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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, December 2, 2013 Page 12 from them in recognizing the value of volunteers, even though impacts were higher in some departments than others, but open to evolution. As proposed in the RCA, Mr. Trudgeon recommended the immediate creation of a part-time Volunteer Coordinator position as part of the 2014 budget, with $20,000 used from the City's contingency line item, leaving $35,000 for a possi- ble merit pay program at the City Council's discretion. Mr. Trudgeon defined preliminary work of that part-time position in lines 22 — 28 of the RCA; and sought City Council direction. While recognizing the existing large network of volunteers in the Parks & Recrea- tion Department, Councilmember McGehee spoke in opposition to using that solely as the Pilot Program. Councilmember McGehee opined that the position needed to initiate across departments to determine coordination and differences between department needs and requirements. Councilmember McGehee opined that a Volunteer Coordinator Pilot Program to develop a citywide network and an Organization of park volunteers were two entirely separate and different things. Mr. Trudgeon responded that his intent was to utilize the existing Parks & Recrea- tion Department network to build that citywide network and to determine what did and did not work given this large volunteer pools; and then replicate that for the rest of the City as the program expanded. Mr. Trudgeon clarified that the in- tent was not for this position to recruit volunteers, as that was an entirely different task. Mr. Trudgeon advised that the intent would be to establish a database and expand that information as the position expanded to full-time. Since the amount of time to accomplish that was unknown at this time, Mr. Trudgeon noted that the needs in other departments could be accommodated as much as possible as the system was set up. For the full breadth of the whole organization to maximize the position, Mr. Trudgeon opined that the position would need to be full-time, but he reiterated that this would only be the first incremental step, with the goal being to incorporate all departments. At the request of Councilmember McGehee, Mr. Trudgeon responded that his recommendation to fund the position from the $50,000 contingency fund versus the parks bonding funds was based on the program being city-wide, not just fo- cused on parks. Mr. Trudgeon advised that he had analyzed Enterprise Funds; however, he had found them limited to what could be utilized, leaving only funds from the tax levy available to fund the position. Councilmember Laliberte reiterated her previous comments that moving commu- nication efforts from a multiple person, multiple department structure to a Com- munications Manager, she opined that there may be an existing employee who may express interest in developing this pilot program. Councilmember Laliberte referenced the information provided by Parks & Recreation Director Brokke in a past meeting from the City of St. Louis Park and their volunteer coordinator and