Richard D. Woycik, Chair
James S. Belden
Daniel Amaral
Chris LaRocque
DRAFT
Legislative Council Public Works Sub Committee
Minutes for Meeting of January 14, 2010
Attendees: Richard D. Woycik, Daniel Amaral, Chris LaRocque, James Belden
Richard Woycik opened the meeting with the election of a recording secretary. A motion was made to elect James Belden for this. Mr. Belden accepted and the group unanimously voted in favor. No members of the public were in attendance.
Mr. Woycik directed a review of the findings and recommendations of the Legislative Council Ad Hoc Facilities Committee Interim Report dated November 18, 2009. Explaining that the Legislative Council had charged the Public Works Committee with a review of the four recommendations on page 6 of the document which pertain to maintenance procedures, work tracking and cost analysis for Town Departments. Two items are suggested to be implemented in the current 2009-2010 fiscal year, one in fiscal year 2010-2011 and the fourth in fiscal year 2011-2012.
Discussion of the issues leading to the suggestions ensued. Mr. Amaral described the concerns he had over basic cost and labor oversight, the need for expensive equipment and overtime. Mr. Woycik agreed that the basis for many issues appear to be related to supervision of projects and assurances that planning and oversight is being conducted thoroughly. Mr. Belden agreed and added that there is a long list of projects for a given year which are easily pushed off schedule due to emergency and opportunistic projects. Also that there may be an overabundance of resources at times to ensure their availability when needed, but there is a crucial need to plan and oversee projects better and account for costs.
The group discussed the reality of significant cross-department maintenance and project work. Particularly where the Public Works resources are called upon. The group agreed that this was often necessary but that we needed to ensure accounting for all expenses by project and department. a particular area of concern is the need for separate maintenance functions provided by the Board of Education and the Town. Agreement among members that there are likely synergies and saving available by scrutinizing the current methods.
Mr. Woycik expressed the benefit of documenting the aggregate cost of a project by using the separate cost components by all parties, which enables a fair accounting. He also expressed that all department staff understand the fiscal climate and that particularly in tough times greater scrutiny is expected of and by all.
Mr. Larocque agreed that project management is key and that staff will be key in process for instituting these practices if the Council forwards the recommendations.
Mr. Woycik proposed that we recommend each item separately to the full Council with the recommendation that items one through three be adopted and implemented while suggesting further discussion by the full Council on number four. The concern is over the responsibility of the Council to perform the tasks associated with this item and whether if the Council realistically could take this on.
Further discussion resulted in a unanimous agreement. Consequently, a motion was made by Chris Larocque, second Daniel Amaral, to forward a recommendation to the full Legislative Council that recommendations one through three, as follows, be implemented;
1) To be Implemented in the 2009-2010 fiscal year- Develop procedures to track maintenance work that is shared across departments.
2) (also fy 2009-2010) Implement the work tracking software in the Public Works Department
3) To be accomplished in the 2010-2011 fiscal year or sooner- Implement the work tracking feature in the Parks and Recreation and the Board of Education Maintenance Departments
The motion passed unanimously, 4 ayes.
A second motion was made by Chris Larocque, second by Daniel Amaral, to recommend for further discussion recommendation four;
4) To be accomplished in the 2011-2012 fiscal year- Complete a study of whether consolidating town-wide maintenance in one department would lead to greater efficiencies and cost savings, using the hard data generated ffrom technology programs that track the cost of work.
The motion passed unanimously, 4 ayes.
The meeting adjourned at 8:15PM. No further meetings were scheduled at this time.
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