OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL

 

CHERYL L. BROWN                                                                                                                     117 WEST DUVAL STREET, SUITE 425

            DIRECTOR                                                                                                                                                                                                 4TH FLOOR, CITY HALL

   OFFICE (904) 630-1452                                                                                                                                                                                  JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA  32202

     FAX (904) 630-2906                                                                                                                                                                                                               

  E-MAIL: CLBROWN@coj.net

 

FINANCE COMMITTEE BUDGET HEARING MINUTES

August 17 2012

9:00 a.m.

 

Location:  City Council Chamber, 1st floor, City Hall – St. James Building; 117 West Duval Street

    

In attendance: 

John Crescimbeni, Greg Anderson,, Lori Boyer, Johnny Gaffney, Bill Gulliford (arr. 9:18), Stephen Joost and Clay Yarborough

Also: Council Members Warren Jones (arr. 9:18), Robin Lumb (arr. 10:35), Brown (arr. 9:35); Kirk Sherman and Kim Taylor – Council Auditor’s Office; Peggy Sidman – Office of General Counsel; Ronnie Belton, Glenn Hansen and Angela Moyer – Finance Department; Jessica Deal – Mayor’s Office;  Jessica Stephens – Legislative Services Division; Jeff Clements – City Council Research Division,  Steve Patterson – Florida Times-Union; David Chapman – Financial News and Daily Record; Kevin Meerschaert – WJCT; Steve Cassada – Council Staff Services

 

Meeting Convened: 9:05 a.m.

 

Chairman Crescimbeni noted that Council Member Gulliford is fulfilling his duties as a member of the Canvassing Board certifying the results of the recent election and will be joining the meeting as soon as possible.

 

Council Auditor Kirk Sherman stated that his office is in the process of analyzing the Mayor’s proposal from yesterday to fill the $12 million hole identified in the first three hearings.

 

References from this point refer to the Council Auditor’s Handout for Meeting #4, August 17, 2012.

 

Fire and Rescue Department

Mr. Sherman noted that the department had changed its policy around the first of the year to require transport of any patient when it’s deemed medically necessary, transport billings and collections are up for the year.  The department also revamped its fire marshal inspection system and is doing many more inspections.  The auditor’s office will show more detailed revenue line items on future quarterly budget reports to highlight how these new revenues are coming in.

 

Fire Chief/Director Marty Senterfit answered questions about the department’s administrative services personnel transferring back from the Administrative Services  Department.

 

Chief Kurt Wilson described and answered questions about the fire inspection program.  The department has done away with specialty inspectors and has a pool of 14 cross-trained inspectors who do all types of inspections, with much better support from database and scheduling technology.  The City will finally have a comprehensive database of all commercial establishments that need to be inspected.  Inspections will happen every year for all businesses rather than every 6 or 8 years for businesses that aren’t on major roadways which currently get inspected more often.  The collection rate on billings is over 90%.  There are other state-mandated inspections of sprinklers, fire extinguishers, vent hoods, etc.  In response to a question from Council Member Boyer, the ultimate purpose for doing the inspections is public safety, ensuring that all commercial businesses are operating in a safe manner to protect employees and patrons.  The fee revenue is entirely secondary.  The state does some inspections of certain buildings, but doesn’t have nearly the staff or resources to inspect all the businesses the City inspects.  Ms. Boyer asked about the percentage of businesses that fail an inspection and whether the failures are actual life-safety threats or less serious infractions such as out of date inspection stickers.  The committee and Chief Wilson discussed the time and cost of inspections and re-inspections.  Council Member Joost believes the cost is too high for the effort that’s required, but praised the professionalism and service ethic of the inspectors.

 

Chief Senterfit said the change in transport practices is a return to enforcement of the medical protocol that currently exists, which was not always strictly adhered to.  The increase in transports will produce an estimated $5 million in new revenue and reduce the City’s legal liability from lawsuits over failure to transport.  It will take more time for rescue units to transport patients to the hospital so JFRD will put more units on the street (up to 8 units at peak times).  The increased units will lower response time.  Council Member Gulliford asked about vehicle replacement practices.  Chief Senterfit said that the department is buying new, smaller, lighter rescue vehicles that are more fuel efficient.

 

Motion (Yarborough): on p. 5, approve the Council Auditor’s recommendation to reduce the growth in fire inspection fee revenues – approved.

 

The committee discussed the status of the union contract with firefighters.  Randy Wyse, President of the Jacksonville Association of Firefighters, stated that the current contract expires on September 30, 2012, at which time the current contract provides that the 2% salary reduction currently in place would expire and salaries would return to their former level.  The union is currently in negotiations with the City and is making good progress.  They have agreed to no restoration of the pay cut if positions are protected from layoffs.  Darrel Chatmon, the City’s labor attorney, said he was confident the parties would reach agreement by the deadline.  He noted that because of the timing of the end of the contract on September 30, the union members will get a 1-day raise before a new contract takes effect on October 1.  Chief Senterfit indicated that if revenues fall short, the shortfall will be made up from overtime reductions.

 

The committee was in recess from 10:47 to 11:00 a.m.

 

Sheriff’s Office

The Council Auditor listed 4 concerns with the Sheriff’s budget: 1) the $6.12 million extraordinary budget balancing lapse; 2) elimination of overtime for traffic control for EverBank Field events (Jaguar games, Florida/Georgia game, Gator Bowl game, Monster Truck show); 3) elimination of overtime for in-stadium security for EverBank Field events; and 4) reduction of savings from the elimination of the Community Service Officers by $298,145.

 

The committee and the Sheriff discussed how security and traffic for stadium events should be budgeted – within the JSO budget or separately?  Sheriff Rutherford said that for all other events for which the JSO provides security (at the arena, Times-Union Center, etc.) the JSO is reimbursed by event promoters or by the facility manager.  Council Member Boyer asked the Sheriff for information on how he manages to collect his inmate charges when other City departments seem to be having difficulty collecting fines and fees levied on court defendants.  The Sheriff discussed his plans for implementing the red light camera enforcement system.  The Council Auditor indicated that he was comfortable that the Sheriff and Budget Office have been very conservative in estimating the revenue the camera system will generate in the coming fiscal year.  The Sheriff clarified reports in the media by saying that the cameras will be installed on 25 approaches to intersections (one roadway entrance into an intersection from one direction), not all approaches on 25 intersections.  He said that the private contractor (Red Flex) is ready to begin camera installation work as soon as City Council approves the pending ordinance.  The system will give warning citations for the first 30 days of operation.

 

The committee discussed the Sheriff’s internal service operations, including information technology and fleet fueling operations.  The JSO has 40 IT personnel to keep its systems operating, and is willing to consider combining IT functions with City IT where possible, but needs to keep its secure law enforcement systems in-house.  Chairman Crescimbeni asked the Sheriff to meet with City IT and report back within 30 days on possibilities for IT consolidation.  The Sheriff noted that the study by Matrix Consulting several years ago found that the JSO was spending less than the national standard on technology operations – 1.3% of total budget here versus 2-3% in other large cities.  The Sheriff said he thought there were cost savings to be had by allowing JSO officers to purchase fuel from gas stations with a fleet fueling card rather than having to use one of the nine Fleet Operations fueling stations.

 

Motion (Yarborough): on p. 12, approve Council Auditor’s recommendation #2 – approved.

 

Motion (Yarborough): on p. 12, approve Council Auditor’s recommendation #1 – approved.

 

Motion (Yarborough): on p. 12, approve Council Auditor’s recommendation #4 – approved.

 

Motion (Gulliford): on p. 12, amend Council Auditor’s recommendation #5 to allocate $298,145 from the reduction in the JSO Health Services budget to balance the underestimate in the savings from the elimination of the Community Services Officers in recommendation #3, and allocate the remainder of the $350,000 to the Special Council Contingency fund - approved.

 

Motion (Anderson): on p. 10, eliminate the JSO capital outlay budget for specialized equipment ($62,925) and place that amount in the Special Council Contingency fund – approved.

 

2012-450

The committee and Sheriff Rutherford discussed at length the current year and upcoming year proposed budgets, personnel and lapse factors.  The Sheriff said that he carried vacant positions throughout the year without filling them in anticipation that the upcoming year’s budget would be even more difficult and that new employees hired in FY12 might have to be laid off again in FY13.

 

Motion (Yarborough): adopt the Lumb substitute for 2012-450.

 

Sheriff Rutherford indicated that there will probably be some cost savings in operating the new courthouse versus the old courthouse because he plans to use more part-time employees to staff the larger courthouse who can be sent home during the day when cases are completed and courtrooms vacated.  The committee and the Sheriff engaged in considerable discussion of the JSO budget, the use of one-time funds to balance the budget, the effects of the increased employer pension contribution on the budget, and the proper balance between public safety and other areas of the budget when making budget reductions.  CFO Ronnie Belton discussed the administration’s philosophical approach to balancing the proposed budget, particularly with regard to dealing with the deficit produced by the large increase in employer contributions to the Police and Fire Pension Fund caused by the latest actuarial report.  He noted that the bond rating agencies in New York have expressed some concern to City officials about the impact of the growing pension contributions on the overall budget.

 

Motion (Joost):  to call the question – approved.

 

The motion to approve the Lumb substitute for 2012-450 was approved.

 

The committee was in recess from 1:21 to 1:30 p.m.

 

Motion (Joost): approve the Council Auditor’s recommendations #2, 3, 4 and 5 to the Lumb Substitute for 2012-450 – approved.

 

With regard to recommendation #1, Kirk Sherman urged that the use of the $10.5 million in JSO savings be contingent upon two factors: 1) positive balances in all sub-objects within the JSO budget, and 2) no negative balance in the overall General Fund at the end of the fiscal year.

 

Motion (Joost): approve the first half of Council Auditor’s recommendation #1 to the Lumb Substitute for 2012-450, making the transfer contingent upon positive balances in all sub-objects within the JSO budget but deleting the requirement for no negative balance in the overall General Fund at the end of the fiscal year – approved.

 

Motion (Joost): recommend approval of the proposed budget as substituted, as amended to date – approved 6-1.

 

Kirk Sherman requested a clean-up amendment with regard to the reallocation of community service officer vehicles within the Sheriff’s Office budget.

 

Motion (Joost): allocate $28,500 to Fleet Management to re-purpose the community service officer vehicles; remove $108,987 from the Banking Fund allocation for vehicle purchases; remove the Banking Fund vehicle purchase waiver language from the budget ordinance (Sec. 9.7); appropriate net savings of $80,487 to the Special Council Contingency fund – approved.

 

Motion (Joost): on p. 12, approve Council Auditor’s recommendation #3, lines 1-6; defer consideration of lines 7 and 8 to budget hearing of August 30 – approved.

 

Motion: on p. 13, approve Council Auditor’s  5 requested amendments to the substitute with regard to the Sheriff’s budget: 1) transfers to the JSO budget are contingent upon positive balances within each sub-object of the Sheriff’s budget; 2) include information for the Sheriff’s Designated Contingency account; 3) add “salary” in front of lapse on pp. 1, 2 and 3; 4) on p. 1 strike “salary” and insert “extraordinary” lapse; 5) on p. 2, line 1, strike “salary” and add “another” – approved.

 

Council Member Gulliford requested information on how many police officers have gone from desk jobs to patrol assignments in recent years.  Chairman Crescimbeni asked the JSO and Information Technology Chief Usha Mohan to attend the Finance Committee’s regular meeting on September 18th to discuss shared IT issues.

 

Meeting adjourned:  2:03 p.m.

 

Minutes:           Jeff Clements, Council Research Division

             8.20.12     Posted: 6:30 p.m.

 

Tape:               Finance budget hearing  8.17.12

                        Legislative Services Division

 

Attachments:    Council Auditor’s Handout for Meeting #4, August 17, 2012