On December 15th, 2010 the City Council met to develop a strategic plan for the next two years. From this meeting the council and staff developed six strategic initiatives that they would like to accomplish or have made significant progress toward by the end of 2012.

A general theme emerged from these initiatives that the City of Grand Rapids will emphasize “partnering to deliver services at less cost”. As we move forward over the next two years the City will leverage its limited time, attention and resources on these six priority areas:

1. Realize the efficiencies of a GRPUC/City collaboration
2. Improve efficiency and administration of recreation opportunities
3. Address Central School inefficiencies related to occupancy, rent, and marketing issues
4. Continue progress on becoming self-supportive without LGA funding
5. Develop and implement an efficiency study for Public works
6. Pursue needed Capital Improvements, particularly road work completion between Ridgewood and 14th Streets

Realize the efficiencies of a GRPUC/City collaboration

Work has begun on partnering with the Grand Rapids Public Utilities to reduce costs through lower overhead and increased efficiency by reducing duplication and cross utilizing employees. Both the Public Utilities Commission and the City Council have approved a Master Serves Agreement which lays out the foundation for this collaboration. Working groups have been formed that consist of GRPUC and City Staff. These work groups will develop the strategies for overcoming the inherent difficulties in making a major change to how a government operates. The first collaboration will be in the area of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Over the next 30 days we will address the areas of Human Resource Management, Information Technology and Finance.

Improve efficiency and administration of recreation opportunities

The council has directed staff to begin meeting with our neighboring communities to begin work on forming a regional coalition for recreation programs. We began with a meeting with the Grand Rapids Park and Rec Board to explain what we are trying to do and to begin to get the buy in of our own Park and Rec Department. This collaboration is at the beginning of the process and we must first identify the opportunities that are available to us and how we can reduce cost and improve service delivery. We envision a seamless recreation program delivery throughout the region such that the end user of the service would not have to worry about which jurisdictional boundary they reside in. This would allow us to better coordinate the use of our facilities and possibly allow for specialization of recreation facilities, i.e. a set of ball diamonds that are specific to little league, or softball, etc. This sort of collaboration can be a model for further collaboration amongst our neighbors, be it in Public Works, GIS, or other services.

Address Central School inefficiencies related to occupancy, rent, and marketing issues.

The city council has formed a task force to study the issues at Central School and devise a strategy to attract new tenants to the building. The task force is examining every possibility for the future of the building. The “All Options on the Table” approach has allowed us to wipe the slate clean and begin to reimaging the operation of Central School. One thing that the task force has heard is that this sort of process could lead to the demolition of the building. The task force has agreed that this option is not viable, because of the negative impact on the downtown area and character of the City and because of the cost of taking such action. The fact that the building is on the National Registry of Historic Places creates certain obstacles to demolition that are difficult to overcome. More than likely, for the city to get permission to take such an action the building would have to sustain damage that would make it structurally unsound. Additionally, the demolition of a building of this size and age is quite expensive. Mitigation of hazardous materials like lead paint and asbestos will have costs running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Continue progress on becoming self-supportive without LGA funding

The over-arching theme of the strategic plan for the next two years is to make strategic expenditure reductions so we can move Local Government Aid out of our operating revenue. Once this is done, the LGA we do receive will be used to offset capital costs by buying down debt, creating sinking funds to make bond payments thus decreasing the tax levy, or by using the cash we receive to pay for projects. The fact of the matter is that there is a high probability that we may have our LGA taken away completely. This city council has directed me to develop a response to such a scenario that does not include property tax increases. In fact they would prefer that we find expenditure reductions to match the LGA loss and allow for decreases in the tax levy. This is no easy task. We began work on this over two years ago and have been able to make permanent reductions to our operating expenditures to match $1,100,000 reduction in revenue due to the decrease in LGA that has already occurred, the increase in our fiscal disparities contribution, and the loss of commercial/industrial tax base.

To move us further toward this goal we have begun working toward more collaboration and to continue to find ways to reduce our costs. We need to identify approximately $950,000 in expenditure reductions to completely eliminate our reliance on LGA. Once this process is complete we will have reduced operating expenditures by over 25% as compared to three years ago. We are also pursuing the local option sales tax authority that would allow us to place a referendum on the ballot asking for a local sales tax of up to 1%. If successful we would be able to lower our property tax levy and replace LGA. This would mean that residential property tax payers would save approximately $100 to $200 for every $100,000 of Estimated Market Value on their property tax bill.

Develop and implement an efficiency study for Public works

A Public Works Best Practices Review Task Force has been formed to examine the operations of the Public Works department. The mission of this task force is to examine the operations of the Public Works Department to determine if any improvements can be made to the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. This group will send a report to the city council by July 25th, 2011 with its findings in regards to the following questions:

1) Are we doing anything that could be done more cost effectively from an outside agency?
2) Are there opportunities to share services/equipment with outside groups government/private agencies?
3) Are we utilizing our staff as well as possible?
4) Do we have an effective/comprehensive facility plan in place?
5) Is our procurement procedure as good as can be, are we using the most effective/lowest cost equipment and materials for all application, what methods do we use to determine?
6) Is our management structure as efficient as possible, within the entire city operation - are there tasks and departments that should be under the PW umbrella that should be or shouldn't be there?
7) Are the financial controls used the best available?
8) Are there other groups/tasks that we can incorporate to increase revenues?
9) Can we design benchmarks to determine our effectiveness?

The task force will present its report to the City Council at the July 25th, Council Work Session

Pursue needed Capital Improvements, particularly road work completion between Ridgewood and 14th Streets

There has been considerable debate and energetic discussion about a possible road realignment from Ridgewood Road around the Fairgrounds to 14th Street. Two serious issues are at the center of this debate. One is the environmental degradation of Crystal Lake due to storm water run off from the fairgrounds. This run off is having a visible impact on the lake and needs to be addressed. The road project would do just that. With the completion of the road there will be stromwater runoff mitigation put in place, such as rain gardens and the like, to keep the stromwater from running untreated into the lake. The second issue is the safety of pedestrians and motorists in the area around the fairgrounds. The current road alignment is not safe and needs to be realigned to accommodate the increase in traffic due to the Middle School. The Middle School now houses the fifth grade and District 318 has constructed a bus garage in the same area which will mean an increase in bus traffic in the area. The fairgrounds itself can be improved as part of this project and the road can be closed during events such as the County Fair, the Car Show, and Blues Fest.