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Home My WebLink About2008-01-28 TranscriptionJanuary 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 1 January 28, 2008 Budget Work Session City Council Meeting 8:00 A.M. Council Present/ Bailey, Champion, Hayek, O'Donnell, Wright, Correia, Wilburn Staff/ Helling, Karr, Fowler, Logsden, O'Malley, Morck Transit: Bailey/ Good morning, everyone. Thanks. I know that this is a budget discussion, but I asked, um, for a report on the job...access reverse commute, because typically in the middle of the year we want to do something with our transit routes and it can have a budget impact. So I thought discussing it now or getting a sense of where we were now might be helpful to Transit. You can see the Transit budget is on 62, with Transit Reserve Budget on 63 if you want to take a look at this. So, um, we'll start with this, and then we'll move into general budget discussion. At our break this morning, we will determine if it's lunch here, or if we'll be done by then. I anticipate we probably will. Um, we're setting the public hearing next Tuesday, so basically today is it. It's sort of a "speak now or forever hold your peace" sort of day. So, if you've got things that you need to bring up, we'll get through (unable to hear). So, we'll start with you guys. Thanks! Fowler/ Um, we talked to Council last fall about options that we were looking at, and Council directed to pursue getting JARC funding for expansion of the Manville Heights route, so that we could serve the Peninsula area. North Dodge route so that we would serve the, uh, Northgate commercial area. And for taxi service that would operate when Iowa City Transit wasn't running, and uh, Ron pursued those and was very successful; got grants for both of those. Um, in addition, we finished up the 07 year with about a 600...a little over $650,000 to the good, as far as our revenue. So we are in a good position revenue-wise in Transit. And the JARC funding that we got is, uh, just over $119,000 for the Manville (unable to hear) $20,000 for the taxi service, and North Dodge route, like I said, it would be expanded. We would go out to the Northgate, turn around at Northgate and come back in. The Manville would be extended to the Peninsula area, making both those 45-minute routes. And to make those work, we had to add another 30- minute route. And as we looked at the community and what we thought were the needs, the proposed 30-minute route that we would add would be a Broadway or modified Broadway, which would give half hour service to the new, uh, Human Services Building that County's building down by the County Administration Building. So we would double the service to that area as we see the demand down there increasing. That also includes, uh, access to the Jail, the County Administration, the Crisis Center, Salvation Army, uh, a lot of those services seem to be located in that area of town, so, um, like I said, it'd be half hour service down there. Um, the cab, we're in the process...we anticipate, well we only anticipate if you give us the okay, we will start those routes May 19`" Champion/ That's fantastic! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 2 Correia/ It is! That's very good. (several talking) Fowler/ We thought about trying to implement them in the middle of spring, but we felt it would be too much confusion, changing routes in the middle of the school year. Bailey/ Marian's reminding us about mics. (noises on mic) Fowler/ ...so we put it off until May 19th, when our routes (unable to hear) Uh, the cab, Ron and Barb have been working on that. They have, uh, basically the contract pretty much written. They have the, uh, request for proposals or the information that they'll send to all the cab companies about (unable to hear). We're waiting for State approval, um, before we can send that out, so that we send out a short informational piece to all the cab companies, rather than a huge contract with all the documents, that we were afraid people might look at and just go, `I don't want to (unable to hear)'. ...send an informational piece, then the people that are interested can contact us and then we can go forward from that point. Ron, do you want to talk about the finances? Logsden/ tJh, yes, the...the DOT when we put the grant in required us to use our fully allocated costs, which, uh, in some respects is a benefit to us because, uh, our fully allocated costs that we put in for was 72.46, and our actual operating costs, if you take the overhead out which isn't going to change, it's about $53.00 so we can actually pay for part of what we're doing through the difference in those. So accounting-wise it's kind of to our benefit, which will help offset the extra half hour mid-day Broadway that we're going to add in, so probably, including the Broadway, um, cab, and both routes, we're looking at, just for the JARC portion, about 120, and then if you add in the Broadway, you're probably adding in another...and I didn't figure exactly that, but about another 20,000. So we're looking at about 140,000, which we, uh, have the money obviously in our budget, uh, for those, so that's not a concern. Champion/ Will the cab run the same hours as the transit? Or... Fowler/ No, opposite. When we're closed it will run. Champion/ Oh! Logsden/ For work related trips. It's to get people to and from work, and it's going to be set up similar to what we have set up for our SEATS program. And one thing I'd like to add is SEATS did agree, one of the requirements by DOT is that we had to have accessible service available, so SEATS, uh, has agreed that if we do have any requests for a person assisted by a wheelchair for service during that time, that they would...they have an on-call person, they would help us meet that requirement. I'm not sure that we'll have a real big demand for those types (coughing, unable to hear) but if we do, the SEATS has agreed to do that. Um, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 3 and the, uh, the cab service will subsidize the ride, it won't pay for the whole thing, but it'll subsidize it. We're going to set it up where people get certified, similar to what they do for SEATS, uh, they fill out an application and then they, um, are eligible to be in the program. They get a voucher. They present that voucher to the cab company. They call the cab company directly; give them the voucher, which will pay for part of their cab ride. Champion/ That is fantastic. Wright/ Roughly what share of the cab ride do you think it'll take care of? Logsden/ We're...we had originally said 50%. DOT thinks that we should do maybe a dollar amount. They think that might work a little better. We've talked to several systems that have done similar programs, and one of the things that they suggest that we do, and DOT as well, is figure out a way to give a tip. A lot of times in these programs, and we had the same thing when we used to have a subsidized cab program for SEATS, the drivers never got a tip, so consequently, when they got a ride they're going to get a tip, and when they don't, then we get last priority. So, uh, we're going to try and work in a dollar for the, uh, filling out the paperwork for the cab driver. That way they'll be guaranteed a dollar tip for every ride they do for us, because otherwise I guess, if there's a bunch of people to pick up downtown on a Thursday night or something, they're going to go down there, rather than go to pick our person up, so it'll give us a little bit more leverage I guess. But, uh, somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.00. When we set the program up, we called the cab companies and said, so what if somebody's going from the Fareway on the east side to Chatham Oaks. How much would that ride be, and they said about $13.00. So, we're trying to come up with a, you know, that's the worst-case scenario. It's gotta be service within the City limits. It's gotta originate and the destination has to be within the City limits of Iowa City, so if we do like $5.00 and then plus a dollar for the...the, uh, tip, then... O'Donnell/ And this is only in effect when the buses aren't running? Logsden/ Yes, um, it could be...our buses, you know, we say the last bus comes in about 11:30 at night, but certain routes, the last bus leaves downtown at 9:00. So depending on where they're coming from and going to, it could start as early as 9:00, depending on where they're origination or destination is. Um... Correia/ Although on Sunday then, it's all day. Saturday... Logsden/ All day. Saturday it's uh, yeah, after 7:00. We're having a meeting with the cab companies. We've sent out a request for interest basically, and we're having a meeting with them on Tuesday, February 4th to talk about the different variables, and try to get some things worked out. We want to make it so it's workable for them and for us, and try to use their, uh, try to find out who's interested in...and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 4 what they suggest to make the system work the best, and we've got a...a database set up starting to (unable to hear). Barb's done that, so... Correia/ Is Coralville in this as well? Did I read that they're... Logsden/ Coralville opted out. They originally, when we put in the grant, as a matter of fact, we, uh, put it in for, and then at the last minute they opted out of it. So, they are not. It was our hope that we could go anywhere in the metro area, but...(unable to hear). Hayek/ You know why? Logsden/ It's...dealing with federal money, it's a, it's sort oflabor-intensive, and I don't think they wanted to put the time into it at this point. That's about all. I talked to Vicky and she said she had a bunch of things on her plate at this time, and...and thought maybe they would wait a while to see how it worked for us first. Fowler/ I did forget to mention the downside to (unable to hear). Um, in order to make `em work, we need to have ahalf--hour service at night and on Saturday. And our proposal would be to not go through Manville Heights after like 7:00 at night and on Saturday, which would be the Park Road, um, Wo1f...Lee Street, um, we don't get ridership out of that area during those times, and we've actually had requests to remove buses from the neighborhood as some people think they're disruptive over there. And that would allow us to do the Peninsula, um, all the time. So, the tradeoff would be, we would continue to go through Manville Heights, but then we wouldn't be able to go to the Peninsula area at night and on Saturdays. Downside of the cab is we have, um, the 20,000 from the State, our 20,000, um, and that may not be enough, if the program's successful. We would have to come back and ask you if you would like to put more funds into the program to keep it going throughout the year, or if you'll want scut-off date. O'Donnell/ Joe, where's the bus going to go at the Peninsula? Where's it going to turn around out there? Fowler/ (laughter) Barb drew all these maps up, you know, I hate to pass `em out. Or, not pass `em out, but...(several talking) Bailey/ Barb, you need to come to the mic. Morck/ Do the turnaround at Foster, I believe it's called Moses Bloom, Swisher and then back into town from that. Wright/ Kind of that little square of...(several talking) Morck/ Yeah, the little community square there. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 5 O'Donnell/ I didn't know if there was room there. Morck/ There is. We've run...taken buses out there (unable to hear). O'Donnell/ Okay. Bailey/ So earlier this year we got a letter from Proctor and Gamble regarding service, and so I think what you said at that time was probably the JARC cab service would cover some of the issues they were talking about, because it was on late night, I think, shifts. Um, are we looking to do anything additional to that industrial park area? Logsden/ The, excuse me, the JARC...we're not, we did, um, expand our Broadway route a year ago, about 2:00 at night and on Saturdays, to service the industrial park, which we didn't used to have any service after basically 6:30 at night. So we do that, but the JARC program will, I believe...I've been working with, uh, I think her name is Renee, but anyway, uh, from the placement service that does placement for P&G, and I believe that the JARC program will meet their needs. Basically what they're having problems with is, I believe, getting their second shift people home and their third shift people to work. Everything else kind of works pretty well, but we....they can get them there one way on the bus and not the other, so I think this service, um, they'll be probably first in line, because she's been calling me to find out what's going on and when it will be up and running. They'll be signing people up right away. Bailey/ Okay. Correia/ Do they have a sense that most of their employees live in the Iowa City city limits? Logsden/ Um, no, they've got some people that don't. They've got some people that live in Coralville, North Liberty, um... Correia/ ...some of the rural (several talking) Logsden/ They're not riding our buses now, so you know, that...I' m not sure what their....they're trying to draw...they're having a shortage of people. Um, they just can't get enough people to work there I guess for their second and third shifts especially, but...um, I'm not sure what they'll do on a larger scale, but uh, this will help with people that are living in Iowa City community, and may bring people that aren't working in the Iowa City community in, if the service is available and they have an option of getting to and from work. Bailey/ So you're working with them and you're working with the other businesses that will be affected, so that they're aware of the program. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 6 Logsden/ Once we get it set up, our plan would be to send, uh, a letter out to the different varying businesses that do operate second, third shifts, um, and to let them know that the service is available and how they would go about getting their employees signed up, talk to their HR people. Wilburn/ It might be a good idea too to get a letter over to the Chamber of Commerce so they can put it in their Reflections newsletter and maybe the Corridor Business Journal (unable to hear). Correia/ And I think it's important to make sure it's clear that it's for folks that are working in Iowa City and live in the City limit, just...see people saying I have an Iowa City address, but they might not be in the City limits. Hayek/ At some point does the, um, if the cab user levels are higher than expected, does it become better to actually expand the Transit hours for budget reasons? I mean, is there some sort of point at which... Fowler/ We would look at that (unable to hear) between 11 and 12, are we better to run Transit for another hour than we are, to rely on the (unable to hear) but right now it's kind of an unknown quantity, what the demand is, and this will give us a way to measure that. Champion/ That's too bad Coralville didn't join up. (several talking) O'Donnell/ Is it any cab, or do we have a specific cab designated? Fowler/ We'll wind up with specific cab, uh, one or multiple cab companies, um, and then who people will make the direct contact from the person to the cab company, and the reason that you do this is because if the reservation would go through us, it would require federal drug testing of cab companies, which in turn drives their cost up to operate the service, and uh, when we had a previous cab contract, that was one of their problems, was that they have a high turnover and so they were required to give the pre-employment testing and then the random testing, and it really added to their cost of being able to provide the service. O'Donnell/ That was my next question, the drivers themselves. Are they, do we qualify...we don't qualify them but we do. Fowler/ No, we don't qualify the drivers. We qualify the cab company and then they hire the drivers. Correia/ I mean through out certification program or whatever, we do background to a degree, if they have a license. Fowler/ Right, and then the cab is licensed through the Clerk's office (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 7 Bailey/ And we have an ability that if the cab company with which we have the contract is not fulfilling or not picking up people, we have a sort of complaint loop or information loop that we can work with that, right? If for example on Thursday night, my option is to go downtown rather than pick up somebody at wherever, and that happens consistently, we could address that, right? Fowler/ Right, but (unable to hear) O'Donnell/ See, that was another one, that was another question. Is it a designated cab for the evening, or are we going to have a cab that goes through downtown and then heads out to the Peninsula at full? Fowler/ No. O'Donnell/ We will... Fowler/ They will be arranged rides from the place of employment to their residence, or the place of their employment to their daycare and then to their residence. It's.. . O'Donnell/ Okay. Fowler/ ...(unable to hear) Bailey/ So, you indicated that we're in a...Transit is in a strong enough financial position at this point that if we do run out of funds and we decide to continue to finance the cab program or want to add a route, because that's the more cost effective, that...that could happen pretty easily, right? Fowler/ Right, and uh, we will not use, at this point, we will not use the positions that we have budgeted. Um, we had two full time and two part-time and it's, uh, one full time and one part-time will be able to do what we have planned right now, so even though the money (unable to hear) Bailey/ Okay. Wright/ And assuming that this becomes a fairly successful program, is there any indication from Coralville that they might be interested in trying to pick up at a later date? Logsden/ They had expressed, I mean, I can't say yes or no, but they've indicated that that's something they maybe interested in. Wright/ Their participation would be terrific in something like this, because of course a lot of people do go out there for jobs and.. . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 8 Logsden/ Yes, uh, no guarantee, but I think, you know, they were originally interested. I think they just thought at this point in time they wanted to see how it worked for us, so if it's successful for us, I would think they would have some interest in, especially if we already have a database set up and everything. We maybe able to assist, and that's kind of how they do a lot of things. Wright/ We do all the work! Logsden/ Yes. (laughter) Correia/ Well, and I think it might be...good information as you're getting in those applications, because you'll get the applications in for individual wanting, you know, to see if they're eligible for the ride, to keep track of how many folks are applying who live outside the city limits, and where they live, just to kind of get a sense of what the demand. Fowler/ As we work through this, um, the cab company may do the subsidized portion through the City limit, and then charge them a full portion to the person, once they leave the City limits. Correia/ Okay, so that would be, and I was wondering if that.. . Fowler/ ...that maybe an option that we'll go through. Correia/ Okay. O'Donnell/ We're going to do this on a...on a trial basis, is that right? The cabs and if this is, you know, give it a year and look at it, and if it's...underused... Fowler/ We'll do it, we'll send updates to the Council so that you know what the ridership are...is, what the costs are, and so that the program can be evaluated as it goes. Logsden/ Just for a point of reference, in Cedar Rapids they ended up with a nighttime bus service. I think everyone's probably seen that on the news and stuff, and that, it was basically anot-for-profit organization that picked up the service and does it, and that maybe, if the program continues to grow, something that we can look at for the metro area, as far as rather than using cabs, have a...have a basically similar to what SEATS is, running at night, um, where it goes around and picks people up, rather than use the cab service, which you have total control at that point what priorities are, so that if the program is successful and there's that much demand, it maybe worthwhile to do it that way. It would be much cheaper to do it that way than it would be to run our entire system, because if we were to try and extend our bus service, you can't just run one route to go to Proctor and Gamble or something. It's gotta pick people up and bring them to that downtown, so then This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 9 it, and our costs is much higher, at $53 an hour, it's pretty pricey to do that. So...that may be the alternative, if it's successful. Bailey/ Any other questions, for Joe, Ron or Barb? Correia/ Sounds great. Wright/ Yeah, this is really terrific. Congratulations on getting the grants, and thanks for putting this service together. Bailey/ Well, and I like that we have some flexibility as we go through the year, um, in what we can do financially. That's...that's kind of good news, giving everything else we've been looking at (laughter). Correia/ And would you say this is primarily due to the increased revenues to the Court Street Transportation Center revenues? Fowler/ That and the transit-intensive community. Correia/ That's what increased it, okay, great. Bailey/ Any other questions? Thanks, appreciate it. (several talking) Budget Policies: Bailey/ What we want to do with the rest of our time is...is finish up any pending discussion items, and we have a list that Dale gave us last week, pending budget discussion items. I also just want to note that, um, these pending items should include any confirmation of any policy changes that we want to make, as well, and I know we talked about our debt policy on page 8, and what I understand, and I think what, correct me if I'm wrong, Dale, is the debt service property tax levy shall not exceed 25% of the total property tax levy. We're going to leave that for this year, and examine that as the year goes by. Is that what we decided last week? Okay. And then the reserve policy, on page 7, Dale, can you tell me how we changed the wording on this. It's at the bottom of page 7. We have optimal level, but I think we changed that word optimal to... O'Malley/ Recommended a ceiling. Bailey/ Okay, so the, with the ceiling of 30%, is how that policy will change. Champion/ Did we decide we were willing to go to 30%? Bailey/ Well, that was what I wanted to confirm today. Champion/ I'm not willing to go to 30%. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 10 Bailey/ I'm comfortable with a lower ceiling myself. Um, but how we determine that number is probably just a, you know, a dart board. Hayek/ Do we need though to...if we're running amounts in excess of 30% on a consistent basis, I don't even know that we need to necessarily change the policy. Champion/ We're not running at 30%, consistently. O'Donnell/ And we have been like 38. Bailey/ This would suggest that we have been above, um, I mean, FY7 is 40, FY6 actual was 40, FYS is 39%, FY4 is 37 (several talking) this long sheet that's attached to the pending, Dale handed out. (several talking) Correia/ This bottom has a percent...oh. I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about debt policy. Bailey/ No, I'm sorry. I moved on to the reserve policy. Correia/ Okay. Champion/ Well, are you talking about debt service or... Bailey/ Reserve. O'Donnell/ The reserve. Bailey/ Page 7. Champion/ I'm not comfortable with anything less than 30%. I just had the two things confused here. Bailey/ Our policy, okay, bottom of page 7, in the budget book, says general fund cash balances will not go below 15%, that's our floor, and we're talking about what our ceiling would be, and we talked about lowering that ceiling from 30%. O'Donnell/ To 28%, I thought (several talking) Bailey/ 28, 27 (several talking) I get it! So... Champion/ I couldn't find my car keys, so I'm not functioning yet. Bailey/ It's Monday. We got to cut ourselves some slack! (laughter) 28%? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 11 Hayek/ I'm not real comfortable with that, but um, well, because of, you know, credit ratings and all of those things, and I'd like Kevin and Dale's input on... O'Malley/ One question I have on this is, what do I do when it goes over 30%? Bailey/ That's what I was going to ask you. Champion/ No! (several talking and laughing) Correia/ I think what we've done the last two years, when we've seen it go over 30%, we provided tax relief to, in the put in that next year, we haven't just gone out and spent it necessarily. We've...we've been very, um, responsible and respectful to the taxpayer to say, okay, we have quite a bit in our savings account, we don't need to tax for everything.. . Bailey/ ...next year we don't need to tax. Correia/ Right, next year we don't need to tax, we can spend that down because we have that, and I...that's what I think we should be looking at when we see we go over, how can we then meet the needs and then.. . O'Malley/ My question is, we were going to monitor this every month, and so when do you make the decision that it might be over 30% one month. Do you then transfer funds... Correia/ I don't think we're monitoring...I didn't think we were going to be monitoring what the unreserved to expenditures was. I thought we were going to be monitoring how we're spending... Bailey/ We will be monitoring it, but I think... Correia/ Not on a...right... Bailey/ We will be seeing it monthly. Correia/ Right, but I guess my understanding of why we're going to be monitoring so closely over this next year was because we were expecting to increase our expenditures with the new staffing, and we just wanted to be very aware of how we're doing for the next year's planning and... Bailey/ I would suggest... O'Malley/ Then there's no trigger that on any certain date I have to do something. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 12 Bailey/ I would suggest that my indicator for, if we close the year with a 40% reserve balance, if we close the year and all the, you know, all the numbers, all the receipts are in, and that's our audited amount, um, I would suggest that in the next year's budget cycle, that's when I would be discussing tax relief. That's how I would.. . O'Malley/ The only difference was we would apply it to our tax relief. Correia/ That's an option (several talking) Bailey/ ...but no, no, I don't think a monthly, I mean, because we know it floats. You've told us it floats for a lot of different reasons that we understand. Mostly timing of cash flow. So... Wright/ It'd be useful to see the pattern if it's going to develop through the year, but I don't think it's a policy tool until the year's closed out. Bailey/ Right. Go ahead. Wilburn/ Kevin, is there a sentence or phrase that you would recommend that would give that type of indication to, uh, anyone looking at it? Because...the word "ceiling" implies "now I have to do something," right away, so is there... O'Malley/ And I think maybe just add a sentence that anything in excess of 30% will be used for debt...for tax relief. Be considered for tax relief. Bailey/ There. I think we need to leave ourselves some options. Helling/ Yeah, I think you need to leave your...remember that that...that fund balance is also, we have an operating contingency at three-quarters of 1 %, but the fund balance is a contingency for some of those opportunities that come along as far as, uh, like purchasing the additional land that we purchased, uh, next to Sand Lake for, uh, funding things like the Fire Station on the west side. Bailey/ Or disaster, I mean... Helling/ So, it seems to me that if you leave...if you leave the ceiling at 30%, you can still tell us, you know, an optimal level that you would like to see, uh, that you're comfortable with, if that's, you know, 28 or whatever, however you want to phrase that, but we really don't know until the end of the year, uh, exactly what that fund balance is going to be, and you can use it for tax relief. You can use it for...to fund projects that otherwise would...would incur debt, and thereby give tax relief on the debt service. So there's a number of ways you could... O'Donnell/ But it does...it will not affect our bond rating, is that correct? Because do I remember you saying it's dependent on what the money's being used for. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 13 Helling/ We don't think it will. There's no way that we can guarantee that. Correia/ It seems like, what I've been hearing since we've been discussing this over the last year in different sessions is that our bond rating is determined by a variety of factors, not just this one factor. Bailey/ We had a memo regarding our bond rating. Could we dig out that memo again so we can get a better understanding, or maybe Amy has a copy of it. Because it seemed like it was, there were many variables. Going back to this, I've heard leave the ceiling at 30; I've heard lower the ceiling to 28. What's our consensus, and then whatever we do with this little policy, if we could see how we've changed it so we can all confirm that that's what we heard, that would be helpful before...before next week. Hayek/ Let me make an argument against going to 28 at this time. Bailey/ Okay. Hayek/ We're not sitting at 30% historically, in terms of our actuals. We're sitting at considerably in excess of that amount. And it seems to me that going from the status quo to 28% is really atwo-step jump, and maybe we only need aone-step jump. If we instead adopt this policy of anything in excess of 30% will be considered for tax relief, or something else, then we're addressing that surplus, and we can see in a year or two's time where we are, and it, at that time we can decided to drop down to 29 or 28%. I just, I personally don't see a good enough reason to go to 28% right now, given that we've got this other stuff we can take. Bailey/ And I'm comfortable if we are addressing the issue that we seem to be consistently over, if we're going to do something about it addressing that issue, so I would be comfortable with leaving the 30%, even though I feel like it's a very high ceiling. Wright/ (several talking) The discussion are both coming in back to the same point, which is operationally there's, we're agreed on what we want to do, so whether we're saying the ceiling is 28 or the ceiling is 30, right now I don't think it's going to make any huge difference. Champion/ You're probably right, it doesn't make any difference at this point. Bailey/ I think...I think you're right. More importantly it's what we do operationally about the excess. Amy, what were you... Correia/ No, that's fine. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 14 Bailey/ Okay. So, where are we with this? Is the ceiling of 30% comfortable to people? Can we see this rewording so we can confirm that...if we can see it on Monday that we...no, yeah...next Monday, so we all know what we just said. Are there... Hayek/ Yeah, and I just have a couple questions about the spreadsheet itself. Um, we've go the 08 current budget numbers and you show 29% at the bottom. Is that, um, a projection based on your fiscal year to date information? O'Malley/ Yes. Hayek/ Are we halfway there, basically? O'Malley/ As of November, I think we did our last budget amendment. Maybe it was December. Should be six months. Close to six months. We had a budget amendment we brought to Council, November or December. That would have, that (unable to hear) revenues and expenditures. Correia/ We included that in (unable to hear) Hayek/ Okay, so that 29%, that's more accurate than your garden-variety budget prediction, because we're halfway there. Bailey/ And there was a budget amendment. Hayek/ And there was a budget amendment. O'Malley/ Now, in there there are quite a few capital improvement projects that were being funded, uh, from that reserve. I doubt if all of them will happen by June 30th. So, but they'll be appropriated for next year, they'll be carried over for the (unable to hear) Hayek/ And in terms of your projections going forward, do your numbers assume a continued erosion of...of the tax, uh, the taxable land base, thanks to the rollback? O'Malley/ No. We...we pretty much leave the rollback flat. We don't factor that into it. We just don't put as high a valuation growth on the evaluation years, and usually (several talking) historically that's offset. Hayek/ And you assume, in terms of the, uh, bi-annual increase in valuation... O'Malley/ Right. That's usually higher...see, we usually put in a 2 to 3% increase in valuation in total, and it seems like every second year we get like 7 or 8%, and then with the rollback, it cuts it down. So, these are conservative valuation numbers. Bailey/ Okay. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 15 Hayek/ Okay. Bailey/ All right. I think that those were the only policy items we were looking at. Am I correct? Champion/ What about the...25% debt levy, that's a policy. Bailey/ Right. On page 8, and we decided, um, as I understood, to leave that as it is, and look at that, because, um, we were going to look at some benchmarks and some best practices, and that's an upcoming discussion item. If the policy changes, it would change for next budget, is what I recall. Is that...(several responding) Okay. So, so it seems like the reserve policy is the only one that will change in wording, and if we could see that, that would be great, but other than that...did we discuss any other, or did anybody else have any other policy concerns, comments, questions? Because this is part of the whole package, and I think sometimes we overlook the words in favor of the numbers. Okay. So, going to this pending discussion item list. Library Bailey/ Let's just, we have priorities at the top. Free up funds, cost saving containment, new revenue sources, lists the budget discussion items, um, we looked at the Library, and I'm just going to go down the list, unless...you want to approach it some other way. The Library, we have the revised Library pages. They brought in some specific requests. Do we want to address any of those? They asked for some rent to be used for the Library budget, and then they also mentioned parking tickets, I believe, the $28,000 they collect in parking tickets. Helling/ That was in conjunction with the, uh, increasing the time for maintenance worker. Bailey/ Right, right, so... Correial Now the parking ticket revenue that is received...so when they're talking about the parking, they're talking about those five spaces in front, that 30-minute, 20- minute, handicapped parking, book drop -those are the spaces they're talking about? Helling/ Right. Correia/ And they monitor those spaces and they actually write the tickets. Is that right? Helling/ That's right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 16 Correia/ Okay, and so then the money goes into parking ticket revenue just goes into our regular general fund? It goes into the parking division? O'Malley/ General fund. Correia/ It goes into the General Fund. Hayek/ Do we not have our standard ticket writers patrolling those spots because the Library staff is doing so? Or do they just (several talking) Helling/ Yeah, it's just a, just an increased service level there, so to speak. They do go by there, but, uh, the Library folks are the ones that monitor very closely. Champion/ Why don't we give `em a portion of that money? Like, I'm not willing to give them any more staff, but, um, because I'm not willing to give anybody more staff, but (several talking) Bailey/ We don't have a choice with that with the Library. Am I correct? If we give them more money, those chose how to use the more money? Is that correct? Champion/ Well, that's fine, but... Bailey/ It might be more staff is what I'm pointing out to you, Connie. They might increase that maintenance worker. Champion/ I mean, I...if they're, they're monitoring all that. We pay our parking people, what'd I read in the paper $13.50 an hour? Some of my kids should become parking meter people, and um, so...why don't we give them a percentage of that money, like $5 per ticket, no, ticket's not worth $5. (several talking) Um, but let them do what they want with that money. Would that be a.... Bailey/ If we incent them that way, are we sending a message to the public that that's why we're writing tickets is for revenue generating? (unable to hear response) Okay. I just wanted to make sure... Hayek/ Yeah, that seems kind of weird to me. O'Donnell/ You're right on the message. And you know $28,000 in a year is phenomenal amount. Bailey/ Well, there's a lot of abuse of those spaces, I believe. I mean.. . Wright/ Basically they're...it's a service to their users. Correia/ Service to the public, yeah. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 17 Wright/ ...rotate those spaces. Champion/ I love those spaces. Helling/ The purpose is turnover on those spaces. Bailey/ Right. Yeah, use as designated on the signs, yeah. Champion/ Well, I guess that proved that idea. I dreamt that last night. Bailey/ I thought it was an interesting approach. Are others interested in providing a portion of the $28,000 or whatever the parking ticket revenue is, to the Library? And, probably they would increase the maintenance worker staff. It's a percentage time that would increase it. I can't remember the details. (several talking) Helling/ Well, yeah, what they would chose to do...essentiallytyhat you're doing is just allocating additional General Fund money. Bailey/ Yes, it would be additional General Fund money. Helling/ They could use that to employ that extra ten hours for the maintenance worker, or whatever it is, or however they want to use it. Correia/ I guess I'm confused about one thing. If...if, why does the Library come asking for staff? I mean, I understand that we give, we decide how much we give to the Library and then they decide how they spend it. So they don't really even need to come and request additional staff. Helling/ Well, that's the, I assume that's the rationale that they give you for asking that increase is because (several talking) Wilburn/ That's the first question someone on Council's going to ask, is why are you asking for all this extra money. So, you just put it out there. Correia/ But, essentially they could reallocate their own budget, within what we give them. (several responding) Okay. Bailey/ They have that independence. Helling/ Typically on staffing, I think they follow closely with the budget. For obvious reasons, I mean... Bailey/ It makes sense. So, back to the $28,000 question. O'Donnell/ Didn't we also have an additional $50,000 for... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 18 Bailey/ They also asked to use the additional rent that is projected, above 50, not going to, um, pay down the bonds, but to use for operations. And Connie has been very vocal about her opinion about that, but I haven't heard from other people. Champion/ Also, were pointing out that they were short, were short a million and a half or.. . O'Malley/ Ahalf-million dollars. Champion/ ...ahalf-million, so, in their capital campaign, so that $50,000 can help buy down that. That was part of the agreement. Correia/ I heard them ask for, that they wanted to put that additional, those additional funds into computer reserve, which I guess is different in my mind from operations. I suppose... Helling/ I think...the amount they estimated was $47,000. I believe they were going to put $37,000 into computer reserve, and $10,000 into other equipment reserve. Does that... O'Malley/ Yeah, that sounds correct. Correia/ I mean, I'm interested in if they want to put the money into...and designate the additional, over the 50, which is what we've been projecting, um, to go down, to buy down debt, into those types of equipment reserves, because if...if those dollars aren't going in there now, we're going to need to have the dollars available to replace that essential equipment. Bailey/ We would bond to replace that too. It would end up being a debt expense at some point. O'Malley/ That's correct. They don't want to have to come to you to ask for that money (several talking) aggregate the money themselves. Bailey/ It's kind of going to two debt service type things, actually. Correia/ And this is planning ahead. Champion/ I disagree, but I might be the only one that feels that way. I just don't think that was part of the whole referendum. Wright/ Well, if indeed they'd be coming back for bonding, for that money...this actually looks like a simpler way to take care of the need. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 19 Champion/ We don't know the amount of money their needs going to be. And in the meantime, we'll be paying down that debt. And then, if you have to add more debt, you add more debt, but that'd be part of our debt policy also. To allow them to increase our debt policy, basically that's what we're allowing them to do, because we're allowing them not to use that money to pay down the debt, and we're allowing them to save, so then they're, I think they're messing around with our debt policy about 25%. Bailey/ Actually I'm not sure, and...and maybe I'm wrong, but we wouldn't be changing our debt policy, because we...we have budgeted that we'll get the 50,000. That's what we expect for the pay down amount. We don't expect anything in excess, and what they're suggesting is we'll keep, we'll honor the current commitment of 50,000, but oh, wow, we're getting more rent. We should put it into a savings account in anticipation of needing equipment. That's what I, how I'm thinking about it. Champion/ Oh, I understand that. That's pretty straightforward. But however then, because we won't have to bond for this new equipment. Right. In the meantime, we're not paying down our debt by that extra $50,000 a year, and we won't have to bond for it, which means that...that messes around with our 25%. You know what I'm saying, because that...if we'd had to bond for that it might be at 26%, but we might not have been because we're already paying down the debt with that extra $50,000. Bailey/ Basically it's how we want to approach, sort of, maintenance that we know is going to be needed (several talking) Wilburn/ I would be, in terms of the parking, um, fees, I would be fine allowing them to have a portion of that. I don't know what that portion would be, but, uh, in terms of the excess revenue coming in for the rental space, I...I'm going to agree with Connie, um, that I would not support that that was part of the package deal related to the Library, and I'm...I'm not going...if a majority, I'm not going to not vote for the budget or anything because of this, but having been on Council at that time and the contentious discussions that if evolved around the Library, I felt like I would be going against a commitment that I made that this is the package deal, and uh, not wanted to open the door for critique. There's logic to what you're saying about trying to use it, but uh, I would personally, because of being involved in the debates and discussions back then related to the Library, feel that that money should go towards the, uh, the bond. Bailey/ Well, and to a certain degree, I mean, obviously I wasn't here, and some of us weren't here, to a certain degree if that's a concern of those of you who were here, and that's an understanding that you feel is out there, I really have, I really respect that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 20 Wilburn/ But you, anyone who was...I'm not saying you should be held to that. I'm just saying because I was... Bailey/ But it's a perspective that many of us don't have. That's what I'm saying, and if you felt that that's the understanding that the public had, I think we should take that into consideration. So, where (noise on mic; laughter and several talking) Correia/ ...community dialogue at the time. Was it that concern or the contentiousness of, among the body of the Council? Was it something you were hearing from the public? Wilburn/ There's a whole range of things, whether it was, um, satellite libraries to just even the shape and form and whether you go down for underneath for parking, just a whole series of things, and so some of us latched on to "here's the package," "here's what we say what we're going to do; we're going to do it." So, to pick, and it's hard to pick out one, but because of just the whole dynamics around it, that's why...I personally feel, here's what I said we'd do, and I again, I understand conditions can change, but... O'Donnell/ I was on the Council also, and...and that, you know, the more I think about this, that was part of the whole package and the dialogue out in the community was, you know, there were many in favor, but there were many who weren't, and the question was, how you gonna pay for this? How's it gonna affect my taxes? Wilburn/ And it wasn't so much 50%, I mean, that was a projection, but it was just the concept of... O'Donnell/ The money. Wilburn/ It's going to, yeah. Yeah. Wright/ Basically you're understanding of that was whatever rent is generated, will go towards (several talking) Bailey/ You know, I'm inclined...hearing that perspective, I'm inclined to go that direction as well. I know we're not bound, but I think that that's important to be respectful of some tough decisions that were made. Correia/ So with the, with the new reality, that we're getting more revenue from that space, double what we estimated, right? If it's.. . O'Malley/ Uh, it's hard to say when you say double what we estimated. Correia/ Well, 50,000 to 100,000. O'Malley/ It's not what we estimated. It's what they estimated. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 21 Correia/ Was estimated, whatever. O'Malley/ Well, well, it's...it makes a point because it wasn't, um, it wasn't occupied, the bottom wasn't occupied. Correia) I know. My question is just related to, if we're, if we're projecting out now that we're going to be paying $100,000 down instead of $50,000 a year, which is what we estimated, how long, you know.. . O'Malley/ Until the bonds are paid off. I think they're about 15 years. Correia/ So, that was with the... O'Malley/Maybe 14 years. Correia/ So will that now be paid off in 7? O'Malley/ No. What happens is, no, it won't be paid off any sooner. Correia/ Okay. O'Malley/ It'll mean that your tax levy will be less. Correia/ Oh. O'Malley/ See, we calculate a tax levy on each one of our issues. Correia/ Okay. O'Malley/ And on that issue, to give you the perspective, the historical perspective when that was, it was a contentious time, somewhat contentious time, and I was involved in the financing aspect, and the issue was, we have a million and a half dollars of donated monies, and then what do we need to build the Library? And our bond counselor said, well, you can wait until you collect the million-five, and then finance the rest of it, or you can assume you're going to get the million-five, and pay for the whole thing, the 18.4, so we said we'll assume that we're going to get the million-five, and that any revenue will come in to pay for the additional part, will help also. So that was all part of the package. Correia/ Okay. O'Malley/ So, after it was done, that half-million didn't show up, and so right away, you know, we started saying, well, gee, how we gonna cover that? Well, boom. It went up to 26%, on the tax levy. Back in 2003, 2004. (several responding) And then we just kind of shuffled projects around to keep it down. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 22 Correia/ Okay, so with... O'Malley/ That's the history of that, and then we were hoping whatever money came in, we, $30,000 came in the first year I think, well, the first year they had revenue. For several years... Bailey/ Because they were behind. O'Malley/ They used it themselves. And, they were hoping, the Library Board was going to sell that piece off, and I was the one that told them hang on to it, because you may grow into it later, in 10 or 20 years. That's the history. Bailey/ But there's no bond covenant for... O'Malley/ There's no bond covenant. That was what was...what was expressed at that time was, this is how we'll do it, and the Library helped fashion that, and we came down to a taxed amount each person would pay per hundred-thousand dollars, and that's what was the information that was sent to the public. Which I say they voted on that information. Bailey/ Okay. I... O'Malley/ That's my opinion. Bailey/ Okay. Correia/ So if...just so I'm tracking what you're saying. If we're getting more, does that, can that decrease our debt levy? O'Malley/ Correct. Correial Okay, so...should we want to talk about that then? I just...what that would be? O'Malley/ It's nominal, 50,000. The half-million is what really hurt. Bailey/ Right. Correia/ I mean, if we're getting 100,000 going into that (several talking) Champion/ We're already a half million behind. Bailey/ Right. Given all this (several talking) given all this, I really, I think all the rent should go for the bond payment. O'Malley/ And we expected receipts anyway, besides the half million. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 23 Bailey/ So, given all this information, I want the rent to go to pay down the debt. Is (several responding) Okay. So that's decided. Hayek/ On the tickets, I have a question. Are there other divisions or departments that have ticket writing authority? O'Malley/ Yes. Parks, uh, Senior Center, they also can write tickets. Correia/ Where's their parking ticket revenue.. . O'Malley/ Their General Fund, operations. (several talking) Hayek/ I would much rather, uh, if there's obsolete equipment that needs to be replaced, have them come before us and make their pitch, just as every other department would do, and go about it that way. Obviously we need to maintain viable equipment and you know all those things. Bailey/ And once again, this department has a Foundation. I mean, I know that that's probably not routine equipment replacement, but they have some, they have some other funding options (coughing, unable to hear) So, are we in agreement then, the parking goes to the General Fund, as is our policy? (several responding) Okay, good. Just moving down. Champion/ Did we decide we're not going to give them the extra quarter-time person or whatever it was? Bailey/ As a result of not giving them extra funding, I think they'll have to make that decision. Correia/ Exactly. We're giving them the amount we're giving them and they can... O'Malley/ Let me clarify it. They're asking for aquarter-time person for $12,500, and they're saying that since they're receiving $28,000 more in the budget, that that would help pay for that $12,500 part-time position. Bailey/ Right. O'Malley/ So what they're really asking for is $12,500. They're not asking for the money. They're asking, they're saying that they're going to use the money that we're getting to pay that $12,500. Correia/ The current amount, the amended budget. O'Malley/ Right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 24 Correia/ That's what I'm saying, if we're telling them we're, the revised budget that you gave to us, this is the General Levy amount that's going to your, to the Library. If you all want to do, add a maintenance person with that money, that's fine, um... Bailey/ But the $28,000 in parking receipts and the additional rent (several talking) it's not available. Right? O'Donnell/ I agree. Bailey/ Okay. City Hall Lobby: Bailey/ Going down this list, shall we talk about City Hall lobby use? Any other further discussion with that? O'Malley/ Just want to let you know, I'll be bringing it back to you, so that you'll be able to make some decisions. Police Department has some concerns and so does City Clerk's. (several talking) Bailey/ But it's in our...it's in our CIP and we'll see, okay. Good. Hayek/ Your name, is there going to be a plague with your name (several talking) Wilburn/ ...O'Malley Hall or something like that. (several talking and laughing) Karr/ That's what the Clerk wanted to talk about. (laughter) Naming rights. (several talking) Senior Center Bailey/ Okay, Senior Center temps. Correia/ What page is the Senior Center on? Bailey/ Um...(several talking)...I just, it's on 77. Correia/ When I was calculating...the, um, the...okay, I have notes on this when I was calculating this the other day. I know that the 2008 estimate on there is high because of the money going in for the rehab and remodel, correct? O'Malley/ Correct. Correia/ Okay. But I think what I did was I looked at what we, um, had, um, voted on the General Levy amount for 08, before the remodel, and the difference between that 08 and the 09, the increase, was about 7.5%. And I just think that's too high, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 25 something that we talked about when we were looking at the Library, I mean, I think it's, so I think that that, the increase, is to help...for them to help pay for these ES, these temp positions. It sounds to me like the work they're wanting the temp, uh, staff to do is not really temporary work. It's, they're wanting to keep the building open from a management perspective. If it's an ongoing type of reoccurring project, that they need to, as Connie has said, figure out within their current staffing structure and current, um, dollars that they have, that they're going to have to figure that out, um, and I just see that this increase...contributes to just increased creep from the General Levy. Um, so I would like to see that amount, you know, go up 3.5% or whatever, just to increase their costs. Wright/ I agree with you for the, what they're trying to do with the staff, uh, that's kind of an abuse of the idea of a temp. (laughter) You hire temps for projects. You hire temps because someone's (several talking) Helling/ I thin it's just, what they're proposing meets our definition of a temporary employee, in the sense of...of how they're classified and compensated, but I, no, I think you're right. What they're saying is they want these people on an ongoing basis. I don't think it's for a year or six months or whatever. Champion/ No way. Correia/ So I guess... O'Donnell/ We've answered that. Bailey/ But what about the budget amount? Champion/ That'll drop. Bailey/ The budget...okay. Correia/ Right, so would that drop the $10,000 that they were wanting to earmark (several talking) Champion/ I mean, it doesn't seem like a lot of money, but every temp adds up. Correia/ Right, and again, I think it contributes to the creep, you know, the General Levy creep into different departments. You put up some significant amount, um, one year, you don't generally see the General Levy not drop significantly from year to year, um, it continues to go up, so... Hayek/ Where does that come off, what line does that come off of? Correia/ The General Levy, top line. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 26 O'Malley/ You'll see the personnel go down that $10,000, and then that would reduce the top line by $10,000. Hayek/ So it'd be 449, and then 650 for... O'Malley/ Right. Hayek/ And then what, uh, if we dropped it ten grand, what's the percent? The resulting percentage increase? Correia/ This is the number that I used... O'Malley/ I don't believe it's material. Hayek/ Okay. Correia/ Um, the, in our 08 budget, we have passed 618,163 from our General Levy, and again, the reason why it's high here is because we have amended dollars in for the remodel, and we have, so if we go.. . O'Malley/ That's a little over 7...7.23%, by taking $10,000 off. Correia/ So what...what's contributing to that high of an increase in that budget? Bailey/ Yeah. Correia/ I guess I'd like to see... Bailey/ That seems out of line with...with other departments, although there's another department that's really high too, and I want to ask about that as well. Correia/ And what we had, you know, we looked at the Library budget. So I guess I'd like to stay in line. So what would, if we were going to say 4%.. . O'Malley/ It appears that they're not keeping up in revenue, because they're expenditures haven't grown that substantial. Looks like their contributions and donations in the year 2007 were $93,000 and they're only budgeted for $27,000 in 2009. Bailey/ So that's... Champion/ They can't just add that to our budget. I mean, why would they do that? mean, I think they can probably raise more than that. I think it's a way to get more money out of the system. Nobody ever has enough money. (several talking) I'm glad you caught that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 27 Bailey/ That's not the line item that memberships are in, miscellaneous revenue is memberships, is that right? O'Malley/ $7,000 does look like their memberships. I think this is the additional monies that they receive. Hayek/ Why is there such a large, uh, contributions and donations in...07? Is that some sort of charitable bequest or something? Bailey/ They did a bequest, and then they did do some projects, but I thought those were (several talking) yeah... Correia/ I know they did transfer money in from the Senior Center fund, for assembly room and... Bailey/ Assembly room, yeah, redo. Correia/ ...furniture and things like that. Again, which aren't ongoing costs either, so wouldn't necessarily need to see a jump, because that was not a recurring expense. So what would a 4% increase, so 618, from 618 to 163, be... O'Malley/ $643,000. Champion/ Good. Correia/ That's what I'm comfortable with. Champion/ Me too. Bailey/ Uh-huh. Champion/ I mean, people can't expect 7% increases. Nobody's going to have those. Correia/ Well, we might in some departments, especially with the increased cost of gas. Bailey/ Well, so (several talking) in the vein of this discussion then, I have some questions about the Public Works Department, because on page 57 is the first one. Hayek/ We're not finished with Senior Center -we're just sidetracking for a little bit and then coming back? Is that... Bailey/ Well, are we finished with Senior Center? O'Donnell/ I thought we were finished. Wright/ I think we're finished. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 28 Hayek/ Well, what are, are we doing... Bailey/ 643. Hayek/ Okay. Is there a, I'm seeing so many...my heads spinning, but do we have anything that shows the average, the percent increase on a department basis? O'Malley/ Not on the revenue side. We...we've done, these budgets are on the expenditure sides have different inflation factors, uh, the Personnel side is usually based on our contracts, which are around 3.1 or 3.25%, and then we have some insurance, health insurance at about 6%. Then most of the commodities are around 3%, except for fuel, which is I think 15%. Capital outlay has to be the actual number, travel has to be the actual number, and professional services has to be the actual number. Actually, they have to submit a number for each one of those. So if you see something out of line, it's usually, um, an ESL, an expanded service level request, they ask for more people or they had, or they were particularly dependent on fuel, like the Police Department or some other divisions that have to drive a lot. Hayek/ But knowing, for example, that the Senior Center increase of 7.5%, I know that thanks to Amy Correia who got out her calculator. O'Malley/ Correct. Hayek/ Um, okay (several talking) O'Malley/ Actually those, all...on the revenue side, all those numbers are based also on last year's actuals, or what they submitted, except that top number, property tax general levy. That is what we call our plug number. Whatever they need to balance their below number is what that number becomes. So... Wright/ You plug the gap, essentially. O'Malley/ Yeah, so that they don't get any more than what's asked for. Champion/ So that they expect a lower donations, and they ask for (several talking) O'Malley/ Correct, because we give them...for them when they're preparing the budget, we give them sheets on their expenditures and revenues and we say tell us what you think, because you know best, and then they come give us the data and then they talk, they sit and talk with Dale and he asks questions, and we have some other questions with...we really concentrate on the expenditure side more than the revenue side. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 29 Hayek/ So shaving down this number as we've discussed is...uh, relates directly to their request on this, not ESL but, uh, is it ESL? (several responding) Okay, so we're addressing that specific, uh, request of theirs to expand the service levels. We're saying "no" and we're... Correia/ I guess we're saying no to, uh... Bailey/ Hiring to expand service levels. Correia/ ....well, I mean, right (several talking) we're saying no to the strategy that they have put forth... Hayek/ We're not saying you shouldn't expand your service. Correia/ Exactly. We're saying, you know, within what we're saying we're going to earmark through the General Levy, so if they want to go out and get more contributions or they want to reshuffle how they do their, you know, management decision on how they work their flex hours or what the staff expectations for hours worked are, they certainly can do that and we support that. Wright/ Within the...(several talking) Correia/ This is what you're going to get. Helling/ Clarify that this is an ESL that I recommended, and so if you look at your personnel services... Bailey/ Page? Correia/ 77. Helling/ ...that would be, on 77, that would be included in, uh, FY...10 and FY11 as well, so those would all... Correia/ Right, I think everything would change and the projection at 4%, I guess, for the General Levy and then they can make adjustments to where they put those in their expenditure areas. Wright/ Right. Bailey/ So are we clear on Senior Center? So I guess the message that we're sending is we don't have any problems with expanded service levels within these constraints. That's what I heard. (several responding) Yeah, absolutely. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 30 Hayek/ That's my...I had a little bit of worry that we're, you know, singling out one department and doing that on their request for expanded service, and not...not looking at the others. (several talking) Bailey/ I mean, that's why we've got revised Library pages, because their percentages from General Fund Levy, um, were pretty high, and so I'd like to... PUBLIC WORKS: Champion/ What page is that on? Bailey/ 57, but it also, I mean, Public Works is on 57, 58, 59, 60 and 61. Helling/ Could I just interject something here before you go on? Um, I think we talked a little bit before about some of these...some of the expenditures when we were talking about, um, services or supplies, um, these things fluctuate year to year, based on specific departmental needs, and... Bailey/ Well, that's my question. I just want to have a better understanding. Helling/ Yeah, to allocate the revenue at a certain, you know, inflationary rate or whatever, uh, as a matter of policy, takes away some of the flexibility to make those larger purchases in years when they're needed, and typically what we do in those...in those areas, supplies for instance, we, you know, at the macro level, we monitor across the board to make sure that institutionally we're not spending, uh, larger, that's it's not increasing faster than...than we can finance it or whatever, but to get into the individual departments and make those projections, just based on a percent, um, particularly without having us, you know, be able to talk to the department directors, the division directors, and to find out what, you know, identify exactly why it's a little higher this year and might be a little lower next year, um, my concern there is that...that in order to do our operations, we may have some areas where we cut it back now, we wind up having budget amendments down the road. Um, and you know, we can do that, but I'm not sure that the decisions we're making here are...you know, we have all the information maybe we should have to shave those down in particular areas. Just, you understand what I'm saying? Hayek/ Are you referring also to personnel or you mentioned supplies? Helling/ Well, I just used supplies as an example because that was something that Amy raised early on was, um, there was an increase overall of about 12% in supplies. We went back and did some checking there and we could, uh, most of that was fuel. Bailey/ Sure, and I think that that's what we're trying to understand, and also, naturally, the revenue side concerns us most, because we set the tax levy amount, and so I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 31 think the, I mean, as I understand what you're saying, I think that looking at, it only seems fair if we look at the Library to look at other departments, and figure out why they are jumping to that degree. And if there's a good explanation, I don't think anybody has a problem with raising it a percentage that's out of line, quote out of line, with other departments. And that's my question about Public Works, um, from what I can tell, because General Levy is in multiple places here, there is...there is quite an increase in the General Levy revenue, um, and I'm making some assumptions, but I'll let you tell me why the expenditures are going up, and why the plug number has to be so high? But... O'Malley/ What page you on? Bailey/ I'm on page 57, 58, 59, 60 and 61, and so where I see property tax general levy is on 57 in administration and support, and in engineering services, um, which...on 58, which seems to have a... O'Malley/ Engineering services, I can tell you right away that what...how this works. LJh, we have several engineers, maybe seven or eight engineers, and we, they're in the General Fund. That's their home account. Bailey/ Uh-huh. O'Malley/ But as they work on projects, they are charged to capital CIP funds, so in the actual years, they're always going to be less than the current year, than the budget year's, because we budget their home account. We budget all their personnel in the home account. Bailey/ So their revenue lines will shift around how they... O'Malley/ That's correct. Bailey/ Okay. O'Malley/ What'll happen is in 09 I can guarantee that they won't, that they'll spend more time in the CIP than they will in their home accounts, so it'll probably drop by 100,000. Bailey/ So where do we see that? How do we see that, Kevin? O'Malley/ Well, we can't tell until they actually...account their in. Bailey/ Okay, but I mean, what line is that? O'Malley/ Oh, do you see the personnel line, the 690? Bailey/ Yeah, I see the personnel line, but I mean... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 32 O'Malley/ That's $700,000, that's $690,000. Bailey/ Right. O'Malley/ I think 2008, that budget's kind of a modest increase, but then it jumps 100,000. That's their, almost their ful1...I think we take about, use a journal factor of 25% off, because that's Finance's guess, but usually, that's a conservative guess, it's usually much more than that, is charged to CIP accounts. So what happens is, when they're filling out their timesheet, instead of charging it to 432100, Engineering Services, they'll charge it to some account in the CIP, like a street project or sewer project or something like that, and that'll reduce, effectively reduce the property tax...correct, and that's how it is in engineering services. Bailey/ Okay. Correia/ So... Bailey/ And that seems to be where the increase, the larger increase is. O'Malley/ Right. Correia/ So that, so that would, um, where does that, I'll just call it CIP revenue. O'Malley/ The CIP is usually from bonds or road use tax or... Correial No, I know, but where does that show up? Bailey/ On the revenue side of (both talking) Correia/ ...budget pages? I mean... O'Malley/ It doesn't show up. What happens is they don't, that plug number, doesn't...isn't that number. Wilburn/ You see the difference in the actual, after the fact. Bailey/ Because you don't have to pull...that amount from property tax, so that will decrease. O'Malley/ Right. (several talking) That's probably one of the reasons that you build up a fund balance reserve, because we budget for this in taxes, and we end up not spending that. Correia/ Sure. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 33 Bailey/ Right. Wilburn/ Just like if you, uh, you have your employees, if you end up, uh, parallel different world, um, if you were actually able to get certain grants and charge off, you know, 20% so now 20% of you is with this State grant, 5% is with this federal grant, and then that saves you, you know, so you don't see the net result `till the end of the... Bailey/ Right, but the different in some of those budgets is sometimes we see a grant income line, and part of it is just getting used to how we're (several talking) O'Malley/ Our accounting is different than (both talking) Bailey/ ...I think that this is very helpful to understand. O'Malley/ ...since they might only work on that, on one project 20% of the time, so 80% of their home account needs to stay there. Bailey/ Okay. Correia/ So it looks like, for 2007, we saved $40,000 in the General Levy, because I have when we estimated in my 08 budget book, we estimated that 790,000 and actual is 750,000. Bailey/ So that's not a lot. Correia/ It's not a lot. Hayek/ And, uh, if we ended up with $40,000 extra, that just would have gone to the unreserved... O'Malley/ Correct. Hayek/ ...so, which we've dealt with, with this slight modification in policy. Bailey/ Are there any other.. . Hayek/ We catch that, if your concern...(several talking) Correia/ ...as we're thinking about trying to free up General Levy dollars for recurring personnel costs at this point, you know, for public safety over time, I guess I'm wondering maybe the...what the intent has been over the last five years, and how much (coughing, unable to hear) services we've been able to charge off to other...other, um, funding sources due to CIP, or...or whatever, um... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 34 Bailey/ Because last year it wasn't probably a, you know, public safety person. Correia/ Not a full person, but given (both talking) so I mean I'm just wondering if that, and the other thing that you had said I think earlier was that, you know, some revenue is...comes in from the building and development, what the Engineering Department (coughing, unable to hear) those, um, and you had said they probably spend more time than is being charged to those fees, and I wonder about having that be more in line. O'Malley/ You'd have to then change the fee structure though, to get more revenue, which should be looked at. I should back up. We've more or less gone away form it, but we used to do a revenue study every two years to examine those fees. But we haven't done one of those for at least eight years. And what we did, when we did those revenue studies is we'd go to each department and try to do a time and material basis, and then come up with a fee and then take that to Council and see if they're willing to raise it. Bailey/ Other questions about, that helped understand Public Works. All right. Any other questions before we move on? Correia/ I guess I just have one more question. Bailey/ Sure. Correia/ Okay. So... Bailey/ It's the day for questions. Correia/ ...um, so between 2007 and 2008, just looking at the General, what we had, the increase that we had had from the General Levy going to Public Works was in 2007 estimate to 2008 was just a $10,000 increase. This year it's $100,000 increase, and is that because we expect more funding that's needed in that department for the gas costs? The supply? O'Malley/ Are you looking at the expenditure line or the revenue line? Correia/ I'm just looking at the General, like what we're earmarking from the General Levy into that department. Is that $100,000 increase between... O'Malley/ It'd be based on expenditures, if there's an increase. Correia/ But I guess, so...(several talking)...so we do see $100,000 increase in personnel, so what, how...when we only estimated you know 20...yeah, we only estimated about 26,000 increase in personnel between 07 and 08, why 100,000 in 09? O'Malley/ Just that's... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 35 Correia/ We're not adding staff. Hayek/ ...CIP cycle or something like that, that they weren't yet back on the home... Correia/ No, I mean, we're not... Bailey/ We're not adding staff. O'Malley/ No, we're not adding staff. It's just that our percentages, let me back up. Like I said, we...finance always comes up with, um, the 25% policy, or I think it's 25%, anyway, they have 100% of their people in here, and we take 25% off and just instead of taking the people, we just take what it is in dollars and reduce it. So that's what's reflected in 09. In 08, they may have had some budget amendments come in. That's why the difference is closer. Uh, you have...it appears that you have the 09...08 budget. What did we have for 08 on that page? For personnel. Correia/ For personnel, in 08, we have the same that we have here, 716, 758, uh-huh. O'Malley/ The 716? So they didn't change it? Correia/ No. O'Malley/ Then it must be that our percentage is...the 25% policy, maybe we had a higher percent than 25% in 08 than 09. It might have been 30%. See... Correia/ I'm having a hard time following. I'm just... O'Malley/ Well, the problem is... Correia/ $100,000 (several talking) O'Malley/ All I can tell you is we're not adding personnel. I can tell you that. The only issue here is, how much is what Finance is doing, and I'm not sure if it's 25 or 30%, but we may have changed from 08 to 09, the percent that we lop off, thinking it's going to be recouped in the CIP. Since we don't know exactly what's going to be recouped in the CIP, we have to cover our bases and have enough tax dollars there, in case they don't spend.. . Correia/ At this point I'm not talking about the tax dollars. I'm down looking... O'Malley/ No, no, the tax dollars is the plug figure. Correia/ No, I understand that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 36 O'Malley/ Everything that's done down below creates the tax requirement. Correia/ I understand that, I understand that. But, it just seems like we have the same number of personnel in that department. O'Malley/ Correct. Correia/ I guess I was expecting that maybe the big increase would be in the supplies - gas -for Public Works and all that, but when...then when I look at this more closely and I see that it's about a $100,000 increase in their personnel line... O'Malley/ And the only reason could that be percentage. Correia/ Well, I don't understand what you're saying. O'Malley/ Okay, what I'm saying is, let me back way up. We don't, we have to say that there's ten people in that department, and if you put 100% of their salary in there, it'd be a million dollars. Okay. Finance says we know over history that at least 25% of the time, some years it's 30%, some years it's 35%, is charged to CIP, but we're going to take a 25% and lop it off, so we take 25% of that million dollars, 250,000, and instead of taking the people out of there, we just subtract that from their personnel costs. So now they're down to $750,000. Now, what I'm saying is, the percentage might have changed, uh, my staff might have put in a smaller percent for 09 than they had in 08. So that's the only difference would be that percentage that we guess, that percentage is used as a "guess-timate" as to what they'll be spending, what their time will be spent in CIP projects. Champion/ But it could be changed. I mean, if there's more spent in other projects... O'Malley/ That's correct. It could go way down, or if (several talking) or if...projects don't happen... Correia/ I understand that. O'Malley/ ...then they have, and we have to pay these people, we have to have the property tax dollars to pay `em, in case the project doesn't come across. Bailey/ So does that percentage change, given the mix of capital projects, or is... O'Malley/ Correct. Bailey/ Okay, so we're anticipating...so, if I can just understand the assumptions made in this particular, uh, department, um, or the assumptions made generally throughout Public Works. O'Malley/ This is a unique department. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 37 Bailey/ Okay. Let's take the million dollar figure, and every year a percentage of those people upstairs, they're working on CIP, but it looks like this year, there are fewer CIP activities. Perhaps it's, you know, impacting in other department, or we're contracting out more using consultants, or whatever we're doing, and so we have to cover their salaries, and more of the salaries because we're not charging them off to CIP, will be covered through General Revenue. O'Malley/ Correct. Bailey/ Does that make sense? Correia/ Well, that absolutely makes sense. But I guess when I'm just looking at the expenditure budget, okay? I'm not looking at the revenues at all, okay? I'm not considering the revenues in here. When I'm looking at, I'm assuming that the, I'm looking at 08, I'm assuming that 716,758 2008 estimate covers those 11.6 people. O'Malley/ No, no. Bailey/ It covers a portion of... O'Malley/ No, that's not 100%. That already has a factor of at least 25% taken off the top. Correia/ In that expenditure line? O'Malley/ Correct. Correia/ Then it's not reflected in our budget that we.. . Bailey/ It's not reflected in a revenue side. Correia/ I'm not on the revenue side. Bailey/ No, no, no, no! O'Malley/ She's correct. She's correct. No, that's an estimate. When you have an estimate, you can play with it, by playing with it I mean you can take 25% and say, `Okay, the million dollars is there, but I'm taking 250,000 off.' That's an estimate. That's how that would work. Until it becomes an actual, you can put, you can put a 25% estimate in there and reduce it. 09, 10, 11 have the same factor. I assume...my recollection is 25%, and maybe 30%, somewhere in that range, because we usually do an average of the last three years, as to the actual.. . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 38 Correia/ So you're saying because we charge off time in this department to...for the staff, to CIP projects, we don't see the actual personnel costs... O'Malley/ That's correct. Correia/ Well, I guess I'd be interested in seeing what the actual personnel cost is...is the actual personnel cost the... O'Malley/ We can get you that number. Correia/ Okay. Hayek/ I think I'm seeing something here. The 08 estimate numbers, the... O'Malley/ I'm sorry. I didn't hear you, Matt. Hayek/ Well, the 2008 estimate numbers, are those based on mid-year rebudget? O'Malley/ No, no. It appears that they didn't put any amendments in. I don't have the book, but Amy says it's the same number that's in the budget for that year. So that's got a...that's got an estimate in it, an estimate factor, if you will. Uh, now, actual is the 690, is what was paid for those people, but not, that's not 100% of their salary. Bailey/ That's not the actual personnel cost of that particular department (several talking) O'Malley/Believe Amy's asking for the actual cost, if they had not been charged out somewhere else. And we can get you that. Wright/ It would be an interesting figure to see. Bailey/ Yeah, okay. So... Wright/ This actually makes sense! Bailey/ ...so, given that revenues the plug, and given that the estimate is changed, that's why we're seeing the increase in General Fund Levy in this department. Thank you. Correia/ And I guess I'd also like to see that trend, so in 06, no... O'Malley/ How many years back would you like? Correia/ (several talking) Bailey/ Five. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 39 Hayek/ Um... O'Malley/ You want the actuals? Correia/ Right. Estimate to actual. O'Malley/ But they should have been without any estimates. Bailey/ Yeah, what are personnel costs and then what we charge off for CIP, the difference...the difference between, yeah, those. O'Malley/ I know we have certain people...not only CIP, there's also one engineer charged strictly to Landfill. One engineer's charged strictly, or half an engineer, strictly to Storm Water, so it's not only CIP they're charged to. They might be charged to Enterprise funds. Bailey/ That I knew about. I didn't know about the charge-off to CIP. Hayek/ What does personnel include? Does that factor health care and benefits...(several responding) Okay. Helling/ Just an example maybe that will help explain it to you -even total personnel costs. We know we're going to have turnover. Sometimes people leave, so we...uh, project all those personnel costs, given current wages and benefits, but then we apply a 98 or 99%... O'Malley/ 98% on the AFSME, but not on Police and Fire. Helling/ Right. Uh, so we have to do that, because... Bailey/ ...and then what about management? O'Malley/ 98% Bailey/ 98, okay, that's... Helling/ And we do that because it changes from year to year. We have used different figures besides 98 in the past. Uh, I think one time we were applying as low as 95. O'Malley/ Right, I wasn't the person that...(several talking and laughing) Bailey/ So basically what you're saying is, we're never totally staffed up. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 40 Helling/ As we study the trends, we know we can pinpoint and come up with those percentages, but there's still clearly estimates. (several talking and laughing) Bailey/ Could we take a break before we go to Airport funding? Wright/ Yes, please! Bailey/ Good, coffee... Helling/ Are we going to change the 653 to 643 or whatever we said? Bailey/ Yes, that's what I heard. Okay, ten minutes. (BREAK) Airport Funding: Bailey/ So, I see next on the list Airport funding. So let's talk about this. Hayek/ You know what, I want to... Bailey/ Yep. Hayek/ ...go back to the, um, Senior Center thing. Bailey/ Okay. Senior Center (revisited): Hayek/ I...you know, I obviously want to contain costs and I...and I'm not sure that allocating additional monies for expand service in that way is, in the way they've requested, is appropriate, but our...our approach to that budget strikes me as a little problematic in that I think it represents the only department in which we're going into the proposed budget and cutting something, because if you look at the Library situation, there were unexpected revenue sources coming in, the parking fees and the, uh... Champion/ Parking fees go to us though, not to them. Hayek/ No, no, no, I know, but with the Library.. . Bailey/ Their bond, I think it was their bond... Hayek/ No, there's new rent money coming in, and there are these parking fees that they're generating, and they're asking to add...they're asking to use those monies. And we said no. So that...that's incomparable I...to, to...what the Senior Center folks are requesting, they've just got it in their budget and we're taking it out, and we're not doing that in any other department. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 41 Correia/ We did look at the Library. Bailey/ We did see a revised page. Correia/ Library was very, had a large increase in the General Levy over that, something like...where's the Library page... Champion/ It was an error though. I mean... Correia/ Right, and so we....they revised and brought that percent down, of what's going to the General Levy, and I... coming from the General Levy, and so I think, I mean, I tried to identify where were there large jumps, um, in General Levy support, and the reason why I did that, was because we're trying to find General Levy dollars to fund some new initiatives in public safety that are priorities of a community and of the Council, uh, so I think we saw the big jumps in Senior Center, Library, and Public Works, and we've gotten some information about Public Works, and we'll see, you know, how that shakes out in terms of what we might be looking at over the next three years in General Levy support that could be diverted, because it's dependent on other factors, um... Champion/ But didn't we also, uh, we also denied the Library their extra employee. Correia/ Well, we said that they don't get the parking fine revenue, and they can't take their CIP money, or their revenue.. . Bailey/ Their rent. Champion/ And we're not going to pay for their extra employee. Wright/ They can do whatever they want. Correia/ We're not going to increase their General Fund Levy, or provide them any other income, revenue stream, that they requested to do that, so they can do that if they want to reshuffle their priorities given the dollars that they can have. Champion/ So can the Senior Center. Correia/ So can the Senior, exactly. Bailey/ The Senior Center...but I think what Matt might be saying is the Senior Center can reshuffle their priorities with staffing at the 654,723, taking out the $10,000, but we reduced it even further. Correia/ What...what page is Senior Center on? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 42 Bailey/ 77. If I...if I understand what we did correctly, we reduced it even further from taking off that $10,000 for the extra, the extended service level. Champion/ $12,000 was in their levy. I mean, it was in their amount, so we're just taking it out. Bailey/ Right, but we also took down, we took their amount down even further to 643, um, 643,000 to have that, because Matt is saying we just did a percentage, instead of saying no to their request for extra people, and leaving it at that, as we did with the Library, which would have reduced it $10,000 to 654,723, we took additional dollars off. Champion/ Well, I thought that since we denied the Library their quarter-time or whatever employee that would also come off their....but that was in their budget. It would come off of there. Bailey/ Their revised budget. Helling/ The difference is, it's not in the Library budget, because it wasn't recommended. It is in the Senior Center budget because we recommended it. Champion/ Does that help you, Matt? It wasn't in the Library budget. Helling/ So, Regenia's right... Bailey/ So if we took it out of the Senior Center budget, the dollar amount that we would be at, we would go from 664,723 to 654,723 - we would take $10,000, but what I...but how we left it, and Matt is understanding this correctly, how we left it is we further reduced the General Fund Levy amount going in to 64...643,000, another $11,000 decrease. Correia/ Which is a, which is a...but, which is a 4% increase in the General Fund Levy from the year before. It adequately covers what their current personnel costs are, I mean, unless we receive more information from them about why their General Fund Levy amount needs to increase greater than 4%, I'm not... Bailey/ As we did with the Library... Correia/ Yeah, as we did with the Library. I guess I'm not willing just to say, "because they asked for it," that we should do that. Hayek/ It just feels like a riskier approach or more dangerous approach for us to...to go in in this manner and do that, as opposed to saying the overall budget, the overall dollars we have to spend are X and the overall, uh, request amount is Y, and there's a gap and we need to get from Y down to X and... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 43 Champion/ But we do make it down from Y... Bailey/ So you're comfortable going down to the 654, but not comfortable going down to the 643? Hayek/ Well, if we go down to the 654, does that.. . Bailey/ That cut the $10,000 for the additional, extended service. Correia/ But it's still an increase of over 7%... Champion/ Which is a lot! Correia/ I think is a lot, without... Wright/ So taking that extra brings them in line, more or less, what the other departments are asking. Hayek/ Except that we don't know...we don't know why that percentage is there, and they don't have an opportunity to tell us. Correia/ So, Dale, in your budget hearing process... Helling/ LTh-huh. Correia/ ...besides the requests for the $10,000 for the temporary employees, what was their explanation for that amount of increase? Helling/ I...I don't recall. And that was, that's what makes me sort of uneasy about, just making decisions on percentages when...when the needs fluctuate from year to year. For instance, the Senior Center could come in next year and be at 2% or whatever. Bailey/ They won't be. Correia/ That's not what's projected out, and I guess (several talking) in a department that doesn't have as much inflationary fluctuation like other departments related to fuel costs and other types of supplies, um, then I just don't feel...comfortable.. . Bailey/ Well, is there the opportunity, I mean, here's...here's the thing. You know, when we set the hearing next week, we can always reduce the amount, but we can't go up. Is there the opportunity to get some kind of explanation, as we did from the Library, so we can have a better understanding of this, and then...the other question is, at what level do we want to set this, because it will affect the bottom line amount that we publish. That's... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 44 Champion/ We can publish at the full amount. We don't have to spend it all. (several talking) Bailey/ ...publish at the 654 amount. Correia/ ...at least publish at that. Bailey/ ...which...which reflects our agreement that they're not going to get the temporary employees, that's the $10,000, correct, Kevin? O'Malley/ Correct. Bailey/ Okay. Um, it's the gap between the 654 amount and the 643 that's really being discussed here, because the 643 is a result of further reductions, based upon cutting the budget to bring it into line with an appropriate percentage increase. It's not just saying no to additional employees. It's...it's the percentage. Helling/ ...I think that basically the end result what you're looking at is your published tax levy, which is your 8/10, and would this have any, uh, affect on whether or not you would, we'd levy your General Fund Levy at 8/10 versus something lower than that, and I think the... Bailey/ But it's also what we're saying as we create this budget, that we are trying to free up General Fund dollars and that the community has asked us to do this in a responsible manner. It's also saying that we've looked, we've looked at, you know, and everybody has an increase that sort of makes sense to us. Correia/ And I guess when I looked at the Fire Department, um, levy increase, it's at something like 2.4%. Part of that is because we are receiving additional dollars from the UI contract, but as...so when I see, I think then...a good portion of those new revenue dollars are what's helping to fund our new public safety officers, but as we are going to need to find, increasingly find General Fund dollars to cover staff over time in that department, I think we need to rely more on General Fund, and so, um, when I see the Fire Department General Fund Levy increase only 2% and the Senior Center increase at 7.5%, and not have a good explanation, not have an explanation beyond the $10,000 for the, um, temporary employees, and even taking that off it's still 7%, I want to have an explanation. If I hear it, you know, it maybe compelling, or I may say, we really need to keep, you know, your increases from the General Levy up for...4% or whatever we end up doing with the Library, and you know, you have the discretion to submit, uh, operating budget that meets the needs, and that you (several talking) Wright/ ...fine with what Regenia's recommending, or suggesting, in terms of... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 45 Bailey/ Publish it at the higher, recognizing that given the memo, it may go down (several talking) Wright/ ...and then we can take it back down another $10,000. That's a very reasonable approach. Champion/ Yeah, I would take it down, but can we take it down, but still keep that amount in our published budget? Bailey/ We can take it down, saying no to the personnel. So we take it down by 10,000 to what we have in our budget book. So it would be 6...4723. The amount that we were talking about further taking it down to is 643,000, and we can do that at, the evening we approve the budget. Because, remember, we have the public hearing separately. We can even hear further explanation of the memo at that, and we can still reduce it. Champion/ Well, yeah, and I...I, yeah, I think that's fine. I mean, if I were a department, I'd come in with a 9% increase. Why not? If you're not going to question it. Wright/ Which actually brings a point up. Um, some of these, you know, we're asked to take a look at all the different lines and, um, we see some of these increases and we really don't know why they're there at all, and I know you have budget hearings with the...with the departments. Could we get summaries of those next year? Helling/ I'm not sure what you mean. Wright/ Well, okay, you know, the Senior Center has this 7% increase. Why? Helling/ I think...what we have not done in the past in budgeting is we...have not set any certain percent as sort of a benchmark. Wright/ Right. Helling/ We could do that, and then... Wright/ I don't want to set a, you know, a benchmark increase, but I would like to know why some of this is happening, why is the Senior Center requesting a 7%, why was the Library's coming in at 7.25, so that we have that information going in to our discussions, rather than scrambling midstream trying to find out, find some information. Helling/ In the past, I don't think Council's looked at that detail. We can certainly do that for you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 46 Bailey/ I think it helps us set our priorities. If somebody comes in with a compelling new service, or something that seems in line with other priorities that we're moving towards, it seems to make sense if they're making the case. Helling/ Realistically, I think we're probably going to be starting to do some of that, even before then ,because of what we've talked about, about monitoring and trying to answer some of those questions and issues, looking within, between now and next fall when we put the budget together, so we'll, I think we'll be doing some of that already. (several talking) Wright/ It'd be really terrific information for us to have. Wilburn/ And I think that would be more helpful than picking an arbitrary percentage. Bailey/ I think that's Matt's point. Wright/ I don't think we want to pick an arbitrary percentage, and I don't want to, but I would like to know the wherefores and the whys as we have our discussions. Bailey/ So what I hear with the Senior Center, is the property tax General Levy plug number is 654,723 for the published amount. We need a memo, similar to the one we got from the Library. Helling/ I'm not that that's exactly $10,000. O'Malley/ It's roughly. Bailey/ Well, you'll make that appropriate adjustment, right? I'm just...I'm just using what you gave us. So you'll pull out the, uh, temps and then that will be the plug amount, and we'll also see a memo that explains why the increase, uh, I mean, because it's a plug amount, it's an increase in expenses somewhere, even beyond those temps. Okay? Is that what I hear from everybody? All right. So, does that address your issue, to a certain degree? Hayek/ It certainly...it helps. You know, next...we're just going to have to have our act together next year and have a template and approach in mind before we dive into it. Bailey/ We're going to spend a lot of time on budget this upcoming year, I have a feeling. Airport Funding: Bailey/ Airport funding, um, the Airport is on 115, I think. Correia/ I apologize in advance, but I have, uh, would like to consider...I know we went through the CIP on Thursday, um, but as I was looking at the minutes, um, for the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 47 Airport Commission, um, the Airport Commission has entered into atwo-year lease for the land that, that south commerce park area, and we have this placeholder of $750,000 in 09, but um, and I know we've talked about... Bailey/ That's on C-3. Correial C-3...that that, you know, for other items to get that space ready for any type of industrial, but since the contract with the Merschman Seeds or whatever the company is, runs through fiscal year 10, um, so what I was wondering about, moving that 750,000 to 10, and then moving in from 10 into 9, the pedestrian bridge at Rocky Shore Drive, and then we could accomplish that in 09, because that was about the amount that we had put for 10. Fiscal year 10 for Rocky Shore Drive, essentially just replace it. I mean, we can't do this Aviation Commerce, develop the property in fiscal year 9 because the property's under lease. So... Bailey/ And I don't really think that that would have an impact on economic development issues, given that we have quite a few lots still in North Aviation Commerce Park. I mean, I would have concern if we were all sold out on North, the northside for sure. Correia/ Sure. Bailey/ Is that... Hayek/ What do we think the, uh, Airport folks response would be to this? I mean, if...if in fact there's a lease, are they going to care? O'Malley/ I can't speak to them, but all I can speak to is that $750,000 is not tax money. It's miscellaneous other, it's just a plug number. We're hoping to get some land sales to pay for the development of this area. Champion/ No, it's not tax dollars (unable to hear) O'Malley/ So that, this number is put in there just as a placeholder, and sometime we'd have to figure out (several talking) Wright/ ...truly miscellaneous. O'Malley/ Yeah. Hayek/ Use a canoe for another year, Amy. O'Malley/ But, there's no problem moving it out of here, because if there is a lease... Bailey/ But it doesn't give us 750,000 (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 48 O'Malley/ It doesn't give you anything. (several talking) Helling/ I would want to know too if, how much of the land is leased versus what, because it's only a piece of that land that they see as developable for... Bailey/ Well, they haven't finished that plan yet either, the Willow Creek, I mean, because we don't know exactly what's needed for fill. Champion/ How much would a ferry cost? (laughter) Ferry people across the river. (several talking) That'd be kind of fun! Bailey/ Okay, so that doesn't get us. Hayek/ ...vouchers and then they can use the ferry. (laughter) Bailey/ Okay, so, are you good? All right. Well, good thought...(several talking) Okay, 115, um, we have Airport funding on this list. I think part of it had to do with our matching. Correia/ I'm interested in keeping the General Levy at $112,000, and I think that has been...the communication with the Airport Commission, that that, the General Levy dollars would pretty much stay the same, with the intention that it would go down. This is our one business enterprise that, um, is still utilizing General Fund Levy dollars, all of our other... Wright/ That's a fairly old understanding, isn't it? Several years back? (several responding) Correia/ With...you know, I feel comfortable that if...that with the informal agreement, that if they need additional...up to you know I don't know if we want to keep it up to 100,000 or up to some percent, not over $100,000, um, during the year that would be there, but I, again, this feels a little bit like General Levy creep in there. There had been an understanding, um, if...it seems like they're on good footing right now. They're fully leased. There's a waiting list (unable to hear) things that the Airport Commission could do to increase, you know, increase the revenues, um, have some new activity with the hangars, that sort of thing. Champion/ I'm not willing to do that now, because we are seeing decreases from them, from 07, um, and hopefully this'll decrease even more. Um, I would rather we wait a year to talk about that, or talk about it through the year, when...before we, because that's a huge... Bailey/ But these numbers do reflect the matching funds, right? And that's what I can't comb out quite. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 49 Correia/ The, I mean, the last two budgets, 07 and the 08, we have put $112,000 (both talking) Bailey/ ...for operations... Correia/ ...during our budget process from the General Levy. These increases here are what was amended in later, because of State grants that came in, and I'm perfectly willing to continue that understanding, so that the actual number might be more, but I think going in to the budget year, it should be the same as we had been putting in during our budget process, of $112,000, with the understanding that if they get the grants and we can go up an additional $100,000...we can come in and match, because we do want to continue what's happening out there, but the... Champion/ But you're still going to have to keep that line item. Bailey/ (several talking) Wright/ ...we're not increasing it to 130...we're talking about sticking it at 112. Bailey/ And where, so when they come in with matching, that typically comes from our reserves? O'Malley/ Correct. Bailey/ So, what Amy...I think you're saying essentially the same thing. Amy just wants to see 112,000 there, without any additional sort of earmarked basically for the State matching requirements, or the Federal matching requirements, recognizing when those opportunities become available, we will honor that up to our informal policy of $100,000...per matching. So potentially what the actual number could look like for 2009 could be 212,000 from our General Fund, recognizing that 100,000 was for matching grant money. That make sense? O'Malley/ This page is a little confusing. We should break out that General Levy line item.. . Bailey/Yes! O'Malley/ ...into two pieces. One operations and the other capital matching. Bailey/ That would be great. (several responding) Then we wouldn't even have this discussion next year. (several talking) Save yourself 15 minutes. Wright/Yeah, and I agree with that. I'd like to see the 112. Hayek/ If you did do that, what would those numbers be? It'd be 112 plus... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 50 O'Malley/ 07 was 109,000 of General Levy, and 50,120 of capital matching. Bailey/ That would be so helpful, because I think that that's actually a really good thing for the public to see, as well, that the Airport is going after these grants. I mean, and it's pretty impressive that...and from what I understand, they have, they're well thought of at the State and Federal level, because we're a very busy general aviation airport. Hayek/ What's uh, 08? 09? In terms of that breakout...do you have... Correia/ Well, 08 we budgeted at 112, so right now the estimate is...84,000 (several talking) Hayek/ ...112 and the capital matching would be the balance? Correia/ Right. In 2007, 2008, the budgets that we passed had the General Levy amount at 112 for the operations. Bailey/ So, the decision point here is are we comfortable with a General Fund Levy for operations at 112, with a capital matching amount of 100,000? So... Correia/ Up to. Bailey/ Up to, well, but the line would be quote, quote worst case or best case scenario. Um... Hayek/ If we do 112 that's no increase over 08. Correia/ Which, and I think that, like...like we've said, I think there had been an understanding over...over the years that the General Levy supporting operations of the Airport, the intention is that it would go down, continue to go down, so it's remained constant, which I feel comfortable with. They're making changes, they're fully leased up in all their space and that sort of thing (both talking) and that sort of thing, but I don't want to see that go...creeping up. I'd like to see that stay the same, you know, because I think they're doing some things, I'd like it to go down over some time. Wright/ It's been going down over where we were ten years ago. (several talking) O'Malley/ In fisca12004, this is when we were having some problems, and a couple years prior to that, the actual was 183,000 for operations. Wright/ We've been going down, and I think that...down or steady would be a pattern I'd like to see, rather than starting to go back up. Correia/ Yes, absolutely. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 51 Hayek/ Do we know why it's going up? I mean, is there a...do we have any explanation? Correia/ My question had been in our last year's budget the estimate for the Airport was to stay at $112,000. What we're seeing, because we didn't break it down, those increases are those capital matching, so I guess this year we see that go up. Bailey/ Because the capital matching is folded in. Correia/ Is that true, that 130 includes... O'Malley/ No, that's just ops. Correial ...I'm not interested in... O'Malley/ That would have been last year's budget, that would have said $112,000 all the way across. 8, 9, and 10, and this year, because of the way it's laid out...I think interest income's going to drop a little, at least we're got it projected to drop by $6,000, so that's part of the reason the 112,000 went to 130 and the rest would be expenditures. Correial Well, and I guess... Bailey/ And they have an ending balance projected too though. Correial As a business enterprise, building strategies to increase their revenue, I think, is something that they need to do as a business, um, and I think they are doing. I think our subsidy isn't going to help that to continue. Hayek/ I guess I'm not tracking. Are we saying that, are you just saying that...this match should be taken out of there, and we pledge to make the match if and when? Correial That's what we have been doing. That's essentially what we've been doing. Over.. . Bailey/ Well, and Kevin is saying we could actually show that as a line, couldn't we? That wouldn't mess up any kind of accounting. O'Malley/ We could show that...no, it wouldn't...this is just for presentation. Bailey/ Right. O'Malley/ And, your General Levy ops would still read $130,000. There's no capital match in that number, because we don't know what it is. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28,.2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 52 Correia/ And that's what I'm saying, I want to keep the ops at $112,000, and that then if we want to show, which I think it makes sense, our capital matching, um, what our intention would be, our current practice is we put in the operating, which has been at 112, and the informal agreement with the Airport is that if you have a need for a match during the year, that the City will provide up to $100,000 to match that, which is why we're seeing the 07, 08 amounts over $112,000. That's what that's reflecting, because we did pass those amounts. Hayek/ Between 08 and 09, we show an $18,000 increase for ops. Bailey/ And I agree with Amy. I'd like it to be 112. This has been an ongoing issue since I got on Council, that it need...it needs to go this other direction, it needs to go down, and I would be willing to put the match in...in a line item as Kevin described, and put the $112,000 indicating our commitment to that maximum amount. Hayek/ That sounds okay, but...but aren't we in effect saying we're shaving $18,000 off the budget. Bailey/ Yes. Hayek/ Doesn't that then take us back to the discussion we just had about Senior Center? Correia/ I think that's different, because this is a business enterprise, that, um, is the only business enterprise receiving General 8/10 Levy dollar amounts going in to, that there has been an understanding with the Airport over years, over the last however many years, that that General Levy support is to go down. I mean, there have been conversations and maybe that was in 2004 that...that Council would take over the Library...or, the Library...the Airport, because of concerns about how they were operating. They weren't self-sustaining, um, and I think they've made changes that they've been able to sustain operations at 112. I think they've been putting good things in place. I think.. . Bailey/ I think they're perfectly capable of... Correia/ Right, I think they're capable. I think that we want to see the public subsidy for the Airport to go down, but continue supporting the infrastructure that makes it a viable Airport and that will make it more viable over time, and more, um, able to generate its own income. Champion/ Well, I think I should keep the line item that we have, and again, get a memo just like we want from the Senior Center, on what... Bailey/ Well, they have an ending balance too, and I just think that the point that this is an enterprise fund, they...they do need to do a little bit more. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 53 Wilburn/ ...I think they have over the years, because of the, uh, um, the desire to have it do more to pay for, that's the same as operations. It's not unique, however, because there was a time when, uh, Transit didn't pay for itself, and Transit does actually have a levy, so it, now you may question what the philosophy behind all of that, but it's, if you want it to be a purely self-sustaining operation, that's going to take some time, and there's going to be some years where it may level off, and depending on the circumstances that are going around, because not all of our services are, um, you know, it's great that, uh, it's great that water revenues is an enterprise fund that pays for itself, but the taxpayer's still paying for that. It's just not General Fund. Parks and Rec, all of our fees do not cover what it costs to...now they have goal, what is it? 40%...covering, so, uh, I would, my personal preference in terms of a...a philosophy, is I think we're trying to hone in on what might be that goal, as opposed to saying, you know, this is going to be a, because I don't know how many municipal airports are purely, you know, self-sustaining. Um, I would doubt that many are. Bailey/ Well, it's just, I mean, part of it too is it's going the wrong direction, and I think that we need to, I hate to use this language, but I'll use it. Send a message that it's going the wrong direction, I mean, and I think that's more than a memo. I mean, either we have to sit down with the Commission and talk with them about why. I mean, or, you know, be really clear when we set their budget, that this is what we expect you to operate with the concerns...within we expect you to operate. Correia/ Well, and I guess, you know, last year in our three-year financial plan, we passed a budget with a projection of 112 over the next two years, and I would expect if it was going to go up $18,000, I mean, I haven't necessarily seen anything in the minutes or that they've come to us to say, we...besides, you know, we need this budget, to say we need this additional $18,000, or some, you know, something bad is going to happen, because we're not saying that we're not going to match. Helling/ A couple of things that were conveyed to me, and I'll just share with you. Um, is that since the re-organization so to speak a few years ago, a couple of things have happened. Number one, they sold that...that first parcel that was sold which they didn't get any revenue from the sale, but they lost about $6,000 a year in rent income by virtue of that property having been sold off. And the second thing is that at some point in time, uh, a few years ago, we started to charge back to the Airport a portion of the Economic Development Coordinator's, uh, salary, and I'm thinking that was something in the range of $7,000, give or take. Um, and so I suspect anyway, that uh, and that was taken into account...they see their $112,000 as having been eroded. Bailey/ Well, so give them 112 and pay for the Economic Development Coordinator out of another budget line. I mean, it's essentially the same thing, right? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 54 Helling/ Well it is except that my recollection is we pay for the Economic Coordinator's, um, salary out of a variety of enterprise funds... Bailey/ Sure, I understand that. Helling/ ...and in this case, it was putting it in there, with the assumption that down the road if they become more self-sufficient, and a lot of that had to do with the sale of the property, and...and the taxes that could be generated off of that, but somewhere down the road that that would still...I think it was put in there as a message, that it would always be incumbent upon the Airport to support Economic Development. Champion/ It is a great economic development tool, and I agree with Ross. It's...it's a pretty small subsidy, and it has gone down in the past, and I expect it to go down even further, especially if they start to lease the land and get some other... some other things going, but all that takes time, and it's not much time in the life of a city, and I don't have any problems with leaving it where it's at. Bailey/ What about taking it down to 120 or 125, because they....just look at their ending balance. Champion/ I know that, but.. . Bailey/ But, I'm just saying, that give them a balanced budget, rather than an ending balance. Correia/ Yes, I would support that. (several responding) O'Donnell/ I'm comfortable with the 130 also. I, you know, the expenses that Dale's just mentioned is, uh, there's... Bailey/ Well, I want to talk to the Airport Commission. I think we should sit down and talk with them. This is more than a memo discussion, because if their operations are going the wrong direction, I think we need to understand why. O'Donnell/ They're going the wrong direction because the expenses that we've... Correia/ But that's not $18,000 worth. I mean, the Economic Development Coordinator is $8,000, and that... O'Donnell/ There's $14,000 with the loss. Correia/ $6,000. O'Donnell/ Well, you add the two together. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 55 Bailey/ With what? Correia/ $14,000, so if we increase... Hayek/ Okay, we see an $18,000 increase. Based on Dale's very rough numbers, they lost $6,000 in rent, uh, and we're charging a portion of the ED Coordinator, that's 13 or 14 of the 18 right there. Helling/ I think they said 8,000. (several talking) Correia/ Well, it doesn't look to me, I mean, in their rents line, they are projecting rents from 08 to 09 to go up. Bailey/ And this is something that we can, we can figure out with them. The question is, so I've heard three people who are willing to leave it at 130,000. I've heard three people who would like to decrease it. Hayek/ I would leave it at 130 until we have this information. Bailey/ So are we meeting with them before we approve the budget? Champion/ Probably not. Helling/ Well, again, you...you can approve the budget, but you can still... Bailey/ I understand, but I think it's most fair to, within the budget...within the budgeting process to let departments, especially enterprise departments, know what they can expect come July 1St O'Donnell/ I think there's many people in the community that don't look on the Airport as an Economic Development tool. And I think...I think it's very important that way. Now, we've seen pictures of people coming in on weekends to spend money and stay in our hotels and I think it's a very important tool. With the University and transplant operations, um... Wright/ I think the Airport has done a...a relatively poor job of promoting themselves. Bailey/ I agree. Wright/ It's a terrific operation, and I mean, I had no idea until I had a tour of the Airport just some of what went on down there. O'Donnell/ Right. Bailey/ Well, I mean, I think they've done not a great job of promoting themselves as economic development. Now, I mean, we can discuss that when we meet with This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 56 them. So we're leaving this at 130, but we're also going to break out the cap match, so we can indicate our intent at $100,000. Um, and then we'll set up a time when we can meet with the Airport Commission to talk a little bit more about this, because, um, I hope others will be hard pressed to continue to support them at this level. We were going in the right direction a couple years ago. Wright/ I just don't like it, the fact that it's going back up. Bailey/ Yeah, that's what I don't like. I mean, if we were at 130 from 160 or even 140 I'd be happy, but...okay. Helling/ Do I understand that you want to put the 100,000 in the Airport budget? Bailey/ As a separate line. Helling/ Separate line. Bailey/ We can do that, right, Kevin? O'Malley/ Yeah, we'll just put a separate...we're going to have to increase the other financial uses by 100,000. Bailey/ Okay, so that's where we will see... O'Malley/ You don't need to do it, because it's...it's only if something comes up. You can... Correia/ I think what we should do is have it... O'Malley/ ...state it in your policies. Hayek/ It's already in there. O'Malley/ No, it's not in your policies. It's an unstated policy (several talking) Correia/ I think we should state it in our policies, and I think what we should do is have, we should break out, uh, we should have it broken out... O'Malley/ Right. Correia/ Not put anything in there for the next year's budget, but when we have actuals, then it will be put in the actuals. (several talking) Not budget it, because frankly it looks like the subsidy, the planned subsidy, is going, shooting sky-high, where we see it in 07 and 08, but it just looks like that was our General Levy that we passed in our budget process. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 57 Bailey/ Well, I was suggesting breaking it out though as a separate line. Correia/ Right, so we would break it out, so that then we see it actual. O'Malley/ ...going forward, it... Bailey/ But why wouldn't we budget if we're willing to do it? Helling/ Well, I think the...the past thinking was that it...it wasn't automatic, it wasn't in the budget. They would have to come back to you and ask for it. Bailey/ See, I don't remember them coming back and indicating that they were applying for State grants and...I thought it was a staff, I thought it was, okay (several talking) Wright/ ...to have it in there, if they get something and we have a match? O'Malley/ Sure, you can...we can put it in there, and we'll just put a corresponding expenditure in there and it's a wash. Bailey/ Right. O'Malley/ The question is, do we show it coming from our General Fund cash balance? Bailey/ But that's where it comes from, right? O'Malley/ Right, so you should probably reduce your cash balances by $100,000. Bailey/ And what I heard other people say is put it in, what the capital improvement program budget policies, or some policy statement? O'Malley/ Some policy statement. Bailey/ Is that where it would show up, there? Okay. All right. Wilburn/ Before this meeting with the Airport Commission, um, can we ask them to, if they can find out and bring to this meeting, I think they did this a few years ago, um, the other state or regional or municipal airports, and comparisons, subsidy that they get from the city. Correia/ And not just dollar amounts, but dollar amounts plus percentage of total...budget. Bailey/ And we should also ask, um, for some grant comparisons, because I think we'll probably do well on that. Okay. Are we all clear on the budget, or the Airport budget? Yes. Ready to move on? Hearing no objection, moving on. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 58 Public Safety Hiring Priorities: Bailey/ We're confirming these, yes? Correia/ Yeah, I'm interested, I had a conversation with...I know we left two police officers in...in for 09 and um, took out any moving forward, um, in terms of placeholders. Um, I had mentioned in a previous meeting, uh, an interest in bringing online a crime prevention unit. I think that's something that we've heard from the community, um, in terms of community policing. There are neighborhoods that are requesting that. Neighborhood Watch Programs -Sam has indicated that we had Neighborhood Watch Program in the past, that there were signs around town, some of those signs -they remained up even when our Neighborhood Watch Program disbanded, um, those signs are now starting to go down because they're in bad shape, and he has indicated that people see those signs going down, call the Police station and department, and say ,'We'd like a new sign.' And of course new signs don't go up, because we don't have an active program. So I think there's been indication, um, I spoke with Sam about, you know, if Council is interested in...in proceeding with that first, and how would he feel about that, as a policy (coughing, unable to hear) he said he felt that would be absolutely appropriate, and he would support that, um. His, I mean, I think we could have a further conversation with him, obviously, about that. His crime prevention unit would have three staff - a Sergeant and then two officers - um, so what I'm wondering about is putting two officers for 09 to get that started, with the third to come on in 10, to have afully-staffed crime prevention unit, as part of our public safety, um, enhancements. Champion/ I'd have to see if we can afford to do that before I do it. Bailey/ I think we should probably hear closer to prep of 10 budget. What do other people think? Hayek/ I didn't hear you. Bailey/ I think we need to look at that opportunity closer to the fiscal year 10 budget. Correia/ But in terms of, we do have two officers in for 09. Bailey/ Yes, that's what I was trying to confirm, if we're.. . Correial Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd like to have a conversation as we move to 09 to have those two officers, the first two that we bring online, as part of the need be dedicated to crime prevention unit, um, and speak with Sam about, I mean, I did speak with him briefly, just to get his general sense, uh, he, you know, seemed supportive of that and the role of the Council in the community. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 59 Helling/ If you want to see the beginnings of going, you know, recreating that crime prevention unit, um, let me talk to him, and maybe he can outline for you how he would approach that for the, for FY09 with the two officers because I know that there's also, um, you know, some feeling that, that we need to enhance the street presence somewhat...downtown or whatever, um, but so...and with the other resources that he has, maybe we can look at a way and then get back to you and give you some information in terms of how you would approach that. Bailey/ We're going to be talking about some other issues about street presence, and we...you know, what we're hearing, I think that that would be a good discussion. And then looking at, as we develop the 10 budget, that possible addition, or if we're tracking okay. That...I'm sorry, that makes me just a little nervous. Champion/ Yeah, I can't do that. Bailey/ Um, and if it makes me nervous, I suspect it would really make other people nervous. Champion/ Very nervous! Bailey/ Yeah, exactly, so are we good with (laughing and several talking) varying degrees of risk comfort today. Um, I'm just, I just want to confirm that this is, that we're all okay moving ahead with this plan, at this time, because this is what we'll see in our projected budget. Obviously, we're only approving aone-year budget as required by the State, but this, the FY10 and FY11 projections... Correia/ Tell me what page we're on. Bailey/ Um, I'm just on the sheet. Correia/ But we see the projections of the staff in here, I mean...(several talking) Bailey/ I mean, this is a decision we made early on. I want to confirm that we're on track, and...(several talking) Yeah, that's what I was...(several talking) 50, page 50, the Fire. Wright/ You looking at the departments? Bailey/ The Fire. Helling/ You looking at Fire? Bailey/ Three firefighters listed and we'll see those carry through. Wright/ 127. Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 60 Correia/ What we have...and what was presented, was that two officers, no... Bailey/ You're looking at Police, right? Correia/ Yep, and then three firefighters in 09. What was presented to us was... O'Malley/ Looking at page 39? Correia/ I'm looking at page 39. So what we've indicated before is this...two police officers in 09, three firefighters, the coming online of the five community service officers in the fourth quarter of 09, maintaining all of that in 010, in 10, and adding additional three firefighters, but not the additional... Bailey/ Police officers. Correia/ ...police officers. Wright/But we would keep the additional police officers up for discussion as we approach the budget year. Bailey/ Right. Okay, that's my understanding. (several responding) Wright/ So they're still there kind of. Bailey/ But they're not going to show (several talking) That was our agreement with Dale, because he nearly passed out. (laughter) Hayek/ Uh, yeah, although as we approach November-December, we can, you know, if we say we need another two of them or another one (several talking) given enough advance notice, you work those into the...(several talking) Bailey/ And I actually suspect that'll be a September discussion, but... Hayek/ Is there, on the CSO's for the fourth quarter, again, I just want to confirm, I've asked this before, but it still makes sense to keep them in there for that quarter? (several talking) Okay. Helling/ As I indicated, it's possible, likely in my opinion, that we probably wouldn't hire five new people for the whole quarter. Uh, they do need to be trained to do what they're going to be doing, and that's assuming that the switchover occurs July 1 of 09. Uh, but there may be...there maybe possibly there could be people who don't want to go to the, uh, work as a...as a dispatcher, and those are people who may have been working here in the Police Department. They may want those positions, in which case, they'd need very little training. Just when the switchover occurs, they would be ready to go, so, um, and I'm not sure that it takes three months either to, you know, do the training. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 61 Bailey/ ...worst case scenario, or a most expensive case scenario placeholder. Helling/ Right. I suspect that actual expenditure for that quarter will be less, but then going into 10 and beyond, it would be that full amount. (several responding) Bailey/ Okay? So, we're all good on moving ahead on this? Public safety, yeah! Parking Fine Surcharge: Bailey/ All right, the next items, um, the next, I'm going to skip to parking fines surcharge. We marked that for FY10. That'll be another discussion we have as we approach 10, so I'm just going to check that off if we're all in agreement with that. Deer Control: Bailey/ The General Fund Economic Development and the Deer Control were two sort of cost-containment, or cost-shaving measures, that we looked at. I think we talked about the deer control. Is that realistic to reduce it, and we agreed... Helling/ Yeah, it is. We talked to Tony, uh, extensively about that, and his feeling is that...that probably, based on $50,000, we could maintain, uh, a reasonable level. [Jh, it's kind of hard to predict what could happen with the deer population in any given year, uh, but he believes that we've got them reduced to a level now where if we spend $50,000 to both in population control and processing the...the deer meat, that we could probably maintain a viable program. Bailey/ So if we go 50/SO...or would we have to go 50/50 jump? It's hard to know, I know, but... Helling/ At this point, um, at this point, I think the only increase...uh, he's talking about a level of service that would, that we could buy for $50,000 today. As costs go up a little bit, we may have to apply the inflationary factor, and we'd have to monitor. You know, we count every year, and we monitor the deer population, so some things could happen that aren't predicted. Wilburn/ Might be an extra-frisky year amongst deer. (laughter and several talking) Helling/ But at this point, if you want to reduce that to $50,000, that...I think that would.. . Hayek/ ...get us into a rut! (several talking and laughing) Bailey/ Okay, so, that's (several talking and laughing) or an animal...whatever it is. So, we could reduce it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 62 Helling/ LIh-huh. Bailey/ Which we thought we might not be able to. And Ross, you had some concerns. Are you good with that? Wilburn/ (unable to hear, several talking) Bailey/ Bad music, bad lighting, keep `em under control. Okay. Economic Development: Bailey/ So we talked about reducing the general Economic Development funds, um, I think that was on 81. And I really think that that probably isn't a good idea, myself, but it's a placeholder, but.. . Correia/ And I guess, you know, we had talked about what has the trend been or the, how often have we used that, and so in the last year, we used $75,000, because these are funds used to match... Bailey/ State grants. Correia/ State grants. Bailey/ Right. Correia/ So... Bailey/ And I'd rather have a placeholder that reflected sort of the best, you know, what we would spend, maximum... Correia/ Right. Bailey/ ...in anticipation knowing that it would go into our fund balance, that we would come out better than reducing it and then trying to...then pulling the money from fund balance. Correia/ Is that something similar to our...the agreement that we have with the Airport to, which isn't shown anywhere, but... O'Malley/ Yeah, once we show it, then we have to take it out of General Fund balance. So we show... Bailey/ If we don't spend it, it ends up... O'Malley/ It ends up back in the... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 63 Bailey/ ...because we're cash-based. I mean, we kinda do it in an accrual way because we show it. It's spoken for. O'Malley/ Right. Bailey/ But really fundamentally since we're cash-basis, it...if we don't spend it, it ends up in the reserve. O'Malley/ Whereas the Airport policy is just on paper, it's not really, it's not even on paper. Correia/ That's what I'm saying. So... O'Malley/ So if you... Correia/ Why have this on paper and the other not on paper, when they're essentially operate in the same, you know, State grant, we agree to match up to a certain sort of... O'Malley/ I think as...as, uh, Regenia was saying, it...at least you appropriated from fund balance so that when some, uh, Economic Development thing comes up, you'll have it there, whereas the Airport is 90/10 money usually, or 80/20 money, versus this would be almost 100% money. Bailey/ Well, and I would, it would be my bias from an accounting point of view to actually appropriate the Airport money, as well. I like accrual based accounting. I like marking off the money that you're speaking for. O'Malley/ Right. Correia/ What do you mean 100% versus 80/20? O'Malley/ Usually when you give community development money, you're giving 100% of our funds, 100%...I'm not sure. I assume you're giving 100% of something. Bailey/ If we have to match quality jobs grant the State is giving, we have to put in a certain amount. It's not like they do 80 and we do 20. We have to provide funds, as well. Correia/ Well, I know... Bailey/ I would just like to leave it. I think it's simple, and if we don't spend it, we don't spend it, but... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 64 Wilburn/ What I had...I had proposed this item. What I had proposed was slightly reducing the amount, and I believe I said 50,000. Uh, and not looking at this one item, but looking again with the perspective of we are attending to public safety, so we are, uh, you know, it was that concept of a...in order to pay for public safety and maintain, uh, expected levels of service across the board, that we, if there's some type of, uh, modest tax increase, combined with looking at cost containment combined with taking some items out, that sort of thing, that, um, you're showing that...we would be showing that we are prioritizing, and so it was looking at the Economic Development in particular, with some of the businesses pointing out that they believe that, um, I would hope they're not saying that their tax dollars are more important than others, but that, on the north side, that they are, uh, wanting to increase fire response time, so, um, looking at philosophically, perhaps, I'm willing to take a reduction in Economic Development because it is attending to business and expansion in that area, uh, but it is...it is for public safety. So, it's not adollar-for-dollar thing, but it's a concept, philosophical. Correia/ And I guess I agree with...I'm sorry, go ahead. Bailey/ Go ahead. Correia/ I was just going to say, and I...I guess I agree with that, especially given that I don't think that that type of reduction is going to necessarily negatively impact our ability to match those grants, because we haven't needed up to that placeholder over the last two years, um, and so I guess I'd rather not encumber dollars of our General Fund Levy as we're trying to find General Levy dollars to support these ongoing public safety, if...if we don't need to, understanding that, you know, if we do need additional, we have the flex...additional dollars, we have the flexibility through out contingency, through our healthy General Fund balance, um, to be able to support those Economic Development projects. I don't believe it will hamper, um, the ability to do those things. Bailey/ Well, just as Ross...trying to send a message with this, I think, I mean, I always have concerns anything we do that reduces any kind of economic development initiatives, because you know given the current tax structure, we have to pursue commercial development or commercial, um, increases in our commercial base, so um, you know, perhaps not as high. I think 50 is a little low. If we'd spent 70, maybe 100, but I...once again, I like to earmark funds and say we intend, this is our intent, because I think it...it also signals a philosophy. So, I don't know. I just think it doesn't make sense to...to slice it off economic development. If the Airport...if we're not going to, you know, if the Airport is an economic generator and we want to keep their...their levy the same, I think this is significant as well. So... O'Donnell/ I don't think we've, you know, the 250,000 is a number that we set, and what's the most we've used one year? 70,000? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 65 Bailey/ Yeah, so, I mean that's what I'm saying. Not at 50, but let's set it at 100, so recognizing.. . Correia/ I thought your 50 was you take 50 off. O'Donnell/ 50 reduction is what you were saying, wasn't it? Bailey/ Oh, I'm sorry. (several talking) Fine, fine. Yeah, that's fine. Helling/ Reduce it by 50,000, you'll be 200,000 every two years. (several responding) Bailey/ Yeah, let's give that a try. Okay. O'Donnell/ I didn't know where it was going! Hayek/ I mean, if you're concerned about, uh (several talking) ...actually utilizing out of that bi-annual? O'Malley/ We've only used $70,000 in the last three years. Hayek/ And, it's really in effect 125 each year, right, because it's an every-other-year appropriation. Correia/ And, we have the ability because we have such a healthy General Fund balance, if something exciting, an opportunity were to come along, and we didn't have quite enough, we have the ability to say this is an important project. It's going to bring these dollars into our community, and we have the ability to do that. Bailey/ Well, and I'm assuming, I mean, that that gives the Economic Development Committee the ability to vote on it and bring it to Council, with the assumption that it would (both talking) Correial Okay. Bailey/ Are we all...all right. (both talking) O'Donnell/ I actually thought we decided that at the last meeting. Because it was SO,000...isn't it? (several talking) Emergency Levy: Bailey/ Okay, so emergency levy. Leave in at 10-cents, and the levy is on pages, page 14. And we lost Mike. That coffee. The question is, do we leave this at 10- cents? And it's coming up from zero. Hayek/ Where was it in 7? 07? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 66 Bailey/ Zero. Didn't we reduce it two years in a row? Or three? O'Malley/ .038, less than, yeah, about 4-cents, right. Hayek/ That was 2007? How about 06? (several talking) Bailey/ What year did we reduce? We reduced it in 07, down to the 4-cents? There were two years that we wanted to do tax relief, and last year we reduced it to zero. Okay. Hayek/ Okay. So we went from full in 06, down to 4-cents in 07, and then nothing in 08, and the proposal, at least on this, is to go back to 10. Correia/ And the reason why we went to zero in 08 was because we had a, uh, General Fund balance way...not way above, but above our 30%, and so the, spent it down (several talking) Bailey/ So, Connie, you said leave it at 10? Hayek/ Is there some magic to (coughing) 10? Helling/ 10 was what you, um, or Council, not you specifically, but...but Council (several talking and laughing) had indicated a year ago in your projections out that it would be 10-cents for 09, 10, 11, uh, so that's what we put in, based on the...on that. That doesn't mean that you're locked into that at all. Hayek/ Historically, what has the levy been? Like...what.. . O'Malley/ Um, I think we started using it in 2001. Bailey/ You're talking about the Emergency Levy, page 14. O'Malley/ 2002. Haven't used it that often. I think it...in 2002 we started using it, and uh, it became imperative to use it, the full 27-cents when we lost our...lost our State funding, million, or 900,000 in State funding in 2004. Hayek/ Start at the full... O'Malley/ I don't think we started at the full 27-cents, back in 2001. Wilburn/ And then prior to that, we lost, even though we didn't use the Emergency Levy, we lost the, uh, machinery. O'Malley/ Machinery-equipment levy. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 67 Wilburn/ Right. So...it was a trend of lost revenue from State sources. Helling/ Something that has sort of bailed us out a couple of times, um, that extent it's nice to have some margin there. Bailey/ Oh, yeah, I wouldn't...I wouldn't want to go higher. O'Donnell/ Does it have to be, I mean, 10 is... Correia/ Could it be...with the .1 we end our year at 30% of unreserved to expenditures, you know, we generally estimate lower than ends up happening, um, if we did S- cents would it be, you know, with our conservative estimates, what would that do to that percent unreserved to expenditures (unable to hear) O'Malley/ Well, about $20,000 and I don't think that...it's probably less than one half of 1 %. Correia/ So it might not even... Bailey/ Potentially not even an impact on our fund balance, or our reserve balance. Correia/ I mean, I would consider even going 5-cents. I mean, I think that we... Bailey/ Every decrease is $20,000 (unable to hear) O'Malley/ Every...a nickel would be. The dime is $246,000, so a nickel would be $123,000. Do you want us to project that nickel out in 11 and 12 also? O'Donnell/ I'd like to see that. (several responding) Hayek/ My thought is, I mean, I view there being two emergency levies for your average taxpayer. Your city and your county. Is that a fair.. . Bailey/ There's the emergency management (several talking) Hayek/ Okay. Yeah, it is, except that it's about to jump up for this new center (several talking) um, and so, the dual increase of that one, plus this might be pretty heavy- handed. O'Donnell/ Are you suggesting, Matt, leaving it or going to a nickel? Hayek/ I'd consider a nickel, I mean, if we go to a nickel, then we're just pulling down our reserve, right? O'Malley/ And you're not taxing the taxpayers. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 68 O'DonnelV And that's important. (several talking) Correia/ And I guess that's what we've talked about, um, you know, for some of us who feel like, well, I'll just speak for myself, who thinks that maybe 30% is a bit high, um, I think that it's, you know, funding a very, um, funding our savings account, um, I guess I'd rather not do that, as long as we can, and still maintain healthy, I mean, I think that we would continue to have our healthy General Fund reserve to expenditures, between that 15 to 30, that hovers around 27, 28. I feel fine with that. I feel like that...that has less impact to the taxpayer, without constraining out ability to both have a good bond rating, and do the things that the community expects. Helling/ I feel obliged to point one thing out, on your fund balance, if you look at FY12, which is just beyond...(several talking)...extra, the extra pay day for that year, somehow we've got to build that up so that we can absorb that. Now, I'm not suggesting that we have to, you know, that this makes it a huge difference there, but in our long-term, we need to build that up so we can absorb that million, little over a million dollars. Wright/ I was just thinking to myself, if the chickens are going to start coming home to roost in a few years...then... Bailey/ But I would rather increase taxes slowly rather than sort of this jump of 10-cents. I mean, if...if Kevin indicated that the 5-cents won't make a significant difference in our reserve balance, and it'd still be a healthy 30%, I think that gives us room to set aside dollars for 12, um, I know we have varying degrees of comfort level with what our reserve balance should be, but... Wright/ I'm perfectly fine with 5-cents, and taking a little nibble on that reserve balance. Hayek/ You guys think it's 5-cents? O'Malley/ 5-cents is...I'm paying the taxes so I think 5-cents is better. (laughter and several talking) Bailey/ I would like to speak as an individual and echo that. Helling/ The, um, whether you have the cash buildup, or whether it's available in the emergency levy, when you need it, that's two different perspectives. I just...I know you always want to try to...try to avoid as much as possible a huge, you know, a large tax bump in one year. Correia/ And like we said, there are a couple of things in our back pocket, um, as we move forward in the next years, I mean, there is the ability to increase the emergency levy, and there's the ability to increase parking fines. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 69 Bailey/ Ross, you were going to say? Wilburn/ Uh, I'm fine with 5-cents. Um, I just wanted to express a concern about, and I know it's not intended this way, but it can leave an impression when...when we say, uh, we're just building the City's, or we've just putting, uh, we're taxing people just to build up the City's saving's account. It is the City's...it is the public's saving account for, whether it's an increased payroll, whether it's a, uh, disaster, whether it's taking advantage of some opportunities, um, it's just, it's a difference in comfort level perspective on what that amount should be, but to just...to say it's just a savings account, it is that. It's for the rainy days, because when those rainy days, when something happens or an opportunity or whatever it might be come up, might come up, uh, the public looks at it and says why isn't our city taking advantage of this opportunity. Why can't our city, um, get the emergency response that we want to see when a disaster happens. So, just ask if we could be a little more careful of our semantics related to, um, having a healthy reserve. You know, I just want to make that statement... Champion/ Well, another reason for a healthy reserve is that we never have to borrow money. Bailey/ Well, that's not true. We do borrow money all the time. Champion/ Inter-departmentally...inter... Bailey/ Well, we bond. Champion/ Yeah, that's true, but I mean for every day (several talking and laughing) Bailey/ I agree, I mean, we're not...right, but. Champion/ Borrowing for daily functions. Wilburn/ We don't want our, yeah, we don't want our city like some other cities are facing, where they are facing bankruptcy. They can't...(several talking) those types of things. (several talking) Hayek/ I was just going to say, I agree, and um, and we do need to talk about that, and further more, I am, you know, Ben Bernackie is not listening to my every word, but I am not, I think we're...I think we're going to see tougher times on that reserve balance. You know, as interest rates drop, our interest income falls, right? I think, uh, I hope I'm proven wrong on this, but I think the valuations in 2009 on residential will be flat, and a lot of things that could have a big impacts on those numbers. Bailey/ But we know that, I mean, not take these decisions seriously, but we know this year's decisions. We know that we will be carefully monitoring it, and we can This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 70 make decisions to respond appropriately, and we are in a healthy enough situation because of our previous policies that we have some latitude with...with decreasing, or increasing this at a lower level right now, um, and if we have to move it up, I think we're all comfortable doing that, to do the things that are right for the community. Hayek/ I agree...I just think that the last several years of numbers can't be relied on too heavily going forward. Bailey/ Right, past performance is no indicator of future whatever...whatever that saying is. Champion/ And then when I...this is totally off the subject, but when I look at these levies, I still am really bothered by our employee benefits' levy. I think it's, I don't think there's another...private sector except maybe for Catherine's that pays all their employee benefits, of the amount of money put towards the benefits by the employees, especially for health insurance, is nothing basically, and as long as the State allows this levy to be out of limit, it's impossible to negotiate benefits. It's amazing to me that it's...it's, look at the percentage of our total property taxes. It's almost, it's almost 20%? More than that, almost 25%, of our total property tax levy is employee benefits. And our employee, and I'm not...you know, there's nobody underpaid in the City. It's a great job, people love it. Um, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be paid more. I'm just saying that according to surrounding areas, they're not underpaid, and yet we continue to totally pay for all their benefits, with a new levy that has no limit by our State legislators, and if I could do anything, I would put a limit on that, so that (several talking) can't negotiate it, because if it went to arbitration, they'd say, `It doesn't cost you anything.' Correia/ What do staff pay for family? Bailey/ Well, I mean, I don't know if this is a germane discussion because these are negotiated and we're under contract. I mean (several talking) Helling/ Yeah, I think you, if you want to get into a discussion like this, you probably might want to do it in a closed session, because it does relate to bargaining strategies, um... Champion/ We can't do nothing about it until the legislature does something about it. Bailey/ So, let's go back to... Hayek/ You raise a good point, and I, let's bring it up after we get out of this. I mean, if we do it in closed session or otherwise. We'll do it. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 71 Bailey/ Um, let's go back to this emergency levy. And what amount we want to set it at. Um, I've heard a nickel. O'Donnell/ 5-cents is fine. Correia/ 5-cents. Bailey/ Are we comfortable with that? (several responding) Are we comfortable with that, and project it out for ..... at five (several talking) we may, okay. Fire Inspection Fees: Bailey/ Fire inspection fees, possible new revenue. I just view that as a placeholder. Is that a place, Kevin, that we haven't done, or a... O'Malley/ We're in the initial stages of...I believe John Greer is...is in charge of that, and he is, uh, just putting together a program, or he's finishing a program, and I think they're going to bring it to you, uh, for adoption. CIP's: Bailey/ All right. I'm assuming that our discussion of the CIP, um, budget, there aren't any other further additions to that. I thought that was pretty complete last week. just want to check in, because you know, it's a speak now or forever hold your peace till... Wright/ I...I have a question that's, I don't even know if it's procedural or where it happens to fall, but I'll just throw it out there. You all can laugh at me if you wish. Bailey/ No, we don't laugh at each other. Wright/ Um, looking at the (several talking and laughing) um, I remember speaking last week, and I think Regenia and maybe somebody else agreed, some concerns with the, uh, Burlington Street project, the tremendously unfriendly bicycle designs that we have. How do we address something like that? I mean, that's still in the out budget, but I have big concerns about.... Bailey/ They're going to bring...my understanding of that, is they're going to bring back that discussion and I also understand that, um, John Yapp has been working with the committee to look at another route through downtown Iowa City and we're going to have a work session item to discuss that. Wright/ Okay. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 72 Wilburn/ And part of that conversation has been, if it's not Burlington Street in this case with that design, an understanding a designated bike route through downtown, and some people will use it, some people won't. Wright/ I do have a problem in general with designing a street to be practically unusable for bicycles. (several talking) ...complete streets idea that we're supposedly adopting. Bailey/ So, procedurally, we'll work session, that's a work session item. Wright/ Okay. Bailey/ And discussion, knowing that the placeholder is in 10. And that can move. Okay? Other questions or concerns about.. . Wright/ Newbies questions. Bailey/ No, I think that's good. Helling/ One item. Bailey/ Yes? Helling/ National Civic League. Uh... Bailey/ $357. (laughter and several talking) Helling/ Anyway, yeah, I've, basically we joined that some years back. There was some particular information that was of value to us, and, um, so we just joined, it was a small amount of money, and we've retained our membership, but we have not renewed, and I'm assuming we should. (several responding) Champion/ That means we can have brie cheese and wine. (laughter and several talking) Bailey/ Okay, anything else we need to discuss regarding the budget? O'Malley/ Just, what you, we will be adopting, want to give you a head's up is a form that's going to be a little more strange than these forms, State Farm, and it's going to be for the one year. It's going to show actua107, re-estimated 08, and year 09 tax asking. As you stated earlier, Regenia, it's, that dollar amount can be reduced but not increased after this, so just want to give everybody aware of that. Bailey/ And you'll walk us through that form a little bit to familiarize... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 73 O'Malley/ Yeah, the State doesn't look so much at personnel costs. They look at program costs, public safety, human development, home and community environment, those type of issues. So, that's their perspective. Bailey/ Okay. Any other questions about procedure or concerns? I mean, we're moving forward with this, and we don't get to do many do-overs (coughing, unable to hear) as Kevin said. Hayek/ Just, it would help me to understand the math, it seems to me that we've come up with $80,000 through the (unable to hear) deer control...(several talking and laughing)...so, no, we've come up, we have freed up $80,000, right? And as I... Helling/ Well, you have but you reduced the emergency levy down to 5-cents, which is going to (several talking) Hayek/ Okay. I think our personnel costs for 09 are about 400. What's the, between the three firefighters, two police, and CSO's in the fourth quarter, that's 400. So what's the spread? I mean, how much is that going to draw down our, uh, reserve? O'Malley/ Um, that's going to take a while to go through that... Hayek/ That's the appropriate math to apply, right? (several talking) O'Malley/ We're going to make these changes...we did get new valuations last Friday, as I say, they keep changing, but...only this time they went up a little bit, so...I haven't seen the fiscal impact of that. We just got it, and we haven't plugged it into our spreadsheets, whereas the last one we got in, uh, January, went down a little bit. These are nominal amounts. So we just have to plug all those in because that will be the tax thing that we publish in the paper, the tax request, and uh, and that's the net effect of all these issues. Helling/ Matt, this sheet reflects the new positions. They're in there, so what, based on this sheet, what you're doing is you're adding that $80,000 that is...is in here that, or is not in here, that you're putting in, but to offset that, you're reducing the levy by...by a nickel, now, valuations have gone up, that will effect it a little bit. I would say that this is, we'll do another one, but this is probably very close. Correia/ So you're saying you're adding 80, but then subtracting 123, you know, the current.. . Hayek/ So the drawdown will be about $50,000 or maybe.. . O'Malley/ It shouldn't impact this type of decision. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 74 Champion/ I have to ask another horrible question. With the stock (several talking and laughing) Karr/ Connie, do you have your mic on.. . Champion/ I have it right here. Right there. Can you hear me? Karr/ I can hear you now! Champion/ What are the changes of the State hitting us again with another huge line item, because they are not, don't have the money to pay all those retirement things or whatever they pay. O'Malley/ I expect that'll happen next year. We've seen a decrease down to 18.75 for the municipal police and fire pension. I expect that to pop back up into the 20's, which would then impact your employee benefit levy taxes. Helling/ They've taken most of it away. There's, now I hate to say this because you know they're creative, but, um, I don't know that they can hit us as hard as they did four years ago. Champion/ Oh, I think they can. Helling/ Um, the one thing that could do that, and then some, would be the taxing apartments as residential (several talking) Champion/ We need a riverboat. Bailey/ Ah, um, I've been saying that. Helling/ Or...(laughter)... Bailey/ Okay. Any other horrible comments or questions? You can tell them the (unable to hear) Um, any other, all right. Budget questions, concerns? Hayek/ Uh, one, on your spreadsheet, the $4 million deficit for 08, what is that consist of again? O'Malley/ I think most of that is, uh, some funding of capital projects from our fund balance. I think it was the Library, not the...the Senior Center, uh, Airport...um, and some of it's just, uh, money that Transit needs to be putting into their reserves. Think that's... Correia/ That's why we ended so high at the end of 07 at 41%, because of projects that, is that why...if I'm remembering previous conversations, that we ended 07 at this This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008. January 28, 2008 Budget City Council Work Session Page 75 percent unreserved expenditures at 41 % because there were things that weren't finished. O'Malley/ Right. Correia/ 07...we amended it back in, and that's where it shows up. Hayek/ So it's worse. Are the deficits, or the 618, the 635, the 412 going forward, are those largely the personnel costs we're talking about with public safety? Okay. That's all I had. Bailey/ That's okay. Any other questions? Okay, do you have all you need? O'Malley/ Yes. Bailey/ Okay. Helling/ Got what we need, and uh, assuming we're (mumbled) discussion this morning you want us to start, approach the budget in a little more detail in the future... Bailey/ Kevin and I have talked a little bit about... Helling/ .kind of thing, and we'll certainly to that. Um, but we do have some, in addition to that I think we have some other issues that we have to visit between now and fall. Um, so that we can, we'll have a little bit clearer direction on...on, particularly on if we're going to be balancing or reducing any other services that we'll have some direction on where to go with that with the next budget. That... Bailey/ Yeah, I think that's what I've heard, and it seems like we're going to be, this portion of the budget is done, basically, to move forward with that process, we're going to be working with budget a lot more this year, is what I believe. So... Wright/ I think it's probably a good thing. Bailey/ I think it's...yeah, I think it's a good thing. Okay, so, um, have four hours I guess. So, and we're saving the City (several talking) we're being here at (several talking). See you at 6:30. We saved, uh, lunch money for the City. All right! Thank you everybody! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council budget work session meeting of January 28, 2008.