Town Council Fall Retreat Day 2 12/2/2022

Testing testing. All right. I think.
Mary decided to abandon us, so, no, she's, I'm sure she'll be back. I think don's going to be leading us off anyway. So should we get started and.
Oh, Patrick jokes hold on Joe.
Recruitment of staff and positions Dana actually, let me know that the city of New York City is looking to hire a rat.
To win the war on rats.
New York mayor, Eric Adams is looking for a leader in the city's war on rats, according to the job posting.
Of the rodents and can expect a salary around 170,000 dollars a year or so if you hate rats as much as they do, there may be an opportunity waiting for you in New York City.
Unless you start, I'm gonna let you take that over.
Did we did we ever get a cat star? That was our I'm, I'm not bad jokes. Bad jokes. I'm sorry you could you could call him bad or dead.
All right, well, without further ado well, thanks for, uh, the opportunity to speak. So we're gonna, we're going to be covering a little bit of an update um, and Mary and Don, and I were were recognizing that.
Um, we've got obviously, our new council member alikes here, and you didn't have the opportunity to hear this presentation a year ago.
And so don's gonna kick things off with a nice kind of a recap and a historical perspective of, um, what you could refer to as the great resignation.
All right, that was that was taking place across the country probably across the world over the past year, year and a half, and, um, where Gilbert was and then, uh, and then we'll lead into where we are, and where we're going. So, Don, I'll turn it over to you.
Okay, that'd be great. Okay.
Okay, so we're gonna we're gonna have Nathan progress. The slides. I have some notes here just to make sure I don't forget anything. Some things are really important to mention. So we're going to start with, um.
Tension the world of work, so a lot of things,
some of the things that as covid was going up and down things were closing and opening there was a lot of things that created a perfect storm and we started really looking watching and listening to what was happening in recruitment,
because we were experiencing some things as well. Some of the things that the world of work was experiencing is the great resignation.
Which a lot of people throughout covid started to rethink their lives and started to think, what should I be doing what I'm doing is not what I want to be doing and just really started designing in record numbers.
I think November of 21, there was a record number of resignations is reported by 4 by Forbes. I think 11 point something. 1Million people resigned from their position. So significant resignations.
The other thing we saw is, um. um
A great retirement, so a lot of people started saying, hey, I don't want to work anymore and so I'm just going to retire. So we saw huge numbers of retirements in the workforce in general.
Also at that time, what started to happen was a record inflation. You started seeing inflation going up lots of pressure in the marketplace and so that was really a struggle for employees. And so we started seeing that.
The other thing is with a lot of people leaving organizations, what that.
Did was, it opened up a lot of opportunity for for employees to go from position to position, and we saw a lot of movement within the marketplace as well.
So, as we were looking at this, go ahead and click make Nathan, we started to see, you know, again, a concerning trend of turnover and we saw that in in the country.
But we also saw that in the valley as well and saw that in some of the things we were looking at.
Um, so what happened is we started to.
Have conversations with the Council on what we were seeing, and some of the things we were looking to undertake and review and study and research to try and understand. Um, as I mentioned, we were also seeing our own struggles within the town.
Um, and, um.
So we wanted to do something about that next slide.
So, what we did in the winter of 2022, we put together a working group to really look at recruitment and retention within the town.
And that was a cross departmental group of staff to kind of explore that and, you know, each department within the town. And I think, you know, just looking across workforce in general has different needs.
They have different priorities, have different things that are going to attract folks to, to those career fields. to those career fields
Or retain them as well. So we wanted that cross section of folks to look and to listen to here. Um, and to tell us what, what would be valuable for their groups.
We also, uh, during that time saw, um, just an urgent need to impact the.
The things we were seeing, so we started to look at things that we could do.
Some of the challenges we were seeing specifically is we had some really high vacancy rates in some of our departments upwards of 40% in some areas, which was significant in some areas.
Um, that were a struggle for us to even get great candidates. Um, and so, you know, it was just a really long and hard time of working through that. that
Um, so with that, uh, we.
1 of the initiatives that we came up with with the inflation and with kind of looking at what other cities and other organizations we're doing and then also looking internally and having our conversations with our groups was to come to the council to
with some initiatives to kind of try to combat the inflation that we were seeing um, and to have some retention and recruitment strategies that we thought would be helpful.
So, uh, council was gracious.
And, um, and we, thank you for that, um, and approved a 5% inflationary adjustment for employees at that time.
And then also a healthcare pay down, which was an amount of money that was put into the trust to help decrease the amount that employees were paying for premium.
So that decreased, um, the cost for employees as well. And then also throughout the pandemic Gilbert is very lean, and we saw a lot of instances where. where
Employees unable to take vacation and so vacation carry over was an additional thing that council approved at that point in time.
In conjunction with that, the working group did continue and came up with a list of initiatives that really we were going to look at. What could we do now? What can we do in the near term? And then what we do long term because is this something that we saw that was ongoing?
So we know that we need to look at this and we need to continue looking at it. So we wanted to have initiatives that we could do throughout that throughout the whole time, as as we're having these struggles. So, the team divided.
To small groups and really has begun to dig into these initiatives and, um, I'll go over kind of how, um, how we're doing that in a 2nd,
so on the next slide but really phase 1 is really looking at research looking at the initiatives and saying, you know, what, what would that look like? What would that take? What would it cost?
Like all of those things that, that we need to be able to understand what those initiatives would take and then what impact they would have on our employees and our.
Our workforce.
Next slide so I wanted to highlight this because I want you to see kind of what we used as our prioritization for how we prioritize the prioritize those initiatives.
We had a super awesome team of of sub group of our larger team, and that included Kelly.
1st, and, um, alena and Nina, the Castro from people team, who kind of came up with this strategy of how do we look at these initiatives?
Is and how do we determine which ones are going to be the most effective and impactful and they came up with these different areas of weight that we use to filter through and determine where our priorities are going to be.
And that is, we would focus on whether or not the, uh.
Initiative was going to impact recruitment and retention or 1 or the other and whether or not what the cost would be to launch and manage that initiative.
And then also another large factor that we took.
4 initiatives we looked at in, in ranking, the initiatives was how many people how many employees within the town would be impacted.
So, just as an example, if we had an initiative, as we ranked through, that, that initiative was going to impact recruitment and retention.
That initiative was going to have a low cost to launch, and that initiative was going to impact the most employees that initiative would be 1 that would be ranked closer to the top for us to really look at and dig in to, to see if if there's, um, things that we.
To do it in that area.
So, I'm going to pass it over to Mary right now so that Mary can talk to us about the initiatives. I'll talk to you about the initiatives that we already have underway.
Thank you. Good morning mayor in council. Mary. Good, man. I'm an assistant Tom manager. Um, so as John mentioned, we've got the group already moving on some of these items. Um, and we wanted to just share with you. Some of the work that's been going on since the spring.
Um, number 1 we looked at some low cost, uh, referral incentives. That could be offered to employees that successfully recruit a candidate to the town. And nathan's team put in a budget package for this next year.
Which Nathan, I think the incentive goes up to.
About 200 dollars, 250 dollars per employee that successfully recruits.
Um, a candidate to the town, which again is a low cost, potentially high, um, incentive for 4 employees. We've also, uh, started backup leadership forums.
So we recently had 1, Nikki on October 27th I believe around that time. Um, but well, attended over at the University building. It's an opportunity for the leaders in the organization to connect and offer continued training.
Um, but really, we're seeing, uh, out of. out of
The pandemic, the desire for the teams to connect in person across the departments. And so that's a great opportunity to get those back up and running. Um, we're also looking at conducting state interviews.
So often times you do an interview with employees as they're putting in notice to ask why what caused you to leave. And what the group is trying to do proactively is for our employees that are, you know, no matter where you're at in the organization.
What's causing you to stay? What do you love about Gilbert and what.
Could cause you to leave because those are, um, early.
Uh, preventative measures we can take to try to stem any sort of recruitment or retention issues later on um, we are also kicking back off soon town halls.
Um, our town manager doesn't love getting in front of that camera for those, but employees love them. Um.
I don't know why no, no, it does a great job. Uh, it's a great forum for employees to be able to connect with our town manager, ask questions, um, and hear what's going on in the organization. We've hosted a variety of different topics.
Those started during the pandemic as a way to connect with employees and we've heard the teams, uh, request more of those.
We're exploring those also looking at a wider use of predictive index, which is a great way to help um, look at the strengths that exists.
Within your team and different areas that you, you may have gaps in that you want to highlight and recruit for specifically as you're looking at, uh, recruitment and then, um,
looking at different career opportunities within the organization cross departmentally. So no matter where you're at.
Uh, looking at creating that pipeline of talent and opportunities for people to move up the ladder, either in their team, or across the organization.
Next line, so phase 1.
We have been 1 of the things that we heard loud and clear and our recruitment and retention team was, uh, the town has what's called a pay for performance approach. So oftentimes in cities and towns, you will see a step program.
So, every year, as long as a person meets their performance, um, they move a predetermined step.
Gilbert does it differently. We have a program that specifically incentivizes performance.
So employees go through an annual evaluation process and there is a matrix that's determined, uh, every year based on a variety of factors, including, um, CPI and other items.
And employees go through their evaluation, and then based on their performance, that is what indicates what sort of, uh, adjustment they may receive that year.
But 1 of the things that comes with that, because the percentages can change from year to year as we get questions from employees, wanting to know what to expect, how does the system work and so we realize that we, um, would like to do some additional education of the workforce,
so that employees know what to expect and, um, help managers be able to talk to their employees about.
Questions they may have, uh, we're also working to figure out ways this is 1 of the most challenging ones of trying to reduce burnout with employees early intervention, making sure people are taking time to themselves, you know,
if it's nights and weekends making sure you're encouraging your team members to log off and that email can wait until Monday morning unless it's urgent. Um.
But figuring out different ways that we can address, uh, burnout and be cognizant of how many things we're asking our team members to do looking at educating the workforce on also benchmarking process. That's another thing.
That Gilbert does very proactively is we go through the entire organization and I believe Nathan, it's every 2 years every 2 years. Each team is Benchmark benchmarked within the market to see if their pay is competitive.
And that's something that, um, it's pretty unique to Gilbert. Oftentimes, you'll take an entire organization.
True. But it will only be every 5 years, every 10 years, a more, prolonged period of time and see what we do very proactive benchmarking to stay competitive with the market. Um, but again, educating employees on what that looks like how it translates to them.
How, and if they move in their range, as a result, um, looking at creating a mentorship program within the organization, that's something we also heard loud and clear as people want opportunities, not even just within their teams,
but in other teams to have opportunities to learn about different.
Um.
Processes different, uh, projects and I think that's something that Gilbert does exceptionally well is build cross departmental teams and provide opportunities for employees across the organization to participate in something that may, or may not be in their line of service.
So, we're looking to establish that more formally. Um, and again that leads into building, uh, across departmental teams. We've launched a number of them in the last couple years this actually, being 1 of them, recruitment and retention. We had a phased rollout team with the pandemic.
We've had.
Cross departmental team that helps us with retreats. That's sitting in the audience with us today.
There's a number of these that we launch across the organization to help offer, um, continued exposure of employees and learning opportunities and then, lastly, looking at tuition reimbursement, um, for and potential program,
expansion expansion for employee and later development. So, traditionally, tuition reimbursement has been for college related courses, but what we're hearing a lot of demand for, especially in.
Are.
Frontlines is potential to look at reimbursement for certifications and even more specifically.
Um, right now the person has to go through the program and then as reimbursed, we're looking at whether or not we can do some proactive, um, cost covering for certification.
So that an employee may, or may not have the, the ability to pay for a certification upfront and so we're looking at ways, we can hopefully offset some of those, those issues. Um, especially in our.
In our front lines.
Next slide, right next phases. So continued items that we are looking at is every single time we go out to post a new job in the market we ask teams to look at the description. Does it meet the need?
Are there any areas that we want to refresh or changed and, um, is it commensurate with what we're seeing in the market? Is it providing opportunities that for people to progress and grow? Is it something that's going to be attractive to incoming employees?
So, looking at those continually, um, looking at.
camping's have our employee recognition programs we hear, you know, consistently that.
Of course, anybody wants an opportunity to if you work really hard, you want to know that your supervisor, your team is noticing and, um, we're looking at ways to revamp that program.
More leadership training, both through the people team and and additional channels, all employee events. Uh, we're getting ready to host an employee event.
As we open our town hall looking at hiring efficiencies, what we can do to shorten the length of time from when we post or somebody applies to, when we can actually bring somebody on board and then, uh,
shortening that onboarding process whenever possible career road mapping. Um, that's something again, going back to those leadership opportunities and creating those channels for growth within the organization more town supported certification, as I mentioned.
And then this 1 is really important. Um, employee wellness time.
Nathan, I don't want to put you on the spot, but it might be helpful for you to talk. Some about the article that you've seen and we've shared it a recent sherm conference with respect to mental health and benefits.
And the importance that they're playing in the marketplace today, um, but I'll hang on that till we all right next slide.
Okay, so at that, I'm going to go ahead and actually transition over and then you can.
All right yeah, before I actually, I go back just so you're not distracted and I'm Nathan Williams. I'm the chief people officer for those. I haven't had a chance to, to meet yet.
But, um, so what Mary's referring to there was a really great research study that was conducted by, um, the Society for human resource management recently, and it was across companies and industries, um, across the country.
I believe there were they were international, um, global organizations that were involved and what they found 1 of the most, um, kind of eye opening components was.
That a 3rd of employees that were surveyed, um, would actually elect for more or additional mental health benefits, over additional pay. So we, we tend to assume right that, like, the, the carrot is always raises in pay. Right?
It's it's annual increases. It's inflationary adjustments. It's cost of living adjustment.
Um, but but that was really telling that the need the demand, um, and the desire to have more access to to healthcare, to wellness to mental health, um, within.
From their employer is is more important to, um, as much as a 3rd of the organization or organizations a whole. So that's pretty telling.
Um, and that's something that we're really trying to pay close attention to is, you know, as as Mary mentioned, you know, we're, we're talking about things like burnout.
Um, we recognize that, you know, the, the, the impacts of trauma and stress, um, anxiety on our 1st, responders, um, is substantial and, and beyond that.
Um, the impacts of, you know, when you're dealing with things like turnover, and they can see everyone bears a burden as a result of that. Right? When you don't have all of your staff. Well, then the staff that are here are putting in extra hours.
They're picking up extra shifts, they're taking on extra assignment.
And a lot of that sometimes unfortunately ends up being having to be mandated. So that we can ensure that there's no interruption to our services and that we offer to this community.
So, it's there's a lot of things that come into that arena of mental health avoidance, or a reduction of burn out and just making sure that our, that our employees are the best that they can possibly be.
There's a few things that are going on, um.
That are happening around us and you've probably heard some of these already, but we are taking a good look because we just want to make sure, um, that we remain an employer of choice. Um, not only for our existing staff.
But as we make an effort to recruit, um, and and we have to be mindful of, um, the, the moves and the, and the decisions that are being made, um, in some of our neighboring communities. So.
1st and foremost, I'm sure you've seen it was all over the news and I got about 26 emails from staff across the organization in case. I hadn't seen it.
Um, that that Mesa has announced that they're gonna be relaunching their post retirement health benefit. Um, and this is a pretty substantial undertaking on basis part.
I think I saw that they plan to put aside 25Million dollars a year for the next 10 years to prepare for it. I think they're missing the mark. I think that it's gonna be much more costly. much more costly
They're even budgeting for today, but either way, um, you know, we, we're working with our actuary, um, through our healthcare broker, to identify what, what would be the cost implications if we did some version of this.
So, we're looking at a series of of options and and opportunities. That would be something that we would obviously bring to counsel for further discussion. If, if we identified a path forward.
But we do recognize that there is probably no low cost path forward in that space.
Deferred compensation contribution so this is something that, um, some of our, it's about it's about 50, 50 other cities in the in the Valley. What? We call our benchmark cities. They do this now.
So, beyond your Arizona State retirement, or your public service retirement program, a lot of agencies recognize that, um, to be a little more competitive with the private sector.
There needs to be some additional, um, deferred compensation that gets added into retirement programs. So.
Um, we're, we're looking into this as as well, you know, if, if there's a possibility of some sort of employer contribution component, uh, paid family leave. So I'm sure.
Some of, you know, maybe the others don't we offer, um, paid parental leave, um, in Gilbert and this is a really amazing program that I, I, I like to say I, I don't have ex, sure data to say it,
but I'm pretty confident that we were the 1st city in the valley to roll it out, um, that we, we offer for up to 4 weeks of paid, leave for new parents and that could be adoption, foster birth. Um, that could be mother or father.
Um, and and this is a really exciting program that a lot of our employees have been able to take.
Um, we, we know that there are cities that are already expanding this program now and going beyond that to paid family leave because I'm sure.
Many of you in the room maybe are not having kids anymore. Right? You've, you've moved on past that phase of life, and we recognize that the need for, um, access to time away from work changes. Very significantly as we go through different points in our lives.
Right? It may be elder care for for aging parents. It may be an adult child who has now been diagnosed with something, and you need to bring them back in your home and take care of them and maybe a spouse. And so we're trying to look at the possibility of an expansion of our paid lead program to.
Or more qualifying events than just than just parental leave.
And then, lastly, longevity pay opportunities for our public safety, um, personnel.
Um, typically what happens and we do, as Mary said, we do pay for performance, except our sworn personnel are still on step and the reason for that is, um, it's to be competitive. Right?
We want to make sure that our pay model is competitive and in line, and matches that of the other cities around us. The challenge with a step program is you top out so usually 5 to 7 years within a position you top out. So, what can you do then.
You can keep making the same pay you make right for for the foreseeable future, or you can promote, but there's not always an opportunity for every qualified.
A person to promote into another role and so there are cities around us that are offering what's called longevity pay and these are incentives when somebody has topped out to continue to kind of reward them for great performance.
So, again, these are just things that we're looking into, we're doing some analysis and, and trying to gather as much information as we can to assess what, what would be the cost of some of these ideas.
I wanted to run you through really quick turnover and vacancy data and I will try to go back a little bit. Don did a great job of kind of recapping. Some of the.
What got us here I'm going to try to touch on a little of that. Maybe more than what's on the slides.
If I've got time, how are we doing? Okay cool. Um, I saw you. I'm like Mary's. The timekeeper. Oh, I got it. Okay. Um, so 1st, and foremost, I want to, I want to turn your attention to the line graph and I want to make something kind of clear.
So, this is a rolling 12 month trend. And what that means is, you're not going to see a significant impact month to month to the line. Right? Because what it's doing is every point on there is going back 12 months in time.
So when you see the line growing.
What, you know, is your trend over a 12 month cycle is increasing when the line flattens, after it's been growing, that actually means more recent months are declining, but the data doesn't look quite that way.
So, I'm going to show you a better way to kind of articulate the data a little more granularly in a 2nd, but what I want to show you is, um, in the midst of, like, what Don mentioned, what what? Everybody was calling the great resignation. We started to see that climb.
Right. We were seeing more both retirement and non retirement turnover um, in the town from about it really started in about.
December of 2020, but then that line started to grow.
Um, until right up until about the end of this past calendar year, um, the good news is, we have started to flatten that. So Council's approval of the inflationary adjustment.
And the impact to premium cost increases was, I think, a huge win for the organization. Because you can see that right about April when that was approved, um, is when our line started to flatten. So, thank you.
I can't Thank you enough because the burden that was being placed on my team to manage.
But, you know, speaking from the heart, it means a great deal that the council was was open to that opportunity and supportive of it.
And then, down here at the bottom is just all the data if you're if you're a data nerd and you like to read all the percentages, you can see those trend changes. But I'll get into the. What I think is a little bit more. Oh, this is what I just talked about so so you see the growth there and then you see the flattening here.
Um, and then you can see at the bottom here, kind of the same perspective that you can see that the percentages start to sort of level off.
So, we were still, you know, we were still seeing rolling numbers looking pretty consistent, but they weren't growing, um, over the past 4 or 5 months, which is great to see.
And so here you can see that the trends are declining. So this, even though it's very cyclical, right? When you have turnover and and, you know, people are retiring at certain times of the year, based on certain reasons, or incentives or personal things.
People are resigning at certain times of the year, based on the job market factors and all of that. What? You can see is the trend line, and I think that's what's important to call out here.
So both, um, retirement or kind of all turnover data and the non retirement data is on the decline, which is exciting to see.
What's really great and I'll call your attention to is the.
The total hires and separations, and this is just to give a quick high 5. we got Kristen on my team here observing today, but just to give a quick high 5 to the people team, but it's hiring managers. It's the same organization as a whole and f.
y22, which is a reminder that's July 1 of 21 up to June 30th of 22. we had 138 hires, but we had 110 people leave the organization. What's amazing is we've had 74 people leave this current fiscal year, but we've hired.
we've had seventy four people leave this current fiscal year but we've hired
162 so we have we have filled a lot of those vacant positions that stood vacant for quite some time as a result of some of the substantial turn over that occurred the year prior. So.
That's right and we've got more to go right? We're, we're only in.
What month is it? December? It's December. That's right. Yeah. It doesn't count. Really right um, that that's absolutely true though we've got half the year left.
Um, so we've got more work to do, and we'll continue to make sure that we've got, um, great people in all these positions to, to make sure we continue to deliver, uh, the great services and, um, and opportunities to our community.
And then I want to talk a little bit about where we've kind of again, just with the numbers where we've gone. I'll back up beyond the 1st, point here.
But, as Don mentioned, um, the, the level and the volume of of resignations, that were occurring in fall.
And winter of 2021, and that continued to occur nationally into the spring of this year, was record breaking, um, you know, the. um you know the
We had never seen anything like it and I'm sure now, if you're if you're a LinkedIn user, um, especially well, maybe it's just me cause I, everybody on LinkedIn that I'm connected to is in HR, but.
But layoffs right now are huge. Right now lay offs are happening mostly in the tech sector. Um, and they're happening a lot of times in the sales in the HR sector, because they hired on all these recruiters last year to refill all these positions.
And now they're starting to lay those recruiters off the same thing with sales they're seeing sales Wayne and decline and so they're starting to lay off a lot of those those sales folks that have been brought on. And so we're, we are assuming right that we're gonna see a significant dip.
Even I think I saw this morning that jobs numbers for last month.
Pretty, we're pretty solid, so it's hard to say. Right this is a really weird economy, a really weird market, but we do know that nationally um, resignations. We're out of hand, um, a year ago.
And we weren't suffering the same way that the kind of trends we're showing, we were suffering more than we were used to.
Um, but I do think that our culture, I do think that the great, um, you know, the benefits of working for Gilbert, the team, the leadership, the community people are really loyal to Gilbert, which is great to see, but, you know,
while go ahead.
Just 1 asterisk to what you just said, would be that organizationally we weren't experiencing to the same degree. Um, we were seeing higher turnover numbers than we were comfortable with, and that we had experienced before.
But the biggest challenge we had is that we were acutely experiencing significant turnover in, um, public safety and dispatch with environmental services with our drivers.
So, MIT, there were a number of teams that were pulling up.
The entire organization numbers, because we were seeing huge vacancies in those teams. Um, Jessica, I don't recall what the figure was off hand, but environmental services. We had it at 1 point.
Yeah, so a huge number in PD dispatch, I think at 1 point we were at 40%. They can see. So, um, we experienced very significant pockets of, uh.
Challenges that were, that seemed at the time almost insurmountable.
So, I gave a huge amount of credit to, um, not the people team,
but not just the people team that teams across the organization who thought very creatively quickly to figure out how we could bring those teams on in those 162 recruits that you saw successfully hired on the last screen that is a collective effort across the entire organization to get more people through
the 1st, 6 months than we had in the entirety of all of last year. So I just wanted to pause. just wanted to pause
To to give kudos to the team on that.
Yeah, thank you. And I will say, too, along those same lines of that. We're not a butts in seats organization. We do not just hire to get people in the door and get people in seats. We are very selective in in every area.
Um, we are, there is there is a thorough process to our recruitment effort to our interviewing process. Um, because we want to make sure that we re, we continue to deliver at the, the, the high service levels that we always have here in this community.
Um, and in this organization, so, you know, we, we probably could have gotten.
Real aggressive and just started hiring and getting people in the door and and loosening up our, our expectations and and we did not do that and we will not do that. So, um, that's a great point. Mary. Go ahead Don.
Sorry, I just want to add to that that the other thing is we are still seeing challenges in the market in terms of what employees and what employees are looking for.
They are still looking for an extreme amount of flexibility, working remotely other things, which make it a challenge to hire folks into some positions. Um, we, we have been grateful here. We have our 410 work schedule.
We have our remote work that we're able to do, which has been extremely helpful in that, but there still. still
A lot of challenges out there with hiring, um, in a lot of areas. So the people team, the teams around around the town have done an awesome job even in the face of some of those other things we're seeing as well.
Absolutely, and man that beautiful new building is gonna is gonna help too many. One's gonna be a a great Attractor for for our people. Um.
So, just to give a quick update, this is again, this is kind of the data we covered last year when we did this review with Council, we were sitting at about 9 and a half percent vacancy in January 2022. so almost 10% of our positions were vacant.
Um, this is really tough like Mary touched on when you're talking about environmental services and you're talking about dispatch you're talking about our police and fire departments. We don't have a whole bunch of extra people. We run really, really lean.
So, you know, when when another city might talk about their vacancy rates, um. about their vacancy rates um
They've got a buffer factor built in that that Gilbert does not really utilize. So, you know, we, we don't have extra environmental services people on call and ready.
If if there is, if there is someone to not take a route and environmental services, um, the existing team finishes their route, and then they go pick up that extra route.
Um, you know, I live in Phoenix and and I, my books, my bulk trash service was delayed by 5 weeks. Over the past month. We actually ended up sending our bulk trash drivers to Phoenix to pick up.
Shifts to help out to get them caught up. I'm not even sure it got picked up this week and I think this was my week.
Um, so, so the, the fact that we have had, um, continuity of services, and they've been uninterrupted throughout this process is is amazing as well to our public works team to our police and fire department store parks and rec teams everybody, um,
with the that Herculean effort. Um, and then you can see what this was what was really troubling was we, we continued to see this rise as we went into this calendar year. We were at 11% vacancy in February. february
But what's amazing is the most recent data we have, which I believe was closing out October or November. Excuse me? Uh, we're at 6 and a half percent. So a huge, um.
Uh, down trend to our overall vacancy data um, and this is, you know, it kind of natural or normal to sit, maybe at a 5 or 6% vacancy, depending on natural, you know, people, retiring turnover that's occurring.
You're always gonna have some positions. That are vacant. Um, but we've really been able to work hard to manage now. now
There's a couple call outs and then I want to give kind of a future perspectives here. Um, so in our sworn within police, we only have 3 vacancies currently out of 263 positions. That's 1.1%. That is phenomenal.
And that is a testament to our police department. And I'll tell you, we're not offering incentives. i'll tell you we're not offering incentives
To hire some of our neighbors are offering 5,000 dollars 10,000 dollars. I think I just heard a a 25,000 dollar incentive that's being offered somewhere.
What's that? Yeah, we, we have not done that and guess what? We've actually had a lot around a lateral recruitments meaning people leaving these other cities to come to Gilbert. So, that is a, that is a huge testament to Gilbert.
Now, it's important to point out we're not done.
We are also going to see over the next 3 to 5 years a record number of retirements in both our police department or fire department. So the work's not done. The work won't stop. We don't get to kick our feet up. The people team doesn't get to take a break, nor does the organization.
We, we have to recognize, um, that the consistent need to continue to recruit great talent continue to build our bench continue to plan for the future. Um, is critical.
The other really great piece of data here is within our sworn firefighters, engineers and captains. We've got 5 vacancies currently out of 206% or 206 positions. So that's 2 and a half percent vacancy within our sworn fire, which is amazing as well.
So these are some really exciting things that I wanted to make sure we call your attention to. But, as I said, the work's not done and the work will continue. not done and the work will continue
Questions.
Yeah, team Kyle, you have 2 planners vacant right now at 1 point we had.
S4 and they were carrying up to 302,530 cases a piece which the normal case load is about 13.
and I know this group in particular understands what cases have been like, lately, in terms of the amount of extraordinary effort and time and everything that was into those.
So, again across the organization Dana's team, Dan's T, I mean, you look around the room, every single team has experienced those challenges. So, um, but we very much appreciate. we very much appreciate
This council your support and leadership through this process, um, and continued commitment to help, make sure that we retain the best and the brightest um, as we've heard recently, you know, the chamber Roundtable,
these challenges are not over and as Nathan mentioned, we have to stay ahead of that curve, we don't want to lose momentum for the great work that's been done in the last 6 months. Um, we wanna we want to try to stay ahead of that.
It's not ready to sell yourself.
Students.
For this.
Oh, it's going to be exciting and I promise my slides are not as pretty.
As everyone else, mine's just text cause I'm not good at good at doing the other stuff. So the 1st thing we're going to talk about today are ordinances and we're not talking about zoning ordinances. Those are different creature.
Those are brought when there's rezoning applications, and they come through the planning commission and ultimately do the council. So we're going to talk the ordinances that are tied to our town code. So, as you all know, Gilbert has a town code.
We are a general law town, which means we're.
Title 9, and the authority that the council has to enact laws or ordinances, there are version of laws or ordinances or our code provisions.
Comes from the state legislature, the council does not have authority to act beyond what's been authorized by state law a lot of cities because we are town, we're subject to title line.
A lot of cities are called charter cities, and they have a charter, which is different from us, which is their own set of laws that are that it gets approved by the citizens in that city. So, if you hear about the term charter cities, that's what that is.
We're not that we're a general city subject to title line.
So, we have a we have a town code that's the town's laws. The town's ordinances.
There are 21 chapters in the town code that cover a whole bunch of different topics, you know, traffic animals, Telecom, buildings, elections, all that kind of stuff. stuff
It's interesting because our town code is based on the original 984 code that was in place, and then has been modified.
Hundreds and hundreds of times since so if you look at our town code, there's 21 chapters, but they're not numbered consecutively. We go from chapter 1 and the final chapters chapter 66 and there's a whole bunch of just blanks in between.
So, there's no chapter 50 or whatever that is. So we may refer to a chapter 66, but we don't have 66 chapters in our code. chapters in our code
And the, and the codes of the different topics, they vary greatly. Um, some of them deal with public safety.
So we've got, you know, from the criminal side with our prosecutors and our courts and our police department, you know, a lot of times they'll they'll issue citations they'll make a rest based on state laws but sometimes they'll do it based on code provisions as well.
Chief sober yesterday talked about a failure to obey that someone can be arrested inside for a failure to bail off of order. That's a code provision that we have in place.
So, we're gonna talk about just the process, and I would like to get the whole point here is to get feedback from the council.
On how you would like, staff to, to deal with, um, code changes going forward and we, you know, we also obviously want to be very responsive to what the council's desires are.
So I'm going to go through when I go through that real quick. I only have just a couple slides and so.
As I talked about ordinances their additions or modifications to the town code 1 of these 21 chapters again, zoning ordinances are different. They don't modify our town code.
There are different creatures, so we're only talking about these code provisions that are enforceable. They're are version of the law.
Um, so let's talk about why.
Wire changes to be made. I mentioned that there's been hundreds and hundreds of additions updates to the town code. Since this, this version of the town code was adopted in 984.
a lot of times these these changes are being made because there are updates to state law or new state laws, put in place.
Uh, we work closely the attorney's office with the team, Robin, his team through a legislative sessions because every year the legislature passes. year the legislature passes
Lots of laws, hundreds of laws, some of which affect cities and towns and so a lot of times we have to update our ordinances. So it conforms with these changes to state law or new laws that are put in place.
Um, a lot of times as well, we're, we're making changes to state law, because we need to make fixes we see things that aren't working councils giving us directions saying, hey, let's do this do that.
And so that's the other times that we're making changes to these code ordinances and then the next question is,
who brings it our code authorizes the town manager this was mentioned yesterday the town manager's authorized to bring a code change the mayor as well. And then 3 council members, and so.
That's the process. That's how those come up.
And so, cities handle Co, changes differently state law says, and this is a minimum that all cities and towns have to comply with that.
Ordinances have to be brought at a public hearing.
So, all ordinances that are brought in the town of Gilbert will be on the agenda on a council agenda, the public hearing portion. That's because the public has a right.
To participate to speak on any code ordinance, any code change, and that obviously applies the zoning as well obviously. So we couldn't pass or we couldn't put an ordinance on a consent item and then prohibit the the public from speaking.
That wouldn't be permissible. That'd be illegal. So, we always bring ordinances on the public hearing section. That's the minimum standard.
Some cities require a study session before you bring a code change, you have to have a prior public meeting some require that there's a 1st.
Being in a council meeting, and then in a subsequent council member meeting, you can actually take a vote on it. Our code follow state law and just says it's got to be on the public hearing. And so what I'd like to talk about is.
That last bullet point direction for ordinance modifications. I'm interested in what the council wants when we are.
In code changes, um, what you would want us to do. Um, so I'm going to.
Go to the next slide here where we've got, you have to read them all, but there's a number of ordinances that we're recommending that be updated.
Or some of them are new ordinances some of them are to comply with state law. These are things that we've been kind of just sitting on and waiting in order to have this discussion again Gilbert traditionally, we would bring an ordinance change. We'd put it on an agenda.
Council would have that discussion at at the council meeting and then vote on that there has been some talk that, hey, that ordinance maybe should have gone to a study session prior to that it's not required by code.
And from a staff perspective, we don't know when counsel wants to have additional discussion on an ordinance, you know, and so we're looking for direction is what, how do you want us to treat ordinances, going forward?
Would you want a separate study session for each ordinance? Would you want to.
Continue to practice we've always had where we'll put it on an agenda that's the public hearing. There's a discussion there counsel can vote to approve or to modify, but to continue to require additional discussion. Um, that's that's where I really want to open it up to everyone.
We'll go through some of these, the fireworks ordinance. That's a change to state law.
We hear a lot of feedback about fireworks. Lot of people don't like fireworks. They want the town to ban them. We cannot do that. There's a state law. That creates a minimum, um, protections for fireworks. In certain times of the year.
That state law was recently modified, which grants additional authorities to cities to regulate and so that's something we want to bring to counsel and see what you want to do. Do you want to keep the status quo with what we have?
Do you want to regulate more to the extent that we can short term rental? That's a discussion we're gonna have.
Right after this again changes to state law, they initially restricted much of the ability to cities to regulate short term rentals. That's now been modified.
Some cities have passed new ordinances that are regulating to the extent that the law provides that's the separate discussion.
And then a lot of mine, and a lot of these are just minor ordinances things that we're seeing some of them are related to the police department, where they're, having issues not able to issue citations or seeing issues with the courts where we need to update our code.
To make it more clean, more easier for the police to do their job. And, um.
Another 1, that's on their special events we're looking at doing an update to some of the special events. So, from here, I'd like to turn over to council to have a discussion on. How do you want us to bring ordinances to you as a public body going forward?
Probably right you've been with the town now uh, my name is talking to Hudson for I guess I have introduced myself to the new members, uh, finance director for the town of Gilbert. I've been with Gilbert 16 years now in in December.
So, I have starting with the economics.
I spent yeah, it was recently. I can't remember. Exactly. It's, uh, this month. So started with economic development Yep, I spent some time in economic development some time in the budget office. Um, some.
That's it with 15. I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm a little older than that, but.
Um, I spent time in a lot of resources and fleet, and then the last 8 or 9 years in finance. So, uh.
We're excited to talk about short term rentals. It's a hot topic.
We started talking about this 5 or 6 years ago, Jordan, and our tax team is going to be giving this presentation and has done a lot of the work in research behind it.
We had a good dialogue last council retreat and so we've kind of built on that. And a lot of the dialogue that we've had since then the state continues to make.
Changes every year to what we are allowed to do in terms of regulating this industry and trying to balance the homeowners that are renting out their homes and those that live next to those people.
And so.
We'll be excited to get some feedback and thoughts. We have just a little bit of history how we got here. Some of the changes of the legal restrictions, and what we were allowed to do. Um, but jordan's put all that together. So I'll hand it over.
Hi, Jordan, thank you before you start. I just want to mention to everyone that, um, when you're going to speak or ask questions to please use your microphones. I know that we're getting some, we're having some comments from folks that they can't hear. When questions are being asked, so please remember to do.
So thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. Good morning. I was talking said my name's Jordan. I work in the tax compliance division.
Been here, 4 years that's how long I've been working on this project for 4 years. We had a lot of issues with different legislation and then covance shut everything down but we presented last year this year. It's it's a.
Different scope, we're going to talk kind of what staff is doing and then where we want some advice from counsel and where we want to go with the ordinance that we kind of touched on a bunch in the last presentation. Okay.
This is just a quick overview of what we're going to do. I do want to point out when it says GB that's my tax brain. We refer to every city in town in their region code that they use when they file their returns.
So, just Gilbert, I just am always GB this all the different cities and towns. So sorry about that. It's it's Gilbert there.
We'll touch on the old legislation from 2016, and then in 2019 and then the new legislation we're on a 3 year track every 3 years. We make changes. every three years we make changes
This year's been my favorite changes. Not really staff recommendations. That's misleading. It's kind of just our thoughts on where we think we should go as a town and then again, we want opinions from counsel to move forward. Okay.
So, I think it's important to define short term rentals. A lot of people get mixed up on them. So it's just a property run it out by the owner for 2009 days or less. We tax them the same as hotel motels. So, if you're 30 days or more, you become a residential. become a residential
A long term rental if you're 29 days or less per se, not per month 9, just per se, becomes a short term rental. Most of them as we know are listed on online lodging marketplaces. Uh, those are your Airbnbs your turnkey.
Those are the big ones. There's a bunch of small ones there's some local ones that are Gilbert. Only there's a Scottsdale only 1. they're all over the place now, online lodging marketplaces. Um. um
Short term rentals are not required to list on an online lodging marketplace. They can list them on their own. If you have the facility that people want, you can do it on Facebook, Craigslist wherever else. You can get the word out and book.
It yourself, it doesn't have to be through an.
Okay, current short term rentals and Gilbert, this is a map that was provided by air DNA. You can see all the little purple dots here. Those are the short term rentals you can also see on the left here in 2016.
we had 350 in the town. That's approximate. We've met with a ton of different service providers that work with local cities and towns on short term, rental monitoring and they provided us with that number sometime last year. So it, it. sometime last year so it it
In the last 56 years, there was a big downturn in 2020 with covid. Not necessarily the houses being sold. Just they weren't listed as often. So the data's kind of been climbing back up. You can see we're up in the 700 range now in 2022. uh, this map is great.
It shows us that we do have a lot in Gilbert, a lot of short term rentals. The problem is it's 30,000 foot. All it does is show us an idea of where they are. None of those purple dots have been verified.
they are none of those purple dots have been verified
A short term rental, uh, the verification process when you when we do it or when a service provider does it it's really intense. We have to take the listings that we get, we have to go on to any of the online logic marketplaces, try and match that house.
Most of them don't give you an address until you book. So you have to do a lot of guessing on the area. You're in and try and zoom in and then finding listing of that house and match it. So very high level view right here as we work.
With a service provider, which we're heading toward, we will get the actual address information of these, and the owner information of these. Okay.
Okay, currently Tony gilbert's land development code does have a requirement for short term mental registrations. Okay so we do require it right now. It's been very passive.
Um, the administrative burden to, like I said, to find and verify a short term rental and then find the owner, which could be a whole nother process is just way too overwhelming for me to take care of my other duties.
So, right now it's passive, all requires property owner, information, operator information. A lot of the short term rentals are bought by investors and then somebody else operates that actual rental.
So we asked for information on both of them a transaction privileged tax license and.
You have to register it with the county as a rental. Okay. So.
In partnering with a service provider the, the whole goal is to build out 4 different areas of the of the short term rental.
Uh, database. Okay, so we want to locate all these short term rentals. They will do that the service provider. They're gonna go out. They're going to do all that research for us. They're going to verify that.
This house that got sent in is actually a rental. Okay. We're going to build up a true registration database with all this information plus a little more. Okay.
Currently operating in a passive capacity. Our database is an Excel spreadsheet on my computer. We have 40, uh, residents, registered on there.
Half have probably reached out to us to say they have a short term rental that they want to register the other half a concerned resident. Has asked, hey, or told us I think this is a short term rental and then I go through the research I reach out to the owner, and I get them registered and and put into the database.
The other 2 things that working with a service provider.
Want to.
Provide us with and give us, uh, it's going to set up a 24, 7 hotline for residents. So they can call into the number and just register a complaint. Ask if it's a short term rental state that it's a short term rental, uh, talk about an incident.
Any of that. Okay. 24, 7, the service provider, uh, operates that for us. The 4th thing it does is is gonna track all incidents and complaints in 1 place for us now. So right now. right now
We'll get an email in the tax compliance department. I document that I talked to the person emailing. I talked to the owner of the property, and I document it.
Code compliance gets a a call, they do the same thing. They document it in their database police gets a call. They document it in their database so they're just scattered throughout the town and we have no idea that we've all talked to the same property.
This providers going to put them all in 1 area.
So, if we, if I get a complaint, I can put it in that database. And then if please get a call, they can go in and look and see okay. We've already we've already handled this. Or if code gets a call, they can see that.
It's already been handled most of them allow unlimited licensing so as many departments as we need, can be logged in to them and have access to them. Okay. And I think that's the most important to focus on right now is that.
Um, so, uh, my, uh, my back.
Neighbor right behind me is a short term rental now and they have the spotlights in their backyard every once in a while those lights stay on and they shine right into our bedroom.
And I'm married to a feisty New Yorker who wants to shoot the light out with a BB gun, or jump over the wall and move the light and, you know, have to tell you can't do that. You know, I work for the town. Don't don't get us in trouble so.
She can now call into this hotline, tell them, hey, I'm having an incident, like, keeps coming in. It's it's to no fault of their own. They might have just hit the switch the renter and not knowing that it's on or who knows?
So, call in, we can call the owner, tell them, can you tilt the light down? So it's not shine it into the neighbors yard or can you label the switches inside? So, your renters are turning them off at the end of the night, or when they're done out there any of that stuff.
If they, let's say that's on Friday night, she calls in if on Saturday, she calls in again to complain.
Somebody else looks at it not me. Now it's code looking at it. They can say, okay, they've already talked to the owner. The owners has.
Okay, so that's where we're at as staff we're building out that database now.
This is where we need Council's input back in 2016 SB, 350 was passed this defined online lodging and online lodging marketplace. It's set up the market for what was what is now, they were exploding this just gave us some definitions it also stated.
And I think Chris mentioned this, that we couldn't regulate short term rentals at the time. There was nothing we could do, we had to leave them alone, let them operate as any other resident in a house would. Okay. And it required that the owner must register the property property.
owner must register the property property
With the county assessor, that is just stating that it's no longer your primary residence it's it's a rental residents now in 2019 they added in that we could now collect information on the owner or the owner's designee again.
Sometimes the owner and the operator aren't the same person. It gave us the option to hold the owner accountable for verified violations. So, if your renter gotten any trouble, we can now hold the owner accountable for that to try and prevent repeat offenders.
And it's set up a. set up a
Penalty structure.
Okay, these are all still in there. The big thing that came out if you guys remember in 2019 was that we had to report every verified violation to the Department of revenue.
So we had to, if a renter got sighted, we had to track that all the way through the process, which I think she said could take 6 to 8 months. Maybe a year. We had to find a way to follow that. And then tell the Department of revenue that yep, there was a verified violation.
Now, we're going to enact the penalty they took that out. It's no longer required. We don't have to do that anymore. They're not involved in the process anymore.
Okay, 2022 more legislation was passed, this actually gave us quite a bit to work off of now in, in terms of building out an ordinance, which I think we're heading towards, but wanted Council's input on it. council's input on it
The 1st thing it did, we can now charge a fee for this permit or license. It's no longer just a registration. Very passive. We can actively set up a fee structure for the permit license.
It is supposed to be the cost of setting up the license or 250 dollars whichever is less. Okay. The actual fee for setting up a permit or license. permit or license
The 2nd thing is, we can require neighbor notification, so if you're in a single family house, you have to tell those adjacent 2 across and diagonal to you that you're operating a short term rental out of that property in a single family house and in multi family.
It's everybody.
On the same building floor so if you're in building 143 everybody else on that floor in that building has to know that you're operating a short term rental. Okay.
We also have to set up some sort of compliance check that the owner would have to go get the neighbors to sign and then bring it back to us to show that they had informed their neighbors. They're operating a short term rental there. rental there
The 3rd is advertisement requirements. This is requiring if we do a permit license that they'd have to put that permit or license number in every advertisement for that property. So if it's on air BNB put the license number in there.
If it's on, put the license number in there, if you have 1 house, but you rent out 4 different units in there, that's kind of more popular in the East Coast.
But if you do that, each of those would require a different license, and each advertisement would require that number to be put in there think this stem from they were requiring.
Some privileged tax license numbers to be put in and we treat those numbers like your social security number. That is a confidential number. When we move back into 1, tax compliance is locked up in our tower. We're hidden away so that we can keep all that stuff.
All that confidential information away from the public and away from other town employees. So.
They were requiring it to go in the advertisements and the online logic marketplace is actually we're deleting them and saying, why are you putting that in there? So.
We changed it to the, the state changed it to the permit license number being required Jordan. Can you explain that again? So, if a property has more than 1 unit on the property, they each have to have a separate number.
Yes, they would need a license for each unit that they're operating. They own a large property and Gilbert that has a single family home, but it has an attached dwelling unit that has 2 or 3 other full functioning.
Like, apartments will say for.
Have a better term, um, each 1 of those would have to have a separate number.
To advertise individually, that's how I interpret it. Is that.
The other question would be, let's see.
Property and so single family and now you've got.
123 to review this.
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.
The 4th thing is posting at the property that is a requirement on the owner operator to post their contact information at the property on the back of the door.
I think 1 of our, uh, neighboring cities also is requiring a map of the floor plan, like, in a hotel room when they put the map there for egress. I think they're requiring that in the house too. So, we can set up different requirements that they have to post at the actual property.
You can require liability insurance. The owner must maintain liability insurance at at least 500,000 dollars and less some of the online lodging marketplaces offer that already. If they, if they're listing on those, they don't need it themselves. If they are.
they are
Not listing on those, they will need the insurance if it's part of the ordinance.
And the last thing is background checks the owner must perform a background check on the renting guests. Not. Everybody's staying in the house. Just the 1 guest actually renting it. No. Later than 24 hours before the stay actually begins. Okay.
And I think that is, uh, specifically a sex offender background check. If we go that route. The big thing with all 6 of these, these, these are all of them that we have right now there's a lot of nuance in in each of them there are fee schedules.
There's if you don't register within or set up your permit license. license
Within 30 days of it going live, there's a fee, there's all sorts of timing. There's penalties. So there's a bunch of nuance in each of those. We just wanted to give you the overview of the 6 big options that came out of the new legislation.
And then for us as town.
At the moment we were leaning toward specifically charging a fee, if counsel wants to go that way, and depending on how much you want to set up that process for and then requiring the owners to inform their neighbors that neighborhood notification um, again,
going back to the, uh.
Software vendor there that we talked to the service provider if we.
Are are partnered with them, we are able to build out a true database and have actual data to bring back if we're having a lot of incidents or complaints or issues if we're seeing them rising and getting to a level of some of our other cities or towns in the area,
then we could put more into the ordinance we can make changes. At the moment we felt like setting up a fee because we do have a standard business license that has a fee and this is a business. That's why it's taxed like a business.
It is a transaction to set that fee up and.
Have a fee schedule for a permit or license for short term rentals and then just requiring the neighbors and that's based on just all the information we receive. I know. Counsel gets emails, tax compliance Co, compliance, police fire. Everybody gets various emails about.
Hey, I think this is a short term rental, or I'd like verification. And so now that removes that issue for those residents that are concerned, they'll know right off the bat. If it's a short term rental in their neighborhood.
That's what we had any thoughts. Where would you like us to go? What do you want us to bring to? You.
Next I kill microphone.
Last 1, so we'll get together stuff. We'll get a study session, follow up to our prior conversation where council can get more input, make sure you get the actual draft of the documents beforehand. So we're going to talk about council policies.
When I was apparently we talked about ordinances that's town law right? Town code. Um.
And that's done by ordinance at a public hearing the councils and most councils do this, they, they will also adopt policies. And for staff, it's.
It's the direction of counsel, it's, it's not exactly law, but it's something we absolutely follow and sometimes you want to put a policy in place, but you don't want to make an ordinance out of it. So, this is an issue that actually.
Came up at least, I don't know, maybe a year year and a half ago. Um.
I had heard the counsel out of police policy in place on. I can't even remember what it was about and I couldn't find it. And someone was like, no, I would definitely counsel at 1 point adopted that. So we got looking at this.
And then, you know, to me, it morphed into a bigger project is actually been 1 of my goals is to kind of wrap my arms around what council policies are. And so we're going to we're going to go through that right now and make some recommendations.
So, we'll go through the history of what the council policies are here in Gilbert. We're going to review some.
Some of them, and then we're going to I'm looking for direction discussion, going forward on those and so.
When when I started looking at these policies, I would try to find 1 policy. The clerk is we had talked about the clerk is the custodian of all records. So I get with the town clerk and it's like, hey, can we find a policy on this?
They ended up finding it, but as I started to dig into it, the town doesn't have a repository of where all these policies are all active council policies.
Unlike you can go to our website, you pull up the town code and you can find the town code in any code provision. We.
We don't have that with a when it comes down to council policies. So I asked my paralegal. Um.
Can you work with the clerk's office and let's find all council policies and it wasn't an easy process and it turns out there's been over 140 policies that have been adopted by the town council. Since 957.
most of these were hidden in records and no 1 knew about them. 130 are currently in effect. Some have been repealed formally by council and counsil action at least these 130 that are in effect. We don't have a record of any of them.
that are in effect we don't have a record of any of them
Ever been repealed or resend it and so many of these policies. So.
What my project was is we, we gathered all the policies, and then it's like, okay, let's review these policies and see if they're still current and we want to ultimately bring them to counsel and get direction on what you want to do with these. We'll make recommendations.
So, we gather these 140 policies determined that 14 were formally repealed. We found records and council meetings that somewhat repealed. Some were updated. some were updated
And then the last thing is, is we went through there, we identified, and kind of put them in categories to figure out. Okay these policies apply to human resources. These policies apply to public works.
And so we kind of categorize them and organize them. And we'll go through them briefly we're not going to read all 140. um, but some are actually pretty, pretty funny if you get into it. So here's some examples of some policies we have.
policies we have
Have in effect, right a 15 minute coffee break in the morning and in the afternoon that all employees are entitled to get not allowed to firefight outside town limit right Coke or does it have to be? Because it's gotta be coffee.
It doesn't say any other beverage. It's gotta be coffee.
So, you know, that's a funny 1. okay, but but we have a policy in effect that gets violated all the time, right? No firefighting outside.
Time limits we have inner governmental agreements with other agencies where we do.
We go out when needed and those, those those agreements have been in place for decades and decades, but that policy is still on the books. Right? There's a 10% per mile travel reimbursement for employees.
So, Harkin, you know, don't don't pay the IRS rate. Right? We can only get paid 10, which, which may cover like, 110th of the gas costs much less. Right?
So these are the type of things that are in their employees are entitled to get their day off for their birthday. And and if. and if
If it's not your birthday, then you get a day, your birthday week with your manager approval. So we have a birthday day off this week because we both had a birthday.
Correct yeah, so these are some of the things like so that 1, for example, right? The employee birthday holiday, it's we have our personnel rules that tell you what days you get off. It talks about vacation talks about holidays. That's not 1 of them.
So that's what's superseded by our town personnel rules, but the policies formally in place and again, collective bargaining. We, uh, I don't know, 2011, 2012, uh, the town moved away from the merit protection system covered.
from the merit protection system covered
Please employees that are hired after that date with the exception of police and fire that have their own rules. We're all out. Well, we're not part of any employee Union so we have collective bargaining still a policy on the books, but we're at will employees. So that's not needed.
Yeah, the policy those numbers are the years these were passed. I'm assuming. Yes, that's correct. So it's a year this past and then the policy number of that. So those are just some kind of.
Some of the funny some of the funnier examples. Um, so.
In your packets and your materials, we created the spreadsheet. This has been something that took a while to gather to organize and then.
Each 1 of the attorney's office, we went through and we worked with the different departments. We organized them by department. We got with the departments and said, hey, what are your thoughts? Here's all the policies that we think, impact your department. And what are your thoughts on that?
Should they be? Should these policies stay in place? Should they be updated? Should they be repealed or rescinded? And so you'll see, that's the summary of all these 140, the vast majority of which the recommendations are to. recommendations are to
Repeal them.
Because they've been superseded by town code, they've been superseded by state law. They've been superseded by personnel rules by the land development code and they're just.
They're, they're, they're not just superseded. They're contrary to what our current codes say or current rules say and so.
You look, there's a lot of them in tons of different categories and then at the end on that last page, we, we included the policies that were repealed. So you can see the ones that were repealed as well.
And then the dates that they were repealed somewhere repealed by town code specifically, and others by, uh, prior or subsequent, um, council policies.
So, we've got there, we've got a less than, you know, looking at it. Our recommendations are of these 1, 140.
Well, maybe 130, because somewhere repealed policies. Our recommendation is that maybe it's 20 or so.
Remain because they're still active. There's still good policy. They haven't been superseded by any change in code or statute, but the vast majority, um.
Be repealed, and my recommendation is that counsel does a former repeal so we've got it in the records and the clerk can can memorialize that.
And we know that that, hey, that policy was in effect the 1 from 957, and it was repealed by the Council on whatever date. And then for our record books, we know that that is not formally, uh, in. not formally uh in
In effect, so these are my recommendations is figuring out what the process would be. So counsel can educate yourselves if you want to read all the policies. Great we've got the summary.
I can provide links to all the policies at some point in the future.
Bring this to council at a formal council meeting where there's a council vote and we, we resend, we repeal. We update there are there are a few in here, and you'll see it on that spreadsheet.
Um, there are a few that we're recommending be updated and this is, you know, input that we got from the departments. Um, that's the 1st step. And then the 2nd, step would be place these policies.
All of them, even the ones that have been repealed or rescinded, put them on our website. So.
The council, so, staff and the public knows what the employees are, and then going forward with future town policies. If new ones are created or they get updated then we update the website.
So everybody knows what the council policies are and what I'd like to figure out how we can tie that into our town code. And because.
You know, with these policies, you can look at the town code and if you don't know a policies out there, then you don't know that the council is already given direction on something.
And what we wouldn't want to do with staff is, you know, do something contrary to a formally Council, a formal council proof policy that we didn't even know existed. So, this is the whole point is to bring them up there after they get updated. So, everyone's aware that they're there.
So, with that, there's a lot of policies, right? I, we've got them all. We can provide links to them. All. I'm asking counsel. How would you like.
To do this going forward because there is so many policies we could talk about each 1, we could send you a link and have you review them on your own time and then have a study session to talk about whatever ones you want to talk about?
So, that's looking for the direction on that end. Surprise surprise the council policy.
And we just talked about policies. Yeah. So the idea here is, we're going to.
Do a brief review of the code of ethics um, it was 1st passed by the council in 2012, and then revised in 2021. I was asked by the council.
I think it was earlier this year that, hey, it may be time to revisit, please bring this to the council. And that's why, I'm here today to start the discussion. I'm not proposing any changes. I don't have any drafts to our existing policy.
Basically, we'll do a brief discussion about what the policy is. What it covers. We'll take a look at what other cities do. That was what? I was asked to do a survey of other cities so I've got a table there. I've got more materials that are more in depth that I don't.
Here, but that we can refer to, and then we'll be asking counsel for direction. If if revisiting and updating the, the policy is what you want, how do you want to do that? Do we do a subcommittee a task force? However, you want to do that?
Um.
So, just real quickly again, the.
Council policy, and the formal name is code of ethics for members of town council boards, commissions, and committees. That was adopted in 2012. again amended just over a year ago. The purpose.
And this is the stated purpose in the policy is to maintain public confidence in integrity of public officials, and instill public trust through the actions words, and deeds of public officials. Um.
public officials um
The policy actually has 8 parts and I'll go over them. There's, there's 1 part that talks about the responsibilities of public service. There's another 1 that talks about open meeting law. Um.
The open meeting law is what it is, we're all subject to it whether or not we have a policy. We have some stuff in there, but we're all subject to that anyway conflicts of interest. Same thing. That's a state law thing. There's a council policy that talks a little more about it.
It gets into gifts talks about confidential information.
There's a provision on town council relations, and other public bodies with other public bodies and agencies, code of ethics, training requirements and then there's procedures and then.
Enforcement those are the 8 sections in our current.
Code of ethics, Here's a survey. If you can see it, it's in your material.
Um, we did a survey of other cities, kind of our sister cities, which are really the biggest.
Can't remember if we did 8 or 9 cities. So, Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Glendale Avondale Tucson, Chandler probably leave Scottsdale.
We looked at those cities and a, do they have a code of ethics policy or ordinance or resolution that applies to.
Elected officials or appointed officials again, we're just talking about that town employees. We're subject to the town personnel rules. So we're in a different category.
A lot of the requirements are the same, but these are counsel adopted in pose rules on elected and appointed officials. So, we did that survey, we've collected.
We collected those I've got copies of all those and these are kind of what you see in here is a highlight of some of the main provisions that they have. And then at the end, we have a number showing. Okay how many cities do this?
And how many have this and so these are the, I think they all have.
They all have something in some form of something and then so we, I'll go through these just really briefly the filing process. It varies.
Some like the town says, you file it with ours as the town clerks. Some say.
The town attorney, your city attorney, then you got anyone can file a complaint that's dealing with who has standing to file a complaint.
Our code is anyone can file a complaint any any council member, any employee, any resident, any non resident, anyone can file a complaint some restrict it and says, well,
only the only residents can file complaint and some say well, no, only a council member can do. So now, if a resident wants to complain, they can hit a council number up and if they convince the council member to file that, then you do that.
So there's 4 that say anyone can file a complaint. And then there's the 4 that filing restricted to employees.
For officials themselves we talk about some have time limits right? And the idea behind that is basically there's a statute of limitations if 5 file something against the council member for something.
I say they did 3 years ago, ours doesn't have a time limit. Some have time limit saying, hey, it's gotta be something within 30 days. 60 days 90 days. Whatever that number is otherwise your time barred um.
Some of these have a, that deem it being an ethical violation to bring a frivolous claim. So there's a process where people determine whether or not the claim was frivolous. And if it was, and it was a council member that brought it, then that itself is a, is a violation.
Um.
And so we get through here, 3, have some type of ethics commission.
Um, which which is this public standing body, 2 or independent commissions, which means the council approves.
An ethics commission, and they're the ones that take complaints, they're the ones that decide complaints, and then make the recommendations and then 1 of them has that ethics commission is made up some of council members themselves.
Um, we all have different enforcement here, uh, different methods of important enforcement investigation. Then you see what the penalties are. Um, you see, uh, you know, reprimand censure. That's what ours is. That's the ultimate penalty.
Commissioners this is removal of commissioners. These are appointed our codes different. Um.
The town council in our code, not in this policy, but in our code, the town council can remove an appointed member of a public body at any time.
And so, um, if counsel wanted to address boards and commissioners removal in the policy, we would have to update the code. I like that, it's in the code because they are appointed at your discretion and you should retain the right to remove an appointed member.
At any time. You see the 1 that talks about removal from elected office.
And that's for charter violations I talked when I talked earlier briefly about the town being a general law city, um, we don't have a city charter, which is our own set of rules. Right?
And so some cities that have charters, uh, there are ways to remove council members, because it's in the charter title 9, that we're subject who doesn't have that the only way to remove a council member is through a recall process.
Um.
Again, some mandatory trainings, monetary finds, and then at the at the end, you talk about some of these applies to elected officials. All of them do that. Some get into boards and commission board members. Most do ours.
Does 3 are inactive, be an ordinance most are via some type of policy statement like like we have or resolution. Most of them have a statement of purpose.
They talk about open meeting laws and and the rest conflicts of interest. So that's really what.
Are the most common things that we're seeing in code of ethics policies and code of ethics ordinances and again, I've got all the different policies from all the different cities of council members. If you want me to get you access to that, I'll give it to you.
So, you can look at it and kind of formulate. So, the last thing I have is a turn it back over to council. Um, do you, do you think it's time to revisit to update the code of ethics? And if so, how do you want that done?
Well, I can make this fast. You don't have to ask any questions and we'll move right on. So, no, I'm I am the volunteering community resources manager and I'm 1 of the staff liaison to the community engagement task force.
So, Don, and I are here to just give a little report out and the status of the group. So good afternoon mayor in council members.
So, just to I know some of you are new to the group here so just a little bit of history of this task force in 2021 council identified the need to explore some of our critical community issues.
They had done a lot of listening sessions and then directed staff in the spring of 21 to start exploring the creation of a community engagement task force in order to bring some of those voices forward and make sure that we're hearing them as an organization.
And that council understood what was happening in the. what was happening in the
So, on January, 25th, the council data point, 9 members and 2 alternatives, and they are appointed for a beginning service of 2 years, it is a task force versus a boarded commission or committee.
It does function under the public meeting laws and all of the same rules. And regulations, but it is designed right now as a short term objective for this group, and the 1st meeting got kicked off March 7th for them. for them
And they were tasked with kind of looking at some critical areas as designated by counsel and that is domestic violence, mental health and suicide prevention, homelessness, and low income challenges, human and sex trafficking, and ensuring.
Gilbert is a kind and welcoming community. So those are kind of the 5 pillars that they were to kind of explore, look at and make some recommendations to counsel.
So, part of this journey, the way it was to make sure that they were had some information we wanted to include board member training for them since it was.
New group as well as education on the issues. So they knew kind of where we are and what we're doing and then they were to hone in this 1st, focus area since 5 of those 5 areas are pretty big areas. There's a lot of information that goes along with those.
We did feel like it was important that they tackle 1 at a time.
So, what we did for training just so that you're aware is they also had open meeting law training because again, they functioned under the same rules and regulations. All of our boards and commissions.
Do they had strength training they did this training civil discourse and difficult topics.
They did some workshop as well as trauma informed and part of this was to make sure that they got to know each other their strengths, how to work together, how to come to consensus on items as well as how to work with the community. So, we knew that community may come and make some have.
To make comments, and they want to make sure that they knew how to listen and understand the issues out there. So that's a lot of the training that we did with them. So, once that was completed, we then wanted to make sure we brought some informational items to them.
Give them education on really? What is already the town doing what efforts that we already have in place making sure that they're aware of how we're working in each of those areas and that gives them an idea of where our gaps are.
That's how they get to form some recommendations.
Because they want to make sure we already know what exists in our department. So, as you can see for community resources, went over the 2019 needs assessment, which was really a very strong focus area to make sure we knew. And we had had a consultant work in the community to make sure we understood some of the issues.
But then also, the understanding what other resources we're putting out there, same with, we had the police department, and there have been some new programs that had come forward through there. But they work a lot again in community engagement and how they're interacting with our. interacting with our
Evidence as well, and then the fire department we wanted to make sure we highlighted some of the programs they were doing as well. So they got all of that information to understand kind of what's going on and what we have to date.
We also wanted to make sure that they were aware of some of the other things that we had already promoted throughout the community to get information on again that was relative to these 5 critical areas. So, 1 of them was the community inclusivity needs assessment.
So, they got a presentation on those results as well, as we had done an assessment of our homeless population and at risk population. So, I wanted to make sure that they had that information statistics. Because again, as they're trying to delve into 1 focus area, where is the most need?
What are they hearing? Where are the gaps? So those.
It's really important to hear about. They also had a mental health 1st, aid presentation, which gave him an idea of what we're focused on the town, or what those options are as well.
So, after all of that education, the group did actually take a survey to see if there was a consensus around 1 item.
And what was interesting is that we did have a strong 36%, who said that they wanted homelessness, that was kind of the leading number 1 choice.
But when we had some more discussion, what we found is that 66% actually honed in on the mental health and suicide prevention that was 66% of the entire committee's. 2nd. percent of the entire committee's second
And after further discussion, and really vetting through that they realize that mental health and suicide touches really all of the other critical areas. So we know mental health can have an impact on the homeless and low income challenges.
We know mental health has an impact with domestic violence. So they felt like this would be a really good 1st, topic area to kind of delve into do a deep dive and understand more of where our gaps, and where they can make some action item recommendations.
So that is the 1st, 1 that we are focusing on.
So, after they kind of created that interest area, we realized that we still had some information that they needed to be aware of and so, by the request of the task force, they said, you know,
we want to make sure we understand what's already happening in the community around this area, because it's not necessarily the town's full focus, you know, for mental health and suicide prevention. There's a lot of other groups that are doing that.
So, we brought in a presentation from 201 who again is that main number that you can call and get connected to some resources but we. resources but we
Also heard from Gilbert public schools and handling public schools, because they are very, very much in the weeds on making sure they recognize the issues that are going on within our student population as well as with the families.
And so they gave some excellent presentations on what the schools are doing, how they work through those issues, what their steps are making to their teachers are informed and the steps they work with students. So they were really aware of what's happening in that area.
But we also heard from our task forces.
You know, this, this happens to every demographic it's not just kids.
It's not just, you know, middle, it's also seniors and what what does that look like and so we brought in area agency on aging, who actually has elder mention services, suicide prevention for seniors, just to make sure again,
that there's an awareness what's already out in the community, we don't want them to move forward with recommendations or action items that are already happening things that are already duplication. How can we enhance? What's already happening out there? So we wanted to make.
Sure that they had that so that just actually happened at our November meeting. So you are now caught up basically to date as to where we've been.
So where we are today, and just some of the things that have already been implemented, just kind of, throughout the time, this is started is around mental health and suicide prevention. I just wanted to highlight that. We have started our crisis care team here and Gilbert and I think most of you have heard about that.
That's a unit group out of Berg's area in police department. That really is helping us respond to some of those mental health issues, helping, fill that gap. And with some follow up as well, so that's 1 of the pieces we're working on having the placement.
Being autism, certified really helps to make sure that we're aware of how we're working with our community and we actually in the community resources area, have made an effort to promote 908 and 211 our social media group.
The digital government really put out some information on that. But we put out a small resource card as well as a larger manual. We're highlighting that with a QR code and making sure that that number is very visible.
So, those things that we had heard, you know, are important, but our. know are important but our
Steps and we are having our December meeting on Monday here at the library as well.
And that is going to be their opportunity to really now put pen to paper and really kind of decide what everything they've heard what they've seen. What they think is still out there in their conversations with the community what do we still need to do?
So that's what's happening on Monday and we are fortunate that Kathleen dollar from dignity. Health is actually going to come in and help facilitate that. Um, we're utilizing a template that they've had.
With over in there where they kind of get to highlight strategies and ideas around these program area. So we're really looking forward to Monday and getting them to really kind of put those ideas out there and make sure we're capturing those.
And we'll probably working on that for a meeting or 2 to make sure that they have everything covered and we've captured what they look like. And then after that, then we'll kind of pop back to the drawing board and say, hey, what's the next topic that you guys want to take?
With that in mind.
Yes, sorry well, 1 of the asset we just had today, after you've heard all of this is because they are tackling those 5 areas, and they will be making some suggestions and some recommendations is, the question is,
would counsel prefer that we come with some of that information after, maybe they've settled on some action items for each of the areas, or when we conclude all 5 areas. So that's kind of something to think about.
And if you're able to provide any feedback, that's kind of what we're looking for today.
No, it hasn't done and if I might add, um, so, like, all of our boards and commissions and task force and committees, we do have a council support council champion. Um, and that would be council member.
Turkeys has been super helpful in leading this effort with the committee and so thank you to her.
And, um, and she's been through the whole process and so she absolutely can answer questions and give feedback on how the, how the task force is doing or or those types of things.
As well, so I just wanted to make sure we mention it.
Without any questions, because you are coming up to me, personally, okay. Council, communication, subcommittee, update and I'll try to pick up a little time here.
So the subcommittee met a couple of weeks ago to talk about the initial scope of work and the path forward, and so today we'll just be seeking to answer any questions you may have and any additional input, um,
you may want to provide before the committee kicks things off in earnest.
The objectives for today is to look at our scope of work, the focus areas, community, outreach and engagement effort that we felt like, or a very, um, important part of this process.
And then the deadline for final recommendations, and the committee put together. Um, uh.
A statement around the scope of work that I'll read to you to explore policies, best practices and other resources to help promote civility and the navigation of challenging issues by designing public meetings and outreach efforts, that balance community objectives,
while enhancing public participation through 2 way communication. And governance policies.
That was fast. Yes. Putting that together was not as fast. Wordsmith that I'm gonna give you credit. You read it very well. Thank you. Okay.
So, for the scope of work, 1st, we wanted to identify the focus areas in this area. Subcommittee will examine town meeting practices.
For opportunities within our existing framework, outreach and gave committee subcommittee will review current strategies and identify practices for enhanced communication.
With the public and recommendations to counsel con, completion of the 1st, 2 categories subcommittee will develop recommendations for counsel consideration to various changes to town codes and policies and and, uh, practices.
So, the recommended focus areas, starting with town meetings, looking at creating a consistent format and training for those meetings. So, the staff that support those, those bodies as well as the people get appointed to that, receive adequate training.
So that we have a very consistent approach to how we handle those, have a clear understanding of the attorney's role and which is a little different, depending on the body itself. And how active the attorney is in that in those meetings. And.
This is communication from citizens procedures, rules, staff, follow up again, to just understand within all of our different bodies. How citizens can engage with those boards and commissions uh, and to the extent possible.
Um, because some such as our board meetings by code allow for public input.
And comment, and others, um, are less formal so, just to understand that and as much as possible again, create consistency across those various bodies, and then calls emails to counsel.
Agendas items, consistent practices, opportunities for streamlining of processes.
Items requiring public notification again, review codes, local codes and state statutes and the requirements around that, and look for opportunities for enhancements on that.
But, uh, radius timeframe and format, notifications, signs, access to notifications, appearance, ease and finding consistency in web pages opportunities to create opt in type of, um,
opportunities postcard.
And et cetera, 2 way communication and and again, here really do a lot of work and a very thorough job of understanding. What are we doing today?
Um, for each of these areas, each process, um, create an inventory of current practices, statutory codified and formal.
Pop up meetings, town, Hall, meetings, meetings, opportunities for council member, office, hours, Council, chats, um, just explore all the different ways.
We can have a formal and informal communication with our residents on various issues.
Whether it be something coming up on an agenda at planning and zoning or at the Council, or whether this is just something more informal in nature with things that come up in the community and questions they may have and to look at how we tell our story.
Sorry.
Communications outside of social media, how to keep so social media, safe place, opt in type of system for notifications. Right now we do that for agendas. We do that for board openings.
We do that with our newsletter, uh, job opportunities, but just evaluate all those different types of opt in systems we have and ways in, which we can maximize that and then connecting the dots of our services and what they mean to the citizen. Um.
And then under community outreach and engagement again, understand our best practices for communication and messaging.
Engagement surveys, weekly, email, newsletters, town, halls, water, sewer, solid waste bill. We have an insert that goes into that bill each month.
And and we have not utilized that up to this point as another tool, or channel for communication with residents the media, which has always been a key way of communicating with the general public and,
and continues to be in ways in which we can strengthen our media relationships and contacts, it's it's been challenging. I know that Dana could probably tell you I don't even know.
I don't even know who are easy. Central reporter is right now, but we've probably had.
8 in 11 years, I've been here, um, which creates challenges for us, but just look for opportunities to, um,
maintain strong media contacts and look at things like signs with QR codes ways to simplify residents, getting information on things of importance to them, digital fliers.
And this is not this is just a brainstorming that we did. There's probably a lot of things on here that we didn't think of in that moment. Um, but would be.
Part of this, this sub committees, um, task of evaluating all those different ways what we're doing and and what we could do and maybe what we could change up a little bit.
And then the timeline for final recommendations to counsel, the thought was that, uh, we report out at that combined retreat sometime in the spring of 2023.
and another thing, the subcommittee, uh, made a specific point of is to have at least 2 months of community outreach.
And citizen input with this subcommittee, so that they can have the voices heard about things that they may have frustrations with things that they don't understand. So that we can do a better job. do a better job
Of maybe meeting their expectations when it comes to communication and engagement with them, but have a very, very robust and and linked the period of citizen input with this subcommittee. So that we really can understand where they're at.
And and where they'd like us to be. And what's possible? So, the next steps would be, um.
Work on the scope of work and focus areas, begin, that community outreach, develop the recommendations.
That would come back to council and then present to council at the combined retreat in the spring for potential, um, adoption of new policies modifications to our codes, uh, new business practices.
For us, and in new ways of of handling this to the benefit of our community.
I went through that quick, so I'll open it up to any questions and.
Councilmen Turkey councilman and and but Giovanni are on that a subcommittee.
Trying to think alike.
All right.
Afternoon mayor in council so in Gilbert, as, you know,
we are incredibly fortunate to have a very strong base of community support for both our local government and specifically for our police department in previous,
and also in the most recent national citizen survey Gilbert was ranked number 1, amongst our pure communities in a number of categories, including overall quality of life residents, sense of community.
Citizens overall feeling of safety with regard to violent crime, and also with property crime, and even more specifically than that, 92% of our residents reported an overall feeling of safety in Gilbert overall putting in a top category.
So, like I said, we are very fortunate, but using the word fortunate implies luck. And as you all know, many of you been involved in leadership in the community for a long time. long time
This wasn't luck. Just like mayor Lewis used to reference the heritage district as a 30 year overnight success, the strong base of community support for the town of Gilbert and for public safety specifically is not an accident.
It's the result of a long standing commitment and dedication to both community engagement and also community policing. However, this commitment is a never ending work in progress. There is no end date to that.
And so this morning.
We want to share with you an initiative that Chief Solberg, and his team have been working on for the past year, and a half + and that is a police department transparency roadmap.
Um, we're going to talk about why it was created and then what's gone into developing it and launching it. What we've accomplished to date and then what lies ahead but before I go too much further and I'm sure you're gonna do this.
We do need to give a shout out to chief Solberg incredible leadership team within the police department. With Levi.
Brenda Carrasco, who's on Dana's team? Um, there's a number of individuals.
Sharing cassanova who have contributed to this effort, and they've done a phenomenal job. And a lot of the work that you're seeing here is is a result of their efforts. So just a quick shout out to them. So why a PD transparency road map.
As discussed in previous council retreats, Gilbert was not immune to the social unrest that unfolded across the nation follow in 2020 following the murder of George. Floyd.
There are cities across the country that saw their communities clamoring for change and a lot of those communities focused on law enforcement departments with calls for policy changes, demands for increased transparency,
increased partnership and engagement in response. Mere Daniels at. mere daniels at
Time held listening sessions in the fall of 2020, and they were highly impactful.
The town received a lot of very useful and meaningful,
direct feedback from Gilbert residents and community partners about their perceptions of our community and what they would like to see a lot of that feedback focused on our own local police department.
And the feedback wasn't necessarily about what the police department might have been doing wrong. It was more of how can we continue to do things. to do things
Better, how can we improve and take things that are working and build upon that?
And so, those listening sessions in addition to being a catalyst for the community engagement task force, they were also a catalyst for this initiative from chief Solberg in terms of the creation. And the launch of the PD transparency roadmap.
And as you will see in the coming slides, this roadmap serves as a framework for multiple initiatives within the police department,
with the goal of continuing to build upon the trust and support and faith that the community has in Gilbert police department. So, with that Chief Solberg.
Thank you. Great introduction. Appreciate it when we were 1st tasked with doing the transparency roadmap. I figured all right. It's really easy because we've been doing it for 20+years.
And, in essence, it is, but like, when we had the listing sessions, and we were discussing that with the media, and with the groups that attended as good as you are or as good as you think you are, you're probably not that good.
You always need to make sure you're looking at under a microscope of what you're doing. you're doing
Looking for ways of improving.
Is what you're doing, still a valid way of doing it. Are there better ways of doing it? Are you reaching everyone in the community? Who else can you reach out to that you're missing?
So W, W, what went into creating the transparency transparency roadmap was we had 12 different groups and I'll read these real quick. And then it'll highlight some. We looked at our policies. We looked at our critical incident reviews.
Our use of deadly force are use of force. Are hiring and recruiting our diversity equity and inclusion.
Initiatives are cheese forms our monthly engagements, get to know Gilbert. P. D.
Social media, which we'll talk about our citizens police academy we do an employee police academy, our Gilbert youth leadership Academy, our outreach to special needs groups and then our outreach to nonprofit groups.
So focusing specifically on some of those that I just mentioned the PD policies. We, we've been always very transparent with our policies and our data.
We have a lot of data, a lot of reports, but we created a transparency portal.
If you will similar to what we have with Alex with all the data that you can obtain, we created a page that had all our policies, and we have a system called in which we manage all of our policies in it.
Well, there's a public portal to that to where we can post all of our policies online. So now, if someone wants to see our policies, they're all posted on there all of them, except for about 10 to 15 policies.
That are more that are restricted based on, like, active shooter policy.
Of our swap policies are undercover policies. Those are not posted publicly, but everything else is so everything is an open book for us.
Those others are available, but with restrictions, we'll take out what we don't want the public to see because it reveals some tactics. So, along with that PD policies we created.
So there's a lot of questions and answers on there that we were getting back in 2020 and prior to that and specifically during those listing sessions, we tried to answering all those questions, the community engagement and events. We made a commitment to keep hosting those monthly.
We do coffee with a. coffee with a
Um, we did copy the cop on Wednesday this week, or yeah, this week and then next week we have, uh, what is it? Uh, some funky thing.
It's like coffee Folio and something called Coco and yeah so those are easier to do. It's good because we tried to go to the local businesses, get them engaged.
We get a, we very, when we do those events, we get a lot of kids. We get a lot of adults. We get a lot of what I call groupies that they come.
Every month, they just want to talk to us. They want to know what's going on and it's a great way for us to. We bring the motorcycles. We bring the police cars. We bring our gear, just dressed normal and patrol officers.
It's a good way to interact with the community or quarterly cheese forums. That's the.
Group we have a specific list I think we have 70 to 73 people on that list. Currently. If anyone wants on, they can, they just got to send us an email and we will add them to that group.
We're meeting online during covid, but we're back to, in person we were in person before Calvin, and that's an opportunity for us to give updates on what's going on in the police department. Ask any questions get input from the community.
A lot of our nonprofit groups, our hospitals, or schools are East Valley and the East Valley, Hispanic Chamber of commerce.
A lot of our groups belong to this, and they will attend those meetings and it's an open forum that we can get more into issues where a coffee.
The cop is more just general PR, getting to know each other, but the chiefs quarterly forums will talk about issues and we'll talk about what our projects are and our objectives are the public data.
I mentioned the policies we, uh, on that, uh.
Transparency page we have all of our PDFs attached there now we're going to talk a little bit about, uh, performance management. We're com, stat type style. We're trying to automate some of those reports this year.
We just started performance management for BD where we'll be focusing on specific goals and getting those lives. So it's like Alex where you've got the data you can get in there. You can see the data you can turn off and on what I envision.
Eventually, we'll have you want to know what's going on in your neighborhood you turn on burglaries vehicle burglaries assault you click amongst that. So we're working on getting that public data getting it more available. It's there now, it's just a PDF form and then hiring and recruiting.
I'll get a little bit deeper in this in a minute so I'll just do this real quick.
Focusing on expanding our net, so to speak,
making sure we've got good candidates coming in focusing on our process and streamlining where we can not compromising standards at any point making sure that everyone has the same chance of getting through the focusing on. How do we improve that process?
And then that goes hand in hand with D. E and I. objectives for D and I, we're looking at in service, our new hires. How are we, how are we recruiting.
Are we retaining people, but also community making sure we're getting in touch with the community and through our cheese forms and all of our associations that we have,
we attend every month we have 2 or 3 different meetings between the Arizona, Muslim police advisory board. A lot of the nonprofits I'm on the Ascend board, got relations with the United food bank.
So we have a lot of outreach that we do throughout the community.
All right, the inter departmental collaboration, as I mentioned, we had those 12 groups we brought in subgroups, and we looked at what we're doing what aren't we doing? What can we do? What can we do more but then besides just looking at PD we also looked at fire. Sorry? Not fire.
We looked at other departments within the town fire being 1 and parks and rec, which quickly jumped on with the autism. And I'll talk about autism here in a 2nd, but we were looking at. What can we do but also, who can we bring with us to help us engage when we.
We do our coffee, the cop those are great opportunities for you guys to join us meet the community. It's they love hearing from us, but they love seeing you guys as well so feel free to tag along.
Anytime we do any of these events we put them on social media feel free to show up.
We want to develop a simple to the point purpose statement and I drafted 1 up that was about a paragraph and we use, like, no 10 words or less. And so thank you for the challenge.
Because it actually makes it very simple building community trust through transparency. Education and engagement, it's very simple. We want to engage the community and this is how we're going to do it.
So I mentioned the transfer sorry transparency webpage where we have all our information and then we.
Came up with this new tagline, get to know Gilbert.
So, our intent is every 2 weeks to put out a new story, which gives some insight via social media with that logo. There. You'll see it. Uh, we did it with the women and policing. We did it with the crisis response team.
Um, and so listing information. We've got a long list of about 60, 70 different things that we can do. And so we're going to try to get some insight as to what do we do? How do we do it? What should I do on a traffic? Stop?
What happens when I call on the 901, we mentioned that. we mentioned that
Can't wait the policies that deal with the use of force and the oversight. So we have a lot of things planned. So you'll see that about every other week. Come out on social media.
All right initiatives launched ongoing. I mentioned the autism program, uh, we partnered with, uh, which is the international board of credentialing and continuing education standards.
You can see where they go with the, it's a very long name, but they are a national organization. Then, you.
They provide online training for your staff. We put our staff through so all of our police officers are detention and our Tele serve and dispatch went through training online. Once we completed that we became autism certified.
We didn't want to just complete that and say, all right, we're autism certified we're done we've taken that and I've really expanded it.
And I mentioned that I mentioned fire and parks and rec fire has completed their or about to just started.
Certification on parks, and rec is really close to being done and I think their facilities are.
Done because you can actually certify your people and your place and so parks and rec is a little bit more difficult, little more work. But, um, that was something when I talked about working with other departments. We brought others along with this, along this journey.
If you know, our life, the Lawrence is true for education, just south of the police station on civic center. We partnered with them. We've got a lot of our employees actually that have kids there and so we partnered with them. They've been great to work with.
At the end of the Academy, we take our recruits and they spend about a half a day with the students there and those students are anywhere from kindergarteners all the way up to 202,325 years old.
And so we will spend a half day in the rotate with the younger kids and teenagers the adults.
So they can get a little bit of real world perspective of how they those with artistic, how they interact with them things. interact with them things
You can see the difference within the class. Everyone's different just like us. Everyone is different and so they have the opportunity to interact and vice versa.
It gives those students the opportunity to to realize that we're here to help what to do, and they need help and along that line. We are just about to start this. We're working on the protocols for it, but a dispatch 901.
we're going to be working with them on to teach the kids how to call 901. what happens when you call? What questions are they gonna ask? What type of. they gonna ask what type of
Do they need to give and then we're working on a traffic stop certification or preparation.
So the idea is that we would put the parents and the students through a, for the drivers, put them through a traffic stop. And so they know what to do.
What not to do what kind of questions we're going to ask what the way we're going to walk up to the car,
why we're doing what we're doing so that they understand and the idea being that we're thinking we'll give them a sticker that they could put on the back of the car on the window so we can recognize that this person that there's probably someone in there that's autistic.
And also recognize that they've been through the training and give us something to talk to them about and put them at ease. So that's just starting. And then the sensory awareness, family event, as far as we know it was the 1st, 1 in the nation, we partnered up with trader Joe's. They were very good.
Um, like, what, what parks and rec has done with similar events with a low noise low light type of a situation. We did the same thing with life with the school. Excuse me? They brought their students out.
They turned down the music.
In the store, they tried to calm it down as much as possible. It was still busy. Um, but it was a really great event. We had a lot of good.
Feedback from that there was actually a artistic group out in Phoenix that saw this posted and so they brought a bus load of older kids and young adults to this as well. And we just walked them through. They did it like a almost like a scavenger hunt.
But trying to show them how to shop for food, a lot of them, they get overloaded when they go into the grocery stores. And so is an opportunity in a safe environment for them to learn how to shop.
In social media, we really rely on social media to get the communication out about what we're doing. All of our special events. And that's most of our interaction other face to face out on patrol.
So this was just 1 of the pictures from the event, and some of the feedback that we got online, we got a lot of really positive feedback read it to you. Real quick. I love our town, our police department and Trader Joes for making our community feel inclusive and supportive.
I wish my family could have been there, but hopefully next year you have no idea how much this means to those special needs families out there. This is a wonderful Thank you trader Joe's and Gibbard has a mom with an autistic son.
This means so much to me that was just 2 examples of a lot of very positive feedback.
Received and I forgot to mention fire with with this as well. Sorry um, fire joined us as well. They brought out a couple of trucks and we're out there with us helping out as well.
All right, 30 by 30 program, um, this is our program that focuses the goal is by 2030.
And it's a nationwide, not just us that 30% of law enforcement police officers would be female officers. Right now we're right around 12%. It ebbs and flows as people will get hired and retire. But the goal is to increase that by 30%.
There's a lot of studies that show women communicate better than men. If you can believe that. My wife reminds me that all the time. They do. time they do
Um, but we really want to invest in our female workforce, and, as I mentioned earlier, it's not that we're getting any preferential treatment.
It's just throwing that net out there and trying like, what we talked about yesterday with the Aspire event, or trying to encourage females to get into law enforcement. They don't have to be police officer.
They don't want to there's a lot of opportunities that we have to work within the police department besides just being a police officer, but specifically we are looking at, um.
At the police department at sworn, if you had the live version, you can hit that link and it'll take it. Or we have a page dedicated just to this program. I'm going to play a short little video. I don't know if I can do it. Or you guys have to do it.
I'll let it play and I'll explain a little bit. Okay.
While it's thinking, um, Gilbert PD channel PD, queen creek and Mesa all partnered together. Do I need to do something?
I'll partner together to do a recruiting video all of us are part of the 30 by 30 initiative, and we actually didn't have to pay for this. So, it was very nice. Mesa paid for it. Go ahead.
Talk about 30 by 30. this is a nationwide initiative to bring the amount of women police officers to 30%.
By the year 2030, we need to show that women are as capable as being police officers as men. And in some instances they may be even better. And I think it's important that we let our communities now that we always hire the most qualified people not just based on gender. That's true.
But we definitely need more women and law enforcement, and we should talk about why well, for 1, women are less likely to use force. Typically, women are smaller than men. So we really rely on our escalation tactics to get people to cooperate with us.
Also, women who are victims of sex crimes and violence.
Are often more comfortable talking to other women think about it half of our population is women so if we increase the amount of women in law enforcement,
it better reflects the communities we all live in speaking community women can improve the relationships that we have with law enforcement because they reflect the community that they serve a women,
bring a very unique and valuable set of skills to the profession I think is very important in this profession that we foster our community relations and help community trust.
And don't forget about our excellent problem solving skills. Overall increasing the amount of women in a police agency, allows the workforce to be more diverse, effective, and really creative. And at the end of the day.
That's what's best for the community.
Thank you and I said channel it was actually tempi so sorry Timothy. Uh, so that's just 1 example of 1 of the things we've done to increase our diversity within our workforce.
I mentioned that Mesa had a grant, and they actually help pay for that for all 4 of us. But we were all able to use use that video for our recruiting.
Some of the feedback we got online after we posted that the way I'm gonna give her a police department, or if I'm not phenomenal a police officer.
They all do a great job and this is awesome. We need you ladies, another project that stemmed from.
This was our crisis response team and this goes hand in hand with what the community engagement task force just talked about in this year's budget and 23, we were able to start a crisis response team.
We have a high number of incidents of people in mental health crisis. crisis
And so we wanted to launch this team, which gives frees up control. So they can focus on the crime that's occurring.
And these folks will focus on the mental health containers, responding to calls for service of people who are in crisis, threatening hurting thinking about hurting themselves, or actually hurting themselves.
And so there's currently 2 there's eventually will be for the big guy there Dakota and Melissa Wilkerson. They're there now and then the other 2.
Will be joining them at the end of the year once we get our class 2 off of training. So eventually There'll be 40 officers in the sergeant.
So we launched them, uh, social media posts about this, a video and then, uh, several new stories picked it up.
And Here's just where they were interviewing Melissa and, um, 1 of the, uh, they saw there was a gal that called us actually emailed, um, the, the.
Email address we have for the community engagement. Sorry the crisis response team.
And said that she was thinking about killing herself, she just happened to see our social media posts and our video, and she reached out for help. And so they went out there. Helped her talk to her, got her some help got her the resources. She needed in the 1st, 8 weeks.
That they were operational. They responded to 340 calls for service. They took 53 reports did 32 pickup orders. Those were the mental health retainers. They made 2 arrests. And all of that time spent by those through the sergeant. by those through the sergeant
2 officers equated to 203 hours and 41 minutes that would have been assigned to patrol officers. So.
Think with just 8 weeks with 3 of them, we had 2 more that's going to get even more higher and you'll hear it a little bit in the next presentation of how we're looking to supplement that. But it's been a really great adventure.
Good for the community couple of comments we got online as a former mobile crisis counselor. I know this is needed. It will also allow patrol units to operate more efficiently. Well, done give rpd. I'm happy. My tax dollars are being used in this way. This is fantastic.
We needed this and you did it. Thank you so much.
A lot of good feedback.
All right, I'll hit this 1 really quick, because we're running out of time human trafficking.
We added, we've been focusing on this and counting on September stepped out, but I think Mary, you're still on the vast the value against sex trafficking, which is run in East Valley through the Mesa Chamber of commerce,
focusing on human trafficking. You'll hear a lot about human trafficking over the next 3 months, because the Super Bowl, and the waste management open is coming to the valley and human trafficking.
Tourism, and so whenever there is a Super Bowl or a large event, there is a lot of human trafficking going on. And so you'll hear a lot from the FBI from us from all the local agencies.
You'll see every couple of months, um, media stories about online stings. Um, the days of prostitutes walk in the street for the most part are gone.
They're still out there occasionally, but they're most of it went online and the more disturbing part is, um.
Focus on child and children and teams, it happens all the time.
And when we do those operations, they get so many people in line waiting to connect if you will with 1 of our victims that they have to turn the lines off. And because it's just too much for us to handle.
So we wanted to participate in that more. So we dedicated an officer to a detective that will be assigned to the human human trafficking task force with the FBI, which that gives us the.
To bring in all those resources with the Valley task force and the FBI. So if we have a case in Gilbert, it comes with about 20 people. And then when we don't have something in Gilbert, they're assisting throughout the valley with those cases.
So that's something we'll look at expanding as we get our foothold in there. It takes a little bit that will actually start this month, took about 4 or 5 months to get the background checks done.
I mentioned vast, the Valley against sex trafficking. I actually had a typo on that. Sorry about that. And then trust Daisy is a statewide organization that provides training not in our city night of hope.
And then CC hope center that council members September as a board member. On a lot of outreach to our to those that have been victimized through human trafficking. All right.
I'll look ahead of what's coming. You saw the launch of the 908 crisis line um, that got us thinking, and talking about some other opportunities um, obviously employee, mental health. We're doing everything.
We can with our peer team fires, got their peer team and now there's a city wide, peer team. That's working as well to make. Sure. Our employee health is taking into consideration at all times. You're seeing it when we design buildings.
You're seeing it when we hire people making sure that we do everything, we can to take care. to take care
Of them, but I mentioned the 988 we looked at salary is a local group that provides additional training and resources there. Tempe and Mesa partnered up with them to where they're actually in their dispatch center.
So, if someone calls, right now, we can divert someone to the 908 number and it's effective and they get service. But, this is a little bit better service where they're in house at least certain hours. And when they're not then it just goes to the 908 number. But they're in house, they can actually triage.
eight number but they're in house they can actually triage
Calls and make the best decision of, is it best to send police officers out there? Or do they just need a counselor? Or do they just need to talk to somebody? So that's salary program, which we're proposing to get into.
Would provide training, not only for our dispatchers and our officers, but also provide actual onsite services to where we could divert callers to them and potentially resources out in the field clinician.
We'll talk about when we talk about the opioids, but we would like to get a clinic. Sorry clinician, assigned to the crisis response team and then community suicide prevention education goes hand in hand with everything.
I just mentioned of different opportunities for us to educate.
Been looking talking to Chandler schools about different ways to work with them to focus on suicide prevention. I mentioned performance management.
We are going through performance management now, focusing on our goals and how to share that with the community and improve and then spider tech real quick. That is twofold.
1, it does automated victims rights notifications, but also it's a community engagement tool. Just like when you get an Amazon order, and they say, hey, your package is delivered thumbs up thumbs down. How do we.
Do so anytime you call for a non emergency case, it'll get feed, allow you to give feedback to both the dispatchers, the patrol officers and if it ends up going to a detective, the detectives can get feedback as well.
All right, wrapping up Mesa I mentioned to Laurie, just some stats from Mesa.
This is from September of 2022, they diverted 349 phone calls just through dispatch that came into either 901 or their non emergency numbers that they were able to divert is Hilary instead of sending a patrol officer out to you can see over the months.
You can see on this top graph when they started very few calls were diverted and as they got more experience. very few calls were diverted and as they got more experience
And everyone was getting used to it that you started recognizing and being better trained on how to divert calls to salary rather than to patrol. And that's the whole goal is minimize patrols exposure to those that are in crisis.
Because that's where a lot of times we have unfortunately bad situations where we're trying to get people help, they don't understand or they don't react well to the uniforms and it turns into a physical authentication.
Their average response times in about 18 minutes, which is about normal for someone it's not an emergency, but they need help. So that's not a bad response time.
And then they spent 348, 384 hours, just on crisis calls, but then their top 5 calls that they're getting suicide threats or thoughts, welfare checks, family, fights, agency, assistance, subjects disturbing.
So it's been very successful, both there. And in. it's been very successful both there and in
Uh, this is just a photo from 1 of our events back in early October.
There was a nationwide, um, faith in blue, uh, weekend, and we partnered up with everyone live church to open do pancakes prayers and, uh, uh, pancakes with the community. Good turnout.
That is the transparency roadmap a lot of information. Really quick. Sorry? I talked real fast. I'm losing my voice any questions or ideas or concerns. If we're going to tag team this 1 working together.
As far as the opioid settlement funding talk a little bit about where that money came from, but really the team's been working. We had a multi departmental team that assembled Christine came and kind of explained to us kind of the information about the moneys that were coming available to Gilbert as a result.
They got dispersed to Arizona as a result of a large settlement on the related to the opioid addiction crisis across the country. So we assembled our team and sat down, kind of get the stakeholders together.
Talk about what opportunities did we have as community members to help the community so we sat and again, all different departments together discussing the opportunities that we had through that process.
So, kind of the ask today is we're going to offer up near the end of the sheet sober will some recommendations, and we're not looking for a full thumbs up. Yes. Go forward. We're kind of looking.
Before we hit it down the right path does a methodology of where we're headed on the recommendations make sense. So really just kind of a general direction. Yes, we're ahead of the right direction based upon the information that we have. So.
Leave I'm doing this right perfect. So a little bit of the background, uh, talked about this I kind of led into this, where arizona's allotment of the money's related to the, the settlement and the numbers we talked about, roughly a little under 200,000 dollars.
The next 9 years, and then pass that about 135,000 dollars annually. And if I can just add, so, there there have been 2 large settlements. There's a federal multi district litigation case. It's all these hundreds of.
litigation case it's all these hundreds of
Hundreds of cases have been consolidated in front of 1, federal judge in Cleveland. These are approximate numbers with the settlements going forward.
Now there are bankruptcies from some parties that are part of the settlements that may impact the ultimate dollar amount. There's other parties. That weren't part of the initial settlements that will be added in later. So these numbers are going to fluctuate.
But this is our best estimate now of where there are. There are 2 large settlements 1 with opioid distributors and.
The other 1 with manufacturers, and then different parties coming out of that.
Thank you Chris kind of gives a highlight in the background when the money's are coming in and our moneys are coming available. Now as far as from the settlement so requirements the settlement, what we can use the funds for is fairly wide ranging.
And when you look through the 12 from programs to support treatment, education, law, enforcement, specific criminal justice related.
Quite a bit and so, as we look through these, we try to figure out what's the greatest impact to our community and 2.
I'm going to point out primarily as number 2, supportive people in treatment and recovery and number 4, addressing the needs of the criminal justice related to opioid use, and has already been mentioned before and the council members silky on the commute engagement task force.
We spent a lot of time talking about the relationship between addiction and mental health council member, electronics, and specifically mentioned they're intertwined. And so.
When we looked at some of the opportunities we have here, it's a pretty easy link to see as we support opportunities for mental illness. It falls in line also with supporting the opioid addictions.
We feel aligns well, with this opportunity, as we look towards our recommendations, you'll see that's really our 1 of our primary opportunities to impact the communities by the communities being our residents. Our residents are intertwined with our schools with our businesses.
So, anything we can do to help our residents is gonna help our businesses, help our workforce. We already know.
Was strapped also help our schools in those opportunities. So really, there's a tremendous opportunity to have direct impact to our community across all those different levels.
Additionally, number 4, I bring up there's a lot of barriers for people who enter the criminal justice system. However, they entered it and 1 of the opportunities we discussed, and we're talking different stakeholders are, what are the barriers if someone is trying to be successful?
Even their treatment, or in their sobriety, if they have a bad day, or they have a bad interaction, what are the things that are going to bring that person back into the criminal justice system that's gonna be a barrier to the treatment and recovery. So those are the 2 areas as we put together a.
Folder group that we kind of landed on as what we felt was the greatest areas of opportunity to support the community. And I think at this point, I'm gonna turn back over to she Solberg. And he'll kind of give you a list of the recommendations.
If I could just add on that these are the categories that this funds must be utilized. They're, they're special, they're restricted funds the moneys for the settlement come to the state. They get distributed counties and then come to the different cities and towns.
Is this all of them I don't remember? Are there others there's a list in the settlement of.
This is okay, so this is everything and the only thing that can be used for any combination thereof, but these are the uses and we do have to account.
Annually for any monies that are spent that we receive, we have to provide accounting to the county and they do, and which goes to the state, which does audit.
So, again, these moneys that we receive, and today we've received, I think, at 80,000 dollars, um, they are placed in a separate restricted account can only be used for any of these purposes. Okay. okay
Thank you so, the proposal from the group, the subcommittee is Rob mentioned, is this,
give me to municipal court ordered and I'll dive into each 1 of these after this slide municipal court for a court ordered analysis your analysis. They.
Very few that they need to pay for they've been paying for it out of their budget. It's unbudgeted. So they're requesting a 1000 dollars youth and adult resource resources.
Your analysis test the 30,000 dollars for the ones that are required from our counseling area. And then the police department behavior, health Co, responder 100,000 dollars.
And I'll explain that in a 2nd, and then the, a vehicle to go with the. to go with the
Behavioral goods, uh.
Counselor, and then the last 1 that all adds up to just over 200,000. so that's why the last 1 says partial funding, the narcotics drug incinerator.
And so now I'll explain what each of those are for the year analysis tests with the court.
And with the counseling services that are within PD, these are tests where they don't have coverage, they need to pay for themselves and they have financial hardships. They can. they can
That they'd be paid for, as I mentioned, the courts have been paying those so, looking to offset those costs and providing roughly 31,000 dollars between the 2 of us, they will offset those costs to provide the urinalysis test,
which they are required to do as part of their sentencing, so that they can show that they're clean and proceed with their hopefully,
with their successful rehab provides funding for initial drug testing for defendants as I mentioned mitigates possibility for defendants to fill. to fill
Um.
The next 1 is the behavior health Co responder. So.
You know, we were focusing on mental health, but often the drugs go hand in hand with the mental health and so not every call that are going to go on is going to be opioid related. But some of them are so based on the broad general descriptions.
And the requirements, we felt it was a good mix, because it does both sides in both the mental health, and the drug use and opioid abuse in with it. So, this would provide a full time counselor clinician to ride with our police officers.
But it wouldn't just be for.
If fired needed them, that's why we were asking for the car to go with it.
So, if they're not on a call with PD and fire has a situation where they need a counselor, because they'll come across that, where it's not a police situation, there's not a crime committed but that person they're dealing with, could use some counseling.
They could call for that clinician to come to their location. And so that's why rather than just sitting in the back of the car with our police officers, they'd have their own car, gives us some flexibility to serve the entire city at any given.
Time, um, we have looked at different models. We quoted 100,000 dollars. We just got the quote the other day. It looks like it's me 122,000. the good thing is that the benefits are provided, um, through crisis response.
benefits are provided um through crisis response
Team what's the jerry's McSherry.
So that's where we got the quote from, and which is in line with what the other Mason that they've been quoted. So this will provide that extra benefit.
Our officers aren't obviously clinicians, they have a lot of extra training, but this is someone who's actually a licensed clinician. That would be with them and help them make an evaluation. What's the best opportunity for this person to get some help?
And so it'd be with us for 40 hours a week, they cover the benefits. They would cover the supervision. Basically it's a contract that we.
To have with CPR.
And we work with them already as our psychologist for our employees so that would help us as well. That was something that we were looking at as an request in the future. But we wanted to try this model out.
1st, once we saw that there was an opportunity for some funding and so there's an opportunity if it's successful and if there's the demand, we could use additional money that 200,000 that I showed you, um,
this would be an ongoing if we wanted to continue with the cards just a 1 time. one time
The next item is at 1 time with your analysis is would be an ongoing so really about 18,170 would be ongoing based on this, and the, the UA test. And so we have some flexibility in the future years to plug in some other options.
years to plug in some other options
Or add a 2nd person, if need be the narcotic drug incinerated that might sound a little bit weird. But a lot of people don't know everyone in the Valley goes to globe to burn all their drugs and other paraphernalia.
They've offered that for years and years. But they are greatly increasing their rates. I remember correctly. It's 3000 dollars an hour is what they're going to charge us now and so us and everyone else are looking for options. We found 1. one
Down around Tucson that would do it for a little bit cheaper, but it's not much cheaper. Um, so we are proposing using some of this money to purchase a drug, a narcotic drug incinerator.
Um, it's EPA approved and whatnot. It's roughly 59,000 dollars, but it's something that we can do here in town and burn all of our, our products that that's the only way we can get rid of it, but it just, it's a very fine dust.
It does a really good job of doing it. So, it'd be a 1 time. one time
And it'd be something that would be here rather than driving out to, uh, globe or down to.
And then I think that's it, so just asking for direction that we like to Doug and said,
we're not voting today or just getting approval that we're in the right direction and to proceed with the recommendations that we have.
Hey, that wraps up our fall 2022 council retreat and then we covered a lot of information over the last 2 days. So, what staff will do in follow up we'll send an email to all of you and recap each of the items ones that had direction from you.
We will summarize that and ensure that that's your understanding as well for the things. That there will be additional action. And follow up on and outside of that, we want to thank and welcome our 3 new. welcome our three new
Remember relax and we appreciate you participating today the majority of these things that we discussed, and we're direction was provided on are going to be coming to you in the coming months and years, uh, for the actions that we'll be taking for the betterment of our community. Um.
That big, thank you to Elena again for, and her team, Jordan and carmelita and I'm sure there's many others elaina.
Maybe, why don't you come up here and make sure we recognize everyone this is a lot of work for anybody who's ever been a part of putting together anything like this. There's a small army of people that are behind the scenes that make it all flow smoothly.
Make sure the technology works so, and this is the 3rd thing that alina's done in 4 weeks time. So, in the last, at least for.
Now, but we couldn't take them enough and thank you for all of your participation. I thought we had a lot of great dialogue today. I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add before I turn it over to Elena.