Work Session
January 3, 2011
Present: Mayor Grenier and Councilors Remillard, Landry, McCue, Evans (arrived at 7:16), Rozek, and Poulin. Councilors Danderson and Cayer were absent. Also present: Pat MacQueen, Andre Caron, Fire Chief Trull, Assistant Fire Chief Thaddeus Soltys II, PD Chief Morency, Finance Director Elizabeth Domino, citizens and the press.
Mayor Grenier opened the Work Session at 6:30 p.m.
Fire Chief Trull gladly introduced newly hired Assistant Chief Thaddeus Soltys II. Chief Trull is excited to begin this new year, and added he has very positive feelings about Berlin’s future. He said that Mr. Soltys has lots to bring to Berlin and we are fortunate to have him on board.
Assistant Chief Soltys gave Council a brief synopsis of his firefighting career which began when he started at 14 years old as a volunteer. He has various degrees and an extensive background and brings many years of experience and training to this position. He is happy to be here and looks forward to working with everyone.
Mayor Grenier welcomed Assistant Chief Soltys to this great city and knows he will be an asset to that department.
Councilor Rozek directed his question to Chief Trull and asked now that he has an assistant, will he begin the inspections on the east side apartments. Now will the Assistant Chief be able to pick up duties and fulfill obligations to do that work. Councilor Rozek reminded Chief Trull that he previously had given an eleven month time frame for that work.
Chief Trull replied they will be more aggressive with multi-family dwellings. The new Assistant Chief does need a time line to get acquainted with the area. They plan to tackle 30 buildings in the near future.
Mayor Grenier is excited about the caliber of experience Mr. Soltys brings and this is a big step forward for this department.
Chief Trull said this has a positive effect and will be progressive in other areas. He will begin a strict fee schedule to start making income to offset the cost of filling the vacancy through multi-family dwelling inspections. He is ecstatic to have the new Assistant Chief on board.
Finance Department Operations Assessment Report
Mayor Grenier recalled that Councilor Poulin talked the rest of the Council to agree to hire someone to look at the operations of the Finance Department to see if they were maximizing the current equipment and personnel. The result was the progress report before the Mayor and Council.
Betty Domino, Finance Director, went over the report with the Mayor and Council. She said that Maura came over from Yarmouth Maine and talked to Sandy, Lucille, Florence and herself in person and spoke to Elaine on the phone. Maura did say there were places they could improve such as changing some software around to give other departments tasks such as time sheets, etc. An example is payroll for the Public Works Department. Some employees have five different pay rates depending on the jobs they did that week. Betty did agree with Maura that to make things work better they have to begin by looking at supplemental spreadsheets. The current software is not user friendly and they have to look into getting rid of the manual processes but MuniSmart has to come in to do the training. Accounts Receivable is
also a function that needs to be reviewed and MuniSmart said that is in the existing system but they have no manuals.
One big factor is in training users how to work the system. There is also lots of redundancy with the schools for both payroll and accounts payable due to the fact that we have two different systems. The schools bought a new system a few years back and it is not compatible with the city system which is very time consuming. The schools could do their own bank reconciliation if we had compatible systems. We do need their numbers for our general ledger to make things balance.
Mayor Grenier agreed that the present way to run these functions sounds archaic and leaves the door open for hanky-panky with finances.
Betty concurs that it makes bank balances more difficult to figure out.
Councilor Poulin emphasized that the beauty is to get instant reports to run the show. Manual spreadsheets slow the speed of business all the time. Software is designed to show numbers and should be used as such.
According to Betty, MuniSmart came to Berlin to initially train the staff with their new system years ago. It is time they come back to retrain and show us what else the system can do for us.
The City Manager agrees it makes sense to have one system. There are two ways to get one system. One is to have someone build a program the other is to buy existing software. Tyler Technologies is the current school software program and it might be easier to write a program to bridge the city and schools together.
Councilor Poulin asked which system Maura chose. He also thinks it would be nice to have a new system so one would be secure while the other is being implemented.
Councilor Remillard stressed that we need to get that bridge to get the school and city working together.
Betty replied that a software technician can come to do that for both.
Councilor Poulin stated that support is more important than one person there to patch something together.
Betty replied that the problem might be to upgrade the program.
Mayor Grenier agrees that follow through done by a vendor is imperative so they know what is going on and it would be better than a savvy computer tech. The Finance Department needs something right away. We can’t lose sight of the purpose of trying to get rid of a full time person.
Betty specified that Maura ultimately thought it was going to be difficult, if impossible, to do anything short-staffed. All Betty can do right now is to catch things before they hit the floor. She is getting backed up since she is still doing the Assistant Comptroller work. That position is the only backup for the entire office and she was short-staffed over the Holidays. She has no backup for her own position at all.
In conclusion, Mayor Grenier would like to see a combined school and city account payable through attrition structured correctly and all operates perfectly. Maura made a number of recommendations like to stop 6 or 7 from ordering the same thing which is losing the efficiency of scale. They don’t, however, want to leave the Finance Department short so she can’t do the job. They need to keep someone on board to make the department more efficient and more foolproof so no $500,000 hole can be found.
Councilor Landry said according to the report a manual system is still being used for PO’s which seems archaic. He understands the time wasted by doing things manually but what bothers him most is whether it is the culture that the PO’s are done manually or is it someone being stubborn. Betty explained that they did not know that the system had that capability and was not set up properly. They have to get a requisition first and then the PO is automatically numbered. Councilor Landry then inquired whose fault that was. He added, “you can buy the best system but if don’t know how to use it, it’s worthless.”
Betty does not know why that was never taken care of but we do need to get them here to retrain.
The City Manager clarified that MuniSmart was purchased for an accounting system. A year ago they tried to get a purchasing system going and looked at it hard. They got relayed with more important priority items and with no purchasing agent on board, it never got done. In general the departments get what they need but sometimes it is compromised because not everyone follows the ordinance perfectly but it works well. He looked at everything in the report and still strongly argues that the Assistant Comptroller position is critical to implement these changes and to help or improve these things.
Mayor Grenier can support Council hiring a person at the bottom as an Assistant Comptroller and given a time frame of when we can get from point a-z because we can’t keep driving the bus as driven. The expectation is to take it at face value and move forward to streamline the accounting system. He would support this because have holes in training and it would be too easy to steal money and not get caught.
The City Manager is concerned that what has been said is very doable but you can’t control retirements. You can however reduce staff as people retire.
Councilor Remillard hears that but we do need to know if the system is sufficient to do what we need to do or do we buy a new system to get together with the school. It makes no sense to hire a person to train on an old system then have to retrain them on a new one.
The City Manager understands the school has a fairly new system and our system is also fairly new and does what we want it to do. The real issue is how to separate both and find out what would be better. Neither has an out-of-date system.
Councilor Remillard could support hiring once we know what we need to get this structure into effect. We need to stop double-posting and have one input. We need an up-to-date system and need to train others how to use it. She agrees you can’t have just one person running the show.
Councilor McCue is pleased with the report since he was not sure what they were going to get. He is especially glad about the comments regarding central purchasing. He asked Betty if there was anything about the recommendations in the report that she did not agree with. Betty replied “not really.”
Betty added that there are lots of deficiencies that take time and payroll is just one example. The current system takes three days to get the payroll out so improvements need to be made. If we could get the new system up and running we could eventually cut back in the department. She can’t keep up day-to-day so there is no possible way this could be done without help. The system we have is not that old and is a local company that can write programs and tweak the system for what we need. Tyler Technologies is based in Texas.
Mayor Grenier is sensitive to Councilor Remillard’s statements. That said, he can support hiring a new person when he sees a detailed plan of attack to move forward to streamline operations. It is imperative to streamline the Finance Department to eliminate all costs. Sometimes you need to spend money to save money. Council needs a detailed plan to hold somebody to it and it may take 8 or 9 months to get there.
Councilor Poulin agrees this is the time to do it but would prefer not to wait so long. Three months should be plenty of time to set a goal to see what you want to do and to know where you want to go. He would like to see Betty come to Council one more time to see what is the best path forward and not just talk man hours but efficiency that will save money in the long run. It is imperative and needs to happen sooner than later.
The City Manager confirmed that he and Betty will try to put something together by the 24th.
Renaming 12th Street Bridge Discussion
Mayor Grenier received a letter from Dave Dubey asking Council to consider renaming the 12th Street Bridge to Vietnam Veteran Richard Demers. Mayor Grenier knows there are seven Berlin veterans that were killed in Vietnam. Since it would be hard to choose one over another, his recommendation would be to could call it the “Vietnam Memorial Bridge” and have a plaque with all 7 names listed. Mayor Grenier asked for Council feedback on the issue.
Councilor Poulin would be proud to do that and it would make sense. He supports this initiative.
Councilor Rozek suggested a review of the names and details of the record since it should be people who died in the line of duty in the Republic of Vietnam. He is in full support of that as well and added that many other cities do that too.
Mayor Grenier while visiting the traveling Vietnam Wall in Gorham noticed that they left out one person from Berlin. He reminded them that a seventh name should be listed. They were a little embarrassed that they left that name out. The reason he knows this is that the person is buried behind his Father-in-Law in the City Cemetery.
Councilor McCue concurs it is a good way to handle the request. It is fitting and appropriate that the Veterans of that era are memorialized.
Mayor Grenier purposefully did not have the folks here for discussion tonight. He would like to have a meeting with them on January 24th and suggests a dedication in conjunction with the Memorial Day Ceremonies. He is sensitive to what the Veterans want and would like their ok. He asked that staff contact the VFW, American Legion and the Marine Corps League.
Other
Councilor Rozek asked if it was possible to have performance audits conducted for other city departments to report any inefficiencies in city government. He then asked Police Chief Morency if the department has any satellite radios in their vehicles. The chief replied that they do not since it is too costly a plan.
Mayor Grenier related that at the County level they spent $50,000 for a performance audit as well to see if there were any deficiencies in their operations.
Councilor McCue hopes that CAP will review the Planning Board minutes regarding the sale of 411 School Street since there were lots of contingencies and reports to review. CAP can go back and review pertinent issues such as traffic, etc. to see what happened during the previous sale.
Andre Caron interjected that they have to see if they have a business plan first. They might be starting from scratch due to a different use like parking, etc.
Adjourn. There being no further business in the Work Session at this time, Mayor Grenier declared the Work Session adjourned at approximately 7:25 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Debra A. Patrick, CMC
City Clerk
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