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PROGRAM TIME ALLOCATION <br />Although the position of City Vegetation Manager is primarily dedicated to the <br />administration of the Vegetation Management Program, there is a significant <br />block of time during the winter months that is devoted to other duties and <br />projects. The first step of this analysis will be to calculate the actual <br />amount of position time devoted to the Vegetation Management Program. The <br />second step will then be to calculate what percent of program time is devoted <br />to each of the three property management categories. Only after an accurate <br />time analysis is complete will we be able to calculate the cost differential <br />between the program's main responsibility categories. <br />VEGETATION PROGRAM TIME AS A PERCENT OF TOTAL POSITION TIME <br />There are approximately 260 working days during a year (52 weeks @ 5 days per <br />week). Subtracting the 11 holidays this position is entitled to each year <br />leaves approximately 249 working days for the year. Based on data collected <br />over the 1987, 1988, and 1989 field seasons, an average of 75 days per year <br />are spent on activities other than vegetation management. It will be assumed <br />herein that any vacation time of this position shall be taken during the "off" <br />months and included as part of the 75 days spent on other activities. When <br />these 75 days are subtracted from the previous total of 249, we are left with <br />174 working days per year devoted to the Vegetation Management Program. As <br />this equates to approximately 70 % of this position's annual time, this will <br />be the proportion of the position's full time wages and fringe benefits that <br />will be allocated to the vegetation program in the categorical cost breakdown <br />tables used later in this analysis. <br />In addition, a temporary summer aide is employed for program help during the <br />peak of the field season. This temporary employee worked 66 days for a total <br />of 528 program hours this last year. Since this temporary employee's time was <br />totally devoted to the vegetation program, the full amount of their wages and <br />fringe benefits will be included in the program's personal services costs. <br />With the addition of the 66 days of temporary help, the total amount of time <br />devoted to the vegetation program in 1989 was 240 employee days. This equates <br />to 1,920 hours or 115,200 minutes. Calculations for relative program time <br />percentages for the individual categories will be based on this latter figure. <br />MANAGEMENT CATEGORY TIME AS A PERCENT OF TOTAL OPERATIONS TIME <br />With so many of the program's daily operations structured to deal with <br />enforcement activities in 2, if not all 3, of the categories simultaneously, <br />it is not practical to accurately calculate time allocation based on any given <br />starting and stopping time for activities in any particular category. For <br />this reason, an activity time matrix (Table I) has been employed that lists <br />the different program functions of each category against the various opera- <br />tions activities which are common to all 3 management categories. The times <br />listed for the various activities in this matrix represent the average time, <br />Vegetation Program <br />Cost Analysis 3 <br />