CC06-25-2018Min_WS LONGWOOD CITY COMMISSION
Longwood City Commission Chambers
175 West Warren Avenue
Longwood, Florida
WORK SESSION
MINUTES
June 25, 2018
4:00 P.M.
Present: Mayor Ben Paris
Deputy Mayor Richard Drummond
Commissioner Abby Shoemaker
Commissioner Matt Morgan
Commissioner Brian D. Sackett
J. D. Cox, City Manager
Michelle Longo, City Clerk
David P. Dowda, Police Chief
Mike Peters, Fire Chief
Chris Kintner, Community Development Director
Chris Capizzi, Leisure Services Director
Lee Ricci, Human Resources Director
Lisa Snead, Financial Services Director
Craig Dunn, Information Technology Director
Richard Kornbluh, Division Manager Utilities
Tom Smith, Division Manager Streets
Shad Smith, City Engineer
1. CALL TO ORDER. Mayor Paris called the meeting to order at 4:01 p.m.
2. REVIEW AND DISCUSS PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FISCAL
YEAR 2018-2019.
Commissioner Sackett moved to suspend the rules. Seconded by
Deputy Mayor Drummond and motion carried by a unanimous
voice vote.
Mr. Cox started the meeting by acknowledging all the hard work that staff
has put into this first draft of the budget. He has worked closely with Ms.
Snead over the past several days, along with her staff, as well as the
Department Directors. He said they have been extremely helpful and have
turned every corner in order for us to be at the position we are in today. It
is still not the best place we would like to be before we eventually adopt a
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budget, but we are satisfied to this point. He said the first thing he would
like to throw out for the Commission's consideration is, this is the
unveiling of the budget so no one has had an opportunity to review it
before today's meeting. He said maybe we can come back at an upcoming
time and be able to revisit the budget once you have had an opportunity to
hear it today. Also,to consider some of the things that we are going to
include in the budget, and we will circle back at an upcoming date. He
said I visited with the Mayor the other day, and he suggested perhaps July
16th at 4:00 p.m. prior to the next Commission Meeting.
Mayor Paris wanted to make sure Commissioner Sackett would be in town
and suggested a marathon day by doing a 4:00 p.m. before the
Commission Meeting. He said if we are done earlier, we take a break, if
not, we just transition straight into it. He asked if that would work with
everyone's schedules.
Discussion ensued on the possible date.
Mayor Paris stated I think we are all confirmed for July 16th
Mr. Cox said subsequent to that, on August 6th will be our budget hearing,
and we will have a formal presentation with that being the third time we
will have seen the budget at that point.
Mr. Cox said I would like to offer a few general comments before we dig
into the details. We have revamped the budget, both from what has been
placed before, and today we are introducing the new format, and also, an
introduction to our situation as it exists currently. Several of the tabs in
this binder have lots of meat in them and then others are just there as
quick, informational, look-up tabs. When looking at the budget, it is
pretty easy to get caught up in the weeds of different things, so I wanted to
give you a little perspective on our budget of$37 million. He said 99%of
our budget is made up of items that are five digits and up, so $36.8 million
of our$37 million budget if made up of five digit items. He said 87%
represents six digits and more, and seven digit numbers and up represent
almost 50%, at 49%of our budget is seven digits and above. He
encourages, as we get into this further that the real help with our budget
will come at those five, six, and seven digit levels. The Mayor had asked
if we could wrap up by 5:30 p.m., so he will do his best to get through
this. He said staff has worked hard to assist us, and we need to do more
work on it as we move forward. Also, take into consideration your goals
and what you want to accomplish.
Mr. Cox said there are some funds that are not quite tied out yet, and these
are some of the more minor ones, so we will add those as time goes on,
and we will point those out as well. The objective was to tell as clear a
story as we possibly could of where we are with the best information we
have available. We want to capitalize on our strengths and opportunities,
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which we have a sheet in there for this, and then deal with our weaknesses
and also our threats, as best we can. The third objective is to adjust as best
we can our trajectory so that we are successful in the long run. Most
importantly,to achieve sustainability where our revenues exceed
expenditures to the point that we are able to obtain those reserve levels we
wish to retain. The recommended level of reserve on hand is 20%,
especially 20% in the General Fund. Currently as the budget sits before
you,we are at 10%in Reserves in the General Fund. He said Ms. Snead
and I are hopeful by the time we come back again,we will be at 15%. Our
suggested goal for next year would be to arrive at 20%in Reserves. He
suggested pulling the first page out of the book, which is an Index,to use
for quick reference. He said we have also included in the front a Chart of
Accounts, and a Budget Calendar.
Mr. Cox said the first Tab represents Vision and Goals. In addition to that
is a Service Philosophy and Service Standards, which Ms. Ricci has given
me some materials from that to reference for later. He wanted to suggest
the idea of a Work Shop. He thought we could do a Work Shop after we
do the budget to discuss our goals and what we are trying to accomplish.
Mr. Cox said Tab two represents the Highlights and Trends. This is the
most recent information we have after staff has put a lot of work into this
budget. He said they have already started making some hard decisions
trying to balance what needs to be done versus what we could potentially
defer to in future years, so we can be successful this year as well as next
year. These are preliminary numbers as mentioned beforehand, and when
we look at the challenges we have before us,we are not alone. There are a
number of cities that are having similar financial challenges. He said Tab
two shows the General Fund Balance. He pointed out the red line that
shows the minimum reserve level recommended. It is showing 20%, for
simplicity,we are showing two and one half months for us. The green line
represents total cash, both restricted cash plus unrestricted cash. He said
unrestricted cash is those things that have no other items tied to it and can
be used as needed. When we talk about having reserves on hand, is
having that cash available in case we need it and we have an emergency,
such as a hurricane. The blue line meets up with the green line, and what
that means is we don't have any additional restricted cash in the General
Fund. We are lagging behind the red line, and what we would suggest is a
goal for keeping cash on hand.
Mr. Cox went to the page for Utilities Fund. He said it looks a little
different,which is because our accounting is looked at differently. He
said this is showing what we would like to see,the green line surpassing
the red line. Looking at the graph,the left side represents the total net
position, and the right side represents the two month restricted funds. Our
Utilities Fund is looking pretty good, and we want to continue that. These
are preliminary numbers. We will be getting more information closer to
the next meeting. We are also implementing line item controls into our
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budget. Previously, we controlled spending at the sub-total level, but now
we are changing that to controlling at the line item level. It is not an
overnight thing because I have been signing stacks of overrides on
particular spending we are doing. As we get into this, one of the
considerations is we can ratchet down our expenses for this year and
watch each one of those line items. We have a goal of the meeting in July
to have this in place by. We will have to see how things progress toward
that goal.
Mr. Cox said regarding our decreasing cash levels that does make it
difficult for us to meet current needs when we have that. If we were to
look at increasing our debt load, we have to be careful on that. We don't
want to take on too much. We can take on some, but not too much
because that will decrease our flexibility to be able to pay off that long
term debt.
Mr. Cox went over other considerations. He said we have a potential
constitutional amendment we are calling Amendment 1 that would go into
our books for the following year, 2019/2020. That would be the
Homestead Act, which would increase the cap to the effect on our budget
of$250,000 a year if that passes. He said there is another amendment,
constitutional Amendment 2,that would actually remove the tax
assessment caps on non-residential, and that is currently capped at $33.9
million dollars, so if that cap is released for the City of Longwood,that
would free up an additional $186,000 that would come to us. There is
some interest in our community for us to consider the Homestead
Exemption for seniors. We have run the numbers on that. If we were to
consider that, you are looking at about$38,000 reduction in General Fund
expenditures. He said to keep things in perspective, one mill in the City of
Longwood raises right about $1 million dollars, so we have 5.5 mills on
the books. He said that means we are raising $5.5 million dollars from our
mill levy currently.
Mr. Cox said regarding Assumptions, we have built into this, one was
Health Insurance. We budgeted it at 10%and those were the numbers we
received Friday. We are looking at that for this coming year. We are
going to have a conversation regarding bidding that out or considering it.
He said you will see we have built in for a pay plan that was considered in
discussions held back in March to have a step plan in place. He pointed
out that the Police union contract is in place, with the Fire and Public
Works, Leisure still outstanding. After a while, we will get into the
Capital Improvement Plan. Those numbers are all incorporated in the
expenses so we don't have one set of expenses here and there.
Mr. Cox noted we have been aggressive with FEMA reimbursement
projections. Typically, you want to budget low on the revenue side and
high on the expenditure side. This is one area we have been aggressive in
and hoping we will receive all the FEMA funding back we have invested
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in the Hurricane. That is an aggressive number of$900,000 we have
incorporated. Finally,there has been a lot of interest and discussion about
a fire station replacement facility. We did incorporate that into the budget.
We don't have the revenue source for that identified yet. How we are
going to pay for it is still outstanding, however, due to the interest I am
picking up on the project, we went ahead and incorporated it into the
expense side, and then marked in the revenue side a revenue offset for that
fire station. On the expenditure side, it needs the offsetting revenue to be
able to make the books balance.
Mr. Cox said we have had two consecutive years of unprecedented
growth. He said in Tab 17,you will see the valuation shows a substantial
growth over the last two years. We are up 9.2%over last year, which
represents $223,000 to us,which is really good news. We are one of the
leaders in growth right now in the County. We are outpacing the County
which is at 8.29%overall, and the unincorporated part of the County is at
6.6%, and Lake Mary is 7.98%, so we are sitting nicely at 9.2%with
continued investment going on now.
Mr. Cox said we also have sales tax growth that is shown in Tab 18 which
has been strong, and our Business Tax Receipts have continued to grow,
which is shown in Tab 19. He said we have new, upscale housing
development going on that will have a positive impact on our values as
well as attracting new retail such as LA Fitness, Publix, Computex City
and Taco Bell.
Mr. Cox said we have a Public Safety ISO Rating of 2, and the best you
can be is a 1. He said that helps everybody's property insurance rates.
The sales tax projections from the County on the Penny Sales Tax is that it
is being anticipated for us at$1.6 million dollars over the tenure life of
that sales tax. He went back to the Work Shop he mentioned earlier and
said the form regarding the SWOT Analysis could be discussed during
that. It has our strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats,the things
that staff was able to brainstorm. He said our strengths and opportunities
are strong. On the weaknesses side, a lot of those things are in our budget
already and we are addressing, and there are other things that are
management issues that we can manage through with succession planning,
information sharing with our budget and leadership. He said regarding the
threats, some is external to Longwood and somewhat out of our control.
The things under our control are still manageable through our budget
management and leadership as well.
Mr. Cox said he will skip Tab 3 for now.
Mr. Cox said Tab 4 is a summary of all our budgets. This will be the
advertisement that eventually will wind up in the newspaper and what we
publish. This shows overall how the General Fund is doing, as well as our
Capital Project Funds, our Enterprise Fund, and Special Revenue Funds.
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You will also see the Special Revenue Funds and all the various funds we
have and the purpose of all these various funds. They all serve a different
purpose. He said we have another document that shows the same
information in a slightly different way.
Mr. Cox moved on to Tab 5. He said it shows our key funds, General
Fund, Building Fund, Public Facilities, Capital Projects, Public Utilities
and Stormwater Management. He said we put revenues in the first block
of numbers. That represents year-over-year, so you can see back in 2017
what our actual expenditures were and see our budget, as well as what we
are estimating in 2018. Then the proposed 2019 revenues we are
hoping/anticipating receiving there. We did the same thing with
expenditures in the next block of numbers, and we did the same thing with
net income, out further to the right. There is some discussion on cash
reserves. As we look at the net income on the proposed budget, you will
see a negative number. The main thing we are going to focus on is that
first number on General Fund, $992,000,to feel comfortable with our
budget. The big percentage of the rest of the line items represent the spin
down of grants and loans we have previously received and have not yet
spent. He said we have that money in the bank, so we need to spin down
and do those projects now. That is going to show as a negative number. It
is more to do with timing than anything else. The total of all that
represents about$3.4 million dollars, and of that, $1 million in General
Fund is my suggestion of where we should be concerned about. Further to
the right, we do see cash reserves and see cash reserve balances and where
they are going and projected to go. The column 2019 Proposed shows
what the cash reserves would be at the end of this fiscal year, and then the
following column represents what they would be at the end of the next
fiscal year, 2019. We spent a lot of time making sure we weren't spinning
down too much more than what was already in the bank for doing these
special projects.
Mr. Cox went on to Tab 6, Revenues—Detailed. He said we are showing
a year-over-year look on these revenues. Earlier I mentioned that our
valuation taxes were up, so ad valorem taxes reflect the same thing.
Everything is done with the assumption that the millage rate is neutral, the
same for the next fiscal year. Building that we have going on reflects in
our Building revenue we have coming into our organization, our City. He
said on page 3, at the bottom shows other miscellaneous revenue, and that
is where the Fire Station is located. He said on page 4 of the revenues,
you will see where we are representing millions of dollars in revenues.
Our staff has done a great job of obtaining grants and other funding that
goes into our utilities system. There is St. John's funding we anticipate
receiving, $3.4 million dollars, and we have a state rollout revolving loan
funded work anticipated revenue to come in, as well as a 319H Grant we
are anticipating. Looking back at the 2018 estimate, you will see a
number of those grants we have been a recipient of before and we are
currently benefiting from those revenues.
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Mr. Cox said Tab 7 is Capital Investments. He said staff has done a great
job working together to build a ten year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).
We previously had a five year, and a lot of work went into building this
out to a ten year. The hope and intent is for this to become a document
that is real that we actually plan for replacement of buildings, equipment
and vehicles. Unfortunately,we can't do everything we would like to do
in one particular year, so sometimes we will have to defer a project here or
there, and staff certainly was helpful in being able in having to do that this
year. I thought it was important that we took some time on this, and
thought it would be helpful to point out in this CIP, you will notice we
have defined a project manager for each of our projects. Also, in the
column named Description, you will see some red print. That represents
some funding mechanisms that have been identified for that particular line
item. That makes this a useful document to keep in your hip pocket.
Many of the items that are incorporated in this have been linked back to
the priority brainstorming you all did in March before I got here. You will
notice in the left hand column, if you look at the series of the four groups
of numbers, you might notice a lot of those end with the number 6300.
Each project in the future is going to get its own line item number so we
can track some of those projects. We do have some project-tracking
capability in our financial system, however, I think it will be cleaner for us
moving forward.
Commissioner Sackett asked a question about the sub-total gas tax. It
seems to be unintended fluid because it goes up and then down and goes
up by the year 2027/2028. He asked how we are picking those numbers.
He said I would believe more efficient cars gas tax is going to go down,
but we are raising it up to 3.2 ten years from now. That would be one I
would be concerned about that tax not being a strong support,with cars
more efficient and less gas is being used. In 2021/2022, it dropped
$500,000, but then it rises again.
Mr. Cox said what is happening there,this is expenditures, not revenues.
This is what we are anticipating spinning out of the gas tax in this
particular year. He said you are correct,we do currently reflect$2.3
million in gas tax fund out of CIP in 2020, and that is probably going to be
too high by the time we get to our final numbers.
Commissioner Sackett said that is the one to watch on both sides.
Mr. Cox said he thought maybe we might run through things that have
been identified in the CIP. He started with Capital Projects in the top
group of projects in the fiscal year 2018/2019. We do have the Fire
Station#15 replacement facility tagged at this point in Expenditures also
at$3.4 million and the offsetting revenue in the Revenue Section. We
also have identified a fence replacement at the Cemetery, as well as a Rec
Trails Program for$200,000 in Leisure Services. We have a Habitat for
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Humanity Project Funding for the Lewis House for$50,000. He said
under Capital Projects - Equipment we have computer tablets for patient
care reporting, Anti-Theft Lock system for emergency vehicles for
$11,000, Marked Patrol vehicle replacement program at$150,000, Dash
and Body cameras at$20,000, Traffic Arrow Board $6,000, Blinker Stop
Signs (3) for$2,000 each, a Concrete Grinder for$5,275, a couple of
vehicles identified for Leisure Services at $4,133 and $3,974, and Bunker
Gear replacement at$25,000. He said the total for Capital Equipment
comes to $240,000, combined with the section we just did, together with
the green section incorporating the fire station facility replacement that
totals up to about $4 million dollars for Capital Fund Expenditures. He
said he is going to go back to the first page of the CIP, the Public Facilities
Fund—Gas Tax Projects. This includes the Resurfacing Project at
$25,000,ADA Transition Plan at$40,000, some engineering studies at
$35,000, Bike Share Program at$20,000, and $10,000 for continuation of
the UBER Pilot Program. He went through the Penny Sales Tax Projects.
This includes the Media Landscaping& Improvements on U.S. Highway
17-92 for$350,000, Warren Avenue Drainage for$250,000, Ronald
Reagan Boulevard Improvements for$370,000, State Road 434 and
Oleander Traffic light construction for$375,000,the Retention Pond
construction at Oleander and East Church Street for$200,000, and the
Sidewalk Bike Lane connection to Seminole Trail for$300,000. He said
the Penny Sales Tax totals equal $1.8 million dollars and together with the
Gas Tax comes to just under $2 million dollars.
Mr. Cox went over the projects for the Stormwater Fund. They include
pipe lining for the Rock Lake Outfall for$220,000 and $15,000 set aside
for the update to the Master Plan for Stormwater. He said that represents
$235,000 for the Stormwater Fund.
Mr. Cox went over the Public Utilities Fund. This includes Replacement
for aging chlorine generator at $35,000 and $20,000 set aside for
Telemetry Stations. He said there is the Septic Tank Abatement Program-
Phase 1 for$4.2 million dollars with grant revenue identified at$1.2
million for Phase 1. There is Phase 2 for$2.2 million dollars for the
second year. He said replacement for some AC (this is asbestos concrete)
Water Mains at $400,000, Lift Station rehabilitation at $20,000,
infiltration issues with sanitary sewers at$30,000, $60,000 for additional
locater, $70,000 for emergency pumps for the Historic District, $60,000
for emergency pumps for Columbus Harbor, and a Water Service Line for
Investment Rehabilitation and Project Mingo for$130,000.
Mr. Cox stated another document in this section we created that was born
out of the brainstorming day back in March where a number of things
were identified. He said we went through that list and tried to assign costs
to those items and tried to figure out where those stood if we did have it in
the works. He said police salaries and wages have been addressed, and
board recognition has been addressed also, and infrastructure through the
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CIP and the tenure CIP we just went over. He said as we look down
through the rest of the document,you will see the top items we already
have under way in the budget or we have for you to consider in this one.
There were some questions about fundraising we have incorporated and
theme community events. There are other items we have included in the
CIP out years, and others that perhaps still need some defining that are
indicated by research. We have City Hall relocation as CIP out years. He
said that may need a little more research. He went over several other
projects that are in progress such as CERT,which is underway,the City's
birthday is underway and various other things. He thinks this will be a
great framework for a future work shop to have and revisit when we have
the full budget under our belt and figure out where we are.
Commissioner Sackett asked to go back to the first page and revisit the
Fire Station replacement. He said under that you have a building
replacement for Fire Station 15,then a roof replacement, and an A/C
replacement. When building a new building, you wouldn't need a roof
replacement.
Mr. Cox said that is correct. I am the reason we did it that way because at
this point I am not sure we can say one way or conclusively the other way,
so now we are showing both.
Deputy Mayor Drummond asked about the Bike Share Program. He asked
is that something that has already been incorporated through the
Commission, or is that just a proposed item.
Mr. Kintner said that is an item that has been discussed by at least one
Commissioner at various points. It is not one that we started. We have
done some preliminary work on figuring out roughly what it would cost to
do. He also said there is an opportunity for sponsorships there that would
take that initial investment down,but it is one we did want to include for
discussion.
Mr. Cox said next would be Expenditures. He stated, earlier I said 99% is
five digits and above, and 87% is six digits and above. He read the top
seven items in our budget overall,which are Public Utilities
Improvements at$5 million dollars; CIP Improvements at$3.8 million
dollars; Wages & Salary; Public Facilities Improvements at$2 million
dollars; Public Utilities at$1.3 million dollars; Solid Waste Filling at$1.1
million dollars. He said those are the top seven expenditures in our
budget.
Mr. Cox went on to Tab 9, Debt Trends. Our current debt outstanding is
111 shown in column D at$50.757 million dollars. That is the debt we are
starting out with in Fiscal year 2018/2019,which we have under
consideration now our total debt payments as they stand will be just
slightly under$2 million dollars. As early as next year, we will see a
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$100,000 decrease in our debt payments. The following year will be
another decrease of$100,000, and then another$200,000 on top of that by
2021/2022. That is about a $400,000 decrease in loan payments in just
three years. Then it stays flat for three years, and drops down further
beyond 2024/2025.
Commissioner Sackett asked what that assumes. He mentioned IT
equipment and Mr. Dunn has been here a long time and so have I. We end
up with new leases all the time because we have to keep up-to-date with
everything, but it is very expensive. He asked once a line disappears and
we do $100,000 savings, five years down the road do we have to replace
that thing.
Mr. Cox said this is actual data as of right now.
Mr. Cox went on to Tab 10, Authorized Strength and Personnel. He went
over a graph for 2017 full-time equivalence was 158.5 and some increases
were implemented and put into place in 2018 that brought it up to 166.5.
He said an additional two were added after the 2018 year was adopted,
which brought that up an additional two. Our staffing as of today is 168.5.
If we consider the staffing needs as we move forward, we took all the
requests and started weighing things out. We did have a number of
requests. He went through the list, starting with a request he made for
Public Relations for the Community. We have left this position in as
showing on the authorized strength, but we have not funded it at present.
The idea behind that is should our financial situation change,then we
could reconsider. Another position was an assistant with the City Clerk to
do records management and assist with record retention projects as a part-
time position. That is left in on the strength document, but is not funded
currently. A School Resource Officer(SRO), is the position being
proposed for the Police Department. Chief Dowda announced that it looks
like Seminole County School Board would be paying 100%for a School
Resource Officer. Mr. Cox said we have incorporated a Public Works
Director. We have a retirement and still have some work to do on that, but
we didn't have the luxury of time to have all the details, but at this point,
we are not adding another full-time employee, we are replacing a current
position with a new Public Works Director. He said we have proposed
one in Community Development and one in Leisure Services. The one in
Community Development will take on the management of our Business
Tax Receipts. With the growth of development in our community, he
thinks we are having to put more attention into Community Development
and providing the resources we need for that department to be able to
deliver all the services to continue to spur on growth. That would be
partially funded out of the General Fund, and the other half would be
funded through the Building Fund. Another thing in Community
Development is we have a proposed position for another Code
Enforcement Officer. He said we will take another look at this for either a
full-time position or a half-time position. In Leisure Services a new
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position is being added, a Park Specialist III, a position someone can move
up to. If we keep the Leisure Services position that would be the total
budget net that we are looking at as the budget currently sits today.
Mr. Cox went to the next section, Classification and Pay Plan. He said
what Ms. Ricci and her staff have done is taken all of our various positions
we have in organization,taken the pay bands that have long been
established in our organization, and built this pay plan that steps through
to incorporate that pay band we have. These actually show a 4%jump
between each one of the steps to be able to meet the band that is already
established. We could do a 3% if you like. If we did that,there would be
17 steps to do the band, and that is open for discussion,but right now, it
sits at 4%. He said at a previous meeting, I mentioned we would present a
pay plan. We would kick it around and get to where we were happy with
it, and then you all would charge me to go forth and get it in place. If you
were in agreement with that,we have been working on a couple of other
prongs closely related. One is the development of a Performance
Management Program through performance evaluations. We rolled a first
draft to our leadership team, and we will do reviews for the baseline
leadership team, and then the leaders can perform the same on their
supervisors. The next step after that becomes our Personnel Manual, our
policies. The documents we have been working on is a merged document.
It has some good policies from 20 years, and then a bunch of procedures
that are in this policy document. We anticipate bringing you a policy
manual in the not too distant future to look at and decide what these
policies are.
Deputy Mayor Drummond asked if he was talking about yearly
evaluations or every six months with the step implemented at a year.
Mr. Cox said his initial idea was to do it on their anniversary date or
somewhere close to it. That way you spread everyone out and you aren't
having to do 20 evaluations in one week. He said maybe a six month
evaluation for folks who are new to the position or title.
Commissioner Shoemaker asked if there is an Assistant City Manager in
the works.
Mr. Cox said not to my knowledge.
Commissioner Sackett said regarding evaluations for our Charter
mandated positions, for you,the City Clerk and our Attorney,we haven't
reviewed them in forever. They need to be part of the process too. It is up
to the Commission to bring it back next year. He asked Human Resources
how that works.
Ms. Ricci replied that we did them two years ago, we did a protracted
process. We can certainly redo that.
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Commissioner Sackett said I believe it is in their contracts that it would be
annual, so we haven't been playing by the rules.
Mr. Cox said Tab 12 is for your reference, it is a chart for the entire
organization.
Mr. Cox said Tab 13 represents our budgeted transfers. He said this is all
in one place, even though they are all in the expenditures section, it puts
all in one place all the transfers that are currently incorporated into our
budget as presented.
Mr. Cox said Tab 14 is another one for your reference. Contingency
Reserves are shown here, and he suggested we try to grow this a little
more over time.
Mr. Cox said another one for reference is Tab 15. We thought it would be
nice to have handy to have in the budget book what we had going on at the
time we put our budget together. You will see a listing of all the various
projects we have going on, both commercial and residential. He noted on
the third page there are the various programs we offer for incentivizing
investment in our community.
Mr. Cox said Tab 16 is Special Funding Requests. This is a listing of all
of our Home Owner Associations (HOA) and Special Assessment Fees we
are collecting currently. The blue represents HOAs, and the black print is
the Special Assessments from the prior year. We have not yet negotiated
for the current year.
Mr. Cox stated the final four tabs are for quick reference. He said Tab 17
is Taxable Value; Tab 18 is Sales Tax History; Tab 19 is Business Tax
Receipts; and Tab 20 is where we thought we would place a document
from the audit.
Mr. Cox did a recap of the Work Session. He said his job is for us to
present a budget to the Commission that strives to meet your goals and
visions as best we know them. We are currently in balance. If we had to
move forward today, we are okay. We are not in the preferred way we
would like to be in General Fund. We wish for some positions, but we
couldn't afford, so we didn't. They are included so we have that part of
the job done should funding become available later, but they are not
funded currently,the Public Relations, Records Clerk and Police Senior
Administrative Assistant. He said overall, in some of those line items you
may see some losses in those summaries, but some of that has to do with
spending down the funds that have already been invested in, so we are
holding, and it is a timing thing of us being able to spin them all out to do
projects. He said I wish my first year that I come in here and say hey, $20
million dollars, let's go do some stuff. Not our situation today, however, I
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think we are not in an emergency at all. We just need to pay some
attention to where we are and where we go in the future, and we will be in
great shape. You have a table full of staff members here that are willing
and able to help get us there. Again,the goal, hopefully we can get to
15%on Reserves. He said he thinks it would be helpful to have a retreat
in the future. He pointed out Tab 3 and said these are ideas. Looking
through the three pages you will see colors, green means go, yellow means
caution, orange means currently in the works, and the red are projects not
currently in the budget. If we do any of the red,we just need to identify
what the revenue source is or additional cuts in some of our costs so we
can arrive at least even with where we are today.
Mayor Paris said that was a lot to digest and he is sure his colleagues will
have follow up questions. He said the rules are suspended, and asked if
there were any questions of the City Manager or executive staff while they
are all here before us.
Mr. Cox pointed out again for the Commission to focus on the five and
above digits. He also pointed out an error in the cost for the relocation of
City Hall it should be $16 million dollars not$4 million dollars. He also
asked the Commission to provide him with their feedback before July 4th
so he could incorporate in the next meeting that is set for July 16th
Discussion took place and questions were asked about the Fire Department
staff and numbers for the Fire Station.
Mayor Paris mentioned the Senior Homestead Exemption that was
included and feels that should be taken into consideration and would be in
favor of it.
Commissioner Shoemaker mentioned you might want to consider more
employees for Reiter Park. There will be a lot more work to maintain
Reiter Park.
3. ADJOURN. Mayor Paris adjourned the meeting at 5:32 p.m.
Be aris,Mayor
ATT T: xi; ,
Michelle o, CMC,FCRM
City Clerk -
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