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May 06, 2013 Minutes CITY OF DENTON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2013 After determining that a quorum was present, the City Council convened in a Work Session on Monday, May 6, 2013 at 11:30 a.m. in the Council Work Session Room, 215 E. McKinney Street, Denton, Texas. PRESENT: Council Member King, Council Member Watts, Council Member Gregory, Council Member Engelbrecht, Mayor Pro Tem Kamp, Mayor Burroughs ABSENT: Council Member Roden 1. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding an update on the City of Denton Strategic Plan and Preliminary Budget priority items for FY 2013-14. Bryan Langley, Assistant City Manager, presented the details regarding the overview and purpose of the discussion. He stated that the Overview and Purpose would be to (1) review goal and history of the City's strategic planning process, (2) provide an overview of key focus areas and goals outlined in the Strategic Plan, (3) review Strategic Plan Performance Metrics, (4) discuss upcoming budget priorities identified, Council requests, and linkage to the Strategic Plan goals, and (5) discuss the next steps in the budget process. He reviewed the goals of the Strategic Plan and the history of the Strategic Planning Process. The Vision, Mission and Value Statements were presented for review. The Vision statement was "Destination Denton”, the Mission statement was "Dedicated to Quality Service” and the Values statement was "We Care". The Plan was divided into Key Focus Areas of (1) organizational excellence, (2) public infrastructure, (3) sustainable economic development and environmental stewardship, (4) safe, livable, and family friendly community and (5) partnerships and regional leadership. Potential changes to the Strategic Plan. The Plan was approved in April 2011. It was recommended that strategic plans be reviewed at least annually to determine if any modifications were necessary. The Leadership Team had reviewed the Plan and did not recommend any changes at this time. The next major update for the Plan would most likely occur once the Comprehensive Plan update was completed. Staff was asking if Council had any items for modification. Mayor Burroughs asked where the customer satisfaction area was located and indicated that this was different from customer service. Customer satisfaction could be added to that area. Strategic Plan Performance Metrics – the areas tracked included number of measures on or above target, the number of measures below target, and the number of measures significantly below target. 78% of the measures were on or above target. City Manager Campbell stated that staff was trying to make a realistic goal but also one which would stretch the organization and continue to improve. The rankings were a good visualization of the progress that had been made in the focus areas. This was a good internal tool to use on the management level for progress. Council Member Engelbrecht stated that the electronic billing goal was 6% and questioned if that was that in line with other cities with electronic billing in the private and public sector. City of Denton City Council Minutes May 6, 2013 Page 2 Langley stated that the industry benchmark was 5%. Staff was trying to stretch the goal and ultimately get to 10% or more. Council Gregory questioned what happened if there was a yellow or red measure. Langley stated that red was not a punitive measure but an opportunity to see if the performance was being measured properly and what was driving the performance. There was a need to look at the measures on an annual basis as each quarter the figures might change and go up or down per quarter. Performance Metrics included (1) identify target levels of performance was critical but difficult; (2) some performance measures were difficult to assign to specific goals, (3) city staff and departments were still learning from performance metrics, and (4) budget priorities should be based, at least in part, on performance indicator information. Mayor Burroughs asked if Code Enforcement had set goals indicating a number of citations to issue. Langley stated no. Council Member Roden joined the meeting. Council Member Gregory stated that some goals did not lend to some kind of measurement. He felt it would be ok to have those types of goals as not everything was measurable. He did not want to take one out just because it was hard to measure. City Manager Campbell stated that some goals might not be measurable but that did not mean that there was not support for that goal. There was a need to determine what was measurable and what was not and how far down to go with the measures. Upcoming Budget priorities Langley indicated that this discussion was on a high level regarding strategic, budget, and policy priorities and was not intended to be focused on specific financial information. Detailed financial information would be presented in June and at subsequent meetings during the budget process. Priorities should reflect key elements of the Strategic Plan and City Council policies. Budget priorities by Key Focus Area #1 - Organizational Excellence included maintain reserves in accordance with financial policies, propose rate structures that achieved financial self-sufficiency for enterprise funds, utilized fee structures that recovered the costs associated with services that were provided, enhanced citizen engagement efforts, continued to promote a high performance work force, and utilized technology to improve customer service, efficiency, and productivity. #2 - Public Infrastructure included implement first year of voter approved Street Bond Program, continue to manage street funding based on Overall Condition Index methodology, develop City of Denton City Council Minutes May 6, 2013 Page 3 financial plan to provide required level of funding to maintain OCI rating, utilities revenue funded capital when possible, and develop upcoming bond program that was based on community needs. #3 - Sustainable economic development and environmental stewardship included complete update of comprehensive plan, develop financial strategy to implement the DTIP, pursue economic development incentive projects that offered substantial return on investment for the community, attempt to further refine and improve the development review process, and promote environmental sustainability. Council Member Roden asked about a plan to guide economic development. Langley stated that there were guidelines for incentive agreements. Aimee Bissett, Director of Economic Development, stated that Denton had a unique setup as most cities the size of Denton were 4A and 4B sales tax cities. Jon Fortune, Assistant City Manager, stated that a study was done to identify relationships in those areas such as TIP strategies. Mayor Burroughs stated that incentive provisions had very specific employment goals and sales per year to look at for economic development. Council Member Roden stated that as the study was 10 years old it might be time to think about another study. Council Member Gregory stated that last year staff was working on a new set of goals for the Economic Development Partnership Board and the Board gave suggestions on how to update those. Fortune stated that those were more on a departmental level but one could be done for more city- wide goals. #4 - Safe, livable and family friendly community – priorities included evaluate staffing needs in the police department, complete the design and begin construction of a new fire station, complete construction of the new animal adoption center, continue proactive code enforcement program to meet community expectations, enhance program and technology offerings in libraries, and evaluate potential parks/recreation facility improvements to be recommended for inclusion in upcoming bond program. #5 - Partnerships and regional leadership - continue to maintain active dialogue with state and federal elected leaders and agencies, build relationships with officials in other Denton County municipalities, continue working with UNT and a private developer to build a convention center, and enhance partnerships with social service agencies in the community. Council budget priorities – budget priorities that had been suggested by Council included (1) Downtown shuttle service, (2) supplemental bicycle lane funding, (3) Downtown reinvestment grant program, (4) community market enhancements, (5) restore Council contingency funds, (6) City of Denton City Council Minutes May 6, 2013 Page 4 staff dedicated for development projects, and (7) additional funds for Human Services Advisory Committee. Langley asked if Council had any other suggestions to include. Council Member Roden suggested exploring the cost for an economic development study in a broad sense. Council Member Engelbrecht stated that he would like to look at an incubator project as a base line on what were the resources the City had for those types of projects. Mayor Burroughs stated that Denton was characterized as the greenest city in the U.S. but that required time and attention with resources to get to that level. He stated that if and when the southern part of Rayzor Ranch was developed, there was a museum project associated with the development and he wanted to make sure the City shepherded that facility. It should be a priority once definite plans were known. The City would need to at least think about some kind of resource allocation to shepherd that project. Council Member Gregory noted that United Copper bragged that their facility was operated 40% through wind energy. He would appreciate a staff report as a follow up to the Mayor’s comments. Council Member Engelbrecht suggested considering funding for an art master plan. He noted that some Council contingency funds went to the fire fighter museum and he requested staff review with the Chief what funding the museum might need going forward. He asked how it was funded and what might need to be done. The Fire Department had a large antique toy collection but could not display it because there was no space for it. He questioned what other possible goals the museum might have. Council Member Gregory suggested finding out if any person at UNT in the public administration program would be available for internship programs for research. He suggested amending the last bullet point in Key Focus Area #3 to refer to the city-wide sustainability plan which provided those details. He also suggested that Key Focus Area #4 have a reference point added for a bike and pedestrian mobility plan. Mayor Burroughs stated that in his view, the proactive nature of Code Enforcement for non- safety related items needed to be reviewed and the number of write ups that had increased. He felt there was a point at which it became more trivial in nature when it was proactive. A proactive approach for non-health related issues was something Council needed to think about and was not comfortable that it was a high priority. City Manager Campbell stated that staff had heard that message at the Council retreat and that there were not enough resources in Code Enforcement for petty issuances. Mayor Pro Tem Kamp suggested looking into a dedicated administrative person for Council and the Mayor. Council discussed the possibility of adding a staff person to assist the Mayor and/or Council. Langley reviewed the next step in the proposed budget calendar from May to October. City of Denton City Council Minutes May 6, 2013 Page 5 With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:05 p.m. ____________________________________ MARK A. BURROUGHS MAYOR CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS ____________________________________ JENNIFER WALTERS CITY SECRETARY CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS