CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald | Posted: Friday, May 11, 2007 11:00 pm
Saratoga Springs is proposing to hire 15 new full-time employees to help keep up with the demand for city services.
That would add up to $880,000 in salary and benefits to fund the positions in the fiscal year 2008 budget, which is expected to be debated by the City Council in June. Officials said if all 15 of the new positions are approved, the city's staff will have increased by a third.
The proposed $8.2 million budget tops last year's budget of $6.2 million, said city manager Ken Leetham. Increases in property and sales tax due to population growth are expected to provide the money for the increase. The city has issued more than 700 building permits a year for the past several years.
Because of a national slowing trend in new home sales, the city is making a conservative revenue estimate by forecasting a 15 percent decline in building permits, though Saratoga Springs's housing market is rarely directly affected by national trends, he said.
The city has four public works inspectors but needs two more because of "the sheer number of city projects we are engaging in," Leetham said, noting those projects include water system expansions in both the south and north end of the city.
Two culinary water maintenance workers, one pressurized water maintenance worker, a streets worker, and a parks maintenance worker are all needed just to keep up with infrastructure care as the city grows, he said.
"I'm not sure how to give you a justification for these positions, other than we are so short in so many areas," he told council members. "For example, we are anywhere from three to six to seven months behind on meter installations for utilities."
Some residents who are receiving utilities are being billed on average city usage rather than actual usage because city crews are unable to install their meter, he said.
"It is a loss of revenue and it is unfair to all the residents who are paying and having water meters read," he said. "And it is just obvious that we are understaffed in parks. We are having trouble filling temporary parks positions."
Councilman Scott Kahn said the city should consider hiring a private firm to maintain the city's parks, but Councilwoman Denise said that should be considered "only if we prove we can't do it ourselves."
Two "geographic information systems" employees are needed to begin satellite mapping all city utility connections and facility locations, he said.
"I think it is upon me to demonstrate to you why the service is important and why it is saving the city money, and ultimately how it will save us employee costs in the future," Leetham said. "My intuition is that one day we will have to hire fewer people because this is a better way to do business."
Kahn said he did not support the expenditure, which he called a "cash cow and a financial obligation that seems to continue to grow."
A court clerk will be needed if the city is to open its own justice court this fiscal year, Leetham, said. And a human resource specialist is needed because the city will open its own police department on July 1, and because of the growing number of city employees, Leetham said. He and his existing assistant spend more and more of their time trying to answer questions about employee benefits and other human resource issues, he said.
A second assistant to the city manager is also needed because as the number of employees grows there must be more supervision, and because of the number of meetings that must be attended, he said.
"We should free up time so what we are doing is management and policy rather than administrative details," he said of himself and his assistant.
A management analyst/special project administrator is needed because many projects fall in the cracks and are forgotten, he said, noting last year the Council authorized several actions that were never carried out.
"Things like a citizens survey and gathering data and statistics and tracking projects," he said. "All of those are things we need to be doing. We are doing them now in a crisis reactive mode and we are really not out there ahead of things."
An employee is also needed to examine building plans submitted to the city and to inspect buildings, he said.
"We think that filling these positions will get us up to the level we need to be," he said.
Council members worried about finding space for the new employees.
"We are talking about a 33 percent increase of our current workforce -- where in the world are we going to put all these peoplefi" said Kahn.
Mayor Tim Parker said city staff may propose a schedule of several shifts that would allow the city to hire new employees without expanding office space. Other options include using trailers to add to city office space, or leasing additional space.
No everyone agreed the city should hire so many employees.
"I'm just concerned that it seems we are struggling to do some of the basics, probably because we are understaffed in many areas, and I get concerned when we want to staff several new programs," said Kelly.
Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.