10-30-1990 Council Workshop Agenda

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Mayor Fahey and Members of the City Council October 26, 1990 Page 2 Negotiated contract with the new City Engineer that allows greater control of our costs. * Reduced Engineer's attendance at Council meetings thereby saving the $50 meeting fee. * Have encouraged greater utilization of Planning Consultant during his scheduled office hours. This has resulted in less billable hours to the City for people contacting him at his office. * Purchase of used dump truck for Public Works which will allow us to do sanding of City streets this winter thereby minimizing costs from Ramsey County Public Works. * Purchase of new utility billing program thereby saving the cost of postage, envelopes, and employee time due to the elimination of envelope stuffing. Some of the areas we have identified which will need further evaluation, but may result in additional cost - savings to the City are as follows: * Evaluate equipment maintenance contracts presently in existence on such items as postage machine, copy machine, computer equipment, adding machines, typewriters, etc. * Evaluate preparation of meeting minutes whereby format allows for reduced publishing costs, but still provides summary information necessary to inform readers as to a specific decision made and the pertinent information relating to that decision. * Evaluate meter reading practices on the part of the Public Works Department whereby residential water meters are read on a less - frequent basis. This would necessitate the mailing of a card to the homeowner with reading occurring by them. Substantial savings in time on the part of Public Works would have to be evaluated against the cost of additional mailings and convenience to homeowner. * Evaluate use of consultants in terms of charges and scope of services. Where deemed necessary, solicit requests for proposals Page 12