 All right, I will call the Capital Improvements Commission to order. I'll do roll call. Alderpersons, Trey Mitchell. Grazie Pirella. Jerry Jones. Sarah Harrison. Nick DeSalt. Director of Planning and Development, Chad Palacek. Interim Finance Director, Daniela is on vacation. Okay. City Engineer, Ryan Siasma. All right. For those in attendance, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, law nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Welcome everybody to the Capital Improvements Commission. First item on the agenda is 2.1, approval of the minutes from April 26th. Is there a motion to approve our minutes from our previous meeting? Motion by Grazie, a second by Trey. Any discussion on the minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor, please state aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Chair votes aye. The minutes are approved. All right, 3.1, RO number 12021, April 20th, 2021, submitting the Capital Improvements Program CPI request for the years 2022 through 2026. Any city staff want to tee this one off? City Administrator Wolff. Thank you, Mayor. I guess I would just ask the commission if they have any questions. If they don't, I know this is a little bit different than prior years, but we are working diligently with the department heads to do the vetting and keep it within our future borrowing limits. And that way this process goes a little bit quicker and smoother. But if there are no questions or if there are questions, I would love to be able to answer them for you. Do any committee members have any questions? Alderperson Pirella? Yes, thank you. So first of all, bear with me and forgive me if these questions you think they have to be addressed in a different context. Just please let me know. A couple of them for the city's administrator are, first of all, just a confirmation that we are voting only on 2022. Yes. Okay. In addition, I know that in previous years you were rating the projects and I know it seems that it was a hard work or a more complex work. However, the obstacle I found in my goal of looking at what I should be doing, I believe, which is looking at priority funding. So my, the issue I had is that I didn't know which of these projects you would absolutely consider. I have an idea of which of these projects you would consider absolutely mandatory. It's a common sense. I look at them, I understand them. However, I assume there is some room of flexibility. So if in previous year you had mandatory projects, it's reasonable to assume that there were some projects that were more flexible than others. But I do not have that type of rating this year. So I look at these projects for the first time and I do not know which ones are absolutely a must and which ones, if any, has some type of flexibility. City Administrator, do you wanna answer those ones? Yes, I'm gonna try to give that a really good college try here. Alder Pirelli, what we did is we worked with the department heads in the vetting process to come up with a strategic plan for the next five years. And what we did was we looked at all of the projects that we have by all of the different departments and we basically rated them as it's in the capital improvements book. You'll notice that as you go from department to department, each year the projects go up from 22, 23, 24, and so on. What we did was we prioritized them and then each department had to review each of those projects and then we talked about what is the urgency, the importance of each project? Is it something that is mandatory as we've used that phrase in the past? From my past experience, we did have a couple of years where basically capital improvements were given a list and we were told to vote on the mandatory items but the list of mandatory items was actually larger than the ability for us to borrow. What we did is we worked with the team of department heads including obviously fire police and the water department and wastewater. It was to look at the projects, prioritizing them so that we could fall within borrowing constraints that we have moving forward. We don't want to continue to put the city at a risk where we're continuing to borrow even more money when we have money in our general fund but we want to make sure that we're also being strategic in these projects as we move forward. So as I had said in my presentation at our last meeting, we are looking to use general fund dollars for future projects. Those future projects will have better estimated dollar cost for us to review next year as this year we'll be basically doing the engineering for the pre-work for next year's borrowing. Again, the spirit of this is that instead of us putting a list together for you to vet, to get to a number, we wanted to vet it prior using the expertise of the department heads and the engineers on staff to make sure that we fit within not just what we can afford but what we can accomplish in our year's budget process. I hope that answers your question. It does, I mean partially does, yes. Any other additional questions or comments from committee members? Alder Mitchell? Not a question so much, it's just general commentary. I really, really like seeing that we are using some fund balance this year and not just borrowing all of it. It's always made me a little bit uncomfortable that every year we have these meetings and then we borrow that whole amount and eventually that's going to have to be paid back so I like seeing a more creative approach to how we're getting these things funded. Thank you. So thank you, administrator Wolf. Thank you. Jerry? Yeah, I would just chime in. I think it's definitely, and Nick correct me if I'm wrong, from past years to Todd's point, you were given a list of let's just use a round number, $100,000 worth of projects and you had 70,000 to spend and you had to pick and choose and you had the department heads come in and spend time lobbying for their particular projects which you didn't blame them for but we were lacking some of the depth and knowledge of the department heads. We could approach them, which we often did, each department to get more of an explanation but I think this gives us a more streamlined, not only streamlined but more accurate version of how much is out there and the dollar amount is a captive amount. We know we're not outstripping our resources and what's in front of us are projects that have been preplanned and predetermined to be and pre-prioritized and I get the other person's point, we don't have that input but from a historical standpoint, I don't necessarily mind not doing that because some of the ratings, I think, and Nick and I tussled with that for years, we were putting ratings on things, quality of life. How do you put a rating on that in a financial term? So I think from my standpoint, this process is much more efficient use of our time. It puts the expertise up front. I'm sorry, it puts the expertise up front and I really don't feel, in many cases, I had expertise, some of the projects were pretty technical and so I was guessing as to how important they really are and I appreciate this approach a lot better, much more comfortable. Thank you. Thanks Nick. Administrator Wolff. Thank you, I just wanted to kind of expand on it. One of the, just to help the Capital Improvements Commission understand one of the benefits that'll be in coming years is the rollout of enterprise asset management module for the city and that's going to also be a tool in our toolbox because we're going to be able to categorize and prioritize not just our cities but our facilities and some of the equipment that we have. One of the benefits that we were actually seeing in this year's presentation for Capital Improvements is the fact that we don't have our fleet in the program as you have noticed and it never made sense to me as a past older that we would be borrowing on a 10 year geobonding for vehicles and that's kind of like buying a car with a 10 year loan and none of us in our personal finances would do that but yet we would do that with the city's funding. So again, we're starting to look at things in a more of a strategic manner, not just in prioritizing but also in what can we afford and what can we manage in making sure that we get these projects done as efficiently and as effectively as possible. So thank you. Thanks Administrator Wolff. Any other comments? Discussion, Alder Prowler? Yeah, I actually appreciate everybody's input here and I understand it completely and I do trust 100% of course the expertise from the heads of departments. I had a couple of more questions though and actually it's more curiosity and it's a part of my learning process so I hope that you really bear with me. One of these is about the, so I have, I can see that for sidewalks for example, there have been, I believe there are budgeted $400,000 in five years and if you think that this is a question not for this committee please just let me know. Okay, if you think this has to be discussed, it should have been discussed in a different committee. So the, what I was going, getting to is sidewalks $400,000 in five years. My curiosity is, is this budgeting, so to me I'm not an expert again but to me it doesn't seem as much as, we all know the sidewalks are a big issue in Sheboygan for people with limited mobility and senior citizens. So I wonder is this type of budgeting proven in past years sufficient to actually address the issue of sidewalks in Sheboygan? I can touch on that. Alder Pirelli, I guess one of the areas that in our discussion and learning process would be that our sidewalk program basically we work with another contractor vendor that as we go through the city and we go through it in quadrants, we go through it, it's part of our program as far as going through the whole city. This is one of those projects like roads that we could throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at it and it still is going to take years to go through. So what happens is we go through each quadrant and we address the really bad areas, maybe it's a part of the city that we're having some trees removed where a lot of the sidewalk has been uprooted from the old ash trees. Again, this is one of those programs like our ADA program. We have an ADA program that's similar where we put 250,000 to it every other year to help get the facilities, our playgrounds, our streets ADA compliant. It's one of those that we can throw more money to it and it's still going to take years to get done but we have to look at capacity and try to be as diligent with our dollars as possible. Zana, answer your question. You're on, you're on, you're red. You've got to push, there you go. When it's red you go. Yes, it does and actually my second question was exactly about the ADA projects, improvements projects. That is $750,000 in five years that I had the same questions on that. It's part of our program, yes. Now my following up question, and again you don't need to answer this, is will we be able to look at those numbers again and when for future? Every year they'll be on the capital improvements program for approval. So this is the moment and the time that we would discuss if those amounts are in fact sufficient or not. Director People. Yeah. And once the budget and capital improvements are approved there'll also be projects that will come to committees and back to council that authorize the actual project dollars and you'll get much more detailed information in the future when those projects are let. So it's not just today's the day and everything's done. There's actual individual projects that come back through the committee, through finance, through the public works committee and then back through council for ultimate approval. Tonight's just the large allocation of the whole overall program. I appreciate that yes and I understand it. I was wondering rather I rephrase my question is the actual amount for projects of ADA improvements and the actual amount for project of sidewalks, those amounts will be set by today's approval. Then the breakdown into the projects will be addressed later on but the amounts are approved tonight. So if in fact we do approve these numbers tonight when was is the common council or these or members of the common council be able to challenge for lack of a better word these amounts, can we in other words can these amounts be increased and if they can be increased when that discussion can happen? I guess, Grazia, the overall budget for like the sidewalks and the ADA would be approved today and would be approved by this committee to move forward to council for final approval at these dollar figures and director Bebel can maybe touch on past dollar figures because I believe that we use the same formula year over year for the projects that we're doing. So again, it comes down to today's to review the budget for the borrowing program that we have in front of you, but year over year, this is one of the topics that will pop up every year because the sidewalk is sidewalk program is a program that we continue to do as part of the city. The ADA is part of an ADA program that is approved year over year depending on the projects. And then as director Bebel had stated, it will come forward in small projects to either either finance and personnel and or public works depending on the projects for final approval on where those dollars are going to be spent. This is more of an allotment or a budget for these programs that we've had for many years. Director Bebel. Yeah, and city administrator Wolfe is correct. And what we do is it's for consistency is when we plan these projects for engineering and design, we have within the capital improvements an understanding that okay, this year as in years past is typically right around 100,000 for sidewalks. So we build our program based on that budget for, this is a consistent amount of funding that we get year after year. Same thing with the ADA handicap accessibility improvements. Again, it gives us a planning tool to then forecast and design our projects with that budget in mind. Now, as administrator Wolfe is correct, we have plenty of needs and again, probably not enough money. So what we need to do is what we do is within the department, we prioritize, we look at these projects and then we design accordingly with on a consistent budget. Now, if for instance, and that's part of the discussion that city administrator Wolfe and the staff has had is that we wanted to come in, be consistent so that we're not arguing over what project gets funded, which doesn't, who should get more or less because then we as for planning purposes and being able to design and let projects and come back to the council, we have a good understanding. If it ends up being, I guess, a competitive project again, there was many times in past where projects were either not funded and all of a sudden we had to scramble and redesign the program and see what we could fit and timing is everything in terms of the money and getting these projects out because the sooner that we're able to get projects out, the more competitive we can be for the contractors that are performing the work. They wanna be able to plan as well. If we're scrambling and readjusting budgets and figures later in the process, then it sets us up at a disadvantage when we go out for some of our public construction. So yes, more money would be great, but the reality is we have to live within our constraints that we have for the budget. I think city administrator Wolfe came up with a great process this year. We work together on it. The fund balance is, I truly support as a great need to use that as well instead of continuing to push off and borrow and borrow. So again, it really has streamlined our process and we're able to then as staff have a consistent idea of what we're going to be designing around with this budget already in mind. I also wanted to touch on the fact that in past we actually had additional funding for this, but we don't have that anymore. There was what we used to call a special assessments and that was discontinued. So again, we've had losses in revenue, losses in funding for different programs. So when we talk about dollars in budgeting, we have special assessments, we have special fund balances that funds are coming from besides revenue, it's not just taxes. So we can't just say, well, yes, we could go and just borrow more, but then that kind of gets back to that other problem that we talked about earlier. The, or we can put more money to using sidewalks and ADA as an example, but then that also means that other projects in roads and things like that, we would have to steal money from those and then we wouldn't get as much done. So again, we have a lot of data, we have a lot of tools that we use in defining the priorities and that's why we're trying to bring this program to you guys to say versus it being a subjective situation, we're trying to use data to help us make the best decisions possible and take the subjectivity out of it. Thank you. Additional questions from anybody? Nick. What is enterprise asset management software do? I can note to you. The question was, and correct me if I'm wrong, the question was, what does the enterprise asset management project do? We have what's called Tyler Munis. It's an ERP system, an enterprise system. So it does everything from billing to accounts payable to ticketing the police department payroll. It does everything like in companies, they'll use like SAP and things like that. This is the municipal version of that. The EAM module will allow Director Bebel and his team to inventory all of our assets. We'll be able to do maintenance and monitoring of all of our assets. So when I say assets, I'm talking everything from vehicles to chainsaws to facilities to a generator that might need monthly maintenance on it to streetlights. I like to use the example that if a streetlight were to get hit, and correct me if I'm wrong, Director Bebel, but we would have to send a team out to the site, and then we'd have to send an electrician from our team out there. They would have to look at what the electrical, let's say it's a signal light to make it a little more complicated. We have different versions. They'd have to look at it, go back to DPW, pull the information, whether it's paper or electronic, and I did say paper, find out which one it is, go back to the site and then rewire it accordingly, and then have to order it and purchase a new one. So again, when you think of maintenance or repairs or anything like this, they can have everything at their fingertips on an iPad or Samsung, whichever it is, but they can also schedule things so that David and his team will be able to look at the roads and will be able to implement where are the really bad roads, where are the potholes, where are the needs of the city and prioritize them. That's something that we, the city, have spent a lot of money in the past on different programs and audits, where now we're going to have the tool in-house to be able to do that year over year. So if somebody were to say, how many street lights do we have? David will be able to pull it up right away and say we have this many. How many are LED versus metal halide? He'll be able to pull it up. So if we wanted to prioritize as we go greener and say what would it cost the city to replace the rest of the metal halide street lights, we could pull it up effortlessly versus having somebody drive around and count as an example. Does that help you out? Thank you. Other questions from folks? All right. Seeing none, are there any motions? Alderprella? Yeah, I just had one more curiosity, I should say. As far as the vehicles and purchasing the vehicles, so would this be also, so what is the reason that for some of these leasing has not been considered versus purchasing? We do look at leasing versus purchasing. I'm going to use an example. There is a vehicle on here. It's, I believe it's a waste, a waste pumper truck with a camera system in that. And I can remember back as a past Alder, we talked about leasing versus purchasing. The technology alone on some of this equipment gets outdated so much quicker and the wear and tear on the equipment is so high that it doesn't pay to purchase and that would be where we would actually lease it. When I mentioned the fleet system, the enterprise fleet, that's where I'm referencing the 60 plus vehicles that like DPW has and that's one ton or less and that's the pickup trucks and the cars and things like that that we use throughout the city to do our day-to-day processes. We do look at leasing versus buying. As an example, I believe on our CIP we have one ambulance on there. That's typically something that we've looked at but they don't necessarily have a leasing program for some equipment just because of the wear and tear and the cost, it doesn't justify. Does that answer? Yes, thank you. Alder Mitchell. What would the action that we are looking for be specifically move to approve? Easy enough, I would move to approve. There's been a motion to approve in a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please state aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Chair votes aye. That is approved and I believe we'll be submitted to the city plan commission for the next step. So, all right, seeing that we've exhausted the agenda, is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. There's been a motion to adjourn in a second. All those in favor of adjourning, please state aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Chair votes aye. We're adjourned at 428. Thanks everybody.