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complete investigation involves much more time on a per abatement basis than <br />what is required to drive to a specific known location. <br />It will also be noted that the time for processing a billing invoice on either <br />developed or undeveloped property is 22 minutes, whereas it is only 10 minutes <br />for City agencies other than Maintenance Division and nothing at all for <br />Maintenance Division property. This time differential is accounted for by the <br />extra time necessary to prepare and deliver private ownership billing invoices <br />for certified mail, as is required by code. City agencies other than Main- <br />tenance Division simply have their billing invoices delivered to the City's <br />finance office by internal courier. Abatements performed on property under <br />the financial jurisdiction of the Maintenance Division do not require billing <br />at all since the vegetation program operates within the Maintenance Planning <br />Section of this City agency. <br />One further note regarding Table I concerns the difference between the 3 <br />separate operations functions listed under the undeveloped property management <br />category. Although not required by code, the City has implemented a practice <br />of sending supplemental "courtesy" violation notices to certain undeveloped <br />property owners encouraging them to mow their property rather than have it <br />abated by the City. This practice is employed only in those special cases <br />where an inspected property is in partial compliance or where the ownership <br />has recently changed and a new owner may not be aware of their property main- <br />tenance responsibilities. <br />In addition to the notification and abatement operations functions listed <br />under both the developed and undeveloped categories in the previous table, <br />there are 2 additional program functions that are common to both of these <br />categories. These 2 functions, billing protest replies and property descrip- <br />tion research for filing non - payment liens, are included in the 1989 Field <br />Season Activities table (Table II) which determines the total amount of <br />program operations time spent in each management category. These 2 functions <br />are employed only in special cases after an abatement has been performed and a <br />billing invoice mailed to a property owner. Performance time necessary for <br />completion of these activities varies widely from case to case. Based on the <br />time necessary to research the appellant's claim and to draft a formal <br />judgement, a typical protest reply averages 240 minutes (4 hours) of program <br />time. Property description research involves approximately 120 minutes (2 <br />hours) of program time necessary to visit the County Tax Assessor's office and <br />retrieve the property description files. However, since an average of 6 <br />descriptions are retrieved and copied per trip, the time per each description <br />has been prorated to 20 minutes. <br />The following table lists the number of each type of function performed, the <br />cumulative activity time for completing a particular function (from Table I), <br />the total program time spent on each type of function, and finally (in bold) <br />the cumulative function time spent in each management category. <br />Vegetation Program <br />Cost Analysis 5 <br />