Agenda - Council - 08/23/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director Westby said this new position will help him be able to transition over to Public Works. Councilmember Specht asked if this could be contracted out even if it takes more training time to get them familiar with the City. City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director Westby said he thinks there is great value in having the Staff do the design projects. Engineering can be contracted out; however, having familiarity with the community allows the projects to be designed and completed to a much higher standard and more quickly. He thinks it will be a much better product if the designer has a stake in the project by being from the City. Acting Mayor Riley mentioned the street redesign that will be worked on for the foreseeable future would cost more if they contracted it out. He feels they have already made the decision that there is a need for this role. Councilmember Woestehoff said if the work was contracted out it would be more than $29 per hour in terms of what the rate would be. He said this position seems to be more of a cost savings. Acting Mayor Riley mentioned that Finance Director Lund had pointed out the utility worker has zero cost to the general budget. He asked who could discuss this and if this was in anticipation of the water treatment. City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director Westby said this is a position to start making up some of the ground they have fallen behind on, noting the utilities system continues to grow. As they add hundreds of homes, they have to add hundreds of services, which means thousands of feet of water main and fire hydrants. He said to maintain and operate this system, it takes a lot of work and this position is just to help keep up with that work. He said that he would also like to add the reclassification of the utility maintenance worker to a utilities lead which takes the utility worker out of the field when they are a lead and they are doing things in the office. Councilmember Specht said they had previously talked about the road and park maintenance working hand in hand on what is being done. He asked if even though these positions were being funded by the utilities if they had flexibility to help with the roads and repair or if it was just mainly utility maintenance that would be keeping them busy. City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director Westby said that they typically stick to their division, other than helping with plowing. Finance Director Lund asked if there were no changes on this at the time. Councilmember Specht said just concerning the recreation specialist. Acting Mayor Riley said that the Council wanted to hear more on the recreation specialist concerning the facts and figures. City Council Work Session / August 8, 2022 Page 14 of 19