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 CATEGORIES AS A PERCENT OF TOTAL PROGRAM 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, it <br />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 />in minutes, that is necessary for the successful performance of a typical <br />example of that particular activity. Many of the activities listed, such as <br />the Property Posting Process and the Processing of a Billing Invoice, are <br />actually a combination of various minor processes. It is the total of the <br />average performance times of these minor processes that will be used as the <br />activity time in this matrix. (Please see Table I) <br />It will be noted in this time matrix that the initial field investigation time <br />for developed property complaints is 35 minutes, the time for an undeveloped <br />property investigation is 67 minutes, and the time for a City owned property <br />investigation is 25 minutes. These discrepancies are due to the differing <br />nature of the investigation processes for these 3 management categories. <br />When initially investigating City owned property, it is a fairly straight <br />forward process to drive to the known location, inspect it, and write up a <br />brief summary of the maintenance work necessary. On the average this takes 25 <br />minutes of program time. However, investigations of developed property are <br />almost always generated by a citizen complaint and on the average require and <br />additional 10 minutes of investigation time. This time is usually spent in <br />gaining access to the property and dealing with either the citizen registering <br />the complaint, or the owner of the property, usually both. <br />The large discrepancy between these 2 initial investigation process times and <br />the figure listed for undeveloped property is due to the large amount of <br />additional investigation time spent "hunting" for any undeveloped property in <br />violation of the City's obnoxious vegetation ordinance. Since the main intent <br />of the City's obnoxious vegetation ordinance is the elimination of fire hazard <br />posed by tall grass and weeds, it is imperative that all undeveloped property <br />within the City limits be inspected for compliance during the summer growing <br />season. The systematic "sweep" of the entire City required to accomplish this <br />Vegetation Program <br />Cost Analysis 3 <br />