2011_1128_Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

interviews with the organizations' administrators. After the relevant facts were gathered, board members met with the citizen advisors on the task force to refine the weighting of the criteria. First, some of the criteria determined to be irrelevant were eliminated. The criteria were weighted using a rank order process that resulted in a final set of criteria weighted as shown in table 2. Criteria Weight Program effectiveness 16.67 Monitoring Capability 14.77 Local Control 12.88 Education 12.50 Citizen Input 9.47 City cost(per city, No Cost=1) 8.33 Additional Resident's cost(per parcel) 6.44 Staff# 6.44 Grants Awarded 6.44 Staff Continuity 4.17 Board Continuity 1.89 Table 2. Final Criteria and weighting Based on the facts gathered by each of the task force teams, the board members evaluated, with input from the citizen task-force members, each of the criteria for each alternative—RWMWD, VLAWMO and improved GLWMO—giving the alternatives scores of high (1), medium(.67) or low (.33)by consensus. Scores of.75 indicated a split in board opinions between high and medium. The weights were applied to the scores and they were summed for each alternative. The resulting scores (Table 3) became the basis for discussion when a motion was made to remain an independent watershed management organization. It should be noted that the board intended the scoring of the alternatives to be a basis for discussion only, and it was never intended that the highest scoring alternative would necessarily be the recommended alternative. Relevant Characteristics of each Watershed Organization Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed District The Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed is a 56 square mile watershed that includes eleven lakes—among them the Phalen chain of lakes—and five creeks. Waters of RWMWD discharge into the Mississippi River. RWMWD has a staff of 15 full time employees with an average tenure of 10 years and a 5 member board appointed by the Ramsey and Washington county commissioners with an average tenure of 22 years. The district is funded with an ad valorem tax authority and its budget is about$7 million yearly. This tax assessment would amount to a roughly $50 average increase in the property taxes of GLWMO residents if a merger were pursued. Part of the district's budget comes from grants: the district has received $3 million in grants over the past five years. The district is highly involved in monitoring its waters including using 10 automatic monitors for storm flow measurement and making water quality measurements of nine of the eleven lakes twice monthly through the open water months. Two staff members are charged with maintaining and analyzing the monitoring data. RWMWD