HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-03-25 TranscriptionMarch 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 1
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session 2:00 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, Kubby, Norton, O'Donnell, Thomberry, Vanderhoef.
Staff: Atkins, Helling, Karr, Franklin, Yucuis, Schoon, Craig.
Tapes: 98-47, all; 98-48, Side 1.
Meeting Schedule 98-47 S1
Vanderhoef/We have those long holiday weekends and then we try to come back and
collapse an informal and formal on the same day. It creates a lot of work for
staff.... I would like to consider going Tuesday/Wednesday of those two holiday
weekends... Informal on Tuesday and formal on Wednesday ....
Kubby/I could do that Labor Day but I can't do Memorial Day .... I am teaching a class.
Norton/I would like to go that way but- We could have a meeting then without Karen
around.
Kubby/Yeah, but is that fair?...
Lehman/We could do the September if that is agreeable to everybody.
Karr/September we go 8 & 9, right? Okay.
Lehman/Is that agreeable to everybody? ....
Champion/So the work session will be on Tuesday and meeting on Wednesday.
Karr/I will send a revised one .... April 23rd, 4:00, would that be a time that the council
could meet with Mr. Dover.
Lehman/April 23, 4:00 ....
Kubby/
Karr/...that was the suggested time... Dean is out of town.
Kubby/I prefer 2:00 but I can do 4:00.
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Champion/2:00 is really hard.
Karr/So 4:00 is a go, April 23, Peninsula. It will be a special work session. I will send a
revised schedule on Friday.
Lehman/ .... set a meeting for next Thursday to receive a report from the SEATS
negotiation team along with the proposal from the county and recommendations
and respond to that.
Karr/April 2.
Lehman/Whatever time.
Kubby/I am busy from 3:00 on. I can do it anytime before then.
Lehman/Thursday morning? 9:00 AM? 8:00 AM?
Champion/9:00 is perfect.
Karr/April ....2, 9:00.
(All talking).
Lehman/And we will stop today at 4:50 PM so we can get to JCCOG.
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Downtown Projects 98-47 S1
Atkins/Where we left off at the last meeting ....The Downtown Investment Initiative
involved those four components: Downtown Streetscape .... that is on its way.
Iowa Avenue Streetscape, you have made some decisions .... Iowa Avenue Parking
Garage .... You have given us some form of direction .... We are on our way on
those three elements ....
The Library/CenterSpace is sort of where we left off last time. As I envision
where we are, the thing that we need to hear council before we can proceed to
discuss financial options is a commitment to the project: Library/CenterSpace as a
project. Is it a good idea? Is this something we want for the community? .... I heard
at least a majority of you say yes, this is a package of projects we want to see
occurring downtown.
Lehman/I think we all agreed we would be willing to put that on the ballot.
Atkins/...is this something good for downtown. Not whether it was going to pass or
not .... I think I heard you say yes...
Champion/ .... I think it is something good for Iowa City ....
Thornberry/I don't agree. I think it is good for downtown. I don't think it is necessarily
good for the entire community ....
Lehman/A majority of the council feels it is good for the community and it will go on the
ballot. I respect your opinion, Dean.
Atkins/With that in mind... it leaves us in the position of how do we pay for it .... from
your memo. The project is estimated to be $22.5 million. The proposal you have
in front of you recommends that it be financed by a local option sales tax. To do
so would require two public votes. One would be a vote to authorize the debt.
While the property tax would be pledged as the underlying foundation of the debt,
it would be retired with a sales tax. And a second referendum would be the vote
on whether the imposition of a local option sales tax would occur. I show that
third component of the parking fees... preliminary analysis... Getting much more
detail on the Iowa Avenue Parking Garage .... This one of more difficult to do... so
many other variables... Any fees generated that are directly attributable to that
particular project, you would want in some way to apply to help assist in the
financing. So I think the question that you have before you is this proposal. The
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options, I think, are pretty straight forward. You could choose to have one vote
and do it by way of property tax ....
Champion/Because there is also going to be parking under the Library-
Atkins/There is no parking under the Library .... 100 spaces.. a Library/CenterSpace
Parking Garage.
Champion/Can we talk about the referendum?... Is there anyway that that underground
parking could pay for itself?.
Atkins/Yes, you could carve out the parking component and reduce the size of the
project ....
Lehman/Wouldn't separating those make it more complicated? .... The repayment of the
bonds for the cultural center would be- We would use the one cent sales tax as a
basis for those bonds.
Atkins/No, the basis of the bonds would be the property tax.
Lehman/
Kubby/
Atkins/It is abated by sales tax. We would not sell a debt instrument based on the sales
tax. We would sell a debt instrument based on property tax which we choose
abate .... Would it complicate the matters? .... No, I don't think so... If you are
going to vote on a Library and CenterSpace, you can carve a parking garage
component out. It is a free standing issue .... It is likely that we would have to
consider how that might impact rates, so parking rates may have to be adjusted ....
Lehman/You would not build CenterSpace without the parking underneath?
Atkins/The parking is a component of the project. I will defer to Karen and Susan to take
us through some of the history of those projects. It has been an integral part of the
project sort of from day one.
Champion/
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Atkins/If you use parking fees, you would not require a referendum on that component of
the parking garage. If you are going to finance it by sales tax or property tax,
thereby it requires a referendum ....
Thornberry/There are approximately 100 parking places in that underground parking
facility?
Atkins/100.
Thomberry/In a parking ramp, I understand the price of a parking space is about-
Atkins/$12,000 to $14-
Thomberry/If it were $14,000 per space, that would make this parking facility $42,000
per parking space ....
Atkins/If it is a $3 million ramp, it is $30,000 a space ....It is substantially more ....
Franklin/A parking facility underground... cost you double ....
Thornberry/...$28,000 per space ....
Atkins/That is the $2.7- Mike talked about...
Kubby/I like the idea of keeping them together ....We may need to raise rates for other
parking facilities...
Atkins/Remember, you have other parking projects that may require that rate adjustment.
Vanderhoef/
Norton/We might as well address the issue of sales tax versus property tax ....
Atkins/If a majority of you are interested in a sales tax as a means to finance this project,
I think an acknowledgment of that... Then you kind of move onto the other issues
associated with the sales tax .... ballot issues, timing, distribution of the moneys ....
Norton/I run a bunch of numbers myself. I look at the sales tax. The 1% producing is
about $5 million which .....that would cost ordinary people somewhere between
$4 and $10 a month ....
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Lehman/Cedar Rapids estimates $136 per family.
Norton/For a year .... The sales tax .... enable us to do some other things ..... also leave us
something for the operating costs ....
Atkins/
Norton/Transit subsidy, public safety issues... operating costs... direct property tax
relief. .... It does a lot of things where property tax would only do one thing .... If
you tried to retire the bonds only, the $22 million... that would take about $1.8
million a year which would, again, translate for the typical property owner, into
something like $4 to $10 a month on your property taxes. The absolute increase to
people would be about the same as the sales tax.
Lehman/I think $63 for $100,000 was the estimate.
Kubby/That is not the same as $4 to $10 a month.
Norton/$4 to $10 a month on your property tax or $4 to $10 month on your sales tax ....
That is my logic for coming down strongly for the sales tax kind of in the way
Steve has outlined in the memo.
Kubby/You are okay with all those operating costs in the sales tax?
Norton/Yeah, they all got to be paid from somewhere.
Lehman/First question... Are there a majority of council who are interested in using a
sales tax to support not just but at least a portion of the cultural center/library?
Vanderhoef/As capital or capital and operating?
Lehman/I am just saying is there interest on part of council in exploring the possibility of
a sales tax to help with the projects that we are talking about doing?
(All talking).
Lehman/We have an affirmative that there is interest in using the sales tax, with Karen
saying no.
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Atkins/Would you like me to walk through my proposal? Remember you have really
significant flexibility ....The incurrence of debt is a 60% majority and the sales tax
is a 50% ....
Kubby/We had talked about the possibilities of giving the community a choice ....
Champion/They will have a choice.
Kubby/It matters what we state ....
Atkins/As you package this thing together, I would encourage you to adopt some some
of a policy position that explains that very issue ....
Champion/What happens that the sales tax passes but the library doesn't?
Thornberry/...indicate what that sales tax is for ....
Atkins/Depends on how you word it.
Vanderhoef/Do it as capital projects and examples of.
Atkins/Let me take you through it... We have estimated that it would generate about $5
million a year ....
40% ... for debt retirement for GO bonds for downtown investment initiatives...
that is very specific .... Estimated about $2 million would be necessary to retire
$23 million worth of debt over 20 years .... strictly for the payment of debt.
10% or $500,000 would be pledged for day to day operating costs of the Library
and CenterSpace... Library estimated costs for operation was about $150,000 for
three people... CenterSpace... was about $170,000. So you got $320,000. These
moneys would be earmarked for the maintenance and operations of these two
facilities...
Lehman/ ....if the operating costs... did not equal $500- ....
Atkins/The intent was to give you some flexibility in there ....How you spell it out on the
ballot issue will be very important ....
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$500,000 for Human Service Agencies .... indirect property tax relief. We
currently fund from the General Fund .... $500,000 would be available to the city
council on an annual basis for distribution to the Human Service Agencies .... The
$300,000 in General Fund moneys become available .... $100,000 in CDBG is now
switched back to CDBG for those types of projects .... and we have additional
moneys available for distribution .... that we are not putting out ....
The next one is the public transportation programs for $500,000. The proposal
would be the General Fund commitment to Transit would be eliminated .... rely on
our current outside sources as well as the $.95 Transit Levy. The $.95 Transit levy
is specifically earmarked for the purposes of running our public transportation
system .... Also be able to reduce the Parking Fund transfer which improves the
Parking Fund financial position... We fund out public transportation system
substantially from a $.95 levy. It is very specific ....
The next 10%, Public Safety programs. We are working on a Fire Department
Master Plan ....Community Policing concept .... moneys that would simply be
made available for application to those projects ....fire service, we would finance
personnel from this amount ....
Finally, the 20% is strictly identified as property tax relief... simply applied
against the General Fund tax levy .... simply reduce property taxes ....
Hopefully have direct and indirect property tax relief, funding of certain services
which would allow us to remove the burden on the General Fund and at the same
time, have the underlying financing ....
O'Donnell/Steve, there is no mention here of water.
Atkins/I didn't propose that.
O'Donnell/What if we do propose that?
Atkins/It is up to you.
O'Donnell/I would like to say something, either retire debt or do something on the water
bill.
Thornberry/The water bills have more than doubled ....
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Norton/ ....property tax relief is at least as virtuous.
Thomberry/
Kubby/
O'Donnell/You are asking the people of Iowa City to approve the 1% increase in sales
tax. I think you have to offer something back.
Norton/Property tax relief....
Champion/You know what I like about the water reduction .... property tax relief... more
fair than water rates... property tax is based on the price of your house. Water rates
are based on how much water you use .... I think water has become a burden for
young families .... fixed incomes .... I would like to see some component in here to
reduce the water which would be much more benefit to low income people ....
Kubby/Water and sewer rates, you have some degree of control ....
O'Donnell/You can continue to conserve but your next water increase, your bill is going
to go up.
Thornberry/
Kubby/
Thornberry/ .... kids need bathing .... I don't know if anybody can have less water usage
than you do ..... I flush my toilet more than that. I can't get by on minimum.
Norton/ .... two of these items... human services .... public transportation... relieving things
coming out of the General Fund ....
Lehman/
Champion/
Lehman/We could conceivably apportion part of this to water bill that would be of an
impact that would be at least as great or greater than the cost of the sales tax to the
family .... average $136 a year. It is entirely conceivable that the water bills- The
increase could be reduced by that much .... that applies to homeowners, renters... I
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think one component that certainly would enable... community support is the
water portion of it .... We have really gotten to the top ....
Kubby/When you do water rate relief and because we have a declining structure for
larger users, doesn't that disproportionately help them versus households ....
Lehman/...if we didn't have the big users of water, we would all pay more as small
users .... Proportionately the break would be the same.
Norton/
Lehman/Do we have four people that want to include water?
(All talking).
Lehman/All right, sold. Steve I think there is consensus, with the exception of Karen,
that water should be some component of this sales tax issue.
Kubby/ ....assumption that the sunset clause ....
Atkins/I proposed no sunset clause.
Kubby/What happens after 20 years?
Atkins/You would have to go back to the electorate and reappropriate it.
Thomberry/
Kubby/One of my problems... have 3/5ths of it going to operating costs. That if the
community does not renew this, we have placed the future community in a
horrible position and I don't think we should do that ....$3 million of the $5
million is operating costs in the proposal ....
Norton/
Kubby/...services are not going to be cut in 20 years ....
Lehman/...if that money goes into the General Fund for services and then we re-
appropriate the funds that we are currently using, then we cut those funds off,
suddenly we are short.
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(All talking).
Norton/ .... no net deficit to those operating funds. You would have to go down now and
go back up later.
Kubby/At a minimum we are talking about $1.5 million for things we are currently doing
and $1 million for property tax relief.... And we will probably be needing to
provide different and more services within that 20 year period .....
Norton/I still think it is a safe risk.
Lehman/
Vanderhoef/Public transportation, human services and safety.
Kubby/We don't have to go to 1%, we could go to .5%.
Thornberry/ ....could you say at end of X years, there is a sunset clause on half of it?
Atkins/Sales tax. To my understanding, you can fashion it anyway you want. No
community has done less than the 1%... We will have to check the law.
Norton/I wonder if you could sunset half of it.
Lehman/May I ask why we would want to sunset any of it? You can stop the tax at any
point in time after one year ....
Thomberry/The reason I am saying have as sunset clause on it is when you pay off GO
bonds .... When you have to specify what the sales tax is for and what it is for has
been paid off, isn't that an automatic sunset?
Kubby/
Atkins/At the end of 20 years when the debt is retired, you would be out of
compliance .... There is a provision of the law that you put it back on and can
reappropriate it in some fashion for other projects ....If you are going to amend the
language, it would require a referendum.
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Vanderhoef/...write it... that at the end of those capital projects ....interested in water
relief particularly for X number of years ....
Atkins/...final debt schedule will conform to downtown projects selected .... Assume that
if you want to invest in other downtown projects, you would be substantially in
compliance with this as I have proposed it.
Lehman/Could you not also say that proceeds from sales tax will be limited to capital
projects? .... applied to capital projects which shall include ....
Atkins/Yes, you could do that ....
(All talking).
Champion/If you have this tax for 20 years, it is going to be easy to pass the second
time...
Kubby/We are setting it up to force the community to renew it ....
Norton/The alternative would be to put it in at a smaller percentage ....
Kubby/Would anybody be interested in not going for the full 1%? ....
O'Donnell/No.
Norton/That would leave nothing for property tax or water relief....
Lehman/
O'Donnell/You just have to give something back.
Lehman/The question really is how do we want to fashion this? We agree that a sales tax
on the ballot would be a good idea. How we fashion this thing... determine...
public support .... We have said we would like to identify water. Have we said we
want to identify the capital projects that would include but not be limited to
CenterSpace and downtown improvements.
Norton/Yes.
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Thomberry/I don't want to mislead the public .... I think we have to specify specifically
and not just generally say downtown improvements.
O'Donnell/You have to specify.
Norton/...there must be some flexibility.
Lehman/Be limited to capital projects ....
(All talking).
Norton/ ....water rates...
Atkins/...I don't recommend water... If you say you want water, we did a very quick
calculation and it appears that the rates would probably be pretty close to either
frozen or very small ....
Vanderhoef/Freezing at this point is acceptable to me...
Kubby/What would we take off this list to insert water rate relief?.
Norton/The property tax relief.
Kubby/We need to make that very explicit... not giving property tax relief. We are giving
water rate relief.... There are no property taxes going into water.
Karr/The ballot would have to address that. The ballot would say zero because property
tax relief has to be specified... 0% property tax relief would be stated.
Lehman/ .... in effect, these project... paid for by sales tax instead of by property tax and
the next result would be .... no increase ....
Norton/It looks to me there is $1.5 million basically in property tax relief in those three
categories ....
(All talking)
Lehman/One at a time.
Kubby/
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CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-47 SIDE 2
Champion/Karen, I don't care what the water rates are. I can pay the price no matter how
much they are. My concern is for people with families who are on smaller limited
incomes. Water becomes a major expense for them.
Kubby/And we have a limited income program and we have conservation income.
Champion/Those low income do not meet the needs of a lot of people ....
Kubby/That means we have a problem with our rate structure ....
Vanderhoef/I had a call this week... right now their house payment and their water bills
are meeting ....
Atkins/I thought you decided water already.
Lehman/I think we decided water.
Norton/I would like to hear a comment. You did not include water, was that for some
particular reason?
Atkins/I think it is a user fee. You have it substantially under your control. We have
extremely low water rates for many many years. We are doing some
extraordinarily expenses ....generational issue ....This is not something I would
incorporate into the plan ....Folks ....property taxes are tax deductible and water
bill is not.
Kubby/
Atkins/I can fashion this in a different fashion so it doesn't say zero .... I would remind
you, we have financed this government... from property tax and it only takes an
act by the state legislature to take away a big hunk of our money right now ....
Lehman/Why don't we identify the areas that we would favor earmarking a sale tax for?
We have said water ....
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Thomberry/I think there ought to be some property tax relief.... sales tax... food...
medicine... no taxes on that ....water is a necessity ....I am favoring property tax
relief.... and water relief....
Atkins/Property tax relief... You can take the human services, public transportation,
public safety, throw them out and put 30% property tax relief and reserve those
decision for yourself....
Norton/Call them property tax relief. ....
Atkins/I don't recommend that ....
(All talking).
Kubby/
O'Donnell/ .... I wanted water and property tax .... Set a priority here... I believe you have
to give them something back ....
Norton/
Thornberry/...my first choice... is not even put it on the ballot. Don't even consider a
sales tax.
Norton/We are over that.
Kubby/
Thomberry/I have been against the sales tax since day one ....
Kubby/So it was 5-2 on that first question today ....
Thornberry/...I just don't want anymore taxes.
Vanderhoef/10 for property tax relief and 10 for water. I will go with that one.
Norton/That would be fine. Split that 20 to 10/10 ....
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Atkins/Okay, 10 for property and 10 for water. All right .... You are going to call this
property tax relief and you are going to call it water rate or water relief. Your
water rates will still go up ....
Vanderhoef/
Champion/How do people feel about not paying in the operating costs of the library?
Atkins/I would remind you... adding an additional cost to the General Fund...
Kubby/We would reduce property taxes on one hand but we would push it up on the
other hand ....
Vanderhoef/We are removing from the General Fund our current commitment to
Transit .... put operating of the Library back into the General Fund...
Kubby/Shell game .... Has to be easily explained and understood by people ....
Thornberry/
Champion/If could take the day to day operating costs of the library out of there ....give
us another $.5 million for water of property tax relief.
Atkins/...advise you political .... kind of two options... tax this buys this big thing .... other
is preparing something almost in the form of a shopping list... If you expect these
projects to be approved and then financed, I really believe it has to be simple,
straight forward and folks understand what they are purchasing with their 1% ....
water rates .... understands .... now I know what I bought with my sales tax ....
Going to have to amend some of these others... If that is really what you want to
do with water, then sell it...
Lehman/We said we like water .... tax relief.... number of items... do we want to include
human service agencies?
(All talking-yes).
Atkins/I did not say housing ....
Lehman/We have a rather significant amount of funding we do get for housing .... I guess
I am just trying to get the laundry list .... Do we agree on human service agencies?
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Thomberry/I think we can live within what we are doing now .... I don't think we need an
additional ....
Norton/I thought this is to replace what we are doing.
Lehman/That is the shell game. You are taking the money that we had in human services
and make that available for something else ....
Kubby/...next FY .... it is an additional amount... this is an increase ....
Atkins/10% is applied against $5 million ....there is an elasticity to sales tax revenues.
Those numbers will increase ....
Norton/... I think we do have a responsibility to make some moves in this direction .... We
have some initiatives we are trying to consider.. tenant-owner, land trusts...
(All talking).
Atkins/If you are going to do something for housing, you owe it to the public to call it
that.
Kubby/Could call it housing and human services?
Vanderhoef/We could have a category that is just services .....
Atkins/Dee, I said public transportation ....
Champion/
Norton/Public safety ....community policing, accreditation, PCRB, juvenile
delinquency ....all of those things... fire protection ....also recruits people to
support the bond issue ....
Thornberry/We are doing all of these things now. All you want to do is fund these things
more .... I don't know... I don't think so. I think we can fund what we are doing
now... and have a budget and live within that budget. I don't think we need to
increase all of these things ....
Norton/
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(All talking).
Thornberry/Live within our budget on the things that we are already funding .... My list...
cultural center/library ....water relief.... and maybe...property tax relief.... capital
improvements ....
Lehman/I don't think you want to specific identify or limit them.
Norton/It would be wise to have some options that are not necessarily downtown
implied ....
Thornberry/
O'Donnell/Dean, you are not on a fixed income.
Thornberry/Property tax and water and cultural center/library and capital improvements.
Kubby/What about the new operating for the cultural center?
Thornberry/Put it in ....
Kubby/Can that be worded together, capital and operating?
Atkins/We have them separate now as 40% and 10%. I assume you could make it 50% ....
Kubby/
Thornberry/
Champion/You can't put them together ....
Atkins/Practically speaking, you can incorporate that .... Under public safety ..... I am
making the assumption that if you ever wanted to build a new fire station... You
could use some of this cash to buy capital asset as well as finance the fire
fighters .... You can do that. The wording is very much up to you all .... The public
needs to understand what they are voting on ....
Vanderhoef/ .... I would like to keep in unencumbered with operating in that 40% .... I
want to be sure that we have capital projects in there ....
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Lehman/We have about 35 minutes.
Thomberry/Karen... If we had to put it on the ballot, your input would be helpful.
Kubby/GO bonds for library/cultural center... some limited operating amounts for the
new staff.... housing is a key issue ....I don't think water should be on there ....
property tax relief.
Norton/
Thomberry/...how would you like to see it split?
Lehman/Cautious about earmarking a lot of this for operating expenses .... I don't think
we should have a substantial portion of this go toward operating expenses .... Have
to go along with operating costs of the cultural center .... Wording should include
the cultural center but not be limited to the cultural center .... money should still be
available for capital projects .... Interested in water rate stabilization .... tax relief is
appropriate .... Rest of it I see going into capital projects .... If we pass the cultural
center without a sales tax, the taxes on your house is going to go up about $126 a
year. If pass the sales tax, it doesn't go up .... Money spent on capital projects from
sales tax prevents the increase in sales taxes that are used to retire bonds ....
Kubby/But it will cause you to do more capital projects than you would have ....
Vanderhoef/When we are talking about capital projects .... thinking about maintenance...
parks or streets .... There are a lot of things... taking care of our infrastructure that
are capital projects...
Thornberry/
Kubby/I kind of disagree that we can't find the operating expenses in the current budget
for the library/cultural center ....That is about 1% of our General Fund ....Why
can't we challenge ourselves ....?
Norton/ ....It is getting tougher and tougher ....
Kubby/We didn't cut things... We didn't do any real cutting... We shifted out framework
of how we view our budget .... Do we operate any department differently?... I
believe that for 1% of our General Fund, that we could some operating differently.
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WS032598
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 20
Atkins/We did .... reduce the growth in the operating support expenses. We pulled those
down...
Thomberry/Had a big push on each department cutting X number of dollars from their
department... Who has an idea? Right now there are just a few things out there and
human services wasn't one of them.
O'Donnell/Water, property tax, library/cultural center ....
Kubby/Maybe we should take a few minutes and each person write them down, collect
them ....
Lehman/If we put a portion of this sales tax to debt retirement .... Would that give us the
flexibility of doing a cultural center? .... applying them to any bonds .... Bottom
line could result in tax relief and it would give you a certain amount of
flexibility ....
Kubby/...very important to have the word multi-use facility, library, CenterSpace,
something like that.
Lehman/! agree.
Kubby/So when people go in there, they see those words.
Atkins/Also... keep in mind... proposed property tax relief.... clearly a political decision.
Property taxes in Iowa are controlled by the state legislature. You don't know
from one day to the next what they are going to do .... Understand that that is
something out there that is beyond your control. The sales tax is a 1%. It is based
upon economic conditions. It is elastic. It is going to move with your economy ....
There is a discomfort in using a sales tax ....In Iowa... state legislature makes the
call on property taxes.
Kubby/If we were to put something on there about operating expenses, what kind of
place does that put us every year? ....
Atkins/I would think you would make certain policy decision .....
Kubby/Could we have a resolution like the Hotel Motel Tax that on the ballot is says
operating expenses for a certain amount of money. But then we could have a
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of March 25, 1998
WS032598
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 21
resolution that kind of says what those moneys, percentages that could be changed
council by council but it would give staff direction in budgeting.
Atkins/It is not unlike your Parkland Acquisition Fund.
Kubby/
Thornberry/...operating expenses... sort of absorbed... used...
Atkins/ ....it doesn't have to be used but it is available...
(All talking).
Vanderhoef/A whole lot of things that we all think have them importance... list them
individually... fund them over a long haul. What I would like to suggest... reserve
fund... be 5% or 10% that gives every council hereafter at least some moneys for
reserve .... It could be used out of the General Fund... It would allow future
councils some decision making in how this money ....
(All talking).
Vanderhoef/You don't have to spend it ....
Kubby/Our reserves have gone down a little bit.
Vanderhoef/
Atkins/
Vanderhoef/
Lehman/Have we all written down the kinds of things you are going to write down.
Kubby/I would like to hear more discussion... What are people's feelings about these two
very different strategies... short and simple or longer and explicit? I want to hear
some discussion ....
Norton/Karen, I don't see how we can avoid some degree of specificity .... I think we
need to allow something for other capital improvements .... leave something
flexible for other capital improvements ....
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meeting of March 25, 1998
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March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 22
Kubby/
Norton/ .... got to be something in the relief category .... Four categories so far: Library,
operating and capital; relief, other capital improvements... something in for
housing and human services ....
Kubby/You are saying a larger list is a good political strategy.
Norton/In between ....
Atkins/I want to remind you on the housing issue under human services... It also relieves
the CDBG program... which means housing could be switched to a CD program ....
[All talking - Council members write lists for sales tax use- See Flip Chart.]
FLIP CHART:
Water relief
Library/CenterSpace
Property tax
Capital imp (miscellaneous)
Public safety
Downtown improvements
Public transportation
Community enhancements
Bond retirement
Operating expenses
Housing fund
Human services
Atkins/The only thing I see substantially different up there from the proposal-
Kubby/Is the housing fund.
Atkins/Yes .... intended that my human service, to be able to shift money over to CD,
creates some housing opportunity.
Norton/We have got the same shopping list that we had before ....
Lehman/The packaging ....
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of March 25, 1998
WS032598
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 23
Kubby/We are back to Steve's proposal.
O'Donnell/Steve's proposal plus water.
(All talking).
Norton/ .... recognized that the Library/CenterSpace thing at 40% and some kind of
operating costs .... are hardly avoidable... Agreed there should be something in for
other capital improvements ....
Kubby/One of the things we talked about ....
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 98-48 SIDE 1
Kubby/What kind of community support is there for what we tentatively decided and
make changes?...
Atkins/...How do you want me to take this out for public education as well as public
comment?
Norton/We have got to get our distribution straightened out before we do that.
Thornberry/You can't put out all of that ....
(All talking).
Champion/
Atkins/Would it be- The most dramatic change is water. That is the biggie you added ....
What if we were to go back and try to write- I am going to continue to use my
proposal as a basic but expend the definitions, do a little more narrative work ....I
can do that for you. I think the most substantial thing that you pointed out here
was water and the extent to which you want to go with water is going to have a
big bearing on what is left over for you.
Thornberry/I would like to see a majority of four votes on each one of those items.
Lehman/
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of March 25, 1998
WS032598
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 24
Atkins/You must go out for the referendum on the project that you would like to retire
the debt with anyway. For example, the law says that if you are going to build a
fire station with debt beyond the $700,000 cap, you have to go to referendum.
You may retire it with sales tax but you must get it approved to incur the debt. If
you want to say debt retirement for the purposes of covering Hwy 6- You cannot
do the library/cultural center.
Lehman/But you could include but not be limited to-
Atkins/ ....the definition is going to be a really complex one.
Norton/I think you ought to come back to us and tell us- I want to know how much
property tax or water- What kind of percentages are necessary? What can you get
out of $500,000 for either water or property? ....I do think we need to be very
specific about most of these categories ....
Kubby/We have a time constraint here, too .... We would have a resolution on at a council
meeting in May ....If we are going to put this out to the public, we need to finalize
it soon ....
Atkins/I think there are several things-
Norton/
Atkins/I would not jump ahead yet. The questions I have here to pose to you is the ballot
issue... Then when you frame the ballot issue, I think you have to have some sort
of a resolution that expresses your intent of that ballot issue .... express your policy
position of what you mean by that... Then I think you have an obligation to kind
of publicly say we intend to place this matter on the ballot .... allows us to contact
the other communities... because they have to go through their process .... You
then must give us the go-ahead... we will put together some sort of a public
information, public comment process and be willing to receive those public
comments .... Then. once you have got that together, you have to think about the
date of your referendum .... Right now your policy position is you want this in
November. I can tell you... They are due in June... I suspect you will here from the
City of Coralville some reservations about November .... too soon. There are a
bunch of questions you have got to answer but I do think you need to come pretty
close on a ballot issue so you can say here is what we are thinking about.
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meeting of March 25, 1998
WS032598
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 25
Lehman/One other question... Are we willing to place the library/cultural center on the
ballot and fund that through revenue bonds without a sales tax to help pay them
off?.
Kubby/Yes.
Norton/Yes.
Thomberry/No. I don't want that to be funded by property tax, personally ....
Lehman/That will be a discussion for another day but that is a decision that has to be
made.
Vanderhoef/
Atkins/We are right back to if you choose to finance it with a property tax, you got to go
into your General Fund for operations .... Dean says no, Karen is willing to make
budget adjustments, others have different opinions. Point made is that the 8.10 is
still limited.
Champion/ .... what if Cedar Rapids doesn't pass theirs .... ? How does that affect people
like car dealers?
Lehman/It doesn't cars ....
Atkins/Car dealer is a use tax... It is not a sales tax on cars. So it does not affect it... It is
big ticket items, washer, dryer, jewelry...
Karr/Connie, maybe you and Mike don't have that booklet from the last one... Q. and A.
type of things .... We have copies in my office.
Thomberry/If Cedar Rapids doesn't pass theirs, we don't have a prayer.
Champion/I think you are wrong.
Thornberry/
(All talking).
Lehman/It is time, folks.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of March 25, 1998
WS032598
March 25, 1998 Council Work Session page 26
(All talking).
Karr/You have a meeting, April 2, 4:00 ....
Atkins/I have a SEATS agreement to get together as well as this .... I will get back with
you.
Karr/We may have a need to start the April 6 work session early because of your agenda.
Is there any problem with starting at 6:00?
Council/No.
Karr/6:00 on the 6th.
Atkins/Thank you.
Meeting adjourned: 3:45 PM
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of March 25, 1998
WS032598