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City Manager's 2005 Budget Memo Page 22 of 27 make it more feasible to "flex" employees rather than incur overtime. That is, maintenance employees would be deployed on an as-needed basis, depending on snowfall and other maintenance circumstances, and their work schedules could be "flexed" so they are given time off rather than incurring overtime. Flexing is more feasible with a larger pool of maintenance employees to draw upon for assignments. With a larger base of employees, we could also consider implement- ing "swing shifts" that enable us to provide earlier and later hours of snowplowing coverage each day at no additional cost to taxpayers. Some employees could come in early and leave early, while others come in late and leave late. Those are advantages of having a larger pool of employees to work with. More staff working as a snowplowing team also creates additional opportunities to reduce wear-and-tear on individual employees. For example, with more employees in the work group we have more op- portunities to relieve each snowplow operator sooner rather than later. It also gives us more flexibility to work around an individual employee's work restrictions due to health reasons. And if the snowplowing function is under the direction of one super- visor, then we all know who is accountable for clean, safe streets and clean, safe pathways. Council Action Recommendation #78: Council motion approving [disapproving] the consolidation of snowplowing efforts under the direction of the Streets Division within the Public Works De- partment. I also recommend we add a skidsteer (or "Sobcat") type of vehicle to our maintenance fleet. A new skidsteer would give us three within the City. This is a versatile piece of equipment, useful for a variety of