Evaluation of the Organization of the Public Works department

C i t y o f U n i v e r s i t y C i t y

Table of Contents

Page

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Background ................................................................................................................................... 1

Purpose ........................................................................................................................................ 1

Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 2

CHAPTER II – ORGANIZATION, BUDGET AND STAFFING OF THE PUBLIC WORKS AND PARKS, RECREATION AND FORESTRY DEPARTMENTS .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Public Works ................................................................................................................................. 3

Table I – Resource Summary for the University City Public Works Department, FY 2011 .......... 4

Parks, Recreation and Forestry .................................................................................................... 5

Table II – Resource Summary for the University City Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department, FY 2011 ..................................................................................................... 6

Comparison to the City Operating Budget .................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER II I – ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Organization ............................................................................................................................... 10

Parks, Forestry and Golf ....................................................................................................... 10

Chart 1 – Proposed Organization Chart, Parks Division ....................................................... 10

Public Works, Parks, Recreation and Forestry ..................................................................... 11

Chart 2 – Proposed Organization Chart, Community Services Department ......................... 13

Chart 3 – Proposed Organization Chart, Community Services Department with Solid Waste Contract ............................................................................................................ 14

Recreation ............................................................................................................................. 16

Chart 4 – Proposed Organization Chart, Community Development and Recreation Department ......................................................................................................... 17

Improved Business Practices ..................................................................................................... 18

Outsourcing Services ............................................................................................................ 18

Street Sweeping .................................................................................................................... 18

Mowing .................................................................................................................................. 19

Tree Trimming ....................................................................................................................... 20

Custodial Services ................................................................................................................ 20

Fleet Maintenance ................................................................................................................ 21

Miscellaneous Issues ............................................................................................................ 21


Professionalism ..................................................................................................................... 21

Citizen Complaint Tracking ................................................................................................... 22

Joint Purchasing ................................................................................................................... 23

Providing Fleet Services to Other Agencies ......................................................................... 23

Purchase of Street Light System .......................................................................................... 23

Recreation Guide .................................................................................................................. 24

Expand Recreation Programs ............................................................................................... 25

Senior Citizens ...................................................................................................................... 26

Community Center ................................................................................................................ 27

Forester Consultation ............................................................................................................ 27

Seven Days Per Week Parks Coverage ............................................................................... 27

Cost Savings/Efficiencies at the Delmar Loop and Other Miscellaneous Programs ............. 28

Inflated Classifications .......................................................................................................... 28

Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 29

CHAPTER IV – SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30


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Chapter I Introduction

Background The City of University City serves an estimated population of 38,000. The community is westerly of the City of St. Louis and is part of the 100 year-old inner ring of suburbs immediately adjacent to that City. University City is substantially built out and is predominately residential. Adjacent to Washington University much of the housing supporting the University is located in the City. The community could be characterized, at least in part, as a university town.

The residential housing stock appears well maintained, the apparent result of the City’s code enforcement program. In fact, the City as a whole seems well maintained, and has a popular commercial area or downtown called the Delmar Loop.

Except for utilities such as water, sanitary sewer and electrical, University City is a full-service City providing police, fire, public works, parks and recreation, library and refuse collection ser-vices. These services are primarily provided by city staff supplemented to a limited degree by contract services.

As with many other cities throughout the nation, University City is experiencing challenges in funding its basic services. The City’s Request for Proposals for this study estimates an operat-ing budget gap of $900,000 next fiscal year, increasing to $2,000,000 the following fiscal year. The failure in August 2009 of a proposed sales tax increase of 0.25 percent eliminated a poten-tial revenue increase for the City. Also, the City has seen a population decline over the years so continuing staffing at current levels may no longer be sustainable especially during the current economic climate.

Several steps have been taken to address the City’s projected budget shortfalls including a re-duction staff. In addition, a number of positions were diverted from General Fund support. For example, the Solid Waste Management Division was transferred to the Solid Waste Fund and a limited number of Public Works Administration positions or portions of positions were transferred to that Fund as well.

More recent steps to address the City’s fiscal challenges include combining the Departments of Human Resources, Information Technology and Finance into a Department of Administrative Services. Other efforts to flatten, streamline and shrink the City’s organizational structure may be necessary to adjust to the “new normal” of municipal finance.

Purpose Within the context of the City’s effort to continue to provide satisfactory basic city services, but with insufficient revenue levels to support these services, this report will examine other efforts to flatten and streamline the City’s organization in the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments. The purpose of the report is to evaluate the management structure of


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these two departments, look for ways to improve the allocation and utilization of staff, examine operations to determine if there are opportunities to improve efficiency and effectiveness and overall, to reduce costs. This could involve combining the two departments, a partial merger of these departments, and/or finding ways to coordinate work activities to achieve more cost effec-tive operations.

Methodology The methodology for accomplishing this study is simple and straightforward. First, a number of pertinent documents were reviewed including both current and historic City budgets and organi-zation charts. Second, a number of reports were reviewed which evaluated portions of the two departments or provided planning guidance for their operations such as the Public Works De-partment Strategic Planning Process (2006), Public Works Situation Analysis (2008), the Parks Master Plan (2008), Urban Forestry Operations Review and Strategic Plan (2009), and the city-wide Fleet Management Study Report (2009) and Fleet Utilization Study Technical Brief (2010). Also an internal memo from the Directors of the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and For-estry departments entitled, “Departments Merger Analysis” (2010) was reviewed.

Other documents were read such as “The Parkview Gardens Parks Plan” (2010). The last three University City Recreation Guides describing various recreation and library programs, classes, special events and activities were also reviewed.

Second, the consultant conducted a number of interviews with individuals who had useful in-sights into this study. After a “kickoff” meeting with the City Manager in December and a tour of several major city facilities, interviews were conducted with the Mayor and City Clerk. Upon re-turn to the City in January, other members of the City Council were interviewed along with sev-eral current and former employees of the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry De-partments as well as a few residents who have had extensive contact with these two depart-ments. Through this process, 36 individuals were interviewed for this study.

The cooperation of those interviewed was exemplary. They provided useful information, insights and, in some cases, documents needed for this report.

Finally, a tour of major city facilities was taken. This included City Hall, Centennial Commons, the Community Center, Golf Course/Club House, the Public Works and Parks Maintenance Yard, Police Station, various city parks, and driving throughout the City to observe the condition of city streets and the extent of the City’s urban forest.

It should be noted that this report’s methodology relied upon the document review, interviews, and a City tour. It did not include the observation of specific work processes except in general terms at Centennial Commons and the Garage.


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Chapter II Organization, Budget and Staffing of the

Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments

To help place the results of this study into proper context, this Chapter will describe the organi-zation, budget and staffing of the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Depart-ments. This will help understand the services provided to the public by these two Departments as well as spell out the resources needed to provide these services. This Chapter will also out-line the resources such as funding and staffing required to support these two Departments compared to the City as a whole.

Public Works The Public Works Department consists of four Divisions including Administration and Engineer-ing, Fleet Maintenance, Solid Waste Management and Street Maintenance. Facilities Mainte-nance, previously managed by this Department, was recently relocated to the Community De-velopment Department.

Administration and Engineering oversees the operation of the Department, provides design, construction and permit approval for work in the public right-of-way such as streets, sidewalks and bridges. This function is supported by the General Fund which includes fees collected for some of the services provided by this Division.

Fleet Maintenance provides maintenance, repair and service to the City’s more than 200 vehi-cles and other equipment. It is also responsible for acquiring replacement vehicles and equip-ment for the City’s operating departments and a large part of its budget reflects this responsibil-ity.

This Division is not included in the Public Works Department’s 2011 budget since it supported by an internal service fund whereby the City’s operating departments pay a rental fee into the fund for fleet maintenance and vehicle replacement. Organizationally, however, the Fleet Maintenance Division is included in the Public Works Department and the administrative head of the Division reports to the Public Works Director.

The Solid Waste Management Division is responsible for the collection and disposal of refuse from all homes and apartments within the City as well as many public institutions. This includes collection of solid waste, recycling, bulk waste, yard waste and bulk leaf collection.

This Division is also not included in the Public Works Department’s 2011 budget since it is treated as an enterprise fund. Its operation relies on fees charged for the services provided. Or-ganizationally, however, it is a Division within the Public Works Department with the Solid Waste Superintendent reporting to the Public Works Director.


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The Street Maintenance Division is responsible for the maintenance of nearly 100 miles of pub-lic streets. This includes street repairs, street sweeping, cleaning, traffic control (signs) and snow removal.

The 2011 budget shows the Department providing the facilities maintenance function but not as a separate division nor as a section included in any of the Department’s four divisions. Appar-ently, while this function was formerly assigned to the Public Works Department, it recently has been relocated to the City’s Community Development Department. However, since this report is using the financial information contained in the 2011 budget, for consistency purposes, the cost and staffing for this function is allocated to the Public Works Department.

The facilities maintenance function includes custodial, maintenance and building operation ser-vices for non-park and recreation buildings involving minor building repairs and maintenance of the heating, cooling and electrical systems. The Parks, Recreation, and Forestry Department buildings are maintained by that Department using maintenance workers and part-time custodi-ans.

The resources necessary to provide these services are presented in Table I, “Resource Sum-mary for the University City Public Works Department, FY 2011.” This Table lists the budget and the number of full-time staff for each division/function based on the fiscal year 2011 budget.

Table I – Resource Summary for the University City Public Works Department, FY 2011

Division/Function 2011 Budget 2011 Full-time

Positions Adm./Engineering $793,567 9.10

Fleet Maintenance(1) 930,900 6.00

Solid Waste Management(2) 2,474,063 14.15

Street Maintenance 2,505,077 13.00

Facility Maintenance 566,405 4.00

Capital Improvements 1,620,000 ––

TOTAL PUBLIC WORKS BUDGET/STAFF $8,890,021 46.25(3) (1)This is an Internal Service Fund supported by equipment rental fees from other departments. Its budget, which includes equipment replacement as well as operations, is $2,065,900. However, to avoid double counting the Public Works Department totals, the rental payments to Fleet Mainte-nance from Solid Waste Management ($580,000) and Street Maintenance ($555,000) were sub-tracted from the budget total. (2)This is an Enterprise Fund relying on service charges to support its operation. (3)The Department also budgets $67,272 for part-time staff in addition its budgeted full-time posi-tions.

As presented in Table I a more complete view of the resources allocated to Public Works can be seen. The Public Works Department with the inclusion of Solid Waste Management, Fleet Maintenance and Facility Maintenance has a total budget of $8,890,021. Most of the budget supports Street Maintenance ($2,505,707) and Solid Waste Management ($2,474,063).

At one time Solid Waste was in the City’s General Fund budget, but in fiscal year 2009 it was moved to the Solid Waste Fund (enterprise fund). Its staffing of 14.15 positions consists of 11 positions devoted to solid waste collections, while 2.25 positions from Finance for billing and a .9 FTE position from Public Works provide administrative and support services to Solid Waste are now supported by this Fund.


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Fleet Management is supported through an internal service fund by rental payments from other City departments. These payments are used for replacement, maintenance and repair of vehi-cles and other equipment.

This Division’s total budget for fiscal year 2011 is $2,065,900. Of this amount $1,135,000 is supplied by the Divisions of Street Maintenance ($555,000) and Solid Waste ($580,000). Obvi-ously if the Solid Waste function is outsourced, and the new provider provides all solid waste services including the maintenance of solid waste vehicles and equipment, there will be a need to reduce Fleet Management’s budget and possibly its’ staffing1.

The total number of positions allocated to the Public Works Department totals 46.25. This would be reduced, of course, if Solid Waste is outsourced. Even if that occurred, the Public Works De-partment would still be responsible for the solid waste function by administering the solid waste operations contract.

It should also be noted that in addition to the Department’s 46.25 positions, it has funding for part-time staff to help support the full-time positions. The budget includes $67,272 for part-time and temporary help, with $27,600 budgeted in Administration/Engineering and $33,672 allocat-ed to Street Maintenance.

Public Works also contracts for various support services. Funding for “maintenance contracts” is provided for Administration/Engineering ($5,000), Street Maintenance ($59,270), facility mainte-nance ($30,000) and Solid Waste ($18,000) for a total of $112,270.

So while the 46.26 positions in Public Works give a general indication of the staffing level in the Department, there is also additional funding for part-time positions and outside contractors to support the Department. As will be seen in the next section, there is an even greater reliance on part-time staff in the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department.

Parks, Recreation and Forestry The Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department, according to their organization chart, consists of the Divisions of Recreation, Parks, Forestry and Golf. The 2011 budget, however, allocates funding and staffing differently. There is a budget for Administration, Park Maintenance and Forestry, followed by sections for Golf, Community Center, Aquatics, and Centennial Commons. The organization chart indicates that the direct reports to the department head are the Recrea-tion Superintendent, Golf Manager, Golf Superintendent, Forester and the Parks Operations Superintendent. For the purposes of presenting the budget and staffing data in this report the in-formation will be categorized by the Divisions of Recreation, Park Maintenance, Forestry and Golf.

In terms of the services, the Recreation Division provides to the general public a broad array of programs, classes, special events, and facility rentals. These programs, classes and other ser-vices are provided through several excellent facilities including the 62,000 square foot Centen-nial Commons at Heman Park. It has state-of-the-art fitness equipment, a double gymnasium, an indoor soccer facility, meeting rooms and offices. This facility offers a wide-variety of pro-grams, classes and other recreational opportunities. Summer aquatic programming is offered at the adjacent Heman Park Pool, with limited programming available during the winter at the Uni-

1 In fiscal year 2007 Fleet Management had 10 positions which was ultimately reduced to 6 positions by fiscal year 2009.


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versity City High School Natatorium. Limited senior programming is provided at the Heman Park Community Center which is also available for rentals.

According to the Parks Master Plan the Parks Division is responsible for the maintenance of 20 parks throughout the City. This includes 7 mini parks, 7 neighborhood parks, and the 85 acre Heman Park. There are three special use parks, the golf course and a nature area. The parks, golf and open space area total 280 acres according to the Plan.

Forestry provides for planning, removal and trimming of the City’s trees. Based on an inventory in 2000 there were 11,339 street trees, and overall there is an estimated 30,000 trees on public property maintained either by Forestry or Parks.

Among the free services provided to the community is firewood from tree trimming and removal, and mulch and wood chips produced and administered by Parks, Forestry and Public Works.

The Department also operates the Ruth Park Golf Course, a nine-hole 93.5 acre facility. Includ-ing a driving range, the Golf Course also contains a small clubhouse with golf cart rentals, food, beverage and retail services.

The resources needed to provide recreation, parks, forestry and golf services are presented in Table II, ”Resource Summary for the University City Parks, Recreation and Forestry Depart-ment, FY 2011.” Similar to Public Works, this Table provides information concerning the budget and staffing for the divisions/functions of the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department based on the fiscal year 2011 budget.

Table II – Resource Summary for the University City Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department, FY 2011

Division/Function 2011 Budget 2011 Full-time

Positions P-T FTEs

Recreation $1,407,617 7.00 24.26

Community Center $168,558 1.70 .74 Aquatics 254,992 .20 6.54 Centennial Commons 984,067 5.10 16.98

Parks, Adm., Forestry 2,070,220 22.00 1.30

Adm. 3.00 Parks 14.50 Forestry 4.50

Golf 574,975 3.00 4.26

Capital Improvements 190,000 –– ––

TOTAL PARKS, RECREATION, FORESTRY BUDGET/STAFF

$4,242,872 32.00(1) 29.82

(1)This Department budgets $498,000 for part-time and temporary employees. In addition, to the budgeted 32.00 full-time positions, the Department has 29.82 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. This consists of 1.30 FTE in Parks, 4.26 FTE in Golf, .74 FTE at the Community Center, 6.54 FTE for Aquatics and 16.98 FTE at Centennial Commons.

The Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department has a total budget of $4,232,872. This is split between Recreation with an allocation of $1,407,617; Parks, Administration and Forestry with $2,070,220; and Golf with $574,975. Capital improvements are allocated $190,000.


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In terms of staffing, seven full-time positions are assigned to Recreation, 22 to Parks, Admin-istration and Forestry, and 3 to Golf. In Parks, Administration and Forestry there are 3 positions assigned to Administration, 4.5 to Forestry and 14.5 to Parks.

In addition, funds are budgeted for a large number of part-time and temporary staff, mostly in Recreation. This includes 1.3 FTEs in Parks, 4.26 FTEs for Golf and 24.26 FTEs in Recreation, or a total of 29.82 FTEs for the entire Department. This is fairly typical in many parks and recre-ation departments, supplementing limited full-time staff with a number of part-time employees for seasonal employment such as serving as lifeguards during the summer pool season. This has the advantage of providing needed staff to supervise or assist in providing programs or ser-vices for defined periods of time at a low overall expense to the City. This is because these po-sitions are paid at a lower hourly rate without the expense of fringe benefits accorded full-time employees.

The disadvantage in many cities, however, is that there often is not the same type of budget scrutiny over the number and allocation of these positions by the finance department, city man-ager and city council. As can be seen, a significant portion of the Parks, Recreation and Forest-ry’s Budget is committed to part-time help with $498,000 budgeted for this purpose.

With the City’s budget reductions it appears that some limited level of budget review has oc-curred on this part of the Department’s budget since the number of FTEs for part-time staff has been reduced from 31.52 FTEs in 2007 to 29.82 FTEs in 2011.

Similar to Public Works the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department also contracts for sup-port services to assist its full-time and part-time employees in meeting their service responsibili-ties. For example, Forestry uses outside maintenance contracts for street tree pruning, wood chips and log grinding, and emergency tree removal.

In this Department the total amount budgeted for maintenance contracts is $142,699 in 2011. This is mostly allocated to Parks, Administration and Forestry with $116,500 included in their budget. Lesser funding for maintenance contracts is also provided for Golf ($3,804) and Recrea-tion ($22,595), with most of this latter figure committed to Centennial Commons ($15,685).

This information regarding full-time staff, part-time staff and contract support is provided in order to more completely assess the total City resources used to staff and operate the Parks, Recrea-tion and Forestry Department.

Comparison to the City Operating Budget The focus on the allocation of resources to the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forest-ry Departments is important during a period of budget constraints and organizational downsiz-ing. This is because the two departments claim a large portion of the City’s operating budget.

This section will compare the budget and staffing information presented earlier in this Chapter for these two departments with the overall City budget and staff. This will assist in understand-ing the size of these two departments compared to the total City operation and thereby under-score the importance of seeking ways to reduce costs in these two departments during these difficult economic times.

The 2011 general operating budget is $27,402,941. Supported by the General Fund is $4,242,812 budgeted for Parks, Recreation and Forestry and $5,485,049 for Public Works. This amounts to 15.5% of the General Fund budget allocated for Parks, Recreation and Forestry,


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with 20% of the budget supporting Public Works. With a total expense of $9,727,861 for the two departments, together they are allocated 35.5% of the City’s General Fund based on the 2011 budget.

Another way of assessing the size of the two departments compared to the City’s total expenses is to combine both their General Fund and special fund costs. Taking the expense totals from Tables I and II ($8,890,021 + $4,242,872) the total resources required for Public Works and Parks and Recreation, including Solid Waste and Fleet Maintenance, is $13,132,893. Increasing the city-wide operating budget to reflect the increased expense for both departments results in a total expense of $30,807,973 ($27,402,941 + $3,405,032). The result is that the two depart-ments total 42.6% ($13,132,893/$30,807,973) of the City’s total expenditures. While a portion of this additional expense reflects offsetting charges for solid waste service, this percentage demonstrates that a significant portion of the City’s resources are used for the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments.

Another method of comparing the use of City resources is the amount of full-time staff positions allocated to the two departments. This is particularly the case when both General Fund and oth-er funds, such as the Internal Service and Solid Waste Funds, are added to the total. This gives a broader perspective of resource allocation compared to the proportionate allocation found in the City General Fund.

Staff has summarized the City’s full-time positions showing 270 positions in the initially adopted 2011 budget. With 46.25 positions allocated to Public Works, and 32.0 approved for Parks, Rec-reation and Forestry, the two departments account for 29 percent of the total full-time city posi-tions (46.25 + 32.0 = 78.25/270 = 29 percent).

It should be noted that position reductions were approved October 11, 2010, reducing the total number of city positions to 267, with Public Works being reduced to 45.25 positions. However, the figures from the initially adopted 2011 budget are used in this Chapter for the purposes of consistency of analysis.

Of course, the comparison of full-time positions among the operating departments is not a pre-cise measure of the two departments relative to the use of the City’s resources. As noted earli-er, Parks, Recreation and Forestry has the full-time equivalent of an additional 29.82 FTEs through the use of part-time and temporary staff. This would push the number of FTEs for these two departments from 78.25 to 108.07 counting only the Parks, Recreation and Forestry part-timers. It is difficult to compare this level of staff, however, to city-wide figures since there was no available numbers for part-time FTEs in the other City departments. It should be noted, how-ever, that due to the nature of Parks, Recreation and Forestry operations they will be by far the greatest user of part-time staff in the City.

Finally, the support the two departments receive from the use of maintenance contracts is sub-stantial. The total of this contract support is $254,969 for the two Departments.

As can be seen from the information in this Chapter the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments require and receive a substantial portion of the City’s operating budget. These two departments, along with the Police and Fire Departments, receive the bulk of the City’s resources for operations, even with the budget reductions already taken by these four departments. Therefore, during economically challenging times it is crucial that the City examine ways to achieve efficiencies and to save money in the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments. This likely will involve flattening and streamlining these two organiza-tions, finding ways to combine and provide services more efficiently and effectively, and to im-prove the business practices of the two departments.


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Chapter III Analysis and Recommendations

This Chapter presents the analysis and recommendations related to the organization and opera-tions of University City’s Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments. As mentioned in the “Methodology” section of Chapter I, this analysis is based upon a field tour of many of the City’s facilities and grounds, a review of a number of pertinent documents, and indi-vidual interviews with 36 people including current and former employees, current and former council members and members of the general public.

After this review was completed, it became clear that it would be beneficial for the City to not on-ly discuss possible reorganization of the two departments, which are the focus of this study, but to offer recommendations related to the City achieving efficiencies by eliminating duplication or through improved business practices. The reorganization discussion will focus on total or partial merger of the two departments as well as internal realignment within each department.

As discussed earlier, the problem the City is facing is that it will be confronting a General Fund deficit of $900,000 next fiscal year and a $2,000,000 deficit the following fiscal year. As a result the City has eliminated or frozen a number of positions and in the future will be forced to elimi-nate even more positions in order to balance the operating budget.

It is recognized that the City has General Fund Reserves in the range of $8,000,000. While re-serves can be used to help balance the budget on the short-term, they only amount to one-time revenues which will diminish each year as they are used. Once they are gone, they are gone. If the budget is not ultimately balanced, the reserves will dissipate and eventually vanish.

Since the City is basically a service agency, most of its costs are in salaries and fringe benefits. Balancing the budget during stressful economic times creates difficult choices for the City’s poli-cy makers. As in previous years maintaining the same number of employees becomes impossi-ble. The focus should be on how to best organize the work of the employees who remain to con-tinue adequate service to the public.

In completing this review, it was observed that some of the City’s departments were managed in a professional manner with clear lines of communication, consistent use of forms, written poli-cies and procedures, and consistent application of policies and procedures. Other departments, or divisions within some departments, were not managed in the same professional manner. There appears to be a lack of written policies and procedures in these departments or divisions. More importantly the lines of communication seem vague and the responsibility for performing certain functions appear at times to be unclear or at least inconsistently applied even from the perspective of city employees in other departments.

The recommendations in this report are designed to offer ways to not only save money and be-come more efficient, but to also improve the overall management, operations and professional-ism in the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments. The recommenda-tions are presented in two major categories: (1) organization; and (2) improved business prac-tices. The organization section will discuss several options for reorganizing the public works and parks and recreation functions. The business practice section will suggest ways in which these


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functions can provide service more efficiently and/or improve service to the public as well as other issues that have been raised during the interviews.

Organization This report makes several recommendations for University City to flatten and streamline its or-ganization, making it more efficient and saving the City money without impacting service levels. The recommendations should also improve the effectiveness of the organization by improving its business practices, by requiring fewer management and supervisory positions and by reduc-ing top management and its span of control.

The reorganization proposals which are outlined in the following sections can be implemented alone or collectively. Implementing all of the reorganization recommendations, however, will produce the greatest benefits to the City.

Parks, Forestry and Golf

Currently, the Parks, Forestry and Golf Divisions report directly to the Director of Parks, Recrea-tion and Forestry. However, two of these three divisions are really small sections, with two full-time staff assigned to Golf and 4.5 full-time staff allocated to Forestry. In most jurisdictions with this number of staff, all three functions would be placed in a single division which would be titled either “Parks” or “Parks Maintenance.”

In University City it is recommended that the Superintendent or division head for Parks oversee a division with three sections: Parks Maintenance, Forestry and Golf Course Maintenance. The-se three functions already share tools and equipment and support each other in performing some tasks. For example, Parks and Forestry supports Golf in tree trimming, Parks supports Forestry in sharing an employee for winter tree work and in pulling out tree stumps, and they support each other in accomplishing other work tasks.

This organizational structure for the size of the overall work group is common in other municipal-ities. It recognizes that they perform similar work tasks, it combines like work functions and it shrinks management’s span of control. It is therefore recommended that these three functions be combined into an expanded Parks Division. This Division would be headed by a Parks Su-perintendent who would also oversee the Parks section.

The proposed organization of this Division is presented in the following organization chart.

Parks

Forestry Parks Maintenance Golf Course Maintenance

Chart 1 - Proposed Organization ChartParks Division


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One issue regarding this reorganization is the position of the Golf Manager who manages the club house, driving range, and golf carts and performs the starter functions. This position also provides lessons and clinics. This Golf Manager only oversees part-time employees in conduct-ing these functions and does not supervise the maintenance of the golf course. In terms of this reorganization, the Golf Manager could either report to and/or be part of the proposed newly formatted Parks Division, report to the same department head as the Parks Division, or report to the head of golf course maintenance as found in some other cities. For this reorganization it is suggested instead that the Golf Manager be included in the Recreation Division since many of this position’s functions relate more closely with leisure time services than to maintenance.

Recommendation #1 It is recommended that the sections of Parks Maintenance, Forestry and Golf Course Maintenance be merged into a Parks Division headed by a Parks Division Superinten-dent, who in turn would report to a department head.

Public Works, Parks, Recreation and Forestry

With the reorganization of the Parks Division suggested in Recommendation #1, it is recom-mended that the reorganized Parks Division be merged with the Public Works Department into a new City department. The tentative working title for this new department is the “Community Ser-vices Department.” There may be other names or designations that management and the City Council may develop which would better suit the community and the city organization. The point is that this will be a new department and because of the reorganization it should have a different designation.

There are a number of reasons to merge Parks with Public Works. First, Parks Maintenance al-ready is physically located at the City’s Public Works and Parks Maintenance Yard along with Streets, Fleet and Solid Waste. It performs maintenance functions as is the case with Streets and Fleet. Parks and Streets often support each other in certain work functions such as snow removal and leaf collection.

In addition there are other opportunities for mutual support between Parks and Streets such as:

• The Parks weekend employee could reduce Public Works overtime by emptying trash containers and other Saturday tasks on the Delmar Loop.

• A lower cost for contract grass cutting would be encouraged with one rather than two contracts administered by a single department rather than two separate divisions.

• The striping by contract on park parking lots and other paved areas could be performed by Streets at a savings to the City.

• Rather than Streets coordinating the repair of street lights and Parks tending to park lights, this function could be consolidated into one function in the new department.

• Parks and Streets each deliver different material for approved community events, block parties and races. It would be more efficient for Parks to assume the total responsibility for this work.

Second, besides cooperating on snow and leaf removal, there are opportunities for cross train-ing such as street striping, board ups and maybe even signs, alley cleanup and concrete work.


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The combination of Streets and Parks in the same department will offer additional opportunities for collaboration and creating efficiencies.

Third, a survey conducted by the consultant in another region revealed that about 50 percent of the cities combine Public Works and Parks. Input from the interviews indicated that this organi-zational arrangement is not unusual in the St. Louis area.

Fourth, an internal memo from the Public Works Director and the previous Director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry cited a number of potential benefits and opportunities for either a total or partial merger. These benefits and opportunities included cross training for more flexibility and potential efficiency for accomplishing work tasks, a larger work force for emergencies, “all equipment and supplies …under one department, not ‘mine vs. theirs,’” and developing a func-tional relationship which “will make sense to staff and public.”

A final potential opportunity was to address “possible job assignment alignment corrections.” The consultant noted potential “classification inflation” within the City organization and potential inconsistencies among some job titles. It was also noticed that there may be classifications in-appropriate to the work being performed such as “crew leader” rather than “lead worker.” Merg-ing Streets and Parks into one department, and, especially with cross training, could create the opportunity to more effectively reorganize the maintenance crews.

It was further recognized in the memo that under the status quo there could be difficult budget cuts while trying to retain a full work load with the current organizational structure. It is expected through a reorganization, however, that the new department will be better able to handle budget cuts while addressing work load issues.

There were concerns expressed by the two directors with several issues. One was that the span of control would be too large. The City Manager’s Budget Advisory Task Force as an unintend-ed counterpoint to this assertion suggests that “…the private sector has expanded from the old (span of control) rule of 4 – 8 employees per manager to more than 20 in many cases.” That may be extreme in the University City setting, so the recommendation in this report is to remove many department head direct reports (Forestry, Golf) into one division (Parks) so that the span of control would be effective and manageable in the new department. The director of the new department would have six direct reports from Engineering, Streets, Fleet, Parks, Facilities and Solid Waste. If Solid Waste is outsourced, then there would be five direct reports to the new di-rector position with a service contract requiring administration by the department.

A second concern was that the “…missions are too different to have one director with enough knowledge in all areas to effectively manage.” Later, the memo states, “if a total merger was im-plemented, the resulting department would be too large to be effectively managed by one indi-vidual.”

Regarding the issue of mission, except for Engineering and Solid Waste, the remaining work functions are related to maintenance. A proposal elsewhere in this report to combine Recreation with Community Development will help with the issue regarding disparate missions.

Concerning the size of the department, other cities have departments which perform efficiently with similar if not identical divisions as proposed in this report. As mentioned above, the span of control has been adjusted so that it is reasonable for a department of this size. The memo is correct, however, in implying that effective management skills will be required from the leader of the new department.


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Probably the most salient point of the memo is concern over the unknown. “Will priorities change? Will services be reduced resulting in job eliminations?” There is the understandable concern over employee morale regarding the potential loss of jobs. With the City’s current eco-nomic challenges there likely will be the need to eliminate additional positions throughout the City. Through the proposed reorganization the goal is to minimize job losses, such as not filling vacant positions. A further goal is to maintain service levels expected by the public even with fewer resources through the efficiencies that will be built into this reorganization.

How will the new department be organized? Currently, the Public Works Department consists of the Divisions of Engineering, Street Maintenance, Fleet Maintenance and Solid Waste. Recent-ly, Facilities Maintenance was included in this department but moved to Community Develop-ment.

Also, proposals have been submitted for a RFP for outsourcing the solid waste function. If this occurs, there will still be a need for administration of the new solid waste contract to insure that its terms are met, public service is not reduced and proper customer relations is provided by the contractor.

The new Community Services Department would consist of the Divisions of Engineering, Street Maintenance, Parks Maintenance, Fleet Maintenance, Facility Maintenance and Solid Waste. This proposal would create a span of control of only six divisions (five if Solid Waste is out-sourced) reporting to the department head. This would be manageable for a competent manag-er with a proper technical background. The proposed organization including Facility Mainte-nance and the current operation of Solid Waste is shown in the following organization chart.

Community Services Director

Engineering Streets Solid Waste

City Engineer Street Superintendent Solid Waste Superintendent

Chart 2 - Proposed Organization ChartCommunity Services Department

Fleet Facilities Parks

Fleet Manager Facilities Manager Parks Superintendent

Permits

Project Managers

Facility Maintenance. It is suggested in this reorganization that Facility Maintenance be moved from the Community Development Department and placed in this new department. It is further recommended that consideration be given to expanding this section and making it responsible for the maintenance of all city facilities. Currently, Facility Maintenance is responsible for repair and custodial maintenance of non-parks facilities such as City Hall, the E.O.C. Center, the fire stations, 630 Trinity, the Annex and jail cell area, the Central Garage and the Municipal Parking Garage. For the parks and recreation facilities the Parks Division is responsible for building re-pair and the Recreation Division is responsible for custodial services using part-time staff. It is suggested that the part-time custodial hours administered in the Recreation Division be trans-


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ferred to this Section. It is further suggested that one or a portion of a General Maintenance Person in Parks also be transferred to this Division. This should create a more efficient opera-tion with all of City facility maintenance centralized, and will provide greater flexibility in provid-ing this service city-wide.

Solid Waste. If Solid Waste is outsourced, the task of the Public Works Department becomes contract administration rather than directly providing trash pickup and recycling services. If out-sourcing of this function occurs, it is recommended that this contract be administered by the Senior Project Manager currently in the Public Works’ Department. With that modification, the proposed organization chart of the Community Services Department would then be modified as follows:

Community Services Director

Chart 3 - Proposed Organization ChartCommunity Services Department with Solid Waste Contract

Engineering Streets Fleet

City Engineer Street Superintendent Fleet Manager

Facilities Parks Sr. Project Manager

Facilities Manager Parks Superintendent Solid Waste Contract

Permits

Project Managers

Fleet Maintenance. During the interview process and based on two reports analyzing the City’s fleet maintenance and replacement, it was suggested to the consultant that the Fleet Mainte-nance Division be removed from the Public Works Department and established as a separate division or function. It was further suggested that the consultants who evaluated Fleet opera-tions in the two recent reports, or some other expert, be retained to help manage Fleet and make their operations more effective. It is argued that although this approach may entail some increased expense there would be an overall cost decrease through a better managed opera-tion.

This option of retaining outside expert management and direction to Fleet may have some merit. However, establishing Fleet Maintenance as a separate City department or a stand-alone divi-sion would create a dysfunctional organizational structure. It is recommended that, as stated earlier, the Fleet Maintenance be established as a division in the proposed Community Services Department.

It is also recommended that whether Fleet retains an outside expert to help assist its manage-ment be deferred until a decision is made whether or not the solid waste function is outsourced. If outsourcing occurs, the size of the Fleet staff and its budget will be reduced to the point where the use of an outside expert would likely be unnecessary.


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Further, the need for this type of management refinement may be unneeded. Probably the most important customers for any garage operation are public safety. Satisfaction was expressed with the work of Fleet Maintenance support by Police as well as from Parks and Solid Waste.

Cost Savings. With Parks and Streets Maintenance in the same department, there should be additional opportunities for cross training, cooperation and consolidation of functions. Further, the City should consider reducing the “basic” staff necessary for required maintenance respon-sibilities, and supplement that “basic” staff with part-time help during peak work periods. While this already occurs, the balance between “basic” and part-time staff would change with fewer “basic” staff and more part-time workers. This would result in a lower cost to the City. Further, if the solid waste function is outsourced, it is estimated that at least one mechanic position, if not two, will no longer be required.

Also, there was input received by city employees that some maintenance employees are not ful-ly challenged by their work load. Some question whether “crew leaders” are really only “lead workers.” It is projected that either by combining crews or even using existing crews with less staff the same level of work output could be provided. Redefining and reducing the “basic” staff needed for street and parks maintenance functions supplemented by part-time workers, cross-training to allow greater coordination between street and parks crews, the reduced need of crew leaders along with more day-to-day supervision by the Street Maintenance Superintendent, and the reduction of Fleet workload if solid waste is outsourced, could make as many as four to five full-time positions unnecessary.

What is being proposed is a more comprehensive, more efficient organization of engineering, project management, solid waste collection and disposal and maintenance services. To allow this new department to achieve the efficiencies inherent in the new organizational structure will require a director with excellent management and technical skills. Since the new department will oversee engineering and a technical understanding of the maintenance of city streets and facili-ties is needed, the director should also have engineering expertise. This means that in recruiting for this position the City should require that the new department head be a Professional Engi-neer, or, at a minimum, that this requirement should be a desirable characteristic.

Recommendation #2 It is recommended that a new department called the “Community Services Department” be created consisting of the newly formatted Parks Division and the Divisions of Street Maintenance, Fleet Maintenance, Facility Maintenance and Solid Waste.

Recommendation #3 It is recommended that if the solid waste function is outsourced that the contract be overseen by the Senior Project Manager who in turn would report to the department head of the new department.

Recommendation #4 It is recommended that the Facility Maintenance Division be supplemented by existing staff resources in Parks and Recreation so that one Division will be responsible for the maintenance of all City facilities.


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Recommendation #5 It is recommended that any effort to obtain outside management expertise for Fleet Maintenance be deferred until a decision has been made whether or not the solid waste function should be outsourced.

Recommendation #6 It is recommended that, with the proposed reorganization, strategies be used of cross training between Parks and Streets, and redefining what is required for “basic” crews to achieve efficiencies and cost savings for the City.

Recommendation #7 It is recommended that a leader for the proposed Community Services Department be sought with excellent management and technical skills including status as a professional engineer either as a required or desirable qualification.

Recreation

With the proposed creation of a Community Services Department does Recreation move to the new department or find an organizational home elsewhere? While Recreation could stay with Parks, it would be the only part of the department not associated with engineering or mainte-nance.

In some cities when parks and public works merge, recreation and the library combine to form a new department. This is because of the similarity in services provided by these two functions since they are oriented toward the use of the public’s leisure time. There are often broad pro-grammatic overlaps between recreation and libraries such as classes in literacy, personal and financial health. The University City Library, however, has more independence than other City departments since it is supported by a separate library fund through its own taxing district and has a “governing” Library Board who appoints the City Librarian and sets policy for library op-erations.

The other option, and the one proposed in this report, is to join Recreation with the Community Development Department. Both Community Development and Recreation are customer service oriented and work to support neighborhoods and the community. Both provide programs to sen-iors. While Recreation senior programming is surprisingly limited, they provide general pro-grams, classes and services to the community in which seniors participate. With different pro-gramming, Community Development partners with senior service agencies to provide education and outreach for home improvement and targeted assistance for the weatherization program.

As a refinement to this organizational structure it would be beneficial to move the Golf Manager into Recreation. Besides operating the clubhouse this position also performs recreation func-tions such as clinics and lessons. This move may improve supervision of this position and pro-vide opportunities for productive work when the golf course is closed or is barely used during the Winter.

One of the advantages of this organizational alignment is that Community Development appears well organized and well run. Recreation would benefit from this Department’s professionalism and administrative support.


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Another advantage of Recreation joining Community Development and Parks merging with Pub-lic Works, is there will no longer be the need for the currently vacant Director of Parks, Recrea-tion and Forestry position. This will partially address the City Manager’s Budget Advisory Task Force concern that the City has too many directors. This will flatten and streamline the City or-ganization and result in a substantial cost savings as well.

An additional benefit is that the Community Development Department has substantial clerical resources compared to Recreation. While the Director indicates that these clerical positions are already overloaded with work, it is likely that the administrative/clerical position which processes the Department’s bi-weekly payroll, daily deposits, accounting, payments and requisitions can assume those tasks which were the responsibilities of the recently vacated Recreation Supervi-sor (Business) position. It is also recommended that the vacant Administrative Secretary to the Director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry not be filled, since the vacant Director position will obviously no longer require clerical support. The bottom line is that this merger of Recreation and Community Development will allow the elimination of at least three full-time vacant positions generating cost savings to the City.

There may be concerns with joining of Recreation and Community Development into a new de-partment. One is splitting Recreation from Parks. Some observers might consider parks only as the maintenance arm of recreation facilities and programs. As a result they conclude that parks and recreation need to be linked together. Parks, however, should be able to serve recreation, its facilities and programs just as effectively in another department. The communication links be-tween Parks and Recreation will still exist, and the desire by Parks to provide excellent service will be unabated. This reorganization should not adversely impact the ability of Parks to provide prompt and adequate service to Recreation facilities and programs.

Admittedly, the Community Development Director who would lead the expanded department is not an expert in the provision of recreation programs. This means that for this reorganization to be successful the Recreation Division will need leadership that is experienced and knowledgea-ble about the operation of the Division and the programs that it provides.

The final question is what to name the expanded department. This is, of course, at the discre-tion of University City. One suggestion is to call the Department the “Community Development and Recreation Department.” An organization chart of the new department is presented below in Chart 4, entitled, “Proposed Organization Chart, Community Development and Recreation De-partment.”

Community Development Director

Planning & Economic Development Inspection Services Recreation

Deputy Director of Planning & Economic

Development

Deputy Building Commissioner /

Inspection Services Manager

Recreation Superintendent

Chart 4 - Proposed Organization ChartCommunity Development and Recreation Department


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Recommendation #8 It is recommended that the Recreation Division be included in the Community Develop-ment Department.

Improved Business Practices This is a miscellaneous section which discusses a variety of issues brought up during the inter-views. It also contains observations by the consultant. These issues and recommendations cov-er a number of major and minor concerns designed to improve the City’s business practices and public service in the public works, parks, recreation and forestry functions. Recommendations are offered for improving service to the public, saving money, increasing revenue, becoming more efficient and avoiding potential future problems.

Outsourcing Services

One way to accomplish cost savings is to outsource or contract out the provision of certain city services. Often outsourcing a service is cheaper than providing service “in-house.” Over 40 years ago the City of Lakewood, California pioneered the “Lakewood Plan” where nearly all city services were outsourced. City employees were limited to the city manager and a small staff who administered the municipal service contracts. In fact, there are now so many California cit-ies which provide most of their services by contract that the State has the California Contract Cities Association to represent the interests for this type of city.

However, it is difficult for full-service cities to evolve to this level of outsourcing services. Most cities, of course, contract some services, even University City. These contracts are designed to supplement existing services to provide peak or specialized staff support and hopefully provide cost savings to these cities. Even now, University City is analyzing proposals that would con-tract out the collection of solid waste. In the streets and parks area there are already supple-mental contracts for tree trimming and mowing.

In this report, the most common services for potential outsourcing, or further outsourcing exist-ing services, will be examined. These are services that were suggested during the interviews, and reflect functions that often are contracted out by other cities. These functions include street sweeping, mowing, tree trimming, custodial and fleet maintenance. As can be seen in this anal-ysis, some of these functions offer more of an opportunity for cost savings and efficiencies than others.

Street Sweeping

Currently, the Street Maintenance Division of the Public Works Department sweeps approxi-mately 2,800 curb miles of city streets annually. Often cities consider outsourcing or contracting out street sweeping services. This is because it is expensive to replace street sweeper equip-ment when it has reached its useful life, and sometimes cities find it difficult and expensive to repair the machines. Further, while there is obviously a cost to contract out this service, out-sourcing can reduce required staff hours and reduces a city’s overall expenses.

Another issue is how street sweeping is funded. In University City it is funded through the Street Maintenance Division, except for leaf collection where it is supported by the Solid Waste Enter-prise Fund.


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On the West Coast the funding of street sweeping has evolved where it is no longer strictly con-sidered a service to maintain streets, thereby supported from street maintenance funds. It is now considered by many cities as part of trash removal since the real results or output of street sweeping is the collection of dirt, debris, trash and other waste. This is an important distinction since the funding of street sweeping in these cities has shifted from street maintenance funds to trash removal funds.

Since many trash collection companies also provide street sweeping service, the implication for University City is that if solid waste management is outsourced, the City could pursue an ad-dendum to include street sweeping as part of that contract. If not, the City could still see if there was a fiscal advantage to outsourcing this service vs. providing it “in-house” by issuing a sepa-rate RFP for street sweeping. Financially supporting this service from the Solid Waste Enter-prise Fund should also be considered. This would help balance the City’s General Fund by shift-ing the expense of street sweeping from this Fund to an enterprise fund.

Recommendation #9 It is recommended that the City consider placing street sweeping into the trash disposal contract as an addendum to this contract, if this service is outsourced.

Recommendation #10 If the City does not outsource its trash contract, it is recommended that the City release a RFP to determine if there is a financial advantage to outsourcing street sweeping.

Recommendation #11 Whether the City outsources street sweeping, or continues to provide the service “in-house,” it is recommended that the City consider funding this service from the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund.

Mowing

It was suggested during the interview process both by people inside and outside the organiza-tion that there should be one contract for mowing and one person responsible for administering this contract. Of course, both Street Maintenance and Parks Maintenance have their own mow-ers and mow turf and other plant material using City staff. Both divisions also have contracts with outside firms to supplement their mowing operations.

The Parks Division uses Hendel Lawn Care to help mow pocket parks and greenways. This supplements existing crews by mowing mostly out of the way small areas where it is more effi-cient and probably cheaper to contract out mowing rather than transport a crew to those loca-tions. Also, unlike the Streets Division, this service is for manicured landscaping.

The Streets Division uses Got Grass Lawn Care, and uses this firm to help with weed or nui-sance abatement. This is not manicured landscaping but the rough mowing of vacant city or county lots.

Still, even with the different purposes of the two mowing contracts, there is merit in developing a single mowing contract administered by a single department. Combining the bidding of these contracts should obtain better bid prices. It is likely that most landscape firms can perform both rough and manicured landscaping services. By moving both the Streets and Parks Divisions into


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the same department as recommended in this report will create an opportunity to consolidate the contracts and their administration.

Also, if the City reduces the staffing in the Parks and Streets Division, either through staff reduc-tions to accomplish budget cuts and/or to establish a lower “base” level of staffing to meet work load needs, the City may need to consider expanding the mowing contracts to assist staff in handling the peak work load.

Recommendation #12 It is recommended that when the current contracts for supplemental mowing services expire that the City seek a unified contract that will be administered by a single employee in the proposed Community Services Department.

Recommendation #13 It is recommended that the mowing contracts be expanded to supplement staff if the Streets and Parks Divisions full-time staff is reduced either due to budget cuts or through a redefinition of “base” staffing.

Tree Trimming

Local jurisdictions across the country often resort to reducing expenses by contracting out tree trimming. While outsourcing this function may be beneficial for routine tree trimming, it is nor-mally advantageous for a city to perform at least some of its trimming “in-house.” This allows a city to provide an immediate response to tree trimming issues which is especially important in emergencies.

In University City the Forestry section is already supplemented by service contracts. While the City’s 2011 budget does not separate contract services among Administration, Parks and For-estry, the 2009 “Urban Forestry Operations Review and Strategic Plan” did provide some insight into Forestry’s contract support. According to this report Forestry budgeted $30,000 for contract street tree pruning, $10,000 for wood chips and log grinding, and $5,000 for emergency tree removal. Also, supplementing Forestry operations Parks transfers an additional staff person to the tree crew during the winter, and removes stumps for Forestry as well.

It would appear that this is an appropriate balance between budgeting for “in-house” tree trim-ming crews and supplemental support from private contractors and Parks staff. As a result it is suggested that the status quo be maintained.

Custodial Services

Currently, custodial services for non-park facilities are provided through the Facility Mainte-nance Section, formerly in the Public Works Department, and now in the Community Develop-ment Department. Custodial services for the Centennial Commons and the Heman Community Center are provided with part-time recreation staff. Restroom maintenance and cleaning at parks facilities is provided by the Parks Division.

Many cities contract all or most of their custodial services since they find that this is more cost effective than providing this service with city employees. Unlike street sweeping or mowing, however, there probably is more of an advantage in maintaining direct control over custodial


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services. For example, there may be a concern over a firm providing custodial service in sensi-tive and secure areas in the Police Department where there is less control over the custodian than if that person were an employee of the City.

Another approach which the consultant used as a city manager is to have city custodians main-tain basic facilities and to outsource the work at other facilities. A variation of this alternative is to use part-time staff to supplement regular city custodians instead of a contractor. This proba-bly would be a better approach since the City will still have more direct control over custodial employees, especially in sensitive facilities and public spaces.

As suggested earlier in the report, the City should either combine all of the facility maintenance in one work group, or at least consolidate all full-time and part-time custodial staff under one su-pervisor for all city facilities. Please see Recommendation #4.

Fleet Maintenance

During the interviews it was suggested that the fleet maintenance and repair function be out-sourced to private garages. However, it is important for vehicle repair and maintenance to be immediately available to other city departments. Further, the City repairs and maintains a wide variety of vehicles ranging from police cars to fire trucks to trash trucks to several different types of heavy-duty and specialty public works, parks and tree trimming vehicles and equipment. This argues to maintain fleet maintenance “in-house.”

More importantly, if the City decides to contract out the solid waste collection service, this will have an impact on Fleet Maintenance. Any revamping of Fleet Maintenance including outsourc-ing this function should wait until this decision is made by the City Council.

Miscellaneous Issues

While the focus of this report is on major issues such as organizational consolidation, and/or flattening and streamlining the city organization, there are other issues which came to the atten-tion of the consultant. These are issues which could lead to improved public service, cost sav-ings and additional revenue. Compared to the reorganization proposals discussed earlier in this report, these are less significant recommendations. But they are important and are presented in this report in order to address, in part, suggestions offered during the interview process, and to offer steps that the city might take to improve the City’s operations.

Professionalism

Professionalism is a vague term in the context of this report. As previously discussed, some de-partments appear to have written policies and procedures to guide their operations, staff and the public compared to other departments where some policies and procedures are lacking. As a result, communications with and within certain departments appear better than other depart-ments. In fact, examples were provided during the interview process that employees in some city departments were unclear where certain complaints from the public should be transmitted. They were uncertain which department to contact for certain maintenance functions since they had received vague, unclear and/or inconsistent answers when they had made similar requests on the same issues before. Employees also cited delays from other departments in response to emails, requests for service and the filing of grant applications for Council action.


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It is understood that the City Manager is now requiring that the departments use the same ad-ministrative forms city-wide. In some cases individual departments had developed their own forms, and there was no consistency in the forms or the use of these forms city-wide. The City Manager also is now pursuing consistency among departments in requiring the use of perfor-mance evaluations, and requiring the consistent application of performance evaluation forms, processes and criteria throughout the City organization. When time permits, this effort should also be applied to written policies, procedures and guidelines that will help certain City opera-tions become better organized, and clearer in their mission and responsibilities. Meshing author-ity, responsibility and consistency is important to raise the professionalism and public service throughout the organization. Adding consistency in administering departmental operations and responding to internal and external requests in a timely and productive manner is an important objective for the City.

Recommendation #14 It is recommended that the City continue its efforts to conform its administrative forms so they are consistent throughout the City, that performance evaluations be required for all City employees, and that the evaluation forms, process and guidelines be applied consistently.

Recommendation #15 It is recommended that, as time and resources permit, written guidelines and/or policies be prepared in all departments to address all major elements of their operations.

Citizen Complaint Tracking

In order to provide better public service the City should evaluate its systems, or the lack thereof, for citizen complaint tracking and follow-up. The Police Department, for example, not only tracks criminal complaints, but other citizen complaints as well. The Department receives calls mostly about law enforcement. Since they are open 24/7, however, they receive complaints and re-quests for all city operations. Also since the public often does not know where to call with a complaint or a request they may call any City office or department such as the City Manager’s Office, City Clerk’s Office, Community Development, and Public Works even though that office or department is not responsible for the complaint or request. Further, examples were given to the consultant of inconsistent processing of complaints. Sometimes a department would handle a particular complaint and at other times they would not.

When time and resources are available, the City should explore developing a citizen complaint tracking system. A consistent, consolidated complaint tracking system, perhaps building off the one in Police should help improve communication between the City and the general public.

Recommendation #16 It is recommended that, when time and resources are available, the City should explore developing a city-wide citizen complaint tracking system, perhaps building off the one in the Police Department.


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Joint Purchasing

Joining with other agencies to increase their collective buying power has been used by cities over the years as a technique to reduce costs. It was suggested during the interview process that the City would benefit by jointly purchasing vehicles and equipment with other local gov-ernment agencies. In fact, the City Manager’s Budget Advisory Task Force suggested that “Uni-versity City consider working with other communities such as Olivette when purchasing fire en-gines, street sweepers, dump trucks and even police cars.” Actually, Fleet Services already takes advantage of large volume purchasing of vehicles by using the state contract for police cars, pickups and small SUVs. The City also uses the State contract to purchase computer equipment and participates in a Salt Purchasing Consortium with other cities. Extending the po-tential use of the state contract, or joining other local agencies to purchase vehicles, equipment or supplies, should be pursued to take advantage of what amounts to a volume discount for the-se large purchases.

Recommendation #17 It is recommended that the City continue to join other agencies in making major vehicle purchases and expanding that effort where appropriate.

Providing Fleet Service to Other Agencies

As was discussed elsewhere in this report, there is the potential that the Fleet Maintenance budget and staff could shrink if the solid waste disposal function is outsourced. It is assumed, under this scenario, that the solid waste service provider would use and maintain their own equipment.

Whether or not this function is outsourced, however, there may be opportunities for Fleet Maintenance to service vehicles from smaller agencies. In one interview, for example, it was pointed out that at one time there was interest by the school district for Fleet to maintain 17 dis-trict trucks for $50,000 annually without adding any cost to Fleet’s budget. There may be the po-tential for entities like Washington University (police cars) or other local agencies to contract with the City for vehicle maintenance.

Whether or not Fleet Maintenance continues to provide service to the Solid Waste Maintenance Division, it is recommended that providing vehicle maintenance contracts to other local agencies be explored. This has the potential of either increasing revenue without materially increasing costs, or maintaining some level of the existing vehicle maintenance staff if Fleet no longer ser-vices solid waste vehicles.

Recommendation #18 It is recommended that the City explore providing vehicle maintenance services to other local agencies.

Purchase of Street Light System

Apparently a rate filing by the region’s electricity provider, Ameren, led several cities and the municipal league to prepare their own joint study to examine the utility’s filing. When that is completed, the City may have a better understanding of its multiple monthly bills from Ameren. The City hopefully will then have the data necessary to determine if buying the street lights and


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poles owned by the utility would be financially beneficial. It is recommended that the City contin-ue to pursue this option in order to achieve a potential reduction in its energy costs.

Recommendation #19 It is recommended that the City follow the study being prepared on Ameren’s latest rate filing to determine if buying the street lights and poles would be financially beneficial to the City.

Recreation Guide

The University City Recreation Division produces three recreation or activity guides per year. They are widely distributed for Winter/Spring, Summer, and Fall/Winter. They are attractive, col-orful and informative describing programs, classes and facilities offered by the City. The Guides also devote a significant number of pages informing the public about activities of the library and Recreation partners such as The Green Center, U City in Bloom, and various youth, senior, so-cial and other non-profit organizations.

Comments were offered during the interviews that the City needed to expand its outreach and improve its public information efforts to inform the community about its programs and opportuni-ties. While additional public information about the City’s multiple programs has merit, and Rec-reation has taken the forward looking step of promoting its programs on social networking sites, the cost of additional “hard copy” public information pieces probably is not feasible in the near term given the City’s current economic constraints.

The City, however, should consider adding a page or two to its Guide providing information about other City services. Some of the information found in the last two pages of the City Cal-endar, for example, might be added to the Guide. What might be included is information about recycling, pets, permits, property upkeep, disability services and refuse and yard waste collec-tion.

Also, it is expensive to produce these Activity Guides. Some cities have covered the cost of the-se Guides by selling advertising. Restaurants, doctors, dentists, child care, bowling alleys, and ice cream shops are typical ads that might be sold to pay for printing and distributing the Guides.

This additional revenue source, while important, is not without its disadvantages. First, the cost of the Guide would increase because of the additional staff time required to solicit ads and in-clude the submitted ads into the Guide. Its size would likely increase, increasing production costs. Enough advertisements, therefore, would need to be sold to cover this additional ex-pense. Second, some members of the public may object to the inclusion of advertisements in a city publication. Still, as cities continue to face economic pressures, new measures to continue services but at the same time increase revenues to cover the cost of these services need to be explored.

Recommendation #20 It is recommended that the City consider adding a limited amount of general city infor-mation in the Recreation Guide.


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Recommendation #21 It is recommended that the City evaluate the benefits of securing advertisements to pay the cost of the Recreation Guide.

Expand Recreation Programs

In one interview it was indicated that staff would like to offer additional programs and classes at Centennial Commons. Given the obvious lack of use of this new, large, well designed facility during some parts of the day, this desire by staff is commendable. But certain initiatives have not been successful (Noon time walking), and there may be a reluctance to try new programs because of cost constraints.

While this effort may already be initiated, it is useful for recreation staff to continually survey the recreation needs of the community and those that already participate in the recreation pro-grams. Especially since most programs are offered at Centennial Commons, there is an oppor-tunity to survey existing participants regarding any perceived “gaps” in programming and assess interest in classes not currently being provided.

In addition, new classes and programs can be offered. Sometimes a class will not gain traction and will be deleted from the Recreation Guide due to lack of interest. If, however, to the extent a new class becomes popular there will be an expansion of Recreation’s programming, Centenni-al Commons will obtain greater use, and a small step towards reducing the Common’s budget deficit will be realized. The City should also explore further opportunities to partner with the school district in the provision of recreation classes.

Currently, the City collects all of the money for class signups, and pays the teachers $20 - $25/hour. A class will not proceed unless a minimum sign up is received so that the class will at least break even for the City.

Another approach in an attempt to bring new class offerings “on line” is for the City to collect the revenue, but that payment for the teacher would change. The instructor would receive 80% of the revenue, with the remaining 20% accruing to the City. This is the same percentage split al-lowed the Golf Pro for the lessons he provides. The 20% basically covers the rental of the facili-ty.

This approach provides an incentive for the teacher to seek students to fill up their class. The risk of success for a new class falls on the instructor rather than the City. In this way, new class offerings may be created without financial risk on the part of the City. This would provide better service to the public while possibly slightly improving the financial balance between revenues and expenditures for Recreation.

Another issue is that the IRS is now claiming that individuals, such as recreation class teachers, are city employees. In the City of Dana Point, California (pop. 36,000), after a routine audit, the IRS determined the City’s recreation instructors are employees for federal employment tax pur-poses. This requirement would require the City to pay workers compensation premiums, payroll taxes and pension contributions. This determination was made even though the City had con-tracts with these teachers indicating that they were independent contractors and they developed a compensation schedule based on a percentage of class income providing the instructor the opportunity to make a profit or incur a loss.


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It appears that the IRS intends to aggressively take this position with other public agencies in California. Whether or not this will occur in the St. Louis District is unknown.

In any case, changing the way teachers are paid in University City would help support the ar-gument that class instructors are independent contractors and not city employees. This would help protect the City from any IRS tax liability claims if this becomes an issue in this region. It would be useful for the City to follow the Dana Point case as they appeal the IRS ruling in the U.S. Tax Court2.

Recommendation #22 It is recommended that the City explore ways to improve class offerings at Centennial Commons, by changing the way instructors are incented for adding new classes to the schedule, without financial risk to the City.

Senior Citizens

It was surprising to see so few classes and programs directed toward senior citizens in the Ac-tivity Guide. This concern was also raised during the interviews. In many communities the strongest recreation program element is often for seniors.

It was explained by recreation staff that many of the all-ages programs offered by the City are used by seniors. Also apparently the nearby YMCA and the Jewish Community Center have ro-bust senior programs. Still, staff has been working to qualify seniors for the Silver and Fit Health Program. This will allow their health insurance to pay for their membership at Centennial Com-mons and for the fitness center.

The Recreation Division could still reach out to other senior citizen providers such as the Area Agency on Aging, the Crown Center, Brentmoor and Brentmoor Place as possible partners for senior programming. Also, the Community Development Department has partnered with St. An-drews Senior Service and the Community Action Agency of St. Louis County. There may be even more opportunities for identifying partnerships in addressing the needs of seniors.

Developing these partnerships will be even more important if the City decides to close the Community Center because it is losing approximately $100,000 annually. If the senior lunch program, and the lengthy morning activities which precede lunch cannot be provided at Centen-nial Commons, there may be a need to find a local private facility for this program.

Recommendation #23 It is recommended that the City continue its efforts of facilitating health insurance pay-ments for fitness programs and establish community partnerships to improve leisure time offerings to senior citizens.

2 Western City Magazine, July 2010.


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Community Center

The Heman Community Center, it is reported by staff, is losing approximately $100,000 a year. As an older, less adaptive facility, than nearby Centennial Commons, its uses are limited except for the senior lunch program and community rentals.

It is suggested that the Center be closed as a cost cutting measure, and it only be used for community rentals. These rentals need to be priced to cover the cost of opening and closing the facility, custodial service and utilities. The point is to avoid incurring a negative cash flow from the Center, even if there is the potential of increasing the rental rates, while at the same time making it available to the public. It is unclear if this will be necessary since the rate structure will need to be studied. But the rental rate needs to be based on the actual cost to provide rentals.

Recommendation #24 It is recommended that the Heman Community Center be closed except for rentals which should be based on “actual cost” rates.

Forester Consultation

The “Urban Forestry Operations Review and Strategic Plan” raised the issue of the City Forest-er not being consulted by Public Works “on plans for improvements or construction of new sidewalks that may impact existing trees.” The report argued that the City Forester “should be consulted when permits issued for excavations of new city-owned trees are considered.” The in-terviews raised the issue of the wrong trees being installed during redevelopment projects for the Delmar Loop and Olive Avenue.

When it comes to sidewalk repair, this is not an uncommon issue when street crews want to ex-pedite repair of the sidewalk by removing the street tree. This may not be, however, the best approach for the City and its urban forest. One city which the consultant is currently studying (Sunnyvale, California) resolved this problem by creating a street tree/concrete crew. The thought was that most concrete work in this largely built out city is for displaced sidewalks caused by tree roots. So combining tree trimming with concrete made sense to this City.

While this joint crew concept would resolve the issue raised by the Urban Forestry study, this is not recommended for University City. With the recommended consolidation of Public Works and Parks there will be an opportunity to formalize the coordination and communication between street tree and concrete work. This would be another advantage of the merged department.

Seven Days Per Week Parks Coverage

One of the outcomes of this report is to identify and clarify misconceptions about the current service provided by the City. For example, it was suggested that there should be a staff pres-ence at the parks seven days a week. In fact, this does occur from April through October during the time of the park’s heaviest usage. During this period, a park maintenance employee as-sumes a Friday – Tuesday schedule, performing some type of outdoor maintenance on Friday, Monday and Tuesday. On the weekends this employee prepares the baseball fields for play, cleans and stocks the restrooms and pavilions, empties trash cans and picks up litter. The em-ployee usually stops by the five picnic pavilions located in three different parks to check on the customers and attend to any needs they may have. So while there may not be a parks employ-


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ee at every park all day Saturday and Sunday during the summer, there is a parks employee at the parks sometime during the day.

Recommendation #25 It is recommended that Parks Maintenance continue to provide seven day a week service at the parks from April through October.

Cost Savings/Efficiencies at the Delmar Loop and Other Miscellaneous Programs

There are a number of small steps that could lead to cost savings and/or efficiencies by merging Public Works and Parks into the same department. These were briefly discussed when the re-organization proposals were presented earlier in the report. Some examples are:

• Currently, Public Works pays an employee overtime on Saturdays to empty trash con-tainers and sweep the streets and parking lots along the Delmar Loop. This expense could be avoided, at least during the Summer, by extending the duties of the weekend park maintenance employee to perform this work.

• As previously mentioned, a single bid for the grass cutting work required by both Public Works and Parks would likely result in a lower overall bid for this work.

• Street Maintenance performs striping on City streets, cross walks and parking lots. Parks performs striping by contract on parking lots or other paved areas in City parks. These two functions could be improved by Public Works coordinating all striping work, and like-ly eliminating the cost of the Parks contract.

• Street Maintenance maintains and coordinates the repair of street lights, while Parks maintains and coordinates the repair of park lights. Improved coordination of this work can be achieved by Streets overseeing light maintenance and reporting repair issues to the local utility or to a contractor.

• As requested for community events, block parties and races, Parks delivers trash barrels and picnic tables, while Streets delivers barricades. Improved coordination of these tasks can be accomplished by Parks assuming total community event support.

Recommendation #26 It is recommended that if Parks and Public Works are combined as recommended in this report that all opportunities for cost savings, coordination and efficiencies be identified and implemented.

Inflated Classifications

Just to highlight a potential issue for the City, it appeared in reviewing the City’s budget, job classifications and organization charts that there may be classification issues within the City. While there may be a good reason for some of these classifications, the City has a Golf Course Superintendent who only supervises one full-time employee, and there are crew leaders who may be performing more at the lead worker level. In other words, there may be instances of job class inflation within the organization.


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This cannot be determined through this study. A so-called “class and comp” study would need to be performed to determine if this is, in fact, an issue. The City may want to consider address-ing this issue when time and resources permit.

Recommendation #27 It is recommended that when time and resources permit the City consider conducting a classification and compensation study to determine if classification inflation has oc-curred and to take any necessary corrective actions.

Conclusions This Chapter provides a summary of major reorganization proposals involving the Departments of Public Works, Parks, Recreation and Forestry, and Community Development. It also offers several major and minor miscellaneous recommendations to improve the City’s business prac-tices in these areas and to improve service to the public. Overall, these recommendations are designed to offer ways in which the City can become more efficient, save money, increase in-come and improve service. They are designed to assist the City to adjust to the “new normal” of municipal finance.


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Chapter IV Summary of Recommendations

The purpose of this Chapter is to list, in summary form, the recommendations presented in Chapter III. The recommendations are presented in numerical order, and match the numbers of each recommendation found in the previous Chapter. They are presented in this fashion for ease of reference and review.

Again, the purpose of this report is to evaluate the management structure of the Public Works and Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments. As a result, recommendations are proposed to flatten and streamline the organization of these two departments. Also, recommendations are offered to guide the City in achieving efficiencies by outsourcing or eliminating duplication of ef-fort through improved business practices. In addition, recommendations for minor revenue en-hancements and improved service to the public are offered. These are all designed to help Uni-versity City address its looming budget deficit while maintaining satisfactory service levels to the public.

Recommendation #1 It is recommended that the sections of Parks Maintenance, Forestry and Golf Course Maintenance be merged into a Parks Division headed by a Parks Division Superinten-dent, who in turn would report to a department head.

Recommendation #2 It is recommended that a new department called the “Community Services Department” be created consisting of the newly formatted Parks Division and the Divisions of Street Maintenance, Fleet Maintenance, Facility Maintenance and Solid Waste.

Recommendation #3 It is recommended that if the solid waste function is outsourced that the contract be overseen by the Senior Project Manager who in turn would report to the department head of the new department.

Recommendation #4 It is recommended that the Facility Maintenance Division be supplemented by existing staff resources in Parks and Recreation so that one Division will be responsible for the maintenance of all City facilities.

Recommendation #5 It is recommended that any effort to obtain outside management expertise for Fleet Maintenance be deferred until a decision has been made whether or not the solid waste function should be outsourced.


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Recommendation #6 It is recommended that, with the proposed reorganization, strategies be used of cross training between Parks and Streets, and redefining what is required for “basic” crews to achieve efficiencies and cost savings for the City.

Recommendation #7 It is recommended that a leader for the proposed Community Services Department be sought with excellent management and technical skills including status as a professional engineer either as a required or desirable qualification.

Recommendation #8 It is recommended that the Recreation Division be included in the Community Develop-ment Department.

Recommendation #9 It is recommended that the City consider placing street sweeping into the trash disposal contract as an addendum to this contract, if this service is outsourced.

Recommendation #10 If the City does not outsource its trash contract, it is recommended that the City release a RFP to determine if there is a financial advantage to outsourcing street sweeping.

Recommendation #11 Whether the City outsources street sweeping, or continues to provide the service “in-house,” it is recommended that the City consider funding this service from the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund.

Recommendation #12 It is recommended that when the current contracts for supplemental mowing services expire that the City seek a unified contract that will be administered by a single employee in the proposed Community Services Department.

Recommendation #13 It is recommended that the mowing contracts be expanded to supplement staff if the Streets and Parks Divisions full-time staff is reduced either due to budget cuts or through a redefinition of “base” staffing.

Recommendation #14 It is recommended that the City continue its efforts to conform its administrative forms so they are consistent throughout the City, that performance evaluations be required for all City employees, and that the evaluation forms, process and guidelines be applied consistently.


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Recommendation #15 It is recommended that, as time and resources permit, written guidelines and/or policies be prepared in all departments to address all major elements of their operations.

Recommendation #16 It is recommended that, when time and resources are available, the City should explore developing a city-wide citizen complaint tracking system, perhaps building off the one in the Police Department.

Recommendation #17 It is recommended that the City continue to join other agencies in making major vehicle purchases and expanding that effort where appropriate.

Recommendation #18 It is recommended that the City explore providing vehicle maintenance services to other local agencies.

Recommendation #19 It is recommended that the City follow the study being prepared on Ameren’s latest rate filing to determine if buying the street lights and poles would be financially beneficial to the City.

Recommendation #20 It is recommended that the City consider adding a limited amount of general city infor-mation in the Recreation Guide.

Recommendation #21 It is recommended that the City evaluate the benefits of securing advertisements to pay the cost of the Recreation Guide.

Recommendation #22 It is recommended that the City explore ways to improve class offerings at Centennial Commons, by changing the way instructors are incented for adding new classes to the schedule, without financial risk to the City.

Recommendation #23 It is recommended that the City continue its efforts of facilitating health insurance pay-ments for fitness programs and establish community partnerships to improve leisure time offerings to senior citizens.


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Recommendation #24 It is recommended that the Heman Community Center be closed except for rentals which should be based on “actual cost” rates.

Recommendation #25 It is recommended that Parks Maintenance continue to provide seven day a week service at the parks from April through October.

Recommendation #26 It is recommended that if Parks and Public Works are combined as recommended in this report that all opportunities for cost savings, coordination and efficiencies be identified and implemented.

Recommendation #27 It is recommended that when time and resources permit the City consider conducting a classification and compensation study to determine if classification inflation has oc-curred and to take any necessary corrective actions.

Documents

Evaluation of the Organization of the Public Works department