HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-05-26 TranscriptionMay 26, 2009 City Council Page 1
May 26, 2009 City Council Priority Setting Work Session 6:30 P.M.
Council Present: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Hayek, O'Donnell, Wilburn, Wright
Staff: Helling, O'Malley, Craig, Tharp, O'Brien, Dilkes, Karr, Davidson,
Mansfield, Nurnberg, Hargadine, Rocca, Moran, Kopping, Lewis,
Boothroy, Fosse, Jennings
Others Present: UISG Representative Shipley
REDUCTIONS:
Bailey/ Okay, let's um get started. Our goal tonight, Dale and I talked today, and is really to get
through the fiscal year 10 sort of approach. With staff here tonight it would be helpful if
you have any specific questions about items that are listed in here, ask those questions so
they don't have to do a redo on Thursday night, and then what I thought we would do is
sort of look at if there's interest on Thursday night do the bigger, broader picture, um, if
we can't get through fiscal year 11 tonight, move that...do that on Thursday night. Okay?
So, Dale is going to, um, walk us through, talking about the assumptions he made in
developing these recommendations, and then walk us through, um, his recommendations.
So...
Helling/ I thought maybe I could start by just sort of summarizing the process that we went
through to get where we are with the recommendations. Um, department directozs were
asked to submit, uh, three sort of levels of cuts, uh, in their budgets for FY10 and beyond,
um, 1%, uh, cumulative, and then 2% and then 4%, so not...it's cumulative rather than, I
guess that's the word -cumulative. In other words, it's not 7% total. That the highest is
4%. Um, and naturally those things come in terms of...of, uh, priorities from the
departments. Um, and I...I asked them to also consider new revenue sources or increases
in current revenues that might be...felt might be applicable. I took all that information
and I looked at it then from an organization-wide perspective, or tried to anyway, um, and
looking at sustainability, because any cuts that we make for FY10 we want to make sure
that those are carried over into FY11 and beyond. Also looking at the departmental
priorities in terms of, that helped me to also come up with...with organization-wide
priorities. Um, I tried to look at the community impact, the service levels that...that
might occur with reductions in service levels or maintenance or whatever. Uh, not just
within the organization, but obviously the service to the community, and of course I
looked at the numbers, um, to try to put something together that would work, because we
have those targets of...of, uh, $250,000 for FY10, and then another...or $750,000 for a
total of $1 million for FYl 1 and beyond. Those are the numbers we...we came up with
some time back, uh, we still think those are good numbers, but obviously they're not
precise. There's a lot of assumptions that we made, uh, and there's also things yet to
happen between now and even fall when we start to put the FY11 budget together. What
I tried to do was give them to you in some...and I emphasized in my memo, a loose rank
order. Um, there are things perhaps that aren't in the recommendations for FY10 that you
might prefer over some of the things that are, and I understand that. I mean, we assume
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that, so what I tried to do was, uh, give you a combination of possible revenue reduction,
or possible expenditure reductions as well as revenue increases, that would total the
$250,000 roughly, and that...that was only meant to be a starting point for you. Uh, I
think we need to be flexible as we go along. Things may change in terms of the kinds of
things that may be...we see now as the best alternatives for budget reductions, for
instance in FYIO, but some things may change that and we may want to go farther down
the list, um, obviously those changes (mumbled) discussion, but other things can come up
in the process too that make it maybe more advisable to...to rethink some of those.
Um...as the Mayor indicated, we want to try and resolve FY10 tonight, as closely as we
can, keeping in mind that we'll manage our way through that and then (mumbled), and
then generally get guidance, and that's about the best we...I think we can do at this point.
Just some guidance for putting the FY11 budget together, um, and if we can do all of that
tonight, that'd be great, but I doubt that we will be able to do that, so...um, but certainly
by the end of the night on Thursday we would hope...those are the two things that I
would hope to have from you. Um, one of the things that I would ask you to do, as we go
through these, is not make any decisions that absolutely, positively we can't do this or
can't do that. Come up with an "A" list and "B" list, and the "B" list will be things
that...that you as a Council aren't likely to want to entertain, but as we look...as we move
along and see how difficult this becomes, uh, some of it may have to do with whether or
not there...how much our revenue alternatives we have out there to look at, and how
many we're willing to do, um, so I just ask that we, you know, that we leave this open, at
least for now, and so we can revisit some of these things and it doesn't lock you into
anything or it doesn't imply that you agree to a particular cut or a particular additional
revenue, it's just that you haven't made a final decision. Um, and then the other thing is,
and we have the department directors here tonight, please ask your questions. That's why
they're here. I didn't give you a tremendous amount of detail in terms of the list that you
have, and they are better able than I am probably to respond in a lot of cases to perhaps
what the impact this might be for their department (mumbled) community as well. Um,
the assumptions, we...I...we have just a few screens. Just wanted to expand on them a
little bit. They are essentially what's in your, uh, what's in the memo, uh, FY10, a quarter
of a million. dollars, and then FY11, beyond, that goes up another $750,000 to a $1
million target. Um, one of the things that we didn't put in the assumptions but we wanted
to share with you is the growth of the property values, and we're, for FY10, we're
estimating 4.37% and I think that's evaluation year and so that's not necessarily a 4.37%
average increase in the value of each property, but that's the total that we're coming up...
O'Malley/ Including growth.
Helling/ New properties and growth.
Champion/ Okay.
Helling/ I mean growth and then appreciation. We are assuming that the residential rollback will
remain flat. We always assume that, because we never know how to estimate. It actually
went up a little bit, and backtracked up about a point and a half for FY10, but we
anticipate that that will not, uh, probably be the case again, you know, it maybe. So, for
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the purpose of estimation though we...we've estimated every year that it will be flat and
then see what it turns out to be (mumbled). Uh, the emergency levy, just to give you a
little track, it was at zero in FY08. We went to a nickel in nine, and then the figures for
FY10 and FY11 reflect numbers that...that we came up with, um, anticipating the
firefighters and what we might need to do with that to help pay for the firefighters for
station 4, and that's why it changes from FY10 to FYl 1, um, I think if...uh, beyond FY11
we actually thought it would probably then start down a little bit. But again, that's...that's
why the numbers for FY10 and 11. You set the numbers, and uh, those are the numbers
you set for FY10 in...in the budget coming up, and then the FY11 is an estimate for what
will happen there. Just as a note, one penny on the emergency levy will give you about
$25,000. And, by the way, you should have copies of these. Did we get those handed
out? Yeah, okay. So somewhere in your pile, you should have copies (mumbled)
Bailey/ I didn't get those.
Champion/ I didn't get one.
O'Donnell/ I didn't get one.
Champion/ I didn't get one. I'm not sure what was in that packet. Nothing!
Helling/ We'll get them for you (mumbled). Um, wage and salary increases...
Bailey/ Do you have a question, Matt, before we go on?
Hayek/ Is there any way to quantify the impact of...in terms of property value growth, dropping
from 4.37 to 1.87? Can you ballpark that, or would that require pretty significant pen to
paper and calculator?
O'Malley/ It would take some time, uh, that...that 1.87% is more or less hilt ...that's what we
were...we usually put a little more than that in, but back when we were developing the
financial plan and we were talking to the City Assessor, and at that time he was, uh,
explaining that there was quite a few, uh, pieces of property that are going to lose
valuation in the Parkview area, and that, uh, we were lucky to break even, maybe at 0%,
and the new home sales have been less than, uh, previous home sales, so he didn't see
much growth there, but I personally believe that that 1.87 is probably low. I think I see
better than that, but that's...these are all assumptions. The 4.37 is an actual.
Hayek/ Okay. But is...is the 1.87 a, uh, a recent figure?
O'Malley/ No. This was done in, uh, done in December.
Hayek/ Okay, by Denny and his...
O'Malley/ Some of information from him, and...and information that we keep historically.
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Hayek/ The reason I ask that is, it's important I think for us to know whether the numbers we had
available, you know, four, five months ago when we were doing the budget have
changed, have improved or worsened since then, as we get into it now.
O'Malley/ I was...I was pretty, uh, realistic at the time, um...but I...I, I mean, he said more like
the 0% and I said no, it's going to be something. I've seen building permits going on. I
knew we'd have some new growth, but um, but...and then I've been watching the home
sales, as I mentioned, and they're...the dollars are going down but we are selling homes.
So, uh, I think that 1.87 is realistic, well, it's conservative. I think it's going to be more
like 2, 2.5, and that growth, Matt, is what I try to match with our payroll increase
(mumbled). If we want a 2% in payroll, we need at least 2% in property values, because
otherwise we can't afford our...our cost of living. That's a rule of thumb that I use.
Hayek/ Yeah.
Helling/ Uh, and also, uh, wages and salary increases, we talked about this before. They were
3.1%, uh, in the budget for FY10, uh, or as negotiated. I believe we had, be bargaining
with police and fire and those numbers varied a little bit, um, because there were also
some (mumbled) and then all the contracts are open for FY11. Uh, further assumptions,
health insurance premiums, the actual that we plugged in for FY10 is 7%. I think it was
very, very close to that, 6 point...
O'Malley/ 6.5.
Helling/ Um, and for FYl 1 we're estimating a 5% increase. Dental insurance, um, actual for
FY10, 5%, an estimate again at 5% for FYl 1. The...this is one that may, uh, may have a
rather severe impact on us. The...the police, fire, state pension fund, MFPRSI, uh, the
minimum that we are assessed, and it's been this way for two or three years now, is 17%.
It was very high and then it went down, back down to 17%. Uh, with the loss of interest
revenue and so forth to the system, we're anticipating, and we...we've been told that the
trend will probably be upward to 45% by FY13 or 14. We're estimating 25% for FY1 1,
uh, so basically what that means is, that's the percent of police officer or firefighter
earnings that, uh, that we pay into the pensions.
O'Malley/ Matt, that is a new number. We didn't have that at financial planning time. We got
that about a month ago. It came from their actuary, uh, saying that those numbers would
probably, because of the losses in the stock market and this 7.5% guaranteed return, um,
that we would look toward having a 45% pension rate within three to four years.
Helling/ Now that's...that's something again I think you can anticipate, if times get better, the
interest is there and so forth for some recovery, and it'd probably start back down again.
But the highest it's been is about 28, I think.
O'Malley/ 28.75 I think.
Hayek/ And that was three years ago maybe?
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O'Malley/ Four years ago.
Hayek/ How long has this been in place?
O'Malley/ They took over our pension system...we used to run our own pension system back in
the 90, well, up until 92, and then the State decided to take it over. (several talking) We
actually had a surplus at the time.
Helling/ I believe at that time the State still...they had some control over it. I don't know if they
set the rates specifically, but they had some control over.. .
O'Malley/ They froze their contribution.
Champion/ Of course! (laughter)
Bailey/Surprise!
Helling/ And there is...there is a small amount that the, uh, participants, the members, also pay
in, and that's gone up a little bit too, but not anywhere this magnitude. Uh, for IPERS,
that has...been under an increase I think for three or four years?
O'Malley /Right.
Helling/ Uh, at .3% each year, and...and I think that's split out. The City pays half of the
increase and the employee pays half (mumbled). The, what we're hearing now is that
after, and that was to stop after FYl 1. That was to get it to a little bit higher percentage,
but with the current situation, again, we're...we're hearing that that's probably going to
continue upward, in order to keep (mumbled) solvent. Um, the 27th pay day that you've
heard about a number of times, our...our intent would be to pay that out of the General
Fund balance in FY12, and so uh, we'll need to have that, plan ahead and try to have that
in there, so it doesn't create too much of a draw-down on the balance. Um, the other
thing that, the FY10 budget is based on is that the Johnson County Emergency
Communication Center levy will start paying those wages and benefits for the employees,
uh, as of January 1 of 2010. Um, that was the time the budget was put together that it
was anticipated that the switchover would happen. It's not going to happen then;
however, the County as I understand it is entertaining some thoughts about when the levy
should pick up those costs, regardless of whether the new facility is open or not. If that
goes, uh, to the end of the next fiscal year, or through June 30th of next year, then that's
going to have an impact on us and we're going to have to come up with $80,000 to
$100,000 to...to cover that gap. And then the last assumption we made is that we would
try to maintain that 25% level of the General Fund balance, um, we retained our triple-A
rating for the last GO debt issue that we just made. Um, but Moody's did take note with
the fact that they saw our fund balance lower than other triple-A cities in (mumbled) and
uh, while they...while they gave us the triple-A rating (mumbled) I think the fact that
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they noticed it is an indication that we should probably take notice too. Those are the
assumptions. Um, you have...the recommendations. You have staff here for questions.
Wright/ I want to question an assumption if I could.
Helling/ Sure! Absolutely!
Wright/ Uh, it's really just a question on the 27th payday.
Helling/ Uh-huh.
Wright/ That's because we have the bi-weekly payroll.
Helling/ Right.
Wright/ What would the cost be to switch to a monthly payroll? The University has monthly
payroll. Most places I've ever worked only paid once a month.
Helling/ Most I'm aware of pay (mumbled). We...we used to be, a long time ago we were on a
month, and then we were bi-monthly. Uh, and we went to this probably...I don't know.
O'Malley/ (mumbled)
Helling/ ...25 years or more.
O'Malley/ 30 years at least.
Helling/Yeah, um, I'm not sure what the benefits are, I mean, the numbers would be the same, it's
just that...that it pops up this way because it's.. .
Wright/ Nobody actually gets the extra...the extra salary, but it's just the way it (both talking)
particular year. (several talking)
Champion/ The way the date that it falls on, instead of going to the next year it...hits that year.
Helling/ I think the idea of having pay day every other Friday, rather than on a different date, in
the middle of the month or at the end of the month (mumbled) usually on the first
(mumbled) middle of the month would change, and um, this way we have it every, we
know when...people have so much automatic withdrawal and that kind of thing now that
it's probably, it'd probably be more convenient for the employee (mumbled)
Wright/ But if you, if you get paid (several talking) of the month, for example, that's (several
talking). People can count on...I know when payday is. (several talking)
Helling/ It's not going to save any money by doing that.
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Wright/ I think in the long run shouldn't it save something in terms of just once a month
processing as opposed to twice?
O'Malley/ It would save in administrative time. But it, uh...
Helling/ So much of it's done by, you know, software now.
Correia/ I hated getting paid once a month. When I worked at the U. I like getting paid every
other week (laughter).
Champion/ I pay my employees every Friday also. They need their money (several talking)
Wright/ ...what we like or what people like. It's, they still get paid, and it's just a matter if the
organization achieves some savings that way.
Bailey/ It's making sure that the same people still get paid.
Wright/ Yeah.
Bailey/ If you achieve some savings, yeah. So how do we want to do these, did you have other
assumptions you wanted.. .
Wright/ No, that was just the...
Bailey/ ...so, insofar as reductions, do you want to walk through these line by line and have Dale
walk us through and ask questions as they come up? To me that seems the most direct
than jumping around. We all know where we are at. Um, but I also tend to be hyper-
linear so...so, Dale, do you want to just walk us through these and...
Helling/ I will and I may solicit Kevin's assistance (mumbled)
Bailey/ Great.
Helling/ ...as we get through, please again, if you have questions...
Bailey/ Yeah, let's do questions as the item comes up, rather than waiting to the end, and...it's
just easier.
Helling/ Um, the first three under reductions, Housing Inspection Services, that reflects some
changes that they've made. Those are...I call them "gimmes" um, there's really not an
issue with that, um, so that's...they're sort of the automatics. The same thing with PCD
and the building repairs, uh, this has to do with two properties, er, a property that's to be
sold and these are the, uh, building repairs out of two different line items, depending on
how we budget, um, but the total is 3,646 and so that, again, is a...a gimme. Uh, Senior
Center, discontinuing "The Post" - that's...was intended, uh, before we ever put this
together. So, again, that's one where, um, (mumbled) seems like a no-brainer.
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Bailey/ Is that discontinued or going to be formatted electronically?
Helling/ Um, Linda, you have to come up, grab a mic somewhere. There's one over there.
Senior Center
Kopping/ It's going to be discontinued. This was a, uh, membership-only newsletter that came
out eight times a year.
Bailey/ Okay. Thank you.
Helling/ IJh, likewise the Senior Center plant care. Apparently there's a, uh, there's a...a service
that comes in and does that, and what they would do is discontinue that, and staff would
be responsible for watering the plants (mumbled) these are inside plants, I believe. Right,
Linda? Plants interior? Okay. And then, Linda, I'm sorry, but I am going to need you to
explain the refuse collection and the hauling, the cardboard recycling. I apologize to ask
you to stay up here.
Kopping/ Uh, this is also something we've been talking about for a while in our concentration on
trying to be more environmentally friendly. Um, we have two refuse containers right
now, and uh, they're primarily used by the nutrition program. So, um, and a lot of the,
um, trash happens to be cardboard, so what we're going to do is eliminate one of the, um,
refuse collection containers and replace it with a cardboard recycling unit, and we'll j ust
break down the cardboard and throw the trash in the trash, and.. .
Wilburn/ ...get paid for the cardboard don't you?
Kopping/ We have to pay to have it picked up.
Wilburn/ Oh, okay. City Carton, I don't know if it's different because it's a government entity,
but uh, some of the non-profits have box crusher and they actually get, um, I don't know
if it's some type of grant program that they have, but they actually pay them for, uh, the
cardboard bales because they make money off the cardboard. Crisis Center and uh,
couple others...
Kopping/ I'll look into that.
Wilburn/ I'd contact City Carton...
Champion/ Those grants came from the Landfill.
Wilburn/ Oh, you're right, that's right! Yeah, so... (laughter)
Bailey/ One hand to another?
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Wilburn/ ...still be worth a conversation with them, because they do make, uh, some money off
the cardboard, so it'd be worth a conversation.
Champion/ You probably have a lot more cardboard than...you'd have a lot! Um, does the, um,
does the, uh, nutrition program pay for any part of that dumpster? Cause I don't think
they pay for anything.
Kopping/ No.
Champion/ And they don't pay for water?
Bailey/ What does the nutrition program pay for?
Kopping/ Um, they pay for things like phone services and copying that they get at a discounted
rate through the City. Um, through our operational budget, we pay for all the utilities,
um, the fixtures in the kitchen...maintenance of the fixtures in the kitchen, um, heating,
cooling, ventilation, fire suppression, um, everything.
Champion/ There's something wrong with this picture. That we're supporting the whole nutrition
program for the County.
Kopping/ Um, it's my understanding that Heritage, uh, Agency, which sublets, or lets out the
contract for this, um, has a personal, or has a, um, area agency policy that they refuse to
pay any rent. It's supposed to be the community's contribution to support the nutrition
program, that they provide the space and pay the utilities and all that. That's the
philosophy behind that.
Helling/ Any other questions for Linda?
Correial The Senior Center's not the only meal site in the County. There are other meal site
locations. So it's not the only meal site.
Bailey/ Is it the largest meal site?
Correia/ I don't know that.
Kopping/ Um, I believe it is the largest meal site, but the, uh, primary, uh, meal preparation goes
to the home delivered meal program. Our participation at the Senior Center has declined
steadily over the past ten years.
Bailey/ Thanks.
City Attorney
Helling/ Okay. The next one is City Attorney would charge 60% of the research tools and
I...Eleanor can probably explain that better than me, but I think it's probably the cost
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for...for uh, researching on various web sites that are available for legal research,
charging it directly to the Tort Levy, uh, since that is...that's a lot of it has to do with our
tort liability and how we defend our claims.
Bailey/ So removing it from General Fund, but still, we still have the cost. Okay.
Helling /Yeah, it would be in your levy, yes.
Bailey/ Right.
Helling/ It'd just be (mumbled)
Bailey/ Eleanor, did you want to say anything about that? It seems pretty straight forward, but.. .
Dilkes/ Nope. That's just the bulk of, I mean, that's the whole...60% of all our computer aided
research and our books, etc.
Bailey/ Okay.
Dilkes/ You recall that we took one of, um, the Assistant Attorneys and put their salary into the
Tort Levy recently.
Bailey/ Right.
Fire Department:
Helling/ Next is, uh, fire department, reduce training and travel by 20%, uh, fire department
relies on travel for a lot of its training. A lot of it is done nationally or...or at remote
sites. Excuse. me...there's not a great deal that's available in the state of Iowa, but Andy
indicated that he thought he could trim some out of that. In fact, he gave me a little
higher figure than that, and you may see that reflected, um, I believe it's in later, the
additional $12,000 he had...had said probably could squeeze $30,000 out. I'm not sure
that that's advisable, but I think the $18,000 is probably (mumbled) sustained basis.
Things get better, likely (mumbled)
Champion/ ...can you tell me what (mumbled) missing out on if we cut this? Not you
personally, but...
Rocca/ There are a lot of, uh, what I call hands-on type training, uh, FDIC, the Fire Department
Instructor's Conference, so we would send a number of our internal instructors to those
kinds of training classes for confined space rescue, technical rescue, fire suppression
techniques, those are generally the kind of things that we're dealing with, and so we
would just scale back. We may not be able to send the same number, or even attend at
all, but generally, that's what I'm talking about.
Champion/ Thank you.
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Correia/ And are those trainings where the folks going would be receiving sort of a train-the-
trainer type?
Rocca/ That's how we typically try to do that. If we send our instructors out to bring that back
into the department. Correct.
Correia/ So, okay.
Champion/ So you don't view it as a great handicap because you will provide the teaching.
Rocca/ Not initially...for that amount I think we can handle that, you know, and as Dale
indicated, if things get better then maybe we can look to...to go back to our current or
past practice on that regard.
Champion/ Limit new uniforms.
Rocca/ Well, we have a current inventory, and uh, we've tried to move more to a quartermaster
type scenario, so if one's damaged, one needs replaced, one gets replaced, and so we've
tried to keep the inventory up a little higher and frankly I think we can maintain that.
Bailey/ Are there other funds available for training? Um, grants, federal funds, uh, the
professional, um, association?
Rocca/ Through the Fire Service Training Bureau the funding has been for volunteer fire
departments. So we are not seeing funding for career fire departments...
Bailey/ Okay. Thank you.
Rocca/ ...for training.
Helling/ Seems a little ironic to me.
Bailey/ It does! Quite, but...
Champion/ Must have a strong lobby!
Library
Helling/ Uh, just a quick note too on travel...and I can't put a number on this or even, you know,
put it in here because I don't know (mumbled) we are seeing, because of the economic
situation, we're seeing, uh, a lower expected turnout at national conferences and that type
of thing, and I think that probably we're going to, hopefully anyway, we're going to
(mumbled) compensated somewhat by, uh, web conferences that are much less expensive
obviously. You don't have the travel and the hotel and all of that, and so hopefully thafll
give us a chance to take advantage (mumbled) without losing out as (mumbled) travel
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budgets without...without missing out as much (mumbled). Um, in terms of the Library,
the, is this...park and read, is that what I've heard it called? Yeah, um, it would be
discontinuing the subsidy for it, and I think it's one-hour parking for anybody who's in the
Library. The summer reading program, that's the Transit subsidy, and that's...that's not
targeted here. This is only the...the parking subsidy.
Wright/ So the Transit subsidy..
Helling/ Would stay.
Bailey/ Would stay?
Wright/ Stays.
Bailey/ Okay, all right. Good.
Champion/ Um...
Correia/ How is that...I...how is that quantified, cause with the...the new ride the bus, ride the
Library bus, there's not a separate route, so people get on, you know, they show their
Library card. They get on for free. Those folks may not have been riding, I mean.. .
Craig/ Um, we get...the Transit folks keep track of that for us.. .
Correia/ Okay.
Craig/ ...and then we pay for that ride, and then they get a, um, a pass to return home, or
wherever they came from, um, it...I mean, they could be coming from a daycare or
home, you know, wherever their childcare is in the summertime, and to some extent it is
a...we're getting rid of the Transit subsidy too, because right now we do offer a free bus
pass, um, to people who use the Library, just like we offer the free hour of parking and
it...the proposal is to discontinue everything, except for the kids in the summer. So...
Correia/ So...could...so how that works now is...Transit keeps track of how many bus passes..
Craig/ Right. Right.
Correia/ ...distributed through the Library, and then charges the Library back.
Craig/ Correct.
Correia/ Okay. So...
Craig/ And this year we'll get charged back, I mean, between Parking and Transit, um, you
know, there's still accounting, so but it'll be about $10,000, a little more this year.
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Correia/ Okay.
Champion/ And Susan...
Correia/ So could, I mean, could...this maybe isn't really part of a budget...budget session, but
the buses are running anyway, could we...we want people to ride the bus. If they didn't
have a pass, they might not be riding or going to the Library. Do we need to charge each
other back? Could we provide.. .
Bailey/ See, I'm really interested in keeping a Transit subsidy if not the Parking subsidy, because
we're encouraging behavior we want to see?
Correia/ Right, and...just not charge...
Bailey/ Reading and riding the bus? Seems kind of, I don't know, do we have a sense of how
this breaks down?
Craig/ It's...it's weighted toward parking. Um, out of the $10,000...this is, you know, I'd have to
go look the numbers up, but out of the $10,000, I would guess in the high-7s maybe even
8,000 of it is for parking, and the rest is.. .
Correia/ But I'm fine with (mumbled) like to keep Transit and just have bus passes distributed
without charging the Library back for it. We're running the bus anyway.
Bailey/ Were you going to say something?
Helling/ ...a certain amount of our revenue is fare.
Correia/ No, I understand. But we also get, I mean, we get points for number of riders, as well.
Right, so if they didn't have a pass they wouldn't be taking the bus. They'd be walking or
not coming or something. They're sort of, I don't know.
Bailey/ Are others interested in looking at this in some different configuration?
Wright/ Yeah, if 75% of that is the parking, then I'd like to look at what that Transit cost would
be and see if we could keep that in.
Bailey/ I am too.
Champion/ Yeah, I'm very interested...in keeping that part open. I think that...people are riding
the bus and they're (mumbled) to get their kids to the Library.
Bailey/ Mike or Ross, any concerns about that?
Wilburn/ I'll take a look at it.
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Bailey/ All right.
Helling/ We'll just come back and we'll look at the number and (mumbled)
Bailey/ I think we're interested in keeping the Transit in some way, even if it, I mean, even
crunching the numbers to look like Amy's configuration, I think is a possible. There are
buses. (laughter) (several talking) We do get points! We do get grants! Okay.
Champion/Um...summer reading program, I really like that program. Do you remember how
many kids participated last year? Just roughly.
Craig/ Roughly 2,000.
Champion /That's great!
Bailey/ All right. Should we keep going? (several responding)
Helling/ Susan, if you wouldn't mind explaining number...the second one.
Craig/ The next one is just, uh, a change in vendor for, um, there used to only be sort of one guy
in town that did this, and now there's another one and it's cheaper, so good ole'... free
enterprise.
Wright/ What's this?
Craig/ It's the, uh, service that provides the...the book jacket covers on the catalogs, so when you
pull up a title you see the book jacket cover.
Wright/ Oh, sure. So it's the cover art in the catalog.
Champion/ How will you make up the decrease in reading materials when the Library's getting
used even more?
Craig/ Well, you know, it's always hard to reduce the materials' budget, um, the staff felt that this
amount, we would probably target a couple of collections that have seen reduced use.
One would be print reference resources that are not used as much nowadays, and take a
good look at, um, our magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Uh, again, they still get
used, but not as much as, um, you know, they were, pre-Internet days. So...
Champion/ Right.
Craig/ And, you know...
Bailey/So you...staff, you feel that this is a responsible move, um, for a library that gets our level
of usage, that this is a manageable reduction? This $19,000.
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Craig/ Yes.
Bailey/ Okay.
Champion/ Okay.
Wright/ Particularly with the area you're targeting, I think that makes a lot of sense. (several
responding)
Bailey/ ...does too, but...
Wright/ Especially the reference books.
Champion/ Yeah.
Bailey/ Okay.
Craig/ Breaks my heart, but we can do it! (laughter) No!
Champion/ ...like to read things in a book though and.. .
Craig/ I know!
Champion/ Um, obviously.. .
Bailey/ Okay.
Champion/ Um, do the...the computers at the Library have printers people can use?
Craig/ Yes for a charge.
Champion/ Okay.
Helling/ And the last thing there is the Friday Night Film, um, winter reading, and there's some
other...
Craig/ It's a variety of miscellaneous, um, cuts to various programs, two things that would be
discontinued. So they wouldn't be there anymore. Our Friday Night Films, which
include both adult films and children's, family films we call those, and um, and then the
winter reading program, which we just started last year and so it's something new and it's
the easiest one to say, no, we're not going to do this anymore.
Champion/ Did I read somewhere that the participation was low on this program?
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Craig/ I think you probably read the...the article in the Press-Citizen, and I...what I said was it's
erratic. You know, one Friday night you'll have 60, 70 people there and the next Friday
night maybe you'll have 20, so...um...(several talking) It depends on the movie. Yeah.
Correia/ 20 seems like a lot to me though (laughter)
Bailey/ Hey, Susan, I don't know if this is...would fall on the policy, but would it be possible for
the Foundation to find some corporate sponsors for those two programs?
Craig/ It's possible. Yeah. I mean, the major cost to the Friday Night series is you do have to
pay license agreements to show, you know, we're often using our own DVDs but you go
out and get a license so you're able to show those in a large group.
Bailey/ There might be somebody, some business or somebody interested in underwriting.
Champion/ And...I kind of like...I hate to see that program cut, especially in the winter. I mean,
summer isn't so important, I think, that.. .
Craig/ Well, summer is more for the kids, and the winter was aimed more at adults, so...
Champion/ Not family, but more like adults, like...
Craig/ And while I'm here (laughter) I just wanted to explain these odd sort of numbers, and they
are here because when I turned in these budget cuts, um, one of the questions Dale asked
was, and does this effect another revenue stream, and the answer in every case was -yes,
it does. So, I said I'm going to cut $20,000 out of the adult and children's materials,
and...and that's reduced to an actual cut on your part of $19,300 because the County is
paying 7.65% of our tax support. So, I'm really cutting $9,000, $2,000, $20,000 and
$5,000, and Dale rightly so said, but that's not all Iowa City money, so...he did the
numbers.
Helling/ I did the numbers, so I don't know. I think in this case it probably (mumbled) beyond
that (mumbled)
Craig/ So whatever cut, because our...our County contract is based on how much tax support we
get from the City, whatever cut you make we have to take another 7.65% of that.
Champion/ Do you have anything you can cut that they don't support?
Bailey/ Any other questions for Susan?
Wright/ Yeah, I do have a question for you, uh, just...this is off these particular reductions, but
have you looked into vendor services that might be able to reduce your operational costs,
like what we discovered at the University is shelf (mumbled) save us about half.
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Craig/ Um, we do alot ofshelf-ready. Not total...we regularly look at those things. I couldn't
tell you...well, I don't think we did it last year. We looked at some things the year
before, and this year we actually changed our vendor for, we're getting DVDs shelf-
ready, so...
Wright/ The print collection at all?
Craig/ No. Just the ones, the express collections and things like that. We, when we've looked
into it before, it has not been cost-effective for us, so...we can do it again, but...
Wright/ I can share some numbers with you that we did at the University that just about made my
eyes pop.
Craig/ Okay.
Champion/ What are you talking about, Michael?
Wright/ Shelf-ready services where you contract with a vendor to provide your library materials,
literally ready to go on the shelf.
Bailey/ So no processing.
Wright/Processed and they have a day due slip and the whole nine yards. You unpack them and
you basically you just make sure that you got what you asked for and it goes onto the
shelf.
Craig/ Because we do do a fair amount of local cataloging, I mean, fiction is easy, but some of
the other stuff is, because then you have to change the number if it comes and it's wrong,
as far as your thing. So...but we can look at it. I'm glad, yeah, it comes quicker and
done. It saves time get ting it to the shelf. It's good in all kinds of respects, but I don't
think it'll save us money. We'll see.
Bailey/ You like the money part!
Craig/ I know!
Bailey/ (several talking) that's good. Okay, any other questions for Susan?
Helling/ If you don't mind we could skip ahead to the next page, and then we'll come back.
There's one more Library issue...
Bailey/ Oh, yeah. Okay, thanks.
Helling/ And that's reducing the newsletter from four a year to two. (mumbled)
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Craig/ The cost here is the cost of printing and distributing. We...we distribute the newsletter
quarterly, um, to every household in Iowa City and...and rural Johnson County through
that contract, and then people who have library cards that live in, you know, Coralville,
University Heights, Hills, um, we would hope to keep something up electronically,
um...but...that's what it costs.
Wright/You have a lot of our email addresses.
Bailey/ Yeah, you have (both talking)
Wright/ ...email to people?
Craig/ It can be. What we ...our concern is that you miss a lot of people. I mean.. .
Bailey/ But what if...
Craig/ ...particularly (both talking) customers, they come to us to use the Internet, so...
Bailey/ Well, but yeah, the two a year...you started doing part of those...
Craig/ Exactly. This proposal is, we're doing four now and we're saying we would do two that
were distributed, printed and distributed through the mail service. And, the rest we
would do electronically. So it's not eliminating it entirely.
Bailey/ But even of those two, what if you moved some to electronic? That would even further
reduce costs.
Craig/ Yes, it gets really complicated when the mail people say, yeah, you know.
Wright/ You do that bulk mailing (several talking)
Craig/ It's all bulk mailing.
Bailey/ But I'd like mine electronically.
Craig/ Okay. We'll see what we can do.
Bailey/ Okay.
Craig/ Okay?
Bailey/ Thanks, Susan.
Personnel•
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Helling/ Get back to the previous page then, uh, for personnel. There are a couple things there
that, uh, and these would be generally the...the publishing and printing costs for the
newsletter, um, and yeah, Karen's here. LTh, the monthly wellness newsletter, I think
that's something that's a subscription service that we subscribe to. We get those, they're
already printed, and then we distribute them to...to every employee.
Bailey/ Any questions for Karen? Okay.
Planning and Community Development:
Helling/ Okay. Um, PCD, the public art program. Basically would involve two things, the 5,458
is actually the, just the operating costs of the program, and then the .15 position would be
transferred and paid, it would be paid for and be assigned duties.under CDBG. So that
there wouldn't be any reduction, or nobody would lose their job or forced from their job,
but that that extra 15% would be paid out of CDBG. Um.. .
Bailey/ (both talking)
Correia/ (both talking)
Bailey/ Go ahead, Amy.
Correia/ What do you mean by discontinue public art program? Like poetry in public, like all the
public art?
Bailey/ All of it.
Correia/ No more $50,000 a year?
Helling/ Right. You wouldn't be allocating any money.
Correia/ Oh.
Helling/ That's paid for with.. .
Champion/ Bonding.
Helling/ Bonding, yeah, we borrow for that.
Davidson/ I would emphasize, the program would go away. The committee would be disbanded,
as Dale has pointed out. The staff time would be reassigned and paid for through CDBG
and the $50,000 a year amount would not be bonded for.
Correia/ So I mean is the only way to do a public art program is to have bonded money, I
mean...aren't there options for public art. For example...there was some public art
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incorporated into a bridge we did. I mean, it didn't go t through the Public Art
Committee, but I mean, you know, that those.. .
Helling/ Are you talking about having a component in each project?
Correia/ Well, I mean, potentially having, right, having.. .
Davidson/ Well, another example, Amy, would be in the Court Street Transportation Center.
Correia/ Right, something like that. Right, right.
Davidson/ The federal funds for the, that project paid for 80% of it, but the remaining 20% was
paid for through that $50,000 that you bond for every year. The Public Art Committee
was involved in that.
Correial But, and some things that the Public Art Committee, like the poetry in public, isn't
that.. .
Davidson/ Yeah, poetry in public is...is something that, you know, could possibly still be done
by the Neighborhood Service Coordinator as part of her neighborhood service
coordination duties, um, there is a public art committee member who assists, uh, in that,
uh, you know, we would still try and do as much as we can, but you know, I do want to
emphasize that without, you know, the staff time and the committee, um, you know,
there's really no way to operate the program. To answer your question a second ago,
Amy, um, there are certainly plenty of public art programs, in fact the majority of them,
that are not paid for through public funds. Uh, in Cedar Rapids they're aself-supporting
municipal improvement district downtown pays for the public art program, which is
limited to the downtown area. Um, in places with, uh, more prominent corporate
presence, it's not uncommon for large corporations to have public art projects that have
their names on the, you know, the base of it. Um, that type of thing, but you know, Iowa
City being kind of a unique place, it was determined that...that we would fund it the way
we have. Certainly are other models.
Bailey/ I'm...I'm with Amy. I'm looking for ways to keep, um, not necessarily the program, but
art in our public spaces. And if we have to look at different models, I think we need to,
because we know that this gives us a sense of place and that's an important economic
development, uh, sort of competitor chip, um, I understand that in these fiscal times that
we have to look at this, but you know, when does it come back? Does it ever come back
under this? Do we do it with a SMID and that's the only benefits.
Correia/ But I mean, I see...it seems to me that...that...that we could achieve these, this savings,
by reorganizing the public art program to fit our current financial resources, that it
wouldn't be, it wouldn't look the same as it looks right now, um, but that, I mean, it seems
that it is, that it does fit under Neighborhood Services, I mean, it's about building
community in neighborhoods, I mean, that's how we've seen...I mean, that's how I see
the public art program when I'm in different neighborhoods and see the public art that's
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there. Um, but I...but it would...not, you know, it would not be publicly funded to the
extent that it is now.
Wright/ So you're suggesting we could not have the $50,000 bonding, but still keep the...the
staff time?
Correia/ No, I think we could...I'm saying that we would...I would...I agree with the reduction
in the reorganizing of...of the position, but still thinking about public art as part of
Neighborhood Services, and seeing what, I mean, I guess I would call it maybe scaling
back, reorganizing of the public art program - not a discontinue public art program.
Davidson/ We...we do have a number of public art projects that have been oriented to
neighborhoods. The mural projects, we've had two of them recently. The Lemme
Leopard project, which was a school project, um, so you're right. There is a tie there,
Amy. All of t hose projects, although they've been, they haven't been of the magnitude of
the Dale Merrill project that was recently an issue. They have all required funding, uh,
the Lemme Leopard I think was $1,000 or $2,000, but that has all come out of the public
art budget that's funded through that $50,000, even the smaller scale projects.
Wright/ And I assume something that was similar for the Wetherby shelter, for example?
Davidson/ Right, all those mural projects.
Correia/ Again, you know, we have in here other partial reductions, full or partial. We have the
Economic Development total $100,000. I know I'm skipping ahead and I apologize but
just sort of trying to think outside the box. We could say let's put $10,000 from this
Economic Development to seed public art projects that require $1,000. The City, you
know, cause I mean I think that there are opportunities to continue some level of a city-
led or city involvement in public art, so that, because you see discontinuation of public
art and then all the other things that we do or could be doing get lost, um, and I think that
that's.. .
Bailey/ Are there others who are interested in looking at a different model for public art, while
supporting this $18,000 cut?
Champion/ Well, I'm certainly willing to look at a model, uh, I don't really want to cut public art
at all, but I don't think there's a choice. Um...
Correia/ I support scaling back, reorganizing in these times.
Bailey/ I also support a commitment to incorporating art in our Public Works projects, I mean,
just a couple of bullet points about how we're going to maintain our commitment to it.
Wright/ I think it could be a different commitment, while scaling back on the (both talking)
Bailey/ Is that something we could...
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Davidson/ My only concern here is it's certainly possible to scale back the commitment. Like
Amy said, go from $50,000 to $10,000, but if you still want to have a public art program
that's administered by the City, and has a committee that makes recommendations on
projects, then we need these administrative expenses in the budget.
Bailey/ So are we looking at some, are we looking into more internal, staff...like with capital
projects or.. .
Correia/ ...charge things back.
Bailey/ No, well not charge things back, but I mean, not necessarily have the commission, for
example.
Correia/ Right, so the...the .15 that's, that would be moved to CDBG what would the person be
doing that benefits, I mean, what's the....
Davidson/ Well, the CDBG, the Community Development Coordinator, Steve Long, and I have
discussed this, and he basically needs more help in that division with all the activities,
and has funding because of all the flood money, uh, to fund it. Um, the Neighborhood
Services Coordinator has worked in that division previously, so wouldn't require any
additional training or anything. But it's essentially supplanting the work that she does for
the public art program with the community development, um, work.
Bailey/ Can we look at a model that what we could do with public art, that doesn't allow staff
time? Are you saying we can't do anything?
Davidson/ I'm not sure there's a model of a public art program that involves no staff time. The
public art program was originally set up with no staff assigned to it, and the Planning
Director was basically directed to take on those responsibilities. Um...
Bailey/ Let's do that!
Davidson/ ...Karin was here (laughter) Karin was here, uh, it was just eventually sort of
morphed into the model where...where Marsha took over the administration of it. It
worked very well. Marsha had a real knack for it, and that's kind of how it evolved, but
there's, that's why the operating expenses for the program don't reflect any staff at all.
That $5,500 is just the other stuff that goes into having a program.
Bailey/ So where do we want to leave this? (several talking)
Helling/ Make a suggestion (mumbled) but while we have everybody here, we could...I don't
think you need to make that choice right now. You might want to look at (mumbled)
Bailey/ Okay, all right.
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Helling/ ...see if you want to switch something out (mumbled)
Champion/ That's good. I'm willing to look at other things. In these economic times trying to
explain to the public (mumbled)
Bailey/ Yeah, L ..I agree. I think it needs (both talking)
Champion/ It has to go. Not that I want it to go.
Bailey/ Okay.
Wilburn/ Along those lines, Connie, um, I think, uh, I mean, across the board with these
recommendations, Ithink it's fine to try and think of alternatives...however, um, I think
most of these items, uh, are services and if we're going to be cutting, I mean, essentially
what you're talking about is services and um, these are things that the City has offered
because members of the community have been using them now. The level that they, you
know, um, in my mind 20 people coming to Friday Night movie at the Library, um, I
mean, that seems like a pretty good turnout to me; however, it is a service and...and it
would be rare that any of the service cuts would not impact somebody, I mean,
somebody's going to be...that's why this is a painful thing to do. I mean, these are real
specifics for sure, um, but um, even if um, in looking for ways to try and be creative for
alternative, or whatever, across the board, if there's some level ofdecision-making
review, um, involving a City staff member, there's going to be some type of
administrative cost, even if with the recent example of...of public art, if it's just a City art
program and you're allocating certain spaces for whatever company to put up or
individual to put up, uh, art space, if it's a decision and coordinating and working with the
City, then by default, by definition, it's taking up an administrative staff time to look at
that, so...just putting that out there, as we go on.
Champion/ Well, what will happen for instance to that pad that we change things on every year.
Is that just going to be grown in by weeds now?
Bailey/ I don't know.
Davidson/ Yeah, that's a perfect example, Connie, of something that does require more staff time
than you would believe, uh, you know, we initially thought that the artists would just be
falling all over themselves to have their work exhibited and be for sale (mumbled) it's
actually been, uh, quite a task to...to keep those sculpture pads, uh, with something on
them, the ones that rotate, as you say, so...you know, that's something, again, that's just
part of those administrative responsibilities of the person.
Champion/ Right.
Bailey/ All right.
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Helling/ I would suggest at least we go down the next five. You can see the sub-total there then
is $246,000 which is about what we need (several responding) if...if we do all cuts. Now
we have revenues on the other side we haven't got to yet, so keep that in mind.
Bailey/ All right.
Parks &Rec•
Helling/ Um, closing Scanlon Gym and Mercer Park Pool at 8:00 instead of 9:00. That's a
combined total. Those were given to me separately. It seems it might make sense if
we're going to close one down to close the other, but you could opt to close for instance
the pool and not the gym, or vice versa. (mumbled)
Correia/ Well, is there...and this is, um, 365 days a year or whatever, I mean, it's always...
Bailey/ Let's talk about use and...Mike.
Moran/ Yes.
Bailey/ So what are the hours, I mean, what...what are we talking here?
Moran/ Well, what would happen (both talking) yeah, this would be year-round, all the time, so
uh, we would just close an hour earlier every day. And then if...if people wanted to
come in and use the facility for rentals or something they'd still pay the rental fee, but
then on top of that they'd pay the staff time...there would be to keep the people in the
building.
O'Donnell/ How well is it used 8 to 9?
Bailey/ Yeah.
Moran/ Well, that's our lowest...the last hour is what we consider no new people that come in
generally.
O'Donnell/ Do you have any figures, how many people are (both talking) 8 to 9?
Champion/ The gym too, that's the lowest time for the gym use?
Moran/ Uh, yeah, for drop-in people. We have a lot of rentals that go on all that time, but uh, not
for just people who just drop in to use it.
Champion/ And, um, put you on the spot, why did you chose the Scanlon Gym and Mercer Pool
instead of the Rec Center?
Moran/ LJh, we put in both, so that was Dale's choice, cause we also put in the, um, figures to
close the Recreation Center down as well.
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Bailey/ Is the usage about the same?
Moran/ Uh, it's probably a little bit higher at Scanlon.
Champion/ Yeah, it would be higher at Scanlon.
Correia/ The same amount of...the same amount of money?
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Moran/ Uh, almost, not quite. The pool's not as big at the Rec Center so the lifeguards, we don't
need as many, so it's just a little bit less.
Champion/ Well, I'm just thinking about the problems we have in that end of town, to close the
pool and then the gym an hour earlier...um.. .
Bailey/ And the lack of recreation facilities in that end of town, I think (several talking)
Champion/ I mean, I tend to use the Rec Center just because it's closer to my house, but when
I'm there there aren't a lot of people there. That's why I brought up the question. Um, I
mean, so if the price is about the same, I'd like you to just think about...I'm not telling
you what to do, it's your choice.
Moran/ We've got more rentals at the Recreation Center later on at night too, because we have
more meeting room space and social hall and everything so, uh, that would impact those
folks, but on the other hand, that would bring in more revenue cause we'd have to charge
'em for keeping staff around. So there's always (both talking)
Champion/ ...think about it. Think about it, because I just hate to see any recreation going out
on that end of town.
Correia/ Well and that was my question was going to be...was there any analysis of, you know,
keeping it the same hours, at least during the summer.
Bailey/ Yeah, different times of year, different days. (several talking)
Moran/ We actually close down an hour earlier in the summer, because our attendance goes way
down when it gets nice outside. (several talking)
Champion/ They're at City Park today.
Wright/ Given what we heard, I think, at the neighborhood meeting over at Grant Wood last
week, I'm...
Bailey/ My inclination if it's about the same dollar amount is to look at the Rec Center here,
rather than.. .
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Helling/ That's what I was talking earlier about, flexibility, because I may have read that as a...a
lower, or a higher priority for cuts because maybe it was in the 2% or the 4%, but
certainly we want to have, you know (mumbled)
Champion/ There's a lot of kids that can bike or ride to Mercer Park. It's in a very concentrated
neighborhood section of town.
Moran/ Okay.
Bailey/ Should we just skip down to, so we have the other Parks and Rec item (mumbled)
Helling/ Uh, sure, yeah. That's probably pretty straightforward in terms of, we pressure wash the
plaza every year.
Champion/ Uh! That would be a terrible mistake. It would be a pit! It would be a pit!
Wright/ I assume this is not in the end of the winter when there's sand and the (both talking)
Moran/ It'd done in the spring, yeah, we just got done doing it. It's aone-time fee that we
contract out at least once a year. And it includes the interior, what we call the interior of
the mall, as well as the outlying sidewalk areas.
O'Donnell/ I just don't think that's a good idea. That place would be absolutely horrendous down
there.
Hayek/ When was the last time you did not power wash after winter?
Champion/ Not since I've been here.
Moran/ I can't remember when we...yeah, a long time.
Wright/ Has it always been contracted or have we ever had staff doing it?
Moran/ No, it's always been contracted, and we looked into, we had a meeting earlier this year
about buying our own equipment and going that route as well, and... and then we got into
the budget stuff and we haven't picked that back up again. But it would be aone-time
cost, and I'm just guessing but about $16,000 for the equipment and then staff time to do
that, because we have to do that at odd hours, um, to get that all done and accomplished
without the public being there.
Champion/ I think that's probably $12,000 well spent.
Bailey/ I tend to agree with you. Others?
Wright/ Most likely...
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Champion/ I mean, you're already short-handed for staff.
Correia/ I mean, there's the cost of buying the equipment, but then if...it breaks down and you
have (several talking) learning how to use it (several talking)
Bailey/ And probably you would be paying, I mean, when do they do that...or time and a half, I
mean, yeah.
Moran/ It would be odd hours (several talking)
Bailey/ I...
Wright/ How many hours does it take, roughly?
Moran/ We...we schedule almost three days, so we'd probably work about six hours a night,
where we get in and do it. (several talking)
Champion/ I think it is too! I mean, that's a nice sum of money but.. .
Bailey/ ...wants to stop doing this?
Helling/ That would go on your "B" list (mumbled) (several talking)
Bailey/ Ora "C" list.
Helling / We don't have a "C" list yet!
Bailey/ Okay. Back up to...
Champion/ ...other things down here. Do we want to...
Bailey/ No, not yet. We're going to jump back up to the police item.
Police:
Helling/ The police would be, there's one CSO retirement expected in January, and so the
savings for...for fiscal 10 would be 27,352, but the total savings for that position, uh,
wages and benefits would be $65,800 if we didn't fill that position.
Champion/ And...I've always, Sam, can I ask a question about that? Every year I've been
meaning to ask this question, and I know community service officers do a lot of different
things. I'm not saying they don't do a good job, but it seems to me they're almost the
same price as a policeman. Is there some... am I right? You know?
Hargadine/ No, the police are a little more expensive.
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Champion/ Well, I know, I said almost! Are we talking $100,000 or $5,000?
Hargadine/ Well, we're talking about, uh, a retiring CSO at the top, versus hiring a police officer
at a bottom wage, so...there's...quite abit of difference there, and I mean there's quite a
bit of difference in the training, as well.
Bailey/ Okay. By doing this, what impact would citizens see?
Hargadine/ Um, probably fewer handicap parking tickets, uh, funeral escorts, um, bicycle
retrieved, the things that, um, generally...the things that they do free up an officer's time.
So it could reduce the availability of officers, if we're going to maintain those services.
Bailey/ Would we maintain those services using officers?
Hargadine/ Uh, we would have to look at that seriously. Probably not.
O'Donnell/ Sam, how many...how many community service officers were you asking for,
additionally?
Hargadine/ Well, there's a five...that we asked for to run the front desk. That's not the, and that
part I'd like to keep, because we're going to have to stay open, but these, uh, these road
CSOs, uh, those...that's the ones that we're talking about.
Correia/ And how...this is one reduction. How many remaining road CSOs are there?
Hargadine/ Three.
Correia/ There would still be some of those...level of service, but at a reduction.
Hargadine/ Right, but we do get into that later on as we talk about (several talking) percent.
Correia/ Okay.
Bailey/ Any other questions for Sam?
Champion/ No. Thank you.
Correia/ Does that, I'm sorry, so if there were three, would that be on CSO on per shift? How
does that work?
Hargadine/ There's typically two, uh, two on days, two on evenings.
Champion/ So if I called because there was a...no, that would be the, um...dog, um...
Correia/ (several talking) after hours...
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Wilburn/ ...after hours - it could be a CSO.
Correia/ Or a stray dog, cause I've had a CSO come to my house (several talking)
Hargadine/ ...animal complaints as well, when we can't get a hold of.. .
Champion/ Yeah, that's what it was, because it was a community service officer who came out
(mumbled) sick dog in my yard.
Bailey/ Hmm. Thank you.
Fire•
Helling/ Next is the, uh, fire department, the...one of the newest positions that you approved was
the captain/inspectorpnsition. Um, and Andy can probably speak better than I can, and
one of the things was the...the, uh, capacity checks, um, that were done, that are done
(mumbled) assorted other duties, you know (mumbled) uh, but that would be a $58,000
savings.
O'Donnell/ So this would cut down on the capacity checks?
Helling/ Uh, Andy?
Bailey/ Andy.
Roccal Yes it would, uh, this position is really the focal point for the whole A2 occupancy
inspection program. You know, crowd control management training, the emergency
evacuation planning that we've done there. Um, it would greatly diminish our efforts
there.
O'Donnell/ I don't know that I'm prepared to do that.
Bailey/ This moves to my "B" list.
O'Donnell/ Yeah.
Bailey/ Do we have four that it moves to the "B" list? Okay.
Champion/ We may need to re...use this person as a fireman eventually.
Bailey/ Okay.
Champion/ This position - so I don't want to cut a position.
Hayek/ Who does the inspections (mumbled) position is cut?
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Y
Rocca/ It would probably fall to the companies, and then would probably go to a complaint-
based, because the problem with running fire equipment downtown in that scenario is you
don't generally have people who can watch the rig. They go in to try to do the, uh,
investigation of the complaint of overcrowding. Operationally it's difficult, and then we
can't rely on...on the emergency response personnel to be able to do the inspection. They
could be called away for emergency response.
Champion/ How often are these inspections done? Have they been done at midnight? Have
they, I mean, what's the...
Roccal Yeah, we've done a variety of times, you know, we're trying to hit 'em a little later in the
evenings, uh, I don't know...I don't have the exact numbers. You're getting the reports, I
believe, on a quarterly basis now and as well the results of those inspections.
Champion/ Well, I'm not...this goes to my "B" list too.
Helling/ We have four Bs on there.
Champion/ We have four Bs already?
Bailey/ (several talking) it's a...it's a solid B. Okay. Thanks.
Human Rights:
Helling/ And then the...the last one there's the Human Rights, um, we do advertise, um, block
ads in the...in the want ad sections or whatever, that has to do with housing. We put little
blocks in there that say if you think you're being discriminated, call such and such, and
this would basically be discontinuing those ads. We'd still do, uh, information on the
web site and outreach in other ways, but we wouldn't have (mumbled)
Wright/ Could we maybe, as a substitute, try to get Mediacom to pick up some of those in
community service? Advertising.
Helling/ Uh, we have...we have the ability to do that.
Bailey/ That's a good idea! I think more people probably watch than read.
Wright/ More people would see that, yeah.
Bailey/ Although they are...the (mumbled)
Helling/ Yeah, if you hit, you know, all the papers you'd probably (mumbled) so anyway, that's
(mumbled)
Correia/ So is that cutting $5,000 is discontinuing all ads? So, I mean, I wonder if there's some
periods of time where it, there might be more people looking at housing ads at different
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times of year, when people are looking for place, you know, I guess I hate to discontinue
them altogether if there's, I mean, I think it's important information to get out there. I
mean, I think there are other ways to make sure we get it out there, um, but.. .
Bailey/ Are we the only people who get it out there?
Champion/ It seems to me that...
Correia/ Say it again.
Bailey/ Are we the only people get that information out there...we take (several talking) okay.
Helling/ (mumbled)
Wright/ I've seen other municipalities do something like that, not in our immediate area.
Bailey/ Who else runs those ads? It seems like...it seems like I see them with greater frequency
than $5,000 a year. That's what I'm saying.
Helling/ Interestingly, yeah, the amount that we have to pay varies from newspaper to newspaper
(mumbled)
Champion/ Newspaper ads are expensive!
Helling/ But we buy, you know, we buy it for a longer period of time (mumbled)
Bailey/ Okay. I'm comfortable (mumbled)
O'Donnell/ I am too.
Champion/ (mumbled)
REVENUES:
H&IS:
P. Works/En~ineerin~:
Helling/ Do you, um, do you want to go to the recommended revenue (mumbled) (several
talking) (mumbled) little more quickly, um, again staff being here to answer your
questions. Um, the revenues to charge $25,000 of the director's salary to the Housing
Authority of H&IS. Uh, that's something that's been contemplated for a number of years.
The, uh, funds are available in the Housing Authority, uh, budget and (mumbled) to do
that that particularly now since the director is spending more time, uh, involvement with
the, uh, hearings on appeals (mumbled). Um, second one is chargebacks, Rick has
assured me that we can probably go and charging back engineering time to the CIP
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projects, that we should be able to easily go to 28.75 and that...that's just about $24,670
(mumbled). Uh, next...
Wright/ I'm sorry, Dale. Where...where do we...from what funds do we pick up that extra?
Champion/ Taxes.
Helling / It would come...it would come from the whatever funding the projects, so it could be a
combination of federal funds, local funds.
Bailey/ So it would raise the cost of the project a little, right?
Helling/ It would raise the cost of the project (mumbled).
Champion/ That's kind of on my "B" list, cause people are (several talking)
Fosse/ The project costs will remain steady. It's just that...we're having a higher percentage of
our time on these projects because we have so many projects coming up, between flood
recovery, stimulus, and...and just the...the projects that we have in the capital program,
uh, it...we're very confident that we'll be spending at least this much time, if not more, on
capital projects.
Senior Center:
Helling/ This...this has to do with what we budget for (mumbled). LJh, Senior Center, raise
membership fees by $5 and I, is that $5 a month or $5 a year? $5 a year.
O'Donnell/ How much is it a year?
Helling/ Linda?
Kopping/ Iowa City residents pay $25 a year, um, residents of Johnson County who live outside
of Iowa City pay $40, people who live outside of Johnson County pay $60. And that's
done that way to reflect the funding sources.
O'Donnell/ Thank you.
Wright/ What is getting a membership, uh, get somebody?
Kopping/ Um, access to, uh, expanded programming. For instance, the uh, fitness rooms with
the aerobic and weight training equipment, the computer lab, um, Senior Center
television volunteer opportunities, um, some...
Wright/You charge people for volunteer opportunities?
Kopping/ No (laughter) no!
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Champion /That's a good racket! (laughter)
Kopping/ Yeah, that would be great. No, I'm sorry, I misspoke with that, but we do have people
who work in, um, Senior Center television as volunteers and uh, they have access cards to
those...to those rooms, and most of those people are members. So...um, also members
have reduced prices sometimes for classes and other programs that involve material fees
or are run by independent contactors.
Wright/ Thank you.
Bailey/ Well, I don't support the membership concept at all, so I...I can't support this, but I
suspect I'm in the minority. I don't think...I've never thought that we should be charging
citizens membership fee for the Senior Center. But.. .
Hayek/ (several talking) subject for another night though?
Bailey/ It might be a subject for another night, but I mean, given that it's only $5,200 too, I
don't...I don't know. I...I see it...I don't think that this is a good way to get revenue,
raise revenue.
Champion/ Well, I...I'm...I think it's a good way to get revenue; however, it hasn't been that
long since we've been charging membership fees, and $25 seems like a pretty steady
number for me.
Bailey/ Well, I'd like to broadly talk about how we offer senior programming. Maybe on
Thursday night, just service delivery of the senior programming, because once again, I'm
just as...as a policy, we don't have membership fees for the rec centers. It's weird to me
that we have membership fee for the Senior Center. But...
Wright/ I'd be willing to talk about that a little more on Thursday.
Bailey/ Yeah, I mean, maybe that's, I mean...
Hayek/ We have admission though for swimming pools and...
Bailey/ Right, I don't have any problem with user fees. That...I think membership fees are
distinct from user fees, at least that's how I view them.
Wright/ Everybody pays a user fee.
Bailey/ Right.
Wright/ Not everybody pays a membership fee.
Bailey/ Right.
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Kopping /When we...when we implemented the membership fees, um, we surveyed our, the
people who were routinely using the Senior Center and they said they would prefer to pay
a membership fee than fees for every activity, and that's how we ended up with
membership fees.
Champion/ That seems reasonable.
O'Donnell/ I think it's very reasonable.
Library:
Helling/ Um, the Library, increase fine revenue, and this is for late returns and so forth. This is
not parking fines, as I understand it. This is fines from, uh...
Bailey/ I'm going to pay half this.
Champion/ Oh, I think I'm going to pay the other half.
Bailey/ Okay, it's covered! (laughter)
Champion/ I try not to use the Library because (mumbled) my card. (laughter)
Wright/ What are your fine...what's your fine rate currently, Susan?
Bailey/ They're very reasonable.
Champion/ They're very reasonable.
Craig/ I'm so glad I got to come back to the microphone because I just wanted to say thank you
for power washing City Plaza (laughter) and in fact, every other year, we pay for power
wash the granite around the base of our building, because of the crap that's on it, and I
think that's probably literal, um (laughter) Mike...our fines are 25-cents a day for adult
material and 10 cents a day for children's material, and a dollar a day for, um,
entertainment DVDs. We did a survey...to see where we were in the Iowa library world
and we're at the top, not...so, we feel we couldn't adjust the fees upward much.
Bailey/ Uh.
Wright/ Can adjust it upward (mumbled)
Craig/ This is...this is because of growing circulation. The more you circulate, the more you get
late, the more people pay...have to pay fees, and the original estimate I did for FY10 was
a little low, because it was based on our income in FY08, and FY09 income has gone up,
and I can predict the same will happen in FY10, unless you cut the materials' budget too
much and then.. .
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Bailey/ This is just numbers. It's not even increased fines.
Craig/ Correct. No increase.
Bailey/ Got it.
Wright/ This is just more people like me who can't ever return a book on time.
Craig/ Exactly. Regenia and Connie making more visits, finding more things they want.
Bailey/ And never getting to watch that DVD and thinking if I just have it one more day.
Champion/ Um, Susan, um, what was I going to ask you? I forgot. Never mind. It was
something to do with that...but, oh, that just reminded me. The, when you give the
parking fines, which I love that you do that... so efficiently, do you get to keep that
money, or do we get it?
Craig/ No. We don't get to keep it. It goes into the General Fund, I get reminded, um, every
year, um, and (several talking) comes back to us, but no. We do not...we, our staff gives
parking tickets to the seven spots right in front of the Library, and it's sometimes in the
alley for people who aren't loading, you know, or taking their lunch while parked in the
alley, but um, not very often. And that just goes back to Parking, who puts it in the
General Fund, so...
Champion/ And the lease on the property, that goes to pay off the bond or does that go to the.. .
Craig/ That's correct.
Champion/ Okay.
Craig/ We've asked for some of that money too, but.. .
Champion/ And how much did you give in parking tickets last year?
Craig/ About $27,000.
Champion/ Yeah, that's what I thought. I mean...
O'Donnell/ How often do you check?
Craig/ How often do we check? Well, they're 20-minute spots and we try and check...don't
people go out and publicize this, 30 minutes, not 20, but we check...you know, if the
staff isn't there to do it, it doesn't get done, but the goal is to regularly, you know, people
depend on that for a quick run-in, pick up a reserve, grab a DVD, and we really try to
police it well, particularly the book drop spot.
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Champion/ Yeah, that one's a good one. Um, okay, so you don't get any of that. All right. What
were you cutting...oh, the materials weren't really books you were cutting. It was
(mumbled) (laughter)
Wright/ It wasn't popular items.
Correia/ (mumbled) (laughter)
Bailey/ Let's keep going on revenue. (laughter) Let's keep going on revenue.
Airport•
Helling/ Next is Airport, and that piece of land on south Gilbert Street is vacant now, and the
idea there is to lease that out. Mike, I don't know, you can maybe step up (mumbled) I
don't know if we have a prospect at this point, or if that's something that was just left
vacant. It's part of the, uh, we bought, had to buy certain properties for the, uh, runway
(mumbled)
Champion/ That air thing.
Helling/ Obstruction mitigation (mumbled)
Tharp/ Actually, this one has come to fruition now, as this process was going on it was
something that Airport Commission was in negotiation with, and um, Friday I believe the
lease was signed by everybody.
Helling/ So there you go!
Bailey/ (several commenting) Good!
Revenue•
Accounting•
Purchasing•
Helling/ LJh, Revenue division, uh, they're talking about increasing the non-sufficient funds, uh,
charge on utility bills from $15 to $25. That would be for...for checks, returned for non-
sufficient funds. Um, that seems to be a little more in...in sync with what, uh, financial
institutions charge for (mumbled). Um, and then accounting and purchasing, we have a,
uh, fee card rebate program, uh, where, maybe, Kevin, maybe you can explain this better
than I can.
O'Malley/ Well, essentially we get a rebate for using our, uh, our purchasing procurement cards,
and uh, over the last couple years, our buying, uh, purchases have increased, and when
we do that, the uh, p-card provider provides a rebate back to us based on volume. So this
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is actually new money that we haven't put in the budget before. And this just happened
recently because...
Champion/ You haven't put it in the budget before? What have you been doing with it?
O'Malley/ Well, I was just about ready to explain that to you kind of. We...we had just done an
upgrade to a new web based program, so they just offered it to us. We had been on an
older version that, uh, is about ten years old and we just got around to upgrading it, and
so when we did that upgrade to a web based system, they said by the way, another benefit
is you get rebates. And we also hit a milestone. You have to do about a million dollars
in purchases.
Champion/ Good for you!
H&IS:
Helling/ Okay. Next is Housing Inspection Services. This is a new administration fee for
complain inspections. This would be very similar to what we do now for weed
enforcement and for sidewalk snow removal, where there's an administrative fee charged
if the inspector has to go out and finds a violation. Um.. .
Correia/ What would the..some examples be?
Boothroy/ One of, uh, junk and debris is one is one of our more popular ones. Uh, that type of
cleanup. Um, parking, uh, in the front yard, um, trash is probably the largest one that we
do that we're involved with, particularly popular in the spring, uh, after the winter.
There's a lot of complaints on cleanup and stuff like that, so we have a lot of follow-up on
that. The way I envision it happening is we get a complaint, we go out and confirm, uh,
we'll contact the property owner and ask them to clean it up, if...if it requires further
action on our part, that's when the administrative fee would be charged. But if
they...they go ahead and clean it up and take care of it, then, uh, then we're, you know,
we move on to the next complaint.
Wright/ So, file a complaint, there's immediate compliance, the landowner is notified, there's no
charge.
Boothroy/ Unless it's a second offense or a third offense. If we...if we have a situation where
they continue to do the same thing over and over again, even after it's been cleaned up
once, uh, the second...we wouldn't give them that grace.
Wright/ Then how much would the fee be per...
Boothroy/ It'd be the same as, uh, what we've done for weed and snow - it'd be, the
administrative fee is, I believe, $75. We'd have to establish that by...by resolution.
Correia/ So that would cover the staff time of the person going out.
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Boothroy/ Approximately. Yeah.
O'Donnell/ How much is it now, Doug?
Boothroy/We don't have one now.
O'Donnell/ Oh!
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Boothroy/ We don't...we, right now, weeds and snow are the only ones that we...we charge, uh,
an administrative fee for. This would be new.
O'Donnell/ That's what...how much is that fee?
Boothroy/ Uh, $75. Well, one's $75 and one's $70, but when we do the resolution we'll make 'em
all $75.
Champion/ So what if you don't find any trash.
Boothroy/ Uh, then it's not a com...it's an unconfirmed complaint, and nothing happens. We just
close out the account, note it in the computer, and go on.
Bailey/Thanks.
Boothroy/ Okay.
P. Works/Engineering:
Helling/ And then, lastly in that category, uh, Public Works and Engineering. This would be a
new $50 non-refundable administrative fee for excavation permits. Um, and Rick, I think
we don't charge for excavation permits now, or...or do we (mumbled). At any rate, these
are permits where sometimes we have to go out and follow up to make sure that the
excavation is probably back-filled and that sort of thing.
Fosse/ That's correct. We currently don't charge for it. We have two objectives with these
permits -one is to public safety while they're out there digging in the right-of--way, and
the second is proper restoration, so that we don't experience unusual maintenance costs
in...in the future. Our strategy up to this point is, we don't want to do anything to
discourage people from getting the permit, because there are significant consequences of
not doing it right. Um, but times are changing and I think that we need to do some things
to cover those expenses, that we do experience specifically regulate those activities in our
right-of--way.
Bailey/ Do other cities do this? Charge an administrative fee, I mean...
Fosse/ Yes they do.
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Bailey/ Okay.
Correial What does this mean, $16,000 if MidAmerican?
Helling/ Uh, if you have a franchise fee, with MidAmerican for instance, then that covers the
cost of use of the right-of--way, so I don't think you can turn around and charge them a fee
to excavate. You can still require that they get a permit. My understanding is you can't
charge.. .
Correia/ you're saying that the annual revenue would be $16,000.
Bailey/ Uh-huh.
Helling/ Rather than $25,000.
Correia/ Rather than $25,000 because you wouldn't charge MidAmerican (mumbled)
Helling/ That's only if MidAmerican has a franchise. If there's no franchise (mumbled)
Correia/ Now I understand what that means.
Bailey/ Thanks, Rick.
Correia/ I have a question, and maybe I'm missing something on the revenues. Um, but, for
example, the first is a revenue source of...a portion of the director's salary charged to the
Housing Authority...but on the...reductions we don't see a savings in the General Fund
of $25,000 of the director's salary if we do this, because then wouldn't that be what would
happen?
Helling/ The $25,000 you see in revenues is...is a savings to the General Fund, or it's money
added (both talking)
Correia/ I understand that, but, so...would we...would we be saying...we would have reduction,
if we did all of these revenues and we did all of these fiscal year 10 reductions, would we
really be having a reduction then of $370 or 82,000?
Helling/ If we did all, down to the $246,000, is that what you're talking about in reductions?
Correia/ Yeah, I'm just...I'm just, just so I understand what I'm looking at.
Helling/ Well, if you look above, it says above recommended, the $124,263, add that then to the
$135,774 on the revenues. Those are the...you asked for a recommendation, and so it's a
combination of the two. As long as they add up to roughly the $250,000. Because any
time you...we find new revenues, that offsets the need to have a reduction.
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Correia/ Just so I'm, right. Okay.
Bailey/ Do you want to continue below? Revenue?
Helling/ Sure, yeah we can cause.. .
Bailey/ Fire.
Fire:
Helling/ Um, these would clearly be...beyond 2010, cause we would have some work to do,
particularly for the, uh, the revenues for fire, um, my understanding is there are
some...some departments that charge for some things like, uh, I think there was an
example of...maybe come up, Andy, of a, uh, vehicle fire response, um, and again, I
don't know if these are in Iowa or not. I know there's (mumbled) if we were going to
look at any of these, but we didn't really get into that until we find out (mumbled)
possibilities. One of them particularly is a commercial fire inspection fee, and that's
something we could probably do, but we'd have to work with HIS on that because they do
some inspections too, and we'd have to dovetail those together, uh, so that would take
some work, as well, and uh.. .
Bailey/ Talk about these other...fees a little bit.
Rocca/ Which...
Bailey/ The top, the ones that are (both talking) yeah, the commercial fire inspection fees, we've
already kind of talked about that a little bit.
Wright/ That's something we've expressed interest in before.
Bailey/ Right.
Rocca/ Basically all of the fees with the exception of the EMS, the Emergency Medical Service
fee, are currently done on the State of Iowa by...by different communities. So, fairly
confident that those can be done. Uh, the residential structure fire fee, most homeowners'
policies, insurance policies, um, allow up to a $500 charge, uh, for fire service fees. Uh,
so that would be, of course, dependent on the number of qualifying structure fires that we
would have.
Champion/ Hope you wouldn't have any.
Rocca/ The EMS...fee, it's something I talked to the ambulance service director, Steve Spenler,
about, um, while he doesn't think it's not impossible to pull this off, there would be
significant research to find out how that would happen, uh, in that we're not the
transporting entity. We don't bill, uh, for our services, our EMS services, and the County
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does. They're, I think, Medicaid, Medicare service providers. We are not. And so there's
a significant different there.
Champion/ Cause they're driving the person too.
Rocca/ Yeah, and they also qualify again as a service provider.
Champion/ Oh, I see, okay.
Bailey/ And, all these are currently done in Iowa, in the state of Iowa, in communities with
professional fire departments?
Rocca/ Correct.
Bailey/ Okay.
Rocca/ Correct, with the exception of the EMS.
Bailey/ Right.
Rocca/ Given the fact that we're a first responder agency.
Champion/ If I'm...burning leaves in my back yard.. .
Bailey/ Which is illegal.
Champion/ I know.
Bailey/ Okay.
Champion/ And somebody calls the fire department, am I charged for that?
Rocca/ Initially, no. If you're a habitual offender, you'd be given a warning, and if you...if we
find that you...we keep reoccurringly come to your address, yes you would be.
Champion/ Okay.
O'Donnell/ How much?
Rocca/ Municipal infraction, simple misdemeanor...
Champion/ I was just curious, that's why I was wondering about these other...
Bailey/ With these charges, are there costs associated to...administrative costs associated with
the charges, I mean, if you're working with insurance...probably anybody would tell you
that there...
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Rocca/ Yes, there would be administrative costs associated with preparing the bill, making sure it
qualifies for that service fee, um, those kinds of administrative things that we would
probably run through accounting for invoicing.
Wright/ And the charging non-resident for service fee, or for, excuse me, vehicle fire response,
um, is that something that would be typically covered by someone's auto insurance?
Rocca/ I'm not sure about that. It may vary quite a bit from one carrier to another.
Wright/ I mean, is that common...that is commonly done in other communities, in Iowa?
Rocca/ Non-residents, yes, that's correct.
Wright/ Non-residents.
Champion/ I don't like the idea the EMS medical service fee. I think it's going to be way too
complicated to even think about it, and...I guess I just don't favor that.
Bailey/ Other thoughts about exploring these? (several talking)
Wright/ I'm fine with taking another look.
Bailey/ I know (several talking) go ahead.
Wilburn/ It looks like there's a majority. I was just going to philosophical...disagreement with,
uh, charging someone for, uh, inspections related to prevention, um, I...I don't have a
problem with that, but uh, just um...even if someone's insurance would pick up their
home, apartment burns down, I feel like I'm adding insult to injury, and I know that an
ambulance would do that, because...but they, um, taxpayers aren't paying the ambulance
to...to service to operate so...uh, but there's (both talking)
Bailey/ I agree with you. I don't have any problem with the commercial fire inspection fees.
We've talked about that before. The others, um, yeah, philosophically it just strikes me
as...doesn't work forme. So...
O'Donnell/ I disagree with that too, the other three I just can't buy those. It just seems wrong to
charge somebody a fee for putting out a fire in their kitchen. I think that's...
Rocca/ All I did was bring the options to you (laughter)
O'Donnell/ But I just...(several talking)
Bailey/ And we're not judging you, Andy! (laughter) Yeah, I'm not (several talking)
Champion/ It's, yeah, it's going to be (mumbled) or maybe the "C" list, because...
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Bailey/ Although we've all expressed interest in commercial fire inspection fees. (several
talking)
O'Donnell/ ...any problem with that.
Bailey/ Do we continue to have an interest in that?
Champion/ Yeah. I don't have any problems with that.
Wilburn/ Like I said, paying for a...a fire prevention thing is something that should be done, and
is particular with our A-2, I supported all of that, and um, yeah.
Bailey/ We appreciate the creative approach.
O'Donnell/ Yes!
Rocca/ Thank you.
Bailey/ And...yes. Maybe...maybe we just can't handle creative, I don't know!
Parks & Rec:
Helling/ And you can be creative too! If things that aren't on here (mumbled) bring 'em up! Uh,
next Parks and Recreation. That's just a series of fees that, uh, fee increases, um, and in
terms of the...the magnitude of those increases versus current fees I don't know. Maybe
Mike could speak to that, just to give you an idea.
Bailey/ Yeah, it'd be good to get a sense of what...what we're looking at, compared to what we
have.
Moran/ Yeah, we went around, uh, to the funeral directors and just asked them, um, what an
increase would do to their business, and they didn't seem to be too, um, depressed by that
or too upset by that. They certainly said, yeah, you could certainly do an increase,
and...and they didn't see that that would affect anybody's, um...(several talking and
laughing) the dead don't pay it; it's the relatives you got to worry about! So, uh, we went
around and we do the same thing that the Library in the world of cemetery things, we're
right in the middle of fee stuff, so we're not high, we're not low, so we felt that a rate
increase would certainly be reasonable for that. Uh, it'd probably be around $100. We
have a lot of different rates, you know, weekends, youth, adult, (mumbled) months, so
we've got a lot of different options that we would, uh.. .
Champion/ So it's cheaper to be buried on a Monday than a Saturday?
Moran/ It is.
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Champion/ Oh!
Wright/ Who knew!
Moran/ We have to pay overtime for people to come in and close the grave (mumbled)
Wright/ When was the last time there was a fee increase for cemetery?
Moran/ LTh, it's been a while. I want to say seven, eight years.
Champion/ That doesn't bother me, it's fine.
Moran/ And then, uh, City Park rides would go up from 75-cents to a dollar. Uh, we would sell
the punch cards at a discounted rate again, but we'd just increase that price a little bit, uh,
and that's just because of all the renovations we've had to do, obviously, and the costs it
takes us to go, uh, do business, and if you go to county fairs now I think rides are 2.25 or
it seems like they're ridiculous to go around and buy that punch card for all that.
Champion/ (mumbled) as we're talking about them? My whole goal with those rides, is to keep
it as cheap as possible. They're a great bargain. They are a great bargain, and a lot of
families with little kids are going there, and I'm sorry it's not a fairground ride. It's a City
Park ride. Um...
Correia/ You're not going to charge 2.25.
Moran/ No (laughter).
Bailey/ You have a problem with a dollar, is that what you're saying?
Champion/ I have a problem...I think the 75-cents and the 10 punch cards for whatever it is
makes it affordable for a lot of people to take their kids and enjoy those rides. In fact
they can ride them two or three times. Um, frankly, I think keeping them at 75-cents is
intriguing to me, cause they're a bargain, and that's great. I think there ought to be things
that are bargains, and they're a simple little ride and 75-cents and...I mean, I might be the
only one who feels that way.
Bailey/ Does this move to anybody else's "B" list?
Correia/ You're proposing to make the rides a dollar?
Moran/ Yes.
Correia/ A dollar (mumbled)
Bailey/ Does this go to anybody else's "B" list?
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O'Donnell/ Mine.
Bailey/ Okay, sorry. Keep going.
Champion/ I have 17 grandchildren. (laughter)
Bailey/ That's what we knew! (laughter)
Champion/ This was not fair! (several talking)
Hayek/ It's going to cost you abut 12 bucks!
Moran/ Park shelters have not been increased, uh, for a long, long time, probably over 12 to 15
years, and they are very cheap. We are one of the lowest in the state, uh, it ranges
anywhere from $7 to $36, and I would imagine that most of those would double, uh,
because we rent, we reserve those for 5 hour periods of time, and that would be the cost,
uh, for doubling those park shelter fees, and we would still be way under the maintained
average in the state of Iowa, and park shelter fees are different beast. Everybody does it
differently. Cedar Rapids has identified time periods you can rent it from. We have five
hours... five hour period of time, some just have two hours of time, so it sort of ranges all
over the place. It's hard to get an apples to apples comparison on those. Uh, sports field
rentals - uh, this is mostly for tournaments at our ball fields, softball and baseball, uh,
we're starting to see a lot ofout-of--town teams come in and rent our fields for their
tournaments, cause we're cheaper than Cedar Rapids and Davenport, so we want to take
advantage of that, and we feel that they ought to be charged more, uh, so it'd be like a
resident, non-resident fee and then tournaments in general would probably, uh, we'd
probably turn it over instead of a daily rental or an hourly rental, we'd turn it into a
tournament weekend fee and it would be based on the number of teams you brought in,
because that generates a lot more traffic and a lot more problems for us, so we've
renovated the system of how we would charge for field usage, and it'd be mostly for
weekend tournaments.
Bailey/ Would we still be highly competitive though, because that brings other benefits to the
community.
Moran/ Absolutely, yeah.
Bailey/ Okay.
Moran/ And then, uh, fees for space now provided free to affiliate groups. Uh, there are two
trains of thought -one is the outside groups, what I call the outside groups, boys baseball,
girls softball, Babe Ruth, uh, swim club -all the groups that we consider affiliate groups
that basically don't pay us anything, uh, in retrospect for using the fields. However, some
of them kickback more than others, like Kickers for example have given us a lot of
money for the development of that soccer complex, but they don't pay us an annual fee,
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uh, girls softball has developed some things and given us some money to put up lights,
but they don't pay us an annual fee for all our ball field maintenance that we have to do.
Correia/ Would you say...they are still providing, um, still providing annual support back?
Cause when you...
Moran/ Depends on what your definition of support is.
Correia/ Financial support.
Moran/ LJh, some of'em do, like girls softball will say we want to, uh, light two diamonds so the
cost is $100,000. We'll contribute $50,000, will the City pay the other $50,000, and
we've done those agreements with them for, uh...
Correia/ But not for the ongoing. When I first read this I was thinking about, you know, fees...I
wasn't thinking about club sports that have a fee associated to the player, to participate.
So that that is a club that's making money.
Moran/ Yeah, it wouldn't be any of the clubs. It would be the other groups. The non-profit boys
baseball, girls softball, Babe Ruth, the ones that are in the community and have.. .
Correia/ Yes, but I mean people pay, you have to pay some fee, well, right, not a club in the
other sense of the word club, but in, you know, to pay...to play Babe Ruth baseball or
Iowa City Girls Softball, the players' parents pay a fee to play that sport, so that
organization is generating some revenue.
Moran/ Right. For the club.
Correia/ Right.
Moran/ But they don't.. .
Correia/ But they don't pay back...
Moran/ ...pay back to us.
Correia/ Right. You know what I'm talking about, you know, when the Salvation Army uses the
gym at Grant Wood, charging them.
Moran/ Well, that's the other half of the puzzle, that's the (mumbled) groups in here (both
talking)
Correia/ Right, cause that's the one where it's free to the kids, L ..you know, where that wouldn't
be happening otherwise, I would want to say more towards no, but when you're talking
about an organization that's generating revenue from the players, um...
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Moran/ And the other half of this equation is the indoor groups, just like you talked about, you
know, the Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County, uh, Salvation Army, we have a
square dance club that's been an affiliate group of ours since I've been here, and they
don't pay a dime for any of the...the rooms that they rent, the Iowa City Community
Theater that's been an affiliate group, and they don't pay anything for rent either. They
come in and use the facility and then that's it. It's the last we see of'em. So, uh, we felt it
would be, you know, we don't need to...to charge them the full amount. We just need to
start charging somewhat of a fee to let them understand they've got to start paying back
for that, so it wouldn't be an exact match of what a member of the public would pay, but
it would be the initiation or the start of a user fee, if you will, for the affiliate groups.
Bailey/ I'd be interested in seeing what policies you develop, I mean, this is obviously you
said...future, so what (both talking) Parks and Rec comes up with, for this, and how
they...how they make distinctions.
Champion/ And I think you can, you might start, and you probably know this already, by asking
what the schools do when an organization uses the school gym. I think there's a fee.
Moran/ Yes.
Champion/ And, I don't...I think there should be a fee. Um...
Correia/ Well, L . .
Champion/ ...clean it up. You have other things to do.
Moran/ This was the Park and Recreation Commission's highest priorities is to initiate these fees,
but the issue is, of course, then what do you do with Neighborhood Centers of Johnson
County, uh, versus Iowa City Kickers that have given us over $400,000 in the last...you
know, 15 years. So it's going to be an issue that we have to sort of...
Bailey/ You'll bring us a recommendation?
Moran/ Yeah.
Bailey/ I'm interested in seeing that, and then we can parse through the details.
Champion/ (mumbled) there isn't a fee for using a room (laughter) good luck figuring that out!
Bailey/ Other thoughts...about this one?
Helling/ (mumbled) if there's anything among these that, you know, that you like, you could
substitute for something else that you don't. It could be brought forward and
implemented, you know, sooner. So...(mumbled)
Champion/ Well...
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Moran/ These fees don't go altogether in one package.
Correia/ Right, right.
Bailey/ Uh-huh.
Wright/ I'd be interested in seeing, um, a proposal for this, particularly for the piece, the affiliate
groups.
Bailey/Sooner rather than later, or just generally?
Champion/ I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said.
Wright/ Just in general I'd be interested in seeing that.
Bailey/ Okay.
Champion/ Uh-huh, I would be too.
Bailey/ Well, and I think cemetery fees we could see sooner rather than later, I'm not necessarily
replacing that, but that sounds like you've pretty much done your research, right?
Moran/ Right.
Champion/ Could do it right now.
Correia/ I'm good on all of'em, except for the (several talking) space for affiliate groups, I think
that is...there's more fleshing out there, but (both talking)
Bailey/ Right, but I think once we see the proposal we'll have a sense of how they fleshed it out
and...
Correia/ Well, that's what I mean, the others seem pretty (both talking)
Wright/ I'm good with the other ones as sooner rather than later. So...
Correia/ Yeah.
Bailey/ Okay. I think it'll be more difficult to do some of these sooner rather than later,
but... yeah.
Personnel:
Helling/ And then the last thing is...uh, from Personnel would be to charge a, uh, 2%
administrative fee to retirement, retirees, for monthly health and death benefits. Uh, or
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dental benefits, I'm sorry. Uh, okay (laughter) that's...that's essentially administrative fee
to process, uh, all the data that we get to handle...it's much like payroll, um...
Bailey/ We don't charge any fee now?
Helling/ We don't charge any.
Bailey/ Okay.
Wright/ How much roughly would we be talking about there, Dale?
Helling/ The total would be $5,000 is what it would (mumbled)
Wright/ It's not a lot of money, but how many, how much per.. .
Helling/ Karen, do you know how many...
Jennings/ Um, the health insurance is $400 a month approximately now, so it'd be less than $10
per month per retiree policy.
Bailey/ Okay.
Helling/ Do you want to finish up with revenues as long as.. .
Bailey/ Uh-huh, yeah, yeah.
City Attorney:
Helling/ Um, these, the two for the City Attorney, I think Eleanor may want to speak to thee, but
again they're...they're charge-backs to enterprise funds that...that she feels confident, and
perhaps should be done.
Champion/ I thought you'd been doing all those...charge-backs.
Dilkes/ The City's charge-back system, we do charge-back a lot. We charge-back all enterprise
funds, water-sewer, etc., but we have never charged back...for the Housing Authority or
Community Development. Those aren't enterprise funds, but they do have separate, uh,
sources of money that could be used, so....makes sense to me (several commenting)
Champion/ Seems logical to me. I would assume that you'd been doing that all along.
Bailey/ Okay. Yeah, seems...
Parkin~•
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Helling/iJm, the next one is, uh, something that we raised a couple of years ago that actually Joe
Fowler kind of brought it up and...and, well, Joe and Chris when, uh, just before Joe left,
and just the notion of...of, um, devoting or...or dedicating a dollar from the parking fine
to, uh, to public safety or to the police.
Champion/ I love that idea!
Helling/ Um, we don't know at this point with the changeover in the way we're doing the fines
with the...with the, uh, the freebie and, you know, so forth, um, what that would be, but
for the future...if that's implemented July 1, then we'll have some history by the end of
December in terms of what that does (mumbled) something we might want to look at
down the road. I can't give you numbers now, but...
Wright/ I like the idea.
O'Donnell/ Good idea.
General Fund:
Helling/ Um, and then Kevin suggested this a while back which I think is...is frankly is
something that we could probably, uh, should probably look into, and that's, um, free
water and sewer to General Fund users. That seems like a lot of money, but obviously
Parks and Rec would be one that would benefit tremendously with water (mumbled)
Champion/ So would we have to raise water rates then to cover that?
O'Malley/ No, Connie, we've saved enough money (mumbled) I saved, uh, like $200,000 just a
couple months ago, $200,000 per year so...
Champion/ You're really good!
O'Malley/ ...and uh, I look at other communities and they do something like this.
Champion/ I think it's a fine idea (both talking) don't raise water rates.
Bailey/ Uh-huh.
Champion/ Cause it seems silly to be paying ourselves.
Bailey/ Uh-huh.
Helling/ They are enterprise funds, but they do use the public right-of--way, and that's the same as
other utilities. And there's no compensation back to the management and administration
of that use, so uh, as Kevin said, uh, you know, payment in lieu of taxes, or another way
to think of it is that franchise fee kind of thing that...that we've may charge, for instance,
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uh, Mediacom for use of the public right-of--way, but our utilities are in there and...and
they don't pay anything for (mumbled). A?
Champion/ A.
Helling/ (several responding) Okay. And then the last one, I thought maybe we'd know by now,
but apparently the Governor has until midnight to, uh, act on the standing bill of which
the franchise fees, uh, provision is one of the provisions. It is an appropriation bill, so he
does have line-item veto authority, and uh, we're just waiting to see if that's in or out
when the bill's finally signed. So...know by Thursday. Um, that is, the numbers there
are substantial, uh, we can provide you more information, if it passes...what other
communities use it and to what extent, uh, but as I said, it's substantial revenue, and it's
probably other than the local option sales tax, it's probably the first meaningful,
substantial option that you have for raising property taxes.
Wright/ Let's keep our fingers crossed!
Bailey/ Yeah.
Champion/ yeah, and that's 4%, um, can you do less than 4%?
Helling/ You can do...yes.
Wright/ It's up to 4%. (several talking)
Helling/ Yes, the...I should explain this. Again (several talking) talked about, you know, before,
if you have a franchise fee, then you can't charge the local option sales tax, and we have a
1 %, so the first 1 % that you charge, you probably would want to think about dedicating
that money back over to the...the local option sales tax, uh, revenue for the projects that
we talked about.
Champion/ Right, right.
Helling/ So your actual then new revenue for...used for whatever you wanted to, would start at
2%.
Champion/ Okay. And...this money can be used for anything? Can we use it for...
Helling/ There's a list....there's a list in the...
Bailey/ Yeah, public safety's on it.
Helling/ It's very broad. Public safety is on there, uh, property tax relief, um...
Bailey/ And it can be different percentages for different classes of property, so commercial can
be different than residential, or whatever.
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Champion/ Wow!
Helling/ It does give you some flexibility and some revenue opportunities.
Champion/ It does.
Correia/ Captures revenue...
Bailey/ ...on tax-exempt property.
Correia/ ...on tax-exempt property.
Champion/ Oh, right!
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Helling/ I just did some rough numbers in my head. It looked to me like if you (mumbled) so,
but...uh, 3% which would give you 2% additional revenue, would probably, uh, along
with some judicious treatment here, some reductions -maybe not as much - uh, would
probably get us not only plug the gap in the, uh, in the budget for FY10 (coughing,
unable to hear) FY11, and probably (mumbled) firefighters.
Champion/ Wow! I'm very interested in this, although I wouldn't have been three years ago.
Bailey/ Well, it's kind of up to the Governor. (several commenting)
Correia/ I have a question, um, in the past, we had taken up about $100,000 from the Mediacom
franchise fee and transferred it into the General Fund and we didn't do that in.. .
Helling/ No, we changed it. The allocation formula from all the enterprise funds, you want to
explain that, Kevin.
O'Malley/ Right. We used to do a lot of just transfers, and we want to try and tie it to budget,
and so instead of just taking $100,000 from cable TV, we tied it to the administrative
charge-back fee, so now we're taking...we're actually just (mumbled)
Correia/ Right.
O'Malley/ ...transfer to administrative charge-back.
Correia/ Right.
O'Malley/ (mumbled)
Correia/ How much?
O'Malley/ Uh...it was $130,000 in FY09, and it's down to $100,000 in FY10.
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Correia/ I was looking at it on here. It didn't look like that.
O'Malley/ It's not shown up...it's...well, it's not...it's shown as a charge-back. You won't see it
as a transfer.
Correia/ Oh!
O'Malley/ So it's kind of buried in the budget. Have to look at the services section.
Bailey/ So...can we, let's take a little break and then go through these fiscal year 11 items and
see if we have any questions for staff while they're here, and see how we can...then they
don't have to be here on Thursday.
Helling/ You don't necessarily have to make a decision.
Bailey/ Right, but we could...
Wright/ We didn't actually apply A, B to a lot of this stuff as we went through.
Bailey/ Well, if there was no strong B, it was an A.
Wright/ That wasn't clear to me.
Bailey/ Okay. So we'll go back, but we'll go through this first at...we'll start at 8:40. (BREAK)
Okay, let's, um, before we go back to clarify fiscal year 10, A, B, for Mike and others,
let's go quickly through the fiscal year 11 and beyond, um, while we have staff here to
see if we have any questions. Let's just go down the line, um...but, you know, speak now
because they won't be here on Thursday. Okay? You want to just walk us through.
Library
Helling/ Um, 11 and beyond is the fourth page in, in the documents we gave you. It starts with
the Library. Um, reduce the hourly and temp staff, um, focusing on librarians. Um
(mumbled)
Bailey/ Susan, yeah, I want to know the impact to customer service with that.
Craig/ This does have a, uh, pretty critical I think customer service impact because these staff
people, um, provide double staffing, particularly on the reference desk, and without them
it'll be asingle-staff desk, many hours of the week, and the service level will be way
down, and we'll only have two people, a page and one person up there on that giant
second floor. Um, this...the hourly temporary staff librarians also work at...to double
staff the fiction desk and the children's desk to a lesser degree than the reference desk, but
it is a service issue.
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Champion/ My whole point about this Library cuts here is I don't support any and the reason I
don't, I think when you get to this point, you need to just go right to it and say we need to
cut Library hours. I think to have a Library open that's not staffed is, I don't know, it
doesn't seem fair to the public for me. So I'd like just put this on the back burner, uh,
until we get to later and...and I think if we need to start looking at these kind of...I mean,
this isn't a lot of money, but it's a lot of service, and it seems ridiculous to me that...you
just say we're going to cut Library hours and staff it right, I mean, that's my personal
feeling.
Wright/ Have you (mumbled) as they come open, Susan (mumbled) by attrition?
Craig/ Which positions? These hourly?
Wright/ Yeah.
Craig/ These hourly positions, um, it's hard sometimes to get people, and so for instance when
five school librarians retired last year, we hired a couple of'em to substitute and double
staff in the children's room. We don't have any openings now, you know, we haven't
advertised, I don't think, since December, but...part of it is you need the buys, because
they help work nights and weekends.
Bailey/ All right, going down the list, the next one is programming and printing.
Craig/ Um, in the first...the 1% cuts, uh, we were trying to preserve children's programming,
particularly except for those few family, Friday Night family things. At this point we're
getting a little bit more into children's, especially the summer reading program, when
you've got 2,000 kids and you give them printed material, and you know, it adds up and,
um, so this would be across the board in, um, programming related, um, printing and
programming costs, and it would effect children as well as adults.
Wright/ This...has this been an area where you'd consider sponsorships again? Looking for
corporate sponsors, or community sponsors to pay for some of the printing and the
program materials?
Craig/ It's...we already get, um, I think it's $4,000 a year support for summer reading from the
Foundation. So...we do have a lot of gift money that goes into that program. It's not, the
climate out there, you know, our budget's tough -the climate for fundraising is tough
right now too. Um, so...maintaining corporate sponsors that we already have is...is hard.
I mean, I'm not saying it's not impossible. I'm just saying, it's a tough climate.
Wright/ (several talking) consider it at all so...
Champion/ Well, the same people who might sponsor a program like this are probably already
giving money to the Library Foundation. (mumbled)
Craig/ Yes.
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Bailey/ Okay, and the next item.
Correia/ Oh, I'm sorry.
Bailey/ Okay, go ahead.
Correia/ Guess I was thinking about what you said, um, what...what level of impact to the
summer reading program?
Craig/ Um, most of it is on...for instance, we often hire the people who do the regular programs
for the summer reading kids, and you know, a couple of the programs a summer, our staff
will be the...the talent, and for others, you know, we'll have the dinosaur guy come or the
magic guy or the snake guy or, you know, and the fees are small, but they add up, and
um, we wouldn't be able to hire as many of those people. Um, in their...in their packets
that they get when they register for summer reading, there wouldn't be as many book lists
or you know, the reading journal kinds of things, those kinds of things.
Bailey/ But you would continue the summer reading program?
Craig/ Yes. We would not eliminate the summer reading program.
Bailey/ It would just look different, potentially.
Craig/ Yes.
Bailey/ Okay.
Craig/ Wouldn't be near as much fun!
Bailey/ Well, I'm all about fun so...okay.
Correia/ Have, um, have you ever considered...and I'm trying to remember this from when my
kids were small and we participated in the summer reading program, um, (mumbled)
voluntary donations from parents, because I think there are some parents with kids that
participate that could throw in some money, not a mandatory, you know, others that that
really wouldn't be...
Craig/ We haven't thought about that. I think we would tend to do more, you know, what Mike
suggested is try and find more sponsorships through the Foundation than ask people to
pay.
Correia/ Well, and that's what I'm saying. But maybe working with the Foundation to maybe
capture some of...you know...
Craig/ It's possible.
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Bailey/ Okay, other questions for that item? Otherwise we'll move on.
Champion/ Well, I just feel like...this is...minor money that's going to effect service a lot and
I...I would put this way on "B" until, I mean, I think the Library does a tremendous
amount of fundraising already. I mean, there's...I think you're just going to deplete one
source to gain another.
Bailey/ And we don't have to necessarily decide all these 11 tonight. We can just go through
and... so reducing collection maintenance.
Craig/ Okay, these are maintenance costs associated with keeping the collection in good repair,
um, like book binding, which we would reduce that budget, um, we have a, we...so
many, so much of our collection is on discs all, both the music collection and all of the
DVD collections, and we have a...an expensive machine that we use that we routinely
run the things, the discs through, that takes a fair amount of money and supplies and
things and staff time to pull the stuff off the shelf and run it through. I mean, our goal is
that when you take something home and you put it in your disc player, it works. And,
um, with these reductions, we're going to wait until someone tells us something doesn't
work, which means they got it home and they were unhappy with it. So.. .
Bailey/ Okay. Questions? Thank you, Susan. Okay, Parks and Rec.
Parks & Rec:
Helling/ (mumbled) use your imagination (mumbled) imagine what the first one, reducing the
mowing along Highway 6.
Bailey/ Yeah, wouldn't that become a sight problem, sight obstruction?
Helling/ (mumbled)
Bailey/ It wouldn't.
Helling/ Unsightly, but...
Bailey/ Okay.
Helling/ (mumbled)
Wright/ Not visual. (several talking)
Moran/ Yeah, we currently mow those every 8 days. So we would just cut that down to go to,
uh, once a month.
Bailey/ That's quite a leap!
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Correia/ Yeah, cause you go 15 days or...
Bailey/ Okay.
O'Donnell/ Could do it twice a month instead of three times.
Moran/ Any combination thereof...to do that. The reduced contract of plant care - we contract
out flowerbeds, uh, they come around and do those. The ones we can't get to, the
Mormon Trek end caps, uh, Benton Hill, uh, lot of ones around town, the City of Iowa
City entrance signs, we contract those out so what we'd do is just cut one of those bids so
they'd go twice a year to take care of those instead of three times a year, so it wouldn't be
elimination. It'd just be reduction.
Wright/ Does that also include the, uh, lawn service spraying, like in the median of Iowa
Avenue?
Moran/ No. That's a separate...
Wright/ That would be something to me looks like it should be (mumbled)
Moran/ We can do that. We do, uh, we have an agreement with Project GREEN to do some of
that, as well, uh, on Iowa Avenue, so we'd have to look and see how that is. Some of that
gets paid for through the (mumbled) And then, uh, contracted service in forestry, this'd
just be a reduction, not an elimination. LTh, we'd reduce tub grinding, which allows us to
get rid of our bigger logs a little big quicker. We'd just have to stockpile those and tub
grind less often. Uh, some surveying work, uh, when we go and remove trees, uh, we'll
have to do ourselves or wait for a survey to come in a little bit less often than what we do,
and then some landscaping issues, as well, that we have after we remove trees, if we can't
get to it we'll have a (mumbled) so we would reduce the amount of times we get that
done in the forestry division.
Bailey/ Okay, and there's another Parks and Rec. Should we just skip to the one on the next
page?
Moran/ LTh, that's just the reduction of all our free programming events. Uh, things that we do
not pay for. And that's, uh, roller skating that we hold at the Recreation Center on
Saturday nights, uh, the Winter Carnival, and then the Summer Playground program.
Bailey/ And what's the attendance of those, typically? Do you have a sense...
Moran/ Um...
Bailey/ ...give us an idea of impact.
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Moran/ Uh, the impact for roller skating, for example, we run that year-round for nine months,
except through the summer, and we probably service anywhere between 4,500 and 6,500
kids every Saturday, uh, from 6:00 to 8:00, and Winter Carnival is up and down,
depending on, uh, weather of course. So maybe 100 at the high point for Winter
Carnival. And the playgrounds is sort of all over the place, depending on where we're at,
because we move that around the City. We don't always hold it in the same place every
summer.
Bailey/ Okay. Thanks. Any questions? (several talking) we can just go through these and talk
about them in more detail. Um, Senior Center is next.
Senior Center
Kopping/ For the last couple of years, uh, the Senior Center's worked pretty hard to, uh, present a
very positive image in the community and create some, um, branding that, uh, improves
the general perception of aging in the Senior Center in general, and that's what these, uh,
advertisements and uh, product resales were used for, and in fact, it has been, uh,
somewhat successful in that our participation has increased, and in the last year our
membership, which is not required for all the things we offer and do, uh, increased 12%.
Bailey/ Okay, and then there's one on the next page, the program guide one.
Kopping/ That...program guide is, uh, currently is published quarterly, um, it's a mailed out to
about 5,000 homes in the community and appears on the web site, uh, it's a very good
promotional tool, uh, generally we have, um, several membership, uh, enrollments after
the release of the program guide. But we had talked about the possibility of reducing it to
three times a year publication rather than one...or four.
Bailey/ And what would happen if you reduced it to two, kind of running on the whole semester
concept, that kind of the whole city thinks about, like a fall one and a spring one?
Kopping/ LTh, we have a lot of trouble with volunteer instructors who are very reluctant at this
point to even, um, schedule themselves, uh, on a quarterly basis, uh, a lot of our
instructors are retirees and it's a myth that retirees have a lot of free time, and they like to,
uh, they have pretty tight schedules and don't like to plan that far ahead, so I'm afraid that
our, um...programming would decline quite a bit.
Bailey/ Thanks.
Kopping/ And also the participation.
Bailey/ Any questions for Linda?
Helling/ The other one is (mumbled)
Bailey/ Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't, yeah, thank you. (several talking)
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Kopping/ Yeah, I think everybody recognizes the advantages of goal setting, uh, what we've
usually done is plan programs that bring the staff and Commission participants and
volunteers together, um, to form a plan and, uh, it generates a cohesiveness and a
familiarity among all the different groups. It's a pretty useful process.
Bailey/ Some of our...our departments have used other staff from throughout the City.
Kopping/ That's correct.
Bailey/ Okay. All right, um, back up to the top. Any questions for Linda? Marian. Your two
items.
City Clerk:
Karr/ Two items, uh, one is a, uh, elimination of a temporary employee for microfilm
conversion. We currently have close to 600 rolls of microfilm, um, which was the earlier
way of maintaining our records, prior to going to laser fiche. The microfilm, we have
two copies, uh, copy is stored here and then a...the original is stored at the Library. It's
causing some storage issues in both locations. In addition to that, microfilm like any
other means does have a shelf life. We check it regularly for viruses and other types of
deterioration, but it is becoming...on some of the rolls it's more than twice the normal
time, um, we've not experienced anything recently, but we do have an offer from the
University to..for a machine that does allow the conversion from microfilm to, um, a
database that we could incorporate into our laser fiche; however, they wanted us to
provide the bodies to do it, which is understandable. I didn't want to take any from office
staff, so I put in temporary employees who would take the film literally, uh, a few times a
week over a few rolls, do them over a short period of time. We'd see the benefits of the
system and how it integrates with ours, and whether there would be cost savings into the
future as far as, uh, the additional rolls of microfilm. My office isn't the only office that
has microfilm, uh, personnel does and a number of other offices. We'd be taking a look
at long-range goals at that time. That's the $4,500.
Bailey/ And you and I talked about this, or the State of Iowa fund to convert things to digital.
Karr/ And I am researching that as well.
Bailey/ Okay. You think this would qualify maybe? Okay.
Karr/ It's possible that it would qualify, yes.
Bailey/ Okay.
Karr/ The other one is a reduction in the transcriptionist by one-quarter time. Simply put, there
was no place else to come up with the percentage that was asked of the department, um,
this would reduce, uh, the transcriptionist probably would effect the actual transcriptions
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for work sessions. I think it would definitely effect the service to the public and to the
staff, because I do know that they rely on taking a look at what council said as soon as
possible, rather than the minutes themselves (noise on mic) which are direction driven,
and shortened and condensed. Um, this would also, uh, require me in doing my minutes
more preparation time as well.
Bailey/ Okay. Any questions for Marian? HIS.
H&IS:
Boothroy/ Uh, look over somebody's shoulder here -the first one is, uh, reduce, sorry Mike!
Now that you got it closer...I have to put my glasses on. (laughter) Now I can't see
(laughter) let's make up our minds here! Uh, let's just go without the glasses. Uh, the
first one is a charge that, uh, we no longer use or need. It was, uh, something that was,
uh, that $1,978 is something that, uh, is not necessary for our budget anymore. LTh, the
second one, the reduced miscellaneous supplies, um, I believe that's the one that has to do
with our, uh, books that we, um, code books. Typically, um (mumbled) we have front-
ended the cost and then we sell 'em to people, uh, electrical, uh, inspect, or professionals
or plumbing professionals, or even contractors, under this...what we would no longer
pick up that cost on the front side. We would refer them to the web site. They could buy
it directly from, uh, the company. We'd also no longer provide, uh, copies of the new
code to, uh, Board of Appeal members. We would copy what they need for the particular
meeting. There's no reason for each member, all seven, to have a full set of codes,
particularly since they don't use them on a regular basis or even, uh, need to. And so we
can make some adjustments in those areas.
Bailey/ With the item that's no longer necessary, can that be reduced in FY10?
Boothroy/ It's, uh...
Bailey/ Is it already...
Boothroy/ It probably can be. I don't think it's been...I'd have to check, but yes, I think so.
Bailey/ If we can reduce something now, let's do it.
Boothroy/ Yeah.
Bailey/ Okay.
Boothroy/ Okay.
Bailey/ Great. Any questions for Doug? (both talking) okay, I don't...yeah, I think (mumbled).
Fire. I think we talked a little bit about this. Any questions?
Fire:
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Helling/ That's just that other $12,000.
Personnel•
Bailey/ Okay. Any questions for...personnel? Karen.
Helling/ Karen can give you a description. This would basically there's two scenarios, and the
one that's factored in in terms of the total is reducing by 2/lOths of a percent, so one
position would go down to .8 percent.
Bailey/ Okay. And we would see an internal impact, I mean, some of this is, I guess, external, I
mean.
Jennings/ Right, um, what it would do is we would have to reduce one of, um, our staff members
by one day a week, and primarily the impact would be, um, some service to outside
agencies. We serve as a work site for community service, um, folks that are referred over
by the County Court system. That eats up quite a bit of staff time each week, so that
would be something that we would probably have to discontinue, and then um, excuse
me, some of the project work that benefits primarily outside agencies, like the blood
drives, the United Way campaign takes up a lot of time, um, in the fall; the bike to work
week, those are things that are scattered out throughout the year, that take up quite a bit
of staff time, um, when they're going.
Bailey/ And what's this (mumbled) response to surveys, what is, I mean...is that internal or
external?
Jennings/ We get...that is external. We get a lot of salary and compensation, um, information
requests from other public entities for, um, the purpose of putting together comparability
studies, um, and reports, and we would have to get a lot more selective about those
because they take a lot of time. They usually want a lot of detail.
Bailey/ Okay. And then...the or.
Helling/ The or is because there's two different numbers, um, so the $20,000 would include the
12,000 and it would just...it would be another alternative. It would be a further
reduction, and in addition to what you see under the .2 FTE, you'd also have the other
issues, and the main one there is outsourcing our...our, uh, FLEX benefit program to an
outside administrator. And there's some other (mumbled)
Jennings/ That would be the primary, uh, difference -the FLEX administration takes a lot of time
with our bi-weekly payroll schedule to process all those claims in-house for payment. In
addition, if we had to cut one of our positions to half time, we would have limited
availability to work through benefit issues with employees, so it would be more of a
service issue internally for employees that are, um, you know, trying to work through
benefits issues.
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Helling/ This is an observation too, on the FLEX program, we have every year people submit.
That's one of those use it or lose it things, um, and I think Karen's staff spends quite a bit
of time with...with employees, because we administer it in-house. If we farmed it out,
they wouldn't get the responses (mumbled) hopefully there wouldn't, but it increases the
chance that somebody puts more in than they're going to use (mumbled). It's...we found
it a real benefit to have that, that service in-house, rather than...we did farm it out
(mumbled).
Bailey/ And what was the response time out, versus in?
Helling/ Oh, I...
Jennings/ It's been internal since I've been with the City, so I don't know the answer to that.
Helling/ I think when we very first (mumbled) implementation, we used that - a consultant -and
we took a lot of it back in, and we still use them, but...
Jennings/ We use them for support for our staff, but um, Molly, who currently does the FLEX
claims, um, for us internally spends a great deal of time kind of working with employees,
educating them, helping them identify appropriate documentation for claims, and all of
that would have to be done remotely, off-site, you know, electronically, phone.
Bailey/ Any questions for Karen? Okay. Thanks.
Planning & Community Development:
Helling/ PCD, uh, those are just possible recommendations for reducing, right now ICAD...we
fund ICAD $100,000 a year and that's through FY11, and then it goes back...it would
drop back to the $55,000 (mumbled) five year program. Um, with the Englert, that's a
$50,000 a year for FY10, 11 and 12, so that's where those, the numbers come from. Jeff
(mumbled). The other thing, I guess that ties to, um, the next page, other possible
reductions, and I should have put on there the total ICAD and Englert amounts, much the
same as I did for, uh, number of other things, like the CVB and so forth. Um, so that you
would know what those dollars are and if you want to, uh, you know, 5% is one
suggestion, but you can go anywhere with that (mumbled). So you might want to just
add those to, um, the other possible reductions (mumbled) update and get this back to
you.
Bailey/ Okay. Any questions for Jeff or Dale? Okay. All right. Moving on down.
Police:
Helling/ Police, uh, I don't know...Sam, if you want to address the work-study person in...in
records division. The other one would be going to a second CSO (mumbled)
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Hargadine/ We utilize work-studies for, uh, scanning in a lot of documents, um, mostly paper,
clerical duties in our records section. LTh, that's a fraction of the salary. I think the
University picks up the other portion of it.
Champion/ (several talking) good choice. You're paying very little and it gets a lot of work
done.
Hargadine/ I agree.
Helling/ Work-study's a good deal.
Bailey/ Okay, and we...we have a sense of what CSO, the CSO position, I mean, further
questions on what it would be to eliminate another?
Champion / I...I.. .
Wright/ ...eliminating another one kind of gut the CSO programs?
Bailey/ (mumbled)
Champion/ We'd have two.
Hargadine/ Correct. It's going to cut deep into services, and um, you know, our goal is to free up
officer time, and this is going to add to it, which will decline their availability for calls.
Hayek/ Can I ask a general question, not so much of you, Chief, but Dale, um, is there, um...it
seems like with respect to some of the possible cuts, um, some of the departments show
more personnel cuts and others less, and in fact, some departments have no personnel
cuts. I assume that was part of the analysis, but you had to decide whether you could
recommend any cuts in a particular department, versus another?
Helling/ It was, yeah, um, and you know, I rely on the department directors to tell me what, you
know, what they feel like has the least impact. Everything that we're talking about is
going to have some impact on service. A little or a lot, and with police department,
clearly, as Sam indicated to me, he would rather eliminate all the CSOs before he gets
into cutting any officers, and I certainly agree with that. But the CSOs do free up officer
time. And so it's...it's kind of a lesser evil (mumbled)
Champion/ Well, I'm not willing to cut any more.
Correia/ I don't see anything in here that's reducing the General Fund allocation to the Airport,
for example.
Bailey/ Can we...continue this, so we can allow staff to leave and then we can have our general
session? (several commenting) Okay. Um, just a couple more.
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May 26, 2009 City Council
Document Services:
Page 64
O'Malley/ Okay, on Doc Services, uh, looking at this division last couple years the duties have
been changing, and uh, looking at maybe next year the supervisor's talking about going to
half time and if that's the case, uh, reduce that need for ahalf--time person in Doc
Services. Reassigning some of those staff to ITS. More of the work is more in line with
Information Technology than was in document preparation. Accounting is another
charge-back. We do a lot of, uh, special, uh, audit reports for federal funds, a lot more
than normal funds, and we haven't been charging CDBG, Housing Authority, Airport,
and some other, uh, entities for their accounting, and so looking to pick up that kind of
revenue, uh... for charge-backs.
Bailey/ Questions for Kevin?
Wright/ How many people are in Document Services?
O'Malley/ Four. Actually, there's four people, but there's three and a half, uh, charged. One
person's already charged to web services, which is ITS.
Bailey/ Did you want to talk about these other possible reductions?
Other Possible Reductions:
Helling/ iJh, I think..just an indication of some areas where, and again, there are a lot of areas
that...that, you know, provide money where you don't have to, and one of the things that
we were looking at was certainly not to get anything that you're mandated to spend. So
some other areas -the PIN grants, the um, discontinue the payment to ECICOG, and my
understanding is that if that was done, JCCOG would pick that up. Is that correct?
Davidson/ L.I think the notion here has been to go to the model that Linn County uses, where the
county levys for the entire amount that goes to ECICOG. The majority of ECICOG's
funding is provided by Linn County, Johnson County of the six-county region, because
it's, uh, per capita based assessment, uh, but because Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have
their own professional planning staff - so does Marion - um, most of the resources go to
the smaller counties, um, so it's...that's always been a dichotomy that's part of that
assessment. Um, you know, we've discussed this with ECICOG, and ECICOG's position
is basically, everybody's agreed to a per capita based assessment. He doesn't care where
it comes from. In Johnson County it's the individual cities. In Linn County it's all by the
County. He says if they...if Johnson County works out having the county levy for it,
that's fine with him. He gets the same amount of money.
Bailey/ And what would we lose if we didn't...if it went to that model? Would we still have
access to any, I mean, services that we need?
Davidson/ Well, the...the taxpayers of Iowa City are still paying (both talking) it's just that
they're paying through the County and not (mumbled)
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Bailey/ Okay.
Davidson/ So yeah, you'd still be entitled to services.
Bailey/ Okay.
Helling/ The deer management program, we have that budgeted at $55,000. That's a
maintenance thing. I think what you would probably see is the counts going up and
probably the deer strikes in the city, and since we only do this within the city limits, you'd
see the population going up within the city over time.
Wright/ I know we just had that report not long ago, but do you remember how many...I don't
remember how many deer were, uh, harvested this year?
Helling/ I think it was a little less than 100 this year.
Champion/ That's a lot!
Helling/ One year we took over 300, I believe, early on. So we have made progress, and this is
the maintenance (mumbled). Uh, economic development, um, you have $100,000 each
year. You basically allocate $200,000 every other year, uh, which comes to an average
of $100,000 a year. The, uh, money to the Englert, I think was to be taken out of this, uh,
and so that leaves for the two-year period, uh, $100,000 and uh, there...there is some,
you know, discussion about some allocation to the City of Literature, and that's just in the
process now of a, uh, non-profit being formed (noise on mic) have to look at, whether
that would come out of here as well and that's (mumbled). Uh, Aid to Agencies, again,
that's the total amount that's General Fund. LJh, event funding, again, total amount from
the General Fund. The fireworks - I'm not anti-American (laughter). I didn't necessarily
recommend this, you know, based on my...but, uh, it is $25,000 and you took that out of
the event's funding (mumbled). Convention and Visitors Bureau, that's 25% of the
hotel/motel tax that...the current amount is $181,000 (mumbled). Um, the school
crossing guard program, that's something that moved out there as a possibility. I have not
had a chance to sit down with the school, with Lane basically, to talk. about that, but that's
on my "to do" list. Um...$63,000 (mumbled). I can't tell you what the alternatives
would be, but what we've been told is that there probably wouldn't be the opportunity for
getting volunteers (mumbled). And then, as I indicated before, you might want to add
ICAD at $100,000 per year, and the Englert at $50,000, um, Englert going back to that
economic development. So those two are tied together.
Bailey/ Okay. So, let's clarify some of the FY10, um, Dale, it's up to you if staff stays or not, but
I don't know if we have any additional questions or not.
Helling/ Yeah, I...like to let staff go and...
Bailey/ Do we have any additional questions for staff?
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Shipley/ I have a few thoughts and comments I'd like to share, um, if that's all right. Yeah, well
first I just want to say I really enjoyed this budget discussion and I'm pleased with the
seriousness with which these budget issues are approached. Um, and from someone who
studies political science and a young person's perspective, um, especially in this era of
financial events and otherwise very interesting times, um, is I would like to express, uh,
you know, my (mumbled) which would certainly be in the vein of what you were
mentioning earlier, of the idea of when going through the functions and roles of, uh, the
city government, kind of keeping in mind an ideal of, you know, having all government
voluntary funded. I mean, just think about how nice it would be if the citizens would
voluntarily give their money because they're so pleased with the functions of government
and they really appreciate them, um, and obviously that idealistic scenario's not going to
happen overnight or probably in the decade, but um, it's a very interesting paradigm to
think about, and...and relation to like public works or public art, and um, you just
brought up fireworks. I think those types of things could be easily, easily, um, picked up
by community funds that would be donated, I mean, fireworks, $25,000 - I think people
value them enough to pitch in $5 or $10 here and there and you could still have it and,
even if you only raised half the money, you're still freeing up. You just might not have as
spectacular of a show, um, and things like you know the Library and, uh, the
entertainment, you know, things you do with the movie screenings. On campus I know
lots of student groups who'd really be wiling to step up and use that time and probably
not have the copyrighted movie and, you know, fulfill that function cheaper, and you
know, voluntarily.
Wright/ Still have to have the copyright.
Shipley/ Well, if they don't show a copyrighted movie, I mean...
Wright/ You'd still have to pay... almost all the movies are...
Shipley/ Well, I know we show movies on campus. We don't pay a dime for'em. You know,
you usually get really good turnouts. So there's a couple thoughts there. Um, I know I
guess my voice really isn't, um, all that pertinent to this discussion, but just keep in mind
these perspectives. I'd really appreciate it.
Champion/ It's very pertinent (mumbled)
O'Donnell/ Good comments.
Bailey/ Thank you. So...if staff wants to, I mean...do we have any other questions for (several
talking). Thank you all.
Helling/ Uh, you're welcome to stay! (laughter)
Bailey/ Oh, yeah, yeah, open meeting and all (laughter and several talking)
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Correia/ I mean, L ..I have a general question, um, I mean, I do wonder why we don't see
any... any suggestion of reductions in the General Fund to the Airport, as well as potential
increased revenue with the Airport.
Helling/ Uh, you had the one, which is (both talking)
Correia/ The revenue, right, but I mean.. .
Helling/ But that...you would reduce your...by $3,600 and...and then that would be picked up
from the...from the, uh, the rental fee.
Correia/ Small amount.
Helling/ It's, um, as a percentage of your General Fund allocation...
Correia/ I mean we're talking about, you know, community service officers, school crossing
guards, and...and um, I just...I'm disappointed to not see that.
Wright/ There was a....a large number of these proposals, um, are specifically geared towards
services that are going to affect the public and not so much cuts that are going to affect
our internal operations, and I was hoping to see a little bit more of...maybe not
throwing... staff throwing themselves on their swords, but examining the way we do
business and trying to find some savings that way, rather than just targeting immediately
some of our....
Champion/ We're going to have to get there too.
Wright/ We're going to get there, there's no question, but that...just kind of a comment.
Bailey/ Right, because the whole charge-back system costs every department, and if we did some
internal, I mean, I'm not exactly sure how we would address that, but the charge-back
system for ITS, for example, affects every department. If we could reduce that by a
percentage, we reduce every department's budget by a, you know, a certain amount
and...if we're going to affect citizen services, we certainly have to affect our organization
services. If it takes longer for somebody to respond to a question about a computer, I
think that's just part of the deal. Because if you're not going to have the Rec Center open
at 8:30 at night, I mean, I think that maybe somebody could wait two hours for somebody
to respond to their computer problem.
O'Malley/ Might want to keep in mind, ITS also serves the public. They keep all the computers
alive at the Rec Center and the Senior Center and all the other places, so there is a
relationship (mumbled)
Bailey/ But...but, I mean, I'm sure some are specifically focused internally, or maybe they're
all...
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O'Malley/ They're all in the same (both talking) it goes down, everything goes down.
Bailey/ Well, I think we should see that impact. I'd be interested in seeing what doing
some...some internal changes of doing business would impact too, because I think...
O'Malley/ We have scheduled, um, I don't think we put it in your presentation, but we do have an
employee leaving, um, retiring in December (mumbled)
Bailey/ I think we should (both talking)
O'Malley/ There's a lot more than was presented to (mumbled) wasn't proposed.
Helling/ There are...there are things like that that we plan to look at between now and fall when
we put the budget together.
Bailey/ I think...as we're cutting services, and that's very public and visible, I think it's important
that we are aware and are able to talk about how we are reducing our internal service
supports as well. So, it's...it's a balanced approach. I mean, I think that those questions
will exist, and I think we need to be able to answer them. So if there are things that are
happening like that, I mean, we're not interested in micro-managing. We're interested in
showing the public that we've taken a policy approach to this, and that there will be
internal pain as well as external pain, and so if those things are happening, it would help
all of us to have a better understanding of those.
Helling/ Yeah, and...and I agree with that, but I would just add that...in all likelihood anything
that we do significantly internally is going to find its way to the service level somewhere,
um...
Bailey/ But is it direct and really above the water, or is it more below the surface and it, you
know, goes through a lot of permutations, and I think that we need to look at those below
the surface, first and foremost.
Dilkes/ I think we should remind you too that the whole 1% budget reduction that was
done...earlier, when the other City Manager, was all internal. I mean, I...I eliminated my
entire travel budget. Um, I think a lot of people did that. There were a lot of internal
changes made with that 1 %, and there are internal changes made here, the fire training is
an internal change, I mean, that's just one example.
Bailey/ But our whole system of charge-backs has an internal impact, I guess, is what, you know,
and perhaps I don't understand all of that, but...
O'Malley/ That's what I was just going to get to. I don't know if you remember my discussion
about administrative charge-back during the budget cycle. 44% of the administrative
people, City Attorney, City Clerk, you, Finance, is paid by the enterprise funds. So you
have to reduce by more than, uh, you need to reduce by 100...1.44 to get 1 % saving.
You have to do double because you're getting reimbursed by enterprise funds. I don't
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know if you follow that concept. 56% of my salary is paid by taxes. 44% is paid by
enterprise. So if you've got to cut more than just 56% to get 100%. It's...it's real tricky
so it's easy to say that, but you have to almost cut 1 and a half to get 1 % savings out of
the...out of administrative, and administrative serves, like I say, everybody. I mean,
cause you also lose the enterprise funds, then lose their payroll services. You lose their,
uh, accounting services. They would, you know, I don't think you understand that aspect.
I mean, how it works, the mechanics of how it works. I think you understand the aspect
of cutting salaries and stuff like that. That's not...that's kind of (both talking)
Bailey/ So a department like Doc Services, for example, is a 56/44 percentage.
O'Malley/ Correct. And...we've been reducing (mumbled)
Helling/ A few of the things we've talked about tonight will actually start to boost that
percentage up a little bit too. A little more from the enterprise fund. No, I know what
you're saying, looking internally. And a11...I just want to remind you is that eventually
that (mumbled)
Bailey/ Well, and those are the kinds of questions we get. I mean, we get micromanagmg
questions -why do you have X number of employees doing this when, you know, at my
business we can do it with, you know, reduce this by 50%, and I think it's important that
we have some answers, especially as we're looking at budget cuts, I mean, it just helps us
be better diplomats for the work, the cuts that have already happened, and the work that
the City is doing, and that's our job is to be that buffer.
O'Malley/ ...specific question, you can ask us.
Bailey/ A lot of questions about ITS.
O'Malley/ They service the police department. If they can't fix their radio system or their phone
system, they're out. It's, you know, there are...it's like electricity now, you know, you
have to have 'em. If you take, there's only ten of'em, so if you take two off, what do you
do when...who...who gets the call for service? Those are some...whereas if you have 50
police officers, at least you can drop down one or two of those. It's all relative to
the...exposure to the budget.
Wilburn/ I think, uh, I think part of our as, uh, Council Members, um, opportunities, it's
important about that education piece to the public is to make sure that we are including
that in a historical perspective cause, um, I was going to comment that we are pretty lean
because of the prior budget cuts that had happened, that a lot of that was, uh, internal, uh,
operations absorption, and...that, uh, well, that example you gave about someone having
to wait a couple hours to have their computer repaired. It's one thing if I'm working on a
project that, um, you know, okay, later on in the week I'll have to get to, uh, something
related to, you know, um, a map related to the southeast district planning process. It's
another thing if there's, uh, a person, uh, from the public that is asking for something
from a particular department and I can't...I can't tell you what, um, I can't tell you
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whether, uh, softball field #4 is reserved, uh, this Saturday or not because my computer's
down. So I think...I think part of it is having to talk to, uh, those other pieces. I also
think...I think it's fair to...to say, you know, let's...to be able to point out, uh, some of
the internal versus external, I think that's a fair question in terms of, uh, the areas that are
impacted. I think we need to be realistic about the magnitude and expectations of...if
you're expecting to see a certain threshold dollar amount, um, of, um...internal services
that aren't going to impact a program that the public is using, I don't think that's being
realistic. I think we really need to think about expectations, um...cause like I said, many
of the things...on here or many of the things that City staff members are doing are a
direct response to someone at some point in the public has used...utilized aservice
that...what we were doing, and it's great when there are grants and things like that
available, and it's great if the public is willing to, uh, if a, um, certain sector of the public
is willing to do something, uh, you know, the Library Foundation is doing x, y, or z, but
we have clear tangible examples of things that the public has shown, um, you know,
whether some group (mumbled) burned out over the years or they're just not going to do
it, uh, the fireworks being the classic example that was done by a public group, but they
did get some money (noise on mic) um, it became more clear over the last three, four,
five years that unless the City was going to do it, it's not going to happen.
Hayek/ Uh, Dale, let me just confirm what my understanding of this (coughing, unable to hear)
in terms of these, what's on the...in this memo. You, uh, directed staff, department
heads, to come up with cuts at several different levels, 1, 2 and 4%, um, and then you got
those...and...and they made those decisions based on their internal review of their
departments, and...
Helling/ Within the department, and then I took them (both talking) perspective.
Hayek/ Okay. So by the time it got to us it had essentially two...
Bailey/ (mumbled)
Hayek/ ...views, uh...
Helling/ There's really no magic in 'em. I mean, there are some things that aren't on here that
they put in that...that seem to be, from their perspective, an even lower priority in terms
of, or a higher priority in terms of not, you know, not cutting, uh, but there's some things
there based on (mumbled). I may go back and take a look at that, and... and (mumbled)
um...
Bailey/ And so do we want to walk through, I mean, we can talk about this, but I mean...
Hayek/ Well, I don't know, I mean...
Bailey/ I mean, we need to...FY10 is what we were trying to accomplish tonight, and...and just
getting the clarity of the A or B list because...
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Wright/ We could just do a quick A, B, A, B without much discussion.
Bailey/ Yeah, and then come back on Thursday with some broader questions.
Hayek/ That's okay, I...but, but it's easy for this group, and it's not this particular group. It's
probably any city council, to slip into the, um, the details that I think, you know, we
spend time talking about whether a particular strip of grass can be mowed once a month
or four times a month, or whether a particular newsletter can be effectively disseminated
twice a year or four times a year, and I...those are, in the aggregate obviously matter, but
I...I just don't think it's effective governance for this group to spend time at that level
within a budget. I...it may sound callous, but...but I...I, we've been here three hours.
Um, and that's my hesitation about.. .
Bailey/ Well, these are...these are the suggestions that Dale has provided, and he wants some
guidance on them specifically. I think that...(several talking)
Hayek/ I don't disagree.
Bailey/ And I think generally the questions that we've been generally asking are policy, I mean,
how do we want our city to appear, um, does it make sense that we cut a summer reading
program that engages kids, um, which...which recreation center is...is, you know, more
significant, I mean, I...I would...I would disagree that those are...are micro-questions. I
mean, they might seem like small questions, but they have huge citizen service
implications, and I think broad policy service implications.
Champion/ Well, I...I do agree with Matt a little bit, although I think what (mumbled) is going to
get us to where we need to go for the next...for the next year, and that's really what we're
trying to do tonight. (several talking) But I think we've got a much broader problem
after that. I mean.. .
Bailey/ Well, and that would be my question too, is why do we have any, I mean, we have a lot
of publications that we're sending out through the mail broadly. Why aren't we seeking
to do more things electronically, Imean, as a...as a 30,000 foot level, I mean, I know that
not everybody has access to computers, but how are we moving towards the...the lower
cost approach to disseminating information, would be one of my questions.
Hayek/ And that's a fair question, but you know, it's going to be tough for us. I think we can do
it at the $250,000 level, which is all we need to cut for 2010, and...and maybe that's what
it takes to get it done for 2010 tonight, but once we get past that the order of magnitude
increases by a factor of seven, if you assume the fire station. You go from a quarter
million dollars to $1.75 million, and the opportunities shrink because we're already taking
where we can sort of the so-called low-hanging fruit, um, it's going to be...there's just
that much more difficult, and I...
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Bailey/ Well, we're not going to get there with this level of detail. We're going to have to shift, I
think broadly about delivery of services, but there seems to be some reluctance to change
those dramatically. Um, I mean...
Wright/ Well, and I think when we come back on Thursday evening, we're going to have
to...begin taking a much broader approach and look at higher level...
Bailey/ Airport subsidy for....for example...
Champion/ (mumbled) services, uh...
Bailey/ We can start looking at senior programming and doing it with one staff person like we do
special populations in arts programming in the recreation division, and partnering with
the Library and offering these programs and...and not doing the department. I mean, we
can look at those broader levels.
Champion/ Going to have to!
Wright/ And that's where we're going to have to be looking. (several talking)
Helling/ ...need to have on Thursday.
O'Donnell/ That's right.
Helling/ (several talking) because there is a much broader picture and depending on what
your...what your alternatives are, your options and what you're willing to do with
revenues, we'll...will give an indication of how deep we'll have to cut, but certainly there
are positions, I mean, I think it's important that you see this information because we have
drilled down the organization, and we tried to identify those areas where we can make
small cuts and at least minimize the impact, and I think that's...that's what you would
want us to do, but the...the cumulative effort there doesn't yield a huge amount of money.
I think it helps us get through FY10, but beyond that with the deficits that we're
projecting, we're going to have to do some, and what I would like to get from you
Thursday is some ideas and about some of the things that have been discussed, other
ideas you have, to help us in putting the budget together for you, uh, I wouldn't be
surprised as we work through this, we'll, you know, we look at the positions, we're also
looking internally at some of the things Regenia was talking about, um, and ultimately
before we put the budget together in the fall we may want to have another meeting
and...and clarify some of those things and let you know kind of a general direction we're
going.
Champion/ There is no way that we can come up with the kind of money we need for a new fire
station. We either staff the fire station or we don't staff it. That's probably the first
decision that we have to make, but there's no way we can staff it without some major
overhauling of how we do business.
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Bailey/ Right. I agree with you, and that's where we have to discuss Thursday night, I mean, the
broader...yeah, the broader, not the...
Champion/ Cause we can't get what we need to staff a fire station out of this. I'm thankful for
this, because this gives us time, if nothing else, but also gets us through the most crucial
thing which is coming (mumbled)
Bailey/ Well, I was also a little bit, honestly, surprised at some of the things that we are spending
money on. And grateful that we're considering eliminating them. I mean, I was a little
bit surprised at some of these, but...so, um, Mike wanted a clarification. You wanted an
A, B down the list, right?
Champion/ Well, the first...
Bailey/ Starting with reductions.
Champion/ The first six are done.
Bailey/ So generally what I heard is it didn't, Dale, why don't you say...why don't you tell us
what you have on the B list, cause I think you wrote those down.
Helling/ Yeah, I don't have a lot of this first group on the B list. Um, down to the 124,263 on the
second page. Um.. .
Bailey/ The one thing that I did note is to look at, um, discontinuing parking subsidy, but not the
Transit subsidy, at the Library. Did you note that?
Helling/ Yes. Yeah.
Bailey/ Okay. Did anybody else make any other notes of items that went on the B list of that
group? (several talking)
Helling/ That's...I'm not sure. (several talking)
Bailey/ I'm not putting that on the B list. I want to just figure out maybe in a broader level
discussion about how we can do it differently, and incorporate it, but...it probably won't
involve a commission as we heard.
Wright/ I'm good with those.
Karr/ The power washing at the Plaza is a B.
Bailey/ (several talking) Wait, okay, so...okay, above 124,263...looking at a different way to do
public art, but eliminating public art is still on the A list and...and continuing the Transit
subsidy, those were the only...right? (several talking) Okay. All right, and going down
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to below 124,000 we're looking at the dollar amount for the Rec Center, is that what you
have, Dale?
Helling/ There was some discussion about whether or not we were going to (mumbled) Rec
Center downtown.
Correia/ It shouldn't be Scanlon.
Helling/ Yeah, so we would want to look at that. Um, the CSO position.
Wright/ I don't think this is a good time to be cutting into our police force.
Correia/ I don't either.
Bailey/ I'm comfortable putting that on a...on the list. If that was a recommendation.
Champion/ This is just one, right, this isn't the second one.
Bailey/ Yes, just one.
Correia/ I mean, I think, the one thing that...that having that CSO's respond to non-emergency
issues, calls, that otherwise without would be...would be.. .
Champion/ No answer at all probably.
Wright/ I think cutting that is just cutting off our nose just to spite our face.
Bailey/ Right.
Shipley/ Were there any guidelines given on how, you know, or how often these people are
relied upon or how often they're used?
Bailey/ Um, Sam indicated there would be fewer handicap tickets, um, funeral escorts, bicycles
retrieved, animal complaints, those kinds of things that...that we would either send an
officer, correct, or we would not do the service. So...
Helling/ And some of those things are...are initiated, you know, they're on patrol and they're
self-initiated, so...that doesn't mean we wouldn't respond to complaints.
Wright/ But I know sometimes (both talking) community service officers will ticket somebody
parked in aright-of--way, for example.
Bailey/ I'm comfortable with this because it was a recommendation that came from the Chief to
eliminate one, and um, I mean, I understand his thinking that he would rather eliminate
CSOs than...than, you know, a sworn officer or police, I don't know the distinction or the
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name, but police officers so I'm comfortable with this. We have two who are putting it
on the B list.
O'Donnell/ I'm incredibly uncomfortable eliminating one.
Bailey/ Three on the B list. Matt and Ross, weigh in. B or A?
Wilburn/ A.
Hayek/ I'd keep it on A for the same reason (mumbled)
Wilburn/ I'm looking in aggregate at the, at all of the recommendations, that's why (mumbled)
Bailey/ Okay. So, it stays on the A list. Sounds like it (several talking) Yeah. All right.
Helling/ And again, you know, that's not something that.. .
Bailey/ You're going to find us $27,000 and be able to...for fiscal year 10 and be able to keep it!
Helling/ They, uh, and the last one in there is the Human Rights, uh, the housing discrimination
and...
Champion/ Yeah, that's on the A list.
Bailey/ Right, but the other two, the inspector position and the city plaza, we have on B list, is
that...(several talking) Yeah, is everybody else (several talking)
Champion/ The washing of City Plaza's on the B list?
Hayek/ Meaning (several talking and laughing)
Champion/ Okay!
Bailey/ Oh, it's okay! (several talking and laughing)
Champion/ Fire, police, uh, washing the City P1aza...I want to keep, right. (several talking)
Bailey/ So that moves the police to the B list, the lower list.
Champion/ I'm sorry. I mean, it's (mumbled)
O'Donnell/ The fire inspector's also on the B list.
Bailey/ So that changed the police one.
Wright/ ...does change the police one to the B list.
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Bailey/ Anything else that you...
Wright/ ...less desirable.
Bailey/ ...we talked about Library, um, Transit, and then we talked about public art.
Champion/ Okay.
Bailey/ Public art, you...okay. All right. So...
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Helling/Based on your discussion, I may go down below and pull something up and flag that for
you and...
Bailey/ And then did you need anything else from us tonight for FY10? Revenue? Do you want
to do the revenue?
Helling/ Yeah, probably we should.
Bailey/ Okay. (several talking)
Helling/ Um, I don't have any of that first group on the B list.
Champion/ No (mumbled)
Helling/ There was a question raised about the, uh, Senior Center membership.
Bailey/ Just one question. And that was just mine.
Wright/ I don't like having Senior Center be a membership organization, but...
Champion/ I don't want to raise 'em!
Wright/ I don't want to have'em!
Champion/ Oh, I don't mind the fees. I just (both talking)
Hayek/ ...two different concepts, one of which can be discussed tonight.
Champion/ I say B for the increase in the.. .
Bailey/ I want to talk about the whole delivery of (laughter and several talking)
Wright/ Leave Senior Center on A.
Helling/ Leave it on the A and keep it on the table.
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Bailey/ Okay.
Helling/ Uh, the Library, I think there's (several talking)
Bailey/ Yeah, that's...
Helling/ The Airport land lease, um...
Bailey/ We like that lease! Yes.
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Helling/ Non-sufficient charges, the P-card, that's...we're getting that, so that's a gimme
(mumbled) um, Housing Inspection Services and the administrative fees, inspection fees.
(several responding) and then the non-refundable excavation permit (mumbled) deposit
of $50.
O'Donnell/ Good.
Helling/ Then I think there was some...we're going to look at further Parks and Rec. There's the
cemetery fees I think was...
Champion/ Oh, cemetery fees are fine.
Bailey/ They could go right away, yeah (both talking)
Helling/ Um, we have some looking to do. If the first three are Bs and then the commercial fire
inspection fee, we have some work to do on that (mumbled) with HIS.
Hayek/ So under fire, B, B, B.
Bailey/ A. And you're talking B as the same way as we're talking B, right? Okay. Not Connie
B. (laughter)
Helling/ And then there are some, the other possible revenues, there are some of those that I
think you found to be acceptable.
Bailey/ The City Attorney one, yeah.
Helling/ And certainly the, uh, the, uh, water and sewer, that's...that's a biggie.
Wright/ Yeah, I like the parking.
Bailey/ I like the parking, as well (several talking).
Champion/ I think we should do it.
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Helling/ I just can't give you a number for that now, and I probably won't be able to (several
talking) this round, um...(several talking)
Champion/ ...July 1st?
Helling/ Well, remember, we have to be mindful of the parking fee though, and you've got a new
ramp that we're going to be funding, and you have to be careful to, that we're generating
enough revenue to cover.. .
Champion/ Oh, this would be an added dollar.
Helling/ No (several responding)
Bailey/ It would be part of a dollar, part of (several talking)
Wright/ ...part of your $15 ticket, $1 gets...
Champion/ Oh, might not be able to afford that, no, I see (several talking)
Helling/ ...we wouldn't get it until the tickets go up to the $10 level.
Champion/ I see, okay, I thought you were going to tack on a dollar. I misunderstood that. So,
right, I see.
Helling/ And, we'll have some, uh, information hopefully (mumbled)
Champion/ Good. Dale, this was good.
Bailey/ So...Thursday you will do a recap for us. Are there other items or needs that you all
have for Thursday? Broad issues. Is there a cost, I mean, Mike brought up an
interesting point that I never thought about. Despite what, how you like being paid, um,
is there a cost, a significant cost to being paid bi-weekly versus monthly? Can you...can
you give some ballpark.. .
O'Malley/ I can find out.
Bailey/ I think it would be interesting, helpful...
O'Malley/ ...costs?
Bailey/ Yeah, yeah.
Correia/ What would it save the City if.. .
Bailey/ ...went to a monthly (several talking)
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Hayek/ Would you...would you be able to do that in time to avoid the FY12...
Champion/ Well you're still, it would just take a payment out of the next year.
Bailey/ No, but if there are administrative costs that we can save, even by j ust going to this. Not
to avoid the FY12 issue, but if we...if there's some cost savings benefit (several talking)
processing payroll (several talking) right, right, you're still going to pay people. They're
not going to work that month for free. Okay, anything else that.. .
Champion/ I think there's some other revenues that we should be looking at when we
discuss...well, when we discuss, well, not when we do it cause we don't do it -when we
discuss these three contracts that are up,1 mean, I think people...as health insurance goes
up and I mean, I think employees ought to be paying more of their health insurance and
dental insurance, I mean, this is a free ride here. I don't know how you do that, because
you can't negotiate it. I'm sure you can negotiate it. I mean, an arbitrator would...
Helling/ (mumbled)
Bailey/ I think Dale has...I think he has clear direction on negotiation, regarding that.
Helling/ And, we may want to talk about that before we get into bargaining, but I think we
should do that in a closed session, because we can talk about strategies (mumbled)
Bailey/ Anything else for Thursday? I do want to talk about delivery of senior services. Are
there others...
Wilburn/ Thursday I'd like to have just a, um, I don't know if this would be an extensive
conversation or not, but just a clarification about the Council's, this Council's support
related to the fire inspector, related to the A2 occupancies, because, um, we've gone back
and forth in my opinion about support, enforcement for the A2 occupancy, and if this
Council's intention isn't to have that enforced, then that...good influence, whether or not
we just agreed that we wouldn't take, uh, there was something in here about, uh, about the
inspector. If you're not going to support the work of the inspector, then why (mumbled)
Champion/ Who doesn't support, I mean, I support that (mumbled)
Bailey/ ...not full support for that?
Wilburn/ It may be a quick conversation, I just wanted to (several talking)
O'Donnell/ Are you saying (both talking)
Wilburn/ I have...I support, when we first discussed the A2 occupancies and the fire suppression
and the sprinklers, I supported that. I support having...I just want to, it may be a quick
conversation.
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priority setting work session meeting of May 26, 2009.
May 26, 2009 City Council Page 80
Champion/ Cause there was something that came up (both talking)
Wilburn/ That's right.
Helling/ That is on your B- list.
Bailey/ Yes. Any other items for Thursday? I know Amy wants to talk about the Airport
subsidy. I mean, I think broadly.. .
Hayek/ Let's decide what place on Thursday the fire station occupies. I mean, that's a threshold
decision.
Bailey/ Yeah, it is.
Champion/ I agree with you. We have to make that decision, before we can talk about what else
we're going to do.
Bailey/ Well...
Wright/ We may be here half the night but I wonder too about IT charge-backs, and IT in
general.
Bailey/ I would like some more information about internal, I mean...
O'Malley/ All charge-backs? Like, uh (mumbled) that equipment has?
Bailey/ Uh-huh.
O'Malley/ Health charge-backs, and...um, radio charge-backs, phone charge-backs.
Bailey/ Well, they all, do they all impact, yeah...
O'Malley/ Several of those impact ITS, like if your traffic signals go out, our fiber runs to that.
ITS fiber runs that, so they have to call somebody and fix (mumbled). If your phone
system goes out at the Library, ITS has to call on that. So...
Champion/ We used to have a lot of repair people around 50 years ago. Now we have
technology repair people around. I mean, we've just switched one group for another,
so...
O'Malley/ What we did was instead of contracting on the outside, we took it inside. So we'd
have to take it back outside (several talking) same services. That...we can do it.
Bailey/ Anything else for Thursday night, to help Dale and Kevin prepare? I think it'll be a
broad ranging discussion.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council
priority setting work session meeting of May 26, 2009.
May 26, 2009 City Council Page 81
Helling/ Yeah, for instance, on the charge-backs, you know, it's going to take longer (mumbled)
and that's...
Bailey/ ...establish some direction.
Helling/ Yeah.
Bailey/ If we had enough information to be able to, you know, decide north-west, south,
whatever...I think that would be helpful for the fall discussion.
Helling/ The other thing, I think you all understand it, but a million dollars does not get you
firefighters. That gets...
Bailey/ We know.
Helling/ ...plugs the deficit.
Bailey/ Maybe Governor Culver's preparing a nice little gift for us.
Champion/ Even if we get that nice little gift (several talking)
Bailey/ I do too.
Wright/ That little gift is not going to bail us out.
Bailey/ Anything else? Okay, thanks for (several talking) (noise on mic)
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council
priority setting work session meeting of May 26, 2009.