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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-12-1996 Meeting I I I ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES COMMITTEE COMMITTEE ROOM - February l2, 1996 3:00 P. M. PRESENT: Hons. Larry E. Sconyers, Mayor; Beard, Chairman; Bridges, Vice-Chairman; H. Brigham and Powell, members; Moses McCauley, Acting Personnel Director; George Patty, Community Development Director; John Etheridge, Human Resources Director; Gayle Scott of the Human Resources Department; Nancy Morawski, Deputy Clerk of Commission-Council and Betty Murphy of the Clerk's Office. Communication from the Director of Community Development submitting a letter from Mr. Fred Callaway of Southeastern Security Systems. The City of Augusta was a conduit for five Urban Development Action Grants (UDAG's) that were made by HUD to individuals and corporations in the 1980's and early 1990's. These "grants" were actually loans, and the payments have been coming back to the City to recreate a revolving loan fund. In 1995 when the City reorganized I inherited this revolving loan fund from Gary Bussey and froze it upon learning that there were no guidelines for consideration of requests. On December 6, I learned of a request from Southeastern for $150,000 of these funds to expand their business by employing eleven low/moderate income persons and offering them training. On December 11, this request was approved by the Community Development Committee and on December 18 it was approved by full City Council for $75,000. The loan closed after 5:00 P.M. on December 29, the last working day of the City of Augusta. After Council's approval of the loan, staff worked with the City Attorney to develop the loan agreement. A provision was put into the agreement for dispersal of funds on a quarterly basis upon monitoring of the previous quarter, rather than expose the entire $75,000 and have to identify collateral. This was not discussed with Southeastern due to the time constraints. At the closing Southeastern pro- tested the quarterly disbursements but signed the promissory note and agreement without modification. Southeastern immediately asked for modification of the agreement to proportionately reduce the number of employees from eleven to five and one half and to allow full payment up front. I subsequently discussed their request with Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Wall, and they are both of the opinion that Committee and full Commission-Council would have to approve this request, was read. Mr. Callaway: We wanted to expand the business itself which would require a lump sum payment rather than payments in increments. We also need to reduce the number of jobs to be created from eleven to five and one-half. Mr. Patty: We need to adopt some guidelines for this as there are none at this time. Mr. Bridges: I move that we maintain the status of the contract that we have now but with the stipulation that his requirement for employees be moved to five to six from the eleven. Mr. Powell: I'll second that. I Motion adopted unanimously. communication from the Director of Community Development stating the City's Economic Development Department has administered the recaptured Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) revolving loan fund since the first paybacks from the five UDAG's were received. The department subsequently made 12 loans from this revolving fund for a total of $565,790.00. There is currently $75,967.45 unobligated, and the projected revenue for 1996 is $69,000. These loans were made without any guidelines, procedures or public notice and as a result I attempted to freeze the funds upon taking over their administration in October 1995. Enclosed you will find a proposed set of guidelines which would assure that the funds are used on a fair and equitable basis, with priority going to those proposals that most efficiently meet our economic development objectives. We propose an annual competition for these funds, with plenty of publicity, so that it is open to everyone. The 1996 CDBG budget includes $150,000 for an in-house loan program for business development. We propose that separate competitions be held, but the same guidelines be applied to both the Re-UDAG and the CDBG loan program. If these I guidelines are adopted staff would begin preparation for an award cycle of approximately May 1 for both programs. Funds accumulated after May 1 would not be utilized under any circumstances until the next award cycle, was read. Mr. Brigham: I move that we accept the recommendation. Mr. Powell: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next considered approval of the rejection of bids opened December 27, 1995 for the sale of a 1994 Buick Park Avenue due to the decision of the new Augusta-Richmond County government to retain this automobile in the government's fleet. Mr. Chairman: I think the City has the right to reject any bid. Mr. Bridges: I move that we approve rejecting the bids for this vehicle. Mr. Powell: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. I Approval of a quotation from Augusta Sash and Door regarding renovations of the Clerk's Office, was read. I I I The Deputy Clerk: This is a sole source item. Mr. Dave Whittington checked prices with various suppliers. Mr. Wall: If it's a sole source and they've checked around, then it would be valid to accept it and approve it. Mr. Powell: We may want to recommend to Finance that they look over the rules for Purchasing for both the City and County and come back with a unified set of rules. Mr. Wall: As part of the code that will be presented to you, there will be some purchasing rules and procedures for the consolidated government so that is already being done. Mr. Brigham: I move it be approved. Mr. Powell: Second. Motion adopted with Mr. Bridges voting "Present". The Committee next considered approval of a quotation regarding renovations of the Mayor's Office, was read. The Deputy Clerk: The low quotation is from J. H. Cleveland Company. Mr. Powell: I move for approval. Mr. Brigham: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. Tabulation of bids opened January 31, 1996 for a 1996 Sedan, was read. The Deputy Clerk: We recommend the low bid of Johnson Motor Company in the amount of $28,817.00. Mr. Powell: I move for approval. Mr. Brigham: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next discussed insurance requirements for Augusta-Richmond County. Mr. Etheridge: This is more or less general liability insurance. We put this out for a bid but we need to come to a decision on what we're going to do with the property insurance and worker's comp about whether we're going to put that together or not. Mr. Wall: We have policies maturing at different dates. The general liability, as you may recall, you've got an I additional 60-day binder so that we now have 70 days of coverage on automobile, general liability insurance. We'll bring that back at the first meeting in March. The County's property damage, insurance for the building, fire damage, casualty damage to the buildings, expires June 30 of this year. The City's runs through December 31. Workers compensation, both the City and county renewed third party administrator contracts but you have separate insurers that insure the excess. We felt like we needed to get this on the floor for you to make some decisions, give guidance as far as whether or not at some point it all needed to be packaged together and submitted out for proposals and whether you wanted to try to get everything running on a calendar year so that everything comes up for renewal at the same time. Right now we have a mix of the dates that they are up for renewal. You could accept this as information and give us guidance as to how you want to deal with it. Mr. Etheridge: There are companies who will come in and make recommendations to you. Their fee is based on the overall amount that you're insuring. And on the health insurance, it's based on a per employee, per diem type situation. I recommend we put it on a calendar year because everything else revolves around a calendar year. Mr. Chairman: Why don't we establish a sub-committee to work with John and Jim? Ulmer, would you do that? I Mr. Bridges: Yes. The Committee next discussed the policy for new hires for workers compensation, personnel policies, employee benefits and salary structure. Mr. Etheridge: We've come to the point that we will be hiring new people. It will create a problem on the workers compensation because it depends on what payroll they end up on as far as workers compensation. The state Board of Workers Compensation bases your payment based on your payroll. They are not interested in coming in here and auditing two payrolls. They've made that very clear. When they audit they want to look at one payroll and I'm bringing this more or less as information also that we need to work toward putting the payrolls together. The personnel policies I hope to bring to you two meetings from now. The employee benefits will be toward the end of the year. On the salary structure, we need to make a determination if we're going to put them on the former City side or the County side. Bringing them on the higher side of the structure is going to create further disparities and I'm concerned about that. Mr. Wall: The Commission-Council needs to decide before anyone is hired what benefit package and what workers compensation coverage they're going to be covered under. The I I I I third party contract that the City signed specifically said it covers those employees. Typically, you're not allowed to have but one workers compensation carrier for an employer and the reason for that is that employee and the employer need to know who is going to cover the claims. Our recommendation is that you name HRH as the carrier for any workers compensation claims against a newly hired employee of the consolidated government. Likewise, you also need to tell a newly hired employee which medical insurance package he will be covered under. Mr. Brigham: I move that HRH be named the carrier for workers' compensation. Mr. Powell: I'll second that. After further discussion, Mr. Powell: motion that we table this issue until they bring it back to the Committee. I make a substitute get it together and Mr. Bridges: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next discussed the Safety Review Committee - penalty matrix/begin with clean slate. Mr. Etheridge: We're asking that we be able to utilize the Safety Review Committee that has been utilized in the County. This Committee reviews all accidents in the County and they apply a penalty matrix which does result in a financial penalty to the employee if found at fault. We'll start everybody off with the clean slate. Mr. Powell: I move for approval. Mr. Brigham: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next discussed the Risk Management Policy Manual. Mr. Etheridge: We're asking that you approve that we can use the Risk Management Manual that we have used in the County for some time. Mr. Powell: I move for approval. Mr. Brigham: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next discussed the methodology for hiring a secretary for JLEC. Mr. Etheridge: I was asked to make a recommendation on that. There are three ways of doing this. We can make this job a full-time job with benefits, we can go outside and go through a temporary agency and hire somebody or we can set up a public corporation and do it or we can leave it as is. This position exists as a temporary position. They have asked that it be made full-time with benefits. It is vacant right now. I Mr. Wall: This position is to work with the transition team to keep up with the construction documents as the Jails, Fourth Street and Phinizy Road, are being constructed. At the end of that construction, the original job description will have been fulfilled but you have a permanent employee at that point that you've either got to transfer to a different department, redefine the job responsibilities or find some justification to terminate him or her. Mr. Powell: I move that we make it a full-time position with benefits and that we give strong consideration through the normal hiring procedure to some of the city employees that lost their jobs. Mr. Brigham: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next discussed Employment/Hiring Procedure. I Mr. Etheridge: Since November we have been doing very little hiring except in the public safety areas. I went through the employment process we have and listed in numbers the number of employees on each side of the fence. I don't think we need to exceed either one of these numbers in any way. I think we need to hold at the numbers that we are with no new positions being recreated. Mr. Powell: I move that we receive this as information. Mr. Bridges: Second. Mr. Etheridge: I just thought about something. In the conversation that Jim Wall and I had, we wanted to go with the City benefit structure and the City salary structure because on the salary structure it was a little bit less and that would prevent us from having further salary disparities. We did have that conversation and I'm sorry I didn't remember it before. I would recommend that you adopt that for the new government structure, the former City benefit structure and the former City salary structure and let us start putting those people on those two areas because we will start hiring some people this week. Motion adopted unanimously. I I I I Communication from the Interim Attorney submitting a "First Amendment to the Home Housing Rehabilitation Program Funding Agreement", was read. Mr. Mack: This is a contract extension with Georgia Housing Finance Authority for the housing rehab program we are currently operating. The amendment will change the contract duration to six months ending June 30, 1996. Mr. Powell: I move for approval. Mr. Brigham: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. The Committee next considered an R.F.P. for Internal Auditor. Mr. Handy: Last Tuesday we passed out a proposal from one entity concerning the Internal Auditor job. We are asking all those who are interested in this position to apply and give us a proposal for it. Mr. Powell: I move that we receive this as information. Mr. Bridges: Second. Motion adopted unanimously. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. Nancy W. Morawski Deputy Clerk of Commission-Council NWM