bangor brewer advisory committee

8/8/2019 Bangor Brewer Advisory Committee

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OVERVIEW:

Establishment

In February of 2010, the Councils of the Cities of Bangor and Brewer,

Maine each passed an order establishing a Citizen Advisory Committee. Theorder for both cities read:

ORDERED, THAT there is established a Special Committee to be known as theCitizen Advisory Committee for the purpose of recommending to the CityCouncil of Bangor and the City Council of Brewer ways that both cities can worktogether to achieve savings and efficiencies in the operation and services providedby each through mutual cooperation:

BE IT FURTHER ORDERED, THAT said Citizen Advisory Committee shallconsist of five members appointed by the Bangor City Council and five members

appointed by the Brewer City Council. The City Managers and Finance Directorsof Brewer and Bangor shall serve as ex-officio, non-voting, members of theCommittee. The Committee shall periodically report its recommendations to theBrewer and Bangor City Councils as those recommendations are developed. TheCitizen Advisory shall complete its work within approximately eighteen monthsof its establishment but by no later than September 15, 2011.

With that order being passed the Councils of both Bangor and Brewerappointed their five (5) representatives:

BANGOR BREWER

Robert T. Carlson Joseph CoteThomas Johnston Gail KellyWilliam Lucy James MullenEvelyn Silver Beverly UhlenhakeJohn SimpsonCo-Chair Lester YoungCo-Chair

The City Managers and Finance Directors of Brewer and Bangor, StephenBost/Karen Fussell, and Robert Farrar/Debbie Cyr respectively served in the ex-officio capacity without vote.


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Process

The Citizens Advisory Committee (referred to in this document as theCAC) met on February 24, 2010 for its organizational meeting and electedfrom its membership John Simpson and Lester Young as Co-Chairs. It

further decided to engage in a process to ask department heads of bothcities to present the CAC with:

An overview of the scope of their responsibilities Budgetary Data and Information Staffing Data Areas of Current Collaboration Challenges Recommendations for Areas of Cost Savings Any Other Relevant Information

The CAC held seven monthly meetings for the purpose of reviewingspecific departments from both an operational and fiscal perspective. CACmembers agreed to examine those departments having major impact on citybudgets in terms of staffing and/or costs as well as those units that showedparticular promise for enhanced collaboration. CAC members, however, quicklyagreed that school budgets and operations would not be examined. The two cityschool committees had not been part of the process setting up the joint CAC andwe also recognized that the State had recently required consolidation discussions.

The summary of the meetings and issues are:

March 9---The City Managers presented and described each city'sorganizational chart pointing out similarities and differences including staffingsize, budgets and operational issues. The comparative geographic sizes andpopulations were pointed out. Bangor encompasses 34 sq. miles with a populationof approximately 31,000 while Brewer covers15 sq. miles with a population ofabout 9100.Comparative budgets are a reflection of the relative size of the twocities with Bangor's costs being significantly impacted by its being a servicecenter providing federal, state and county functions along with significanthealthcare and public services for the region. As a result, Bangors daytime

population increases to roughly 100,000 people. CAC members decided to invite

individual department heads to monthly meetings to report in detail on theirrespective operations. During the review process it was clear that there was asubstantial difference in the number of full time staff for the area of GeneralAssistance between the two cities. Brewer has one full time equivalent andBangor has almost 40. Upon initial review based only on population figures ofboth cities it would seem that there ought to be more parityhowever, it became

clear that Bangor is the service center and that when folk are in need of generalassistance and/or housing that they gravitate to Bangors resources.


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April 6----Guest presenters were from Brewer: Frank Higgins, CityEngineer; Rodney Butler, Code Enforcement; Linda Johns, City Planning.From Bangor: Jim Ring, City Engineer; Dan Wellington, Code

Enforcement; David Gould, City Planning.Each municipality has adopted its own, unique land use plans andordinances that reflects the shared values of its residents. Thus,enforcement, permits and board processes are different. During thepresentations areas of past and current cooperative ventures were pointedout such as use of Bangor's code enforcement services during a Brewervacancy and using Bangor's licensed traffic light technician to serviceBrewer's lights.

May 4-----Department presentations were made by the following: HowardKroll, City Clerk, Brewer; Patti Dubois, City Clerk, Bangor; Mary Lynne

Hunter, Brewer Assessor; Ben Birch, Bangor Assessor; Jody Dearborn,Brewer City Attorney; Norm Heitmann, Bangor City SolicitorThese reports focused on the scope of work for each department. Thisinformation reinforced differences between the cities in terms of the scopeof municipal functions. Bangor oversees apartments, a racetrack and statefair, an auditorium and civic center, a 27 hole golf course, an airport andmilitary joint agreements all of which set different levels of service andmagnify the amount of work handled by City employees.

June 1----The Police Departments of the cities were represented by ChiefPerry Antone, Brewer, and Ron Gastia, Bangor. The Brewer Policedepartment is staffed with 20 sworn officers. This number has beenrelatively constant over the past 25 years. The Bangor Police Dept. has 83sworn officers and 24 support people which includes 10 dispatchpositions.It was pointed out by both chiefs that the two departments have a long

history of working together in terms of backup. Bangor also sharesspecialties when needed such as bomb squad, SRT, hostage negotiation,and accident reconstruction. Overtime expense was discussed with Bangorspending about $800,000 and Brewer spending about $70,000 per year.Bangor police receive 32,000 calls per year; Brewer police receive 7800calls per year.

July 6----Dana Wardwell, Bangor Public Works Director,summarized his department which is composed of 70 employees with anannual budget of about $5.5 million. Dave Cote, Brewer Public WorksDirector, described Brewer's operation. Brewer has 19 employees with anannual budget of $1.8 million. Bangor maintains 160 miles of roads whileBrewer maintains 61 miles of roads.


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Aug.3-----The 1996 Regional Fire & Emergency Rescue Plan wasdiscussed among CAC members and with the Fire Department Chiefs,Gary Parent and Jeff Cammack from Brewer and Bangor respectively.Chief Parent reported that Brewer has 19 full time firefighters and 11 parttime people. Chief Cammack reported that Bangor has four twenty-two

person crews and five support staff for a total of 93 full-time employees.Ambulance service has become a major part of both Cities operations andhas become a strong revenue source. However, Brewer has a differentfunding source for some of its ambulance service that would be difficult toalign together. The Departments support each other through mutual aideagreements that are called upon with some frequency.

Sept. 7---This meeting was devoted to a general discussion of next steps.Members agreed that the highest potential for cost savings for both citiescould be found within the public safety and public works areas. Althoughcollaboration already exists, significant cost savings could come from

consolidation of one or more functions or units. CAC members believethat the elected officials and the administrative staff must determine ifthere is interest in pursuing steps beyond voluntary collaboration toachieve these costs savings. The CAC members agreed that suchdecisions need to wait for Bangors new City Manager and possible resultof Bangors recent decision to hire a consultant to examine cost efficiencyin the area of public safety. Therefore the CAC decided to wrap up itswork and submit its report prior to the New Year. A subcommitteecomposed of Bill Lucy, Evelyn Silver, Bob Carlson, Jim Mullen andLester Young were appointed to draft the final report.

Considerations:

1. TimingInasmuch as the City of Bangor is going through atransition as it seeks to engage a new City Manager and withoutthe input of that person with respect to potential recommendationsit seems prudent to acknowledge that perhaps the appointment of aCitizen Advisory Committee while well intentioned may have beena bit premature.

2. DirectionDuring the work of the CAC there were numerous sidebar discussions regarding the intended specific direction that was

sought by the governing bodies of both cities. It was clear thatother than the charge in the order creating the CAC that there wasdisparity around that issue. During several meetings there werecouncilors present and they indicated that there was not unanimitywith respect to direction. This is not intended as acriticismhowever, it might be helpful to highlight this

questionso that as both Councils proceed it might be more


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helpful to clearly outline a specific scope of work for futuredeliberations.

3. CollaborationIt was clear that within the constraints of legallimitations both cities were indeed collaborating at the operationallevel up to and including the sharing of professional journals to

reduce or eliminate the need for purchasing duplicative materials.These formal and informal arrangements allow our two Cities tostaff at lower levels and share capacity to meet intermittent highdemands for services and to secure expertise. These collaborativeefforts include traffic signal repair, accident reconstruction, andmutual aid for police and/or fire. Additionally, code enforcement,assessing and engineering all share resources and expertise.

4. Regional ServicesOne of the areas that was looked at anddiscussed tangentially was the issue of potential consolidation ofgovernments and/or services among a larger group ofmunicipalities. We would like to point out however, that our

charge did not specifically direct that we address the issue ofconsolidation. Further, it would make sense to have thatdiscussion in a broader forum and to open up the possibility of notlimiting it to two cities but that perhaps a broader net could be castand that any potential efforts might include more than the twocities of Bangor and Brewer.

5. Bangor and Brewer are substantially different cities in character.Bangor is a service center for central Maine and its demands wouldoverwhelm the resources of a municipality like Brewer that isessentially a residential and retail community. The number oftransactions and calls in Bangor would result in a net diversionfrom Brewer, causing a lower level of service in Brewer than iscurrently provided. It would not be a combination of equals andthus would engender disputes as to levels of support and levels ofservices. To its credit, Bangor assumes the costs for regionalservices like the airport and auditorium.

CONCLUSIONS:

We, the Citizens Advisory Committee, wish to commend the Councils of bothBangor and Brewer for their initiative in creating this effort. Each of us has had anexperience that was both enlightening and educational. During our deliberations we werecontinually cognizant of the complexity of the task before us. We also felt as a group that

there was some question as to the specific charge given to us and a lack of specificdirection that we should take. While there may be areas of individual savings inoperations, our charge was neither to examine our two cities separately nor to recommendchanges in service levels.

That being said it is important to note that we sought the advice and counsel of aconsultant ( Municipal Resources, Inc., Meredith, N.H.) to provide us at no cost anoverview of the issues and a tentative road map for further discussion.


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In reviewing the report of the consultant and following a thorough discussion itwas the consensus of the CAC to finalize our recommendations and bring our work to aclose.

We feel strongly that the professional staff of both cities are exceptionally wellqualified for their respective work and have been very creative in finding ways ofworking together on a day to day basis. They share knowledge and resources on anongoing basis.

Recommendations:

1. Allow the newly appointed Bangor City Manager and give thatperson an opportunity to become acclimated to the new workenvironment and familiar with city operations, leadership, staffand goals and objectives.

2. The governing bodies develop a clear sense of direction withrespect to their specific goals. For example, it is clear to the CAC

that if the mandate is to significantly reduce overall costs thenthere is a concomitant need to evaluate the consolidation ofservices. We realize that consolidation may result in a verydifferent way of delivering services than at present and couldmean a very different city structure and levels of services for bothcities. There is a clear understanding by the CAC that such a planwould require much study, planning and an implementation planover a substantial period of time. Such an effort would requirethe potential assistance of persons outside the expertise of theCAC.

3. Evaluate the broader issue of regionalizing some services beyondthe two cities.

4. Continue the public discussion with the taxpayers of both cities.We are living in an environment which begs the question ofHow much government can we afford? and the taxpayers arereally the ones who will drive the economic bus. There is inMaine a strong tradition oflocal control and yet at the sametime a frustration of the taxpayer facing rising costs ofgovernment, increasing property taxes, cost shifting and unfundedmandates from federal and state governments. Through thesepublic discussions there may well emerge a clear direction topursue one avenue over another.

Attachments and Notes:

1. Report of Municipal Resources, Inc.2. Compilation of Reports and Data Available in Respective City Managers

Offices


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