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MINUTES OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE September 16, 2019 East Conference Room Present: Chairman O’Malley and Councilmembers George and Bullock Also Present: Councilmembers Anderson, Litten, and Rader, Mayor Summers, Chief Malley, Director Sylvester, Director Pae, Director Yousefi, Director Gelsomino, Director Beno, Chris Parmelee of the Building Department, Katelyn Milius of the Planning Department, Clerk Bach, and Deputy Clerk Lascu taking minutes. Call to Order: 7:02 p.m. rd Approval of the minutes of the September 3meeting of the Finance Committee Chairman O’Malley made a motion to approve the minutes from the September 3 rd meeting of the Finance Committee, which was seconded by Councilwoman George. Both members presented voted in favor. Motion passed. 2020 Council Budget Priority Process Chairman O’Malley gave a brief overview of the budget priority process agreed upon last meeting, reviewing each item one by one. Council would like to see the priorities reflected in the budget, and to what extent will be sorted out in November. Mayor Summers noted that the administration does not dispute any of Council’s budget priorities, however there may be points of contention in their timing and prioritization. It was also noted that all of Council’s budget priorities are reflected in the administration’s budget in some capacity (i.e. parks, streets, sustainability funding etc.) It was noted that having both mayoral candidates currently sitting on Council could be beneficial and help form policy direction in the future. There was brief discussion about long range funding for bike lanes. The administration described a plan to restripe Lake Ave. with dedicated bike lanes, a plan that will cost upwards of $100,000. 13. Add Capacity for Property Inspections (Revised) – Bullock Chairman O’Malley permitted Chris Parmelee of the Building Department to discuss the proposal of adding capacity for property inspections. He and Mayor Summers indicated that finding talent in the field of building inspection has become increasingly difficult, and for that reason the department would be unable to add new capacity. However, a veteran building inspector could be redeployed in a pilot program focused on several blocks. The inspector, Justin Maskaluk, is currently going for a state licensure to be an inspector, which requires 4 years of experience in property maintenance. The pilot program would entail him walking a beat daily, which would require backfill of his work by other property maintenance inspectors. It takes approximately 6 months to a year to train a new code compliance inspector and the pay scale also serves as an obstacle ($40k-$42k per year). Municipalities have made recent practice of poaching each others’ employees to fill out their building departments. Mr. Parmelee indicated the lack of staff could become a larger problem in the future as 90% of employees in the department are near retirement age. Councilmembers briefly discussed adjusting the pay scale of building inspectors to be more competitive in the field. There was also discussion regarding the need to keep up commercial corridors, while not taking attention away from residential properties.