Government Performance and Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd to call the order of the government performance finance committee meeting of 05/19/2026. Clerk, please call the roll.

Vice chair Bushnell absent. Council member Rumba?

I see her there.

Let's see.

She's here. There she is.

She is here.

Moment.

There

she is. No. It's Nicole.

Sorry. Let's

we could probably move to the next and then come back to Ramba at the end and see if we can catch her then.

Okay.

Councilmember Shitalke?

Here.

And chair height.

Here. Oh, she dropped off.

Well, seeing as we don't

currently have quorum for which that meeting, we're gonna have to wait until gets back.

Having difficulties on this end as well. Oh. It's not shared with the screen.

Okay. Well, for the members of the listening public, we will be see here in just a moment once we get our technical difficulties in our quorum established. Thank you for your patience.

Okay. So Ramad is coming back through.

Yeah. Seems. Alright. Well, thank you all for being with introductions today. We'll we'll just sorry here just a minute.

We have one of our members is traveling. Our alternate is not available. Second also traveling. So we're going to Mark, no one did me go last time.

It hasn't accepted.

See.

Okay.

She said yes. You asked her if she was already.

No. No. That's Nicole.

I know. I'm sorry. I keep oh, there she is.

Doctor. Rumak, can you hear us? Hey. I know the sound I hear sometimes. Councilor, you hear us?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. You've gotta turn off whatever other device you had on because we're getting an echo. Alright. She's here. Okay.

So now I'm from Sharon Hines. It's this computer setup is not allowing me to share my screen.

Oh, okay.

I'm trying to figure out what Definitely. Or why you're.

K. Well, Nicole, are you here? City clerk.

Okay.

That's from us here. Is our city clerk now with us?

There we go.

I'm sorry. I heard you called my name. I was not present at my desk.

No. It's okay. Looks like we're having some issues with the sharing of the screen,

so I'm just gonna keep

time on my phone in front of me. I'll make sure the panelists know that I'm keeping time myself. I give them the five minutes they've got and three minutes for questions. But I just they've been waiting, so I wanna get a. And

we do have Susan heading over right now to try to help too. So we are we'll try to help with

that timer.

Why don't we have our first pan our first interviewee come on in, and I'll get it going.

Yeah. First

is While we're waiting for that, because of the yeah. Go ahead and set our first panel. So

First is gonna be,

I believe. Hello? Is it Rowlett?

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Welcome

to the government performance and finance committee. My name is Nicole. I'm gonna pass you to chair Heinz to begin your interview. We are just, as a heads up, we're experiencing a little tech issues, so usually we have a timer on the screen. And this time, we're gonna do it, kind of remotely, and we'll let you know when that time is up. Thank you.

Alright. Good morning, Rolette. How are you doing this morning?

Doing pretty well. How are you? How's everyone?

We're doing really well. I just wanna, first of all, thank you for your interest in applying to be on the public utility board. We are gonna get started here in just a moment. We sent you some questions ahead of time. You're gonna have five minutes to answer those questions up to five minutes, as much as you need. As the clerk said, we don't have a clock on the screen, so I'm gonna keep time in the room. When you get to about if there's about thirty seconds left, I'll just kind of keep you I'll let you know that we're about thirty seconds. Then after that, we get up to three minutes for myself and other community members to ask you any follow-up questions. Is there anything any questions you have for me at this time?

No. Thank you.

K. So you can begin whenever you're ready, and I will start the timer in the room when you start. And thank you again for being here.

Okay. Well, thank you for having me. Again, my name is Charlotte Churchwell. Well, do I just start with answering the jumping in and answering the question?

Yes. You feel free to do an introduction, and then go ahead transitioning answering the

questions that we sent ahead of time.

Okay. Alright. Well, thank you again. My name is Rowlett Churchwell. I have a distinguished background in land stewardship, infrastructure development, and public advocacy.

I've managed complex land rights in the utility space at the federal level with the Bonneville Power Administration and also in acquisitions on major telecom projects across the Pacific Northwest. I have been a resident of the city of Tacoma, particularly since 2019. And since then, I have been pretty actively involved in a lot of grassroots oriented type issues from police accountability to neighborhood council, neighborhood cleanups, and also operating in the advisory capacity of the Picture Pack Avenue sub area plan. My just go up a little bit for my notes. When I understand the role and the responsibilities of the puts the public utility board is that the board provides financial regulatory and clean energy compliance, oversight, strategic management, and planning.

It also, does in have inputs on policy, and this is executed through the governing principles of its strategic plan, which includes its mission to deliver clean, reliable services and quality of life, which I see as an actual human right. And I appreciate TPD leveraging the resources to ensure the community needs are met. It shows itself as a trusted community partner where employees are proud to deliver. They're safe in their environments. They the access to opportunities are equitable.

Safety is also a priority as we've discussed the TPD the board's values and its objectives and its mission and values would be to focus on three major objectives, which would include customer service, employee safety, belonging, and operational excellence. I think it's also good that the board I've attended I've gone through some of the the board hearings, and I've seen the type of projects that come before the board. I've seen the telecom projects, some pipeline projects that have come through budget analysis analysis and budget approvals that have gone before the board. So I feel as though that the background that I have would contribute to that to its overall mission.

Right. Well, thank you very much for taking to go with our questions ahead of time, and I appreciate your willingness to serve here on this board. We're gonna kick it over have questions to the customer. Saul, he has any questions. There we go. And three minutes for this part.

And then we'll go from there.

So, doctor Sawade, do you have any questions for our?

Hi, Rolette. How are you? It's wonderful to meet you again. I've I've met Rolette briefly. How are you? How are you today?

I'm doing good. Good to see you.

Good to see you too. The usual question we start off with, and I do see the background in here, so I think you're you're it's gonna be a good one. You know, describe a time you've worked on either a team or an actual commissioner board and and what your how did you work with others in a decision making bond?

Describe a time where I've worked on a team, a commission, or a board, and how did I work with others? Oh, well, in my role in my previous role with Bonneville Power, I mean, I've worked with on capital projects, where they're implementing putting in new infrastructure. I've worked on a lot of, major upgrades to the power grid where we had to come together on a project team and, you know, contribute our individual level of expertise to the project so that the project manager understands, you know, what the you know, making sure that the objective of the project is being met on time within budget. And it's basically just coming together and doing the necessary reviews, understanding what the land rights are, understanding the designs, and knowing what needs to be acquired, who the landowners, who the stakeholders are. So it's basically doing an audit of the project, asking a lot of intelligent questions based on your scope of work and just implementing.

In some of the advocacy work, I have done a lot of deep dives on policy, policy, reached out to a lot of community members, asked for input, conducted audits to understand how policy affects them, and asked the right questions based on those reviews and made certain suggestions for where I see improvement could be made, where I see things are working. And sometimes it's not always my opinion. I understand in a role on a large project team and in community advocacy work, oftentimes, you're just a conduit. It's because you're the person that is the voice at that table. So it's a combination of a lot of different things.

Thank you. Alright. Thank you, My question is gonna be just to be a little more specific around. Do you have a wealth of background experience in this field sector and have done a lot of implementation and kind of real leadership work on this topic? But when you think about moving into a board role, it's more about oversight and creating policy. And so what I'd love to hear from you to kinda talk through is kind of what are your guiding principles in in in making policy? So what are you gonna think about? What are you what is gonna be inspiring you when you make policy, and how you how do you see a role in providing oversight on those policies and providing oversight on the budget and spending side, which is the real important work of the utility board?

Well, I think that a lot of the mechanisms are already embedded in the policy and in the in the budget. It's just making sure that those measures are being met and making sure that things are constantly audited so that if there needs to be anything needs to be curated or changed, then we have enough time to do that, bringing the right people into the room at a higher level to help decide what the perspective should be in formulating the policy, and then making sure that the overall process has the right efficiencies built in so that and you do have to have some room for some wiggle room there, but the models should have certain efficiencies built into it so that you know that your operate that your budget is realistic and able to be implemented.

I guess just a follow-up question. Great answer to the question. A follow-up question would be, you know, when you think about as a board member, the what is your priority? Like, what's the thing you kind of the lens by which you examine the work? Would love to know just kind of where you think about if we potentially put in this role, what's the lens you're gonna take? And I think we have you know, just as an example, we have a a board member whose lens is very environmental focused. Like, that's where she brings into it. You have a a board member who is more business background, so she kind of brings that perspective into it. So maybe just to give you an opportunity to talk about, you know, what's the lens you feel you're gonna bring to the board if we were to appoint you?

I think the lens that I would bring to the board has a lot to do with my background. I have my family has been in the infrastructure space going back more than a hundred years. As I mentioned in my bio, I'm a descendant of Columbus and Kelly Johnson, and these were very early African American land developers that built a self sustaining community in North Atlanta. The lens that I think that I would bring to it is ensuring that as the infrastructure grows, as our community shapes and forms, that we are building in measures so that people aren't don't feel as though they're they're left behind, that they are able to, you know, work with the utilities to work in sort of like a partnership type of manner to develop the community and find ways to leverage the resources so that it works for for everyone regardless of how we might need to curate the scope. So bringing that that equity lens of it, which I'm sure all of us is in agreement with, but actually having lived it, I think that there are certain things that I might be able to pick up on married with the technical experience that I have, that I think would give a particular eye to certain decisions that have to be made.

And one of the things that I do pride myself on in any of the roles that I've held is managing relationships. A lot can get done if the right things are said and done at the right time and and to to make sure that you're working on those relationships even when you're not involved in critical moments. So building the rapport, leveraging expertise, leveraging a little bit of history, and figuring out how to marry all those things to the benefit of the the role that I'm applying for here.

Thank

you very much. Question. If I could ask her questions. I know miss Roma does not have any additional questions. She let me know. So at this point in time, we'll let we're gonna conclude our conclude the interview into this morning. We have two more interviews to conduct. The board will then I'm sorry. The government performance finance team will then have a conversation, and we will advance one person for the open seat that's currently on the Tilly board. And after our conversation today, the city clerk's office will be will follow-up with you and let you know our decision. Do you have any questions about that process at all for me? And be free to start.

There you are. Okay. I understand.

Alright. Well, again, thank you so much for coming to interview with us and for your commitment to our city and our community, and we will we will be in contact with you very shortly.

Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

You too. Alright.

Well, with that, Nicole, it's I guess we're up ready for our next applicant.

Wonderful. The next one will be Anita.

There we go.

Welcome to the Government Performance and Finance Committee. My name is Nicole Emery, and I am going to pass you off to chair Hines to begin your interview.

Morning, Anita. How are you doing?

Good morning. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. It's nice to see you all.

Good to see you too. You're a very large head in the middle of the room here in the front, so we we definitely see you. No. Just wanna lighten the mood there. So we are gonna begin our interview here in a moment. First of all, thank you for your willingness to serve on the public utility board and your willingness to reapply. We sent you three questions ahead of time. We'd love for you to take a moment to answer those three questions. Also, you can feel free to introduce yourself or use whatever time you'd like. You're gonna have up to five minutes for to answer the questions, do introduction. And then after that, you'll have we'll have about three minutes for committee members to ask ask any follow-up questions. Do you have any questions for me at this time?

I don't think so. That sounds good.

Alright. Well, feel free to begin whenever you'd like, and the time will start whenever you need.

Thank you, chair Hines and members of the committee. I'm Anita Gallagher. Thanks for having me today. So I see the responsibilities of the public utility board as setting policy direction that contributes toward efficiently and effectively run utilities in alignment with the broader strategic goals of the city of Tacoma. My particular role on the board, the way that I see it, given that I do have experience working in both general government and TPU, is to kinda be that bridge between, general government and TPU in terms of alignment with the broader picture of what the city wants to achieve for our residents and our economy.

I love serving on the public utility board. I'd be honored to serve a full term. I see it as very meaningful public service because it does directly impact the quality of life of our residents as well as our local economy. So the top of mind issues for me that I'd like to address if reappointed to the board, Number one is affordability. We're seeing escalating costs in a lot of areas, many of which are beyond our control.

So we need to do whatever we can to control those costs that are within our control, whether it's staffing, whether it's spending less on supplies and services, whatever we can do to keep our rates as low as is responsible. As an example, as council is well aware, we are going to be experiencing a 20% increase in our health insurance costs soon. So one of the things that I'm wondering is, are are we doing everything that we can to promote the health of our employees? Also, service and the customer experience. Earlier this year, I collaborated with our staff to update this guiding principle for the board.

When I think about the customer experience, I'm considering every touch point that we have with our stakeholders and our customers. That includes how we're interacting with folks who come into our lobby, how we're interacting with folks over the phone, and how we're implementing home in Tacoma by issuing power and water permits to promote infill development in our communities. I think the biggest issues moving forward over the next several years for the board are really sound stewardship of our resources and the environment. So for power, that means managing our growing demand for electricity based on population growth and data centers. I'm excited for the launch of Markets Plus, which will allow us to optimize our energy trading and better manage our power supply.

Also, we are planning some capital improvements at Mayfield to be able to improve our juvenile fish passage numbers as well. At Tacoma Rail, there's a lot going on. I'm excited that we're going to be reducing our carbon footprint and reducing the carbon footprint overall of the port industrial area by modernizing our locomotive fleets. I've also been concerned about fluctuating port container volume due to federal level trade policy and how that impacts our business at rail. For Takoma Water, also a lot of really exciting things going on.

One of the issues that we really need to be looking at is how we're managing our water supply given climate change, fluctuating snowpack, how quickly our snowpack melts, all impacts our water supply. And I think weather volatility is here to stay, and it's something that, you know, we'll need to manage as we think about how to effectively continue to manage our water supply. So we have all the water that we need as well as planning for, when we start serving the Cascade Water Alliance, with water in 2041. So those are just a few of the things that I had on my mind that I wanted to share with you. And, again, thank you for having me today.

Thank you, Nita. With that, we will kick over to questions from committee members, and I'll be on councilor Sogay.

Thank you, chair. Hi, Anita. Thank you. That was very comprehensive. Actually, there were several, please, that I was interested in.

So I I really appreciate you really going into that on some of the big kind of major decision strategic decision points we we have to make both on the council and on on the utility board. I'm gonna skip the usual one that we ask people who haven't been on a board before. And I do wanna ask you, you know, maybe if you can go into more details on something that's important to me, which is, you know, how do we responsibly allow for greater growth, whether it's through you know, we had home in Tacoma. There's other things that you pointed out. Like, what do you see in in this horizon?

It's another five year term, maybe short, medium, long term on what we can do on on the utility board to to kinda help with that policy.

Yeah. Thank you, council member. It's a great question. So, you know, we we live in a city that's mostly built out, but, you know, wanting to be able to grow our community and provide more housing options at all levels. You know, home in Tacoma is a really great step toward that.

You know, sometimes there are challenges in terms of, you know, finding appropriate places for water and power connection. And we, you know, of course, want to keep top of mind that, you know, folks who are undertaking these projects wanna keep their costs as low as possible. And so, you know, our staff are really working with folks on a case by case basis to figure out what works best for a particular site. It's something that I know the rest of the board is interested in as well, and so we've requested, you know, regular updates on that. Additionally, one of the things that comes to mind for me when you ask this question is, you know, what the future holds for the city of Tacoma's public works department to continue to do the important work regarding, improvement of our transportation system.

So the last streets initiative failed, but there will be the connecting Tacoma upcoming ballot measure. And what we really found over the course of the last ten years, as council is well aware, is that there were so many opportunities for, our utilities, not just TPU utilities, but also environmental services to collaborate together with public works, make sure that we're only digging up an area once, improving infrastructure, all at one time, reducing the impacts on the surrounding community, and resulting in first class infrastructure. Right? I mean, I can say firsthand my my neighborhood was completely redone, and there was a lot of, you know, various work that went on here. And it feels like a first class city should feel like.

So I think that's another way that TPU and general government can collaborate to support growth as we as our population grows, and as our economy grows, we are going to need infrastructure that is suitable and can accommodate all of that growth.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Anita, I have one question that I you've been asking that happened so far, which is, you know, you have a lot your experience is very detailed

in a

lot of experience, lots of areas. But in some cases, a lot of it's more administrative and kind of application of policy. My question is more, how do you transition yourself to being a policymaker on the utility board? So what how do you see yourself what do you see your role as a policymaker with your two roles being really crafting policy for the organization and also overseeing the budget. How do you envision your role and how you fit into that

if you're reappointed public utility?

That's a great question. Yeah. Thank you, chair. So as council knows, my professional background is government relations, and so policy is kind of where I tend to live. And, you know, I will say on the public utility board, I do tend to approach matters that come before the board with sort of, like, a broader, bigger picture focus.

So as an example, one of the issues that I mentioned, coming up in the next several years for power is how we manage the growing demand on our electricity supply, including things like data centers. So when I think about those things, I also think about, like, what are the state and federal level policies that that impact our power supply, whether it's, you know, potential privatization of the Bonneville Power Administration, what investments are going into our transmission system as more renewable resources come online, will there be adequate transmission system, infrastructure available to actually spread that electricity around to where it needs to go? I also think about, you know, state level policy regarding data centers. Really proud that Tacoma Power was one of very few utilities that actually supported, representative Dolio's bill on data center responsibility this past session. But yeah.

And especially, I think, mister chair, to your point, the really, the most important policy decisions and and guidance that the public utility pro board provides is on our budget and rates. So just really keeping in mind, you know, the bigger picture is we need to keep our rates as low as responsible. How do we design our rates in a way that we can do that, still recover our costs, and is also transparent to the public? I think that's huge. One of the things that I think, you know, the average person experiences is increase in their insurance costs, whether it's their homeowner's insurance, renter's insurance, car insurance.

Well, we're experiencing those same insurance increases as well, in addition to health insurance. And, unfortunately, all of those things get baked into into our rates. And so I think about, you know, as as board members, how can we be good ambassadors for the policies that, that that we set for the utility and, just making sure that we're exercising very sound judgment and and setting a direction that leads toward effectively and efficiently run utilities.

K. Well, thank you for the explanation. And then you kind of got to my second question that I've been asking, which is what lens do you bring to the board in your role. Right? Because each one of you put these kind of unique perspective lens. And I think you were standing in the big picture thinking about policy implications, staying able to further the road, I think got to most of what I was for with that question. So with that, does not have any questions. So, Anita, thank you so much for interviewing with us today. We have one more interview to conduct this morning, and then the committee will have a discussion and take action and move forward one day into the payer for consideration. After conclusion of meeting, the state clerk's office will follow-up with people next steps.

But

thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure seeing you all, and we'll see you soon. Yep.

Thank you very much. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Alright. And with that, Nicole, our last

And, Chair Hines, just an update for the group. That will be our last interview. We have not the third applicant has not arrived.

Okay.

He give any notice that he was not going to be here? Or

No. We we did not get notice on that.

Okay. But

But just for for clarification, their arrival time would have been almost an hour ago. So

Okay. It's at sleep. Okay. Well, with that, thank you, Nicole. I guess I would open it up for committee member comments. Councilor Rumbaugh, would you like to go first?

Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I haven't been, like, more active, but you guys have asked such great questions. I just wanna say that those are two really great, candidates, and I appreciate that that Anita's interested in another term. And, I I would hope that if we had another opening that we would consider the other candidate as well. But the way I see it is that she has done a great job, and I would, be very supportive of putting her name forward to our to our council.

K. Councilor Rumbaugh. Councilor Tsilade.

Hi, chair. My my sentiments are very similar to to council member Rumbaugh. I was very impressed with Rilla and and her background because it is very I think there's a lens at least to you know, that that is very useful from some from the perspective of some of who's been working in in a utility, more than one actually, for quite a long time, and I really like her answers. However, I do feel that Anita really does deeply understand both the current near term and and long term kind of strategic issues that we're we're we're taking on, I think it would be very beneficial to keep her to reappoint her for a full term rather than a partial term to continue with that working on those.

Thank you. No.

I think my sentiments are very similar. I wanna I found out from the left was very impressive. I heard very impressive resume, deep, well of experience, would be a wonderful public utility board member. I think her answer to the question that I asked around, you know, how would you transition from the kind of, you know, applier administrator policy to actually developing policy and what she would think about was a critical answer. And I think she'd bring one of the great lens to the utility board.

I would also say that I I'm deeply impressed by Anita. I've always been. I think she does a wonderful job, and I think her idea of of the big picture and understanding of how the pieces fit together, not only at the local level, but at the state and federal level, really makes her a real asset to our local to the board. So at this point in time, I would also be inclined to reappointing Anita to the board. I think that she her deep commitment to the work and the assets she brings makes her reach, the appointment.

I would also just say that I hope that, another position will visit quite regular regularly, consider reapplying. I would definitely be supportive of her. So with that, I'll entertain the motion to approve.

I move to recommend the reappointment of Anita Gallagher to the public utility board to serve a five year term effective 07/01/2026 to expire 06/03/2031.

Second.

Alright. It's a move in second. Any further comments, council member Brooks? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Most declared adopted. Thank you, Nicole. I I would just take a moment. You know, we had one other applicant who had applied for this position, but I think just purely on the fact that we had two amazing candidates to choose from another reappointment, I feel like it's worth our time to just move forward with the appointment and to encourage our last applicant to please look and reapply position in the future.

It's always impressive the caliber of people we get that are interested in applying for roles such as utility board, and I hope that it's when people do apply even if they're not chosen to,

you

know, find ways to serve. Okay. We'll now move on. We're gonna move back, clerk, because I noticed that we in the confusion of technical difficulties, we did not do public comment. So, Kirk, will you please read?

Hopefully, you weren't commenting on the.

No. No. I was. Yeah. Not because of so

Okay. Alright. Well, we'll set the time up in three minutes, and you can always begin your. You're ready.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak. I've been looking at it. There's a couple issues before the meeting

that I'm

concerned about. One of the things I'm concerned about is I noticed that by meeting the needs of the council chair. And then I also noticed that it says the upcoming meeting on June seconds. So I think there's a lot. Well, there needs to be more of things on agenda, especially when we. So I'd to see that a little bit more. That's then I was gonna offer to you. Maybe also be able to speak on one of my issues. Was there a council member of my yeah.

Chair of my

you know, I'm big on multi tax extension, 60%. And so I'd be happy to speak to that specific. The and I won't speak to it in detail today, but that's that's an issue I think that that city needs to address. Also was gonna bring up another object that would be in the government performance jurisdiction is I noticed that at the last council meeting, there was a resolution to provide funds, $24,000,000 for the treatment. But there was no presentation, so I don't really know what the extent of that is.

And then nobody asked the question, like, well, is this gonna affect the. So I was thinking that would be a big

kind of.

And then the final thing I'll bring is that I just wanna mention that I've been speaking about Lake Extension. My recommendation of the city council is to not attend some trans it's not billed the Eastport extension. Of not express tomorrow. You can order that. Looks no more. But I'd be happy to be added to your agenda next week. We'll be so desire and speak more at length. At now developed for that with talking to people and spoken to people. Tard is to provide good transit. Now Eastport Station does two.

You know, ten fifty to hotel, and then it's another ten fifty to the, you know, headquarters and

health services.

There are ways of that. That's So if I'd

be happy to offer that and

have a little bit more robust discussion, I'm preparing for my experience. It's not. I'm trying to use some of the things out of my. Great. That's one of the benefits.

K? Thank you. Thank you, Carson. Thank you.

Alright. And that's a a a very good suggestion, Susan. Presentation on what's overall. I know it's been a topic of interest from customer. Some of my other colleagues around. It's a good suggestion. So we'll check the answers. That's for.

I do also wanna suggest in terms of the budget, we are getting very robust information starting in June when we have better, more detailed information. So I do appreciate, you know, the request that we have, you know, in GPXC, more presentations around that. With the budget that it is that we have right now, it's also Yeah. Council and city manager to communicate it. I'm sorry. For details.

Yeah. And that is one reason why we've seen to answer one of reasons we haven't been doing the monthly budget update is because the budget is we're a council member city city council's priority. And so the idea of we've kind of shifted that off there. But to mister Burt's point, I do think there are I've got ideas for a lot of time, so it should be fun. Most really the housing business structure. Yeah. Okay. So with that, we'll move on from public comment. Thank you. And we'll move on to item number two of our agenda, which is the small works roster co divisions, and I'd like to call it Pat Carlson Finance for the presentation.

Next slide, please? Okay. Alright. Great. Thank you very much. Alright. So good morning, Chair Hines, other council members. Appreciate you taking the time today. My name is Ted Carlson. I'm the purchasing manager in procurement and payables division department. Members of my team advise departments across the city of utility on client ways

to purchase

material and services. I am here today to talk about how it works and to send two alternative methods for procuring. And you can you can click three. So public work,

the definition is up on

the board there, but it is basically all construction activity paid for by the city. And so it's not limited to large cap streets projects or construction of new buildings, but also just smaller projects like redoing scenes, replacing windows, garage door, fixing garage doors with window lines. And then the other distinction is not limited to the public works department, but rather than most most departments

on some sort of

smaller roster targets these smaller programs. Those are smaller. Alright. So let's see. Overview of the proposed amendments are both will ask the committee to forward to full counts for consideration.

As to one point o 6.255 of the Tacoma miss Tacoma municipal code to authorize the city to use the municipal research and services center statewide roster and to repeal code 10.27 on small works small building projects, which describes the city's existence. Alright. Let's see. Very shortly, the current roster was burdensome to contractors, and it's applying departments with very limited bidder pools for their projects when they used it. And in 2024, the state legislature did adopt a small works roster program statewide that the city is proposing.

Let's see. So where does this fit in? There is a cap on small work roster projects currently at three fifty, but it is expected to grow over the next few years. And it is important to understand that this is supplemental. So it's not replacing our existing procurement medicine methods, but just providing another way for appropriate projects. And I also do emphasize this is a pretty standard component of a comprehensive public strategy. Alright. So what is the problem? So why is the melting method needed? Click, please.

State law impose impose requirements around public works and how they're solicited. In other words, how we choose who's gonna perform the work. The requirement includes development and total complete specification for the project regardless of its size. And, basically, this means complete detail over every component of the job. You have to how wide trenches are gonna be, number of linear feet of curve, and engineering for every component of the system.

And it's important to understand that developing these specifications takes a lot of time. Departments are frequently working on these for a year or a month. These specifications have been advertised for three to four weeks, allowing contractors to digest the plans and present a cost for the work to be performed. And then finally, work is made to the lowest responsive and responsible regardless of any other consideration. And that results in historically under utilized contractors struggling with access, city contracts, dedication of a lot of staff hours to specification development, and then ex just extended project time.

Without some of these standard offer options in place, there is some risk that departments will perform some of these projects. So the issue is a little more detail. One of issues with our current roster is vetting contractors' business models is time consuming time consuming, and there are legal concerns about which distinguishing characteristics can be used to categorize contractors. And then even if we had identified underutilized contractors on the last roster, there really was no option to directly contract them. Because of this, there was and because they had to independently register just for our roster, the roster was rather than contractor responsive.

Also, timelines are similar to standard procurement and staff resources also were similar to this. And, effectively, this method roster served only to restrict to potential respondents down to a small pool, and that pool had historically not been very responsive. So then if they did not get a response, they had they turned around and procured the statement. Okay. So the the current roster, MRSE, stands for the Municipal Research and Services Center.

It's a Washington state nonprofit organization that provide legal financial policy guidance to local governments. And if you just go through the RCW changes, the Washington State Legislature tasked MRSC with standing up and maintaining a roster of contractors that can be used statewide. And so this will be resulting rosters by five in 2024, and it's comprised of contractors organized both by work category and by regions where they offer services. Additionally, the MRSC roster does identify contractors as public work small business enterprises or PWSDPs in order to identify them as the small, historically under. And the PWSDP designation is granted through another acronym here, the Washington State Office of Minority and Business Wizards.

It's minority and women business enterprises or OMWEP, which is the same office the city uses to identify our equity contracting contractors. And when OMWBE first populated this list of small businesses, they did include WBEs, so women business enterprises, minority business enterprises, and small business enterprises. They did grant that designation. And so I bring this all up just to show there's a a great deal of alignment between the roster state is leveraging and our own equity contract. The legislation that authorized this roster does authorize municipalities to use direct contracting for projects that do not exceed a 150,000.

And under this item, upon identifying a need, purchasing would be able to provide a list of suppliers to departments, and they could immediately contact them and have them come on-site, review the project without the need for specification. In order for us to leverage the roster, we do however need to to pass the. So advantages and and and some risks. The statewide roster does allow contractors to register just once for working statewide. This is an advantage to suppliers, obviously, because they only have to register once, but we also as a result, hopefully, we'll get a larger pool to pull, hopefully, more responsible contractors.

Additionally, the city does gain access to certification data, which allows us to better identify the historically underutilized contractors. And the ability to direct contract for projects under one fifty prevents the opportunity for us to target specific suppliers. And so, hopefully, I'm sure we and it's certainly for that city timeline as well. Alright. Next slide.

So risks. Because we are working with smaller contractors, whenever we do that, they are less experienced in the public space, and so likely need some support, understanding requirements and processes surrounding public works. And similar to the predecessor roster, once we get over a 150,000, we are back to having to put together a bid package and bid it out. At that point, we are back to restricting our pool of potential respondents and traditional bids may be preferred. In our outreach to other municipalities that are using this, there has been some some reporting of contractor responsiveness continuing to be an issue, at least in in their markets.

And then finally, the the roster does come with some reporting requirements, which are equal parts of my team. But there there are some. Alright. And so in short, we are requesting this committee to advance full council for consideration and ordinance authorized the city of TEPTRO to use the statewide small work roster, and that recommendation would include repeating the existing chapter of being spoke of 10.27 that currently governs our small work roster and editing the scope of chapter 1.6 to redirect the evidence of our sponsor from 10.27 to. Great.

Well, thank you very much, Chad. Do we have any questions? Go for it.

I just wanna kinda understand. I appreciate that you had, like, the what problem are we kinda solving, and I just wanna make sure I kinda understand. We often have small projects that we need to have work on.

Right? What is the threat to that? 50,000.

Do we have 50,000?

I've never heard three different numbers.

There are so the the use of the roster has tiers depending on how big the project is. So 150,000 is under that. We can correct contracts, but we can only use it up to 350. But if the question is, at what point do we have to start bidding, there is no lower. If it's a public park, it has to.

No. I just wanna what what is considered a small contract?

So then, yes, as far as the

small work roster, it would be limited to under 350,000 Okay.

And then there's a tier underneath there.

Under direct contracting, what we don't have to put together. That's a 100. Okay.

Direct is you already know someone who could do it, and we just go to them instead of asking a whole bunch of people to bid on it.

Correct. Direct contract needs, if they're on the roster, we can immediately contact them above the 150. We have to

put together a bid, and we

have to shop that bid among anybody. So that's the new code we're Yes. We're suggested to implement. Currently, what happens on all everything under $3.50 goes out to bid?

Yes. Currently, everything has. It.

Okay. So what we're saying is most of this new code where we get to use a process that the state started two years ago so that we have a larger pool of people to be able to see what's available and also have the ability to fix under a $150,000, and we know someone who's done it in the past. We can just go to that. It adds flexibility. And in return, we get the flexibility of opening up some resources on our side because we have less effectively overhead bureaucracy.

Right? Correct. Got it. Okay. That's it.

There you go. Councilwoman, do you have any questions?

No. Thank you so much for this presentation, and this is something I did not know about. And so I will be supporting our amendment.

Great. Hey, councilor Roma. I think my question has just been so I've always heard that the challenge with any kind of roster by which you direct people to is there's concerns about not having fair and open access to the city, anything like that. So what the state laws is basically said in this if you use these folks in this area, you don't have to be concerned about that at all. Anybody off the list you want?

There are, yeah, there there are restraint there are restrictions to it. I'm showing the statements. There are restrictions to it. So it really depends on the makeup of the roster. So anybody can become get on the roster. Certain people or certain contractors will receive that designation. And, basically, dependent upon the present the representation of contractors with that designation determines who all you have to kind of rotate to. So there is a rotation that's required. But but, yes, as long as you

abide by those kind of guardrails. Yes. And then we also have our own policies that we use for retargeting. We assess, like, who's contracting public works. Right? So that those would still be part of our guidance when we go to the roster and be trying

to align those things as best we can.

Yes. There's criteria we have to meet in order for. I

just I know that in the past, we've asked about, you know, I have one of my fixed because they provide people with list of contractors to fix your sidewalk. We can't do that. That, yes, channeling work to specific people to do it. But this situation statement basically said, don't worry about that. We've made a list of MRC. We didn't ask those questions. Yeah. Alright. Why? I mean, I think yeah. Definitely aligning ourselves with m r s c makes a lot of sense. Definitely aligning ourselves with kind of state and opening up a larger pool is really good. And, also, we've seen that the pool, this is we currently have, it's

not meeting needs to be established.

So I think I have the challenges moving forward.

We're we're chill.

Thank you. Just quick question on that point. Is this m MRSC roster bigger than our current one? I mean, even for our area? We don't have access to it until we pass this work to be able to see it. However however, based on what we're hearing from folks that are already using it is that it, you know, it's a pretty well populated roster. So Okay. Expect to have more contractors jump in without being able to see it. We yeah. They they maintain the system that allows you to go in and pull a pull a list.

And and just what I understood is that our current roster really isn't providing a whole lot of value right now. So

doing something to make it better is a better idea.

We're not we're actually not. It was used to stop them. No problem. I

will go back to making that, and I will entertain.

I move to forward the proposed ordinance to amend the municipal code by repealing chapter 10.27 and amending section one point six point two five five to the full city council for consideration.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying

aye. Aye.

All those opposed? Motion is adopted. Alright. And then I have an item number two, which is job order contract with sole physician prime contractors. That's a separate presentation for us. Is that

It is. It is a separate. It is a separate Okay. It's shorter.

Okay. Well, Chad, I will so with that, just now okay. So now we move on to item number three, which is job order contract consultant and prime contractors and tag process. My name is Paul. Let me continue your presentation. Alright.

Great. Let's see. I so, basically, pick this up. The reason we're talking about both of these on the same day is that job order contracting of Joc addresses the same shortcomings of a traditional public procurement. Although it really is ideal for a different set of projects, It really it still is targeting relatively small projects, but it is better suited for slightly more complex, slightly larger multitrade projects.

A great example of this that came across our desks is a library faceplate where they received a donation from the community to kind of beautify a library, and that includes some landscaping, some window replacement, hanging some sheetrock, moving some electricity. And so these are all, you know, a a number of different trades that need to be engineered, but but they don't require specific. So this is an an ideal project for the job. Let's see. I think he jumped over one. About

too far over?

Yeah. I think he should look back. So what is a job order contract? So a job order contract is one of several alternative ways to procure public works. And in short, each job order contract is just a single contract under which the city can perform multiple projects as they come up.

And so, effectively, a bid for a job order contract eliminates the need for individual bids to be developed for each project as they're Job order contract is set up through a two phase solicitation and request for to request for proposal where respondents are first word on the qualifications and then on pricing. And once that contract is established, when the projects are identified, instead of putting together specification, city project managers collaborate with a consultant and a contractor to translate that project into a line item quote against a price book that is established. And then once the scope and price are agreed upon by the prime contractor in the city, the prime is required by law to set out 90% of the of the. And so then advantages of this. It is the subcontracting requirement in concert with EIC requirements that were included in the specification where we land the opportunity to increase our contracting with historically under utilized contracts.

So like small work roster, job shortens time lines. And for project execution, saves staff resources per project and allows for additional necessary projects to be performed, catching up on deferred maintenance. An advantage of job order contracting over small works roster is that we are working with well qualified contractors. They're well versed with the prime contractors over subs accustomed to active act, and they perform a variety of work over the term that allows city project managers to develop strong working relationships and bonds with the contractors that persist across. Disadvantages of job.

In a word, it's cost. The unit price book that they bid against is a realistic price for work to be performed in our area, and every project that's executed under a job is marked up above that. We did their adjustment. So many times, it just doesn't. Other times, the cost associated with standard bid does warrant leveraging a JAC because of the lengthy specification development.

Good time. Staff time savings can kinda seem like fun math, but there are real cost savings. There's a lot of departments out there that don't have engineers. And for them, they have higher paid firms to start their projects. That's 10 to 15% of the price of the project that also deferred payments strictly worsen the conditions, ultimately more expensive.

Additional cost concern is that based on the book being the price book being so comprehensive, suppliers really do have an opportunity to quote projects in a fashion that makes them more expensive than others should be. And this possibility is why it's always recommended standing up a job or a contract that municipality would hire contract consultants to assist with evaluating individual.

Can you give

us just go back. So give us an example. So we got you used the library as, you know, the the $250,000 donation to do that. So how would that operate under this system versus maybe being on a different system sort of understanding?

Sure. Yeah. So I think, you know, having not leveraged this contract, you kinda have a couple options. The basic standard of of meeting a public works project is they would have to specify all of them. So what exact what trees are you gonna plant out from the? What cutie part do you put at the end of it as you walk up the stairs? And each one of those things would have to be designed and included in specifications So that when two contractors look at it, they can side by side. They can deliver a final delivery cost, and then the city can

Pick them.

Can can pick them up.

Yeah.

So then here, basically, our consultant would meet with the project manager and the contractor would come out and say, alright. We need to put in four trees. That's line item x. You know? We need the

price book. We need four of those. And then we need to put a

300 square feet of of dry and that is line item one. So they basically just translate the work into line items against issue price book. Once we have agreement on that,

it's time for the next meeting. Thank you. Who the unit price book, is that something we put together? Does that exist somewhere?

There are several. And RSVNs is probably the most commonly recognized one. But oftentimes, a consultant will actually meet So our consultant that that we have contacted it because previous R Mhmm. I was already they maintain it.

Gotcha. So, basically, they have contractors that come in. The contract work with them agrees. Like, I will work off your price book, figure it out versus me versus the library. Say, come turning out electrical, drywall, landscaping, and, like, having this for bids. It kinda brings all in one place.

Any questions?

It's I'm just trying to understand

the benefit of it.

It's and and, you know, I think based on what you said, I think public would be like, well, it's gonna potentially cost more per unit or whatever, why do it? But it sounds like there's there's probably an efficiency gain I'm not quite a 100% understanding

on this one.

Yeah. I think I think that the benefit for the for the city for city staff, really, the efficiency is they often just don't have time. So there's a lot of deferred maintenance that doesn't get done just because they don't have the staff

time to working on bigger projects.

Exactly. Right?

Got it. So there's a way to get to some of the smaller ones that don't really need heavy engineering or any engineering to be done by augmenting it, by having consultants working directly with contractors who can kinda come up with a plan for us that meets our requirement, and then we are effectively paying for that benefit. And that benefit is the same engineers who work on larger

projects. She goes in her

arm's hand, but I guess my follow-up question before I kick it to her would be so then who's kinda that unit price book and and, like, so it's public works looking at those each time they come through and say, yeah. That seems about what we thought or, oh, that's, you know, 20%. We don't know what we

thought that was gonna cost. I'm just checking.

I do think it will be up

to the I think it will be up to the project manager to kind of look at, you know, how much are we ultimately paying. As far as the unit price book itself, that is maintained by.

So project manager is a public works employee, or is that, like, whoever the project like, so if it's a library, it's the person who's the leads of library on that.

Yes. It would

be the department project manager, library director, board, the engineer, library, whoever's that. Or

if it's a

fire if it's on a fire facility, it's fire department. It's on the police list. Okay. So then I think there's another advantage to this, right, which is, we know we don't have to have this expertise Yeah. Diffused through every single department. Yeah. But because the library doesn't have engineers to provide them. Okay. That thank that was I was trying to get through, like, okay. So it's much better. Okay. This has started to make a lot more sense now.

Thank you for explaining. And so then if we don't, then the same resource in the city is Yeah. Overbooked. Well and, you

know, the library person probably is like, I don't have time to figure out to repair the windows and go through that whole process. This would allow them to say, hey. Good work. Perfect. Councilor Robaugh.

Thank you, chair. My just my question is, are these union jobs? Are they was that not part of this?

I mean, these are public work these are public work jobs that are that pay prevailing wage, and the the contractors, you know, have to abide by all the all of the RCW around standard So

there isn't gonna be an issue with some unions saying we're trying to get around, like, their requirements for how we hire people.

Understood. Right. So this is this is for projects that we already would contract. So it's just a way of of doing that. So it would not be needing into city staff.

Alright. Thank you.

Okay. I'm I'm chilling by spirit.

Well, just trying to understand it myself too is it seems like this is sort of the public procurement process trying to incorporate something of the way that maybe private businesses operate as far as, you know, you give it a prime, a general contractor then knows all those subs and that kind of work. You can do that sort of thing for you. So when you are in the library and you're not

you don't have a contractor on staff, it it makes it more accessible.

I think that's right. We're basically leveraging. What we're paying for, among other things, is the expertise and the experience in the field of the prime contractor, and there there's a contractee that they they know who they can make.

Okay? Does there already still have a question, or is your hand raised? Great. Thank you. Alright. Feel free.

I mean, that that largely is the only I if you wanted to go to the next, there are some details about it, but a consultant is is strongly encouraged. There's only reason we talked about. And then there are some requirements for RCW restrictions on on these contracts. Their term is limited to three years. Each contract is limited to 4,000,000 annually. We can have no more than three at a given time, and the projects can't be received by 100,000. So there is some restriction on how how high a public project is to. And then the last thing you need is consulting and prime contractors. These are all on call list. So that $4,000,000,000 doesn't people can spend it.

It just means we can't spend it.

So it would be almost a retainer. Right? So there we sign contracts all the time where it's, like, up to a certain amount

It's very much like the, for example, the incontinence. Right? We have a

threshold of $5,000,000 that

we may spend to go out the,

but it's not as a basis. So the 4,000,000 as tab mentioned would be

up to that.

So we would provide the budget authority to work something, but that doesn't mean the setting. Okay. Correct. And only three of the endpoint. Yes.

I just wanted to understand the difference between the 4,000,000 and the $500,000 tax project. What's the difference between contract value of the project?

So if we're gonna do the live 4,000,000 is the total we can spend with that fund contractor, and the 500,000 limits the life. Right? Each individual project that's done can't be more expensive than 500,000 and then then collectively cumulatively over the year.

I just don't understand how we get to 4,000,000. If it's $500,000 less, you can only get three.

Them. So we're gonna do eight. This means it's eight. We can't

work at one time.

That means

Yeah. Okay. Even even that, the three is prime contractors. So there is no limit to how many projects you can Oh,

we got you. Million

dollar months of money.

Got each of them 50. And these will all be maximum amounts. They don't have to spend all that. We would just be giving higher up to that much authority. That's, like, the max authority.

Gotcha.

Alright.

Yeah. And the overall benefit is, like you said, just the kind of fungible staff time conversation. Right? We're not quantifying how many hours the library person would have been spending shepherding this project for you. But we assume that it's saving that time, that person.

It's also the opportunity cost because, you know, sounds like we wouldn't be doing 300 in the first place. Gotcha. And then it gets more expensive than we do. Yeah. Great. Alright.

Well, I I you know, so okay. Questions? We already got into that. It looks like we're not taking action, so is this just, like, informational? Informational. Alright. Are there any further questions at all? Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Okay.

We'll now move on to topics for upcoming meetings, and I can call them on their own. I'm acting executive liaison for topics for upcoming meetings. To meet the Germans.

Actually, for the June 2, although it's not on the agenda yet, we have the the auditor's office into the entrance for the 2025 financial and federal model.

Okay. Entrance conference. Okay. I met with Susan Katie yesterday, talked to a couple topics for. So we will fill up our calendar.

K.

Any other is that are there any other of interest? Seeing none, I'll accept your final motion. I move to adjourn.

Second. So

we move to second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye. Aye.

If not, we stand adjourned.

You