AGENDA #7b
BUDGET WORKING PAPER
to: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
from: Bill Letteri, Public Works Director
subject: Additional Groundskeeper for Town Operations Center (six months)
date: March 8, 2006
The purpose of this report is to provide detailed information in support of the addition of a proposed groundskeeper position to address increased landscape maintenance demands resulting from the expansion of Town facilities at the new Town Operations Center.
Presently, our Landscape Division expends approximately 396 labor hours per year to maintain the grounds at the current Public Works/Transit facility on Municipal Drive. Based on a detailed evaluation of landscape conditions at the new Town Operations Center, the Landscape Division has established that it will require approximately 1,826 labor hours to maintain the new facility at the same service level. This represents a net increase of 1,430 labor hours, or the equivalent of .7 full time equivalents (FTE). Attachment 1 provides a detailed list of maintenance functions and a comparison of estimated hours associated with maintaining the current site versus those necessary to maintain the new site.
The landscape at the new Town Operations facility will be extensive and complex in nature. The scope of routine, required maintenance will include additional buffer areas, planting beds, litter removal, lawn areas, trails and irrigation maintenance. The expanded area of the new facility will require the addition of one full time groundskeeper to maintain the proper frequency of the work at a suitable level of service. The attached study illustrates the increased labor hours which will be required to maintain the new facility.
Denial of our request for an additional groundskeeper will result in our inability to properly maintain the new Town Operations Center to commonly acceptable standards.
RECOMMENDATION
We recommend that one full-time groundskeeper position be added to Landscape Division’s grounds maintenance staff starting in the last half of fiscal year 2006-07 at a cost of $18,400 ($37,000 annualized) to assist in additional workload requirements at the new Town Operations Center.
ATTACHMENT