04-03-15 City Manager ReportC.ITYOF _ City of Kalispell
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OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
MONTANA
Information Memorandum
4/3/2015
1. Police Department
On March 31, Captains Tim Falkner and Scott Warnell and School Resource Officer
Cory Clarke attended "Response to Armed Intruders" class in Missoula. The class is
designed to instruct educators and other governmental agency personnel on how to
respond to armed intruder situations. The Kalispell Police Department is looking forward
to becoming a host agency for this training in the near future.
On Saturday, April 4, the Kalispell Police Department will be present and have
educational information available at the Family FUN Day Carnival & Easter Egg Hunt
held at the Kalispell Center Mall & Red Lion from 11:00am to 4:00pm.
2. Fire Department
Since the last update, the Kalispell Fire Department have received 184 calls for service
and have conducted 8 outreach trainings with approximately 118 individuals in
attendance. We have also conducted our first car seat clinic day for this year's series of
car seat clinic days located at Station 62.
This week the members of the hazardous materials team hosted and attended a Hazmat
IQ course offered to other regional team members. This course allows the users to
quickly identify potentially hazardous materials incidents.
The open burning period is upon us. However, as a reminder, there continues to be no
open burning with in the city limits of Kalispell. Recreational or warming fires are still
allowed.
Crews will be transitioning equipment and preparing for the potential grass fires that we
typically see in the spring. This is mainly due to large amounts of dead and dried grasses
from the long winter season and the un-predictable winds that we see during this time of
year.
3. Parks Department
We have finished our 2014 Annual Report for Kalispell Parks and Recreation. You can
find our annual report on our website at
htlp://kalispell.com/parks and recreation/documents/PR.A. Report20l4.pdf.
Staff attended the mid -year Montana Trails, Recreation and Park Association (MTRPA)
meeting in Bozeman on March 26 -27. Discussion items included a legislative session
update of parks and recreation bills, outlining a MOU with Our Montana, a 2015 MTRPA
Conference planning update, and a USA Baseball presentation.
Camp Spring Out is being held March 30, 2015, through April 3, 2015, and is being
attended by an average of 48 participants a day. Planned field trips and activities
include; swimming at The Wave, Lone Pine State Park, roller skating at the Boys and
Girls Club, The Zone Family Fun Center, organized games, a scavenger hunt, and arts
and craft projects.
We are organizing teams and lining up coaches for our Spring and Rookie Soccer
programs and have over 534 participates currently registered. Spring Soccer
(kindergarten through 41h grade) is a non-competitive skill builder program for boys and
girls. Games are geared towards fun and instructional purposes. Rookie Soccer (3 — 4
years old) is a series of basic instruction sessions. These sessions are held once a week
for six weeks and geared to help participants learn the fundamental skills necessary to
play organized soccer. Participants rotate between three different stations to focus on
kicking/trapping, dribbling, and running skills.
4. City Clerk/Communications
The City Manager and City Clerk have received valuable feedback and questions from
staff across the organization during meetings regarding a draft social media policy.
Several more of these meetings will take place over the next few weeks with tentative
plans to present the policy to the Council during the regular April 20, 2015, City Council
meeting.
The updated City of Kalispell welcome brochure has been distributed to the Kalispell
Chamber of Commerce and to individual departments for the benefit of the public.
Many of the advisory boards have terms expiring on April 30, so the clerk's office has
been advertising these positions and processing applications in preparation for
appointments during the April 20, 2015, City Council meeting. A new fillable, online,
advisory board application form was created to streamline and standardize the process.
Interviews for the employee newsletter have been ongoing and provide a nice opportunity
to get to know people and departments across the organization.
The City Clerk office is continuing to build a photo library for the city's upcoming
venture into social media.
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5. Information Services
IT staff configured the new server for the City attorney prosecutor's software and
decommissioned the old unit.
IT staff are now working on a new web server and storage system.
A new IT request tracking system is being configured and will allow the IT staff to
better manage current and past IT requests.
The test integration for Cityworks AMS and PLL is underway at Cityworks. So far no
significant issues have been found during the testing.
The network bandwidth increased from the City of Kalispell to the Flathead 911
Emergency Communications Center. The higher bandwidth rate provides faster
connectivity for the public safety applications used at the City buildings.
6. Building Department
For the first 3 months of 2015, permits were issued for 12 single-family & 2 townhome
residences, which compares directly to the 14 single-family residences issued for the
same time period in 2014. Commercial drawings have been submitted for the Captain's
Marine facility that is relocating to 3211 U.S. Highway 93 South, just south of the
intersection of the highway and the US 93 Alternate Route/Bypass. The project will
consist of a sales office, service center, and boat storage buildings, and is valued at $1.4
million.
The building inspectors traveled to Bozeman last week to attend the annual Building
Code Education Conference for training/certification in the 2012 codes.
The 2012 Building Codes as adopted by the Kalispell City Council have an effective date
of April 6, 2015. Any building plans submitted on or after that date will be reviewed
under the new code cycle. Staff has been notifying the development community of that
respective date.
7. Planning Department
CTA, as part of the South Kalispell Urban Renewal Plan Update, will host another open
house scheduled for Tuesday, April 7 from 2:00p.m. to 7:00.p.m. at the Hilton Garden
Inn in south Kalispell. This will be a follow up to the March open house and will include
information from that event, the on -going on-line survey, and one on one interviews
conducted to date.
Staff was involved in panel discussions and presentations last week with the Chamber
and MDT officials talking about the current status of the bypass construction, among
other things. It appears that the issues surrounding the re -authorization of the Federal
Transportation Bill will impact the start date of the final phase of the bypass. While we
hoped bidding would be held in May with start of construction in July of this year, it
appears that the schedule will slip 3 or more months with MDT bidding the bypass work
in late August and hopefully starting construction in November. We anticipate a 2 year
construction timeframe to complete all work from the Foys Lake roundabout to the
Glacier High School/Old Reserve Drive interchange.
8. Public Works
Solids De -watering Project
The Biosolids Dewatering Project is at substantial
completion with the start up for the new Volute Screw Press
taking place last week. The Process Wastewater
Technologies (PW Tech) technician arrived on Monday and
spent four days at the plant.
Monday was spent checking
all system operations. The screw press was put into
operation on Tuesday and Operators continued
performance testing throughout the remainder of the
week. All Plant Operators were given 4 hours of training
Wednesday afternoon.
Sewer Lift Station Communications Upgrades
The installation of five Mission Communications Units at regional lift stations were
completed in March. These Mission Units replace the antiquated dialer alarm systems
with cell phone data connections and provide functions like real-time data, alarm dialers,
and data logging. The Mission Units enhance knowledge of the system for better
management based on collection of lift station flow, pump, and alarm data. Previous
training provided City Sewer Operators the knowledge to perform the installation of
Mission Communications Units at a reduced cost. To date, nine Mission Units have
been installed with thirty more scheduled for future installation to complete the system.
Additionally, the City Design and Construction Standards update includes specifications
for Mission Communication Units to be installed at all new lift stations.
9. Human Resources
Flexible Spending Account
Working with our Flexible Spending Account (FSA) Manager Allegiance Benefits,
reviewed our plan documents and successfully completed a compliance checklist.
Allegiance, as a part of their service, now will update our specific Flex Plan Documents
to be compliant with all new rules, regulation and laws.
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A FSA allows an employee to set aside a portion of biweekly earnings to pay for
qualified expenses. The most common is for medical expenses, but also it can be used
for dependent care expenditures. Money deducted from an employee's pay into an FSA is
not subject to payroll taxes resulting in substantial payroll tax savings to both the
employee and the city.
One disadvantage for employees using a FSA is that funds not used by the end of the plan
cycle (15 months) are lost to the employee. This is known as the "use it or lose it rule"
and requires planning on their part. Conversely, an employee can immediately withdraw
the full amount they are wishing to set aside at the beginning of the plan year (similar to
an advance), but should they leave employment, they are not obligated to reimburse the
city. These are typically called "at risk plans." However, history with the city and
nationally have shown it to be a very successful program.
Worker's Compensation
In reviewing our upcoming Worker's Compensation Insurance Experience Modification
Factor, it appears we will be slightly up from last year (1.0 to 1.05). Although our
individual claims experience was actually slightly better than the previous year, the entire
worker's compensation pool average of other participating cities had better performance.
This caused the entire experience modification factor average to go down, adversely
affecting us. This is one of the ironies of participating in a risk pool, but overall,
everyone benefits as the overall average costs drop.
An "experience mod-factor'takes our losses and compares it to expected losses by
industry/work type. The formula incorporates factors that account for organization size,
unexpected large losses, and the difference between loss frequency and loss severity to
achieve a balance between fairness and accountability.
The mod factor represents either a credit or debit, which is applied to our workers'
compensation premium. A mod factor greater than 1.0 is a debit mod, which means that
your losses are worse than expected and a surcharge will be added to your premium. A
mod factor less than 1.0 is a credit mod, which means losses are better than expected,
resulting in a discounted premium.
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