Meeting of 2006-5-18 Special Meeting

Mitchell distributed two different handouts. The first handout is a summary of the items Councilman Warren listed at the end of Tuesday night’ s meeting. You can see without any revenue enhancement our fund balance drops from 1.8 million to 1.1 million. This is a very healthy list that was provided to us. Attached to this is a spreadsheet of some recommendations I think Councilman Warren would like to visit about at some point during the budget discussions.

Shahan addressed the Mayor, City Manager and Councilmembers. What he would like to do in his presentation is primarily just highlight the items in the packet that relate to different particular areas within the department, and have the opportunity to ask questions maybe concerning some of the particular topics. Then if needed go to the budget book to talk about any particular line item.

Shahan stated first he would like to introduce his staff. This is to update you on size of a department the Parks and Recreation is and who runs what part of the department. First we have sixty-one full time and permanent part-time employees. Then there are forty-two seasonal temporary positions that are utilized throughout the spring and summer and sometimes in the fall months. This all comes from the contract labor section of the department. Gerald Catlett is the Administrator in Parks and Grounds who also is the Parks and Grounds Administrator for the Lakes. Gerald does a great job for us. Richard Bonine is the Leisure Services or Recreation Services Administrator who oversees the sports programs, the recreation centers also is what we call the recreation revenue side of the lakes operations. He works in accordance with the lakes division also. Billie Whipp is the Administrator in Arts and Humanities. She also oversees the McMahon Auditorium. She is the person responsible for the International Festival and also encompasses quite a few authorities and organizations with the civic side of the community as our representative in the arts community. Bruce Alger is the Building Maintenance Supervisor. He oversees the thirty-four active buildings and about one hundred sixteen that are out there somewhere at some different point that we oversees. He oversees his crew and predominately the maintenance side and has taken upon himself to be involved in construction projects within the operation when necessary. Leroy Giles is the Youth Services Coordinator. This position was appointed about fours ago. We are still in the development stages of all the activities related to this. Mike Dudley is the Landscape Maintenance Supervisor in the Athletic Maintenance of Parks and Ground.

Shahan asked to move to the memorandum and letter in reference to the particular areas, these items are items reflecting areas within the preliminary budget that we recognize that are things that need to be brought to your attention. In the Recreation Services Divisions, which is activity 43 and 42 in the budget, the increase of facilities over the last six year creates management responsibilities for assisting the patrons that utilize these facilities. In that time frame what we have been doing through personnel is to utilize the contract labor line items in terms of seasonal positions to work those particular areas and facilities.

Shahan stated as you know in a temporary position you are not able to establish a person that basically can stay with the job task and they are looking primarily on a temporary basis and then they will move. So as we build facilities, and our facilities that have patrons coming to on a regular basis, we are asking that we look into the possibility of increasing either permanent part-time positions to assist in these particular facilities or to make sure we don’ t reduce the contract labor level to where we are unable to open the facilities.

Shahan stated they have what they call the Parks Reservation. This is predominately a park permit to utilize the pavilions throughout the community and in certain parks. As you can see staring in 2001 we had 252 and in 2005 it is up to 345. These are the numbers of requests to utilize those particular pavilions. They are highly used and whether they use them as a family of five people or come with a group of fifty you can imagine the difference of the level of service we must provide from trash and litter and all the things that take place when someone utilizes the pavilions.

Shahan stated there is what is called an Assembly Permit. This permit is primarily used to create a document to communicate to them that there will be more than seventy-five people congregating in a particular location within the community and in most cases those groups that are organizing those events request additional services to accomplish their particular objective of the organization. The numbers related to this particular group in 2003 was 103 and 2005 there is 176. Based on the numbers of how many we have had in the first couple of months this year we will probably exceed 176 this year.

Shahan stated this is the goal. As he is sharing all these things the objective is to provide services that the general population wants to use. This is the objective of Parks and Recreation. What he wants them to see is in the Assembly Permit all that is required to provide the information to them. There are no fees assessed to their request when they make a request to add a trash can, or add any particular item. Shahan makes the judgment of whether these services are provided but there is a cost to it. The cost is primarily in the area of reducing our priority task to accomplish our regular mission of mowing and maintaining existing facilities and it even also moves into the rim of Public Works responsibilities to add other additional services.

Shahan stated in the Lakes Division it is stated there has been a nice amenity that has been provided at the lakes. This is a service you provided through the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife grant plus dollars the City provides to make a more enjoyable facility at School House Slough. In light of this Shahan wanted to provide some information he thinks needs to be considered and looked at in reference to average fees that are charged within the lakes services. This could be through boathouses or RV sites within our particular two lakes. You can see the comparisons and Shahan feels there needs to be some adjustment down the road. This is only for you to consider. In the lakes also there is an RFP out that is in reference to Robinson Landing which impacts the budget to a certain degree if this is approved and there is still pending negotiations in relationship to this.

Shahan stated in reference to Building Maintenance this is something that has come up that we weren’ t aware of prior to the City Manager and the Finance Directors review meetings. These items happened in the last week or so. We were not able to prepare for these. The janitorial services for the fifteen City buildings. There will be in increase in that particular line item that is disbursed over many different activities.

Shahan stated the major one that is related to the Water Treatment Plant is the size and the equipment that is in the building. It changed from twelve pieces to seventy-nine pieces and so the HVAC contract is going to be a little more costly than when the maintenance contract was bid on. These are some things Mr. Mitchell is not aware of because we just got the information.

Mayor Purcell asked in his budget on Activity 47, is he saying all the revenues we collect from boathouses and whatever other revenue we collect that is associated with the lakes is under fees here for $28,000. Is this all we collect in the way of fees at the lakes. I’ m on page 80 of the budget Activity 47 is that correct. It looks like we are spending $557,000 and we are only collecting $28,000 in fees. Mitchell stated we are only charging $200 or $300 a year for boathouses. Mayor Purcell stated that is why he has all these number in here. Theses are the costs for those things and it doesn’ t look like we are charging enough to cover our cost. Is that what you are trying to tell us in that particular area? Shahan stated yes. I don’ t see the information you are relating to. Mayor Purcell stated it is not in the budget it is on the Supplemental Budget on page 80. Maybe this is a question for Endicott instead of you. Those fees of $28,000. Shahan stated in the camping side there are more revenues that are produced than the $28,000. That is not the total dollars. I’ m not sure what the $28,000 is referencing. Endicott stated if you look at page 7 of the Budget or the Supplemental. Endicott stated the Supplemental. This is where most of the fees will be identified. For instance if you go down you will see Lakes – Ski Permits $70,000, Camping Fees. I will have to find out what the $28,000 is in reference to. Mayor Purcell stated he just misunderstood when he saw this.

Shahan stated the other information that he wanted to generalize and bring to their attention is in relationship to Elmer Thomas Park. I have provided you with a site map and plan of the amenities that have been provided and that we are requesting be provided in this particular budget year. I have also provided you with a letter that is interesting to me that already just throughout the region we are starting to receive letters from promoters who are interested in developing events in our park and it isn’ t even completed. I think we are on the right track with some of the things we are attempting to do there to bring not only activity but potential revenue and events that will generate and bring people from coming out of town into our community. So that particular site map is there for you to look at in reference to some of the amenities we feel like we need to be able to have and some projected projects that we feel like down the road will be necessary.

Mitchell asked if Shahan had any particular recommendations as a result of your survey for youth sports. We did mention to the Council that by adding the $18,000 back into the budget for scorekeepers that we would be looking at raising at least that amount of money to offset the cost in the future budget. I’ m looking at your survey and it appears our fees are about four times below what the other communities are charging. Shahan stated this is correct. In the process we obviously haven’ t taken this to the Parks and Recreation Commission to talk about this, but I feel it is apparent that we need to move forward and bring this information to the Council for their consideration to review and see if they had any particular amount. Mitchell asked how much would we have to rise to collect $18,000? Would we have to do a ten percent or fifteen percent or twenty percent increase to cover the cost. Shahan stated twenty percent.

Mayor Purcell asked if his budget included what we did last year to fix the problem with referees. Is it in your budget those cost we added in this years budget. Shahan stated yes. In the first paragraph of the memorandum it states that $187,000 that is the line item that refers to the scorekeepers. What I’ m trying to make sure you see from our side is that as you have added those particular areas to be able to be services you are going to have those services but we might not have the services for the other facilities to manage such as the skate park.

Endicott stated from outside of the referees the Council did in previous action. Those monies aren’ t in the $187,000. I think what he is saying is an additional $13,000 will be needed for the in-line hockey. Mayor Purcell stated he understood that part but this is why I was confused when he on the referee. So the referees are in the $187,000. Shahan stated yes.

Patton stated he thinks what we should is let Kim and Richard work up something as far as a revised fee schedule and I’ m not so sure that we should give you a guideline. I would just say you guys work it out as far what you think it needs to be to recover some of those cost and then float it out there with the Committee. Does this make sense? Warren asked if Patton was including boathouse fees. Mayor Purcell stated and lake fees. Patton stated yes. Probably so, I was just speaking specifically about the little league fees but yes certainly.

Mayor Purcell stated it looks like on some of the numbers, I think what you are trying to tell us is, it is costing us more on some of these site, both RV site and boathouse sites than we are collecting. Is that what the numbers are telling us? Shahan stated what he is trying to bring to our attention is the fact that in the time that I have been here there hasn’ t been a close look at these particular fees in reference to the services provided by the City of Lawton to the youth and the community and we wanted to make sure that in terms of what the services are providing I feel there needs to be an increase in fees for these services. There is no way that the fees are going to pay for the complete program. I don’ t think this was the intention in the beginning but there hasn’ t been a consistent increase in fees over the years. Warren stated he thinks it needs to be more than just a token fee. Mayor Purcell agreed. It goes along with what Patton just said, come back with everything.

Warren stated it will always be our responsibility as a City as a whole to make sure that this happens but I think we need to have more than just that token. Patton stated we should mirror other communities as well as it pertains to the boathouses. I think we should mirror private industry. If we have private concessionaires at X dollars and we are below that I think we are certainly justified on charging what the going rate is. That is truly market value is what a private entity would charge. If on lease concession property for a boathouse if the average is $480 and we are at $310 well then we are below the private sector. I don’ t think we should be giving stuff away. It shouldn’ t be a ridiculous amount but it should certainly mirror what people are getting in the private sector.

Patton stated right. I don’ t want to tie your hands Kim, you and Richard because I know this is going to be a challenging thing. Like anything else people don’ t like change and when you are talking about increasing cost you are going to have a lot of people upset. Givens stated they spent $500,000 on a bathroom at Lake Lawtonka. Patton stated he wants Shahan to have some leeway. You guys deal with those folks and you know what you can get out of them and what you can live with. This is what I would recommend.

Warren stated he had one more questions. When was the last time that we looked at doing janitorial work in-house? Mitchell stated we had a staff discussion about that this week. Warren stated he just wondered because usually there is a tipping point when you are small and you can afford to do it yourself and then when your medium is when you usually try to look at contracting and a lot of time when you get a lot more facilities, which it looks like we are doing, sometimes it is more cost effective to do it yourself. Mitchell stated there are some inherent issues with having your own work crew because then you have to provide supervision. When you have an eight man crew, and I don’ t know what the number would be, what do you do when three of them are on vacation, or somebody calls in sick? This is one of the advantages of having a contract service is that contractor has to provide those services on a regular basis. So do you have three extras to fill in when someone is on vacation? As your benefits and wages rise does it tip back? Does the balance tip back to contract?

Shahan stated looking at the dollars that I showed you, there is $154,000 in operational cost for our janitorial services. We feel like that if we were to take this in-house that it would requires us to have approximately six employees, and then you have your expenses of all the supplies. So you are looking at possibility the same amount or more. Then you are getting into long term employees and services like this. In terms of dollars and cents I feel like that we are doing the proper thing in terms of management of the money.

Patton stated he has seen the increases in these contractual amounts. Do they go out to bid each year or do we have a multi-year. Shahan stated it was multi-year. He believes it is three years. Alger stated it was four years. Patton stated a four year contract and it is adjustable each year. Shahan stated yes they are one year and three extensions. Vincent stated it is not adjustable unless we add facilities. Patton stated okay. Vincent stated if we are doing the same facilities this year as we did last year the price would be the same.

Givens stated he didn’ t have any questions but he has some comments. The first thing he would point out on page 76 of the Supplemental Information even though this is for the museum and the money went through the Chamber the museum was given $75,000 from hotel/motel last year. It went to the Chamber but Council directed the Chamber to pay the museum $20,000 which they did do. I think some how it ought to be reflected there.

Givens stated the Mayor appointed him and others to be on the Oklahoma Centennial Committee for the City of Lawton to decide and plan what Lawton would do with respect to the Centennial. That Committee has been meeting quarterly for the past year and we will continue to do so until sometime in 2007 probably November of 2007. We had been told and I asked the question four times just to be sure I had an accurate answer. I have been told by the Finance Director that there was already approximately $25,000 in an account for Centennial Activities. Mitchell stated this was the 2001 Centennial leftovers. Givens stated Endicott stated this was still there. Our committee felt like that was enough for us to do the Cities project in 2007. But what we wanted to do in addition to that is to allow grants to various groups in town who might want to do a Centennial program of some sort to help them do that. I had requested that we put in the Arts and Humanities Account 231 $10,000 for ten individual $1,000 grants to help various groups to do a Centennial project. The reason we are putting it in this account is because Billie already receives and reviews grants and they have a good process. We thought rather than our committee do this why not just go through her. We need to have this money over there so basically for this year and we might want a little more next year but we don’ t know for sure yet until we see how this does, this will be really the only addition amount we will ask to use for the Centennial for either this year or next year.

Patton asked for an example of what people want to do. Givens stated like St. Mary’ s Catholic Church is 100 years old this year and they are going to do an exhibit on their history. The Little Chapel is going to do something with the churches. It is the oldest building in town. Somebody else maybe will do a recital of some sort. It has to be a Centennial project in order to do it. The State’ s Centennial Committee has said it’ s a Centennial project as long as it occurs in 2007 or before.

Mayor Purcell stated we will get it approved officially to some of those who will be through the State’ s Centennial to get that blessing. Givens stated we have decided basically what we are going to do is the weekend of Lawton’ s birthday, August 7 ^th or 8^th, this year is also the 100^th birthday of the 77^th U.S. Army Band. We are just going to have a big celebration in the park and have free hotdogs and have the band and fireworks. How many saw the fireworks at Cameron we can get a company to do fireworks pretty reasonably actually. We can put all this on for the money we have in the account. We are also going to allow Mattie Beal to put on a program given by the Lawton Heritage Association. That will be taken out of the $25,000 as well. They won’ t go through the grant process. Jim Brock is going to write a play and they are going to have a reenactment of Mattie Beal. This is what we are planning on doing but we need the $10,000 in Account 231 in order to do this.

Endicott stated if this money is placed in a 231 Account are you spending it all in next year’ s money for sure. If it goes into 231 Account and it’ s not spent then we lose it. Given stated no not necessarily. We were doing it because of the way the fiscal year works and the way her grant program works but Billie told me tonight that for the Centennial project she can extend the time. Endicott stated we would probably be better putting it in the Centennial fund. Givens asked if Billie would still be able to administer the money. It would go through her. Endicott stated yes. Mitchell stated we would have to sign off but she could administer. Givens stated he just wanted her to be able to be the administrator on handling the grants. I don’ t care where the money goes just as long as the money is available to her.

Givens stated he has two more things in the Preliminary Budget page 15 for Parks and Grounds under non-funded. I really believe we need to continue with the work we are doing in Elmer Thomas Park. I would like to see us put in the funded the oval concrete slab that will serve in three different ways one being a staging area for a stage for the festivals when we get the festivals to move to the park. The International Festival will move in 2007. Second is an in-line skating area for kids and thirdly it will be the base for ice rink this winter when we move the ice rink out there. I really think we need to do this.

Givens stated those two things are going to be what is needed to get the park in the position that we want it to be in to have events. You would be surprised how many more people are using the park all the time. Getting the new roads and McMahon gave close to $1,000,000 over the past few years just for the roads. This just shows we are trying to do our share.

Shahan stated on the item related to Building Maintenance Division. Mayor Purcell asked if he was talking about the $85,000. Shahan stated yes. On page 89 Account Number 212 Contractual Maintenance shows $160,000 this is the item we see the potential would be a $65,000 increase for the HVAC. Mayor Purcell stated okay. On that line item Account 212 goes from $160,000 to $225,000 is that what you are saying? Shahan stated this is our estimate. Mayor Purcell asked where the other $20,000 goes? Shahan stated it would be in line item 231 Professional Technical Services. Mayor Purcell stated this goes from $44,600 up to $64,600 is that what you are saying. Shahan stated yes.

Patton stated these are things we can’ t do anything about right now. I understand this right as far as the contractual deal. Shahan stated the one item related to contractual maintenance on the HVAC Bruce has brought it to my attention that some of the small buildings have some items that could be removed from the contract. We still feel like because of the large increase with the water treatment plant we are still not sure what the bid will be even if we start reducing some of those services in the smaller buildings. This just came to our attention twenty-four hours ago. Patton stated he would rather pay a little bit for the maintenance than to not have it maintained and buy more in the long run.

Mayor Purcell asked if we could make this one of my infamous IOU’ s. Since we don’ t really know what the number is. We know we are going to have to pay it that is a given but do we need to change the budget at this point and time when we are not sure what that number is. Obviously we are going to have to cover it but we don’ t need to change the budget. If we put $65,000 and they only need $45,000 we have used some money we didn’ t need to. Drewry agreed. Mayor Purcell stated we just need to leave it alone. And we will have it in the record Purcell opened his mouth again and gave another IOU. So we don’ t need to change the budget at this time on those two items until we find out what they really are.

Mayor Purcell asked with the $65,000 we don’ t know if it will be an increase of $65,000 or $70,000 or $50,000 is that correct. Endicott stated the opening will be before the adopting of the budget. Mayor Purcell stated okay. I don’ t have any IOU’ s out now. Shahan stated the bid opening is May 30. Mayor Purcell stated okay so before we vote on the final budget we may have to do a last minute change to place this amount in.

Mayor Purcell asked if there was anything else for Shahan tonight. Mitchell asked Shahan if he introduced him correctly that the International Festival would be held in Elmer Thomas Park next year. Shahan stated in 2007. Mitchell asked about Arts For All. Shahan stated their recommendation would be the spring of 2008. Givens stated they have to vote on it. Mayor Purcell stated he thought they were planning on it. Drewry stated she thought they were planning on next year. Purcell asked if we could get Arts For All there next year. Shahan stated they were going to go for 2008. Drewry stated they did announce that. Purcell and Patton agreed.

Patton asked about increasing the Rolling Stock to $3.00 which is basically doubling it. When did we initially pass the Rolling Stock? Warren stated ten years ago. Patton stated he doesn’ t initially have a problem with raising it but doubling it. Warren stated this was just philosophical, all I wanted people to look at is that we did this ten years ago in the effort to solve a problem with maintenance and equipment. It did a really good job. There was a lot of work that went into this with piles and piles of green sheets with the history of vehicles and so we kind of back into this number. What has happen since then, like everything else, we want to do everything for as cheaply as we possibly can. In ten years that number has never moved up. Essentially what we have done is we have pushed everything off again for ten years when we should have probably been raising Rolling Stock twenty to thirty cents every year. Now we know that. We really didn’ t know that it was going to go up as quickly as it did. Givens stated most of the equipment has doubled that we buy now. Warren stated we are not really making any more money even if we did double it we are only staying even with where we were.

Patton stated he understands this but the only problem he has with it when you do line items like that is we have already put the Waurika surcharge on the bill, which is fine it is like a $1.00. If we keep doing this at some point the people out there are going to say you are going to have to work with what you got. Drewry stated they are also saying you have got to fix the streets. Patton stated he understands this. I know there are a lot of needs but my question is at some point if we follow this line of thought then why don’ t we put an additional dollar for street repairs, an additional dollar for salary, you see what I’ m saying.

Patton stated he understands that but how much money do we generate a year in sales tax and water sales and everything like that. Roughly sixty million. So basically we are a sixty million dollar corporation. My only point is at some point we have to start thinking about this as a business as we generate sixty million dollars in sales and we have to start thinking about how do we fit our needs within that.

Givens asked what is that. A business if they have a product, which we have is water, sewer, trash pick, if their costs go up they raise the price of their product. Patton stated he agrees. Givens stated this is what a business does. Patton stated we have done that. Givens stated we haven’ t raised the water in a long time. Patton stated the water rates we have. We didn’ t do it last year but we raised it the year before that. Mitchell stated we raised it two years ago for the first time in ten years.

Warren stated in this example one of the things we have to think about, and I agree with you I understand where you are coming from, but when you compare us to a corporation we would be outsourcing our water production to India. That is the way that company balances it’ s books. It gives poor service. There are some things we could do to save some money but the end user is not going to be happy with that.

Warren stated another thing he added $200,000 earmarked for asphalt and concrete. $200,000 added to an asphalt and concrete account again keeps us where we were last year. This will keep us as poorly stocked as we were last year. If we wanted to make a real effect on street and things like that we would have to move the $200,000 to $800,000 to a million to really make and effect on the problem that we have. $200,000 added in just really keeps us where we were.

Warren stated for those who were here there was a few years that we went in and cut ten percent or fifteen percent and we haven’ t made up for those cuts. All we have ever done when we’ ve done better, which we have done better recently, is we haven’ t made up for the cuts we made before. We dropped a lot of services back in 1999, 1998 or 2000. Mitchell stated you did it again in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Warren stated so it is not like we don’ t do that. At some point you get to a tipping point when you start cutting it truly effect the end user. Look at what we have done recently we have added back in inspectors and things like that because we drew those down so far that the departments were almost totally ineffective.

Mayor Purcell stated in the Rolling Stock I’ ve had Vincent working on this. For those who have been around for a while when we put this in ten years ago there was confusion. There was a little flexibility more flexibility than intended when we did it. I have asked Vincent and we will be bringing a resolution back next Thursday night as part of the budget process, remember we discussed this last year and we waited, that when we talk about Capital Outlay we are going to make sure it says Rolling Stock. The money we are talking about the $3.00 that we currently have and whatever we decide to add to that here is what I’ m proposing. We will define Rolling Stock to read Capital Outlay “Rolling Stock” is defined to include the purchase or lease purchase of wheel or track vehicle including earth moving equipment, front end loaders, road graders, bull dozers, automatable, pickup trucks, fire trucks, dump trucks, tractors except law mowing type tractors, and other equipment or vehicles of a similar type. Remember one year and we decided because it only said Capital Outlay that included push law mowers, computers and you name it we had it in there. This was never the purpose of that $3.00 so if we decide to go up we need to keep this in there so it is specifically used for those kind of vehicles that we are not able to buy.

Warren stated even if we don’ t do a large increase in Rolling Stock, the real purpose of the cheat sheet was to explain why I think if nothing else we need to attach a yearly increase. The next Council can also take it off but we need to direct the manager at every budget to raise the Rolling Stock a certain amount. Patton stated this is what we did on the water rates. Mayor Purcell stated maybe it ought to be the same percentage. What ever percentage we do with the consumer price index we do the same thing on the Rolling Stock. Warren stated that way ten years from now they will not be in the same situation we are. Patton stated this makes sense. Warren stated we can fight over how much we are going or not going to do this year but we need to definitely do that part of it.

Mayor Purcell asked if there were any other comments. Warren asked who was next. Mitchell stated Fire and Police. Mayor Purcell stated the next meeting would be next Thursday night at 6:00 p.m. and we will be doing Fire and Police. Just so you will know there will probably a couple of normal business items that we will have to do that night prior to doing the budget stuff. They should be fairly quick but there are some emergency kinds of things that have come up to try to provide some service to the builders and developers that Mitchell wants to get on.