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OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK
KAREEMAH FOWLER, GITY CLERK
PERSONNEL &FINANCE SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 5:00 P.M.
Committee Members Present: Karen White, John Voorde
Committee Members Absent: Gavin Ferlic, Regina Williams-Preston
Other Council Present: Tim Scott, Jo M. Broden, Jake Teshka(late)
Other Council Absent: Oliver Davis, Sharon L. McBride
Others Present: Jennifer Coffman, Bianca Tirado, Bob Palmer
Presenters: Eric Horvath, Chuck Bulot, Santiago Garces, Dan
O'Connor, Cynthia Simmons-Taylor
Agenda: Public Works Wrap Up
Building Department
Innovation/Technology/311
Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee Meeting at
5:00 p.m. and outlined the agenda for the evening. She then asked if any of the Council Members
present had questions for Public Works before they get started.
Public Works Wrap Up
Councilmember Tim Scott stated, I was not here for the Public Works presentation, but I did sit
down with Eric and Jitin and I appreciate that. Eric,please talk about the deficit and where you are
with that. Is it the water or the sewer funding?
Eric Horvath,Director of Public Works with offices on the 13th floor of the County-City Building,
stated, We're spending down our reserves on the water side, so we have the rate increase that took
effect last year. We're purposely ramping up to do some of our Capital projects. It always seems
to take longer than they think by the time we get the design done and get it to construction, so the
program called for us to spend down some of that cash balance while we were trying to get some
of that Capital done since we hadn't done Capital in a number of years. That is projected as part
of the budget, so you'll see the cash reserves going down slightly.
Committee Chair White asked, Are you recommending rate increases to deal with flood issues?
INTEGRITY SERVICE'ACCESSIBILITY
JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BIANCA L.T IRADO JOSEPH R MOLNAR
CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK
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Mr. Horvath stated, Yes. We had a storm water fee in there, so we have a proposal in there.
Essentially that proposal is going to fund Capital projects on storm water. It doesn't fully fund all
of the projects we have, but at least it gives us some funding mechanism for when we have issues
when it rains. We get lots of calls every time it rains for issues in public rights-of-ways where we
have flooding issues. This will generate over $1 million per year in revenue, one hundred percent
(100%) of which would be allocated to Capital. We put it in the budget but before anything would
go through, there would need to be an enabling ordinance to come before the Council for Public
Hearing. So, all of that would still have to happen outside of the budget process as well. We just
wanted to use the budget opportunity as the starting point to get it into the 2019 budget.
Councilmember Scott asked, Just as a reminder, what was that fee?
Mr. Horvath replied, For residential, it's two dollars ($2)per month, regardless of the impervious
surface. Commercial and industrial, non-residential, it depends on the amount of impervious
surface they have. If you have less than 5,000 square feet of impervious surface, then it is four
dollars($4)per month. If you have from 5,000-15,000 square feet of impervious surface it is eight
dollars ($8)per month. And,more than 15,000 square feet of impervious surface is twenty dollars
($20) per month.
Committeemember John Voorde asked, Does that take into account pervious pavement?
Mr. Horvath replied, We would not count grass or pervious pavement as an impervious surface.
For example, if you have a driveway with pervious pavers, it would not count against you.
Committee Chair White asked, How would you respond if, for example, the Council did not
support additional fees? What would be the impact?
Mr. Horvath replied, Our frustration is that we only have a dedicated funding source for storm
water, and we do get a lot of calls from residents on storm issues. What happens is that, we have
to find ways to deal with those flooding and storm water issues, otherwise they don't get done.
We've got a backlog of projects, and more recently, we've been budgeting money in the Local
Roads and Streets Fund. That takes away money that is available to pave roads and sidewalks. The
traditional funding sources that we've used in the past to handle storm water issues have primarily
been from our Sanitary Sewer Funds or from our Local Roads and Street or MDH Funds. So,we're
trying to make sure we have an appropriate Fund that is set up for storm water to cover storm water
projects, as opposed to using other Funds that weren't intended specifically for those purposes.
Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions and comments from Committee and Council
Members.
Councilmember Jo M. Broden asked, So in terms of your estimated revenue, what will they
accomplish in 2019 specifically?
Mr. Horvath replied, Expenses for 2019 are $1.2 million. You can see sewer separation, flood
mitigation, South Bend Dam, and drainage improvements. Drainage improvements are further
broken down into the top ten (10) list. We have not bid these out because we haven't done any
designs for these yet. These are just a backlog of projects that we have that people have been
calling about for quite some time that we don't have any funding for. So those would be some of
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CITY OF SOUTH BEND 1 OFFICE OF THE CLERK
the first projects that we would do. We would use that $350,000 to do as many of those as we
could.
Councilmember Broden followed up, Have you considered a bond?
Mr. Horvath stated, That's a good question. We are going to have some follow up meetings and
an enabling ordinance on this and I will have Umbaugh at those meetings. I guess one of the things
I would be concerned about,because you don't have a set history of revenue, it might be tough to
bond something that is a brand new rate, but it's something we could pursue.
He continued, We have a job fair this Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. to try and gear up for
ReLeaf. We have a number of jobs we are going to try to fill that will be at sixteen dollars ($16)
per hour. He then passed out a flyer on the lamp post program (which is available in the City
Clerk's Office) and went on, We have two (2) targeted areas that we're doing this in and the cost
share is much less than it used to be if you are in one (1) of those targeted areas. In those targeted
areas,the residential cost share is going to be ten percent(10%) which will be forty dollars ($40),
because these are solar lights that you can put in by yourself. The total cost is $400. If you are not
in one of those targeted areas, the cost share is fifty percent (50%), which is two hundred dollars
($200).That is still less than the previous program,which was two hundred and fifty dollars($250)
for a lamp post. We did mail the brochures out to everyone in those targeted areas, and we got our
first application back. This year's program applications are due on October 10th, 2018.
Councilmember Broden asked, Can you tell us where each of these areas are?
Mr. Horvath explained, There is a map on the brochure that shows where they are. It's south of
Western Avenue, east of Olive,north of the railroad tracks, and then west of Walnut Street. You'll
have to look at the other ones because they are between Portage and Lincolnway up to Coal Line
Trail. The reason we selected those two (2) areas is we had staff look at a number of different
parameters and then they did a cross tab analysis of those to try to find areas in the City that were
low income, had a number a vacant lots, and had fewer lights than other areas. We can change
those parameters and expand them in the future,but we're doing this as a pilot program to see how
it works. If we need to make adjustments after the first(1St) round, we'll surely do that.
Committee Chair White then opened the floor to members of the public for questions and
comments.
Sue Kesim,4022 Kennedy Drive, stated,I think it would be great if the Council learned how many
lane miles there are that are at the critical level and find the money to do those because only twenty
(20) lane miles are going to be done. My understanding is that leaves eighty (80) lane miles at a
level four(4). I would like to see the Council see where they can get the money. Jim Bognar has a
question,he wanted clarification on the 3,000 lights. He wants to know how many are AEP lights
and how many are City lights. Please note the breakout,the numbers,and the utility costs per year.
He also wants you to know that there are seven(7) lights out on Sample Street. He wants to make
sure the lighting that we already have is maintained, checked and upgraded.
Committee Chair White stated, Mr. Horvath please get back to us with those answers unless you
have anything you'd like to share now.
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Mr. Horvath stated, I'll get with Sue on the location of where those lights are at on Sample Street.
In terms of the total number of lights, 9,800 are AEP lights,and about 2,300 are City-owned lights.
Building Department
Chuck Bulot, Building Commissioner with offices at 135 S. Lafayette Blvd., stated, The Building
Department's goal is to ensure the safety and quality of the building environment through the
expeditious issuance of permits, distribution of up to date property information and timely
inspections of projects. This goal can be achieved by streamlining the issuance of permits, the
certification of all inspectors, having consistency in processing procedures, and innovation. Our
overall budget summary, in terms of revenue, has a projected two percent (2%) increase over the
2018 budget and the same for over the next three (3)years. If there is any kind of leveling off, the
maximum activity would last for approximately three (3) years before any sufficient downturn,
primarily due to the back log of any ongoing projects. We have upgraded a couple of our vehicles
to all wheel drive for better site access. We have had problems in the past with accessing certain
work sites due to weather and things of that nature. In regards to personnel changes,we now have
eight (8) Inspectors and they are all now filled. We are preparing to hire a full-time Secretary
position and there are no new full-time employees budgeted for at this time. The thirteen(13) staff
that is currently from our fifteen (15) is that we are planning with the City to include two (2) of
our staff for the current proposed Zoning Administration for the City. This will better help you
understand how this will be better organized. The Building Department would move under the
Department of Community Investment. We have a Deputy Building Commissioner, an overall
Building Inspector that would supervise the other inspectors and a License Administrator that
would work on behalf of the City that would work with permitting and zoning. We have three (3)
Administrative Assistants,a Permanent Secretary, and a Violation Auditor for the Zoning Auditor.
Our overall staff changes include us having one (1) or two (2) people retiring at the end of 2018
and three (3) more than likely within the next two (2) years. We have had an addition of a new
Instructional Inspector which builds our current budget. We are looking at a change of title for our
Design Plan Review Specialist to the Deputy Building Commissioner. We look to have a total of
thirteen(13)full-time employees after the transfer for Zoning Administration. We look to integrate
a Business License Administrator into the License and Registration Administrator. Then the
License Auditor is looking to be a part-time Auditor and the cost is covered by expected donations.
He continued,2018 accomplishments for the Building Department include, and are verifiable,that
all of our permits are tracked by a timing device so it's verifiable for different permits. They are
all processed within three (3) minutes and we have met that goal within three (3) years. It's a
testament to the quality of the current personnel that operate the processing of permits. We have
two (2) new Building Inspectors and one (1) of them is instructional. Five (5) new inspector
certifications include CBO, which is Certified Building Official in legal aspect, Plumbing Plan
Examiner, Residential Plumbing, Residential Electrical, and Commercial. We have also
transferred the ABZA duties to Area Plan so we can focus more on building issues. We have also
included over the past year, two (2) new Spanish-speaking personnel for better inclusive service
in the community. Our 2019 goals and challenges include hiring, training, and rotating new staff
into the retirement positions as well as increasing our attendance at the national level building and
flood meetings. We also look to begin certification incentives for front-office personnel. We are
installing a credit card point of sales station for the office and will have limited online use. We
look to reduce the turnaround time for planning new notes and new information. We are
implementing online outreach information for the community through City mailings. We'll do that
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via FAQ's in both Spanish and English. We also look forward to reviewing the fee structure to
balance economic development with recovery of administrative costs. We are exploring the
streamlining, relevant to zoning fees, into the fee structure. Our key program costs are Salaries at
$1.6 million, our IT Allocation expense at $286,000, our Vehicles at $82,900, Office Supplies at
$10,000 and some change, and lastly our Rent and Maintenance costs at$10,000 per year.
Committee Chair White stated,Are there any parts of the budget sheets you would like to highlight
for us?
Mr. Bulot replied, Nothing, specifically. We pride ourselves on being able to be self-sufficient.
We are an Enterprise Fund. We pay for all our programs, salaries, and all of the other personnel
costs as well as supplying vehicles. We have done this for years and we plan on continuing to do
that over the next years. Essentially what we do is issue permits, do inspections and do a lot of
driving to do those inspections. I am happy to answer any questions you might have.
Councilmember Voorde stated, This will be the first (1St) year you will be under Community
Investment. How will this change the rationale of what you do?
Mr. Bulot replied, I think the rationale behind that is a lot jurisdictions do this. They include a lot
of the Building Department under the Community Investment of that type of structure. The
rationale is there is a more direct link between development and execution. The plan is to have the
project and ability to execute it in a timely fashion. I think there will be better communication in
regards to having more direct access to people and more direct lines of communication with people
even though they are separated by distance.
Councilmember Voorde followed up, So that leads us to the 2018 goals and challenges, the last
two (2) bullet points regarding economic development and the zoning fee. I still don't quite
understand it.
Mr. Bulot replied, There is a new position that's going to be included for the Licensing and
Registration Administrator who will help with the zoning aspects of the Building Department as it
is related to building permits.Along with that will be the assistant to the person who would actively
be out in the field making sure that current registrations are up to date as well as acting as an
enforcement arm to that end.
Councilmember Scott asked, What's the function of the Deputy Building Commissioner?
Mr. Bulot replied,Their function is essentially a title change. Right now, it is the Design and Plan
Review Specialist. Their function will remain the same.
Councilmember Scott then asked, What is the Licensed Auditor part-time position going to be
doing?
Mr. Bulot replied, My understanding is that they are going to be actively in the field and looking
for violators of the registration aspects of building.
Councilmember Scott followed up, Explain to me the process of how you all work with Code
Enforcement?
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Mr. Bulot replied, Depending on the nature of the complaint,we decide whether we can or should
get involved. If it's something that is better handled by Code Enforcement, a lot of times they are
better set up because they have a hearing officer and they have a more immediate process to the
violation. We have to go through notifications and give it to our Legal Department to let them
handle it.
Councilmember Scott stated, Specifically, you have a process for fences, reconnections, and
roofing permits which are being processed within three(3)minutes and that is admirable. But how
do you know a property is on Code Enforcement's radar when you are processing within those
three (3)minutes?
Mr. Bulot replied, We receive a daily report from Code Enforcement that is significant and up-to-
date.
Councilmember Scott stated, Ok, I have had three (3) of them that were on Code Enforcement's
radar that you guys issued permits to. How does that slip through?
Mr. Bulot replied, I don't know. I would have to investigate that. Could you give me more
specifics?
Councilmember Scott followed up, Yes, we will talk later. That's my main concern. Becoming a
part of DCI and becoming more connected to the City will probably create better synergy there.
I've seen a lot of that happen.
Councilmember Jo Broden asked, What's happening to existing positions and job descriptions
versus the re-organization? So there is really two (2) new positions plus one (1) part-time, which
is three (3) total. Has Council received those proposed job descriptions? And the previous jobs
descriptions, can we have the parallels?
Committee Chair White asked, You had mentioned in your presentation something about
certification incentives, what does that look like?
Mr. Bulot replied, All of our inspectors have become certified because it improves their ability to
understand certain information. I think it's beneficial for the front-office to go through some
similar programs that give them certifications. That makes them more knowledgeable. I was
thinking of giving them some type of financial incentive for obtaining that certification.
Committee Chair White stated, I don't know if this question goes to you or Code. We have been
working in the community with several businesses and it has come to our attention that some
business are selling items that they don't have licenses for. Who handles that and how is that
handled with those business that sell items they do not have permits for?How it is brought to their
attention? What is the procedure for that?
Mr. Bulot answered, There are two (2) aspects to that. One (1) is the actual licensing in order to
operate and do business here in South Bend. If they do not have that, they would then have to go
to the Licensing Bureau of the City. If it is a use of a building, for instance, if you have a repair
garage and it's been shut down and you decide to sell blankets, that's a change of use and that is
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when the Building Department would get involved and inform them of the steps they would need
to take for the new use.
Councilmember Scott stated, Just to follow up on her question, we have a list from a City official
of businesses that have no business license. So what is the process? Are they allowed to operate?
Mr. Bulot replied, I don't know the answer to that question. I would say,technically, no.
Councilmember Scott then asked, If you're part of the City after this budget, will you remain in
the building that you are in?
Mr. Bulot replied, Yes, we will.
Councilmember Scott followed up,Does the office supply part of budget get assumed by the City?
Do we know that yet?
Mr. Bulot replied, I don't know the answer to that question yet.
Councilmember Jake Teshka arrived at the meeting at 5:32 p.m.
Councilmember Broden stated, I would really benefit from a process map of some sort because
this is a re-organization. I would like to know what we are going from, what we are going to, and
how that will benefit the end uses. Change is change but change needs to be with good outcomes
and I guess I want to be sure that, when we are making these decisions, we all have that in mind.
There is sufficient wrap-up time and changes that merit that. I would appreciate that.
Committee Chair White stated, Councilmember Teshka, you have any questions?
Councilmember Jake Teshka stated,No not at this time. Sorry I am late, I had a TRANSPO Board
meeting.
Innovation/Technology/311
Santiago Graces, Chief Innovation Officer for the City of South Bend with offices on the 12th floor
of the County-City Building, stated, I am joined by our Chief Technology Officer,Dan O'Conner,
our Director of 311, Cynthia Simmons-Taylor, our Director of Services, Shawn Delahanty, our
Director of Applications, Rene Casiano, our Director of Innovations, Brian Donoghue, and our
Director of Business Analytics,Danielle Fulmer.We'll share with you our budget request for 2019.
Our Department's goal is to connect our employees and our residents using technology, data and
strategic partnerships to allow our employees to thrive and have a better experience of their work
and our residents to have a better experience in the City. We do this with the six (6)divisions that
we have. We have three (3) traditional IT divisions. We have our Services Division which is
responsible for budgeting and making sure all the financial and procurement pieces work well.
They are also responsible for the help desk to make sure all our employee tickets are taken care of
in a timely fashion. Our Infrastructure Division is focused on the network and our servers. They
are responsible for making sure the City is safe from a cyber-risk perspective. We have our
Applications Division which manages over forty-five (45) different software systems that cover
over 1,000 employees. Their responsibility is to set standards to buy and configure the systems to
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make sure that they interface and that they talk to each other. Our Business Analytics Division is
in charge of connecting the different Divisions within the Innovation and Technology group with
the other departments of the City and they are problem solvers that work on improving the
performance of the different departments. Our 311 Customer Service Center is responsible for
connecting the residents with the different services the City provides. Our newest Division of Civic
Innovation is responsible for connecting the City with philanthropies, academic partners and
industry partners to make sure we are truly living to the promise of connecting our residents to the
economy of the future.
He continued, For next year, we have a request for an increase in funding to total our budget at
$7,950,000. We will work through the details where some of the increases and changes are. We
have $658,000 of increases. This is licensing and pricing increases, so it's stuff that we have been
buying but that have either increased in price or we need more licenses. There are $800,000 of
new expenditures. The majority of these are coming from departmental needs since we've
centralized all the expenditures that have been aggregated into that amount. We have $1.2 million
of savings. So these are expenditures that we had last year that we are no longer making. We have
$244,000 of upgrades. Those are system changes to systems that the City already owns that we are
making investments to in order to make them more useful or to increase the functionality for some
departments. Finally,there are $671,000 of expenditures that we were incurring in different Funds
last year that, now, Fund #279 is taking care of. For the most part, those are just getting funded
through transfers and allocations.
He went on, One (1) of the biggest drivers for the new expenditures and increases is the rapidly
changing nature of how our employees are doing their work. We have an increasing number of
employees out in the field using tablets and using new types of information systems to fulfill their
work. This has led to a fifty-three percent (53%) increase in the amount of storage and capacity
that we have in our internal system. This is just the data storage. This covers pictures, videos, and
the increasing demand of departments that are digitizing their work. This does not include the
storage for body cameras and dash-cam footage. That is a separate agreement with the vendor that
gives us unlimited storage, and we'll cover that later. There's a twenty-five (25)-fold increase in
the amount of cell phone data that we are transferring the costs for. However, most of that
allocation was being paid for by each department for their own data amount. We have centralized
it so we can do a better job of tracking the expenditure.
He continued, We are also adding, at a very rapid rate, the number of tablets and mobile devices
that our employees have in the field. This year we have moved to a lease. In the past, each
department would buy them one(1) at a time.Now that our program is maturing we want to make
sure our departments have the latest technology.Now,we are leasing them in three(3)year cycles.
$26,000 is the yearly payment and what we have budgeted for that. The graph you see to your right
(referencing a slide in a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office) is the number
of devices we are adding to our mobile management solutions. This is not cumulative. This is just
the number of devices and,as you can see,we are adding them at an exponential rate.These devices
are being used in several ways. Here is (referencing a slide in the presentation) a picture of Mayor
Pete working with the Streets Crew last year as they were working on the ReLeaf Program. They
were tracking, parcel by parcel, how the Streets Crew were removing leaves to make sure that if
there were any obstruction they were taking pictures of the obstruction and we could see if there
was any contamination of debris mixing with the leaves. This reduced the number of calls and
complaints from residents for unpicked leaves. The technology is incredibly powerful but also
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expensive. For us deal with the increase in demand, we are requesting a couple of changes in our
personnel.
He went on, The first(1st) one is transferring the Director of Assets and Information Systems that
currently works out of Engineering in Public Works by changing the title. We are not increasing
the salary but we are changing the title to Deputy Chief Technology Officer. This person has been
very active in designing and architecting the systems that allow us to do a lot of this field work
including investing in Cityworks which is our asset and inventory management system. That is the
mobile device management system that allows us to track all the iPads. We figured it would be
really beneficial to have this person be centrally located within our group and working with VPA,
Public Works and all the different departments who all have very similar goal of doing a better job
of tracking and figuring out how we are maintaining the assets the City has. The second (2°d)
position is a new, and the only new, position we are requesting funding for. The other ones are
transfers but his new position is a GIS Specialist. Again, we have been thinking about how vital it
is for us to maintain high-quality data in our geospatial systems so that we can dispatch Police
Officers and Fire Fighters to the right locations so that we can make sure we are tracking all of the
investments and work that is happening to different assets throughout the City. As you can see,we
are increasing the volume of data and the number of systems that are interacting with GIS and we
really need this position.
He continued, So, to get into the details for the $803,000 of new expenditures, $112,000 of those
are non-recurrent expenses to enhance our digital inclusion initiative. So, in order to pay for the
professional services for the design and installation of expansions to this network, $25,000 are
non-recurrent to buy hardware for our digital inclusion sites. We've partnered with the library to
manage those devices because they have a lot of expertise with devices that are used by residents
and everyone. That is not our strong-suite. We have $40,000 of recurring investment in our SB
Academy Program which we've been piloting throughout this year. We've trained over one
hundred (100) people in data analysis, how to use Microsoft Excel, how to do performance
improvements, and we see the range of skills going from very basic IT skills to very sophisticated
skills. It is a successful program and has trained over ten percent(10%) of the City workforce and
we hope to keep growing it and making it stronger. We have$150,000 that we've outlined to cover
the recurring costs of the maintenance of the body and dash cameras including a $10,000
agreement for a dedicated interne connection. So we need to transfer a lot of data in terms of
pictures and video from those cameras. So we've set a dedicated pipeline that connects us to the
vendor.
He went on,Another thing to highlight is the $286,000 investment in Cityworks. Last year we also
appropriated$286,000 for Cityworks for an initial phase. The bulk of that money is going towards
implementation. So, it is professional services and one (1)-time expenditures. There are about
$42,000 that align with recurring expenses but, as we keep growing Cityworks as the central
permitting and licensing as well as the inventory management system for the City, eventually we
will reach a number of users that allows us to get an enterprise agreement which means we can
keep adding users without increasing the cost of this solution. Again, sometime in the next couple
of years we will reach that point and then we won't be increasing the amount we have to pay per
license. Again, you can also see the position highlighted in red associated with the GIS Specialist
position.
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He continued, Of the $244,000 for upgraded software, again, the majority of it is going toward
investing in systems our departments want or investing in some of these core enterprise systems.
$92,000 is the recurring cost of the fingerprint and biometric system. This is what the Police
Department uses to connect to the FBI database that has all the fingerprint information and facial
recognition stuff. Again, it is very specific software we have to pay for to be able to fulfill the
needs of the crime lab. We are investing $21,000, and that is a recurrent expense, in our GIS
environment. There is all this data getting pulled back and forth between the systems of the field
and also the people that are analyzing the data. We are doing the best we can with our resources
and we are investing$76,000 in LasherFiche which is the system that does document management
for the City. A lot of departments are working on digitizing their records and we want to make
sure they are all in the same location so that for records that are public, residents can just go and
look for them. It is a system where all of the budget presentations and all these things are posted.
So,we are investing in it to make it more usable and better for the residents. There are a couple of
other expenditures as well.
He went on, Finally, there are $671,000 of transferred expenses. These are expenses that are not
new to the City. They were paid out of different Funds in the past and they are just getting moved
to our budget. So, you have the three (3) positions. The Deputy Chief Technology Officer which
was the Director of Assets and Information Systems. There is a position that used to work out of
the Century Center which is now an infrastructure specialist and then there is a Business Analyst
that was budgeted out of Community Investment in the past. Another highlight is the centralized
Print Management Services which is going to allow us to reduce the amount of printing because
people are going to have to retrieve the printouts from the printer,but there is also a unified printing
system where if you print something at the City you can retrieve it from any of the printers of the
City. We think that will save money in the long run. We are centralizing some final pieces of the
leases from the Police Department and the other departments. There are other expenditures from
the Century Center and whatnot that are just getting allocated back to them. This (referencing a
slide in the presentation) is our organizational chart. Highlighted in green are the transferred
positions. I forgot to highlight the Infrastructure Specialist that is already in our infrastructure
group. Then in orange is the new position that we are requesting to be funded. Mr. Garces then
went over the organizational chart by position, title and the name of the individual holding the
position.
Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions and comments from Committee and Council
Members.
Councilmember Scott asked, Will the GIS position help out the County with PSAP?
Mr. Garces replied, Yeah, we had offered to the County a proposal to centralize the GIS group.
So, bringing in the people that do GIS from the County. Unfortunately the County decided to go
in a different direction so they decided to hire a company to do more of a strategic visioning
scenario. We decided, as a group, that it was very straining on our resources and were spending a
lot of internal resources doing what is a County function which is maintaining the GIS for the
PSAP. So we are still responsible for all of the Center's lines and addresses within the City and
then we pass that to the County. So the GIS Specialist will be responsible for our portion of that
data but we have communicated to the County that they need to step up and that it is their
responsibility to do all of the project management and maintenance of the GIS data as it pertains
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to the CAD system. So, we will do our part and we are willing to work actively to fix issues but
we won't play as big of a role unless the County and the Council think we should.
Councilmember Scott followed up,Are you going to do any type of auditing to make sure that data
is secure when it goes over to their information?
Mr. Garces replied, So Dan O'Connor has been the lead in an effort to clean up the data. So, we
have partnered with a company called GeoCom and they are basically running and audit on the
quality of the data to make sure it matches the standards for 911 dispatching. We are encouraging
the County to make sure we are frequently doing those type of audits to make sure the quality of
the data is up. And on our end, we will make sure that our data is up to the standards the County
is using. Again, we have a very collaborative relationship and we've offered to post the data that
gets transferred to the 911 system as well. So,we are very open to figure out what the best way is
to work together but if they are not giving us the resources to be able to accomplish the task, we
cannot do the task for free because we have a responsibility to the departments and to the residents.
Councilmember Scott then asked, So how much time, personnel time, have we put into PSAP?
Where will that line be drawn? To me it is a dollars and cents thing that we work with man hours
towards something that is the County's responsibility.
Dan O'Connor, Chief Technology Officer with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City
Building,replied,To your question about what the County will do long-term,the GeoCom solution
that the County has paid for is the one (1) we are using now to clean up the data. That is a
subscription-based service and that lasts for one (1) year. So they can run additional scans on the
PSAP data to confirm it continues to stay aligned with the current CAD system. Our commitment
right now is to the GeoCom clean-up. We just sent some files to GeoCom today for our first (1St)
clean-up view. We are targeting to be completed with that clean-up around the end of September
2018. At that time, we hope to have all of the issues identified in that scan resolved. And then at
that point, the City of South Bend and our GIS resources will step back and let the County take it
from there.
Mr. Garces stated, I think there have been times when our team has stepped up significantly
whereas some team members have pulled all-nighters and working more than full-time. Again, it
varies but we will step up when we need to. Again, we are always willing to step up but we want
to make sure it is clear that it is their responsibility.
Councilmember Broden stated, To piggyback on those questions, PSAP is one (1) service. But
what about emergency management? A lot of us had to patch things along with regards to the
floods. How do we make sure we are getting the kind of data we need on that?
Mr. Garces replied, Our department, when there is an emergency, we stepped up in the past to
assist the response of the City and the community as a whole. Again, some of our departments
operate at a County-level and we try to be good sports about it. During the floods,for instance, our
311 Customer Service Center was operating almost twenty-four seven (24/7). I think they closed
for parts of the nights during the floods but we are passing along the information about street
blockages to the public with our interactive emergency response map that shares information about
the levels of the river, the flooded areas, and the parks and streets closed. We see our role as
connectors in the response. We are also helping Engineering and some other people pulling
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topographic maps about elevation to be able to, since it was unprecedented flooding, there are
some GIS components that could help identify areas we thought had a high likelihood of getting
flooded next. We are sharing some of these things. We are plugged into those efforts and we have
an awesome team that is always willing to respond whenever the need stands whether it is with
311 mapping information or even with the aftermath by helping share information about where the
damage has occurred. Our GIS team was flying a drone that captured information about the
damage. That helps when we are filing insurance claims as well as the assessment of damages.
Councilmember Broden followed up, Did I hear correctly that St. Joseph County is undergoing a
strategic plan process related to this?
Mr. Garces replied, For GIS,the County Commissioners contracted out with a group to conduct a
strategic planning exercise. Again, we proposed to come together with the County as we are
making some big investments in our infrastructure and we can all work together,but,they decided
to go in a different direction.
Councilmember Broden stated, So,I guess,for part or the whole,right? So what are the objectives,
or,could you get us the information on what the objectives are of that strategic plan?I'm assuming
there was an MOU or something?
Mr. Garces replied, There is no MOU. The County is saying the County GIS is going to do their
thing and I believe the Director of Economic Development, Bill Schalliol, was spearheading the
effort of designing that. Again, from our responsibility, we've said we will do our part ensuring
that the City's data is compliant with the standards that the system requires and that we are open
to help when they need but they have decided to go in a different direction. They have decided
they have different needs overall in what they are conducting. We would have to request that
information from the County because we are not privy to that.
Councilmember Broden then asked, Have we been invited to the table on these strategic plans?
Mr. Garces replied, I don't believe we've been contacted yet about being part of any planning or
anything. Again, we continue to work very closely especially Dan, John and Rene. They are
spearheading the clean-up effort of the data and then up until we made the determination that we
would roll back,Dan was also providing assistance with the process for the CAD. We've said give
us a call if you need us and if they want our help we are always available to help. They haven't
taken us up on that yet.
Mr. Garces continued, Continuing on with the fun part of the presentation, we wanted to share
with you all the great projects that our team does where they collaborate with each other and the
different divisions come together. It is work that is a lot of times invisible because it is in the
background of how people do their job. I just want to share a couple stories with you and then after
that we have a couple of concerns we thought the Council may have that we can attempt to answer.
He went on, We've made some improvements to our Constituent Resource Management system,
or CRM. This is a system that connects our residents to the services the City provides. So we have
residents contacting us via social media, the web, email and by phone. We handle over 150,000
calls every year and our Applications Division has been configuring the solution that we purchased
and has written over 8,000 lines of code to try to intuitively build on what the ping points were of
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the different departments that 311 has been experiencing. And again,this is the connection of the
systems that handle everything from pothole requests and code issues to trash and solid waste
management. This (referencing a slide in the presentation) is just a screenshot of the product they
have created where they have the information from the resident. Depending on the call, residents
can submit a request anonymously or they can provide their information if they need to be verified.
Then,we can track all the issues the residents are calling about. The nice thing now is we are able
to track also when multiple people call about the same issue.
He continued, So we have a fair amount of intelligence that benefits our employees but also the
people that run the departments. So we have service requests and have maps for the people doing
the work to know where exactly the request is coming from.They have all the relevant information
that people are submitting. We have an interactive map with the locations of the all the service
requests which right now is internal but next year we plan to make it available to everyone. We
are able to track patterns in call data such as what days of the week and what weeks we have higher
call volume in the Center. We are able to do a better job of tracking different ways the residents
are getting ahold of us whether it be by social media, email or the new 311 Portal. In the next year
or so,the 311 Portal will be enabled to have people submit requests via mobile phone. We've had
some great results. This is testimony from the departments as well as 311. The people really like
the mapping and they like the ability of tracking multiple items on the same call. They also like
being able to track multiple calls about the same issue. There is very good project management
and interaction. We get rated a number of times by the departments and by 311 to make sure that
the new features really address the things that people care about. There is also a way of escalating
an issue to a supervisor of any department.
He went on, Another project we wanted to share with you was our digital inclusion initiative that
the Council funded last year as well. That is a collaboration between our Services, Infrastructure
and Civic Innovation Divisions but also some departments of the City like Venues, Parks & Arts,
Public Works and local partners like MetroNet and the Public Libraries. Last year as we centralized
all of the telephone lines and internet bills, we realized that there is about $200,000 a year we are
paying for connections that were not used. So we used those funds that we saved and we created a
plan that passed after we presented to the Council last year to connect the majority of our City
facilities with MetroNet. MetroNet is our local dark-fiber provider with which the City has a
special agreement. In purple(referencing a slide in the presentation)you have all the facilities that
had been connected previously and then in green you have all the facilities we connected this past
year. In yellow are facilities we have planned for connections but that are not yet connected to the
MetroNet.
He continued, As we have made these connections possible, we've increased the speed of the
connectivity to the internet our employees have. It also improves the security of the connection. It
is all tied to our network and the fact that we've made a lot of investments to make sure it is
monitored and secured. That has reduced the downtime. The availability and the security is very
good. Especially for our Fire Stations and other buildings that are critical that they are up and
connected. So based on this great project, our Director of Civic Innovation and our team started
interacting with MetroNet and with the public libraries and we started coming up with this concept
of all residents being within a fifteen(15) minute walk of a digital inclusion center. As part of this
agreement,we were able to get$90,000 worth of grants from MetroNet to connect both the Charles
Black and the Martin Luther King Jr. Centers with MetroNet. That is money we didn't have to
spend. Just to highlight, in blue (referencing a slide in the presentation)you'll notice areas where
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there are statistically high areas of need for digital services and in red is where we know that some
of these services are bountiful. On the left map is the map for internet connectivity for high-speed
internet and, again, we see the same pattern in the right map which is a map of places where
computers are available. Going along those needs, we've established this partnership to establish
CLICK Centers.Those are centers for connectivity,learning,information and knowledge. The first
(1st) one (1) is in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and we will have one (1) of these in each of
the library branches as well as our community centers. We are starting to look very heavily for
third (3`d) party partners that want to establish similar centers across the community. In the map,
you have service areas. So these are areas that are within a fifteen (15) minute walk of a library
branch or a center. The color scale indicates what percentage of the population within that walking
area are low or moderate income. You can see we are very strategically putting the resources in
the places where there is the highest need. In the little bubbles you have numbers. Those are the
number of households that are low and moderate income within that fifteen (15)minute walk that
now have access to these facilities that are safe,have high-speed internet and that have free devices.
There will also be programming, classes and other resources.
He went on,We've supplemented some of that with investment in free Wi-Fi. So we have free Wi-
Fi downtown,on Western outside of MLK and this year we also piloted some work in the southeast
neighborhood park. We have some expansions planned in other parts of town and, again, the idea
is that we are trying to reach residents where they are. The pilot we are running in the southeast
neighborhood is really cool. It is a collaboration with the Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem
and Notre Dame's Society of Women Engineers team. They designed, with a couple of local
companies, a system that had solar powered access points that was able to extend the service area
of the free Wi-Fi. That is pretty exciting and we know this is an area that is also very close to an
area the schools have identified there to be a high concentration of residents with children that
receive food assistance and that don't have devices or internet at home.
He continued, The final story we wanted to share with you is the preliminary results for our
Bloomberg Grant. So last year, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a Mayor's Innovation
Challenge. They received over three hundred(300) applications and we were one (1)of thirty-five
(35) finalists of the applicants. We will find out by the end of October 2018 whether we won a$5
million award, a $1 million award or if we didn't win anything. What we focused on was talking
to employers and we realized there was a very high turnover rate in a lot of part-time third (3rd)
shift workers. Some of the employers told us that they had up to three hundred percent (300%) of
annual turnover. That means that in one(1)year,they would have completely new staff, all around
in all positions over three (3) times. That is very expensive for the companies. When we talked
with the employees and people unemployed, we realized and they were telling us that sometimes
they would get the skills and certifications but the reason they had lost their job is they had issues
of transportation to get to work. Even if they had a new skill, they weren't able to keep some of
the jobs. So we ran with the $100,000 we received as finalists, we ran twelve (12)pilots. We used
Uber thinking, an on-demand tool that people would just be able to track how many trips we
provided and what-not. We ran twelve (12) pilots with four (4) employers and we reached over
five hundred (500) employees. The results were amazing. We were able to see that eighty-three
percent (83%) of employees wanted to work longer shifts but the rides would leave and they
usually have to cut their hours short. Now they were able to work more hours and they were able
to bring more money home. At the same time they also shared with us that they were experiencing
less stress during their commute so they are able to spend more time with their families and pursue
their own interests. They were making more money, were less stressed and it also had some pretty
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CITY OF SOUTH BEND 1 OFFICE OF THE CLERK
positive impacts for the employers. We know the employers are going to be interested in pitching
in money. So again, hopefully we have some great news to share with you guys about the $5
million and we can all celebrate.
He went on, We won't cover these (referencing a slide in the presentation). These are some
accomplishments per divisions but it is there for your review. If you have any questions, please
submit them to us.We wanted to share some updates that we thought would be of particular interest
to the Council. In the past year, we've supported the Police Department and they now have over
one hundred and sixty-six(166)body cameras and are replacing their in-car video solution.Again,
we are paying $150,000 a year for the recurring fee to maintain the system and that includes the
dedicated ISP. We've transmitted over eight point five (8.5) terabytes of data since April 2018.
That is a lot if you are aware of the magnitude. That is a lot of video and we are making sure it
complies with the retention policies and with all the legal considerations that surround that
program. Another aspect we wanted to share with you is the tickets we receive through our help
desk. So this past year, and this is data from May to August, we received over 1,000 tickets. The
vast majority are completed and only nine (9) were open at the time we received the data. We
believe we are being pretty timely in resolving the questions that the departments have. This is
something we outsourced a couple of years ago to Microlntegrations and they are a partner that
has been helping us. The vast majority of the requests are about help desk tickets. So that includes
adding new users to existing software or smaller issues people are having with their work stations.
There is a breakdown there (referencing a slide in the presentation) of what people are calling
about. The help desk has an anonymous survey that users can complete at the end of the service.
The majority of users don't respond to it so out of the 1,098 tickets submitted, eight hundred and
fifty-four (854) chose not to answer. But the majority of people are very satisfied so you have
about two hundred and twenty-eight(228)people that have a satisfaction number of four point five
(4.5) out of a five (5) point scale. Only three (3) people were very dissatisfied and that was zero
(0)to three(3).Again,we track satisfaction by item and we know there is not a high concentration
of one (1)thing failing for everyone.
He continued, Accela is the software we have used for Code Enforcement since 2014. I won't go
off too much into this but these (referencing a slide in the presentation) that we've put together
with Code Enforcement and with the Clerk's Office are items they would like to see improved and
addressed. In order to achieve those improvements, we need to come together, IT, them as a
department and the vendor. The other piece that is important for us to highlight is we are very
careful with the decision to switch software. It is usually something we entertain but it usually
costs a couple hundred thousand dollars for a software the size of Accela and a couple million
dollars if we go for a software that supports a broader set of users. So at this point we think that
working through some of these issues is better than making a replacement but, as we have shared
in the past, we are also thinking about eventually centralizing and consolidating all the permitting
and licensing systems so we can have the quality of intelligence in this process to prevent issues.
He went on,I'll skip over this but this is some assessment that we've made of the impact of Accela
since 2014. Again, we know there is work to be done but now, to summarize it, residents, people
in the front-office, people in the field and people in the back-office all have access to the same
information real-time. Whenever there is a violation, everyone gets to see there is a violation. If
there is a picture taken, everyone gets access to that. That is something that, I remember when I
started in 2013, there is sometimes over a two (2) week lag for a violation to get entered into the
system and then it would take a week or more to get a resident notified.Not that it happens within
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the same week.Again,there are challenges but we are working to address them. Lastly,we ran the
survey for City services that we shared with the Council a couple of weeks ago. We asked about
311 and, by and large,the majority of people seem satisfied with 311 and also with the outcomes.
We benchmark against both the region and nationally and, in all of the questions we asked about
how polite, accurate and timely we were, we were rated higher than the average. But, there are
issues. One (1) of the issues we want to acknowledge is streetlights. The challenge is that eighty
percent (80%) of the streetlights are owned by AEP. AEP is responsible for those lights and they
have a system to report them. So when people call 311, we usually tell them to contact AEP but
we also take the information from the resident about the pole and we pass that information along
to Engineering and Streets. Engineering and Streets, with some frequency, meet with AEP and
then they share those issues. There are opportunities for improvement and just to share with you
here, you have a map (referencing a slide in the presentation) and in purple you have all the
locations of the AEP-owned lights. In green are the City-owned lights. The map to the right is the
location of all active tickets. Tickets are active until the department closes them. One (1) of the
issues we face is because it goes out of our hands and goes into AEP's hands, we aren't closing
the tickets. There is a gap between what AEP is doing and then what we are doing. That is
something we know we need to do better but at least you can see all of the investments and they
are all leading us to identifying these issues and addressing them.
Committee Chair White then opened the floor to questions and comments from Committee and
Council Members.
Committeemember Voorde stated, I thought it was kind of a simple question because one (1) of
the few times I've called 311 was just recently when a resident told me they had four(4)streetlights
out in a two (2) block area. I called 311 and they were very nice. They took the information and I
said I don't have addresses but the poles are marked with a little blue plastic ribbon so they would
be easy to find. I wondered what happened with that call and I think you just told me.
Mr. Garces replied, Yeah and, again, in the future when we open up some of the information we
have online, you should be able to see the status of your service request and be able to track that
real-time. Right now if you wanted to follow up, you could call 311 and they would tell you what
the status is.
Committeemember Voorde followed up, Is AEP responsive enough?
Mr. Garces replied, That would be hard for me to answer because Engineering and Streets are the
ones that deal with them the most. I think there are some ideas to improve on that relationship.
Cynthia Simmons-Taylor, Director of 311 with offices located at 125 S. Lafayette Boulevard,
stated, We changed our process about two (2) weeks ago to help cut down on the processing time
of the AEP-owned lights. Thank you, President Scott. You were the one (1) that helped us
understand how the process was going. When we would submit it to the Streets Department and
Traffic and Lighting, it would go on a spreadsheet and when they would submit it to AEP, AEP
would work on them whenever they got time. We have been putting it in the system ourselves. If
someone calls now, we request the Street Department to do it but until such a time, 311 is directly
reporting it to AEP. We are then taking the request number and putting it in CRM. When the caller
calls us back, we give them that number so that they can track it themselves.
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Committeemember Voorde then asked, Of the twenty to twenty-five percent (20% - 25%) of the
streetlights that we are responsible for, do we have an adequate department to handle those?
Mr. Garces replied, Traffic and Lighting is responsible for that. We can get some information on
their performance. All that type of information is the stuff we are trying to digitize so we can see
turnaround times for that.
Councilmember Scott stated, Cynthia,thank you so much. We had a long conversation about that.
It can't go on my resume but I know more about streetlights than I really would like to. It has been
from calls. I know Council Members and citizens feel like they shouldn't have to call their Council
Member to get something done. 311,to me, has been positive. It is the enigma of the City. There
are so many times I get calls and, of course, we get more calls about complaints rather than when
things go right. I love the fact the loop is closed and we get the work order number from AEP.
What Cynthia was talking about, and found this out the hard way after researching this, if you go
to AEP's website and actually fill in the poll number, it automatically generates a work order.
Otherwise it is waiting for our Streets Department or Engineering to manually go through the
spreadsheets and they put it in when they get to it. That has decreased the wait time from two (2)
weeks to, I've seen, three (3) days. My only other comment is Accela. For too long, too many
years, multiple years, this isn't working. My biggest problem with the budget right now is Code
Enforcement, their manpower and making sure they can get everything done. Not only the
manpower but it is its efficiency. If this is the tool, one (1) thing I would like to see on this is
completion timeline. What are we going to do? To me, this is our little PSAP within our own
department that we can't move along to where everything is working and is done. I like the credit
card point of sale.
Councilmember Broden stated, I think there were four (4) or five (5) slides that weren't in our
packet. Can we get those?
Councilmember Scott replied, I did send this to all Council Members. And it was from questions
I had over the weekend. I made sure you all got it. And one (1) last thing real quick. What I really
like about this presentation,and I would like to see this from DCI,at the very end,each department
and their recent accomplishments, current projects and future projects. In that detail,you guys did
a nice job.
Councilmember Broden stated, This is the most detailed presentation and it is very much
appreciated. You have made great justification, in my opinion,for where you want to go and what
you want to do. It is down to the division level and I think that is outstanding.
Councilmember Teshka stated, Even just your charts about the net increase, the savings, that is
just great. Thank you.
Mr. Garces replied, Thank you. It was a team effort and everybody spent a lot of time preparing
it. Our budget process starts early since our work becomes an allocation and a charge back to the
department. Sean and Dan for many years have been making it better and better.
Councilmember Scott stated, Thanks for the discount.
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Committee Chair White stated, We were sitting here and you were going through the different
slides and talking about your accomplishments. The free public Wi-Fi and those areas that have
been without, I was sitting here fighting tears because we live in the twenty-first(21St)century and
we know how powerful technology is and its ability to connect. I really appreciate the vision,work
and how you reached out to the communities especially to those who have never had this
opportunity. I know some of the Centers are working to train individuals on how to use that. I hope
we can connect with the Schools as well because this is so needed and I look forward to hearing
greater things in regards to that part of this presentation.
Councilmember Scott stated, I did see the proposal on Lincolnway. Is that around the Charles
Martin?
Mr. Garces replied, Yes, sir.
Councilmember Scott followed up, Ok,that is perfect.
Committeemember Voorde stated,I was the guy three(3)years ago who said we ought to eliminate
311. I'm not there anymore.
Councilmember Broden asked, Where are the schools figured in on the CLICK South Bend or the
free public Wi-Fi spots?
Mr. Garces replied, We have actually been working pretty closely with the schools. We have been
involved in the Educational Technology Committee. There are a number of initiatives that we have
been helping with but we help them plan and do a lot of visioning for the one to one (1:1). I think
initially the perspective that lead us to do the CLICK SB sites was that we were hearing from the
students that when they were having to do homework, they were having to go to McDonalds and
other places that were not necessarily a safe place to do homework. We thought we could open up
these community centers and provide free Wi-Fi and computers. There was a lot of thought of
where we are going to locate and what type of programming we will have. There is a new set of
software we bought this past year called LRNG. The amount is only $5,000 a year but it gives
access to residents in the City of South Bend information on how to start their own business,
photography, graph, digital and financial literacy and all sorts of other things. We are trying to
work closely with schools and even the Universities to ensure South Bend is a City of life-long
learning and where everybody has access to the tools they need to become and remain successful.
We want to keep connecting people with the jobs of the future.
Committeemember Voorde asked, Yeah, is there any collaboration with IUSB? Do they know
what is going on and are they a part of this?
Mr. Garces replied, Yes, again, we work closely with all the different colleges and universities.
Very much so in the Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem. IUSB actually hosts the Hack
Michiana group that is kind of the local group of people working on doing data. We have been in
conversations to keep working together.
Committee Chair White then opened the floor to members of the public.
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4.0 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK
Sue Kesim, 4022 Kennedy Drive, stated, We would appreciate this presentation on the website to
include the additional information. We would like to see a tech-solution to the parking garage
surveillance. There have been fifty-one (51) attacks in downtown South Bend on women in the
last month according to the media. So there were attacks in the parking garages as a particular
problem. Maybe there could be more surveillance or maybe push buttons or something. That is
something to consider because that is an issue. One (1) of the thoughts was, and I talked to Chief
Scott Ruszkowski, instead of having such high-speed chases that put the public at risk, maybe
activate some drones to follow the perpetrators rather than high-speed chase them. This one (1) is
from Sharon, she is interested in knowing if, maybe for Wednesday, attached to each name who
has a cellphone and who has a tablet because it adds to the cost of that employee. She is also
wondering how many people really need a City cellphone or tablet. There was a request to have a
drilldown on the $600,000 that comes out of both Water and Waste Water for IT. Is it all for
MetroNet? The lighting map is one (1) of the things we wanted to see online. Perhaps with that
map you could put the poll number. Also, put the direct AEP link on the website so people won't
have to call 311. They could just click on it and file it themselves. Just as a side note, a long time
ago I worked a consulting contract with Mishawaka Utilities and I actually did a tracking of all the
lights in Mishawaka. One (1) of the things we would like to see, and Ms. Broden seconded this, is
a Sewer Map like we do for roads to show the progress for those. We still have some critical
neighborhoods that have sewage in their basement and they would like to know the progress. That
might also help track the bond spending. It would be nice to have an overlay of the tax-sale
properties with the code violations. There are about 2,400 tax sale properties right now and a lot
of people are just buying these properties from all over the world and hanging on to them to get it
for ten percent (10%). They aren't going to improve it. It will sit there and create code violations.
We have a lot of derelict properties. When I looked at the map, it is all over.
She continued, Also, a dumping map of where tire trash seems to accumulate. One (1) of the
suggestions I had was maybe partner. I understand there are 7,000 tires that get dumped in the
City. It is about two dollars ($2) to get rid of them and that is an extra $14,000 to the City. My
thought was we that we have Tire Rack,Bell Tire,and Zohlmann,and maybe they would be willing
to partner with the City to put a big tire bin in with their logo on it for publicity and then recycle
them or something. We would like to see the checkbook program come back. Just strip out the
routing numbers and any other information that would compromise security. To find things, we
are having to go back through Public Works approvals and that is not very practical. We would
like that brought back in some form or fashion to track expenses. Solar power at the park pavilions.
We would like to see charging stations. Have a USB port to charge their phone. That is a security
measure. If you're at the park and your phone runs out of battery, you can't call for help or
whatever. So we think we should have them on trails, too. We would like access to the whole
budget and not just parts of it. The financial part. Obviously we are getting the presentations now
but actually all of it and that means all of it. There are accounts called other, sinking Funds, TIF
information. We think of that old thing where they blindfold the elephant and the person feeling
the tail says oh, it's this way and the person feeling the tusk says it's this way and all the other
people say something else. We feel we are just getting pieces and parts and not getting the whole
picture. We would like the whole budget online, the financial stuff, so we can examine it. South
Bend Animal Care and Control,we think it would be good for them to have their own website just
like the Police have their own website. Reason being is people don't think to go to the City website
and click down three(3)times to find permits for their animals. We think if the South Bend Animal
Care and Control had their own website,they could feature more dogs and cats to adopt out. They
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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK
could have donations on it too. They could have vet stuff, training stuff, and just as the one (1) in
Mishawaka has. We think it would really improve adoptions and reduce the animal overcrowding.
Committee Chair White interjected, Sue, do you have other questions you would like to get to?
Ms. Kesim replied, I am getting down to the end. And, it would also be nice to have an app for
animal control to report lost and found dogs, reporting abuse and events. And last, but not least,
I'm getting to the end I promise, but I also have things from other people in here too.
Committee Chair White stated, Be sure to submit those and we will be sure to respond.
Ms. Kesim stated, It is a scribble. I don't know. You were talking about rides. Lyft has a special
pilot program,an app,for providing medical rides. When I presented at the TRANSPO budget you
all heard me say the paratransit rides are expensive. If some of them could be covered by Lyft,that
might take some of the heavy lifting off TRANSPO for paratransit because they are limited to
what they can charge by the federal government. So they are losing a lot of money. So maybe look
into the Lyft paratransit program. It is pilot program and I know you guys love doing new stuff.
So thank you.
With no further business,Committee Chair White adjourned the Personnel and Finance Committee
meeting at 6:43 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Karen White, Committee Chair
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