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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-10-23 Policy & Services Committee Summary Minutes Policy and Services Committee FINAL MINUTES 1 Regular Meeting October 23, 2018 Chairperson Fine called the meeting to order at 6:03 P.M. in the Community Meeting Room, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Present: Fine, Holman, Wolbach Absent: DuBois Oral Communications None. Action Items 1. Policy and Services Committee Recommends the City Council Accept the Status Updates of the Audits of the Citywide Cash Handling and Travel Expense; Cable Franchise and Public, Education, and Government (PEG) Fees; Continuous Monitoring: Payments Audit; Utility Meters; and Inventory Management. Harriet Richardson, City Auditor announced that since it was a status report, Administrative Services Department (ASD) would be presenting the Item. David Ramberg, Assistant Director of Administrative Services Department explained that if the Policy and Services Committee (Committee) had any questions pertaining to the report, he was happy to answer them. Chair Fine summarized that the Staff recommendation was that the Committee adopt the report and sent it off to City Council (Council) for approval. Council Member Holman wanted more explanation on why some of the items listed were taking so long to complete. Mr. Ramberg explained that the recommendations that were not completed were complex but Staff had made progress and updates to the process. Council Member Holman asked how much Staff time it took to process an after-hours meals expense and if that Staff cost outweighed the reimbursement. 2 Page 2 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Mr. Ramberg voiced that Staff time was involved and Staff was having to comply with strict Internal Revenues Service (IRS) constraints. Council Member Holman requested more information about the Media Center. Mr. Ramberg responded that the Committee had asked Staff to investigate using the Public, Educational, and Governmental Access Channel (PEG) Fee revenue for the purchase of the Media Center building. He announced that on December 10th, 2018 Staff was planning to go to the Council with their findings. Council Member Holman inquired about the duplicate payment audit. Mr. Ramberg reported that a number of the auditor’s recommendations could not be completed until the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system was in place. Council Member Holman suggested that the City Manager’s Office open up Staff time to work on overdue audits. Rob de Geus, Deputy City Manager answered that the City Manager’s Office did review all the audits and worked directly with the department to move audits along. Council Member Holman added that if Staff time outweighed the implementation of a recommendation, then she suggested that it be flagged and relooked at in the future. Ms. Richardson articulated that she was open with the departments that if they deemed a recommendation not feasible, then they can discuss it with her and possibly close it out. Chair Fine agreed with Council Member Holman that it was not worth Staff’s time if it took longer to implement a recommendation than recovering what money that correction would make. He asked if there were gaps in recommendations that pertained to the new ERP system. Ms. Richardson declared that Staff could put together a list of recommendations that were specifically related to the new ERP system being implemented. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to recommend the City Council accept the status updates of the audits of Citywide Cash Handling and Travel Expense; Cable Franchise and 3 Page 3 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Public, Education, and Government (PEG) Fees; Continuous Monitoring Payments Audit; Utility meters; and Inventory Management. Council Member Holman asked that if in the Staff report that was to go to Council, the Committee’s comments could be highlighted. MOTION PASSED: 3-0 DuBois Absent 2. Policy and Services Committee Recommends the City Council Accept the Status Update of the 2016 Disability and Workers Compensation Rates Audit. Rumi Portillo, Human Resources Director acknowledged that the last update was in January 2018 and that now several additional recommendations were completed. Two of the remaining recommendations that needed to be completed pertained to Staff training and two other recommendations were linked to the new Systems and Applications and Data Processing (SAP/ERP) system coming online. Council Member Holman advised that not addressing injury and illness issues would affect productivity. She asked for an explanation on how losing one Staff member position would affect the City from implementing the Injury and Illness Prevention Program. Ms. Richardson answered that by losing the Safety Officer position, HR had spread the responsibilities out among the others. This method meant that not one person had the full expertise of a Safety Officer. Ms. Portillo highlighted that there was a need for additional training. She explained that there was a safety specialist on Staff, consultants were used and there was a partnership with Utilities that housed a safety specialist position. Rob de Geus, Deputy City Manager noted that he was not familiar with the audit and would like to review the audit before he responded to Council Member Holman’s question. Ms. Portillo added that the recommendation included post-accident investigations and those were contracted out. She reiterated that in January 2019 the implementation of Staff members being trained on the post- accident investigation would commence. Chair Fine requested how York was selected to do all the contract work. 4 Page 4 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Ms. Portillo announced that they were selected through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process. MOTION: Chair Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to recommend the City Council accept the Status Update of Audit Recommendations for the 2016 Disability Rates and Worker’s Compensation Audit. Council Member Holman requested that Staff clarify the language in the Staff report and emphasize the Committee’s comments when the Staff report comes to the City Council (Council). MOTION PASSED: 3-0 DuBois Absent AT THIS TIME THE COMMITTEE HEARD AGENDA ITEM NUMBERS 3 AND 4 TOGETHER. 3. Policy and Services Committee Recommends the City Council Accept the ERP Planning: Data Standardization Audit. 4. Policy and Services Committee Recommends the City Council Accept the ERP Planning: Separation of Duties Audit. Harriet Richardson, City Auditor introduced Mimi Nguyen, Senior Performance Auditor, who was the supervisor for both the audits that were being presented. These two audits and along with the Governance Audit would serve as the foundation of some of the things that would need to be done prior to implementing a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. After these three audits, data reliability audits will be brought forward to review what data needed to be cleaned up before the new ERP system was to go online. Mimi Nguyen, Senior Performance Auditor summarized that the two audits where addressing data standardization as well as separation of duties. The audits were to provide examples for Staff of what they can use as lessons learned for the new ERP system. The concept of separation of duties was so that one person did not have all the authority to carry one process all the way through. The highest risk departments in terms of separation of duties where Administrative Services, Utilities, and Information Technology Department (IT). Two areas with the opportunity to improve were automating the manual process and restricting transaction codes in roles and profiles access. In terms of data standardization, Staff emphasized that there needed to be an investigation on how the City looked at and used 5 Page 5 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 data, plan for the structure of data, and consider the inflow and outflow of the data. Council Member Holman asked what the date was for when the new ERP system would be online. Ms. Nguyen answered sometime in the year 2022. Ms. Richardson added that it was a phased implementation. The Utilities Customer Information System was going to come before the other systems. Utilities had not decided on what system they wanted to use and because of that, the implementation date was tentative. Council Member Holman suggested having an audit of the new ERP system once it was phased in just to make sure it was working correctly. Rob de Geus, Deputy City Manager stated that Staff would discuss that idea. Ms. Richardson noted that the audit did not have a post-implementation but could happen during the whole process of implementation. Ms. Nguyen continued to state that Staff’s recommendation for separation of duties was City Departments needed to be aware of the high-risk areas and use the matrix to work with IT to make sure that all high-risk areas were covered. IT needed to design the access to the profiles and roles with separation of duties in mind. Lastly, establish mitigating controls where conflicts cannot be avoided. Recommendations for data standardization, Staff was recommending that the IT Department provide governance over standardizing data. Also, IT to work with City Departments to identify what data needed standardizing, determine how to standardize it, and implement the data standardization. Ms. Richardson added that all departments that were involved agreed with all the recommendations. Chair Fine asked if the audit would be put on the Consent Calendar for City Council (Council). Ms. Richardson confirmed that was correct. Chair Fine did not think that an audit was the right mechanism to explain the new ERP system. He advised that the audit not be put on the Consent Calendar but come as a study session or action item to the full Council. 6 Page 6 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Council Member Holman voiced her agreement that the item should not be put on the Consent Calendar. Ms. Richardson reiterated that the Governance Audit should be reviewed again because the Data Standardization Audit, Separation of Duties Audit, and Governance Audit were the foundation for the design of the new ERP system. Council Member Wolbach disagreed that the audits should go to full Council as an action item. He suggested that the full Council have an update about the ERP transition, planning, statues, and contracts. Council Member Holman asked what Staff’s response was to implement all the little-suggested standardization of data entry. Ms. Nguyen answered that Staff did acknowledge the inconsistencies and they are committed to the standardization approach. She added that the IT Department was looking to build a data dictionary of how employees enter data into the new system. Council Member Wolbach suggested having the IT Department articulate in the data dictionary that if something was not included, then notify IT so they could implement a standard. Council Member Holman inquired if there was a commitment made to making Palo Alto (City) an open data City. Mr. de Geus confirmed that as part of the new ERP system, an open data portal for data was a commitment that the City had. Chair Fine inquired if the City had a data ethnic policy or something around privacy concerns. Ms. Richardson confirmed that the City did have policies on how data should be protected but the Governance Audit had a recommendation that there be a privacy policy as well. Chair Fine wanted to know how the separation of duties was to be implemented on Staff. Ms. Nguyen specified that it was a two-part process; the work business process part and then the access control part of it. City Auditor Staff did not 7 Page 7 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 find any red flags when they reviewed the high-risk areas that the City currently had. Chair Fine advised that the IT Department be present when the ERP System item comes to the Full Council. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to recommend the City Council accept the ERP Planning: Data Standardization Audit, and the ERP Planning: Separation of Duties Audit. Chair Fine inquired if the recommendation was approved, that it would go on the Council’s Consent Calendar. Mr. de Geus confirmed that was correct. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to direct Staff to bring a broader discussion regarding ERP to Council at a later date. Council Member Holman requested that Staff highlight the questions and comments that were made by the Policy and Service Committee (Committee). She also requested that the Governance Audit be included in the Staff report to the full Council as well. Chair Fine explained that Council Member Holman and himself wanted the two audits to be an action item for the Council and not on the Consent Calendar. Council Member Wolbach disagreed with that suggestion. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Chair Fine moved, second by Council Member Holman to direct Staff to agendize the audits as well as a broader discussion of ERP data governance and privacy. Council Member Holman announced that it was a bad process to put the item on the Consent Calendar just to have it pulled. She emphasized that it was important that the Council have a discussion about the new ERP system. SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED: 3-0 DuBois Absent 5. Policy and Services Committee Recommends the City Council Accept the Auditor's Office Quarterly Report as of September 30, 2018. Harriet Richardson, City Auditor explained that Staff had done some additional analysis on the Business Registry but she was not sure if those 8 Page 8 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 findings would be ready by the Policy and Services Committee (Committee) meeting in November. The Code Enforcement Audit was to be presented at the Committee’s November meeting. The two debit reliability audits were being processed and those were tentatively scheduled to be presented to the Committee in December 2018 and February 2019. The Mobile Device Security Audit would be ready to be present to the Committee in February of 2019. In terms of the Non-Profit Audit, the audit was focused on the funds that the City committed to non-profit organizations and that was expected to be presented to the Committee in early 2019. The Contract Oversight Audit was expected to be done in March 2019. The Transfer Development Rights (TDR) Audit had been delayed so that some of the in-progress audits could be completed. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Non-Service Audit had been delayed until the City Council (Council) had decided what system was going to be used. In terms of the National Citizen Survey, the data collection period had ended, and Staff was expecting to have that done before the end of 2018. The City Auditor’s Office continued to do their advisory roles and sale tax allocation reviews. There were 51 potential sale tax misallocations waiting at the state level for review. In terms of the status of audits recommendations, 47 recommendations were still open at the end of the quarter. She finalized that on the next quarterly report she would add a column showing which outstanding recommendations were tied to the new ERP system. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to recommend the City Council accept the Auditor’s Office Quarterly Report as of September 30, 2018. Council Member Holman asked when the Code Enforcement Audit would be presented to the full Council. Ms. Richardson responded that it would be January or February 2019. Council Member Holman stated that one of the recommendations for the Business Register should have been the Council’s direction and not Staffs. Ms. Richardson articulated that her office was directed by the Committee to come back at a later time with more information. She clarified that the recommendation was for Staff to clarify based on input from the Council. Council Member Holman advised that the language be changed so that City Council would have input. She also wanted the chart that showed what year the recommendations were supposed to be closed in be expanded and not lumped together. 9 Page 9 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Chair Fine articulated that he agreed with Council Member Holman that breaking out all the recommendations into their own year they were due would be helpful. On the Business Registry, he advised that Staff include the original Colleague’s Memo. In terms of the Transferable Development Rights, he wanted to know what the origin was. Ms. Richardson confirmed it was a request from two Council Members. Council Member Holman wanted to know why there was an audit being done if only two Council Members wanted the audit. Ms. Richardson explained that she would ask for suggestions and then those suggestions were put into an Audit Plan. Council had approved the audit plan and Council did not state that they did not want that audit done. Chair Fine advised that the City Audit show what level of interest on City Council each audit had. Council Member Holman noted that there was also a discussion at Council about the Business Registry and she wished for those minutes to be included in the Staff report as well. MOTION PASSED: 3-0 DuBois Absent Future Meetings and Agendas Rob de Geus, Deputy City Manager announced that the Policy and Services Committee (Committee) would be meeting on November 13, 2018, December 11, 2019, and then not again until February 2019. Two ways items were put onto the agenda were City Council (Council) referrals and items that the City Manager’s Office thought the Committee should discuss. In terms of the December meeting, the Committee usually discussed the priority planning for 2019. Chair Fine wanted more information about seismic compliance in the City’s Municipal Code. Mr. de Geus announced that he would have to go back and review the policy to determine what the policy issue was. Terence Howzell, Chief Assistant City Attorney added that for the November 13, 2018 meeting a topic on taxi cabs would be added to the agenda. He stated that in terms of vehicle dwellers the police department was looking to enforce the 72-hour rule throughout the City. 10 Page 10 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Council Member Wolbach acknowledged his appreciation of seeing the review of City Council’s procedures and protocols on the agenda. Mr. de Geus stated that the full Council would receive that item on October 29th, 2018 and then the Committee would review it on November 13, 2018. Council Member Wolbach voiced his frustration that the vehicle dwelling item would not be coming to the Committee. Mr. de Geus explained that a Colleague’s Memo would be fine if any Council Members wished to do that and then the Council could refer it to the Committee. Chair Fine could have a discussion with the City Manager’s Office on putting that topic on the agenda for the Committee. Council Member Wolbach asked when the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and renter protections where coming to the Committee for discussion. Mr. de Geus announced that renter protection was still with the City Attorney’s Office and in the planning stage. On CEDAW, the hope was to bring that to the Committee tentatively in December 2018. Council Member Wolbach reiterated that in terms of the vehicle dwellers it was a question of execution and that it needed to come to the Committee or Council. Chair Fine voiced that he would talk with the City Manager about putting that topic on the agenda for the Committee. He disagreed with Council Member Wolbach that the Committee should not be scoping out the CEDAW and renter protection issues. Council Member Holman stated that she agreed that the vehicle dweller item needed to come to the Committee for review. Mr. de Geus emphasized that he did not know what the policy recommendation decision was for vehicle dwellers. Chair Fine explained that it should start at the Committee and that question would be the start of the scoping challenge. Council Member Holman stated that she was disappointed that the Council’s procedures and policies were being pushed to the end of the year. 11 Page 11 of 11 Policy and Services Committee Meeting Final Minutes 10/23/18 Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 7:47 P.M.