2018-05-03 San Diego City Council Budget Committee Review of Public Works, Public Utilities, Transportation & Stormwater, and Environmental Services Departments
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2018-05-03 San Diego City Council Budget Committee Review of Public Works, Public Utilities, Transportation & Stormwater, and Environmental Services Departments
On May 3, 2018, the San Diego City Council Budget Committee held a meeting beginning at 10:15 AM to review the proposed fiscal year 2019 budgets for four city departments. The meeting included presentations from department directors, reports from the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA), public testimony, and committee member questions. No formal votes were taken; the committee will continue budget deliberations on May 4, 2018.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Public Utilities Department: Three speakers testified in favor of the budget. Gordon Hess, Chair of the Independent Rate Oversight Committee, stated that IROC unanimously supported the budget after a detailed review. Donald Kelly, Executive Director of the Utility Consumers Action Network, urged the council to ensure funding for a water rate consultant during rate review. Rodney Fowler Sr., President of Local 127, expressed concerns about water meter inspection accuracy and employee discipline issues.
- Transportation & Stormwater Department: Several speakers opposed proposed cuts. Muriel King, Tomas Herrera Michler, Rochelle Melius, Chris Dreyer, and Ann Feige (Community Forest Advisory Board) urged restoration of $900,000 for tree trimming and funding for two urban forestry positions, citing the importance of trees for climate action and quality of life. Sophie Wolfram (Climate Action Campaign) and Russ Connolly (City Heights Town Council) also opposed cuts to tree trimming and graffiti abatement, and called for a transportation master plan. Speakers in favor included Wayne Landon (Accessibility Advisory Board) who commended efforts but urged more funding for ADA sidewalks; an organized group requesting streetlights in Castle; and Rodney Fowler Sr. who supported increased street repair and sidewalk funding.
- Environmental Services Department: Three speakers testified in favor. Russ Connolly supported the Clean SD program expansion and code compliance officers. Rodney Fowler Sr. and Anthony Schroth (Local 127) praised the department's work and supported the budget.
Discussion Items
Public Works Department
- Director James Nagelvoard and IBA analyst Gillian Cassie presented the proposed FY2019 operating budget. Key points: 97 vacancies across engineering and surveyor classifications; a 4% change order rate on construction contracts; a target of 80% of projects on schedule (currently 76.4%); and a plan to consolidate 60.5 facility maintenance FTEs from other departments into Public Works to improve efficiency and align with the new Infrastructure Asset Management system. The department requested 29.95 new FTEs for the Engineering and Capital Projects (ENCP) fund, including positions for Pure Water program oversight, prevailing wage enforcement, and survey monument preservation. The IBA noted that the ENCP fund shows a $4.8 million deficit and that the branch has grown by 261.15 FTEs since 2015. Committee members expressed concerns about hiring difficulties, the vacancy rate, and the need for certification pay to attract engineers.
Public Utilities Department
- Director Vic Bianis and Seth Gates, along with IBA analyst Charles Modica, presented the proposed FY2019 budget. The water fund includes $542 million in operating expenses, driven by a 7% expected increase in water purchase costs from the San Diego County Water Authority. The wastewater fund includes $363 million in operating expenses, with no rate increase since 2011. Key priorities: Pure Water Phase 1 construction (EIR approved), a five-year waiver for the Point Loma treatment plant, and a review of alternative water rate structures. The department proposed 11.5 new FTEs for wastewater and a reduction of 7 FTEs in the water fund due to restructuring. The IBA noted that $3.6 million in condition assessments and $5.6 million for Pure Water planning are included. Committee members discussed the status of Prop One funding (unsuccessful), the Metropolitan Water District $285 million application, water meter billing issues, and the need for periodic updates on Pure Water and rate structure reviews.
Transportation & Stormwater Department
- Director Chris McFadden and IBA analyst Charles Modica presented the proposed FY2019 budget. The department manages 3,000 miles of streets, 4,600 miles of sidewalks, 60,000 street lights, and 200,000 street trees. Highlights: 800 miles of streets repaired (ahead of schedule), 390 miles planned for FY2019; $5 million new sidewalk funding (plus $3.7 million carryover); and a $1.2 million for new sidewalks. The budget includes a 2% reduction ($882,000 cut to tree trimming, reducing frequency from 9 to 21 years) and $300,000 cut to graffiti abatement on private property. The department requested 13 new positions for sidewalk repair, but only two engineer positions were funded. The IBA noted that the stormwater program faces $3 billion in compliance costs through 2035 and that $97.3 million in stormwater CIP needs are unfunded. Committee members discussed the need to restore tree trimming and graffiti abatement funds, the importance of sidewalk repair, and the potential for cool pavement pilot projects. The department confirmed that the May Revise may restore tree trimming funding.
Environmental Services Department
- Director Mario Sierra and IBA analyst Baku Patel presented the proposed FY2019 budget. The department operates with $105 million and 423.5 FTEs, including 16 new positions for the Clean SD program (expanded street sanitation, code compliance, and community cleanups). The $4.2 million Clean SD expansion addresses illegal dumping and litter removal. The budget also includes $70,000 for second summer trash collection in Mission Beach and a $2 per ton discount on tipping fees for the general fund. The IBA noted that three positions for recycling ordinance enforcement were not funded, potentially delaying the 75% diversion goal. Committee members expressed support for Clean SD and asked about the transition from a pilot illegal dumping program to expanded community cleanups. Councilmember Zapf urged continued cleanup of watersheds beyond the San Diego River.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken on any department budget. The committee will reconvene on May 4, 2018, to continue budget review.
- Committee members directed staff to consider restoring tree trimming funding ($900,000) and graffiti abatement ($300,000) in the May Revise.
- The committee requested updates on sidewalk repair timelines, Pure Water Phase 1 progress, water rate structure review, and the status of the Metropolitan Water District funding application.
- The IBA recommended that council request additional information on the ENCP fund deficit and the city's stormwater compliance costs.
Meeting Transcript
Four, which is a presentation by the public works department uh led by department director uh James Nagelvoard. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for having us, uh Chair and Council members. It's an honor being here. My name is James Negelvoard, I'm the director of public works and also your city engineer. And then sitting to my left is the assistant director, Myrna Dayton, and also the deputy chief city engineer for the city of San Diego. And then joining us, not as part of the presentation, but as Jillian from the IBA's office in that. Um so we're gonna walk through our uh uh proposed fiscal year 2019 CFP, uh not CFA budget, operating budget for our department. A little bit about our department first. We are a large department uh made up of about uh three branches in that. So we have what a branch that's referred to as the general services branch. It's made up of some admin staff. I'm included in that admin staff, but primarily the biggest part of that group is our facilities maintenance division. In addition to that, a department you're very familiar with, and we talked a little bit about this uh this morning, the branch of the engineering capital projects. It's made up of five divisions. It really provides all the engineering services uh to derive the city's capital improvement program, and also on the construction management side, the inspection services of all the private development work done in the private and the public right-of-way. And then lastly, a smaller division, but but equally important to the rest is our public works contracts division. Uh this division is responsible for putting out all of the construction contracts for the city and all of the A and E consultant contracts for the capital improvement program. Our mission statement is to deliver high quality public infrastructure systems by cultivating expertise and leveraging our engineering response responsibility in a collaborative environment. Our vision is to be an innovative industry leader in developing public infrastructure systems. Couple of highlights. Um every year they take on a couple of small tenant improvement projects where they get to organize their team and they get more proactive. And so this year they've actually took on the responsibility of making improvements to the environmental services uh department emergency call center, and they completed that work this year. And then lastly, we we've added on here, it's not a project, it's something really important to the department is that a large effort. We went ahead and put together a comprehensive training plans for every single classification in our department. Uh, why? We have a lot of new staff. We're doing a lot of work in developing them, making sure that they have that got the skill sets to be able to drive forward the capital improvement program and the rest of the work. Looking forward, we talked about this morning. We got a heavy workload in front of us and putting out the construction contracts, the managing construction contracts for pure water phase one. Uh we are on track, uh looking forward to putting out one over a billion dollars worth of construction contracts that does include the pure water program in that. And then the facilities division will be taking on the responsibility of making ten improvements for the fire station, one mass training uh room remodeling project. KPIs. Um we have a couple of KPIs in our department. We actually track many KPIs. These are the ones that actually are on our budget we report on, but we have a lot of other stuff if you're interested in. So for the facilities maintenance division, um, they try to most of their work and the the world that they're in is more of a reactionary uh world where they're reacting to plumbing issues, painting issues, roofing issues, uh, with a trying to deal with our uh 1,600 buildings that are throughout the city of San Diego. Um but they try to get proactive and they set a target of of having 20% of their work being more targeted more doing um preventive maintenance repair work on that. Um this year they're on track to do that. We did reduce it as you can see from 2017. We were at one time trying to push to have 30% of our effort uh thrown there. Um we also have a uh this is more for the capital improvement program. We have a KPI that deals with measuring um our ability to keep project schedules on and on target to their baseline. Uh uh our target is we try to keep all of our work within 80 percent on tar uh on schedule in that. We are below that mark. Uh last time we looked in that we were at 76.4 and of all of our projects going forward. Our contract awards, we're back on schedule. Uh, we did mention the first six months we were struggling with that and got up to about 98 days. We're back down to 90 days, and that's where the target is, and we hope to be at the end of the year, we might even be a little bit lower than that going forward. There's a the next KPI, there's a mistake, it's not 50 percent, it's supposed to be 5.0%.
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