##VIDEO ID:s5Iu9NB1j3o## all right it is 6:00 it's Thursday December 19th and I call the meeting of the brainer the special very special meeting of the braer city council and Joint meeting with Public Utilities to order uh Tony can you call the role stun here Terry stangl here Johnson here chz here mik o day here bans here B here Mike England Erikson Marco day wo mat all right we're going to add one thing in here it is a regular meeting so I ask you all to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of allegiance to of the United States of America and to the Republic it stands one nation under indivisible libery and justice for all okay we have one agenda item this evening that's a discuss the creation of a single integrated City it Department U Mr chesk you asked for this anything you want to add before I turn it over to our staff sir okay so I know one of the things is uh that there are going to be that we have available presentations from IT staff as to how this could or shouldn't work our opinions either of you like to go first first wow you have three to five minutes to decide right we were going to do ours together do it together please stand up give your names because we are on YouTube the next and your positions with the city Sean strong itg director I'm Aaron Anderson I uh BPU it supervisor perfect give us your presentation so the background here well just hit the first slide here of course this is not going to work while I'm here are you on the PowerPoint there we go got that out of the way uh figured the first slide we should do before we even get into the old presentations is our introductions because a lot of BPU probably doesn't know me and a lot of you probably don't know Aaron or even the rest of the staff so background here I've been here 18 years been doing it for 26 um previous ly running a county and previously before that doing actual GIS work also in City all you have Lori who's been here for 20 years also doing it work for a good chunk of it so and then Aaron here has been doing says over 20 years collectively over 20 years of it experience and utilities private manufacturing fracking architectural engineering Public School Systems and the Marine Corps y so we just wanted to bring that up that we've all been doing this for at least 20 years we're not New Kids on the block or recent graduates or anything we kind of have this down pretty good I think I like to think so anyway then to your point Kelly is back in August we were both asked to create presentations with some specific items in it to outline the challenges and opportunities for uh possibly integrating it we both sat down and drafted our own proposed our own presentations which never really saw the light of day we eventually sat down together and picked one and added tidbits from the other one back and forth so we only ever had one presentation that was in final format and then we used that for at least two meetings maybe even other meetings I think it's 18 slid yeah it's 18 slides that was just the the stats to throw up on the wall for discussion purposes um so I don't know should we go through all of these or do you want to Short Circuit the thing and just go straight to questions or what's your preference have you all read all the slides done your homework I have not seen them okay so we can go through them there's only 18 I mean we got everybody's got the whole evening blocked off I hope so just so I know the PDFs these are exactly the texts that are in the p uh PowerPoint would that be correct that we got yes PDFs are just saved as so this is exactly what we presented originally in October 2 and then again later in October I don't remember the dates um again with the introduction kind of stuff you got Sean and L here at City Hall doing all the Departments including you know airports and cable channels and all those things then you got Aaron now Abby has since departed so you have only Aaron over there doing the business office and then the divisions electric water and wastewater I assume everybody knows that stuff but it was just part of the discussion you want to this slide was a uh example of what Rochester Public Utilities has over there aside from their City it department so they're all they're separated as well down there and we just threw that in there as an example of what they what it takes to running utility next one so one of the first slides that requested was uh challenges opportunities that kind of stuff on the city Side the two people that are here can handle the day to-day keeping the lights on we are now no longer able to take on big projects we're at capacity so there's no more room to do big things down the road the police department's migration to their new uh law enforcement package is is great good things it's going to the cloud what the the the challenge there is right now the squad mobiles go through County resources so there's a problem in the middle of the night the whole county is going to know it and count the 14 it people at the county are going to deal with it when this goes to the cloud early 26 27 yeah probably late 26 somewhere in there it will the police squads will no longer go through the county so the city's going to have to pick up that slack of the after hour stuff so it's just a consideration to put out there of late especially we've had a whole lot of Staff wanting to do more with GIS I can do GIS I do not have time to do GIS so that would be a benefit um and then this cable channel thing ever since they canceled the program and all the staff retired or quit it's kind of it's going to be a discussion Point coming up here pretty soon about where that goes so on the BPU side you want to cover your side yeah BPU side we have a um infrastructure improvements that we're doing we're running our own fiber uh um it's it's just me over there right now so I know this this was presented as um a slide that was when we had a second it person over there but in that capacity it still was just been me over there um that's why we were requesting both the network administrator and systems administrator to get that coverage that we need for running the utility at a 247 capacity okay so we uh came up with some of the places that could eliminate the duplication obviously that's kind of the point is efficiency and whatever else things like basic support help desk whatever um the the bigger the issue there is myself or Aaron by himself over there right now being heavily involved in something super important and the phone starts ringing because the printer doesn't work or somebody forgot password or whatever else you can imagine it's just it's not efficient way of doing things to have your highest skilled people be doing mopping the floors kind of stuff um tenant domain Administration is becoming a big deal that's all this stuff is going to the cloud all our uh Microsoft Office Products the security related to it the identity piece of it that lets you log into every website Under the Sun as a single username there's a lot of working parts in there we're not going not going get into tonight but we're we're both doing it at this current point in time um supporting the standard software stuff maybe I don't need to run through all of these but upgrades patching that kind of stuff phone Administration can be kind of tedious sometimes purchasing we buy completely different stuff at all times you could get into a more efficient way of purchasing things backing up data web and social GIS yeah I'm just reading it to you at this point sorry um and of course this was months ago at the time the term one network is being used a lot never really an option we the city already has segregated networks BPU already has segregated networks we're not going to combine those together and we're certainly not going to combine the four of them or more together so we just wanted to back in October make it clear that that's not really an option to actually combine that stuff um also on the hardware software stuff another couple slides you'll I have everything listed out here that of what we currently use in different systems and we have almost nothing in common so if integration goes forward not a whole lot can change on day one until things uh age out turn over get become redundant and have to get replaced perfect example is the finance package the city's 5 years into a finance package of the last 20 years BPU is what three years into a finance package the the last 20 years without just buying brand new stuff that's not going to change anytime soon regardless of integration or not um can I ask a question oh yeah you can ask I was going to have questions at the end but if you want to when you talk about a finance package that like we purchased for one for utilities one for you know City what what is your estimated cost at something like that we paid a quarter million on the city Side what did you guys pay for code 60,000 60,000 year 60,000 a year yeah it's one of the most expensive things utility based software so and then you know that's that can't change I mean it can but we have to redo our entire software um but the previous side was also just pointing out it related things uh as the one network That's not including bpu's OT stuff so operational technology stuff which includes um lift stations um electrical recloses and all that kind of stuff um that's a whole separate World Al together than what's included in the it stuff so what when I talk about what we can and can't do what's best practice for it and OT and the the security of the utility itself that's what I'm looking at when I approach stuff like this when when we get thrown around one one network terminologies that's that's where I'm looking at it from that point of view Sean will have a completely separate point of view when it comes to things like this does that make sense kind of sort of okay we we'll get through it so okay anything else Mr chess that's good thank you uh oh so we had the current position titles and just the first few sentences off each pos position description again this this presentation was created for staff to talk in a small environment not for the Limelight like this so um any questions on this or we'll just keep going because you you know these positions exist I'm sure you've all seen the or chart enough times this was just more discussion currently myself and the IT specialist over here on the city side and you got Aaron and the previous IT data analyst over at the BPU side which is now vacant um industry standards best practices whatever there's a hierarchy to the way you do staff um you have your directors and your administrators and your Specialists and your technicians and well your analysts in there too there's there's a hierarchy to it so we were just putting down what kind of hierarchy would probably be needed to pull this off the lighter gray which doesn't really show up well are kind of the what we thought would be future or potential someday down the road but not maybe right away and this is out so outdated now that it doesn't even matter much and this is a graphical version of something like that you'd have to have a department head and then put them in there in the right order any questions or maybe you don't want them till the end but um so pros and cons uh some of the efficiencies they do exist um including standard operations and processes um but at the same time it would also make it more complex larger footprint um so there's a pro the pro and con there is it's uh kind of butchering this more efficient but a much bigger thing so how do you quantify whether that's better or not I don't know uh specialization kind of mentioned this before if staff can specialize on specific things instead of being the Jack of all trades master of none kind of thing well master of all but um mentioned the distractions and the the doing the tasks that should probably be delegated to lower paid staff is that a bad way of saying it um and then additionally backup right now we have a Unwritten policy at City Hall that myself and the IT specialist can't be gone on the same day we just do that Aaron right now has no choice if he's sick or on vacation there's nobody at BPU so the pro to that is having more depth more people to cover when people take time off or are gone um and one of the cons there is as we already kind of hammered out here is not a whole lot could actually change on day one in fact not a whole lot could change in the first year so it would be a very slow trickle as things as we mentioned turn over um budget stuff you want to throw something in there well I had just wanted to going off of that slide I had written on my PowerPoint okay that uh integrating a cdit department with a utility it Department presents significant challenges beyond the operational and Technical Realms the potential for increased costs both in short and long term con strain budgets and lead to unanticipated financial pressures moreover the legal and contract contractural barriers are substantial with increasing existing agreements regulatory requirements which is why I was trying to lead with the uh the OT security side of stuff with electrical and water um and Wastewater ones with um um Minnesota Department of Health um and uh and labor concerns potentially complicating or even preventing a successful integration these factors make it uh critical to carefully evaluate the risks and benefits which we're trying to do right now before pursu pursuing such an action uh maintaining separate it departments with distinct distinct budgets and uh legal Frameworks May better serve the needs of both the city and the utility ensuring each can focus on its unique challenges without the complication of integration so that's kind of the the paragraph I wrote to spinoff on that one that last slide anyway sorry continue no very good uh budget wise it is just purely speculating how this would be handled um obviously City sides paid with tax levy dollars and BPU paid by rate payer dollars we all know this um questions that we have would have to be answered at some point is how payroll would happen how costs are allocated you already have a whole lot of money invested on both sides how does that what happens to the ownership in the future how do you plan for uh big Capital things if you need a a single Big Ticket item these are Finance questions but um it was just put on here so that it could be talked about in staff meetings so any questions there no two questions at the end well you can ask for questions I that was just what was in sometimes if it's pertinent to the slide right exactly so I get that this is kind of a rough inventory of where we're kind of at with some things there's much more to this but the point of this is not that you care what all these words are the point is I think I put an asterisk yeah I put an asterisk at thing after the thing where we're even remotely related currently everything we have are totally different products except the virtualization platform we use on servers and the gis we use and we both happen to both by Dell computers and they're customized to each operation if that makes sense right um even with licensing with GIS so we have specialized licensing for the utility for GIS which well no go ahead sorry don't want to interrupt you again hey it's your show too um so anyway a lot of gibberish but none of them are the same this is even more this is on the security side the city side is pretty much exclusively Cisco product which all talk and work together BPU is almost exclusively foret stuff which is just a different product with all their individual pieces that work together you can't you can't efficiently or at least well mix and match these things so it's complete replacement on one side or the other at some point in the future obviously nothing happens initially but this is just showing you the one and only thing is we both sometimes use team viewer otherwise we have no softwares in common here were some numbers 24 numbers uh pretty similar actually dpu's got a little more in the operating scooch more in the capital um and we both have uh independent departments that pay for some of their own software on the city side if police pays for their own software Neo or HR is specific to a department otherwise all the other software is through it I think you probably do similar Danny says yes yeah okay we do well we'll keep moving on uh legal or contractual barriers and again these are slides that were 10 bullet points of things to cover so um everybody knows the Hippa stuff and the PCI stuff payment card um the sies side is the law enforcement stuff you got firk and mdh and mCP mpca there's rules and regulations on all these things and different networks have to be compliant with different things on the city we also have the FAA side of things um which is electric sure um which is part of the reason that a lot of these networks can't be combined um you have two different unions currently which everybody knows uh like Aaron mentioned earlier some of the licensing is specific to certain industries um and this was added both uh Clifton lson Allen and Baker Tilly both recommend against financial integration and I have any more on that no I think we got the updated slide so oh okay thank great that was discussion then so the summary uh there are some efficiencies but more complex specialized networks can't be combined and BPU certainly needs to add some IT staff um and this was still at the time when we didn't know what the future role of the it data analys was going to be we had another set of slides correct uh we have this is still going through the October stuff sure so at the time in October we just threw this out there you have options you can essentially do nothing structure-wise and BPU will add the staff they need you can still add the staff at BPU but do more in more collaborative things when they come up or of course the full-on joint it department and I think we Whittle it down to two options now so there so that was the presentation given in October and a few other meetings after that any questions on the whole thing okay perfect what's changed since then data analyst is now vacant meaning they have even less resources at BPU um we don't plan on refilling that in 2025 there you go they don't plan on refilling that one because they're planning to fill the other two the network administrator and system administrator in 25 BPU has the two additional ones and the city is just still at the same two that we've had um that get a little small there if integration is pursued um sorry I got to read the slide myself but somewhere along the line has to be figured out how costs get allocated personel cost at least of um how do I say this similar to like with the airport right now the the amount that the airport pays us is based on the fraction of employees on the network so we just divided I think it's seven out of 80 some odd so whatever that ratio is how much of the budget they actually pay this is kind of a similar attempt it's by no means uh final or even even maybe a good idea but it would have to probably be something like this but that's much further down the road questions about that it was just trying to illustrate how things could potentially be broken up so along with this adding staff well regardless of integration is a fairly expensive thing to do which you know this from all the staff that gets added and this was just numbers you're going to spend 100 Grand probably on personal service Personnel Services and then you're going to spend another five or 6,000 getting going and Couple Grand a year per person that gets added so these are all just things to think about on the budget side of things um so we've probably had the slide in here about three times now um uh so anyway cannot combine networks not a whole lot could change initially um the third one you had in there do you have examples or uh Grand Rapids tried this and they not now going back to the way it is now okay um shed basic it support so one of the ideas that we had that would would kind of make things EAS easier on everybody would be say maybe if we shared an IT support Personnel um that could help both sides um GIS work you had mentioned and um but again we're just spitballing for ideas to try and make something work that makes sense but um deeper Staffing Resources would allow for more backup and redund to Personnel self-explanatory so I have a question on that yeah Mr T so that help Des um you were kind of I think trying to find the wording for the you don't want your highest paid people I.E either of you doing the say cleanup work or lower level work right is that where your help desk person may come in at times yes the idea is that if if we're working on a larger project that takes extensive at demount time and thought process into building whatever we're building or improving whatever we're improving or fixing etc etc etc um when we go and take something away from that to go fix a printer or something like that that that takes time away from you know time sensitive projects um that's where that's coming from so if that makes sense but that's what when you talk about a help desk person or employee that okay thank you council president beans can have Mr y can we go back to the slide on the budget I could try because I was surprised to read because we were notified at our meeting in November that Abby had just turned in her resignation that's the it data analyst I think that was only a couple days at that point in time now I'm seeing that it's not even included in the budget when I thought it was in our 2025 budget so this says it's not even in the budget so I'm confused on when that happened the it data analyst is in the BP that position is budgeted really does it say that up there I I i' made that up or okay it was an example that's where I just want to make sure it's in our budget and I heard Aaron say it wasn't in our budget so that's why I wanted to follow up on that I don't believe the boards eliminated that position at this point in time time no when we were spitballing the idea would be like maybe we could take that's why I said also it only had been a couple of days so there's been a couple weeks since then so you guys may have a recommendation that I haven't seen yet so we have no official recommendation as of right now okay thank you Patrick any other questions please proceed where okay I think this is where we're at so comes down from staff's perspective BPU needs it Staffing as quick as possible the city is maintaining but that's about it so staff is suggesting a decision be made because four months of limbo is not really getting us anywhere so either well it's entirely up to you guys but of course we're saying either uh maintain current structure and collaborate where possible and and uh head on down the road that way or formally decide to do it and make a plan I guess questions about that I think that's probably just the end okay no questions there so not you all seem bored to tears not a lot of questions so either you studied your packet well or the point of us standing here is to answer your your questions so that you can make the right decision whatever that may be are you completed with your presentation more or less besides last okay yeah and staff opinions we're going to give them all a chance let's go back to questions of you two and then we'll see if there's any other staff comments and I I I would certainly expect a comment from our public utilities director and our city administrator um although they don't have to but questions of Staff Mr so for Sean at City Hall it sounds like we're okay where we're at right now but it comes up from time to time that we could use another person to fill in during a busy season or a busy project that you're working on correct so as we grow in the future there will be likely be need at City Hall just like there are needs right now currently at BPU our toes are at the line yes okay and sometimes we we talk about efficiency here all the time and when I when I hear that and I know that BPU we've essentially we we've budgeted through bpu's budget uh we we do have some room in our budget whether something happens we're part we have partial pay U from City Hall from BPU um rates is something something's going to happen there but for me when when I think about that with both these departments having some needs that are more specific than others and maybe we have somebody that can bounce back and forth between both City Hall and BPU it does make more sense for me in my mind that we hire that person as just general it so there has to be some form of that General it what that is I don't I I saw the the uh organizational chart that you had up there I don't know if I agree with exactly what that looks like how I don't think that's the way that we should do it I think there could be some tweaking there this one mhm okay yeah under IT director I think there could still be a split IT director could still head up a IT department with at least one or two that are specifically for BPU and one or two for City Hall and in the future as people get hired on to fill in different positions it makes sense that they would be interchangeable unless something specific comes up that's the way I see it that's not really much of a question but the other thing um you had a pros and cons slide I don't see any of those as cons it's and cons it says it's going to trickle out slowly over many years I don't have a problem with that at all you know some people might want to move quickly but it seems like when we move really quickly a lot of times we don't get it right so I have no problem with that but I also don't want to say we should never integrate anything in it so I think we we do things carefully we do things slowly we get it right more often than not thank you any other questions or comments of Staff chairman Johnson thank you first yeah I agree with Mike on that con like if we made any changes I I would prefer it to be over a number of years and slowly so we don't break things right but my my question is you brought up Rochester as an example and I looked on their site today and they have 50,000 electric customers and whatever and 20 IT staff alone in in the utility did you look into a city that only has three IT staff and a utility and a city hall it's it's very unique because we are an electric water and waste and a hydro plant so there's no no exact City that will be alike to us obviously the electric and the hydro make it make us a little bit different than everybody but most cities have water correct right but um they're not necessarily going to have the same builds as we do the same specialization the same infrastructure um again we're completely different than everybody else as far as how we built our infrastructure right so if we go to like if if you do look at rpu um you know they are still they're using the similar technology if that makes sense um they may be bigger in scale but obviously BPU is not asking for that whole list of employees right so right my question is what do small towns do not what what are big cities up to what are small towns doing with their with their it needs do you understand that question sure yeah yep so so that's just kind of something I'm just left curious with because I mean we could probably find some really really complex I bet Tokyo's it department is nuts but it it wouldn't be comparable to us right and this was all back created at the speculation point the what if point I think if it does go that direction we do actually ask other cities where they're at right and I think that would be next next steps I mean even if we voted to integrate we would still need we need to figure out a lot of stuff financially and what what it even looks like but then back to our equipment pretty much our physical Hardware being pretty much different on every step of the line is that just because those products are better for utility specific and these are better for for municipal governance specific or is there over the course of 20 years where we could get on the same Hardware platforms for for a lot of it so our staff across the board either Department could help out in a time of need or vacation or whatnot a lot of what is on our side the BPU side is built specifically for the utility so like you couldn't use a Microsoft spam filter spam a spam filter is a spam filter yes in that case but I'm talking uh when you when you get to the fora Cloud the foret for the EDR um the security imple and uh the security mechanisms that we have in place for BPU were built with this in mind or we use that with the security in mind for the for the utility okay then doesn't I mean it partially answers my question that a lot of it is utility based but could you use for cloud on the C side or is that just a utility product no we could so we could we could over time have in the same software the same Hardware so everybody works for the city of Brer is dealing with the same stuff and understands y even different applications and and processes but the Baseline is there and I I mean if we could I would like to I think this is kind of a microcosm of the lack of communication between the council and the Pu since it became prevalent in all of our Lives because there's nothing the same and it's a bit shocking but that's all I have thank you Mr Mayor yes I'll piggy back on that that that was my first thought as well was um you know that's that's he asked first you can be next p come on now I'm I'm going to start getting sweaty after a little bit there's a lot of lot of fur going on here uh my first my first thought looking that was exactly what you said Gabe and that um that it's slightly alarming in that you know like those are the types of things we should be paying better attention to because we could have got ahead of this a long time ago with those types of things my question would be like what type of time frame like realistically let's say we said you got to shift everything over over time what type of realistic time frame and I don't and I don't I'm right there with you in the go slow approach to this like if you were to like take a slow approach to it what type of time frame would it take to change over all of that stuff my my question to that is to what extent and what are you actually trying to accomplish by changing it well so that would be that would come down to my second point point of this the whole point of the integration thing would be to make your guys' lives easier like in all honesty like I hear you say going in and helping someone hook a printer up is not what your guys' pay scale should be doing I absolutely agree with that you helping Kevin stck figure out how his laptop works is not what I want you two doing so if we can figure out ways if we can figure out ways of having staff underneath that that can help I I'd like to see your guys' jobs become easier because when we get to the top we should be efficient we should be able to get things done that we need to get done because like you said if we're completely stacked and we can't get after large projects if we're completely locked down on stuff that that that's worrisome when something comes along that also makes it so we're not mobile we can't make decisions that allow us to move things back and forth I that's the type of stuff that when we say this I'd like to see what that would potentially look like the the other two questions that I had on that was just you have the union contracts are are either view2 Union I am not no yeah okay I didn't think so okay because I just wanted to double check on that so there there potentially would be an opportunity since there is an opening on the BPU side of just getting that part of it switched so we're having the person under the underneath the right Union um there's potential for something with that but my bigger question to you guys is what what does your total IT personnel look like again if you're looking at the system that we have right now what is your total number of it people go to that slide with spitballing I went the wrong way sorry one where you had the my first day one right there I like no the other one you just blew right by it the one with your XL oh oh that that's in the new stuff okay that that as part the second slide of the 2025 would be where at least BPU needs to be for the foreseeable future fully built out roughly six certainly five ideally six FTE because I I'm in the of the same ilk that these two gentlemen are as well and that I'd like to see at least a individual that is able to shift between the two if it's just as I said to help Kevin stunich figure out his laptop I'd like to have someone that's able to do that you never know where Kevin's going to be you never know he could be on E in any building at any day right measure in snowfall like a mad dog but I just that's the type of stuff that I'd like to see us at least get a handle on and then just an idea of like long-term time frame if if it is possible to make those lists start to look like each other and just from our standpoint when we're sitting on this side when you show two things like that you that that's when people start going okay what are we doing why are things so completely different but I understand that you know we have two very different departments and they're built that way for the reason of what we need them for specifically designed for Sean focuses on this side what he needs for for the resources that he needs and BPU is using that for the resources that that they need for the 247 operation and it's specifically designed like that and I had that in my email originally back to uh Mr bro's here um that that the city it BPU it are separate entities that are not connected to each other by Design except when needed and already connected this is not set up this way because of any negative connotation toward each other in fact we work well with each other when we have to but because it's considered best practice in the it security World each entity has their own speal spe speciality toward how each Network functions that's why they're different right so and I went on to kind of explain a little bit more on that in that email but um they're that way because of what we do operationally at BPU because of what Sean does operationally here they're going to be two completely separate different worlds for a reason sure but there are things that we could change and there there are people lower on the totem poll that could be could do task for both okay right I was I was talking about Hardware stuff like that so I think that answers me for no Patrick uh it's a year later uh different role well actually the same role when Dolly and I went into the Clos session with Council asking for BPU staff and so I'm here again saying I appreciate the discussion about integration I read the reports on integration I'm not sure why we've been delayed in hiring our staff uh and so I would ask Council to please expedite the process of filling at least the one position uh for our it I know integration can still happen if you're going through that process but um I would ask that you get that done as soon as possible thank you Gabe Johnson I I just want to I just want to respond to Patrick when that employee resigned director Evans came to the personnel and finance committee meeting and said we don't want it backfilled and then and then at the most recent city council meeting when we approved the B at the meeting where we approved the BPU budget we were told there are no job descriptions there are no position description we aren't ready to just go hire somebody right now that's where the city council's at Patrick that's what I've heard so we can't just decide tonight to go forward and higher well you you didn't have it on the agenda so you couldn't but I mean when the one resigned we could have we could have backfilled we were asked not to and I'm not even worried about the backfilling I'm talking about the network director that was in the 2024 budget that's in the 24 and 25 budget so that's where I'm at get a position description put together that's part of what we're doing here this evening and part of the timeliness of this discussion is so we can can do that most efficiently so I think we're all in agreement that that we probably need some new staff and we've approv to new staff who had their hand up over here Tiffany um I I think I'm really on the same page with you know the other folks who' spoken that the process is not all of those obstacles they're not going to get smaller um you know the longer we drag if if it's going to take 20 years to get everything lined up it's not going to be less than 20 years if we wait 10 years to start the process and I I appreciate that we're not going to go to One Network and that there are reasons for that but we are one city We Are One brainer and I think we need to treat uh our departments like that we are one brainer uh and and I think this falls under that thank you any other comments or questions from Council Mr OD day yeah I think piggybacking on that it's what do we want to do we want to be further apart in 10 20 years or do we want to be closer together so we're deciding as we take those little steps forward including hiring positions and and position descriptions and and all that detail when we do these things we have to have this in mind so that we set up the Next Generation to be running more efficiently and efficiency isn't just hiring less people it's it's sometimes it's hiring more people it's not always about money and and number of humans it's about how well an organization is running so how separate it is right now I hope it's not that separate except for the few things that are supposed to be that always is going to be that way but I think there needs to be some integration along the way as we grow as we change as we hire people that needs to be kept in mind as we go forward thank you Dolly Matten all right first of all I just want to thank both of you for doing such a great job and putting putting this together collectively you have 60 years experience between the three people so your opinions and your um outcome is very much appreciated and valued um what I'm hearing and and and and what I've read um is ultimately I think you both all three of you would agree that we could use somebody as a business office specialist immediately that could be shared Citywide right between City and BPU is what I'm hearing somebody that's going to help with printers and set up computers and what have you that that that is something that it sounds like both sides could agree on that that would be something that we could potentially look at that to me is low low hanging fruit is is what I'm looking at right my did I not hear you right what hear that's the bare minimum but minimum I mean position wise the part the business support the specialist is specific to BPU and is not really an IT function okay call it whatever you want call it whatever you want but basic it heing there's somebody on a that doesn't need to have your level of expertise that could be hired that could help assist everyone right both sides okay that's what I want to because we need to make sure we're clear in when it comes to hiring on Union sides because what I'm understanding from our joint meetings was that to be hired under the city Side can work under all departments but to be hired under BPU site can only work on BPU stuff so I want to keep that in mind so that's why I I asked if we're understanding that that is one position that we could if we're going to integrate at some point we could look at that as almost an immediate I I'm begging for that network administrator Ain has been working night and and I don't know how much you could ask of one person for so long I mean that I just and I thought that you had created a couple of potential job descriptions so I know we're not totally in the dark on that one so we've got at least the seed started on that one so I appreciate that um I just appreciate because what you've done is you have enlightened us all that there are some products that we have purchased and that we're investing in that the city Side could potentially be utilizing what we have invested in on our side on the BPU I shouldn't say our side on the BPU side right um the 40 net is I guess some of those things so many of those products and that's as we move forward I would only hope that that communication would continue to um I guess be discussed so that we so that when it comes time to renew a contract or to invest in additional software that it obviously isn't cheap that we're looking at that is where years down the road we are integrating um in some of those things so it would make it a little easier when hiring new staff so I think I just that's ultimately we we've talked about this in great length I think there's some areas that definitely we could potentially share in um the IT department but I think rather than continue to talk about it and and uh struggle in not getting some of these positions filled it it it's it hurts everybody so that's all I wanted to mention and again thank you very much for putting this together we value your opinions thank you any other comments or questions from the council or commission Mr B Mr tzk um this position that was foremost um approved that the commission meeting and um I think it was called a sample job description that was actually put together uh almost a month ago now and uh you know we know what we heard is we have to get um pay grid approved or figured out a specific job description figured out um is there any kind of an update we might be able to get onto where those two elements of this new position for the public utilities is that the one that we hear is highly needed is that available or any maybe preliminary Jeff I'm going to let uh HR Director Schubert answer that so good evening the job descriptions that were proposed were only if the person worked at BPU and it's stated who that person reported to so if this would be if this department would be integrated some of those duties would change and that's why we need direction from Council before we can actually finalize those job descriptions what duties will they be will they be more than just BPU department will they be helping in other areas who will this P person actually be reporting to all of those things need to be in that job description before we actually even do the wage so that's why we listed it as an example Jeff so that the commission had an idea of what that position would do but we're not ready yet to finalize a job description until the council gives us Direction which way we should be going so if if we hire a position that's going to be um essentially working both utility and city that position cannot be a BPU employee based on the union status correct HR Director Schubert again so I would consider that very similar to our HR assistant position that position is under a city Department right now that position works at the public utilities department but is a member of the ibw administrative support Union not the public utilities Union okay so I think what I heard there is if we hire a position that's going to work at both and I think Dolly mentioned this and Kelly you and I have heard this before that if there's work done at both public utilities and City they cannot be a public utility union rep uh represented by the public utility Union correct HR Director Schubert again yes I would be looking at and I'm looking at will Keys he's in the audience will is the business agent for ibw um there is a uh a certification information from BMS as far as who can be in what union and I believe that the public utilities union says that it is for public utility department employees but we can double check that for sure unless will is aware of something specifically uh I would have to look at the contract Mr chz okay but I mean we we were were told that you cannot have a utility employee working in under the roof of the city uh facility it facilities so and I'm not sure if that's established now based on what I'm hearing because Dolly mentioned it you and I have heard of Kelly at the same meeting Dolly you and I were at and so I I'm I'm again I'm not fully sure and we heard Chris say just a minute ago that we need to establish who this employee would be working for and during the budget period of the on the second I had asked about that um who what union or actually at our last meeting I asked what union will this employee that utilities has budgeted be working for what what so I I I'm really hesitant to we Chris is ask asking Council to make a decision essentially as to what we're going to do with that employee what direction we going to take but we don't know I mean how do we take Direction when we don't know how it's going to work nobody's told me for sure how that works so I'm I I'm I I understand it's hard to figure out sometimes I I you know HR is not in my wheelhouse I mean this is why we hire people and this is why we have people Union reps and all that stuff and I want to make sure we're making the right decision and so I we're if we're being asked to do something we have to know what we're being asked to do and I don't hear that yet U Dolly heard the same thing right I I mean that if you're unionize that utility you can't work under the city roof you've heard that too is that correct Mr Bon I'd be happy to answer any questions did you hear that or not at the meeting we were at I did hear that okay that's what I'm getting at so I want to make sure I know what we're doing I don't think that's asking too much the other thing I would say is when we talk about integration and the whole idea of this as far as I remember was an efficiency and ie meaning saving money doing what's best interest of the taxpayers and ratee payers of the city of Brainard and um if if I were to ask Sean or Aaron or both of them um do are you still there still do you see efficiencies in that regard if we were to integrate in any way you can speculate how this might work the saving money by integration I do not he's got a thinking face I got the thinking face um I don't see it being cheaper no okay um so I mean and everybody wants to be more efficient and and like I think we all heard that being um more efficient doesn't always come with a cost savings sometimes it's just more sensible if we have uh a redundancy that's sensible if we don't have redundancies meaning somebody to fill in if somebody gets sick or hurt or can't work or quits or whatever it might be so I want to make sure we have redundancies because this is a very important uh these are very important positions to have it functioning properly at all times especially for uh utility it's a 24 hour a day 365 days a year operation so I I not sure if I'm uh not sure if I can make a decision tonight on what we're being asked to do thank you thank you any other comments or questions from the council or the commission Dolly Matten I I just I forgot to mention um Tad uh sent an a email and I just wanted to make sure that I read his points of concern he just had um put in the email at this time he uh the risk uh posed by full integration of it departments including reduced security redundancy and increased vulnerability of critical systems significantly outweigh the perceived benefits potential efficiencies or potential cost savings that may or may not be associated with full integration of it departments however some aspects of the partial it Department such as cross training between it departments for emergency backup situations or some basic Health Des functions would be ideal and I just wanted to to make sure I included his comments um since he wasn't able to be here thank you I'll ask a second time if there's anybody in the council or commission who has any questions of our staff I'm as I said I'm going to let our Public Utilities director and our city administrator add their comments but is there any questions from any other staff comments okay I got one question I think of um administrator BRS I yeah Now's the Time um So based on the staff here in the room um I've asked you this before at one of our work groups um are they do they have free will to speak and tell us what they think regardless of no ramifications no repercussions is that something we still have on the table Mr Bros I have not directed any of the presenters tonight nor Mr Evans on what to say or what not to say so they are free to say whatever they wish okay um if I may Mr B have the floor well I'd ask Mr Evans then um do you feel this is in the best interest of uh he'll get his chance like I said I we're in the I want to make sure that every all the questions and get asked and then we're going to give Mr Evans a chance to speak and Mr Bo's a chance to speak I'd prefer everybody I'm not stopping him from speaking Kelly what's that I'm not stopping him from speaking I'm just asking him a question okay I'm going to ask my question okay okay Mr Evans do you have any uh concerns about integration as you've seen it described here tonight uh thank you councilman chzo I guess I should first preface that uh I would fully support whatever the council comes up with whether it's integration or to remain separate and that I would do my due diligence to see that the will of the council is done uh working with uh administrator boals so I guess just to preface that that at this point I don't think there's an official Direction at this point but I would say that whenever you know the vote is done regardless that uh the utility department would uh capitulate and cheerfully act as to the will of the council uh with that said uh with 30 years experience in utilities uh I've seen uh the Spectrum uh to councilman Johnson's Point as to oh uh cities of similar size uh what's been done again there's a spectrum you know you can have a 6 16,000 population city that is the that the it is strictly contracted out with a uh technology company provider um and of course obviously there's pitfalls with that that is economies and things fluctuate that you know if your local computer company computer store goes out of business and that was your sole supplier vendor um now you're scrambling to uh find Alternatives whether or not that's built into an emergency response plan or some other contingency analysis uh for that uh on the other hand you know again you know 16,000 plus City that integrated very much like Brainard we're we're not the only city that's integrated again you know lots of examples you start looking at you know 50,000 population and uh for that you'd have to look at the history was that utility always a 50,000 customer utility no at some point in the past it was a 16,000 member utility you know so you have to dig a Little Deeper do the research do the due diligence when it was 16,000 was it already integrated or what was the magic number what were the prevailing conditions circumstances again you know every city is unique there really is no such thing as a cookie cutter per se that there's always prevailing circumstances conditions uh political environment if you will um so again you know very complex question uh is what Briner has now uh being separate work I would say the answer is yes um the question is as an integrated model would that work yes would an integrated model be as efficient as the separate groups again my personal experience in dealing in the industry I would probably say say no um and then of course you know exam uh this slide 24 that's up you can see that uh if you look at the bottom line there full-time employees if Citys side and Utility side stay separate but we actually expand we would go from four to five FTE but if we integrate the number is actually six so that's why the integrated version is the 100,000 more a year potentially uh as opposed to staying separate uh moving forward uh and then of course again this was just representative numbers but you know to go in there and say oh the network administrator would spend 80% of their time doing utility work 20% of the time doing City work again I guess obviously the more correct approach to that would be for payroll to say okay what was the actual hours keep track of your time and you know and expand that out you know say how many hours did you work for the police department how many hours did you work for the airport how many hours and you know actually get that data and come back with some numbers but with that being said that integrated uh I mean uh part of the struggle the conversation that has been presented is specialization that if you have an integrated group that realistically you're going to have subject matter experts for particular applications whether it's the OT the it what have you so to just randomly come up with percentages or splits or allocations when the reality is that for for example Aaron is pretty much a subject matter expert for anything that would be in the utility department so the reality would be that he would most likely be 100% or 99.9% of the time focused on uh utility work so I mean obviously we always Aspire and we want to develop and look forward uh plan ahead and I absolutely look for uh opportunities to share and learn and have the support backup um I mean one thing that we do talk about on uh both sides of the river I mean we're all City departments and and the one thing that as a city that you know we pride ourselves on or at least are trying to strive for is work life balance yes absolutely we need to find Aaron some backup absolutely we need to find Shawn and Lorie some backup they need to have work life balance they don't need to be on call 247 um so again the short answer is uh you know that I will do what the will of the council is and we will make anything work but uh until that point that I guess I would be in the uh minority opinion that uh integration total would probably not be appropriate however a shared resource at a help desk level would not be a bad idea U again like I said Sean Lori their subject matter experts for their specific roles on their side whether it's the criminal justice type applications for Police Department whatever that skill set Aaron does not have can he learn that absolutely once he's learned it given that Shan and Lori would be more of the primary roles for that when the time comes when he's needing to be the support for that function is it an efficient support is it that he can you know fix the problem in the same amount of time that sha Lori or a subject matter expert for that particular uh application could do uh you know again other words is it something where uh sha or Lori could fix it in 30 minutes whereas it would take Shan 4 hours because he only looked at it or have dealt with it for an hour in three years as an example um so again I can add additional comment as additional questions come in or what have you but again you know uh as far as the utility we have specialized systems and infrastructure uh security and compliance is slightly different uh again you know we're looking for efficiencies operational efficiency uh utilities are basically what we would consider Mission critical and downtime has severe consequences not saying that City uh side functions aren't critical but you know some things you can keep till morning some things you need to come up with a solution and a response in a matter of minutes or within an appropriate amount of time um and so again I will I guess uh stop at this point unless there's additional questions that we want to pursue so thank you for the time Mr chz thank you I'm good thank you any other questions or comments from Council or Comm commission or other staff Mr Habor please come up to the microphone state your name and position with the city Mike abor Public Works director currently I have five divisions underneath me four of those five have separate programs that I have to administer and Sean administers if I actually separated from the city and created my own group would there be a reason to do that and that's why I say that is that I have a pretty complex Department with engineer Transit and so forth and I just don't see that being realistic would you separate me if integration isn't a good idea I I just I just want to throw that question out there to the council because we are one team and I want to thank the the BPU staff like our engineer he when he wants to have a look at the water lines he needs to go over to BPU and graciously thank you again for allowing him to do that but with integration we could actually do that or two and again it's just something about making one team and I just wanted to indicate I have again five departments four of which have their own programming but you would not separate me from the city so I just wanted to articulate that thank you thank you anybody else before I turn it over to our directors all right Mr Evans you've had your uh I'm answering Mr chk's question but is there anything else you'd like to add to the discussion on integration uh thank you Mr President I I guess just uh to try to be a succinct little bit of a rant if I may try to keep it under three minutes so we can get home tonight uh I guess first off I would say that I guess the term integration is being misused to an extent uh in in the business World which I've operated in we we have vertical integration is when we streamline operations by taking ownership of a process from contractors or other vendors this is not horizontal integration either as the plan does not come up with any additional services or increases production we remain the same city uh BPU is looking to expand the utility department to mitigate single point of failure scenarios as well to deliver upon City and utility statements of promoting work life balance to employees uh so what we really are dealing with because as you get to know me that you know I stickler for detail that in reality the what was proposed is actually Matrix management where you have the vertical chain of command so for a city or company let us say that you have a finance department you have an engineering Department you have itot Department that in Matrix management that it is not necessarily a full-time functional scenario that Matrix management is pretty much Project based management where you would have a functional manager and then you would have a project manager so in the case of where you have on the uh the one slide where you showed the IT department and then of course the concept of saying oh this is a percentage or majority BPU or this is a percentage majority Cityside that what happens in that scenario you very quickly create a twom manager scenario in that you have your functional manager based on the division or Department that you're pulling the talet from and then you have the project manager which would be the department or the specific project manager or lead that that employee is being used for so I know it's kind of convoluted because I don't have any uh visuals to share but again like I said you know the hierarchial organizational chart we have this vertical down if you will type Behavior going on and then for a uh project management you have a horizontal so a good example is let's take a b or an aerospace company or an automotive company and we're saying okay we are going to build a 757 okay you are going to be the manager for our 757 product line you tell us what you need okay I need an IT person I need the engineer I need my fin I need a finance person and so that's basically the model that we that's being presented or created or what we're discussing with for the scenario that for it that BPU would be the project owner or it could be that Public Works is the project owner or the police department is the project owner so and whether it's Sean Aon or whoever else is the IT director they are the functional manager they are so the question becomes that you know obviously we're looking for efficiencies we're one city but when certain priorities or Scopes or visions don't align for whatever reason now you have that particular asset or individual basically having to deal with two man managers if my project manager is telling me to go in this direction but my functional manager is telling me to go in this direction you know that creates some issues so in addition to some of the pros and cons that were discussed um in the slides I would just share some pros and cons with Matrix management the pros you know I'm not the negative Nelly I I I will absolutely share the positives of Matrix management first Pros having two managers May mean that you get access to different strengths and learning opportunities with the caveat however that uh an open door policy or a team or collaborative environment you can still get that a matrix structure gives employees opportunities to learn skills sets although job titles descriptions coupled with performance review process does have a negative consequence of potentially discouraging professional development two managers can absolutely create a teamwork Dynamic although as I've said on many times before for the sake of efficiency let's look at ways of discouraging opportunity or avenues for creating drama uh theoretical collaboration between departments uh you know again when you have one Department that has goals and Visions versus another department whose priorities may be different how do we address that um find some stuff here cons okay but again cons when multiple people assign tasks and review your work it can be challenging to maintain clear instruction without communication without miscommunication which can lead to inefficiency obviously communication regardless of the outcome of this evening communication is Paramount We Are One City everybody needs to know what everybody is doing Point Blank uh implementing a matrix structure makes it difficult to gauge employee performance when working on a project in part because team members essentially perform more than one role functionally and within a project so a project manager may see results from an employee that the functional manager does not but yet when it comes to performance reviews or whatever is this person exceeding in their project or are they just achieving in their function Matrix organization structure can also sometimes lead to work overload since team members must handle Project work in addition to regular work employees might suffer burnout Overlook tasks fail to complete them or have their work quality suffer due to time constraints slow decision making because a matrix calls for more than one manager decisions can sometimes take longer in a traditional hierarchical structure Furthermore with integration multiple managers and team members decisions that require multiple steps quality assurance Etc can be slowed down which in turn obviously you want to take care thought and have quality and craft in your work but again you know there's a fine line for taking too long to complete something versus doing it uh and of course different management styles or goals may lead to two managers having different priorities again that seems to be a recurring theme for these cons but uh you know obviously the power dynamics need to be uh that which hasn't been discussed obviously this is a work in progress but to that that again you know if the functional manager and a project manager uh you know who gets the 51% vote for how something is to be done uh and of course I can cite examples but I don't think I need to go into the weeds because some past practice and some things that have gone on here in the city you know that's kind of evident for uh scenarios or situations where we're kind of set up that way either officially or unofficially um so I guess with that that's uh kind of my uh opening remarks again thank you very much for the time questions comments observations welcome thank you any additional comments from M for Mr Evans Mr BRS thank you Mr President just a couple comments um I wholeheartedly believe in centralized command and control and decentralized execution that means there's one person at the top and the work is spread out amongst the staff as talents and um functional requirements demand so I think we can administratively integrate these two departments and make virtually no changes operationally at all so I do not see any increased cost in this at all what I do see is a clear chain of command a a clear chain of communication and that's going to inherently make us more efficient furthermore if I'm a director and I have two people in my department or if I'm a director and I have four to six people in my department the four to six people inherently gives me more operational flexibility as as we conduct business day-to-day business we can create cross training opportunities to mitigate operational deficiencies but to me it's imperative that we have one person that um is calling the shots for a department that's in 35 years of working every every organization of Ben and operates that way and the drama that I've experienced here is more than all of the other places I've been at combined it's it's astonishing so couple comments I was hired nearly 10 months ago and uh Council please correct me if I'm wrong but I think um a large part of why I was hired was due to my leadership experience and skills we certainly have challenges regarding our organizational culture and our identity the culture among staff is fractured and at times unhealthy our identity has yet to come into clear Focus for me and a unified vision for the city is incomplete brard is a great Community with engaged Ed leaders a committed staff and a public that deserves the highest quality services we can provide these obstacles I've described are not insurmountable and they can be overcome organizational challenges manifest themselves in many ways and if we address merely the symptoms we may enjoy temporary success for a limited time however if we want long- lasting transformational change for the city of Brainard it's going to require foundational changes in the way we conduct City business and a shift in our Paradigm we can create a healthy robust organizational culture and a shared organizational identity that will make us better public servants and produce the outcomes we desire based on my experience it's my conviction that intentional targeted functional integration when and where appropriate is the path to continued and future success for the city of Brainard staff remains committed to transparency efficiency Financial stewardship and acting in the best interest of our residents to that end I I strongly recommend that the city council support the integration of our two it departments into one department and would purs and would pursue opportunities for additional integration in the future I've been working for 35 years in professional well-run organizations and I I know how to lead the city of brainer to the next level I also understand my role as a chief administrative officer for the city I'm not an elected official and I do not answer directly to the voters in a representative form of government such as the elected officials that are on the dis here tonight they represent the 15,000 Plus members of our community city council directs policy and staff executes the same whatever city council decides in this matter or any matter all of City staff will get behind it in word and In Deed as we serve your constituents thank you sir thank you well we've had an awful lot of discussion questions comments anybody care to make a motion chairman Johnson I would move that we direct staff to create a single integrated City it department and ISO move second we have a motion by Johnson a second by Stang line comments on the motion chairman Johnson thank you I uh I make this motion for for a multitude of reasons no nothing nefarious about it but I think it could work and I haven't been convinced that there's no way this will benefit anything so I think staff should continue working forward on this continue moving towards integration and you know I know one of the biggest negatives that I kept hearing is well rate payers or utility or or Enterprise funds but we have so many Enterprise funds in this city we have environmental resource Tech who is a one person paid 100% by an Enterprise fund but he doesn't need his own it Department he just uses Shawn and a portion of Shawn's salary is paid by that utility revenue it's it's not some mysterious thing it's something the accountants can figure out certainly but overall I just think moving them into one department and getting as much equipment and as much shared staff as possible will be beneficial if you look back up to here yes it does go from five to six but that sixth job is a GIS specialist could be work working in both departments with working on plans and specs for all of our projects moving forward making us a better run organization who's providing better service to our citizens and would it cost $100,000 yes would it be worth it to the citizens potentially and I think it's a path we need to go down and see if it works thank you thank you any other comments on the motion any other comments on the motion yes Mr bevans Mr Chic um so when we say to move forward with integration and I I I this comes back to the need immediately okay how how maybe I could get an explanation if gab's uh thinking of this I I don't know but we've heard it over and over that um Aaron needs help and I think we all agree so how does this expedite that I mean just saying to move forward with integration is can we take care of that with this motion do you think Gabe or Gabe is willing to answer that Mr chz yeah Jeff I think it does I think what they were waiting on is are we integrating or are we not either way we move forward I think we are moving forward and getting Aaron the help he needs I don't think it slows or speeds up the process either way it's this decision is what needed to be made and voting yes on this makes the decision made Mr J I would um I I say I I met with um um Mike and Nick today I thought it was a a fan very informative meeting okay and I appreciate the meeting it was it was a lot of stuff you know and it's yeah the whole time I I got home late this late this morning and I I thinking about everything that we talked about virtually till the time I got here and it it didn't really tell me um um I I'm trying to I'd like to absorb this more I'd like to my thought was when I you know got back home and I'm thinking about what we talked about I thought boy if I could just sit down for another hour or so maybe once maybe twice with uh a few of the individuals that were you know either I met with today or include a couple more that we talked about and try and you know get get to the heart of what the issues are and I I hope I I don't know if uh appropriate but I I would hope that everybody's had a similar meeting with Mike and I don't know that though and um it just seems like there's some things that I could get so much clearer in my head to figure this out but as it is we have a motion in a second so it's time for a vote and I just wanted to make that a point that uh I don't know if I'm ready to approve this or not so that's where I'm at thank you any other comments U mayor bedau can I ask for like what what kind of Envision timeline are you thinking for this obviously immediately to get a job in line yeah either or immediately to get a job in line so that we can get help to Aaron would be ideal but in terms of the the broader scope of this to my motion it's to move forward I put Nick in charge of any of the other details I'll direct my question to you then Nick thank you Mr Mayor uh if if if the council does approve this integration I intend to get on a downhill slope and aggressively pursue this um how that would happen in my mind um is we would quickly uh rewrite the PD for the director position if necessary make the necessary changes we would get that out and per perhaps advertise it internally for 5 days and see what kind of Interest we get the first thing is the most important thing is to get a director in place and then now we have a lever that we can pull and a belly button and I can talk to that director and say this is the the schedule that we need to get on this is what I need from you and I can start tasking that individual uh to provide necessary plans as we need them but my intent would be to get on a downward slope and aggressively pursue this I think staff on both sides and I think most would agree with this um staff would certainly uh appreciate a definitive answer from Council um so can get out of this this this limbo stage cuz it's it's challenging and the Rumor Mill continues to pet perpetuate and anxiety continues to perpetuate so um whatever Council decides all of Staff in this room will support it and we will get behind it but if it is approved uh we will get a job description published for the director we'll get that position hired and then we'll move from there as aggressively as we can Mr bed how quickly before we can get support staff to BP yeah Chris Chris Shubert will answer that to the best of her ability usually takes us about 6 weeks or so to be able to advertise interview and get someone on board that is a very um tight schedule sometimes it takes a little bit longer I follow up to that though does that then mean we're compounding six on six or are we able to potentially get a position that can be shared position for BPU so that they can continue to have some stress relief essentially or or relief from um the excess duties while we're creating the director and creating the the positions underneath May Mr President Mr BRS Mr Mayor I I would commit staff that we would uh pursue that path as aggressively as we can I understand we need help and um I want to make sure that all of our staff have what they need to be successful so we will Exel at this process as fast as we can to get that position filled just to clarify though are we talking director needs to be filled first prior to support staff that would be my preference I'd like to have the director filled first because that person should really I'm not a micromanager so if I hire a director uh I want to know what that director needs to be successful and whatever they say they need I'm going to work toward that end and if there's obstacles on their way I'm going to try to remove remove those obstacles for them okay thank you I just want to make sure I was aware of that any other questions or comments on the motion Mr B for I'm gonna go OD day and then ches um hearing hearing Mr br's comments makes does make me feel more comfortable moving forward with this I feel like he's confident in what he sees going forward in this specific part in this department I know there's hesitancy throughout um maybe throughout staff um but we hired administrator BRS to do a job and we have to let him do it to the best of his ability we're holding him back um and I'd like to see confidence throughout the organization and Mr BRS in those decisions uh going forward with integration we're talking about it and I'm the only thing that's hesitant on my end is how fast that's moving but this is this is pretty specific the way I see it I just hope that as we go further I know there's been comments on different departments integrating in different ways I want to really take a slow look at those things as we keep moving forward that would be my preference as we see things I think I think you you said it very well in your comments very targeted specific functional improvements in the integration and other parts uh going forward that makes me feel more comfortable and uh I think I'm I'm going to support this motion um I think it's going to be a good move thank you Mr chz I just asked for a roll call vote yeah that makes sense especially with one being missing any other comments on the motion Mr Mayor it is a second comment but I do just want to tell staff that this is stuff that we take very serious and you know there's a lot of a lot of data a lot of information no but just let me speak for half a freaking second please thank you you know I know I look like an idiot right now but that's okay I'm okay with that this is stuff we take very serious and I I uh because you said that about you know the the stress and the stuff that's happening and and the the rumor mongering that happens I I'm a guy that likes to take our time figuring out where we're going to go and then when we go go when we go and when we make decisions let's move forward but in the in the process of doing this I think if there are other things that we're looking at doing as a city it's important for us to make sure that we're getting the correct information and that we're doing things on a pace that is appropriate so I'm not a guy that likes to go at things with a hatchet I just don't I don't like that that approach so um but I I do like everything we've heard here tonight I do like seeing this stuff and hearing you say you know like on a day-to-day basis here's the struggles that we would have here's the things that we have to do um I we need to hear that we need to hear that from our staff and we need to hear that from from the individuals that are involved with it um but you also you also made me more confident in our ability to do things as well so I appreciate it and I just want to say thank you to our staff and to the commission for being here as well thank you Mr Mayor and I think you look very nice thank you any other comments or questions we've had a request for a roll call we have a motion by Johnson a second by Stang line Tony please call the role St Nick yes Stang line yes Johnson YZ yes OD yes yes that motion passes unanimously Mr President Mr Johnson I don't know if another motion is in order but is there any action we can take tonight to expedite the IT director hiring process since we don't meet for nearly two more weeks let's ask Miss Schubert that question and then Mr oday has another question as well HR Director Schubert do you understand the question I believe so so what needs to happen is we need to come with an it director job description as soon as possible I don't know if you want to have a special meeting to review that specifically to move it faster that would really be about the only thing unless the council gives a certain gives staff authority to finalize it and you ratify it at the next meeting you would have to give us more direction or more Authority than what we currently have in order to move it any faster okay and then follow-up question could we post both jobs the IT director and the network or systems analyst or whatever also could we post both of those at the first meeting in January we could it would be nice to have the director's input as far as what he wants to see in that job description so that's the only thing that's really slowing us up but we I value the input of our department heads what should be in there I am not an IT expert and I need their guidance on what should be there for those duties minimum requirements those types of things but um we can draft one we could ask Sean and Ain to look at them to see if they have input or thoughts that would be that would be the fastest way to do it or just do the IT director first and then move forward we would like Direction how you would like us to proceed okay yeah I don't know that I don't think there's anything we can do thank you chairman OD that answered my that answered my question thank you Mr bans Mr Chaz when when Chris um when you said you'd like to have uh have the input of the IT director before you U look at the other job um were you talking about specifically would you would you uh say Sean and Aaron can do that instead of having the IT director in place before we do that I misunderstand how you said what would happen in that situation is if they disagreed on something someone would have to make a final decision so either Nick or I would have to look at it and say this is what is really should be happen happening that's why I would prefer to work with the director that person is responsible for that position in that employee they know what they're looking for I don't so that's why we need to work with the department head that would be my preference thank you any other questions of Staff or comments then we are looking for a motion to adjourn are we going to take the roll call vote did passed unanimously passed unanimously okay voted yes Kev check his Network can make a motion to adjourn move to adjourn by stunich is there a second second second by Johnson all in favor say I oppose same sign we are adjourned thank you all Merry Christmas