Geneva shifts projects in house

GENEVA — A changing of the guard and additional manpower has seen an increase in the number of town projects completed “in house.”

As town officials have shifted into new roles, they’ve placed an emphasis on cutting contractor costs and completing necessary maintenance and infrastructure projects with town crews.

Clerk-treasurer Jane Kaverman and town advisor Rob Johnson began in their roles in 2015. As they started working alongside each other and with town employees, they realized Geneva could be completing tasks itself rather than relying on hired help.

“As I started getting involved in it, I started seeing how much was paid out to contractors to do projects that we could be doing in house if we had the manpower to do them,” Johnson said.

The addition of Kaverman, who was appointed to her position in May 2015, allowed a chance to see the total picture by comparing contractor costs to what Geneva could save by doing its own projects, said Johnson.

“One of the things I was hearing when I came was we don’t have enough people. It’s like, how do I justify getting another (employee) when we’re spending all this money?” Kaverman said.

In October 2015, Johnson and Kaverman approached town council about hiring a new full-time labor employee, with a goal to cut as much of the town’s contracting costs as possible.

It’s paid off.

Figures Johnson provided to council last month showed the town had paid $30,719.97 to its “regular” contractors at that point in the year, a steep decrease from the $85,189.71 and $70,132.04 it spent overall in 2015 and 2014 respectively.

Projects completed by town crews have involved replacing storm and sewer lines, fixing water leaks, repairing storm drains and other general maintenance and infrastructure improvements.

It’s also included less extensive projects such as when town crews converted a grassy area behind the town’s fire station into a stone lot earlier this year.

“They would’ve contracted that out before,” Johnson said.

He is bullish on the town’s ability to handle projects with its own crew.

“Ultimately if we look at a job and if I go out there and look at it and I think it’s something that we could do … I’ll try to do anything in house,” Johnson said.

That attitude has propelled him into an expanded role of his current part-time position as town advisor. Beginning in 2017, he’ll take over in the newly created role of workforce manager.

The full-time position has been formed as result of the increasing number of projects completed by town crews.

“I think that would be a big improvement to the town because there’s a lot of things we need to improve on and I think we have all seen what we are starting to do ourselves in house and I would like to strive to do more,” Kaverman said of the position at the meeting when Johnson was hired. “I’m sure we can’t do everything but we can do most of it in house.”

Johnson expects the number of in-house projects to rise when he takes over as workforce manager.

Kaverman has more than $200,000 allocated in next year’s budget for water, storm water and wastewater projects. That’s an increase of more than $100,000 from this year's budget, she said.

In his role, Johnson intends to seek out public funding and grants to help finance projects. He recently attended a funding conference in Indianapolis, which he described as a great learning experience.

He also intends keep up with mapping and recording projects, which in part involves taking pictures and marking them in a GIS system.

That’s something that didn’t happen when hiring contractors.

“There just isn’t any. Nobody can find it,” Johnson said. “Nobody knows where it is, if there was any.”

The creation of Johnson’s new position cements the shift in mentality that has occurred at town hall in the past two years.

“Before then, the outlook of our predecessors was we don’t have the people to do it, just to contract it out,” Johnson said.

He said the old mindset was “well we’ve got a water leak down at such and such. Who do you want me to call?”

“Now it’s more of, 'We’ve got this problem down at such and such. What do we need to do? What do we need to get together to get it fixed?'” Johnson said.

The new way of business has brought confidence to the town crews, Kaverman said.

“I think I’m seeing more pride in the guys when they get those big projects done,” she said.

Geneva residents are also taking notice.

“They come out there. They actually see us doing the work and they’re interested,” Johnson said. “They want to know what’s going on. They might stand there and talk with you for a little bit.”