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HomeMy WebLinkAbout21- City Administrator -- •-• •+•+rte oicnnNnrv�nv - KWAUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION From: Peggy Ducey �Sub ect: Review of 9/80 Work Schedule Dept: City Administration Date: January 12 , 1995 Synopsis of Previous Council action: June , 1994 - Mayor and Common Council approved the extension of pilot 9/80 work schedule through January, 1995. 0^-r%r+manded motion: That the Mayor and Common Council approve the 9/80 work schedule for City departments. Signatu Contact person: Peggy Ducey Phone: 5122 Supporting data attached: yes Ward: FUNDING REQUIREMENTS: Amount: Source: (Acct. No.) (Acct. Description) Finance: ,ouncil Notes: -•ozez Agenda Item No STAFF REPORT In June, 1994, the Mayor and Common Council approved a six month extension of the 9/80 work schedule for City Hall and the Economic Development Agency. Upon approval of the extension, Council requested that staff present a more extensive analysis of the impact of the 9/80 schedule when reconsidered in January, 1995. Based upon questions asked at the June Council meeting, the followings areas were reviewed: 1. City Service Availability 2 . Impact on Downtown Businesses 3 . Congestion Management and Air Quality Management District Regulations 4. Building Operational Savings 5. Sick Leave Usage 6. Overtime Reductions The chief concerns expressed by the Council were inconvenience to the public because City Hall was closed two Fridays per month and a detrimental financial impact to downtown businesses. CITY SERVICE AVAILABILITY A major concern for the 9/80 was that high volume services such as water bill payments, checking the status of planning projects, etc. could not be done on off-Fridays. Because closure of City services on alternate Fridays would inconvenience some citizens, the City Administrator implemented some measures to offset this inconvenience and is exploring further ideas to make City Hall services more accessible than ever. When City Hall went on the 9/80 schedule, the City contracted with a service to answer incoming phone calls on all closed weekdays, including holidays. With this service, the caller is informed that City Hall is closed, and normal City business will resume on a specific day. The service gives the caller the option to speak to an operator to either leave a message for a particular City department or leave an emergency message (other than 911 calls) that is immediately forwarded to the affected department. The following is answering service activity for 1994: ANSWERING SERVICE FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE MESSAGES 2 , 025 2 , 142 2 ,297 2 , 392 2, 391 JULY AUG SEPT OCT NOV DEC MESSAGES 1, 320* 488 581 580 761** 1, 217** *Prior to July, the answering service picked up all calls to City Hall. In July, the message was added informing the caller that City Hall was closed. This reduced the number of callers leaving messages for City staff. **Calls during November and December are higher because Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and closures increased the number of closed days. With the answering service as back-up, citizens can access departments in an emergency situation and/or leave detailed messages for all City services. Another way to make City Hall more accessible is to provide City services in a more convenient location. The City Administrator is currently exploring the concept of a "City Hall in the Mall" . Several other cities have implemented this concept, and all claim the concept to be highly successful. City Hall in the Mall is a public service information and collection center in a local mall which enables residents to access city services at hours other than City Hall hours, including evenings, weekends, and other times when City Hall may be closed. Staff is currently exploring developing such an outstation that would provide not only various City services but other services such as utility payments as well. As mentioned earlier, some citizens may be inconvenienced by City Hall being closed two days per month. However, there is an off-set in that City Hall extended its hours from 4 : 30 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m. , Monday through Thursday, and a significant number of residents are taking advantage of those extended hours. After the June Council extension of the 9/80 schedule, departments on the 9/80 tracked in- person service requests as well as incoming phone calls from outside City Hall. The following activity occurred in City Hall between 4 : 30 - 5: 30 for July through December, 1994 : CITY HALL-4 : 30-5: 30 JULY AUG. SEPT OCT NOV DEC TELEPHONE CALLS 2 , 249 2 ,478 2, 111 2 ,215 2, 269 1, 678 IN-PERSON REQUESTS 855 1, 026 983 1,278 782 638 TOTAL 3 , 104 3 , 504 3 , 094 3,493 3 , 051 2, 316 During the last six months of 1994, 18, 562 residents accessed City services during the extended hour of operation. IMPACT ON DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES Concern was expressed by Council members as to the financial impact on businesses in the downtown areas since City Hall would be closed two Fridays per month. As a means to quantify this analysis, staff compared sales tax information for the Carousel Mall for the first and second quarters of 1993 and 1994*. Staff also analyzed the same time period for the Inland Center Mall as a baseline to evaluate economic activity in other areas of the City. Sales tax activity for the comparison period are as follows: PRE-9/80 SCHEDULE POST-9/80 SCHEDULE MALL SALES TAX OTR. 1/93 OTR. 2/93 OTR. 1/94 QTR. 2/94 % CHANGE CAROUSEL MALL $169, 880 $203, 518 $185, 324 $207,413 +5. 1% INLAND CENTER $197, 907 $195, 683 $193 , 573 $202 , 551 +0. 6% * Because sales activity is affected by seasonal buying, quarterly tax data was compared to like quarters. The.3rd and 4th quarter sales tax data were not yet available, so are not included in this analysis. During the comparison period, the Carousel Mall sales tax revenue increased an average of 5. 1%, while the Inland Center Mall sales tax revenue increased an average of 0. 6%. Downtown restaurants could also be impacted by the 9/80 schedule. Comparison of sales tax data for downtown restaurants are as follows: SALES TAX OTR. 1193 QTR. 2/93 OTR. 1/94 QTR. 2/94 % CHANGE DOWNTOWN 2, 005 2, 012 5, 580 4 , 839 159% RESTAURANTS The sales tax data indicates that restaurant sales significantly rose in 1994 compared to the same period in 1993. However, closer analysis of specific sales activity for each restaurant shows that one downtown restaurant made up the majority of the increase, and any decreases in other downtown restaurants was probably due to displacement of sales by this same restaurant. Through analysis of this data, we can infer that the implementation of the 9/80 schedule has not adversely affected downtown businesses as the Council feared. CONGESTION MANAGEMENT AND AOMD REQUIREMENTS State law requires the development and implementation of a Congestion Management Plan which analyzes and provides mitigation measures for the traffic impact of major developments in the State. In light of this law, a traffic analysis and mitigation plan was developed for the downtown. One major premise of the plan was City offices operating on a 9/80 schedule. If the City were to revert back to a 5/40 work schedule, the traffic impact during peak hours would change and traffic mitigation measures for downtown development could increase for both surface streets and freeways, potentially increasing traffic mitigation costs. The AQMD also has traffic mitigation regulations through its Regulation XV which requires that employers with over 100 employees provide incentives to reduce vehicle trips to and from the worksite. Currently, the City of San Bernardino has an AQMD- mandated target of 1.5 Average Vehicle Ridership (AVR) for City employees. Prior to the 9/80 schedule, the City's AVR was 1. 13 . With the implementation of the 9/80 plan, the City's AVR went up to 1. 36, a 23% increase. Implementing a 9/80 schedule alone results in a 10% vehicle ridership reduction. In addition, we have found that by providing employees with a consistent work schedule with one another, we have increased employee ridesharing. If the 9/80 schedule was removed, AQMD could require the City to implement additional incentives to ensure that the City's AVR does not fall below 1. 36. BUILDING OPERATIONAL SAVINGS: Because City Hall is closed two days per month, it was anticipated that there would be some reduction in utility usage. In analyzing electrical usage, this was found to be true: ELECTRICAL USAGE 1993 1994 DIFFERENCE KILOWATTS 5, 145, 888 4 , 470, 312 (675, 576) COST $469 , 540 $431, 652 ($37 , 888) Since January, 1994, City Hall experienced an electrical usage reduction of 675, 576 kilowatts. This reduction saved the City $37,888 in calendar year 1994 . However, not all of this can be attributed to the 9/80 schedule. The City Hall lighting retrofit program coincided with the implementation of the 9/80 schedule. Because both programs projected a reduction in utility costs, cost savings for each program can only be estimated. Based on the initial energy conservation estimates, approximately two-thirds of the utility savings can be attributed to the lighting retrofit, with one-third, or $12, 629 in savings resulting from the 9/80 schedule. Water costs decreased by 5%, but because water usage is a minimal cost to City Hall operation, the impact is nominal. The City also experience a reduction in custodial costs since custodial services are not needed for two Fridays each month, resulting in a savings of approximately $8,400 for 1994 for janitorial services. The only operational cost that rose was natural gas usage, which increased by $488 between 1993 and 1994 . This increase was due to a problem with the geo-thermal system and was not influenced by the 9/80 schedule; the problem has since been corrected. SICK LEAVE USAGE With the 9/80 schedule, it was also anticipated that reduced sick leave usage would show a cost savings since employees would be able to schedule discretionary medical appointments on off-Fridays. However, an offset to this cost savings would be that employees off ill for an entire day would be taking nine (9) sick leave hours, rather than eight (8) hours as they did in the past, representing a 12% increase in per day sick leave usage. Given this, an increase in overall sick leave usage would occur if other employee leave behavior did not change. City employee sick leave usage was analyzed from 6/15/94 - 12/31/94 for departments that went on the 9/80 plan in 1994. * Actual sick leave hours were divided by the total number of employees to get an average number of hours an employee used during the time period analyzed. SICK LEAVE USAGE # OF # OF SICK AVERAGE/ EMPLOYEES LEAVE HOURS EMPLOYEE 1993 290 11, 624 40. 08 1994 303 11,756 38.79 * Fire Department is not affected by the 9180 schedule. Police officers have been on a 4110 schedule fora number of years. Some divisions in City departments stayed on a 5140 schedule due to customer service demand. Based on this analysis, sick leave usage decreased by 1.29 hours per employee, or a decrease of 391 hours in 1994, as compared to 1993 . Over the course of a year, this would equate to a cost savings of $12, 035 annually, based on the average hourly rate of non-safety employees. OVERTIME USAGE Another indirect cost savings anticipated was a reduction in overtime usage. Some departmental overtime, like public safety, would not be affected by the 9/80 schedule since overtime is driven by minimum staffing and emergency coverage needs. However, other departments would be affected by t!,e 9/80 since overtime is sometimes used to complete work at the end of a shift. Comparison of overtime usage between the 1993 and 1994 calendar years saw a reduction of $151, 401 in overtime by all non-safety City departments. (Police and Fire are not included since the 9/80 schedule would not affect their overtime usage. ) 1993 1994 DIFFERENCE OVERTIME USAGE $416, 184 $309,783 ($151, 401) CONCLUSION The 9/80 has had both a positive and negative impact on City operations. The positive impact includes costs savings, increased service to the public, and increased compliance with air quality regulations. SYNOPSIS OF COSTS/SAVINGS OF 9/80 SCHEDULE $ INCREASE $ DECREASE ELECTRICAL USE 12, 629 NATURAL GAS (488) WATER 138 CUSTODIAL COSTS 8,400 SICK LEAVE 12 , 035 OVERTIME 151. 401 TOTAL (488) 184, 603 The 9/80 schedule resulted in a decrease in a number of labor and operating costs , saving the City $184, 115 for calendar year 1994. In addition, an analysis of sales tax revenue for downtown businesses indicates an increase in downtown sales activity for 1994 , as compared to 1993 when the City was not on a 9/80 schedule. Also, the 9/80 plan increased ridesharing for City employees by 23%, which is a requirement of the AQMD. The negative impact is the lack of City services on off-Fridays. However, an offset to this is the increased hours of operation Monday through Thursday, allowing an additional 18, 562 residents to be served from July - December. The City Administrator is exploring other ways to expand access to City services to better serve the community. RECOMMENDATION That the Mayor and Common Council approve the 9/80 work schedule for City departments.