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HomeMy WebLinkAboutWS 2024-11-04 Item 3B - 2025-2026 Biennial Budget - Council Deliberations and Discussion on Trade-OffsTO: FROM: BY: City of Tukwila Thomas McLeod, Mayor INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM Tukwila City Council City Department Director Team Marty Wine, City Administrator CC: Thomas McLeod DATE: October 31, 2024 SUBJECT: 2025-26 Proposed Budget "Trade -Offs" ISSUE To inform Council budget deliberations, Council has requested information about the service impacts and costs of reductions and service changes that contributed to development of the proposed '25/26 biennial budget. This could include choices about service limitations in consideration of budget, the service level impacts and changes, or mandates that needed to be met. The Council asked "What services did you have to cut, what services did you preserve based on what you learned from community priorities or council requests?" The table below outlines representative examples of how departments have adjusted services since 2021 in response to budget concerns. Because most of the descriptions of services here are costs avoided or reallocated, detailed estimates are not provided. Department staff will attend the November 4 Work Session to answer questions. BACKGROUND Department Service Impact (what is the effect on public services) Community DCD chose to cut a vacant Permit Technician position to increase the Development Environmentalist position from half- to full-time rather than make a budget request. This staff person is the only source ensuring that the permits the City issues comply with the complex environmental regulations (City, State, Federal) the City is required to enforce. The Environmentalist's limited availability was impacting permit review times and customer assistance. While permit volume remains high, the remaining 5 Permit Center staff are maintaining a steady workload and the modest reduction in staffing had less impact. DCD is maintaining one plans examiner and one building inspector, where two positions served each of the roles in the past. When the City experiences a spike in permit applications internal review and inspections may be supplemented by external paid expertise in order to maintain review timelines. Our permit volumes and revenues have been steady but still lower than the pre -pandemic peak. Maintaining the data layers in the City GIS map used to be a centralized function in TIS but due to workload their support is limited. Our Environmentalist has obtained grant funding for staff from King Conservation District to update layers such as wetlands and streams. One of our two 25 INFORMATIONAL MEMO Page 2 current Planners is spending significant time creating GIS maps for notices, the website, and the Comp Plan rather than reviewing permits. Finance The Finance department had requested additional staff as part of the 2025/2026 budget development process but, because of the budget situation, the department understands that other city priorities needed to take precedence. The staffing requests were: • Financial/Budget Analyst to help with the supporting departments throughout the year on budgeting and reporting issues and questions. The Department does not have a budget analyst position, and this position would be charged with budget development, ensuring consistency and accuracy of information and reporting. • Procurement and Contracts Coordinator to coordinate the City's purchasing activities to help ensure compliance with state and local regulations, provide for timely and cost-effective acquisition of necessary goods, and serve as a liaison between the city and its vendors. The position would oversee bid and purchasing processes, negotiate and manage various city contracts, and provide technical assistance to departments. The department has evaluated current workflow and feels that for the `25/26 biennium, we can shift resources and capitalize on the skill set of the finance team to partially cover these needs. Mayor's Office City Clerk The adherence (PRA), capacity extraneous several on After and demand public position significant past This `essential operations digitization annually, expenses with following majority of services provided by the Clerk's Office are mandated by to the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), Public Records Act or other State mandates. We have operated at maximum staffing using a LEAN model for the past decade, having already eliminated services and foregone service enhancements over the past years (passport processing, non -essential digitization, improvements agenda automation, improvements on public records request processing). several years of increased workload relating to public records requests, non -represented staff needing to work significant overtime to meet on services, the Council authorized the conversion of a part-time records request (PRR) position (0.5 FTE) to a full-time Deputy Clerk in April of 2024. We absorbed the costs for increased staffing through salary savings (departmental retirements and vacancies over the 2 years). budget cycle, we have further reduced our remaining services to services only': we have streamlined our City Hall front desk by combining with the Finance counter, our microfilming & budget has been reduced from the standard $24K to $12K and contracted services eliminated to help buffer increased (pass -through increased fees for postage and recording documents King County). Our costs are primarily our personnel, who manage the division services. MAINTAIN or Increase REDUCE or Eliminate Agenda Packets* Microfilming* Council Meeting Support* Historical Archives Legislative development & TMC Codification* Contracted services — plant care (eliminated) 26 https://tukwilawa.sharepoint com/sites/mayorsoffice/cc/Council Agenda Items/Mayor's Office/Informational Memorandum (Info Memo) - Budget Tradeoffs 103124 - Copy.docx INFORMATIONAL MEMO Page 3 *Federal We pandemic, reductions division's Federal support centralization legislation, by Public Records Requests* (increased) Supplies Postage (Increased — pass through) Recorded Documents (Increased — pass through) Switchboard Records Management* Digital Records Center* Essential public services* (notary, bid opening, acceptance of claims, litigation, appeals) Contracts Processing Legal Notices & Advertising* Elections facilitation* or State mandate have already reduced our microfilming & digitization budget since the resulting in paper records requiring storage and management and in self -serve records online for the public. Further changing the service levels will have three primary impacts: 1) failure to meet or State mandates; 2) reduction of our administrative capacity to the work generated by other City departments, such as routing and of contracts, facilitation of agenda documents, development of etc. and 3) the creation of inefficiencies and increased costs borne other City staff. Mayor's Office Technology & Innovation Services 1. Tukwila has a very lean IT -to -all -city staffing ratio (9 to approx. 300), a ratio that is lower than neighboring cities that don't have their own police departments or support requirements for 24/7 operations. 2. TIS has maintained a vacant "frozen" position for 3+ years that has been eliminated in this budget, which would have served as a pipeline/succession opportunity and increase capacity in analytics & project management. This was function recommended by the recently convened Financial Sustainability Committee. 3. Unfunded TIS budget requests included updating an aging server (10yo) infrastructure to modern architecture which simplifies management, increase geographic redundancy, and reduce vendor risk. 4. Request for a business analyst (LEAN) position was not funded. Mayor's Office Human Resources The staffing model of 3 employees and 1 Director has been the same for 20+ years within the city. The Human Resources division is currently fully staffed for its authorized 4.0 FTE with an average tenure of 1.5 years with the city. The current staffing model doesn't support ongoing initiatives of a city with 300+ employees. 2025-26 unfunded budget requests include 2 additional FTE and 1 extra labor staff. Even with a reduction of total city FTEs over time, the HR function is more complex with changes in labor law, collective bargaining, protected leave, compensation policy, benefit administration. Our staff is at maximum capacity and catching up from 90% turnover within 3 years, in which many HR functions have been neglected, including completing required compliance and risk management initiatives. Turnover in HR left limited documentation of processes, procedures, notes, and legacy documents https://tukwilawa.sharepoint.com/sites/mayorsoffice/cc/Council Agenda Items/Mayor's Office/Informational Memorandum (Info Memo) - Budget Tradeoffs 103124 - Copy.docx 27 INFORMATIONAL MEMO Page 4 leaving current staff to "rebuild" or create processes from scratch. Additionally, with the complexities of managing 8 collective bargaining agreements, civil service, recruitment & retention, compensation, a robust self -funded health insurance plan, along with supporting internal initiatives such as supervisor compliance trainings and ongoing growth and transition within the city, the current staffing model is unsustainable to ensure that continued compliance. Despite these limitations, HR was able to successfully recruit and fully staff the Police Department and develop an Employee Handbook, important 20- year achievements. Increasing HR staffing capacity is widely acknowledged as the primary internal support need across the city. Police In consideration of a Tukwila city focus and community priority on public safety, the "trade-offs" for the police department were minimal. We cut back on proposed overtime expenditures for 2025-2026 but anticipate that the conversion of officers in training to full deployment in 2025 will reduce the need for that overtime as the department becomes fully staffed with officers capable of working solo. We also did not allocate General Funds to the Co - Responder program. Instead, we are looking to use other funding sources to keep the program active. Public Works Public Works reallocated budget that shifts resources from a Maintenance and Operations Specialist to a Signal Foreman to prioritize high -liability tasks like signal and streetlight maintenance. The signal division has been critically understaffed for years and poses a significant liability to the City as a result; this budget seeks to correct that at the expense of an M&O Specialist. This budget also aims to address the facilities maintenance and repair gap by restoring building maintenance service levels to pre-COVID numbers with an additional custodian and facilities technician, necessary due to the expanded facilities footprint of 327,815 square feet. With this reallocation, the City will focus facilities custodial work on maintaining a basic cleanliness level across expanded facilities space, now covering a net increase of 68,000 square feet since 2020. In streets and public spaces, maintenance is now focused on essential safety tasks including sightline trimming, pothole repair, and bus stop cleaning, while aesthetic services like ornamental landscaping are reduced. Additionally, the Streets Team addresses, on average, 800 See -Click -Fix requests annually, which further strains planned, programmatic work. Balancing limited resources has meant reducing and/or eliminating tasks associated with maintaining and improving aesthetics, both in facilities and streets. Essential roadway maintenance, like crack sealing and pothole repair, have been prioritized to keep public areas safe. The proposed budget includes restoring custodial and facilities staffing to pre-COVID levels to help address some of the service gaps across aging and new facilities. The City prioritizes essential services like biweekly bus stop cleaning, basic vegetation maintenance, and road safety repairs to align with community and council needs. Though the City has scaled back on aesthetics and non -critical maintenance, the proposed staffing restorations will help maintain a more consistent cleanliness level and facility upkeep. 28 https://tukwilawa.sharepoint com/sites/mayorsoffice/cc/Council Agenda Items/Mayor's Office/Informational Memorandum (Info Memo) - Budget Tradeoffs 103124 - Copy.docx INFORMATIONAL MEMO Page 5 Further cuts would jeopardize critical services, including essential roadway repairs, emergency responses for snow and ice, and facilities upkeep, potentially leading to degraded conditions, higher risks to public safety and increased repair/replacement costs. Restoring facilities staff is essential to meet growing needs within our larger footprint and provide basic cleanliness. A significant structural issue lies in funding limitations for specialized roles, like the signal foreman. This one -deep staffing approach creates vulnerability; any disruption (illness, vacation) risks a lapse in critical safety maintenance for signals and street lighting. Additionally, increasing See -Click -Fix demands and new maintenance obligations (like the nine additional bus stops on TIB) strain resources further, challenging our ability to meet all programmatic needs sustainably. Without increased funding or efficiencies, maintenance quality will decline, particularly for non -critical aesthetic services, lead to premature failures and increase future repair and replacement costs. The current team of five custodians and two facilities staff have had to reduce service levels in order to maintain the growing square footage of facilities. More frequent emergency maintenance issues further inhibit service levels. By restoring facilities staffing to pre-COVID levels, the City can better care for and prolong the life of its assets. Parks and Recreation Parks & Recreation made the following cuts to programs/services, informed by utilization data, surveys executed in creation of the upcoming TCC Business Plan & Recreation Programming Plans, the 2020 Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) Plan, and health indicators provided by the Seattle — King County Department of Public Health. 1) Youth/Adult Athletic Sports Leagues were eliminated. There are unfortunate health impacts of this decision in a community where 31.4% of adults have BMI ratings of 30+ (Obese). 2) Front Desk Extra Labor hours were cut to better optimize Tukwila Community Center operational hours with community utilization. This will reduce TCC public hours by approximately 440 hours or about 10%. 3) Community Events budget has been reduced. This will reduce the number of events offered. Events have been identified as a high priority from the community, but it is an area that does not recover costs. Staff will continue to seek outside resources via grants and/or sponsorships. 4) Parks Maintenance/Capital Support budget has been cut to levels that will continue to add to the department's deferred maintenance backlog and keep in place a staffing structure where parks maintenance staff are maintaining 70% more acreage per FTE than neighboring cities. 5) Parks Water budget is increased but not at a sufficient level to ensure sustainability of the turf and jeopardizing the safety and reliability of playing surfaces. 6) Employee Professional Development cuts that were made may hinder our department's ability to substantially develop employees for more efficient and effective service delivery, which can also increase turnover and overall recruitment and administrative costs. There are several structural issues within our operations that will be maintained or exacerbated by these budget cuts and decisions such as our https://tukwilawa.sharepoint.com/sites/mayorsoffice/cc/Council Agenda Items/Mayor's Office/Informational Memorandum (Info Memo) - Budget Tradeoffs 103124 - Copy.docx 29 INFORMATIONAL MEMO Page 6 Cost of Services vs. Cost Recovery Needs vs. Participant's Ability to Pay, Parks & Trails Maintenance/Capital Needs, Program Barriers to Access, and City Ecological Asset Losses. Safety and The City maintains a decentralized approach to safety and risk management Risk that inhibits the proactive administration and management of risks, including Management analysis of the city's risk profile, analysis and mitigation of incidents and accidents, updating accident prevention program and safety plans, conducting routine training, and exercises and drills. RECOMMENDATION The Council is being asked to consider these examples and information as part of the 2025-26 budget deliberations. It responds to questions from Council about the "trade-offs" and costs of changing services in response to the city's budget situation. 30 https://tukwilawa.sharepoint.com/sites/mayorsoffice/cc/Council Agenda Items/Mayor's Office/Informational Memorandum (Info Memo) - Budget Tradeoffs 103124 - Copy.docx