Committee of the Whole
& Budget Workshop
November 15, 2016
Salt Lake County Council
Committee of the Whole
Budget Workshop
~Minutes~
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
10:10:22 AM
Committee Members
Present: Jennifer Wilson
Richard Snelgrove
Jim Bradley
Arlyn Bradshaw
Michael Jensen
Aimee Winder Newton
Sam Granato
Steven DeBry
Max Burdick, Chair
Citizen Public Input (10:10:51 AM)
Ms. Alexandra Eframo stated she was almost run over by a Utah Highway Patrol Trooper near St. Mark’s Hospital. She also noted that homeless individuals could be put in homes with two people to a bedroom.
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Review of Proposed Hires (10:14:54 AM)
Mr. Brad Kendrick, Budget & Policy Analyst, Council Office, reviewed the following proposed hires:
Agency Position
District Attorney’s Office Office Specialist 15
Sheriff’s Office Control Room Operator 18
Corrections & Protective Services Officers P7
Jail Clerk 15
2 Jail Nurses 24/26
Youth Services Division Time Limited Family Resources Facilitator 21
Quality Assurance Manager 30
Salt Lake County Health Department Vital Records Specialist 16
Animal Services Division Customer Care Associate 18
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Interim Budget Adjustments (10:15:16 AM)
Mr. Brad Kendrick, Budget & Policy Analyst, Council Office, reviewed the following interim budget adjustment requests, which have been placed on the Council agenda for formal consideration:
District Attorney’s Office
Request for an interim budget adjustment of $10,753 to record a liability for one copy machine leased from Les Olson Company.
Request for an interim budget adjustment of $17,975 to purchase firearms, ammunition, and a gun safe using Asset Forfeiture funds.
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Salt Lake County Health Department
Request for an interim budget adjustment to reclassify a Public Health Nurse 30 to a time-limited Health Educator 24.
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Mayor’s Finance Division
Request for an interim budget adjustment to transfer 2014 bond proceeds from the Health Building project to the District Attorney Building project, thereby allowing the bond issuance to be in early 2017 instead of December 2016.
Council Member Jensen, seconded by Council Member Granato, moved to approve the requests and forward them to the 4:00 p.m. Council meeting for formal consideration. The motion passed unanimously. Council Members DeBry and Bradshaw were absent for the vote.
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BUDGET WORKSHOP
Clerk (11:09:37 AM)
General Fund – Org. 79000000
Election Fund – Org. 7901000000
Ms. Sherrie Swensen, County Clerk, stated the Clerk’s Office’s 2017 budget includes a request for three part-time (limited-time) employees to meet the statutory requirements for five new metro townships. She is requesting a part-time employee for the Marriage and Passport Division to perform marriage ceremonies during busy times of the day to accommodate more couples and increase revenue.
She delivered a PowerPoint presentation regarding the 2016 general election. Early voting was available at 17 vote centers; however, only 3.5 percent of voters voted early, with 83.3 percent voting by mail and 13 percent voting on election day. Ballots arrived slower than anticipated, with 111,000 arriving on Election Day. Additional voting equipment was supplied to polling locations to help alleviate long lines.
Council Member Newton stated the presidential election was unique this year and she believed the Clerk’s Office was doing everything it could to run an efficient election.
Council Member Bradley stated the process of voting is important, and people have the responsibility to know how the system works and not wait until the last minute. Mail-in ballots are a great solution to make voting as easy as possible. Voters have different situations that may cause additional attention; therefore, it leads to long lines. The Clerk’s Office can do better and will do what it can to make positive changes to the process.
Council Member Wilson stated voter choice and access is important, and the current options work for everyone. Voting primarily by mail was new this year and contributed to long lines. People are emotionally attached to Election Day and prefer to vote in person. Surveys and focus groups should be conducted to gain perspective and ideas on how to improve the process and educate the public.
Council Member Snelgrove stated he believed the Clerk’s Office was doing everything it could to process ballots. The media tends to point out worst case scenarios and is overzealous with the unusual situations that occur.
Council Member Bradley, seconded by Council Member Granato, moved to approve the Clerk’s budget as recommended by the Mayor. The motion passed unanimously. Council Members DeBry, Bradshaw, and Newton were absent for the vote.
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The Council recessed at 12:02:13 PM and reconvened at 1:40:40 PM.
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Mayor’s Administration (10:35:22 AM)
Mayor’s Administration – Org. 10200000
Mayor’s Financial Administration – 10220000
Ms. Lori Bays, Deputy Mayor, delivered a PowerPoint presentation regarding the Mayor’s Administration and Financial Administration’s 2017 budget. She reviewed the 2017 proposed budget requests, including new requests of $11,100 and one full-time equivalent (FTE).
Council Member Bradley, seconded by Council Member Jensen, moved to approve the Mayor’s Administration budget as recommended by the Mayor. The motion passed unanimously. Council Members DeBry and Bradshaw were absent for the vote.
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MetroStat Dashboard (2:24:25 PM)
Ms. Beth Mitchell, Mayor’s Administration, stated the Mayor’s MetroStat Dashboard is part of the County’s performance improvement initiative. The reason for this project is to invest in data driven decision making and foster a culture of accountability. She delivered a PowerPoint presentation which covered Dashboard by the numbers, the 2017 budget process outcome statistics, MetroStat Impact Meetings (MIMs), how this all fits together, and the future of MetroStat.
Council Member Newton asked besides the $250,000 contract each year, what costs were associated with operating Dashboard, and how many hits the website received.
Ms. Mitchell stated she manually inputs the data. The air quality site received 155,211 hits. Other sites of interest are those related to public works, live release of dogs and cats, and the number of calls to VECC.
Council Member Newton stated she was concerned about some very dated statistics on the Dashboard.
Ms. Mitchell stated it will take a culture change for people to track their data on the Dashboard. Dashboard will be more beneficial to the public if the data is more recent.
Council Member Newton stated Aging & Adult Services indicated its goal was to increase the number of citizens served per month. She asked if the County wanted people to be more dependent upon government. She also felt the County should not be funding MetroStat items that are based on the townships.
Ms. Mitchell stated she will make a note of that; she wanted this kind of feedback.
Council Member Bradley stated not everything done by government should be decreased. Recreation participation was a good example of this.
Mr. David Delquadro, Chief Financial Manager, Council Office, stated it is important to realize there are some items on Dashboard that are an exception basis. For instance, the Triple A bond rating should stay the same forever, but air quality may be updated hourly.
Council Member Newton asked if the cost for MetroStat Dashboard would rise above $250,000 annually.
Ms. Mitchell stated no.
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Regional Development (2:44:55 PM)
Mr. Carlton Christensen, Director, Office of Regional Development, delivered a PowerPoint presentation. He stated Salt Lake County is at the crossroads of the west in terms of shipping and transportation of goods across the United States. He reviewed the 2017 operating budget, reduction of FTEs, requests for new FTEs, overall new requests, transportation funds, Housing Trust Loan Fund, Revolving Loan Fund, County Emergency Manager, and Regional Development projects.
Council Member DeBry stated he has heard concerns from his constituents about the Mountain View Corridor and some community development plans.
Mr. Christensen stated it was cities in the southwest area of the County were involved in Western Growth Coalition. They were concerned that this was jumping ahead of it. He met with it a few weeks ago and rectified the situation.
Council Member Burdick stated the Economic Development Corporation of Utah (EDCU) membership had been $250,000 per year, but was now down to $50,000. He asked if the County could decide on its own membership fee or if County participation was down.
Council Member Jensen stated because of EDCU’s comments about the Facebook issue, he would be making a motion to cut the $50,000 membership.
Council Member Newton asked how many people in his office worked on economic development.
Mr. Christensen stated three people work full-time on economic development and they also receive some support effort.
Council Member Newton stated schools already handle the Emergency Management Safe Neighborhoods program.
Mr. Christensen stated the program is not in every school district and this would be a countywide approach. It is more than supplies for schools; it involves supplies for the neighborhood.
Council Member Newton asked how the Wasatch Canyons plans work with the Mountain Accord.
Mr. Christensen stated it is not related to the Mountain Accord. This is the local land use plan for the canyons along the Wasatch Front.
Mr. David Delquadro, Chief Financial Manager, Council Office, asked if the Coordinated Entry System was a way to get the homeless registered.
Ms. Shaleane Gee, Special Projects & Grant Partnerships Manager, Office of Regional Development, stated this effort would require providers to communicate with each other, use the same intake and assessment tools, use the same definition of homelessness, share data, and report on some of the same outcomes that are being done collectively.
Council Member DeBry stated Operation Diversion, which took place in Salt Lake City, resulted in homeless camps sprouting up in the Millcreek area. The homeless were pushed out of one geographic area into another. In a case like this, he asked if Millcreek City would get funding for homelessness.
Ms. Gee stated the first thing that must be looked at are those working on homelessness: schools, law enforcement, homeless service providers, libraries, etc. Wherever the issue exists, the County will be using a coordinated system so that there is “no wrong door.” The providers anywhere should understand how to support the homeless, report on what is happening, and use common metrics to do that. Currently, that is not happening, even within existing homeless services. Next week her office will be doing a screening assessment of the Rio Grande population to learn how to effectively allocate resources but it is also a springboard to get Coordinated Entry going.
Mr. Christensen stated the Coordinated Entry System might exceed $224,000, but his will be looking at other funding.
Council Member Newton stated this is the second year that the Unified Police Department (UPD) contract increase was not added to the Mayor’s budget. She suggested that next year the Council look into putting the UPD contract increase in the Regional Development Budget instead of the Sheriff’s budget.
Mr. David Delquadro, Chief Financial Manager, Council Office, asked if the $224,000 request for the Coordinated Entry System would provide services to the individuals or be an information service system to track, file, and store information.
Mr. Christensen stated the funds are for a system that will enable each provider to track individuals from one service to the next.
Mr. Delquadro asked if it would go out for an RFP.
Mr. Christensen stated yes. It would be done in conjunction with the State of Utah.
Mr. Delquadro stated if this is an information services initiative, it should be looked at from the standpoint that the County may currently have software available that could handle the job. That is the reason the Council created the Technology Advisory Board (TAB).
Ms. Gee stated currently, the system is not intended to reside in the County.
Mr. Delquadro stated the $224,525 for the Coordinated Entry System is something the Council should consider authorizing, but not appropriating until such time as it understands what the money is being used for. The same approach should also apply to the $250,000 for the Dashboard project, which also needs to be reviewed by TAB. The Continuity of Operations Plan software ($75,200) was reviewed by TAB, but TAB said it could use more details on the plan.
Council Member Bradley, seconded by Council Member Newton, moved to authorize, but not appropriate funding for the Coordinated Entry System, the Continuity of Operations plan, and the MetroStat Dashboard. The motion passed unanimously. Council Members Granato and Wilson were absent for the vote.
Council Member Jensen, seconded by Council Member Bradshaw, moved to zero out the $50,000 line item to EDCU. The motion passed unanimously. Council Members Granato and Wilson were absent for the vote.
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Homelessness Funding (1:41:48 PM)
Ms. Shaleane Gee, Special Projects & Grant Partnerships Manager, Office of Regional Development, delivered a PowerPoint presentation regarding how the County is funding homelessness, what the outcomes are, and ideas for funding going forward. She also reviewed the collective impact of homelessness, how funding policy shapes services, proposed changes, funding for a direct services system, 2015-2016 funding by outcome strategy, funding sources, and priorities.
Council Member Newton asked how success was measured as money is allocated.
Ms. Gee stated recipients have to meet certain requirements and that criteria will be done more collectively going forward. There are indicators and criteria for each provider.
Council Member Newton asked how these funds have been allocated historically. It appears that the County has not been holding anyone accountable.
Ms. Gee stated people have been held accountable, but according to different criteria. The accountability focus has been on output, not outcome.
Mr. Mike Gallegos, Director, Community Resources & Development Division, stated the process of aligning the outcomes started last year.
Council Member DeBry stated he appreciated all the work done on this huge issue. His frustration is not knowing how much money the County is spending on the homeless initiative, including the jail. The Council has a responsibility on how it spends tax dollars.