July 2009 TVSA Monthly Report
Telecom & Video Services Agency Report
July 27, 2009
Thank you for this opportunity to highlight some of the things that the Telecom & Video Services Agency has been involved with recently.
BRIGHT HOUSE FRANCHISE FEE REVIEW/PUBLIC SERVICE DROP COMPLAINT
Counsel has shared with us the proposed procedural schedule for the Bright House complaint filing with the IURC. A copy is in your Board packet. It looks as though it may be year-end or January to bring some closure to the matter, at least at the Commission. Logan has been meeting with the IURC and opposing counsel regarding the City’s complaint. AT&T has filed as an intervener to the case. Counsel or I will advise the Board as this matter progresses.
2010 BUDGET DISCUSSIONS
The Agency has been inputting our budget prep with the Controller’s Office and preparing budget narratives. Our budget presentation before the Council’s Committee on Admin & Finance is set for August 25. Additionally, this year we are required to reconcile our total budget to the Administration’s Outcome Based Budgeting. Essentially, this takes our budget and classifies what percentages are applicable to the top four priorities of the Mayor. This includes financial viability, economic development, sustainable infrastructure and neighborhoods.
At our last meeting we noted that the Controller considers this a three year budget plan for the City and has reduced our budget an additional 5%, as it has other agencies. Most of our reductions come from CITY TV’s character 4 budget which is for equipment acquisition. The department budget for 2010 will be $621,667 compared to our present budget of $633,188.
TVSA ORDINANCE
OCC has provided us with a final and edited version of the revised ordinance that governs our department. This is the rewrite that redefines the department since the passage of the State franchising legislation that moved some of our responsibilities to the State.
I have reviewed the documents and other than a couple of changes, find them near finalized for filing before the Council’s Rules & Public Policy Committee. It is nearly the document that the Board reviewed and discussed in January.
WHEELER MISSION
Wheeler Mission is nearly done with writing a script to share with us for purposes of promoting volunteerism and other civic involvement for their organization.
Our hope is to produce a short, evergreen video that can be used for not only airing and archiving, but will allow Wheeler a marketing tool to use as they see fit.
VIRTUAL CITY HALL
We met last week with ISA and Logo Indiana to discuss promoting Indianapolis as a virtual City Hall concept. While citizens have the opportunity to pay for permits and traffic tickets on-line, we want to inform the public about this convenient service. Therefore, like with Wheeler Mission, we hope to produce an evergreen program that can be aired, archived and marketed.
ETC SERVER
The proposal to fund the ETC server, so ETC can put the server out to bid, will be heard by the Rules & Policy Committee on Tuesday July 28. We will be there to present. The full Council should get it about two weeks thereafter.
PEG FUNDING DISCUSSION
The Agency has been in discussions with counsel about pursuing monies owed to funding the government and educational access channels under State law. Given the yearly cuts for an operation that has the budget of CITY TV, my perspective is that it is imperative and in the City’s best interests to pursue the funding to sustain the channel operations. We will discuss this more under new business.