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Productivity Committee Minutes 02/16/2005 COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE Minutes—February 16, 2005; 2 p.m. Members Present: Syd Blum, Stan Farnham, Dex Groose, Steve Harrison, Matt Hudson, Al Kozel, Joe Swaja and Janet Vasey. Guests Present: John Barlow, Russ (last name unknown). Members Absent (Excused): Helen Philbin. Liaison: Commissioner Halas was present. Staff Present: Len Price, Administrator, Administrative Services Division; Amy Patterson, Impact Fee Manager, Community Development; Denny Baker, Director, Financial Administration &Housing, Community Development; Jim Mudd, County Manager; Michael Smykowski, Director of Management and Budget; Winona Stone, Assistant to the County Manager; and Barbetta Hutchinson, Office of Management and Budget. I. Introduction: A. Opening Remarks—There being a quorum, Joe Swaja, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 2 p.m. Discussion was made regarding the article in the Naples Daily News. B. Commissioner Halas was introduced by Joe Swaja. The Commissioner addressed the group and encouraged them to continue the job they are doing by finding ways to cut costs and make life better in Collier County. He offered his assistance in getting the job done and extended his "open-door" policy to the members of the group. C. Stan Farnham introduced Kimberley Grant to the group. Kim's history is in productivity efficiency in New York. Out of 147 applications, Kim was the best of the applicants. She expressed her pleasure in being here and looks forward to working with the group. In turn, the committee members introduced themselves by relating their business backgrounds and personal details to Commissioner Halas and Kim. D. Approval of Minutes—There being no changes to the January 19, 2005 meeting minutes, Janet Vasey made a motion to approve; Syd Blum seconded, and the committee unanimously approved. II. Old Business: A. Impact Fee Status—Amy Patterson passed out an updated milestones sheet which included the additions asked for by Joe Swaja at their last meeting. She reviewed the pass-out and the group approved the new sheet. The Law Enforcement Impact Fee Draft is due by March 14th. The school board has approved the Educational Facilities piece and has authorized the job to be sent out for quotes. There will be a Fire Services Steering Committee meeting next week to schedule the kick- off of Fire Protection. Fire Protection has a date certain completion of June 30th. Amy will inform the group when the kick-off meeting will be held and will put out a public notice. Emergency Medical Services quotes will be back in three weeks and Amy will return at the next Productivity Committee Meeting to further update the group. Parks and Recreation had their kick-off last month Page 1 of 6 and things are going very well. Commissioner Halas said that he was very pleased to see the inclusion of beach and water access. Amy told the group that the indexing of all government buildings will be completed by April. -*Amy will fill in the dates on the milestones chart and will have them available for the next meeting. Amy will also include the subcommittee chair names on the table. Amy passed out the Correctional Facilities Draft Study and legal analysis. Janet Vasey said a new procedure has been put in place - the subcommittee chair will hold a meeting after the draft has been reviewed before it goes to the full committee. Matt Hudson and Joe Swaja volunteered to work on the Correctional Facilities Subcommittee. The next meeting of the subcommittee will be held on Wednesday, March 2nd at 2:00 pm in the County Manager's conference room. Denny Baker informed the group that the impact fees have generated approximately$2 million in interest in the past two years and the Clerk has been taking that money and channeling it back into the general fund. Amy has prepared an RLS to the County Attorney asking for his official opinion on that procedure. Secondly, they will be going to the Board to defer the collection of impact fees until property is actually sold. - Denny will come back to the Productivity Committee in April with an update on deferred impact fees for affordable housing. Joe Swaja asked Denny to find out how much money has been lost in the past twelve years because the school impact fees have not been updated. Denny said he will use a sensitivity analysis and will assume an indexing every three years to come up with an estimate. Amy added that they will take a conservative approach to find a baseline amount. - Denny and Amy will attend the March meeting for an update. The group updated Commissioner Halas on the School Board and their philosophy regarding impact fees. He suggested that they go back to 1992 when the Board passed the law for impact fees. He feels they should be able to go back to 1992, use the current growth rate and go from there. The School Board got in contact with Amy this week regarding this process. She also said that some of the same data can be used that was compiled by the former consultants,but some things have to be revisited because of outdated information. She expects this study to be completed by the end of this calendar year. B. Update from Benefits Subcommittee-Dex Groose handed out a recap of the Benefits Subcommittee meeting from February 2nd. Gary Pickle from Nickles and Associates addressed the group regarding benefits. He described his company as a benefits provider to 350 companies throughout Southwest Florida. He also stated that he asked for quotes from every health care provider throughout the area as standard practice. The Willis representative told the group on a prior occasion that Blue Cross/Blue Shield would not be able to provide insurance for the county. Mr. Pickles said that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is now covering over 65-75% of all Florida government agencies including the State of Florida. The biggest advantage of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Great West or United Health Care is the percentage of discounts they can negotiate. He said we might save as much as 10% of what we pay now. He also said insurance companies like to group like type employees together, for example the Fire Department employees would be at higher risk than office personnel. Len Price explained flexible spending accounts in which funds were lost at the end of the year and HRA's and HAS's where money rolls over year to year. Focus groups were held last year and Page 2 of 6 HSA's were discussed and Len found that employees thought they were a good idea if the programs were done right. Len explained that Collier County is currently self-insured and uses a third-party administrator, CBSA. -Len will find out when the contract with CBSA expires. She also indicated that it could possibly take up to a year before we could change the benefits package. If we do the investigation and find a less expensive plan, then we would need to make sure it would be implemented correctly. We would have to train the employees and make sure everyone understands the program fully before we could roll it out, Since we do not necessarily need a broker, we could go out ourselves and get bids. Len will do some research and keep the group updated. -*Len will attend the Benefits subcommittee meeting on February 28`h with information. Joe Swaja asked if the County has started to display total compensation packages to their employees. Winona said the employees get a breakdown of sick days, vacation time, health benefits, etc. on a yearly basis, delivered to their homes via US Mail. Dex also passed out an article from the Wall Street Journal regarding Quad Graphics having a physician on staff. The article stated that because of this personnel addition, hospital admissions were cut by 15% and the days in the hospital in total count were reduced by 40%. Len said the county has already started research regarding having a company doctor on premises. Dex also told the group that very few large employers in Southwest Florida pay for insurance for spouses or children. They make it available, but the employee must pay it for. Steve Harrison asked Len how the budget process worked for the benefits. Len and Winona explained that the rate is developed through Administrative Services. The rate is given to the budget office and then is input into the department's budget by the individual department's Budget Analyst. As a cost cutting measure, the county has reduced the amount of company paid claims from 90/10 to the 80/20 percentage we currently have. A 2% increase in the employee's portion was increased each year for the past four years helping us to reach our goal of 80/20. In order to reduce our cost we also have smoker and nonsmoker rates–if you smoke you pay a higher premium. Also, each employee pays his insurance premiums based on his individual wage, not a set rate. Additionally, we have a very aggressive wellness program for smoking cessation, weight loss, diabetes control, walking groups, etc. These programs lower our insurance rates, simply by having the programs available. C. Update from Budget Subcommittee– Steve Harrison told the group how the progress was going with the three groups that have been set-up. Each group has at least four members so far: Finance Team: HR Team: IT Team: PC Rep - Steve Harrison PC Rep–Syd Blum PC Rep–Al Kozel BCC Rep–Mike BCC Rep–Jean Merritt BCC Rep–Barry Axelrod Smykowski Sheriff Rep–Chrystal Golden Gate Fire Rep - School Rep - ?? Kinzel Chief Peterson School Rep - ?? School Rep - ?? EMS Dan Summers Abe Skinner's Rep -?? Judge Rep– Charles Rice Elections Rep–Gary Beauchamp Fire/N. Naples - Sheriff Rep–Gail Fire/Marco Rep - ?? Addison Page 3 of 6 Steve asked each leader to contact their team members, assemble their players, have a letter with the inventory of data to be collected before the meeting on February 28th. Len suggested that we put together a questionnaire to have ready to make sure all three teams are collecting the same information. -*Winona will provide Syd with email addresses for the HR work team. -->Steve Harrison and Commissioner Halas will visit Abe Skinner, the School District and the Clerk's Office to encourage participation in the efficiency study. D. Report on Board of County Commissioners actions on the Productivity Committee's Recommendation for Membership - Winona said Matt Hudson, Al Kozel and Syd Blum were approved for continued membership by the board. She added that there were two responses from committee members regarding the newspaper article-copies are in the packet. Janet passed out a letter to the editor, it was discussed and decided that no response would be given as a committee towards the negative comments. E. FY05 Work Plan Discussion and Update-The work plan was not discussed, but the item has been deferred to the meeting of March 16th III. New Business: A. FY06 Budget Policy - Jim Mudd reviewed the proposed budget guidance that was included in the hand-out package. He informed the group that the budget is going to be a very difficult one to develop this year. There are some things in this guide that will make things tough for everyone. It will limit head count; limit increases to the CPI adjustment; address health care cost sharing; compare data between other Florida counties of comparable size and demographics; limit fund dollars for capital projects; dedicate funds for storm water capital projects; address attrition; deal with contingency reserves; use millage neutral targets; and address scheduling and overtime issues. Jim would like to see equal benefits across the board for all agencies. It is important to make sure that the taxpayer's dollars are being spent in the best possible and most efficient way. The tidal basin issue was explained. Once the water gets over the last weir that the South Florida Water District controls, it's in no man's land. Who's responsible for the water then? After discussion, it was decided that the Big Cypress Basin Board and the County Board would mutually share in the costs of getting the problem fixed initially. After the clean-up project has been completed, a MSTU will be made and it will then be up to the communities to maintain the passageways. Flood control was also discussed. Flood control projects should be started at the end of the problem (where you have rushes of water) and work backwards until the places where you have dribbles. You spend about 60% of the total project cost and get about 75% of the benefits by starting at the end. The county will pay almost two-thirds of the cost, the community will have to come up with the remaining funds. The overtime calculating process was explained. The main goal of the calculations would be to hold down the budget costs for overtime. Jim asked the group for their assistance in addressing several issues in the upcoming year. He passed out a list that included reviewing the budget policies for FY06. He asked the committee to review this budget, along with the Sheriff's budget for FY06. There are some issues with the budgets Page 4 of 6 regarding head count among other things. This will be taken to the Board on March 8th so please-The committee should get back to Jim with their comments before March Stn. Jim Mudd requested the committee's support for County instituted risk retirement for helicopter pilots. Another area is the Domestic Animal Services spay/neuter program - in house versus contracted services. Pet issues get personal very quickly and nobody likes the thought of euthanizing our pets. Consider the possibilities of having a no-kill policy in the county and putting a mandatory spay/neuter policy into effect. The problem would be to institute an educational program geared toward the Hispanic community. Jim asked the committee to look into a better way to handle this problem than our current policy. On-going initiatives will be to review impact fees, fee structure proposals,proposed master plan revisions that will have significant fiscal impact, employee benefits, recommend operating times for the water park and continue to work on the operational efficiency study. Janet asked about the 1.5% salary increases. Jim explained how the merit and COLA increases are administered in regards to pay scale (if an employee is below 10% above mid range of their level, they get COLA and a merit increase) versus bonuses (if the employee is 10% above mid range on their pay level they do not get merit increases, but they do get a one time bonus). Mike and Jim will meet with the Constitutional Officers next week to discuss budget issues and ask for their cooperation in cutting costs. Each officer will be held responsible for his own budget. Update on the Sheriff's appeal - last Friday the Sheriff sent his numbers to Tallahassee. We will have our response by next week. It usually takes the staff in Tallahassee about a month to six weeks to sort through this information. They are looking for a legitimate basis for the disagreement and making sure that nobody is being unfairly treated. We will go to Tallahassee in April or May to talk to the staff After that visit, they will make a deteiinination based on the information we have given them. Once that's done, the staff in Tallahassee will brief the Governor, probably around August or September. The problem with this entire scenario is that before the Board has to approve the budget for FY06, we still will not have rectified the FY05 budget. Mike Smykowski added that we will already set the tax rate for FY06 without having the known rate for FY05. Jim thanked the group for their dedication and encouraged them to keep up the good work. He also asked them to help him do his job by coming up with ideas to make our county better, spend money more effectively and leave a legacy that will make the county an excellent place to retire in. He instilled the fact that the county manager and the productivity committee should work as a team, be cooperative and help each other in becoming successful. Janet told the group that the suggestion made by the Productivity Committee several years ago regarding reclaimed water being used by county property first is now being done. Commissioner Halas said that the people of Pelican Bay use 3.4 million gallons of reclaimed water a day during dry season. Janet added that we could probably use many more times that much. -Barbetta will include in the packet for the next meeting the prior completed study recommendation on reclaimed water per Janet Vasey's request. Page 5 of 6 At 5:00 p.m. Joe Swaja suggested the remaining items be continued until the next meeting. Janet motioned that the meeting be adjourned. Steve seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm. Next Meeting: The next meeting of the Productivity Committee is scheduled for Wednesday, March 16, 2005, 2 p.m. in the County Manager's Office front conference room, 2nd floor of the W. Harmon Turner building (Administration Building). Page 6 of 6