REQUEST FOR CITY COUNCIL ACTION
SUBMITTED TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
SUBMITTED BY: Oliver Chi, City Manager
PREPARED BY: Dahle Bulosan, Chief Financial Officer
Subject:
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Fiscal Year 2021/22 Mid-Year Positional Adjustments
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Statement of Issue:
In response to the COVID-19 induced financial impacts for the City organization, an organization-wide restructuring was instituted in 2020, reducing the City workforce by 33 positions, which saved the General Fund approximately $6 million annually.
Fortunately, the City has since recovered financially from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. For FY 2020/21, we ran a budgetary surplus of $10.7 million, and our current estimates for FY 2021/22 anticipate a City budget surplus of $7.2 million.
In assessing current service level demands, coupled with the City’s strong financial position, staff has undertaken a thorough review of our current operations. Based on that assessment, we are recommending that we strategically restore certain positions that were eliminated during the COVID-19 pandemic. If approved, the proposed changes would result in Citywide staffing level of 979.75 FTEs, which is still well below our pre-pandemic staffing level of 987.25 FTEs.
Financial Impact:
The adjustments recommended include restoration of positions in the Administrative Services Department, Community & Library Services Department, Finance Department, Community Development Department, and Public Works Department.
If approved, the City’s staffing levels would increase to 979.75 FTEs, and for FY 2021/22, the General Fund cost increase would be $620,740. This constitutes a 0.54% increase in costs for the General Fund budget. Annual costs associated with these changes for, and details related to the proposed personnel additions, are outlined in Attachment 1. Funding is available on an ongoing basis for the recommended changes.
Recommended Action:
recommendation
Approve FY 2021/22 mid-year requests for positions as detailed in the in the Table of Organization (Attachment 1) and authorize appropriations in FY 2021/22 for the additional Full Time Equivalent (FTE) positions.
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Alternative Action(s):
Do not approve the recommended action(s) and direct staff accordingly.
Analysis:
In response to the negative financial impacts of COVID-19, the City Council approved a Citywide Restructuring Program as part of the FY 2020/21 budget, where the City reduced its workforce by 33 positions to save the General Fund approximately $6 million annually. Since that time, the City has recovered financially. For FY 2020/21, the City ran a budgetary surplus of $10.7 million, and for the current FY 2021/22 we are projecting a surplus of $7.2 million.
Given this improved financial condition, a citywide review of personnel needs was performed to ensure adequate staffing levels throughout the City organization. Personnel additions are recommended for approval to strategically restore key positions essential to City operations, and an overview of the proposed adjustments include the following:
1. Recommended positional adjustments in the Community & Library Services Department are as follows:
a. Librarian - restores a position that was frozen during the workforce reduction last year. This position is located in Technical Services and is the only full-time librarian in that section. The librarian in that section performs professional duties of cataloging material, assisting with back-end technology needs, orders a large portion of the collection, staffs the reference desk, maintains the website, and other duties related to both technology and technical services and processing.
b. Library Services Clerk - restores a position that was frozen during the workforce reduction last year. This position is located in Youth Services and assists with story times, youth programming, community outreach, yearly reading programs, staffing the children’s desk, and other duties.
2. Recommended positional adjustments in the Finance Department are as follows:
a. Accounting Technician II - restores a position eliminated through the recent workforce reduction and aids the department by filling an essential role in assisting with maintenance of the business license module of the City’s enterprise management software, Accela. In addition, this position will participate in other financial software implementation projects including the update of CIS, the City’s municipal billing system as well as assist the department’s four divisions with other special projects as assigned.
3. Recommended positional adjustments in the Community Development Department are as follows:
a. Associate Planner - restores a position eliminated through the recent workforce reduction. The Planning Division lost three positions in the Permit Center division as part of the re-organization. While counter functions have been removed from the Planning Division’s duties, as the Permit Center now covers those functions, and is necessary to restore the Associate Planner to keep up with entitlement/ current planning work.
b. Permit Technician - the launch of Accela has provided numerous benefits to our customers, primarily providing 24/7 access to the permit center and the ability to access records. Due to the high volume of applications being submitted via the electronic portal, a full-time Permit Technician is needed to review those applications, ensure they are complete, communicate with applicants regarding deficiencies, process payments, and ensure the plans are routed to the appropriate divisions/ departments in a timely manner.
c. Office Assistant II - as part of the re-organization that occurred in late 2020, a new division was contemplated to create a customer-centric permit center with an emphasis on faster processing times and better communication. The division includes building and planning staff to create a more streamlined process. The new division launched as a pilot and has been functioning with a part-time employee that serves as the public’s first point of contact to ensure that they get questions answered and access the appropriate services. It has become apparent that this position is critical to the success of the division and needs to be a full-time, permanent position.
d. Part Time Senior Administrative Analyst (0.5 FTE) - the Housing division currently contracts out affordable housing monitoring and inspections. The creation of a part-time senior analyst would enable this work to be done in-house at a cost savings to the City. As the City increases the affordable housing portfolio, it makes more financial sense to do this work in-house as oppose to contract out for it.
4. Recommended positional adjustments in the Administrative Services Department are as follows:
a. Personnel Assistant - Restores a position needed to provide support related to recruitments, benefit administration, COVID-19 related assistance, along with other clerical and administrative duties.
b. IT Supervisor - Restores and downgrades a previously-eliminated management position to the supervisory level to coordinate the daily activities of the City’s internal helpdesk and end-user support for over 5,000 devices.
c. IT Project Coordinator - Restores a position needed to help coordinate large IT-related projects in each operating department. Projects identified include implementing the Police Department’s Technology Modernization Project, Public Works’ work order management system replacement, and fiber expansion activities.
d. IT Technician / Analyst - Restores positions needed to provide day-to-day helpdesk support, and support the configuration, deployment, and maintenance of the City’s network infrastructure connecting 70 facilities and telephone system.
5. Recommended positional adjustments in the Public Works Department are as follows:
a. 2 Landscape Maintenance Leadworkers - This restores positions and are needed given that the entire division currently only has two Leadworkers. These positions are crucial to overseeing the maintenance of landscaping throughout the City. The City maintains 78 parks with over 1,000 acres of park land. Our median islands and roadsides total over 3 million square feet. The Landscape Division also oversees all park janitorial contracts, pressure washing, and homeless clean-up contracts. The Landscape Division is also responsible for overseeing ten major contracts. With 2 Leadworker positions, the division does not currently have staffing to perform inspections on certain areas, and are trusting vendors to perform quality work without verification. The addition of two more Leadworkers will ensure proper compliance with contracts that would benefit the City’s infrastructure.
b. 2 Facilities Maintenance Technician - This restores prior positions in the City’s Building Maintenance division, which currently has eight employees to oversee 80 city owned facilities and 20 leased facilities totaling almost 2 million square feet of building space. The division oversees over 50 service providers from major HVAC to janitorial services. Previously, the Building Maintenance Division was comprised of over 20 employees, but was downsized to 8. The industry metric for staffing recommends one full time employee (FTE) for every 90,000 square foot, which would place staffing levels at 22 FTE’s. The addition of 2 entry-level technicians will increase the staffing to 10 FTE and allow for effective management of service contracts.
c. 2 Contract Administrators - These positions are recommended to help facilitate the delivery of capital improvements projects (CIP) for the City. The CIP has been increased from a fairly steady value of $25 million per year during the past 10 years, to $40 million in budgeted improvements this year. Further, the CIP budget has recently been augmented with another $7M in federal grants, and $10M in ARPA funded projects, bringing the total CIPs for this year to nearly $60M total. The department has executed on-call contracts for design, architecture, and construction management, which is what allows the City the ability to deliver a dramatic increase in CIPs with only 2 staff additions to manage those projects.
If approved, the position additions would authorize a total of 979.75 FTE, which is still below the pre-pandemic staffing levels in FY 2019/20 of 987.25. Funding is available to facilitate these position adjustments this year and in the future.
Environmental Status:
Not applicable.
Strategic Plan Goal:
Non Applicable - Administrative Item
Attachment(s):
1. Proposed Fiscal Year 2021/22 Revised Table of Organization