Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay, seeing that it's 6 o'clock, we're going to start our Finance Committee Tuesday, June 30th. I'm going to call to order. Seeing everyone but Joe Piper here today, we have a quorum. He's on vacation. So we'll stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, with liberty and justice for all.

With that, I don't see anybody here for public comment, so we'll move on to approval of the minutes. Does anybody have any objections to the minutes for June 9th, 2026? Seeing none, we'll pass that by unanimous consent. That brings us on to the business item, ID number 2603985, review and possible action on a budget amendment to increase the capital expenses for the City Hall security improvements project. Chief maybe you can help us or I will start us off.

Yes. Thank you So yes, Rebecca Peterson communications and engagement manager and then I am joined by chief Thompson And then Joe Walter who was our facilities and construction manager for engineering department public works So I wanted to start by just giving a little bit of background on this project. So yes, we are asking for a budget amendment to have expenses for a Security Hall security project. And really how this started is that over the last several years, we've seen an increasing number of incidents taking place here at City Hall. So there have been disorderly individuals that have come into City Hall space and made direct threats honestly to employees or the space or um you know threatened physical harm to employees in the building um to the level where employees have had to push their the panic button that is installed in certain areas and called the police department um so obviously the police department has responded uh swiftly been able to assist us in those situations um and um issue citations and handle the individuals in the situation. But certainly each one of those incidences has left employees feeling extremely, fearful um i'd say scared and unsure unsafe in the work environment and certainly that's not something we want employees to to feel you know all the time that they are they are unsafe and that we are not caring and concerned about their safety in their workplace um so something we're taking very seriously so we um the city administrator reached out to the police department um and our public works department And specifically for the police department, sort of asked for a review of the building and the security. Are there things we could do that would just make the building more secure? Are there practical steps we could take to help employees feel safer and be safer in the building space? uh... they did a a review of the building we've worked at the public works department to think about kind of what that would look like obviously in terms of of costs and actual you know certain elements of that uh... and so what we're proposing are are four different things that we think will help uh... employees and help increase the security of this building so uh... i'm just gonna run through them quickly and then joe walter can obviously uh... address some of the more specifics of the construct you know if you have questions on some of those pieces but So one of the things we're looking at is updating the access levels on all floors of the building. So there are certain areas that were always intended to be employee areas, like meeting spaces and rooms that currently now are not behind locked doors. And so the intention would be that we will just secure those areas that were meant to be employee areas. Certainly if there are public meetings or things in those areas, employees would escort people back and they could still be used. But day to day, they're used for employee spaces and they were always meant to be employee spaces. So just making sure that those security elements are in place. A second piece is installing barriers to protect exterior utility access points. There's just some areas that the police department identified that maybe, you know, something could happen to those exterior areas that we want to just better secure so we're not opening the building up to some of those possible issues. A third thing is just numbering. So making sure that all of the numbering and signage on all the doors and spaces here is clear and that they are numbered. There's a lot of rooms that currently do not have clear numbering. and as you would see if you went into any school or most office buildings today they are clearly numbered really for the purpose of making sure that police and firefighters and all of our first responders can clearly identify where they're going in the building if someone were calling for an emergency that they can say which room clearly which room they're in and that like i said police and fire then can be able to respond to that specific area so that is a piece of this project as well and then the final piece which is the largest piece we are proposing installing a glass security barrier at the Clerk Treasurer's Office desk, which is located right here off the lobby, and then also on the second floor where the Engineering Public Works and Community Development Customer Service desk is located. So those are our two public counters where we are interacting with the public all day long that do not have any sort of protective barrier. It's important to note that municipal court, which is also located here on this floor, does have the glass protective barrier. So if you were going to municipal court to pay a fine or a citation, you would be interacting with the staff through that glass barrier. But just steps away, as staff knows, steps away is the clerk treasurer's office space, which does not have that. that protective barrier. And so the same people that are in this building for municipal court and other services could be interacting at any one of those desks without the staff having any level of protection. And I should point out one thing I did not mention is that the fear has gotten to the level that we have had employees actually resign from their position stating that they did not feel safe in their work environment. again something we want to take very seriously we want to show employees that obviously we value their lives we value their safety we care about this work environment and want to be a safe place um we know all of us we are in public service so certainly we are here to serve the public so it's not an intention to make it that you know we're trying to put up a barrier you know you know limit our service to the public we will be doing the same tasks and the same functioning really in the same way um but it would offer a level of protection for employees to feel safer and more secure in the workspace. With that, I don't know, Joe, do you want to talk a little about the specifics of those four elements?

Yeah, absolutely. Joe Welter, Facilities and Construction Manager in Engineering. Just to kind of touch on a little bit more detail on the topics that Rebecca mentioned, the access control, we're looking at some card readers here on first floor, securing, like she said, staff circulation spaces. And then picking up additional camera locations that kind of have some soft spots or some blind spots in them right now. So predominantly it would be the double doors here down on the main floor as well as the back employee stairwell. We would be looking to add a door that is access controlled in engineering between the staff circulation area and the public counter. And then the last one would be up on third floor. They would have staff or employee controlled access into the mayor's and city administrator's space. So they'd have... Essentially just for commonality and be basically a ring doorbell and then staff inside would be able to pull that video up. Authorize that person to enter the space and be able to control access that way. Exterior barriers that we're looking at fencing and screening for the gas connection here at city hall and then also bollards and vehicle protection at access points into the building as well. The door numbering that Rebecca had mentioned, one large part of that is the exterior access points of the building. Large, easily identifiable, easily readable numbering on the outside of the building. There is an emergency inside the building. Someone has a medical emergency or something's going on that that call to emergency services can be. Hey, I'm at door. I'm at city hall. We're closest door is door 7 and emergency services can dispatch to that door. The other piece of that is the internal signage here. It's fairly inconsistent across city hall where. I think our audit showed roughly 50 signs. Don't show any kind of room numbering whatsoever. Those are some of the key ones would be like mayor's office, city administrator's office, director's offices. A lot of times it just says their title, and there's no other reference to where they're at in the building. So we'd be looking to pick that up as well. And then the last one being the clerk's desk and engineering community development. That would be a ballistic rated glass and wall assembly. PROPPED UP TO TAKE CARE OF A HIGH LEVEL OF BALLISTICS AND THAT PRICE WOULD ALSO INCLUDE THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THAT. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANYTHING THAT YOU DO HAVE. BUT THAT'S THE GENERAL GIST OF WHAT WE'RE LOOKING TO ACCOMPLISH.

THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME HERE. I'm here because I'm really passionate about this. Actually, we're talking about putting up a glass in front of the corner back there for at least a few years. I've been talking to the city that we need to do this. The reason why I'm passionate about it is I'll give you a couple examples. My prior life working in Milwaukee, a gentleman came in and took a handgun and started firing shots into the district station. Thank goodness that no one was hurt, but I can tell you what happened right after that. They put glass up to protect civilian workers that are working inside the police department. We have clerks that are working here every day with the political climate that we're living in today, very heated. I strongly believe that we need to keep our members safe, and that glass will act as a deterrent to do that. As far as the numbering, I'll give you an example why to me that is very critical as well. Numbering all the doors is, at the Sikh temple, when that happened, we were trying to identify locations. I was there about 35 minutes after that incident, and we knew we still had people inside the building. We had to take one of the surviving presidents, and we had to draw on a piece of paper a map. That's not the kind of place you want to do that. and those numbers getting first responders to threat or someone injured quicker, more efficiently is gonna save lives. So what we're doing here, the cost, what we're talking about is the safety of our employees. That's what we're talking about here. So I just wanted to personally come here and say that.

So, as you all know, I used to own a gas station. And in 1995, when we remodeled, it's just a lonely gas station, but we have bulletproof glass. We have the steel concrete reinforced bollards around the entire building so that a car can't crash through. we never had any problems, but since 1995, we had three incidents and those came into good use. So I'm in favor of security upgrades and I was surprised that they weren't done earlier because there are the one half of a percent of the people ruin it for the rest. And I think that the public is, knowledgeable enough throughout town to see the security systems that businesses and government has put in. I've looked at the need and I think it's there. My only question is, is why are we doing this today through this budget change? And I'm comfortable with the cost rather than putting it in the budget that's going to be passed in a month and a half. And that's Joe. You could maybe answer that for me.

I can't I mean I guess I don't know and maybe Rebecca knows of the reasoning for the timing as opposed to waiting until 2027 to do this I will at least let you know that if you read in the memo we talk about. having basically cash on hand, accumulated interest earnings from 2025 and what's occurred in 2026 as well. So we already have the cash on hand to handle this situation. And that's the reason that's probably The biggest reason why is if it's a risk or a concern that we want to address, we have cash on hand currently to deal with it. So that's part of when we do, if this budget amendment passes, it will be using basically existing fund balance or reserves because we have it.

Yeah, and just to reiterate, so we, part of, I mean, the timing is really that these incidences have continued to occur and we reached out to the police department, they finished their analysis, we were at Public Works, this is the time that we have it all ready to present to you and we honestly, don't want to wait because it is employee safety and security you know and as we said people employees have resigned because they felt like we haven't you know taken action to protect them honestly so um we don't we don't want to wait uh if we're able to do it now um because these are important i mean we feel i feel personally it's important for employees that that we are we are protecting them and sending a message that we do care about these concerns so

Just 1 last question then I understand now that if we put it in the budget, it doesn't get done until 27 after approved and bids and all of that stuff. But does this leave our cash balance or fund in any kind of jeopardy? Are we lowering it too much in your opinion?

For the most part, when we think of our capital projects fund, the float that would ever be in that fund is accumulated interest earnings. Where we really want to stress where we have Dedicated reserves, it's really in our operating funds because that deals with those 1 time costs that we don't plan for. Capital fund is already related to 1 time cost, but it's part of a grander plan and we do utilize. These earnings for a number of things, things that come up like this, but also if. You know, bids are coming in higher than we anticipated in the budget process. We can also we have some flexibility by utilizing these funds as well. So far, at least from a grand scheme of things, it appears that a lot of things are are at least coming within budget or close to budget. And we've been able to maneuver within existing budgets for our current projects, which is why these funds are available for this type of thing.

Are there any questions from the committee or Alderman Christine? Yes.

Excuse me. I don't know the best way to put this, but is this being reactionary to one or two people?

I would say this is being proactive because the reason why I say proactive is Christmas parade is a great example. November 21 and 21, we'll never forget it. We'll never go back to that day, right, and how we do things. So I see we're being proactive before something happens. Does that make sense?

No, it does, it does. I'm just asking questions.

Yeah, and because before these instances happened, I was actually addressing this before these were taking place. And I think when these incidents started increasing, that's what prompted us to actually do the threat assessment and get us to where we are today. But I'm in the mindset of, if we have an opportunity to be proactive,

I agree, but I don't want you to think of me.

No, no, I understand.

I understand that. And I guess another question would be, how are we protecting them? All public facing city employees. We have the ones behind the clerk's desk. Now, what about. I don't know why are you I don't even know if these other places have people walking into their buildings. Are we going to do similar projects for them as well?

be able to answer i just had the opportunity to tour the new water building and yes they have they have a ballistic proof glass going through the front counter and they have restricted access you can only get to a certain point the numbering is everything there that did come out i struck that i was like this is a very big robust wall in there so if the water utility building is my comment would be We're doing this now. It technically has a little bit more cost involved if you do it as a retro. I don't know what we do. I know we don't anticipate building a new city hall anytime soon. God, I hope not. But I think this should be incorporated into protocol for new future buildings as we go that are owned by the city as well. But yes, it is incorporated into water utility. I know that for a fact.

And that was actually going to be my third question is, Why wasn't this, we put the glass for the court when we built the building. Why wasn't it included up front when the building was built?

I don't know that any of us can say directly why it wasn't done at the time. I know we can all look back and say it should have, I mean, it probably should have been done. It should have been part of the project. From what we know, obviously the city administrator was the city administrator at the time. I wasn't as involved in the project, but so what we, I mean, It obviously wasn't done for various reasons. Municipal courts really pushed for it at the time. This building was seen at the time as more secure. I don't know how many of you were in the old city hall. The old city hall, you could literally walk right in and sit at the mayor's desk without ever having gone through a locked door. this building at the time was seen as taking some steps towards security you know at least most employees like some employee areas were behind locked doors and so some of that was a balance at the time because some people felt like even that was going you know the mayor's up on the third floor now and you know there are all kinds of conversations about those kinds of things so i think it was thought as you know we were we took some we took steps we thought you know to make security enhancements but obviously now looking back should we have done more I think probably, but unfortunately we can't we can't go back. We can only look forward.

And then 1 last question as far as the construction of the ballistic glass goes. Is it the entirety of the opening now or will walls be built out? Because I'm assuming that a wall would be cheaper to build than the glass. I'm just asking for sure.

Yeah, I think we'll vet that out as part of the design process. The intent would be to maintain the same level of service, so we'd want to make sure we have the same number of counters, the same capability to serve the public. But obviously, through the design process, we'll look to accomplish that as efficiently as possible.

So my question. At my former gas station still work there. The security glass goes all the way up to the ceiling to the panels there you go into some banks and their security glasses, maybe this tall over the counter. Somebody could jump over that. So I'm sure that this will be high enough where somebody can't just jump over and still gain access.

Yes, the intent would be to have the protection from Florida ceiling.

okay and one last comment i was here against the building of this city hall i ran on that seven years ago but i want listen to a lot of the comments as to why that was left open they did not want to make it feel unwelcoming was the comment at the time so they thought that security wise those gates Metal gates could push a button and close them, but I didn't agree that that was fast enough to prevent an incident. So I'm in favor of tightening up the security. I went to. Sturgeon Bay this last weekend, and I was. Happy to see that they put the. Security bollards down for even the farmers market. They were brand new. So this must have been. Something that they thought of as things are getting worse too. And I think that, you know, we do need to beef that up. My concern was just budget buys and I'm, I'm okay with that. So I'd be in favor of this and we'll let everybody else speak, including Mike, if he wishes to.

Thank you. Rebecca, you actually made me think a little bit more of, I didn't even think about employee retention. I notice about every department here not only facing employee retention, but employee hiring. You brought up a very good point. The numbering, the bollards, I agree with all of that. Any private, small school, church, any building of any size that's gone through great lengths is to make sure that the numbers are read on the inside and outside, reflective vinyl so you can see them at night. That's more of a statement. Has this already been put bids out so you have a proximate idea?

So we have we have gotten pricing for the security glass the design effort there the access control as well For the lettering and the numbering those are more budgetary numbers. I think More more likely than not they'll be made out in our sign shop. So that'll likely be interior expenditures there and then the rest is based off the unit prices with Department of Public Works

The 3M reflective vinyl is great at night. Looking at that area over there, it looks pretty secure right now with that stainless steel or whatever that decorative metal cladding is closed. Is it possible we could just close that and put a hole in the drywall and then put some window over there? Just a thought.

I think it would be possible. one of the main factors in the approach we're taking is to try and keep that same level of service while being able to protect our employees. I think one of the interesting things about that security curtain is, although it looks super defensible, right? When it does close their sensors that doesn't allow it to close immediately immediately so you get 3 chances that if it bump something it'll retract and then it'll bump it again before it finally forces its way through so there's security features in that that would reduce the security were of able to provide our our staff so. I think we looked at that, but I think this was a preferred option to maintain that level of service.

My suggestion was just leave it closed. I'm looking at a lot of drywall over there, and I think they have two windows over there. We could put four windows in. I would guess well under $70,000. Has that been looked at at all? Maybe architecturally. Yeah, it can't be done.

We can bring it up as part of that design effort too. I don't believe in maybe Chief Thompson could speak to it more, but I don't believe there's any ballistic qualities to that.

So, oh, I didn't mean to, okay, I apologize, yeah. That was mainly to protect property. So secure property where the glass is protecting people. So in right now, this major discussions for the people part of it, because that's not going to be protecting people.

It was just something I was thinking at lunch today when I was reading all this. And then the other thing is to protect the people. This is a very large facility. I was not a fan of it. 6, 7 years ago. Perhaps we could move the people. Would that be an even bigger cost savings?

because i think didn't use i mean used to have to pay bills upstairs on the old building i mean we we do still provide a level of service so the clerk charges office for instance i mean they're handling taxes and voting and there are a lot of people that come through during those time frames so i mean that's part of why the glass is proposed as well because we still need the counter space we're still using all those workstations um i mean there are a lot of people funneling through during those times so um We still are here to serve the public, so we're trying to find, again, find that balance of being able to effectively serve while still providing some level of protection. Thank you.

I didn't have an agenda when coming here, and you certainly, as I already stated, changed it. Employee retention. I work in a place that's very violent and mostly open to the public with not very good security. from 1971. So that's pretty much all I had. Everything is a great idea and very attainable. It was just the cost and if there's any other ideas, I just want to know if those were explored. You can still keep everybody over there. They have two windows, put four windows in. I know Rick really would hate to see some of that artwork go in the hallway because he's a big fan of artwork. But maybe we could put more artwork somewhere else. Just something to explore. Thank you.

Mike, you got a question?

Yeah, one other comment. You just reminded me of something. We have two elections this year, then tax season comes. How does that affect the timeline for construction?

Yeah, I think some of these things on the list here, I think we can begin to implement very quickly. The last, probably the piece that's going to take the longest is the security glass. There is going to be a design effort yet that we have not yet started. And then obviously the timing is going to have to be Uh, very delicate to fit in between taxis and in between elections in between assessments these times when we've got high usage down here. Um. Obviously, we're also going to have to look at some staff relocation during the implementation of this. So, um. I think we're going to have to kind of shoehorn this project in where it fits and and make sure we're very tight on our schedule. But I, I do think it's very doable.

During I'm in favor of the of the. Proposal, I have no issue with the amount of money. I did quite a bit of research on other municipalities and counties that have spent money making more security in their buildings. Interestingly enough, Dane County spent $12 million updating their clerk's area. Also, Milwaukee County is spending quite a bit to update the security at some of their buildings as well. There's some other states that were spending money on that. So I think $300 plus thousand dollars compared to a 12 million dollar price tag to me is really a drop in the bucket so i have no problem with that i also feel that just design aspect i feel that there needs to be some uniformity we already have the municipal court already with that glass it doesn't make any sense to me why would we do something different over there i mean to me We need to make it uniform to let those people know that we care about their safety. And I think eclectically, too, just for the artistic and uniformity of building, it needs to look the same, in my opinion. So I'm all in favor of doing what we do for the municipal court. They're 20 feet away. So if somebody wants to shoot somebody, they could easily turn around and just do the clerk. I mean, come on. And I was reading a couple of articles online where there was interviews with clerks in general that all are saying that there is more threats to their lives. People say stupid things. They're carrying a gun. They're carrying a knife. They don't like in this political climate. You've got people that say things during voting, they don't like their taxes. Who's the first person they're going to yell at is the person behind the counter. And interestingly enough, I've been dealing with the situation the last couple of days, and I've been working with the clerk's office because it requires a permit situation. And the person I was dealing with on the phone told me that this particular person who's been in for permits has threatened them with a gun in the past. And this was just today that I spoke to the clerk about it. So I feel that the urgency to get this done needs to happen. And I respect what you said, Chief Dan, about being proactive rather than reactive. We do not need to be doing this and someone has died already. And to me, there is no price tag that's worth more than the lives of the city workers that work for us. We're service people, and I just feel that the work you guys have done regarding the research in the glass, to me this is such a small price tag compared to what other municipalities have placed. So I'm fully in support of it. Can I make a motion to go ahead and move this for approval? Can I do that? Thank you. To recommend amending the capital budget by allocating $319,000 for the City Hall Security Improvements Project. And I'll need a second.

I'll second that motion.

I see that, yes.

That exact amount? I mean, is that what we are doing?

That's the amount that we're asking for to amend the budget. We still are going to have contracts that are approved and all that will that will come forward because this would have to be a bid project. So, just this is just to get the funding available so that we can amend the budget. And then we still go through the channels to get these things handled appropriately. Okay. Thank you.

Question. Mike, yes, I know it's already had a 2nd, but Alder Anderson brought up the other thing is, you know, it's hot out every city garage. You know, I've worked in municipal type settings. We open up the doors, you know, we have them out on a hot day and nicer day. I don't know. Is this something that we would consider just with all. You know, not in a such an urgent matter is this, but that is something we could look at district wide. Just even simple number as long as we're cutting vinyl, maybe do the same security risk at all our our facilities throughout Waukesha. That was it. Thank you.

OK, seeing that we have a motion in a second, will do a voice vote. But.

Wooderson I. Henderson I.

Matthews I Lemke I that passes 4 to 0.

Thank you on that. Seeing that there are no more business items.

Any commute communications or referrals?

I have some communications if you'd like to hear those first. So our next scheduled meeting is for Tuesday, July 14th. I do anticipate at this point having that meeting, just so you all know. We might have a visitor giving a presentation from our state legislature. That's what I've heard up to this point, but we're still waiting to get full confirmation on that. So that's the next scheduled meeting. The other items I wanted to mention is we have internally begun our budget process, the capital, the CIP portion of that. In administration and finance, and then all directors have been working on their requests for capital items. So, because we're kicking it off, I wanted to at least remind everyone that might be listening or watch the video. And everyone here tonight that the 1st capital budget meeting that we have on the schedule is Tuesday, August 25th. at the city garage where we generally do our show and tell for all of the the fleet related items and we do give a a short high level presentation on what is proposed for uh this year's or the 2027 cip so just wanted to make sure that That was definitely on everyone's calendar and that everyone can hopefully make it. So that's the first big finance committee meeting related to the 27 budget cycle. So just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of it. And that's all I have for tonight.

And I just wanted to make a comment about referrals. We went to the open house management skills training that Tony put on and there was a management consultant came in and he recommended that we give all referrals to Tony. So that didn't come out yet, but that's just something that I heard maybe coming along. because he wants to direct them right to instead of giving them to the clerk. But that'll be coming. So I don't have any referrals today. Does anybody have any others? Seeing that there's no more business or questions, I move to adjourn. Any objections? We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.