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INFORMATIONAL MEMO <br />Page 10 <br />The Finance department budget was reduced in several ways. Extra labor assisted with <br />front desk coverage for lunch breaks and vacations as well as filing, scanning, and other <br />office support tasks. Staff has had to absorb additional duties and further impact will be <br />felt by the community when City Hall reopens to the public in longer wait times to process <br />utility and other payments during lunches and vacations. <br />Training has also been significantly reduced. Only essential training will be allowed and <br />the limited budget must be shared between 12 staff. Additional training budget would <br />allow staff to keep current on accounting and payroll law changes as well as best <br />practices. <br />Claims & judgements as well as professional services were reduced. All non-essential <br />contracts were cancelled and there is no plan to ask for them to be reinstated at this time. <br />Claims & judgements budget was reduced to reflect prior year actuals. This is one area <br />that the City has no control over. If total claims for the year exceed expectations then a <br />budget amendment could be necessary. <br />Recreation and Parks: <br />For Recreation, Camp Tukwilly and Teen Venture Camp are currently high on needed <br />programs list for our community, before & after school programing will become a high <br />need this fall. Extra Labor staff are needed to provide the programs and services in order <br />to maintain appropriate staff to participant ratios. <br />Other programming costs were removed from the budget due to COVID-19 limiting in- <br />person gatherings. Once restrictions are removed, a number of other programming <br />events should be considered for funding. <br />Parks Maintenance and Operations Superintendent position is currently frozen. <br />Community Development: <br />One of the two general Code Enforcement Officer positions and one Administrative <br />Support Technician have been frozen. There are currently 174 active enforcement cases, <br />6 pending appeals, and 4-8 cases pending abatement review. Some of these cases <br />involve life safety issues such as unauthorized fill destabilizing steep slopes and <br />unpermitted construction including electrical wiring, gas piping, and structural additions <br />to occupied houses. <br />The rental housing program has 1,700 units due for rental inspection with the backlog <br />due to COVID related concerns about entering occupied spaces during the <br />pandemic. With current staffing we will have to require that property owners hire <br />private inspectors or we will need to waive most of these inspections as a single officer <br />cannot work through the backlog while keeping up with the inspections required in the <br />current year. If we had the third officer that person could be temporarily assigned to rental <br />inspections. <br />Other impacts of the staffing reductions include longer response times, longer violation <br />resolution times, limited scope of enforcement, and overall fewer site <br />56 <br />