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HomeMy WebLinkAbout220728 -- City Council -- Agenda Questions Council questions and staff responses for items on July 28, 2022 City Council Meeting 8.2. Presentation, discussion, and possible action on an interlocal government agreement with Brazos County for the conduct and management of the City of College Station General and Special Election that will be held on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Sponsors: Tanya Smith Question: Can we approve this ILA since it includes services for both the General and Special Election since the Special Election for Place 5 has not yet been called? I understand that special election will not come to us until the August 11 Council meeting. I hope we can move this forward now but would not want to have any legal questions. Response: Yes, we can move forward with this ILA. All it is contracting with the county to run our elections, both general and special. Question: Cover sheet says place 5 is for an unexpired 3 year term, but CSTX website (https://www.cstx.gov/departments___city_hall/council ) says Nichols’ term expires in Nov 2024, which would be an unexpired 2 year term. Can you please explain how both of these statements be true? Response: This was a typo. It is a 2 year unexpired term. My apologies on this. 8.4. Presentation, discussion, and possible action regarding a Community Development Block Grant funding agreement with Catholic Charities of Central Texas in the amount of $140,683 in Community Development Block Grant - CARES Act funds for rent, utilities, and case management through the Brazos Valley Financial Stability Program - COVID 19 for those College Station residents impacted by COVID-19. Sponsors: David Brower Question: From the cover sheet – how much of the $1.2 million did UP receive in the original CARES funding? For this current proposal, how many of the 130 families are new to needing assistance, or are they families that have been needing assistance since the beginning of Covid and this is providing additional assistance to the same families? Since the goal is to “improve family stability”, is there a metric to measure that success? Response: Please find a breakdown of funding by Agency for previous CARES Act (CDBG-CV) Funding: • College Station ISD: $500,000.00 • Catholic Charities of Central Texas $140,000.00 • Project Unity $125,250.00 • Brazos Valley Food Bank $403,708.00 • Unlimited Potential $42,409.00 It is unknown how many of the proposed families to be served will be new to needing assistance; however, due to current economic conditions, Catholic Charities has seen an increase in families needing assistance for the first time. Please find the Housing Stability Assessment tool attached. Catholic Charities uses this tool in their Financial Stability Program to measure impacts on family stability. 8.6. Presentation, discussion, and possible action regarding the renewal 1 of a contract with National Field Services, Inc., for Annual Electric Substation Maintenance in the amount of $133,333. Sponsors: Timothy Crabb Question: Taking a moment to celebrate the bidder was BOTH the lowest bid AND the highest scorer. A rare combination worth noting. Is this a ratification? I noticed the term started July 23 and we are considering it July 28. Response: This the agenda item is a formal request to proceed with the 2nd year renewal of Contract 21300581 for National Field Services. We utilize the contactor for Substation Maintenance and Testing on an as needed basis through a 3-Year Contract with annual renewals. The reason for the contract extension was due to prolonged delays from the Vendor regarding price increase, Certificate of Insurance, and Vendor’s Legal reviews. The extension of the contract changed the date for Renewal one from July 23rd to July 29th. 8.8. Presentation, discussion, and possible action regarding a professional services contract with Kimley Horn and Associates, Inc. in the amount of $1,371,000 for the Northeast Sewer Trunk Line Phase IV project. Sponsor: Jennifer Cain Question: Did we put out for other offers, or solely asked Kimley Horn? Is the map showing that the line goes thru the city of Bryan ? Also, I noted the contract included 144 labor hours totaling $25, 400 for tree protection. How many trees are protected for that much investment of time and money? Response: A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) was issued in 2016 (RFQ 16-078) for the Northeast Trunk Line, and the City received 5 responses. Kimley-Horn (KHA) was selected. The contract was awarded to KHA, the scope of work included design of Phase I and Preliminary Engineering Reports (PERs) for Phases for II-IV. Since KHA did the design for Phase 1 and PERs for Phases II-IV, they were chosen for the remainder of the phases as it was a continuation project. In 2018, a contract was issued to KHA for the design of Phase 2, and in 2019 a contract was issued for the design of Phase 3. The current alignment is planned to go down Rosemary Drive which is within the City of Bryan. There are ongoing discussions relating to a forthcoming Interlocal Agreement (ILA) to address this. Any ILAs will come to the City Council for approval. KHA has included the items below in their scope related to tree protection. KHA will provide the design (plans and specifications) for the work to be performed by a contractor at a later date. The specific number of trees has not yet been determined but will be as part of their scope as outlined below. • Tree Protection Plan o Identify areas where tree removal will be required due to construction o Identify trees that will be removed and trees that shall be protected o Prepare tree protection plan showing size and type of trees to be removed and protected o Prepare tree protection details Question: Could you provide a brief summary of the Capital plan for this sewer trunk line. I am supportive but see that the budget available as listed is just enough for the detailed engineering plans. Is the Capital construction plan with funding a separate project? Or yet to be funded? Also, please explain the connection between this project and the work that was done under Cooner Street several years ago. I thought at that was also a large sewer line to relieve some of the area along University Drive. Response: This overall project is a multiphase wastewater line improvement project that serves the northernmost areas of College Station including Northgate. This is the fourth, last, and most upstream phase generally between Hensel Park and SH 6. This fourth phrase primarily serves Northgate and the increased flows from growth in recent years and is designed to have additional capacity for future development. As part of the proposed FY23 Capital budget the construction portion will be appropriated for the project. All of this will be on the same project. We normally only appropriate budget on CIP projects to cover the contract we have coming up in that fiscal year. Design was planned for FY22 and construction in FY23. The Hensel lift station forces flow currently down Cooner St. The city improved Cooner Street in 2014. The decision was made to improve the sewer line at the same time, so if this were determined to be the long term final route the road would not need to be repaired/reconstructed. The improvements are currently adequately sized. However additional work will need to be done to upsize the Hensel Park lift station and force main to accommodate future development. 8.9. Presentation, discussion, and possible action to approve the provision of services by Spherion Staffing LLC (“Spherion”) for Temporary employment Services by approving Letter Amendment No. 1 which amends the annual estimated expenditure amount for the current Renewal 1 contract term with an increase of $90,000. Sponsors: Alison Pond Question: I could not find the contract in the packet. What does the 190 K pay for exactly? How many temp workers does that provide? How many temp workers do we currently as of July 28th have on staff? I realize it fluctuates, but please take a snap shot of any day this week for an example. Response: Since the beginning of the fiscal year, we have had a total of 19 temps. These are between Municipal Court, Accounting, UCS, Purchasing and Parks departments. We currently have 6 temps on payroll as of July 28 (All Fiscal Services). These temporary hires are typically long term as opposed to short term fill in, with exception of several longer maternity leave situations. Municipal Court utilizes temps in a temp to hire capacity. They have hired 3 employees who have started out as temps. With a specified amount of time as a temp, there is no additional fee if we hire into a full-time hire. We review anticipated/projected usage each year to determine budget for temp services. The additional expenditures for this fiscal year for temporary services are for a few reasons. - Higher than anticipated usage of temporary support needed (competitive market challenges for hiring specific skillsets) - Higher rates of pay than originally anticipated/budgeted for based on the competitive market - Several unanticipated longer maternity leave situations requiring temporary coverage Expenditures for temporary services are billed at the department level. Contract is part of TAMU pricing/agreement with Spherion and is attached (we have had one renewal). 9.1. Presentation, discussion, and possible action regarding the Fiscal Year 2023 BVSWMA, Inc. budget. Sponsors: Pete Caler Question: From page 198 of our packet, the Hard to Handle rate minimum went from $2 this year to $50 FY 2023. Can I have some context to address the jump in the minimum ? Response: We received the following response from Brian Griesbach, Executive Director of BVSWMA: Twin Oaks did not previously have a hard-to-handle charge while most other landfill's do. This caused operational challenges as customers sometimes traveled from out of our typical market area to bring us handle materials such as railroad ties and unbroken concrete by the truckload. When these materials arrive in quantity, they are very difficult to manage and may cause damage to our equipment. Hard-to-handle material would be far too heavy to have ever qualified for the $2.00 minimum and has been charged the gate rate of $28.00/ton. The $2.00 minimum charge applies for loads up to about 130 pounds. In terms that may be more relatable, the new $30.00/ton gate rate calculates out to 1.5 cents per pound. The new hard-to-handle rate is 2.5 cents per pound. Question: From page 202 of our packet, the City of College Station is consistently projected to have more tons than Bryan – do we have more housing, or more business, or what factor contributes to that tonnage? Does our tonnage include TAMU’s refuse? Response: College Station has a higher population than Bryan and has disposed higher tonnages ever since we surpassed them in size. TAMU’s refuse is not included as part of the city’s tonnage. Question: From page 203 of our packet, I noted that there are $0 for “Office supplies – Educate” this year and projected far into the future, $0 budgeted. Does this mean BVSWMA is not doing educational outreach and has no plans to do any? Response: We received the following response from Brian Griesbach, Executive Director of BVSWMA: We provide ongoing education efforts for the Twin Oaks Household Hazardous Waste program. Most of the money spent on this effort and advertising falls under the "Community Support HHW" that is budgeted for $600,000 next year. We do not track office supplies separately and should probably eliminate that line-item from the budget. The Twin Oaks website also provides information about the HHW program and alternation disposal options, but we do not break-out any portion of the cost of maintaining the website and allocate it to an education line-item. Additional education efforts about the landfill are made via site-tours as well as guest lecturing for Texas A&M. 9.3. Public Hearing, presentation, discussion, and possible action on the City of College Station FY2022-2023 Proposed Budget. Sponsors: Mary Ellen Leonard Question: Summary sheet says we met July 20th, but we did not meet on July 20th. I remember that we plan to raise our policy of reserves to 20% from 18%, , based on this budget , what percentage is our expected FY2023 reserves? I understand there are assigned and unassigned, please use whichever is expected to be in the policy 20 % to define reserves in what our projected reserve will be. Response: The coversheet for the public hearing for the proposed budget is item 9.1 and was prepared and submitted for the agenda before the July 20th meeting was canceled. This was simply an oversight. The proposed budget reflects the policy change of 20% minimum reserve for the General Fund. In the Budget Workshops slide deck for the General Fund on page 40 is the Five Year Forecast. The total reserve is FY23 is budgeted to be 65% with the unassigned portion of the reserve 53%. The Liquidity Reserve % includes the required reserve percentage of 20% and an additional 6% for our bond rating.