09-07-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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Other goals and challenges are addressing overgrown weeds and vegetation around street signs and alleys in a new program we're starting. This will be very efficient for the trash trucks driving down the alleys; they'll have less debris to deal with. It will also open up lines of sight in the alleys to hopefully curb some of the dumping. We are working with the Legal Department to increase collections in our department to improve that process. We are continuing to update our aging fleet with the midsize pickups. We have two (2) on board, and they've worked out well for us. We are continuing to cross train our staff, which has been great for everybody. We've had a shortage of staff for a couple of months, and everybody knew what each other's jobs were so they could jump in and help out. We regularly attend neighborhood and community meetings whenever we're invited to, including Mayor's Night Out. This year we are going to assess the condition of commercial structures. We've not really had a chance to do that with the vacant and abandoned commercial structures. We are going to continue to work with Community Investment to address the vacant and abandoned lot issues. Committeemember Voorde asked Mr. Wilkerson to address the satellite offices. Mr. Wilkerson stated that the Department of Community Investment did this years ago. They had offices out in the community. We are going to try to set up some locations throughout the City that we can have residents come to us to meet them. We'll set certain times in certain neighborhoods, realizing that some neighborhoods do not have neighborhood groups that get together, so we'll address them one on one. We think that this is part of the public outreach that we've been missing throughout the years. Mr. Eastman explained the Neighborhood Enforcement Action Team's expenditures. N.E.A.T. was new in 2016. We expect that we'll be able to lower the expenditures as we attain efficiencies of operation. The only thing that will rise at all is personnel, recognizing that the team has grown over the years. We expect supplies to drop, and again, cheaper gasoline and less usage due to better vehicles is a factor. The largest portion of N.E.A.T. expenditures are services, having to do with allocations to the area, like things we have to pay for. Revenues are anticipated to have a small decrease. We're hoping the people will be more compliant with environmental cleanups. There is nothing to compare as far as year to year revenues, but if you compare the $139,000 they've collected through June against their 2016 amended budget, they came in slightly better than what was expected, but it won't necessarily be that way next year. Angelo Logrande, N.E.A.T Supervisor, stated the N.E.A.T. crew is a special program, because we go out and help everybody. After the storm damage, the N.E.A.T. crew cleaned up sixty - eight (68) loads, not including chain sawing. During the last flood, the crew took care of over one - hundred (100) homes that had flood damage, and the N.E.A.T. crew picked up 126,000 pounds of flood damage. 13