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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/10/2011 Work SessionCity of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2011 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, October 10, 2011 at 5:31 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors Pishioneri, VanGordon, Wylie, Moore, Ralston and Woodrow. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Attorney Mary Bridget Smith, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. 1. Library Board Applicant Review. Library Director Rob Everett presented the staff report on this item. In order to fill two new Council authorized board positions, the Library Advisory Board posted those positions during the months of August & September. They interviewed 5 of 6 applicants (Ms. Wittorff did not interview) at their October 4ffi meeting and wished to recommend the two successful candidates. Janice Friend was a six-year resident, small business owner (Friend Court Reporting and Real Time Captioning), and avid library user. She was interested in helping the Library make the most effective use of new technologies while retaining its family friendly emphasis on community and literacy. Barbara Stramler was a six year resident who had been an active volunteer at her children's schools (Thurston High School, Briggs Middle School, Page Elementary). She was also active in the local Camp Fire Girls organization. She and her children were regular visitors to the Library and one of her priorities was to retain and, some day, expand, current library operating hours and services. The Board recommended that Ms. Friend & Ms. Stramler be appointed to the Board during the October 17, 2011 regular meeting... They would both serve 4-year terms running.from January 2012 until December 31, 2015. Mr. Everett said it was a strong group of applicants. He would be contacting the unsuccessful applicants to offer them other opportunities to engage with the Library. Councilor Moore said she was very impressed with the applicants.. She remembered Ms. Stramler and had encouraged her to apply. Mr. Everett said both had experience in east Springfield, which was something the Board was looking to find. Council was fine appointing the two applicants to the Library Board during the October, 17 regular meeting. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 2 2. Periodic Update on Fire Merger Proposal. Fire Chief Randall Groves presented the staff report on this item. Since July 1, 2010, Springfield and Eugene Fire Departments had been operating under an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the two cities to share the services of certain key administrative positions in both departments. The primary benefit of a functional consolidation was that it permitted both cities to share savings resulting from eliminating redundant resources and taking advantage of existing vacancies of key personnel. Meanwhile, service levels were being maintained or improved as a result of joint efficiencies. In FYI 1, savings of $606,999 were realized due to the functional consolidation, with Springfield's share estimated at $286,952. Projected personnel- savings for the City of Springfield for FY12 was $413,608, with a combined savings of $876,239 for the two cities. An incremental approach to the merger permitted the- appointed and elected officials of both cities to evaluate the feasibility of continued efforts based on progress reports, prior to the decision to proceed with a full merger. Chief Groves referred to the Council Briefing Memorandum that was included in the agenda packet and some of the steps taken to date. The biggest challenge continued to be having two separate organizations and people with dual roles going back and forth between the cities. They had continued on and done some good work. In the last few months, staff from the Information Technology (IT), Human Resources (HR) and Finance Departments from both cities had been meeting to discuss how they could share functions between the two cities. Councilor Pishioneri spoke regarding the IT functions and asked if they had looked at whether or not Eugene pulling out of the AIRS program would affect integrating with Springfield. Mr. Grimaldi said there had been a lot of discussion about the AIRS program. AIRS was the regional criminal justice information system, but also included fire and life safety and their functions. The CEO's of City of Eugene, City of Springfield, and Lane County had come to the conclusion that AIRS did not work well, and they wanted to move to something different. They were looking at making that move to something different, most likely a package that would be purchased. Eugene was ahead in regard to making that move, but was willing to slow down to allow Springfield and Lane County to get to the same point. All three jurisdictions would be making decisions together regarding the software package chosen. There were a lot of details to work through. Chief Groves said both IT Directors had commented that the cloud platform could potentially have some solutions for interoperability. They were asking the experts what they saw for the future and how best to link the fire department into that system. Councilor Ralston said they had spent about ten years going to AIRS system. He asked if Police would stay on AIRS. No. Mr. Grimaldi said eventually they would transition to something that was not AIRS. Chief Groves said fire was a very small piece of AIRS. He noted systems currently used. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 3 Mayor Lundberg said discussion about the time and money spent on the AIRS system should be discussed during the budget process. They needed to ].earn from what had happened. Clarification during the budget discussions would be helpful. . Chief Groves said staff would continue to evaluate the costs of the merged IAFF contract through the rest of FYI 2. Part of that was costing out each of the pieces. The cost of the two contracts adjusted for size was not dramatically different, but both cities had incented in different directions. They understood, as did the firefighters, that they would not be coming out of this with the best of both contracts. They would talk about how they could bring the contracts together, the dollar caps and how they could contain costs. They would continue with the process as long as it made sense and could provide better service to the public for the same or less cost. They hoped at some point they could get everyone, with the exception of the firefighters in the station, under one roof. This wouldn't happen until and if the two departments merged. Trying to-maintain two work sites added redundancy that didn't need to be there. Eugene was out for requests for proposals for a records management systems, and was looking to find a common program that would benefit the two organizations whether they remained separate or merged into one. The joint apparatus committee was working to prepare joint specifications. Eugene was preparing to. go out for a new engine that would be identical to the three Springfield engines recently purchased. They were also looking to bring the Eugene side's color scheme in line with Springfield's. A joint emergency medical services (EMS) committee would be formed that would be charged with standardizing all medical supplies for further cost savings. An item coming to Council on October 17 was for a contract for EMS supplies at a considerable savings. Chief Groves said the policy decisions would go through the following steps: Step 1: Evaluate the feasibility of a merged IAFF contract. If feasible, continue to Step 2 If not feasible, stop and develop strategy to separate. Step 2: Evaluate likely comparables for IAFF merged contract If feasible, continue to Step 3 If not feasible, stop and develop strategy to separate. Step 3: Obtain a merged contract for represented general service employees currently represented by AFSCME (Eugene) and SEIU (Springfield). Complete Step 3 and continue to Step 4. Processes exist to accomplish step. A relatively small number of employees are affected. Step 4: Cities evaluate governance models and select preferred model. If cities agree, merge fire service organization under new governance model. If cities cannot agree, stop and develop strategy.to separate. Chief Groves said Eugene would receive an update on the merger in November. Councilor Wylie asked about unanticipated difficulties regarding shared services. Chief Groves said there had been challenges moving between two facilities. When he and Chief Murphy first started discussing merging departments, they knew it would be awkward during the interim period. Having two offices, two sets of staff, and two budget processes was a challenge, but they recognized it was inevitable to move towards a merger. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 4 Councilor. Wylie asked if they would still be moving back and forth between offices if the departments had merged. Chief Groves said they hoped to have one budget process similar to the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC). Councilor Wylie said Chief Groves had. done a great job of being available and she appreciated it. Chief Groves said they considered both cities as one service area and staff had adapted well. Councilor Moore asked if they had sought any citizen input on the possibility of a merger. Chief Groves said they had not held a formal process, but he and other staff had received comments from individuals. A business person at the Springfield State of the City address thanked Chief Groves and the department for trying something different. That type of comment had been a common theme during this time. They were trying to find efficiencies within each City as well. Deputy Chief Mark Walker had talked with a number of community groups and received positive feedback. They had not received any negative feedback, just questions. Mr. Grimaldi said an organized approach to receive.public input was important. He felt that would occur once alternatives had been clearly laid out regarding the governance model. That would allow people to provide input on the governance model. Councilor Moore said once they had the governance models, they would be close to combining. Mr. Grimaldi said they could get input earlier if Council chose. Councilor Moore said she had riot heard anything negative, but wanted to make sure people knew. Chief Groves said many people thought the merger had already happened. He suggested that before going to a public process, they knew if and how the labor contracts would work. Councilor Moore said maybe they could have public involvement after the labor piece, but before the governance. Councilor Ralston said if they merged, they became a bigger organization and he was concerned about different comparables. Springfield had been trying to keep costs down in negotiations. He was concerned we would be compared to very large organizations that would bring comparables out of control. He felt Springfield should keep the comparables how they were. Chief Groves said the comparators used for Eugene were Salem, Gresham, Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue (because of Beaverton), and Hillsboro. The cost differential between the two contracts (Eugene and Springfield), wages and deferred comp, was between 1.8-2.3%. Their preliminary costing was still in the single digits. Eugene had higher comparables than Springfield's because of the size, yet there . was still a fairly low costing difference between salary and the deferred comp piece. He also noted that Springfield was in negotiations now and Eugene was not. That would likely narrow.that gap even further. By statute, we could not compare with the City of Portland. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 5 Councilor Pishioneri said he was fine looking at the feasibility with labor, but he wanted to make sure part of the feasibility included what the combined environment would mean for the future. This sounded like a good idea, but he didn't want them to miss something that could affect our savings and efficiencies in the future. It would be hard to go back once they started merging contracts. He was still skeptical because they were starting with something small and creating something big, which could potentially cause big problems. He asked if they.were considering becoming a fire district after the merger, or something more like NIWMC. He noted his concern with MWMC and not having decision making authority for some of the rate increases imposed by them, although he understood some were directly related to Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). If they were looking to become a . separate district, there was competition for tax dollars from our citizens and compression issues. He wanted to look ahead about 15 years. They needed to have long-term planning and thinking. He was opposed to creating another taxing district. Chief Groves said it would be difficult to look out that many years. They were taking.this one step at a time and where it ended up was up to each of the City Councils. If they wanted to become a district, it would take a yes vote from both City Councils, the Lane County Board of Commissioners and the citizens of both cities. If that were to happen, that would be far down the road. They were now looking at how to function better with, one set of oversight and working like one organization. He couldn't project every eventuality. When they started this, the first year projected savings was $552,000, yet they exceeded over $600,000 because of things they had not anticipated that had proved more advantageous. They had tried to be conservative and realistic through this process. There were many stop gap measures. The firefighters felt this was moving slowly. They were continuing to run and handle the business of the organizations as they tried to pull the pieces together into a system that made sense. Councilor Pishioneri said they were doing a tremendous job. Mr. Grimaldi spoke regarding Councilor Pishioneri's concern regarding decision making and MWMC. It sounded like Councilor Pishioneri would look for a different model where the local control would still be present, and decisions would be made as a joint organization, not a pure MWMC model with another governing body making those decisions. Chief Groves said he understood from the Eugene Council that intergovernmental agreements (IGA) could work well for them. They needed to make sure it penciled out before moving to the next step. Councilor Moore said Springfield passed a Fire Operating Levy for one station equivalent. She asked if there was a similar levy in Eugene. If the taxes were spread out over Springfield and Eugene, it could possibly lower the cost per citizen. She asked how they could break out what the Eugene citizens paid compared to Springfield citizens. She would like to know the cost benefit to citizens of both cities. Chief Groves said Eugene had never had an operating levy for fire service, but had some bond measures for buildings. They had about four years left on the last bond. Springfield would not take on that debt. Whatever was being funded would continue under its duration by the appropriate entity. He noted other bonds in the past in Eugene. Mr. Grimaldi said in the future, if there was not a fire district formed and if Springfield wanted to build a fire station, we would build it and fund it using money from our own taxpayers: The same City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 6 would be true in Eugene. The efficiencies would come in on the operating end. They would need to determine how to distribute the savings. Chief Groves said the Eugene assets were in very good shape, well maintained and the infrastructure was top notch. The Fire Departments served more than just the two cities. They had eight contracts with seven fire contract protections districts in the area which brought in a substantial amount of General Fund revenue. He discussed possible efficiencies in maintaining those contracts. Mr. Grimaldi said this was very complex. Councilor Woodrow said she appreciated the step by step process. She felt this was a balance, and we would not be able to pick out every single thing. If the balance was towards the benefit to merge, the little things would be taken care of one at a time. She appreciated the length of time it was taking. She would not be disappointed if we merged or did not, but was currently looking at it from a positive point of view. Chief Groves said he didn't want this at any cost. He thought it made sense, but it needed to keep making sense for it to move forward. Councilor VanGordon asked about the comparables. Chief Groves said it would include all those he had listed except Portland and Clackamas County. Councilor VanGordon asked if when looking at a joint contract with the union, it would be cost- neutral. Chief Groves said thatjwould be his objective, and he had been clear with labor from the beginning. Mr. Grimaldi said that was a good objective, but may not occur.- The labor costs were focused on rate of pay. The other.factors to consider were overtime and staffing and whether the merger increased or decreased those things. They also needed to look at. some of the other things Councilor Pishioneri brought up the other night to determine if the merger opened the door or closed the door on those things. Councilor VanGordon said it would be great if there were no additional costs. He would like to see the potential options for the next five years. They needed to look for hidden costs. He would like that discussion to come back with the value of the firefighters. He was concerned that when the two departments joined, Springfield's share could be larger. Chief Groves said they would need to do the analysis on that. He noted that the reason Clackamas had never been a comparable for Eugene was because it was made up of smaller communities. The reason Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue was included, was because it included Beaverton. If a district was. formed in Eugene/Springfield, Clackamas County would probably be one of our comparables. Councilor VanGordon said he was concerned that if we moved to a power sharing agreement, .Springfield's share could grow to make up the gap. He wanted to cover all of those scenarios. There would be a lot of questions regarding governance model. He was interested in looking now at where staff was housed. If it made sense to move staff to 2nd and Chambers earlier on the schedule, he was fine with that. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 7 Chief Groves said they might have space when the Police moved to their new facility. In the shared model, both cities would share the 2nd and Chambers facility. Councilor VanGordon said the few times he had talked with the public, they thought the two departments had already. merged. Chief Groves said he was clear when talking with people that this was still a process. Over the last few months, both fire unions signed Memorandums of Understanding to allow Deputy Fire Marshal's to be moved back and forth. It took time and working through the model. Fire Marshal Al Gerard was working with staff to find efficiencies. Councilor VanGordon said the savings were two different costs: the first were the fixed costs of hiring; and the second were the efficiencies. He wanted to make sure they saw the savings in future years. Chief Groves provided a recent example of those efficiencies. Both City Managers had signed the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) allowing our Human Resources (HR) Departments to work together on a joint recruitment and selection process for firefighters. That cut the cost for both cities in half, reduced the resources for each department, and also garnered a larger net of applicants. Many of the applicants were looking at what the cities had to offer knowing the merger initiative was going on. Some very well trained people were saving both cities money by sharing the process. That would continue. Councilor Pishioneri said the public did already think this was done, but he didn't think they should have that perspective. They should be aware that collaborative work was being done to produce savings. He noted an advertisement he saw recently for firefighter/paramedics. He still wanted to look at separating firefighters and paramedics, and looking at a volunteer program similar to the one in place at the Santa Clara Fire Department. If it worked for Santa Clara, he would like to see if there was a possibility of some savings here. It seemed like they were working towards feasibility, but not those other options. Chief Groves said staff was working on responses for the questions Councilor Pishioneri presented at the last work'session. He hadn't been able to find any examples to date of departments that were the size of Springfield's or larger that took on volunteers. Many were moving away from that due to certification requirements. The largest comparable to Springfield with a volunteer department was Corvallis. They had been in that system for many years. Those volunteers were not used to supplant the career staff, but to augment the staff. There were pros and cons for a volunteer program, and staff was trying to get all the information they could to address his questions. They wanted to make sure they -were looking at things with an open mind. Mr. Grimaldi said some of those conversations could be discussed with the union in terms of possible trade-offs. Mayor Lundberg said Council was willing to move forward with the steps outlined. The steps were very well laid out. This was a huge undertaking, but Council was willing to go forward to the next decision point. She shared some of the same concerns regarding a district. She appreciated all the work that had gone into this process, and all the work that would be done in the future. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes October 10, 2011 Page 8 Chief Groves thanked Council for their support. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:26 p.m. Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa y 1. Christine L. Lundberg Mayor Attest: Amy Sow City Recorder