09-07-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chief Cox again acknowledged the firefighters that have gone out into the community to work to diversify the department. They aren't doing it to hear that they are doing a good job, they are doing it because it's the right thing to do. Councilmember Broden stated that the healthcare stuff is great, too and she is excited to see how that evolves. Committee Chair White stated that the Fire Pension budget hearing will need to be rescheduled. Code Enforcement Randy Wilkerson, Director of Code Enforcement, introduced the Code Enforcement staff in attendance. Mr. Wilkerson began by explaining that the Department of Code Enforcement is made up of three (3) divisions: Neighborhood Code Enforcement, the Neighborhood Enforcement Action Team (N.E.A.T), and South Bend Animal Care and Control. Cecil Eastman, Department of Code Enforcement, stated that they are looking at a total budget of $2.279 million for 2017. The most extraordinary number is the services under Animal Care and Control, because there is a twenty -seven percent (27 %) increase, due to a change in allocation. Beyond that, the rest of the numbers are keeping in line, and we have made cuts to our supplies numbers. We only anticipate revenues of $647,000. We want to make it clear that the Department of Code Enforcement operates predominantly as a service to the community. The vast majority of our expenditures, since they benefit the whole community, are not recovered from the individuals we help directly. Our tradition historically is approximately eight percent (8 %) recovery of costs, with hopes to at least maintain that. Civil penalties and environmental cleanups are expected to go down due to the hope that more people comply. Revenues is defined as what we actually collect, not what we bill. There are many invoices that we issue to people that we are not able to collect for various reasons. The largest section of collections have been civil penalties so far. We anticipate that will probably stay on track, because civil penalties tend to have a stronger collection rate. Mr. Wilkerson explained that the vacant and abandoned initiative drove the civil penalties over the last few years. We were aggressive with trying to get people to comply using the civil penalties. We found that it worked, but now people are complying without the penalties kicking in, so we are getting the results we are after. Ms. Marlaina Johns stated because of the change in the ordinance, they were able to increase the number of tickets and the amount by four - hundred and fifty -seven percent (457 %), so there is actually almost $600,000 in outstanding grass and weed tickets through continuous enforcement. 10