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PURPOSE <br />The goal of this analysis is to examine and accurately document all the costs, <br />except for contractor's charges, incurred by the City's Vegetation Management <br />Program in the abatement of vegetation nuisances on developed, undeveloped, <br />and City owned properties. Using the program's statistics and expenditures <br />for calendar year 1989 as data,' this analysis shall attempt to logically <br />structure and examine such data so that the costs for the various program <br />components and categories can be accurately separated. These documented <br />operations and administrative expenses will be employed in the calculation of <br />a typical cost for City performed abatements in all 3 management categories as <br />well as calculating the City's cost incurred in the resolution of those <br />nuisances that are abated by property owners themselves. Ultimately these <br />calculated costs can be employed in the development and justification of a new <br />property owner billing schedule for those abatements performed by the City . <br />OVERVIEW <br />The Vegetation Management Program is currently comprised of 3 fairly distinct <br />categories of responsibility: enforcement of developed property nuisances; <br />enforcement of undeveloped property nuisances; and maintenance of City owned <br />property. Due to the different time requirements involved in the management <br />and code enforcement for these categories, program costs must be examined and <br />accurately divided before we can clearly determine what per abatement costs <br />are for each management category. To this end, this exercise will examine the <br />average operations time required for each enforcement function by the use of <br />an enforcement activity time matrix. The average function times provided <br />through the use of this matrix will enable us to not only calculate the total <br />annual operations time devoted per management category, but to analyze the <br />exact operations costs incurred in a typical abatement within each category. <br />In addition to the day to day operations costs involved in the resolution of <br />vegetation complaints, there are some general overall administrative costs <br />associated with the management of this program. In order to fully document <br />the difference between the program's daily operation expenses and the overall <br />administrative expenses, each will be addressed separately in this analysis. <br />As such, part of this analysis shall examine and document those City incurred <br />time and material costs involved in the day to day resolution of vegetation <br />complaints within the 3 management categories. From this data an average <br />operating cost per complaint can be calculated in each management category for <br />both those complaints that must be abated by the City and those that are <br />' A comparison of the Vegetation Management Program's 1987, 1988, and <br />1989 enforcement operations statistics can be found in Exhibit B at the rear <br />of this document. <br />Vegetation Program <br />Cost Analysis 1 <br />