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2006-10-17 JOINT CONSOLIDATION COMMITTEE OF THE CITY COUNCIL AND THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE Meeting Minutes October 17,2006, 8:30 a.m. Beverly City Hall PRESENT: Timothy Flaherty, Miranda Gooding, Paul Manzo, Maria Decker Kathleen Griffin was also present. Chris Rand, Director of Buildings and Grounds for the School Department, and Joan Liporto, Director of Finance and Operations for the School Department, both joined the committee. Mr. Flaherty explained that the Committee is exploring the possibility of consolidating school and city maintenance functions, and asked Mr. Rand to share his thoughts on this issue. The following is a summary of the discussion: 1. Mr. Rand described his previous experience as Assistant Director of Facilities in Lynnfield. He explained that the Lynnfield model consolidated building and ground maintenance functions for all town facilities, including schools, within the DPW. Under that model, the division of responsibility/function was between the "indoor" maintenance department and "outdoor" maintenance department. Each function had its own assistant director who reported directly to the DPW director. Mr. Rand felt that this model worked very well as long as the DPW Director placed equal importance on both departments. 2. Mr. Rand currently manages 1 million sq. ft. of school space in Beverly, and all school grounds. 3. Currently, there is some limited collaboration between the school and city maintenance departments. However, the school department is typically charged back for personnel from public services at overtime rates. He also stated that vendor services are duplicated by the same vendors serving the city and the school side. There are opportunities for greater efficiencies and cost-savings if maintenance personnel and outside vendors were to be managed together. 4. Mr. Rand favors a consolidation plan that would separate building and facilities functions from grounds, i.e. along the lines of the Lynnfield model. He pointed out that this was suggested by Superintendent Hayes in his memo to the Beverly School Committee dated June 21,2006. 5. Dr. Hayes' recommendation as set forth on page 2 of that memo is as follows: "The City and School Committee should create a central municipal maintenance department... for maintenance of all School and City buildings. This department should come under the supervision of the Director of Buildings and Grounds. The School Department has over 1 million square feet of facilities and will have one maintenance position (strength in plumbing) while the City has far less square footage of facilities and two maintenance employees whose strengths are in other trades... The City and School Committee should likewise create a central municipal maintenance department... for maintenance of all School and City grounds. The department should come under the supervision of the Director of Public Works. The Department of Public Works possesses the resources to perform this function, resources that the schools are hard pressed to provide. When [the foregoing changes are implemented], the role of Director of Buildings and Grounds should be revised to be a Director of Facilities, again reporting to the Director of Finance and Operations and ultimately to the Superintendent of Schools." 6. An alternative model would consolidate both functions (facilities and grounds) within the Department of Public Services. However, under that model, there are concerns about accountability for conditions within school buildings. For example, it is foreseeable that parents will continue to contact the school administration about concerns/problems with school facilities; but, if building maintenance comes under the supervision of Public Services, then there would be no direct accountability to the school department for the condition of the schools. 7. Mr. Rand maintained that the grounds and snow removal functions could easily be transferred to Public Services without triggering the same accountability issues, because these functions would be performed much better by Public Services, which has the manpower and expertise to do the work. 8. There was discussion about various ways of handling the school custodian functions and the possibility of contracting for cleaning services separately. 9. Kathy Griffin acknowledged that there are many different variations of consolidation, and that separate "pots of money" can be budgeted for different buildings/departments to accommodate the consolidation of facility maintenance within the school department for example. At the conclusion of the discussion with Mr. Rand, there was discussion with Joan Liporto regarding Kathy Griffin's thoughts about the potential consolidation of city and school business/finance functions. Those thoughts were summarized in writing, in draft form, by Ms. Griffin and had been previously circulated to members of the Consolidation Committee. In summary, Ms. Griffin recommended that several steps be taken to improve controls and efficiencies in the budget process on both the city and school sides of operations. These steps can and should be taken regardless of whether consolidation takes place. There was discussion and agreement about the need to update MUNIS functions on the school side to streamline the preparation of year-end DOE reporting, which currently requires an inordinate amount of staff time to prepare and which has in the past been filed after the reporting deadline. She also recommended that the city finance department provide written rules and guidance as to the policies and procedures of carrying year-end encumbrances. As for the issue of a potential consolidation, Ms. Griffin noted that there is virtually no potential for the city's finance department to absorb school functions because the city finance department is so thinly staffed right now. The consensus of the committee was to table discussion of consolidating business/finance functions at this time and to concentrate going forward on making recommendations regarding the consolidation of technology and buildings and grounds.