Travis County Commissioners Court
September 1, 2009,
Item 28
Now the parking committee is number 28.
and I see our two folks here.
to consider and take appropriate action on the following.
a, receive briefing on recommendation from the parking subcommittee regarding parking administrator position.
b, request to appoint members of new parking committee.
and c, new parking committee to revise current parking process, develop and add minister parking grievance process, and implement certain recommendations made in the parking committee report.
>> good afternoon, atnr, co chair of the parking committee, joined by lisa rush from records management, our other co-chair.
this afternoon we are bringing back to you some items related to the parking administrator recommendation.
and the parking committee.
i'd like to start with the easy ones first, b and c.
i'm sure we will have people that have comments on a.
so I'll give them time to get down here.
on b, we had, oftentimes we think people want to get away from parking and responsibility related to parking, we did have 60 volunteers for the parking committee.
so the subcommittee had equate a task to narrow that down to 13 members, three alternates and three exofficio members serving in advisory capacity and not voting members.
and those people are listed on your backup, their names.
we do have one change.
we heard from one of the persons and steventown will replace siniano, ryeo.
sorry for pronunciation.
there are no changes to the a nalt or advisory members.
so we suspect that item is ready to be voted on today.
again, we would have 13 members to be alternates and three advisory members.
we in trying to come up with this list of parking committee members, we made sure we had a variety from different departments, different modesof transportation.
so some of these people take the bus, some of those people bike, some drive.
we also made sure that we represented different parking situations.
people who were on the wait list or assigned parking.
we tried to cover all the scenarios typical for county employ ees in coming up with a pool on the committee.
so everyone should be well represented.
>> okay.
who is the new person to replace --
>> steventown.
and he is repliesing sinia rayo.
>> steven town?
>> yes, from the sheriff's office.
>> okay.
>> .
>> also on the waiting list.
>> with I was a good addition.
we didn't previously have a sheriffs department representative on the committee.
>> exactly.
>> so what criteria did you use to select these?
>> well, as I said, we started with volunteers.
there was an e-mail sent out on the county e-mail through the county e-mail system.
>> okay.
>> with a deadline of August 7.
after that the subcommittee met on August 10 and our primary goal was to get a wide representation of different scenarios related to parking for our Travis County am employees.
>> as well as another considered was a certain number of holdovers from the previous committee in order to have institutional knowledge and consistency.
>> are there questions on the committee?
>> I'm happy to say I only know one of these people.
they are outstanding candidates in my view.
questions?
move that we approve the committee.
>> second.
>> including the alternates and the other category?
>> advisory members.
for example, the parking administrator, depending how that position shakes out, would be on the committee.
>> okay, plus the advisory committee.
so should be 13 plus three plus three.
>> exactly.
>> seconded by Commissioner Gomez.
discussion?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> next part to that is the charge.
we had previously given you a charge and you had requested that we go back and take recommendations to amend that charge.
one thing that we did notice was that we implied in the charge previously that the items that the parking committee would bring back to the court would be approved.
and so in the language that we have submitted for the backup this week, it is clear that the parking committee would be responsible not for implementing all the recommendations in the parking committee report, but just those that the court desires to be implemented and are brought to the court to be approved.
the structure that we have in place is of course to have the parking committee flesh out the details, to present those to the subcommittee, and after getting approval from the subcommittee, then coming forward to the full court to discuss those items.
we didn't get that much feedback on the charge.
so if you have some changes you would like the make to the language, they are certainly appreciated slee..
.
.
>> questions?
then I move approval of the charge.
second?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
you are all expecting other members of the committee to come?
>> they were invited to if they wanted to be on camera.
we did invite the current members of the committee, I guess previous to the motion that just passed.
so before we leave today we do want to thank those members because they did give two years of their time in addition to their other duties, two years they will never get back.
they learned a lot and had a great experience, I'm sure they would say.
but we definitely want to make sure that we recognize them.
so I did want to, since they weren't brave enough to come down, a the least mention who they were.
you did see them during the work session but I know since they they have not been very shy and have not made it down again.
we have florence percento, racial castro, myself, emily, loretta, lisa rush, (reading list).
that was the committee.
and again, I want to make sure that we give them some recognition because they did put a lot of effort into compiling that committee report.
>> thanks so much to all those folks.
a lot of of hours.
>> so for the parking administrator.
the subcommittee went back, based on the request of the court that we look at the parking administrator position sooner than we had originally planned.
so woo e did make that a priority.
and asked hrd to give us a recommendation for a pay grade for the, an internal candidate.
so we had recommended a fet.
we have laid out duties for that position in our report and drafted a job description which was then given to the add minimum ops organization as well as facilities management.
once they agreed that it represented what the position was to do, gave that to hrd.
although it hadn't been formally approved they did say they thought based on that description that the job would be a pay grade 15 or 16.
and with benefits.
entry level for those pay grades range between 47,000 and 51,000.
we also looked at outsourcing.
there are a couple of vendors for informational purposes.
we didn't do anti anything formal as far as rfp or rf i.
they gave us some costs based on our current parking facilities.
and they look at nine of of our facilities.
the only when that we own they did not look at is the fleet services building.
there are a few spaces behind that building that we count in inventory.
and for all of those nine facilities, they estimated that annually that would cost $36,000.
that would be having two people patrol those facilities, to manage any problems with calls as well as if we do go with the capital expenditures, which I will talk about next, managing those kinds of things.
they would also do online wait list and managing the assign list is what they told us that their services included.
the outside parking administrator did also recommend capital expenditures of 27,414.
they did say that that could be deferred to a later time when resources a not as tight.
but those, that money would buy three gates to granger garage to limit access since there are problems with public parking.
and would gates to san antonio yo east entrance.
after they look at the properties they determined the others did not need gates.
so that is what this infrastructure would represent.
the other thing that is built into here that they didn't confirm, active cards for those.
they believe that we could use our existing security badges that we use to get into the buildings but because they didn't have access to our software or the actual badges they weren't able to give us a definite answer on that.
so that cost could come out of this.
but again this is without a formal business process.
simply asking for information on what they thought costs would be.
obviously, we passed this through pbo and they are recommendation was not to higher additional staff person.
their direct quote is included in our backup as e-mail to us.
i think that covers all of what we had found.
basically are asking the court on directions on where to go from this point forward.
>> I was to also add should the court wish to consider further the second option, that is outsourcing the parking administration position, that would require contract, separate contract to be drawn up, to be brought before the court at a later date.
>> I would move the that the porking committee be directed to pursue further investigation and next steps for outsourcing the parking.
>> second.
>> has facilities been consulted on the, I guess the pilot program involving the gates at granger?
.
hold on one second.
so the motion and second is pursue the contract option.
further information to report back to the court at the appropriate time.
let's just act on in part.
any discussion of that one?
all in favor.
show Commissioners Eckhardt, Gomez, yours trily voting in favor.
ms.
gate at grand jury.
think that solves probably a the lot of specifics that facilities need to take a good look at.
>> that.
we at facilities would view the gates proposal and the construction and also the electricity that comes with it.
we haven't seen anything at this time.
but when we work with the parking committee on this issue.
>> why don't we do that.
as well as refine, now, if we have a person in house, will this be a full time position or part time?
>> the job description was for a full-time position.
of course that could be altered if the court wanted something less than that.
>> I think we ought to take a look at that and say full time, part time.
>> those costs, half.
>> when we make the en we would know the cost to bring in house, full time, part time, as well as determination whether half time position would suffice.
may be that we need a full time position on it.
>> I think we also should look at added cost other than salary on a full time or part time.
>> yes, salary with benefits.
it doesn't have computers or any of the telephone or any of the other stuff.
this is purely salary and benefits.
>> let's make the apples to apples.
which means having full data to make that call.
>> just to be clear, I'm not sure what data.
certainly if we want to get more specific on the numbers for outsourcing we would have to do a rf i.
you are directing us to go through that formal process.
>> right.
>> but if we higher somebody in house there are additional costs that we have to incur.
we may as well know what they are.
>> okay.
>> salary and benefits are part of that.
in addition to have you have office space, equipment.
>> is it the opinion of the parking committee that this function would be handled under a part time circumstance?
>> in our report we did outline specific duties that could be half a fte rather than full time.
so that option is there and presented.
the job description that we gave to had.
rmd was full time so we so certainly bear that back down and get a new pay grade analysis to them to let us no e what those costs would be.
>> do you know if there's software that, if we outsourced it, that they use for tracking?
and if there is, would we have, if we went the full time or part time employee, would we be required to have additional software or tracking mechanism?
that should be figured into the cost.
>> yeah.
certainly the outsourcing they have more sophisticated systems than we are currently using.
and there are opportunities to make our process more efficient by using more automated software and databases and the likes of that.
lists are easier to manage and it would take less time for a part time position to do that.
>> so we have approved b and most of c.
not a.
looks like on a what we will do is further review and bring it back to the court at an appropriate time in the future.
plus take a real good look at the gate on the pilot program along with the input from facilities.
>> yeah.
the rfi will give us more specific data on the infrastructure and the installation and those kind of things we will definitely need to run by facilities.
>> anything else?
>> may I say something about the parking administrator.
we will work with the parking committee on the parking administrator.
what we have seen so far since we took over this parking administration for about like a couple months, that I don't think a full time is necessary.
you know, a full ft e.
probably 0.5 fte will to for this parking administration.
we monitor for the last two months right there what we have been doing in facility management and how we monitor the complaints and all the calls and everything.
i think we can do with a 0.5 fte and facility management has mentioned that we are looking at the job description also, and we find out that the job description in facility management, but we will leave it up to the expert in the human resources position that the team will do.
that is our assessment.
>> just to kind of lay my cards on the table.
i agree that if we were to continue status quo that we could do that part time.
but I think that the two years of the parking committee's examination of the status quo has been that it's not optimal.
and that my suspicion is that the private sector has expertise and way should avail ourselves of skills that they simply do better.
>> my comment is if we decide to be in house, that would be.
>> yes.
>> that is more than two cents.
>> absolutely.
>> thank you.
anything else?
we will have that back on at the appropriate time in the future.
ms.
porter, I think we have come to executive session.
>> number 16.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 3:14 PM
