Finance Committee - 8/16/2017 Page 3
concerned about what are we doing. How are we maintaining? Why are we waiting until mid-September/
October to do this and how far is it going to get us the $26,000? | really wanted to understand what the
agreement is with Kohl Farms. How many pieces of equipment are they providing? How much manpower are
they providing and how far does $26,000 get us? That’s the context.
Superintendent Caggiano
We've been doing this program annually since before | started working for the city. The contractors have
changed but 80 percent of the time Kohl Farms has been the low bid. We have had others. This is all based
several things. In general, and I’m talking generally now, it’s about four weeks’ worth of work for one machine
to get all the work done. Then that person returns in June to do high profile areas such as the Cherrywood
bike path, the Gilson Road bike path, some of the trails in Mine Falls where we have a lot of activity. Some of
the sites are required — the levy in the Mine Falls canal fall under the guidance of the Army Corps. of Engineers
- and we’re required to do this mowing on a yearly basis in order to remain compliant with the requirements of
the levy maintenance agreements. Then the rest of it is large roadside mowing.
Its intersections where the complaints are starting to roll in now. It’s really life safety issues that we run into
there. We get calls from the PD, from Fire, and from residents saying | can’t pull out. The amount of work or
length that it takes varies from year to year. Last year | did not spend all the $26,000. We had a drought in the
summer so the growth wasn’t as aggressive. This year if you remember back to May, it rained five days out of
seven every week in May. The growth this year is tremendous. There’s a lot of roadside growth. The calls
have been coming in since the middle of July. People call. They don’t want anybody to get hurt. It’s a
program that we need to do. It’s a program that we aren’t’ able to do in house. We don’t have the machinery
and | would never have the manpower to be able to pull this off in that short amount of time even if | did have
the machinery at this point with the staff that we have.
Chairman Cookson
What is your current staff look like?
Superintendent Caggiano
Right now | have 18 full time employee slots and those are labor people not supervisors/administrators. That
number hasn’t changed since well before | came on board - 18 years. We've added fields. We've added
irrigation system. We've added parks. I’ve done man hour reports for the BPW, and it shows very strongly
that in order to maintain everything, we’re six full time units short in order to get that done. We hire extra
summer people when we can but that doesn’t always work because most of them are college people and they
go back to school. To try to find summer employees or seasonal employees that will stick around through
October/November is challenging. The rate he charges at $65.00 an hour, he’s $25 lower than most of the
bids that come in. It’s a good value. He works hard. He stores the machine right at the park and he shows up
every day and off he goes. He pretty much knows the list by heart at this point.
Chairman Cookson
So the list doesn’t change?
Superintendent Caggiano
It will change slightly but most of those spots are annual spots that we have to do. We just got one called in
today: Pondview Circle. Pondview Circle is off of Tinker Road. You have that bad curve there. You got to cut
it back otherwise God forbid somebody gets hurt there. | understand the committee has questions and I’m
more than happy to answer them but the fear that | have is his rate is very attractive. If he goes to another
community, we’re going to be in a very serious situation if we don’t start this mowing in September because we
won't get to it in time. Like | said, | don’t want to see anybody get hurt pulling out of the road.
