7: 40 pm (about):
Call to order of the Committee-of-the-Whole (CotW) by Co-Chairs.
All present introduced themselves.
General discussion on appropriateness of the "Finalize the Agenda" agenda item, vis-a-vis the Brown Act. Consensus formed to change the agenda item to something like "Add non-action discussion topics."
7:45 pm (about):
Agenda Item 1; Report of Financial Review Team (FRT):
Steve M. announced that the next meeting would be Wednesday, 9/9, at the Fairmont Clubhouse to avoid a conflict with the rescheduled City Council meeting on 9/8.
The FRT has received Howard S.'s report on the agreements between the City and the RDA. Copies were distributed.
The Budget Review & Comparison subcommittee continues its work and will include a review of city employee benefits as part of the salary review. This is considered necessary to understand the ramifications of the City Council policies concerning the Andersen Report and staff compensation.
As part of this review, Steve M. will invite the City Manager to address the FRT on city salary structure and benefits package.
Steve M. reported that the FRT's efforts are still being slowed by city staff inability to develop final budget figures for last year's budget. He is also still waiting for the export file of all account numbers from 1992 on. If Council wants feedback from us , they will have to decide on the priority for staff efforts.
Steve M. has discussed the RDA loan repayment options developed by the FRT with Elisa T. She made several good suggestions to make them more realistic. The FRT plan is to continue to refine the numbers, e.g., what T.I.R. growth rate is most realistic, and then check them with Elisa T. We would then ask Elisa T. and Gary P. for the City's figures. The FRT also plans to run the numbers using real world interest rate to see what effect they have on the loan repayment.
After Steve's report, following on the discussion from last meeting, George A. made a motion that it was the sense of the CotW that the repayment of $605, 000 go to the undesignated reserve. It was seconded by Steve M.
Under discussion it was emphasized that the intent of this motion was to focus on he main area of agreement between the previous two motions, rather than the differences.
The motion passed with 15 ayes - 0 nays - 0 abstentions.
8:10 pm (about):
Agenda Item 2; Presentation of the Community Development Department; Maintenance and Engineering Activities
Mori Struve, Maintenance & Engineering Services Manager for El Cerrito opened his remarks by saying that he would talk on three items and then answer questions, The three topics were Maintenance & Engineering Budget Review; Maintenance & Engineering Programs; and Needs of Maintenance & Engineering.
Maintenance & Engineering Budget Review:
He pointed out that for 1998-99, the total Operating Budget for Maintenance & Engineering (M&E) was $1,583,321. Of this total, 46% came from our Lighting and Landscaping Assessment(L&L), 29% from state gasoline taxes; 13% from the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Program (funded by a county wide Storm Drain Utility Assessment, the level of which is set by City Council); 10% from our General Fund, and 2% from miscellaneous sources.
Of these, the funds from the L&L, Gas Taxes, and the NPDES Program must be spent for specific purposes as set by law.
The Storm Drain Utility Assessment is based on "equivalent runoff units" or ERU's. each single family residence is assigned 1 ERU; commercial sites are assigned more depending on property size and type of covering, if any on the property. A charge of about $26.50 per year per ERU appears on our property tax rolls. These funds are primarily used for the expanded street sweeping mandated by our NPDES discharge permit.
Steve M. requested a detailed listing of how the L&L $ are spent.
Mori then presented the M&M Capital Budget which totals $210,000 for 1998-99. This effort is funded entirely by Measure C funds which must be spent for projects within the Public Right-of-Way. To qualify and receive these funds, El Cerrito must take an active part in regional transportation planning, which the City does.
Thom S. asked how much street repair does $210K get us? the answer was less than a mile per year and El Cerrito has 67 mile of streets within its boundaries.
As part of this report, Mori discussed the recent Storm Drain Reconstruction Program (Measure J) as an example of an very successful way to deal with specific capital problems in the city. In this program the total of about $6/3 million was split, with about $2M spent for Engineering Services and the remaining $4.3 M for construction. In 1994-95, the year before the Storm Drain Reconstruction Program, he City had about $60K in storm damage claims. In 1997-98, after most of the program has been completed, the damage was $5K.
Maintenance & Engineering Program Review:
Mori passed out Handout #1 which shows that he serves in the following capacities for El Cerrito.
City wide street sweeping is now mandated by the conditions of our NPDES Permit and will be funded by Federal money. Commercial areas will be swept several times per week, arterials once per week and neighborhood streets once per month.
Street Tree Trimming has been all but eliminated. In 1994 City did about 300 requests. Now the City is divided into about 6 areas, and we budget for 1 or 2 areas to be trimmed per year. in recent years under this plan, we made it through an entire cycle; but now the budget has been cut so much, we can only respond to emergency trimming requests. The City has about 4,000 trees and now budgets funs to trim about 100 of them. Last year the budget included $60-80K, this year only $20K.
City Maintenance Crews serve as first strike team for temporary patching and repair. City tries to do 6 to 8 "lists" of asphalt repairs per year. Crew does small jobs and graffiti removal; we contract out the large projects.
Mori is not an engineer. City has part time contract civil engineer and Mori uses engineering consultants as needed.
Questions:
Steve M. Referring to your Budget Expenditure Preparation Worksheet, Line Item 5100-000. This shows no increase in personnel. Why are personnel costs going up so much slower than other divisions. Mori will provide answers.
Referring to Line Item 5210-685; What are these costs for? They are the amounts paid each year to PG&E to maintain the street lights mounted on wooden poles throughout the City. They are owned by PG&E. Why so much change in the level over the years in Line Item 5252-000? Answer: through Budget actions, the contract levels are cut as needed to match funds available.
Line Item 5247-000 shows the Measure C funds.
Mori then briefly went over the reports on "Pavement Management" and "Park Grounds Maintenance /Rehabilitation and Restoration Needs" that were distributed at our last meeting.
Streets:
Steve M. asked how confident Mori was with the "cost to repair streets" figure. Mori is very confident since he uses a public domain software program to estimate the needs based on an independent assessment of the condition of our streets. Mori will provide Steve M. with a copy of his streets study.
Don W. asked about the graphs on P2 & P3 of the Pavement report. Mori provided clarification of the horizontal scale (each sawtooth on he graph on P3 represents about 14 years.
Steve M. asked how time sensitive the street program is; forexample, what if we used a 7 year cycle instead of a 5 year cycle? Mori said that there is some flexibility and that that change could be made and still meet the needs of getting streets to condition that Measure C funds can hold the line.
Parks:
He has worked with the Park and Rec Commission to improve maintenance items ands volunteer programs. Major needs of Parks are turf reconstruction and sprinkler system replacement (this does not consider facility needs).
The estimates are "order-of-magnitude", and accurate costs may take several thousand dollars to determine them. Thom S. asked Mori for detailed cost estimate of what it would take to develop accurate cost estimate for capital repairs.
Mori completed his presentation by reviewing the major needs in his areas of responsibility. they are:
Anne D. asked who owned the land where the Bart tracks turn into San Pablo avenue and heads into Richmond. Mori will Find out.
Meeting was adjourned at about 10:03 PM
Note; All of the Handouts mentioned will be attached to the hard copy version of the Final Minutes of this meeting when they are distributed. They were also passed out at the 8/18 meeting and are available from Gerry Raycraft at the City Administrative Office.
List of Attendees signed in at 9/1 meeting of the Services for the 21st Century Committee-of-the-Whole:
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