AGENDA CAPTION:
Title
Consider approval of Ordinance 2018-18, on the second of two readings, amending the City’s 2017-2018 Fiscal Year budget to allocate a total of $314,000 of sales tax revenues in the general fund to the following programs in the following individual amounts: Homebuyer Incentive Program ($60,000) ; IT Security Review Project ($25,000), Facility Security Project ($100,000), CIS Software License Upgrade ($129,000) and adding full time equivalent positions in the Finance, Engineering, and Planning Departments to be paid with HUD Disaster Recovery funds; amending the staffing table for the Fire Department due to reclassification of positions performing the Fire Marshal function; and providing an effective date.
Body
Meeting date: August 7, 2018
Department: Finance-Heather Hurlbert, Finance Director
Amount & Source of Funding
Funds Required: $314,000
Account Number: 1000000-40025
Funds Available: $654,000
Account Name: Sales Tax Revenue
Fiscal Note:
Prior Council Action: Approved on 1st reading on June 19, 2018.
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Stormwater
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Background Information:
Allocation of Sales Tax Revenue
At the May 29th Budget Workshop, City Council gave direction to bring back a budget amendment to increase the Homebuyer Incentive by $60,000. During that meeting, City staff also wanted to seek direction on 5 additional items for the City Council to consider. All 5 items were to be considered one-time funding and address essential projects. The funding for these items will be allocated from Best Buy Call Center sales tax revenue that was not budgeted for during the FY 2018-19 Budget. The 5 items were discussed in detail at the June 13th budget workshop and three of them were proposed to be brought back for a budget amendment. The other 2 would be reconsidered at a later date. The three on tonight’s agenda are:
The items are:
1. IT Security Review- $25,000- external audit of our IT infrastructure security.
2. Facility Security $100,000- provide additional security at numerous City facilities such as additional cameras.
3. Police Software License Upgrade-$129,000- implement remote report writing for police officers. This will allow police officers to spend more time in their districts as opposed to having to go back to the Police Department to fill out police reports.
Addition of Personnel for CDBG-DR Projects
As the City continues to implement the Community Development Block Grant- Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) project, staff has discussed with City Council that additional City positions will be necessary to accomplish these projects. City staff is recommending the following positions be brought on at this time to help with the implementation process. These positions will be completely funded by the CDBG-DR funds. The positions will be posted as grant funded to make applicants aware that the positions are not guaranteed after the CDBG-DR projects are completed.
The following positions are being recommended:
• Housing Coordinator
• Compliance Specialist
• Accountant
• Senior Engineer
• Project Engineer
• Inspector
Personnel Changes for Fire Marshal
At the May 1, 2018 City Council meeting, an amendment to the San Marcos Professional Firefighter’s Meet and Confer agreement was approved. This amendment moved the Fire Marshal function directly under the supervision of the Fire Chief as is customary in most city Fire Departments. Prior to this amendment, the Fire Marshal reported to the Neighborhood Services Director and had two dedicated positions to perform the various fire marshal duties. In February 2018, the two fire marshal positions resigned from the City of San Marcos. The City has recently hired an experienced Fire Marshal to fill one of these vacant positons. The new Fire Marshal has performed a full review of what resources are needed to address this function properly within the City of San Marcos. Staff has reviewed this analysis and recommends that 4 dedicated positions be allocated to the Fire Marshal function. Two of the positions will come from the existing Fire staffing tables but will be reallocated to the Fire Marshal function and 2 position exist within the Marshal’s Office. No additional positons are needed to address these staffing assignments; however, a budget amendment is needed to reclassify two positions from Firefighter to Fire Captain, to reclassify the Assistant Fire Marshal position to a Fire Marshal position and a civilian Fire Inspection position to a civilian Administrative Assistant position. The cost to make these necessary changes is $23,000 and will be absorbed into the operating budget of the fire department. Direction was given at the May 1, 2018 City Council meeting to bring back a budget amendment to reclassify these positions.
Council Committee, Board/Commission Action:
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Recommendation:
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