Item B: Funding Strategies for Transportation System Operations, Maintenance, and Preservation

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through the Road Fund. On the other hand, Eugene provides street cleaning through the Stormwater Fund instead of the street funds used by comparable cities. He questioned if there could be some savings in the Street Tree Pruning Program and asked if there was data that would allow the comparison of the contractual versus in-house costs for such programs. Mr. Ostrowski said he did not provide such a cost comparison but that it could be obtained. Mr. Bonnett also questioned if the City had properly defined the service areas and/or the performance measures if they do not allow comparisons with other cities. Mr. Ostrowski reiterated that the City is doing more than most cities in the area of performance measures. His recommendation to the City was to focus on the elements already in place, to keep doing what we’re doing and improving on it. He suggested that measurements are a waste of time if no one is going to use them to improve performance. Mr. Bonnett commented that the report was very well done but said that the asterisks were very confusing. Mr. Ostrowski explained that the use of two asterisks were not to be construed as a reference; two asterisks reflected his whimsical way of noting that such data did not come with as high a degree of confidence as he would have preferred. He said he would modify that format in future productions of the report. Mr. Carlson asked Mr. Ostrowski for a general sense of how the City was providing transportation operation and maintenance services, as compared to other cities. Mr. Ostrowski replied there was a self- assessment culture in Eugene that was essential to efficiency and that the City was doing an excellent job. He said that the only shortcoming he detected was in the failure to provide adequate funding for pavement management. MINUTES- Citizen Subcommittee of the Budget Committee September 19, 2001Page 9