2011 Proposed City Budget...

It’s that time of year when the staff tally up their budget requests for next year, and the Finance Director and I edit the requests, and then we present the end result to City Council as our proposed operating budget. 

In this kind of economy this is a tough process.  Nobody really gets what they need but we work hard to give them enough to keep fulfilling their mission and not let our citizens down when it comes to receiving City services. 

Here’s my 2011 Budget Message (and click here to see the details of the full budget).

Fire Services Review...

For the last couple of years the City of Kent has been part of a regional team of cities and towns looking at our respective fire services to see if there were opportunities to do more together to improve services and save money.  That study group recently completed the second phase of their study and they are currently making the circuit around the region to present their findings, and see if there is interest to implement some of the recommendations. 

There’s already some of areas of fire services, like Haz Mat, where we partner with our neighbors but as staffing and budgets have become even tighter the idea of sharing more services has become a matter of necessity.   The costs for fire services, especially the apparatus, is so high that an increasing number of cities and towns around the region have started making purchases of the big ticket items together.  That’s raised questions about whether those cities could be sharing even more in terms of Fire services — and Kent’s a good example of where that works.     

Here in Kent we have a contract with Franklin Township to run all the fire/ems 911 calls that come in from the township.  The township reimburses the City on a per run price basis and they have also helped with some of the capital purchase needs.  It’s a partnership that works, and with more and more examples of those sorts of partnerships popping up, the region’s Fire Chiefs thought that it might make sense to take a more serious look at more formal partnerships — which is how the Fire Services Blending Study was born.

The study was intentionally titled Fire Service Blending Study because when you start talking sharing Fire services, loyalties to existing fire services rise to the forefront and threaten to make talk of any service consolidations DOA.  Sharing services that cross jurisdictional boundaries is always a challenge but when it comes to matters of life and death the idea of sharing can immediately fall victim to parochial interests before it even gets out the door.  I think everyone understood that and they have tried to show how movement towards some consolidation could come in a series of baby steps rather than a quantum leap to something entirely new — like a Fire District. 

The Study Group presented their second phase report to City Council last week and it seemed clear to me that there was a lot of value to the study process.  We’ve got a lot more information about who’s doing what, how they are doing it, and where the opportunities are to do things better than we did when we started.  City Council seemed to share that impression and they’ve authorized more follow up on certain areas within the study, e.g., joint purchasing, standardized fire response procedures, shared training, etc., to keep this concept evolving over the next couple of years. 

Here’s a little more details about the study and the findings from Kent’s Public Safety Director, Bill Lillich:

The PAFERS fire study report was recently distributed to the elected and administrative officials of the participating communities.  A presentation by the consultants was conducted on Tuesday, October 5 in which the essential parts of the report were presented and discussed. 

At the conclusion of the October 5 meeting, representatives of the communities discussed what the next steps should be to continue the progress.  The consensus decision was for the elected officials of each of the communities to review the report and to make a commitment to proceed with an implementation board.  The duties of that board would be to refine the recommendations of the report, and set a more definitive direction to move forward.  It is requested that commitments to continue are made prior to the next meeting of the steering committee, which is set for November 2, 2010.

Here is the powerpoint presentation of the Phase II Report.

Street Paving Update...

Seeing the street paving trucks roll into town is always a welcome sight.  Of the many government services that we provide, street paving is one of my favorite because it’s so tangible and straight-forward: Pick a street, then get’r done.  

As the tv commercial says, “so simple even a caveman can do it.”  While that’s a bit of an overstatement, paving remains one of the least administratively encumbered functions that we do which is one of the reasons why we like it so much. 

Dump trucks, rock aggregate, asphalt binder, a couple of rollers, and throw in a few flaggers for good measure and you’ve got an official paving train.  Climb aboard.

According to our street condition data, our primary streets (SR 43, SR 59, etc.) are in quite good shape.  Our secondary streets are a little less good and our neighborhood streets (as a whole) are probably the least well maintained.  That’s not to say all secondary and residential neighborhood streets are bad — they’re not, and there are many that are in great shape, e.g., Vine Street; but there’s also some that desparately need resurfacing, and we’re doing our best to work our way down that list each year for as long as the funds hold out.

Our goal is to make sure that we keep all the roads in Kent safe — which means that the roads most traveled have to be in the best shape, which is why SR 43 and SR 59 look so good.  From there, we look at the condition of the collector streets and while some of those are in good shape, there are admittedly some others that will need some work over the next couple of years. 

If money wasn’t an issue we’d take care of all those collector streets too and jump right into the older neighborhood streets that are showing their age but with money tight we are forced to make choices about where to spend limited funds and it’s hard to justify fixing a neighorhood street that may only carry a couple hundred vehicles a day versus a collector street that carries thousands of vehicles a day.  The good news for our streets is that thanks to some additional grant funds that we received for other Kent capital projects, we could actually devote more funds this year to taking care of streets than ever before.    

This week the City’s paving contractor will begin resurfacing a couple of collector streets that really need the work; Summit Street (from Loop Road to SR 261) and Longmere Drive.  As an old county road Summit Street is carrying far more traffic than it was originally intended and all those vehicles have taken a toll on the street.  It may be the most potholed street in our street inventory but that’s about to change.  

Here’s the Paving Contract Manager’s summary report for this year’s paving projects:

Tentative Start Date: 10/18/2010

Anticipated Completion Date:  Both streets should be completed in 2-4 weeks.  The latest completion date should be November 19^th, 2010.

Project Location
Summit Street              From 250’ East of Loop Road to SR261.
Longmere Drive          From Middlebury Road to West Main Street

Project Description

Summit Street:
The contractor will be removing and replacing the top 2” of the asphalt pavement.

Longmere Drive:
The contractor will be removing and replacing 6” of asphalt pavement.

Project Traffic Disruptions and/or Detours

Summit Street:

Traffic will be maintained by the contractor although the traffic will be reduced down to one lane in either direction where the work is taking place.  Motorists can expect temporary delays from 5 to 15 minutes.  The work being performed is a moving construction zone so portions of the street may be inaccessible for small durations of time.  Access for emergency vehicles and safety forces will be maintained on Summit Street.  It should be noted that Summit Street may be closed temporarily to through traffic in order to install the 1.5” surface course.  “Road Closed to through traffic” signs and detour signs will be posted if the road is closed for paving.   The road closure will vary in length from 2 hours up to 8 hours and will be reopened at the end of the day.  If the contractor decides to close the road, a press release will be sent to everyone to inform them of the date and time of the closure.

Longmere Drive:

The contractor will attempt to maintain traffic on Longmere Drive when possible but it is anticipated that there will be several road closures in order to remove and replace the pavement on this street.  Access for emergency vehicles, safety forces and local traffic will be maintained on Longmere Drive during the road closures.  “Road Closed to through traffic” signs and detour signs will be posted when the road is closed for the pavement replacement.  The road closures will vary in length.  The contractor is working on a tentative road closure schedule for Longmere Drive.  Once the schedule is determined, a press release will be sent to everyone to inform them of the date and time of the closures.

It should be noted that the work schedules on both streets may be affected by inclement weather.  Due to this, road closures may be extended or postponed until there are better work conditions.

CONTRACTOR INFORMATION

Name:              The Perrin Asphalt Company, Inc.

Address:           525 Dan Street, Akron, Ohio, 44310
Project Manager:   Chuck Perrin                Phone:  330-253-1020 

CITY STAFF
Project Manager
Patrick  Homan                                 Office               330-678-8106

Public Safety Citizens Advisory Committee...

One of the toughest parts of running a city these days is stretching dollars that are already paper thin.  Paper is only so thick and there’s no question that at some point, all that pulling and tugging is going to produce cracks, rips and holes in our city services.  I’m all for government transparency but I don’t think this is what the pundits had in mind. 

It turns out that the laws of physics apply to local government, and for every action there is an equal and opposed reaction — which in good times means that we might lose a little depth in what we do in the community, but still, nothing gets left behind.  

However, in tough times, a decision to pull the bed sheet further one way or the other is likely going to leave us exposed somewhere.  And in the City’s case that exposure might mean potholes don’t get filled as fast or hours of operation are cut back. No matter how might try to spin it, it still comes up as an erosion of City services. 

The great recession has left both the city customers and city service providers feeling frustrated.  At the very time when people most need city assistance as a safety net, the city’s net is smaller and thinner than it’s ever been before.  That may be temporarily ok in some areas of city services but it’s definitely not ok in the arena of public safety.  

People might be willing to let the clock roll a little longer on a pothole being filled but when you dial 911 there is no time to spare, ever, no matter how bad the economy may be.  That’s the approach we’ve taken as a city — pushing limited resources around to make sure that public safety has no gaps.  Part of our ability to do that comes from talking directly with our customer base – Kent residents.  

Earlier this year the Public Safety Director, the Police Chief, and Fire Chief began an effort to reach out to the community to talk all matters of public safety.  By design this has been a 2 way information exchange, with the City laying out the realities of securing public safety in this economic climate and the residents offering input into what is most important in city neighborhoods and on city streets.  Out of that mix we hope to be able to continue to meet the critical public safety needs by keeping our focus on what city residents need the most.      

Here’s the notice for the next Public Safety Citizens Advisory Committee meeting where these conversations are sure to continue:

Dear Safety Director’s Community Advisory Committee Members, 

Thanks to all of you who were available to attend the July meeting, in which we reviewed a lot of the budgetary concerns of the city, and how they may impact the Fire and Police Departments.  I know that we discussed a wide range of items and concepts in a brief amount of time, but I hope you could get some sense of the concern we have in order to continue to provide high levels of service

Our next meeting is scheduled for October 19.  To continue our discussion of local safety services, we will present to you the programs and concepts that will be incorporated into the police department’s community outreach programs during the next two years.  These are primarily our programs to work with the neighborhoods, and with resident groups.  These are the programs that enable the department to create deeper, more meaningful relationships with many of the residents and businesses in the community.  Many of these programs have been funded through various grant funds, which have been programmed in this fashion as one of the most effective means to serve the community.On the second page of this letter, you will see a list of the programs that will be covered in the discussion the morning of the meeting.  We’re looking forward to see all of you at the Fire Department training room at 7:30 AM. 

Respectfully, 

James A Peach                       James A. Williams                   William Lillich
Police Chief                             Fire Chief                                Safety Director   

Future meeting date:
December 21, 2010                Portage Area Fire & EMS Study group “Blended Services Report”

Kent Downtown Redevelopment Update...

August was a productive month for downtown Kent redevelopment.  We signed agreements that begin to lock down the terms of what will get built, where it will go, and how it will get paid for.  

We’ve said all along that we can’t go this alone so we’ve cultivated some great partners — but like any partnership, it’s all fun and games until you start signing commitments.  That’s the truest test of partnerships and that’s why August was such a good month — our partners stepped up and signed deals that will now carry us into the final stage of predevelopment as everyone now has what they need to hit the credit markets to get construction loans.

Arguably the most important milestone passed in August was coming to terms on the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Agreement with the School Board.  That agreement creates a way to finance the City portions of the project, e.g., parking, street improvements, sidewalk improvements, utilities, landscaping, etc.  These are tough economic times and we needed the Kent City Schools as a partner — and that’s what we got.

August also saw approvals by the City Board of Zoning and Planning Commission for the mixed use (retail, office, restaurant, residential) portions of the downtown project.  Here’s a couple of the renderings that were approved:

The City will now move forward with the demolition of the buildings in the mixed use block in September or early October.  Here’s a list of those buildings which will come down to make way for the new stuff:

255 S. – 257 Water Street- The Rock Cafe/ Our Father- formerly owned by KSU
233-241 S. Water Street – Jason’s Barber Shop, Rental apartment, former Cigar Shop
121-128 W. Erie Street – Residential Multi Family House
206 W. Erie Street – Record Courier
200 S. DePeyster Street – The Bar’n
225 S. Water Street -Kent Hardware

 The Phoenix Project also announced it’s next phase, including the extension of Acorn Alley, which will run thru to Erie Street (ending directly across from the new mixed use development).  Mr. Burbick hopes to have this phase under construction before the year is out.  Here’s a hand rendering that he has been circulating to share his vision of this phase:

Erie Street View Looking North (Acorn Alley extension in middle)

PARTA Facility
In the next 2 months we will need to come to an agreement with PARTA regarding a parking operations plan for the multi-modal facility, including recommendations for pricing the use of the parking garage. These are policy level discussions that we will bring into City Council for direction over the next couple of months, once we understand the full range of annual operating costs that the City will be asked to pay for its share of the parking garage (floors 2 and 3), e.g., building maintenance, striping, lighting, utilities, etc. The objective has been to take the revenues from the lease of the retail space in the multi-modal facility and payments from the hotel parking in the garage to offset the annual operating costs of the structure and be cost neutral for the City.

New AMATS Web Site...

As budget crunches have hit cities there’s been a lot more talk of sharing services between cities.  In a lot of ways it makes sense, cities do the same work so why not try to look for opportunities to cross-over jurisdictional boundaries to plan together and operate more collaboratively.  The City seals may change but the street sweeper sweeps the same in Kent as it does in Hudson, Stow, Ravenna, etc. 

The idea made sense long before local budgets crashed but sometimes it takes a crisis to create a strong enough sense of urgency to overcome inertia and bust through the turf issues that guard jurisdictional borders.  I had a meeting just last week with a neighboring city mayor where we commiserated over budget woes and tried to find a silver lining brainstorming ideas for where it might make sense to look at sharing services.   We specifically talked about the Fire Services study that has been under way for a couple of years now that has looked at how Fire Services among Portage County cities and towns could be re-shaped and blended to save money while improving services and response times.  The study findings should be coming out in the next month and that should give us all something to look at and talk about.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a great example of shared services — AMATS, aka the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study, has been bringing together area governments for decades to plan and implement transportation projects that serve our region.  AMATS has wrestled its way through a lot of the logistical challenges that confounds cities that try to partner and in that respect they’re a great model for what could be done in other areas of city government. 

AMATS recently went live with a new web site that gives a great overview of the transportation work that they do in our region.  Here’s a note from the AMATS Director describing their new web site:

The web site was created by Akron’s own 427 Design.  We think that they have done a great job and we are very proud of it.

First of all, we think it looks great.  The overall design concept is at-once retro and modern.  The artwork highlights Akron’s history, its skyline, and other significant regional landmarks.  Symbolically, it is evocative the art-deco age of the 1930s and 1940s; a time when our cities were thriving, our neighborhoods were well-designed, and our communities were connected by a multi-modal transportation system.  Our mission here at AMATS is to work tirelessly to help our region to recapture this sense of connectedness and cohesion; to forge the wonderful amenities that we already possess and transform them into a strong and vibrant community that we believe can be the envy of the nation.

Secondly, and most importantly, the site is easy to use and contains quality content.  It contains pages devoted to Transportation Outlook, our region’s transportation plan; the Transportation Improvement Program, which describes all federally-funded projects in the area; and Connecting Communities, our new initiative geared toward reducing urban sprawl and better coordinating land use and transportation decisions.

The site also includes a wealth of data regarding transportation improvements, traffic data, and demographic trends.  We are particularly proud of the interactive library of maps.  We are also excited about the opportunities that the site presents in terms of encouraging public engagement, dialogue, and discussion of policy issues.  We now have the ability to upload podcasts of important meetings, and future improvements to the site will include a planning-related blog that will allow us to better disseminate information and will allow our constituents to weigh-in on the issues that are important to them.

Our goal is for AMATS to be the type of government agency that can renew the public’s faith in government.  We desire this, not for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, but for the satisfaction of truly serving the public, and serving it well.  I believe that this new web site is an important means to this even more important end.  It is why we are here, and it is why we love our job.

Very Best Regards,

Jason
———————————————————————-
Jason A. Segedy
Director
Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study
806 CitiCenter
146 S. High St.
Akron, Ohio 44308-1423
Work Phone:  (330) 375-2436

City Audit On-Line...

If numbers are your thing, I’ve got just the thing for you — the City’s comprehensive financial audit report is officially out and available on line (direct link) at the State Auditor’s web site.  To the accountants of the world, an audit is a work of art but for the rest of us it’s a lot of numbers, indicators and measures that reflect the City’s financial health. 

I’m pleased to report that the City’s audit had no findings of problems or deficiences when it comes to how the City manages its cash flow.  Our finance division continues to impress the auditors with financial compliance and reporting.  That’s great news because there’s never a good time for cash management concerns and that commitment is recognized in the 2009 audit. 

If I had any advice for the faint of heart number crushers, I’d go to page 27 and just stick to the text narrative.  It’s easy to get lost in the woods of all the financial statistics but it’s certainly there for the more adventuresome among us. 

Here’s the 3rd party auditor firms remarks on the City’s 2009 comprehensive annual financial report:

Saving Money Wherever We Can...

We’re still not exactly sure how all the national health care changes will shake out at the local level but we’re figuring that the cost pressures are not likely to magically disappear anytime soon so we’re still out there scouting for ways to save dollars wherever we can.  The City is self insured and as we’ve made strides over the last couple of years to put more emphasis on wellness and staying healthy we’ve seen our costs proportionally decline but all it takes is one or two serious medical problems in a year to wipe out those incremental savings. 

When you drill down into the numbers it turns out that one of the City’s largest cost components is pharmaceuticals.   Anyone that’s filled a prescription recently knows that drugs are expensive, and while that’s not a surprise, it’s a tough nut to crack.  We’ve had some good success converting routine prescriptions to the mail-order approach and not only has that saved money it is also very convenient — so it’s a win, win. 

Although it’s a pricey market, the prescription drug market is also fairly competitive and we’ve tried to leverage that into deeper discounts.  In June, the City’s Human Resource Manager reported that she completed another round of price negotiations with our pharmacy provider and we actually came out ahead.  Under the new pricing and formulary reimbursements the City should save approximately $70,000 in pharmacy costs over the next 12 months.  The Health Plan coverage remains the same but the prices for the drugs have been reduced. 

Finally, some good news on the health front. 

City of Kent CDBG 5 Year Plan...

Some of my best friends in city government have been planners, but despite that, I’ve always felt that as a group city planners were a hazard to themselves.  Not because they’re bad people but because they’ve built a world of acronyms that only they can understand so the average Joe and Jane can’t relate — and more importantly appreciate — all the good things that the planners do.  Try sitting through most planning meetings and tell me I’m wrong.  Not likely. 

Which is too bad because city planners do a lot of great work that is very meaningful in our community but they’re cursed with aconymitus.  The truth is it’s not really their fault — they’re just using the language of the state and federal agencies that send money their way.  Who’s going to argue with the hand that feeds you so the fed-speak gets passed from generation to generation until only those inside can understand it.  For most of us it’s like Latin, we can see the relevance but we can’t speak it. 

The good news is that the City has a great translator in Bridget Susel.  She can drop acronym-bombs with the best of them but she is also well versed in language of non-planners and she is one of the best planners that I’ve had a chance to work with when it comes to interpreting fed-speak into what we speak.  She’s just completed the 5 Year Plan update for the City’s CDBG programs (that’s Community Development Block Grant for you and me) and she and I thought we’d share a few pieces of it for those that have wondered what all that CDBG stuff was about. 

The City of Kent doesn’t actually get a lot of Federal CDBG funds — around $325,000 a year — so it doesn’t go that far, but Bridget works hard to make sure whatever we get has a real impact in the areas of low income housing assistance which is the heart and soul of CDBG. 

For the true adventurer’s you can download the full document here:  2010-2014 CDBG Strategic Plan

But for novice, I’d recommend a quick read of the executive summary (below):

City Online Auction Comes Up Big...

A few weeks ago I did a blog post announcing our first foray into the wonderful world of internet auctions.  I am pleased to report that when Gene Roberts, City Public Service Director closed the bidding Tuesday afternoon the sales were almost 5 times greater than any of our previous local auctions (for roughly the same general inventory of surplus). Specifically Gene reports that the total sales prices for all of the items sold online amounted to $54,744 in new revenues to the City. By comparison, the average total revenues for 2008 and 2009 was $9,583. 

Clearly the internet based exposure and the popularity of comparable online auction services like eBay helped us get a lot more interest which ended up pushing our prices and revenues higher than ever before.

Gene said that we learned a few things about the online auction process which should help us be even more online customer friendly in future years. Going online required some extra staff work (to inventory, photograph and upload information on the items) but it appears to have been well worth the effort.

Gene and his staff deserve a lot of credit for taking the initiative to give this a try and making it such a success.  Great job.  

It’s got everyone thinking, what else can we sell?