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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 07.23.2013 CC-WThe City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Tommy Gonzalez, Patty Eason, John Hesser, Troy Hellmann Steve Fought, Jerry Hammerlun, Rachael Jonrowe Staff Present. Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager; Jim Briggs, Assistant City Manager; Wesley Wright, Systems Engineering Directore; Mike Stasny, GISP, Information Manager; Wayne Nero, Police Chief; Michael Seery, Project Manager; Minutes A Workshop overview and discussion regarding the 2013/14 City Manager's Proposed Budget -- Paul Brandenburg, City Manager and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer Hesser, Hellmann absent. With a Powerpoint Presentation, Brandenburg followed up on some of the questions that were brought up at the Workshop the day before, including downtown parking, proposed new positions, Texas Municipal Retirement System and rail. He spoke about downtown parking and said they are prepared to add $400,000 to the budget for parking. He said the construction for the garage would be planned for 2014/2015 and he described the estimated cost. He noted Rundell was contacted by the Appraisal District with new numbers, which improved the proposed tax rate. He described some of the proposed positions as well as a listing of the voter approved debt. He described the next steps of this process and added the vote to set the maximum tax rate is on the regular agenda. Hammerlun and Brandenburg confirmed the recommended tax rate has not changed since the previous presentation. Hammerlun spoke about his interest in the parking garage project being a public/private partnership. He said he appreciates the information on the blackboard connect program as well. He said it is exciting that we are moving toward the notification system that uses current technology. He also asked a few questions about the splash pad and its maintenance. Jonrowe said she thinks each Council member always picks an area to focus on and she added she has found herself thinking about the process. She asked about how the budget process works. Brandenburg reviewed the budget process for the City Council. Jonrowe asked and Brandenburg said there are times when he has the department heads prioritize items they are requesting. He said it may be that things get deferred for a year. He spoke about the process for selecting what is in the budget and what is out. Gonzalez said one of the things that came to mind is the reduction of the M&O budget with an increase of staffing. Brandenburg said the 19 new positions are not all general fund and hinge on some projects in the budget. They spoke about why there are so many new positions being requested for the upcoming budget. Fought said the City needs a garage but it also needs to study this issue. He noted the City needs to go to the neighbors and try to solve the parking problems. He spoke about Williams Drive and said the Council needs to get a handle on how Williams Drive should develop. There was much discussion regarding City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 1 of 4 Pages staffing issues. Eason said she had no questions. Jonrowe said she remembers what it was like to be at the bare minimum budget and see frozen positions. Jonrowe asked about the public outreach programs, including standardizing web applications and making them smart phone friendly. Rundell spoke about how the City is trying to come up with and fine tune a mobile application. Brandenburg added, as part of the blackboard project, it can be expanded to other departments as well. Jonrowe asked about some of the cuts to fire. Brandenburg explained why some of the fire related items were cut. Gonzalez asked about the facility plan and what will be done with the vacated buildings. Brandenburg expanded on this issue for the Council. Mayor asked and Brandenburg reviewed the next steps of this budget process. B Presentation and discussion on Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) -- Wesley Wright, P.E., Systems Engineering Director and Mike Stasny, LISP, Information Manager With a Powerpoint Presentation, Wright gave a brief over of the Enterprise Asset Management (EAP) System and why the city needs it. He said the key is integration and communication between the various software programs throughout the City. He said, essentially, EAP is a holistic view of the City's assets.He said the goal of the system is a decrease in cost and an increase in performance and ability to make better decisions. He reviewed the current assets in each of the utility departments and said there is $86.2 million in Electric, $167.9 million in Water/Wastewater, $143.2 million in Streets and $78.9 million in Facilities. He said that grows every day and continues to grow exponentially. He reviewed the current asset management program and what software the City uses to manage what they have. He reviewed the programs and said SSRI is for GIS and mapping, Incode is the financial customer information system, Milsoft is the electric model, SCADA, AMI/MDMS, OMD and My Permit Now. He said they manage these programs with spreadsheets and institutional knowledge. He reviewed why this process is not the most effective. He spoke about the initial integration phase of the EAM System and how it will be a database that will pull all of the elements of electric, water and wastewater together into one place. He said an RFP was issued late last year and the selection committee narrowed down five submittals to one. He spoke about the winning company. He described the three related agenda items on tonight's agenda and he described those for the Council. He said GUS Board approved this on July 12 and noted, if approved tonight, project kick-off will be in September. Fought said the City needs to keep an eye on the administration overseeing the system. Hammerlun said this is a great summary of the magnitude of the assets the City needs to manage. Jonrowe asked if the company has any statistics on how this can increase the City's efficiency. Wright confirmed that information is available and he described how they will be able to increase the City's efficiency. There was much discussion about the capabilities of the new program. Gonzalez said it seems the staff has a good grasp on previous experience from the companies on cost saves from these type of programs. He said he would like to see those numbers. Peters said there is a work plan step that was put in place early in the project to develop benchmarks for the program. Gonzalez said he would like to establish early measurements of what the goals and expectations will be. Peters said those will be both quantitative and qualitative as well. Hammerlun asked about the redundancies and the backup and how much data entry will be required. Wright said a lot of the data has already been collected and noted it now just needs to be formatted properly. Stasny expanded upon the data entry and data quality issues with the integration of the program. Peters said this will store the data in an industry standard database. He noted, as part of that, the City uses back up processes during the day. There were questions regarding the process for the selection committee. Hesser arrived at the dais -- 4:02PM C Presentation and Update on the Public Safety Operations and Training Complex -- Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager, Wayne Nero, Chief of Police and Michael Seery, Project Manager Brandenburg said he has been working for some time on this complex and there special GGAF meeting last week to go through details and determine a guaranteed maximum price. He said everything is ready to go for Council approval and, if approved, work will begin immediately and the groundbreaking ceremony will occur sometime in mid-August. Ian Reeves, President of Architects Design Group, showed the Council where the City is in terms of the timeline. He provided the Council with a project status update. He said Bartlett Cocke hosted a subcontractor outreach program and workshop and he added it was very successful. He reviewed the project schedule and what has been completed up until today's date. He said, if the Council is so inclined to approve the GMP, a notice to proceed will be issued today. He said the goal is to complete construction by September 2014. He said the total project budget from the bond was a little over $29 million. He reviewed some of the savings that have been incurred since their first presentation. He said they are currently $360,000 under the current budget. He said, on a national basis, the tactical training building is the number one thing they are seeing coming forward all over the country. He said everyone is getting into the reality based training. He showed the Council the current site City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 2 of 4 Pages plan configuration. He spoke about the design considerations and some sustainable design concepts implemented. He showed Council the concept design sketches. He spoke about Public Safety training rooms that can be opened into one room. He showed the Council a mockup of the Emergency Operations Center as well. Nero thanked everyone for their support and said he thinks the City will get a lot for its money. Fought thanked them for this presentation. He said public safety is one of the several touchstones for living in Georgetown. Eason said she is pleased to see the sustainable design and how successful it has been so far. She noted a lot of people back away from those kind of items because of the fear of what it will cost. She said she is thrilled that they have been able to incorporate so much of it into the building and she things it can be an incredible prototype for other cities. Reeves said he would like to issue a publicity announcement showcasing the sustainable development. Gonzalez said he thinks everyone has done a great job to get the City to this point on this project. Gonzalez also compliment the interest rate the City was able to obtain for this project. Jonrowe said she is glad to see the training component where it needs to be. She agreed that the officers need to develop muscle memory through reality training. Hammerlun asked who has control over the contingency funds and what happens to the unused portion. Reeves sad the money belongs to the City and they can use it when and as they see fit. There was some discussion on the current savings and possible savings in the future. There was much discussion. D Discussion to adopt the proposed utility ratemaking methodology as part of the City's Fiscal and Budgetary Policy-- Jim Briggs, General Manager of Utilities and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer With a Powerpoint presentation, Briggs said this ratemaking methodology is something staff has been working on for some time. He said this is an area that bond rating companies evaluate when they are looking at utilities and noted this is something utilities address when they are at the crisis point. He said, fortunately, we are not at a crisis point. He spoke about the recent changes going on with the utility and how it has resulted in a study of the current rates. He continued to describe ratemaking methodology. Dishong provided Council with ratemaking 101. He said rates should be set based on cost of service and noted there are two general categories of costs, fixed costs and variable costs. He described each of those categories for Council. He said the base rate, sometimes called the meter rate, should cover the fixed cost. He described the volumetric rate for the Council. Rundell described the history of ratemaking in Georgetown to the City of Georgetown. She said the City has not changed the base rate on the electric side since the 1970s. She described a recent success story regarding rates to the City Council. Dishong spoke about the GUS ratemaking objectives and said they want to balance the cost of service with conservation goals. He said they want to make sure conservation efforts due not have a negative impact on covering the base rate. He described the elements that are taken into account when determining the rate. He said they are heavily dependent on volumetric use to cover the fixed cost of the utility, which results in a lot of cost under recovery for the lower users. He said the current rate tiers for water are not influencing conservation. He added, if the City did conserve, it would be threatening paying the base cost of the utility. He described some options for a solution to this problem. He showed Council a graph of the water comparison of costs and revenues. He spoke about fixed cost recovery and balance base and variable. He said, in the water world, the first tier use does not drive heavy capital needs for the utility. He spoke about the upper tier usage and said it is that higher use that must fund variable, capital and resource development cost. He said the average summer use for the upper tiers is 20k gallons. He explained the water ratemaking rationale for commercial customers and how it does not make sense to put a rate tier structure in place for those type of customers. He spoke about electric ratemaking and said the electric rate study was completed in 2012. He said the target is the City collects 100% of the fixed cost recovery in the base rate. He said all of the deregulated utilities have their wires charged, set and approved by the PUG. He said this wires charge is their fixed charge. He said the City's fixed charge should be comparable to its competitors. He said the study shows that there was a huge imbalance between mixed and variable costs. He summarized and said the utility ratemaking policy will be included in the fiscal and budgetary policy. He described the actual statement that is proposed to be included in the policy. He spoke about the next steps in the process and said it isto adopt revised financial policy regarding utility ratemaking and to determine revised rates for both Water and Electric. He siad the GUS Board is going to have some workshop over the next few months to discuss this matter in more depth. Fought said, on water, he thinks the approach is fine but he would like to see some accompanying things. He said he would like to make sure we have change the requirements to the degree they exist for water intensive landscaping. He said he thinks we need to open options for drought tolerant landscaping more than we have done in the past. He said we need to open the door for xeriscaping and artificial turf if possible. He spoke about how the City should also lead by example. Dishong said a conservation plan will be coming back to Council for further discussion. Jonrowe asked and Dishong spoke about customer focus groups on this subject and added those have been completed. He said we have used the information from those meetings to come up with a City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 3 of 4 Pages strategy. Gonzalez said his landscape person and his worry is that people are overwatering. He asked how often people check their sprinkler heads. He said he likes the component of finding a way to incentivize conservation and mitigate water usage. Meeting recessed to Executive Session under Sections 551.071, 551.074 and 551.087 of the Local Government Code -- 5:07 PM Meeting returned to Open Session and adjourned -- 6:06 PM Approv ayor Georgf Garver City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 4 of 4 Pages Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 06:06 PM. A s. , oj�) Ci S cretary Jes ica Brettle