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Public works seeks in-house engineering capacity, $2M in road rehab and more tree work
Summary
Council heard a request to add a deputy public works director/city-engineering capacity to manage an ambitious capital program; staff contrasted $150k in consultant fees with a projected $100–120k in-house salary and proposed $2M of one-time street rehab plus increased funding for urban-tree/pruning backlog.
Public works staff told council the department needs additional capacity to deliver the upcoming capital program, including wastewater, water and street projects. Staff proposed a deputy public works director position to provide day-to-day project management and to support an in‑house city engineer if hired.
Holly said consultant engineering costs have been roughly $150,000 this year while the budgeted in-house salary for a city-engineer-type role is projected near $100,000 (not including benefits), and she emphasized organizational efficiencies and customer-service benefits from having engineering capacity on staff. Councilors noted consultant firms can offer depth of expertise, but several members argued in-house engineering could free staff time and reduce per-project administrative overhead.
On streets, staff proposed a $2 million one-time road-rehab push to address a growing backlog and recommended a $100,000 scoped update to the multimodal transportation plan rather than a full $400,000 rewrite. Streets staff also requested increasing allocated funds for arborist/tree work from $20k to $35k to tackle deferred maintenance and safety hazards. Staff described a proposed hotbox trailer purchase to allow permanent hot‑mix asphalt patches and several equipment replacements that would improve efficiency.
Council asked staff to scope the multimodal effort and to provide more detail on trade-offs between consultant use and in‑house engineering; staff agreed to return with more detailed cost comparisons and phasing recommendations.
