It’s hard to think about things like snow removal when it’s been in the 90s and humid outside lately. But this is the best time to be talking about it — well in advance of the next snow storm.
On the city council agenda tomorrow is a plan to add staff and upgrade the city’s truck fleet in order to improve what they call “snow response.” Recommendations for change include:
- Due to growth, the number of snow routes needs to be increased to add one additional route;
- A slight reconfiguration of the routes on the north side of the City to address the many new areas;
- The new plan also eliminates what are currently called “secondary” snow routes. (This will allow
staff to more quickly complete efforts on the major streets during a snow storm, and move into the
residential streets faster.)- Based on the additional route and a review of current staffing levels, the Administration is
requesting a change in staffing for the Streets & Sewers Division to reduce our reliance on
“Temporary” workers and move back to using a full complement of full-time staff. This change will
add 22 full-time employees.- A fourth PW [Public Works] Supervisor is also requested, to help monitor the snow response program. In the summer months, this new Supervisor will be able to relieve the Manager from direct oversight of the Seal Coat program.
- The annual cost for the staff changes is estimated at about $226,000 based on the current
pay levels. There are several reasons cited for this recommendation in the attached presentation.- Staff developed a schedule for accelerating the purchase of trucks to meet their expected useful life (attached) and is recommending an increase in the annual level for truck replacement from about $250,000 in our Capital Fund to about $642,000 (and this amount needs to increase annually for inflation). Since we are behind in our upgrades to the truck fleet, we will need to buy ten (10) trucks in 2009, nine (9) trucks in 2010, and six (6) trucks in 2011 . The schedule shows a need to find additional funds or borrow on a short term basis for these three years in addition to the increased Capital Fund support. The attached spreadsheet provides a summary of this analysis for consideration.
- The equipment used for snow removal was also evaluated as a part of the program review. There are forty-three (43) trucks used for fighting snow and ice storms. It is estimated that the larger trucks last only about nine years before they become unreliable, and costs for maintenance start to increase to the point where their replacement is more cost-efficient. The smaller trucks only last about seven years. Based on these estimates the City needs to be buying about 5 to 6 trucks annually to keep up with this rate of deterioration. We have only been buying two or three, as funds are made available.
The financial impact is estimated to be $226,000 per year for the additional staffing, $392,000 for fleet upgrades in the current budget, plus a lot of borrowing in future years for more vehicle replacement ($510,000 in 2009, $696,000 in 2010, and $412,000 in 2011).
Why hire so many permanent full-time workers? According to the study that was done, it was determined that the current process of hiring temporary workers is not effective. The presentation attached to the council request states that temporary workers “lack experience,” “don’t know routes as well,” “need more supervision,” and “are paid more than full time staff.” In addition, the “current staffing level provides no back-up.”
It should come as no surprise that more staff is necessary to handle public works needs in a city that continues to increase in size (and continues to add miles of inefficient curvilinear streets). There’s an annexation request on the city council agenda nearly every week, and I have yet to see one defeated. As the city continues to grow, expect other departments to request an increase in staff and equipment as well.
Perhaps the next Six Sigma project could be a process for evaluating annexation requests on a cost-revenue basis. The city currently does no such evaluation, choosing to look only at the potential revenues (increased tax base) and ignore the additional public works and public safety costs.
Throw money at it instead of manage efficiently. Why can’t the Director and existing supevisors earn their paycheck? It hard to agree with those requests when laborers stand around doing nothing, sorry. Now, where’s the nearest coffee shop?
you can hear higher taxes creeping up like a wolf on new fallen snow.
I cannot beleive you are griping about this piddly little reqquest. You were the loudest person riding the “we have to build a new north Peoria library” bandwagon a few months ago. Where do you think they’re going to get that money, if not from taxes?
Both the new north Peoria branch AND the growth in the Public Words department are due to the exact same thing: Annexation and new subdivisions.
Feh.
Billy, precisely my point. Annexation means we must provide infrastructure and city services to those expanded parts of the city. And, although it was The Mouse who mentioned it and not me, that will inevitably lead to higher taxes. The answer isn’t to keep taxes low by spreading city services too thin, but rather to stop annexing more land into the city that we can’t afford to support. Hence my suggestion that the city use their Six Sigma black belts to look into the annexation process and develop a cost-revenue analysis for new requests.
C.J. and Billy – do a little checking on historical staffing levels. As I recall, about 6 years ago or so, the Public Works Department moved from a full-time staff to a temporary staff (reducing the full time headcount) based upon the contention at the time that:
1) it was a better method of handling snow;
2) it better allocated staff when needed (summer months for paving and more limited hours during winter for snow removal);
3) it was a cost savings to the department;
4) it provided better coverage for snow routes than utilization of full time staff.
The issue is that they reduced staffing (full time) significantly in the past and now are adding them back. It has much less to do with the annexation (except for the one additional route) and much more to do with the philosophy of how to manage the human resources.
Another reason for the change in the past was that there were fewer work rules for those individuals hired from the labor hall. If you didn’t like their effort, they were let go….
Billy: Hum —- Public Words department — typo or Freudian slip? 😉
Someone ask David Haste how they managed to accomplish the tasks for the last 30 years and then let’s go from there.