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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Joint Meeting - Written CommentsReceived After Agenda Printed May 23, 2023 Written Comments May 23, 2023, Joint Council -Finance Committee Comments The following comments on the Special Joint City Council/Finance Committee agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( iimmosher(d-)yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item Ill.1. Review of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2023-24 Operating Budget At the Finance Committee's May 11 preliminary review of the City Manager's proposed budget, I mentioned that the Information Technology function, with its many personnel, seemed misplaced within the City Manager's Office. The IT people aren't really managing anything, but they are, instead, support staff for the other departments, much like the Finance Department or Human Resources personnel. Constituting 16 of the City Manager's 25 employees, it seems to me our IT division has grown large enough to be its own department, as many other cities have made it. As a standalone department, it would be larger than both the Harbor and Human Resources Departments, and bring the City Manager's Office down to a size comparable with the City Attorney's. Or, like many other cities have done, IT could be merged into Finance to create an Administrative Services Department (a name we, too, used in the not -to -distant past). Such a combined department would be about the size of the Community Development, Library Services or Utilities, and smaller than Police, Fire, Public Works or Recreation & Senior Services. Or even more creatively, since librarians study "Library and Information Science," IT could be merged into our Library Services Department to create a Library and Information Services Department. The combined department would be about the size of Recreation & Senior Services. Speaking of department sizes, while much of the City's work is done by outside contractors, I have frequently heard it said Newport Beach has "about 700" direct employees. From the tables on pages 18 and 19 of the proposed budget, the correct number in Fiscal Year 2024 will be 765.50 full time and 148.96 full -time -equivalent part-time employees for a total of 914.46 full- time equivalent direct employees. Regarding other aspects of the operating budget, one thing I have long wondered about and never received an answer to is whether additional budget detail exists, for example, what the various departments anticipate spending their generalized allotment for, say, "Services Professional" or "Training" or "Equipment N.O.C" on. Are those numbers based on anticipated needs? Or simply carried over from what was spent in those categories in past years? In regard to providing detail, I notice the $147,248 in "Council Allowances" (page 68) is not broken out in the detail with which salary and benefit information is shown in other departments (similar to, say, page 60 for the City Attorney positions — speaking of which, it is a challenge to find where anticipated or actual litigation -related and settlement costs can be found), or as it was in past budgets where the anticipated cost of each Council position was shown separately. And as to compensation paid to elected and appointed officials, as best I can tell the compensation for our seven Planning Commissions was last set by Council Resolution 90-70 on June 25, 1990 -- at $60 per meeting with a cap of $120 per month. I have no idea where this is May 23, 2023, Joint Council -Finance Committee agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 2 in the current budget, but after 33 years, might it be due for an adjustment? A CPI correction would bring it to $140. Item IV. PUBLIC COMMENTS At its May 11 meeting I reminded the Finance Committee that there seemed to be some uncertainty about its responsibility to review and update the City's Fiscal Sustainability Plan. But I see the sentence at the top of the Finance Committee webpage which at that time read "Purpose: Responsible for fiscal governance, the Finance Committee reviews and monitors events and issues which may affect the financial status of the City and oversees adherence to the City's Fiscal Sustainability Plan" has subsequently been edited to remove the "Responsible for fiscal governance" and the "and oversees" parts. Something I have since discovered as a result of being on the City's General Plan Advisory Committee, is that General Plan Implementation Program 24.1 has, since 2006, called for the Council to approve what I believe would be a separate Strategic Plan for Economic Sustainability that would "outline the incentives to be provided and other City actions to be undertaken to implement the goals and policies of the General Plan." Furthermore, "This plan should be dynamic and reviewed and updated annually as a part of the City budget." About 30 of the existing General Plan policies in various elements assume they will be supported and implemented by this dynamic Strategic Plan. The City's most recent General Plan Annual Progress Report, approved by the Council on March 28, 2023, and submitted to the state Office of Planning and Research, says of Implementation Program 24.1 (page 7-57 of that day's Council agenda packet): "Ongoing -- In June 2009, the City Council updated its Strategic Plan for Fiscal and Economic Stability through the Economic Development Committee (EDC). The Strategic Plan is designed to serve as a work program for the City Council, City staff, and the EDC to promote and sustain fiscal and economic vitality in Newport Beach. It is intended, in part, as a companion document for the General Plan (adopted in 2006), to assist the City in implementing portions of the General Plan that affect economic development in the City. The Strategic Plan includes goals and objectives to enhance the business climate in the community and focuses on a shorter time frame (three to five years) than does the General Plan, since economic conditions and priorities can change more rapidly than do planning goals related to community character and land use patterns. The Strategic Plan calls for regular reviews of progress and re -assessments of priorities. The Strategic Plan continues to be reviewed and implemented each year." The archived June 9, 2009, agenda packet indicates the Council did, indeed, as Item 22, on the same night as it held its budget hearing, conduct its first annual review and make adjustments to a Strategic Plan for Fiscal and Economic Sustainability originally approved, after much earlier discussion, on July 24, 2007 (where it was Item 17, and consistently mislabeled on these agendas and in the staff reports as "Stability" instead of "Sustainability"). So, the most recent General Plan Annual Progress Report is correct about the Strategic Plan's existence, but rather than being "ongoing," it appears to have fallen by the wayside after 2009.