Public Works and Utilities Committee Mon, Aug 4, 2025 ยท Public Works and Utilities Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/302 == Topics == - Employee Recognition Program - Water Data Dashboard - Water Resources Planning - Backflow Prevention Program - City Staff Vacancies - Mayor's Voting Authority - Street Maintenance & Inventory - Complete Streets Division - Community Events - Wellfield Management == Full Transcript == Are we live? We are live. Thank you. All right. So, I call to order the August 4th Public Works and Utilities Committee meeting. It is 5:03. Could I get a roll call, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Michael Garcia, Present. Councilor Castro, Presente. Councilor Lee Garcia, Here. Councilor Romero Worth, Here. Chair Chavez, Here. You have a quorum, Madam Chair. Thank you. Next is approval of the agenda. Do we have any changes from staff? No changes from staff, Madam Chair. Okay. Can I get a motion? To approve. Second. I have a motion and I have a second. All those in favor signify by saying, "Aye." Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Next is approval of the consent agenda. I have that both items 7H and 7J were pulled. Is that correct? Yes, Madam Chair. Are there any other items that need to be pulled off consent? Right. Can I get a motion to approve as amended? I have a motion. I have a second. Could I get a roll call vote, please? Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Romero Worth. Yes. Mayor Chavez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next is public comment. Do we have anyone in chambers today for public comment? All right. We don't have anyone here for public comment. Next is presentations. And we are starting with a good presentation. We always love when we get to recognize staff. So, our first presentation, Public Utilities Department Employee of the Month, July 2025, Steve Schulz, Water Division, and Jonathan Montoya, Interim Water Division Director will be here to present today. And Madam Chair, before Jonathan starts, I just wanted to let the committee know that we are starting an Employee of the Month award in Public Utilities. Pretty clear. This is the first one. We're still getting sort of up to speed on the formalities of it, but we do intend to have some sort of a, hopefully, a recognition, maybe a gift certificate. We're working through the best way to do that and what are the things that we might be able to provide to our staff, but really about recognizing accomplishments and efforts above and beyond from our staff members. That's wonderful. I think that's very important. So, thank you. Right, Jonathan. Chavez, members of the committee. This really gives me an opportunity to highlight some of the hard work that we don't really get to talk about that our team does all the time. And, I couldn't think of anybody else right out of the gate, but Steve Schultz. Steve Schultz joined our team in October of 2021. Sound about right? And, most recently, he's worked on a project that, we're calling it our water data dashboard. Or, well, I don't know if we've had an official title for it yet, but it's a real game changer and it's really helped us improve the way that we look at our data from demand supply, how we're reporting and recording our water rights and how there all that data is all it totally takes away a lot of the human error involved and gets the data from one, like from a meter, takes the human error out of it, computes it, and puts all this data into one place. And, I can't say no, we're going to present on it later on this year to the committee so you guys can see it because it's really, really cool to see. And I think hopefully eventually this becomes something that we can point outwards that people can take a look at and see like what's your water system doing? Where's the water coming from? Where is it going? How much people the overall system is using? How we're utilizing the resources, how much water we're diverting from different places, whether it be Buckman, groundwater, source of supply, Canyon Road, the Santa Fe River. So anyway, it's really helped us streamline the way we do our process. It's eliminated a lot of manual punching numbers on spreadsheets, things like that. You've really helped make a lot of our lives a little bit easier by helping put this together. All the data is in one place. I know the guys at BGD are really thankful for what you've done recently with the reporting and I hope that we can grow on that and stuff, but I just wanted to say thank you for your hard work, Steve. So, And Steve up too. So, Steve, I always ask if you would give us the honor of shaking your hand and thanking you each individually for the service and the positive impact you've had in the city. So, if you don't mind just coming around so we could all individually thank you. I'm not sure if I have anything else to say. Jesse, do you have anything to add? I wanted to just add a couple things as well. I think Jonathan did a great job with the dashboard explaining. I don't until you see it on a presentation and see the representation of what it is on the screen. It's hard to appreciate how powerful it is to have data from the city, from USGS, from the Bureau of Reclamation, from all the data that we might find necessary to help us make informed decisions being every night updated and pulled into a real-time dashboard that allows us to ask intelligent questions. Every week we have a weekly planning meeting with members of staff, members of the county, members of Los Componus, members of BDD. And in those meetings we ask questions and it used to be that people would say, "Yeah, I think this, I think that." And now we say, "Let's check the dashboard." And we go and we look at the data and we try to make the best decision we can right then with real-time data. So that's a, it's a real game changer. The other two things that he's done that I want to mention are, he's a geohydrologist by training and he's taken a lot of interest in our wellfields. We have an amazing potential in our wellfields because in 1995, as you all will remember from the presentations I give, that's when we produced the most water we've ever produced and we only had, we didn't have BDD at that time. So we, we have a lot of wells and we have the capability to put a lot of water into the system just with the wells. But in the last, you know, 20 years, we've really been focusing on, or the last 15 years at least, we've really been focusing on our water treatment plants, our Canyon Road and BDD. And the wells have been there and been ready to use, but he's really focusing on making sure they're all ready to use at their highest capability so that if both surface water treatment plants are down, we can serve our entire peak demand for a day, a week, a month with just the wells. So that's sort of a hidden goal that we have in the background. And Steve's been the champion there. And one of the things that he's been doing is when we can use one well for a time for our production needs and then turn it off for several weeks and use only wells that are much farther away from that well. We can gather a huge amount of information of how the aquifer itself behaves and acts. And so we're gaining a tremendous amount of information about the relationship of our wells to each other and our wells to other water supplies that we did not necessarily have. And I think before Steve's done, he'll put together sort of some pretty interesting strategies and conceptual model as to how our aquifers work because of this additional information we're gaining by changing our operations a little bit. So that's been a tremendous advantage. And then one other piece to mention is he's really been helping out with our long-range water resources planning effort. And hopefully we'll be bringing that to you all in the next year, end of this year for a piece on supply. But really where the rubber meets the road is when we start playing these what if scenarios of looking at what if the supply looks like this? What if the demand looks like this? If we don't have enough, what do we do? And he's really championed sort of introduction of four different metrics for defining what a good future is and those are the reliability and so that's the one usually utilities, that's the only one utilities usually think about, you open your faucet, water comes out, that's all I care about. What if that means that we have mined our aquifers? What if we're using water unsustainably? So that's the second one, reliability and sustainability. And then the third one is in this community we care about how much water is flowing down the river both the upper river and the lower river. Those things are some, they're not mutually exclusive, but you have to balance those those three different things. And we also care about pollinators and how green our city is and how accessible that shade is to people. Those four pieces are what we're going to try and use to assess the, the, how good a future is, how good our adaptation strategies are for figuring out how we continue to meet demand into the next century. So thank you Steve for all that work and thank you for being the first guinea pig as we figure out how to formalize this and and put it together. Does anyone have any comments for Steve? All right. Well, I just wanted to say in any government organization to have positive impact on efficiency and accuracy and sustainability is huge. So I think you need to give yourself big, big credit for that because that's what we look in our government agency and that's what you've contributed to greatly it sounds like. So thank you so much for that. All right. Thank you so much Jonathan. Next is City of Santa Fe Backflow Prevention and Control Program. Justin Gonzalez, Cross Connection Specialist. And could we bring that present there? Thank you. There we go. I'm Justin Gonzalez, Cross Connection Specialist with the Water Division and I just want to share with you a slideshow kind of presentation just to kind of bring up to speed the importance of cross connection and why, well, right now we're in the effort of having an ordinance go into effect hopefully in the near future. Just to kind of get us up to speed with other cities around the the country. I mean, this is something that's been in effect since the early 90s back in Massachusetts and all over. You know, this is a great measure to protect contaminants or any type of pollutants from getting into drinking water unexpectedly and causing illness or just distress of any kind. Let's see here. So backflow is an undesirable reversal of water flow from beyond a customer's water meter back into the water system. Meaning that that would be, you know, we're responsible for water up into a meter. Whatever happens on a customer's side is no longer in our control. Therefore, we want to protect our system from any kind of contamination. A lot of the cause or the two main causes are back siphonage which would, you know, be from a water main, you know, we have many water mains that get ruptured therefore there's a loss of pressure and that will therefore pull in water from other sources, you know, being the customer. And then another type would be in a case where maybe there's a pump on a customer's side that would over pressure our system or even like a well system, a private well system on a customer's side that, you know, is tied into our water system. This just is a big safety hazard. The importance of the backflow prevention program would be reduction of potential threats to our safety of water. Backflow prevention assemblies are required by plumbing code to begin with. New builds, you know, that meet certain criteria have to have them installed. But the main issue with that is after they've been installed, no one's keeping up with them. This program would have staff, you know, mailing out letters annually and therefore there would be some follow-up at least on the annual to have these things monitored, tested and to be in operating condition. Best practices are followed by utilities that are our size or larger in the state, being Rio Rancho, Los Lunas. Los Alamos's program, I think, was put in place two years ago. So we'd be finally catching up to other cities in the state. We've had backflow contamination events statewide, and we've also had at least one within the City of Santa Fe in the last 15 years. Backflow prevention devices that are required are definitely on fire suppression systems. So you may see, like in this photograph here, this is by the Rustic, or not Rustic, I'm sorry, the pizza place and the movie theater downtown. It's a big silver box, but inside of it is an 8-inch device, and it's an RPZ device, which would, in a backflow condition, rather than it just stopping at the device, it actually dumps out onto the ground. This is kind of a fail-safe device. The other places that have them are commercial water meters, irrigation systems, obviously because of their possible contaminant and of their fertilizers and such that they put into that system. Therefore, it could be highly dangerous. And then also any residential meter that could possibly have a well or any other type of something that would be of a reason to have one. Sorry. One customer in particular, about two years ago, was kind of brought to our attention. Our water usage software, Beacon, it shows, obviously, the water being used and any type of flow going backwards through the meter. And then, as you can see here, the lighter blue colors are the water usage going up, and then the dark blue below that is actually a backflow event. And upon investigating this, when I went to this address, I was able to look around, and there was actually a private well that was still in use, tied into the property that, like I was telling you before, was overpowering our water system in that area and getting back into our drinking water. Oops, sorry. And in the middle picture, the resident wanted to keep the well, so we allowed it with them using that same style device, an RPZ. So before our water meter, it's installed. The third picture over is just an insulation rock cover. You don't even really notice it. Fire backflow preventers are all over. This is just another example of where it could be in plain sight without you even noticing. The picture to the left is just showing how they've aesthetically kept up the box to kind of make it more non-destructive to pretty areas. But inside, you have your actual working horse. And that's also another 8-inch fire suppression system. This is kind of a perfectly thought-out irrigation system. Therefore, you have your Y-strainer at the beginning of the line, and it's traveling from left to right to catch any debris because that's also something that'll happen. Often times, you'll be going by some of these boxes, and there'll be a slight drip, and it just takes a little bit of debris to get in there and not have a perfect seat. That just prevents it and keeps the backflow operating properly. And then just another example of a commercial backflow pre would be something like even as simple as a water filtration device that we don't know if they're keeping up with their filters on their end. There's another low-pressure system or whatever pulling that back in. We've got contaminants. And then let's see if this little video maybe starts up. This is kind of a, see this? **Speaker:** Whoa. Sorry about that. **Video:** Water to homes and businesses like Acme Chemical in this small town. Water is delivered at a high pressure from the water tower to meet the many water needs of the town. Somewhere along the water line, a firefighting crew opens a hydrant, causing a large drop in water pressure. The pressure drop causes the water to reverse flow. At Acme Chemical, the public water supply is connected directly to their industrial process tanks, and the pressure drop pulls that contaminated industrial process water into the drinking water supply. After the main has been repaired and the pressure restored, those contaminants from Acme Chemical remain in the drinking water and start flowing to customers throughout the town, creating a major public health crisis. But with a proper backflow prevention and cross-connection control program, we're able to mitigate these threats and protect our drinking water. So yeah, for a visual. But that's all we got for you if there's any questions. **Speaker:** Thank you so much. Are there any questions? **Counselor Castro:** Yes, Counselor Castro. Sorry. I have heard there is a significant cost to these. Do you know about how much one of these would cost an individual user? **Speaker:** Just depending on water service lines, they definitely can get expensive. But I think for a common 3/4 to 1-inch user, you're looking around, I think, between $800 and $1,500 for the device. And depending on where the installation of that device would be, whether it's inside a building or if it's outside in a hot box, the cost will go up. And then definitely the larger diameter sizes are going to be more expensive. **Speaker:** And Chair Chavez and Counselor Castro, if I could just add to that, Justin said this, but just to reaffirm, the program is really making sure that there's an annual testing requirement on backflow devices that are already in place and required by code. So there will be some cost associated with having the backflow prevention devices tested annually, but we're not talking about telling somebody that they have to put in a backflow prevention device. They already have to have one. **Speaker:** So this is just in terms of the maintenance cost. And ultimately, I imagine that initial cost is the big one, and there isn't too much maintenance cost. I mean, as in any other mechanical device, parts are going to wear out. And so I think as long as you're keeping up with maintenance, the cost should be minimum, but probably on a 10 to 20-year replacement plan. **Counselor Castro:** Perfect. Thank you. No further questions. **Speaker:** Any others? All right. Thank you so much for the information. Appreciate it. All right. We are going to move on to our first item that was pulled off of consent. This was item H. Request for approval of a general service agreement with Southwest Waterworks LLC for operation and maintenance services in the total of $432,750 for a term of one year. And we have Michael Doer here, Wastewater Division Director. Thank you for being here. This was pulled by Counselor Michael Garcia. So, let's give it, I'll turn it over to you. **Counselor Garcia:** Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Director Doer, for being here. Quick question for Director Roach before we start. And this is process and procedure. I thought we had proposed this be just brought back to Governing Body. I'd hate for, I mean, I'm happy to have this here, but that means Director Doer still has to go back to Governing Body again, given we requested it go back before Governing Body. When we made the motion, it was to go back to Governing Body. Now we're here. I'm just wondering how it landed in this committee. **Speaker:** Chair Chavez, Counselor Garcia, the fact that it ended up on Governing Body on discussion was a failure of process on our side without explicit permission from the division director or the department director. And we ended up in a position where we were wasting your time, honestly, frankly, and not able to answer the questions that you had. So it was my direction to put this back on consent. If you, this means that it will hit Governing Body next at the next meeting on consent, and if you'd like to pull it there, that's fine, but the process was a failure the first time, and we want to get it right the second time. **Counselor Garcia:** Okay. Thank you, Director. And just as a kind of a heads up, Director Doer, I will be pulling it just because there was a lot of unanswered questions, and I want to make sure that we're providing the answers to those questions to the public. And the intention was to go back before Governing Body. And so, I know that the Deputy City Manager sent us a follow-up with a lot of responses to the questions. You know, and maybe I don't know if we can add this as part of the packet for Governing Body, just because this type of information is helpful for not only for myself, but I think as we work towards getting these answers out there available publicly. First one is talking about staffing levels. Total numbers of positions allotted are 68, 23 vacancies with a 34% vacancy rate. That's a pretty high rate. What do I mean? I know that we've, we're talking later down the line in the responses about recruitment and retention, but that, that's pretty alarming to me. I'll be honest, and especially in a particular division that has so much impact on our residents. So, I think there besides what was outlined here, what are you doing to recruit and retain operators? They're, they're providing incentives, recommendations by staff. I guess let me let you go there. What? **Speaker:** Just, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I just want to say is I would advise us to try to stay on the contract as much as possible. I have a, you know, what was kind of a red flag to me is the question came up at Governing Body if that amount was paying for one individual, and we got confirmation, I believe, within that email that it is for one individual. I do think that there is some concerns that have come up about vacancies, but I think that would be a great presentation to receive outside of this because this specifically is talking about the engineer position to be covered by the contract. And I just want to make sure we have enough time focusing on that subject specifically, and then we can request in matters from the committee members that we have a presentation on the vacancies specific, if that would be okay with you, Counselor Garcia, just so that we can look at this item as it's presented. **Counselor Garcia:** Sure. I mean, and to get to the contract, because the contract does have language around level one and two operators. This particular matter is asking for level four operators, but there is language for level one and two and three and four. Is the intention to possibly use level one, two, three, and four operators or solely level four operators? **Speaker:** Madam Chair, Counselor Garcia, the intention currently is to use a level four operator. That has been the most difficult vacancy to fill. Every, every time we release that to post, we do not get any applicants. Now, we have, I am going to repost it hopefully this coming week again. And I do have a lead on a possibility of an applicant, but they have to apply and actually, you know, come and interview for the job. **Counselor Garcia:** Gotcha. Okay. So, in the contract, level three and four operators, regular hours $140 an hour. After hours $200 an hour. What is a current, I mean, and not what you're recruiting for. What does a person who is currently on board make per hour that's a level four operator? **Speaker:** A level four operator would make around $35 to $36 an hour. **Counselor Garcia:** So why such a huge discrepancy when you've got city staff, and I understand benefits come into play, but that's not, that's a huge discrepancy when somebody's, and I'll even be generous and say $40 an hour, contract $140 an hour. My concern now is you, not you specifically, but the city is now going to create a very challenging dynamic within the workforce where somebody who is a city worker is getting paid far less than somebody who's coming in on a contract basis. So let me, let me understand why we're, why we're at with this big, these figures, because I, I, I would not be surprised if you see some attrition, folks saying, you want to bring contractors, well then peace out, and I'll come back at a contractor rate. Councilor Garcia, the cost of the operator to get from the contractor is not only just the cost of an actual operator, and their operator may be getting paid around the same as us. The amount that's tacked on is for the contract company to facilitate you with that operator. So, it's not actually the pay that the person's going to get. I understand there's overhead, and what you're talking about is the overhead that the company that we're contracting with has to have because at the end of the day, they have to make money when they're bringing on this person, right? It's not an equal sum game. I definitely understand that. But the discrepancy, I mean, if we can break down, and this is where I was really trying to drive last time, why is it that we're willing to pay $140 an hour for one position, but current employees are making extremely, and I mean extremely, less? And that's the answer I'd like for us to give. Director Roach: Yeah. Chair Chavez, Councilor Garcia, I just want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples, and I think Mike got at it a little bit. But in some of the math here, the $140 an hour regular time, $200 an hour total. If you multiply that out for one full-time employee all the way through, it costs the city almost $320,000. If you multiply the fully loaded annual cost to the city for an internal employee, it's more in the $140,000 range. So, we are talking at least two times, 2.2 times more that we have to pay for a contract employee, which is why we don't staff our facilities with contract employees. But just to make sure we're talking apples to apples here, we're talking about a double, two to 2.2 times more that we're paying for the contract. And it's not $40 versus $200. That's not apples to apples, right? No, understandable. But even when it's two and a half times, that's the question. We're willing to pay that to a contractor, why are we not raising the wages of full-time employees? And so I guess my next question is, have we begun to look at comparable positions within immediate surrounding areas, whether it's Los Alamos, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho? What do their level four operators make? Chair Chavez, Councilor Garcia, I'm going to take this one, Mike, just because it spills over into water. And we have been doing exactly that, and we have proposed a job description because not only have we lost water operators to other utilities, but our water operators with level threes and level fours make more than our wastewater operators with level threes and level fours. So our approach is to bring those in line. And so we are proposing a utility operator job description under which you could be a level four operator at water or a level four operator at wastewater, and the target salary would be the same. When we compare that target salary, the proposed target salary, to what we're seeing in water and what we're seeing in wastewater, it's an increase in water across the board with the exception of entry level. But we're talking a 1% to a 9% increase depending on the level. And that same target will represent anywhere from a 3% to a 26% increase to the wastewater operators. So that is how, that's one main strategy we have, and it is increasing the compensation. And then the second piece to that is a certification level-based retention incentive. And so we're essentially saying if you get a level one at some point this year, we would like to give you $2,000 as a retention incentive. If you leave within a year, you have to give back the prorated amount. Same, and then $3,000 for a level two, $4,000 for level three, $5,000 for a level four. Folks who already have a level four, they can't get another one. So they would be immediately offered that retention incentive. So those numbers make us competitive with the water utilities surrounding us, and therefore we're hopeful that that's the first step we propose to become also competitive with the wastewater utilities and leave us in a situation where we don't have a, you know, a 34% vacancy rate. Okay. Thank you for some of that info, and I appreciate we're looking at incentives to keep employees. But if we can get the figures, not necessarily the plan, but the figures that other municipalities pay, it would be helpful just because it, I think, helps to demonstrate why we're seeing attrition. And I don't know the numbers of other municipalities off the top of my head, and I'm happy to do that research before the next meeting to clearly understand where we're at. I mean, these are the challenges and concerns I've had about our class and comp that obviously didn't really work out in some fashions for us. Now, last question, Mr. Doer. There, and it doesn't break it down in this. Let's see. So, you're only looking to hire one. So, what is the vacancy rate for the level four operators? I know we got the numbers for everybody, and it kind of lumps them up. You know, 25 positions, 10 vacancies, 40% vacancy rate. But out of all of those numbers, how many are dedicated to level four, and what is the current status on board of folks, and what is the current vacancy number for this particular position? Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, there are three open positions for level fours. There's a shift lead and two advanced operator positions. Currently, we have three positions that are filled, and they're the ones that are taking care of the three out of four shifts that we currently have that a level four would be maintaining. So, we've got three open and three filled. Am I hearing you correctly? So, we're at a 50% vacancy rate. Yes, sir. Okay. And just to reiterate, these positions are mandated by law that we need to have these. Yes, sir. Are we required to have a level four 24/7 at the facility? Okay. And 24/7, what does that typically look like? I mean, because having four, that's even making it quite challenging because what is a daily schedule look like for these folks? The level four operators would be on a 12-hour shift. It would be 3648 swapping each week. So, two shifts a day for the entire seven days. Okay. So, these are pretty long and strenuous hours. So, it's in our best interest to have all six filled because when we're in dangerous territory having three on, three out, because if one more goes out, what happens? Because two people can't manage that facility 24/7. Currently, there are three other positions that are management positions, and they will cover for the other shifts whenever there's a need. I have also had to cover a shift at one point when there was an emergency and the operator had to be taken away from the facility, and I'm the closest operator to the plant. So, anyone that has a level four at the facility, if the need is there, we try to make up for it. Gotcha. But that means then the duty that those folks were tasked to goes undone. Yes, sir. It's a whole domino effect. And I think that's where I don't like the rate we're at, but I see the need for more than one person in the current structure, right? I mean, I know we're talking about bringing on somebody, or one person, but we need three people, not one. So, I mean, we're put in a rock and a hard place right now because we have to have this operating. The impact this would have in our community would be dangerous. Now, look at it from the other angle. The cost, let me ask this question. Have we budgeted for this? Because this is a, we're planning on paying employees, what'd you say, Director Roach, about $130,000 with benefits, and this comes out to two and a half times that. Where's the money coming from for this? I think there's a budget amendment included in the packet. But is it basically vacancy savings that's paying for it, or what is it? Would it just be pulling from the cash fund? Okay. What is the impact pulling these individuals from whether it's management or any other role that has a level four? What is the impact you're seeing on their duties? Their daily duties. Their daily duties, the impact would be more along the lines of getting our information that we need for reporting, getting, directing whoever is on the site during the days. They also, when they're placed to take over a shift, none of management, we don't receive overtime or anything. So, a lot of the times we'll try to, we'll try to make it at least to a point that they're not taking on so much overtime and say running half of a night shift and then staying all day also. So that does affect it. I mean, everybody's quite tired. It's hard to take care of, and it's, you know, not the easiest thing to cover for any timing. We've solicited out to other companies trying to get operators to at least come in as contract operators, and so far Southwest has been one of the ones that actually answered the call. And I can only imagine how tired folks are. I mean, especially 12-hour shifts. And so, I guess I would just encourage us to figure out how we're going to fill these, not only these three critical positions, but the rest. And per your request, Madam Chair, later on in the meeting, I will request that we get an update as to what's the plan to bring this vacancy rate down as low as possible. So, I thank you, Director Doer, for all the answers to the questions. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Lee Garcia. Councilor Lee Garcia: Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Doer, thank you for being here. You know, just along the lines of that, and I think it's challenging everywhere. You may need three positions, but you're just lucky to get one or two that apply and maybe are not qualified. And so, my question on this number one is, as we contract out, are we paying for like a shift for that person? They're going to just go into the rotation, or are they just going to be on call when you need them? How is this going to work? Madam Chair, Councilor Garcia, this would be paying them to be on a shift for the time. So, a set schedule. Yes, sir. Okay. And that's just, and that's one. And that for right now is sufficient to keep us going and having that, having that position or that responsibility staffed as it's needed, as required. Yes, sir. Okay. I did hear you say that other times there are management that have to step in and take over a shift. Yes, sir, we have. You are. Okay. You know, I do see the differences between paying in-house and contracting out. I can relate that to having a piece of equipment and knowing how to fix it, but I don't have the time or the ability or the resources to do it. So, you contract out, and it always costs a lot more. You're not just paying for the individual, you're paying for everything else that comes along with that process that the other company has to do. And being able to provide that service when needed. And so, I think that, you know, while the cost is higher, I think it is a, it seems to be a critical, mission-critical, time-sensitive type of thing that we're going through right now with this. I too would like to see down the future where we would, again, how do we figure this out? And, you know, the conversation of how much we pay at this point for this specific item, I think, is irrelevant but is related. And how do we overall fix the issue of being able to do it in-house? Because that is where it will ultimately save the taxpayer dollars and our bottom line. So I appreciate you being here for questioning, and I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Councilor Garcia. Councilor Romero-Wirth. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Doer, for being here. I guess I'm curious, give me a sense, I know we also have trouble with engineers, and Director, her placard says Mark Scott, but that's not her. Director Wheeler has spoken to this about how we struggle to keep an engineer on staff, and we're just not competitive with what engineers can get in the private market. Give me a sense of this. I think part of the problem is there aren't a whole lot of operator 4, level four operators out there. So just the economics of it make it that we have a supply problem generally. It's not that the city can't attract them, there just aren't a lot out there. Am I understanding that? Mr. Doer: Madam Chair, Councilor, you're spot on. The state is at a loss for level fours to begin with, and there's not very many cycling through testing and growing in the actual job class. So we've been trying to grow our own also, but you still, even if you have someone that comes in, there's still four to five years before they could even get to a level four, and they also have to test and pass each level to even advance to the next one. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Are we the only state that has this problem, or is this a national problem? Mr. Doer: I would say it's more a national problem. It's everywhere. I mean, there's not many people getting into this line of work. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Okay. So, like many problems we have that are national problems, we still have to address them locally. Are we talking to people at the state level about what they can do to create more of a pipeline, to encourage people to get into this field? I mean, the problem is bigger than us, it seems like. What are you all in communication, Director Roach or Mr. Doer, about how we create more interest and more of a pipeline for this? Mr. Doer: We've had the conversations, but nothing formal, mainly with the state government, with the legislative branch, with the executive branch. Mainly, my personal conversations have been more with the testing groups at the state. Councilor Romero-Wirth: It seems to me that needs to be part of our strategy, right? We need more of these folks. So it's not, I started off talking about engineers, and so the parallel is not the same because there are plenty of engineers out there. But we, I think in that instance, and I don't know, Director Wheeler's shaking her head, but there are a lot of engineers. It seems to me that's one of the highest in grad schools. Lots of people are very, it's very competitive to get into engineering school. Lots of people want to be an engineer because they get paid better. But we seem to have trouble attracting them because they're obviously sought after, and we've got to pay a lot to attract them. So anyway, it's not, I don't think it's a perfect parallel, but what happens if we don't have a level four operator? So we've said it's state law, you have to have one. What is, I mean, if we don't, are there penalties? If we don't, what does it mean to the operation? If you don't have one on site, what does that mean to the operations? What are we risking? Mr. Doer: So, penalties, I'm not sure of how that would work, but you would be placed into at least an administrative order, an order of non-compliance for not having any. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Okay. And I have to imagine there are financial penalties with being non-compliant, but maybe you can't speak to that. Did the class and comps work that we've done do anything to our salary levels for this position? Mr. Doer: Currently with these positions, it hasn't done anything since the union has not agreed to the comp and class raises yet. But if they did, it would, I believe it was a small change somewhere in under 5% range. Director Wheeler: And I think maybe one way to answer that question is that the ranges, there were no changes to the ranges in my memory for class and comp. And we specifically had highlighted some questions that we had. So we are now, this new job description that we're talking about, we have proposed ranges that bring our targets to the middle of the range. So this hopefully will be a big step forward for us. I'm going to say we didn't get a lot of help in these positions from class and comp. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Okay. But you flagged it when we were... Director Wheeler: We flagged a couple things where on the water side of things, there were operators and maintenance folks who had very similar requirements and were at different ranges. We flagged that as something we felt like they were comparable jobs, and we felt like the latter should, we flagged a couple things. And in my memory is that those were not, the contractor didn't address those comments. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Okay. So here we have an example of more work to do. Let me just, I'm just looking over my questions. Sorry. So, and just back to this question of the differential between what we pay and what a private contractor charges us for similar. Are there other things that are taken into account there in the differential? I mean, they get benefits through their company, correct? Mr. Doer: So I would believe they would get benefits through the company, also insurances, which would not only like medical insurance or something. I'm saying more along the company to ensure the employee to be working at our facility. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Liability insurance. Mr. Doer: Liabilities. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Yeah. So because we're contracting with them, if that employee does something wrong and we sue the company because they brought the employee, they have to have coverage. Mr. Doer: Or any wrongdoing for their company. So that's built into the cost. Councilor Romero-Wirth: And then just the fact that, you know, we can't seem to hire these folks, they're going to charge more. They have to make money. And they do, they still have to pay benefits for these folks. And I mean, I have no idea how those benefits compare to our benefits in terms of cost, but there are a number of different things that are in that number. It's not just padded, so to speak. Mr. Doer: Correct. Councilor Romero-Wirth: Okay. I think that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilor Garcia: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Castro. Councilor Castro: Well, perfect transition. Thank you. Councilor Romero-Wirth, my request was if we could see the numbers from the contractor before governing body to see what maybe their insurance looks like and what they're paying the actual contracted worker. Do we think we could possibly get that from the contractor? Mr. Doer: Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, I could request that from the contractor. Councilor Castro: Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Director. Anything else? I don't think there's anything we need to say, so I will cede the floor. Appreciate it. Great. I just wanted to make a comment. So I've been in the situation as a director of having to staff teachers after the pandemic. And so what I will say is you can always look at the cost of a contract and know how large the shortage actually is nationally for that position. So I would imagine that the reason why the cost is telling us something about how hard it is to find these employees. It's also the fact that you only had one person reach out with the price that they did was because they probably were the only ones that had the availability, which means they can name their price. And I've lived in this where we were desperate for teachers. Education has to go on. We had to do what we had to do. And we were paying twice as much or more for educators because we had a need. The workforce wasn't there. So the contractors could name their price because we still had to fulfill that need. So I have been here, so I completely understand how complicated it is, and that's how it works. And the more you're dealing with a hard-to-fill position, the higher the price will be because it can be, right? So I just wanted to kind of name or put that out there. It's a real thing that occurs, and it can because there's certain things that absolutely have to be done whether we can fill a vacancy or not. There's these companies that know that that's, you know, that's a fact, and so they name their price and providing us with that staff. So it makes contracting inconsistent in the fact that the costs don't always look the same. It really depends on the vacancy and how hard it is to actually fill that vacancy. And so I think this is like a perfect example of a hard-to-fill position and why the cost is what it is. I will say I agree with Councilor Romero-Wirth, and we have to be super innovative with these positions and recruitment. You know, we have the internship program with the students, and I know this is way down the road, but like how do we bring kids in for interns? So we're building our own. Like how do we partner with other government agencies that are having similar issues in surrounding areas? Like, I don't know what has been done, so I won't say that that hasn't happened, but I like, it really takes a lot of innovation when you're dealing with positions like this. I also wanted to ask because I heard you say that you were posting the position again. What's the process if a position isn't filled? So why would a position be taken down that isn't filled? I guess that's my question. Mr. Doer: Chair Chavez, our positions, we post them for the allotted amount of time, and then it'll be taken down. We'll go through our list of eligibles, do interviews if there's available. If not, we try to repost again as soon as possible. One of the things we've been trying to work with HR with is getting like a post until filled kind of opening, and that's still in process. Councilor Castro: All right. Great. And I knew, like, so there's rules. I know that some, and I, you know, we have the assistant city manager here. I know that some agencies will do like pool vacancies, right? So if they know they have hard-to-fill positions, those positions are just always posted. Like even if they're full, they're always posted. So if you look at, there's multiple government agencies, mostly schools, like they'll always have high school teachers posted, special educators posted, EAs. And it's, and especially in the field of special education because that's where the shortage exists. So if we know, because it seems like we have the data here that we've identified hard-to-fill positions. So maybe we could work with HR and seeing, can we just have pool positions that are constantly open whether we're full, whether we have vacancies or not, those positions just exist because that's a thing, and I think that could be helpful to you all just because it's always advertised, it's always out there whether it's a filled position or not. But I, I just want to say it is much more complicated than what most of us can imagine, and a lot of it's not in our hands because it, like I said, it depends on the workforce. It depends on the type of position we're filling and how hard it is to fill. It depends on so many different factors. Really, the only thing we can control is recruitment. And even that, if it's a workforce issue, really is difficult. So I just want to say, you know, let's be innovative. Thank you for what you've done, revising the job description. That is part of the process and recruiting and getting where we need to be so that a job is more appealing. So I see the efforts. I think we could do more efforts around vacancy, and some of that has to do with HR, right? So, we have to bring some of those partner departments in. But it's just a really complex situation, and I just wanted to make sure that I emphasize that. Thank you for the extra work that you've been doing with the vacancies. I know that's really difficult, and hopefully we could find a solution in getting these filled. I too would like to see a presentation brought forward on that, and even maybe some things you've done to fill positions and ideas you might have that we can support with, because you would have our support to fill vacancies. If we get positions filled, that increases how we run as a city, and that's important to all of us up here. So, if you bring a presentation forward, bring ideas, bring ways that we can support you to make those ideas come to fruition. We would want to help you as much as possible so that those who are doing the jobs aren't getting burnt out, and we start building this team so you all are more successful. So, thank you so much for everything. I don't know if anyone has any other questions or comments. Move to approve. Second. I have a motion and I have a second. Could I get a roll call vote, please? Thank you. Certainly, Madam Chair, just to confirm, Councilor Castro, you seconded. And the roll call vote is Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Castro. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Romero Worth. Yes. Chavez. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, Director Doer. I appreciate you. We are on to J. Consideration of a resolution number 2025 to be determined. This is sponsored by Councilor Alma Castro, Councilor Michael Garcia, Councilor Pil Faulner, who is in attendance. She is participating via Zoom. It's a resolution proposing a ballot question to be submitted to the city's voters during the November 4th, 2025 regular local election regarding amending the city's charter to limit the mayor's authority to vote when there is a tie. I think we have Marcy Marino here to help us with this. It was pulled by Councilor Maroworth. Hi, Marcy. All right, Councilor, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have any questions on this item. I pulled it to vote. Thank you. Since it is pulled, do any of the sponsors want to speak? I could start with you, Councilor Castro. Yeah, I just briefly wanted to address this being something that had been worked on in 2023 and that we're bringing back. It was part of a larger bill, but this is something that specifically came from the Charter Review Commission. Thank you so much. Councilor Michael Garcia. Councilor Castro covered it. Move to approve. We have one more councilor that was here just to discuss. I don't know if she wants to chime in before we move to that. Councilor Par Faulner, would you like to discuss this before we move on to a motion? Yeah, again, it's just about checks and balance, and I think Councilor Castro covered it officially. Great. Thank you for being here. All right, we had a motion from Councilor Michael Garcia. Second. And a second for Elma Castro. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Michael Garcia. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Lee Garcia. Yes. Councilor Romero Worth. No. Explain my vote. And Chair Chavez. Yes. Motion passes. Okay. Councilor Meroworth. Thank you, Madam Chair. I voted no on this, as I have on the other amendments. I do think when we're talking about balance of powers, we should be convening our Charter Review Commission again and looking at this in a holistic way to understand all of the government structure and how it works and not be doing these isolated. I'm also concerned on this one that we have by the vote mayor not voting, it doesn't seem very transparent to me. We don't know how the mayor would is not, you know, very accountable and also just doesn't have to say publicly whether they support something or not. And they do run and are elected by voters across the city on an agenda. And I would like to know where they stand on certain things, and we won't know that under this proposal. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor and Marcy. Thank you for being here. All right, we're going to move on to matters from staff. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I'll just say for matters from staff that I think I mentioned it before, I am the acting Complete Streets Director, as I have been for four of the last five years due to a severe challenge getting engineers. That makes it the fourth vacant engineer position in the Complete Streets Division. So it is really a challenge, and we've had recruitment now going on for over a month with one qualified candidate that was an internal candidate from utilities. So it's really, I believe there is a shortage as well as New Mexico DOT actually just raised their pay again for the second time in less than 12 months in order for them to retain and attract professional engineers. They've actually raised their pay so much that some of the professional engineers are leaving private firms and going to do because the pay is so good. So we have faced this challenge forever since COVID, and we'll definitely need to, I'm looking at possibly reclassifying positions to other types of roles so that we can hire professional engineers to support like project managers rather than actually having our own professional engineers at all. But it is an ongoing challenge. We're doing a lot of fantastic work in Complete Streets. We've worked together before, and I'm super happy to support that team and the council and the governing body, of course, with their initiatives. In fact, I think we sell the bonds tomorrow for the $25 million paving. So it's really a lot of really good work going on there. And we will definitely continue to deliver services. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Director Willer. Director Roach. Nothing from staff. Thanks. Thank you. Next, matters from the committee. Any matters from the committee? Councilor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a request. I think that District 3 is kind of a very unique district that makes up quite a lot of area that was annexed into the city. And very, very often, my counterpart and I, who represent District 3, get calls or videos or text messages about streets and maintenance and things. There's quite a lot of areas of the, of which are now considered the city that need attention. I do have a couple of things that I'll probably be reaching out to ask for some guidance on because there are, I guess, either streets that haven't been adopted into our inventory that need, they need some help. Many are in areas that are either in developments that were part of a homeowners association that is now defunct and then inherited into the city under the annexation. There's areas that are out on the south, far south end that I've got a video from a constituent, and I know it's a private road, but I mean, it's severely impassable now. I mean, with rains, it ends up being a lake, and people have to park and walk to their houses. So, I just like some clarification in regards to the process of how, how we go about trying to fix some of these things for our, obviously, our residents and move forward with that. So, that's all I have as a request. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilor. Anyone else? Councilor Castro. So, really quickly, just to follow up with that, Councilor Garcia, on the 19th of August on Southside Library, the NO is going to be taking community input for the streets design guide. So, that's a really good opportunity for folks to come out and advocate for their communities and tell folks from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., August 19th at the Southside Library. Thank you. All right. In matters from Chair, I just wanted to thank Councilor Pilad Faulner and the fire department and the city for putting on a great back to school bash. We served 660 hot dogs. We were able to feed many community members. There were a lot of people there. I want to thank Councilor Lee Garcia. He was part of the work crew. I was there. Councilor Michael Garcia was there with his family. So, I want to just thank everyone that attended, helped out, and Councilor Faulner taking the lead. It was huge, and she was running around making sure it was successful. So, I really want to thank her for her efforts. Councilor Garcia had great stories. He was helping with the parking lot in the sun the entire time. And he was able to get some great feedback from community members who were already talking about the next event next year and how they hope certain activities happen more than once. There was just positivity and lots of excitement, and it's really great to see that on the south side. So, thank you, Councilor Bachner, Santa Fe Fire, and the city staff for your efforts around that event and all those who participated. Of course, we had lots of vendors giving free things away to kids. Kids were able to leave with bags full of things. We had a lot of community partners that put on activities for kids. So, it was just really wonderful. So, thank you to everyone that was involved and for Councilor Faulner and her team for making it happen. All right. And with that, we are adjourned. Our next meeting is two weeks from today, which I believe is the 19th, 20th, no, 18th. August 18th, right? We got it right. August 18th.