City's review of expenses yields savings

A detailed review of the consent agenda expense items continues to yield cost savings for the city.

A recent review of the High Country Disposal contract billing revealed a billing error that had existed for some time. HCD corrected the error, saving the city more than $2,500 in annual billing. HCD also delivered checks totaling over $4,000 as a refund for corrected past billings.

In last Thursday's workshop, Finance Director Lisa Young reported a cost savings of over $6,000 per year in reduced telecommunications costs that resulted by simply requesting a services review from one of the city's several telecommunications suppliers, BendTel.

The city staff is working to get a clear idea of their needs in the rapidly changing telephone and data markets. When there is a design framework in place, the city will be going out for bids to cover all of the city's telecommunications needs.

Mayor Brad Boyd said to Young, "That's $6,000 per year (savings), that is real money, good job!" Boyd indicated that he will continue to mine current expense items for potential costs savings in the period leading up to the city's FY2013-2014 budgeting process coming up in the next few months.

During the same workshop Boyd clarified the new council's goal that, when possible, non-city residents would be included on city advisory committees. As a result, the city modified last week's press release on the newly formed fiscal advisory committee to include the recruitment of Sisters Country residents, not just city residents.

At the last city council meeting councilor McKibben Womack requested that the city "cast a wider net" in their recruitment for "new blood" into the city advisory groups starting with the fiscal advisory committee. He noted that this was consistent with his campaign pledge to bring new, younger members into city government.

Expanding committees to include "outside" residents is not always possible. For example, by state law, the citizen volunteers on the city budget committee must be city residents.