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qASPAL+E REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Date: 1/23/2012 Item No.: 13 . c Department Approval City Manager Ap royal Item Description: Consider Funding Change for Engineer Position in Public Works 1 BACKGROUND 2 The City entered into an engineering services joint powers agreement (JPA) in 2006 with the 3 City of Arden Hills to provide engineering oversight of their consultants and to provide a staff 4 resource for their residents. To enable Roseville to have adequate staff hours to provide a staff 5 engineer with office hours in Arden Hills city hall three days a week, we hired an additional 6 engineer in our Engineering Division of the Public Works Department. The role our staff was 7 providing in Arden Hills grew over the first three years to include providing start to finish s project engineering, being designated their City Engineer, and providing GIS and other technical 9 services. We have consistently been billing Arden Hills for more than one full time position on lo an annual basis. As the demand for our services grew it became more of a challenge to 11 determine where our services could be provided without a negative impact on our daily workload 12 here in Roseville. 13 In 2010 Arden Hills hired their first registered engineer Public Works Director. He has since 14 taken a larger role in the engineering area for their city. He has looked at the level of service 15 Roseville has been providing and has determined it may be more cost effective for them to hire 16 an in house support engineer going forward to do the things our staff engineer is currently 17 providing them. Also, they would have additional hours available to provide oversight of future 18 projects and development of the TCAAP site. They have discussed this direction with their City 19 Council and have been directed to discuss how they exit the current JPA with Roseville for the 20 staff engineer hours. They may have some interest in revising the JPA to allow for some 21 technical services sharing in the future. They initially began talking with us about this change 22 last fall and have requested that the change be effective July 1, 2012. This would allow our staff 23 engineer to finish up and hand off certain projects she is currently working on for Arden Hills. 24 We have responded that we need to request a position funding change with our City Council. 25 The Joint Powers Agreement has an exit clause that requires a year notice if either party wanted 26 to go in a different direction. We put a one year notice in it to protect the employee hired for this 27 position so we could give notice that the position may be eliminated. 28 Our Public Works Strategic Plan has included discussion of the need for an additional staff 29 engineer for several years. It cites the need to meet the current regulatory environment in the 30 stormwater area and to accommodate a growing capital improvement program in the utility 31 replacement area. With the action the City Council took regarding funding the utility CIP, the 32 need is now in place to manage the resulting projects with in- house staff. Our Engineering 33 Division has consistently demonstrated cost effective project delivery for standard utility and Page 1 of 2