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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 04.13.2009 CC-WMinutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Monday, April 13, 2009 The 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: Keith Brainard, Dale Ross, Gabe Sansing, Ben Mayor George Garver, Bill Sattler, Patty Eason Oliver, Pat Berryman Staff Present: Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Patricia E. Carls, City Attorney; Jessica Hamilton, City Secretary; David Morgan, Police Chief; Micki Rundell, Director of Finance and Administration; Patrick Hurley, Public Safety Technical Services; Lorie Lankford; Keith Hutchinson, Public Information Officer; Lisa Haines; Clay Shell, Assistant Fire Chief; Jim Briggs, Assistant City Manager for Utility Operations Minutes Policy Development/Review Workshop - Call to order at 04:05 PM A Graffiti Ordinance and Initiative -- David Morgan, Police Chief With a Powerpoint Presentation, Morgan said the police department would like to take a proactive approach to graffiti. He said, as the City and population has grown and there has been an increase in graffiti. He showed Council examples of graffiti around the City. He noted nowhere in the City is immune from this problem. He showed Council a graph of graffiti reports as well as the cost of graffiti clean-up and removal. He said staff is implementing an initiative to combat this problem, and added the first step is creating an Ordinance. He listed the many aspects of the Ordinance including making parents and guardians' accountable, mandating time limits on removal of graffiti and addressing who will pay for the removal. He said the owner would have 10 days to remove graffiti once it has occurred on the property. He said the City can pay for abatement for those who are financially and physically distressed. He said staff is looking for a coordinated response between the police department and code enforcement. He said the police department has developed a telephone and e-mail "tip line" to identify suspects and gain possible tips. He noted the line will be monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He said the police department hopes to do a public education campaign for the program. He said, in order for the program to be successful, the City needs involvement from many entities around the area. He said the Ordinance will help The neighborhoods retain value and provide monetary savings for the citizens of the community. Sansing said most people associate graffiti with gang activity and asked what the City is doing to get to the root of the problem. Morgan said the goal is for this program to identify core groups and to find out whether or not Georgetown has a gang problem. He said there is an uptick of gang activity at the school district and the school resource officers are the first line of defense in that regard. Sansing said the funeral home his company is working on has been tagged and broken into at least once. He spoke of other break-ins around the City. Sansing said the City needs to get a grip on this problem. Brandenburg said this program will give the police department another tool to crack down on this problem and added the department has a zero tolerance policy. He noted there is an uptick in crime because of the increase in population in the community. Brainard asked and Morgan said this Ordinance would require landowners to clean up the graffiti in their own area Brainard asked and Morgan said the cost of this would be covered by the abatement process. Berryman asked and Morgan reviewed the timeline of this Ordinance. City Council Meeting Minutes/April 13, 2009 Page 1 of 3 Pages B Presentation and possible direction to staff regarding acquiring and implementing a new Customer Aided Dispatch and Records Management System for Public Safety to replace the current systems, which are outdated and are becoming unreliable -- Patrick Hurley, Public Safety Technical Services; David Morgan, Police Chief; Micki Rundell, Director of Finance and Administration Hurley said this is a project that staff has been working on for the past year. He said the current system was purchased in 1997 and he spoke of the company the City is currently using for this service. He gave a brief overview and history of the program. He said the initial software cost about $250,000 for the CAD and Police RMS. He said the new project will replace both the police and fire RMS systems. He said the company has had difficulty keeping up over the past years with supporting and developing new products He reviewed the many issues the City has been having with the system over the past few years He said the current program is proprietary- based and its interface does not work well with the Citys GIS system. He noted the current geobase is outdated and leaves room for errors. He said some of the other inefficiencies deal primarily with interfaces between other third party systems. He said there has historically been problems between the existing CAD and the Fire EMS interface. He noted there is no way to run queries from the field. He said any type of check has to be done over the radio and added there is constant interruption of service. He said there continues to be issues with reporting and analysis capabilities. He said there is often errors when reports and data are sent to the State. He said the system has reached the end of its life cycle. Hurley spoke about the evaluation of possible new systems. He said staff took into consideration the growth of the community and understands the need for inter -operability with surrounding communities. He said the goal is to find a program which continues to efficiently manage public safety functions in a growing community. Sansing asked and Hurley said the goal is to link to surrounding entities. Hurley added a lot of it depends on the agencies and what kind of systems they have. He said this system is very capable of sharing with other agencies and noted this is the same software the City of Round Rock is using. Sansing asked and Hurley said the County is not far along in the process as the City. Sansing said he wonders if it is worth it to wait until the County is ready. Brandenburg said, hopefully, the County would get a system that would be compatible with Georgetown and Round Rock. Hurley said that, one of the County's requirements, if their system has to be compatible with Georgetown and Round Rock. Shell said it would be nice if all of the agencies along the interstate could share the same program. Hurley explained the evaluation process and how staff chose the program. He said staff initially looked at existing 9-1-1 vendors, conducted focus groups, addressed business case needs, and then narrowed the list of vendors. He said an RFP was submitted in September and noted the vendors were narrowed to Sungard OSSI and New World. He said, after the site visits and evaluation, Sungard OSSI seemed like the best vendor choice. He noted Round Rock also uses Sungard. He listed the benefits of the new system such as an automatic vehicle locator system (AVL), increased first responder safety, improved response times, "run plan" capabilities, wireless mobile data, integrating with citywide GIS, web interface for public information, and potential CAD link between Georgetown and Round Rock Communication Centers. Ross asked and Hurley confirmed the new system would allow the dispatchers to see who the nearest officer is to a particular area Hurley showed Council a couple of graphs demonstrating how the police and fire calls for service have increased over the last 8 years. Brainard requested to see information on why the increase in calls have occurred and noted it is a very sharp increase: Shell asked and Brainard said he would like the calls to be broken down by year as well as in -city and out of city lists. Hurley said, in conclusion, both CAD/RMS must be replaced. He added reporting and analytical requirements as well as countywide effectiveness will be improved with this new system Berryman asked and Hurley said there is COG money available but it is limited to applications that deal strictly with the 9-1-1 interface. Hurley went over the next steps in the process and he said the project will cost $1 million or less and is planned for 2009/2010 funding. Oliver asked and Hurley said the annual cost depends on the type of service needed, but added with the 24/7 maintenance agreement it is about 18%. Ross said, as staff moves forward, he would like to see the cost of this program projected out to the life of the software. Hurley said the goal is to begin the project by October 1. Brandenburg asked and Hurley said there is a historical tracking capability for vehicles C Workshop presentation and discussion on revisions to the Fiscal and Budgetary Policy for the 2009/10 budget cycle -- Micki Rundell, Director of Finance and Administration Rundell said, as part of this policy, the Council is required to review it on a yearly basis. She said the policy was originally created in 2001 in response to the WTTB ("What it takes to balance") number. Rundell explained the history of scenario "H", which was a three year process to remove WTTB and make the General Fund self-supporting. She said policy compliance says that current revenues must fund on-going expenses. She said the policy also requires 1.5 times coverage for all of the funds that issue debt. Rundell said the purpose of the City Council Meeting Minutes/April 13, 2009 Page 2 of 3 Pages policy is to provide "fiscal discipline." She noted staff links the policy to the City's comprehensive plan and it is prepared and adopted annually as part of the budget She said it assigns control and accountability of the various funds. She added it designates the annual Council discretionary funds which is at$25,000. She noted the policy defines "conservative" revenue projection philosophy. She said the policy talks about administrative allocations which are reviewed annually. She spoke about the administrative allocations. She said there is also return on investment to the General Fund from utilities and its operating revenue. She reviewed the expenditure policies. She said there is a change to the social service and youth program funding section and she listed those changes. Brainard said for the record, in regard to Social Service funding, the City will never be at $5 per capita because the $5 begins growing with the rate of inflation. He said the lowest the City will ever get is within the $6.50 range. Rundell mentioned public art funding and reviewed the changes to that section. She noted unspent funds for public art will be reallocated in the following year and the yearly funds will be determined by the City Manager Sansing said the Chair of the Arts and Culture Board, Charles Aguillon, is thinking of figuring out a way for things to start paying for themselves. Rundell said the policy was sent to the Arts and Culture Board for review and they had a chance to look at it. Rundell mentioned bad debt limitations as well as the purchasing policy and prompt payments to vendors. She said staff also establishes guidelines for managing revenue shortfalls. She noted they also determine the use of contingency reserves. She said any service level reduction has to be approved by the Council. She reviewed the capital improvement program and deferring capital maintenance. She spoke about internal service funds as well as the finance department's external audit. She said the policy also talks about accounting, financial reporting and auditing. She said auditors work for the Council and report directly to the Council. She said there is also asset management and spoke about the investment policy and fixed assets. She said the policy also talks about debt management and said there is a limit on the Citys short-term borrowing. She noted the debt coverage ratio is 1.5 times and spoke about bond reimbursement resolutions. She described the process of issuing bonds. She mentioned other funding alternatives including grants, use of reserve funds, developer contributions, leases, and impact fees. She reviewed financial conditions, reserves and stability ratios. She spoke about the "rainy day" and contingency reserves. She noted the total reserve for the 08-09 budget is $14.5 million. Brainard asked and Rundell said the City pulls CAFR's from the surrounding areas to compare. Brainard said he would like to see how Georgetown compares to surrounding communities with respect to tax collections, particularly on a per capita basis. Brainard said property tax collections is a major source of revenue for the City and he would like to see a lot more of those type of statistics. Sansing asked and Brainard said Round Rock collects two and a half times the amount per capita in sales tax compared to Georgetown. Rundell said it is very difficult to find a nearby City that compares to Georgetown. There was much discussion. Rundell mentioned internal controls and said its written procedures are reviewed annually. She noted an internal audit program is managed by the Finance Department in order to detect potential fraud. Ross said the internal audit program does not have true independence but it is a good first step. Ross asked and Rundell said she would accept advice from the GGAF subcommittee on this issue. There was much discussion about internal auditing. Rundell said the last issue is related to staffing. She mentioned the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) and pay for performance programs. Ross asked and Rundell said about 60% of the employees have received bonuses. Brandenburg said no department has 100% performers. Brainard asked and Rundell said longevity bonuses are not part of the policy. Rundell reviewed the longevity policy for the City. Rundell listed areas for discussion such as finalizing public art funding. She spoke about the next steps in this process. She said, once the policy is approved, those are the guidelines the City will use during the budget process. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 05:10 PM. Approved: Mayor George Garver City Council Meeting Minutes/April 13, 2009 Page 3 of 3 Pages Attest: City Secretary Jessica Hamilton RESOLUTION NO. d 3�D KP—L - A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GEORGETOWN, TEXAS AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN THE ADVANCE FUNDING AGREEMENT WITH THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION RELATED TO THE NORTH AND SOUTH AUSTIN BRIDGES PROJECT. WHEREAS, the Texas Transportation Commission passed Minute Order Number 114335, authorizing the State to undertake and complete a highway improvement generally described as reconstruct the North and South Austin Avenue bridges from 2nd Street to Morrow Street, Georgetown, Texas called the "Project"; and, WHEREAS, for the Project the term reconstruct includes replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, protection, and/or anti-icing/deicing for bridges and tunnels on a public road; and WHEREAS, as part of the administration of the Project, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, by resolution number 2014-11-4, awarded the City of Georgetown a total of $1,299,174 in Surface Transportation Program Metropolitan Mobility (STP -MM) for the Project; and WHEREAS, in order to determine which alternative best serves the interests of the citizens of Georgetown, the City supports a study of alternatives including the following (1) do nothing, (2) alternative alignment, (3) maintenance, (4) rehabilitation/preservation and/or (5) replacement through a public involvement process which is also a requirement of the National Environmentally Policy Act (NEPA); and WHEREAS, the STP -MM award by CANTO, using the term reconstruct, may require the City of Georgetown to submit to CAMPO a Transportation Improvement Project (TIP) amendment in the Spring of 2017 based on the decision resulting from the range of alternatives undertaken by the City of Georgetown; and WHEREAS, TxDOT works with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and other federal agencies to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and uses the TxDOT environmental compliance process for state and local projects, where TxDOT is the state approval authority; WHEREAS, the Advance Funding Agreement between TxDOT and the City allocate funds including a City contribution of $142,000 for the environmental review and is required for TxDOT approval. Resolution No. 03:) a 1 LD Page'l of 2 Date Approved 3 :1 a NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GEORGETOWN TEXAS: SECTION ONE. The facts and recitations contained in the preamble of this resolution are hereby found and declared to be true and correct, and are incorporated by reference herein and expressly made a part hereof, as if copied verbatim. SECTION TWO. The City Council of the City of Georgetown finds it to be in the best interest of the citizens of Georgetown to enter in the Advance Funding Agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation related to the North and South Austin Avenue Bridges Project. SECTION THREE. The Mayor is hereby authorized to sign this Resolution and the Advance Funding Agreement and the City Secretary to attest thereto, on behalf of the City. SECTION FOUR. This Resolution shall become effective on the c)aday of nO-t 2016. PASSED AND APPROVED on the as day of m44 8K , 2016. ATTEST: S Shelley N lin City Secre APPROVED AS TO FORM: 7 Charlie McNabb, City Attorney CITY OF GEORGETOWN, TEXAS By: �Z�— Dale Ross, Mayor Resolution No. Page 2 of 2 Date Approved 3