7:40 pm:
Call to order of the Committee-of-the-Whole (CotW) by Co-Chair Thom Stark.
All present introduced themselves, and identified their favorite book.
No one responded positively to request for a meeting scribe.
Thom announced his creation of a web Site for the Committee-of-the-Whole. It is available through a link on the City's web site. He also passed out a Draft Mission Statement for the CotW. The agreed upon statement will be posted on the web site. Discussion and approval of a CotW mission statement will be included in the agenda of a future meeting.
Thom requested a short item on reporting chain of command be added to tonight's agenda. It was added to the revised agenda for this meeting and the agenda was approved.
7:50pm (about):
Agenda Item 1
Financial Review Team status report was given by Steve Magyary. He reported on the FRT's discussion of, and actions taken on, the Budget Review Subcommittee recommendations that were informally presented to the City Council at the Budget Study Session on 6/1/98.
Item 1: The FRT accepted the BRS recommendation that City Council review budget versus actual Expenditures and Revenues more frequently, and recommends it to the CotW.
Discussion:
Peter L. stated that a better IS would make enable this to happen routinely.
George A. commented that over estimating expenditures and underestimating revenues was not a "conservative method" of budgeting. He suggested that studying the historical actuals and increasing them by accepted inflation factors and adding in reasonable amounts for contingencies would be a conservative method.
We had a general discussion on how frequent the reviews should be, quarterly to monthly. The efforts to support the more frequent reviews and the City's ability to do it were included.
Sewel G. commented that if the reviews were to be done monthly, a new IS system may be required and suggested a permanent Financial Review Commission be established by the City. This commission would be made up of qualified experts with financial experience and function much like the Park and Rec Commission.
Janet A. stated she doesn't have enough information yet to decide how frequent the reviews should be, but again advised that her experience with non-profit organizations has shown that monthly reviews of financial statements that compare ongoing Budget versus Actual figures are a powerful tool for management.
Steve M. added that another important reason to try this is the critical need to improve the City's credibility in the area of finance. Identifying any potential deficit as accurately as possible is essential to gain public understanding and support for action to eliminate it.
A general consensus was formed in support of more frequent reviews.
Item 2: The FRT accepted the BRS comments on the inconsistency between numbers on pps 115 and 116 of the Budget. Steve mentioned that the City has agreed and is correcting the numbers, so no further CotW action is recommended. However, Steve did note that this error may be symptomatic of inadequacies in the City's system. In "cost "roll up" systems like the City is using, any correction made in one place should flow through out the system and be made wherever that number appears. If the City's program does not do this, this is another reason to upgrade.
Discussion: None
Item 3: The FRT accepted the BRS comments on the City decision to join a risk sharing pool to better manage Workmen's Compensation costs and passes them on to the CotW for review. Steve referred to Jay Corey's comments in his memo to the Mayor and City Council dated June 8, 1998.
Discussion:
George A. commented that apparently the stated reason for the change (to save money) wasn't the real reason; the real reason being better risk management.
Janet A. asked, "Is the reason the current figures are so high that something has changed, or was what was originally said wrong?"
Grant R. said we should compare our figures with other cities and asked why we are in such a high cost status.
While the FRT will try to answer these questions, no consensus of other actions developed.
Item 4: The FRT accepted the BRS comments supporting the City's new method of allocating capital expenditures across the life of the item being procured and passes them on to the CotW for review and discussion. Steve identified the important question is, "Are there items in the current budget that could be capitalized in FY97-98? There is a $900,000 balance in this fund."
Discussion:
Jay indicated there were some candidate items, but they are competing with the items in the proposed budget and future needs. He will take a look and let us know.
Linda B. interjected that she would again contact the Cities she has contacted on another subject to see what financial software they are using to prepare their budgets and manage their finances.
No consensus on additional action in the area of allocation of capital expenditures developed.
Item 5: The FRT accepted the BRS position that the City's Budget can be presented in a more understandable format and passes it on to the CotW with the following example recommendations:
Peter L. supported the thrust of this recommendation, but said what was really important to him was getting the answer to his requests for detailed cost s of the Agency for the last two years. He has asked , but not received.
Grant R. said we, as El Cerrito residents, should be able to get detailed information routinely.
Thom asked for a motion to pass the FRT recommendations on to the City Council.
Anne D. responded that she thought Item 5 is OK as an interim recommendation, but she didn't see sufficient agreement on an increased frequency to support action on Item 1.
Linda B. said general statements would be OK now, but don't close out continuing actions of the BRS.
Grant R. suggested an interim report that recommended more frequent budget reviews and improved budget presentation.
Janet A. supported more generalized recommendations.
Brad C. agreed with Janet and added that a more comprehensive report is needed.
Sewel G. stated that part of what we are doing is PR and that general statements don't support that effort. He agreed that we are not ready to get specific.
Peter L. said that expenses come in steady stream and need to be tracked while revenues tend to come in chunks We need more discussion on how to monitor this.
Anne D. suggested as an alternative to a motion that we ask Gary P., who was at the meeting, to advise the City Council of what we talked about.
Al M. said he thought it better for the CotW to report directly to the Council.
Thom again asked for a motion.
Grant R. moved that this committee adopt Items 1 through 4 of the Financial Review Team Report as interim recommendations of the Committee-of-the-Whole, and particularly
a. That Council begin conducting quarterly budget reviews and consider conducting monthly or bimonthly reviews, if possible, and
b. That the details of implementing more and better itemization in the budget, per Budget Review Subcommittee Comment 2, Bullet point 4, should be worked out in negotiations between Staff and the FRT and CotW.
Linda B. seconded the motion and it passed with 14 ayes, 1 nay, and 1 abstention.
9:05 pm (about): Agenda Item 2
Chief Cutright passed out two documents; a salmon covered set of the overhead transparencies of his presentation and a memo to the CotW dated 6/10/98. He said he was prepared to go through the presentation. He also said that, if we preferred to study this material and generate any questions, he was willing to return at a future date to answer them. In this case, he was willing to answer any questions we may have now.
After a brief discussion we decided to read the material and generate any questions we might have. Anne D. volunteered to compile these questions and get them to Chief Cutright so he could prepare the answers. He will try to be available at our meeting scheduled for July 7th.
ACTION ITEM for all committee members. Read the material provide by Chief Cutright and get any questions you have to Anne D. in writing no later than our next meeting on June 23rd.
We then had a general question and answer session with Chief Cutright.
Linda B. asked for a comparison with similar cities of the ratio of overtime to budget salary.
Chief Cutright said he would try to develop such a ratio. Comparison will be difficult since their are not many, if any comparable cities that have their own Fire Dept. He also discussed the balance between use of overtime and increasing the number of firefighters to reduce the need for overtime. Because all of the expenses of benefits and training and equipment, this is not a simple question. Chief Cutright will provide current overtime dollar amounts.
Janet A., in regards to Emergency Medical Response (EMR) and our being a small city with an aging population, asked if there are situations in which we did not have adequate EMRs?
Chief Cutright said yes even though we exceed our goal of a 6 minute response 90% of the time. He also said we, in El Cerrito, were in a very favorable position wit respect to ambulance response time. In EC it is 9-12 minutes, while in Kensington it is 15-20.
Peter L. stated that the Fire Department is one of the city departments we are quite happy with, but he is concerned with the cut back in funds for the Hillside Natural Area. He asked what dollar amount is needed.
Chief Cutright said not very much. For about $12,500 per year he can hire a contractor qualified to do the specialized cutting and clearing work needed to maintain the safety levels achieved through the $90K citizens donations of recent years.
Don W. asked about the 9% increase in wage costs over last year. since the CPI is nowhere near that high, why such a large increase?
Chief Cutright said some unfilled positions for portions of last year gave lower than normal costs. He also mentioned that the department had been utilizing "acting" assignments rather than promoting people to fill the authorized positions. This year he will be filling the vacant spots and promoting from within the department to full strength. That, and negotiated wage increases accounts for the 9% increase.
Steve M. asked if we can tell if the users of the Medical Emergency Response services are multiple repeaters of all different individuals.
Chief Cutright said that we have a few addresses to which they respond more often than others, such as Shields and The Royale, but he does not believe we have many multiple users, if any.
Al M. asked if performance bench marking was used in the fire protection/safety industry.
Chief Cutright said that this method was being talked about more and more, but that it is very difficult to identify meaningful categories and realistic measurements.
Grant R. spoke to the chart on page 12 of the salmon covered handout. this chart plots the number of Emergency Responses per year in the categories of Fires, Medicals, and Others. He noted that the Fires category has decreased since 1989 and that the Medicals has increased gradually since 1990. However the category Others shows a significant increase since 1992. Why is that?
Chief Cutright identified two main reasons. One is the rapidly expanding use of the 911 emergency system by the public and the other is the fact that Others is such a catch all category. As an example, the weather related calls due to the increased flooding in recent years and the increased number of wires blown down all get put in this category.
9:50pm (about)
Thom S. addressed the CotW on the importance of communicating with the City Council through "our chain of command." While acknowledging the good job Budget Review Subcommittee did, he emphasized that their report should have come to the CotW through the FRT. This would give the CotW the opportunity to discuss it and decide how to proceed. He asked for a motion to document this policy.
Linda B. moved to require that all future communications with the City Council be approved by and conducted through the CotW. It was seconded by Steve M. and passed with 13 ayes, 0 nays and 2 abstentions.
10:00 (About) Adjourn.
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