Item 5: Ordinance Levying Assessments for West University Alleys

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Landscape Architects and Designers at the City of Eugene generally provide different services than Landscape staff at private firms. At the City, Landscape Architect staff have the same level of responsibility as Engineering staff for managing projects, from cost estimating, creating and implementing plans and specifications, bidding, and overseeing inspection through completion of the project. For this reason, the landscaping positions have been compared with the private firms' Senior Engineering Planner, Project Engineer, and Senior Technician positions. RESULTS Results indicate that the City's charge-out rates are generally lower than the private firms as illustrated in Table 1. Table 1 Charge-out rates City Position Principal Civil Engineer Civil Engineer II Engineering Associate . Associate Engineering Technician Engineering Technician Principal Landscape Arch itect Landscape Architect Landsca e Desi ner City Charge-Out Rate $90.00 $78.00 $77.00 Private Firm Average Charge-Out Rate $115.00 $98.00 $82.00 $67.00 $63.00 $81 .00 $70.00 Rate Difference $25.00 $20.00 $5.00 $3.00 $7.00 % Rate Difference 28% 26% 6% Standard Deviation 22.0 17.0 11.0 4% 11% 12.0 12.0 The most noticeable differences in charge-out rates appear in the higher-ranked positions of Principal Civil Engineer, Civil Engineer II, and Principal Landscape Architect. This pattern was noted in previous studies of this nature. Only one City position is higher than the private firms' average - the Landscape Designer. The difference, however is minimal compared with the differences in the higher-ranked positions (-3% compared with 26% to 51 %). In Table 2, a comparison of salary rates reveals little contrast between the City and the private firms. 3 r:;- i , 4- 3