San Marcos City Council Discuss Ethics Review Commission Recommendation, Approve Budget Amendment

By, Terra Rivers, Managing Editor

The San Marcos City Council considered an ordinance amending the City’s 2018-2019 Fiscal Year budget and held a discussion regarding a recommendation from the Ethics Review Commission.

Council members held a discussion regarding Ethics Review Commission Recommendation Resolution 2019-1, which recommends an amendment to the San Marcos City Code of Ethics to require city employees to appear and testify as witnesses and produce city records if requested at public hearings conducted by the Commission on pending ethics complaints.

Currently, the ethics commission can request city staff to appear and testify as witnesses; however, they are not currently required to appear or produce any documents that might be relevant to the complaint.

Council Member Mark Rockeymoore, who was on the ethics review commission when the recommendation was first discussed, said the commission had encountered several situations where staff was requested to testify before them on ethics commission cases but did not appear.

The Ethics Review Commission has had several hearings where they felt staff were relevant and key witnesses with information that would have assisted the commission in making their decision did not appear, Rockeymoore continued.

According to City Attorney, Michael Cosentino, the ethics review commission felt they should have some authority to require witnesses to appear with proper notice.

Council Member Melissa Derrick expressed concern about protecting staff members from potential retaliation.

Cosentino said the city does have whistleblower protection by state law, but the situations in which it protects employees does not apply when it comes to city council, boards, commissions or committees.

“Reporting something in violation of the law to the ERC would not inherently provide whistleblower protection,” Cosentino said. “If you want that to happen, it needs to be provided by virtue of a city ordinance because the state law is not going to provide it.”

Council shared a general consensus on including “whistleblower protections” for city employees included in the ordinance requiring them to appear.

Bert Lumbreras, City Manager, expressed concerns about the definitions and language of the protections but said he would be more than happy to help and provide the resources to work on an ordinance.

“We have to be mindful of how the current structure is within the city in terms of the city manager,” Lumbreras said. “I do believe it’s important, but I do think it needs to be very well crafted, and be mindful…”

Council Member Lisa Prewitt said she agreed with the spirit of the ordinance, but she didn’t want to see the city intimidate city employees.

Staff was directed to begin drafting an ordinance that would require city staff to appear with proper notification from the ERC and would provide protections for those staff members.

Additionally, Council considered and approved on the first of two readings an ordinance amending the city’s 2019 FY budget to allocate a total amount not to exceed $689,500 from the General Fund to provide funding for facility maintenance, software licenses, IT Equipment, building security and Hays Caldwell Woman’s Center.

The budget amendment was discussed in the June Budget workshops and in the workshop on August 1.

According to the agenda, YTD Sales Tax Revenue for FY 2019 is trending higher than budgeted. As of the July reporting period, which are collections from May.

Staff reported Sales Tax collections generated by the San Marcos Outlet Malls and the City’s base sales taxes are $975k in excess of the budget.

The amendment will increase the budget for the following items:

• Facility Maintenance-$400,000-The General Fund has $575,000 budgeted for the maintenance and repair of the City’s facilities. In FY19 there have been numerous major repairs totaling $388K including:
  • Boiler replacement at the Activity Center
  • HVAC replacement/major repair at City Hall, the Nature Center, Municipal Building, Activity Center
  • Fire sprinkler line repair and replacement at the CAF
  • Sewer line replacement/repair at SMPD
  • Waterline replacement/repair at Dunbar and Airport Control Tower
  • Elevator repair in the Municipal Building.

This expense is in addition to routine maintenance contracts totaling $91k and routine repairs which total $381K YTD.

• Municipal Court Software-$44,000-Municipal Court recently implemented new court software. The vendor delayed billing for the FY 18 software maintenance until after the end of the FY 18 fiscal year. This will allow for the payment to be made in FY 19 instead of budgeting for this in the FY 20 budget.

• Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) – $63,000 – The IT datacenter’s UPS has exceeded its life expectancy and is recommended for replacement by the City’s UPS maintenance contractor.

• City Council Dias Security – $32,500 – In response to recent workplace violence incidents, enhanced security measures to increase security in Council Chambers have proposed including a steel barrier behind the dais and metal detectors and wands for the entrances.

• Hays Caldwell Woman’s Center (HCWC) Transitional Housing – $150,000 – The HCWC requested $400k from the City to complete the required funding for their transitional housing capital campaign. The City has committed to allocating $150K from FY 2019 funds, $150K from the FY 2020 budget and $100K from the FY2021 budget (subject to appropriations). The commitment to fund the final $400K allows the housing project to begin construction. The construction timeline is estimated to take 18 months with an estimated start date of Oct – Nov 2019.

The budget amendment passed 7-0 with no discussion.