time to order are there any members of the public wishing to speak on items not on today's agenda but within the jurisdiction of the committee seeing none let us go to our first item thank you mario thank you mister chair members of the committee bobson mario finance director we have two items before you for consideration they were looking for some guidance or and even a recommendation ultimately to council there are distinct items but there you'll see how they're kind of connected and we'll go through each one individually of course and we'll start with the the city administr contracting authority and just to give you some background the city charter section five hundred and eighteen does allow council to delegate some of its authority for contracting purposes to the city administrator and in fact in one thousand nine hundred and ninety six it did so  services agreements because right now the requirement is that if any agreement that goes over twenty five thousand dollars has to be approved by council and that's different than when you think about we're purchasing commodities goods or goods or you know ordinary services  go through our normal bidding process for those kinds of things like we're buying widgets or you know pencils papers as long as we follow those bidding procedures we do not have to go to council even if it's a one hundred and fifty thousand dollars purchase and and that goes  for repairs or maintenance projects we can have a million dollar repair meanit's project but if it's properly bid it does not have to go to council so most of this really applies to professional service agreements i think on an annual basis we probably intern to about two hundred of those some of them go to council some of them go to the city administrator and some of them go to the department head because the department head right now has delegated authority up to ten thousand dollars but it does apply to sole source contracts not very common because if sole source contract means we're not following the normal bidding procedures so they would have to go to council but there is under the authority that we granted to the city administrator he can approve those as long as there are twenty five zero dollars in emergency purchases and public works contracts currently if they're over twenty under twenty five thousand dollars theoretically would not have to go to coun but we don't see much of those so in fact i'm not cameron bure public works contract which is am usually major construction not going to council because it's the magnitude some mostly relates to professional service agreements in this context so our proposal is to increase the contracting authority from twenty five thousand dollars where it is today to thirty five thousand dollars and this is just really applying the cpi since one thousand nine hundred and ninety six which was on compound basis was fifty four point six percent and it gets us right around to thirty five thousand dollars rounded and what this means is that if you think about it since one thousand nine hundred and ninety six because of the increase in cost of services and the like that the council has had to approve an increasing number of contracts and so we're trying to adjust for that in probably eighteen years is too infrequent for us to be coming back to adjust these things but we thought it was appropriate to adjust that so our proposal is to increase it by ten thousand dollars and what it does mean it will reduce the number of contracts that council will have to approve mostly professional services agreements and the city administr improving approving more of those obviously the big dollars big dollar contracts the council still gonna see so that's the proposed on this piece and you'll see how the thirty five thousand dollars number authority relates to bidding process a even a million dollar contract couldn't go to council yet we see contracts come forward where it appears that it's gone through the process i mean i'm thinking about  state code as a public works contract a public works contract by definition isn't does not involve repairs and maintenance is really major improvements to our infrastructure so a new bridge or a major improvement or bridge so anything that is considered a public wor contract has to go to council for approval even though we go through a normal bidding procedure from a bidding procedure for those if it exceeds twenty five thousand dollars and virtually all of them do so so but we're talking about repairs of maintenances and purchasing of just budget for everything so it's controlled at that level but if as long as there's budget authority and we go through the normal bidding procedures council does not have to see those you know that just sort of brings to mind the idea that a lot of that repair maintenance isn't necessarily as visible to the public as it would be otherwise i don't mean that it all oughta come to the council for a comfort of decision but maybe there's a way or maybe it is shared with the public through the budget process you know all that work but you know it just makes me think that there's a lot of repair and maintenance work that's going on all the time that we don't see on council agendas that the public isn't aware of because of that that might be useful for people to have an understand or maybe even kind of help me with the context you know is it more than the cap all the capital projects you'll see things as water main replacement program or sewer main and those are for the most part repairs and maintenance contracts but you'll see what the magnitude that is each year so you can see that you're you know what we're gonna be doing you're essentially approving those condos projects even though when those contracts are led they're not necessarily coming back to council and when we get the quarterly updates on the capital improvement project are those rehab things included in that are those more typically the capital i'm not sure i think most of the like the even the water main replacement  those we treat as public works contracts and when we're talking about repair maintenance most of them are more like oh painting a building replacing an air conditioning unit stuff like that but but but the public works projects every every city has something established as what were the council's control is going to be on for the city of santa barbara the charter provides that that budgetary level control is that the department level and what that means is that that any need time we change the bottom line of appropriations for our department the council has to approve it so if we overspend or we think we're gonna overspend even by ten dollars we technically have to come back to council to get additional appropriation authority to overspend our department's budget and obviously it starts with the the adopted budget and throughout the year we need more money we go through to council for amendments so that's where it's established with this with the city of santa barbara other cities could have it at the program level some smaller cities may have it at a line item level where those kinds of changes i think at the department level is more most common for a city our size so in the general fund as you know we have thirteen different departments that's twelve departments plus to be here in councils office and so anytime we affect the bottom line of one of those departments we have to come back to council for approval but when we talk about other funds outside the general fund it there's a one to one relationship between a fund and a departments so for example the water fund that is a single fund that is also a single department is the public works department which is comprises the entire fund so effectively is controlled at the fun level so general fund at the department level which is truly there are departments but outside the general fund the department is really we're saying it's at the fun level so you're controlling the water fund at the fun level and monies can be moved within that fund as long as the bottom line at that fund does not change the state administrator or department they could change those dollars monies around above the line for salaries and benefits or to special projects supplies and services where it's not clear is when it when we come to capital projects because we do have individual funds that are made up of a single department that include a number of capital projects so for example in the water capital fund they may have ten different projects that you will see in the annual budget that are accounted for in the water capital fund and if you were to read the language of our charter the state administrator has the approval ability to approve monies be moved from one project to another as long as it doesn't affect the bottom line without having council approve that does that make sense we believe that that's not really the intent of the charter or even the tenth of what council may want to be seen our current practice is that anytime we see when we have a material change where a department says you know i want to move some money from one project to another if we consider that to be a material change we'll bring it to council and it was not material we'll have a gem approve it if it's very minor will we and finance approve that but our current practice is that things that are de material do come to council for it and oftentimes you'll see it's in the first quarter second quarter interim statements we'll see some of justice moving money from one project to another getting your approval so the problem has been that we have not and maybe will to define properly what material means it's been more of a judgment call so is it a percentage of the project is it a dollar amount and we thought it was sort of time for us to kind of develop some pretty clear guidelines for the departments and for council so we can so we know exactly when the city administrator can approve things versus when council should be looking at these things so that's the intent of this proposed policy so the policy we're proposing is that that council's approval  circumstances in the first is if we're creating a new project so regardless of them at the amount of money if we're creating a new project that council has not seen before through the annual budget development process then we believe that council should approve that secondly if we're moving money from existing projects that council has seen but that that movement of money exceeds thirty five thousand dollars then we believe council should approve that and you see the thirty five thousand dollars ties into the over proposed for the city administrators contract authorities so conversely if it's under thirty five thousand dollars then the city administrator would have the authority to approve those kind of changes as long as again it doesn't affect the bottom line so we're still affecting the bottom line council is gonna have to approve that but if we're just moving twenty five thousand dollars from one project to another then the  that we show in the in our capital section of the annual adopted budget and it says this i don't maybe the main program water replacement main program but within our records we may keep individual projects an account for individual projects that part of that overall program so we may break it down to more detail level another example is with facilities jim dewey's operation he may have a category of certain improvements but within that are smaller projects that he is kind of accounting for and tracking so we're measuring at the level that council was approving it in the budget document versus however accounted for in detail so twenty five thousand thirty five thousand dollars it's really about how its presented in the budget document if we're moving money from those categories as you as usual effectively approved through the budget process so that's what we're proposing those two resolutions that will be taken to council next week for their approval and hopefully we get to recommendation from the finance committee okay any questions no questions just a