At the current rate it is providing services — a rate residents have come to expect — Benicia’s resources eventually will be spread too thin, the City Council heard Tuesday.

The Council heard the results of a study of municipal operations from a consultant and city staff, the initial step in a multi-phase Sustainable Community Services Strategy (SCSS) designed to put Benicia on solid fiscal footing.

“This is the first time this information has been presented all in one place,” Assistant City Manager Anne Cardwell said. “It’s a long-term plan. Some of this is going to take time.”

“The major theme of this report is you have a breadth of services that are important to the community,” Management Partners senior partner Jan Perkins said.

But to keep providing those services, employees need more training and the technological tools to make city operations more efficient, the Council was told. They also need to be able to spend time on projects and tasks that may not seem important at the moment, but that if neglected could become severe — even critical — problems.

Perkins said the city “has no place to cut.” It’s already a lean operation, with department heads involved in day-to-day operations as well as managing their employees.

“You save money, but you lose ‘bench strength’ to move up,” she said, explaining that the city already has cut out most of its middle management.

Like other cities, Benicia is dealing with increasing turnover, while other cities compete to fill similar positions. It takes time, Perkins said, to teach new department heads “the Benicia way” of doing things. “With new people, it takes more time to get things done,” she added, advising a realistic view of undertaking new projects.

While the city may want to consider contracting out for some of its services, forming special districts, and consolidating or joining other agencies in the region to improve efficiency, “any time you change how a service is delivered it must be done thoughtfully and carefully,” Perkins said.

However, she suggested code enforcement and some maintenance functions might be consolidated; fire and public safety dispatch might be provided through a regional organization; and Benicia might contract for its lighting and landscape district maintenance, certain custodial work, sewer line videos and street striping.

The city also needs to look at core services as well as those that Cardwell called “service enhancement.”

The core services are mandated life and safety programs, those that help Benicia avoid harm or higher costs, those that provide revenue that covers their costs and those that are vital to supporting another core service.

But residents are used to some of the services the city provides, such as the James Lemos Aquatic Center, Councilmember Alan Schwartzman pointed out. He agreed that to continue, the city needs improved technology that would, in turn, improve productivity, and he called an increase in staffing “really critical.”

But he told employees and Perkins, “I don’t think we can get away from full service.”

Listing the city’s water and wastewater operations, he said, “The facilities are here. If we contract out, we just change who is getting paid.”

“We’ve get to build a picture of what is the true cost to provide services,” City Manager Brad Kilger said. “We’re trying to give the community the whole picture.”

The city also must determine how it can be more efficient to keep costs down, the Council was told.

At the same time, Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said, the move toward a fiscally sustainable city can’t ignore the benefits of some expenditures. For instance, the city may pick up the cost of a School Resource Officer for its public schools, but there is no way to determine savings provided by the officer’s presence.

The Council agreed to a staff request to examine the possibility of consolidating Public Works and Parks and Community Services maintenance work.

Patterson sought ways to increase community participation even before staff starts public workshops and role-playing activities designed to clarify the city’s fiscal situation.

That included having workshops outside City Hall, if open government requirements for recording the meetings could be met: “I would like to see some new faces,” the mayor said.

Sharon Maher, a member of the Community Sustainability Commission speaking as a resident, asked the Council to be clear on meeting purposes and their expected outcomes, and agreed some should take place in buildings where the public feels welcome.
In preparing for the SCSS development, the city contracted for a 10-year fiscal forecast, gathered information on unmet needs, met with department heads and employees (who also were asked to contribute to a survey) and had Perkins compare Benicia to other cities its size to see what services they provide, as well as key data benchmarks and what those cities use as “best practices.”

In the future, staff will develop an action plan and start on a five-year strategic plan revision, which will be presented to the Council, and start community meetings to obtain public comments.

Also Tuesday the Council saw city staff’s recommended approach to developing the 2015-17 budget, which needs to be in place by July 1.

Cardwell said employees are recommending a “status quo” budget, with few changes from the document the Council approved in 2013. Likewise, she is not suggesting any changes to the Strategic Plan, which normally is approved at the same time as the budget.

Some of the city’s priorities may change, especially during the state’s severe drought, and the budget will include some expenditures generated by the Measure C sales tax approved Nov. 4, 2014, by voters.

But the number of projects tentatively proposed for the new budget is more than anticipated revenues could underwrite, Finance Director Karin Schnaider and Kilger said — and in fact, they said, some trims will have to take place.

The Council will see a list of projects on which city employees already are working, as well as those the Council has designated as high priorities. The information hasn’t been presented that way before, Kilger explained.
“I was overly ambitious,” Kilger said.

Kathy Kerridge, chairperson of the Community Sustainability Commission, said members of the commission hope the Council will earmark some money from the new budget to keep Climate Action Plan Coordinator Alex Porteshawver in Benicia after her current contract expires at the end of June.

She said Porteshawver’s salary could be spread out through several funds, and she told the Council Porteshawver’s work “brings lots of value to the city.”

“That item is among the budget decisions the Council will need to make,” Kilger said.