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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCouncil Workshop Minutes 09.09.2008MINUTES COUNCIL WORKSHOP SEPTEMBER 9, 200$ 6:30 P.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS A Council Workshop was held in the Council Chambers and called to order by President Gay Easton at 6:30 p.m. on September 9, 2008. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: x_ Emelie Eaton ~x Kate Hart _x Gay Easton x Alex Wilkins `Doug Poehls _x Mark Mace _x_ Chuck Dickerson _x Norm Stamper OTHERS PRESENT• Sam Painter Mary Embleton Bill Sheridan James Caniglia Rick Musson Jan Fought Public Input three-minute limit): Citizens may address the Council regarding any item of City business not on the agenda. The duration far an individual speaking under Public Input is limited to three minutes. While all comments are welcome, the Council will not take action on any item not on the agenda. There was no public input. Clerk/Treasurer: • Changes to Preliminary Budget Mary Embleton explained the changes to the Preliminary Budget, which were prepared and presented in summary form. When Bill and Mary reviewed the budget, a couple personnel issues needed some fixing. They are proposing the addition of some staff with a change in structure, so that needed to be added into the budget in case it was approved. Any change in personnel affects all different types of funds, depending on the spread. Another major component was the General Fund revenues. An estimated $50,000 in fees for the Veterans' Cemetery has been added to the budget. For pool revenues, $3,000 was added to the budget. The pool season is split between two fiscal years, and the estimated revenues were increased by $3,000. The administrative charges are a main component in the revenue side of the General Fund. Miral Gamradt is working on the administrative charges, and Mary and Bill have a conference call scheduled with him tomorrow morning. Mary has taken Miral's advice and is plugging in the administrative charges as a budgeted item, based on the budget. She typically used actuals, but this year the actuals would not work very well because of a vacancy in a major position. So instead of basing it on actuals, it is being based on the budget, which will present a truer reflection. All three changes increased the revenues in the General Fund by $97,739. The changes that increased the appropriations by almost $32,000 are due to the proposed additional staff and the proposed union contract for the police department. The General Fund is the main focus. The changes reduced the deficit down to about $254,000. As a comparison, last year's budget was adopted with a $260,000 deficit. Council Workshop Minutes of September 9, 2008 Mary explained some of the changes and adjustments. PERS needed adjustments due to the personnel changes and that required moving .13 mills from somewhere. She chose to take them from the Airport Authority. The Airport Authority will receive the same amount of mills as last year, but the do11az amount per mill is higher so they will gain a little money. Street maintenance had an increase of $7,000 in assessments that was due to property changes. With the personnel changes and the increase in administrative charges, the overall impact on the Street Maintenance Fund appropriations was a $27,000 increase. That is a net decrease of $20,000 from reserves, but the city is in fine shape with the Street Maintenance Fund. Types ofrevenue were fixed in the SID No. 110 Fund. There were personnel changes in the Building Department and in the Gas Tax Fund, mainly due to the Maintenance Shop Superintendent position. The Water, Sewer, and Garbage Funds were impacted by the proposed personnel changes and the administrative chazges. Mary prepared and distributed summary schedules for the council to insert and/or replace in the Preliminary Budget books and a printout of the administrative chazges and how it was derived. Mary explained a graph that plotted the General Fund balance. It showed how the city budgets differently from how it actually comes out. In all cases except one year, the General Fund balance ended up better than expected, as faz as what the ending cash would be at the end of a fiscal yeaz. The red line on the graph showed the anticipated cash at the end of the yeaz, and the blue line showed the actual cash at the end of the year. The only bad news was in fiscal year 2007 where the two lines crossed. During that year, $230,000 was moved from the General Fund to the CIP, so that would affect the ending cash balance. The $230,000 was invested and just changed frarn cash assets to actual assets. A chart attached to the graph showed the history regarding budgeting a deficit. Bill and Mary have made it their goal to prevent the General Fund deficits in the budgeting process in the future. If Miral is able to come up with a viable and better method to do the administrative charges, that will be incorporated into the budget through a budget amendment. Mary is interested in seeing what kind of product Miral can produce so that the various funds pay a fair shaze of the administrative personnel time. She stated that the budget can be changed up through public heazing and until the council adopts the final budget. • Final Budget -Tax Resolutions Mary explained the tax resolutions, which must be adopted separately by the council. The first resolution is for approval and adoption of the final budget. The next resolution sets the levies and goes to the county after approval. This yeaz the city can levy 185.93 mills, compared to last year's mill levy of 168.71 mills. The city is levying the maximum allowed, and the County Commissioners confirmed that the City-County Planning budget will be levied the fu111.66 mills. The next resolutions were for the Light Districts. They have not changed much, but the city might need to review them next yeaz because the costs are starting to overrun the assessment by a little bit. Street maintenance went up a little bit, due to some praperty changes. The estimated cost for improvements is $833,500 but the city is only going to assess about $575,000 because there was a healthy cash carryover this yeaz. The city is going to appropriate the majority of it so there is plenty available to get some work done. 2 Council Workshop Minutes of September 9, 2008 The Sweeping District is stable. There are only five properties left on SID No. 110 and there is only one more year to go after this. The debt has been paid off so the city collects the assessment, which will go directly to the SID Revolving Fund when the SID is done. SID No. 111 is for the East First Street sidewalk improvements. Delinquent water, sewer and garbage chazges are put on the tax rolls. The list can change until the budget is approved as people pay the delinquent bills. • Resolution -Non-union personnel wage increase Mary stated that the last resolution for anon-union wage increase was adopted in 2005 and it was a three-yeaz wage increase. The information attached to the resolution proposed some wage increases and changes on whether certain positions aze exempt from overtime or not exempt from overtime. Further research will be done. If the current pay rate is an hourly rate, the position is currently not exempt from overtime. The new pay rate suggested is subject to change upon further evaluation. The final list will be distributed to the council as soon as it is ready. Bill Sheridan stated that the budget can be amended and adjustments can be made after Miral Gamradt's advice is received. Five positions need to be classified regarding the exempt or non- exempt status, and legal advice will be provided soon. He thinks the city has a healthy financial picture, which will get better as time goes on. He stated that Mary has dane an excellent job dealing with this budget. With the help of Miral Gamradt, he hopes to have a positive budget as much as possible in the future. Mary explained that the two positions are in the Public Works Department and aze the Maintenance Shop Superintendent and Utility Plants Superintendent. The proposed structure is to have a Public Works Director and two superintendents, instead of a Deputy Public Works Director, to divide up the work. A lot of technical work needs to be done on the plants. The maintenance shop would be things like the cemetery, pazks in the General Fund, streets, garbage, and water and sewer lines. President Easton stated that those two positions aze really important to make the Public Works Department. function. Laurel Volunteer Ambulance: Appointment of Hope Mager and Tarnrny Cozzens Jan Faught stated that Hope and Tammy could not attend tonight's meeting or next Tuesday's council meeting. Hope Mager is a new EMT and is in the nursing program at MSU. She lives in Big Timber, but her school schedule allows her to work some hours every week on the Ambulance Service. Tammy Cozzens, who is an RN at the Billings Clinic, was a firefighter EMS in Miles City for a long time. Jan asked the council to approve the appointments. Executive review: • Discussion of street maintenance assessment for 2057 East Maryland Lane Sam recently discussed the issue with the County Attorney's Office. The first conclusion reached was that neither jurisdiction is doing anything illegal with its assessments. The second question is, since it is not illegal, both jurisdictions realize that it certainly appears to be a double hit on that property. The county agreed to review which RSID this property is in and try to define it and look at the impact it may have if the county decides to remove it from theirs. The county is doing some further study. Sam contacted the property owners to let them know exactly where this is at and that further discussion will be held, hopefully within the next week or so. The issue has not been resolved yet. • Discussion of Interlocal Agreement 3 Council Workshop Minutes of September 9, 2008 Sam stated that the draft agreement was created by a small staff committee consisting of Mary, James, Sam, and Mayor Olson. The old interlocal agreement for the Planning Boazd has been around for a long time and was outdated. Anew proposed agreement has been created. It was the county's position that the city should prepare a draft agreement for the county to consider. The proposed by- laws, which will be distributed soon, suggest how the meetings will be conducted. The plan is to have the city council review the draft, discuss it, and suggest changes. The council will not approve the agreement at this time. After the council is comfortable with the draft agreement, it will be submitted to the county for their consideration. About 99 percent of the language in the agreement is statutory. It reflects that the county pays a fee and the City of Laurel actually runs the Planning Department. The auditors had previously mentioned that what was in the current agreement did not match what was going on in practice, and this will clear that up. Sam does not anticipate any lazge objections from the county. Hopefully, it will go through the County Attorney's Office and get the Commissioners approval so it can come back before the council. • Discussion of tentative agreement between the Police Union and the City of Laurel Bill Sheridan stated that the city has an agreement, which is complete except for the longevity item that has not been resolved yet. There is a four-yeaz contract, with atwo-year contract regarding medical benefits and pay for the employees in the police union. There was a lengthy process to come up with a final agreement. Bill asked the council to contact him regadding any concerns or questions. Mary mentioned that fiscal impact information on what this union agreement would mean was included in the information distributed. Information on what the police departments in cities of similaz size was distributed far the council's review and a computer printout showed the particular impact on this budget. The preliminary budget was presented at a 4.25 percent union contract. When the information on the tentative agreement was received, the changes were input and they show up in the budget changes column. Once the preliminary budget is presented, any changes made show up in the budget changes column so they are easily identified. The final budget will show the total impact. Mary encouraged the council to review the information. President Easton thanked Mary for preparing the information. + Discussion of ordinance for creation of Urban Renewal Agency President Easton stated that the ordinance is for the operation of the TIF District and to create the boazd. It is not the intent of the ordinance to spell out the functions, the authority and the duties of the board. That will come through a resolution after the ordinance is adopted. President Easton stated that the ordinance should be on the agenda to establish the boazd. Sam explained that the ordinance creates the outline of the actual board that empowers and creates it. Putting actual members on the boazd will be done through a resolution. The council must designate or delegate powers and authorities to this board through resolution. The draft ordinance contains all of those powers. The agreement generally is that the boazd or agency would be a recommendation boazd to the council. The board would define the projects and make recommendations to the council. The council would make the final decisions on the actual projects that would get funded. Sam stated that the ordinance needs to be placed on an agenda in order to get it adopted. Once it is approved on first reading, he will begin preparing the resolution. Other items 4 Council Workshop Minutes of September 9, 2008 President Easton read a memo from Bill Sheridan regarding the pre-construction meeting for the South First Avenue project. The meeting with COP Construction is scheduled for Monday, September 15a', at 2:00 p.m. at city hall. Bill and Chad Hanson have contacted same of the property owners regarding the approaches to their property from South First Avenue. There are some differences of opinion and Bill thinks some of them have been resolved. Some compromise may be needed as driveway openings cannot be installed at every place. The city is trying to create some agreements, and it might be better in the long run to have contact with each property owner to allow them to see other considerations. Bill stated that it is a good thing for the community and it is a good thing for the property owners. The property owners are positive and very appreciative and they understand there is a lot of expense involved. Bill became aware today that some fire hydrants need to be installed there in case there is ever a need for a flaw. Chuck asked regarding lighting issues an South First Avenue and if they should be addressed during this project. Bill will ask the engineers about it. Mary stated that the area is included in Light District No. 3 at this time. Information on lighting districts is available. The lighting issues would be a viable infrastructure endeavor for the TIF District to address if the council wanted to da the whole area. Mark asked Bill to discuss at the pre-construction meeting the installation of conduit and boxes, which would be relatively cheap. Review of draft council, agenda for Sep_t_ember 16, 2008 • Public Hearings: 0 2008-2009 Preliminary Budget o Additional Mills Levied for Permissive Medical Levy Fund Budget for Fiscal Year 2008-2009 Mary explained that the Permissive Medical Levy allows the city to levy additional mills outside of its spending authority imposed by Title 15. The city will put $191,000, which is about 30 mills, on the taxes this year. That does not pay all the health insurance costs in the General Fund, but it does help. • Ordinance Na. 008-08: An ordinance approving the recodification of ordinances adopted by the City Council that have been compiled as the "Laurel Municipal Code" in accordance with MCA § 7-5-107. (1~` reading - 08/05/2008; Public Hearing - 09/02/2008; 2"d reading - 09/16/2008) The second reading of the ordinance will be on the September 16~' council agenda. There was discussion regarding whether the council would waive the rule to wait a week or until the next regular meeting after the public hearings are concluded in order to adopt the final budget at the September 16~' council meeting. As per Sam, an item to `waive the rule and consider adoption of the Final 2008-2009 Budget will be added under Scheduled Matters, prior to the listing of the tax resolutions. Attendance at the.Septernber 16`" council meeting All present will attend. Announcements 5 Council Workshop Minutes of September 9, 2008 Chuck Dickerson requested an update from Fire Chief Wilm regazding the process to inform the public about the proposed new fire hall on the September 30~ council workshop agenda. The item will be on the workshop agenda. Alex Wilkins stated that the National Guard has activated him to Afghanistan on September 17t~ and he should return home around Thanksgiving. The council workshop adjourned at 7:29 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ~,J Cindy Allen Council Secretary NOTE: This meeting is open to the public. This meeting is for information and discussion of the Council for the listed workshop agenda items. 6