STAFF REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
DATE: Regular Meeting of November 12, 2024
TO: Mayor and Members of the City Council
VIA: Dante Hall, City Manager
SUBMITTED BY: Michael Roberts, Public Works Director/City Engineer SUBJECT: Addition of a Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator Job Description to the City’s Classification Plan RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Adopt a resolution approving the addition of a Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator Job Description to the City’s Classification Plan and approving an amended Salary Schedule for Full-Time Teamsters positions for Fiscal Year 2024/25.
BACKGROUND:
Public Works staff directly administers five (5) Landscaping and Lighting Assessment Districts (“LLADs”) that encompass the City. The LLADs provide for well-maintained, attractive landscaping and serviceable streetlighting along public streets as well as fire breaks adjacent to open space. They also provide for the upkeep of playgrounds, fields, park furniture, tennis courts, graffiti abatement, lighting, landscaping, water features, and trails in City parks. Funding for LLADs is provided from assessments levied on approximately 8,000 parcels within the City. Of all the programs administered by Public Works, the LLADs have the largest visual impact on the community, arguably are most impactful to property values, and involve the greatest interaction with the public.
Administration of the LLAD program is complex and resource intensive. Each district is an independent entity, has unique amenities, and is assessed at the benefit received but also contributes its fair share of funding for landscaping and lighting on major roads. Properties pay separate assessments on the County tax roll for the City’s major parks, which total approximately a dozen.
Maintenance is provided by a combination of City staff and contractors. Staff cleans park bathrooms, picks up trash, repairs streetlights, abates graffiti, repairs benches, and performs other maintenance work as needed. Contractors perform the landscape and irrigation maintenance/repairs, fire breaks, tree trimming, and streetlight repair. They also construct the capital improvement projects (CIPs) such as pathway paving, tennis court resurfacing, and major park improvements including the Beechnut Park Improvement Project and Refugio Lake Park Picnic Area and Shade Structure Project, which are currently in design. Public Works has the primary responsibility for the overall management of the program, including oversight of the contractors.
Three (3) new LLAD-related issues are emerging that will require attention in the future. The first is management of the City’s maturing urban forest. This includes 20+ year old trees in median strips along major corridors and in planter strips in residential subdivisions north of I-80, as well as City-owned trees adjacent to private property and travelled ways, especially Eucalyptus. The second is the management of the City’s open space with regards to reducing risk from wildfires. The third emerging issue is managing the increasing number of sidewalk repairs that are being damaged by from the maturing trees.
In early 2022, the City implemented a citizen request system to facilitate and track requests from residents, which has resulted in approximately 400 LLAD-related requests since its inception. Each request includes entering into dialogue with a resident and follow up on the action being required, such as investigating a hazard tree, assessing the source of a water leak, mowing practices, replacing plants that have died, and the like.
The Public Works Maintenance and Operations (“M&O”) Division currently consists of a Superintendent, Supervisor, and six (6) Maintenance Workers who administer the City’s sewer collection system, transportation system, and public buildings in addition to the LLAD program. Historically Maintenance Workers, while specializing in certain areas, have worked on all aspects of M&O. Since the 40% staffing layoffs in 2010, staff have been in a reactive mode, frequently jumping from assignment to assignment, based upon the priority at the time. To better meet the Department’s needs, a Maintenance Worker position was reclassified to the Public Works Inspector/Specialist position in 2021, and a second Maintenance Worker position was reclassified to the Maintenance Supervisor position in 2023, resulting in the current staffing level and organizational structure.
ANALYSIS:
Creating the new Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position will be significant step in restoring staffing levels to a sustainable level, which, coupled with an associated restructuring within the M&O Division, will allow for significantly enhanced service delivery.
As outlined in the attached Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator job description, the primary duties of this new position will be to respond to citizen requests remotely using the City’s citizen request software and also on-site, in-person, as needed; oversight of all facets of the landscape maintenance contract including coordinating with the contractor, performing field inspections, reviewing and assessing change orders, and monitoring irrigation water usage; acting as a liaison between residents and the landscaping contractor; oversight of the streetlight contractor and performing streetlight audits; inspection of the City’s urban forest including hazard tree removal and tree trimming; inspection of weed abatement activities in open space to meet Fire Code; and inspection and coordination on the repair of sidewalks damaged by tree roots.
Currently these duties are being performed piecemeal by Maintenance Workers, the Public Works Inspector/Specialist, and the Superintendent and compete by priority across all the Department’s responsibilities. Having these work duties consolidated under the new Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position who will be dedicated solely to performing these assignments will be much more effective, especially with regards to timely responses to requests from residents and monitoring the landscaping contractor for compliance, including water consumption during irrigation and mowing throughout the City. The addition of the Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator will position the City to better respond to emerging issues, including management of the urban forest, open space fire abatement, and sidewalks damaged by tree roots.
The Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position would be a non-exempt, full-time position represented by the Teamsters Local 315 Union and assigned to Grade 147 which has been added to the full-time Teamsters represented salary schedule (Att #3). 5% incentive pay is recommended for ISA Arborist Certification since a separate, contract arborist would not be needed to inspect roots of trees while sidewalks are being repaired and will allow the Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator to better evaluate hazard tree complaints and the annual programmatic tree trimming while it is being performed by the contractor.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The estimated annual cost for the Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position, fully loaded assuming family-level health insurance benefits are elected, would be $176K mid-step. Existing staff who are currently performing this function would be reassigned to facility maintenance to enhance the level of maintenance on public buildings, which will result in a $106,000 increase in cost to the Facility Maintenance Fund. With this cost reallocation, the addition of the Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position will be cost-neutral for all LLADs, except for LLAD No. 83-2 Zone 10 – Citywide Parks, which will have an annual increase of approximately $70,000, which is the remaining cost to fund the Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position, and this additional level of effort would be utilized to improve and better maintain City Parks as identified in the recently-adopted Parks Master Plan. Funding for the Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator position and associated reallocation was included in the Adopted FY 24-25 Budget.
ATTACHMENTS:
Resolution
Landscaping and Lighting Program Coordinator Job Description Amended Salary Schedule for FY 24-25 – Teamsters FT Positions