Crestview council searches for places for budget cuts

At its Monday night meeting, the Crestview City Council heard suggestions from council President Charles Baugh Jr. for places to look while searching for areas to cut spending as it debates next year’s city budget. The council is already taking heat from residents disgruntled by a possible millage increase to offset an anticipated sharp decline in revenue.

Baugh asked the council to consider savings that might be found by outsourcing the city’s janitorial services. The intention was to compare the costs of continuing to use city workers to clean city facilities or to contract with an outside provider. Three department heads have so far provided specifications for cleaning their facilities for the cost comparison.

Public Works Director Wayne Steele pointed out that services such as floor stripping and waxing can generally be done less expensively in-house, and should not be included in the bid parameters.

The need for a city-wide information technology (IT) service contract was also discussed.

“I would like all the department heads to touch base with Mr. [Mike] Wing [Administrative Services director] or Miss [Janice] Young [city clerk],” Baugh said. “We need to find some way to find one person or a contractor to serve our needs if it realizes some savings to the city.”

Fire Chief Joe Traylor expressed concern that some IT specialists are not familiar with the unique requirements of his department’s unique public safety systems that require special expertise to administer.

After discussion, Baugh clarified that all he wants is to “provide IT services to the city of Crestview at a savings to the city.”

Another budget contract item Baugh addressed was animal control. Wing said he has already been considering the suggestion and will be able to report at the next council meeting on the findings of his investigation.

Baugh also said he wanted to look at the cost of dispatch services for emergency services, including fire and police.

“All I’m trying to do is prepare us to be in the position that if we decide to go with an outside source, we will know how much it’s going to cost,” explained Baugh, stressing that contracting out the services under discussion is by no means going to definitely happen. Gathering information on potential outsourcing will help the council make a decision on whether savings would be significant enough while planning the city’s budget, he said.

City attorney Ben Holley reminded the council that by gathering bids the council is not obligated to accept them. If the council didn’t like the amounts of the bids, they do not have to act on them.

The council unanimously approved directing staff to prepare reports on contracts for the services discussed.

Toward the end of the meeting, Baugh also requested the council to review two city ordinances:

Ordinance 1066 concerns non-exempt and exempt employees’ automatic 3 percent raises. “The automatic raise lassos our budget and takes an amount of budget from us each year. The 3 percent puts a demand on [our budget],” Baugh said.

“My purpose is to consider whether or not we need to rescind this pay raise” to free the council from its constraints when planning a budget, Baugh said.

Ordinance 0405 establishes a policy that allows city employees to sell accumulated sick leave to other employees who might have lengthy illnesses. Baugh asked the council to consider whether it should rescind or revise the ordinance, as “It is a budgetary concern.”

In other business, the council:

• Unanimously approved the lowest bid for repairing pond six at Ashley Place. The eight bids ranged from $42,045 by low bidder C-Miles Construction of Panama City to $86,930 submitted by Gulf Atlantic Constructors of Pensacola.

In response to a question from Councilman Tim Grandberry, who wondered if the high bid was due to the bidder misunderstanding the parameters of the project specifications, Councilman Ben Iannucci explained that in his experience, such a high bid usually indicated the bidder was not interested in actually doing the project, or was hoping they might land a high-paying job.

• Unanimously approved a request presented by Wing, who was representing the Main Street Crestview Association, for the second Music and Arts on Main Street festival, to be held on Aug. 13.

• Discussed the issue of crossing guards, which Mayor David Cadle has discussed with the police department and principals. “It might a situation where parent volunteers would provide that service,” Cadle suggested. “As school gets started, we’ll watch for a couple weeks to see any patterns.”

“A lot of cities have volunteers,” noted Councilwoman Linda Parker. “That should work out.”

Councilman Bob Allen reminded the council that “for years the schools provided crossing guards,” describing how senior students, who wore special belts while on duty, trained and considered it an honor to serve as crossing guards. “It might be a program for schools to try to think about,” Allen said.