HALLANDALE BEACH
This article is the third in a series of budget workshop summaries. The last three covered millage, capitol improvements and personnel highlights. In addition to traditional budgetary items the City Commission also discusses programs and new ideas to improve services. During this budget we reviewed four concepts that have been discussed over the past year. They were placed on the agenda after staff had an opportunity to evaluate their feasibility.
One was a concept I had brought forward two years ago and has been implemented by various cities around the state and nation, which is the Recycle Bank. Many readers might be familiar with this program that was recently rolled out in Hollywood. It provides incentives for residents to recycle. The incentives are various discounts and coupons to utilize at local businesses. Last budget due to the fact that we were in a lawsuit with Waste Management staff recommended to delay implementation until a settlement was reached.
Recently, the City conducted a solid waste management workshop to receive input from interested parties as to what services could be provided to our City. In addition to the workshop the City Commission hired a consultant that specializes in waste management issues. It was in the best interest of the City to hire a consultant due to the loss of institutional knowledge that former City Manager Mike Good brought to the table. Since we are currently in the process of evaluating all opportunities for our City it was recommended that implementation of this program once again be delayed. It was also suggested that it may be beneficial to keep the incentive program inside rather than contract out. I will review the solid waste workshop in its entirety in a future article.
Another project that was suggested by our Parks and Recreation Advisory Board was the implementation of a City daycare facility. The board suggested providing this benefit to our employees to afford them a cost beneficial service while they are working. After review of this concept staff found there were very limited cities providing this kind of service. Out of 33 cities contacted in the tri-state area only three offered some kind of service for discount.
What they did find was many cities partner with daycare providers within their community to encourage a discount to City employees. The city of Palm Beach Gardens owns and a Youth Enrichment Center that is open to residents and employees. Employees receive 30% discount off the resident rate. The City of Miramar offers its employees a 10% discount off the regular residents rate at city operated facilities and the City of Coconut Creek offers a 5% discount at local privately operated day care facilities near their City Hall.
It was unanimously agreed that the City would not undertake establishing their own facility but look to partner with the many local businesses offering daycare cities in our community. There were six licensed and fully operational daycare locations willing to work with our employees to provide services.
The Commission also discussed the ongoing issue with pet owners not cleaning up after their dogs. Many condominiums around our community now allow pets. Regretfully, many dog owners choose not to clean up after their four legged friends. We have been asked numerous times to provide what is called a pooper scooper and trash receptacles for animals. There are a few of these located around the City to date.
City Staff contacted the many condominiums in our community to see if they would partner with the City to provide receptacles. 72% of the condos would not participate in the maintenance of these facilities and 28% would. If the City was to establish 20- 30 locations for startup costs, maintenance would range anywhere from $49,000-$100,000 a year depending on daily services for three day week service to seven days.
Obviously, the City Commission was faced with tough economic times and have chosen not to pursue the service. The Commission chose to adopt a policy that supports our current ordinance. Whenever any animal is off the premises of its owner during custody the person having possession or control such animal and such person shall have in his possession a utensil device or an implement sufficient for removal and cleanup of animal waste together with a suitable container for the disposal of the waste and its removal to a suitable place of disposal failure to have such a utensil device or an implement and a container, such person will possess a violation. The owner or custodian of the pet would be subject to a $100 fine.
Staff was directed to pursue posting signs at various locations throughout the City and embark upon an aggressive education campaign. In addition, the Police Department would be directed to monitor various locations to ensure our laws are being followed.
Another project that was thoroughly discussed was the continued partnership with the Hallandale Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. For many years the Chamber of Commerce has depended on operational revenue that is tied to our bus bench contract. Often there had been collection problems with the outside company providing the bus benches and maintenance issues. In addition to collection problems the City Commission had made a policy to start eliminating the amount of bus benches throughout the City to reduce excessive sign pollution on our roadways. When the City started eliminating benches, an agreement was reached where lost revenue would be supplemented to the chamber.
Last year, the City Commission had issues with our bus shelter company. The continued lack of maintenance and cleanliness of the shelters led the Commission to revoke the existing contract and direct staff to research alternatives, one being the City to take the shelters over. The chamber was approached by a new company that wanted to provide bus benches, Martin Media who also partners with Gold Coast to provide advertising. After discussions with City Manager Mike Good and current City Manager Mark Antonio an agreement was discussed where the company would provide services, bus benches and shelters.
During the City budget workshop, the Commission directed City Manager Antonio to work with the Hallandale Beach Area Chamber and Martin Media to create a contract where Martin Media would become the service provider and the Chamber of Commerce would be made whole with a $50,000 annual revenue share. The $50,000 would replace the revenue created by the bus benches and the annual contribution to the chamber that is made annually. City Attorney Jove and City Manager Antonio are working on contract language to establish this new policy. It is yet to be determined whether there will be two contracts or one. Excess revenue from the contract with Martin Media will be paid to the City's general fund.
Over the past years, it is in the City's policy to have staff evaluate their costs of operations compared to that of outside agencies. Many communities are doing the same evaluations when it comes to operating costs. In some cases there is a cost savings and in other areas there is not. To date, the City has established three contracts for outside services lifeguard services, minibus services and inspection services. Outside inspection services are utilized to supplement our current staff when needed.
While Police and Fire services still constitute a major portion of our budget, the third costly department is Public Works. In addition to multiple services, they also provide landscaping/ground maintenance services and fleet maintenance. These two services were considered by City Management for outside contracting. During our budget workshop the Department of Public Works Director John Chidsey who has been with the City for only a year and a half presented a full evaluation of his department’s performance. On hand were both the landscaping superintendent and the fleet maintenance supervisor.
Landscaping and ground maintenance does not consist solely of cutting the grass and trees. Our department provides beach cleaning, park grounds keeping, irrigation maintenance, lot cleaning, cemetery maintenance and right-of-way maintenance for a total of over 2.5 square feet of R.O.W property. The annual budget including the cemetery is $1.2 million. The Staff is also responsible for the creation and collaboration of the development of new parks Sunset, Sunrise, Foster and the Historical Village.
In this case of contracting out for landscaping services would actually be more than the annual budget to provide the service. The question became while we are saving money are we doing justice to our residents by not providing an excellent quality of service or timely delivery of services? Rather than contracting out Mr. Chidsey recommended what other cities are also doing by entering into employee leasing.
By leasing employees, Staff would be given the flexibility of hiring temporary help during high demand. This leasing is done through a Professional Employer Organization, PEO. The PEO provides for a cost effective outsourcing on specific services. A good example would be grass cutting. The City would retain existing employees while increasing staffing levels only when needed. By retaining our existing employees, the City saves money. The other aspect of keeping employees is our employees are cross trained to do many jobs. For example, recently during the Curci project, one of the groundskeepers who are also a mason was able to replicate and reconstruct a fence pillar. The cost to the City was only for materials.
The same has held true for fleet services. We have fleet services on call that provide repair work on everything from police cars to heavy equipment. This department has also been on-call when generators breakdown and others issues arise in our City facilities. There is one example that was shared with us where the main generator broke down at City Hall during a hurricane event. If it had not been for one of our mechanics, the emergency operation system would have been down over a day rather than a few hours.
I will continue with a wrap up in next week’s article to include the safe neighborhood district, equipment, vehicle, computer cost and continue reporting on the budget and the CRA.
Again, please visit the City's web-site where you can have access to all of our budget information.
As always please contact or call me anytime with your questions and concerns at 954-457-1318, cell/text 954-632-5700 or at www.mayorjoycooper.com.
