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<br />Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting September 14,2006 <br />First Budget Hearing <br /> <br />Sunny Isles Beach, Florida <br /> <br />Mayor Edelcup asked in Budget 515 for the Building Department if this has the $200,000 for <br />Engineers and this would not include the Engineering Department and City Manager Szerlag <br />said correct that this is essentially Planning Consultants and that this is a topic for a study <br />session or discussion item after a Commission Meeting but he would like to start looking at <br />the possibility of Construction Managers for some facility projects that are in existence and <br />coming on line. He said it is hard to justify what you are going to save with the Construction <br />Manager but more often then not the outlay that you give for that management expertise in <br />running a project day-to-day results in what you don't see. He said you don't see a lot of <br />change orders, you don't see a lot of problems that you have to solve in a crisis format as you <br />are under construction. <br /> <br />Mayor Ede1cup said on a budgetary process if we are not able to hire the engineer for the <br />Engineering Department, is this number sufficient to cover the actual costs of doing whatever <br />would have to be done and conversely if we did have to hire the engineer would this drop, in <br />other words we have $200,000 provided for here and we have another $200,000 provided for <br />in the Department for a total of$400,000, are we going to spend $400,000 either way. City <br />Manager Szerlag said yes and no, yes meaning that there is enough money in there if we don't <br />hire a City Engineer. He said one thing he is going to be doing, and he already spoke to <br />Calvin Giordano, is that he has a great discomfort of the current practice of signing work <br />orders for $9,900 because $10,000 is his limit. He said he would rather just come to the <br />Commission one time and say okay you have $200,000 for Calvin Giordano, if we need more <br />money I will come back. He said he refused to sign any orders like that up to this point as he <br />waited primarily for Doug Haag to come on line. He said between Doug Haag, Assistant City <br />Manager Vera, Finance Director Watson and himself to examine all the invoices and then <br />settle up with what has already been done in the past and then come fresh with what we think <br />it will take for the year. He said the other side of that question is that if we hire an Engineer, <br />chances are for that person to come up to speed he will be having a lot of conversations and <br />calling on our consultants the first year, maybe the first two years, so he wouldn't really <br />expect to see a great reduction in that line item. He said the third issue on this item is that this <br />is primarily for general Engineering and Planning Consultant services. He said when we have <br />something specific like the Sunny Isles Boulevard Project and if we hire Calvin Giordano to <br />engineer that project, that is a separate agreement with them for that specific Capital Project. <br /> <br />Mayor Ede1cup said one ofthe things he has been thinking about was to consider in the future <br />that the City look at the possibility of having a Chief Procurement Officer for the City because <br />right now it is split into so many departments and does not get the kind of in-depth study that <br />should take place in a contracts purchase. City Manager Szerlag said that he and Doug Haag <br />already spoke about centralizing the purchasing function in his office and then to see ifhe has <br />enough time to manage that purchasing function or if there would be a need for a Procurement <br />Officer but first to see if Doug Haag could do it with his existing staff between him and <br />Finance Director Watson, Assistant Finance Director Linda Dosal, Accounts Clerk Iveta <br />Rietschel, and Administrative Assistant Anice Paul, but to definitely centralize it. Mayor <br />Edelcup said it also makes it easier on the Department that needs the product that it may <br />sometimes not have the ability to bargain as toughly as a Procurement Officer or Purchasing <br />Agent can do. Doug Haas said that we have had discussions along those lines as far as there is <br />definitely a need, our initial thought would be to try and take an approach whereby we could <br /> <br />5 <br />