Alice Chair Dmitrievich is excused for the meeting today.

We're joined by Alderman Scott Spiker to my left.

My far left, Alderwoman Charlotte Moore.

And at the table by President Perez.

We have Alderman Mark Chambers on the board joining us as well.

And no call.

Alderwoman Meleley Coggs is excused for the time being.

We'll start with our agenda item number one, file 252055, an ordinance relating to optional holidays sponsored by Alderman Perez.

Thank you.

Kind of just the name of Sister Chavez.

We never want to diminish the work or the outcome of what it is, but considering the news and the allegations, uh, this is just one of several pieces just to uh move forward.

And I beg I believe this is part of the process for the community to heal.

And um in order for us to do this, we have to take out the whole section because this was the only optional holiday on the books.

Okay, thank you very much.

Any comment from the administration?

I guess not.

Um any comment from committee members?

I so move.

Alderwoman Moore moves passage of this ordinance.

Any discussion on that motion?

Any objection?

Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to item number two, file two five one four four four resolution directing the comproller's office to provide a quarterly expenditure report for all department accounts, including special funds and special purpose accounts to the common council, sponsored by Alderman Mark Chambers.

Good morning, Alderman Chambers.

Good morning, Mr.

Chairman Committee members.

Um thank you for having this file be heard.

Uh this was a budget footnote that stemmed from conversations during the budget process last year.

Um I think you kind of put a file out that was mirroring this.

Um this is basically giving us the itemized report of department um spending um and expenditure uh just to give us a heads up of you know helping us in future budget processes.

Um I want to thank uh comptroller Christian for his hard work in doing this and this flexibility, and I will turn it over to him.

Um before we go to the department, uh Alder uh President Perez wanted to be able to do that.

No, I want to just uh thank Alderman Chambers for his leadership and uh the work that the comptrollers have done, and at the appropriate time I want to be added as a co-sponsor.

Uh President Perez asked unanimous consent to be added as co-sponsor hearing no objections so ordered.

Any other comments, questions from committee members?

Comptroller Christensen, welcome.

Sure.

Um just a very brief comment.

Um we're happy to take this on.

I think it's it's worthwhile, I think it's important.

Um and the the format in which we give it to you, I I view it as uh kind of a an evolving thing if it's if what we provide initially is um you know not necessarily what uh the sponsor sponsors or or the committee members are looking for.

Um feel free to let me know what it is exactly you are looking for, and we'll be happy to try to make that happen.

Appreciate that because the comptroller's always been um our fiscal watchdog and uh not just with the open checkbook uh that's been around for quite some time.

Um fiscal transparency at the city of Milwaukee is second to none.

Uh any motions on this item or any more discussion alderman spiker moves uh adoption of the resolution.

Any objections to that motion?

Hearing none.

So ordered.

Thank you, Alderman Chambers.

Uh we are uh want to make a note we are also joined now with Alderman uh Alderwoman Malele Cogs has joined us on the board.

Moving on to item number three, file two five one eight one nine communication from the Department of Administration Information Technology Management Division relating to a summary of cybersecurity training program.

Uh I had a reminder from our clerk's office team to get my compliance done earlier this week, so I hope that's reflected in the report because we have a uh we have a summary from different departments, correct?

Welcome um Director Henke.

Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Uh Alderman Spiker.

Uh oh, I'm sorry, sponsored by Alderman Spiker.

Please sponsor.

So uh yeah, this is uh a file that came up through some work we did at the city information management committees, so the cybersecurity training very important.

Uh Mr.

Henkey is the CIO is trying to make sure the departments are complying with that training so that uh we're not exposed to risk.

Um what was not clear was what power he had to bring departments um to task if they are falling behind.

Um so we wanted to have this reporting mechanism in place.

If you look in the file, there is an item called training completion by department.

If you pull that up, you can kind of see how people are doing.

Um I've already done a limited amount of follow-up based on those results with some of the department heads that um were having some challenges.

Um but with that I'd kick it over to Mr.

Henke and team.

Thanks.

Good morning.

Good morning, thank you.

David Henkey, uh Department of Administration, Information Technology Management Division.

Um with me today is Judy Seatman, our IT um security manager.

I think she'll take take the majority of the presentation.

Okay, um good morning.

Um I just wanted to quickly go over what these the dashboard is and some of the information that's provided on here.

Um, like Alderman Spiker said, we had decided to move from an annual training to monthly trainings, um, hopefully making them shorter trainings and uh making them more consistent so that everybody is used to getting them.

Um the results so far from the first two months, I think are are um pretty substantive.

Um they're uh better than what they were.

Usually they used to be 30 to 60 percent completion rate, usually lower than uh you know the 60 percent, and that was uh following up for four months.

So um as it sits, we're at about 80 percent citywide.

Um the average time per learner is five minutes per um training.

Um that equates to uh 60 minutes uh annually, and that is what is recommended.

Um if you look at the uh charts, the first one underneath the NIST core strategies, we follow NIST as part of our compliance, and so um that is basically just keeping track of what our training is.

And then um also if you go to the um if you go to what the departments are actually doing, um the majority of them are up over 80 percent, 80 percent is what I look for.

There's always gonna it's gonna be rare for departments to hit 100 just because of attrition.

So um the numbers, you know, if somebody is moving to another department, those don't follow through.

Um, as far as the communication goes to the managers, I think that's where we're lacking.

The only way they get the communication is through me.

I send out um I send out reminders and reports, but hopefully once we move into work day, when it's into work day, they're gonna be able to go in themselves and see it.

It's gonna be a lot easier for them to manage.

I do have a lot of departments asking me routinely if they could have the numbers.

Um fire and police do, I mean, they have a huge job trying to get those guys in on time to do um to do their training, and they follow up all the time.

Um as far as the election commission, you can see they were 80 uh percent for the first month and 60 for the second, which was closer to elections, so I'm sure that has something to do with it.

Um Hackham has always consistently been low.

Um that's one that we really have to work with.

Um Hackham's not um connected directly to our network, so we're somewhat uh protected from that.

But does anybody have any questions?

I think I think we need to call out the budget uh budget office that is has a hundred percent uh compliance.

But uh thank you.

Thank you for that.

Any Mr.

Chair?

Uh Alderman Spiger.

Um yeah, so again, looking at the training completion by department, I contacted the city attorney's office.

They were pretty close to 80 percent already with the malware.

Um, both the city attorney and his deputy got back to me right away saying they'd work on that.

Um definitely take that seriously.

Election Commission had contact with the executive director there.

Um, they did say there were challenges leading up to the election.

Um wanted to rectify that.

Um, and then um, but Ms.

Danius can follow up with them.

Uh and then for fire and police commission and MPD MFT, that's all in the same wheelhouse.

I know Assistant Chief Sarnow's here not asking him to speak on this because didn't prep him for this, but um, yeah, MPD uh you have two-thirds of folks completing their malware stuff, but that leaves one third not.

Um similar for the fire department um and fire police commission is is near 80 percent, but since that's their purview, um, I want to make each of those agencies aware as well and sent an email reminding them of that.

So hopefully this is just the baseline, and we'll see improvement from here.

Um hackham was a whole different animal.

I did contact uh Calder Moore, my colleague to my left about it since she serves on the hacking board just to make her aware.

So thank you for the work so that we could follow up, and this is how it's supposed to go.

If you identify it, um I would urge us to reach out and contact folks.

I have no trouble as you see contacting folks myself, and if there's a repeated pattern, then we can bring somebody in and see what's going on.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I wanted to thank you too, because I think um having this consistent monthly, I think we're gonna see these numbers go up even higher because people are gonna be used to seeing the training and just doing it.

I really believe that's what's gonna happen.

So thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um before I before I uh move on, I wanted to jump in and ask uh is this something that would be appropriate to bring forward in uh from the LRB when we have uh budget processes and budget hearings in October.

Is this kind of compliance concern um strong enough to include that in our conversations and budget?

Because we are budget and personnel, right?

Um has there ever been an ask to have um this report included in our budget documents or our our budget feedback.

That that hasn't uh been the case to date.

It has uh been something that's uh you know, as Judy has mentioned, trying to get an hour's worth of uh training per person per year as part of the NIST National Institute um standards and technique technology.

Uh basically a um you know a standards board of what is is recommended.

So those are kind of the standards we work by that we've had uh routine audits through the countroller's office for compliance on these sort of things.

So that's been the mechanism in the past.

If we want to do something through LRB through the budget process, I'd be be open to that.

Okay.

Uh just uh dropping that nugget for later, but thank you for that.

Alder Mom and more.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just want to also thank my colleague for um bringing this to our attention.

This is I've never seen, you know, the data um a dashboard like this prior.

And again, um I'm new working for the city, and there's some things that you all are put in place um that as a as a um city staff that I have to do, right?

Um, whether I like it or not, right?

But I learn a lot uh from the trainings.

They're uh they're short, a lot of them are you know pretty simple.

Um, but it's something that is our duty as a as a staff person.

And so I would love to, and I don't know how that would work.

Um I would love to see just a just this quarterly report every three months.

I would love to see it, you know, quarterly just so that um we you know departments have it on their radar.

It's a reminder to folks that this is something that you're required, it's not optional.

You're required to take these trainings, right?

And so um I'm not sure what needs to happen in order for us to see um just the it's just the visual for us, you know.

Where are folks?

Um, you know, I'm a little bit of a stickler when it comes to a little bit of a competition.

You know, I always, you know, I see Bill next to me with a hundred here.

Um, you know, I like to be in the hundred range as well.

Uh but it's just one of those things that um it's important, or else you all wouldn't be here, right?

And so um we want to make sure that we recognize it as being important.

But I would love to figure out how we can see, you know, see this information um quarterly included in somewhere in something, you know, so that um you know we're being mindful and we're staying on top of things.

Okay.

And uh Mr.

Hanky, correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason you're here is because we passed the resolution requiring quarterly reporting, right?

Um re regular reporting, I'd have to check if it was quarterly, but that's certainly feasible.

Okay, thanks.

Um and for everyone's uh benefit, excuse me, gold stars go to the budget office two 100s, one 100 to the comptroller's office, one 100 to the to ITMD, two 100s to the mayor's office, and two 100s to the treasurer's office.

So congratulations everyone for doing what you should be doing.

But thank you very much.

Um Alderman Spiker, we have this is a regular quarterly report.

Do we need to place this on file or hold it?

I guess if we um hold it, then you can revisit it and next quarter.

Excellent.

Any other comments or questions on this item?

Move to hold.

Uh Alderman Spiker moves to hold the call of the chair, hearing no objection to that, so ordered.

Thank you very much.

Don't go anywhere.

Moving on, item number four, 241695.

Communication from the Department of Administration.

Oh, I'm yeah, this is also you.

Communication from the Department of Administration on the status of enterprise resource planning system replacement.

Welcome.

So I do have a brief brief presentation if we want to go through that.

Um it is not in the file currently.

I can do some handouts.

Either I can go through that presentation or just use it kind of as a baseline to ask questions about where where we stand on that project.

Um last the last discussion was at budget uh late last year, and then we had an update in April, so appropriate to do that.

I think it would be appropriate.

It is it is in the file if you're looking at the star.

Oh, okay.

I'll just just hop over here.

All right, so the uh enterprise resource planning project is managed.

All this file has department of administration.

Um Chris, can you grab his handouts as well since he has them?

If you want to thank you.

If you want to keep things good morning.

Okay, thanks for the um for the time to prep here.

Um so the although the file reference is uh update from Department of Administration, and I'm certainly here to be uh presenting as part of this.

The uh project is is managed by um an executive committee that consists of uh our budget director, city compontler, employees relations director, myself as chief information officer and purchasing director.

So uh definitely a group effort.

I want to acknowledge all of their their involvement and um leadership in this project as well.

So uh just to start with a general overview of the project, ERP or enterprise resource planning.

Uh it's a multi-year project to modernize our financial NHR systems that that we have in place, currently PeopleSoft, um, the new system will be workday, uh, commonly referred to as a workday project.

So uh when we started, we had project guidelines to adapt certain business practice processes and best practices, um, migrate to a modern software as a service platform and retire some standalone department administration systems and interfaces that share data to minimize manual processes.

So there's also several key success factors here as well associated with the project, just to provide a brief brief overview.

The reason uh we're here before today is the big um uh change in the project since last uh discussion during the budget hearings is that we had estimated a go live date of of June of this year.

Uh circumstances over the last several months have um conspi to delay the the implementation, and our recommendation from the executive committee is to extend the um go live date to September of 2026.

So today I just want to go over why that time is needed.

Um, how does that project extension help to ensure project success versus the the June deadline and what is the cost of extending the project and risks of not extending?

So, why is the additional time needed?

So over the last several months we've had several integrations and um with third-party systems and aligning work date with some city business processes that were more complex, just took a longer time than we anticipated.

Um I'll go back to say that when we have an estimate goal live date, that's a best effort go live date or best um uh best estimate of the the shortest time that we can go live when developing the budget, when developing the timeline.

We always implement what is the most aggressive but realistic timeline and lowest budget that we can that we believe we can meet.

Um so these are circumstances that came into place uh that were beyond the best case scenario of if everything worked perfect, we can go live by June.

So moving on, but there's been a combination of time-sensitive priorities since since the last last year, changes in federal regulations for payroll and tax reporting, um, creation of several new city departments, um, some wage and set salary changes that have occurred in in the new year, and a couple of I I mentioned the MPSO bargaining agreement.

I think there's a couple of bargaining agreements that have actually been implemented that um have a cumulative effect and a priority on what needs to get done to maintain business.

These are the same people working on implementing those systems in our current ERP platform people soft that are also implementing work days.

So the day-to-day stuff and some of these additional uh responsibilities have just um you know grown beyond what we had anticipated in the best case.

Um there's been some turnover of critical staff, both at the city and with Accenture, our implementation provider for workday, um some unexpected absences of staff as well.

So with that, we have key project members as I I've mentioned, they're fully committed and overcommitted with work day and other operational responsibilities, not just the additional ones mentioned before, but just the general day-to-day um processing of payroll of new employees of benefits and all of those those things.

Um those responsibilities we've worked to try to realign them to free up time for key team members, make sure low priority tasks are deferred to the greatest extent possible to try to avoid any delays in the project implementation.

And so you know we continue to make progress every day on the project, but several milestones and deadlines have been missed and schedules were adjusted.

We continually, as those milestones are missed, we say, okay, within the June go live.

Um what can we do to reduce other timelines on future milestones and make up time?

Uh and we've continued to do that until by this point any further reductions are not practical.

Um I see that you have different slides.

So there is so whatever you're showing now is not in Legistar.

Yes, that you send it over to Chris so we can upload it.

We will absolutely do that.

I apologize.

We're still making I was still making some minor updates this morning.

So the the handouts in front of you should be um should be accurate, and as soon as this file is heard, uh we'll get that um sent to Chris.

Um before you before maybe we can just uh pause for questions uh because you threw a lot at us.

Yeah, um, when was it known that we're slowing down on the timeline?

So I would say that that we've always had had an aggressive timeline, and that if we didn't make all of our dates, that that would be that that we were at risk.

Um we're kind of always at risk because we're always doing the trying to be as aggressive as possible.

When we knew for sure, um I would I would say several several weeks ago, maybe I don't know, a month or so ago.

I don't know, Bill or Nick, if you have that's about accurate.

Um yeah, I think that's that's fair.

It was uh maybe four four to six weeks ago.

So the intent is to share this as as quickly as possible uh, but not until we know that we're we're trying as the executive committee and as the whole workday team to make this date.

So once we know that it's not possible, that's what we're bringing this forward.

Part of this communication now is also to kind of cut to the chase at the end to fund this extension.

Um we're not asking for any new resources, but looking to take um a carryover fund in the next next budget cycle, there'll be a request for carryover funds from from some DOA budgets in 2025 to help help fund this extension.

And so um we want to provide this communication now so we aren't holding back for that that file's a smart opportunity.

Uh you you also mentioned that there were some unexpected staff um absences.

Yeah, uh through FMLA or other uh um other long-term um absences.

So when the and that same thing happened with Accenture, right?

But if they're if they're vacant or they have turnover, we have to pay them more to make up for it?

No, it would it would follow a standard either sick leave or FMLA process.

Um so we don't that that's on city staff when I've heard of um temporary um absences.

I I don't know that we've had any of that uh on the accenture side beyond you know you said there was turnover on Accenture also.

Yeah, so we've had in in some cases.

I mean the um comp troller have a new elected comp troler from when the when the project first started, um the director of um employee relations.

So uh those are some high profile leadership changes, but there have been a number of changes within um just over time as well.

Um and uh any other questions for now?

I'll save the rest of mine for later, but just want to clear those up.

All right, thank you.

Um you're almost close to the yeah.

Yeah, um, so the through meth extension want to talk through what that benefits us and how that time will be used.

So there's several components.

Um, data conversion is is one that's a one of our critical timeline items.

Um, and so we have you know two weeks now left.

We want to extend that to six weeks.

So converting legacy data in the HR and financial systems and and third party systems.

Um the next the next tenant that we build out is going to be this has to be the accurate data because it's going to be the production data at GoLive, so we want to be sure that we get that right.

Um payroll testing, you know, we have a number of weeks, want to extend that for another month because we run two cycles where we compare a payroll process in workday to a actual historic payroll process in PeopleSoft and make sure that they match.

We we go through that twice uh to make sure that we have a high level of confidence that when we go live the payroll process will work as expected and how it has previously.

Um salary and department changes.

I talked a little bit about some of the changes, um, new departments that we've had or salary changes that were implemented.

Whenever we do that now for the beginning of this year, we basically have two systems, so we still have to implement those changes in work day as well as in PeopleSoft.

Um user training this time will allow us to do additional um 30 unique training courses being developed and delivered in Q2 and Q3, so we have some more time for end user training and some additional items like um that we were looking at doing post go live that we can maybe bring in now for for departments or efforts that aren't on the critical timeline, like a new health uh retirement account and enhancements to the total rewards potentially could be implemented before go live rather than than after go live, and then security roles as well.

The additional time law is to do some fine-tuning of who has what rights within the system and make sure we get that right.

Okay.

And how much is this gonna cost?

Um that's two steps ahead.

Well uh oh, three slides ahead.

I'll get get to that.

Um so the initial estimates for the project were before we picked a vendor when we first knew that we wanted to do a new system was 25 to 30 million dollars.

Once we selected a vendor uh work day, uh we've allocated just under 24 million dollars the project since 2024.

Spent spent about 22.6 million um is estimated.

Should we have gone live in June?

Um to move to September, it's 25 million dollars.

So you'll see that's about a 2.4 million dollar cost to do that.

Um we have some funds in the project to get to, you know, between that 23.85 million to 22.6 million that are already allocated.

Um there's an additional one point five million above what's been allocated to move to September.

So that's where we're looking at the Department of Administration uh 2025 regular operating fund and ERP uh enterprise resource management or ERP special account that have um sufficient funds available to carry over that we would be uh requesting in the next um in the next uh committee cycle.

So I guess to answer your question, that's a lot of detail there.

So the original the original budget was two twenty-two point six, and now we're changing that to twenty-five from June to September.

Right.

1.4 is available for carryover, but that's another 1.15 million dollar gap.

Is that correct?

No, the original budget the I shouldn't say the original, the total budgeted level up through 26 was 23.85.

Had we gone live in June, we potentially would have had a a savings of about a million dollars.

Got it.

Okay, so we're 1.15 over budget for the three-month extension.

Um I have questions, but I'll I want to kick it over to committee members first.

Um questions or comments on this.

Uh I had a briefing on it already, so I got my questions answered there.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm sure your questions will prompt further questions.

Fair enough.

Um is there a threat to moving implementation right up to budget season?

And that's kind of when everyone's pretty busy in City Hall.

Uh, and then going live right before we start budget hearings is going to be a very busy time for the for City Hall.

True.

Um, I have have some comments.

I don't know, Nick, since you're the budget director might have some comments on that as well.

So my my comments would be there's um unfortunately there's really never a good time to do this.

The implementation based on um how the process works has to be done on a quarterly basis just for reporting purposes and for uh some of the technical details of implementation, it can be done on a quarterly basis.

So we can do it at the end of Q1, two, three, or four.

We've been looking at, you know, if we do say we have to extend it further in it to the end of the year.

Well, doing it at the end of the year would not be a good time because you have end of year closeout, and that's um uh employee benefits and and you know, open enrollment is just completing at that time.

So that's a very difficult time.

If we if the April Q1 type time frame is is a difficult time frame because we're busy doing um end of year closeout in January and February, we're also implementing any again, you know, the new salary or wage changes or HR changes associated with the budget.

So the budget fallout is kind of more so in the beginning of the year, and a Q one date isn't is is difficult.

Um you know, the Q2 or Q3 is probably more um more um appropriate.

Again, none of them are really ever good for some of the reasons you pointed out for Q3.

But we are still using PeopleSoft for our current budget in 2026 and for the 2027 process, so it will be there for that.

Um I guess Nick, if you had any comments on that.

Yeah, I mean it's there's different cadences of work and there's seasonality to the work of the various departments involved in this.

Um the the budget office is busiest in September and October.

Um and a lot of I mean departments are busy then too with prep helping the budget office present the work, but I think there's a budget module which we're sort of rolling out in parallel, but it won't be the actual budget this year, but it likely will have to be in 28.

The budget module.

This cut over is really about the eight well the form the HRMS and FMIS systems cutting over to uh to work day and the departments most involved in that cut over COMTROL or DER and ITMD.

And so I I'd maybe defer to them on the their seasonality and cadence of their workflow, whether I mean July is probably the best, but we're not gonna hit July.

September is probably better than January.

But I I would maybe defer to those department heads about when is the the best time for this.

But I mean we had the sooner we do it, the less it costs.

So uh that's my main motivating.

As long as it's correct.

And not well, yes, if to do to hurry up and do it wrong would in the long term probably cost us way more money.

Yeah.

Um is there any um are there any functions or any features in workday that uh we had planned to implement that were scaling back or changing uh what what the city is going to be delivering?

Um not substantially.

There are some things that um timing wise we're we're looking at doing as as follow-on.

Um you know, I uh so we're delaying some implementation of some of workday now, even further.

Well, no, not work day.

I would say things like integrations, like we had initially planned on um say one example would be uh the public works asset inventory system and linking that into work day.

Um they are looking at a whole new platform.

So we said um there's and this is separate from the schedule, but it does help reduce the costs because we're not doing that integration um and uh and it allows people more time to focus on the core features.

That one, you know, that they're looking at a new asset management platform.

So we've there are things that we'll look at as as future add-ons and improvements, just part of as part of the natural process, but there's nothing substantial in the workday implementation that we're looking at not implementing at this time or critical.

Um older woman more.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

I just wanted to ask about the initial planning estimates.

Um, and this is probably maybe for the budget director.

Um between the 25 and the 30 million, was that something you all um anticipated just in case you went over um what the city has allocated as far as the 23.85?

Was there room sort of like well, if we do go over, we we know that we need to stay between this 25 and 35 30 million?

Well, the 25-30 million was an initial planning estimate.

Yeah.

We I mean we generally try there's a balance between leaving wiggle room, but not budgeting for wiggle room because if you budget for Wiggle room on a big project, you're crowding out a bunch of other smaller projects that you're you need to fund too and the capital budget's challenge.

So uh I um you the well tell me again your quite you're asking just because I'm thinking of um I think what I'm trying to get to is so we would be at the 25 million mark in September, right?

Yeah, which was the low end of the initial plan.

And so if for whatever reason we need to extend again, you know, where are those dollars sort of, you know, is there space to get those additional dollars if you're short answer a month or two.

Not in the twenty-six.

So yeah, twenty-six budget at the the levels that are budgeted uh ending in the year twenty-six, we're over by one point one five million to do this, but we think there's enough money uh in carryover uh to cover it in DOA.

But if there were to be beyond September and we needed to pay bills in 26 beyond this 25 million, I don't see any other option, either contingent fund or contingent borrowing.

Obvious, and obviously we could budget more in 27.

I we were hoping not to.

The six-year capital plan assumed it was over because we got a bunch of other new projects that either are starting or will in 27 or in future years, you know, the the DPW um municipal services building, capital or the midtown library.

So there's other new projects that need to start.

Obviously, if we need to keep budgeting for this, it's crowding that out.

Not to mention all of the other line items of basic uh keeping up with basic capital maintenance at all our city facilities.

So the capital budget is gonna be difficult.

This doesn't help, but it's a mission critical project that needs to be done right.

Yeah, I I would I would agree with that, and if everything goes accordingly, we should be able to go live in September.

That's our current best case estimate.

I mean, I I hesitate to commit to that 100% at this time.

I mean, we're actively in meetings about well, what if this doesn't work or how does that work?

We're doing everything we can to make sure that does.

And there are actually in the presentation um some critical factors of concern required to meet September goal life dates.

So you know, we have to stay.

There's like the payroll testing that I talked about previously.

We there that's the first one with several weeks will eat, the second payroll testing can't absorb additional delays.

The financial data conversion, we're working with Accenture to build out um a f final tenant that would limit, you know, once that's built, we'll limit the time for st city staff to do their testing.

And then punch lists, which are basically everything else we need to do in both finance and HR.

You know, there's a large number of outstanding items that need to get done in the next 10 weeks or so.

And so we can, but it's gonna require a lot of self-monitoring, um, making sure the leads in each of those work streams stay on top of it.

All of the constraints that we have with our day-to-day operations, make sure that it fits in there.

So um if if we can't meet any of those three or four uh critical paths, there'd be a risk to extend past September.

We're doing everything we can not to reach that, but but those are some of the risk factors that we have.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Spider.

Uh just one quick question.

I think I asked it during my briefing too.

Um, so I understand that uh some staff is you know, bearing quite the brunts here.

Um if you had to go live with the original date uh well, it wouldn't have been possible, but extending it three months is also um spreading out that burden.

But um just wondering what we're doing to make sure we're keeping on top of um how staff is able to juggle both um this work and their their regular work and whether consideration has been made for um bringing in extra people, and I know you've said in the past you really can't have anybody but some of the core people doing it.

Uh so just speaking to the issue of burnout and what attentions being given to that.

But I can speak to that a little bit.

Um yes, uh I think there are um you know issues with um you know staff being pushed to their limits, and uh I think we're we're asking a lot of staff, and I think they have almost to a person responded extremely well.

Um, but that that level of effort, I mean you're right, it can only be sustained for for so long.

And um, you know, I think that's why we're we're pushing to get this project over as soon as possible so that we can sort of get out of the woods.

Um we are bringing on um other consultants when appropriate and um when you know it it makes sense to sort of shift some of the burden, whether it's operational, uh sort of their day-to-day jobs or workday related um tasks.

We are uh, you know, we have done that, we we've explored that.

Um as far as does the additional three months does that allow us to really take the foot off the the gas?

Not really.

Um we're we're still gonna need to continue the same level of effort in order to meet that September uh go live date.

So as much as I'd like to say this will give us a chance to to breathe.

I mean it it may you know lift some spirits as far as knowing that we've got more time, and if folks are they're concerned at the the June go live date um that we the system wouldn't be ready, but um uh I I think with the September go live date that should give uh a little bit more confidence um uh from you know kind of our our key project staff that that we will be uh have a successful go live.

So I I'm hoping that there's maybe some some morale boost that comes out of it, but I I don't know if there's gonna be a meaningful um let up in in the the the pace uh of the project.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

Uh and we are welcomed by uh DER.

Good morning, Jackie Q Carter, employee relations.

Um just to add to what Controller Christensen say it, um I think the the sentiment is while it may release some pressure, we still can't take our feet off the gas, right?

We still gotta keep moving.

Um, I think there's balance to be had because these same folks are still doing their their regular daily work, and specifically with my team, there have been a lot of changes, a lot of um things that they've had to implement in the meantime, which kind of slows some of that down.

I think we also have to remember that even if we bring on, you know, we talked about some additional consultants.

One of the reasons that the consultant impacted the timeline is they still have to ramp up and learn our system.

So that takes time as well.

So I think you know, the it it will add some time, but adding additional people, there's there's a setback to that, and so we really want to have a balance of pushing forward with the work, but also keeping that balance so people take care of themselves because that that's one of my primary concerns is that people are not burnt out.

We've seen some of that, people have had to take off unexpected unexpectedly, and so it's better if we can manage this in a way where we can plan for some of that.

Um so we're doing what we can and and really trying to push forward.

The staff is committed, um, and and we'll just keep pressing.

So if I could just add one thing, I'd really like to publicly acknowledge and and thank the uh everybody that's worked on this project, particularly our our project leads.

Um a lot has been asked of them.

They've they've stepped up and uh we're really proud of what they've been able to accomplish, and uh I think um we're in good hands.

We just need a little bit more time to bring this successfully across the finish line.

And we will hear more about that in our fund transfers in our at our next meeting in three weeks.

All right, Alder Woman Moore moves to place this item on file, hearing no objections, so ordered.

Thank you all very much.

Moving on our on our agenda item five, file two five one eight three four resolution authorizing the transfer of funds from the MPD federal forfeiture revenue contribution account to the police department's budget.

We have a substitute and Alderman Spiker moves to have sub A before us.

Did you want to sit next door?

Oh, I'm fine.

Welcome, Chief Sarno and Director Egan.

Good morning.

Good morning, committee.

Laura Engon, Milwaukee Police Department.

First, I'd like to thank you so much for providing us the opportunity to run through our 2026 asset forfeiture plan.

We presented a brief presentation to describe what this program is all about and to talk a little bit about our plan for 2026.

The Equitable Sharing Program or Asset Forfeiture Program is a program that's run through the U.S.

Department of Justice, and it allows for the distribution of the value of assets seized where proof of that property has been linked to criminal activity and has been certified through through a criminal conviction.

Um resources are only available to us after all legal due process has been exhausted and a final forfeiture is entered into the system.

It can be a very lengthy process between when an asset is seized and when Milwaukee will receive a share of that particular asset.

The program has four main goals.

The first and foremost is to deter deteriorate uh criminal activity and also to encourage the cooperation and interaction of agencies to fight crime in the area.

The third goal of that program is to compensate victims and finally just to administer that program in a manner that's of sound public policy and following program guidelines.

As a local law enforcement agency, we are eligible to participate in the program.

The amount of resources that are made available to us really starts from the money that is um gathered through that uh actual forfeiture.

There are various reductions to that amount.

So you start with the gross proceeds, and various adjustments are made for, for example, third part third-party interests, for example, if it's a property, if there's a mortgage on the property.

Payment to victims, federal case management costs, um, various awards to informants, payments to experts involved in the whole criminal prosecution process that essentially results in a net assets available.

Those net assets then are distributed based upon a variety of things.

It could be time spent on each of the participating agencies in the process, or through an actual memorandum of understanding that those parties agreed to at the start of the case.

Revenue from this program varies significantly over time, and it's literally a matter of what is distributed to us through that process, and it can be lengthy.

So, as you can see in this chart, you've seen revenue annually of about 200,000 in 2021, up to two million dollars in 2022.

And then in 25, we added about 1.3 million dollars to the fund.

Our expenditures are similar and reflect essentially a year lag and what's available for distribution.

So when we look at our 2026 plan, our starting point really is what the value is in the trust fund at the end of the year.

Excuse me.

So as of 1231, the trust plan had about 1.8 million dollars.

There's been about 40 some thousand dollars deposited thus far in twenty in 2026.

And our plan is to use about 1.1 million of that, which will leave an ending balance of about 785,000.

That will remain in our trust fund and is available to us later in the year if an emergency arrives or priority changes.

If we would want to access that, we would come back before you with an additional resolution to transfer funds to our department's account.

Like past past plans, you've seen how we've distributed our money, um, essentially various categories, including community engagement, technology, general equipment and supplies, community-driven equipment and supplies, contracts for services, and our training and travel fund.

So I'll just kind of go through briefly each of those categories.

Um first starting with our community engagement.

About 20% of our plan will involve the distribution of that revenue, excuse me, to support community engagement and projects that were initiated by various um interactions with community groups and businesses.

180,000 of that is equipment and supplies, and again, through various community community meetings, um, presentations, interactions with business improvement districts and neighborhood groups.

Um, our captains have basically put together what they feel is um added value to our policing operations.

So each each captain had the opportunity to have a wish list.

Correct.

Every member basically can solicit um input from the community and bring that forward to their captain who will then submit a request for the plan, and we evaluate needs across the department and try to prioritize basically how we could best enhance the services that we provide to Milwaukee and Milwaukee community communities and businesses.

So within this category, um again, we heard from various individuals, including Alderman about the need for crossing guard signs, um, speed boards.

There was a real common theme of traffic mitigation concerns that we heard home security cameras, some firearm cable locks, cameras to help um prevent illegal dumping, and community security lights.

The next category is the really the largest, it's general equipment and supplies that we as a department um initiated.

There's about 19 major projects within that category, including um recruit uh Chromebooks for our police academy, various replacement of assembly chairs and office furniture.

Um we're gonna focus on districts one and five this year to kind of bring some of their office equipment and furniture up to um up to speed.

We have some additional um equipment in our forensics lab, some fuming chambers, and then also in response to some audit issues.

We're replacing the cell uh toilet and sink fixtures in our um jail in the police administration building.

We also have two main projects within technology, which is about 245,000 in total.

One is a redacting system that will help us be more efficient in responding to open records requests, and also a cloud-based management integration system that will basically help us interact with partners and be able to more effectively uh search data and data capture and perform analysis.

Um, like past plans, we have a training and travel amount, um, including a department-wide training and travel of about $90,000 and specific training for things such as our aerial assessment program, key nine cent training, crash reconstruction, um, crime analyst training and training related to human trafficking as well.

And then finally, we have our annual contract for facility lease with the Milwaukee Urban Stables.

That's about 108,000, and that basically provides the office location and um housing of our mounted patrol program.

So that is our plan.

I think you should have received, and it's also in the file some of the detail of the actual equipment items.

Um happy to answer any questions that may come up during the course of the year as to progress or any questions that you might have today.

All right, Mr.

Thank you very much.

Alder Woman Moore.

Um, thank you so much.

Um thank you all so much for um outlining um how these dollars um are spent.

And um he was very concerned that our crossing guards did not have um an additional sort of source um to help with pedestrian crossing.

And so I reached out to I think I originally reached out to Lee and FPC and then got connected with you.

Um and you know, it wasn't a fight.

It was just like, okay, we will look into it.

They got the figures together, stated that you know, yes, we will um got get some stop signs.

I think he has I saw one um in his own.

I was wondering if this was uh I was excited about it.

Just so you could feel the wave.

Yes.

Um because um I think um sometimes what um that looks like a two-handed uh stop sign.

It is so there's a stop or not.

The sign actually has to be uh in accordance with um certain standards that are provided by the state and um national uh transportation safety board.

Um so what the citizen had relayed and he um submitted to you, which got to me some pricing for signs.

Um it wasn't exactly I appreciate the the work that was done, but um we also have to make sure that what they have is compliant with again the state, and it's something that this is a piece of equipment that they're going to have to have that's gonna have to withstand the elements and things like that.

So yeah, and I j I just wanted to again this is where um community gets involved when they're passionate about something, it's just like hey, can this happen?

Um and I just wanted to just provide some gratitude to say, okay, yeah, we'll look into it and we'll see what we can do.

And so pulling those figures together and um supporting, you know, our crossing guards, many of them that are retired that are you know providing a service.

Um I know that we uh talked about one that was I think he was in his 90s that 99 yes, that was still uh coming out every single day.

Um so we're honored to have those individuals, but just wanted to provide some gratitude um to say thank you so much for um not only listening but also um but also doing.

Um the other quick question that I had is if you can dig into really quick.

I just wanted to know about the um the in c um the engagement piece.

Um so I know that um based on the pie chart, the community engagement piece had about 35,000.

Can you share a little bit about what are some of those elements of what that looks like again for me?

Sure.

That is uh uh um an allocation of resources that will allow allow our community engagement manager to essentially um help support some of the various activities we have in the city, whether it be national night out, uh the haunted um haunted academy, the MPL program, um what else we have within that category.

Um various pop-up events and then just uh additional miscellaneous funding and recruitment related um costs.

And that is usually enough because I know you all do national life night out.

I think every district um um has that and it's a huge affair.

It's been to several of them.

Yep.

We also do provide resources in the city's operating budget to support community events.

Um we added uh a total of ten thousand dollars in each of the police districts budget for community events in part because the asset forfeiture program will not allow for the use of those funds for entertainment and food.

So we ended up moving that into the department's police districts as well as an additional funding of 20,000 available to again our community engagement manager.

Wonderful for use throughout the year.

Excellent.

Thank you.

I promise I I will as much as uh the chair of the finance committee should have one of these signs.

Oh, I will get it back.

Uh appreciate it.

Umer um the um you some of the things in technology, data search, data capture, data analysis.

Um these are all one-time costs, or is this something that's ongoing with the department, or is this adding something new?

So we have moved away from um creating kind of ongoing costs within asset forfeiture in part because there's such variation in the level of funding that we do receive.

We typically will use asset forfeiture sometimes to start or to try a new initiative, um, knowing that the ongoing costs will bear within our operating budget.

So the chorus redaction project is an excuse me, the um the redaction project for our open records um program is new and it will have an ongoing um maintenance expense, but it will very much offset the the the additional time that it takes to actually perform that work.

So we're hoping that it really does uh provide an efficiency for our operation to turn those requests around more uh expeditiously.

Mr.

Chair.

Yeah.

Really quick, just in regards to that, how um how much time savings could that happen?

It would really depend upon if it's a video issue or if it's a redaction of paper.

So it does um vary pretty significantly, and we could provide some additional follow-up information for you on that.

Thank you, Till.

Yeah, the uh large burden for time, um, Alder Woman Moore is with the video requests.

We get a lot of requests for body worn camera from media outlets, um, yeah, any number of other sources.

So to redact the video that's requested, and I believe the the law requires you have to provide these as soon as practicable kind of puts us in a position, uh difficult position um given the large volume of video requests we have.

This um, like the budget director said will make it um more efficient for our people um who are assigned to the open records division um as we try to again identify efficiencies through technology that um uh you know will allow more officers to be on the street doing what we want them to do versus uh behind desks um focused on this.

Yeah, it's good.

And then uh um anything else?

No.

Sorry to put you off.

No, no, no, sorry to interrupt you.

Um one thing that uh we uh have seen uh come back again uh was the contract for the uh Milwaukee Urban Stables lease.

Uh is that an annual lease?

So that lease is actually a 30-year lease that was um developed um maybe about five years ago um and it does require an ongoing uh lease payment to um the stables.

So we provide up about eighty four hundred dollars um uh a month for leasing that facility.

Um they obviously will pay their portion of any sort of utility expense and costs, but it's kind of a shared partnership with uh operating that program.

But that's a fixed lease for 30 for 25 ish more years.

Yes, there's no we we're not gonna have to amend it at any time.

No, we can't project the future, but I would um I I know that a lot of time and attention was spent on developing that lease, so I don't envision any sort of major change that would provide a cost increase to us per se.

But um that's going to be a fixed cost.

That's gonna be a fixed cost.

So at the end of that 30 years, we the department will have the opportunity though to buy um MKE or urban stables at a very um reduced um amount.

I don't know, I think I heard the chief of staff going to um come on.

So I'm sorry, I can't see the board.

Um is that Mr.

Chair?

Um Alder Woman Cox.

Yeah, um, although it's a 30-year lease, um, is there opportunity to amend part of the reason that I'm asking that is because this council, under the leadership of Alder Woman Zamarika just recently um passed legislation um to uh restrict the ability of um ICE and other federal agencies from using city-owned uh property for the purposes of staging.

Um, and then I think she amended at council it to also include um that we would also look into um any leased properties um that the city has deals with as well uh trying to make that a component of the lease agreement.

I recognize that the lease for the stables was done prior to this legislation passing, but the stables in particular, um, due to recent news um stories that have come out, has had um staging by federal agencies done on its parking lot.

Um so um again, I know the lease started, you know, a few years back, but is it possible to negotiate uh um to be consistent with what we have passed um into legislation?

Yep.

Um this is uh chief of staff Heather Hoff for the Milwaukee Police Department.

I can speak to that Alder Woman Cogs.

Um after the staging incident that occurred at the stables, it was requested even of us MPD not to stage at that facility.

Um there uh is therapy that occurs there, and the sentiment of the nonprofit organization was that any type of staging of police uh would be inappropriate um for that facility and the and the parking lot.

The same request had been made um to uh federal agencies as well by the Milwaukee Urban Stables Organization.

Um so I am aware that that work had occurred and I can get some documentation to this council from the urban stables.

Um so while that particular property is leased and it's different than a city facility, I do know the steps were taken to forbid that type of staging on that private property in the future after that incident had occurred.

And the second thing I just wanted to clarify is that yes, indeed, the lease agreement um affords the city the opportunity to purchase the entire facility at the end of the lease for a very reduced price.

Um and so therefore um I think when it was first contemplated, um that was the big sell.

So I'm not sure how easy it would be to revisit, but I do know steps were taken by the nonprofit um Milwaukee Urban Stables to forbid any type of uh law enforcement agency from staging on their property.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

And if you could provide us with any of the documentation that um solidifies that that would be great.

Um Mr.

Chair, I do have a question about a different issue about the community engagement piece.

The floor is yours.

For the 35,000 as um allotted to the community engagement.

I know years ago um at the committee we um discussed a lot about wanting to make sure that this money um went back to the very communities that it um kind of had to be taken from so that we find ways to integrate what residents might have wanted some of this money to be used for, all within whatever the guidelines are for what it could be spent for.

The solution at that time was to allow a certain amount per um police district for them to surveying their own way um residents uh to figure out the things that they needed in their particular areas.

I heard you mention the now budget allocation and the things that the community engagement stuff would probably be used for.

I guess my question is um it do you all see both the budget allocation and his 35 um thousand are here as your way of still honoring that, or is is there no connection to you know what the citizens um from these different police districts may have wanted?

Well, if I might um respond, in addition to that 35,000, 180,000.

So again, a total of 20% of the 26th plan is our resources that really came um from um input directly from the community, various community neighborhood associations and businesses.

So when you look at community engagement, it's not just the $35,000 from asset forfeiture, it's the $30,000 $35,000 plus that $180,000 for a total of $215 um in 2026.

And all of that again is um the equipment and supply costs are initiatives that came from um a concerted effort to reach out to community members to ascertain what they felt would be best to enhance the operations of the department in their neighborhoods.

Is that something that you all um are gonna try to sustain year after year, or is that uh just for these?

No, that is something uh Alder Woman uh cogs that we um are committed to sustaining and growing um based on the feedback we get um not only from you and the rest of um uh the uh alders uh but also the community as well.

Thank you.

That's all I have at this time, Mr.

Chair.

All right, thank you, Alderman Cogs.

Any other questions, comments on this item?

Alderman Spiker uh uh moves to place this on file.

Any discussion on that motion?

Actually, oh, we're on oh we're I'm sorry.

Um I jumped ahead.

Oh Alderman Spiker moves to place the substitute uh or moves adoption for the substitute for file 251 834.

Hearing no objection on that motion of adoption of the subst of sub A.

So ordered.

Thank you all very much.

Moving on to our next agenda item item six, two five two one four-two communication from the office of comproller relating to the report on the police department fleet procurement disposal audit for the city of Milwaukee.

Welcome from the Comptroller's office.

Good morning.

And uh as you may remember last time, we uh wished uh Adriana uh good goodbye and good luck on her future endeavors, and she has since made the decision to stay with us as the city's uh audit manager.

So we're happy that she we're thrilled actually that she's uh decided to say uh welcome back.

That was a brief departure, but every um I don't have any welcome back.

Thank you, thank you.

Um so we will be um Adriana Molina audit manager.

Um we are going to go over the results of the Milwaukee Police Department fleet to procurement audit.

The review was performed by Clifton Larson Allen um with um the audit the City of Milwaukee Oversight.

So I'm going to introduce Brian Bogoski.

Um he will be going over the results.

Um and Brian, I believe you are on.

I don't know if I need to mute him or let him.

Yes, we can.

Oh, there you go.

And then you I think you can share your screen as well.

Yep.

I mean, I will at least first point out that you did not you did not text me about this sudden change.

Oh, sorry.

So the next time that we're I'm there, I'll make sure to treat you to dinner to say congratulations and welcome back.

Thanks.

But with that out of the way, um, good morning, everyone.

Hope everybody is having a good Wednesday afternoon.

Um let's see here, entire screen.

Okay, so everybody should hopefully be able to see my screen now.

Yep, go ahead.

Please proceed.

Okay, um, you want to keep we want to keep presentations brief to highlight?

Yep.

Uh this is already in the file, correct?

Absolutely.

Nope, it's perfectly fine.

Um, just to kind of reiterate the team.

Uh Jim Kreiser is your overall engagement client services leader and principal.

I'm the engagement client services manager and been performing a lot of these internal audits uh since since inception.

Um we also have Sharianne and Erica who are part of the team members.

Um so quick quick down and dirty.

Uh what it what we did was we focused on the Milwaukee Police Department's uh fleet procurement to disposal lifecycle.

Uh we looked at their um collective procedures, organization governance, and also some of the tools that they use in a day-to-day business.

Part of our procedures were also to do sample-based selection.

We looked through any new assets that were procured through the audit period.

Um we also did look at any disposals that occurred during the audit period.

In addition to that, some of these assets, such as motorcycles, uh vehicles, uh, et cetera.

Do we have to go through maintenance?

So we did look at the maintenance procedures, how often it gets it goes through maintenance.

Um is the maintenance tracked, is it logged?

So we did go through the policy, like I said, the policies and procedures.

Um we did verify that any new asset procurements are invoiced.

Uh they're leased or they're required in accordance with the established guidelines and processes.

Um we also did look at the assignment of those assets across various departments within the police department itself.

Uh for example, if it's a motorcycle in which a specific department, um, it didn't go anywhere else within the city or to another department that it didn't belong to.

Um this vote of course was limited only to MPD assets uh as well as the fleets, uh, so we did not perform any procedures for other departments.

Um in all, we noted one medium level finding uh slash observation through our procedures.

Uh that finding was we reviewed the budget and finance SOP.

We did determine that there was some uh lack of detail specifically around fleet fleet and equipment purchases and also a formal process outlining all steps in improv and approvals for acquisitions.

Um we also did note that the policy did not mention anything for updates of inventory.

Uh we did make the recommendations to the MPD to have that SOP updated.

Uh MPD did agree, and they do have a timeline of getting that completed right around September of this year.

Um so if people do think back to some of the earlier FMPs with the uh some of the other departments that we looked at.

That September time frame is really going to be right around that time that our team's gonna go back in and do sort of that aftercare and say, okay, this is what the timeline was given.

Just wanted to follow up and see how things are going.

Um, see what's been remediated, and also follow up in the next month or two to say, hey, how are things coming along?

What can we have what can we help with?

What can we support?

Where can we offer that guidance?

Um with that any questions.

Any questions from committee members thank you very much for the for the brief summary and I'll ask uh the department to give our reaction and uh confirm the timeline.

Thank you, Laura Angon and Milwaukee Police Department.

We appreciate the efforts of the controller's office and their consultants and helping us to continue to improve our operations, and we've agreed to make um some more detailed adjustments to our standard operating operating procedures as it pertains to the procurement process for our various fleet operations, and we intend to have that completed by September.

Can you talk to a little bit about the process now?

Why we weren't tracking inventory like that before?

No, we are tracking all the inventory.

Um the the finding was really more just to immortalize that in our SOPs to provide that detail.

So we've been doing the work, but we didn't have the policy established on how we're gonna do it.

The detail we have the policy, it's more just layering that into actually our formal SOPs for the department.

Understood.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you, uh Alder Woman Moore.

We'll um move to place this on file, hearing no objection, so ordered.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item seven, file two five two zero zero six, substitute resolution reserving and appropriating one point six million dollars from the twenty twenty-six Common Council Contingent Fund to the 2026 damages and claims special purpose account and reserving and appropriating 250,000 dollars from the 2026 Common Council Contingent Fund to the 2026 Outside Council Expert Witness Fund Special Purpose Account.

Welcome, City Attorney Coeky.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, Evan Gwakey City Attorney.

I'm joined by Tuana Swanigan, our business office specialist administrator, lots of titles and responsibilities.

Should we start with the budget office first?

Sure, if you'd like.

This would be the uh first proposed withdrawal from the 2026 contingent fund budget.

As it is every year at five million, so it would take it down to a little over three million.

Um Angelique Pettigrew has been working closely with uh City Attorney Goickey and Tawana and the City Attorney staff on their likely estimates.

I think it's safe to say what are we?

It's April 15th.

I doubt this will be the city attorney's last request.

But these numbers, both for outside council and for settlements, uh are the uh likely disbursements that are that are imminent.

And and for more details, I would refer you to various closed session discussions at Judd Legele.

Yeah, and um if I can, Mr.

Chair, for context, we did resolve a large uh case at the end of 2025.

We used some we kind of bifurcated payment of that settlement.

Um doing that was I think smart fiscal management, it avoided borrowing and then the long-term costs of that settlement, uh, but it immediately punched a hole in the 2026 damages and claims account.

Um for the outside council expert witness um SPA.

We have I think five open contracts with outside council.

Uh we have really tried and I think have succeeded on reducing our reliance on outside counsel because of capacity issues.

We have conflicts that arise where legally we have to have outside counsel, uh, and then uh that SPA also includes expert witness expenses, and it is uh in my opinion, good good money if we face a multimillion dollar lawsuit to have our expert.

So we've got to have we gotta fight fire with fire, and if plaintiff is bringing an expert, we should have one too.

That also includes costs incurred in proactive litigation.

Um so uh you know, we are actively as a plaintiff um engaged in a number of different cases, and some of those cases have uh expenses that get pulled from that SPA.

That that expert witness outside council SPA, I think has an annual budget line of 120,000 dollars.

Um that can get spent down fairly quickly, especially if the litigation expenses um are high.

Great.

Any questions from committee members?

Mr.

Chair One Spiker.

For the budget offices, our 2026 damages and claims fund um SPA, what was that funded for?

I believe 2.5 which is a slight increase from historical levels, but still obviously not nearly enough.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

All right.

Uh any other questions or comments on this item?

I do appreciate the um uh email earlier uh with the with more clarification.

Okay.

Uh Alder Woman Cogs will move adoption of file two five two zero zero six.

Hearing no objection, so ordered.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to our 1015 agenda.

We're only six minutes behind.

Uh this cadence will also continue in licensing in a couple of weeks just for anyone watching.

Um but file uh item number eight on our agenda file 252061 communication from the Department of Administration Budget Management Analysis Division regarding vacancy requests, fund transfers, and equipment requests.

The file has been updated with the following information.

If you have a question or comment, please interrupt me.

Property tax levy supporter positions under Schedule A.

Department of Administration purchasing office assistant three.

City Treasurer Teller.

Fire and police commission, research and policy analyst.

Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Spiker.

I'm the research and policy analyst.

This is a vacancy.

Somebody's leaving us.

Retirement of Barbara Cooley or best wishes to Ms.

Cooley.

Moving on, Health Department, Public Nurse Three.

Microbiologist, Public Health Social Worker 3.

Department of Neighborhood Services, Building Construction Inspector, two positions.

Police Department.

Custodial worker one.

Captain of police.

Inspector of Police.

Police services.

Police services special special investigator.

Office assistant two.

Custodial worker one.

I did have a question for MPD.

We've had a number of custodial workers on this agenda.

There's still a lot of vacancies.

Still unfilled since November of 2023.

Hi, good morning.

This is April Wondu, Human Resources Supervisor with the Milwaukee Police Department.

And yes, these vacancies are due to the high turnover for the custodial worker position.

So is the I mean there are a lot of vacancies in the police department.

It's a big department.

We get that.

But are there any special circumstances, any special recruiting, any changes that need to be made to fill these positions?

Or do we just not want to sweep well when we do recruit?

A lot of them are just resigning and transferring to other city departments.

But we are getting a re uh a robust recruitment.

Okay.

But retention isn't retention isn't robust.

Correct.

So does the department have a plan to address that?

Um I can get back to you on that.

Um I'm unable to speak to that at the moment.

Sir, certainly.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

And then uh continuing the police department maintenance assistant, two positions.

Police facilities, labor, crime analyst, forensic identification processor.

Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Spiker.

And the assistant chief of police is that uh Chief Weldner, AC Weldner.

Yes.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to DPW infrastructure.

Um CAD D and GIS Technician three.

DPW operations division, vehicle services technician four, special equipment operator two, vehicle services technician four, operations division director, urban forestry manager, inventory control assistant two.

Moving on to non-tax levy supported positions, department of compliance and engagement, contract compliance officer.

I believe we have a file on that later on.

Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Spiker.

Sorry, on DPW Ops, the urban forestry manager.

Do we know who we're losing there?

Good morning.

Uh Alderman, uh structure machinery administration manager for Department of Public Works.

Um, that was the position that uh became vacant um upon um the appointment of Frank Selheimer to the um urban forestry district manager position.

So we're we're back filling a vacancy due to a promotion.

Okay, thanks.

Any other comments, questions on this item?

Alderman Spiker moves approval of file 252061.

Hearing no objections, so ordered.

Moving on, item nine, file two five two zero six two communication from the department of administration relating to approval of changes to certain single or sole source contracts or contract amendments.

Welcome, Ms.

Kelsey.

Or come on, come on down.

Good morning, committee members.

I am Delisha Moore, the procurement manager for the City of Milwaukee purchasing division filling in for Rhonda Kelsey.

There are five contracts in this file today.

The first contract is with the Milwaukee Police Department and a back sent LLC doing business as a back sent leasing.

The contract number is E21405.

This is a vendor service contract for Rubric Foundation Software.

The contract total is 983,721 and 6 cents.

The um term of the contract is January 31st, 2027 through September 30th, 2030.

Um this contract, we currently have a contract B 17553 with the back sent for rubric services, which will expire in um January 30th, 2027.

Although the contract term for this contract does not begin until January 31st, 2027.

The first payment was negotiated for May 1st, 2026 to avoid the additional cost of a lease agreement.

Under the original proposed 60 month lease, the cost for the same rubric services would have been 23,788 dollars and forty-two excuse me, cents per month under the negotiated agreement.

Upon expiration of this contract, service continue continuity, I'm sorry, will be maintained through a new contract established through a request for proposal, the RFP process.

Um the platform automates secure backups of key information, including body camera footage, dispatch records, and internal databases.

In the event of a cyber attack, hardware failure or other disruptions, rubric enables the MPD to quickly restore clean and uncompromised data.

Um Rubrik was deployed and to support both on premise and cloud-based operations within the MPD's data center.

Because the system was not originally billed on annual basis, an amendment was later executed to finance it through the Heartland Business System, and a lease arrangement is no longer necessary as um annual payments are now permitted.

Not the recaps, just the the listing.

And if we have questions, we'll we'll jump in.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um the second contract is with the milk with the Milwaukee Police Department and Case Guard Incorporated.

The contract number is E21743.

This is a vendor service contract for safeguard redaction software.

The contract total is 1,030.

I'm sorry, 137,409 dollars and sixty cents.

And the contract term is um 415 2026 through 414 2029.

The third contract on the list is with the Office of the Comptroller and Baker Tilly USLP.

The contract number is E21840.

This is a vendor service contract for workday pre-implementation review for GoLive, which is scheduled for September of 2026.

The contract um total is $92,280, and the term is um 415 2026 through 731 of 2026.

The fourth contract on the list is with the um fire and police commission and St.

Norbert's College Incorporated.

The contract number is E21796.

Um this is a vendor service contract for citizen satisfaction survey of police services.

The contract total is $87,931.84 cents, and the date of award is 415, 2026 through December 31st, 2026.

The fifth contract on the list is with Alderman Specker.

Um good to see that the citizen satisfaction survey is gonna run again.

I think we're doing it every other year now.

Um didn't we didn't St.

Norbert, the strategic research institute, didn't aren't they the ones that have been doing it?

I saw this was a new contract.

Um yes.

Um they did it in the past, but this that contract expired um in 2024, I believe, but yes, they did the work and they're going to continue to do the work.

Okay.

Just wanted to see if there was any change there.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, the fifth contract is with the Milwaukee Health Department and Bruker Scientific LLC.

The contract number is E21702, and this is a vendor service contract for MALD BioTyper Cyrus CA system and annual maintenance.

The contract total is 78,957, and the term is 1130 of 2025 through 1129 of 2028.

And that concludes the contracts.

Yes.

Uh any uh I know the answer, but uh, would you provide us why uh that's off the list?

So um per the advice of the city attorney Andrea Fowler, the department decided that they were going to um contract or I'm sorry, they're going to um issue a grant agreement, and so this file will come before you all next month.

Got it.

All right, thank you very much.

Any questions on the item before us?

Uh hearing none, uh, older woman more moves approval.

Any objection to that motion?

Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you for that.

Ms.

Moore, I think you're staying with us for the next one.

Item number 10, file 252063 communication from the Department of Administration informing the finance and personal committee of waivers granted for certain single sole source contracts or contract amendments.

Okay, yes, this um file has four contracts.

The first contract is with the Milwaukee Police Department and Minnesota Elevator Incorporated doing business as MEI total elevator solutions.

The contract number is E18557.

The and this is a vendor service contract for elevator maintenance repairs and testing services.

The contract this um is the third amendment to this contract.

This amendment will increase the contract total by $500,000 from $1,224,852 and nine cents to one million seven hundred twenty-four thousand eight hundred fifty-two dollars and nine cents, and we'll also extend the contract term for one year from February 23rd, 2026 through February 2nd, 2027.

The second contract is with the Milwaukee Police Department and Haas Incorporated doing business as Haas Alert.

The contract toll, I'm sorry, the contract number is E21672.

The um this is a vendor service contract for 80 digital alert service software and hardware systems.

The contract total is 167,520, and the contract term is from 415, 2026 through 414 2029.

The third contract is for the police.

I mean, I'm sorry, the fire department and is with Lacutian Systems Incorporated contract number E18845.

This is a vendor service contract for maintenance services um prime alerts slash CAD voice system.

The um this is amendment one to this contract.

This amendment will increase the contract total by sixty thousand dollars from one hundred twenty-nine thousand six hundred twenty-four dollars to one hundred and eighty-nine thousand six hundred and four dollars.

All right, and the last um contract on in the file is with the fire department and Wisconsin Um Statewide Health Information Network Incorporated.

The contract number is E1.

Um sorry, E21600.

This is a vendor service contract for Wisconsin Statewide Health Information Network Wish and Data Sharing.

The contract total is 158,480 and 60 cents, and the term is from 121, 2025 through 1130 of 2026.

That's all.

All right, thank you for that.

Uh, any questions, comments?

Hearing none, Alderwoman Cogs moves to place this item on file.

Hearing no objections, so ordered.

Thank you so much.

Welcome.

Item 11, file 252064 communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to the classification studies scheduled for City Service Commission action.

Good morning, Andrea Nickerbacher from the Department of Employee Relations.

I will summarize the recommendations from the April 8th City Service Commission meeting.

In the Department of Administration, um an epidemiologist senior.

This is a position authority that moved over from the health department.

In the Department of Public Works Administrative Services Division, this is a new position from this year's budget, and our recommendation is a DPW Financial Administration Director in pay range 1 QX.

In the health department, there are two positions of a community output specialist, and those are being repurposed.

The recommendation is FIMR coordinator and an FIMR case abstractor, both in pay range 2 IN.

Also in the health department, there are community health administrative specialist three positions.

There's four of them.

And uh changing the title to be a more generic title with a number of underfills, and there is no pay change recommended here.

Also a new position of uh public health youth repass in the health department at the Port of Milwaukee, uh repurposing a position of administrative assistant three, two, and administrative services coordinator, and that is a vacant position.

Okay, Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Spiker.

Um, I guess for the DPW position, I know that was in the budget.

Um, I guess the question maybe for the department is how we survived all these years without because that pay range one QX is a high paying position 132 through 191.

So what's changed that we have a need for this given that you know we survived all these years without it.

Uh good morning, uh Joe Crusher Commissioner of Public Works.

Um, so that's the problem is we survived.

Um, so as I've had the role now for nearly four years, um, and we run nearly a $500 million budget, including capital and grants, etc.

The goal is to make it more efficient.

I have accounting personnel all over in different areas, and so for sense of efficiency and also reporting to the budget office and also this council.

Um, I uh am doing the work right now, and I am not the financial guru that I should be in this role.

Um, so this is actually gonna help create efficiencies long term for the department.

Um, we're so large that I'm trying to consolidate, and and as we're gonna go through the the future budgets, you should see some reductions in other areas because of efficiency.

So, yes, it's a high-paying position, but we should also have someone with uh the experience and possible CPA to basically deal with a five 500 million dollar budget every year.

Okay, and budget office concurse if you don't uh you know we we see a lot of value.

This position could provide in terms of the ability for DPW to organize their own and communicate their financial information.

Yep, and I know we have this at budget, but obviously there's a ton of stuff with DPW at budget, so I just wanted to have a chance to ask about it now that we're getting more focused.

So thank you.

All right, any other questions on item 11 or comments?

Alderman Spiker moves to place this item on file.

Hearing no objections, so ordered.

Moving on to item number 12, file 252143 communication from the Department of Employee Relations, amending the salary and positions ordinance relating to the Department of Compliance and Engagement.

What's that?

And classification of the director of the Department of Compliance and Engagement.

Uh I'm sorry.

I saw interim director read in the hallway.

I don't know if she's on our way in or she's on the board.

Well, I don't know if she uh well um Ms.

Ms.

Knickerbacher.

Yes, the recommendation for this new director of this new department is uh pay range one X.

There are a number of reasons for this recommendation.

Um the changing from a division to a department is significant in that the position no longer has the administrative oversight of a larger department and is now responsible for all of those duties and responsibilities.

Um it would place it comparable to the election commission executive director and the community wellness and safety director.

I should note that in the um leadership report in 2024.

What is now the community wellness and safety director and what will be the combinance and engagement director were classified at the same level.

And then based on difficulties with recruitment and retention, last year we took a look at the community wellness and safety director and changed the pay range.

And um so just some some background information and the significance of what these positions do for the city of Milwaukee.

They have similar impact and accountability.

Okay, thank you for that.

Questions from committee members?

Mr.

Chairman Spiker.

Um, so I know the council passed the resolution to basically direct DOA to help out with some of the back office stuff for um this new department.

Um what would be the recruitment?

So recruitment rate was 97 before.

Would it be 110 now at the bottom of the range?

Yes.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions on this item?

Hearing none.

Alderman Spyker moves to place this item on file.

Hearing no objections, so ordered.

Thank you very much.

Oh, one more from DER.

Two more.

Two more.

Item 13, file 252144 communication from the Department of Employee Relations amending the salary ordinance to provide incentive pay for the positions of property management supervisor and property manager in the Department of City Development.

Yes.

The recommendation here is to add an incentive pay for the property management supervisor and property manager to have a real estate broker's license, and that really assists with the the department with the duties and responsibilities.

Mr.

Chair.

My question for that is does the city then help pay for the cost of that broker's license if if uh the employee uses tuition reimbursement for any of that, it would come out of the tuition reimbursement fund.

Okay.

Uh and then is the employee prohibited from using the broker's license outside the scope of their city employment.

That would be a question I'd refer to the department.

Um the the recommendation is because on an ongoing basis, these positions are working with selling real estate.

So I don't know if someone from the department wants to weigh in on that.

Is there an I don't see anyone from DCD?

But um maybe they'll be able to jump on here uh while Alderman Spyker asks his question.

Yeah, no, that's a fair question, Mr.

Chair.

If somebody gets the license and then uses it outside um if we provide an incentive pay for them to get that.

Um I guess my question was why we went this at this, and this is you know, just a clarificatory question, why we went at this with incentive pay instead of um requiring the job to have this requirement that you have a license.

Just to give some background, when we did um market studies for these positions, we did add the incentive for a couple of other positions to have this incentive to increase the knowledge of the employee and assist the department.

Um it seemed like at the time it seemed like the best approach.

Do you have a specific concern?

Yeah, just um just wondering why you go at it as incentive pay to get it rather than making it a requirement of the position if it's so important that you have it to exercise your expertise in that position.

If it's that important, why not require it rather than incentivize it?

Right.

And I think the answer would be it's not exactly it isn't a minimum requirement, but it's definitely helpful.

So in recruiting for the positions, they have found people that can do the work that don't have that um license, but again, it increases the person's knowledge and abilities.

All right, I'm not sure that answers it, but that's close enough.

Thanks.

Is it true?

Uh Alderman uh Alder Woman Cox.

I think that's a legit question for the department to answer, but am I limited now as a real estate?

I would guess that it would severely limit the pool of applicants if you made it a requirement instead of an incentive.

Okay.

And we're still waiting for someone from the department.

And why see Vanessa Armstrong's on the board?

Bless you.

Ms.

Armstrong, did you hear the question?

Ms.

Armstrong, we we can't hear you.

I saw she unmuted a minute ago, but Ms.

Armstrong, we can't hear you.

Okay.

Um anything else, Ms.

Nick and Brockard?

The only other thing I'd add is that in terms of um these kinds of licenses, we we do deny them for other uh other city titles, and these would be I think the only ones that can be and use tuition reimbursement for it.

So it is an issue that we manage.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Alder Woman Cox.

I do think uh the chair's question about the utilization of it outside of um the position if we do do tuition reimbursement is an important one for DR2 be aware of in the event that we do get somebody with the um with the license.

What not what I don't want to see is the whim of the manager or whoever deciding whether or not or there not being some written um policy for them to be able to follow as it relates um to that issue.

So my hope would be that there is some kind of policy, and if there isn't, it may need to be one created just so that folks are clear um when they take on a position um whether or not it could be utilized outside um the office.

I'm not advocating either way.

I just think it should be clear though for the staff person.

All right, and I see uh Vanessa's turned her video on, but I do see that Sam has joined us uh will right.

I apologize.

I was having some technical issues with uh the audio.

Um so I I know that there was a are you able to hear me?

Yes.

Oh, okay, all right, thank you.

Um I know that there was a question on um if someone with the real estate brokers or salesperson license can use that license outside of the work of DCD, and we have found we got an opinion years ago from the ethics board that we cannot outright we cannot outright prohibit it, but the work of being a real estate salesperson or broker outside of the work of DCD is a conflict just because of the hours of work for our department and the amount of work that it takes to be um to complete those activities outside.

So for those that are working in real estate in the real estate office, they do not practice real estate outside of DCD in the city of Milwaukee.

Okay, but we're specifically talking about the property management supervisor and the property manager in DC.

Okay.

So the is it the question that does that apply to are you asking specifically for those positions?

So if we're so this file asks for incentive pay, should those positions hold a broker's license.

Oh, got it.

Okay.

And the question is would would there be a conflict uh or a prohibition if the city's incentivizing an employee to have a license?

Is there any restriction for them to use it outside of their employment in the city?

So that that applies to all of the real estate office that we cannot prohibit it, but the real estate staff do not practice real estate outside of the city.

The reason that we're requesting this incentive be added is because currently in the salary ordinance, those holding a license for the salesperson's license currently receives an incentive, and the broker license is the license above salesperson.

So we wanted to be consistent with the other positions in DCD real estate.

Um, so we wanted to add that option for both of these positions too if someone holds the higher level license.

And clearly real estate law changes, that's why those license those pos those uh occupations are licensed.

Uh regulations and rules and practices in the industry change year to year.

Uh makes good sense that our people are also up to speed on that.

Any other questions on this item?

Um Alderman Spiker.

The question I had was just why it was felt that we should incentivize the pay here instead of requiring it to be part of the position.

Alder Cox gave a reasonable answer to that, but just wondering what the department's position is.

Sure.

So some of our positions we require certain certifications.

So for example, the real estate sales specialists, those that are actively selling city real estate, they require a real estate salesperson license.

Other positions, it's not required to complete the duties, but having that license does benefit the position and it provides skills and knowledge that helps and aids us in the department.

Um so that's that's why we're requesting it to be um to incentivize it but not be required because it is beneficial for the positions in real estate.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, any other questions or comments on this item?

Alder Woman Cogs moves to place item 13 on file, hearing no objections, so ordered.

Item 14, file 251760.

Communication from the Department of Employee Relations amending the salary and positions ordinance relating to clerical or administrative corrections.

And that is what this is is corrections.

Um or you know, things that just weren't in there before and should have been.

Okay.

Any questions on this item?

Alder Woman Moore moves to place it on file, hearing no objections, so ordered.

Thank you very much.

Item 15, file 251893.

Substitute resolution authorizing attendance at convention, seminars, and other travel.

We've taken a look at what's in the file in Legistar.

Any questions on that?

Alderman Spiker moves adoption of file 251893, hearing no objections, so ordered.

Moving on, file six item 16, file 252065, an ordinance to further amend the 2026 rates of pay of offices and positions in the city service.

This reflects earlier files.

Alder Woman Moore moves passage of item number 16.

Any discussion on that motion?

Any objection?

Hearing none, so ordered.

Item 17, file 252066, an ordinance to further amend the 2026 offices and positions in the city service.

Also reflects earlier files.

Alder Woman Cogs moves passage of item number 17.

Any discussion on that motion?

Any objection?

So ordered.

Or any objection hearing none, so ordered.

That concludes our business for today.

Thank you all very much.

Stay dry.