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Special City Council Meeting Thursday,May 22, 2014 Page 4 accomplish. Mr. Schwartz advised that this frequently required staff- from engi- neering technicians to himself— to interrupt their tasks to address those customer service needs, especially as proven over the last year with storm damages and winter weather issues. Mr. Schwartz noted that the Finance Department had also indicated some addi- tional customer service needs, and proposed that this position, while housed in the Public Works Department in the lower level of City Hall, could be shared with Finance and/or other areas as applicable and as time allowed. However, Mr. Schwartz proposed that the position be funded from utility enterprise funds (e.g. water, sewer and Stormsewer). Inflationary/Contractual Costs While these areas are not significant, Mr. Schwartz projected that they would ex- ceed an inflationary increase, especially in the snow and ice program due to the City's depletion of reserves of those materials. However, Mr. Schwartz advised that he had just received the state bid pricing for 2015, and fortunately, the in- crease was not as significant beyond inflationary as originally anticipated. Mr. Schwartz advised that, as the economy continues to improve, contractual costs were increasing from contractors who'd held those costs fairly flat for a number of years, as they tried to recover. Therefore, Mr. Schwartz advised that costs were being seen that were larger than typical inflationary costs and over an- ticipated projections. Future Budget Challenges Mr. Schwartz reviewed future challenges, as detailed in the department handout, noting that costs would continue to increase as staff attempted to provide a higher level of services and improve efficiencies. Some of those challenges included the mandated MS4 requirements adopted by watershed districts to address long-term climate changes and design of storm water facilities beyond the capacity of the current storm system designed in the 1960's compared to today's new standards. Mr. Schwartz noted that stormwater facilities would need upgrading and provide flood control measures in future permits, also requiring modification of the City's system based on those higher standards. Mr. Schwartz noted that with that growth in services, the City was getting over the "bubble" in the life cycle of its streets, many built in the late 1980's and 1990's, requiring increasing maintenance and long-term infrastructure funding for the Pavement Management Plan(PMP). Also, Mr. Schwartz noted increasing lack of storage in the current Public Works facility, and the need to start thinking long-term for additional storage of materials and equipment.