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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-10-18 Personnel and Finance rin,,,� r (Wc PEACE.. ag rases.s" OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMI.H FOWLER, CITY CLERK PERSONNEL &FINANCE DECEMBER 10, 2018 5:16 P.M. Committee Members Present: Karen White, Gavin Ferlic, Regina Williams-Preston, John Voorde Committee Members Absent: None Other Council Present: Jake Teshka, Tim Scott, Jo M. Broden, Sharon L. McBride, Oliver Davis Other Council Absent: None Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Bianca Tirado, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer, Gabriel Murei Presenters: Daniel Parker, Benjamin Dougherty, Laura O'Sullivan, Tracy Skibins, Ken Glowacki, Jitin Kain, Ron O'Connor, Aaron Perri Agenda: Update: Introduction- Daniel Parker, City Controller Update: Diversity Study& Consultant, Christina Brooks Bill No. 62-18- December 2018 Transfer Ordinance Bill No. 63-18- December 2018 Appropriation Ordinance- Civil City Funds Bill No. 64-18- December 2018 Appropriation Ordinance- Enterprise Funds Bill No. 65-18- VPA Non- Reverting Funds Clean-Up Ordinance Bill No. 66-18- Cemetery Fund-Related Ordinance Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 5:16 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and stated,We have a number of bills before us. Prior to starting the hearing of these bills, we had the opportunity to sit down with Ben and we thank you for spending the time with us as well as Ken. A number of questions were asked and I do appreciate your response. I did share the questions and the responses with other Council Members. I encouraged Council Members that if there were questions posed and not the questions INTEGRITY' SERVICE'ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BIANCA L.TIRADO JOSEPH R.MOLNAR CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 46601 I p 574.235.9221 I f 574.235.9173 I www.southbendin.gov CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK they wanted to see addressed, to reach out to you prior to today's meeting. I just wanted to make sure we discuss these bills in detail. Committeemember Gavin Ferlic made a motion to recess and reconvene in the full Council Chambers. Committeemember John Voorde seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four (4) ayes. The Personnel and Finance Committee recessed at 5:18 p.m. and reconvened in the full Council Chambers at 5:26 p.m. Committee Chair White gave the floor to the presenter. Update: Introduction- Daniel Parker, City Controller Daniel Parker, City Controller with offices located on the 12th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. This is actually my first (1st) day today. I'm excited to be a part of the City and have been very impressed with everybody I've met, the operations of the City and how the finances of the City reflect the priorities of this City which is a great reflection of this Council. Committee Chair White stated, Welcome. Do you know everyone? Mr. Parker replied, I have not met all of you in person but I hope to within the coming days. I do know your names. Committee Chair White stated, When I met with Mr. Parker last week we discussed and went over some items in regard to looking at the financial picture of the City of South Bend. I encourage Council Members to reach out to Mr. Parker as he has offered to sit down with each and every one (1) of you. I encourage you to do that in the next twenty-four (24) hours. Again, welcome to the City of South Bend. We look forward to working with you and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to any of us. Mr. Parker replied, Thank you so much. Council President Tim Scott stated, Welcome. Thank you. Update: Diversity Study& Consultant, Christina Brooks Committee Chair White stated,At our last Council meeting,there were questions raised regarding the Diversity Study and the consultants. Council President Scott forwarded that to my Committee. I did meet with Christina Brooks and we talked about this particular issue. I asked her to come before Council to give a brief update to that particular question. Christina Brooks, Diversity and Inclusion Compliance Officer for the City of South Bend with offices on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I would like to go over a few things to give everyone as comprehensive an update as I possibly can in this short amount of time. I will try to move through this fairly quickly. I will first (1St) describe what a Disparity Study is, the information included in the Disparity Study, who our consultant is for the study for South Bend, the timeline progress, some upcoming events, and how people can stay in contact or at least be up to date on the progress of the study. What is a Disparity Study(referencing a slide in a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office)? The study itself evaluates all the contracting data that the City collects through procurement and contracts. It also measures the participation of EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY j INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 1574.235.4173 I I L)574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK available small,minority and women-owned business enterprises within the governmental agency. For us, that is the City. Research is done on that information to determine if there are disparities and then make recommendations to rectify those disparities. A disparity exists if small, minority or women-owned business firms are found to be underutilized compared to the portion of available firms in this area. She continued, What is included in the actual disparity study itself? There are a couple of things and two (2) pieces of evidence. One (1) is statistical data. For the City of South Bend, we look through three (3) years of contract and procurement data. Those years are 2015, 2016 and 2017. We were able to compile over four hundred (400) individual contract data that we handed over to our consultant. The second (2nd) type of evidence is qualitative or anecdotal evidence. That is the collection of anecdotal interviews and stories from people that have either done business with the City or are interested in doing business with the City. Another important aspect of the study itself is to review the City of South Bend's current policies regarding procurement and contracting. Finally, our consultant will actually make recommendations once the study is complete. She went on, Who is actually leading this effort on an external basis? We have selected Colette Holt and Associates. She has over twenty-five(25)years of experience in the field of minority and women business enterprise programs in local,municipal, state and federal programs. We felt very confident that she would do a fine job. She has been called as an expert witness for disparity study cases all across the country and the programs she has put together over the last twenty-five (25) years have successfully withstood any court challenge. She continued, The timeline progress here, for us here at the City of South Bend, started back in Quarter One (1) of 2018 where we actually contracted with Colette Holt and Associates. We had an internal meeting with our internal stakeholders in April. We then had a public meeting in June 2018. In that June meeting, Colette Holt was here on site at the Charles Martin Center. We announced at that time the first (1st) business owner interview meeting that was scheduled in November. Since then, we've had two (2) business owner interview sessions. Typically with disparity studies, consultants will do one(1)but Colette has graciously offered to do three(3)here with the City of South Bend to make sure everyone feels that they have a fair opportunity to share their stories about contracting and procurement with the City. We've been through two(2)of those already. One (1) took place, again as I said, in November. A second (2nd) was an online session that we were notified took place December 5th. Finally, we will have a third (3'1) business owner interview session that, because of scheduling and her being a very busy woman, won't be until March 2019. You might ask if that may set our timeline back but no, it will not. She has promised that she will be able to deliver the disparity study on time even though we'll have that final business owner interview in March 2019. She went on, You'll notice that the green circles(referencing a slide in the presentation)mean that those events have been completed. There are two (2) remaining. The blue and that is the final business owner meeting and then finally the disparity study itself to be delivered. So this is what is next. It is scheduled for March 18th,2019. We are working together and would like to make sure we are pulling in all of our community stakeholders to ensure that we have it at a location that is both amenable to the people in the community and at a time when business owners can actually be there. That information is still to be determined and I look forward to hearing from people in the community and stakeholders to help make sure we have the right time and location for that final business owner interview. How can people in the community stay up to date on the progress? The EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 11 D574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 3 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK City of South Bend has a website specifically dedicated to the disparity study itself. The website URL is located on the screen (referencing a slide in the presentation) and there is a screenshot of what it looks like so you know you're in the right place. That website will keep you up to date on what has happened. There is an FAQ attached to this website and there is also an opportunity, if people want,to make comments or ask questions. Those can be submitted through this website as well. We ask that anybody who has questions submit it through the website instead of contacting the City directly, strictly because we are keeping record of all the incoming questions and making sure they are all answered. If we have one(1) central location where all the information is flowing through,she can forward that to internal stakeholders with the City as necessary.For the most part, the questions are typically things Colette and her team can answer. That is the update for the Disparity Study. Are there any questions? Committee Chair White stated, Thank you for the update, Ms. Brooks. She then asked to receive copies of the presentation for Council Members. Ms. Brooks confirmed she would send Council Members the presentation. Bill No. 62-18- December 2018 Transfer Ordinance Benjamin Dougherty, Deputy City Controller with offices located on the 12th floor of the County- City Building, stated, If I may make a general comment before we get going on Bill No. 62-18, you will see on the agenda that we have five(5)proposed ordinances to present to the Council this evening. The commonality of all of these are, in effect, end of the year clean up items. The first (1st) three (3) are familiar to all of you Council Members in the form of quarterly budget transfer and appropriations requests. This, of course, if just the final one (1) of the 2018 budget so those will have the effect of cleaning up and closing out the 2018 annual budget. Then the last two (2) on the list are a bit more ad-hoc. These are specific purposes to bring both the municipal code and our practices into alignment with one (1) another so we have the best transparency and simplicity that we can in our accounting and our reporting practices. Being mindful of the time, I will try to get through these as quickly as I can. I would like to thank the crowd of City employees here to help answer questions if and when they arise about specific departmental operations. He continued, Bill No. 62-18, as I said, you will see as somewhat familiar in the form that it is being presented, grouped by fund and department. These budget transfers are effectively across different expense categories but all within the sum total appropriations under the adopted 2018 budget. In other words, it's a net zero (0) for these budget transfers and they're simply moving from one (1) account to another as the needs may dictate as we close out the year. You'll see in the attachment of this proposed ordinance the detail of each of these transfers, which is about ten (10)pages long. The first (1st) four(4) and half pages you'll see detail by department and by fund of the requested budget transfers. This one (1) is extra-long as you will see the last five (5) or so pages relates specifically to Century Center. The effect of those changes is basically to restructure the accounts that the Century Center uses for its expenses and, therefore, its reporting purposes. Again, all of those including the Century Center bit, are with no net change in the budget amount. You'll see the Century Center piece in particular is going to allow us to enhance and simplify the reporting capabilities for that particular operation. I will defer to questions at this point. Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 4 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Dougherty stated, If I may, you had mentioned earlier you had requested other questions. We collected those that were on the table when we met previously but I didn't receive any further questions from other Council Members but of course we are happy to answer them now. Bear with me in that we don't have written responses. Councilmember Jo M. Broden stated, There are several departments where it appears that staff hirings did not occur such as the Mayor's Office and Code Enforcement. Could you address those non-hirings? Mr. Dougherty replied, Yes, certainly, and those were concerns you raised previously so I think we've got a good handle on those and I will defer to those departments to offer some explanation. Laura O'Sullivan, Chief of Staff to the Mayor of the City of South Bend with offices located on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, stated,The position you are referring to is our part-time project manager position that we've had filled for only part of the year so we only used part of the salary. That person has since moved on and, as you know, for 2019 that position will be turned into a full-time position and the search for that is already ongoing and we've started interviewing for that with the hope to hire very quickly. Tracy Skibins, Director of Code Enforcement with offices located on the 13th floor of the County- City Building, asked, Could you please restate your question you would like for me to answer? Councilmember Broden stated, It appears that part of your repurposing dollars from a rental unit inspection program, and I thought it was personnel,but there it is on whatever page. Page four(4), it starts at three (3) but it goes to four(4), I just want to know what happened with regard to that rental unit inspection position that was budgeted for but not filled. Ms. Skibins replied, The rental unit inspection program, we didn't hire the inspectors for that program until mid-year around April. So we transferred that money over to Animal Care and Control to address some immediate improvements including facility updates and medical needs. Councilmember Broden followed up, So that's one (1) in the same as the inspection program that will be fully implemented in 2019, correct? Ms. Skibins replied, That is the goal, yes. Councilmember Broden then stated,With regard to some park maintenance on page five(5),there is a $250,000 item with only Rum Village Dog Park listed there. I know there are various park projects but I think we had asked for some itemization help on that or at least some context. At least I did in our earlier meetings. Mr. Dougherty asked for clarification of which item she was referring to in the document. Councilmember Broden stated, So page five (5), Parks Bond Capital, a $250,000 item there and the justification says contracts for services related to various park projects including Rum Village dog park. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION ' EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 5 0CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Ken Glowacki,Director of Financial Services for Venues,Parks&Arts with offices located at 321 East Walter Street, stated, The $250,000 transfer is the regional city grant. We ended up getting ahead on some projects and were able to do more than we had budgeted for, so we transferred money from building improvements to some of the other expense line items that the expenses will be paid off. Essentially, we were just ahead of some of the planning for the regional city grants. Committee Chair White then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to this legislation. There were none. She then turned the floor back to the Committee for further comment or main motion. Councilmember Broden asked, Would it be prudent for us to have someone from Century Center for context on pages five(5), six (6) and seven(7) and kind of an overall understanding of what is going on there? Mr. Dougherty replied, I will give it the high level, non-accountant answer but if you need more information, we will brush it up for you. In essence what you have there for the Century Center accounts, they are meant to align the accounting system that the manager operator SMG uses for their own internal accounting and reporting measures with the City's so that those two (2) are now coordinated. It simplifies the amount of entry the City staff is required to do to record transactions on our own accounting system and allows, at the same time, for more effective reporting on which events and expenses those accounts relate to. In a nut shell, we are trying to put in better communications between the City's and SMG's accounting systems so that we can report more effectively. Committeemember Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 62-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committeemember Voorde seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. Bill No. 63-18- December 2018 Appropriation Ordinance- Civil City Funds Mr. Dougherty stated, Thank you Committee Chair White. This is along the same line as what you have seen as quarterly additional appropriations requests over the course of the year. This will be the final additional appropriation request to amend the 2018 budget for Civil City funds. Bill No. 63-18 and 64-18 are broken down by Civil City funds and Enterprise Funds. This one (1) is for Civil City funds. You'll notice the amounts listed next to each of the affected funds in the text of the ordinance itself with the detail similarly attached to the back of it in a spreadsheet format. One (1) specific piece of guidance would be that the last item on the list, a reduction of nearly $23 million on the Eddy Street Commons project is a bit eye popping so I will just jump to explaining that one (1), if I may. In effect, this is an accounting move to adjust for the fact that at the end of 2017, an open purchase order for the amount associated with that project was rolled forward into 2018. That is often the case with continuing projects. The effect of that was to tack onto the 2018 appropriation amount the amount that was outstanding in 2017. Therefore, it was nearly doubling the amount of money tagged for that project. This is a reduction in the amount of that carry over to bring it back in line with the sustentative intent of the 2018 budget.That has no effect on projects but instead gets our accounting record in line with a correction for that purchase order rolling over. Other than that, a lot of the rest of these are in line with what you have seen in the past. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p574.235.9221 (574.235.9173 I I D574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 6 •CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE O F THE CLERK Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. There were none. She then turned the floor over to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. There were none. She then turned the floor back to the Committee for further comment or main motion. Committeemember Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 63-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committeemember Voorde seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. Bill No. 64-18- December 2018 Appropriation Ordinance- Enterprise Funds Mr. Dougherty stated, This is, again, similar to the last bill but this relates to additional appropriations for the City's Enterprise funds. You'll see them listed on the first (1st) page of the ordinance. It is a smaller amount in keeping with the fact that the Enterprise funds need fewer additional appropriations to close out the year. I don't think there were any questions given to us in advance. Councilmember Broden has asked questions about ways of transportation and so forth, I don't think those directly affect any of your concerns on this bill but either way I would be happy to address that if you would like. Councilmember Broden stated, I would like to ask one, yes. It appears three (3) items are going into reserve or are utilizing reserve funds. Am I correct? They relate to water works and sewage. Looking at page one (1) of the bill in the fund summaries. Mr. Dougherty replied,Yes,that is right. The additional appropriations are considered new money to those funds that wasn't appropriated in the 2018 adopted budget.That would now be added onto the appropriations out of those funds to complete the year. Committee Chair White asked, Could you also speak to the $190,000 that was in Solid Waste? I think you shared that with us. Wasn't that for unanticipated truck repair? Mr. Dougherty replied, That is correct. The basic explanation there relates to wear and tear on some of our Solid Waste trucks and the necessity of traveling long distances to reach the landfill. Those are questions and issues that Kelly Smith, the new Director of Solid Waste, immediately started thinking about and looking into to figure out how to exactly balance all of that in order to make that operation as efficient as possible. The $190,000 relates to additional maintenance and the past year was particularly hard on them. Committee Chair White asked, We've discussed this but the $92,000 through CI and CDBG funding, could you share what the emergency was? It looks like it is services and professional services. That is the first(1st) one (1)that appears on the page. Mr. Dougherty replied, $92,435 for emergency demolitions reimbursement to CI through CDBG. Other than knowing these are demolitions coordinated through Code Enforcement in working with DCI, I can't say much about the detail of the nature of that project. Ron O'Connor, Director of Finance for Code Enforcement with offices located on the 13th floor of the County-City Building, stated, The $92,000 is part of a program called CDBG, Community Development Block Grant. One (1) of the requirements is we pay the contractors. Throughout the EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 7 SCITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK year we had about one (1) dozen homes that were deemed unsafe due to fire, structure or things like that. Code Enforcement deemed them a safety hazard and put them out to contract for demolition. Part of the grant money we use to do that requires us to pay that. By doing that, we overdrew the budget line item for that and now we've received the money back in, we are asking to re-appropriate those funds back into the line item. Councilmember Broden asked, Circling back to the Solid Waste operations, the land fill site is different, right? That contributed to wear and tear? My question is, one (1), if that is a correct understanding and two (2), how often is that evaluated in terms of where we are taking out materials. Jitin Kain, Deputy Director of Public Works with offices located on the 13th floor of the County- City Building,replied, We intended to evaluate the change of the landfill. The landfill we use right now is about a forty-five (45) minute drive one (1)-way. It is dirt road and we don't have ideal conditions for some of the new vehicles we have. The wear and tear on the vehicles have been largely due to the drive and the conditions of the landfill. We had intended to review that and look at making a change earlier this year but we had a change in leadership. Kelly Smith is now our new Director and we have since then taken a look at using a different transfer station which is a shorter drive.The GreenTech Transfer Station is about a fifteen(15)minute drive and it is in South Bend. We intend to change our landfill starting in January. We just finalized a contract that we will take to the Board of Public Works at our next meeting. We did the calculation and we figure that over ten (10) years there are substantial savings, even though the tipping fees may be higher for the closer transfer station, over ten (10) years the maintenance cost will be substantially reduced. That is something we intended to do a little earlier in the year that we are now doing. Councilmember Broden followed up, And that transfer station, they will have the determination on where the final destination is? Mr. Kain replied, We take it to the transfer station and the transfer station then takes it to the landfill so we are not making a trip to the landfill as the transfer station has much better conditions. It is much better for our vehicles. Councilmember Broden then asked, I would assume that this has some impact on the Solid Waste Management District in terms of tipping fees? Mr. Kain replied, It does have some impact because there is an agreement that there is a certain fee that goes to the Solid Waste Management District and as we take this to the Board, we will reach out and let them know. Councilmember Broden stated, Thank you. As a member serving on that, that would be good to be appraised. Committee Chair White then turned the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. There were none. She then turned the floor back to the Committee for further comment or main motion. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION j EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.92211f 574.235.9173 I 11)574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 8 .CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committeemember Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 64-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committeemember Voorde seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. Bill No. 65-18-VPA Non- Reverting Funds Clean-Up Ordinance Mr. Dougherty stated, For this bill, it was filed by Aaron Perri and I will defer to him but this is an administrative clean up. Aaron Perri, Executive Director of Venues, Parks & Arts with offices located at 301 South St. Louis Boulevard, stated,The bill before you is in line with what we discussed at budget season. If you recall, we talked about consolidating several funds into one (1) to make it more transparent and comprehensive for revenues and expenses particularly on the parks side of things.This doesn't affect the venues side of things. It essentially puts everything in Fund #201 and we propose tracking all of that, as we have always done in Fund #203 and #405 accordingly, by account numbers and project codes. That way we can make sure things are restricted, as they always have been, to their intended uses, particularly capital expenditures. There were some questions earlier on about how we track those. The tracking mechanism won't disappear and will be exactly how we've tracked it in the original funds by project codes and account numbers. I would be happy to answer any further questions. Councilmember Broden asked, For the record, what are the fund balances in Fund#203 and#405? I think there was a memorandum. Mr. Perri replied, I believe they were in the previous ordinance but as of October 31, 2018, Fund #203 balanced at about $836,000. Fund #405 balanced at approximately $127,000. The transfers that were favorably recommended earlier are a little bit different than those exact numbers because those are just estimates of where we are today. The transfers are above and beyond that and certainly we can only transfer what is available at year end. They are still restricted for their intended purposes. Councilmember Broden followed up. So however they were accrued will be expended and restricted? Mr. Perri replied, Yes and it will all be in one (1) fund. Certainly more simple than transferring this back and forth every time we want to use them. I think everybody will appreciate this. Councilmember Broden stated, I appreciate the changes this reflects for simplicity and respecting the original intent. I know we've had expenditures that have exceeded these so I guess my point is I think it is important for transparency and for folks watching these funds accrue when they went to various facilities. As you and I experienced during earlier conversations, relative to Elbel, the public was interested in making sure those dollars that were the add on to the rates actually go back to support it. I appreciate that. Committee Chair White then turned the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. There were none. She then turned the floor back to the Committee for further comment or main motion. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 HD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 9 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committeemember Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 65-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committeemember Voorde seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. Bill No. 66-18- Cemetery Fund-Related Ordinance Mr. Dougherty stated, If you would allow me, I will start Bill No. 66-18 by defining its purposes. Really, it is twofold. The first(1St)is that it is necessary and convenient for the maintenance of the Bowman Cemetery. The second (2nd) purpose is sort of a bonus. I will back up and give background. The Bowman Cemetery is a City-owned asset and has been since the 1950s. It was actually established a couple decades before that by a private Cemetery Association. At the time of the land being conveyed to the City's ownership,the City took over as,effectively,the custodian and the responsible party for maintaining the Cemetery. Since that time, the funds that were assembled by the original private trust association were put into the hands of a series of banks as the original trustee was absorb by one (1) bank after another, winding up with Key Bank as the trustee. When I came onboard with Administration and Finance, our former Controller Jen Hockenhull tasked me with a bit of a special project to figure out whether we could make for a movement of those funds out of Key Bank and into the City's ordinary bank accounts within the City's regular accounting structure. That was for two (2) reasons. One (1) is that we were paying, what in our view, were excessive fees for the bank to service as trustee for these funds. Secondly, as I came to learn even later in the game, we had great difficulty drawing down out of those funds with Key Bank serving as trustee. In essence, it was costly to keep the money in a private trustees hand and not very efficient for us to actually draw down funds when specific maintenance items at Bowman Cemetery were needed. He continued, With those things in mind, we set to the task of dislodging those funds from the trustee and bringing them into the City's coffers. We succeeded in doing so which included a legal process through the local court and obtained a court order dissolving the trust and ordering the trustee to pay those funds over to the City's hands for safekeeping. I would be happy to answer any questions about the background but that brings me to the first (1St) function of the ordinance. This is to establish a fund to house that money that came over from the trustee. It is appropriate to have a separate fund unlike what we just discussed in the VPA context where it makes more sense to consolidate. When it comes to protecting a specific asset for perpetuity, it makes more sense to assign it and create for it a separate fund. Just like we have a separate fund for maintenance of the City Cemetery, those two (2) will be on equal terms under the City's control. The second (2nd) which is sort of a bonus is that in the process of getting into the management of these funds, and the ordinance making a place for them to live going forward, was also discovered that the substantive terms in the Municipal Code relating to maintenance of the cemetery, who is responsible for it and the like,were confusing at best and in some areas inconsistent with State law at worst. We went to task of not changing the substance but reorienting them and making sure they are in line with code. While we set up this fund, we wanted to clean up the other terms to make sure they are meaningful going forward. We thought it to be convenient and helpful to do these at the same time. Committee Chair White opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked, The funds won't be interchangeable between Bowman and City Cemetery, correct? EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT • 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 110574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 10 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Dougherty replied, That is correct. Councilmember Davis followed up, Now the parks, VPA, will take care of the grounds for both? Mr. Dougherty replied, That is my understanding and certainly the case to date. The VPA maintenance staff handles that. Councilmember Davis then asked, Is there a fee that comes out of that City related ordinance that is charged by VPA to cover that? Or is that just a part of natural regular maintenance for City properties? Mr. Dougherty replied,The latter, I think. I'm not aware of a specific fee for that. It falls regularly in line with charges for services. Councilmember Davis continued, In terms of upkeep, has there been any assessment about what needs need to be done to modernize or fix up Bowman to the same level? Have we honored that and is it all in shape? Mr. Dougherty replied, We've been doing a good job in maintaining it over time. Councilmember Davis interjected, We were the custodians of the other one (1) and we had challenges. So I don't know, do we have similar challenges when we went and looked at it? That one (1)has more historical value to us in that it was donated to us but what are your thoughts? Mr. Pen-i replied, This ordinance doesn't impact the day-to-day operations of us caring for and maintaining the Cemetery. That will continue on. VPA will continue maintaining it as we have done historically. City Cemetery has gone through a significant Master Plan process.There is a lot of work out there to improve and expand its impact. It is looking pretty good if you haven't visited it. Bowman is in pretty good shape and there is very little we've needed to do with it besides the routine maintenance and repair. We will now have funds available to us that weren't historically available to us should we encounter any major capital needs. Councilmember Davis interrupted, Are services still being handled or used in the Bowman area? Mr. Perri replied, Yes. Councilmember Davis continued, So if somebody wants to be buried there, are they contacting you all? Mr. Pen-i replied, Oh, both cemeteries are full. They are offline and at capacity. Councilmember Broden asked, At the time of the dissolution of the trustee agreement, what were the fund balances? Mr. Dougherty replied, I will supply that afterwards as I don't have that off the top of my head. We are in the neighborhood of$300,000 and $400,000. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 11 CITY OF SOUTH BEND ' OFFICE OF THE CLERK Councilmember Broden followed up, Combined for both? Mr. Dougherty replied, We are talking only about the Bowman Cemetery. Councilmember Broden stated, Oh, that's right. I apologize. Then the responsibility of forever going forward, so how do you allocate that? I can see almost a two (2) to one (1) relationship. Dollars expended on an annual basis for City Cemetery versus Bowman but how do you project that out over time to make sure we meet our commitment twenty (20) or thirty (30) years from now? Mr. Dougherty replied, Just like other City assets, it is considered in long-term capital planning and identifying needs along the way. As Aaron mentioned, VPA is responsible for maintaining and that is going to be the front line in identifying long-term capital needs. As far as how long that money will last, I think the history has shown the expenses to be very modest, so I imagine barring some catastrophic non-insured damage or something to that effect, ordinary maintenance probably won't eat into the corpus of that money very quickly. Under ordinary circumstances it will last quite a long time. It will be additionally helpful putting it into this fund that will be expressly for that purpose. It is protected in that sense in addition to our various duties under State law and Municipal Code to make sure we are maintaining it on a continual basis. Councilmember Broden followed up, Ok, then overall it is still retained and known as park space correct? Mr. Dougherty replied, Yes and it is good news. Because of the relationship between the City as the owner of the asset and its own parks department, it still counts for certification purposes. No change in that respect. Committee Chair White then turned the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. There were none. She then turned the floor back to the Committee for further comment or main motion. Committeemember Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 66-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committeemember Voorde seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. Committee Chair White thanked all department heads for their attendance. With no further business,Committee Chair White adjourned the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 6:16 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, Karen White, Committee Chair EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 12