IICORFORATED 1899
CALIFORNIA
MINUTES OF THE MAY 23, 2023
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF
THE CITY OF PALOS VERDES ESTATES
CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 5:04 pm.
ROLL CALL
Present: Councilmembers Lozzi, Kemps, McGowan, Mayor Pro Tem Murdock, Mayor Roos
Also Present: Interim City Manager Ready, City Attorney Rusin, Public Works Director Seims, Interim Police Chief Hellinga, Community Development Director Brady, and Interim City Clerk Cowley
COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC
There were none.
NEW BUSINESS
1. PRESENTATION OF DRAFT FISCAL YEAR 2023-24 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT AND POLICE DEPARTMENT
Recommendation: Discussion and Direction to City Manager.
Interim Police Chief Hellinga presented a PowerPoint overview for the necessity to increase the salary range for the community service aides above the minimum wage. He provided the City Council with a summary of the community service aides' duties for which they receive the minimum wage rate of $15.50 per hour. He submitted some hourly rate comparisons of neighboring cities showing where Palos Verdes Estates was in comparison to those cities. He discussed the hourly rates he was proposing for the service aides beginning with a starting salary for the first six months of $17.05, which is 10% above minimum wage; from six months to one year, a 15% increase to $17.83 per year. After one year an increase of 20% to $18.60 per hour; beginning year three, a 25% increase to $19.38 per hour, and beginning year four a 30% increase to $20.15 per hour.
The City Council discussed the issues at length and asked numerous questions of interim Chief Hellinga. The council concurred that the service aide salaries needed to be more competitive but thought it needed to be simplified to a 10% increase for year one, 20% increase for year two, and 30% for year three.
Referring to the Dreiling study and recommendations completed two years ago, the City Council also requested a report on what is working and what is not working and the stability of the Police Service Aide, as well as an update of the number Of parking citations that were issued by the traffic control officer compared to the number of citations issued by the Police Service Aides and how that has been impacted.
Inter Chief Hellinga next provided a PowerPoint presentation focusing on the Police Service Officers beginning with the staffing history from 2017 explaining the City had 1 Lead Service Officer, 8 Services Officers assigned to jail and dispatch; and 1 service officer assigned full-time to property and evidence; and 1 full-time executive assistant/custodian of records. In 2018, after the McCreary study, 1 full-time service officer assigned to property and evidence was eliminated and / service officer from dispatch and jail. In 2021, the McCreary-Dreiling study made several recommendations, which was to outsource the day-to-day jail operations, eliminate one service officer and the executive assistant.
Mr. Hellinga provided background on contracting with the Redondo Beach Police Department to outsource the jail operations, but that only lasted for one year because Redondo Beach declined to renew it. He then presented the statistics for outsourcing the jail operations in 2021. In June of 2022 the executive assistant/custodian of records resigned and a PERS annuitant was brought into assist in backlog in property from September 2021 to April 2022. He noted that in July 2022, Chief Best brought options to the City Council to add one service officer and since Redondo Beach decided not to renew the contract, the Council directed the Chief to pursue a contract with the Torrance Police Department. After several discussions with the Torrance Police Chief, they decided not to enter into a contract based on their own staffing issues. In July of 2022, the service officers increased to 8 but a jail contract was not realized. He reminded the City Council that Chief Best forecasted the city would book 225 people and since that time Interim Chief Hellinga is estimating about 340 bookings for this calendar year. His proposal this evening was to add one service officer, which is still two employees less than what the Police Department had in 2017. Interim Chief Hellinga then reviewed the operational scheduling constraints with the current staffing level explaining the shifts where there is staffing shortages if a service officer Is out.
Interim Chief Hellinga presented cost comparisons between hiring another service officer or hiring an executive assistant/custodian of records, indicating hiring an executive assistant would be $15,000 more than hiring a service officer and the service officer is more versatile.
Mr. Hellinga then presented a slide showing the comparison of booking at the Lomita Station or keeping it inhouse explaining the amount of time it would take a police officer to book at the Lomita Station and explaining the reasons why he would not want to use the Lomita Station for booking services. He also showed the fiscal impact of hiring another service officer and booking at Palos Verdes Estates versus booking at Lomita. Interim Chief Hellinga addressed the workload of the Lead Service Officer and his concern about the number of duties she has assumed due to the staffing shortage and his concern about having to replace her if she should leave.
The City Council asked numerous questions and discussed the issues and were not ready to make a decision until they had seen the entire budget and actuals. Mayor Roos stated he is not in support of having Lomita do the booking and was generally supportive of hiring another service officer and felt that the Chief needed to demonstrate that there is a problem. Mayo Pro Tem Murdock was concerned about six months from now and whether what the chief was requesting would work expressing her concer about parking enforcement. She wants to make sure that the Chief is staffing in a way that includes all the services that is relied on by the Department.
Councilmember Lozzi, expressed her concern with the police service officers not providing the traffic control that is needed at the Via Corta intersection.
A brief discussion ensued between Chief Hellinga and Council about the staffing issues in the Police Department and the Police Department's overall budget. Councilmember Lozzi requested that when this item is retumed to Council, that staff bring to Council what staff expects to have at the end of the year by each department Due to time constraints, the City Council completed discussion on the Police Departments budget for this meeting.
Community Development Director Sheryl Brady presented the proposed FY 23-24 Community Development Department budget in the amount of $1,863,396 which was revised from $1,773,746. Ms. Smith explained why there was a difference in the two amounts. Ms. Brady advised that no additional staff is requested for the Department. The council asked about the two city planners on the organization chart, confirming those positions were the contract planners and asking if she planned to bring those positions in house. Ms. Brady explained that they have CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 2
SPECIAL MEETING MAY 23, 2023
gone through several recruitments and have not found anyone to date, but the recruitment is ongoing and will be more aggressive posture toward hiring those positions.
City Manager Ready pointed out the reduced amount budgeted for Michael Baker from $420,000 to $300,000 and could go down more if both of those positions are filled. Ms. Brady continued that the budget includes an increase for H.R. Green for Building and Safety services from $420,000 to $620,000. Ms. Brady said that some actuals were provided from Fiscal Year 21-22.
The actual was $602,000, for FY 22-23, the year-end estimate is $615,000 and staff is requesting $620,000 for FY 23-24. She explained that the fees are collected from building permits and plan review which H.R. Green is paid a percentage of those costs are fee based.
Interim City Manager Ready, explained the Increase from $420,000 to $620,000 was due to an error, when the amount for H.R. Green was $615,000. He also advised the City Council that it has been five years since a fee study has been done and the city should really have a new study done because the City's fees are substantially lower than what they are in the market. A study should be done every five years. Public Works Director Seims added that the fees for H.R.
Green in planning assume only three full-time employees, not the two consultants.
Mayor Pro Tem Murdock pointed out that looking at the year over year change, here were some errors in some of the calculations that were published which concerns her. Ms. Murdock asked about the 27% increase in salary and compensation for the admin position which was only for the director. Ms. Smith explained that for the director there was an option for a merit bonus of $7,500, but what was in the previous budget was only $3,000 and therefore the remaining amount was added to make it uniform with all director's positions. The Director also is entitled to an increase up to 4% based on performance evaluation which equals approximately $5,000.
She explained the other issue Finance came across is that that may have been a cushion in case the director retires, or if the amount was just kept there as a cushion or for another reason.
Ms. Murdock pursued discussion that if we find there is an error, staff should research it and correct it and not just decide it might be a cushion. The council expressed their concern about being accurate. Mayor Pro Tem also pointed out that the online permitting noted in the budget and in the notes, it states depending upon the ERP system, and asked why an expense for online permitting was being included in the budget that the City is not going to expend this year.
Ms. Murdock also pointed out that she did not think enough money was included for training and added that she was not a fan of moving the all the training budget to travel and meetings because she felt it was important that the managers and leaders were fully aware of what is being spent on training and that staff was being taken care of. Ms. Smith stated that could be moved back.
Ms. Murdock also expressed her concern about the length of time staff has been using MBI consultants noting that when they were initially brought in it was for three to four months, and 19 months later the city is still using them and never went out for an RFP. She expressed her concem that the City has been in a long-term contract with them without going out for an RFP.
Mr. Ready responded that the city needs to aggressively fill the two Planning positions, and if we can't fill them quickly then the city needs to go out for an RFP as soon as possible because they are the highest paid employees in all the history of City government here. A discussion between Council Member Lozzi and the Interim City Manager continued regarding the budget not accurately projecting the expense for next fiscal year when it comes to personnel and the contract planners. Discussion continued regarding the duties of the contract planners and the level of skills.
Council Member Kemps questioned whether junior planner would be sufficient as compared to the contract. What he heard was the department needs a senior planner and a junior planner to satisfy the problem. He pointed out that staff needed to plan; if the positions weren't filled and the city was having trouble recruiting, then the city is going to go several months until we go out to RFP.
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING MAY 23, 2023
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 6:17 pm.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Carol Cowley, Interim City Manager
APPROVED:
m Roos, May
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING MAY 23, 2023