CBAC QUESTIONS 2011

Condo Fees
 This comment is regarding condo fees owed by the city. Where in the
budget would they be reflected? One is for the Tepper's basement and one
is for the senior center in the Monarch building.
http://plaintalker.blogspot.com/2010/04/city-owns-two-condos.html
As far as I know, both are owed and neither has been paid.

Fire Department
 Fire Department; there is an ARC home on Knollwood. Once or twice a
month there is a full department response to this home, probably from in
the house sensor. With the number of these tax exempt properties in the
city what is the yearly cost to us? Is there any County or State funding to
cover at least part of this burden?

 What can the fire department do to reduce the number of shifts worked per
year? Right now they seem to be moving personnel from administrative to
operational. That's a start, but limited. Can they use "brown outs" to idle
equipment (and therefore personnel) during known periods of lighter
activity? Can they permanently reduce equipment in service by
consolidating response responsibilities with neighboring communities?

 In general, I believe that the number of firefighters and officers is simply

determined by multiplying out the number needed per truck per shift. So
the operative question is: how was the number of trucks determined? What
recent data was carefully analyzed to determine the optimum mix of
equipment? Or is the number just by default, as in, "This is what we bought
in the past based on past experience, so we may as well staff them".

 Have we considered not replacing aging equipment? Any future purchase or

lease should only be acquired after very care deliberation by the council
after receiving extensive written evidence by the fire department to
support their request. Remember, less equipment not only saves the
purchase cost but also staffing salaries and benefits for every year into the
future.

 Beyond the 2010 FY, what's the projection for the next 3-5 years? Why can't
we budget like a business and project now into the foreseeable future and
act on that instead of always reacting to this year's crisis?

1
 CBAC QUESTIONS 2011

PMUA
 Why do residents have to pay the PMUA for "shared services" when the city,
through taxes, already provides the PMUA with payments? This has
everything to do with affordability in Plainfield.

 Give us 5 good reasons why PMUA shouldn't be reincorporated into the city.
You might even get a CFO in the process. It appears that many professional
services contracts are excessive and contracts are given to the same people
all the time. These people typically are supporters of politicians. What
percentage of the contracts stemming from Department of Public Works and
Urban Development go out to competitive bid?

Police Department
 Since salaries and benefits for City Hall is the biggest cost factor, has the
administration considered outsourcing any or the entire Police department?
There is precedence for this being done in other cities. Has the
administration looked into this?

 Why not cross train the secretaries that are scheduled to become part-time
employees? Then perhaps they can fill in some of the overtime rather than
the high salaried officers? Also quite a few of our officers are out of shape
which make them a health risk for the city (worker's compensation and
claims. According to Corporation Counsel those are the majority of the
cases the city litigates. I suggest the officers and fire fighters
annually undergo physical agility test every year to allow them to keep
their positions or should I say continue to receive pay increases. 

 Has there been any thought in outsourcing some or the entire police
department? It has been done in other cities, so there is precedent

 What factors/criteria were considered in determining/formulating the size

of our police force?   

 Does the Police Dept. follow a recognized model or "best practices" in

determining agency size?

2
 CBAC QUESTIONS 2011

 This question concerns the PBA, PBOA, FOA, FOA Rank and File contract. In
the last contract which covered the years from 2008 – 2009 the inflation
rates were 2.8, 3.8, and -.04 respectively. Salary increases were 3.75 each
year. What justification do the police have in getting raises that are over
the inflation rate (especially during these times)?

 In coming up with your budget recommendations, what alternative ideas

concerning the utilization of manpower were discussed and how does the
final budget proposal compare in terms of the number of personnel required
and the associated costs of implementation and effectiveness? Is there a
reduction in cost?

Inspections
 Since the schedule of inspections are dictated by contract, is the city
negotiating with Inspections so that we have someone from the office
working at least one day of the week end, since a good majority of
infractions occur during Saturday and Sunday?

 What has the Inspections Department done to look for additional ways to
increase revenue? Have they looked to other cities to see how they have
increased revenue? If they have not, will they? If not, why not? When will
the citizens know what they have found out if they do additional research?

 Inspections Department - If they are laying off 1 secretarial position, why

would they hire an inspector trainee, when they have, according to Oscar
Turk 4 code enforcers and 2 code enforcer supervisors that are also trained
to be in the field? If you ask me that totals 6 (could be field) workers.

Engineering
 There have been issues with the repaving of the roads and curbs. Areas are
now flooding where they had not been before, and water drains have been
covered where they should not be. Who is responsible for fixing these
issues? Are the taxpayers footing the bill for the outsourced engineering
mistakes?

 What efficiency metrics are used to show the taxpayers how well their
money is being managed? Can we see a comparison of engineering costs in
Plainfield verses other cities?

3
 CBAC QUESTIONS 2011

 What is the advantage of having an outsourced engineer vs. an employee?

How long has the engineer been with Plainfield, and what is the turnover
rate?

Corporation Counsel
 Who negotiates the city contracts (specifically – is it Mr. Williamson or
outsourced attorneys. If outsourced, is their area of expertise contract
law?)
 Why are contract salaries negotiated for higher than the inflation rate?

 If Corporation Counsel needs to increase his hourly rate for attorneys, the
assumption is that he will be hiring new attorneys. If we keep the same
people, only giving them more money, we are essentially giving them a
raise, not getting better people (the argument for increasing the hourly
rate). Question - will the attorneys that are to be paid at a higher salary
be the same ones we are hiring now?

 Now that we have 3 city attorney's (1) full-time and (2) part-time, they
should consider having them prosecute the city cases during the morning
(9:00 a.m.) and afternoon (1:00 p.m.) sessions at the municipal court here
in Plainfield. We currently have 3 prosecutors and 3 public defenders on
salary. If the city attorney's prosecuted the court cases, that could perhaps
be a tremendous savings to the budget by reducing the number of outside
prosecutors to (1). I'm sure they should be able to adjust their private
practices to accommodate the city at such a critical time. We must
remember the (2) part-time attorney's John Motta hired to fulfill 25 hrs. per
week and Lucas Phillips hired to fulfill 20 hrs. per week. Thus I feel this
should allow them to still have in-house office time.

Municipal Court

Why would they make the Deputy Court Administrator part-time when they
just rehired Mr. Jaramillo who is not civil service certified (docket clerk)
(that is why he was laid-off in the 2/17/10 round). I would think they should
have made him part-time, considering Ms. Slaughters responsibilities and
certifications? My other question is why they brought him back on the
budget document as a clerk transcriber, yet in the documents distributed
during the budget deliberations by Judge Gross and Ms. Sanchez, he's a
docket clerk making approx. 2,000 more than the other (3) certified docket
clerks? 

4
 CBAC QUESTIONS 2011

 How many hours does the Municipal Judge Robinson Gross work?

Administration

 What is the administration doing to use the most cost effective devices on the
network which will reduce costs printers, copiers, faxes?

 How do we know that the layoff plan will result in a reduction of expense?

 How are the people chosen for layoffs? How do we know that the most
efficient employees are staying (those who are tech savvy and are most
efficient at their work)?

 Why are we not planning now for the 2%? Why is there is no long term planning
for the city?

 How many city employees are related to other city employees? (This speaks to
efficiency)

Recreation
 Why does Lenny Cathcart get a salary for his basketball program paid
through the Dept of Rec's budget? Isn't everyone a volunteer?

 Regarding recreation: How much is budgeted for non-sports activities versus

sports?

 What's the breakdown of boys' sports activities versus girls' sports activities?

 What is the breakdown of the recreation activities s by activity, season, age

and gender for the past 3-5 years?

 How many of the hired seasonal coaches or adult facilitators are men? How
many are women?

 How many people use each pool each year? What is the cost to run each
pool?

 What adult activities are provided by the recreation department?

Public Works

5
 CBAC QUESTIONS 2011

 What functions do you believe could be outsourced if necessary?

 Why can you not use the Fire or Police department personnel to do non
critical Public Works functions?