HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Minutes - City Council - Meeting Date: 4/24/2017City of Glendale
5850 West Glendale Avenue
Glendale, AZ 85301
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Meeting Minutes - Final
Monday, April 24, 2017
9:00 AM
Budget Workshop
Council Chambers
City Council Workshop
Mayor Jerry Weiers
Vice Mayor tan Hugh
Councilmember Jamie Aidama
Councilmember Joyce Clark
Councilmember Ray Ma/nar
Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff
Councilmember Bart Turner
City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes - Final April 24, 2017
CALL TO ORDER
ROLL CALL
Present 5 - Mayor Jerry Weiers, Vice Mayor Ian Hugh, Councilmember Jamie Aldama,
Councilmember Joyce Clark, and Councilmember Bart Turner
Absent 2 - Councilmember Ray Malnar, and Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff
[Councilmember Malnar arrived at 9:03 a.m. Councilmember Tolmachoff arrived at 9:12
a.m.]
Also present were Kevin Phelps, City Manager; Michael Bailey, City Attorney; and Julie
K. Bower, City Clerk.
WORKSHOP SESSION
1. 17-156 FY17-18 BUDGET WORKSHOP
Staff Contact and Presenter: Vicki Rios, Director, Budget and Finance
Staff Presenter: Tom Duensing, Assistant City Manager
Staff Presenter: Terri Canada, Budget Administrator
Mr. Phelps said the FY17-18 budget priorities included sustainability by achieving a $50
million unrestricted general fund balance by FY19-20; no projected general fund deficits
over the 5 -year planning period; and continued review of financial policies. Priorities also
included excellence in service delivery and strategic planning.
Ms. Rios said budget highlights for FY17-18 included no increase to the primary property
tax levy, continued funding of vehicle replacements, and funding for police body cameras
and related safety equipment program. Other highlights included a half-time position for
Code Enforcement and absorption of two Code Enforcement positions into the general
fund, which were previously grant -funded.
Ms. Rios said there would be increased staffing in the Court and City Attorney's offices to
address the demands of the Mental Health Court; increased staffing in Engineering to
support enterprise funded infrastructure projects; and funding of a pilot program in the
Convention and Visitor's Bureau (CVB) to increase hotel/motel occupancy. There was
also a need to absorb a $6.1 million increase in PSPRS contributions, of which staff had
anticipated approximately $4 million of that increase.
Ms. Rios said there was increased funding to replace aging residential recycling
containers, funding for strategic initiatives, LEAN academy and stakeholder survey tools
and funding to assess the condition and management of the City's property holdings.
There were 13.25 additional positions being proposed and Ms. Rios provided a list of the
departments and which funds the positions would be paid out of.
Mr. Duensing said the five-year forecast set the stage for budget planning each year. A
surplus of $1.3 million had been estimated in December 2016. An additional $1.9 million
in unanticipated costs for PSPRS had to be added to the FY 17-18 budget. Mr. Duensing
said $5 million a year was needed to achieve the $50 million contingency fund balance.
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Ms. Rios said financial policies were adopted as part of the tentative and final budget and
served as the foundation for financial stability. The policies covered fiscal planning and
budgeting, expenditure control, capital asset and debt management and fund reserves
and structure. She said the budget policy said the primary property tax levy could be
increased to the maximum allowable every year, but the proposed budget did not do that.
Ms. Rios said a cash and appropriation transfer policy had been adopted and the trust
fund balance exceeded 75% confidence level. The policies also said the non-voter
approved general fund support debt service should not exceed 10% of the five-year
average general fund ongoing operating revenues. The City had not been meeting the
policy for the last several years due to the high level of general fund debt and the debt
peaked in FY21 or FY22.
Ms. Rios said general fund balance policies included the unassigned fund balance
equaled 25% of the general fund ongoing revenue. If the balance was below 25%, a plan
should be developed to replenish it over a maximum of five years. As part of the current
rate study, which was currently underway, there was a recommendation to have more
than one policy related to fund balance.
Mr. Bailey said the City Attorney's department handled the civil and prosecutorial legal
functions for the City. His department had consistently obtained its goals, objectives and
performance measures since 2015. The FY2017 supplemental request was for a records
management assistant who assisted with body camera footage. He said the time spent
reviewing and processing body camera footage continued to increase.
Mr. Bailey said the FY18 budget supplemental included a prosecutor position to respond
to increased workload from the new specialty courts. His office would be losing two
FTEs in December due to a non-renewable grant. The costs for those employees would
be absorbed by his department. The majority of his department's budget was salary, with
a small operating budget and internal costs.
Councilmember Clark said this year's departmental budgets were very clean. She asked
how productivity had increased within the City Attorney's Office with a 14% increase over
the last two years.
Mr. Bailey said it would be helpful to understand what elements Councilmember Clark
was referring to. The City went through a comprehensive salary reclassification.
Councilmember Clark asked if he was attributing part of the increase to salary.
Mr. Bailey did not know, but believed that would be one element of the increase. He said
one FTE was hired to assist with the body camera project.
Councilmember Clark asked if there had been an uptick in the amount of prosecutions
within the Prosecutor's Office, or other increases that could be quantified.
Mr. Bailey said that data could be pulled together. The workload had been consistent.
With an increase in police officers on the street, there might be an increase in the
number of prosecutions. He said his office tried to be responsive to the needs of others,
even with the small staff.
Councilmember Clark asked about the increase in outside legal fees.
Mr. Duensing said the $200,000 in outside legal fees was an amount that had always
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been appropriated and the request was to appropriate it again for the upcoming fiscal
year.
Councilmember Clark asked about specific amounts listed in the budget documents and
wanted to know why the figures were different than the $200,000 figure which had always
been appropriated.
Ms. Rios said Finance loaded the budget for the next year using the same dollar
amounts that were in the budget for the previous year in the baseline items and removed
any one-time items. She explained how department directors could move the funds
around.
Mr. Bailey said that was budgeted with the intent of hiring a person for contract review.
That position was the contract administrator and that person was not in the City
Attorney's Office and was not being paid out of its budget.
Councilmember Clark asked if the $200,000 for outside legal fees had always been in the
City Attorney's budget.
Mr. Bailey said the funding had been in the budget since he had been with the City and
the funds were used for outside legal fees but did not cover work on the larger cases.
Councilmember Turner had noticed charges in the budget, such as fire and liability
insurance, workers' compensation, technology and telephone charges that had fluctuated
in some departments and asked if staff could provide some background about those
increases.
Ms. Rios said those charges were calculated based on different factors in a cost
allocation model. A study into the City's cost allocation method was done last year and
a new method for allocating costs was recommended. That was why some of the funds
seemed to have moved around quite a bit.
Councilmember Turner asked about the increase in fire and liability insurance in the City
Attorney's Office.
Ms. Rios said part of it might be based on prior claims. Some charges went down due to
the five-year time frame for claims history. She did not have the information on every
department but could provide it to Council if required.
Councilmember Turner was primarily interested in trendlines and asked specifically about
technology charges.
Mr. Duensing said technology charges were dependent on what type of projects were
going on with the technology internal service fund. For larger projects, there would be a
bigger cost allocation. Last year, certain charges were not allocated and the study had
provided guidance on the best way to handle those types of charges to appropriate
departments.
Councilmember Clark said fire and liability premiums were generally down across the
board and those premiums were based on the previous year's claims. Workers'
compensation claims were also down significantly and asked if the explanation was the
same. She said some departments were getting technology charges for the first time
and asked why that was occurring. These were the categories that had increased
department budgets.
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Ms. Rios said some technology charges were being charged to non -departmental and the
cost allocation study recommended that the charges be charged out to the department.
The change in the methodology more accurately reflected the charges to each
department.
Ms. Rios explained the change in workers'. compensation was a change in the fund
balance policy for the workers' compensation fund. There was available funding within
that department and those charges were showing lower this year.
Ms. Rios said the departments were held harmless for these charges and departments
were not asked to cut some other area of their budgets to absorb the charges.
Councilmember Clark asked why the technology charges had almost universally doubled
and what benefit the departments received from being charged.
Ms. Rios did not have that information in front of her, but could provide it later to Council.
Councilmember Clark had seen technology charges increase for every department and
asked what type of technology support a department received for the cost.
Ms. Rios said the figure included the Microsoft Office products, PeopleSoft, the network,
devices, and computers. She said staff could provide detail to Council.
Councilmember Clark asked if licensing fees were not paid by the IT department because
those costs were absorbed by the departments using the software.
Ms. Rios explained the detail would be seen in the IT budget, but the cost was allocated
through a cost allocation model to cover the budget of the IT department.
Mr. Duensing said technology, risk management and workers' compensation were
accounted for and operated separately, like a business. The charges were allocated
throughout and when the department paid the charges, there was a corresponding
revenue in the internal service fund to offset the costs. The costs were not
double -counted. He said it operated completely separately from the general fund
departments, but had to be allocated to the departments so the departments were
charged fairly. The other side of that transaction was a revenue that came into the
internal service funds.
Councilmember Clark asked Mr. Duensing to point that out when Council got to the IT
budget.
Mr. Bailey said that concluded the City Attorney's Office presentation.
Police Chief St. John said a decision was made to put school resource officers in all nine
high school campuses in the City and two officers for the City's elementary schools. The
department was working on increasing its results within the communications department
by decreasing mandatory overtime and hiring the correct number of employees.
Chief St. John said there had been a slight decrease in UCR part one crimes and
property crimes. He explained some adjustments would need to be made over time and
an annual review would be completed.
Chief St. John said the department's only supplemental this year was for the officer
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safety program for body -worn cameras and fleet cameras.
Councilmember Clark said the Police Department budget increase over the last two years
was 12.47%. She asked why there was a 30% increase in the budget for police
administration.
Ms. Rios said most of the increase was salaries and probably PSPRS increases.
Councilmember Clark asked about the increase in funds for fiscal management.
Chief St. John said there were no people in fiscal management and it was primarily
operating expenses. As technology had increased, the maintenance payments had
increased. He explained a large portion of that amount was to the pay the CAD
maintenance agreement.
Councilmember Clark asked about the amount budgeted for software maintenance. She
also asked if the increase for Gateway Patrol was for salary increases.
Chief St. John said that was correct.
Councilmember Clark said the policy for false alarms had been changed and asked what
sort of increase the Police Department was experiencing in answering false alarms.
Chief St. John did not have the false alarm data and could not say whether it had
increased or decreased. He would provide the data to Council.
Councilmember Clark had not seen officer staffing at 180 positions, but some of those
positions were diverted to other positions. She asked how many patrol officers were
diverted to other positions.
Chief St. John said there were 190 positions within the patrol division and that included
school resource officers. There were 8 school resource officers and 2 school liaison
officers and the school resource officers were being increased by 1 officer and the liaison
program by 1 officer. He did not want to commit those officers until he knew that the 6
schools that applied for grant funding had received the funding.
Councilmember Clark spoke about traffic enforcement and asked if the increased
enforcement would focus on more than just broken taillights.
Chief St. John said they would focus on different areas, such as speeding in school
zones and pretext stops. He explained there wasn't one segment of the community that
was not impacted by dangerous intersections and more attention had to be paid to the
speed of vehicles. Each division would have different standards to meet.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked what the 10% increase in detention was based on.
Chief St. John said the increase was based on the county's charge for taking people into
the county jail. He said there was full cost recovery.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked about the changes in the numbers of training staff.
Chief St. John said those were the school resource officers and they were moved under a
different budget.
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Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the 20% cost increase for the school resource
officers was based on the increase for officers. She also asked if there was cost recovery
on that program due to the grants.
Chief St. John said the cost of an officer increased based on PSPRS contributions and
STEP advancements under the contract, so the department had to change what they
charged the schools for a school resource officer. He thought the change was from
$94,000 to $106,000, and that was fully funded by the state grant.
Councilmember Aldama said it was important to make school zones a priority. He said
there was a significant decrease in stadium event staffing and thought the City had pulled
out from the stadium completely.
Chief St. John said the department still had the exterior responsibility of traffic control at
the stadium and had overall event responsibility. He said the department partnered with
the Department of Public Safety for the event.
Councilmember Aldama asked if the 44% decrease was from not working the interior of
the stadium.
Chief St. John said that was correct.
Councilmember Turner said it was good to hear the department was closing the gap on
getting the number of officers out on the street that it needed. He asked about the
reduction in training costs and wanted to know if that was related to the school resource
officers.
Chief St. John said that was correct.
Councilmember Turner asked about the change in shop charges.
Chief St. John said when calculating shop charges, they looked at the charges from last
year and the age of the vehicles being replaced. He said they were replacing many of
their unmarked vehicles this coming year, and those costs were reduced.
Councilmember Turner asked if the change in office equipment maintenance was an
accounting shift.
Ms. Rios said the accounting was moved to the proper line.
Chief St. John said that concluded the Police Department presentation.
Mr. McAllen said there was a request in the budget for 2.5 FTEs and it would take about
8 weeks to get new employees up and running. In FY17, approved supplementals
included funding for the General Plan election, an additional secretary and a planner.
This helped reduce plan review times from 45 business days to 30 business days. A
Development Services representative was added to assist customers and a building
safety inspector was also added.
Mr. McAllen said in FY18, Development Services was requesting 2.5 code compliance
inspectors and a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) was funding some of the
positions but the Community Development Advisory Committee had recommended that
the positions not be funded by CDBG for the coming year. Without those individuals,
there would be a reduction in service.
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Mr. McAllen said they were also requesting I -Pad Pros for the inspectors and a building
plans examiner with temporary funding to help them through the year to assist with taking
care of the high-profile projects and meeting the needs of the customers.
Councilmember Clark pointed out that over the past two years, the Development Services
budget had risen by 23.90%. She said that was self-explanatory with the additional of 3
FTEs in that division. She was concerned about the decrease in the Planning budget and
that no new planners were being added. She said there were many new residential
projects and asked why there were no new planners in that department.
Mr. McAllen said the Council did add a new planner and secretary for that department.
There were two planner positions that were open and they were moving through the
recruitment process and hoped to have the positions filled as soon as possible.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the department was looking at changing the service
model to have a rotation on Saturdays.
Mr. McAllen said they were not looking at a Saturday rotation at this time because they
were losing the CDBG grant -funded positions and only requesting an increase of .5 FTE.
Code inspection was done on the weekends once a month from a list of calls received
throughout the month. The weekend inspections had shown only a 6% violation rate
compared to violations during the weekdays at a rate of 87%.
Councilmember Malnar asked if the electronic mapping system had been installed and if
staff expected an increase in productivity.
Mr. McAllen said the electronic mapping system would include a code compliance
component, but software had not been purchased. He said they were negotiating a
contract with the same company that was providing the new ERP system, Tyler Munis.
He hoped to provide that contract for Council approval soon.
Councilmember Malnar had received complaints about weekend code violations and an
effort needed to be made to find the violations that were occurring on the weekends.
Mr. McAllen said they looked forward to working with the Councilmembers to resolve the
issue.
Councilmember Turner asked if the inspectors who were funded through CDBG would be
funded through general fund appropriations.
Mr. McAllen said that was correct.
Councilmember Turner asked what the half-time FTE would provide for the department.
Mr. McAllen said the department was looking to increase the number of grids for code
inspections. That would allow smaller areas for the inspectors to work in. He said the
half-time FTE could also work on special projects.
Councilmember Turner was concerned about the weekend violations and said there was
difficulty in spotting the violations when doing inspections only once a month. He
suggested looking into using volunteers and assigning inspectors to work on the
weekends as part of their regular shift.
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Mr. McAllen said Code Compliance did have two volunteers that worked pulling illegal
signs, which was a safe activity for volunteers. There was a volunteer in the Building
Safety department who did plan review at the counter and a volunteer who was working
through the onboarding process.
Councilmember Turner said the illegal signs were a blight on the community. He believed
volunteers could be used on the weekends to document yard sales that were occurring
and could be done without confrontation.
Councilmember Aldama was more interested in proactive code inspections and would be
willing to find funding for a weekend inspector. He asked if the 6% figure was only
reported violations and asked if proactive inspections were being done on the weekends.
Mr. McAllen said if the inspectors saw other violations on Saturday, they would try and
address it. The inspectors did have a list to work through. He explained two inspectors
worked on the Saturday shift. He said staff also worked evenings or mornings, depending
on the reported violations. He said the scheduled hours were 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Councilmember Aldama asked if there was enough staff to work with attorneys and seek
legal action against repeat offenders.
Mr. McAllen said civil citations were issued to repeat offenders and the code compliance
officer would go to court to represent the City and the City Attorney's Office was involved
in the higher profile cases.
Mr. Phelps said it was both a manpower issue and a technology issue. Staff would be
looking at technology resources moving forward and was working to strengthen the IT
department.
Councilmember Clark said there were programs available right now that allowed residents
to use their mobile phones to report violations.
Mr. McAllen said that concluded his presentation.
Ms. MacLeod said the Audit Department's FY17 approved budget supplementals
included a request for $29,000 from a vacant secretary position be used to pay for
consultants to work on highly complex audits. She said Council approved up to $ 50,000
and two audits were conducted for IT and utility billing. Ms. MacLeod provided a chart,
which showed the majority of the operating budget was salary, with a smaller portion for
operating expenses and internal services.
Councilmember Clark said over the past two fiscal years, the Auditor's budget had
increased by 13.86%, which might be due to the addition of one FTE. She said the
number of management requests had gone down and asked how many were expected in
the upcoming year.
Ms. MacLeod said the department had received two requests to date and had no control
over the requests it received from management. She said they were already on track for
completing 20 audits.
Councilmember Turner asked how much activity there had been on the ethics hotline
Ms. MacLeod said they had received five calls to date.
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Councilmember Turner asked how employees were reminded there was an ethics hotline.
Ms. MacLeod said the hotline was on the website and the Auditor's Office staff provided
information about the hotline when out in the field.
Ms. MacLeod said that concluded her presentation.
Judge Finn said in FY17, Council had approved changing two temporary status
employees to permanent status employees and Council had approved an IT Analyst. The
court also received additional funding for interpreter credentialing as well as an increase
for lesser -used languages. There were additional increases for psychiatric doctors for
competency exams, jail court overtime, and an increase for jury service.
Judge Finn said some of the requested supplementals for FY 18 included specialty court
expansion, increasing a court clerk position from .75 to 1.O FTE and replacement of the
AJACS server and storage. She said there was no increase in FTEs, except for the .25
FTE requested.
Councilmember Clark said the increase to the Court over the past two years had been
20.09%, but understood why that increase had occurred. She asked why the targets for
resolving traffic cases was lower this year than it was last year.
Judge Finn said the time standards were set by the Supreme Court. The court exceeded
the Supreme Court standard last year and expected to exceed the standard this year.
She said the target was to meet the Supreme Court standard.
Councilmember Clark asked if traffic citations were down
Judge Finn said the number of filings had been flat.
Councilmember Clark asked how Judge Finn's expenses for travel to conferences
reflected in the budget line items.
Judge Finn spent her allotment of about $3,000 for conferences each year. She had
never charged air fare unless it was part of a grant and did not submit food expenses.
She also said the City paid for the conference registration fee and the hotel.
Councilmember Clark asked if the figures were reflected in professional development.
Judge Finn said that was correct and explained professional development also included
mandatory Bar. dues for the three judges and hearing officer, costs for credentialing
interpreters, as well as other mandatory dues and judicial conferences.
Councilmember Clark wanted to know where the expenses were reflected as a line item.
She also asked if other judges filled in when Judge Finn was away from the court.
Judge Finn said a replacement for her had only been needed since the Court went to
weekly hearings.
Councilmember Clark asked about the line item which reflected judge's pay while Judge
Finn was away from the office.
Judge Finn said that was correct. She had missed Mental Health Court 11 times in the
last two years.
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Councilmember Turner was amazed at what Judge Finn had been able to accomplish and
the programs she had created.
Judge Finn said that concluded her presentation.
Chief Garrison said FY17 approved supplementals included electronic patient care
maintenance, hazardous materials meter maintenance, paramedic school registration
and two low acuity units. The LA units have had a positive response and cover about 12
square miles. He said there had been an overall decrease in response times by over a
minute due to the assistance of the low acuity units and the LA units make the fire
department more reliable.
Councilmember Malnar asked why there was no reduction in response time with the low
acuity units.
Chief Garrison said the low acuity units did have an impact in the areas where they
worked, but due to the number of calls that were going out, the response times for the
entire City had remained fairly consistent. He said that was a positive thing with the
number of calls being dispatched.
Councilmember Malnar asked if the numbers included the low acuity units.
Chief Garrison said the figures included all of the responses.
Councilmember Malnar asked if there would be an overall decrease if they pulled out the
low acuity numbers.
Chief Garrison said if the low acuity information was pulled out, there would be an
increase in the response times throughout the City.
Mayor Weiers said it would not only extend the times for the Glendale Fire Department to
respond, but would also extend the time for the other units that might respond to calls in
Glendale.
Chief Garrison said that was correct. He said the low acuity units were in the best
position to respond, and they were helping with response times right where they were
located.
Councilmember Malnar asked what the response time was for a low acuity unit.
Chief Garrison did not have that information available.
Councilmember Malnar asked about the impact low acuity was having on the overall call
response times.
Chief Garrison said when the department began the low acuity units, it wanted to get the
right type of unit to the customer and increase reliability. The low acuity units did not
want to run with lights and sirens and wanted to be able to spend time with customers.
He said they were also able to be proactive with those customers which might resolve the
issue of future calls.
Mayor Weiers said. the low acuity units were not going to life and death emergencies.
Those units normally responded to customers who needed a fire department response on
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a more regular basis. He said they wanted to free up the other units to be able to
respond to the emergency calls.
Chief Garrison said they dispatched based on caller information and units were
dispatched accordingly. He said they had adjusted call types to make sure the right unit
was responding to the right call.
Councilmember Malnar said there was a benefit for the program. If the program was
expanded, should overall call times be expected to be reduced.
Chief Garrison said response times averaged out overall and they would be able to provide
more detailed information to Council. He said the low acuity units had made a big impact
in the areas where they were working.
Councilmember Malnar asked if the department anticipated expanding the program.
Chief Garrison said the department had had those discussions with the City Manager and
were looking at expanding the program in the future.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the call times listed were actual call times.
Chief Garrison said the clock started ticking at the time of turnout. He said the call time
was the time of turnout to arrival.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if Glendale was meeting the national standard for call
times.
Chief Garrison said Glendale was a little outside the national standard, which was 6
minutes.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked how the national standard defined a call time.
Chief Garrison said when he compared Glendale's call times to other departments, he
made sure he was only comparing turnout to arrival times of other departments to make
sure the numbers were the same.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked for a breakdown of how many calls were for advanced
life support and how many calls were for basic life support.
Chief Garrison said they could provide that information to Council. He said they were
anticipating those numbers would continue to grow.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked where the increase was coming from.
Chief Garrison said the department had the data and would provide it to Council.
Councilmember Clark said the department budget had increased over the last two years
by 6.61%. She loved the low acuity units and felt there should be at least six around the
City. She asked if anyone had thought about developing high acuity units.
Chief Garrison explained that if a ladder truck was dispatched to an EMS call, it was
because they were the closest unit. Studies had been done about how many people it
took to make an effective intervention in an advanced life support type call. He said four
people working on a patient was most effective for that type of call.
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Councilmember Clark asked if this type of program might be developed in the future.
Chief Garrison said there were those types of units in other cities and they worked in
addition to the firefighting units.
Councilmember Clark said automatic aid was a benefit to the valley, but felt there was an
imbalance in the number of calls. She said that Glendale was subsidizing neighboring
cities. She said there was no equalizer or reimbursement for responding to more calls in
other cities. She asked if the automatic aid units required that response must be
four -man units and that was why the low acuity units were not responding to calls outside
the City.
Chief Garrison said the two -person units were kept in the City because that was the way
they wanted them to operate. He said a new IGA was being discussed for automatic aid
and they were going to review fairness, equality, training and staffing standards. He said
the benefit from having the closest unit respond to a customer when they needed help
was the value in that program. He said the valley had set the standard for automatic aid
across the country.
Councilmember Clark was not disputing that automatic aid had value. She did not agree
that any valley city should be subsidizing responses to other valley communities and
didn't think the taxpayers should assume that burden. She also questioned the
requirement that only four -man units respond for automatic aid.
Councilmember Aldama asked if the Fire Department had enough data to determine
whether they should add more low acuity units.
Chief Garrison said the department would look at adding more low acuity units due to the
positive impact and reliability those units had had on the community.
Councilmember Aldama said they had to take into consideration the cost of the larger fire
units responding to the calls. He asked if the department would have to report to any
events at the stadium since the City no longer was responsible for the inside of the
stadium.
Chief Garrison said they would continue to respond to calls at the stadium that were
received through the 911 system. He said discussions would be held about how that
process would work.
Councilmember Aldama asked if there was any possibility there might be mid -year
requests for additional staffing due to calls to the stadium.
Chief Garrison said it was predictable the department would be responding to calls at the
stadium and they would be discussing that issue.
Chief Garrison said the City had received notification from H.A.L.O. last week that it
would be moving its operations to Wickenburg and end its partnership with Glendale. The
partnerships it had with other valley departments would also expire. He said they would
be having discussions on how to absorb 4 FTEs from the program into the budget. He
said further information would be forthcoming.
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Chief Garrison said that concluded his presentation.
Ms. Adamczyk said federal and state grant funds supported the department, as well as
general funds to support neighborhoods, libraries, department administration and human
services.
Ms. Adamczyk said in FY17, the half-time employee Neighborhood Services received
from the Mayor's Office was beneficial and allowed the department to offer many more
programs, such as Stand Up for Veterans, Annual Serve Day and Rock and Roll
Paint-A-Thon. She said two positions were increased to full-time at the Velma Teague
Library, which helped sustain additional library hours.
Ms. Adamczyk said FY18 initiatives included award of the design contract for Heroes
Park; transition to a cashless library system through automation; assessment of the
City's homeless intervention/prevention strategies and recommendations; and
assessment of the Public Housing and Housing Assistance Program as a potential
catalyst for Centerline redevelopment.
Ms. Adamczyk said the department was requesting funds for a Centerline District arts
and culture initiative. The ongoing program would motivate and increase cultural events in
the downtown Centerline District. She said the CDBG and ESG grant allocations were
affected by the federal budget process. There was no way of knowing what the federal
allocations for these programs would be until the federal budget had been approved. HUD
had asked recipients to prepare a contingency plan with decreases up to 20% and an
action plan was due by August.
Councilmember Aldama said the arts initiative was a very conservative amount and said
he would look at an increase to that amount. He said the programs increased business
to downtown, which increased traffic to the downtown businesses, which provided revenue
to the City. He encouraged the Council to look at increasing the funds.
Councilmember Turner asked if the increases in the two categories of voluntary
demolition was general fund money and the reason for the increases.
Ms. Adamczyk said the first line was voluntary demo -low mod, and the other was
voluntary demo -slum blight and they were part of the CDBG funding and were
grant -funded. It was due to an increase in demand for demolitions. In prior years, the
funds were underestimated.
Councilmember Clark said the Community Services budget had decreased almost 2%
over the last two years.
Ms. Adamczyk said the budget was an 80/20 split between grants and general funds.
Councilmember Clark thought there was going to be a further decrease in grants over the
coming years. She asked if Community Revitalization, which was down over 6%, was
grant -funded or general fund monies. She wanted to know why there was a decrease.
Ms. Adamczyk said it was general fund and there was a decrease in salaries.
Councilmember Clark asked why rollups in Neighborhood Services were down by
$47,000.
Ms. Adamczyk said that amount was because $10,000 was a one-time supplemental
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City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes - Final April 24, 2017
and included the half-time position from the Mayor's Office, both of which were one-year
items.
Councilmember Clark asked if they would be filing grant applications for YWCA senior
congregate meals, rental assistance, neighborhood preservation, emergency home repair,
CASS, and YWCA home -delivered meals.
Ms. Adamczyk said those programs funded in 2016 were the result of non-profit agencies
and organizations who submitted applications.
Councilmember Clark wanted to know the level of programming that was available at each
of the three libraries.
Ms. Adamczyk said staff could provide a list of that programming. The two part-time
positions were converted to full-time positions and, as a result, the library was able to add
15 new programs at Velma Teague alone.
Councilmember Clark asked if programming for each library could be listed so residents
were aware of what was available at each library.
Councilmember Aldama asked what the residents who lived in Catlin Court expected from
the improvement project that was started with CDBG funds over the next several years.
Ms. Eirich-Palmisano said East Catlin Court was established about 6 years ago by
Community Partnership when grants were available for neighborhood improvements and
were supplemented with CDBG. Phase 1, State Street and Gardenia were completed,
and Phase 2 was completed last fall. She said Neighborhood Partnership no longer
existed and the funds were no longer allocated.
Ms. Adamczyk said that concluded her presentation.
Mr. Brown said the Human Resources Department received one position in FY 17, the
wellness program manager. The department had also received funds for the Judicial
Selection Advisory Board, as well as funds for diversity programs. The diversity funds
helped form the Glendale Hispanic Network, the MLK celebration, Cesar Chavez
celebration and Women's History Month celebration.
Mr. Brown said the supplemental request for FY18 included moving an HR technician
from the general fund to the Workers' Compensation Trust Fund, which would result in a
reduction in the general fund of approximately $23,500.
Councilmember Aldama asked if the CDL medical evaluations were a cost to the City or a
cost to the employee.
Mr. Brown said the cost was borne by the City.
Councilmember Aldama asked where that cost was in the budget.
Mr. Brown said the funding showed up in the individual department budgets that had the
CDL positions.
Councilmember Aldama asked if that information could be sent to the rest of the Council.
He also asked if that cost could be paid by the employee through their medical
insurance.
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Ms. Shoemake said the CDL medical program was run by the City's outside medical
clinic that specialized in occupational health. Employees who were required to have a
CDL for their job, were sent to the clinic for testing. She explained it was part of the
contract with the occupational health provider and was outside of the health care benefits
provided to employees. The cost to the City was cheaper than a co -pay an employee
might make.
Councilmember Aldama confirmed that the testing costs less and was not part of the
medical benefits premiums paid by employees.
Ms. Shoemake said it was part of the testing done to keep employees in compliance with
the federal law for their CDL. It was not a benefit through their medical insurance. It was
paid for and provided by the workers' compensation program to keep the certifications in
place.
Councilmember Aldama asked to see the costs for the program.
Ms. Shoemake said she would provide the information.
Councilmember Clark had asked Mr. Brown to track the cost of positions during the fiscal
year. She wanted to know the cost of the position reclassifications and new position.
Mr. Brown said he would make sure Council received the update.
Councilmember Clark said over the last two years, the HR budget had seen a 10.72%
increase.
Councilmember Turner asked what the increase in employee relations was for.
Ms. Rios explained anything in the A-6000 section were funds that were salary related
and the A-7500 portion would be related to the premiums that were discussed earlier.
Mr. Brown said the department had not asked for any increases at all from an operational
standpoint, so any increases would have come from salary or liability insurance
premiums.
Councilmember Tolmachoff was having trouble matching up the salaries in this years'
budget to last year and asked if the difference in the budget was salaries.
Mr. Brown said those were position reclassifications and there was information showing
what the positions were and what they were now, which he could provide to Council.
Councilmember Tolmachoff asked if the information could be broken down so it could be
aligned with what was listed in the budget books.
Mr. Brown said he would work with Ms. Rios to do that
CITY MANAGER'S REPORT
Mr. Phelps had no report.
CITY ATTORNEY'S REPORT
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City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes - Final April 24, 2017
Mr. Bailey had no report.
COUNCIL ITEMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST
ADJOURNMENT
Councilmember Aldama asked when the budget book on the website would be updated to
match the budget book provided to Council.
Ms. Rios said the budget book was prepared at the end of the budget process. The book
posted on the website contained a number of items which would not be completely ready
until the final budget was adopted. That book would not be ready to be posted until Fall
2017. She explained the book provided to the Councilmembers was posted online and
was available on the front page of the budget department's webpage.
City Council adjourned at 3:03 p.m.
I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct
copy of the minutes of the meeting of the Glendale City Council
of Glendale, Arizona, held on the 24th day of April, 2017. 1
further certify that the meeting was duly called and held and
that a quorum was present.
Dated this day of V u L 7 2017.
J
Juliee., Bower, MMC, City Clerk
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