Landscape Maintenance Districts - Who Maintains them?
In Monday's Manteca Bulletin, the Managing editor continues to disagree with the City's proposal to take over management of the City's Landscape Maintenance Districts.
The article points out that the city would preserve five jobs if it were to take over the district maintenance. It also points out that these workers cannot perform other duties if they are dedicated to the districts. This is all true. However, this argument is not relevant to why the city is proposing taking over districts.
The city is confident that the public will be better served by the city workers performing district maintenance. After a thorough evaluation in comparing City costs with contracted rates, staff felt that the City could provide residents with a better value for their dollar.
The cost comparison was focused on direct costs that a contractor would have control over, such as the cost to perform the maintenance, electricity and water. City staff’s estimates to perform the maintenance of the LMDs is within 5% of current contracted rates. The added benefit is the potential to save money from reduced water consumption. All LMD combined funds equal approximately $1 million. Approximately $300,000 is for water alone. With Parks maintenance staff already on site, we anticipate an approximate 15% reduction in water consumption. The City only assess (taxes) for the actual cost to maintain the improvements. Therefore, if there are savings from reducing water consumption, the savings would be passed on to the property owners of the respective LMD, in the form of a lower assessment.
In addition, as noted in the article, city workers are here every day and can respond much more quickly to repair problems that occur in the districts. Using city workers also reduces overall support staff costs for the city as well--and thus benefits all taxpayers. Finally, there are many intangible benefits to preserving the city workforce. In times of emergency, such as a flood or other natural disaster, it is city workers who perform civil defense functions. As we continue to reduce our city workforce, we have less staff to monitor levees, clean up after disasters and assist our citizens in their greatest time of need.
The City of Manteca cares about its employees, many of whom live and shop in Manteca. The City has also invested time and money to train its employees. It’s true that when the City assumes responsibility for the LMDs on July 1, it will have a negative impact on private-sector contractors. Currently, the majority of contracted work is with contractors located outside of Manteca.
Staff has determined that the City can provide the same level of service, or better, to the LMDs without any increase in cost and, over time, could actually result in a cost reduction. At the end of the day, we are responsible for providing the best value to our citizens for their tax dollars.
I can also assure you that we are putting in place a management system that will ensure that all functions performed by city workers are done at the most cost effective means possible. At the conclusion of the Council Study Session last week, the Parks and Recreation Director recommended that staff work with the Budget Advisory Committee to set up a system that ensures that all city services are done at a level competitive with their private sector counterparts.
We'll be using this blog in the future to talk in more detail about how we'll be using "managed competition" to ensure that we are delivering quality services at the lowest possible cost.
The link noted below is the power point presentation on this subject at last week's Council Study Session. The final slides talk a bit more about the factors that go into "managed competition".
Landscape%20Maintenance%20Districts%20powerpoint%2051409bullets.ppt
Thanks to Deputy Director Mark Hall for contributing to this post.
The article points out that the city would preserve five jobs if it were to take over the district maintenance. It also points out that these workers cannot perform other duties if they are dedicated to the districts. This is all true. However, this argument is not relevant to why the city is proposing taking over districts.
The city is confident that the public will be better served by the city workers performing district maintenance. After a thorough evaluation in comparing City costs with contracted rates, staff felt that the City could provide residents with a better value for their dollar.
The cost comparison was focused on direct costs that a contractor would have control over, such as the cost to perform the maintenance, electricity and water. City staff’s estimates to perform the maintenance of the LMDs is within 5% of current contracted rates. The added benefit is the potential to save money from reduced water consumption. All LMD combined funds equal approximately $1 million. Approximately $300,000 is for water alone. With Parks maintenance staff already on site, we anticipate an approximate 15% reduction in water consumption. The City only assess (taxes) for the actual cost to maintain the improvements. Therefore, if there are savings from reducing water consumption, the savings would be passed on to the property owners of the respective LMD, in the form of a lower assessment.
In addition, as noted in the article, city workers are here every day and can respond much more quickly to repair problems that occur in the districts. Using city workers also reduces overall support staff costs for the city as well--and thus benefits all taxpayers. Finally, there are many intangible benefits to preserving the city workforce. In times of emergency, such as a flood or other natural disaster, it is city workers who perform civil defense functions. As we continue to reduce our city workforce, we have less staff to monitor levees, clean up after disasters and assist our citizens in their greatest time of need.
The City of Manteca cares about its employees, many of whom live and shop in Manteca. The City has also invested time and money to train its employees. It’s true that when the City assumes responsibility for the LMDs on July 1, it will have a negative impact on private-sector contractors. Currently, the majority of contracted work is with contractors located outside of Manteca.
Staff has determined that the City can provide the same level of service, or better, to the LMDs without any increase in cost and, over time, could actually result in a cost reduction. At the end of the day, we are responsible for providing the best value to our citizens for their tax dollars.
I can also assure you that we are putting in place a management system that will ensure that all functions performed by city workers are done at the most cost effective means possible. At the conclusion of the Council Study Session last week, the Parks and Recreation Director recommended that staff work with the Budget Advisory Committee to set up a system that ensures that all city services are done at a level competitive with their private sector counterparts.
We'll be using this blog in the future to talk in more detail about how we'll be using "managed competition" to ensure that we are delivering quality services at the lowest possible cost.
The link noted below is the power point presentation on this subject at last week's Council Study Session. The final slides talk a bit more about the factors that go into "managed competition".
Landscape%20Maintenance%20Districts%20powerpoint%2051409bullets.ppt
Thanks to Deputy Director Mark Hall for contributing to this post.
Labels: Budget
posted by City Manager @ 7:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home