September 7, 2007

Council members set goals, objectives

All day study session outlines problems

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

City officials spent Tuesday, Sept. 4 outlining goals and objectives during a special study session that Mayor Chuck Reed called “a strategic planning retreat.” Their findings put the blame on city ills to the budget problems, specifically the structural budget deficit.

“The budget deficit is the barrier that is standing in the way of progress,” said City Manager Debra Figone. Reed reiterated comments he made during the budget-setting process, calling the structural budget deficit “public enemy No.1. It is standing in the way of everything we want to get done.”

The meeting was a follow-up to one held last February and, the mayor hopes to hold them every six months so that the city council and the public can set both long- and short- term goals. During his campaign, Reed suggested this strategy. The group included both the city council and senior managers.

They discussed five elements they considered three-year goals including: maintaining the city’s status as the safest big city in America; eliminating the structural budget deficit; reducing deferred maintenance and the infrastructure backlog while developing a strategy to improve the infrastructure; increasing economic vitality and providing full funding for parks, pools, community centers and libraries that includes maintenance, operation and development.

In a follow-up process, the group set a Feb. 15 strategic planning session to assess progress on these goals and objectives, develop a vision statement and develop strategic objectives for the next six months. The council will consider adopting the plan at its Sept. 25 meeting. A management team, headed by the city manager will monitor progress on a monthly basis to revise objectives as necessary while the mayor and council members will do the same on a bimonthly basis.

While the council and senior staff members could take pride in nearly 100 items that had been accomplished since the Feb. 20 meeting, the members listed nearly 50 items that were not going as well. Topping that list was a lack of resources for the Redevelop-ment Agency, infrastructure, roads and services—complaints city residents have been making for several years.

And, interspersed throughout the list was a number of items relating to money. For examples, expenses going up faster than resources, budget shortfalls forecast for the next five years, sales tax leakage, not enough staff, growth of personnel costs exceeds revenue, full funding for community centers, parks and pools cannot be achieved, unfunded retiree health care liabilities, under commitment to retail sales tax generation and master plans without funding.

Also listed in several different ways was a lack of employees and time, such as thinned management that is stretched and burned out, large committee workloads, a traffic unit too small despite concerns about speeding and accidents, an increased workload due to the Sunshine Reform task force without additional resources and not enough staff.

The meeting was important to council members. "It is important senior staff has an opportunity to hear the goals of the city council. It is also important that the city council hold staff accountable for what has and has not been accomplished since the last session," said District 10 Councilmember Nancy Pyle.

“What we are doing is identifying positive and negative trends,” added District 6 Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio. “And it’s involving all the stakeholders in these goals and objectives. It’s putting everyone on the same page in the city.”

He called the session “positive, because it allows all of us to share our ideas and thoughts without risk.”