Finance Committee Meeting 3/6

I attended the Finance Committee Meeting (my first one) on 3/6 and here’s what I saw.

New Cruiser. This will replace an 8 year old car and limits our liability as a Village. I support purchasing a new Charger to replace the discontinued Ford Crown Victoria. In the future, I would like us to consider the Ford Taurus Interceptor as it becomes available.

Repurchase process & Stable of 6 vehicles. Right now we maintain 1 unmarked car for the Chief, one marked Tahoe for patrol and criminal investigation, 3 marked cars for patrol, and 1 unmarked retired patrol car for miscellaneous. While this number seems high on the surface, our inventory is in line with our peer departments. I would like to see us publish a program of replacement, potentially a 2 tier patrol vs non patrol program based on mileage. I would like us to consider high efficiency vehicles for non patrol and more standard vehicles for patrol. I would also like to see Total Cost of Ownership comparisons of keeping cars for 50K miles vs 75K+. If residuals are high enough as Newtown has experienced, it may make financial sense to sell cars after only 2-4 years. At the end of the day, it’s about cost of vehicle + equip + gas + repair + maintenance less resale less reusing equipment.

Ohio Consultants doing an efficiency audit. I think this is a great idea. As part-time leaders, and without a Village Administrator, we don’t know where we could be saving considerable money. I disagree wholeheartedly with the Mayor’s opinion that they can not help us. A closed-minded attitude & assuming you know all the answers is very dangerous. We will miss out on so many opportunities.

Case in point: we pay $650/month for local phone service. This number is offensively high, yet we don’t have anyone willing to chase down cost savings. Why do we pay so much? It’s because we paid that much last month, and the month before. This is likely the result of a well meaning decision a generation ago when different technology was available. What about today? For my part I will look into this painful charge.

This is but one example of autopilot "inertia" leading to waste. Where are others? Which might be executed without affecting morale, affecting employees & services? Which might be executed with minor impact on employees & services? I'm confident there are many across the Village.

Cortney