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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBudget/Finance Committee Minutes 12.21.2010 MINUTES BUDGET/FINANCE COMMITTEE December 21, 2010 5:30 P.M. COUNCIL CONFERENCE ROOM MEMBERS PRESENT: Kate Hart, Chairman Mark Mace, Co- Chairman Chuck Dickerson Doug Poehls OTHERS PRESENT: Shirley Ewan Mayor Ken Olson Chairman Kate Hart called the regular meeting of the Budget/Finance Committee to order at 5:30 p.m. There was no public in attendance. The minutes of the December 7, 2010 meeting were presented and approved via motion by Mark, seconded by Doug, and passed unanimously. The Utility Billing adjustments were reviewed by the Committee. There were no unusual adjustments. Doug made a motion to approve the adjustments, seconded by Chuck, motion passed. The October journal voucher was reviewed and signed by the Mayor. The November financial statements were reviewed by the Committee. Shirley stated that the City's revenues are at 23 %, while expenditures are at 24% at the end of November. Shirley noted that while there are no problems with the over -all budget, there are a few line items that need to be watched, and the department heads need to be aware of Shirley mentioned that the Sweeping District (which no longer exists) has a negative cash balance again. She will remind everyone that this Fund is closed and the expenditures should be assigned to the Street Maintenance District. Shirley noted that she added the graphs that the Committee is used to seeing with the financials. She was unaware of these prior to the Mayor requesting them. Mark made a motion to accept the financial report, Doug seconded, motion passed. There were no purchase requisitions presented to the Committee. The Comp /OT reports for October PPE December 12, 2010 were reviewed by the Committee. The Payroll Register for PPE 12/12/10 totaling $156,336.90 was reviewed by the Committee. Motion was made by Chuck, seconded by Doug, to recommend Council's approval of the payroll register. Motion passed unanimously. Clerk/Treasurer's Comments: Shirley had nothing to address at this time. The Committee was amazed. Mayor's Comments: TIFD update: 1 Budget/Finance Committee December 21, 2010 The Mayor asked Mark to update the Committee on the TIF District, as he was at the last meeting while the Mayor was unable to attend. Mark stated that the main topic at the meeting was the diagonal parking in front of Fat Jack's and Emma's Restaurant. It seems that in 2000 the Council approved a six-month trial period of diagonal parking rather than horizontal. Somewhere along the way, the resolution was never revisited nor a final decision made. Mark said that LURA would like it to become permanent diagonal parking and would like the Council to revisit the issue at this time. The Mayor stated that after it is permanently changed to diagonal parking there will be no more than 1 or 2 additional spaces and one of those needs to be a handicap parking spot. Kate stated that the problem downtown is not which way the parking goes, but the lack of enough parking and she would like to see LURA revisit the Streetscape Plan that was done several years ago. Kate also mentioned that the public would be parking the correct way if the parking spots were paint marked. LURA has agreed to help out with increasing the parking availability by considering leasing the railroad property across the street from the Owl Cafe.. This way the apartment tenants, as well as customers, would have an additional space to park. If the apartment tenants parked across the street, the snow plows would be able to plow right up to the curb. There was discussion on whether the Railroad plans on adding spurs to the track for coal trains that have more than 100 cars, so the cars don't have to be split up while being serviced in Laurel. Per Mark, there should still be enough room for the parking lot and the spurs. Kate suggested that the City make a copy of the Streetscape Plan and give it to the LURA Committee for their preview. Another possibility would be for the area behind the Owl and Emma's to be paved and a storm drain system installed to alleviate some of the parking problems. Ambulance space considerations The Mayor stated that the City has managed to come up with $153,000 available dollars, but the total project will be around $386,000. The group that met with the architects has requested the architect scale back the project by seeing if the HVAC for vehicle fumes can be incorporated with the present system and storage units moved to an area in the fire department. The architect feels that these requests are possible and would lower the total cost of the project. Jan and Shirley have worked on the revenue stream to fund the debt service for the project. With the increase of the base rate, mileage rates and a few other changes, the additional revenues will be around $29,000 /year. This should be enough to cover the debt service for the addition to the FAP building. Police Labor Union: The Mayor, Sam and Shirley met today to discuss where the City should go from here. It has been decided that when the 2 parties meet again on the 28 of December that we would like to go over the union contracts that both parties have collected from other Cities. Sam will be 2 Budget/Finance Committee December 21, 2010 sending a letter to the Union requesting this. Doug stated that if we can't come to an agreement, maybe we will have to increase their wage and lay off an officer. Water meters meeting Neptune and Northwest Pipe Since 47 additional meters have failed, Neptune is wondering if they have been exposed to freezing temperatures and that could be the reason for the failure. Of the 47 that failed they think that possibly 26 of these were due to freezing temperatures. These failures all happened in October, so it is doubtful that is the problem, as it did not freeze in October. Sam's assistant, Brooke Baracker, has written to the company and has given them 2 -3 weeks to resolve the matter. Other: The Mayor will be bringing the SummitNet agreement to the next Council Workshop for their approval. He will be signing the agreement prior to the workshop as it needs to be into the Company prior to the 1 of the year. The agreement is under $5,000. Technical Edge has reviewed several internet companies and has informed the Mayor that they feel that SummitNet is the best deal for the City. The next regular Budget/Finance meeting will be on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011, at 5:30 p.m. The meeting adjourned at 6:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, , /c t !.(.4.i/ Li C "l Shirley Ewan, Temporary City Clerk/Treasurer 3