budget worksession Minutes
March 28, 2011

The meeting was called to order at 7:21 p.m. Present were Mayor Calvo, MPT Wilkinson, CMs Ahrens Dennison and Kulpa-Eddy. Also present were Town Administrator (TA) Murphy and Clerk Harper.

1. Mayor

Announcements: The new Public Works 1-ton dump truck has been delivered and is now in service. Mayor Calvo's birthday/benefit was a great success and raised $17,000 for the Fund for Animal Causes. Thanks go to all who came and donated to the foundation.

2. Budget

Mayor Calvo said that tonight‘s discussion will focus on Public Works staffing and infrastructure. The House of Delegates voted to return $8.4 million back to the Municipal Highway User Fund thanks to Delegate Gaines spearheading the effort to restore a portion of these funds. This will increase Highway User Revenue for the Town from the original $6,000 to now $30,000 if the Senate approves the measure. Thirty thousand dollars is the equivalent of 1-cent real property tax increase. Some education funding has also been restored because additional revenue will become available from some new State fees and taxes.

Mayor Calvo said that, at the last budget worksession, $5,000 in Police Department miscellaneous funds were set-aside in a kitty, which increases the undesignated surplus to $25,700. The set aside would fund items on a wish list that are not in the proposed budget. The wish list, at this point, includes 10 more hours for a part-time code officer and 10 more hours for a part-time code clerk. The proposed FY 2012 budget already funds 5 additional hours for code officers. Five more hours would cost approximately $5,000 per year. Ten additional hours for the code clerk would cost approximately $8,500 per year.

TA Murphy said that he had several discussions with Public Works Administrative Assistant Adrian Lockley, who developed the Public Works staffing model for the Council's deliberations. In an average week, Public Works needs a minimum of 2 CDL drivers and 4 laborers to complete the responsibilities of collecting trash, recyclables, yard waste and metals. Currently, two laborers are full-time staff and 2 are temporary workers. The Department wants to train a full-time worker to help the foreman with mechanic duties in the morning. In the afternoon, this worker would supervise 2 other laborers as they perform various errands around Town. In its budget request, Public Works is asking for 8 full-time and 3 part-time workers. However, TA Murphy's proposed budget funds 8 full-time and only 2 temporary workers. Two temporary workers for leaf collection in November and December costing $11,008 have also been funded.

The Council discussed 6 different staffing scenarios prepared by TA Murphy.

• Option A funds 7 full-time staff and four 28-hour per week part-time workers, giving the Department a total of 392 man-hours per week. The part-timers could either be permanent Town staff or temporary hires. This option would cost $483,000 with 2 permanent part-timers and $407,000 with temps. Permanent staff would be more expensive because the Town pays $3.00 more per hour than the temp agency and includes a pension benefit.

• Option B funds 8 full-time staff and either 3 permanent ($444,000) or 3 temporary part-timers ($425,000) for a total of 404 man-hours per week. This is the option requested by Public Works.

• Option C funds 8 full-time staff and either 2 permanent ($419,000) or 2 temporary part-timers ($406,000) for a total of 376 man-hours per week. TA Murphy proposed this option with 2 temporary hires, which is the current staffing arrangement. However, current staffing includes one part-timer at a cost of $7,000 per year who is not captured in Option C.

• Option D funds 9 full-time staff and either 2 permanent ($453,000) or 2 temporary part-timers ($443,000) for a total of 416 man-hours per week.

• Option E funds 9 full-time staff and either 1 permanent part-timer ($431,000) or 1 temporary part-timer ($424,000) for a total of 388 man-hours per week. This is the option Mayor Calvo prefers, with the part-time position being filled by a permanent rather than temporary staff.

• Option F funds 10 full-time staff for a total of 400 man-hours per week and a cost of $440,000.

Mayor Calvo said that all options would give the Department more man-hours per week than the 376 hours it currently has at its disposal. The staffing levels requested by Public Works would increase the total weekly hours by 28 to 404 at a cost of $38,000. If the Council were to also fund the staffing request of the Code/Administration Department ($13,000), total additional funds needed would be $52,000. However, the currently available surplus, including what is in the kitty, is $25,000.

The Council took a 5-minute break.

MPT Wilkinson said he thinks Public Works needs 9 full-time staff members that should be supplemented with one temporary worker when needed, as outlined in Option E-2. Weekly hours would increase by 12 hours to 388 and cost an additional $18,000. This would leave $7,000 to fund the Code Department's staffing request. TA Murphy said that he didn't see a great difference in productivity between the 9 full-time staff Public Works used to have and the 8 full-time staff it has now. He believes it is more important to have additional part-timers, which give the Department more flexibility. Most of the help is needed during the morning because collection occurs generally between 7:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. If the Council wanted to reduce staffing needs, outsourcing of grass cutting and abatements could be considered.

CM Dennison asked how the health insurance costs figure into the hiring of part-time staff. TA Murphy said that he included health insurance costs for permanent part-timers in case the Council wants to offer the benefit. The assumptions underlying his cost estimate is that the eligible employee is single and pays 5% of insurance premiums, as individually-insured Town employees do. Mayor Calvo said that he would like to offer health insurance to permanent part-time staff, regardless of whether they work more or less than 30 hours per week. The Town could lower its eligibility threshold from the current 75% of full-time employment to 66%, and have the part-time employee pay a larger share of his health insurance. The employee would still be better off than working for a temp agency. The Town would not be able, however, to offer family insurance for these employees. TA Murphy clarified that the request for a 28-hour per week employee is based on working 5 hours each morning, plus an additional 3 hours on Wednesday because the Department frequently makes two trips for recycling disposal.

CM Kulpa-Eddy suggested that the Town could offer health insurance to all part-timers and simply have them pay a larger share of health insurance based on the hours they work. Mayor Calvo said he would not want to give health insurance to part-time staff that works up to 10 hours a week because it may attract people with a chronic health problem that would sign up only so that they can be insured. This could become very expensive for the Town.

Mayor Calvo said he would support something less than the 404 man-hours Public Works requested. He believes 388 man-hours would be sufficient. This could be done with 9 full-timers and 1 part-timer or 8 full-timers, 2 part-timers and an additional 12 hours of temporary staff hours. TA Murphy said he believes that Public Works needs at least 8 full-timers and 2 part-timers. Mayor Calvo said that the need for more staff is in part due to the increase in recycling, which now requires 2 trips to the County recycling facility. He requested that TA Murphy track recycling volume on a weekly basis because there will come a time when the Town can discontinue four days a week trash collection for twice a week recycling. MPT Wilkinson said that the Department could probably get by with less man-hours if it outsourced the very labor-intensive grass cutting responsibilities.

TA Murphy was asked to recalculate the cost of the discussed staffing options with the Town paying 70% (of 95%) of a permanent part-time employee's health insurance. In addition, the Council would like to have information on whether the pay increase a temporary worker would receive, when he becomes a permanent part-timer after working for the Town for 6 months, pays for his share of the health insurance.

Mayor Calvo said that the Council needs to prioritize the needs of the different departments for the limited surplus available. He would place 12 additional man-hours per week for Public Works first, then the additional 10 hours for the Code clerk that would free up the Administrative Assistant, and then the additional 5 hours for the Code officers. The part-time Code officer positions have already been budgeted a 5 hour per week increase.

MPT Wilkinson said that the outsourcing of grass cutting should be explored because not only would it save a lot of man hours but also gas and maintenance & repair expenses for equipment. TA Murphy was asked to have Public Works identify specific pieces of land that could be outsourced and to get some bids.

Signed: Kerstin Harper, Town Clerk

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