Thank you Jeff Conley !
Boston Finance Commission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Finance_Commission
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Minutes of the Meeting of August 6, 2007
The Commission met to discuss several of the major
items it has been working on but remain unresolved.
BRA - Winthrop Square:
The Commission discussed its report of February, 2007 urging
the City to employ an interim garage operator and insist
that the developer make the payments for the parcel that
were agreed to in the RFP.
There is a new operator for the garage but the top two
floors are closed and the garage now holds only about 275
cars daily where there were over 1,000 cars parked daily
back in May.
The members discussed the fact that the contract iso a pass
through contract and the City will not make much money under
its terms.
There has also been no payment from the developer for the
purchase of the garage.
The concern of the Commission remains that the mistakes made
in the Haywood Place development project are happening again
at Winthrop Square.
The members agreed to continue to pursue this matter.
BTD Revenue:
The case made by the Commission in its February, 2006 report
is even stronger today.
Ticket issuance for the just completed fiscal year was
1,518,676 representing the lowest number issued in over
twenty years.
Last year issuance was 1,606,863, thus the drop was over
88,000 tickets.
Ticket revenue was $63 million which was $1.2 million lower
than the prior fiscal year.
But the lost revenue is not fairly identified as several
fines were increased.
Per ticket revenue was $41.49.
Had issuance been the same as last year, revenue would have
increased by $3.6 million.
The members reviewed the history which shows that five
years ago the City was issuing 1,770,000 tickets annually.
The difference of 250,000 tickets is $10.3 million in
revenue.
Ten years the City issued 2.2 million tickets annually.
The downward trend is alarming and the single biggest reason
is that the twelve year old meters do not operate
efficiently and there are no spare meters or parts to keep
meters on the street.
In addition, the members remain concern that operating
efficiency is about 70%.
There are also many streets without meters where parking is
restricted by signage, generally two hour limits.
The Commission directed the staff to try to work with the
Menino Administration to address the problem, particularly
the need to purchase new parking meters.
PWD Management:
There have been some changes in the Highway Division with
transferring staff etc. as a result of the report of the
Commission.
The Commission asked the staff to continue to monitor this
matter until all recommendations are in place.
Recently the Commission had some complaints about PWD
Sanitary in terms of picking up commercial trash and placing
items to be recycled into the regular trash.
The combined contracts of rubbish collection and disposal is
the second largest of the City's regular outside contracts
and the Commission determined that the complaint should be
investigated.
Unadvertised Contracts:
This is a busy time of the year for the staff regarding
contract review as it is the beginning of the fiscal year.
The most problematic matter has been a significant number of
personal services contracts being issued, particularly by
the School Department.
The staff has met with the CFO of the School Department on
the matter and is working on a solution.
The Commission directed the staff to be aggressive in this
area until all personal services contracts are issued in the
best interest of the City.
A true copy:
Jeffrey W. Conley
Executive Director
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