committee Members Present: Karen White, Regina Williams-Preston, John Voorde Committee Members Absent: Gavin Ferlic Other Council Present: Jake Teshka, Tim Scott, Oliver Davis, Jo M. Broden, Sharon L McBride Other Council Absent: None Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer, Casey Colvin, Gabriel Murei, David Boling, Elivet Navarro Presenters: Laura O'Sullivan, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Kareemah Fowler, Tim Scott, Jen Hockenhull Agenda: Mayor's Office City Clerk Common Council Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 5:43 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. Mayor's Office Laura O'Sullivan, Chief of Staff to the Mayor of the City of South Bend with offices on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I am here to present our office budget for year 2019. 1 will actually skip through our mission and core value slides (referencing a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office) because the mayor already did a wonderful job of outlining those. Here (referencing the presentation) you can see our organizational chart for the office. Reporting to the mayor is myself. Reporting to me is the Director of Communications, who is Mark Bode,the Director of Community Outreach, who is Cherri Peate,the Deputy Chief of Staff, who is Suzanna Fritzberg,the Executive Assistant and Director of Special Events,who is Yesenia, our Administrative Assistant,who is Shay Davis,and our part-time Project Manager,who is Jenny Huang. She went on, The slide is our budget summary for 2019. We will be increasing by just over $40,000, from $908,142 in 2018 to $948,940 proposed in 2019. Overall, these increases are due INTEGRITY1 SERVICES ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BLANCA L.TYRADo JosEPH R MOLNAR CHIEF DEPDTY/DmE=R OF OPERATIONS DEPuTy/DmECroR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK EXCELLENCE (ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.92211 f 574.235.9173 1 www.southbendin.gov ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK mostly to rising personnel costs and the request for paid internships as the Mayor had just mentioned.We will do a$17,727 increase in wage,shifting that part-time Project Manager position to full-time. We will also do a $10,920 increase in wage for the additional paid interns. Then $3,840 increase in personnel due to two percent(2%)raises and also a reduction of the salary cap versus actual pay reduction from 2018. This is in order to have the flexibility to increase wages throughout the year. We will also have $4,563, which is a four percent (4%) increase, in health care costs. Again, our only personnel change is the request to shift the Project Manager position from part-time to full-time. We will change more details about that prior to the salary ordinance review. She continued, Here (referencing the presentation) we outlined some of the accomplishments for 2018. We expanded the downtown infrastructure improvements. Private investment continues to climb past$125 million with the addition of the Hibberd Building,Berlin Place and the downtown offices. Again, we supported weather amnesty and emergency shelter. We continue to employ recommendations for the mayor's working group on homelessness. These are South Bend's most vulnerable residents and we hope to improve the downtown business climate and quality of life. We have secured millions of dollars in grant funding to empower residents beyond taxpayer funding including the Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge and, more recently, the Cities of Service Love Your Block Grant. As the mayor mentioned, we will be updating Council on those grants. She went on, We joined the Green and Healthy Home Initiative, the Local Covenant of Mayors, the U.S. Conference of Mayor's Task Force on Automation,the Open Internet Pledge, and South Bend was also named a silver-level bicycle friendly city. We have delivered on our commitment to financial stewardship, as the mayor mentioned, by achieving a Double A(AA)bond rating. We have completed our fourth(4th)cohort of the South Bend Youth Task Force and we just introduced our Fall 2018 class. We have maintained a community-wide response to the group-related gun violence with an integrated approach by the Police Department. We recently unveiled our new user-friendly City website with an online 311 portal. We have invited Prosperity Now to objectively evaluate the community's racial wealth gap. We have also recently unveiled the Division of Economic Engagement and Empowerment and they are focused on serving underserved areas. We have introduced a generous parental leave policy as well. She continued, The next slide just highlights our Youth Task Force. So, ongoing in 2018 will include moving forward with the relocation of the South Shore line. We will be providing updates to Council at the August 13th,2018 meeting of the Common Council. We will continue the My SB Parks & Trails construction. We will be continuing to promote performance-based management throughout our Administration. We are committed toward increasing the diversity throughout the City's workforce and boards. We have also continued the Disparity Study to evaluate the City's p rocurement for Minority and Women-owned Businesses.We are facilitating the development and implementation of the strategic vision for the City to ensure the sustainability of the Administration's progress. We will continue to support the critical infrastructure for neighborhoods' quality of life. We will focus on economic development on inclusive growth in the workforce and small business sector as well as continue to drive improvements in employee engagements and morale. Finally, we will act on resident priorities expressed through the neighborhood community survey. She went on, Our key goals and challenges for 2019 will be to continue the efforts to enhance quality of place in our neighborhoods,parks and planning. We aim to protect South Bend residents EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If574.235.91731T TD574.235.5567lwww.southbendin.gov 2 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK and their children from lead poisoning through the rental unit inspection, dedicated low-income home owner abatement fund, and the pursuit of Federal grant funding for expanded remediation resources. We will continue to implement recommendations in the mayor's working group on homelessness to continue supporting low-barrier housing initiatives. We will maintain progress toward decreasing gun violence with the GVI initiative and outreach. We will also address addiction and substance issues in South Bend enforcing the ordinance passed in 2017 and, of course,working with Not In Our Community. We will make final preparations for hitting the 2020 fiscal curb. We also develop South Bend's national reputation as an attractive place for investment and innovation. We will sustainably and equitably utilize State infrastructure funds while addressing long-term funding challenges for infrastructure. We will also identify and reduce barriers to inclusive economic growth. We will complete the study on MBE/WBE procurement to encourage the growth of small and diverse businesses and enterprises. We will work with South Bend Schools to ensure coordinated efforts and will continue the integration of performance management and Priority Based Budgeting into the City's operations. Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. Committeemember John Voorde stated, I think a lot of us have received calls about the assessment notices that went out a few weeks ago. Have we had any communication or outreach to the Assessor's Office for an explanation of that process? Most people don't understand why and how that all happened. Mayor Pete Buttigieg,Mayor of the City of South Bend with offices on the 14th floor of the County- City Building,replied, Yes,I think we have had a number of offline or informal conversations that I heard there may be a desire for the Assessor's Office to brief Council on this. Our position as an Administration in interacting with the Assessor's Office has always been that we just want to make sure it is fair and accurate. It is not about having it higher or lower, although we have noted that when assessments are off across the board, what typically happens if you're over assessed, you come appeal and if you are under assessed you kind of keep that to yourself. There is a net hit to the revenue of the City. Our sense is that there have been some gains made such as the engagement with Notre Dame to help figure out those submarkets. I am leery of getting too involved in another branch of government but the City has so much at stake with those assessments.We just want them to be accurate and I don't think it is unfair of us to ask questions there. We have been doing it at more of an informal level but we welcome County representatives to share what all goes into that. Committeemember Voorde followed up, President Tim Scott and I were talking last night during your Mayor's Night Out,which was really well attended I thought,but we were talking about how there seems to be a cycle where people appeal every year. It just doesn't seem it ought to be that way if there were a better understanding of how the whole process worked and if people were more confident the assessments were fair. You are right about that. Mayor Pete followed up,And I think there is an amount of sticker shock that happens when it goes up by a huge percentage. The question is, obviously, does that mean it went up too high or does that mean it was just lower than it was all along? I think that is the question the Assessor's Office has to satisfy every time there is an appeal. Thank you for raising that and we are watching it closely too. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If574.235.9173ITM574.235.5567lwww.southbendin.gov 3 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember Oliver Davis stated, First(1St) of all,I appreciate the presentation. When it comes down to the year 2021, you were talking about us looking at a two (2) year budget for 2019 and 2020. In order to do that better, are there any preliminary things that they talk about when it comes to the circuit breaker that will hit in 2020? What is the long term effect for like 2021 and 2022? Because if it just goes one(1)rough year then we have good years,all of our pressure doesn't have to be over 2019 and 2020. Some of it could be spread into 2021,too, if 2021 is going to be a good year because of the fact that it takes some of that pressure off 2020 and 2019. You talked about having a possible freeze. If 2021 is still looking like a normal or a better year and then 2022 down the road, and we just have that rough 2020 year because the numbers are lower than where we were at years before, we could absorb some of that in 2019, 2020 and 2021. It doesn't all have to two (2) years. That is just my thought. Mayor Pete replied, That point is well-taken. We want to try and budget conservatively and put ourselves in a position where, if we get more than we thought, so much the better. We definitely don't want to take a meat cleaver to something that may be overreacting. Our general expectation is that it has been growing. I think 2020 will represent this step down and then it will be growing again. So the question becomes how long does it take to make this whole?Unfortunately I suspect, I would say there are two (2) trends that are cutting against each other. One (1) is that there is always going to be inflation, so you could argue that if it keeps growing, it is never going to grow enough to catch up to real terms. The other trend is, if it is true that assessments in general have been systematically, on average, under assessed, then maybe as they catch up to all the economic growth that will be worth more than inflation. The third (3rd) factor that none of us really know what to expect is the macro-economic picture. Sooner or later we go from an expansion to a recession. It will happen one (1) day and we just don't know when. That is why the cash reserves are so important to us. We want to keep them healthy enough that, if we are in a scenario like you are describing, we can cover down a little bit and we would be ready for whatever is next. The point is very well-taken. Councilmember Davis interjected,Yeah and as we look at that, I would not like for us to just focus on those two (2)years. Even three (3)to five (5)just to see where we are because it helps us better address that issue from that standpoint.When I have been in meetings,it normally goes up to 2020. That is the big one (1) and then after that,there is no explanation of any kind of any understanding of where 2021 or 2022 will be. That is something I would like to look at so we can have a better view. I don't want to overreact or underreact,you see? So that is that kind of thing. The last things I would like to say is that I am a curbs and sidewalks person. I am glad you have included that. Of course all of the training for sexual harassment and all of that, that is good. The issue that we will look at too,two (2)things and both are related to trains. The quiet zones,where are we in terms of the West Side issue with that?And then the South Shore. I wanted to set up a time for you to come back and talk about that. If it seems likely that something should be in our budget to address some plan, something should be set aside for something. It may not be for A,B or C because we haven't determined that. The train questions,A and B, what are your thoughts? Mayor Pete replied, I think Public Works will be able to share a little more about where we are headed in terms of the quiet zone picture. The overall framework is that we know there are certain incremental improvements we can make. There is, as I understand it a p oint system with the Federal Railroad Administration so, there is a certain threshold as we make those improvements where they actually trigger the possibility of the quiet zone. I defer the rest of the conversation to EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 l f 574.235.9173 I TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 4 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK the Department of Public Works on how close we can get it within one (1) year. On the South Shore picture... Councilmember Davis interrupted, Pause on that one (1) second? Will they send us an update on that or will they give us a presentation? Could we have that information before that presentation regarding the quiet zones? Mayor Pete replied, We will ask them for that, yes. As Committee Chair White pointed out, we hope to be able to present these to you a little in advance and then go department by department. Councilmember Davis interjected, Ok, I'm at peace. I Mayor Pete continued, On the South Shore front, we look forward to sharing more with Council about the outlook hopefully at the next full Common Council meeting. As far as how we budget for it, the commitment from economic development funds would be what covers the actual work that is being proposed. Obviously the cost profile changes under the different scenarios and we need to look at that together. Councilmember Davis interjected, So you're saying then the estimate we have from last ye , the $25 million commitment, is still in the Redevelopment Area? Mayor Pete replied, That is correct. Councilmember Davis followed up, And so we are still looking at the issues on it from that standpoint? Right now everything is still under that kind of umbrella but it hasn't, in this ye in terms of any type of changes, we haven't added or subtracted or anything else out of the General Funds yet? Mayor Pete replied, I believe that is correct, yeah. I think you would see all of that in the Department of Community Investment but I will double check that is the case. Councilmember Davis stated, Alright,thanks. Committee Chair White reminded the Committee and Council Members to write down their questions and ensured they would be recorded by the City Clerk and submitted to the Administration. They would then be answered and shared with the Council Members. Committeemember Regina Williams-Preston stated, I have some questions but I am willing to submit those. I have some comments to make that I would like to state at the end. City Clerk City Clerk Kareemah Fowler, City Clerk of the City of South Bend with offices on the 4th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I will try to make this pretty quick. I will start with the Clerk's staff. All of our positions are currently filled. We did fill a position,the Deputy Clerk position was filled at the end of last year. This (referencing a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office) is our organizational chart. The first(Ps line lists the employees in the Clerk's Office and what they do in the Clerk's Office and how they serve the Clerk and the Council. I know it is small EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 46601 I p 574.235.9221 I f574.235.9173ITTD574.235.5567lwww.southbendin.gov 5 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK and may be hard to see on the display, but you all have this PowerPoint printed. It will be online as well. In 2018 we had many accomplishments. We completed upgrades in the Clerk and Council offices. We completed a phase two (2) of video upgrades which included a new DVR which is here in the Council Chambers along with three(3)new cameras for broadcasting. We installed the new touch screen monitors in this room and also in the Council Informal Meeting Room along with the Interlocal Agreement with the County. There were new charging stations installed up on the podium for the Council Members. She continued, We held yearly Boards and Commissions Training for all of the Council Members and the citizen members that serve on all City Boards and Commissions. We assisted the Council with public engagement and the use of technology. We are also in the process of developing the QR codes for ticket payments, notices, and other information pertinent to our taxpayers and citizens. We developed Active Shooter protocols for the fourth floor. We also held a training for Council and the Clerk's Office staff. We developed the Art in Public Spaces Program. We will continue having art in our office and the Mayor's Office as well. We on boarded two (2) new Council Members and one(1)new staff member this year. We completely developed an internship program and on boarded three (3) full-time interns for the Council and one (1)part-time intern for the Clerk's Office. We are glad to have them and they are doing a great job. She went on, We acquired access needed for the Clerk's Office and worked with the Administration on education for programs such as Adobe Reader and Acrobat. We have been able to assist with a lot of the branding in-house. We worked on the KBAs for the new websites and the adjustments. We are now airing all the Council Meetings live on Facebook and YouTube as we have been. We successfully hosted a Clerks/Treasurers Conference this year. We also had the State Board of Accounts School here.We continue to remain in compliance with all the Open Door Law deadlines.We haven't had any citations. We also assisted in the transition for the new Council Attorney who has now been here for almost one (1) year, I think. We also assist with Council initiatives,most notably Not In Our Community. She continued, We have many goals and continued efforts for 2019. We will continue to work on the fast track initiative between the Council, all the City Administration, and the County Offices as well. We will use online access for our logbooks and Code. We will continue working with the residents and try to streamline the education on using the Municipal Code. Hopefully we introduce an application to make it more user-friendly. We are also still working on the inter-departmental electronic filing and document management system. We have been working with IT on that since the end of last•year. It is a bit of a process but is going well. We want to also make sure that with that we are able to take legal electronic signatures online with a payment option. We have been making some good headway on that. We will continue to work with the interns on branding for the Council with a public relations focus. We will work with Historic Preservation to link all of our historical artifacts, documents, and digital records together. We will also develop a Clerk/Council Matrix that will help us determine inefficiencies and gaps and give projections for hitting targets. Phase two (2) of this particular room for broadcasting includes two (2) more cameras as well as switching the speakers out in the hallway. We are working on that now. That is the final phase. We will continue working with IT on a complete document management system. She went on, These (referencing a slide of the presentation) are just the number for how many meetings we had, education and training, budget hearings and other things we do in the Clerk's Office for the City Administration and to assist the Council. The Ordinance Violations Bureau is EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 l f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 1 www.southbendin.gov 6 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK in our office,as well,and I will go over some of their accomplishments.They created fillable PDFs for lawn-parking and scrap metal licenses. They created interactive maps for parking. We had a second (2"d) annual Amnesty Day and took in over one hundred (100) more tickets than last year. We processed over 4,113 parking tickets. We referred 156,700 tickets to collections. This year in 2018, a total of$275,000 was sent to collections. We processed twelve (12) scrap metal licenses. And lawn parking, last, processed $11,160 and processed one hundred and sixty-three (163) appeals. Amnesty Day has been pretty successful. As I said we took in over one hundred (100) more tickets than last ye . These are our performance indicators and I won't go over all of them but they are in the PowerPoint if anyone would like to look at them with more detail. She continued, I would next like to share our significant challenges and changes. This ye our overall budget we are proposing is $9,000 more than it was last year. I am requesting a salary increase for the Chief Deputy City Clerk and also the Ordinance Violations Clerk just due to their work loads and also to bring them up to where I feel they need to be comparatively with other market positions that do similar work around the City. We are requesting a two percent (2%) increase for the Clerk and the rest of the staff in the office. I think that is fairly consistent with what everyone else in the City is going to do. Our raises will be offset with additional revenues taken in from Amnesty Day and other efficiencies we have found in our Department. Also, our IT allocations went down. We are excited about that. So those are the significant changes and most of the other things are the things we would like to do. We do want to talk about expanding Amnesty Day to cover other ordinance violations that we feel we can collect on. If there is an opportunity to bring in additional revenue and get individuals in to pay it, we want to talk about expanding that. This presentation will be online. Committee Chair White stated, I would like to remind everyone that every question posed is being recorded by the Clerk's Office. All Council Members will receive copies of those questions. The appropriate department heads will receive those questions. We will then receive the answers to those questions and they will then be posted as well. She then opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. Councilmember Davis asked, When you said IT funds went down, could you share how much of that has gone down? Clerk Fowler replied, For our particular office, I'm not sure how it is across the board, but it went down about $12,000. It think that it is just because they went through everything with us very thoroughly and asked us about everything we use and we were able to eliminate some things or reduce some things. I think it is better when they break it down. Councilmember Davis then asked,And how much more came in with the Amnesty Day in dollars? Clerk Fowler replied, There was about $4,000 more than came in last year. The total was more than that but that is how much more that came in this ye over last ,year. Councilmember Davis followed up, So between those two (2) we are looking at a savings of $16,000? Clerk Fowler clarified, You mean total? EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 P 574.235.9221 If 574.235.91731 TTD574.235.5567 I w wv.southbendin.gov 7 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember Davis replied, Yeah between the Amnesty Day and the IT reduction. Clerk Fowler replied, Yes but we don't take revenue. Revenue is not included in that. The $9,000 I referenced, revenue wasn't included in that. Councilmember Davis replied, I'm lost but I will ask you later. You said you saved$12,000 from IT, right? Clerk Fowler replied, Yes. Councilmember Davis followed up,And you got $4,000 more than you got last time? Clerk Fowler replied, Yes. Councilmember Davis followed up, And that's $4,000 more than you had budgeted for or had gotten, based on last Year, right? Clerk Fowler replied, Yes. Councilmember Davis stated, So I just say that is $4,000 plus $12,000 and that's how I look at that. That is why I say $16,000. So what were you saying? Clerk Fowler replied, What I said was one (1) was revenue. One (1) was what we didn't use and then the other was revenue. Councilmember Davis followed up, That helps to justify why you said you needed to have your new issues this year. I'm just making in brain you have saved money so therefore you can have the expenditures you are looking at doing and in many ways offset different things based on what you just shared. Clerk Fowler replied, Yes. Councilmember Davis followed up, Got it. Last thing,in one(1)of our conversations I don't know if it was going to be out of your budget or the Mayor's budget but we had talked about the City being a member of the League of Cities. Do you remember that discussion? Clerk Fowler replied, Yes, we did have that discussion. Councilmember Davis followed up, There was something between your budget, our budget or the Mayor's budget and I don't think it's reflected in any of these things. Clerk Fowler replied, That is correct. We did speak briefly about it and it didn't come back up. That is a conversation we need to have. Councilmember Jo M. Broden stated Thanks a lot of good things in here. I really a pp reciate your organizational chart and then your functional areas that your staff does. We are familiar with some but not all.I think that is a tool for the public to understand as well and I commend you on including that with such detail. The fast-track initiative, I think I came in to that process mid-way, is there a EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building I,227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 P 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 TfD 57.4.235.55671 wwwsouthbendin.gov 8 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK way to just kind of get us up to speed in terms of where we have been, where we are and where we want to go? Is that something we could follow up on? Also, that Council matrix could be something that is additional information that would be appreciated. Then my last question is with regards to the referrals to collections this year. That is a rather huge increase. Clerk Fowler replied, The reason that number is so big is because there was an area that we were not collecting on that we are now collecting on. That projection is big because of what we have already referred this ye . Councilmember Broden followed up, What is the problem in driving some of this ticketing? Clerk Fowler replied, There aren't any problems. I wouldn't call them problems but there have been a lot of things that have gone on in the different departments. I won't say they are problems because sometimes it's just a shift in culture, too. Like when we say we want to be a friendly and more gentle City, in our parking program we decided to have that collaborative package that includes that first warning ticket. Some things are just a switch in culture. Some are using different programs and what is captured and which department captures it is a result of reorganizing. Councilmember Broden stated, I think that context helps a lot when we see an existing number and there is a huge difference in it. At least from my perspective it really helps to get that background. Then I guess, overall, I heard the goal to move to credit card payments, I guess that would really fundamentally benefit your office as well as the Ordinance Violation Bureau. I would assume. Clerk Fowler stated, We do a lot with credit card payments but I think there are a lot of other departments that have fees that aren't able to use the credit card system in the way we have been able to. There are some departments that have different systems than we do. Councilmember Broden interjected, I guess I'm also assuming though that as people get more familiar as this comes online with dealing with the City as a whole, using a credit card would accrue additional benefit to the collections that you are already doing.Because it is a culture people get used to. Clerk Fowler replied, Yes, the mayor was talking about the ERP system and this is part of that. When you get a better system and people can go to one (1)place to make payments and everyone can do that, that is going to help. Then you talked about matrix earlier, that is basically surveys. Some of the interns have already worked on a lot of that stuff. And it is not so much for us, it was part of the things we do for Council. Committeemember Regina Williams-Preston stated, I just kind of want clarity. With Amnesty Day, you said you increased$4,000. What is the total? I couldn't find that in here. Clerk Fowler replied, I don't have the total off the top of my head but I can get that for you. Committeemember Williams-Preston followed up, Well I think it is positive reinforcement, it is smart and is working. If you do plan on applying it to other violations, I think that is fantastic. It is very commendable and it is in line with the change of culture. Thank you. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TTD 574.235.5567 Iwww.southbendin.gov 9 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Common Council Tim Scott, President of the South Bend Common Council with offices on the 4t' floor of the County-City Building, stated, I do want to commend Clerk Fowler and her staff for the awesome work they do on a daily basis in supporting this Council and me, directly, time to time. We keep improving. A lot of things you will. hear about in this presentation (which is available in the City Clerk's Office) is synergy between us and the Clerk's Office. He continued, Our mission statement is, "To make certain that our city government is always responsive to the needs of our residents & the betterment of South Bend is always our highest priority." I think everybody up there would agree. We will go by the numbers real quick. We replaced two (2) Council Members, Randy Kelly and Dr. David Varner, with Jake Teshka and Sharon McBride. That is a little different for us, it's new ground. We had no violations of the public meeting laws and that is always commendable. There were no Council Rules violations and no lawsuits against the Common Council, which is excellent. We had fourteen (14) Council meetings already and attendance is up. We are at ninety-seven percent (97%) so thank you all for showing up. Committees, of course you don't have to show up if you aren't on a Committee but we still have eighty-nine percent(89%) attendance for Committees out of the sixty-eight(68)total we have had. We have had fourteen (14) public meetings off-Council Meeting night. We've had thirty-nine (39) bills and thirty-five (35) resolutions. We've have sixteen(16) press releases. He went on, We had Active Shooter Training. We did that once and will do it again because we do have new members. Not everyone showed up for the first (lst) time. I think it is important. It will come up in further discussion.Further accomplishments includes public events and interaction with the press. You all do a wonderful job when you're speaking to the press and I appreciate that. We do have the Art Work in Public Spaces Program. The streaming on WNIT, YouTube and Facebook, I would like to thank the Clerks for their help with that. That is going over very well. I get comments on that and I don't know if you guys have seen that as well. Any way we can broadcast our meetings is helpful. Not everyone shows up and they can sit at home on a snowy night while we are here. Like the Clerk's Office, the Indiana Public Access Counselor came and did the training for the citizens on the Boards and Commissions. He continued, Other initiatives includes Not In Our Community. That is ongoing. There is also Light Up South Bend, curbs and sidewalks, opioid awareness, and I did the Harvard Public Narrative session.All of our Council Members have been very active in everything they are doing. We had some Council Members attend the State Board of Accounts school. I'm glad everyone is reaching out and doing things like that. We continue to publish all meeting agendas in Spanish. Of course we also hired a new attorney, which I think is working pretty well. He went on, Looking forward into the next_year, we look to improve messaging and the branding to citizens. We have three (3) lovely interns that have been helping with that. Please use them to your capacity as best as you can. We continue to hold public meetings and would like to do that outside the Chambers. The last budget had in it for additional equipment to allow for having meetings outside. Things like projectors, microphones, and recording equipment. We will be purchasing that soon. As I brought up the Active Shooter Training, one (1) of the concerns I do have is about the active shooter incidents we have had in our country. I would love to go to meetings outside of the Chambers but we still have to work on security. One (1) thing we have EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld 1 South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.91731 TTD 574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 10 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK here are metal detectors. We won't have that if we do off site meetings. That is one (1) hurdle we need to look at and take seriously. He continued, The City website had some improvements. I think you will see more on the Council side. The first draft wasn't,probably, the best that we saw but between the Clerk's Office, myself and IT,they did a great job to make quick improvements before it truly rolled out. That was within days of that rolling out. Paid interns was a big thing last year that we see in effect this year. We didn't get that in place until about June 2018 so we were able to take advantage of the dollars you all allocated last ye . We have two and a half(2.5) interns and that is not disparaging anybody's height. We do have one (1)part-time intern and I think that is working out well. Here (referencing the presentation) is a pie chart that shows where the Council sits as its overall budget. And here is the dollar amount perspective. He went on, Our budget is really simple. We spend on salaries, fringe benefits and professional services i.e. Bob. The rest of it, I think, we do a pretty good job. In our budget is the salary for the interns as well. What you will see, overall, for Council just like within the City is a two percent (2%) increase in salary. Fringe benefits is about one percent (1%) but it might be closer to two percent(2%),actually. We did have a reduction in IT. The overall is$54,688 for IT/Print Shop for the Common Council. We did increase the paid internship. It was about $36,000 and we rounded that up to about $40,000. However we decide to break that out could be a person to a person and a half for a full year. Or, it could be something like we did now if we don't fill it until later in the year. I think that is working well but I would like to hear from all of you. Legal contracts for Mr. Palmer, I am suggesting a two percent(2%) increase. He continued, Overall legal services, looking at what is coming at us, mainly the tapes, this is a prudent number. If you want to talk off line we can talk off line with that. Strike the five point seven percent (5.7%) higher than 2018. That is a typo on my part it is actually negative three percent (-3%). Our budget is actually lower than it was last year. We are pretty proud of having them on board. They have been building our social platform. David has worked on the messenger bot. We are looking at introducing Twitter and Instagram. We want to use bots to our benefit. We want to promote things like Mayor's Night Out. That was an unbelievable event. Branding means logos. On every slide of the presentation, I had a little bit of a different logo. The interns are doing other things like looking at surveys on social media. There are some analytics from IT we will be getting and in one (1) ask, I think it was like twenty-six percent (26%) of the people surveyed knew who their Council Member was. There is some work to be done there within the City. One (1) thing I have Ellie working on is the Drewry Project and actually putting together a timeline. Bob Palmer did an APRA Request for that property and that file was seven hundred and fifty-four (754)pages. She is going through that and summarizing that. That is an example of work we want to challenge the interns with. David is going to send out a survey for PSAP to find out information about other PSAPs in the area. He went on, The two (2) charts are actually from that survey. The top one (1) is the answer to the question, "Did the consolidation reduce, keep the same or increase the number of employees to your PSAP"And increase is actually the tall bar.But the one(1)below it is,"Did the consolidation improve services, no change or decrease services." And the high bar at the bottom is it actually improved service. For us to understand what is going on with PSAP, I thought it was imperative we understand what is going on in other areas. We will be voting on the new Council logo. I can't wait to get down to one (1) of these. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 11 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committee Chair White stated, I would like to echo what Councilmember Davis stated about membership in professional organizations. On our budget,where would that be placed?And if we are going to do that, we probably need to be looking at additional dollars or reallocating that. President Scott replied, We can look at that. It is under, I think there is a line item titled subscriptions. But I will look at that. I want to clean up a couple things within this. One (1)thing that we have done, and Clerk Fowler please correct me if I'm wrong, but we have given back and we don't really burn through our entire budget. We've given back about$10,000 or$20,000 every year so we can be creative with it. Councilmember Davis interjected,Because I know depending on different people's schedules,last ygar I was able to use my travel budget but this year my schedule didn't allow me to go to some of the things I wanted. I know not every year we have used that. President Scott replied, Travel is at$5,000 and we have kept that the same every year. Councilmember Davis followed up,I was asked this over at Southmore,and we were talking about having a meeting with Council Members there. When we go to meetings like that, do we have in our budget to provide refreshments? Is that already in our budget or have we put that in there? President Scott replied, Yeah, we do have a portion under PR and we have done that. We have been creative with that. Councilmember Davis followed up, When you were talking about promotional activities like Mayor's Night Out and things like that, how do we get that out to neighborhoods? Are we just using TV?Do we use mailers? What do we do? President Scott replied, We put it on social media and send press releases and,honestly,the media has been doing a good job of picking up what we are doing and when we are doing it. We can look at that. Councilmember Davis interjected, I think with, that's twenty-one percent (21%) that you said of people knowing who their member is, and then considering the fact that we have new Council and we are really new and since that and so twofold and so, I think we need to do more to beef that up. President Scott replied, And that is kind of the theme is awareness. We need people to know who we are and get the information out about what we are doing, accurately and often. We can look at that. We have room in the budget to look at that. I do want to mention, though, with Residential Neighborhoods and the bus tours, that, I think, has been a very good highlight. We try to do as much bang for the buck as we can. That is where Clerk Fowler and I sit down from time to time to see where we can allocate. You've seen the make overs for the office over the years but now it is the cameras and the quality so people can see what we are doing in here. For instance when the Women's Care Center thing came up,the speakers weren't really working out there. It is a County thing but what I really like is Clerk Fowler and others have taken a lead and the County follows suit. We work out a deal with them but they kind of defer to us on improving the technology. We do need to go to some higher resolution cameras. We will continue being creative. If you have ideas we need to talk about that. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 1 www.southbendin.gov 12 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember Davis interjected, In terms of one (1) of the reasons, whether its AIM or the League of Cities, with us having more hotels here, I know a lot of times we look upon the Administration staff to help push having those conferences here,but is there any way that we,too, can join in? Is there anything we can do to have more of those? President Scott replied, We are open to all ideas. If you have ideas, throw them our way. Councilmember Davis stated, What are we, I mean, I'll talk to you about what we can have. To go to Indianapolis and Evansville and all the other places,it's not in our schedule all the time. It would be nice for them to travel here. Committeemember Voorde stated, This won't be politically popular but I think it is time we consider a significant adjustment and raise for Council Member salaries such as $3,000 or$5,000 annually. I haven't talked to anyone about this but it is just my idea. President Scott stated, We have until October 31St,2018 to bring that up. I think everybody knows my stance. I am doing this for the service to my City. I vote down pay raise every year and I will do it again, I think it should have been capped at whatever I came in at and never change. That is my personal opinion and I know people have other opinions. I don't want to do it for the money and we should do it for the service. Committee Chair White then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to make comment on the presentations. There were none. Committee Chair White stated, I would like to thank the Administration as well as the Common Council for your commitment to the budget process and for your input in terms of the priorities. Again, as we continue to have our budget hearings, every question you have is important, every response is important as well. Committeemember Williams-Preston stated, One (1) thing I would like to really make note of is that in 2016 the mayor signed that Diversity and Inclusion Executive Order. I want to say that in reviewing the budget this year, looking at the past, looking at what we are planning to do, I am really quite impressed because I really see a lot here. A lot of time we write these things down and they are just words on paper. But I have to say, over the last three (3) years, we can really see, in our budget,where we are living up to the things we said in that Executive Order. We talked about investing in residents so that all people can thrive. We talked about bringing into the whole those people underserved by government. This Administration and this Council has really lived up to that in so many ways and it is reflected so much in our budget. From the new division of DCI to the home repair pilot,the community surveys,the racial wealth divide gap,expanding the TIF into the neighborhood area, I think I can truly say, when I talk to my residents, that the City has been listening. I am proud, when we talk about that designation as a high performing race-conscious City, I think we have truly earned that. I just want to acknowledge all the work the City Administration has been doing and all the listening they do about investing in neighborhoods and people. I want you to know that since my washer and dryer broke and I've been going to the Laundromat,I tell you,I would do that forever because people talk to me and I have people coming up and shaking my hand and thanking me. I want you to know that my constituents thank you and EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.91731 T M 574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 13 ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK they are really feeling the difference you have made. I want to thank you for that, that is from District Two (2). Councilmember Jake Teshka stated, I understand we got all this stuff today and we are hoping to have the rest of this stuff forty-eight (48) hours in advance. So I'm the new guy and I think, for me, coming into meetings like this I want to be able to participate in a productive dialogue and have productive questions prepared. I don't know if there is any way that, at some point,we could get a whole budget before the end of the process so we could see the whole picture. I know, for the Department of Admin and Finance,that stuff is just coming in and there are some tweaks being done but at least we would have it to talk about. Jen Hockenhull, City Controller with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City Building,replied, So any time you want to talk to any of the department heads, feel free to pick up the phone and call any of us. I am happy to talk as well. I am more of the compiler of the budget and kind of the artist, at the end, that puts it all together but the department heads are the ones that can really hit home and tell you exactly what they will do with their budgets. We are planning to have a mid- season update, for the lack of a better term,but it will be toward the end of August 2018. It will be the same day as the Police Department presentation. We will give a broader overview with graphs and things like that. At that meeting,we will present you with a whole budget. The problem with the whole budget is it is about eight hundred (800)pages and it doesn't mean a whole lot without the summary sheets. We will try to get you something before that date. It is searchable and online. I'm happy to talk offline too. With no further business, Committee Chair White announced the date of the next budget hearing (August 8th, 2018) and adjourned the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 6:47 p.m. Respectfully�Suubmitted,,l Karen White,White, Committee Chair EXCELLENCE ( ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TTD 574.235.5567 j www.southbendin.gov 14