Much of a council member’s “free” time is taken up with working within our sub-committees. As chairman of the Administrative Services Committee (the catch-all committee for questions of city administrative policy, taxes, council policy, protocols, etc) we stay extremely busy.
This is a quick update on the work that we’ve done over the past 6 months, what we have coming up soon, and draft copies of the policies that we’re considering:
Items that have gone through the committee and on to the full council
- OPEB Contributions
- (OPEB means Other Post-Employment Benefits, i.e. retiree health care). We modified the vesting schedule to require employees to be with us longer before they had access to OPEB.
- Tree Mitigation Fund
- We modified our development code to require the tree mitigation funds to be used for trees and landscaping
- Consider rescheduling the Tuesday meeting in November
- We decided that due to very low participation on election day from the public, we would permanently plan to move that meeting each year.
- City participation in civil evictions
- The city, at the request of a landlord, will place a garbage roll-off bin at a property prior to an eviction. The initial request was to end this program. We ended up modifying it to require us to move the roll-offs to our impound lot for 7 days instead of doing a next-day dump at the landfill.
- Revised policy for meeting posting and notice of potential quorums
- When in doubt, post that we might have a quorum of council members at an event. It never hurts to notify the public.
- Legislative lobbying rules and notifications
- We specified information that we wanted to see in our budget that explains the council legislative agenda, and how our spending aligns with that. The council also cut its lobbying spend in half this year.
- Council policy for managing sensitive information
- Council members, by policy, cannot release sensitive details of on-going investigations, disasters, etc. We can forward and share official correspondence either from the Mayor (the spokesperson for the city), or via official city channels.
- Annual review of the Homestead and Senior Tax exemptions
- In January of each year, the ASC makes a recommendation to the council on adjustments to the senior and homestead tax exemptions.
Current Items, or Items Referred to the Council
- Consider refining rules for council-appointed boards and commissions.
- Budget Method Change, Introduction and Discussion
- We tentatively agreed on a ‘Service Level / Inventory Management’ (SLIM) concept for future budgeting. Because this is such a big issue and so far-reaching, we are taking the concept back to council to get further direction.
- Non-Profit Organization and Sports Field Use Agreements
- DRAFT COPY – up for public input and further committee consideration on Jan 16, 2020
- Write additional orientation materials for new council members.
- DRAFT COPY – This will be heard in committee for the first time on 1/16/2020. I’ve written a draft for discussion/modification. The full committee has not yet seen this or decided whether or not they want to recommend adoption of ANY policy, including the draft attached.
- Consider drafting a protocol for handling visiting dignitaries at city events
- DRAFT COPY – This will be heard in committee for the first time on 1/16/2020. I’ve written a draft for discussion/modification. The full committee has not yet seen this or decided whether or not they want to recommend adoption of ANY policy, including the draft attached.
Future Agenda Items
- Consider adopting different rules of order for the council (we currently uses Robert’s Rules of Order)
- Consider policy concerning floor amendments made to ordinances prior to a formal vote.
The committee generally meets on the 4th Wednesday of the month in the Work Session room at Garland City Hall.
Our agendas are available at: http://www.garlandtx.gov/801/Meeting-Agendas-and-Minutes
Audio recordings of our meetings are available at: http://garlandtx.swagit.com/other-public-meetings