08-03-2004 Council Work Session - Laserfiche WebLink

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c V c addition of the Investigator position is the best way to substantially improve responsiveness and customer service. The joint drug task force with Hennepin County, Medina, Mound, and West Hennepin Public Safety requires a full-time narcotics investigator. A current full time patrol officer has been assigned to the narcotics investigator position. Initially, the patrol position will be back-filled by a pan-time officer. A private fundraising effort is planned to provide transition funding for the narcotics investigator for one year. Tlie City will tlien need to fund this position. Tliis funding will need to be included in the 2006 budget. The Department is currently staffed with two officers during the night shift. Whenever a night shift officer calls in sick, filling the shift requires overtime. In many cases, the shift can only be filled by someone who has already worked eight hours that day. Asking otticers to work Ibr 16 hours, especially if there is no break between shifts, raises both officer safety and public safety concerns. Also, when there are only two officers on the street, neither of them can do proactive enforcement (i.c. follow-up on cases, DWI’s, etc,) because those activities can take them off the street for e.\tended periods of time. The Department is receiving increased requests for ser\ice in Long Lake, especially related to the Highway 12 construction project. The Department does not Itavc enough officers to respond to these additional serv ice requests. The daytime service problem could be corrected by adding an officer for traffic enforcement Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Finance/Information Technology (1..T.) staffing As the City has expanded its information technology capabilities, both in terms of the number of computers available and the number of applications available, the workload related to maintaining the computers and the applications has increased. As we continue to expand our information technology capabilities, this need will continue to increase. Also, we need to ensure the expansion of our l.f. capabilities occurs in a wel.-planned manner. This requires a coordinated effort to develop a multi-year I.T. plan. The City currently has one staff person who is responsible for the bulk of the I.T. responsibilities. This is the Assistant Finance Director/I.T. Coordinator. As the title indicates, a substantial portion of this position ’s time is spent on finance-related tasks. There is not sufficient time to adequately address all of the I.T. needs. It is proposed that a part-time finance clerk be hired to take on a significant portion of the Assistant Finance Director/I.T.Coordinator ’s finance-related workload. Tlie Assistant Finance Director would continue to carry out the higher level finance tasks, but would have a substantial amount of additional time to handle I.T. tasks. Sea.sonal Park Maintenance Position Currently, the Public Works maintenance staff provides limited park maintenance. Particularly in a wet year like the current year, parks maintenance is a lower priority than addressing drainage problems and street maintenance problems. In addition, as \vc have transitioned away from the Public Works