10-04-17 Personnel and Finance (#7)

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Boards and Commissions Appointees. We transitioned in hiring a new Council Attorney. We have also hosted eleven(11)budget hearing sessions. He continued, Moving forward we want to improve our messaging with citizens. We are looking at maybe holding Committee meetings on off-nights from our regular Council meetings but we have to look at having the right technology for that,taking into account ADA as well as security. We are in the process of acquiring everything we need for that. We are trying to improve our accessibility to the Council District Map. We are in the process of completing our active shooter training and that is coming up shortly. We are also leveraging a paid internship for communication and messaging. We are only point three-six percent (.36%) of the entire City Budget. Roughly eighty-seven percent(87%) of our budget accounts for fringe benefits, professional services and salaries. We are a fairly lean group with regard to our budget. The increase for Council salaries are two percent(2%). In the line-item it is stated at twenty-five percent (25%) but that is because all nine (9) members are now taking salaries. In the past there have been members that have not taken their salary. That is also reflected in our fringe benefits. There are two (2) additional Councilmembers that are taking benefits that didn't last year. We have $125,619 allocated for our legal services and that is mainly regarding the tapes. City Clerk Kareemah Fowler, South Bend City Clerk with offices on the 4th floor of the County-City Building, stated, Our mission is to ensure integrity, accuracy of City records and liaise between the Common Council,the City Administration and residents to foster relationships and common ground. We accomplish this mission by serving as responsible stewards of information and historical artifacts. We empower community engagement to support open and transparent government while striving for the highest degree of excellence in customer service. She showed a chart in the presentation(available in the City Clerk's Office) that depicted the roles and responsibilities of each member of the Clerk's Office staff. She continued, We are support staff for the Councilmembers because they are part-time. In 2017 we launched a system called Granicus. That is a City Boards and Commission software and we share that cost with the City Administration. That has been very successful. We also are in the second phase of the Fast Track Initiative. We have been working closely with the Common Council on that and other City Departments. We think that has been going very well. We completed the indexing of Historical Data. We digitized all City records from 1865 to present date. We began live-streaming the Council meetings on YouTube and Facebook as well as created an opt-in email distribution list for residents to receive emails from the Clerk's Office. We launched an internship program. We hosted a fellow from Myanmar and showed them how municipal government works in the United States. Along with the Common Council we launched our Art Display program. We completed our branding for the Clerk's Office. We began working on the Knowledge Based Articles. We also have the ability to complete verbatim legal transcript minutes. This year we had our first annual Boards and Commissions training for appointees. We completed Standard Operating Procedures for all members in the Clerk's Office. She went on, We have many goals for 2018. We plan to complete the Fast Track Initiative. We continue to look at ways to move toward a paperless Municipal Code as well as create the ability for electronic filing. We are working with the Council, IT and other City departments to figure 2