Audit and Finance Committee Meeting Transcript – 04/30/2015 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 4/30/2015 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/30/2015 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:07:32 AM] >> Tovo: Good morning, I'm councilmember Kathie tovo. It's my pleasure is welcome you to the finance and audit meeting. We have a busy schedule and full schedule, so thank you for being here. What we're going do is begin with the approval of the minutes and move on to citizens communications. At this point I have no citizens signed up for general citizens communication. I do have five individuals who have signed up on item five. So if you intended to sign up for general citizens communication, get my attention and I'll get this list to you, otherwise we'll hear from you a little later from the agenda. Today we have an unusual day. We're going to need to move the agenda around a little bit so we're going to start again we a discussion and approval of minutes. Committee members, if you could take a look at those and councilmember pool moves approval of the minutes. Vice-chair troxclair seconds. All in favor? The minute are approve unanimously. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Tovo: I've got you. Was there somebody else who intended to sign up for general citizens communication? And that is everybody else? All right. Then we will hear from you next. So our first citizen is will Mckinney. And you will have three minutes, Mr. Mckinney. >> Hi, thank you. Good morning, mayor pro tem tovo and councilmembers. I want to thank you for your service to the city of Austin. I'm speaking today in hopes that you will encourage more transparency and better use of Austin animal center's donations Monday. I've been a volunteer dog walker at Austin animal center since August. Many times we leave at night knowing dogs have not gotten out of their kennel the entire day. [9:09:34 AM] This weighs heavily on volunteers because we care for the dogs very much. There are many consequences to the dogs not getting out of their kennels enough. These include urinary tract infections, dogs being extremely stressed and fights breaking out among kennel mates. These fights are amongst dogs that normally do very well with other dogs. Being cooped in small kennels without regular kennel breaks takes its toll mentally and injuries sometimes occur as a result of these fights. On the rare days that a lot of volunteers show up to walk dogs the noise level is much lower. The dogs seem much less anxious. They are much more likely to be adopted when kitchen regular kennel breaks, attention from people and the ability to exercise. There's a viable solution to the shortfall of care we are currently providing our shelter dogs. A solution that won't raise tax dollars or take from the general fund. Using the shelter's donation fund to hire contract dog walkers will give them the care they need. Austin has come so far to achieve no kill status. We need to do no kill the right Waugh, the humane way. I ask you to please encourage use of the donations fund to help hire contract dog walkers. Thank you for your time. I would like to pass out the donations fund report. >> Tovo: Next is Amy taca and then is Ms. Valles when she comes um. >> I am coming up to you today both as a member of the Austin community. I live in the west creek neighborhood. And as a volunteer at the Austin animal center. I've been volunteering there for a little over four years. And to echo will's sentiments I'm honestly just really upset at the care that some of our large dogs are getting because they're not getting out of their kennels. [9:11:38 AM] Tuesday alone 73 dogs did not get out of their kennels at all. And we have a solution, the donations fund. We can use that money to contract request an entity to do dog walking at least to bridge us until the next budget to help get these dogs out or we can contract with an entity to run play groups. We have -- Austin pets alive can help us, they are there. They can provide guidance, set up play groups at the shelter. And simply what I'm asking for is transparency and accountability on the donations fund. I was able to look at what some of the money for 2015 is going to be spent on and one of the things was t-shirts for volunteers. I'm 100% confident that when I go and walk a dog they don't care what I'm wearing and I'm pretty sure the folks who visit the cats, they probably don't care what we're wearing. The other thing that I noticed was funding for a store at the shelter. Basically for dog toys, they have water bottles. There are tons of places where people can buy dog supplies and dog toys. Petco, pet smart, Tomlinson's, et cetera. I feel a better use of that money would be to solve a problem that we've had for four plus years at the shelter and getting these dogs out of the kennel. So I'm asking for two tinges things. One is as I mentioned accountability and transparency for the donations fund. And secondly to get this topic on an agenda. So wick come back and have a discussion and talk about it. Thank you for your time. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. So the content that you all are raising is obviously related to a better agenda item and generally our general citizens communications would be for issues not on our agenda. But since we're not going to get to that issue until later, I'm happy to have you continue. [9:13:41 AM] Just know that we likely will have questions about some of the issues you've raised, but we'll take them up in the animal services unless we have direct questions for y'all. >> Thank you, mayor pro tem. You did pronounce my name very well. Thank you. >> You heard about the general concept. They would like to address a very serious problem, which is the lack of dog walking. I'd like to walk you through some of the Numbers in the report that will passed out. Page 1 has the available fund balance at the end of fiscal 14 and that fund balance was $33,000. I didn't pass out all the other monthly reports, but every single monthly report in 2014 had an available fund balance of about 3 pretty, 340, $350,000, in money donated by citizens over and above the $8.4 million in general fund expenditures at the shelter. I will point out that in 2014 they did spend about 10-1 $60,000 and they took in about $155,000 in donations and that's why the fund balance stayed at over 300,000 all year long. The next report on pages two, three and four, that has the expenditures through February 28th. As Amy was pointing out, there were things on here like t-shirts, but they weren't large expenditures. I would like to point your attention to page 3 where you see a mobile veterinary specialist and over the course of five months they've contracted with the mobile veterinary specialist for $30,000. I'm fine with veterinary expenses. I think we need them, however the shelter has full-time veterinarians, part time, veterinary technicians. [9:15:44 AM] And they do a lot of veterinary work on staff. They do not have a staff dog walker. So my question is why are we spending this very limited resource on additional veterinary services when the community can step up and donate some vet services. For example, central Texas vet rehab services for shelter animals, they're a great resource. And they spend small amounts of money. 1700, seven hundred, that's fine. But mobile vets are getting four thousand, three thousand, six thousand and that seems like maybe a staff function, not a donations function. I would like you to look at this donations fund, give it more transparency, more accountability and let's try to use of some of this huge amount of money available in balance to get a huge need addressed. Thank you. >> Tovo: Down here with this information, Ms. Sasha Edwards is next and our final speaker for the day will be Liz Carasco. >> Thank you, councilmembers. I basically want to echo what's already been said and I also want to say that we citizens have brought up this problem of the lack of dog walk and we central texans have come up with a solution. It's common sense, it's compassionate and it's conservative. We're not asking for money that we don't have. We are asking to use the money that is there. And this is going to help staff. It's going to help the volunteers and especially the dogs. And so thank you for your time. >> Tovo: Thank you. Ms. Carasco? >> They covered everything. >> Tovo: Okay. Well, thank you for being here today. Thank you to our speakers. Is there anyone else who would like to speak about general citizens communications? Okay. Well, we will turn now to item 4 on our agenda. [9:17:50 AM] So I don't believe I kind of laid out our plan for the day. We're going to first hear about the comprehensive annual financial report from our comptroller and from our external auditor. We are then going move into item 3 and go into executive session to discuss the municipal civil service candidates and we'll expect to spend 15 to 30 minutes in executive session, no more than that hopefully. We'll come back out then to have our two audits. We'll probably do the hazardous material storage first. I understand that's a fairly short one, and then we'll move to animal services and on with the rest of our agenda. But committee members, does that sound like a reasonable plan of action? Okay. >> Good morning, mayor pro tem and councilmembers. I'm Diana Thomas, the city controller. The controller's office is a division of the financial services department. In addition to our responsibilities related to financial reporting our office is also responsible for paying vendors through our ap function and employees through payroll. We're also responsible for collecting hotel occupancy taxes which include short-term rental tax payments, vehicle rental taxes, public improvement district assessments and issuing alcoholic beverage permits. We also support the city's main financial applications including our financial system and we also develop tools for the citizens and for the staff of the city through our online application tools like Austin finance online. The city's financial transparency website. I'm here with Tracy Cooley from deloitte and fiduciary, the city's external auditor to present the it comprehensive annual report. This report was issued early for the first time in over nine years and it will look like this and you will be receiving your topic probably next week. We have lots of pictures celebrating the 175th anniversary of the city of Austin. [9:19:51 AM] Lots of interesting information in addition to the finances. Tracy and I will be back later in the summer to present the single audit report, which looks at grant reporting and it's a requirement from the federal and state governments. This slide talks about the requirements for what the city must accomplish that's written into the city code. And the city code it talks about that each year we're required to an audit of the city's finances by an independent auditor. This is the seventh executive year that deloitte has provided audit services for the city. On slide 3 this is talking about the additional financial policies that the city has put in place with regard to oughting and financial reporting. The city will establish accounting practices that conform with generally accepted accounting principals. We often call that gap. And as set forth by the authoritative standard setting body. And ours is the governmental accounting standards board or gas. The financial policies also dictate that the annual audit will be performed by an independent auditing firm and the comprehensive annual financial report will be issued no later than fix months following the fiscal year end. The final financial policy regarding audits is that the independent accounting firm will come before the audit and finance committee no later than 60 days after the issuance of the car. We're here today on April 30th, 36 days after the issuance, so we're in compliance with all of our financial policies and the Austin city code. So slide five I wanted to talk about how we select our auditors so that you have information about why deloitte is here and how they came to be our auditor. The city through the controller's office issues an rfp at least every five years for audit services. [9:21:59 AM] The last rfp was issued in the fall of 2012 and deloitte and touche was contract with two one year extension options. So that will carry us through 2015. The fy14 ought is the second audit in this five-year agreement. Tracy will talk about this as well, but there are a lot of responsibilities that management has with regard to the financial statement so I wanted to highlight some of the key items here. One, we're responsible for preparing the financial statements in accordance with gap. We're also responsible for any of the estimates that are provided in the financial statements. We're son-in-law for rereviewing and implementing new processes and accounting standards. Auditors review our work on all of these areas and also can provide additional guidance and support if needed. And finally, I'd like to say thank you to all the people who make it possible starting first with the mayor and council for your support of excellence and in all aspects of financial management, to the city manager, his executive team and department directors for the support they give to the financial services department and for the excellent financial management they have in their own departments. And for me most importantly to city staff, especially the staff in the controller's office. They put in a significant amount of effort, particularly this year as we tried to move our deadline earlier and they put in a lot of hard work and a lot of evenings and weekends to make it possible for us to have this report to you early. Last but not least to deloitte for the professional manner they do their audit and that they work to get our deadlines and the audit report out on time. I'll now turn the mic over to Tracy Cooley from deloitte who will walk us through the presentation. >> Good morning. [9:23:59 AM] I'm Tracy Cooley, the audit director responsible for services we provide to the city of Austin. I have one colleague here with me, Blake oh, is an audit manager who has been on the audit for a number of years. He and I basically lead the team of auditors that we have for this particular audit. I wanted to start probably high level with common terms that you are see within the car and as we talk about audits in general. One of the things that Diana mentioned was generally accepted acting principles, which is gap. And when you think about that, that's the what we're responsible for doing. We're auditing what the city does as far as how the they interpret accounting principles, how they prepare accounting statements, the policies they make, the disclosures that they make. All of that is in a framework that we call generally accepted accounting principles, so gaap. These are principles that are dictated by gas and they are uniform, sore the accounting principles are affected for the city of Austin are the same as the city of new York, Chicago, everywhere else. These are uniform standards that the city applies. What our gob is is to review the financial statements to see that they are in accordance with these policies and these principles. And the way we do that, I'll move on to the third bullet, generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards. These are the standards and this is how we do our work. What we do is look at the city's application of gap and how we do it is based on certain auditing standards. These are uniform auditing standards that are produced by the American institute of certified public accountants and these rules run the range from Independence, how do we ensure that we're independent and what are the rules associated with that? Even from a government auditing standards there's rules on our auditor compliance and training that we're required to do every year: It runs through how we do risk assessment, sampling. Really the whole audit process is designed and dictated by what we call the aicpa. [9:26:03 AM] So that's when what we're doing is the end result is to determine if the car is in compliance with gap. So that's our role in what we're doing as far as when we talk about the external audit. I'll move on to the report on basic financial statements. We've completed our audit on the fiscal year 14 financial statements. We issue a modified opinion, which is a good pin, and it basically says the city's financial statements were not materially misstated. They were in accordance with the accounting principles. We have two items that we note in our opinion just as references. One of those is that we at deloitte do not audit two of the city's component units, the austin-bergstrom international airport land host complies and the Austin convention enterprises. These are audited by other audit easy and in our opinion we reference them and rely on their work. We don't audit what was already audited. We lay on the auditors for those particular institutions. The last thing is we did note in our opinion that the city adopted a new accounting standard this year as designed by gas, which is gas B number 5 and it really reordered some of the items that were previously reported as assets and liabilities into a separate section known as deferred inflows and out flows. On it really was a geography move on the balance sheet. Next slide reports are issues. Diana covered this a little bit. We had reports on controls and other matters. Also there is an agreed upon procedures report that we issue annually that the city submits to Texas commission on environmental quality. Really what that does is reiterates some of the information in the financial statements as far as some of the expenses and operating revenue, so it's just a report that's submitted to tceq annually. Also as Diana manipulationed, to be issued we have the single audit report, which is a report on compliance with federal and state grants. So it's not really the financial side of how these are accounted, for it's really the compliance as far as what the grantor is requiring from what are allowable costs, reporting requirements. [9:28:14 AM] That's a compliance type report. So that is in process and we'll certainly bring that and the results of that to the committee in summer. Lastly we have a passenger facility charge. Very similar to the grant audits where the audit is based on compliance on how the passenger facility charges that are collected are actually spent. So a compliance report on that. Those two we will cover at a later audit committee date. Next item in accordance with gas we have a few responsibilities we need to do. One is we have to actually report and in our opinion of the financial statements are free of material misstatement, which we've done. And that also includes the, it's more than just the balance sheet and income statement. There are required disclosures within the report as well. So our audit does cover those disclosures as far as the compliance with accounting principles related to those disclosures. Also as part of our audit we do look at internal controls over the reporting financial process, whether that's payroll grants, whatever that might be. And to the extent that we see gaps in the controls, whether they're not designed properly or they're just not implement, we would bring that you to the attention of the audit bring as well. -- Audit committee as well. Significant estimates, really included in any accounting statement there's going to be some estimates by management. Our job is to audit these estimates and see that they are reasonable. The first and third are somewhat similar. These are material within the car. One is the annual contribution of the city's pension plans and then also the third bullet, which is the self insurance. And I grouped these together because the city's process for determining these estimates are somewhat similar in that they employ an external actuary to look at -- at the assumptions, to really come up with what they think the liability should be in that case. [9:30:14 AM] And our testing responsibilities, we actually use our deloitte actuaries to look at those reports, look at the assumptions made and we found these assumptions to be reasonable with minimal change year other year, so there hasn't been a significant change in that estimate. The other items that we noted as significant estimates would be deferred amounts related to accounting for regulated operations. This has to do with the Austin utility, utilities both water and Austin energy and has to do with costs that are deferred by future rates. So again that hasn't changed significantly year over year on how it is determining that liability. And last accumulated, not a complicated number, but a big number in financial statement so that has to do with the depreciation on plant and equipment. So during the course of the audit we were not aware of any significant changes to these estimates or the way the city is estimating these particular accounts. The next item related to accounting policies, there hasn't been significant changes to those policies except for the adoption of the new gasb statement that we mentioned earlier. And then also it is basically management representing to us that they provided us books and records, given us full access to the records that we want they wanted. They don't know of any material weakances. We get that letter signed by Elaine and Diana every year as part of the audit process so that is included as part of your reference as well. Next item one of our items is to report to the audit committee if there are any audit adjustments. What it means is if we're auditing a transaction or balance and we see that maybe something was applied, the accounting principles weren't complied applied correctly, it was a misstatement, it could be as simple as a transition error or something wasn't reconciling or whatever it might be, but if we find a balance that isn't what we think it should be and we bray that to management's decision and they reflect that, that's what we call an audit adjustment. [9:32:28 AM] I'm happy to report that we did not note any audit adjustments which means there was not a significant amount of correction that was needed from the report that received from management, the financial statements, to what you see in front of you. So there was not a material corrections needed. Next item is deficiencies. On the next slide I'll just say that there weren't material weaknesses that we noted as part of the financial statement audit. We typically group if we find an internal deficiency we look at the severity. And how we measure there is whether we think the control weakness is so great that it would impact accurate reporting of the financial statements. So we're certainly more in the far end of the range as far as material weaknesses. There's always some items we note for improvement and we sort of call that a deficiency so we had those that we had from management, but certainly that would raise to the level of attention to the can audit committee. And last but not least, upcoming gas statements. Gasb has been fairly active and what they will do is change the way items need to be reported or change certain disclosures. And for fiscal year 15 there are three new statements that the city will have to implement and apply. I'd say probably the biggest one here would be number 68, the first one. It would change the current accounting and reporting for pensions. So the city has been working with the pension plans to implement this. And it basically will change the way the liability is reported. Typically what you you have now is a liability in funding where your actuaries tell you you have to contribute X in order to not have a pension payout at the end. And if you don't contribute X then that's your liability. But what they're doing now is changing that a little bit where you are looking at not only the liability that you have, the ultimate payout to your retirees, but you measure that against the actual assets you have invested. [9:34:32 AM] So if your assets are going to be higher than the ultimate payout then you're in a good position. But if your assets are less than you need to pay out the total liability then you will have a liability on your books. So it's going to be a little bit of a change in the way that you've seen and we've reported pensions in the past. And the other item is government combinations. And I don't know that you're merging with anyone, so I think we should be clear that that may not affect you as much. I think the big one here is number 68, which will be effective next year. So that really concludes the remarks that I had related to our required communications, but I'm happy to take questions on the process. >> Tovo: Thank you sister much and congratulations to all of our financial staff on such a strong audit. Committee members, do you have questions? >> I have one question for our -- for the deloitte folks. I'm on the city of Austin employee retirement system board, and so with your circular 68 that will be effective next year, should the I.R.S. Board plan to have a presentation along those lines in advance or afterwards or is there anything I should do as a member of the board to make sure that everyone understands what the changes are and understands when they're put in to effect, why there might be a different way of reporting or looking at the Numbers? >> I think as a board member, clearly you're informed about it, which I think is great. I think from the standpoint of the plans have actually had an effective date of a year before the city to implement those. So the way the plans have added their disclosures is going to be a little bit different as well. You will see that on the plan financials as well as the city's. I think from an information standpoint and certainly if this committee requests we are more than happy to meet individually with you or to have a presentation at a future audit committee, just to discuss the plans and the changes. And I know that the city is coming up with the Numbers of what these Numbers would look like, so I don't know if we wait another year until the report is issued -- to your point if that's something that we can talk about in the committee or individually, we're more than happy to do that to keep you informed. [9:36:48 AM] >> Tovo: Did I understand your earlier comments that you -- our pension board is already well aware of these changes and already working to implement them. >> Yes, correct. >> Tovo: Your offer of having a presentation is a good one. All right. Thank you so very much. So next the audit and finance committee will go into closed session to take up one item pursuant to section 551.074 of the government code, the committee will discuss the following item: Item 3, personnel matter related to candidates for commissioners of the municipal civil service commission. I believe actually Mr. Washington was going to do a brief overview of the process for the municipal civil service commission selection and then we'll actually go into executive session. I don't see Mr. Washington. Was someone else prepared to do that? It's fine. We'll do it when we come back. I think that we'll just go into executive session, talk about our commission applicants and then when we come back we'll have Mr. Washington lay out the schedule that's to come over the next couple of weeks for the selection of those candidates who have been identified for interview. Is there any objection to going into executive session on the item announced? Hearing none, the committee will now go into executive session and again, I expect we'll be back by about 10 or 10:10. Thanks very much. [10:20:05 AM] >> Okay, we're out of closed session. We discussed a personnel matter related to item three. We decided on the applicants that we intend to interview for the municipal civil service commission, and so I will read out who those will be in a minute. Mr. Washington, would you like to give us the overview of the schedule while I look for my list? >> Thank you, director of human resources. We began with the clerk's office's assistant advertising in the month of March through April for approximately 30 days for two vacancies on the commission. And the clerk did review all candidates. There were approximately 24 that applied, of which 21 met the requirements per the charter. Based on the committee's selection of those that were screened today in the executive session, we anticipate interviews occurring on may 4th from approximately 9:00 in the morning until all candidates are interviewed. And then recommendations coming out of the audit and finance committee on may 4th based on those interviews of who the candidates should be that are recommended to the council. We anticipate getting the recommended candidates on the agenda for council consideration on may 14th. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Washington. And to all of the staff who have assisted with this process. So the applicants we'll be interviewing, and we expect our two commissioners to come from this pool, but we reserve the right to have another round of interviews. [10:22:07 AM] They will be Mr. Chris, Mr. Daily, Mr. Gross, and Ms. Lakisha, does that match your list? Super. So, thank you all. We are looking forward -- we got a very strong pool of applicants. Thank you to all of those who applied. We encourage you to look at other boards and commissions, and we are very grateful for your interest in serving the see in this capacity. Thanks to everyone who applied. It was a very strong applicant pool. Okay. Our next item the presentation of the hazardous material storage and handling auto-it for the parks and recreation department and the public works department. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. This was an audit looking at hazardous materials storage and handling. We started with a risk assessment, and selected two departments, the parks and recreation and the public works department, to conduct audits. We applied similar criteria for hazardous material storage and handling, but they are different departments with different environments, different kinds of materials. As you'll hear in our background information. In the interest of time, we are going to present these two together. Katie is the assistant city auditor, and Carl was the auditor in charge. So, Katie. >> Tonks, corrie. Hazardous tellers are items which have the potential to cause harm to humans, animals, or the environment. The city has a hazardous communication program that provides information to employees on how to handle hazardous materials. And that program incorporates guidelines from the health administration, osha. [10:24:09 AM] We conducted these audits because prior audits indicated the materials might not be properly managed, presenting a risk to city employees, the public, and environment. Several city departments store and handle hazardous materials. Our audit focused on two of those. I'll first talk about the results of the parks and recreation department. As you can see the objective of the audit was to evaluate the tracking, storage, and security of hazardous materials at the central maintenance complex. We attempted to review the training and facility inspections of hazardous materials department-wide. They handle hazardous materials as required, essentially to preserve a quality park system for the city. Examples of hazardous materials they use are listed on the slide. Cutting fluid, sulfuric acid, cleaners and fuels. The department houses many different types of hazardous materials, but they store a relatively small quantity. They were not properly storing the materials. We found unlabeled containers in the central maintenance complex, chemicals outside of cabinets and on the floor, and materials present without a safety data sheet. The sheet is critical to informing the users of the hazardous materials the proper environment to use the material and the protective equipment that you should wear while using it. The park did not perform facility inspections in '13, and performed 11 inspections in '14, between February and may of 2014. These 11 inspections reviewed only maintenance facilities, and did not review aquatics facilities likely to contain hazardous materials. Finally, we noted some staff exposed to hazardous materials are not required to attend hazardous materials training. [10:26:12 AM] As the table shows here, generally all lifeguards received the proper training for the years reviewed, but other employees, non-lifeguard employees were not identified as needing that training and did not properly receive that. This shows the two years, the non-lifeguard employees and the Numbers who attended the training. We are aware the department has made changes to address the findings. They can probably speak better to the efforts they've taken. When we concluded the audit, we issued recommendations to address these findings including conducting a review of hazardous materials and ensuring ongoing periodic inspections are performed. We further recommend the pard director ensurehat there's additional security at the central maintenance complex, and that also, all staff who have access to or routinely use hazardous materials actually receive that proper training. Pard management concurred with the recommendations. I'll discuss the results of the public works department audit now. As you can see, the objective is similar. The public works department stores and handles hazardous materials to construct, maintain, and improve city streets, bridges, sidewalks. There's examples of the typical materials they use. Some are listed there. They use cleaners and paints. Unlike the parks department, they tend to store a fewer number of materials, but much higher volume. We found that public works was not properly storing hazardous materials at the port. We noted flammable materials in unventilated spaces, containers not properly sealed, and unlabeled containers, and heavy containers on top of cabinets. The quarterly inspections required by policy at permanent sites were not performed during the audit scope. [10:28:19 AM] During the course of our audit, the public works department implemented a number of changes to strengthen their controls, including new procedures and developing a new incident reporting format. When we concluded the audit in February, we recommended the public works department ensure that hazardous materials -- and correct any deficiencies, and ensure regular ongoing inspections of hazardous materials. The public works department has also concurred with these recommendations. That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have. >> Tovo: Any questions? So, I guess I have a question. On the pard audit, you mentioned that fy14 inspections of their 132 facilities. So that's almost 10%. How many inspections are expected of them? >> The pard policy calls for an inspection of each site annually, done by the supervisor of the safety officers. Previously, they were taking a rotational approach to that, they would review each side as a certain schedule allowed. But now there's talk of moving to a risk-based approach, identifying the sites that have more hazardous materials and then reviewing it more frequently. Sara could probably speak to that more. >> Director of parks and recreation, Kimberly is over our hr area and our safety. That's absolutely correct. Actually, one of the good things here -- I think that we were advised to give an update. We were given the money to hire a safety manager. We asked for that position previously in the three budgets previous to that, weren't able to get it. [10:30:23 AM] We now have a safety team, whereas our department had one safety coordinator for -- to do this. So, it wasn't the best situation, quite frankly, to have one person and require others to try to do those things. So now -- Kimberly can elaborate, we have a team and we have a plan. And we have implemented everything that they recommended, and we have some we're still working on. But, we now have the means to actually do the things that need to be done from a safety standpoint. We take this very seriously. >> Okay. >> So then the plan or the expectation is that for all 132 facilities going forward, will be inspected on an annual basis? >> Yes, ma'am, Kimberly, assistant director. As Sara said, we had one individual who, in 2014, we were given the opportunity to have the funding. But that was granted in October. So up until October of 2014, we had one individual who was responsible for occupational safety, patron safety, trail safety, anything that was safety-related. There's an entire team. They've now divided their duties. There's an occupational person, a trail person, different individuals. We have safety liaisons to all the different areas that go beyond what I just mentioned. And each of those, they have meetings are they talk about what does an inspection look like, how can you have a monthly inspection versus our internal audit, our internal safety folks coming and going an audit on a quarterly basis. Not only are we doing the quarterly audits, but we're also doing monthly inspections internally. And that process has just been put into place just recently. And I also -- we do know that we have still are trying to fill one vacancy as individuals within our safety team became more proficient, they got promoted to the safety manager, leaving us a vacancy. [10:32:31 AM] It's posted, we're in the process of filling that. A team of five will be on that team, along with multiple liaisons from different areas. >> We might want to just clarify one thing. You gave us the one position. We had the coordinator. And then because we feel, quite frankly, with all the different infrastructure issues we have and things, we need to take a holistic look at the department. We took people and put them in as a safety team, that's why we've created a team of five looking at everything from playground safety to patron safety, to hazardous material, all different types. We have a new manager that lays out a grid of all the safety issues we deal with on a daily basis. I hope I'll get a chance to visit with you in six to eight months to talk about how well we are doing, and that we've made a huge difference. >> Tovo: Thanks for explaining your response to the audit. That's really -- that means that this process works. You know. It really does go directly to issues and tease out areas where we can do better. And I made some liner notes. I wrote staffing and education issues when you were making the presentation about it. It goes, again, to the fact that we haven't funded the parks and rec department at the level it needs to be that reflects our community values and the work these folks do. Thanks for stepping up on the audit improvements. I appreciate that council last budget year added some staff to handle this work. It's real hard. It's kind of like an unfunded mandate we worry about. We're required to do extra things but not given the funds in order to carry them out appropriately and professionally, so I'll be mindful of that when we get to our budget conversations. >> Thank you. [10:34:31 AM] >> Other questions? All right. Thank you all very much. And I remember in the last year or two, you may have mentioned this, this was a playground safety audit, available online. >> Absolutely. We welcome that, as well. When you cull through your list of things you have to do, I'm proud of the work we've made so far. We have a long way to go. We're going to have a long list of things to do to improve the playgrounds, but we've made huge strides. >> Tovo: Super. Thank you very much. Okay. And then our next audit is the animal services audit. >> Corrie stokes, acting city auditor. Walt was the assistant, and Henry was in charge. Walt will be making a presentation this morning. >> All right, thank you, corrie. Morning, pro tem, councilmembers. I'm here to present the results of our animal services program audit. Our objective for this audit was to evaluate animal services operations as compared to best practices and determine whether they comply with laws and regulations. And we focused on animal care, shelter management, call response times, and drug inventory management for this audit. And just a brief background, animal services operates two shelter facilities, the Austin animal center, including an adoption center, and veterinarian services, and also as backup animal services operates in a portion of the town lake animal center. >> Tovo: May I pause you for just one minute? I neglected to ask for a motion to accept the audit report on hazardous waste. [10:36:34 AM] Should we do those together or separately? >> I think together. >> Tovo: Okay. So, typically after we hear an audit, we have a motion and a second and a vote on whether or not to accept the audit by this committee. So that would be appropriate now for the animal - - excuse me, for the hazardous materials storage and handling audit. >> This might be a silly question, but what would be a reason to not accept it? >> Tovo: That may be a good question for our auditor. I've always assumed if we wanted the auditor to continue work, or complete some assignments relevant to that. >> Correct. Fortunately, there are very few instances of audit reports not being accepted. The ones I can remember, many years ago, we went back and did further work in the area. Or where maybe we had disagreement on the audit recommendations, and so there was direction from the committee to go back and continue work, or to adjust the recommendation before it was accepted. >> Okay. I'll make a motion to accept, then. >> Tovo: Vice chair troxclair moves approval of the hazardous materials audit. Councilmember Renteria seconds it. All in favor? That's unanimous. And I believe, should we have done the same with our external audit? Okay. That was posted for possible action, but we don't need to weigh in on it. Okay. My sincere apologizes, if you would get us back to the animal services audit. Thank you. >> It's not a problem. What we found is that, first, the good news, that the animal services continues to meet the 90% live outcome goal, which they were directed to do by council back in 2010. They first reached it in 2011. And then each fiscal year since then, they have reached that goal. For 2014 they reported live outcome at 94%. [10:38:38 AM] We actually audited that number, it is true and accurate. By live outcome, we mean animals adopted, returned to owners, or transferred to external partners. That's how animal services defines it. When we found overall is that animal services does not have sufficient facilities and resources allocated to meet live outcome goals and remain in line with industry best practices and applicable laws. We also found they don't have sufficient processes to record and prioritize citizen calls, and they don't monitor and safeguard their medications accurately. This chart here shows in fiscal year 2014 and then going -- no, through fiscal year 2014 -- the number of kennels that are available for dogs and cats. And we broke out large dogs and small dogs. And the lines underneath the heavy black line mean that the shelter was overbooked. That they did not have sufficient kennels for dogs. And consistently the kennel is running about anywhere from 30 to 90, nearly a hundred kennels short month to month for dogs. Cats did pretty well. Part of the year, as you can see, they were above the line. But that has come down, as well. And I should add that in September 2014, council earmarked funding for expanding animal services shelter. My understanding is that it will add about a hundred kennels, which would address much of this problem here. The problem is that Austin is a growing city, growing population of people as well as animals, and so it may continue to be short thereafter. The way animal services is managing the overflow is they house animals in a number of ways. [10:40:38 AM] One is that they house animals in temporary cages, a picture of which is here, for long periods of time. They also house dogs in cat cages, smaller dogs, obviously. And they also cohabitate animals that otherwise you would not put together because of the incompatibility issues such as aggression. We looked at a standard of care from the national animal care association, recommends 15 minutes of care per day for feeding and cleaning for an animals. And we compared that against the staffing that animal services has for the shelter. And if you apply they standard -- that standard to the number of animals, the staffing is falling a third short. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're saying they should hire a third more staff, but they can look at the way they allocate their existing resources, as well. This number does not include volunteers, by the way. We also found what has been noted by others previously about the town lake animal center. It is deficient. That's a term the state used in their inspections. In 2014, the state issued a report showing significant deterioration of the facility kennels and major disrepair and so on. They had similar results the year before. And -- excuse me, the city's code compliance division has also had similar results in a November 2014 inspection. Also, we noted in the report that as far back as 1999, as 1999, asbestos was found in the facility. We don't know the status of that at this point. On this chart, we did an analysis of response times by animal control officers to calls received by animal services. [10:42:46 AM] These would be calls from citizens reporting loose animals, perhaps vicious or biting animals. We looked in particular at priority one calls, concerning the vicious animals, and also calls from police for assistance. And the good news is 54% of the time they responded within two hours or less, which is their goal. However, as you can see, the responses tail off pretty quickly after that. And in particular, there's a bump at 12-24 hours because if a call comes in overnight, they typically won't respond until the next day. And if you do an average of all their priority 1 calls, the average response time is closer to 16 hours. And that's because the average is skewed quite a bit by the much longer calls. Also, when we were looking at the response times, we noted that they categorized certain calls as priority 1, however, we noticed some calls such as for dog bites might be prioritized as a 2 or 3. Their priorities go through 4 or or 5. We don't have a written policy on what constitutes the priority levels. We were given some advice via email, but the description of the priorities had some overlap and it was just not clear. We also found that they have incomplete data for the response times, about 20% of the calls that I don't have complete data on when they received a call or what they responded. All right. Also, we looked at medications, the monitoring and safeguarding of medications, in particular, controlled substances. [10:44:54 AM] The veterinarian facility at the Austin animal center maintains an inventory of controlled substances, but they're not complying with certain Dea requirements for those substances, such as shown in this chart that they are not accounting for all the controlled substances on hand, and that they have not performed an inventory in the past three years. Dea requires an inventory of those medications at least every two years, and they haven't done that. Also, they don't retain all of the order forms that are required for controlled substances. They also -- they don't have a policy for disposing of expired medications, in particular, these are, again, controlled substances. And they commingle the controlled substances with others -- excuse me, the expired medications with other medications that are non- expired. As shown here, we found numerous instances where medications were used after their expiration date. Their inventory methodology for these medications, both controlled and other drugs, is that they have handwritten, manual records. And then those records we found several cases where there were math errors. What they'll do is, when they open, say, a bottle of a new medication, they'll have a record of that. And then as they use it, they subtract out in their hand-written record how much they have, and we found math errors. And we also found balances that would disappear, and there was no explanation in the record for what happened to those. So, to address these, we have three recommendations. Number one, to evaluate the kennel shelter operations and develop strategies to ensure that they comply with state law and also with best practices for the housing and care of animals. [10:47:04 AM] Also, we recommend establishing policies and procedures to ensure their information collected on operations, department operations is complete and accurate. And in particular, with information about responses to calls. And also, policies and procedures to improve their management of drug inventories. Management has concurred with the recommendations, and they have committed to work on an action plan, which they will bring to you at a future date. So, that concludes my presentation. >> Tovo: Okay, thank you very much. I'm sure we will have a good number of questions. We also have our staff from animal services here, as well, to answer questions. Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Just a couple questions on the dispensing of the drugs. >> Yes. >> Pool: Do we have policies on access, which staff are authorized to have access to, specifically, the controlled substances? >> Yes. Well, we did look at the access to those drugs during this audit, and we did not have an issue in that area. They were in a controlled area behind lock and key, and so we didn't have a concern there. >> Pool: And when you talked about the inventory, do we -- is that lacking in procedures for the inventory, or was it more the math errors that made it difficult to track? >> Well, they don't really have procedures or documented procedures for maintaining the inventory. Like I described, they have the written record that they keep. And the different veterinarian, or her aides will update that as they go along, but there's not really a documented procedure. >> Pool: And then, could you explain the use of drugs after the expiration date? [10:49:05 AM] What are the consequences, or best practices? I understand that there's a circular from the -- I guess drug enforcement agency that the federal government lays out, I guess a standard. And what are -- do the drugs degrade? Are they not as effective? Do they -- what happens to them after expiration, and is there a window of time after that where you really have to get rid of them? Or if it's a pill, for instance, does it remain stable? >> Right, right. I can't really answer as to what happens to the drugs. I'm not a pharmaceutical expert on that. But we did look at the Dea requirements for the drugs. And really, there's two expiration dates to talk about. And the one in particular that we speak to in the report is what is labeled on the medication on the container, as to the expiration date. In addition to that, once a bottle is opened, generally there's time during which that drug should be used, shelf life if you will. So -- but as far as what happens to the drugs, I can't. >> Pool: I understand about shelf life. We deal with that in our personal drug cabinets at home just with medications. So maybe someone else? I would be interested. And if someone else has a better -- maybe we can submit it as a q&a, but it would be interesting to understand the pharmaceutical side. >> Tovo: Our animal services staff, would they like to speak to that? Would you like to ask that question of our staff? >> Sure. If no one is able to answer today, I can get a response later. But, sure, please. >> Chris noble, acting chief animal services officer. This is Aaron, the acting deputy chief animal services officer. With respect to the question about the expired drugs, I can't answer that, either, about, you know, the quality or the degradation. [10:51:11 AM] However, it is unacceptable, so is, with respect to that, yes. Policies, procedures, need to be in place, need to be looked at more thoroughly. The inventories themselves. And as we get around to talking about the animal control responses, part of the overall response we're doing is working with the communications technology management department to develop our own shelter management software, which we can inventory drugs. Because the current system we're using is not sufficient for what our needs are. And so, that is part of the overall plan. >> Tovo: Okay. And I just think it's important to explain why things are. So, if, for example, in a policy document, if we talk about expiration dates on controlled substances and other kinds of drugs, an explanation for staff to understand why that is. It may have negative effects on the animals. So it's internalized a little bit more so our policies are educational documents as well as not just strictly guidelines, but provide some intent so people understand why we do what we do. >> Absolutely. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Just following up on your prior question, we can certainly collect more information on that. My understanding is that it has to do with the effectiveness. At least for human drugs, and I assume it's similar for drugs for animals, that they become less effective over time. So your standard ibuprofen, as time passes, they become less effective. But we will definitely get you a not-from-corrie answer to that. >> Tovo: Councilmember Renteria. >> Renteria: I'm a little concerned here about -- that you haven't done on inventory on all the controlled substance for the past three years. Do you all know if it's been distributed properly and what you have? [10:53:11 AM] I mean, some of these drugs, you know, people can use them. They're the same medication that gets distributed to dogs or distributed to human beings. >> Yes. Correct me if I'm wrong, there are inventories that are being done. However, it's the Dea mandatory inventory that was not completed. Correct? >> That's correct. >> Okay. So there is an internal management of the medications. They are being inventoried and managed. It's the overall, or the Dea inventory. >> Tovo: And Dea stands for? >> Drug enforcement administration. >> Tovo: Thanks. Councilmember Renteria, does that sufficiently answer your question, or did you want to ask that of the auditor? >> Renteria: Yeah, I just was very concerned, because if they don't know the inventory -- I thought -- it's just the Dea. You're doing a local inventory, making sure that there's not any kind of theft or misuse of these drugs? >> Correct. And I think the auditors could speak to that. There was no evidence of anything of that nature. It's math, counting, with respect to pulling medicine out of a bottle. And when you get to the end of the bottle, there's a bit left in it. It's not enough to use in the next dose. How do you account for that? Well, it needs to be accounted for, and we weren't. Before the vial was thrown away into a sharps container for disposal. >> Can I ask, councilmember Renteria? Can I ask our auditors to respond to that? Were your findings such that it leaves open the possibility that some of those drugs were not accounted for? I mean, it seemed to me in your overall summary that it sounded like there wasn't -- that the inventory system is not necessarily tracking how all of those drugs have been used and when. [10:55:23 AM] Is my remembering of that accurate? >> Well, what we saw, looking at their inventory records is that, for instance, as he said, a new bottle, for instance, of a medication may be opened. And that new balance is handwritten into the inventory, and there was a prior balance remaining that there's no explanation for what happened to that, because -- it's like they're beginning the accounting over begin with a new bottle as they use it and subtract medication out of that. We did find unexplained balances. >> There was also the concern you mentioned about the order forms being maintained. In order to have inventory tracking, I would say they have inventory tracking in place and we have some concerns about it from a math perspective, and from a what happens from the, maybe, next to last dose to being disposed of. But then you also have, do we have -- track -- if we're missing some of the order forms for controlled substances, do we have an accounting of everything that was brought in, how much was used, how it was disposed of, and a reconciliation. There's kind of three pieces. And I'm not sure we have the first piece, we have concerns on the second piece, more about the discrepancies in the amount. >> Thank you. Is there one primary staff member overseeing the inventory? >> Yes, yes. In fact, I didn't mention that during the presentation, but there is one individual, one employee who's responsible for ordering drugs and then receiving those drugs when they come in. And maintaining the inventory for those drugs. Now, the veterinarian and the aides, as they use drugs, they do the recording. [10:57:27 AM] But we did have a concern about one employee in the span of control that this person had, and the lack of separation of duties. >> Just from a best practice standpoint, not specific concerns about that employee, just concerns that -- >> Right, no. >> A best practice would be to have several people involved in that for accountability reasons. >> That's correct. >> I had a couple other questions about the drugs. Councilmember troxclair, I know you had a question on this subject? >> Troxclair: You're on a roll, go ahead. >> Thanks. I know that in the response, Mr. Noble, you talked about looking to have ctm create a database system specifically for animal services. We had talked a little bit in our pre-meeting about whether there might not be a database already available within the city of Austin that could help you organize that information. I wonder if you've explored that, or had an opportunity to do so? >> Yes, absolutely. That is why we're in the enterprise architecture process of developing a shelter management software that will address our needs specifically. And there are other commercially available software programs, but they are not as robust enough to handle the scale of our operation. And the one we're currently using now, we cannot pull the data out of it that we need, particularly with regard to animal control response times and data tracking as it is married to 311 with the implementation of call information. And then, again, from a medical perspective, being able to input the information from everything that the veterinarians do to the inventory control and medicine, drug management, it will accommodate that, as well. >> Tovo: I guess I need to ask that question again, though. Are there other systems that are currently available in departments of the city that could help you handle the drug inventory piece? [10:59:32 AM] >> No. We examined the Amanda database system, and that was not appropriate for our needs. And any of the medical systems being used at either the hospitals, they -- all of our systems need -- with regard to animal care, inventory, animal control, vet services, they all need to be tied together where you input something here that it shows up over there. And there is no software program other than a shelter management-type software program. >> Tovo: I guess I can understand why you would want, obviously, to keep track of the medication that's been given to particular animals. But why for your inventorying of the medications and making sure that you're tracking the use and the expiration dates and things like that, why does that have to be tied into the animal care records? >> It's a one-stop shop. With regard to how they're doing it now, Aaron can address that. >> Yeah, well, the importance of having it all in a cohesive -- there are several points that the animal goes throughout the shelter where they get a vaccination or some form of treatment. Sometimes that may happen at intake, or by the vet, or a day or two later. It's very important for all purposes that it be located in one place so we can access that information real-time. As far as the meds, I think some of. Discrepancies is we order things in bulk, a hundred liters of whatever medication and dispense as needed. There's no policy that says, at five ccs, we dispose. I may dispose at seven, you may dispose at five, that accounts for some of the discrepancies mentioned through the audit. >> Tovo: Okay, thanks. You know, this isn't my field of of expertise, but it's not clear -- it's very clear why you would need to track the care administered to a particular animal at various points along that animal's stay at the center. [11:01:42 AM] It's not clear why the inventorying of the medications needs to be linked into that bigger system, but, I assume those are the questions you're exploring with the group. Thanks. Vice chair troxclair. >> Troxclair: Well, first of all, I was really happy to see that we are achieving 94% live outcomes. That's really great. Thank you for exceeding the goal that the city that has set. As far as the audit, I first want to ask about the slide where you said overcrowding impacts the level of care. And it talked about the lack of staff hours. And you said we're not necessarily recommending that they hire a third more staff, but then I must have missed the next part. Did the audit make a recommendation in regards to how to make up that deficiency? >> We're really looking -- asking the department to look at how they allocate their staff. It's really their decision whether they want to come to you and ask for more staff. We didn't want to make that kind of recommendation, rather give them an opportunity to look at it and see what they can do internally, as well. >> Troxclair: Okay. And on the call times issue, I mean, the majority of calls for animal services are being responded to within two hours. As you mentioned, the reason the average is so high is because there are calls that aren't for over 12 to 24 hours and above. But the audit also pointed out that a lot of times, a call that is made after hours isn't responded to the next morning, which would explain why such a huge difference between two hours and 12 hours. So, I guess I'm not understanding how we reconcile those two things. If we're using that as a metric, I mean, we're not suggesting that animal services respond to calls 24 hours a day, right? [11:03:47 AM] >> That is a goal. >> Troxclair: That is a goal. >> Yes. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> Absolutely. We're a growing city, and it doesn't stop during the night. And, however, due to staffing issues, I don't have the staff to run a 24-hour operation. So, I do have to scale back when the call load does go to them. >> Troxclair: So, if -- what kinds of calls would be animal services, and what kinds of calls would somebody call the police and the police would respond? >> With regard to something that is an immediate threat to the public safety, that call will go through 911 and the police will respond. We are also dispatched simultaneously at that time. And we handle the call. Like I said, immediately wherever there is a public safety response. However, where the time really starts to dip on priority 1s is, you can have a bite, a significant bite, but it may not have been reported until two or three days after the bite actually occurred, so there is no longer an imminent threat to the public safety. However, we have to respond to the hospital because it's generally the hospital that will call us and let us know that a bite has occurred. When you start factoring those incidents, that's when you really start stretching out your response time. To that end, our shelter management software, which does manage the data for the animal control officers, does not adequately capture the time dispatched, the time actually responded to. If the officer gets deviated to a higher priority call, you know, where that lag time is. And so, that has, you know, been one of our significant requests until we get into this enterprise architecture to be able to track our own calls. [11:05:53 AM] I have requested access to the public safety systems, that we could actually be dispatched under that system. But we are not a tier 1 response. We're a secondary responding department. So we're not allowed access to it. >> Troxclair: Okay. So part of the reason that -- well, first of all, part of the reason we have some calls not responded to 24-48 even though their categorized as priority 1, they may not need an immediate response. But because you can't track your own calls, you don't have the ability to categorize those in a different way? >> Well, they're categorized when they come in through the 311 operator. It starts there. When the call jumps into our system, our animal control officers fielding the calls will triage them and hand them out, depending on the severity of the call, or what the immediate threat is that needs to be addressed. And then, frankly, anything that is not of an immediate public safety threat, you know, gets delayed. >> Troxclair: Mmhmm. >> And with the growth, we are experiencing many, many more priority 1 calls, and yes, they're not defined well. And that is part of the audit response, is to develop that. >> Troxclair: Right. So -- but there are possibly calls, if they're after hours right now, that if there's an emergency the police responds immediately, and animal services may respond the next day or not at all if the issue is taken care of? >> If it's that type, we do have on-call officers, and they are paged out and they respond as well during the night. >> Troxclair: Okay, okay. I have a few more questions. I think they might be a little bit broader than the specific scope of the audit, but they are just questions that came up to me during the conversation. Is it appropriate for me to ask them now? >> Tovo: Sure. Are there other questions about the audit before we go to some broader questions? [11:07:54 AM] >> Pool: I just had one quick question, and it goes to the calls and the triaging. Do you find any gaps in interpretation of the severity or the nature of the calls between how it's first reported to 311, and then how it ends up? Are they frequently aligned with the reasons at the beginning and what they find when they actually -- >> There have been significant discrepancies depending -- you know, as described when the call comes in. And it's generally that when the victim is treated at the hospital, that the severity of the injury becomes apparent, and that's when we're notified. That will be hours later. That goes into it. Also, with people's description of the injuries, where they think it is a minor bite, when, in fact, it is actually a significant bite. Or vice versa, as well. And so, we do respond to what we consider -- or what we interpret to be priority 1 calls. We get there and find that it is not. But we still handle it just the same. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Tovo: Councilmember Renteria. >> Renteria: I just wanted to ask a question about the town lake animal center. And I noticed that the -- it seemed like it's an ongoing problem there, because it seemed like the facility is deteriorating on you. >> Yes, it is. >> Renteria: And is there a reason why y'all haven't moved or closed this facility and moved the all the operation to the main -- >> That is a political -- [ chuckling ] Answer to that. We have failed inspections there. How far, the need remains for that space. And especially until we get our new kennels build, which we are in the rfp process for that, for picking a contractor. [11:10:00 AM] The anticipated construction completion date is October of 2017. So, it's a matter of necessity right now to keep those kennels open. >> Renteria: Are we facing any kind of penalties or anything for maintaining a facility that's deteriorating, where our animals are, you know, in the face of any danger? >> Well as far as the standards of care for the animals due to the condition of the shelter itself, with regard to the cracked concrete, no. There's no criminal penalty to it. However, it's not good. And with that -- to that end, we have recently commissioned a facility review -- another facility review of the town lake animal center. And it was delivered to us about two weeks ago outlined the significant deterioration of the facility, with a rough cost estimate of what it would cost to bring that facility back up to standards, rules, and code. And it was right at $4.4 million just to bring it to that level and not exceed it. Especially to the point of which the facility we have now, which is, in my opinion, one of the best in the nation. >> Renteria: And the expense you're talking about -- because I knew the new facility was being built. I kind of was wondering why it was built where you only have an increased capacity of two more cages, or what you're calling it, rooms for animals, or the capacity. But that's a done deal. But would that money that we would cost to upgrade that facility downtown, would it give you more -- using that kind of money, would it give you more capacity over there than at the new center? [11:12:04 AM] >> No. And again, that goes back to what the master planning process for the Lamar beach. And that is up in the air. That's under the parks and recreation department. With respect to -- in the original license agreement, or the resolution creating the no kill, it was when the town lake animal center was ultimately going to be demolished, there was to be a 5,000 square foot footprint for an adoption facility. Not a shelter, but an adoption facility to remain over at the Lamar beach property. And that is where -- it's kind of like what we're using for now. We are using it, again, as an adoptions facility, not as a shelter. The animals don't need any medical care, they're ready to be adopted. And that is what the goal is, or the plan as originally -- >> Renteria: You're not using that as an intake? >> No, we're not. We transfer inventory there as capacity opens up, or as a kennel opens up. We maintain a minimal staffing at that facility. And, of course, Austin pets alive operates that facility. >> Renteria: Okay. >> I have a few other questions, councilmember pool. >> Pool: I wanted to add into the conversation about the Lamar beach and the town lake animal center, there is significant community support for retaining that operation in that location. And I think that the Lamar beach master plan contemplates that, as well. The conversation is how large is the footprint. Now we have the Pressler extension coming right down in the middle of that area, which is -- we took up the continuation of the agreement with the west Austin youth association yesterday in the open space committee. [11:14:11 AM] They are looking for a longer term with their contract for the development of their efforts on that land and fundraising. So, it's a crucial piece of the city's inventory, and a lot of really important to the community activities and operations are going on there. Just need to be -- which need a lot of conversation and some time to play out. So I just wanted to add in there that the community is looking very positively at retaining the adoption and/or intake center at that location, lest there be any misunderstanding about our conversation here today. >> Tovo: Thank you. I would like to talk for a minute about the staffing. The finding about the level of staff care that the animals receive. I heard you say, and I just wand to underscore that that does not include volunteer hours. >> That's correct. >> Tovo: Can you explain why that is, in your review you did not include volunteer hours? >> The guideline we looked at was 15 minutes per day per animal, and that's for feeding and cleaning of the animals. And our understanding is that the volunteer work is focused much more on walking the dogs and that sort of thing, and not in particular the cleaning and feeding. >> Tovo: Okay, thank you. And then, I guess my next question is for our animal services staff. I was a little surprised that in the back of our binder, the management response was really just articulated the findings, the most significant findings again. And typically, you know, with the other ones for example that we had here today, there's more of a response about what the man man -- plan is for addressing it. I see that you've indicated that these require a comprehensive response. [11:16:12 AM] >> Yes. >> Tovo: And I believe that I they do. I'd like to give you the opportunity about talking about what your plans are. We've heard everything from there's not a clear definition of how to prioritize calls, which I would think could be resolved by doing some of that work. And that's a relatively short-term project, I would assume, to a much larger issue that is really a budgetary concern, and that is the expansion -- the need for more resources. >> Right. >> Tovo: Or for other strategies. It seems to me there are some short-term issues that, at least, you could tell us what your plans are about it. I'm just -- with an audit with such significant findings, I think it's really important that we have a more substantial response here today, and then following up. >> When -- going back a few months, when Aaron and I stepped into our roles, part of the budgeting process determined what are our true needs with regard to personnel, staffing, in order to properly run the shelter. And -- so we started stripping down, if you will, all of our processes. And to truly understand, do we really need that number of people? Were those people properly assigned? And in that examination, reviewing the policies of the lack thereof with regard to medications. So, the short answer is, tearing apart, we have tasked our staff with an evaluation and a compilation of all of their existing policies and procedures, to evaluate those to determine where the gaps are, in order to become compliant with the law with regard to the Dea inventory, as an example. [11:18:18 AM] We are adding -- we had approached the Travis county, because we provide services to all the unincorporated areas of Travis county. We approached them about providing more staff, and they are providing two more officers in vehicles to us to get our call responses down. Our response times down. And with regard to the strategic plan for reorganization of the department, we have contracted with a consulting group, as well to determine where it is we need to be, or what we need to be doing five years from now, ten years from now, and what are the best practices. What are the next practices. And most of these are management or supervisory issues, which we can address them quite quickly and become compliant. However, it does not address the overall root cause of the problem, how did we get there to begin with. This wasn't created overnight. And so, that is why we need to really examine how we got to where we are. So that is how we can respond to it, or craft our response. >> Tovo: Well, I mean, I understand you've got some very, very significant challenges in terms of the resources being outmatched by the demand. And that there've also been some significant management changes with the departure of our animal services officer. So I appreciate all of those difficulties that are playing into the complexity of the situation. And I applaud the effort to move forward with the five-year strategic plan and really examine the root causes, but I feel like we would not be up-holding our responsibility if we didn't ask you for a response that's a little bit more direct. [11:20:18 AM] We have some pretty significant findings. I'd really like to know when we can expect a response to some of these. What's the next step? When might we get the comprehensive response you've indicated here? What are some next steps in addressing some of the other issues? I think we need to have some real concrete implementation plan for moving forward to address these challenges. >> Yes. Information specific to the audit findings, I've seen information from animal control. They've created a flowchart and diagram that talks about the priorities, what's a priority 1 through 5. As far as the Dea work, they've created new inventory, every drug including controlled and noncontrolled drugs. They're trying to identify areas to separate expired items. The work is already being done. I've seen the preliminary reports. Chris may not have seen those, but the work is being done. >> Tovo: And so, you know, in other audits, that's the kind of information that's sometimes in our audit report. That this is what we're going to do to address this particular situation, this work is underway. Or this work is -- this is what we're going to do to address this, we're going to begin this work next week. Committee, I would ask that we maybe have a report back from animal services here in a month or two to update us. Is that appropriate, city auditor? >> I think so. And just to give you a little background, Chris and I discussed this several weeks ago about the need. It's particularly for recommendation one, which we left that very broad. So sometimes you'll see in our recommendations, we have very specific, "We think you need to do exactly this to address our finding." In this case, there's a lot going on, a lot of moving parts, and a lot of decisions that require input from y'all as the policy-makers in order to move forward with that recommendation. [11:22:21 AM] So we talked about it, and I think the idea was that rather than develop kind of a quick list of these are the things we're going to do right now, they were going to work on it and come back perhaps at the June meeting and provide a detailed implementation plan of here's exactly how we're going to address, in particular, that recommendation one. The others are quicker to deal with, I think. But that. We had that conversation, we talked about the importance of getting the report and the information out there even if that detailed plan doesn't exist yet to start some of the conversation. And knowing that the new animal services officer is being hired soon, that will give them the information in the audit. Some of that was a decision we probably should've communicated to y'all as part of this discussion, but the fact that there's not a really detailed plan was a discussion that we had in trying to figure out how to get this report out in a timely manner. >> Tovo: Thank you. Now I'm remembering that you did communicate some of that in our pre-meeting, that there was a certain amount of work that was going to be done in anticipation of the new animal services officer. And now it makes better sense to me how to use that information in this context. So, thank you for reminding me about that. That makes it -- now I better understand why you've addressed it the way you have. Was your suggestion, June would be an appropriate time for an update? >> I believe that was in the letter. >> Tovo: Councilmember troxclair had some more general questions. >> Troxclair: Okay. So I wanted to ask about the speciality vet treatment that some of the members of the public mentioned earlier. What is the difference between the vets that are at the facility and needing specialty vet treatment that's separate from the services that are already provided? [11:24:23 AM] >> We allocate, going back to the donation fund to address that on the front end, we allocate $100,000 at the beginning of each fiscal year for use for specialty care, such as orthopedics, any other type of specialty surgeries. That goes beyond the abilities of our current vets. Like as of today, we have 778 animals in our inventory. And the four full-time veterinarians that we have on staff, they do daily medicine and daily care for the animals that are in the shelter, and the ones that are in foster for clinics and any of our outside locations. So our mission is to save the lives of animals that traditionally were not saveable. And that requires specialty medical care. And that is what that money is for. >> Troxclair: Okay. And have -- so I'm assuming with the city's live outcome goal and with reaching 97% live outcomes, I'm assuming that we're seeing more and more dogs -- well, pets or animals at the shelters, which is part of the reason why we're having some of the capacity issues, is that correct? >> Yes. >> Troxclair: So are adoptions keeping up? In my mind, I'm managing a graph of the amount of animals currently increasing, or steadily increasing, and -- are toppings steadily increasing, or are they staying the same, so every year we're going to have more and more animals to care for, and we're always going to have a shortage? >> Yes. Actually, our intake is going down. And that is a direct result of the spay and neuter programs that we do, the education and the outreach and marketing that we do. [11:26:23 AM] So, what that ultimately does is create more kennel capacity, of course. But it doesn't negate the rise -- and it's cyclical during the year, at certain times of the year where intake goes up. And another variable is either a hoarding case, multiple hoarding cases, cruelty cases where we take in large Numbers of animals. The most recent one, we took in 50 -- >> 36. >> 36 animals. And then another one we did we took in 72. So, an open intake facility, we can't control what comes through the door. We have to take it. And care for it. And that, at times, requires that we contract out. We have contract veterinarians, and then we also -- people show up at the shelter that they cannot afford veterinary care for their animals. And since we can't treat owned animals, we refer them through a nonprofit, and then we, of course, fund that at a reduced rate. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> And those are all part of the strategies of how we care for the animals through the rescue groups and the foster groups to get them out of the shelter. The shelter is not the place to be. >> Troxclair: Okay. My next question was about the emphasis on spay and neutering. So, I'm glad to hear that there is an emphasis being placed on that, and the intake is going down so we don't have some of those continuing capacity issues. What else did I want to ask about? There is a humane society facility in north Austin. How does that facility, like, play into this whole discussion? Like, if there is a hoarding case, how -- where do they go and why? What is the interaction between the city facility and something like the humane society? [11:28:29 AM] >> The Austin humane society is a private nonprofit group, as are all the other rescue groups in town. And their role is when we have a significant hoarding case, or something of that nature, we will call on them. The onion creek floods, a classic example of that where they assisted us. They came out to the scene, and rather than process the animals through the shelter that were surrendered to us by the flood victims, they were processed and transported directly to the humane society. As far as what their role is, they support us, and we contract with them for spay and, you know, community and ultimately with the goal of driving down the intake. We don't have to rely on them. >> But if someone has -- finds an animal. And needs to take it to a shelter, does it matter? Does where that animal ends up just depend on who they call? >> Supposed to come to our shelter. Because the animal may be owned and we have the capacity to track -- backtrack if an owner -- if it has a microchip or tags or something of that nature. There are people who do take animals to the shelters. Either Apa or humane society. They call us and we go pick up the animals. >> Okay. Let's see, in 2017, we're expecting 100 new kennels. >> The design of the kennel buildings themselves are not completed. It's been "Ed that building. Some are bigger, some are smaller. We don't have the capacity for small dogs. [11:30:31 AM] So I want to see a capacity for small dogs that would drive the number of kennels up because they're smaller. 100 was the bright line. We may have to sacrifice a few in order to get more of what we want with some bigger ones in the end as well. >> That project has been fund? >> Yes. Yes. >> So why -- so two years seems like a long time to wait when we have such a desperate need? Is there - - what is the reasoning for completion not being done until 2017. >> With the process of bidding city construction projects that I can't speak to that. Public works might be able to. Because they're the ones who oversee the construction process. I know we've finished a design- built firm through planning department. I can't answer. It's one of those processes that you have to go through. >> Okay. So I would be curious to know if there's anything that we as a committee or a council can do to help expedite the process. >> What I've been doing in the building is bringing in portable building and bringing in temporary kennels. However, the construction time of that was 18 months. By the time you get those built, you're going to be tearing them down six months later. Not a viable option. And also of renting, a store front properties, you know, and particularly in the Wes tern parts of Austin and Travis county to expose our inventory to a broader market. But then I have staffing issues with that where I can't staff that many offsite locations. [11:32:37 AM] What we're going to do, we received $150,000 grant to purchase and construct a mobile adoption vehicle. That's currently the process. So we're really looking forward to that. We're historically successful. >> I know my office is working on setting up a time for myself and my staff to go out there and see the facility. We would love to volunteer for a day. >> Absolutely. >> Make sure the an ma'ams are getting the care that they need. >> Thank you. >> I would like to add that this is -- the new kunls were identified as priority in the '15 budget and $5.4 million was appropriated in the budget readings in September. There is an rfq for a design build construction process that will -- we expect the rca to be before the council in early June before your break. Is the current status on our system. >> Thanks for that information. I sort of thought that would be a faster project as well. I appreciate vice chair troxclaire's questions. >> Tovo: Thank you, we're using a design build process. That's the express to speed the process up. Hopefully by about six months. >> Tovo: Are there other questions on this audit committee? If there are none, I would entertain a motion to accept 2 audit? Councilmember -- a couple more things on our agenda. I know we're scheduled to be here through -- we have the room through 12:00. Some of you, though, may have been anticipating we would wrap up around 11:00-ish. [11:34:39 AM] Are you okay a little bit. Why don't we discuss real briefly what individually or collectively we've been thinking with regard to number seven. This is something we've all been tasked to do to think about what kinds of items we believe should come to committee. What items would be more appropriate going directly to the council agreement. It's something we're considering in the transition committee as well. This is just a first opportunity, not the final opportunity. But just the first opportunity to get the committee member's thoughts on what should be appropriate. We have a lot on our agenda today. There are four and five audits. They there are reports that they have to jet son. Keep that in mind as we make suggestions about what should come to our committee. >> I know in the past we talked about maybe using a dollar amount as threshold for things that are over in a certain -- a certain dollar amount. May be helpful to vet those things first here. Trying to think of what else. Anything that is out of the ordinary. One of the work sessions or council meetings, we had a long discussion about the design build, or if it was the contract manager, construction manager at risk process and how only a handful of our city contracts go that route. So something that is out of the ordinary that might be good to come to the committee. Just the thoughts off of the top of my head. [11:36:43 AM] >> Looking for our thoughts on what audits we would like to have the auditor undertake, financial reports? >> Tovo: We've got an interim -- an interim audit plan. So this is more geared to what items that would otherwise progress on to the council agenda directly. What items would you see here first. We might give this some thought. >> I remember thinking a the time. I still had this as my presenting thought, I would be interested to know what the criteria were used for audit finance in the past. I think this is one of the few committees that existed previous to the new council. So I would like to look at how those items are assigned here. That would be a good foundation for the criteria going forward. >> To my knowledge, those were not assigned to audit and finance in the past. This is a new process with the new council. What we did bring to the audit and finance in terms of purchasing items. There are a number of audits. We made changes in our processes across the city. We bring update, regular updates on our contract management. Any kind of new policy or new type of person, certainly, we bring before the committee. I would say purchasing brought two or three times a year, brought what I would consider policy questions or management updates to the committee. But not specific rcas, that's just not our practice in the past. >> Tovo: That's what I remembered too. I remembered a couple of times where something happened at council and we flowed up on an in depth audit and finance review. [11:38:47 AM] One that comes to mind is the water treatment plant for work that our audit staff did. And our other city staff did. Another had to do with different programs. I might need Ms. Truelove to offer a specific example. But the different relationships we can have with our contractors through our WBE program. But typically, purchasing items did not come through this committee. There was a challenge in doing that because we have a pretty big business to run here at the city. And so most contracts need to come through audit and finance we'll find ourselves needing to meet once a week so the operations of the city can happen. So let's think about that for the moment. As I was thinking about this on the council agenda when it comes to purchasing, all of the items will have been -- well, most of them will have been planned for within the previous fiscal year's budget. Or within the budget that's been adopted for that year. When the council adopts the budget, funds have been allocated for those different contracts. Then they come back to us for final approval. This makes sense. So my -- my recommendation would be that purchasing items go directly to the full council unless when we're talking about a work session or at the council, there are -- it is unusual. It is an unusual contracting method that we haven't talked about before, or it is a high dollar amount and there's a need to really dig in to some of the details more directly. Or there's concerns that we have not anticipated that need to be hashed out in a smaller context. Mayor pro tem? >> Mayor pro tem: I agree. My feeling was a lot of the questions were rising from the fact that the new council hasn't been there at the inception so to speak. [11:40:52 AM] And I was also interested. I think the mayor suggested that if council offices had specific questions that they used the q&a process or set up a meeting to maybe a more in depth conversation with the staffs who had line item had the line discretion on it. There could be an opportunity to have a more involved conversation. We can have meetings with three or four other councilmembers too, if there's a group outside of the committee meeting that wanted to ask some questions about things with staff. So, I do remember there was one item that I was involved with that came to audit and finance. There's a conversation that they were going to contract with the Texas facilities commission on master planning and some statistical analysis for the development that the state was looking at. That came here. Because it was unusual or a different -- the departure from what the city had normally done. So I remember that. And I'm comfortable with continuing on that way. I don't want to slow down the process of the city. There are people's livelihoods expecting us to make good on our processes and even if we haven't been active or principles in making the promise, the city has done that through its authority. So I like the approach that you're describing. >>. >> Tovo: You highlighted one of the particular challenges of this time period, that the budget was adopted by a previous council and we're now being asked to vote and affirm particular contracts that this council didn't -- wasn't involved in. And so certainly I think when there -- when it comes up and there are concerns that the majority of the council or what not could refer to more individual councilmembers on the committee should vote to to refer them here. [11:43:15 AM] Vase chair troxclaire, you may think about what an appropriate dollar amount would be. If it's in combination of unusual circumstances and if we can continue with this dialogue. >> Troxclair: Great. I think from an expediency perspective, there's a probability that there are going to be questions from councilmembers. If they're going to the regular agenda and then being referred back to the committee and then being put back on the regular ape general da. I think from keeping business moving perspective, if the staff is going to make questions on it, we can come here so we don't have that ex-stra step. But obviously I don't know that I have the specifics on what these things would be. What else was I going to say. I do think the council will become probably more comfortable with some of the processes of the city and some of the purchasing items that we will see on a regular basis. I guess the q&a was public. That's the other councilmembers with the meeting with the public. I think councilmembers had questions, members of the public have questions too. So as long as there's a way for us to ask questions in a public manner. >> There is. >> We want to remind the committee that most of these rcas that you're seeing, these accounts have been through an advisory board or commission that's seen the rca in the backup material as well before it gets to you. So you are getting an rca that has their -- generally has their recommendation noted on the face of the rca as well. [11:45:19 AM] But we're fine with the q&a process. We need the deadlines regularly. They're harder for us. Withe try to get information back to council as quickly as we can. But they are very transparent or posted with the agendas. >> Yeah, otherwise I agree with councilmember pool that we're keeping the business of the city moving. What you suggested, the things that I brought up and the way that you stated them weren't significantly different. So councilmember, did you have any ideas about what -- this issue? >> No, I -- I've gone through the processes in the past. And I've seen how it works. So I'm -- I'm pretty much believed that the city staff has gone through all of the process to use the contract coming up before us. So I pretty much support the process. I realize there are a lot of members who joined the council that had a lot of questions. And my whole thing is they were asking a lot of questions and really concerned that it was delaying some of the projects that have been worked on for quite a long period of time. So I was just hoping that we could put as much information on the background that they could have these answered -- that they will have these answers so if there were any questions, they could resubmit it to you so that they could get that information as quick as possible for our meetings and when we have to make our decisions. That would be the only thing that I would suggest that would help outed. >> One other comment? >> Tovo: Of course. >> During the council orientation, we did not have a segment on purchasing. [11:47:20 AM] Obviously that could have taken days. Because it is a fairly large function of the city. If there's a specific topics that you would like us to do, kind of an overview of how the process works, how we interact with operating departments and the minority business office, we can certainly bring those back to a committee. We don't mind doing that. We just need your input about what you would like to see. Be glad to do that. >> That's a great offer. And that also bridges into the committee that you chair. Councilmember troxclaire. So I guess the question is do we want to do it within the committee or maybe just a briefing to a work session or have some kind of a joint meeting? We want to be efficient with the staff's time. >> Troxclair: The minority contracting issue was an issue we identified as something to look at in the economic opportunity committee. I know we have been trying to make sure that we have room for everything on our upcoming agendas. So I'm not remembering off of the top of my head which meeting we had that scheduled for. But if you feel it would be more appropriate here or more appropriate at a work session, we could do that as well. And I know that councilmember Poole, that's an issue that councilmember Poole was really interested in. She's also on the economic opportunity committee. I don't know where the appropriate place is to have that conversation but several councilmembers expressed that and have a more in depth briefing on that issue. >> The other topic is local preference. We can go to the committee or go to the work session presentation. Whatever council desires. >> That's great. If you've already scheduled that for one of the committees, I think that's terrific. Maybe getting the word out to the rest of the councilmembers this is a great opportunity to hear that discussion would be the right direction. Or a good direction. [11:49:21 AM] I guess there's no right or wrong direction here. Do you have any suggestions for us as we contemplate this question of how to assign items to the committee? Or any feedback you need from us at this point? Does that give you some sense of where we might move forward? >> It does. We have a process whereby we review the direct agenda with the city manager. We staff with the city manager's approval would pull them and send them to committee. In addition, the council, also once they get -- if it gets past that hurdle and it gets on the council agenda, the council has the opportunity to bounce them back to committee. I think that we've -- we've tried to keep business moving. We've tried to listen closely to what the new councilmembers have said they're interested in. We don't always get it right. So sometimes things get pulled out. We're okay with that. That's part of the give and take of our judgment versus what your particular interests are. And we don't always know what those are. But we'll continue to work with the city manager during the agenda review and communicate what your wishes are and we'll work from there. >> Tovo: That sounds good. That's a good plan. I want to underscore something you said, vice chair troxclaire that the advantage of the question and answer process on line is that the public can participate in that too as well as other councilmembers. That's a great forum of asking questions and getting information. We all have a written record when it comes up again in a year or two, infind myself going back to old questions and answers just to refresh my memory about particular issues. Any other ideas or comments? >> Any comments? >> Well one -- you know, we talked about doing a briefing or, you know, something at a work session or something at a future meeting of the audit finance committee. [11:51:24 AM] And one thing we can do for individual councilmembers is actually come and do a one-on-one meeting with the three of us where we can kind of really get into specific questions about a specific area of contracting that you'd like to get your head around. We're available to do that at your -- at your pleasure. And that's talked about as without having a good way to help if you have a specific policy area that you want to talk about and have a good understanding of, that's a good way to get information to folks on an individual basis without having to take the time on a full agenda for the whole council. Sd. >> There we go. I'm looking down. Director of a small minority business resources department. To clarify on the briefing we were prepared to bring to the economic opportunity committee, it was regarding the disparity study that the small minority business resources department is undergoing. We weren't anticipating overall discussions, certainly happy to do that. But I wanted to make sure y'all were aware of that as you were making committee plans and schedules arranged. >> Yeah, thank you for the clarification. And I, as the committee chair and my staff and with the liaisons have talked about having a little bit broader discussion. I know the disparity study is going to be on the next not the next agenda, but the agenda after. That would be the June agenda. Also it occupies a lot of the time and the economic community and, you know, will be voting on that at our next meeting and we'll have much more time to discuss some of the broader issues that we identified from the beginning that we wanted to delve into after that. >> With regard to women and a minority-owned business. [11:53:27 AM] I have a meeting that head up to the minority. And they had some on how to get to the place of the question we're asking, how to make sure more minority contractors are able to qualify for sub contracts. And provided me with suggested approach. I sent that around to the members of the economic opportunity committee to maybe take that up in soon. So that we can really air that out and and maybe we can tweak the current process. And open the door wider for the minority community and for the sub contracts. I think it will happen at vice chair troxclaire's committee. >> Sent council a member last Thursday regarding some of the amendments we made to the process in determining how to set goals. It's an ongoing discussion, both of us have been meeting with the same organization for trade associations. I meet with them monthly myself. We're having a continuing dialogue on what to do to improve that process. We made initial steps and we welcome the opportunity to further discuss that with council as well. >> That would be great. If you're able to send us information before we have it on an agenda as soon as it's available, that would be terrific. >> Tovo: I think that gives us a plan for the future. We can revisit this issue again. Get the item Ms. One is as we discussed before, be meeting to the civil service candidates. As soon as we complete that, we will need to meet and discuss the hiring process for our auditor, for our city auditor as you all may remember on the council meeting. [11:55:30 AM] The council did pass a resolution to waive the process and appoint the audit and finance committee as the hiring the -- the committee that would recommend a permanent hire to the city council. So I would like to get that scheduled pretty quickly so my office will be working with -- with your offices to figure out a good day for us to meet. That would be in executive session under the personnel exclusion. Any other future agenda items? Did you want to mention? >> Pool: Yeah, well I see you have the resolution regarding filing of campaign reports, which is good. I'm happy to see that. We have a worker trying to come through with the issues with the consideration. >> One thing real quick, we're learning that the agenda posting process under the new system we use here, this is not the system we used with the last committee. So I think we'll look at doing a better job of getting the things that are referred from council, even if they're not maybe scheduled for the next meeting but having those under future items. There's an item on, staff had the change order and the change order process on the rotation. The use of the rotation lifts. But there are several things that have come through the referral process that we're not listing here. We'll try to get a process in place to have them listed so you have an idea of the things on the radar. >> Good. Ms. Hart? All right, anything else? Any other future agenda items? Good. Well, with that in mind, we stand adjourned at 11:57.