Member objects to $25K expenditure, others point to possibility of savings

Benicia City Council has given its staff the authority to contract with Management Partners to complete a guide for its 14 boards, committees and commissions that would help during orientation of new appointees and serve as a training manual for advisory panel members.

Only Tom Campbell voted against the move Tuesday, saying he couldn’t support the $25,000 expense while the city budget remained in a $1.5 million deficit.

“I worry we’re sending the wrong message,” Campbell said.

City Manager Brad Kilger said Campbell’s point was valid, though he added that the 1-cent sales tax increase approved by voters Nov. 4 would “stave off the immediate deficit.” He acknowledged the city would remain in a structural deficit, but said Benicia’s operations are being analyzed to find ways to operate more efficiently and less expensively.

In fact, Kilger said, the advisory panel guidebook may be part of that approach. “I believe it will help us operate more efficiently,” he said.

Councilmember Alan Schwartzman agreed, saying, “It’s conceivable, in the long run, staff could save $25,000,” the cost of the contract with Management Partners, which also supplies the city with interim department heads until permanent employees are found.

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said she couldn’t see when the public could contribute to the project.

“This is different from a master plan,” Kilger explained. While staff would try to find a forum for public discussion, “I think you have to have it in the context of the board,” he said. “We’re dealing with procedures, not criteria.”

The focus, he said, is getting a procedural manual that explains how city business is done.

However, along the way, “we’re going to discover things we’re not aware of. We’ll learn from this process,” Kilger said.

Vice Mayor Mark Hughes said certain questions always have to be answered before he agrees to hire an outside consultant or contractor, and in this case those questions were answered to his satisfaction.

Not only does the job need to get done, the contractor has more time and expertise to complete the manual, he said.

City employees, at Council direction, have done some of the preparatory work already. The advisory panels have been surveyed and other information has been gathered in hopes staff members could compose the manual themselves, the Council was told.

However, those employees have been busy on higher-priority projects — addressing ways the city can cope with the severe California drought; preparing Measure C for the 2014 general election; and gearing up for tasks related to the 2015-17 budget, which is expected to be adopted and in place by July 1, 2015.

Even though Assistant City Manager Anne Cardwell said the manual would give advisory panel members information about city policies, practices and operations as well as the role of the panel to which he or she has been appointed — while simultaneously serving as an orientation and training guide — the project, she noted, keeps getting put on the back burner.

Until the manual is produced, she said, the city would continue to react to individual requests from the panels, with little guidance.

The money already had been budgeted for the document’s production, and the push for such a manual has been on since 2012, Kilger said.

Once a draft of the manual is written, the Council will get to see it to assure they’re in agreement before the document is shared with the advisory panels.

Then city employees will work one on one with the boards, committees and commissions, Kilger said. “This has waited long enough.”