Good morning and, uh, welcome back
to the Committee on the Budget and Government Operations.
Uh, we are reconvening a meeting recess from last Thursday,
uh, as a normal course will have public comment.
At this time, Mr. Sergeant Arms will have anyone. Okay.
Uh, Sergeant at Arms indicating we have no one
this morning for public comment.
Uh, we'll proceed directly, uh, into
testimony from the Department of Transportation,
as the committee will will stand at ease to allow the CDOT
to, uh, come in at this time.
Good morning. And, uh, welcome, uh, committee on Budget
and Government Operations.
Uh, we have before us the department of, uh, city
of Chicago, department of Transportation, cdot, uh,
represented by Commissioner Craig Turner.
Uh, Mr. Uh, commissioner Turner will ask you, uh,
introduce the members with you here in the well, as well
as those that are in the box,
and then proceed with your opening statement.
Uh, good morning Chairman, chairman Irvin
and members of City Council.
Uh, thank you for this opportunity to appear
before you today for our midyear budget hearing.
I am Craig Turner, the Acting Commissioner
for the Chicago Department of Transportation,
and with me today, right beside me at the diocese, um,
the newly appointed Managing Deputy Commissioner Sam
Alexander, managing Deputy, uh,
commissioner via Krishna Marti.
And over in the box I have my, uh, deputy Commissioner
of Administration, uh, Chico High, uh, director
of Administration, uh, captain Jones, director of Finance,
John Jko, our Deputy Commissioner of Engineering
and Zang, our Director of Grants Management Grant Davis.
And our, uh, deputy Commissioner
for in-House Construction, Michael Drake.
I want to thank Michael, uh, uh, mayor Brandon Johnson
and its council for your partnership in supporting the
critical work of CDO each year with your support.
CDO invests millions
of dollars in the Chicago infrastructure neighborhoods work
that is essential to our city's eec, economic strength
and the quality of life for residents.
C manages an extent, a extensive network of streets,
sidewalk, bridges, and viaducts alleys,
bikeways traffic signals and streetlights.
These connect, these connect every corner of Chicago
and reach every resident.
Our mission is to keep the system safe, efficient,
accessible for everyone over the first half of 2025.
CDO has worked diligently to manage resources, responsible
and delivered improvements of our neighborhoods.
Our neighborhoods depend on.
This can be seen in our key performance indicator.
We have spent 28% of the departments locally
funded appropriations through the first half of the year,
ensuring we are on track with our plan expenditures.
Our vacancy rates as of May 31st stands at just under 13%.
This represent meaningful progress,
reflect in our concert concerted effort to fill positions,
reduce our vacancy rates over the past few years.
These efforts strengthen our ability to deliver projects
and services citywide,
while ensuring we are managing personnel costs responsibly.
We also made a strategic decision
to reduce overtime spinning limited
to operational emergencies
and critical public safety situations.
These efforts are not just about numbers,
they're about delivering tangible
results for our communities.
As you all know, we're in the middle
of another busy construction season,
delivering neighborhood scale improvements alongside major
multi, multi-year capital projects to support this level
of activities, operational efficiency has been a
central, central focus.
Through our project coordination office, we work
with more than 30 utility partners to minimize
conflicts in a public way through May th through May 31st.
The, the PCO office has coordinated more than 9,000 projects
in the public way and have save $8.5 million
by avoiding duplicate work and resources.
We continue to work in close partnership with this council
through the auto, the annual automatic menu program
at other neighborhood investments together.
We also advance traffic safety improvements at scale
efforts, r helping to reduce traffic fatalities
and make our stray streets safer for everyone.
This year, with your support,
we added 50 additional automatic speed cameras
and locations across Chicago
to further address traffic safety concerns.
All these efforts underscore our focus on accountability,
efficiency and results, building the transportation system
that Chicago, that makes Chicago safer,
stronger, and more connected.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you, commissioner. Uh, I wanna open with,
um, infrastructure.
Um, and, uh, I know we've spent, uh, an enormous amount
of money around the ARPA funds.
I want to get a sense of where you are, um, in, in
that progression and what is, what is yet to be spent
and what is left to come from ARPA funding, uh,
from infrastructure perspective.
Sure. Um, I'll pass that over to, um, grant Davis
for, uh, answer for that.
Uh, how much we spent thus far.
Good morning. My name's Grant Davis, director
of Grants management with cdot.
Um, our ARPA has been mainly with the county funding
and we have all of it appropriated
and we are on target to work with them to have it expended
by the end of next year.
You said it's it's with the county?
Yeah, so for our infrastructure funding,
we didn't receive as much.
Am I correct Chico? You you're looking at me, I'm listening.
Oh. Um, our ARPA funds, we have had through a pass
through, through the county.
Uh, so we've been working with them to have them allocated.
They're all allocated
and we will have them expended by the end of next year.
So the, so we're, our money for the City
of Chicago was Center Cook County? No,
Uh, um, ARPA funds were not for infrastructure.
Were not allocated to us.
We have ARPA funds though through the county
that are passed through to us.
And those funds are on target
to be expended by the end of next year.
So what you, so the money was allocated to the county
and then passed through to us, is what you're saying
For the ARPA funds
that we cdot have used for infrastructure? That is correct.
And, and how much, how much has that been?
Um, if you gimme one second, I can pull that up.
And, and while you, while you're looking at that, um,
are there any other funds that are,
'cause generally my understanding is
that we generally get our money directly except
for the stuff that comes through the state of Illinois.
Uh, it seemed, I I I don't recall
dollars allocated for us flowing
through the county first versus another Mecca.
Is that, is that generally how it flows?
No, this is unique. When the county had ARPA funds,
and since we are an implementing agency, um,
they chose to allocate some of their ARPA funds to us.
Um, I believe the amount was $13.5 million
That it, Yes.
Now we have other funds, um, other federal funds, um,
that we have programmed
and are using as well that will exceed that.
So the last in federal infrastructure bill did,
did those dollars flow through the state, flow
through the county or flow?
Well flow to us from the state
or through the county Primarily.
Our main bulk of federal funding flows through the state
of Illinois, through the
Illinois Department of Transportation. Um,
Right. So my
question is around the, uh, for lack of a better term,
supplemental or other funding.
We have traditional pots of money, like STP and the, like.
Those I know flow through the state,
but I'm, I'm looking at specifically, uh,
I'll call them supplemental infrastructure dollars that were
outside of the traditional channels
that we normally receive federal funding.
Okay. So we've had, we have multiple, um, federal awards
that were through the Biden administration.
Um, those are on track to meet their deadlines.
Um, those range from,
we have a bridge investment program award, um,
of $144 million.
That's to do four bridges over the Cmet River at 92nd, uh,
95th a hundredth, and a hundred sixth.
Those are on target to advertise the first bridge
at the end of this year.
Um, we also have other funding as well
that we could provide more additional information if needed.
Yeah, if you could provide the, uh, essentially
what is the, what I, for lack of a better term,
the Biden infrastructure funding?
Yeah, the, the Calumet Bridge is correct.
Uh, what, essentially it's the Biden infrastructure funding
and where we at how much, uh, is left to complete in, in
that particular respect.
Yeah, we could, that would be easy. Get that
The chair. Okay. Alright. Very well.
We can get that to the chair.
Alright. Thank you. Ulman. Kada.
Thank you Chairman. Uh,
thank you acting commissioner for being here today.
And thank you to the CDOT team.
I first want to, um, again, uh, commend you all
for the great work that you do.
You're the frontline of defense of our city, of our city.
Um, and I particularly want to thank you for the work
that you've done here in the 35th Ward, um,
on Belmont Avenue for the installation of bike lanes
for the resurfacing of our streets
and sidewalks, um, as well
as the Milwaukee Avenue Bicentennial Project.
Um, I want to commend our contractor there, capital cement.
Um, they've been doing very great work in coordinating
with our office, with our community-based organizations,
with our local businesses.
Um, and they're working expeditiously to get that project,
uh, fully activated.
They just finished resurfacing the last stretch
of Milwaukee Avenue and we're all very excited.
So just want to commend your team, uh, for working
with us very closely on that.
Um, so, um, in relation to the budget cuts
that the all the departments incurred last year, how has
that impacted service delivery
or quality, um, in this, uh, first half of the year?
Uh, thank you for the question.
Uh, quality remained the same,
but we may have, we have been experienced some delays
fulfilling some of the positions
because with all budget cuts
or reductions, there will be a slow of services.
But we're still delivering our, you know,
our core services as promised.
So compared to last year, would you say the amount
of services have gone down because of these impacts?
And if so, where has that, um, those impact?
Where have those impacts been really kind,
kind of concentrated at?
Um, yes. They, I, they have went down
because like I stated before, it is, it's a reduction.
So, you know, not filling positions, um, to fit,
put more bodies on the street to do the, uh,
the necessary repairs have shown a reduction as far as our,
um, where we are seen it at.
It could, it is in the, uh, in-house construction
and also the sign shop where we've seen an uptick in the
amount of, um, SRS that are being re uh, repaired.
Right. Um, how many, so among those, uh, vacancies
that you're currently dealing with, so, okay,
so if there's an impact in terms of services, is
that from the HR side, like in terms of onboarding people?
Um, is, is it a little bit of both of like,
there's not enough people to hire the people
and then there's just not enough people
to fill the departments
or the, the, you know, the, the parts,
uh, within the departments.
Um, what is it? What's that kind of, that mix?
Well, it's a combination of a lot of things. Sure.
You know, as far as like re um, you know,
applicants qualified applicants, uh,
filling these positions also, um, the, some of the numbers
that we get are, you know, as far
as like respondents is, is kinda low.
Um, I can pass it over to my, uh, deputy of administration,
uh, to answer those questions of the issues
that we have seen far as hiring.
Sure.
Sheia Cohi, deputy Commissioner for the division
of administration, um,
we have over 200 vacancies.
Um, that's throughout, um, the department,
but specifically for the division of administration.
Um, we have 10 vacancies.
Um, and right now those vacancies are looking to be cut, um,
for the exercise to meet, um, the cuts that we have to make
to, um, balance our budget.
Um, but specifically, um, the focus is on payments.
Um, we, we pay our contractors within 30 days, 80% of my 10,
um, vacancies have, um, a direct role in touching a payment,
whether it's processing a contract,
whether it's paying a payment voucher.
Um, and 20% of my vacs and cuts have to do with, um, hiring.
Um, so again, we have over 200 vacancies.
So, um, not having people on board to help onboard people,
um, of course, um, the delivery of services will be, uh,
slowed down tremendously.
Absolutely. Um, just to elaborate a little bit more on
that, I think we all know right on this body, the,
the importance and necessity of having a fully funded
and fully functional department of transportation, um,
you know, austerity and this time is a tragedy.
I think, you know, we're one of the wealthiest cities
in the history of the world.
Um, we should be fully funding our departments
and especially our Department of Transportation,
our residents expect, you know, quality, uh, fast service.
And I know, so this is not on your, your fault at all,
but this is the, the kind of focus
that our body really needs to f you know, figure out, uh,
to fill these vacancies
and to, to fully fund, you know, your department.
Um, an additional question that I have, my last one is,
what, uh, if any, impacts the department have there been due
to the changing policies
and priorities by the federal government?
I know we're talking a little bit about arpa, um, but, uh,
and I know that some of the funds also come from idot.
Are we expecting more impacts
to funding from IDOT through the federal government?
Um, kind of what is our projections of that?
What should we be expecting? What should we be prepared for?
Sure. Thank you again for the question.
Um, I'll turn it back over to Grant,
so we can discuss the impacts of, um, you know, any funding
that we're receiving from the federal government.
Ha have we, have we seen anything or anticipate anything?
So there has been a lot of changes on the federal side.
Um, we are working closely
with our law department on every single award that we have
that goes through the federal government.
Uh, fortunately we have not had anything rescinded
at this point or canceled.
So we are continuing to move forward with our, uh,
federal awards that are either direct
or passed through the state of Illinois.
Great. Thank you all very much for your service.
Thank you all. Kada.
I think, uh, where, where he was, what he was getting at,
uh, and I, and I guess the question is, last year,
how many days did it take you to fill a pothole this year?
How many days does it take you to fit a, fit a fill,
a pothole, and then under the constraints
of what's happening budgetarily, how long will it take you
to fill a pothole?
And, and you all have very good
data on those levels of matrices.
So I think it would be helpful to us to know
and understand, uh,
what your predictions are based upon the, uh,
reduction in resources,
what those time deliverables look like on specific services.
I would use a pothole for an example,
a streetlight being out your top 10
or 15 items that you all do,
which we get continuous requests from residents
and that go through 3 1 1 and other, uh, uh, other methods.
Uh, what does that look like?
And if you all, I know I don't expect you to have
that right now, but if you could provide that to us
as we begin our conversations for 2026, I think
that it would be, uh, most important
because today really is about service delivery when we think
about our departments that are lined up.
And I think we need to know and understand what these cuts,
uh, the impact
of these would be on your delivery of services.
So does, does that you guys follow that?
Yes, I understand sir. Okay.
So you're just looking for like the top 10 CSR complaints
Or I mean, 10 15
or, you know, you know what we call you about.
So, you know, tell, oh, well we didn't think about that one,
but I, I mean, you know, we, we there about probably, I have
to ask the staff, but probably about 15
or 20 items that we're calling you for at least once a week,
once every other week about.
And I think it's imperative that we know
what those expenditure reductions mean
to that delivery. Sure.
Yeah. We can get you the, the historical data as far
as like potholes for example,
and then what our crew levels are at that time.
And then we can try to extrapolate out to kind
of predict at a high level
what it may look like in 2026. We can do
That. Thank you. That,
that, that's, that's fair. Vice chair Lee.
Thank You Chair. Uh, good morning.
I think Commissioner Turner
and your staff, um, thanks for all
that you guys do every day.
Um, you are, you are heavy in the 11th ward right
now and I appreciate that.
Um, I'm gonna just kind of pick up where some
of my colleagues left off.
Um, I think we are really concerned about what, uh,
potential cuts would mean for, for service provision.
Can you tell me, um, are you guys subject
to the hiring freeze across the city right now?
Yes, we are. And that includes the revenue generating,
uh, positions or which, are there positions
that are not subject to this within your department? Yes.
I mean, if there's a position that we need to fill,
we can request, but we are still subject to it.
You are still subject to it. Okay.
Um, 'cause I, my understanding of it was
that it's public safety, which I completely understand.
And then any revenue generating position.
So I would expect like a public way inspector
to be a revenue generating one.
Can you provide through the chair just the,
the list of the titles?
Uh, so I'm interested in two things.
The, the vacancy, uh, rate,
I know you spoke about that earlier.
12.8% vacancy rate, um, 200 vacancies currently.
Um, can we provide the vacancy rate by title
and then identify which ones are revenue
generating positions?
Yes, we can do that.
Great. Um,
and then with respect to, to overtime, you know,
per the mid-year report, uh, we've got 52.88%
before personnel salvage.
Um, how does that compare to prior years?
Um, compared to prior years?
Um, I passed it over to, um, my John Chenko Senco,
our director of finance to give analysis of that.
John Senco, director of Finance,
uh, alderman.
Could you repeat that question?
Sure. Um, looking at your overtime spend
through the mid-year report, which I believe is through May,
um, that's before personnel salvage.
How does that compare to prior years?
Okay. This year we are presently down 32% in overtime.
So you're 32% not lower.
Lower over. We're not over lower,
Lower, I'm sorry, I gotta fix my miracle here.
Sorry. Lower 32% lower. That's great.
Um, what's, what do you think is driving that?
Well, again, that's the, uh, management
of the way the crews are being worked on the street. Right.
I can answer that question, but there's a lot, uh,
we've been limited our overtime since it's operational,
like needs like emergencies, weathers and,
and things of the like,
so we kinda limit everything our crew size,
our crews down to just those.
And uh, 'cause we knew this was gonna be a tough year, so
therefore we were trying to be proactive
and kind of get ahead of it.
Um, yeah, I would've expected it to be more just
because of all of the weather events that we've been having.
Obviously streets and Sands,
it's gonna have a slightly different story than than you all
with the, with the number of trees that have been down.
Uh, but surely there have been power outages,
lights out and things like that.
So Yes. Have, I know your electrical team's been very busy.
Um, how are we doing on just sort
of streamlining communications?
You know, you and I have talked about just some
communications challenges around, um, you know,
we've got menu items that are, uh, that we've approved
and, you know, we're expecting them to start.
And then we, we've got sort of, we, we had some issues just
with Mistiming about when things were gonna start
and, um, communicating.
I know you, you talked about, you know, um, doing some, uh,
some reorganizing
and getting some things streamlined communication wise.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure. Um, you know, ever since we have, uh, uh,
managing Deputy Alexander on board, he come
with a great, a lot of great ideas.
So our biggest thing is open up that line of communication,
open up that conduit to get more information out.
'cause I read it for you to get an email
about a project twice the not at all.
And also, I understand the importance of being notified
of a project starting
before you get calls from your constituents.
So that's my goal is increase the communication.
We had retreats at the beginning of the year
where the theme was communication and accountability.
So we are, um, with, with our inspector, with our, um,
we're changing the title or from,
or the, just the role from menu liaison to ward liaison.
So you have one point of contact, so you have
to go all over the department trying to get an answer.
Got it. Um, whoever you reach out to
or talk to shall give you the answer or take your question
and bring it back to us to get you an answer.
Or if we need to hand it off to another department,
you know, we can make the handoff
and make sure you are aware of who you need to,
who we're handing it off to if it's not
in our wheelhouse. Yeah,
No, I appreciate that. I think,
um, I think I speak for my colleagues when, if,
if there was one point of contact that could shepherd all
of our CDOT issues through and,
and get the answers, um, that would be a,
a great time saver for us.
Nothing's worse than, you know, hey, we approve this alley
to be repaved and it's great.
Every, everybody's been asking for it
for the last seven years and it's scheduled
and we don't have the information about when
it's gonna start and they show up early.
It's great that they start early,
but if you're not notified about it, that leaves your,
that leaves your constituents in a place Sure.
Where, um, you know, nobody likes to get those calls.
And then we've gotta, we've gotta make all these calls
and it's just, you know, it's time
wasted at the end of the day.
Um, that's all I've got for right now. Thank you. The chair.
Thank you. Altman Conway.
You Mr. Chairman. Um,
so one thing I was looking at was the, uh,
garbage fund expenditure.
It looks like you've spent 47% of it so far, midyear,
so you're absolutely on track as far as that.
That goes two.
Um, now, you know, we, we charge a fee of,
I think it's 9 99 per, per household per month on that.
To what extent is the fund expenditure being covered by
that fee on, on some kind of level.
And it looks like you've made it a little more efficient.
That's kind of what prompted my question.
What program are you speaking of?
I didn't quite catch that.
The is you all administer the garbage fund, right?
Am I not? Am I not? I, oh, excuse me. Okay.
I, I, that I was, that was what I wrote down here.
Please, uh, come. Why don't you come back to me, Mr.
Chairman here. I've, uh, lost my place.
This is the commissioner, not, I will leave you alone.
Alright. Very well. Uh, I,
Al Van Howorth, you had your hand up.
Thank you chair. Alright, good morning,
commissioner and, and team.
It's good to see you today.
I wanted to come to thank CDOT for
all the coordinated efforts that, that you've
provided in the, especially in the 48th ward
with the many projects that are happening,
including the $9 million water, uh, replacement project
with DWM.
And, um, that has been really eye-opening for,
for my war in the 48th and Edgewater.
Um, the number one call for service always has to do with,
uh, pedestrian and, um, bicycles safety
and safety on the streets.
And so with this project, it really was even, um,
more enlightening to me how important infrastructure is
because that traffic that those folks do not live here,
we're the, the north terminus of Saba Lake Shore Drive.
And so when you choke a major street like
an idot road like Ridge, um, all of Edgewater was impacted.
So I heard from every single constituent about this project,
um, from May until we opened Ridge.
And I, I wanna thank your team, especially Vig, um,
and Dave, um, and,
and others who have, who really stepped up
to help coordinate, um, weekly, weekly calls to make sure
that, uh, we were on track with all the things
that we needed to do to keep our our folks safe.
Um, my ward, um,
and on Broadway, we, we have a, a speed camera.
We're number two in, in the city for the, for the number of,
um, tickets issued, um, since they were installed.
And that's just, that's just one, one street,
um, in, in Edgewater.
And we're very small. So all this to say that it,
that infrastructure is so important, um, to us in,
in the 48th ward.
And I, I wanna thank you for your coordinated efforts.
I would like to see, um, it was a little bit, um, nuts to me
that, that, um, that we have, we, we can only do
so much in terms of education and infrastructure
because we are also competing with, um, apps
like Google and Ways.
And so I would like to see the, I would like
to understand better at some point, not now, um, ways
that we are working with Google and,
and ways, um, so that when we have to redirect traffic,
it's not going into residential streets.
So people do not go the wrong way down one way streets
and down alleys, like water just everywhere.
It's that, that happened.
Um, and it, and I truly believe,
'cause I was on my divvy bike following this traffic all
around the, the neighborhood.
And, and these folks do not, they did not live in my ward.
You know, they were on their phones
and they were, they were, um, just following the apps.
And that, that is something I feel like we should have a
better understanding of how we can, um, manage.
Um, I also wanted to thank you
for the many efforts that you are making in the 48th
where I'd like to understand a little bit better, uh,
where we are in terms of, um, the bike grid
and how, how that's being developed.
You know, which wards are succeeding, which wards are not,
you know, there, it, it seems to me that, um,
there could be more coordination education towards that end.
'cause the last thing I need is for, um, uh, for there
to be a division between cars and bikes.
I mean, it's not cars and bikes.
They're all people using a car and a bike.
And we also need to use the, the, the, the,
the public way in, in, in responsible ways.
Um, so I'd like to get some information about that.
Um, and,
and mostly I just want to thank you for all your work.
It's, it's, uh, every major project
that has happened in the 40th ward, it seems
to me has involved cdot.
Um, and the infrastructure changes there we're making,
it's gonna be long lasting for, you know, not, not just
for me, but for my kids' kids.
So thank you for that work.
And also what you're doing with, with idot.
I, I would like to get more understanding about
how we are working with idot.
As you know, um, many of our streets in the 48th ward are,
are, um, IDOT controlled.
And, and we, I hope are, um, creating better relationships
with that department as well.
Um, so my question is, uh, what, what is,
what is, what is it that you're looking forward to, um,
in terms of your, um, uh, budgetary in with,
with the budgetary restraints that are looming ahead?
Besides that, what are you looking forward to? Commissioner?
What I'm looking forward to is, um, you know,
continually leading our, leading this, this department
and making sure that we do the easy things right,
which is communication and getting schedules out.
And also just, um, also coming out
and visit, you know, with the alders
and awards to understand exactly what your pain points are.
And also just to hear, um, 'cause every ward is different.
That's what makes Chicago Sonia U unique is that we could,
um, you have different experience than,
uh, people on the south side.
So we need to better understand that.
So that's what I'm kind of looking for, just understanding
and, and doing the, um, the, the things that we should do.
Good. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, commissioner. Thank you team.
Thank you. Uh, thank you all the man howorth.
Um, first I wanna recognize, uh, all the mentality
of Pharaoh for the purposes of quorum.
Uh, we've also been joined by,
I got you guys, you guys are already down.
This is first time. Um, I got you too. You're good.
Um, I know you all want questions.
I was just recognizing him for, uh, for quorum.
So, um, Alman, Mark Rodriguez.
Thank you Chair. Uh, just want to say, Craig,
you're a rising star in city government.
Um, I'm leaving in the next 15 minutes to get over
to a walkthrough with CDOT folks on a street
that we're doing, working on, uh, that type of attention
to detail amongst your staff
and willingness to come through our office, invite us
to those engagements and, and, and precipitate.
And, and forgive me, uh, previous to, to the completion
or starter projects, come by the office talking to us,
make sure we know what's going on
and willing to walk with us.
I think it's even a private contractor that was pushed
by your guys to do that.
Kudos. So keep up the good work. That's all I got, chair.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna get that.
I'm gonna find that, uh,
that emoji too at, at that, at that point.
So, we'll, we'll get that. Uh, we'll get that figured out.
Uh, Altman Riley, followed by Altman Scott.
Uh, good morning, commissioner.
Um, I just wanted
to flag a couple things ahead of the real budget hearings.
Um, one, um, we appreciate the interactions
that we have with your staff.
Um, they're generally very responsive.
Um, and as you know, in the central business district,
we have a lot of dynamic demands of cdot.
Um, one thing that I wanna flag,
and it's, I guess it's good news, that we don't have to pay
for the repairs, but we've had a tremendous amount
of utility work done in the right
of way in the central business district in the 42nd ward
and the 34th ward, second ward, and third ward.
Um, and one of the things
that we have an issue with is restoration.
Um, for many, many, many, many, many months, um, these
trenches go, uh, unrestored.
And so I would just ask your team
to take a good hard look at the CBD, um,
and the age of some of these cuts.
Um, because I can tell you some of these are,
are at least a year old.
Uh, we need to do a better job making sure
that these companies are restoring their work, um,
because it's degrading our roadways.
And as you know, the central business district has
the most wear and tear of all streets in the city
because that's where all the cars are.
Um, so if you could, um, I would like it if, uh, your,
your office could connect with mine, um,
and discuss the plan and timetable to get those restored.
Um, you're also, I think, aware through your staff
that we've had a very ambitious, uh,
lighting upgrade program in the river north neighborhood,
and it has not gone well.
Um, I, I would blame the subs.
Um, we still don't have that project done,
although I do appreciate you accelerating it.
Um, so that's another one to check on. Um, it's a bad look.
You know, this was something that the neighborhood would,
would, would otherwise be celebrating.
Um, improved lighting is good for safety, right?
Um, and energy efficiency.
But when we have sidewalks torn up for months
and months, especially at intersections with a DA, um,
crosswalk account, you know, uh,
accounting, that's, that's an issue.
Um, so I don't wanna belabor the point,
but that would be another area for improvement.
The subs need to step it up, can't walk away from a project
for two, three months and then come back.
Um, but that said, um, you do have a, a very,
very talented staff and,
and, um, we are constantly requesting traffic
studies and changes.
Uh, and for that I am grateful.
Um, but we'll, we'll
bring up some other issues during budget.
I just wanted to flag those two
because they don't land directly in department's lap.
Um, but they are two issues that you, that you, uh,
police and regulate.
Um, so, uh, thank you chairman. Appreciate it. Thank
You.
Thank you, Altman. I know the last time we talked, uh,
you talked about some environmental issues.
Is that, was that one of the hangups on this deal too, or
No, actually, you're right.
We did. Uh, those issues usually are in Streeterville
with a thorium issue.
Streeterville un, unbeknownst to a lot of folks used
to make light bulbs and they would throw all the garbage
literally into landfills right
next door to the, the building.
And so now whenever we dig more than a couple feet in
Streeterville, we have
to do this incredible environmental
remediation before we can do anything.
Okay. And so that's, that's very specific to
that geography, thank God.
Okay. No, I, I thought that was part of the challenge
that you guys were facing, uh, in that, I mean,
I know your ward, you guys go in the air,
so you all are kinda little tight compact down here.
So, but be there as it may.
Uh, I know I told, uh, alderman Scott that she was next.
However, I had Alderman Dowell, uh, on, on online.
She's been on with this from the beginning.
So I apologize, uh, uh, for this, uh, flip here
that we're gonna make, uh, alderman Dow, are you ready?
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hey, commissioner.
Um, I too want to thank you for the hard work that, uh,
your department does in the third ward.
I only have one question pre, uh, budget hearing.
And if you could look, this, uh,
chairman Irvin gave you a list of, uh, projects
that he wanted to see.
What would be different, uh, in terms of timing?
And one of the pain points, uh,
that I think is felt throughout the city of Chicago is
how long it takes to resurface a residential street.
You know, you have, uh, you know, someone
that grinds the street, then another contractor comes in
and puts that, uh, coating down,
and then the, you know, there's a process
and I'm wondering if we could save money by
maybe having instead of four contractors
or it, I, I don't know.
I'm just asking you, is there a way,
given our fiscal constraints, that we can, uh,
save money here Okay.
And be more efficient
because it takes, uh, a good month
and a half to two months to have a street
go from beginning to end.
Yeah. Thank you for your question. Alderwoman.
Uh, we do have a timeframe,
I believe it's 26 days if everything goes right,
we do run into issues far as equipment breaking down
and, uh, and, uh, just materials or,
or nowadays with the last service lines,
if we come across one of those as a leak
and break, that can delay the project.
And, uh, I know water department has to go
through their protocol to get that fixed.
But, uh, we can, we are, we're always looking for ways
to be more efficient, far as like mobilization of our crews,
trying to schedule our, um, equipment in certain areas
and trying to do as much work
as we can while we in that area.
Um, we try not to jump around as much,
but we're always looking for ways for efficiencies to, um,
to bring that timeframe down.
But can you be more specific on what you mean in terms
of looking for efficiencies?
Um, and am I wrong in that sometimes it requires
three or four different contractors, you know,
to resurface a street that might go for, you know,
three or four blocks?
Well far as looking for efficiencies?
We try to look, uh, like we have a collector program
and we try to group projects together along with the,
the menu resurfacing for residential areas.
So we can do all those at one time.
We can keep a crew in a, in a certain area to
maximize our efficiency instead of loading
and unloading, um, machines around.
So as far as doing crew, like on a residential, mostly
that is done by in-house forces
and we have to use the crews that are available
that does that type of work.
We can't mix 'em up in, uh, because of union agreements.
So like the concrete finishers have
to do concrete, they can't do anything else.
And then, um, as far as like, other issues
that we experience is, you know, it's,
it's just like employees call off
and we run it, you know, then that delays schedules.
I mean, it's, it's a domino effect.
It's a very, it's a lot of moving parts
and if one gets outta whack, it can, you know, cause delays.
And if you, uh, tack on external, uh, factors like weather
or, you know, leaks and breaks from, uh, other entities
or unknown unforeseen field conditions,
that can delay the project.
But my goal is to make sure all this is communicated
to your office so that you understand
and know what's going on
with these different projects before you get calls.
Al Sometimes challenge hitting that mute button.
Um, uh, okay, so I hear what you're saying.
I guess, uh, I'm not, the, the communication
between the department and my office is always good.
I, I'm just trying to figure out how we can be more
efficient, um, and save money
because, uh, we do have these fiscal constraints.
And I would like to hear more from you, uh,
during the budget hearings about
how you're thinking about this one particular
area which affects the entire city of Chicago.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank Chad. Um, I, I think that, um, what, uh, we we're,
you all are in a industry
or in a space that has a very good comparisons
outside versus inside.
So I, I think what everybody's trying to land at is
how efficient the department is operating versus
what we would call industry standards.
Now we have some differences in operations that may account
for some changes in how we do things,
but, um, we shouldn't be, it shouldn't take us
30 days to do something that
general industry takes 15 working days to do.
I think that's what the, the conversation is.
And, and I think we, we want to understand if we are
outliers in how we're operating, what do we need to do
to fix or change our operations so that we can become, uh,
we can become more efficient.
And, and I think that's what, uh, chairman do is, is driving
that, uh,
because I think we see the what, why we see
that things are taking a while to do,
but we don't understand the whys of it.
And when it looks on its face,
like we're just being inefficient, right?
So that's, that is the driving force that we need to, um,
that we, that we're trying to look at
and trying to, um, uh, trying to answer and, and understand.
So, um, I, I think if you, you know, approach it from
that perspective as to how long does it take industry
to do a thousand feet of curb, how long does it take us
to do a thousand feet of curb?
And why, what is that difference, if any,
and how do we get closer to a standard
or begin to exceed the standard that's happening in, in, uh,
in a private industry.
So, um, that, that's, that's just one example.
And I don't know what those standards are in construction,
if it's, you know, feet curb
or curb mile, I don't know what it is,
but you all know what that is.
Sure. And you all should be able to say, Hey, this is
where we are, this is where the industry is,
this is where we need to be.
So if that's the type of information, uh, that, that we, uh,
look to, look to have.
So, um, we want to, we've been joined, uh, by our clerk,
uh, clerk Anna Valencia.
Uh, welcome. We, you're not up.
You you want to, if you we're more than happy to have you,
if you want to come down and come to the gauntlet.
Okay. Okay. Just showing a visitor. Okay. Very well.
Thank you for joining us.
Uh, thank you for joining us today. Uh, Scott left. Okay.
Uh, Altman. Spto. Go ahead.
Thank you, chairman. Good morning, commissioner.
Just one real quick.
Uh, not even really a question, commissioner.
Just something to see if you think we could figure this out
for the future, for the, for the real budget hearing.
So one thing that really bothers me is when, not we,
but I'll just use, uh, gas company.
They do work. They tear up after street.
They fix after street.
One half of my street looks like Afghanistan.
The other half is beautiful. Is there a way to just to work?
So you look into this, a way to work something out with,
I'll just use people's gas as example
where they pave the whole street
and then somehow we compensate 'em
for it so it all gets done.
That's it. Just a more of a statement, something
to look forward to in the future.
Just really looks dumb. People get upset about it.
I just would love, love if they could restore a whole
street rather than half the street.
Thank you. We thank you
Commissioner. Definitely talk about that.
Thank you, chairman. Thank
You. And these, these are
real budget hearings.
Uh, you know, we're, we're here, uh, we're,
we're, we're asking questions.
Actually. It gives us a second bite at the apple,
so let's think about it that way.
Uh, alderman Robinson, followed by Alderman Conway.
Chairman, thank you very much, uh, commissioner, um,
good to see you this morning.
Um, uh, first of all, let me just thank you for, uh,
your responsiveness
and picking up the ball, um, from Kearney
and in a very, very smooth transition.
Um, so thank you very much. Um, thank you.
I had a concern, which you're aware about with the,
with the, um, project at 47th
and Cottage, um, where
our contractors left that area in, in terrible shape.
Um, I called you, let's just say on a Tuesday, the next day,
which have been Wednesday, it was cleaned up.
I'm grateful. The piece of the puzzle that I I wanted you
to kind of break down for me is what is that process?
How are we managing our, our subs, our contractors,
who's responsible for making sure that what happened at 47th
and Champlain doesn't happen again?
Not only in the fourth ward, but across the city.
Um, and so that's my question for you this morning.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, alderman.
I too share the same frustration because in my past life
before coming to the city, I also was a re out in the field
and a resident engineer in the field.
So when we have a, um, a contractor out there, we also have
to have another, like a resident engineer out there
to oversee these here projects
and make sure that they're performing in a way
they should be performing.
They're our eyes and ears.
'cause we can't be everywhere at cdot.
So we hire consultants to oversee them.
And I had a very, uh, direct conversation with my deputy
of engineering about this here.
I don't need any more honorary inspectors.
I appreciate all the councils eyes and ears
and the calls you give us, but we should not be getting
those calls from you about a project that we're overseeing.
So I am constantly on them
and we were working to make improvements.
Um, and so that, that won't happen again.
'cause public safety is number one.
'cause some of those issues were of concern we're very
concerning that, you know, we're, we have consultants out
overseeing projects
and we still get, you know,
get calls from the alders aldermen
or the council about issues on projects.
So I'm very aware of this issue
and we're, I'm working to make sure this get done
because I was in the re position so I know what needs
to be done and how it should be done.
'cause I worked on CDO projects, ID projects and tollway,
and I know what should be done.
So that's what I expect of them.
And a lot of people in the industry, the consultants, they,
they know who I am and I know, and they,
and I can call presidents
and let them know what their workers are not doing.
Commissioner, thank you very much.
Uh, chairman, thank you.
Thank Alderman, uh, Robinson.
Um, alderman,
Scott's not in any other questions?
Oh, alderman Conway, I got you.
I'm you, you're gonna close the spot of
Chair. Yeah, thank you. Sorry,
I pulled the wrong sheet
out. Um, where
You Right Department. Good.
I I think I'm in the right department here now,
you know, uh, thank you very much.
Uh, so I saw, I saw that you have a, a as you mentioned,
you have a vacancy rate of 13% little lower than the,
than the city average.
Um, uh, are any of those positions as far as you know,
revenue generating positions?
Um, that question came up
before we was gonna provide through the chair list.
Oh, wonderful. Of vacancies that are revenue generating.
And, and the only other question I have is I saw that, uh,
you, you've, you've used 53% of your,
of your overtime at midyear.
So roughly on track, maybe a little over,
what do you think is, um, is driving that
and do you think that's at all related to the vacancies
or Yeah.
What do you think is driving that? Well,
We limit our overtime just to like emergencies
and operational needs.
So, um, we, that way we could, uh, kind of put, you know,
put some guardrails up on the overtime.
It's just letting it go crazy.
But also we understood
that this was gonna be a challenging season Sure.
Coming up. So therefore we try to be a little bit proactive
in limiting the overtime
and, uh, try to, you know,
use it more efficiently and effectively.
Let me ask this question. You can hold this time.
Um, you said when you talk about overtime,
what would you have normally done on overtime
that you have not done based on the edict from budget?
Okay. Well we would've normally done,
we probably been working more Saturdays,
but there's problems that I,
in my mind I think is an issue with working Saturdays
because you get, uh, workers start getting burned out and
therefore they start getting burned out.
They start calling off during the week,
which lower our productivity, which means that we have
to do over time, which is a very dangerous cycle
to get into just to reach our normal baseline just
to reach the productivity because of burnout.
So if you take a step back
and so I, I guess this is more of operational efficiency
by just not doing overtime, you actually get more done.
Well it is more like
for overtime way I would say do use overtime.
For example, we were getting close to the end of a project
and we can work a few extra hours during the week
to finish by Friday so that we can move
to another location on Monday instead
of carrying it over to Monday.
Then do mobilization
and everything that's efficient use of overtime.
Okay. Alright. Vice chair, I'm, uh, alderman, uh, Conway?
No, that, uh, I, I clear the numbers show
that you're keeping things on track, so I just wanted
to commend you for that and was gonna Alderman Irvin
kind of ask my follow up.
So that's great. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Thank you Commissioner. Thank you.
Thank You. Alderman Conway, uh, also wanna recognize,
uh, alderman Clay, uh, for, uh, joining you.
You've been here. You're good.
These are some of our, uh, first timers, so we have
to get them on the record.
So, uh, any others for, um,
any others for cdot
before I go to, um, the spotter?
Go ahead. Chairman La Spotter.
Hey, thank you so much, chair, commissioner, thank you
so much for being with us today.
I I, I won't belabor the point
'cause there's not the time for belaboring.
Certainly like your success is the
city's success is our success.
Like, and certainly like when the work
that my colleagues are describing is not done on time
by your contractors, they never point
to cdot like they always point to us.
So like, being able to make sure you have the resources
that you need is the rest of our success.
Um, I know that overall there's a
a relatively low vacancy rate for cdot
and I'm really appreciate that
it looks like there's a higher vacancy rate
where your corporate fund positions are concerned.
Does that sound accurate?
Um, let me check. I have to check the numbers and see,
but all vacancies are a concern.
So what, what we see currently
is about a 42% vacancy.
So 47 out of 111 positions
with vacancies under the corporate fund.
Does that sound ballpark?
Um, deputy, hi, is that,
or Katherine as those numbers are accurate.
Hi Alderman, Katherine Jones, director of administration.
We currently have 46 vacancies in the 100 fund.
Okay. Can you, can you categorically break
that down roughly for me in terms
of areas within the corporate fund within the 100 fund?
You just wanna list of vacancies in the corporate?
No, no. I, so let me break it,
let me discuss it more like this.
So that does mean that that 42% number feels accurate.
What is the, what is the professional impact for the work
that you do of that level of vacancies?
We can get you that information through the chair.
It's a subjective question. Uh
Oh. Okay. Well
I can get you,
How do you, let me ask it like this.
Uh, hold on. I, I think what, what he's asking is, uh,
I think we're all on the same page.
So we're trying to understand you are,
you've stated on the record
that you all are not hiring into those vacancies
because you're looking to figure out
how you're gonna meet your expenditure reduction targets.
What he wants to know, and what we all want to know is
what impact is that going to have on service delivery?
And you are already doing it now theoretically
because you have these vacancies
that you're not going to feel.
So to answer his question,
and I think it's um, categorically, uh, where,
where are those vacancies of the 40, did you say 46
or 42 that you currently, uh, that you currently have?
Are they administrative, are they signs, are they in-house?
Where, where are those vacancies, those 42
or 46 vacancies you just brought up in the corporate
fund? Where, where are they?
I mean, I can speak to that if it helps.
'cause my, my staff sent it to me.
It looks like five out of 11 vacancies, uh, out
of 11 positions, five vacant under traffic safety, uh,
out 14 positions under neighborhood enhancement
and sustainable development.
Five vacancies under contracts.
And I don't want this to be right, five positions,
four vacancies.
I'm saying like to to the untrained eye to someone
who doesn't work for you, it feels like this impacts your
ability to get the work done.
And, and if that's not true, I'm glad that you found ways
to operate in that space.
If it is true that there's an impact in your ability
to deliver what you want CDOT to deliver, we need
to understand that so we can fight for you.
Sure. Well, well the vacancies, like you mentioned is, is,
you know, is a concern and it does affect our operations
because it slows down things.
I mean, we have a, you know, managing deputy position
that's, that's vacant.
We also have like traffic signal repairmen.
We also have, um, people on the street, uh, you know,
streetlight, repairmen
and all those vacancies that are included in there.
We can get you the list, but it does reduce our
efficien effectiveness to get things done.
Uh, it's definitely gonna slow it down also, if we,
you know, we would like to, we've been doing it like you
said, for without the vacancies,
but you know,
we could be more efficient if we had the vacancies filled.
I appreciate you sharing that. I really do.
Um, I want to tell maybe two more questions, right?
I wanted to ask, um,
infrastructure capital improvement bond.
Certainly there was, uh,
contested to say the least.
How have we performed this year in terms
of getting those bonded infrastructure dollars out the door?
How do we perform getting them out? Um,
Now just to say if we bonded for, I think it was to,
I forget the exact number, it was between 600 7,000
and 50 million in terms of total bonding
for infrastructure projects in 2025, what percentage
of those dollars have been spent
and what percentage do we anticipate
being spent by close of year?
Okay, I can pass that over to like Grant, um,
or joko for those numbers
or how much we were spent or not gonna look it up.
Also,
You know, alderman, uh, I can get that
and send that through the
Chair for you.
Okay. It's something that I'm gonna talk about
more in a month.
So I just want us to be prepared for that conversation.
I would like also through the chair specifically
where we are in terms of the sidewalk inspectors,
unless we have that now, when you
and I spoke a couple months ago on this in a settlement,
we were at I think 40% vacancies there.
And I just want to highlight something more broadly.
A lot of the time we've been up here talking about revenue
generating positions and that's great.
The positions in your budget sometimes don't
generate revenue, but not having them
filled costs us revenue.
When, when we're not staffing you at the level you need
for streetlight inspection
and repair, that creates liability.
When we're not funding you at the level that you need
for sidewalk inspection and repair, that creates liability.
Like, we might not be paying it in the budget,
but we're gonna be paying it two,
three years down the line in settlement.
So I would rather fund that work upfront than see,
see us voting in finance like three, five years ago
for the cost of not funding those positions.
That's my piece on that. Thank you chair.
Thank you. Uh, and I, I, I think, um, so one of those,
uh, items that we need to know is about sidewalk repair,
especially trip hazards.
Trip hazards that we have identified.
Our last meeting, we spent I think a couple hundred thousand
dollars on hazards, right?
So the trip hazard that we're identifying, uh,
what is it time to cure the trip hazard.
Um, go ahead.
I went to like, if you're talking about it, sir,
like I'll, I'll flag like the list that I got today was
just over 27,000 open sidewalk inspection complaints
in 3 1 1.
If you are not getting the staff that you need to get
that number down, we need to know that, like what
I think about the 88 pads that are out there,
we've talked about that before.
We've actually had folks say to us in menu meetings,
we don't do a DA pads at like alley's anymore.
I know what that leads to down the line.
Like, I want to, I wanna make sure
that we're supporting your needs in ways
that prevent revenue loss,
even if it's not revenue generation.
Thank you. No, no. Your, your, your point is,
your point is well taken.
And I, and I agree with you and I,
and I think it's a risk that we continue to see,
like you say, we don't see it for a year, two, three years,
but it will, it will happen.
Uh, just give it enough time that that lingering trip hazard
that we're on the hook for, 'cause we've
reported it, we've got it there.
We just haven't fixed it. Right?
So I think those are all pertinent questions,
and I think we need to understand, hey,
what is the time from it being determined
to be a trip hazard to the time we fix it, that
that window is a open liability just waiting to happen.
So, um, I think it is important that we begin
to address those in a timely manner.
Again, we're talking about, you know, you know, you,
you're tripping over, you know, you know,
tripping over a hundred dollars bills to pick up nickels.
That, that makes no sense.
So I think we just need to understand what these risks are
and figure out how we going,
how we can effectively get the time down from reporting
where we're on the hook.
'cause when the lawsuit comes in,
somebody's gonna pull the 3 1 1 records on that block
and say, well, you, it is been reported,
but we haven't addressed it.
So these are those critical, uh, areas that we want
to know about so that we can address them.
Because, again, to pay two, three, $400,
$400,000 on a, on a trip that we could have fixed
for a thousand to $2,000, that, that's where, that's
where we're, we're driving at from a
risk management perspective.
And the fact that we're just trying to do the best
that we can to save money on these lawsuits down the road.
That, that's, that's what I think he's coming at.
I think that's what we're all coming at.
So it's a point of efficiency, understanding
where we are from a, um, uh, from a, a industry standpoint,
and how do we get there if we're not there,
and how do we begin to exceed those standards.
So we would like, for this information, we like
to get this back because again, as we go into
our 2026 budget cycle, we need to know
and understand what we're faced with, based upon
what the ask have been.
Uh, given our, uh, given our deficit situation,
we gotta make some decisions
and we wanna make the right decision.
But to make the right decision,
you need the right information.
And I think the things that everybody's asking
for is hopefully gonna get us to a point
where we can make an informed and educated decision.
Vice.
Just while we're on that too, I, I'll put a plugin for,
um, traffic studies in your traffic engineers.
Um, that I think that's a really, you know, clear case
of if you don't have enough traffic engineers
and you've got a pile of traffic study requests.
'cause, because I think that, from what I understand, um,
CDOT is receiving a lot more requests for traffic studies.
I know that we've submitted many of them.
Um, and because we make, uh, menu decisions, uh,
and based on the, the results of these traffic studies, um,
it behooves us to have enough traffic engineers
to go out and do those things.
So I think that's a real life, um, example of what, uh,
what we're all asking for is if you,
when one traffic engineer produces so many a month
of traffic studies, like how many does that put us
behind compared to how many we've got queued up?
So I think that's, uh, another area we definitely wanna
see information on.
Thank you.
As far as like traffic engineers
that has wanted our hardest positions to fill, we post
and post and post and get zero respondents.
Zero. And
because it's the, um, it's a, it is a, it is a niche market,
and therefore the, the outside world
or the, uh, the, the privates, they pay a lot of money
for 'em more than what, um, what we're budgeted for.
So that's why we don't get a lot
of applica applicants forward.
So we have to find another solution probably, you know,
utilizing some contracts to do some of those,
but that's one of our various, uh, one
of our hardest positions to fill.
Yeah. Um, I, I think contractors is one, like,
is there a way to leverage technology, um, potentially to,
to help, um, you know,
lessen the load on the ones that we do have?
Um, I'm just curious, you know, when you come back for,
for budget hearings, um, how do we,
how do we leverage the tools that we have
and the potential technology?
I mean, I know, you know, Google Maps is constantly
updating, you know, pictures that they have,
the road conditions, it's their way
to crowdsource some of this information.
Are there ways for us at the alderman office level
to, to help with that?
Um, many of us have, uh,
have advocacy groups within our wards
who are very interested in helping
to improve traffic safety, um, for everybody.
So, you know, if there are ways that we can contribute to
that, um, maybe we need to put a plug out for,
to send people to traffic engineering school, whatever
that degree is that you need, uh, to be able to do that.
But yeah, I understand that the scarcity
of these individuals is, is tough.
Um, and then we end up paying contractors a lot more money,
um, to take these on.
So I, I think these are all things that are relevant
to the conversation, because if it's worth it for us
to hire, you know, two more at a higher level of pay so
that we don't have to go to outside contractors, then,
you know, I think there's a, a case to be made.
But these are all the, what we're gonna be getting down
to this level of nuance,
because we, we don't want there to be, we want there to be
minimal impact to service provision as much
as we can help it, um,
with the very difficult decisions that are gonna have to come.
Yeah. Thank you.
Uh, this is a, uh, the point.
What does, if in the open market,
what does a a typical traffic study costs, if
we were to go into open market to get one for what we
as alderman traditionally asked
for from a traffic study perspective?
Uh, traffic studies, I mean, the, the scope
of it can vary from a stop sign inspection all the way up
to a, a full blown six, six point intersection study.
So far as, um, you know,
because the traffic study has
to take into account like traffic car, um, traffic counts,
pedestrian counts, how that traffic, um, moves
through the intersections.
And so it's a lot more so that, I mean, they,
they can range and price.
I mean, Vic, can you help me out with this one?
Far as price wise?
Uh, Vic Krishnamurthy, managing deputy, um,
chairman coming from that industry myself, um, $10,000
or more as the commissioner is saying.
Um, just to put it into perspective, our funding in terms
of consultant support as, uh,
vice chair mentioned is about a million dollars a year
in addition to about four, um, city staff,
which we're not necessarily able to fill.
All of those, we produce out of those resources almost, um,
600 or more traffic studies now.
We've almost tripled the volume over the last two
to three years with the emphasis on safety.
Uh, so we can crunch those numbers for you,
but it really varies on scope.
Uh, as commissioners saying, sometimes it a simple, um,
stop sign or painting,
the parking lane line could have a big impact.
Some of these traffic studies have become much more
involved, um, as we've exhausted those, um, first line
of defense if you want to call them.
But community
and wards are looking for even more enhancements.
Uh, so they do become, uh, time involved.
And then of course, um, on the public side,
there's always the community engagement component
where sometimes we'll come meet, uh,
concerned residents in the field or local school council
or principal, uh, to make sure
what we're proposing is gonna have, uh,
good buy-in and good results.
So, um, the typical
alderman ask on a traffic study is
if you, if you had to rank the top five ask of
alderman on traffic studies, what are they
Off? Um, the top
of my head, I think the, the common issues are,
are those neighborhood issues, uh, crossing the street.
So particularly arterial streets
where we don't have stoplights, we get a lot of, uh,
requests around what can we do, whether it's stop signs
or, uh, bump outs to help cross arterial streets.
The second top issue relates to, uh, schools.
Um, you know, we want to be a city, obviously,
where we encourage people, walk, bike their kids to school,
but, um, there are a lot of traffic management issues
around the pickup up and drop off of the schools.
That's, that's a, uh, uh, an issue. Speeding.
Uh, we've talked a lot in this, um,
body about speeding is another, um, top issue.
I would say those are really the, the top three we see, uh,
I see some smiling and nodding from the chamber.
Uh, it's a reflection of what our residents experience.
And, and I say that to say, um, might it, you know, might,
might it make some sense
because we are trying to be efficient.
And, uh, if it takes,
it does generally take what I believe is a long time
to get a traffic study returned.
Uh, that's, that's done.
And again, it's a, it's a resource, uh, issue.
If you're not doing, if we're not contracting this workout,
uh, might it, might it make some sense
to look at those items and potentially go out
and see if we can get, uh, better pricing if we,
we know we're gonna have a hundred stop sign requests in a,
in a given year that we go out
and procure a hundred traffic studies for a stop sign.
Or that if we're, if we're looking at speed, uh,
related issues that we go out
and procure, uh, a hundred of those types of, um, questions
that will come to you all
and, um, you know, for, for an ask so
that we can get a little more efficient with it.
And these not be one off deals that you're sending
to a particular contractor
where we can gar garner some power if somebody knows they're
gonna have a steady stream of work over the course
of a year, because we're gonna ask for a hundred of these
that we, we procure them and probably get a, a better rate.
I mean, if you're telling me it's $10,000 to, for,
for somebody to evaluate a stop sign, I mean, that's,
that's, that's a lot on a sign that we may not even put up.
You know, that, that to me is a lot.
So I'm just curious as to how we can better manage
that process while at the same time, uh, reducing, uh,
reducing overall expenses
and possibly delivering something more
efficient and more effective.
Chairman. Um, just to clarify, that's an excellent point.
And our current model, uh, picking on what, what you said,
we've tried to embed our consultants into cdot.
So they come as in-house consultants, um, to avoid
what you're saying of releasing small pieces of work
where there's a very high consultant overhead.
Uh, and then similar to the practice of, um,
bundling service requests into work orders
or things like streetlight outages, we have tried
to train these consultants into, you know, okay,
let's bundle three, four stop sign requests,
have them look at them, be efficient with their field work,
and, and they're embedded in, into the organization so
that we are, uh, reducing the amount of, um,
senior consultant time and, uh, principal time
and really getting more just straight traffic engineering
hours, uh, to maximize our return on investment
for those in fault hours.
Um, that, that sounds, uh, that, that, that sounds good.
From a, uh, a contractual side, um,
you're, and,
and you don't, I'm not asking you to answer this right now.
I would like to get a deeper analysis.
Uh, how many contracted workers
do you all have, um, that are embedded for a lack
of a better term, in the department that are
functioning in capacities that we're not able
to generally get in the open market?
I, I'll, I'll use the traffic engineers one
that it sounds like you all, we can't fill a position.
The private market is doing much better than,
than what we're able to do.
So therefore we've had to shift our, uh,
resources into the private market in
order just to get the job done.
If, if you guys could provide an analysis of, of that
and what we're doing, uh, in that respect, I mean,
we just went through this in finance
and on the accounting side where the market was just,
was our salary versus market was just not in,
in, in, in, in line.
And so therefore, we could not get quality
candidates for a position.
This may be something that we're experiencing with engineers
or other, uh, high highly technical skilled individuals.
And I think that's as fair that we would need to know, uh,
and understand, uh, what, what is happening in that respect.
So you could provide that. We appreciate it.
Ottman, manna, Howorth, if you had,
you had your hand up briefly.
Thank you, chair. I just had a point of clarification.
Did you mean to imply that a stop sign cost $10,000?
No, I didn't mean to the stop sign cost $10,000.
I'm meant the traffic study
to determine the fact they're gonna tell you
that there should not be a stop sign there is going
to cost $10,000.
Got it. So, no, it's about the traffic study.
Now some, you know, some, some members, uh, you know, live
by, by that, uh, you know, doing the, the traffic studies
and, and wanting to see that information.
So it, it's the request, but there's a cost
and a time, uh, a time value to that request.
And so, um, you know,
to get a traffic study back 8, 9, 10 months later is, is,
is not timely information that potentially, again,
we may be opening ourselves up to additional liability
'cause we are recognizing a problem that we're not fixing.
So again, all
of these things are somewhat inter interconnected
and so we need to know
and understand as we talk about, you know, figuring out ways
to be more efficient and reduce our
exposure on certain types of issues. So
You share. Okay.
Very well. Any other questions for C dive?
Alright, this is your first time you made it.
Uh, you still, your hair's still intact,
so you're, you're all good.
So, um, thank you.
And again, uh, those items, we would like to get
that stuff back as we prepare for 2026 budget
and, uh, can begin to, uh, formulating craft some things
that we know we're gonna definitely need to deal with.
So again, thank you, thank you for the work
that you all are doing, as always.
Um, one of the departments we can't live without,
so we appreciate everything that you all are doing.
We just want to help you get what you need
so you all can be successful.
'cause your success is our success. Thank you.
And we'll Ed to stand at ease, uh,
as we wait for Streets and Sanitation.
Uh, committee on budget
and Government Operations will reconvene.
We have the Department of Streets
and Sanitation, uh, with us, uh, led by, uh,
commissioner Cole Stallard.
Uh, commissioner, if you can introduce the in, uh, members
of the team that are with us in the, uh, well as well
as those that are in the box in there, proceed
with your opening statement.
Uh, it would be greatly appreciated.
All right. In in the box. Good morning everybody.
First of all, uh, in the box we got managing Deputy Tommy
Johnson over operations
Deputy Deb de Lopez Overstreet, operations
Deputy Chris Sovay, the recycling guy,
deputy Gloria Pittman, road
and Control Deputy Commissioner Michael Coco,
over traffic to the fart right of me
is first Deputy Luis Edda.
And to the right of me, proud to announce our new
managing deputy over finance.
Monica Wesley.
Thank you. Good morning.
My name's Cole Stallard for the
Department of Streets and Sanitation.
I continue to be grateful for the opportunity
to serve Mayor Brandon Johnson, the members
of the Chicago City Council
and the Chicago residents in the delivery of vital services
that keep our great city operating, including
but not limited to, sanitation, recycling,
forestry street operations, graffiti removal, road
and control, and traffic services.
Today I will share with you some
of the ways DSS has made its operations more efficient
and cost effective, while enhancing our ability
to deliver services that are vital to city operations,
quality of life, and keeping the environment safe
and equitable for all Chicagoans.
We have made great progress
with our area tree trimming program now in its third year
area, tree trimming allows Bureau of Forestry crews
to schedule and trim trees in one geographic area.
This process has proved more efficient and equitable
and allows for proper maintenance of the city's tree canopy.
Since the in inception of this program, the Bureau
of Forestry has trimmed more than 200,000 trees
in partnership with the
Chicago Department of Transportation.
We have planted a total
of 65,500 trees throughout the city.
As part of our Roots Chicago campaign, we expect
to reach our overall goal
of 75,000 planted sometime in 2026.
Additionally, streets and sand is leveraging technology
to add efficiencies to our operations.
In collaboration with the Department of Technology
and Innovation, we are developing an application
for the area trimming program that will allow users to view
and track our progress.
We're also developing a series of applications
for street operations that will allow for assigning
and monitoring crews, routes and resources in real time.
Lastly, as it relates to technology, all tow cases,
this is, I like this one.
All tow cases are processed online
and we're working to integrate this component
with the Chicago Police Department as well.
This year we acquired eight electric vans
and three new charging stations, bringing the total number
of EVs in our fleet to 52
and the total number of charging stations to 12.
The acquisition of EVs has helped us reduce our
environmental impact and lower maintenance costs.
We're proud to say that our efforts played a role in Chicago
receiving the EV Ready Gold Award in recognition
of the city's goal to electrify its fleet.
Additionally, our hybrid sweeper
and EV garbage truck were showcased at the EV readiness
community award ceremony.
We've made our quality of life operations more efficient
by opening a South side office location
with its cut down on travel time, allowing crews
to spend more time on site cleaning.
In partnership with Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago Bird Alliance,
we are conducting a pilot study
to determine if contraceptives are effective
in rodent abatement.
The piloted ongoing
and we look forward to gaining valuable data
that will inform long-term strategies
for controlling the in population.
With respect to our current fiscal considerations,
our overtime expenses are down 58% from this time last year.
We will continue to evaluate
and adjust resources as needed to ensure delivery
of the programs and services
that residents rely on us to provide.
Thanks to our partnership with UNA 10 0 1
Chicago Public Schools Department of Human Resources,
we welcome 96 youth
to the General Labor Training Program this year,
which gives participants exposure to public service
and potential full-time employment
opportunities within the city.
This aligns closely with Mayor Johnson's pillar
for youth employment, and we're grateful
to contin contribute to that initiative.
In closing, I would like
to thank all the hardworking staff at DSS
for their dedication to our mission,
our residents, and other stakeholders.
I'd also like to thank City Council
for your continued support
and we look forward to
collaborating with you in the coming year.
Thank you. Uh, thank you commissioner.
Um, just to, uh, um, open, uh, I know
that there's been a lot of conversation around, um,
recycling and, um, it's, for lack
of a better term, I'll say it's effectiveness
and what people are doing
and how people are doing it and,
and opting in there, there's been some even conversation
to say that, Hey, is this something that we need to
stop doing or fully retool in order to, uh, increase.
Can you and your team elaborate on a, what the cost
of recycling is, um,
and what, uh, for lack for, from a financial perspective,
there's a policy issue and there's a financial issue, uh,
from a financial perspective, um, the cost of it
and how are we doing from that aspect of it?
I'm gonna say that it still plays a key role.
Um, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong,
but we just broke since we started picking up recycling
a a million tons
Last year, A million tons last year.
So that's a million tons of recycling that got diverted.
Everybody has gotten including ourselves
until we did a deep dive, looked at, looked at that nine,
10% number that we, we hover on.
But as I'll always say, if you compare us to other
cities throughout the country, we can get
that number up fairly, two to 60% if we use the numbers
that they actually use.
So to answer the question, Chris, what's the budget
for, uh, recycling?
So, uh, deputy Commissioner Chris Soy,
the contracted services are about $29 million.
So, so theoretically you're, we're spending $29 million
to divert a hundred million tons of
debris outta landfills.
Is that a fair statement?
That's what we've done since the inception.
When, when Oh, okay.
Okay. Um, So again, it's, it's about 10%
of our total weight for garbage.
And I always say that we pick up everything.
If people are putting couches out there,
we're picking it up, whatever they put out there,
the department picks up.
So our number is based off of
not just food waste, not just it's based off
of us picking up everything.
So if the, so what do we,
what is it costing us per ton for recycling?
What was that cost for 2024
and what is it 2025
to date when you look at it on a per ton basis?
Look, Chris, again, Well, we, uh,
deputy Commissioner Chris Vey, we do about 80,000 tons
of recyclables collected for a year.
And as the commissioner mentioned, we get about 800,000 tons
of refuse that's collected on the, on the garbage side.
And that, that comparison at diversion percentage at the
commissioner mentions that nine 10% is,
we've always been hit with a, a low diversion percentage,
but the amount that we collect outta refuse is
just still so large.
Uh, but we are consistently getting about 80,000 tons
of recycling every year.
Okay. Now is that, is that 29 million, is that static
or is that in relation to, uh, tonnage?
Well, there's some tonnage if the recycling tonnage goes
up, we, we are paying to get rid of the recycling as well.
Right. But it is cheaper, uh, than the, the garbage.
Um, okay. But the, the contracts themselves, you know,
they run through, uh, June of 2027.
So we have a budgeted rate and,
and fixed rate for the recycling collections.
So if the amount of recycling were to increase,
the cost per ton goes down
The Yeah, the, well, if you look at it this way, alderman,
the, the amount, the more that we get people
to put into those blue carts is not gonna cost us
that much, much more money.
It's actually gonna help, uh, on avoided disposal costs.
The more you get people to recycle
and put material into that blue card,
the less we're actually gonna have
to pick up on the garbage side.
Right. So I, I guess what I'm trying to understand is
what is the differential between the cost
of traditional disposal versus the cost of
recycling, quote unquote disposal?
I'll get, I'll get you that answer. Okay. Alright.
I'll get you that answer. We'll do the math.
Okay. Um, I mean,
'cause that that does, I mean, it, it, it, it,
it does help us to understand, uh, now again,
there's a policy perspective,
but then there's the financial perspective and,
and I, I'm trying to understand, does it cost us more to
recycle or does it cost us more for traditional, um,
landfill type type stuff?
So I, that's what I'm trying to understand from a,
just purely a financial perspective.
Understood. Okay.
Alright. Um, the second, uh, the second item has been kind
of, uh, percolating is around rodent control
and, uh, you know, containerization, um,
you talked about the contraceptive,
which I thought is a very, uh, unique term
to utilize in, in pest control.
But, uh, be that as it may, what are you all doing
and what are you seeing as far as trends
and on horizon of what we can do to help control our, uh,
our, uh, rodent population?
Well, we're gonna continue to beg people to not litter,
um, not throw food scraps out, pick up after your dogs.
That's a huge contributor to this.
Our trend's a little bit going down,
and we can say that we're a little bit better in passing out
carts than we have in the past
and replacing carts with holes in the top.
But again, it starts with picking up after your dog.
As simple as that. You know, I, I say that in people.
It's really that simple, um, to, to help with that.
But we're continuing to look at things as the,
the pest control we have working with Lincoln Park Zoo,
and we also have the, uh, carbon
carbon dioxide that we're, uh, also looking at
as another tool to help this.
But it's, it's all of us together to, to make a difference.
There. We're, we're here for 'em, you know,
we're answering the complaints.
We're a little bit behind right now with our complaints
with the, the peak of summer,
but, we'll, we'll start catching up now.
Um, so we're in a, we're in a, we're in a good place.
But again, it, it takes help from the residents.
Um, speaking of, uh, road, road control, are there
certain areas of the city that tend
to generate more complaints?
And have we taken, uh, a systematic approach
to, uh, container replacement in areas where
we have significant numbers of complaints for,
uh, for rodents? Yeah.
We'll do, where we'll change out carts in a whole alley.
We call it recarding the alley. So we'll do those.
Um, the rodents are gonna generally be
where the food source is by the restaurants.
So if you have the, the restaurants that are just restaurant
after restaurant after restaurant, we ask you
to keep your grease container clean also.
Uh, they do like grease,
but, um, yeah, we, we do have, we can put up a, a heat map
of where all our complaints, uh, come in, come from,
and we can provide that to you if that would be helpful.
Uh, yes, and I,
and I guess the, the point of
the cart replacement in, in the alley, I don't know
how often, uh, we do that.
And I generally know it's based on a complaint basis.
Uh, but, uh, you know, similar to what we've done
with tree trimming, uh, maybe e exploring,
especially in these hot areas where we're continuing
to see bunches of complaints that may be driven
by non restaurants.
I mean, 'cause, you know, we understand we got some nasty
focus on places, right?
Um, trying to do, uh, containerization in that respect to,
you know, limit, um, limit the exposure on, uh,
giving them places to, uh, to, to, for, for food sources.
So, um, I don't know if it's the rats,
I don't know if it's the raccoons,
but, um, you know, to see that little two inch hole at the,
where they meet up at, uh, you know,
I don't think little kids are those, their teeth, those,
those are teeth of,
of something a little more nefarious than that.
So, uh, I think that that would be, be helpful to, I guess,
view it from that, that way.
Um, the last thing
that I'm gonna bring up right now are two other things.
Number one, uh, we talked about towing
and we talked about, uh, ways to enhance our, uh,
revenue from towing.
Uh, one to just get a sense from you
and the department, your thoughts on two things.
Number one, uh, the fees around that.
And number two, um, something that was brought to us,
I think, uh, from some of these towing, uh, outfits
that are literally holding citizens' cars for ransom, uh,
from accident tows,
and the possibility of either a streamlining that
or us as a city, uh, taking that in.
Just wanted to get your thoughts and,
and comments related to that between you
and, uh, deputy, uh, LA Coco.
Is that a, is is that a smile? Is he You
Got a smile At smile over there.
Okay. All right, thanks.
Okay. Um, first thing I'd like to say is I, I'd like
to thank the body.
Um, in regards to the curbing.
We, we pushed out the ordinance in, in March of,
of this year, March 22nd.
And in four months, we towed 425 cars.
So that was the first run at it.
Then it was going back
and working with ward superintendents, hearing alderman
hearing, there was more left on the plate for us to do.
We worked with council, we worked with Alders,
and we got it, uh, that number
from July 25th of this year to current,
we did 821 cars.
So in a shorter period of time, we almost doubled the amount
of cars that we were able to get and tow.
So I think that's the, the statement that needs
to be understood when we work together.
We do really great things for the citizens of Chicago,
and it's such a benefit for the health
and safety of others, of something just a little tweak
where we were listening to you all,
I want the others to know.
We were listening, we were listening
to the award superintendents, and we heard loud
and clear that there was an ability to make this better.
And we did. Um, another thing I'd like
to talk about is the abandoned vehicle program.
Um, we're up 2,700,
uh, 32,219 that we've actually looked at,
which is up th uh, 2,700.
So we know from sitting here and,
and listen to everybody, that there needs
to be adjustments made, um, for towing, and we're all ears.
And Le Coco, if you could, deputy Commissioner Le Coco, um,
if you can comment on the, the price, I, I, it's easy for me
to say that were one of the lowest in the country,
but I want you to hear, I I was adding years up here
and we got over 235 years
of government sitting in the boxing alongside of me
of, of experience.
So I want to take Le Coco's 30 plus years in towing
to make sure that I'm right in saying that we're one
of the lowest in the country for towing.
Mike Le Koco Traffic Services Deputy Commissioner.
Yes, we ranked probably about number 14th
or 15th in the country for towing.
We are pretty much cheaper than all major cities,
including Atlanta, including, uh, new Orleans.
Everyone. We're, we're really, really low.
It's 175, it's $150 for the tow, and $25 a day storage.
You have other places charging.
San Francisco, I think charges $297 for the tow
and another $75 for the storage fee per day.
So we are extremely, extremely low.
As far as your other question, chairman, if we could get
all of the accidents that are on the street, just impounded,
brought to the auto pound, where even the
insurance companies are all for it brought
and bring it to the auto pound, instead
of having people on the street rope towers running our,
and try to grab them, we would streamline this
as an instance where wouldn't follow up
with many people paying 5,000
for them taking their cars hostage.
And when they turn around and say, and,
and the commissioners right there with it.
He was out there on the street and heard this one time.
The guy told him, you're taking away my money.
They're getting $5,000 for these tows.
They said, what do you care the insurance
company's paying for this?
Well, sometimes that ain't the case.
Some people don't have insurance at times.
So if we could streamline it to get, most
of the cars just impounded automatically,
and these are cars, not all the vehicles,
these are just vehicles that have, or the person's injured
or the car's not drivable,
or the person goes off an ambulance to the hospital.
So we're all for it. We're all for it.
Roll up our sleeves and, and work to get that fixed.
Because as Mike said, um, I've personally been out at
accidents with the police when the road tours pull up
and, uh, said
that we have the biggest towing organization in the city.
So we're gonna bring our own here.
Um, I, i, is, is there an approximation of, of how many
of those types of tows that exist, uh,
would exist on an annual basis if we were to implement such?
Here? It, It's, we hear,
We hear 20, 30, 40, but it's 20, 30, 40, 40 news stories.
It's 2040 people that can't get their car.
It's 20, 40, 20, 30, 40 people that can't get to work.
So anything we can do,
because it's a real problem when Mike says five, 6,000,
it's a, it could be a $10,000 problem.
And they literally hold the car at these places.
Um, and then we work with Marlene, we work with BACP,
and we, we do, um, enforcement that way also.
But anything that we can do, we look forward to working
with this body to, uh, get that figured out.
Okay. But we also, we also impound ve we tow
for impounds, but we don't tow for accidents.
And those are fairly similar processes,
Mike. That's correct.
Yes. It's the, it's the same thing.
What we do for accidents is we'll show up over there
and relocate it outta the way of traffic.
That's majority of what we do right now.
If we impound them, meaning get 'em off the streets
for the people, we're really helping the people.
We're not, it's not a hurting the PE person,
so to speak, kind of thing. It's helping them.
So what would prevent us from just impo, I,
I guess if we're, if you're hooking up to a vehicle
to move it out of traffic, why not just keep going with it
and take it to the, uh, to the auto pound
and just do it that way?
'cause I mean, once you hook, you hook, right. What's
What's correct. But, but
right now, our city employees roam the streets
and, and tow cars.
We would've to use our, our private vendors.
CPD is most mostly on the scene.
They would've to write a tow case on the vehicle
and that would bring it, force it to go into the pound.
But Mike, with fairness
to this conversation, we're okay with that too?
Absolutely. We're okay with that. Absolute yes.
Okay. We're okay with that.
And you're saying these are 20, 30, 40 toll
additional tolls per day.
We're talking about people that are getting hurt by this,
where we'd have to work closely with the police department,
closely with the police department, that if they got
that call, that they'd have to do a tow case
and put that tow case right on that car.
Correct. So then now that tow that becomes us,
where you have these rogue tows that are going there,
and it's like the people that have a fire, it's those folks
that show up there that want board it up,
but their goal is to actually get the contract too,
besides board it up.
These are the same, um, same type activity.
So if the police just, and I'm, I'm making this simple,
but Mike fairness to say that if they just do that tow case,
we send ours out there, we have it,
we have all the documentation, the people know
where their car is, there's no guessing.
We have their car, they can tell their insurance, Hey,
the city got me for 200 bucks,
$175.
Like, like commissioner said.
Also, if CPD would just write the tow case on it
and chew away any, any, uh, road towers that show up there,
that could streamline it very simply, and
We're there. Okay.
Alright. Very Well. So we're saying
that's our simple solution to a big problem.
Okay. Very well. Um, alright.
No, those are some, uh, i, I guess some, uh,
burning questions that, uh, from, from the department's, uh,
perspective that sound like relatively, uh,
low hanging fruit that could, uh,
could very easily be converted in, uh, not only, uh,
bring in revenue for the city,
but also create a much better situation for our citizens,
uh, as they, you know, we've heard the 3, 4, 5, 8,
$9,000 stories on, uh, picking up a, a car from an accident.
That car might not even be worth that.
And, uh, and people are, uh, people are, people are stuck
with, uh, stuck with that activity.
So, um, any questions for street sanitation?
Anything else from Streets are sand Oh,
go ahead. Go ahead Jeremy.
Just be quick. I mean, there's, there's no,
there's no complaints.
Like I, I will say, like, I,
I really appreciate your whole team, everyone here.
What you do makes the first ward clean
and healthy and safe.
I'll give, since we're in the midyear
and we're just past it, Mike,
I gotta give you like a particular shout out for working
with us on the towing
for the Milwaukee Avenue Street Closure event.
It couldn't have been a successful
and safe event without you, Chris.
The fact that my, my daughter, no,
and we've talked about this, but I wanna talk about on the
record the fact that she's gonna grow up knowing
that food scraps don't go in the trash.
They go in a separate container to turn to compost,
and that's gonna be all she ever knows.
That feels really good to me.
And when we get to talk about the success of that program,
and we'll talk more about that in a month,
it makes me feel really good about where Chicago is going.
Um, I've got a couple, three questions I can like,
bring up offline about like, kinda like how we coordinate
with DWM and that's it's own issue.
And I know you're already aware of that.
I just wanted to say, here's what I hope
that you press us on in the next month.
We talk a lot about a budget gap currently,
but if you charge people less than what something costs,
you're gonna get a budget gap.
Like, if it cost $500 to make this phone
and you charged me a hundred dollars for it,
you are gonna have a budget gap too.
Apple would have a budget gap. And that speaks to towing.
I know it speaks to garbage.
I know we've had that conversation.
Um, push us on it, push us on it, uh,
because an honest budget is one that probably has a,
a smaller gap than we're talking about.
So that's, that's my piece.
Thank you, commissioner. Thank you Chair.
Thank you. Thank you.
Uh, thank you Tum, uh, tum Nugent. Thank
You. Uh, only
compliments from me.
Uh, and I just wanna give a particular shout out,
commissioner to you and your team.
Uh, I believe you, uh, guys removed 26 trucks full
of debris from an encampment.
Um, I think it was this week. It might've been last week.
I don't even know the days anymore.
But thank you to you and your team.
You, you handled that with grace
and a respect for the unhoused.
And I'm, I'm just very grateful
and so is my community. We appreciate
It. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind words. Thank you.
Uh, on NuGen es
Thank you chairman, uh, commissioner
and everyone in the box.
I just wanna thank you for how much work you do in the 26th.
Look, I have a lot of festivals, uh,
and a lot of big events.
I don't know if any other ethnic group
besides Puerto Ricans celebrate as much as we do.
Um, and for every parade, for every festival,
you all have shown up.
Um, you know, I have residents who tell me, I've,
I've never woken up on a Monday morning
after a weekend of festivities and look at the streets.
And it doesn't appear like there's a festival here.
Um, that speaks a great deal to the individuals
who come out on the weekend, who work, who pick up baskets,
uh, who help us clean up after the parade.
And, you know, I, I haven't thanked you
'cause it was at the end of the year last year,
but for all the work we did around our tent encampment in
Humble Park, um,
and being able to make sure that our park was safe
for our unhoused and our families was a huge deal.
And all the work that you do on division in Central Park
for the tent encampment there, uh, you know, we're,
we're awarded that still has a lot of need, um, in streets
and Sands shows up.
And Commissioner, anytime I call you, you answer.
Uh, and Luis, you know, I appreciate every time
that you answer and you're mediating
and you're troubleshooting, um, that's the type
of partnership that all electeds, uh, look forward to.
And you all have excelled.
Um, and so thank you Aton, Debbie de Lopez.
I know I bother a bit, uh,
but I appreciate how responsive you are
and the work that you put in.
And Michael La Coco, all the work that you help us take care
of on the west end of my ward.
I appreciate it. And so, um, just know that,
that I appreciate the work
and I've taken notice of,
of all the efforts that you all
put in. So thank you, commissioner.
Appreciate you. Uh, thank you Autumn, autumn
Cazada. Thank you
Chairman. I also want to, uh, commend you, uh,
commissioner and rest of the team for all the great work
that you do and help us out in the 35th Ward.
Um, I have some, uh, questions here.
Um, so I was taking a look at the midyear budget report,
and I saw that you all are at a comfortable 8.7 vacancy rate
with about 190, uh, vacant positions.
Where are those, uh, positions mainly focused in,
Uh, labor drivers.
So yeah, if you, if you look at that number
and you pull out 41 of 'em, 41 of 'em are
for other positions.
So the 140 is between drivers
and laborers, which we just had a posting
for laborers a couple weeks ago.
So DHR is working feverishly for us to get us that list.
Um, but we, uh, we just brought on some drivers
a little bit early because we started losing drivers to, uh,
water and cdot.
So we worked with the budget department
and, uh, got some a forms, um, for these critical roles
that need to be filled.
Great. I think I also saw
that there is now also a transition for some of our, uh,
garbage trucks to become electric.
Um, what is the, um, kind
of transition plan that we're looking at?
We're testing 'em, we're, we're working with, with Fleet,
with commissioner, uh, Julie Hernandez Tomlin.
We're working with their team
and reporting back, you know, we took Vans, you know,
we took vans a couple years ago, reported out,
we've taken some, uh, we, we literally have a, a sweeper,
um, that were testing out right now that's electric.
So we're in the report back phase for Fleet,
but it was, uh, it was actually recognized
in the ev uh, celebration not too long ago.
Got it. And do we have, uh, any particular goals
that we're trying to, um, meet, uh, as we're going
through this review phase?
Are we trying to have like a, is there a target goal
for like, electrifying the entire fleet by a certain date?
Is there anything of that nature?
I, I would go with, uh, commissioner from Fleet on that.
Okay. Question. Um,
because again, we're, we're reporting back,
got our findings.
Great. And then, um, I know
that we were talking a little bit earlier about,
um, cars towed.
What happens to cars that are not recovered?
Uh, what do we do with them?
How do we, you know, uh, offload that,
that stock of vehicles?
I'm gonna let Mike Coco answer that question.
Mike Le Coco Traffic Services, what happens is
after 62 days, they are sold at,
they're sold at auction round 62.
Some of 'em are 42.
It, it all depends on which
ordinance they're written up for.
There's different ordinances for it.
They're sold at auction.
Anything over $10,000 gets pulled from the auction
and sent to procurements to be sold through the city.
Otherwise, the other ones are sold through our vendor.
Oh, interesting. I didn't know about that.
What kind of a revenue do we generate from that yearly
Last year? I do believe
we got, I think it was like $2.7 million
back for sold vehicles.
Wow.
Great. Um, okay. I'm all good. Thank you, commissioner.
Thank you. Thank you. Uh, thank you Alderman.
Uh, just to wrap on a wrap up in the, uh, couple of points,
um, we talked about, um,
the targets that, um,
budget is asking you all to meet, uh, what impact,
uh, to the extent you can quantify it, will
that have on delivery of services from the department?
So I use a case in point, alright, if, if these
reductions are implemented, uh, it it takes five days
to get a garbage cart, does that go to seven days?
What types of, of changes in service
delivery do you think would occur
if the reductions at the three to 5% range were to occur?
Uh, given no additional resources for the department,
It's gonna affect us.
We're looking at ways to see if we could
get funding or parts of our operation,
possibly going to another department
that maybe receives grants to help offset some of the costs.
I'm gonna say as a department, we run very lean
of an operation of this size.
Um, and that's where I, I, I love to work with this council
to see what your appetite is, um, to see where
we need to land because the neighborhoods are so different
and everybody has different needs.
I know weed cutting, for example, affects 25
of the 50 wards, 25 of the 50 wards.
We, we worked with aviation over the summer with quality
of life and we bought three riding lawnmowers to try
to assist in areas up north where they don't need
that big equipment on some parkways on the west side,
we worked with aviation to learn how to and, and 10 0 1
and those members will learn how to ride those things.
Um, but it's just one example of we, we've,
we've gotten people accustomed to a level of service
and the costs are going up.
And so is it, are you looking, is the body looking for us
to cut our way to
or to kill service, you know, cut, cut service? Well,
No, I don't, I don't think, uh, well
inversely we may be stating that,
but I, I think in some respects there,
there's not a true understanding of how
the expense reductions impact
you all's level of service.
And that's why I'm asking the question of, hey,
if we implement this cut, you know,
it's gonna take me now another three days to get
that garbage card out because I only can deliver
so many cards given the resources that I have,
or it's gonna take me this much longer to answer
that rodent control complaint.
'cause I only have, I had eight crews, now I have six crews.
Right? These are the types of questions I think we need
to understand
what the direct impact is on your delivery based upon not
what, you know, based upon what budget is asking you to do.
So again, I I understand
that you guys have a confine in the
framework that you have to work with.
I just think it's incumbent upon us to understand
what those impacts of what is being asked for based on our,
our, based on our revenue constraints we're looking at.
And, and again, it's, it's only in
and as all of us, we just need to walk into this
with our eyes open saying, Hey, this is what it is.
And our residents, everybody needs to understand
these are the trade offs in certain decisions
that are going to be made.
And, and that's what I think it's, we have
to understand from a fiscal perspective.
And again, that's why even from a financial perspective
versus a policy perspective,
because one might say, why don't we get rid of recycling?
Right? And just say, Hey, let's just throw it all in in the,
in the, in the landfill and we'll save $29 million.
I mean, these are real conversations.
Uh, and again, that's why I think it's understand we need
to understand what these differences
and what these trade-offs look like
from a pure financial perspective, not a policy aspect.
We, we will have to reconcile.
But I just think we need to know
what those differences will create
and what they, what they look like.
That's all.
You looking for the answer now? Or can I say we're
I I, if you have the answer now, I'll take it.
I, I do want, we do want something that's, that we,
we can, we know
that you all based on your estimations what that looks like.
And it, and it's again, I mean I can't hold you to exactly
that, but again, I think it's clear that we understand
that we can't expect you to do the same thing with
six crews that you're doing with eight crews
and without either a, is there an efficiency
that you come across or,
or b uh, you know, either that
or folks just weren't operating up to full speed, right?
So these are, you know, these are all interdependent types
of things, but from a perspective that we're sitting, um,
we need to understand so that we don't make, do something
that has unintended consequences.
Um, and then in February we're sitting up here twiddling our
thumbs like, dude, I didn't know
that that's what that meant.
I, I think we need to walk into
this situation with our eyes open.
And the only way we're gonna get there is
that we have the information to say
what service delivery will change based upon the level
of expenditure reductions that the Department
of Budget is asking you all to do.
I I can say for example, we heard budget loud and clear
and we cut 114,000 hours
of overtime from the difference of this year and last year.
And I say that the 114,000 didn't include, I wanted
that number before the DNC
because I didn't want that to get challenged of,
well you had the DNC last year,
but we've heard, we've heard it loud and clear.
We're still trying to stay to a level of, of, uh, service
that people have come to expect from the department.
Um, I've talked about increase of fees, you know,
the towing fee is, is is there, the, the cart fee
that Alderman LaSpada brought up, um, is something
that definitely we talk about.
It's just getting an understanding from
the, the, the group.
Um, for example, if I were to say, um,
weed cutting, you know, we go down to cutting from
Memorial Day to Labor Day.
'cause that's what we used to do before
and we just used to cut
and the budget was about $700,000.
But they didn't pick up anything. They didn't trim nothing.
They didn't pick up no garbage.
And you got about cuts literally from Memorial Day
to Labor Day and anything before that was, it is what it is.
Anything after that, and again, the budget was $700,000.
We're at 3.8 million right now for weed cutting.
So there's, I know dollars are different today, I get that,
but there's $3 million there.
But does anybody have the appetite for that?
You know, that contributes to the areas that we're trying
to uplift.
So it's, we,
before I took this job,
we had 14 tree trimming crews out there.
Took you three years to get a tree trimmed.
We're almost at the three year point right now.
So I'm like, Hey, let's get just bear with us
because what we did before I walked into this door,
we only had 14 crews
and it took about three years to get a tree trim.
We're almost, we're gonna be able to get our,
our whole city done in the six years.
Like we've, we've talked about.
But again, does anybody have the appetite for us to cut
what we're doing in forestry?
So it's just getting an understanding of
what the appetite is
because I feel we deliver key services to the health,
safety and the benefit of everybody here.
Snow by bring up snow.
When I was a kid, they didn't do inside streets.
We hung on the back of a 78 Cadillac
and skied down the road.
We didn't do inside streets.
Everybody got out there with their shovels.
And the one person that had the snowblower,
you begged them to come down by you
to help you out get the street.
'cause you had to shovel your old man out
so he can get his car out of the thing.
And so what's the appetite of that?
So it's me understanding
and the department understanding the,
the blocking people bring up, the blocking for the parades
and the events that all comes out
of the corporate fund out of our budget.
The weather, people don't wanna hear, oh, we cut our budget
for, for forestry when they got trees on their house or in.
So there's so many questions that I look forward to engaging
with everybody on to make the best possible decision
for the department and for the city.
So, so speaking of those points specifically, if we were
to not do insides
on snow events, um, less than five inches,
what does that mean?
Right? So what type of, of, of savings, uh, does that, does
that generate right?
Again, I mean we, we go inside.
When we go outside, we generally go inside, right?
So now, now mind you, um, these are,
these are real questions and I,
and I think that, um, there may be, for lack
of a better term, a menu of options to say, Hey, we do this,
but we don't do that.
Um, I think that it's, it's, it is difficult to tell you all
to, hey, call you all and, and,
and say, Hey, keep doing, going, going,
but the resource pool keeps getting less and less and less.
So I, I, I would have to say that there needs
to be some agreement on what you all do
and what you don't do.
So that, again, we walk into this with our eyes open saying,
Hey, we're, we're going to not, you know,
do insides if it's three inches or less,
or we're not going to do, um, you know, certain types
of things at, at certain points.
So, uh, you know, and, and I,
and I get it, we, we can't again, expect you all to deliver,
continuously deliver the same level
of service in a dwindling resource environment.
It's just impossible. It's not fair to you.
It's not fair to anybody.
So that's why I think it's important for us to understand,
uh, how you all will have to manage
and what you all will have to, you know, do in order
to meet your targets that you've been asked to meet, uh,
by the, uh, by the budget department.
So again, uh, it, it is what it is.
So if it's, you know,
the tree trimming you all on a six year spin,
now it goes to seven or eight years.
These are, these are real consequences to actions
that are being, uh, that are, that are being made.
So again, if, if you all could just kinda lay out some
of these differences as to, you know, how, how those will,
how those impacts will occur.
I think for us, we have to make decisions.
Do we live with the impact that you all are saying?
Or do we figure out additional resources so
that those impacts do not come to fruition?
And I think that's the exercise that we're asking all
of the departments that are,
are service delivery departments to, uh, to look at and do.
So that we walk into this, uh, again, with our,
with our eyes, with our eyes open.
So, uh, chairman Dow,
Hey chairman, I feel like the five heartbeats over here.
What do I got to prove?
What do I have to do to prove my question?
My apologies. Shoot me a text.
No problem. Um, hi commissioner.
Uh, just a question on, uh, you know,
we're in this fiscal,
we have these fiscal constraints, constraints.
What are these cameras that are supposed
to catch fly dumping useful?
And are we recouping any dollars
from the use of those cameras?
That's one. And I guess the second one is a similar
question in the same vein, when we have contractors
that damage property or damage cars, and they come
after us, the person comes
after us to, uh, pay that claim, do we go back
and recoup from the contractor
that did the damage in the first place?
Right. And do you know how much we're making from that?
All right. To, I'll answer your first question
and then I'm gonna throw the second one to Le Coco.
Um, uh, the cameras, they're outdated.
We have to, um, we have to go
through contract and procurement for the cameras.
Totally outdated. Do I think it's a, a valuable resource?
Yes. Um, is it something that I wanna see us do more of?
Yes. These are all, um, bad actors.
We continue to do, seems like I've been saying this
for 20 years, but we continue
to do 5,000 high lift jobs a year.
It just doesn't go down.
It does not go down. Okay. That was my question.
Is the trend No. What we see in a decrease now?
No. So we're working, we're working with counsel right now
and law department to discourage
fly dumping, um, with some hefty fines
and working with the police department
to definitely make this better.
As I was saying earlier, the work with this body,
with the towing has seen much better results.
Um, so now we're, right now we're,
we're continuing on the towing front,
but we're also working with Ray Santos, Phillips
Law Department, the alderman, in regards to
fly dumping fines.
Um, that's, that's coming up real close. And then as far as,
Let me, let me, let me add something to that question for,
uh, areas where there might be TIF districts.
I mean, I'd be willing to work with you if you have, uh,
fly dumping, uh, areas within
particular tip districts that I oversee.
Um, and those cameras are update outdated.
I, I certainly think that should be a cost
that the taxpayers in my ward would, would want to assume if
that would keep the fly dumping down.
Thank you for that consideration. I appreciate that one.
All right. Uh, I'm gonna let, as far as vendors, um,
we're not really vendor heavy,
but as far as accidents, I would say it would mostly happen
as far as damaging something in Le Coco shop with a, a tow
where it may fall off the stinger or something like that.
So, Le Coco, can you answer Alman Dow's question if
you have that information?
If not, alderman Chairman will get it through the,
uh, we will get it through the chair.
No problem. Go ahead, Mike. How you doing Alderman?
Mike Laco, all vendor accidents are handled
through the vendor, so they submit a claim for 'em.
The city does not pay for vendor accidents if it's their
city accidents, all city accidents.
If it's, uh, if it's an accident through a CI
through the city tow trucks, we look at all them accidents.
But as far as the vendor accidents, they are submitted
to the vendor and the vendor base for them.
Okay. Thank you for that.
Do you have a number on what
we're collecting from that?
I'm just curious versus, uh, what we're paying out.
We don't pay out anything for us.
No, no, no. I understand. We don't pay out.
Um, I'm looking for what they pay out.
If you have that number through the chair. Thank you. I,
I do not. Okay. Thank you.
All right. Um, and then lastly, uh, commissioner,
do you see any changes to your graffiti, um,
department division
and, uh,
are you getting any help from Metro?
Uh, IO uh,
in these other agencies that
have graffiti on their property
and they just don't deal with it?
Um, But you do,
Graffiti is, again, a number that
will be within 3% of
what it was the, the year.
Um, we do see it in other areas now popping up
that we haven't seen in the past.
Um, we do work with, uh,
our friends on the expressway as far as telling them.
Um, we have Gia BGI over there as the secretary
that we work with, and hopefully everybody is seeing
the, the expressways getting a little cleaner.
Um, I do see they have equipment out there now.
They have New Street sweepers out there now.
We are seeing cleanup crews out there.
Um, so I will say there's a positive, uh,
impact there on the expressways.
Deb De Lopez, the Deputy Overstreet Ops, um,
she has good working relationships.
Um, do they get it down as fast as we do?
No, Definitely. No.
Um, we try to get it down within three days.
Um, but Deb will continue to be our liaison and,
and try to work with those entities.
And if you have a particular area of concern, um,
let us know and we'll, we'll work with them.
Thank you, commissioner. And I also wanna thank Deb there
and also, uh, Yvette Nieve.
Um, Gloria, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Uh, chair. Chair.
Do, um, just as a, uh, just as a follow up, I,
I do think that, um, um, the work that the department does,
especially, uh, I want to, uh, thank, um,
deputy commissioner, uh, Debbie, uh, the Lopez.
Uh, I'm sure she, uh, hates to hear my pings at, um,
after hours, uh, fly dumps and,
and the like that, uh, come through.
But, uh, we know that this department delivers, uh,
an extraordinary amount of service
and a service that is probably one of the most frontline
of services that, uh, our offices
and our constituents, uh, call and work with us, uh, for.
And, and again, the department continues to rise, uh,
to the, to the occasion of, of everything that's going on.
So I just wanna thank each member, uh, of your team for,
for their delivery of, of, of,
you know, of, of everything.
Um, you know, we, like I said, we, we call you guys for,
for any missed number of, of services and challenges.
And again, and also the, um, the QOL teams, uh, that I know
that, uh, that the managing deputy, uh,
Tommy Johnson has put in place has also been helpful.
And just, you know, streamlining, streamlining that delivery
of service, uh, to some things
that we traditionally did not do.
But again, those quality of life issues have been
a lifesaver for many people.
And people really appreciate the services
that you're, that you're doing.
And I pray that that's not one of the things that,
that ends up on the cutting room floor is, I know we have
to prioritize, uh, what we have to do.
Uh, but these are the types of things that we need to know
and understand that we are supporting
and our endeavors here in, in the council
to provide those resources to make those happen.
So, any other questions?
Chairman? I'm sorry I
didn't see you in the corner over there.
You're hiding over there. Go ahead, alderman Robinson.
Hard to, hi. Hide in the fishbowl.
Uh, chairman, uh, thank you very much.
Uh, commissioner, um, I just want to,
um, thank you for, um,
your responsiveness
and more particularly, uh, for, um,
as the chairman mentioned, uh, Deb, um, has been,
uh, particularly for a freshman alderman, um,
been very helpful with all the different things
that we're trying to tackle in the ward.
And to have somebody that, uh, is responsive, um, is, is,
um, really helpful as an alderman.
So I wanna thank you for that.
Uh, the question I have for you is, you
and I have several conversations about, um,
the vacant lots across the city of Chicago.
Um, do we have the resources,
and even in this time of budget constraints, commissioner,
do we have the resources to be able to do what we need to do
to make sure that we are cutting, uh,
these vacant lots across the city of Chicago?
Um, we know that, uh, these lots cause problems.
Um, public safety issues, uh, rodent issues.
Are we putting enough resources in that category,
commissioner, to allow you
and your team to do what they need to do
to cut the city on lots?
We're talking midterm this year.
Everything this body gave us last year,
this mayor gave us this budget department gave us
the Department of Streets And Sanitation has zero excuses
for nothing getting done.
If a ward superintendent gives you an excuse,
it's not an acceptable answer.
We have the resources we've been given by this body,
the resources that we need to do our job.
As I said earlier, we got 235 years
of experience in that box.
And sitting up here, if you talk to Tommy Johnson,
who has over 30 years in his department who started
as a truck driver, he'll tell you
that this department has never been stronger manpower wise
in regards to delivering service for the people.
So there's no reason you gave us $3.8 million to cut
and clean and trim lots.
If there's an area of concern that needs to be addressed,
we just need to address it.
Commissioner, We have the resources
for this year. We have the resources.
Thank you, commissioner.
Thank you. Uh, alderman.
Um, Robinson, any other questions for the department?
Okay. Alright. Well, he, he hemmed you up already.
Okay. Alright. Nothing. Um, no, it is, it is good.
Uh, again, just, uh, thank you all for, uh,
joining with us today.
Uh, we definitely, uh, look forward
to seeing you in the fall.
And again, uh, our goal today is really just
to get some clarity and understanding of what some
of these resource constraints are, uh,
what their impacts would be, uh, should there be reductions,
uh, so that we all can walk into, uh, 2026, knowing
and understanding what needed to occur.
Again, we thank the department, the teams, uh, our people
for delivering, uh, great service.
And again, thank you to you
and your team for joining with us today.
Uh, with that being said, committee will stand in, uh,
stand, stand in recess till 1240.
1240. We'll be back.
Okay, Once.
Good afternoon. Uh, the committee on the budget
and government operations return back to order, uh, like to,
uh, recognize Alderman Chico, who has, uh, joined us.
He's a non-member, but is, uh, joined, uh, today, as well
as, uh, Alder person Clay, uh, is, uh,
with us as well.
Um, I think we've got everybody else that was, uh,
with us today as far as the attendance is concerned.
Um, we have
before us now, the Department of Buildings, uh, represented,
uh, here by commissioner uh, Marlene Hopkins.
If you could introduce the members of your team that are
with you today, and then, uh, begin
with your opening statement.
Thank you. Chairman Irvin. Today with me is John Scott.
First Deputy Commissioner, department of Buildings.
Carl by Deputy Commissioner of Technical Inspections,
Hal Hutchinson, deputy Commissioner of Permitting
and Nefa Hyatt Brown,
the department's Public Information Officer.
Good afternoon Chairman Irving, vice Chair Lee,
and all members of the council.
Thank you for the opportunity
to present our midyear progress.
I want to begin by recognizing the incredible team at
the Department of Buildings.
The work of our dedicated teams enables us
to continuously improve the delivery
of our core responsibilities
and conduct the inspections that our communities depend upon
at the mid-year Mark,
DOB has remained focused on displaying fiscal responsibility
and operational progress using only 31%
of our $39 million budget.
We are, we have been hard at work issuing 21,432
building permits, completing six over 64,000 inspections,
and responding to
23,000
three hundred and twenty two three one one service requests.
We have accomplished this while also generating
over $27.4 million in revenue through licensing, permitting,
and certifications.
We know efficiencies are top of the mind this budget season,
and we have continued advancing our Moderna modernization
efforts through technological and code improvements.
Our ongoing transition from Hanson seven to IPS 11
includes successfully upgrading the project docs
electronic plan review system, reducing processing time
through cross-departmental access
and collaboration with the Department of Planning
and Development and Mayor's office of people
with disabilities and real-time user application tracking.
We've also streamlined operations
by eliminating unnecessary permit review rounds,
conducting 396 mediation meetings,
resulting in the elimination of 273 review rounds.
To further strengthen our operational capacity,
we've tackled staffing challenges head on reducing vacancies
by half since 2023.
By filling 15 of our 29 inspector vacancies
during the first half of 2025, the staff improved.
Staffing enables us to better serve residents
and maintain our inspection standards.
The Department of Buildings is working closely across
department to support economic development across the city,
and we are proud of our collaboration with the Department
of Housing and Department of Law
to revitalize our neighborhoods using
existing infrastructure through the forfeiture program.
In closing, the safety of our neighbors,
especially our most vulnerable, remains our top priority.
And we look forward to your continued partnership in our
work to enhance the quality of life
for all Chicagoans. Thank you.
Thank you, commissioner. Um, as, uh, as has been asked
of every department here, uh, that's come
before the committee, during the midyear budget hearings,
uh, what, uh, I know the targets
that we've heard from Department
of Budget have been three to 5%.
And what would that do to your, uh, ability
to deliver service and to the extent possible?
Uh, talk about what, uh, for example, if it takes
two days to get out on a specific type of call
with these changes that are being proposed, does that take
to three days, four days?
Um, I don't, I did, I know we called the departments
and try to try to figure out a top 10 service request
that we as members of council bring to the departments.
And what impact would that have on your ability
from a time perspective
or just from a point that, Hey,
we just can't do this anymore
because the resources are being, uh, being cut from us.
So, fortunately for the Department of Buildings,
any reductions would not impact our ability to be responsive
to any of the requests.
Um, whether it's through 3 1 1 permit inspections
or licensing re-inspections, um, any cuts that are, um,
the department has to make will be on our non personnel side
as we remain committed to ensuring
that we are being responsive to the residents.
So what, uh, the re the reductions that you would make,
even though they're on the non personnel side, what, where,
where would those, uh, ultimately come from?
So it, it would come from our overtime budget.
It would potentially come from our, um,
contract budget predominantly.
Those would be the two areas.
Um, so using overtime as an example, what, what type
of service do you provide on overtime
that you would no longer be able to do under this,
uh, constraint?
So, fortunately because we were successful in filling a
number of our vacant positions this year, the
any proposed reductions in costs
to overtime really would not, um,
hamper our emergency response is based on responding to
fires, um, cars into buildings, building failures,
structure failures on a building such
as a rear porch or masonry.
So these would still be, um, responses that we would have
to time emergencies we would have to respond to,
but the overall cut in the funding would not impact our
ability to continue to be responsive.
Okay. That's, this is a first. Okay. All right.
Um, uh, I'll, uh, I, I, I won't,
won't belabor that then.
Any questions for the Department of Buildings Vice chair?
Hello, commissioner, how are you?
Um, thanks for being here today, um, and for all that you
and your team do.
I know my office calls you a lot. Sorry.
Um, and I,
and I missed the beginning part
of here, uh, in your statement.
I'm just reading back through here.
Um, you've reduced vacancies
by half since 2023, um,
by filling 15 of your 29 inspector vacancies
through the first half of 2025.
So we're still, are we down 14 inspectors currently?
Is that how I read that?
That is correct, but we had seven retirements this year.
Oh yeah. So,
Okay.
Um, and are those part of the, are you subject
to the hiring freeze with these positions?
So we, um, have been following the hiring plan
that we put together for 2025 uhhuh.
And so the vacancies that are existing now, um,
we don't have any more relevant pools
or preferred candidate pools, so we'll have
to repost those positions. Okay.
But you are able to hire for them? You can, you can
Posted them, we're able to work with budget. Yeah.
So you get about half the inspectors that,
that you would like to have?
Well, just those positions that are,
are now, you know, remaining vacant.
But we were successful this year in filling, um,
our plumbing inspector vacancies, which we were carrying
for a number of years.
And we were successful in Bring Onboarding six.
And so that was huge for us
because that was one of the areas
where we had a tremendous backlog in responding
to 3 1 1 complaints.
And through onboarding those resources, we were able
to get our 3 1 1 backlog reduced.
Right. Can you talk a little bit about, I know, um,
with the mayor's cut the tape initiative, um, there a lot of
that was within your department.
Can you talk a little bit about how that's been going
and if there are more opportunities, you know, just sort
of moving forward to streamline things to, you know, um,
cut the tape even further
or to, uh, create opportunities for, um, you know,
we just hear from folks a lot about
how long permitting takes
and like what some of the delays are.
I know you've got a big technology project going on
as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure. So through cut the tape, one of the, um, highlights
that I like to, um,
speak on is the mediation meeting process
that was implemented, um, last year
by first Deputy John Scott.
So after the initial round of review for most projects,
if the architect is struggling
and not able to, um, respond
to the corrections in a timely manner, we have reduced, um,
second and third round of reviews by 273 reviews
by conducting 396 mediation meetings.
So the mediation meeting is an opportunity for John Hal,
um, Aldo Alvarez
and the design professional and even the owner.
We invite the owner to participate so that they're able
to hear what the actual delays are that are contributing
to their permit not being issued.
And it's often very informative
because it enables that owner to see
that the issues not on the city side, that is truly lies
with the, their design professional.
So that is definitely one of the things.
Um, another interesting, um, thing that we are seeing is
that our self cert projects are almost level set
with our standard plan reviews.
So more design professionals are actually taking advantage
of self cert, and that too reduces the time to permit
and streamlines it because it eliminates the reviews
conducted by the department.
The architect is certified to do the project as a self cert,
so he or she is certifying that
that project is in compliance with the code
and that reduces the time to permit.
So those are some of the highlights.
In addition, we're working very closely with Water
and the Department of Transportation Mayor's Office
for people with disabilities as well as DPD.
'cause they do the zoning reviews. Right.
So if we are finding projects that are kind of caught in
between, um, the Review Pro, you know,
caught within the review process, we're able
to pick up the phone or walk down the hall
and have those conversations.
So we work very, very closely together with our partners.
And that collaboration definitely, uh, contributes
to cutting the tape as well as reducing the time to permit.
Is, is there, um, like a technology
that walks everybody's, or that tracks like a single source?
Like where, where my project is
with in all the reviews? There
Is, yeah. Yes. So
on our website, there is a tool that as long
as the applicant or your office myself have access
to the application number, when you input it, the,
there is a link to generate the project docs report.
And it actually gives you down to the second
where the project is who, how long it's been
with the architect, how long it's with me, how long it's
with each of my reviewers, how long it's with planning.
You're able to see all of that that
Long. That's with their, your own
Architect, that one.
Yes. And a lot of times when people contact us, I do forward
that to them and highlight
it so that they're able to see it. Right.
Okay. Great. Um, that's all I've got right now.
Thank you, chair. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you.
Thank you. Uh, vice chair, um, alderman, um, Vasquez.
Thank you so much, chairman. Alright,
thank you commissioner.
Uh, as well, um, I had a through the chair question,
which I asked a lot of the other departments.
So, um, related to any FO year requests
that you might have gotten, what we're trying to track is
how many hours, how much staffing go to addressing FOIA
to see if it might make more sense to centralize it
as opposed to having each department take care of it
as a way of find savings.
So through the chair, any time that related
to any FOIA requests, uh, you can share
that information I'd appreciate.
So Alderman, we have, um,
processed over 6,000 FOIA requests this year,
and we have one dedicated resource
that is responding to those requests.
So one FTE, Can you repeat
that, alderman? Sorry.
Yeah. One full-timer when you're saying one resource, yes.
You have one person that does it all. Okay. Yeah,
That is correct. Um,
yeah, if you could send like, kind of that line item
through the chair, that's fine.
Just to kind of, kind of see what
the salary is, that kind of stuff.
Uh, like I said, we're trying to compile it across all the
departments to get a sense.
Um, the next question I had was related to you
and I had a conversation related to like, um,
kind of like there's been conversation about either a
rental, uh, building registry or a landlord license
and kind of having some way for us when we need
to find the landlords to be able to have that kind of, um,
system, but also as a way to be able to have a license
for landlords that are doing things properly
and holding accountable and otherwise that aren't in a way
that might be helpful when it comes to investigations.
And so, just wanted to get your thoughts on that,
or anything that could be developed of the sort,
if there's ways that there might be savings
or opportunities there.
Just wanted to get kind of what your thoughts on it so far.
Okay. So as you know,
the department has really been focused on the, um,
transition of our antiquated permitting system from Hanson
seven into IPS 11.
And so we're making very good progress with
that integration and the planning.
In addition, I've been in communications
with Commissioner Castaneda in the Department of Housing,
and we've actually started having discussions around
the creation of the rental registration license.
Um, because both of our departments realize
that it is definitely, um, some info it's information
that's needed and it would be beneficial for both sides
of our, um, department.
So we are starting those conversations
and I'm looking forward to working with her
in 2026 on actually, um, going live
with something hopefully.
Okay. If there's something that,
where even a position might be needed for something like
that, please let us know.
I think the investment on the front end might help in the
long run for savings as well as violation collection.
Right. So just wanted to make sure we, we can, um, optimize
that as best as possible.
I guess, uh, the last thing I have, if you're able to, is
do you all have tracking or heat map on like investigations
and where they're happening citywide to kind of see
where there's been focus and where more focus could be,
if it's something you could break up regionally depending on
just how to maximize the app, um, follow through,
We would be able to run a report out
of our system to Okay.
To provide you with that information.
Okay. Yeah. I, I appreciate that. Um, as well.
It kind of would help us out to see what part in
that whole puzzle we play.
So, um, yeah. Thank you.
You've been amazing in my experience
and every time I've needed to reach out.
We've had incidents in the award where, um,
I just really wanna thank you for the work that you're doing
and like, if there's things that you feel
we should be advocating for keeping top of mind,
please make sure you let us know
as we're heading into budget season.
So thank you very much, commissioner. And that's all I have.
Uh, chairman.
Thank you, alderman. Thank you.
Um, alderman, uh, Vasquez, um,
recognize, uh, alderman, uh, Napolitano
for the purposes of quorum.
Um, any, any other ALS
or questions for the Department of Buildings?
T sdo?
Thank you, chairman. Uh, not really a question.
More of a statement. Uh,
good afternoon, commissioner and staff.
Uh, I just, I just really feel you can use more help.
I know with the real budget coming up,
I think you should ask for a little bit more
'cause your, your inspectors are very important to us, um,
to generate revenue, to keep the ball moving
and make people wanna do business with us.
So sometimes people get frustrated.
I know, I mean, I know you, you, I'm sure you hear it.
I'm sure your, your people hear it.
And it's not out of lack of not responding.
You just, if, if you, if you need 20 people
and you have 10, you, you can only do so much.
So I'm just a suggestion to you to maybe think about asking
for some more inspectors at this next budget hearing.
I think they'd be well worth it.
I think it's money that technically we could say they,
their revenue generator.
So, but with that, that's just the statement.
Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you.
Thank you. Um, thank you Alderman.
Uh, go ahead.
I'm, I'm sorry, commissioner, you, you mentioned about,
um, FOIA request.
Yes. So as you said, 6,000, which is pretty, I, I'm,
I'm suspecting there's a guy from the northwest side you
probably got 3000 of them from, so we refer to him
as crazy Pete, I'm sure you, you get him quite often,
but, so you only have one person on that.
So, I mean, is it that, is it,
is it a team takes care of that?
I mean, I know some departments say they get overwhelmed
with FOIA requests mainly from this one individual.
So I mean, just one person handles
everything, or you have a team on that?
No, it's one person, but most of our records,
as you know, are electronic.
And actually this any, they, it could be found online.
So we are really just PD fing the information
that's in our system and sending it back out, you know,
um, electronically. Okay.
All right. Thank you. Thank you again, German.
No problem. Okay. Um, one question.
Um, I'm gonna come to you.
Um, that's come up,
and this is a more of a operational issue
around routine inspections.
Um, I, I know that we are primarily,
um, complaint driven.
Uh, other municipalities have a cadence
of inspections for buildings.
It may be once a year or every other year,
or for certain activities, for example, a rental inspection
or some other types of inspections.
Um, if we were to go to a system whereby we had,
uh, routine inspections for, let's say, buildings over
for units or buildings that were, uh, rented out, uh, for,
uh, individuals, number one, what type of resources would
that take for us to, to do?
And I know many, um, many cities charge a fee for that
as well to kinda offset that.
But is, is that something that from a,
just from an operational perspective,
you think would have a significant impact on
a building safety or b or,
or what, what are, what are your
thoughts professionally on that?
So the building code does mandate that the Department
of Buildings performs periodic inspections on
existing buildings, um, that are mixed use
or that are more than three stories.
We also have a periodic requirement
or periodic inspection requirements
for mechanical systems, elevator systems.
We also, um, have a annual inspection requirement
for restaurants
or establishments that are licensed public places
of assembly or public places of abusement.
So currently, as you stated, we are complaint driven.
So what our occupied buildings,
when we receive a 3 1 1 request, if that building is part
of the periodic universe,
we perform the periodic inspection at that same time.
So putting it into a cadence of a three
or four year cycle is definitely something
that we could definitely look at doing.
It would, I would have to do a little bit of an analysis
to determine how many additional resources would be needed
for the building inspectors to be able
to do that successfully.
The same as with our, um, ventilation, our,
and our refrigeration inspectors that would have
to look at their cadence because during heat season,
the ventilation inspectors
and the building inspectors are focusing on
that and responding.
And then during our cooling season,
our refrigeration inspectors are focused,
so then they're not able to focus on
doing a periodic inspection.
So I could definitely do some further analysis
to see what that would look like. Okay.
On city.
Thank you Chairman. Uh, thank you commissioner.
Um, when we talk about, um, building inspectors,
and it says here that, uh, you filled 15 of the 29,
is it accurate to say
that building inspectors are revenue generating positions?
It is fair to say that they are,
their first focus is life safety and public safety.
And through the periodic inspections,
there would be the ability to generate revenue.
It's important to note that any inspections
where there's a fee associated, we can bill for it,
but it would only be it through the collections process.
So not everyone is gonna pay the bill
in the timeliest manner.
So then it has to go out for cost recovery
or collections to collect those fees.
And when we talk about building inspectors, uh,
you had mentioned you've had several retire.
What is the average age of our building inspectors?
Do we have that?
So I can provide that through the chair,
but what I will say is that through our hiring,
we've been able to onboard a lot of the more younger talent.
And a lot of those of us that are in that season,
mid fifties, early sixties, they are the ones
that are un the ones
that are retiring at this point in time. Sure.
Um, I don't have anything else other than to say that, uh,
having worked with you
for almost 15 years now in various capacities, um,
you do a wonderful job.
You have a dedicated team
that's extremely responsive to my staff.
And, uh, we've been through a lot together.
Just appreciate, uh, all your hard work and your compassion.
Um, look forward to work
with you moving forward. Thanks, chair.
Thank you. Thank you.
Uh, Ottman, any other items for the, uh,
department of
buildings? Uh, Ottman Mitchell.
Thanks, chair. Um, I wasn't, I talk to talk
to your team all the time, including you,
but I have wanted to bring up something,
'cause I heard back to back about this revenue generating
that the investor and the inspectors are being a revenue
generating position.
I don't want us to lose sight on
the focus just on revenue generation, even though I know,
you know, what we're up against with the budget.
But with a lot of the issues that wards like mine,
um, experience with buildings, um, this is a quality
of life issue as well.
So I don't want us getting caught up on, you know,
'cause I know around budget time, we seek to say, okay,
if this says not a revenue generator,
then it might be something we might cut.
But I wanna make sure, you know, you guys are up there
with streets and sanitation, you know, when it comes
to certain respects, uh, about the quality of life of, uh,
of our, of our neighborhoods.
Um, you know, a building
that's causing the dilapidated or,
or, you know, not up the code or,
or not in line with the character
of the neighborhood sitting on a block, uh, with
15 senior homeowners.
That is a source of tension for those homeowners.
And that is stuff that, that, that,
and I have those almost on every block.
Um, so that's something that I wanna make sure we not only,
you know, just focus on, oh, it's a revenue generator and,
and we look at it in that context,
but it's also has to deal with upholding the quality of life
that we want in our neighborhoods.
And, um, you know, it firsthand, you've been out there,
John, we, we been to many houses together,
but I just wanted to put that on the record.
And, um, you know, I'll have more conversations
with you guys off the record, which I always do.
And, um, look forward to continue to working with you.
You guys got a great staff and,
and, um, you know, again, I look forward
to this department in particular evolving a lot more
because the landscape of our neighborhoods with respect
to properties have changed.
And I, I, I, I know we could get stuck,
and I'm not saying this about you, commissioner.
Um, we can get stuck in our ways
of doing things the way we've always done it,
but with the influx of the situations with, uh,
the, the, with the situations and all the buildings
and court systems,
things have gotten away from us in some of these neighborhoods.
So, um, we have to evolve with it.
And I always come to you, whatever you need.
I'm pretty sure you have 49 other people that will go to bat
for you to, to provide you and,
and fight for whatever you need.
But this is a very important department.
It has a very strong impact on our neighborhoods,
and we wanna make sure we continue to support you guys.
And thank you for everything you've done to this point.
Thanks, chairman. Thank you.
Thank you. Uh, Albert Mitchell.
Um, I, I, I think it, it goes without saying
that the Department of Buildings is a, a vital, uh, group,
uh, in our, in our city.
Uh, you all, um, you know, provide a,
a very important function.
Uh, and many times you all are the, um, the,
the lifeline for a lot of neighborhoods.
Uh, we've seen, uh, some challenging times.
And, and with all of the things that are,
that are happening, um, sometimes, you know, things,
you know, you guys have to do the enforcement.
That's, uh, that's, that's necessary.
I always tell her as, uh, my first time meeting you was at
the back of a building, uh, that she, uh, just,
just, she didn't berate me.
She should have, but she did not.
Uh, for when I called her about it, it was ironic.
The guy calls me, said, they're trying
to close my building down.
And I got to the building, the man had no back porch.
So I was like, okay, so, uh,
what am I supposed to do with this?
And I, and I'm on the phone,
I was probably six months on the job, just,
Hey, why are you doing this?
And when she just come on, Wil, come on around here with me.
And she walked me to the back, I, I held my head down and,
and immediately began to just like,
why did you send me out here on this ghost mission?
But, but, uh, again, I know that, um, the work
that you all do is, is challenging.
And, uh, sometimes people are in,
in some challenging situations,
and you guys may face them in meeting them at some
of their lowest points, uh, in some of these,
uh, respective situations.
I know you guys are on scenes of fires, uh, cars, going
through buildings, uh, you know, all types
of, uh, crazy things.
And, uh, uh, your team has always handled these, uh,
matters professionally and, and,
and really have done, uh, done great work.
Uh, uh, one thing I have seen is that our,
it seems like our building demolitions have slowed down, uh,
over, over the course of time, which I,
which I think is a, is a good thing.
Uh, and except in those cases where they,
where they must come down
and what we're trying to, uh, you know, rebuild
and stabilize some of these communities and neighborhoods.
So we definitely appreciate, um, the,
I I'll call it the diligence that you guys have to,
to put in, in cases where stuff needs to go, you know,
it goes, but the cases of preservation, uh, we do that.
And, uh, appreciate the help that you all do in, in helping
to preserve communities and preserve neighborhoods.
So, uh, again, uh, uh, I will say that you're,
you're getting off, uh, you know, easy.
You tell us that you need no money
and, uh, we won't have any cuts and services.
So there is not a whole lot that, uh,
that we can, we can do with that.
But we definitely appreciate, uh, the work that you
and your team provide with us.
So, uh, with that, uh, committee will, uh,
stand at ease while we transition to the, uh, department
of Fleet and Facilities Management.
Good afternoon, uh, committee will come, uh, back
to order Camino Budgeting, government Operations.
Our last, uh, department for the day is Department
of Fleet in Facilities Management two fm.
Uh, we've been joined by, uh, deputy Commissioner Cross
and the team, uh, unfortunately, uh,
commissioner, she's out today.
She's had some, uh, health challenges
and haven't been not able to join us today.
So, uh, we do, uh, thank, uh, the team
for still being able to move forward with this.
So, uh, deputy, if you would, uh, give us, uh, the members
that are here in the well, as well as those
that are in the box, you can introduce those
and then proceed with your statement.
Thank you, chairman Irvin.
My name is Glen Cross, managing Deputy Commissioner
of Fleet Facility Management.
With me, I have Curtis Anderson, uh, director
of Maintenance Operations.
We on the Diaz, along with Alvin Smith, director of Finance.
In the box, we have Box Pulis, deputy Commissioner of Fleet,
Anthony Maggio, deputy Commissioner of Facilities,
Margaret Rizzo, deputy Commissioner of Human Resource,
Victoria and Santiago, deputy Commissioner of Finance
and Contracts, mayor Winky, deputy Commissioner
of A EC.
Kimberly Worthington, deputy Commissioner
of, uh, EHS.
Kevin Campbell, director of Maintenance Operation,
Mary Sise, assistant Commissioner Joseph Mall,
manager of Graphics and Reproduction Center.
David Powell, project Manager
and Jamon Vitus, project Manager.
Good afternoon, chair Irvin, vice Chair Lee,
and members of the Budget Committee and City Council.
I am Glen Cross Managing Deputy Commissioner
of the Department of Fleet and Facility Management two fm.
It is an honor to be here today representing our department
and speaking on behalf
of Commissioner Julie Hernandez Tomlin.
I'm joined today by two of my colleagues.
As previous mentioned,
two FM's 2025 budget reflects our focus on cost
effectiveness operations while delivering
essential services.
Our core mission remains managing the city's fleet,
maintaining facilities, and overseeing energy procurement.
The 2025 budget is up 5% from 2024, mainly due
to energy, lease, cost and personnel.
Still. Our spending through May is under budget.
We reduced the number of city lease vehicles by 8%
and cut fuel spending by nearly 2 million compared
to last year with lower pricing for gasoline and diesel.
We also revised our right of entry fee structure,
increasing revenue from 10,000 in 2024
to nearly 50,000 so far this year,
ending leases at 69 West Washington.
And the police driving range brought additional savings
of 72,000 in our library.
Solar project installed in quarter two
of this year is expected to save 141,000 annual
in utility costs.
On the workforce side, we are cut out.
We have cut out vacancy rate nearly in half from 19.6%
to 10.7, and reduced overtime hours by 39%.
Our strategy was shifting building engineers to later shifts
during heat and cooling events, improving response time
and preventive maintenance.
Looking ahead, we are resuming in-house management at seven
40 North Sedgwick to save 450,000,
and we are leveraging a federal energy grant
to identify efficiency upgrades across
various city buildings.
Finally, we are streamlining the environmental right
of entry agreements through our environmental health
and safety team, which allows asset management
to continue our work to evaluate lease buildings
and city owned vacant properties
for potential consolidation or sale.
Two FM remains committed
to delivering essential services while being good stewards
of public resources.
Thank you, chairman. We are happy
to answer your questions. Thank
You. Uh, deputy commissioner.
Um, I think, um,
your, your department, uh, serves a, uh, I'll call a,
a critical but silent role in a lot
of the operations of our city.
Um, you all provide the, uh, the backbone and, and support
and, and I think that, um, uh, the fact that, um, a lot
of people, um, aren't necessarily key, you know,
keyed in on you means
that you all are pretty much doing a, a, a pretty good job.
So, uh, I I say that, um,
because without you, uh, the lights don't get turned on.
Uh, the garbage trucks don't get to the alleys.
Uh, a lot of stuff happens behind the scenes
that your department does
that everybody just may not understand or, or see.
Uh, one component that, uh, we've, we've continued to get,
uh, speak on is around vehicles
and vehicle maintenance, primarily in our fire department,
uh, where we are seeing, uh, aged equipment
and to the extent where we may have, uh, engines
or, or,
or ladder trucks that, uh, you know, are not in service.
I know we got a old fleet there.
What's the department's plan on either A, uh,
massive overhauls
or B trying to procure new equipment,
uh, for the fire department?
Uh, a very good question.
Thank you there, chairman for asking that question.
Um, currently CFD, we have 47 new units
that we've purchased in 20 24, 41 order
for 2025.
And this is both vehicle and equipment.
As far as the apparatuses are concerned,
we have 11 placed in service in past year
and five in progress,
and five in progress means that, that
they are in the process of being received.
And then there are also, uh, in terms of, um, ambulances,
we have purchased 16 of them that are in service
in the past year and 600 in progress.
So, uh, there are an abundance numbers of, um, uh,
fire trucks and, and ladders that we have purchased.
Uh, right now we even have five letters
that we're using for spares.
Um, every year we do look at our budget, determine
what equipment we should be able to purchase,
and fire engines are always on the top of the list.
Um, unfortunately when we do make a purchase
of a fire engine, it literally takes two years for them
to put that, uh, vehicle in service to order it,
purchase it, and receive it.
So there is a process that we have to go through in order
to receive, um, engines and, and what have you.
So, uh, we're gonna continue our best to make the purchases,
um, depending on the funding that's available
and turn over the fleet as often as possible.
And what, so do you know the average age
of our fire equipment, uh, on this street today
and with these purchases, what does that bring
that average down to?
And if you don't have that, you can
submit that back through the chair. That's fine.
I like to defer that question to Mark Pulitz, I,
deputy commissioner of a fleet,
Good afternoon, March puls, um,
deputy Commissioner of Fleet Operations.
Uh, right now the average age for, uh, pumper
and trucks are normally around seven years.
Our ambulances are down to about four
and a half years of, uh, average age.
Uh, we're trying to replace them as we can.
Um, the equipment is getting a lot older right now,
and, uh, the turnaround time
to get 'em from the manufacturers has
been a little extensive.
Okay, Aldo, you have a point.
Thank you. Chairman age means nothing, gentlemen.
Miles means everything. Okay.
So you can't compare engine, uh, 79 with engine 95.
So, I mean, age really means nothing is all I wanna say on,
on Trix is it's more to miles.
West side, south side companies are always running
northwest, Southwest side companies don't run as much.
So age means nothing, in my opinion.
You may disagree with me, it's more
the miles that are on the vehicles.
Okay. This a, that's a, that's a, or hours or is it hours
or, or, or miles or hours? Uh, what
Sure. Nowadays I've been
gone for 14
years. It is, it's miles, right?
It's basically the everyday usage of the vehicle,
pumping hours, engine hours, miles driven,
and exactly what the truck is being used for
the alderman is, is correct.
It it, okay. He can have areas that don't have a wide range
for that unit to, to travel. So
I mean, do we move equipment around as means?
I mean, so if we've got a, uh, use a case in point
where if you have a, a very busy company on the west side
of Chicago and you have a not
so busy company on the northwest side of Chicago,
do you guys, do you move equipment around to compensate
for the fact that it, uh, a unit may not get as much use?
Or, or, you know, so you, you follow what I'm saying?
I, I know exactly what you're saying.
Chairman, and we work with CFD in the event that we need
to, to move equipment.
Uh, CFD would be the best one to answer that question.
But we do work with them at times to move equipment around.
Okay. Alright. You wanna add something to that?
My, my ex Thank you again, chairman.
My experience says no, they don't switch rigs.
They won't say, you know, engine 95,
which is, you know where that's at.
You've been so busy, we're gonna swap you
out with engine 79.
'cause they, they don't make as many runs.
So in my experience, once again, I've been gone
for 14 years.
I never saw a swapping out of rigs and switching with people
and put a junkier rig in a, in a slower place in a,
in a newer rig, in a busier place.
Okay. No, just use, just, uh, just thanks.
Uh, given the, uh, targets that are being asked for,
from departments three to 5%, um, what type of, uh, service
reductions would that cause, uh, uh, for two FM
and, uh, how would you meet, um,
meet those service reductions?
Uh, should you, should you have to do three to 5%,
uh, reductions in expenses?
Uh, collectively we've done an exercise internally
to determine where it would be most sufficient
to do a reduction three to 5%.
And giving the fact that we do need all of our trades,
we need all of our engineers so that they can continue
to maintain our facilities as well as our fleet.
And the reduction that we've come up with,
it will probably be contractual services, uh,
contractual services in terms of security, in terms of
custodial and pest control.
Um, we looked at some numbers just to see
where we can cut citywide.
Um, predominantly none facing public buildings
where we don't have the public facing individuals.
And so those are the areas
that we are looking at perhaps the reduction
in the three to 5%.
Okay. Alright.
Um, any, any items for, uh, two fm?
Alright, vice chair, you wanna come up?
Um, and you can start from here.
So again, uh, thank you all for,
uh, for, for what you've done.
Again, uh, we see it
but we don't see it, which is, uh, which is,
which is a good thing.
I know you guys are get real, real, like a backbone of,
of a lot of departments that, um, it goes where you,
where you don't necessarily see what's happening.
So, thank you much Vice chair. Go ahead.
Go ahead. Uh, Autum. Thanks,
Chairman. Um, I,
I need a clarify this, some clarifying questions.
So, two FM is responsible for the inventory
of city owned lots, correct?
Yes. Okay. So Streets
and Sanitation maintains those lots.
Is that a formal agreement
or is that just what happens has
just happened in the city of Chicago?
To my knowledge, it's just
what has happened in the city of Chicago.
And when we say maintain lots, we have lots
that are part of our inventory.
And in number 25, that two FM is responsible for,
which is both lots as well as city facilities.
Okay. Um, DPD are really the ones that
have the possession of the lots, determining whether or not
and when they're gonna be sold until they are sold.
Uh, we are asked to put eyes on the lot to make sure that,
uh, if there's a fencing problem,
if there's a weed issue, things of that nature.
Uh, we receive the calls to go and assist.
Uh, oftentimes two FM collaborates with streets and sand,
and we work together in an effort to, uh,
make sure the lots are clean and and safe. Okay.
The, the reason that, that stuck out in me,
because we go back
and forth, particularly the alderman on the south
and the west side, um, I'm one of the south side on,
but I have the least amount of, lots of us all,
but some of my colleagues have 3000 mm-hmm.
And we struggle with the contract,
like we call it the we Cutting contract
and we struggle every year to, well, well,
to make sure we have that contract renewed
and that we,
we have the language in the contract written such
that it actually helps out in our wars
to actually maintain 'em.
You can imagine with three
and 4,000 lots that turnover getting them cut,
they haven't been that successful.
So I'm, when they, when I heard that, it triggers to me
to kind of see is that something we need to look at both
with both streets of Sands at the table
and uh, two FM to see
how we could potentially join forces.
Because from where I stand,
the money comes from streets of Sanitation.
And I think our contract is something like 3 million, um,
which is proven to be we could do better, uh,
we could do better with the service.
Uh, so I want to kind of put more eyes on that, uh,
because, uh, we, we catch a lot
of heat from our constituency by those lots.
And when, when our ward superintendents work to try
to put 'em in rotation, um, you know,
weather has a factor in that if, if it rains
for several days on end, those lots jump up two
and 2 1, 1, um, sometimes six inches.
Mm-hmm. And that's a whole nother,
that's a whole nother level of cutting at that point.
Um, so we, you know, just wanna look at it to see
how we can just grow with,
with the time change, with the times.
I argue a lot about, I think that the city,
we are still doing things like based
on yesterday's problems.
Mm-hmm. We have to grow
and maneuver where, you know,
we're actually addressing present day situations
and that that, that we can contract with respect
to the maintenance of those lots our,
our source attention in, in, in our neighborhoods.
And then the other one is, uh, is, uh,
the loitering on some of our lots,
depending on where they're positioned.
Um, I've had to put fences around a couple of my lots
that's in key key key key locations
and um, uh, I think I had to pay
for those lots through a contract with cdot.
Mm-hmm. I think CDOT went out
and fined the, the contractor for me,
and then I pay for it out my, my own money.
That's something I wanna look at too.
'cause uh, the lauding on them,
the parking on those city lights, um,
is all nuisance to our neighborhoods.
And, and, and so I wanna kind of take some time to look at
that, bring everybody to the table, look at
that holistically, because I've been here 10 years.
The problems I'm talking about today weren't
that bad 10 years ago.
Mm-hmm. Dave has it's exacerbated over time
and it's time that we really put some eyes in
and some efforts toward making sure they
don't really get outta hand.
Sure. Yeah.
Two FM would like to be part
of those conversations. Facebook bringing that up.
Yeah. Look forward to look forward. Thank you.
Um, I also think that with those city owned lots,
especially if we know that they're city owned lots, um,
and with the weeds, if we cut them
and spray them at the beginning of the season,
we'll we can nip some of that literally in the bud.
Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
What comes quite please. Yeah. Um, couple of questions.
Uh, what, what is the, the cost of a a, a new,
um, refuse truck?
I would like to defer that question to.
Do you have a Commissioner Mark Police?
What, what was the question again?
What, what is the cost of a new, uh,
refuse truck? Garbage garbage
Truck? A new refuse truck
is $300,000.
300. Wow. Okay.
Um, what, what are what, what would be the oldest,
oldest trucks that we have in fleet by
how many years? I mean, we have
24 years old in There. Are they currently in service?
Uh, yes sir. Okay.
What's the average lifecycle of a, of a,
Yeah. Thank you. You know where
Of trash truck? Yeah,
I know where you're going. Generally.
I mean, 'cause we were told when the fire department was
here that the average, uh, useful life
of a fire engine is like 15 years.
Do we have that same sort of number for a trash vehicle?
Uh, for a refuge truck?
It should be 10, should be 10, uh, 10 years in a basic, uh,
frontline service.
And then we have our older units, which we have our spares,
which is about another 15 year. You know,
Can we get through the chair a breakdown
of the entire fleet?
And I'll just say the entire fleet, not just the,
the, uh, refuse trucks.
We are interested in the refuse trucks and how many are
and, and how old they are.
Um, you know, I haven't had had as many complaints,
so I appreciate the work that your teams are doing, um,
on the leaky trash trucks.
'cause those are super problematic,
especially when you already have rat
issues in, in certain places.
Um, and with the weather being so hot this last year, um,
you know, we, we've been able to sort of stay on top of it.
We still have those issues.
So I think that the question is, you know, in as much
as we know we're gonna have a a really tight budget year,
we also can't stop investing.
Right. And, and use in good equipment.
So, um, I think we, we'd love to be able
to see kind of where things stand.
And then if you would also include, um, in that list
how many new vehicles are on order for the,
the coming year. That'd be great.
Sure. We'll provide that through the chair. Yeah.
Thank you for adding that. The chair.
Um, with respect to the, uh,
department vehicle maintenance, do you guys,
have you assessed in, in, in comes conclusion
that you actually do have the, the proper manpower, uh,
to fill the demands of the, the maintenance
of the city vehicles throughout all the departments?
I, I would say that, um, for the most part, yes.
And I'd say for the most part because it depends, depends on
the usage.
Mm-hmm. It depends on the way the
vehicles are being treated.
Fair enough. Yeah. All of that has a factor in it. Okay.
So, um, if it was just an average day
where we can just do the PMs as it were
and then that wouldn't be an issue.
But we do run into overtime when it comes to, um,
vehicles being damaged, accidents, things of that nature.
Um, so it runs into an overtime factor. Okay.
Um, so yes, uh, that's something that we are looking at.
Okay. Um, well, one of the things that prompted
that question is because over the last 10 years I've had,
and just look at my ward too, but the truck has been down
and he, he, he, he hasn't been without a truck,
but it's been down to just me thinking about it four weeks,
six weeks and things like that.
So I, I don't know what the issues were with the truck,
but that, that seems like a, a long time for a, a vehicle
to be down with something that for our ward superintendents.
Um, so that's one of the reasons I prompted that.
Uh, in your, in your response, you mentioned that, uh,
could cause some overtime to kind of get,
get things back in, uh, order.
Have you ever thought about outsourcing
certain things? There
Are vehicles that are outsourced.
Okay. Um, we are starting
to look at doing PMs as an outsource.
Uh, obviously when we do that, uh, the cost factor goes up,
but nonetheless, they help us to preserve our vehicles.
Okay. If, if you, if you had to kind put a, put a,
put a, I don't know what the word I want to use,
how would you view the current fleet,
whether it be the city's department of, of tr uh, streets
and sanitation, garbage trucks,
the fire department trucks, all that.
How would you view the fleet?
Do you feel it's on a scale of one to, is it a one,
is it a two or three, three being the
best situation possible?
I'd say about a, a two. About a two.
Yeah. One to three. A two. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. You the seriousness? No, face.
You, you were ready that question.
Um, I,
I had jotted my question down.
I'm trying to, some of 'em have already been answered.
So with the, uh, you mentioned that the average life is
what, 20 The oldest for the, our garbage trucks
for like 24, 24 years.
Is, is, is, is there a purchase plan for,
uh, we say, you know, every five years, every six years we,
we, we, we do turnover.
And, and with that, what, what,
what happens with the older trucks?
Is that something that we sell
and get money for to, to, to,
to offset the price of the new ones? Or how does that work?
Well, right now we're utilizing the older trucks
as spare units, as new ones come in.
Uh, we've placed 33 refuge trucks into service
just within the past year.
And we are waiting for 34 new ones
to come from the manufacturer.
Uh, that's including the three electric, uh, trucks
that we've received a few months ago.
Okay. That list that we asked for through the chair,
if you would also include where the trucks are assigned.
Yeah. Um, would love to see where the,
the different vehicles are, are stationed.
Yeah, sure. We'll provide that to the
Chair. Yeah, that's a great, thank
you for that. Yeah.
Um, my last two questions, um,
and I always reserve the right to contact you,
ask questions off the, off the record.
Um, with respect
to the firetrucks, none that was brought up earlier.
Um, does,
does the frontline fire department suppress company
meet national standards?
Um, is the pool
of spare is the spare pool in effective working condition?
And what's the oldest fire trucks in the spare fleet?
The, the spares are in working condition. Yes.
Um, but in terms of the age, I'll again have to defer that
to deputy commissioner Mark Bullis.
You know what, I'd have to get that information.
Mark, can we provide that to the chair?
Oh, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. I'm so far, yeah.
Um, 63% of the CFD engines
are 15 years or greater.
Uh, 33% of the trucks are greater than 15 years
and 20%
of the tower ladders are greater than 15 years
in age. So,
So i i you said percentages,
and I don't mind it through the chair
'cause you could say 20%.
I, we don't really know what that looks like without, but,
but please provide that information. Please get
Into, i I give it you right now it's 60 61 of the, uh,
97 engines.
Okay. Okay.
17 of the 51 trucks are older than 15 years,
and two of the 10 tower ladders
are greater than 15 or at 15 years. Okay.
Okay. Um, that question that, that, that
chairman talked about, adding where they are, we would like
to know where those, those trucks
Are, where the assignments are. Yeah.
Where they're assigned. Yeah.
And I, my last, my last one's still about the fire trucks.
Does, does, do you guys have a purchase plan
for the new fire engines
and trucks to meet current regional standards
for frontline service, service service rigs?
There is a purchase plan and,
and the purchase plan is always based on the amount
of funding that we receive within the department.
So after we received the approval of funding,
we then determine, uh, what we need to purchase. Okay.
Okay. Alright. What,
what was the current year's purchase plan,
because that budget's already been approved.
Do we have those numbers? Mark?
I'm sorry. Can you, What was the current year's, uh,
plan for the purchase of new vehicles?
So for 2025, I understand that we can't,
you can't make the plan
until you have an approved budget, right?
So for next year, we don't know that,
but what is it currently?
Yeah.
Um, Excuse me.
Okay. Complete breakdown for the fleet
for 2025, we have 435 units on order
that we ordered, uh, waiting on 362 of them to be delivered.
Wow.
That's all vehicles across the fleet, right?
That's all vehicles. That
Is all, all units across the fleet.
Do you have that detail for the,
for the fire related equipment engines,
trucks and tower ladders?
So for Chicago Fire Department, we have 47 brand new,
new units that were ordered in 20 24, 41 of 'em
that were ordered in 2025
and 38 of those have been de delivered, uh, so far.
Great. That's very helpful, thank you.
Yeah. Interesting.
Um, I, I said that was my last question,
but I just thought about something, uh, in the seventh ward
in the, in the seventh Ward, engine 46 services,
the seventh ward, and if I'm not mistaken, engine,
I was told engine 46 is over 20, 20 years old.
Um, will, is, is engine 46 on deck
to get a new truck?
Unfortunately, I don't have
that information in front of me. Definitely
Get that through the, I can get
you that through the chair please.
Yeah. All right. That, that's, that's my last question.
I look forward to getting
to know the department a little bit better
and, um, getting this information. So
We, we do switch out our fleet
and order of the age, the miles.
So depending on how old
and the mileage, uh, there are fleets
that we are slowly going down to the next one and,
and then there therefore that they're on, is
It just about miles or is there other
It's, it's not just mouth, it's about the wear
and tear, um, as well.
Great. Alright. Thank you. You good? Yeah, I'm good.
You sure? Mm-hmm. You can't come back again?
I'm not coming back. Alderman Napolitano.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Um,
I just two really quick questions.
Uh, when you had mentioned the amount of rigs
that are 15 years
and older, um, how many of
the assigned rigs, the ones that actually carry the, the,
the number of that, that truck
or that engine, how many of those are downed right now?
I'll wait for Mr. Pul as he's getting his notes
to and respond to that.
I can get you And you're looking for engines, sir?
Uh, let me, let me, let me rephrase that.
Um, uh, trucks and engines, but let, let, let me start here.
Actually, uh, with the same question,
how many are there in total trucks and engines
and how many of those trucks
and engines that are assigned are downed right now?
I will have to get you a refined answer through the chair.
Okay. I do have, you know, I have an available, you know,
spare count, but I don't have exactly the number
of rigs that are down right now.
Yeah. If that's possible, I'd, I'd like to see that.
Meaning, you know, whose active truck is, who's,
who's actually on a substitute truck or engine?
I'm sorry. Um, and I just, one, one more quick question.
What is, what is the, the operating mod model that is set up
for, um, a substitute rig?
And the only reason why I ask that, and, and let me
before I even go any further, I get
how difficult your job is.
Uh, so I'm not putting this at on you in any way other than
just in theory
because I've been on these rigs for over 10 years
and some of them doors don't shut,
there's holes in the floor
and I, I get you gotta work with what you got.
But what is, besides the mileage, some of these trucks
and engines aren't safe for the, for the members driving it
with the holes and, and the decay to them.
Um, and, and some of the operation, the operating ability
of them as far as some of our ladders, um,
and maybe even some of our pumps going into pump
aren't the best.
So what is, is there a spectrum set up that,
besides that it just works that says
that this is a good spear rig?
No, typically, And again, I don't,
I know you gotta work with what you got. So
Typically when a, any of the rigs are down, they come in
for PMs, then there is a overall review of any other issues
that might be wrong with the rigs.
So it's just not a quick or change. Yeah.
And there's a workaround determine what other, uh, parts
of the truck that may need servicing
and that may be the body work as you mentioned.
And so all of that is taken under consideration when the
PM is performed.
And, and what would be like the, the, the life
or the years on some of our, our spares?
I mean, is there, are they some
of them in the 20 year mark, the 30 year mark? We
Do have some that are hitting the 20 year mark.
Yeah, we do have some spares that are hitting.
Is it possible we can get that number of, of your spare,
uh, through, through the chair?
It doesn't have to be today. Um, trucks
and engines that are, are actively being used
as, as spare rigs.
Yep. Sure. You will get that through the chair. Thank
You, sir. And again,
I don't put
that on you other than I know how difficult it is.
I've been down to the yard and I've swapped out rigs
numerous times, and the pickings are slim
and, and dangerous.
And it, the only ability that we have to make it better is
what we can order and what we can get.
So I get it. It's just on the fire side.
Some of 'em are, are extremely dangerous.
You need a tetanus shot on some of them if, if you,
if you're on it the wrong way.
But thank you very much for your opportunity
to talk. Thank you. Thanks.
Um, I guess in, in closing, one of the things
that I would ask is, you know, you're, you're a group that
PR primarily spends money to make sure that, you know,
things are kept in order for the city,
whether it's the fleet or a facilities.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities
for cost savings in this environment?
I know you mentioned a couple of the programs, um, for like,
you know, installing solar cells so
that we don't have to pay as much for energy.
Um, uh, I'm wondering, um,
where two FMCs the biggest opportunities in the,
how do we support you on those things?
Uh, what we're looking at internally is determining
how we can perhaps do some shifting of our trades,
our engineers, and to work at a different time
during the day where they don't have to be called out
to do emergency work, which factors in overtime, uh,
but perhaps devising the shift
that they will be permanently assigned to,
which will reduce the overtime significantly.
And what their role would be is to do work orders off hours,
but also respond to emergencies.
Right now emergencies basically all, uh, all overtime,
but we have a shift where individuals can work
and be assigned that will take away the overtime
for both facilities and for fleet employees.
Great. Thank you. Ultimate Napolitano. Tha
Thank you. One more quick
question, just based off of that.
Has there ever been an analysis done based on our boneyards
and if there's a profit to be made off of as far
as scrapping selling off or, or parting out?
Um, our, I, I know you have to keep a certain amount
that we need, but there's probably some in,
throughout all of our facilities.
Has there been ever been an analysis done that hey,
this could be profitable or might
save us some money in the long run? Somehow
We are collaborating as we speak with DPD to determine,
um, what facilities can be scrapped, sold, uh,
to take it away from my inventory.
Well, it can save the city a significant amount of money.
Thank you. Thank you for that.
Any other questions from elders? Okay.
Well thank you very much for all the work that you all do
and for coming in today for, uh, standing in here.
Um, appreciate everything. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Um, the committee's going to, uh, be recessed
until tomorrow morning at nine 30.
Thank you.