FINANCE
CONTROL BOARD,
Present: Chairman Christopher Gabrieli, Mayor Domenic Sarno, Robert Nunes, James Morton, City Council President Bud Williams, City Clerk Wayman Lee
Public Comment
City Clerk Wayman Lee: Good morning. We will start the public comment portion of the finance control board meeting. Our first speaker will be Mr. George Pappas.
George Pappas:
Good morning to the financial control board. I’m sorry I don’t know you individually. I’m a new resident of
City Councilor Bud Williams: Could you speak up just a little bit? That [microphone] doesn’t amplify. [unintelligible] hard time hearing [unintelligible]
George Pappas:
I apologize. But your office has given
us an opportunity to buy more time perhaps and seek out stakeholders. I am speaking as a member of Springfield
Forward, a new non-profit organization, that was formed last Friday. And while Springfield Forward is looking at
this particular issue, it is not going to stop with
This is an
important issue, because the current proposal is a recipe for the same that’s
been at
I don’t
know if you’re f
Our police
in
BW: Sir, just a comment, through the chair, Mr. Chairman? And I concur and agree with you and the stance you’re taking, your organization.
What we need to do in
Mayor
Domenic Sarno: [unintelligible] ...know we’ve been very
methodical on this, taking a step back, holding meetings, negotiating and bringing
out to the neighborhood. We will
continue to do that, and myself and the control board administration obviously
we can do the best for
GP: Thank you very much.
Nicola
Manion:
Good morning. My name is Nicola Manion and I am also a member of Springfield
Forward. And we have suffered so intensely in my neighborhood. I live on
WL: Mr. Charlie Paine.
Charlie Paine: Good
morning. My name is Charles E.
Paine. I’m the chairman of the citizens’
side of Indian Orchard Community Police.
thank you for this opportunity to address the board on the
[unintelligible] issues. It’s important
and of great interest to the citizens of
Timothy Collins: Good
morning. I’m here to talk about a couple
of things. Mayor Sarno, I want to
congratulate you on the group that you’ve had regarding public education over
the last few months. My understanding is
their report is coming out. I’m here to
urge you and the members of the control board to get together with the school
committee, because I think we’re putting the cart before the horse. We need to—and that was an excellent group of
people; they did a professional job, well-respected; they heard from teachers
and administrators, business, parents---and we need to determine what it is we want of a superintendent. Regardless of who the superintendent is, I
think this report will guide the direction of change in the
And I also want to put in a
plug for the members of Local 7 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, the building trades, the Pioneer Valley AFL-CIO, project labor
agreement their trying to get with the city.
On the private side, Baystate Medical is in the process of finalizing
that project labor agreement and there’s a commitment to have 20% of the work
done by minority residents of the city of
If we want to get out of
this struggle that we’re in, we need living wage jobs, and we need to develop
the skills of our young folks so that they can see a future for themselves here
in the city of
WL: That’s our last speaker for today.
Control Board Meeting
Approval of the Minutes [Audio was turned off.]
**MINUTES APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY.
Control Board Executive Director Steve Lisauskas: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next item on the agenda is a presentation of the Davis Foundation on a request for a grant. I would like, if possible, to –I don’t believe Ms. Walachy is with us at the moment. She’s expecting to be here at 11:00 or so. since we’re starting a little bit earlier, I ‘m wondering whether we could postpone that one the agenda.
[Unintelligible]
SL: Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is...
Chairman Chris Gabrieli: Needless to say, she did not expect us to be ahead of schedule.
Bills of Prior Year
SL: That is true, Mr.
Chairman, thank you. The next item on
the agenda, item number IV, Bills of a Prior Year. The request before you is to fund the one
item in the treasurer’s department accounting services, approximately $3800. of
a bill that was incurred in 2007, as you can see from the attachment. It was invoiced on
**MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY
Snow and Ice Deficit Spending Authorization
SL: Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda, item number V,
Snow and Ice Deficit Spending Authorization. This is somewhat ministerial, though still
important. The Chapter 44 of the
Massachusetts General Laws, which is the finances, sets forth the financial obligations
and requirements on cities and towns in
CG: Was this year’s spending higher than last year’s due to the difference in the winter?
SL: It is. This has been a heavy winter. We have approximately $1.2million in the account and have paid approximately $1.1million in snow and ice bills. There are some potential of receiving additional bills which is why the concern for deficit spending.
RN: [unintelligible] in the next year you may look at just paying it off this year with the reserves that we have, since the reserves are significant.
SL: Yes, yes, sir. We will look to do that.
DS: Mr. Chairman, [unintelligible] Mayor Nunes brings up. By law you can technically report this. You can deficit spend for snow removal on that. And rest assured to the residents and business community city of Springfield, if (knock on wood, I hope we don’t...) we don’t get any more snow of inclement weather, the DPW will be out there to make sure the streets are safe and clean. But technically, we have to abide by this and put it in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SL: Yes, sir.
James Morton Steve, do we have approximately how much we’re spending per snow storm? I know it’s difficult with the amount of snow being unpredictable, but do we have an average amount we’re spending?
SL: We have an average amount per inch, and I apologize, I don’t recall that off the top of my head. I will be able to.
CG: Mr. Sullivan’s letter indicates got a [unintelligible] here of $60,000.
SL: For parks and recreation.
DS: That’s for parks.
CG: Oh, I see...next just for that, yeah.
SL: Maybe a $100,000 something per inch, but I’ll need to find that out for you. I apologize for not having it, and we’ll have that for you this afternoon.
DS: Mr. Chairman, we do have DPW director Al Chwalek here if you want any clarification. Obviously, storms vary whether they are out sanding or salting or prep work and/or to heavy storms. And the timing is always difficult, but if you want Mr. Chwalek...
DPW Director Al Chwalek: Good morning.
CG: Good morning.
JM: Can you give us a sense of how much we’re spending per snow storm, but it sounds like you’ve got a figure per inch. What is that figure?
AC: Well, certainly I mean, there’s a lot of factors: the amount, the intensity, duration, but on any given storm, we spend between $12,000. to $15,000. per hour. That’s about 130 pieces of equipment. An average storm, meaning a 6” storm, could run us about $130,000. per storm. Certainly as it gets it’s a little bit more difficult to fight, the price does go up.
JM: It’s good to have a sense as we think about voting in favor of this....
AC: I certainly hope it doesn’t snow any more. I think everybody’s sort of...
[unintelligible]
RN: What’s the appropriation [unintelligible] information on this?
AC: $1.2million roughly.
CG?: You’ve used $1.1million.
AC: We haven’t actually completed the pricing from Saturday’s storm yet, but I’m pretty sure we’ll exceed the $1.2million
SL: With the bills that are coming in.
AC: That’s correct.
RN: Thank you.
**MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY.
Presentation by the
SL: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if it pleases the board, we could go back to item number III I believe.
CG: Please.
SL: Mrs. Walachy. The presentation...this will occur in two parts: both a presentation from Mary Walachy from the Davis Foundation and then also a requested order of appropriation to fund a grant.
Mary Walachy: Good morning. My apologies. I...we weren’t late, I don’t think. We were told to be here at 11:00.
SL: You were early.
CG: Mr. Collins told us last time to be on time, so now we’re ahead of schedule.
DS: Good morning, Mary.
BW: Just a quick question
before we get started. I’m not really f
CG: In this case, yes. We can decide not to proceed. This is a project that started under the previous, you know, under the previous...when you were not on the control board in terms of our interest and active monitoring of something being brought forward by Springfield folks, and I think that the....both the importance of the potential project, you know, the timing is that it would be attractive to do so today, but I clearly with this if you want further information after this discussion, we could defer until the later meeting in March. I am going to seek a vote if you feel satisfied by the information.
BW: As I’ve said, I’ve heard about it. This is the first bit of public information I’ve been privy to, so I don’t know if I’m going to be prepared to vote on this or not. I’m not sure...
CG: [unintelligible] depending
on how you feel about it.
BW: All right, thank you.
MW: OK, well, good morning and
thank you. It’s really a pleasure and an
honor to be here and let me just say not only thank you for this morning, but
thank you for all that you’re doing on behalf of the city of
CG: I would encourage you, Mary, this is an important item even if the amount of money is modest in total size. The project that you’re putting...I think, particularly considering the city council president doesn’t feel...I want to make sure you have the time to present ask questions and others
MW: OK then stop me or whatever you need to
do. Let me just tell...You have a copy
of the [PowerPoint] presentation that we’re going to do here this morning. What you also have is a small piece of paper
that lists the individuals in the community, many of those in positions of
leadership that we have at least presented on this idea of a local education
fund to date. I think most of you know
the foundation, so I’m not I can spend a
lot of time talking about that I think
what I will say is just an opening statement that I think it’s pretty clear
that the Davis Foundation has spent a considerable amount of time, energy and
resources addressing the issues of Springfield.
We care deeply about the city of
I did a report for our new
mayor a couple of weeks ago, and you might be interested to know that in the
last five years alone, the Davis Foundation has committed over $10million to
the city of
The first thing I’m going to ask you to do is forget the word “fund,” because people automatically think that’s about raising money and giving out money. there is a small component to that, but really this organizations...it’s not the best word, but because it’s a national word (it’s used across the country), we’re using it, too.
So, what’s a local
education fund? A local education fund
is an organization that’s independent of the school department. It’s a 501c3.
It’s professionally staffed with a board that reflects the
community. It works specifically in high
poverty urban communities. To be a
member of the national network of local education funds, you have to meet
certain criteria in terms of children in poverty and urban settings, and
fortunately or unfortunately,
The organization itself is committed to whole
school reform. It’s about ensuring that
a community of children in a specific community have a high quality of
education. And it’s about engaging
stakeholder in a community to really work to push that school reform to ensure
continuing success for kids. Just to be
clear, I’d love to say that the Davis Foundation and all the people who work
there are brilliant, but, frankly, we’re not.
We didn’t “thunk” this one up ourselves; this is a part of a national
network. We’ve been having conversations
with them for some time. Many of you know Paul Reville who is now the chair of
the board of education for the state of
So, just to give you a sense of the breadth of
local education funds across the country, as you can see, they’re in 34 states,
83 members, 12million children are represented by local education funds. I won’t read this thorough. They’re not only in existence in the
So what do local education funds do? Number 1, they do research. They look at local data and analyze data to
determine and educate the community about what the data says and what the
actions ought to be associated with that data.
They provide knowledge. Local
education funds become experts in various forms of ed reform (What are the
most...best practice models?) Let’s
assume, for instance, we’re taking a look at early literacy. One of the arenas that
They’re about policy. They’re about advocating for district wide policy and for funding reform. Myself and members of my staff recently attended a national conference of local education funds, and I will be clear, local education fund leaders told us they spend a significant amount of time analyzing the school budget, determining if budget resources are allocated appropriate to the needs of children based in a review of the data as I mentioned earlier. And so that’s an example of where they might play a role in advocating for change and reform in policy and in funding.
Obviously, they communicate. We need to make sure that all the citizens in
So what is our local education fund do? It advocates for accountability. I know that this board is interested in
ensuring that various structures of accountability are in place so that we can
continue to move forward in
SL: Distributed?
MW: Thank you! ..distribute those resources to the member communities. Now I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m promising that we will get scads of national resources if we have a Springfield local education fund, but we will be in a position to advocate for those funds and so certainly it is also a role for many local education funds to raise funds on a state level, a national level, and a local level that then can be distributed.
Many of you may know of local education funds in more suburban communities that do things like teacher grants, raise funds for teacher grants and then have a competition and teachers are given resources. Frankly, that is something that could happen within this fund, but that is not...it is not really about a re-granting process. This is really much more about accountability structure, best practice structure and a policy and advocacy organization. But we certainly would propose that the local education fund do what it can to attract and increase the amount of resources that are available to the system and the community.
Obviously, we advocate for
community involvement. In order for our
children to be successful, it takes the whole community. We need business leaders, we need parents, we
need those individuals in positions of influence to frankly care. And I’m not suggesting in any way that they
don’t. You’re certainly all a perfect
example, but we need more. And we need
people with sustained commitments to really paying attention to what’s
happening with kids, looking at the data and looking at the resources and really
setting our eye on a prize that is absolutely got to be success for absolutely
every child in
So why
So, what would a proposed
education fund do in the city of
I’m not going to say that tomorrow we’re going to sort of collapse all of that work and some should not be collapsed, but if we had a...again a board of business leaders and concerned citizens and parents, there would be a conversation around which ones should we continue to sustain, what’s really critical, what’s the eye on the prize? What are the four or five goals that we’ve identified for this district to accomplish? And let’s stick with those and not necessarily be diverted by lots of wonderful opportunities, but not necessarily the right opportunities. And I don’t think I’ll go through the rest; I think you can see those. I will comment again on the last one that we can connect and leverage with the national effort across the nation.
So I’m here as I understand it to ask, we want to
move this forward. We want to continue
to have conversations.
SL: What I think, Mr. Chairman
as the board considers the proposal, the governor and the board have
outlined...laid out three priorities economic development, education and
governance for the city of Springfield, and the control board approximately a
year and a half ago undertook a similar effort in working with a business group
for the ULI and provided funding to
MW: And let me clarify, this is not a request for funding to the Davis Foundation. We don’t even know how to bring in money; we only know how to put it out (which is a good thing) and the Springfield Chamber has stepped forward, as they did with the ULI effort, to serve in this capacity and to play a leadership role in the activities that I mentioned.
DS: Mr. Chairman. First of all, I think everybody knows where Chris Gabrieli and myself and the rest of the board and I really commend Chris on the educational front for putting his money where his mouth is and we realize if we’re really going to turn around, continue to turn around the city of Springfield, we have to deal with the root cause of the educational system. Mary, as far as the Davis Foundation, yourself and John Davis and we’ve met a number of times in prior years. You’ve really been a catalyst as far as whether it’s a education and/or non-profits or community centers and you’re really taking the lead as far as pre-K efforts and also besides the Read-by-Three the summer disconnection of keeping kids connected during the summer, because we also see that that two or three month period of...that two month period where kids are not in programs whether through community centers and tying in not only recreation education, they fall behind the wayside. So I, you know, firmly believe that the Davis Foundation and John and yourself, you’re reputation proceeds you so for all the work that you’ve been able to do and thank you for continuing your investment for well over $10million and believing in the city of Springfield. So I’m very excited about this and all the stakeholders and inclusion that’s going to occur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CG: Mary, a couple of questions. Just to clarify, I think I know, roughly, the answers [unintelligible] at least one of them, but I think as you know, local education funds are not publicly funded. And I think that would be an important criteria to have here so this would be an exception in the sense of the control board appropriating some money toward development of a plan. And the reason I think for us to do that would be if there’s sort of enough evidence a) if we believe a local education fund is a long-term asset to education [unintelligible] in a second, but b) if we believe that there is, you know, an authentic Springfield-based, you know, group coming together to do it. It’s certainly not something that we would ever want to impose on a community ... [unintelligible] a good idea.
MW: Nor would we.
CG: With regard to the first
point of whether it’s a good idea, I certainly could share with my fellow
control board members, I am f
I guess my question though
is: you give us a list here of who’s attended meetings, and I know that the
Davis Foundation has been working with laying some ground work. Can you just tell us a) a little bit about the
ground work that’s been laid and b) do
you have the initial reaction of these individuals in general has been...how
much
MW: Well, they’ve been. Again, let me just say again, that we as a
foundation have been looking at the structure of local education for some
time. We’re not in the last six months;
it’s been something really on our radar.
We’ve actually talked to the community of Holyoke some years back, and
they made...they did an organizing effort, which, frankly, didn’t result in
them being successful and that’s unfortunate, but they, but as I understand,
looking at it again. With regard...we
have really been doing similar presentations across the community. I gave you a
list of some of the members of some
of the presentations we’ve been at and, frankly, one question is certainly and
we have it as well is “Do we really need another 501c3?” and you know, really
“Help me to understand shy that would be needed since we have such struggles
JM: Mary, this is my third presentation.
MW: Sorry, James.
JM: No, it was excellent as
were the previous two. I see this as an
excellent opportunity for the many divergent groups that are committed to
public education coming together and sharing through this kind of an initiative,
you know, some of the best practices and best strategies for serving
MW: No, that’s actually...we
have allocated some resources at this point to hire the Rennie Center for
Education Policy and Research to give guidance and to assist us in sort of you
know being clear about the effort and, and to educate us on best practice. And we’ve worked with PEN, the national
network. Right now, the request is
just...we’re not anticipating raising any more dollars. At this point, it’s just $25,000. to hire
someone to be more full-time, do the remainder, with certainly our help as
well, the remainder of sort of community education. We have lots more to do. We have presentations to do. And I’m looking at Tim Collins in the...I’ve
mentioned to Tim “I’ve got to meeting with you on this; we’ve got to meet” and
we haven’t met yet. We certainly have to
meet with the school committee as well and many others. The real funding, James, is really associated
with the operating
BW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll probably be the only dissenting vote today. Just two points you raise, and it’s very important to me, and I’ve taking a position ever since I’ve been in government that anything dealing with the school department that comes before me and the school department hasn’t had a chance to at least look at the proposal, talked about it, that I’ve been really...
MW: School department?
BW: School department, school board...
MW: Let me be clear, I realize, certainly, members of Joe Burke’s staff have...are very aware of this effort.
BW: School committee?
MW: I have had individual conversations with a couple school committee, but I have not...we have not formally...
BW: They have not endorsed this as a board.
MW: No, the have not.
BW: OK, that would be a sticking point with me.
MW: OK.
CG: We’re just going
[unintelligible] Part of the reason these get formed in communities is to have
a truly independent voice, so they’re always viewed in all communities as a
mixed blessing, more positive than negative, [unintelligible] but they’re seen
as...they are an independent...
BW: Mr. Chairman, if they’re going to be that independent, then the city shouldn’t be putting money into it.
CG: And one of the reasons why
I brought up that on an on-going basis that it could get public funding so that
we would be considering it today....I would not
BW: But the taxpayer’s going to say “You’ve put money into this situation” and certainly, they should have input to it. If it’s $1.00; people look at $1.00, $1million, $1.00. Look at $1.00 from taxpayers, they have the...should have the right for input, because then now that makes you part of the public process. It just does, in my estimation. The other point you say the school committee hasn’t endorsed this...
MW: Not as a formal body.
BW: Not as a formal body.
MW: Because again let me be clear...we’re in the exploration phase; we’re not in the “it’s-a-done-deal” phase. They are certainly a part of that conversation in moving forward.
BW: I understand. This is my first...you folks have probably heard it two or three times...I...this is the first time I’ve ever...I’ve heard about it, talked about it, and people’ve been mentioning it, but I don’t...I have not had any formal or any information. And just in terms of...you say you’re going to deal with primarily K, pre-K to 3?
MW: This is about public school children in public school system.
BW: How is this...we have Headstart that’s involved now doing their thing...how does that....are they incorporated in this? I mean, how do you....?
MW: This is about...this is an
effort to look at how children are educated in
BW: And then I see...then I see that this initiative has a lot of...there’s a lot of business people involved in this. It’s primarily business people. It’s driven...
MW: We, we have prioritized at
the moment a number of presentations to business community, because one of the
succ—one, “powerless children need powerful friends” to quote a very good
friend of mine. Secondly, frankly we’re
going to need to make...raise some resources associated with the operating
BW: So this $25,000.is just, I
mean, if it’s such a small amount of money, what’s the main motivation, the
main point, for $25,000. which
MW: We could; I said
that. We could write a check
tomorrow. It’s about
CG: And I want to be clear,
because I don’t want to put the Davis Foundation on the spot. This is...arises from conversations last year,
and I...the reason I am in favor of the control board considering it is I do
think one of our jobs as a control board is to look to the long term
institutions that would succeed for Springfield and to take actions that
MW: Frankly, the other thing
is this control board is a very prestigious group, and to have the
BW: Yeah, but in
CG: Correct.
BW: I don’t know. This is
just...I mean...I’ve had a 15 minute presentation. I just don’t feel I can vote for this today
based upon...nothing against the
RN: Mr. Chairman, if this goes forward, what would the relationship be with the school committee, with the school administration?
MW: I’m sorry, you’re asking me? I’m sorry, I thought you were asking him [indicates CG].
RN: What would be the relationship be between this organization, the school committee and the school superintendent and his staff...his [unintelligible] staff?
MW: I guess the word that I’ll come back to was in the presentation was “critical friend.” In some communities, the superintendent of schools, as an example, is an ex officio member of the board. In other instances, the same is the case with the school committee. It really becomes the decision of the organizing board, the local education fund. Clearly, we would like a collaborative venture that is all, I think we all agree where the...where we’re all headed, but occasionally there’ll be opportunities on both sides where there will be differences of opinion and so we need to set a structure that feels comfortable for all involved and that doesn’t set up a situation where this cannot be an independent group that can do the kind of research that Mr. Gabrieli mentioned and be able to put out the data and analysis in a way that is, you know, appropriate.
CG: I think in other
communities, Bob, where these have come in place, if they’ve become so
crosswise with the school committee and/or the superintendent and staff that
they’re not listened to, they can’t be effective. And, on the other hand, if they become just
cheerleaders for all that exists, they become sort of irrelevant. So the successful ones have been quiet
“critical friends” who raise issues about policy and provide the role...one of
the reasons I think this is a particularly interesting thing for
RN: And the goal is to be a partner, not...
CG: The goal is to be a partner.
BW: So, Mr. Chairman, what would happen...the money comes in and they distribute the money as they see fit independent of the city?
CG: Well, typically, for example...
BW: If Gates gives them $5million.
CG: ...in
MW: PEN network is a national
network. We have had lots of
CG: [unintelligible] remind
you a vote for this a vote to have an LEF, that’s not a decision we’re going to
make. It’s not our authority; it’s a 501c3;
it’s not a public entity; it’s also not something that we would on-going
fund. It is in my opinion only a vote to
MW: And that’s a challenge.
CG:
MW: Frankly, that...we’ve made
that commitment as a foundation. As much
as we will commit, should we move forward if the community elects to move
forward, we will provide some on-gong operating
DS: Mr. Chairman, just a...I look
at two words here: “facilitation” and “linkage” and the buy-in, as Mr. Collins,
Tim Collins, has said with transition team, I have, this is a buy-in,
inclusion, not only from the community or parents and/or students, but to the
business community as we know and key word we’re looking to revolutionize the way we do business and
educate our Springfield public school system.
Not only to keep our residents in the city, but also it is the conduit,
the farm system, for economic development.
So I think you’re being the facilitator linkage, the buy-in with
inclusion and when you make people feel part of it, then they feel author of
ownership on it. And this is something
unique; it’s innovative. Chairman
Gabrieli has worked very closely in
BW: Just and as I said this is
not an indictment of the Davis Foundation, but in terms of... I’m just feel
that the attendees to date, they’re just...the same business people that are
involved in nearly everything in the city of
MW: That’s exactly what this is about, the...
BW: Well,
MW: ...expanding the audience. Frankly, that’s an audience that we already...
BW: ...because same ones that
Step Up
MW: Certainly, there’re some of the same players, and some of that...
BW: Many of the same players.
MW: Some of them we’re not
suggesting should not continue. What
we’re saying is “We think that a local education fund...”—again, assuming the
community
BW: When you said “community”...the business community?
MW: No, the whole community.
BW: Well, I just...I...I’m just not prepared to vote on this today, Mr. Chairman, and I would hope that.(our next meeting is a couple of weeks) maybe I could sit down with the people from the...if the board so desires...the Davis Foundation and...so I can get brought up to speed. I’m not brought up to speed, and I’m not comfortable voting money out from the city when I’m not brought up to speed. I have to answer for this, and I’m sure there’re going to be some questions. I know they do great work; I’m not...there’s nothing casting any aspersions on the work that they do, but I just need to be better informed. And I’m not informed; I’m just not informed.
CG: I appreciate that certainly,
you know. Sorry you don’t feel that way,
I would like to offer to my colleagues the choice of proceeding, recognizing,
you know, the Council President, our respected colleague, feels uncomfortable
with it or deferring. I would personally
like to proceed on the basis that I don’t think we’re making a commitment to
the [unintelligible]...we’re not deciding if this thing will exist; we’re
really whether we want to
JM: Mr. Chair, knowing as I do
President Bud’s commitment to public education, I’m absolutely optimistic that
once he has an opportunity to sit with Mary, that he would be absolutely on
board with this. And so I would, as
comfortable as I am in voting today in favor of it, I think that if we’re
trying to send a message to the education community and to the parents and to
the business community that the control board
BW: Just table it, Mr. Chairman, to the next control board meeting which is this month, so....
CG: We’ll vote. We won’t need the presentation again, but we’ll vote, and obviously it leaves you the time between now and then...I’ll put that motion up...to table the final decision until the final decision until then and give you, Councilor Williams, and anyone else to [unintelligible]
BW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CG: Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Morton; you’re a diplomat.
**MOTION TO TABLE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY.
CitiStat Presentation by Paul Foster
SL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next item on the agenda is item number VI, a presentation regarding CitiStat by Paul Foster who is the director of the city’s CitiStat program.
Director of CitiStat Program Paul Foster: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mayor Sarno, President Williams and members....
BW: Got to speak up so [unintelligible] can hear you
PF: Sorry. Members Nunes and Morton. I’m going to give just a very brief overview
of CitiStat. We have had a CitiStat
program in
Just giving some examples of the impact that CityStat has had in some communities: In Baltimore, over the first seven years, they estimate they’ve saved about $350million as a result of their CityStat program. About $30million of that simply from regularly looking at the expenditure of overtime and identifying areas where they could kind of either hire more staff or do other things to reduce the utilization of overtime. Another example is a number of cities now track their service levels on a regular basis in an attempt to improve performance. An example of that in Baltimore, they track pot hole calls; and since they’ve implemented both a 311 program and a CityStat program, they...the number of calls they get about pot holes have increased from about 2000 a year to 10,000 a year and they still fill 95% of those pot holes within 48 hours of a phone call. That’s the kind of timely data and timely analysis of data that’s been used in communities to improve performance.
CitiStat is often confused...or
thought of as a particular piece of software...a technological initiative. It really is a process, so I want to
emphasize, so when you’re talking about CitiStat and when we talk about what
we’re doing with CitiStat in
We began our regular schedule of meetings in January. As of now, we’ve had 18 of these CitiStat meetings. We do about three or four a week, and on that schedule, we’re able to bring in most city departments either every month or every other month. Outside of meetings, the CitiStat staff are working on research projects, issues that come up, and we look into, for example, workplace injuries, so one of the things that’s come out of that is questions about “what’s causing these injuries?” So we’ll take a look at the data: what types of injuries are we having, what types of injuries cause the most lost time, are there things we could be doing to protect the city’s workers? In your packets, you have several examples of the kinds of analysis we’re doing. It’s a kind of small sampling just to give you a sense of the kind of analysis and the kind of data that we look at on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis with each department.
Now that we’ve completed these 18 meetings, I can
give you few of the issues or a few of
the things that we’ve noticed and a few of the areas where we’ve focused. One example is...you’ll hear a presentation,
I believe, in a moment about 311, and one of the things we’ve done is we’ve
taken a look at citywide call volumes just to ask the question How many times
are people calling the city? What are
they calling for? and to answer that question.
We’re looking at an issue along with the facilities department of
identifying the number of non-classroom spaces in schools that are being used
to hold classes, ex
Just to give an example of the kind of savings we’d like to achieve...I mean if we were to reduce the amount of sick leave used and the number of injuries by about 10% each, that would be a savings of about $1million a year to the city. So in summary, CitiStat really is...it’s a process, and the purpose of the process is to create a context in which city departments are held accountable both for their use of resources and for their quality of service delivery. Thank you.
SL: Just to summarize a little bit further, CitiStat is part of the on-going efforts locally to improve the government. As Paul sort of alluded to, in short order, we’ve seen through CitiStat a 7% reduction in sick time use in one department, a 3% reduction in another and that’s only after a short few months of having the program in place. It is something that builds a management structure to analyze the services and to direct resources to local priorities. One of the Mayor’s very strong priorities is improving the quality of life, and CitiStat is something that allows...that builds both that management structure and builds that orientation of the city to pursuing those goals. By tracking and managing data, we’ve seen a nearly doubling in the increase in work orders that are conducted by the facilities department, so it’s a little bit “in the weeds” in that it’s involved in the detailed management aspects of the city, but it’s important and wanted to provide you this presentation today, because it directly relates to improved services, improved quality of life, and reduced costs (which has been a strong focus of the control board over time.)
DS: Mr. Chairman [unintelligible] and Paul I want to commend you on how hard you work on this concept, and I know that my chief of staff, Denise Jordan and attorney Tom Walsh on my staff attended the meetings and I get the feedback on it and executive director Steve Lisauskas hit right on the point as we flex this type of aspect whether police or other departments, Mr. Chairman, quality of life exactly knowing we receive a number of calls in the South End area, the Mason Square area or certain situation, maybe we should be a little more pro-active, so it is invaluable information at that point in time.
RN: You work for the IT [Information Technology] department or...?
PF: I work both...I work for the Mayor’s office.
RN: You work for the Mayor’s office, I see. Full time employee?
PF: Yes.
BW: Are we going to...open for questions now or we’re going to vote this today?
CG: No vote.
SL: This is just Information.
BW: Just on the pre—just real quick so I our citizens understand. How do you say the sick time leave could be...you could save millions of dollars...how’s that...how’s that done through this system?
PF: A lot of it is simply by paying attention to it. I mean sick leave is used and one of the roles of a manager of department head is to make sure that it’s used appropriately based on whatever union contracts or other provisions there are. And one of the things that we’re trying to focus attention on is making sure it is being monitored, it is being looked at, and so the savings come in when we’re ensuring that departments are monitoring it appropriately so that sick leave is not being abused.
BW: So I don’t know what the numbers are [unintelligible] days a year. So you’re saying once that’s exhausted and it goes over and beyond that or if they have 15 days, they’ve used five days, I don’t know legally how you can get involved in that.
PF: Well, you can monitor it, you can ask questions. Certainly, there’re rules such as when an employee has used three or more consecutively, they need to have a doctor’s note. So some of it’s making sure...
BW: [unintelligible] I know the state mine was five. We had a pretty good plan with the state. The city’s...after three days they can inquire at that point in time?
SL: There are some union contracts that are closer to the state, but I think it is generally three days.
BW: After three days, you would begin the process of looking into the situation?
SL: Ex
PF: Well, honestly, rightly, it’s the department’s role to do that. My role is to make sure that’s happening.
BW: I don’t mean “you” per se, I mean the city or whoever [unintelligible] today, that’s all I’m suggesting.
PF: Absolutely.
BW: So that’s all you mean, so OK. The only other question, since this is a presentation, is I’m interested in the...and, Steve, maybe you can shed some light on...how much money now we pay in workers’ compensation?
SL: In worker’s compensation?
PF: I believe the budget for this
year is about $6million, and if I’m [unintelligible] for that [turns to
Personnel Director Marilyn Montagna in the audience].
Personnel Director Marilyn Montagna: I believe on the city side [unintelligible]...
BW: You’re going to have to come up, Ma’m, and get involved in this so our citizens can hear you.
MM: On the city side, forgetting the school department for a minute, the budget for worker’s compensation is just about $2million for this year; $2,070,000 I think. In addition to that, we have almost another $2million budget for the medical costs associated with worker’s compensation.
BW: So what’s the total?
MM: So the total on the city side is about $4million. I off hand don’t...and that does not include police and fire. They pay that directly out of their own salary budget.
BW: And the school side?
MM: On the school side, I just don’t have that number.
BW: So, so, but it’s a large number.
MM: It’s a very large number.
SL: Yes, it is.
BW: I remember a few years ago
SL: And that has been...I believe the longest was 19 years.
BW: 19 years out on workman’s compensation.
SL: That has been both a very strong focus of both the control board working with the mayoral administration, working with Mrs. Montagna, is to manage that. We’ve made some very substantial progress along those lines.
BW: I’m sure the taxpayers will be very happy. Thank you.
SL: We’ll continue that. Thank you.
PF: OK.
CG: OK Thank you very much.
311 Presentation
SL: The next item on the agenda, item VII, a presentation with regard to 311. 311 is, as you have a bit of a presentation in your package there. It’s essentially...I’m joined by Tom Collins, the city’s chief information officer...is essentially a one stop shopping place for all city services. It has the advantage of being obviously an easy-to-remember number (it’s similar to 911) and it’s actually, that was the impetus for creating 311. It is...cities were finding a very substantial number of non-emergency calls to their 911 telephone line, and so created 311 to create an also-easy-to-use number that would take the non-emergency calls away from the police department.
Some of the advantages of 311: of course, if you’re
new to the community or you’re not experienced in working with government, you
don’t have to go through the phone book and try to figure out who to call for
home heating assistance, for instance.
If you’re over 65, is it elder services, is it human services, who is
it? Under 311, it’s a
one-stop-shopping-mall; you go dial 311 and the city helps you; you don’t have
to figure out how to interface with the city.
Residents receive faster service and also have the ability to track the
status of their requests for service either through the telephone or on
line. (You can also submit requests via
the internet.) There is the potential
also for 311 to be integrated into the work order system. So someone calls for service and it directly
goes to the operating department and also into our financial systems here at
the city which would allow direct costing.
So that phone call to hot patch a pot hole costs the city $X; you could
have that level of detail. Over 60 cities including importantly
How does it work? It’s a place you can call to get answers, get action, and to (colloquially) “get to the point.” In terms of getting answers, you have trained customer service representatives who are able to answer all series of questions. And, as I mentioned before, it’s not incumbent upon the resident to find who to call. It’s not incumbent if you make a bad phone call to hope that you get transferred to the right department. (So you call the wrong department, you hope to get transferred.) The call center agent handles it right there and gets the answer for the resident. They use pre-populated forms so when a call comes in, you already know the questions to ask the resident. You can either send the service directly to the Department of Public Works, for instance, or the Parks Department to remove a downed tree or you know how to put these service requests right into the government so it gets action immediately. Many services can be handled directly by the call center representative himself, and, again, the 311 person (the agent) can handle things directly, usually is the only person, I think, in the vast majority of instances is the only person that a resident has to work with.
As I mentioned, the city services you by voice,
email or on line. You can track the
requests and reducing the number of non-emergency calls...the police department
reports that about 60% of the calls to the police department (both 911 and
non-emergency lines) are not related
to police business. They’re basically
informational calls. They do receive a
number of calls “When is my trash day?” (If you can believe people calling 911
for that. They tend to, because they
don’t know who to call.) So 311 would
reduce that burden, or could reduce
that burden on the 911 system and provide everyone equal access to government
regardless of your f
Some of the reasons that we have been looking at
and exploring 311: It could improve the
efficiency and service quality for the city of
Now the city has an understanding of the number of calls it receives, but it doesn’t have the precise data to say “We are receiving this many calls for this purpose in Old Hill or in Indian Orchard, and so we need to be more pro-active in addressing those issues.” 311 can help provide that information. It also allows the departments to focus on their core mission by creating a central call center function. Departments spend less time answering the phone, less time answering calls. If you believe the police department statistics apply citywide, 60% of calls are misplaced. If you allow the departments to focus on their core mission by allowing those calls to be answered by specially trained call agents, the departments can get more done of what they intend to do. There is in your packet sort of a list of things that would need to occur to implement 311 if that’s something that the city and the control board intend to do.
But with regard to projected costs, we would be looking at one-time costs of between $80,000. and $100,000. for installation of the system and then on-going costs of up to $300,000. Now with those on-going costs, we should keep in mind that at least half of those costs are allocation of existing personnel from a...one call center (the city operates three) to a central call center. So that’s merely moving costs from the left to the right; it’s not...they are not new costs, but we capture them because they’re related to 311. And then a portion of the other operating costs will be recovered, because the departments will have more time to do their work. So you hire a special call center representative and you have benefits in the treasurer collectors office, the assessors office and public works, because they’re not handling those calls directly. So the unique costs to 311 is $300,000. on an on-going basis, but the majority of those costs are reallocations from costs we’re currently experiencing on the departments
So in summary, I think 311 would, if adopted, by the city would provide increased service quality, increased management information which would allow better information for the city and allow better, higher quality decisions...even higher quality decisions...to be made and increased customer service and convenience. So that’s just a very brief sketch of what the 311 system has to offer. It is a system that we have been analyzing for some time under the leadership of Tom Collins, the city’s chief information officer. Be happy to answer any questions that the board has. If the control board were to fund 311, there is a set-aside in the bond issuance that is proposed for May or June that could be used to fund this project if so desired.
DS: Mr. Chairman, I know that
Mayor Curtatone in
So the more information I find out about this and
try to get out to
RN: Mr. Chairman, who would do the training of call takers?
Chief Information
RN: How many call takers [unintelligible] would you?
TC: Initially, we’re seeing three or four as we ramp up to start with...
RN: 24/7?
TC: No, just during normal
business hours. We’ve found from
RN: Really.
TC:
RN: Thank you.
BW: Thank you , Mr. Chairman, Just first thing, I think this makes good sense: 311, one clearing house for all calls. I have a problem remembering all the various departments and calls. I have to call my office, city council, to get a number to refer for constituent service. It just makes good common sense; 311. Second point, what’s the dollar amount in terms of projections in terms of savings...dollars? Can you give me an amount?
TC: We haven’t been able to
pin down the actual dollars in savings.
We’re talking about primarily a more responsive system to the citizens
of
BW: Time equals money.
TC: Time equals money.
BW: Time equals money.
TC: In this case, the time is spread out across many departments in the city, and it’s difficult to pin down how much time they’re spending on this, and how much time it may save them to have that consolidated. We have not done that yet.
BW: Just further discussion on
hours of operation, you’re suggesting
TC: Basically normal city operating hours, business hours for the city.
BW: So they find that after
TC: They drop off dramatically. What we will have is we will have very accurate records of the volume of calls and the subject of calls, and we’ll be able to adjust our hours based upon...and adjust our staffing based upon the frequency of those calls and the hours that they come in.
BW: Have you looked at Monday through Friday and then the week-ends?
TC: We would be looking at that as well, yes, sir.
BW: Because I know week-ends there tends to be, after working in the district court for 32 years, there tends to be an increase of 911 calls just from my...no evidence, other than the...my knowledge of that there tends to be over the week-end, because there’s more arrests. There seems to be more, so I don’t know if you want to look at that.
TC: Certainly, we’re looking at the non-emergency calls which tend to be a little less urgent and a little more focused on business hours, but as we look at this and adjust our staffing plan and our hours of operations, we will be responsive to additional [unintelligible]
BW: The last point, I hope that this would, if this is enacted, would alleviate some of the 911 calls. You’d be surprised what people call for 911: cat up a tree, barking dog: They...people don’t tend to call the fire department, they call the police department. So each...just literally everything: snow removal, illegal parked cars...
TC: You’re absolutely right.
councilor, that by moving those non-emergency calls over to the 311 center, we
will save and reserve the police department for the emergency response. That takes a strong public relations
campaign, some advertising to make people aware of the fact that.... I believe
CG: Thank you for the update on 311. Could you clarify what the decision process and potential vote needed in the future is?
SL: Well, there would be the bonding authorization for May, June that I mentioned has a set-aside for this, so if that’s a project that the control board is comfortable proceeding with, we can certainly include it in that bond authorization, amend the bond authorization to specifically state...it states “information technology,” but include 311.
DS: Mr. Chairman, I just want
to mention, too, this does not preclude any resident, business or anyone
calling directly to a department.
Obviously, hard-working departments take those calls. I think that we also need to look about
“flexing” some of those hours, because, at times, let’s face it, some of these situations,
less emergency situations where proper divisions are already going 24/7, some
of these situations don’t happen between
SL: So we can bring it to the next board meeting.
CG: Thank you very much. Living in Boston, I wish we had 311, so I will be...I would like to...I would like to opportunity to point out to Mayor Menino that Springfield’s beaten Boston to the punch. It would be great to.
Presentation Regarding Payroll and Time, Labor and Management Systems
SL: Thank you. The next item on the agenda, item VIII, is a
presentation regarding payroll, time and labor management systems. The presentation will be by Chief Information
Human Resources Director Marilyn Montagna: Good morning. Back in January of 2006, the city implemented a centralized payroll management organization as well as a state of the art payroll system when we purchased the ADP payroll processing system. Prior to that point, suffice it to say that there was in fact no centralized payroll management authority within the system...within the city, and payroll processing was literally done on green and white striped computer print-out sheets by hand in pencil. So we have in fact come a long way.
At the time we made that decision and we moved forward, we made a fairly conscious decision to implement the payroll processing system as quickly as possible. And in fact that was accomplished in about a seven month period of time. In order to do that, we made some...we deferred some fairly significant parts of that processing. And in fact this time labor management proposal is really a proposal to move forward with the second and third phase of the payroll system implementation. At the current time the payroll system provides what we call “gross to net” payroll calculations for all city employees. (Basically we process deductions; we process tax compliance and those kinds of issues.)
However, 85% of our employees, primarily those in the police department, the school department, and the public works department, the central payroll system, in fact, does not calculate gross pay for the employees. That process happens in homegrown, tailored, front-end systems that exist within the confines of those departments. Clearly, there are some payroll control issues associated with that and that is very much not in compliance with those payroll best practice guidelines.
So the city at this point, plans to do several things. First of all, we plan to consolidate all gross pay calculations within the centrally managed payroll system. That will introduce a level of concern for the other 85% of employees that we currently do not have. We also plan to implement...we’re proposing to implement a time labor management system that will, while the centralized payroll system will manage the calculation of gross pay, the time labor management system will ensure that all time worked and all time not worked that is reported to the system in fact is accurate, in fact is compliant with federal, state and union regulations, and in fact is accurate in terms of all of our payroll rules.
In addition as part of this, we will do some internal streamlining of the payroll process which will provide some administrative efficiencies as well as reduce some of the on-going costs of the payroll system. And very importantly, we will provide more detailed payroll data into the MUNIS financial system so that things like position management, budget to actual kinds of decisions can be made at the time of hires and at the time of general ledger accounting transactions.
The time labor management system we expect will have both significant dollar savings as well as significant benefits. The benefits really are achieved in four areas. Accuracy (So time calculation errors, time reporting errors will be eliminated; we envision this as being a real time system, and so the data will not be in any manipulated or subject to any kind of data entry errors.) Compliance (We, as part of the system, we will in effect code within the system all of the rules that are housed in the union contracts as well as federal and state guidelines for time and the calculations will be conducted in accordance with those rules. Clearly, there will be some administrative simplicity in these, because we will eliminate all of the manual data entry associated today with time reporting. And finally, we will provide some significantly enhanced management capability so managers will have much improved data to manage overtime. They in fact can schedule overtime through the system, and then there is assurance that the overtime that in fact is worked has been authorized within that department structure.
The coding of time off will be done in accordance with both the rules (the union rules) as well as the city ordinance rules around those programs and, more importantly, will be done in accordance with the prior time that the person’s taken. So we’ll be sure that if someone has taken vacation time that in fact they have that time available in their account and that level of accuracy will also be introduced into the process.
This system will in fact be used by virtually every
department in the city with two exceptions.
The police and fire departments TeleStaff scheduling system that is
currently being implemented will serve as their time management vehicle. All other city departments will use the new
TLM process. Very importantly, is that
we recognize that there are very significant differences in the operating
requirements of...across the city departments.
The system is designed to be tailored to really meet the requirements
and the capabilities of each department, so it will not in fact...while there
will be common benefits and common rules applied here, we will not...there will
be a one-size-fits-all- solution. We do
not want to be in a situation where we are interfering with the natural either
standards or the natural flow of work within a department. So we will be able to tailor this to the
departments’ local requirements. And
finally, the system will provide the opportunity for managers to actually plan
and schedule and assign staff with some automated
The implementation costs for the system are estimated
to be approximately $800,000. and that includes both the cost of acquiring the
software as well as implementation team
What that means is that in Year 1, even after we incur the development expenses, we will have a payback in about a four to six month period. And on an on-going basis, we will realize a net savings of over $2.5million a year.
The implementation schedule is an aggressive schedule, but we believe it is an achievable schedule. By the end of the third quarter of this year, we will have captured all of the gross pay calculations within the payroll system. At that time, we will have literally been through every union contract and pulled out all of the time reporting...the rules surrounding time worked and time off and have rolled those into the new system. We then will start into a very extensive process of testing and validation and expect then that we will have, by the end of the calendar year, we will have the time and labor management process in place for all departments within the city.
DS: Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Marilyn and Tom. Just a couple of comments and questions. Number one, obviously worker/union
communication is very important as we look to entertain initiating this. Two, as [unintelligible] the cost saving is
very...a good amount. This also
looks...when you get a check now...I know we had in my District Attorney’s
MM: Not within this proposal.
DS: But there is talk down the road of that, has been communicated to workers and/or the union. That stuff we had when we [turns to BW] were in the court system also. So this is mainly streamlining...[To BW] right it was once a month.
BW: A month
DS: Again, that you’re going to be able to deal ...anything that’s new...and you’re talking about the MUNIS system and any new system coming in, it’s important that proper and efficient training time is given to any and all employees. Because whether pro or con, sometimes you hear that things are fast tracked and he or she doesn’t have a grasp on it, but mainly you’re talking about as far as being able to track down and having notification on your check of time that is incurred or time that you have allowed, and also important about communicating to workers or to the union any type of negotiating aspects as we start to move down the road. And you indicate conservatively the cost savings could be upwards of $3million?
MM: Yes.
DS: That’s all I have for right now, Mr. Chairman.
BW: Mr. Chairman? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Marilyn, just a couple of points of information. On the start-up costs, you had about $1.1million, there’s an $80,000. IT project manager. Is that a new position?
TC: That’s an existing city employee.
BW: So that is not a new
position; that’s existing. So that
becomes a $1.1. Now the other point that
I know
MM: Well, the...well, clearly when...and Tom is certainly closer to this than I am. Anytime we implement a system of that magnitude, you know, there are...there is the potential for some glitches. I think in this situation, we have...we are using a system that is...has been used by literally hundreds of employers across the country. So I think that, you know, that helps to mitigate some of the things. And I think that the other thing that I would point to is that we have a significant level of testing that we are putting in place here. So as part of that plan, we would expect to find those problems in the testing phases. The other part of the implementation is that you’ll notice we have a phased implementation. So it is our intent to start out putting this into live production with a very....you know, we’ll frankly start with the small and a simple department and we will grow at that point. To the extent that we start to find problems at that point, because this will impact virtually every employee, it is our intent to be very conservative and not to continue the roll-out until it really has a very, very high degree of accuracy and reliability.
BW: I have to ask this
question, because when we say “the city of
MM: The intent is that this will [unintelligible] absolutely...
BW: This is going to cover every...?
MM: Yes.
BW: ...single aspect of the city’s payroll. That’s good.
MM: You know, everyone today is entering time somehow or other. So this is really just streamlining the process by which they report those time statistics.
BW: As the Mayor said, I mean I worked for the state for 32 years; we’ve been doing it since I started with the county actually, went to the state. You have tracking, how much hours you have left, comp time you have left, vacation time, sick time, year-to-date, the whole gamut is right on that pay stub.
MM: It was an area where we clearly started out in a hole.
BW: Yeah, we’re in the Dark Ages when it comes to that aspect... No reflection, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
TC: If I might, I can contrast
this system to the MUNIS system. With
MUNIS, we impacted the jobs of about 600 employees, but it was a very major
shift in how they were doing their jobs.
Now 85%, 95% of those employees who made the transition smoothly; there
are places where lingering difficulties that we’re working through training,
education,
BW: It ties into the workman’s comp and hours and time, because I’m sure that there’s a lot of cases in the city where people are getting additional time and they shouldn’t be. What I mean by that is they have x number of days of vacation; due to the archaic style of bookkeeping here--it’s done with a pencil and stuff and sometimes...and I’m not saying, casting any aspersions or anything on any of our city employees, but in some cases, they’re ending up with more time and hours so that he taxpayer’s being cheated out of money.
TC: This will ensure you that the time is reported in a timely fashion, that it’s collected accurately for the purposes that it was intended and that the rules by which pay is calculated will be applied uniformly, consistently with all the collective bargaining agreements. And some of those are very complex.
BW: That’s what I was going to say, that a lot of those contracts are very complicated and complex. I just hope that you’ll be able to track those as well.
TC: We believe we will be, and this will benefit both parties in that there will be a clear record of how that is done, the data that’s collected, and we will have clear, contemporary records of that. So that if there’s any question that can be brought up and researched and dealt with immediately, if we find that we may have made an error in a calculation, that can be corrected and it will apply to all people.
DS: Mr. Chairman, I just want to let you know, [unintelligible] a key caveat here is overtime accountability, because that can become a budget buster. and I also think, speaking with Steve, we’ve had flexibilities of extenuating circumstances and/or sunshine-type accounts (give back to people who were in need at that point in time) so that there is that flexibility that will continue on, too. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CG: Thank you for the presentation. I would hope you would add to your schedule an up-date to us and the city in general on whether you realize these gains, because they are very tantalizing gains...
DS: That’s a big number...big numbers.
CG: ... all interested, and we’ll all be interested in knowing. I share my colleagues encouragement of you to think through all the training and roll-out that you describe, but, like the previous two presentations, you know, I’m enthusiastic about the fact that Springfield, working between the control board and the city, effectively will far more advance of the systems whether they’re looking at the global perspective of CitiStat, customer access through 311, or just doing your knitting the right way on the time and labor management, so these are all un-sexy and important improvements. So thank you for all your hard work and time it took to do that work.
DS: Thank you.
Discussion of Superintendent Search
SL: Mr. Chairman, the last item on the agenda is a discussion with regard to the superintendent search. I have two orders before the board, order number IX is an appropriation order with regard to the selection pro-...the consultant, search consultant, for the superintendent. As you will recall from the last board meeting, the board authorized 9B authorization...authority for the control board to conduct an expedited search for a consultant to assist in the...essentially a “head hunter,” a recruiter, to assist identifying and selecting successful candidates for the position of superintendent of schools. The order before you would authorize funding in an amount not to exceed $75,000. for the retention of a consultant for that purpose. The RFP that was issued by the control board was pushed out to 13 firms. And one additional non-profit association was asked for their assistance in distributing it further. And we received four responses: one from Hazard, Young and Associates [Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, Ltd.]; one from Huge and Associates [Jim Huge and Associates], one from Ray and Associates [Ray and Associates, Inc.] and one from Frontier Partners. We’re in the process of reviewing qualifications of those firms. The...whichever firm is successful through that process would...the appropriation would fund that work, again to bring back to the board through the process that was outlined at the last meeting, which would involve significant public component, by April a slate of finalist candidates for review.
CG: Thank you and let me just comment that, having had a chance to begin to review those with the executive director, I think we have several, you know, fully qualified bids and we’ve got a...in the RFP is a scoring process to be used to select that and we would hope to get that firm selected this week. I would expect to be able to announce the membership of the public community review group in addition to the standing invitation to the school committee to participate in April, and I expect to name that group at our next meeting at the end of March. And I’m encouraged by the quality of the applications and the interest of search firms. I do know that I haven’t seen all the price proposals from all of the players, but I do know that several of them are quite a bit lower than this, so I’m optimistic we can bring this in for less, but I think that you’ve wisely picked the number that you think is the highest possible amount, so since we want to act on this as soon as we pick the firm, we need control board authorization for up to the maximum.
Do you want to address the second order now or should we address this one first?
SL: If we could address this one first.
BW: So moved.
DS: I think as Mr. Chairman indicated I mean if it comes in lower, obviously we don’t expend the money go back yeah.
SL: Yes, sir.
**MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY.
SL: The next item on the agenda or actually continuing with the...that item on the agenda is order 9B. And what the order 9B is seeking to do is to clarify some of the confusion that has existed with regard to the superintendent search itself.
BW: Mr. Chairman, through the chair, I see the city solicitor here. Could we ask him to frame that from a legal standpoint or do you feel it is necessary, because I know he’s...
CG: [unintelligible]
SL: ...Yes
CG: Are you prepared to do so? Great, sure, absolutely. This is definitely, you know, ...these comments say a resolution favorable we have in front of us was drafted by I believe the city solicitor...
SL: That’s correct.
CG: I know...I think, in consultation with A and F as well, deals with the unnecessary, unfortunate necessity to be clear on the record. You know I want to emphasize that our continuing goal is to work as collaboratively with the school committee as they will permit. That’s up to them at this point, not up to us. And this executive order is meant to remove any doubt about whether we’re ...where the entire process stands, so why don’t you go ahead and frame it for us or continue you or Steve or however you two want to do it.
City Solicitor Ed Pikula: Sure. Just to address Councilor Williams’s question. I believe it’s whether this is necessary.
BW: Exactly.
EP: And I think that is your... I think I can best answer that by giving a brief history leading up to where we’ve gotten today. I first learned, as I recall, from a newspaper reporter that a vote had been taken by the school committee, and I had not seen the vote or any minutes or any documents, but it appeared to me that it was a symbolic vote. It appeared to me that it had no legal authority, and the vote had not triggered anything to do with the 14 day provisions in Chapter 169. Subsequently, I believe it was February 28, a document purporting to be a contract, has surfaced that has the signature of four school committee people as well as the current superintendent. I have had a chance to take a look at that document and, based on my review, I believe that this executive order provides the safest course of action. While I do not feel that that document is effective, by pursuing this process, it will be the best way to make sure that the city does not face any exposure which...to liability...which that contract may purport to do. And in this situation, there has been no sort of appropriation for that contract, no sort of indication of an appropriation code. It purports to be a multi-year contract and does not have any indication that the CFO had been involved and had not been prepared or reviewed by the law department as to form, so.... In addition, it appears to be contrary to the act of this board in creating the selection committee as well as the vote of this board that any positions above the level of principal would be filled by the board and through the executive director. So this executive order, while maybe not 100% required, provides the safest (from a legal perspective) means to limit the city’s potential liability.
CG: Let me ask a couple clarifying questions, Mr. Clerk, because we’re getting into the world of legalese and it does matter. We voted early in December as a control board by five to zero. I believe that has the concurrence of the Mayor who was not on it and I don’t mean to put the City Council President on the spot, but to conduct a search to find a new superintendent. As I understand Chapter 169, it explicitly says no local entity elected or appointed can take an action to contravene a decision of the control board once made. Is that correct, Mr. Pikula?
EP: That is in Section 4, d20 of the act.
CG: So any discussion or vote by the school committee to take a different path with regard to superintendent in....for the...after June 30 of this year when the current superintendent’s contract runs out would be contrary to our vote to in fact do a search to identify a new one, correct?
EP: That’s correct and...
CG: Furthermore, if they in fact somehow executed a contract in spite of today’s vote, this control board could act as in the role of the school, in the role of the school...under the powers authorized to us to terminate that contract.
EP: That’s correct.
CG: And the only effect of that action, then, would be to have incurred as much as three year’s liability, financial liability, am I right about that?
EP: Correct.
CG: And the worst case scenario, if the school committee found some way around the law even though I don’t believe they have, the result would only be to charge the taxpayers, correct?
EP: That’s correct.
CG: Unless this committee changed its mind.
EP: That’s correct.
CG: I emphasize these facts simply to say I’m sorry that the thin majority of the school committee continues to focus on the past and their frustration rather than the future and where we need to go. I don’t take it personally; I take this as disappointment in my...in myself; I’m working to try to speak to the vice chair of the school committee, you know, on behalf of the membership to make him realize that I know this decision is disappointing to him, but, you know, it’s time to focus on getting the outstanding superintendent for the future. And I’m sorry that we have to spend time on this today, but I also think it’s proper since we do represent the taxpayer’s interest. I think to eliminate as much as possible any chance of wasting money on what would be really just sort of politics of conflicts, not the you know the focus on leadership.
So I think the purpose of this, as I understand it, is to say: even though we believe no vote is necessary, should there be some interpretation in the future [unintelligible] anybody of the 14 day requirement for us to overrule any action that is in place, that in fact, we’re taking that action within 14 days of the receipt of that contract on February 28th.
EP: That’s correct.
DS: Mr. Chairman, I just want... I think that’s important to point out and, again, the proper procedure on this would run law department order the CFO and finally a sign-off from the mayor and/or the control board.
EP: That’s correct.
DS: That never took place, and I think Chairman Gabrieli is right. As was brought to my attention, you’re talking about February 27...late February 27, February 28 when it was forwarded, well within if...if it even comes into question, well within the 14 day period, but I think this is more of a clarifying that this administration and control board going to move forward. We look for someone, he or she, to revolutionize the system, not only a superintendent, but up and down the system. As I don’t envy what many of the educators do, I respect what they do, but we have to send a resounding message out to the residents of the community and to the business community that we’re going to look to revolutionize, but I think again the 27th it was received late the 27th and I believe all authorizing parties probably saw it the 28th and then I sent it to you, well with in the two-week window period...
Now, Mr. Chairman, there was the proper process, there is a process, you know: CFO, the auditor, the law department and, eventually, move for review, eventually before it gets to the mayor and/or the control board. You know, that never took place whatsoever, so I think it was important, and I’m glad the board took this up to clarify that we continue to move in the forward direction. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BW: That was my point, Mr. Chairman, just to see if there was any exposure on the taxpayers’ part, just make sure that’s clear.
CG: And I continue to believe that it’s pretty clear that the action of December, which was an action not only where the votes included all three appointees of the governor, but also the sitting Mayor (and, again, the new Mayor concurs with that vote) and city ([to BW] I’m going to keep saying I’m not sure what your...whether you would have or wouldn’t have, and I apologize for...not trying to put you on the spot when I say that) but the then sitting...
BW: But you keep doing it. [laughter]
CG: I want to be clear that that was the then city council president, but I mean it was a five/[zero] vote. It made absolutely clear. I don’t believe we need to do this, but I think it would be very unfortunate to have to write out a nearly half a million dollar I think or more check merely to play politics around a decision that was clearly made with a lot of discussion, well-informed in my view, so...
DS: Mr. Chairman, just that the contract that was in place, if I understand correctly, was just for that one specific year.
EP: That’s correct. It’s still in force and is...
DS: There was it, there was no, so you could depend upon that, so this is completely, completely new and again [unintelligible] process follow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CG: So, any questions?
**MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY.
CG: Thank you very much.
SL: That being the last item on the agenda, if there’s nothing further, executive session for purposes of collective bargaining and real estate disposition.
**MEETING ADJOURNED BY UNANIMOUS VOTE.