Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Feeney proposes software-based solution to save county tax dollars

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

“…the study and time clocks could cost the county as much as $200,000.” –Tim Curley, Vigo County Councilman in today’s TribStar

“What employer does not use some sort of time clocking system, especially one that employs as many people as Vigo County does?” said Feeney. According to the County HR Department, the County employs some 700 people. And according to published reports, those employees are keeping track of vacation days, sick days, and other comp time on their own.

The State of Indiana recently “recommended” the current commissioners perform a self audit regarding employee hours. The commissioners had hired an outside firm to “study the issue” for seven to nine months, but County Council put the brakes to the study yesterday, at least temporarily until the commissioners can nail down the cost figures more accurately and properly fit the study into a council-approved budget. This could delay implementation of a time clocking system from January 2013 to sometime in 2014.

Feeney says that a software-based solution, like TimeForce by U.S. developer Qqest already in place at the Vigo County Sheriff’s Department, or a similar solution coded by a firm here in Indiana, could be implemented immediately. “There are payroll system integration issues to consider, regardless of vendor, that can’t be tackled until a solution is decided upon and put in place so that the appropriate people can get to work on it. No private business I can think of would sit on the issue of whether or not they were over- or under-compensating employees for two more years when a fix is immediately available.”

Software time clocking solutions offer the County flexibility. Employees could variously clock in from their office computer, their smart phone, or a traditional hardware device mounted at the work site depending on the needs of the department. The information feeds into a database, on which the County could perform additional analysis like job costing beyond just simple payroll. And the overall cost would be lower than what’s currently being proposed. “The current commissioners have proposed $50,000 to the council like it’s a one-time cost and then the system will become perpetual and not cost anything. Hardware or software, there are on-going maintenance fees. Payroll systems change, on average, every decade. Labor laws change at the whim of Congress. Software can more readily keep up with these changes, and as a result the true on-going maintenance costs are lower,” says Feeney.

Feeney, a Rose-Hulman Software Engineering graduate who last week declared his candidacy for Vigo County Commissioner, currently works full-time at Sony DADC while studying Business Administration at IU’s Kelley School of Business.

Posted in Labor, Technology |

Renewable Energy

Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Today is Earth Day, a day to reflect on our impact on the environment and propose ways to lessen that impact. The City Council of Berkeley, CA with the help of UC Berkeley has pioneered a unique way to solve the financial hurdle involved with getting homes and businesses to install solar panels on their property. They created an Energy Financing District which allows the city to finance the installation of solar panels by private property owners and businesses. The financing is repaid over a set number of years through a “special tax” or “assessment” on the property tax bill of only those property owners who choose to participate in the program. The financing is secured with a lien on the property. There is little or no up-front cost to the property owner, and if the property is sold before the end of the repayment period, the new owner inherits both the repayment obligation and the financed improvements. Over two decades, the special assessment would be the same or less than what property owners would save on their electric bill. The property owner would remain eligible for federal and state credits for installing these green technologies.

When setting up our own Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, we must be careful not to place the lien in a superior position to the mortgage on the property. The Federal Housing Finance Authority prevents us from doing so. We must also resolve the legality of the special assessment against our new constitutionally imposed property tax caps.

I propose that instead of bonds, we use the new taxes generated by the fossil fuel oil wells within the city limits to kick off our PACE program. The program once launched is self sustaining, and no city revenue would be lost in the long run. It would be an excellent way to encourage Vigo County residents to choose to live inside the city limits rather than continue to push out into the metro area, and we’d be helping out the environment as well as our pocket books.

Be sure to check out UC Berkeley’s Guide to Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Financing Districts For Local Governments.

Posted in Energy, Green, Platform, Technology |

Supporting Science in Our Own Backyard

Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Many people don’t know it, but Terre Haute has an observatory. It’s owned by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and sits just east of campus near the end of Heritage Trail. 

Rose doesn’t offer a major in astronomy but it does offer a minor in it. Those students brave enough to stay up for countless nights, often in the dead of winter without heat (as heat would affect the telescope glass), get papers published in major astronomical journals each year. Their work got even harder recently due to the new development on IN-46. You can see Wal-mart’s glow from miles away on I-70, so imagine how this affects these students’ studies of the night sky?

It’s called light pollution, and there are steps we can take as a city to curb it. Any new city lamp posts installed should utilize semi- or full cutoff lighting fixtures which direct light wholly downward instead of horizontally, and existing non-cutoff lamp posts should be surveyed to ensure that they are not overly consuming electricity or overly contributing to light pollution. In many cases, the most efficient design that balances these two concerns for the non-cutoff lamp posts where they are placed close together will be simply turning every other one off.

In addition to the design of the light post, we can switch to a different type of light bulb to help reduce light pollution. If we switch to low pressure sodium (LPS) light bulbs in all city light posts, we will not only help with the light pollution but also with our city electric bill as these light sources are 4x or more energy efficient than standard incandescent bulbs. The city of San Jose, CA has been using LPS bulbs since 1980 and many other cities throughout the country have since jumped on board.

New development is important for the growth of the city, but it need not overshadow existing qualities of the community. If we are to truly control light pollution, we need our businesses to adjust their lighting practices as well. I propose that we pass a city lighting ordinance which at a minimum requires the use of LPS bulbs in private parking lot lighting fixtures.

Posted in Energy, Green, Platform, Science, Technology |

Infrastructure & Government Transparency

Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Locust St Potholes

The city stopped by to fill these potholes several times towards the end of this past winter. I saw them out working on them three times myself. It would rain sometime after and the patchwork was so shoddy that the rain would literally wash the fill away. Talk about government inefficiency.

One of the best ways to bring government costs down is to shine a light on government spending. A good, recent example of this was Obama’s Recovery.gov project. This website allowed citizens to hold their government accountable for its spending with easy to understand, geographically-linked information graphics about the infrastructure projects that the stimulus package was funding. It also allowed citizens to report fraud, waste and abuse.

Locally, while it may all be public information, Terre Haute residents have to sift through a variety of sources to attempt to understand where the money is going. Bennett’s State of the City presentation provides some direction, various Tribune Star articles talk about specific projects, but overall it can be difficult to piece together what companies are receiving city contracts, how they were selected to receive those contracts, and then make some sort of comparison against other cities to see if we’re getting our money’s worth.

Starting at the beginning of the process, I propose that we require our city government to post all Requests for Proposals (RFPs) on the city website. Local businesses would be able to more easily see what all contracts are open, and a more competitive bidding process would result. The bidding process could be 100% electronic to minimize costs. Once a company is awarded a city contract, the contract information, including overruns as they happen, should be posted on the city website. The city should not be getting into contracts with excessive term lengths, especially in the information technology sector where things change constantly. And finally, at the completion of the contract’s term, citizens should be able to see if the project came in on time and on budget so that they can comment accordingly.

In addition to posting the information on the website, the city should provide API access for technology developers. Public APIs are revolutionizing the way that citizens view and communicate with their government up and down our coasts, and the technology is often open sourced since it was developed with public funds. Terre Haute could apply for free help from the non-profit Code for America and/or utilize technology from Civic Commons. We have quite a bit of untapped potential at our local universities that we could draw on as well.

Posted in Platform, Technology |