MINUTES OF THE METRO COUNCIL

SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE TASK FORCE

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Council Chamber

Members Present:  Bill Atherton (Chair), Susan McLain

Also present:    David Bragdon

Absent:    

Chair Atherton called the meeting to order at 12:50 p.m.

1.  CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE JULY 24 and AUGUST 15, 2001, SYSTEMS

 PERFORMANCE TASK FORCE MEETINGS

2.  POTENTIAL OPTIONS & IDEAS FROM DEPARTMENTS RELATED TO CAPITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT

None.

3.  SYNOPSIS OF AUGUST 15 TASK FORCE MEETING INCLUDING NEW INFORMATION FROM FOLLOW-UP DISCUSSIONS WITH DEPARTMENT STAFF

John Houser, Senior Council Analyst, noted that Metro has $375 million worth of buildings and other capital assets associated with the agency and currently lacks a centralized structure for addressing capital asset management systems. He reviewed information he and Karen Feher had gathered from the departments regarding how they currently address their capital asset management needs. (See Capital Maintenance – Current Procedures included with the permanent record of this meeting.)

The Information Technology Department reported that their capital assets are more of a short term nature than the assets from most other departments. The equipment is on a 3 year cycle. because the software and hardware systems have a shelf life much shorter than most assets due to the need to keep up with new technology. The IT Steering Committee is now looking at the issue of obsolete desktop equipment and expects to make a recommendation soon for a software package for the PCs, how to deal with surplus equipment, improved inventory control and a more centralized procurement process. The department does not have an actual renewal and replacement account and charges upgrades and replacements to operating revenue. He noted the one exception to that was the PeopleSoft system.

Chair Atherton and Councilor McLain wanted to know more about technological obsolescence. and whether the agency actually required that kind of updating.

Jennifer Sims, ASD Director, said the reason to have everyone adhere to a standard that may not relate directly to their specific need was that files transfer between departments and needed consistency. She said they did not adhere to the 3 year replacement policy across the organization, and that some departments were on an even longer cycle while some were on a shorter one. She said there were great challenges with trying to have hundreds of computers served by a core of support people and having them aging over time and not keeping current.

Mr. Houser added that sometimes the need to upgrade could be dictated by a purchase we may have made for a new centralized database or hardware system that required a minimum level of capacity and everyone had to be at that standard to use the software.

Councilor McLain agreed that certain parts of the agency had different types of needs. She felt the RLIS system or the financial department probably had the biggest needs for new technology. She said renewal and replacement was a big problem for this department.

Ms. Sims said the IT Steering Committee had formed a subcommittee to look at how to address renewal and replacement for computers. They have done a lot of research and would have a recommendation.

Jeff Tucker, Parks and Greenspaces and Chair of the IT Steering Committee, said he would be presenting a summary of recommendations. There is a recommendation that the departments develop a 3-5 year replacement schedule based on the needs of the users, but after 5 years, the physical components of the machines wear out. The other recommendation will be to put the standard software into the IT department budget so they would have the ability to control the upgrades.

Mr. Houser explained the processes at the Metropolitan Exposition-Recreation Commission (MERC). Each facility’s manager makes an initial set of recommendations with regard to the largest ticket items, and those recommendations are reviewed by the central capital project management and MERC administrative staff. There is also a process for identifying projects for inclusion in the annual CIP process, which is also a way of identifying and further considering potential larger ticket items. He noted the need to give the council a better feel for the scope of how many of those types of those projects there are, because though the council is not necessarily interested in approving or reviewing every $5,000-$10,000 project, if there happened to be 50 of those projects, it would be a substantial amount of money over the next 5 years. Each facility also has its own system of maintenance and renewal and facility condition assessments.

He discussed the Metro Regional Center maintenance and renewal needs and suggested ways to make sure the funds are available. He said the Regional Environmental Management (REM) Department is required by a bond covenant to hire an outside entity to come every three years to do a complete facilities assessment. Their contributions to their renewal and replacement accounts for the three years after that are based on the findings. They also have a master planning process.

Regional Parks maintenance and renewal is based on annual review by parks supervisors and management staff. They also have a master planning process for major facilities to indicate renewal and replacement needs and an annual process to identify projects for the CIP. The biggest issue for Parks is the lack of an ongoing funding mechanism.

He reported that the bigger picture maintenance issues at the Zoo are addressed through an annual review conducted by their construction maintenance staff. They have a 20 year master plan in place which influences renewal and replacement needs and a 25 year capital improvement plan which was created in 1995-96 and has not been updated since then. They use operating funds for renewal and replacement needs

He noted that there is a great deal of expertise within the agency in terms of capital asset management and perhaps an improved effort needs to be made to share that expertise with others in the agency that may need it. .

4.  FACILITY CONDITION ASSESSMENTS

Tony Mounts, ASD Financial Planning, said he had a consulting engineer to help with a ball park assessment of the facilities. Their team consists of three people, a structural engineer, an architect, and a mechanical engineer. They will be doing a baseline assessment. He anticipated more information by the end of the week.

Chair Atherton asked if a condition assessment had been done with respect to the seismic issue.

Karen Feher, ASD Financial Planning, said only the REM department had done that because of the bond covenants.

Ms. Sims said it was part of the construction when the renovation on the MRC building was done.

Mr. Mounts asked what other aspects of performance measures the committee felt they should have in place. He suggested perhaps some kind of rating system for each facility, a scale of 1 to 5, or something like that.

Chair Atherton commented that a rating system seemed convenient but insufficient because the numbers they dealt with were the budget numbers. His primary concern was that the renewal and replacement budget numbers be truthful, whether they used a standardized system or a peer review for the facilities.

Councilor McLain said the task force would have to make recommendations in two or three areas. There needs to be a valid standard for replacement and maintenance and an inventory of resources. They also need to decide which performance measures were practical and doable, starting with the vision and goal of the program. She assumed staff would bring a package like that for committee review.

Mr. Mounts said each department had their own established practices for doing building maintenance, depending on how the buildings are used. He said there was an inventory of the buildings and the managers could also help with that.

Councilor McLain understood the goal of the task force was to come up with some standards and written policies for all of the facilities to present to the council.

Mr. Houser said the staff supporting the task force had understood this meeting was to provide some background to the task force in areas they had previously expressed interest in and the next meeting would bring some policy options to consider in addressing the issues and items raised. He said they would explore the need for a baseline condition report and then come back for a decision on how to proceed with future reports.

Mr. Mounts said there were existing systems and asked how standardized the systems should be.

Councilor McLain said a flexible standard was necessary, but she wanted a formal one, as well. She said they should be able to ask for a facility’s maintenance program standards and practices and get something handed to them instead of having a dialogue about it. She said they have to have processes for short, medium and long term needs.

5.  FURTHER REVIEW OF POTENTIAL CAPITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT POLICIES

None.

ADJOURN

There being no further business to come before the task force, Chair Atherton adjourned the meeting at 1:57 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Grant

Council Assistant

Attachments to the Public Record for the

Systems Development Task Force of July 24, 2001:

None.

Testimony Cards:

None.