Audit and Finance Committee Meeting Transcript – 01/20/2021 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 1/20/2021 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/20/2021 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:13:07 AM] >> Alter: My name is Alison alter. Ready for me to get starred? >> We're ready to go. >> Alter: My name is Al alter and I chair the finance and audit committee. I am joined by councilmembers tovo and pool who are also on the committee. We are also joined by councilmember Fuentes. It is Wednesday, January 20th and it is 9:13 A.M. And I am going to call this meeting to order. The first item of business is the approval of the minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Councilmember pool makes that motion, seconded by councilmember tovo. Councilmember pool, you're in favor? Yell. So that passes unanimously, thank you. So the next item of business is our audit on the citywide pagers audit. Auditor, would you like to get us started, please? >> Certainly. Just to make sure I have -- [9:14:12 AM] muted, oh, I'm not muted. Seems like I was muted. I wanted to make sure I had Patrick Johnson and Kate Murdock on the call. Patrick manages the audit and Kate was the lead and she will be making the presentation today. Kate, floor area ratio is yours andky see you, so you must be on the call. >> Pool: Do we need to get the presentation up? >> Yes, that would be great. Here it comes. That looks like a pager so I think we're good. >> Good morning, councilmembers. As Corey said my name is Kate Murdock and I will be presenting the findings for the citywide pagers audit. Next slide, please. Since 1999 the city has contracted with the same vendor for paging services. We are now in the third it iteration of this contract. It is also a contract for other wireless services. Spokes wireless system or Wms is comprised of the paging network and the smart web which allows users to [9:15:12 AM] send messages via email, the smartphone application, pager or text. This audit focused on the paging network. In June of 2020 the city had approximately 4400wms accounts and roughly 16 one of these accounts had paging services. Next slide, please. At the beginning of 2020, 27 city departments had accounts for paging and smart web services. Pagers continue to derive some benefits that other devices such as smartphones do not. In some emergency situations, they're more reliable than other devices, allow users to send widespread notifications to thousands of other users without delays, have a long Bart life and cost the city on average less than five dollars on average per usermer month. On as shown on the table above, most city departments with Wms user accounts conduct public safety or utility work. Next slide, please. We had one finding. The city has not effectively managed pagers, resulting in [9:16:14 AM] unnecessary spending and possibly impacting the city's ability to communicate in an emergency. Next slide, please. The office of homeland security and emergency management, along with communications and technology management departments, ctm, have oversight of the city's contract for the wireless messaging system. However, hscm does not actively manage pager use and ctm provides minimal guidance to departments regarding mobile device management. We find 90 active pager accounts across 14 departments for employees no longer working for the city. The estimated loss associated with these accounts is approximately $13,000. In addition, we analyzed pager use reports provided by the vendor. It APD that over the five-month period we looked at in 2020, almost 700, or 42% of the accounts, received an average of one page or less per month. Due to current data and reporting limitations of the vendor, we were not able to determine if these accounts [9:17:14 AM] had received group messages and to what extent they are in use. However, if the city were able to close these accounts, it would save approximately $37,000 per year. Next slide, please. We surveyed employees with active pager accounts and received over 300 responses. 14% of respondents said they do not have a pager, suggesting these employees were unaware the city has an active account for them. 31 percent said their pager was either lost or not working. 41% said they used their pager once a month or less. And 66% said they could accomplish their work tasks without a pager. However, we did note that 33% of respondents said they used their pagers on a daily basis to accomplish their work. Next slide, please. In 2020, several departments reduced or eliminated their use of pagers. APD, the larger user of the wireless messaging system, reduced pager use by [9:18:16 AM] installing spoke smartphone application on sworn city officer cell phones. These users are still connected to the wireless messaging system, but the department was able to reduce costs by approximately $11,000 per month on paging services. Other departments have significantly reduced pager use such as Austin water. And the Austin code and law departments eliminated pagers completely. In response to our audit inquiry, the downtown Austin community court eliminated their pagers and the purchasing and Austin public library department suggested they might be able to eliminate them as well. It is unclear if departments eliminating pagers would result in savings. For example, if departments switch from pagers to city issued smartphones, these devices cost significantly more than pagers. However, smartphones also provide greater functionality that could result in other efficiencies. Next slide, please. Based on our interviews, one reason departments are reducing or eliminating use of the wireless messaging system is that it is not meeting their communication [9:19:17 AM] needs. This was also expressed by some of the city's regional partners. The city's communication with regional partners APD to be mostly one way and partnering organizations that they typically do not use the Wms to communicate with the city. They also found three large city departments have contracts for communication platforms from other vendors. Staff said they used these other systems for internal emergency communication, incident tracking and continuity of operations planning. City staff acknowledged that the wireless messaging system services have not been effectively communicated to all departments. In addition, hscm does not actively provide active emergency communication guidance to departments which may have contributed to why departments purchased their own systems. Because the city lacks a coordinated approach to both individual and mass communication needs, it is unclear if these other systems and associated costs are necessary or if they are duplicative. Next slide, please. Another component of not [9:20:18 AM] effectively managing pagers is the impact on the city's ability to communicate with necessary people in an emergency. First as we noted earlier, not all departments are connected to the system. This coupled with the fact that many existing users report not knowing where their device it or it not being operable may mean that the city cannot reach necessary employees. Second, pagers in the city are one way which means they can receive messages, but cannot send them. As a result, employees who need to respond to a pager message will need another device to communicate back. It may make sense for a few critical staff to have two-way pagers. Finally as we neated in the previous slide, the wireless messaging system may not be as widely used by regional partners as city staff perceives. Without a better understanding of who needs to receive messages and how frequently pager messages are sent and received it's difficult to determine if pagers are worth the cost. Next slide, please. We made two additional observations. [9:21:18 AM] The first additional observation is about records retention. City staff said that the vendor responsible for retaining all records for two years, however they said they do not retain messages sent through the paging network. Moving forward future contracts should specify such requirements and clearly communicate the vendor's responsibilities. The second additional observation is about assessing the need for multiple devices by one employee. Based on our analysis, many city employees have more than one mobile communication device such as a radio, city issued cell phone and/or pager. While some departments may need this redundancy to ensure employee and public safety during emergencies, there may be room for departments to reduce the number of devices issued to staff. Next slide, please. We made three recommendations and management agreed. First, the office of homeland security and emergency management director and the chief information officer should [9:22:18 AM] work with city departments and the vendor to reconcile current and needed accounts with those billed to the city, eliminating any unnecessary accounts. Second, the hscm director should work with the city manager's office and others tow assess the city's emergency communication needs and determine how best to meet them, implementing identified solutions. Third, the chief information officer should work with stakeholders to develop and provide guidance that clearly defines expectations for managing the city's communication systems and devices. Next slide, please. This concludes our presentation. We welcome your questions. >> Alter: Thank you, Ms. Murdock. Do we have any of staff from hsem or ctm who want to speak about it? >> We have staff from both of those departments on the [9:23:19 AM] call. I don't know if they've been moved over or can be moved over. I believe Juan Ortiz, [inaudible]. I'm looking to see who else is on the call. They are available if they want to speak to it. It looks like Scott is coming on. >> Can you hear me? Good morning. My name is Juan Ortiz, the director of ctm and homeland security management office. We agree with the finance and the audit report and we're going to be working with ctm to look at ways that we can clean up the data and make sure that only the appropriate personnel that require a pager have a pager and make sure that all of the other personnel that are no longer requiring a pager, those are turned off and those accounts are disconnected accordingly. >> Alter: Thank you. [9:24:20 AM] Did anyone from ctm want to speak? Scott from ctm? >> Scott is from hsem also. I don't think we have anyone from ctm on the call. >> Alter: Thank you. Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments on the audit? Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Yeah. I'd just say that I think that we probably -- we should do away with the pagers. It feels like very 20th century and we've moved beyond that. A couple of reasons why, just the number of devices that people have, the fact that most of them aren't using it, and the fact that we're spending time talking about it at this point. I recognize that phones tend to be more expensive obviously, but they are also multi-functional and a big part of it is they save [9:25:20 AM] whatever messages come through. It must have been a little disconcerting to everybody to find out that only the smart messages were retained by the vendor, especially if people were expecting that all of the notices -- notifications that would have gone through would have been held in some kind of reserve archive by the vendor. So yeah. I don't think we need pagers. >> Alter: I think that that is one of the things that hsem and ctm will figure out. I'm not advocating for pagers, but there were some things that were cited as to why we needed them. Councilmember tovo, did you have your hand up? >> Tovo: I did. I think there are clearly as the audit shows some individuals in some departments in some places where we just don't need pagers. So one of the things I was going to ask is that I'm not sure which is the [9:26:21 AM] appropriate department to get with this, but I would like to get a report just in a memo from our city management about where those pagers are eliminated in response to this memo and where those savings accrued and in which departments? As the auditor pointed out, there may not necessarily be savings in some of those cases because they may switch from pagers to other devices. I'd like to for us to report back to get a sense of how that all shakes out over the months ahead and if we have some savings that we could consider using for something else. >> Alter: Thank you. And I think broadly speaking, one of the things that we are trying to make sure that the audit office does on a regular basis is report back to us on the follow-up from the audits and that status. Is my sound weird? You guys are looking at me. Did it go funny on you? We're trying to make sure that the auditor's office is [9:27:23 AM] coming back with follow-up reports on the recommendations so that we can definitely see what happens on a more regular basis. I did have a question that was for ctm. So perhaps the city manager's office can convey this if they're not on. Is there anyone -- assuming they're still in the wings there. This recommendation is very specific to pagers. However, there are likely lessons to be learned for the role of ctm and technology. This is one of several audits that we're doing looking at ctm technology procurement related issues. We've talked a lot in this committee about cybersecurity, mostly in executive session and we now have this audit on the pagers. [9:28:23 AM] I would very much like to have ctm speak to us about how they conceive of the role and providing insights into how they are approaching their role. There's clearly gaps that are revealed with pagers, but we have this series of audits because we have concerns about procurement questions more broadly. I know we have new leadership in ctm, interim leadership at this point, and it would be good, I think, for us to have a deeper conversation in this committee about how they're approaching these issues, even as these audits are underway. So auditor, maybe we can talk about the appropriate forum for that conversation and circle back in light of what audits are coming and where they are so it can be most useful for everyone. [9:29:23 AM] And interim director of ctm and figuring out whether that's more appropriate to do before or after the final transition to a permanent director. Great. If there are no more questions, councilmember Fuentes, I don't know if you have a question, but if you have one, I wanted to give you the opportunity. Great. If there are no more questions I'll take a motion to accept the audit. Councilmember pool makes that motion. Councilmember tovo seconds. Hearing no objections we accept the audit. Do I have to approve it or do I just have to accept it. >> Accept it. >> Alter: Wonderful. You might have noticed we put through an agenda that we can get through quickly this morning. We know that everyone wants to watch inauguration when that starts so I'm going to keep us moving along here. [9:30:24 AM] Item number 3 is the clerk's office for bylaws, changes for the airport advisory commission. I understand we may also have someone from the airport advisory commission on the line as well. Does the clerk want to present that. >> Yes, chair, good morning. This is Stephanie holt of the city clerk's office. I'm here to present the changes from the airport advisory commission. They have two changes in their bylaws. The first is to edit the name of the commission. They would like to change the name of the commission to the Austin airport advisory board. This is not something that staff recommends. Our basis for that is there's no reason for the change, there's for statutory change from a state agency, no change in the roles or responsibilities or the authority, etcetera. The next thing that is the proposed change is to edit article 2, the purpose and the duties. They would like to edit the clank to restructure and -- the language to restructure and clarify and refresh the text. Most of it has stayed the [9:31:25 AM] same there. There's no real substantial changes, just kind of reorganizing and clarifying. Staff concurs with those amendments. >> Alter: Great. Thank you. I understand that Mr. Sepulveda is on the line and would like to speak on behalf of the airport advisory commission. Mr. Sepulveda, are you live with us? We can't hear you yet. Okay. [9:32:27 AM] We're not hearing you. Now I can hear you. >> Okay. My apologies. >> Alter: Good morning. >> Councilmembers, thank you. I wanted to clarify -- >> Alter: Before you get started, can you just state your name and your affiliation for the record, please? >> Yes, I'm Eugene Sepulveda, I'm the chair of the airport advisory commission. I wanted to clarify the statement from the city clerk. City documents refer to us as a commission in some documents, as a board in other documents. The reason we are recommending board is we just did -- wanted to clarify that we get one reference, but we also did just some review of the other advisory bodies around the country and most remain board, so that's the reason we came down with that versus commission. And as the clerk referenced, the mandate that articulates [9:33:29 AM] the task of the advisory board simply reflect what we are doing today, which was pretty outdated from the bylaws previously. Thank you for your consideration. >> Alter: Thank you. Clerk's office, would you like to speak briefly to the concerns that you have over the name change or does legal have? >> So councilmembers, this is Jannette good educational, the city clerk. Councilmember may remember back in the previous council the board and commission task force, one of their recommendations was to standardize the names to commission whenever possible. So some boards at that time were renamed to commissions. I don't believe this one was. In order to do this it would [9:34:30 AM] require an amendment to the city code because the names are officially documented in chapter 21. So if there is inconsistency with the names and various documents it should reflect what is in the code. And it would also require us to modify the board and commission management system and the website. And so since there's no, sir legal reason to change the name, we do not recommend going through that process. >> Alter: Thank you. Councilmember tovo, did you have your hand up? >> Tovo: Yeah, I appreciate the city clerk talking about the recommendation against this change. I guess I would ask Mr. Sepulveda if he would speak to beyond just the fact that other airport [9:35:30 AM] entities, citizen entities, or community entities or named boards, I do see a real distinction there in terms of the termology. >> Yeah, councilmember tovo. That's really the only place where I see the distinction. We obviously not in 2020 because of covid, but we attend gatherings of advisory groups from around the country from other airports, and it -- people wonder, well, are you guys not peers? We don't understand the relationship. It's not meaningful in the city. It's meaningful when trying to collaborate and communicate with peers outside the city so that we can bring in best practices and other observations. But obviously it's not -- it won't stop us from doing our job. >> Tovo: Thank you. Are you aware of any [9:36:32 AM] other -- I wasn't aware that our commissioners were actually going to those kinds of events. It's interesting. Are you aware of any other cities that have commission in the name or is it all pretty standardized as a board? >> You know, I would imagine that there are. I don't recall. I remember standing out. And it's typically the chair and vice-chair that are invited to attend these events once a year. I don't recall seeing another body called commission versus board, but there certainly could have been. >> Tovo: I don't have a real concern about it one way or the other. If it's the board's preference I'm inclined to think about that, but I do notice just a quick Google search, San Francisco has an airport commission, Martha's vineyard, airport commission, Livermore, I don't know where that is, ditto. But, you know, if it's significant to the board, [9:37:32 AM] I'm open to that change. Burlington. >> Alter: Councilmember pool? >> Pool: Yeah. It's interesting to have a debate over the terminology. I'd be inclined not to make the change for a couple of reasons. We might miss one. It will cost money. And it does tend to require us then to flow those changes down not just in the code, but in all of our documents and so forth. So absent something that is more specific like to the meaning of the body or the legal standing of the body, simply going to a convention with a group of peers and having them request whether you are truly peers doesn't -- that's easily -- folks are easily disabused by that just by the very presence of you being there. [9:38:32 AM] I'm interested too in how often those conferences happen. I wasn't aware of the travel either. That's interesting. >> Yeah, once a year, councilmember pool. As I told you guys, it's not a do or die. It exists named both ways in existing city documents. We thought if there was going to be a reconciliation to one way or the other, and if it was to -- to 50/50, then why not reconcile to board. But not strong enough to upset anyone about that. >> Alter: So um, first let me welcome councilmember Kelly who has joined us as well. So we haven't assigned our new committees yet so I think they're shopping around to see what we do so welcome, good morning. So I think -- I have a [9:39:34 AM] reservation in that here in Austin I think we use the term board for the boards and commissions that are more sovereign. And I think that that's a distinction that's worth keeping within our own milieu in Austin. For the moment I would suggest not changing the name, but I'm open that when this comes to council, I don't know if it's going to come this council meeting that's coming or the one after, if we can get some documentation that further supports the need for it, I would still be open to consider -- to consider that. That would be something that I think maybe we can forward it without the recommendation and allow that to change if we have some further documentation and support. Councilmember tovo. [9:40:35 AM] >> Tovo: I agree with that approach, now that -- now that I'm on page two and three of my Google search. I do see just a large number of other cities that have commissions. And I think for the reasons you suggest that in the city lingo I think the work that the airport commission does is more similar to the other commissions rather than a board. And a board does in some contexts suggest that it has -- that it has some autonomy that this one does not. So I think it is more consistent with work that our city entities do for it to be a commission. So that's where I am at the moment and I support your decision or your recommendation that we move forward without a recommendation, but I am prepared to make a motion to support the other changes. >> Alter: Thank you. And I would just -- I'm just thinking of the parks board, which does have some sovereign authority. And the board of [9:41:36 AM] adjustments. And I'm blanking on any other ones that are called board. Someone can chime in and correct me if I'm wrong. Okay. So councilmember tovo, if you would like to make your motion now that you just put your food in your mouth. [Laughter] So councilmember tovo makes a motion to advance the bylaw changes, and again Mr. Sepulveda, if you have further support that you want to bring us we can certainly consider the name change at council if necessary. But I -- >> Thank you very much. As I mentioned, it wasn't that significant. We just wanted it resolved one way or the other. >> Alter: Great. So then the motion will be to advance the bylaws and then I will -- if I might before you get it, seconded by councilmember pool, just add the direction to the clerk's office to see if we can clean up the language for commission elsewhere and [9:42:36 AM] maybe work with the chair to figure out where will that's been confusing elsewhere so that it is consistent and addresses that concern. Councilmember pool, do you second that? >> Pool: Yes, but I had something to add to it. And that is to ask the city clerk or the auditor or both to give us the differentiation between board and commission because I think that's really at the root of the decision. >> Alter: Did you want that today or when it comes up? >> Pool: When it comes. That can be part of the backup or the presentation. >> Alter: Well, I think at this point it would go forward as a committee recommendation only to change the -- our portion of it and the name change would not move forward unless we decided we wanted to allow it to move forward. >> Pool: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. I thought we were moving everything forward without a recommendation on the name. Are we just moving forward the change, the other [9:43:37 AM] change? >> Alter: Well, in fact, if we move it forward and -- >> Pool: That was my recommendation. Is that the -- the motion was the staff's recommendation? >> Alter: It was effectively the staff's recommendation, but I think it was simply to move forward with the bylaw changes and not the name change. I don't think that we would move forward the staff's recommendation. I think we would just move forward what we took from the staff. >> Pool: All right. >> Alter: That's how I interpreted it. If somebody wants to do it differently we can, but that's how I interpreted it. Councilmember tovo, it's your motion, though, so if I misinterpreted it, please speak up. >> Tovo: Thank you. That's -- [overlapping speakers]. >> Pool: Thanks for clarifying. >> Alter: So the motion on the table is to move forward with the amendments to and before we vote I would like to thank the chair for his work on this and leading the [9:44:37 AM] commission through this process. I think it is always a good practice for us to be re-examining the goals for our boards and commissions. So I will so I will take a vote. That is unanimous. Thank you. So just for clarity for our new councilmembers, I just want to clarify that all by law changes to boards and commissions come through audit and finance before they go to the full council. So probably not at next week's meeting but the week after you will see this item on the agenda as something for the full council. And as a committee, we can recommend moving it forward with adopting things or not adopting things or just let the council decide. In this case we chose to go with the by law. Piece of that. [9:45:39 AM] The audits themselves as we accept and approve them do not go on to council, although they are distributed or they are on the auditor's website for your review. Great. So then the last couple items are related to the municipal civil service. Items 4 and 5. I'm not sure we will need an executive session, but if human resources department would like to present on municipal civil service, that will be great. It looks like we might have just been joined by councilmember harper-madison. Welcome. Is human resources moving over? [9:46:42 AM] >> Hi, this is Monica, assistant director with the human resources department. I provide oversight to the municipal civil service division within hrd. I thought the clerk's office was going to take lead on this, but I can give you a quick overview of where we're at. >> Alter: If they were supposed to, I don't know. >> No, absolutely. I was saying that so if they wanted to be let in and had something else to add, they can absolutely jump on this. But I think these two items are relatively quick and simple since we just had a meeting recently. Items 4 and 5, discussion and possible action regarding the appointments to the municipal civil service commission, and the appointment of the chair, if you recall when we made the appointments last year, the -- the current chair was not on the dais and they had [9:47:44 AM] voted to nominate another member of the -- the vice chair to be chair. And at the -- at that time we thought the chair Lancaster was going to resign, but she instead requested reappointment. And so when you had made that appointment at the time, you elected to recommend she remain chair and if the commission voted to nominate a different chair, we can bring that back to you. So that's what we're bringing back to you today is the commission has voted to nominate Theresa wisely as the chair of the municipal civil service commission and vice chair Melissa Rogers. And since that wasn't made when we made the appointments last time, we would like to make that recommendation to you today. We also will have to post for an open -- we'll have to post again for open positions as one of the commissioners has determined she will not seek reappointment in may of [9:48:44 AM] 2021. That is commissioner Erika kaine, who is appointed in June of '20. She is no longer seeking reappointment and we are put on notices there may be up to three appointments to be made in the next few months and so we will be posting an open call for up to three of those and will bring those back sometime before may is when two of our terms expire. Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: Was the recommendation on the new chair and vice chair something that the municipal civil service commissioners themselves have requested? >> Yes. They voted on it during a meeting. They have all decided that and that's how those appointments are generally kind of brought to you. >> Pool: Great. I had the idea when we reconfirmed Patricia they weren't ready to choose [9:49:46 AM] someone's else so she was going to continue for continuity sake but that was an open question for them to work out. Theresa Paris wisely will be a terrific chair of that board. We've had really good leadership on the civil service commission, I'm pleased with the work they are doing and I'm sorry we'll have vacancies, but that's opportunities for more members of our community to get involved in this way. Thank you. >> Alter: So can you just speak to what the process will be for the call for applicants? >> Yes. And so we anticipate that we will put list an open call for applicants. Generally we give about six weeks, so looking at January 25 through March 1, open call. I've seen this issue with other commission is getting people to volunteer during [9:50:46 AM] this uncertain time of doing everything via video has been a little difficult, so hopefully within six weeks we'll get a quality group of applicants. We anticipate that in March this commission, the audit and finance commission, can select candidates for interview and we can hold interviews in March. At the end of March, maybe beginning of April, usually it's about two weeks after the close of the applications, so we can review all the applicants. We anticipate by the end of April the audit and finance commission can conduct those interviews and present their recommendation up to council and take that to the council meeting maybe at the beginning of may. When I look at the terms, we have two commissioners currently whose term expires may 8, 2021, so we would like those appointments to be made before may 8. One commissioner has made it clear she is not moving forward with a reappointment and, as I said, we may have up to two more commissioners [9:51:48 AM] who are either resigning or not seeking reappointment. >> Alter: Do you do -- I know we haven't had this very often for this commission, but do we do an exit interview? So this is a very different commission than most of our other commission, it does a lot of very important work for employees that have legal consequence. Is that something that you do on a regular basis? >> I don't think we have ever done kind of an exit. I I know that our commission staff works really closely with the commissioners and kind of understands the nuances, you know, throughout the appointments. I don't think that's a bad idea. If there are suggestions on what information you would like to solicit from the commissioners, we would be open to having those conversations in a kind of exit interview format. [9:52:48 AM] >>>> Alter: Maybe that's something your office can work with mine and/or councilmember pool as the vice chair and maybe we can at least have a conversation with one or more of them before we appoint our new appointees so we can benefit from their experience and understand better what the commission might need that may be useful information that we can do if we can figure out an appropriate format for that. And if anyone else on the committee wants to participate in that, they are welcome to. I was thinking myself and councilmember pool, that would be appropriate goal for us as chair and vice chair. Thank you. So in terms of motions, I understand that we need a motion to appoint the chair and vice chair as recommended by the commission, and then we would just be moving forward with the appointment process. Is that correct? >> Yes. [9:53:49 AM] Sorry, I was looking at councilmember pool who had her hand up. Yes, we're moving forward with just the chair. The recommendation for the chair. I believe the vice chair is something they voted on and so our recommendation for council action would be to appoint Theresa wisely as chair of the municipal service commission. >> Pool: I'll move. >> Alter: So moved by councilmember pool. Seconded by councilmember tovo, hopefully. Okay. Seeing no objections, we will move that recommendation forward. And for our new colleagues, that will then go on the item, usually I believe it goes on the item with council appointments, is that correct? It's not a separate item. We have a standing item for council appointments and we put the names of boards and commissioners and other boards that don't require separate appointment authority on that agenda [9:54:51 AM] item. As a regular standing thing. And that -- those appointments do not always appear really far in advance of the agenda, they may not appear until the day or two before the council meeting, so you will want to check back at that. Great. So then I think we don't need to go to item 5 which is the executive session, if we had needed it. We will do when we interview folks, that's something we can do for personnel decisions. The last item on our agenda are future items. Does anyone here have future items for audit and finance committee that they want to raise? Okay. >> I do. Just real quickly want to put a couple of things on y'all's radar. It does seem like there will be some charter amendments coming in the spring and if it makes sense there are probably some charter amendments that my office [9:55:53 AM] would propose, particularly related to 10-1, although they can wait. We have another ten years before we redo redistricting, but there are a few things there that are on our minds right now that we would like to bring to your attention whether or not they make it on to a charter amendment in the future. So there are a few items there and then also just wanted you all to be aware of the follow-up work as councilmember alter, chair alter mentioned earlier, the -- we are trying to change our approach to follow-up and kind of be more thematic and bring results for an entire body of work. Two items we expect soon, current both hot topics in the city, one is homelessness, we'll be following up and bringing results to you. And also police oversight. That's an area where we've done multiple audits in the past and we want to follow up and see what's been doing with those recommendations. [9:56:54 AM] So look for those in the near term. I would say February or March for both of those topics. >> Alter: Thank you, Ms. Stokes. I will just add that we also are expecting a smbr update and ultimately the single annual audit process. Vice chair pool. >> Pool: I wanted to offer, maybe corrie you could update our new members, our ten toured councilmembers on how the commission work is going. You could come and do it as an audit and finance meeting, but they may have more fundamental questions that might be helpful. >> Sure, and I have sent each of you an email recently trying to do a one paragraph overview of the redistricting process. I think that's a tall order, but where we are right now [9:57:55 AM] is the applicant review panel, which was formed back in September, a three-member commission made up of cpas with audit experience and they are responsible for taking all the -- which is about 300 applicants, they are responsible for taking all the applicants to the redistricting commission and going through them and identifying the 60 most qualified candidates, taking into account various factors including geographic distribution, race, ethnicity, gender, experience. So lots of different things. So the panel name their 60 most qualified applicants, six from each council district, so there's an even spread I would say around the city. I think they did a nice job trying to come up with a diverse pool from other perspectives as well. So right now that -- so we recruit for the panel, for the commission, go through those and make sure they [9:58:56 AM] don't have conflicts of interests or other issues and those go forward. The drawing is this Saturday for the 60 most qualified. You guys as councilmembers have the opportunity to strike one candidate from the 60 before we do the drawing. The drawing results in eight commissioners and then those eight commissioners fill out the rest of the commissioners with six more commissioners from that pool. So it's a -- I think it's an elaborate but really well designed process. There are some tweaks, as mentioned, there are a couple of things that as we've been through it twice some things we might adjust if we could, but it does seem to -- it results in a commission and I think even just looking a the the panel, they were really deliberate, I think they have a pod cast coming out on it later today, but they were really deliberate about how they got to the [9:59:57 AM] candidates and the -- and how we draw maps for new council districts. >> Pool: Corrie, there was a little weird confusion with one of the publications. They did a blurb saying the drawing from the 630 happened on the -- for the 60 happened on the 16th and you told us the 23rd. It was a whisper in the monitor and sounded like it already happened. So maybe drawing your attention to that so they could correct. >>> I think I missed that. I missed that one, but I'll double-check. It's definitely this Saturday and we are doing it virtually, which will be a new and neat experience for us. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Alter: [Indiscernible]. >> No. We have not received any [inaudible]. [10:01:00 AM] I believe the deadline for that is the 21st. I'm double-checking that, but I think that's tomorrow. In order for us to have time to adjust the list before we do the random drawing. >> Alter: Right. And in case either of the new councilmembers are interested, we did do an overview of some of the audit and finance committee what we do. I think was it as last meeting or the meeting before? >> It was at the November meeting. Because we canceled December. But November -- the November audit and finance committee we went through that. >> Alter: So if you are interested in that, you know, we do both the audit and the finance side. We didn't do much of the finance part today, but the audit, the pensions, all that kind of stuff does come [10:02:01 AM] through here if we have fiscal policy changes that comes through us as well and obviously there are overlaps between the fiscal and the audit in terms of trying to achieve cost efficiencies across various things. Let us know if you have any one of us on the committee, I think we've all chaired at one point, reach out to us if you have any questions. We appreciate the three of you joining us today who are not on the committee and you are always welcome. With that, it is 10:02 and I'm going to adjourn this committee and wish everyone a wonderful day. It's a new day in America, so thank you. Take care.