HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-01-10 TranscriptionJanuary 10, 2015 Iowa City Council Budget Work Session
Council Present: Botchway, Dickens, Dobyns, Hayek, Mims, Payne, Throgmorton
Staff Present: Markus, Dilkes, Andrew, Mansfield, Fruin, Karr, Schaul, Bockenstedt
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Hayek/ 8:00, welcome everybody to the 2016 FY budget session.
Markus/ Can we start over with a little more enthusiasm? (laughter)
Hayek/ Yea I know it. I will wake up at 8:11 and join the crowd at that time. Um Marian,
thanks for putting things together this morning. Someone is making noise.
Botchway/ It's me, mic on the wrong side.
Hayek/ Alright, so with that I will turn it over to the capable hands of our staff. Thank
you.
Markus/ Well thanks and good morning. There is certain people in this audience that
actually see this as a holiday, this guy, his two staff members and Simon, this is
kind of the culmination of all their work and effort and there is a lot of work that
goes into this, it's a big document. Rick was commenting jokingly that we
needed an executive summary of the manager's message and I have to tell you it
is a pretty robust long message um... probably longer than what I typically do but
the ... this budget is fairly complex in terms of the community. We have I think 158
59 million dollars in total expenditures so this is a big operation in terms of our
community and at the time we are putting all of this information together we are
dealing with all the other issues that confront our city right now. And quite frankly
they are pretty significant so while we are dealing with those issues we are trying
to figure out how to infuse those issues and resolutions to those issues into this
document. And understand that our state has passed major property tax reform
and so you know we're ... we've got an eye out quite a ways past this actual
budget time frame. Um kind of taking all those things into consideration when we
go through the document and we go through the requests from the different
departments to make sure that everything is smooth and that if the expected
backfill elimination actually occurs that we have the ability to land smoothly rather
than abruptly. So with that we will take you to our Fosse point presentation
(laughter) so that you don't forget our long tenured public works director. So
today we're here.
Karr/ Excuse me Tom, we have handouts of the slides do you want me to hand those
out?
Markus/ Oh yea absolutely.
Karr/ They are right there, that pile.
Markus/ So while those are being handed out you can just kind of look at our schedule,
today we are here going through this document for the first time collectively, um
the capital improvement program will be dealt with on the 12th, we will actually
hold our public hearing on the document March 9th and we'll actually ask for
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formal improvement on that same date. According to state law you have to have
your budgets approved by March 15th. So ... we, you know, we are cutting it a
little short but it's um I suspected if there is any major concerns we can adjust
that schedule and meet it but in the past that hasn't been a big challenge. In
terms of um the work session agenda today we are going to go through this
overview of the document the intent here is to give you kind of the big picture of
what the document entails and then get into some of the details as each of the
departments come forward and talk to you about their particular operations. And
encourage you to engage the department heads, that's fine, I think to
understand what they deal with and um some of their challenges is a good thing.
So we go through the different sections of the document and the general
government, public safety, parks and leisure, enterprise funds, public works
budget and then towards the end a Q&A general counsel discussion to determine
if there is anything in here that you want to see changed, reduced in any fashion,
um... or enhanced or any questions you have. And feel free during the course of
all this you know to jump in and ask questions if you have any. We hope to have
an open conversation about this document and how we are spending our money.
The document itself consists of the transmittal letter, financial and fiscal policies,
and a lot of times that is easy to gloss over but you should really make
yourselves familiar with those polices because they kind of guide exactly what we
do in terms of setting up the document and how we spend our money. Um there
is summary information in the fund overviews and then we do a lot of
supplemental information, one of the things that I think is really important is to do
the comparative analysis. So when we look at these documents we want to
make comparisons to what other cities, comparable type of communities to us,
what they are doing and how they fund things and what their expenses are so
that our Council is informed and our public is informed how we spend our money
and you know how we compare to these other places. And there is a lot of
differences between you know the largest communities in the state as to how
they fund things and what they pay for. So ... that all shakes out into things like
tax rates and utility rates and we get into some comparative analysis on that and
I think you can learn from others do in terms of whether you want to keep doing
the things the way we are doing them or if there may be some best practices
from other jurisdictions in the state of Iowa are doing that we may want to
adopt... So the goals for this budget are to prepare for property tax shortfall
resulting from the 2013 legislature changes while maintaining service levels,
maintain the City's Moody Triple Aaa bond rating, maintain a competitive tax and
fee environment for economic development purposes and utilize the strategic
plan priorities to guide our financial decisions. Urn... continue to follow industry
best practices and pursue the GFOA distinguished budget award and the annual
reporting award. Um... just as a note we have received the annual reporting
award here in the City for 29 straight years so obviously that is something that
the City has taken a great deal of pride in. We started the budget award process
and we've received that for the last three consecutive years. It's not so much
that we need to be receiving another plaque or another award but the document
itself is reviewed by our peers across the country and it gives us a lot of feedback
as to the types of information we are providing and just how other places are
doing things so ... we see the benefit from that standpoint... In terms of budget
highlights, we are preparing for the impact of the property tax reform, we created
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an emergency fund last year. The whole idea of the emergency fund was that
we would have a soft landing if in fact the backfill was pulled on us so this
emergency fund not only allows us to use funds for that purpose but some other
purposes as stated on the chart, I will not go into great detail on those.
Um ... this is the fourth year of the property tax rate we are reducing. Urn ... there is
about one point growth in our taxable valuation when you look at the rollback it is
actually a rollup in terms of residential properties. And then you offset that
against the setback of commercial property tax reform the net result is about
1.1%. Um ... the tax rate is actually been reduced since fiscal year 12 by about
6.6% the rate dropped from $17.84 to $16.65 during that period of time and it's
actually going to be the lowest tax rate you've had in this city since fiscal year
2002 so... I take some personal pride in and I think the employees do too in
working hard to you know work on that tax rate and work on the efficiency of our
operations and still provide a very high level of our services. (coughing/clearing
of throat) At this point, the balance at the end of fiscal year 15 in the emergency
fund is just under 3 million dollars so we have set up a situation where we do
have a cushion when rollback is likely to be reduced. And just so you know
um ... the rollback here in Iowa City from the State, based on property tax reform,
is at the rate of 2 million dollars per year so if that gets pulled back along with the
other adjustments in property tax reform it is a pretty significant hit on our
community. And you really need to be in a position where you can cushion that
blow so that you don't take that impact all in one particular fiscal year. Um ... that
enough on those comments. In terms of budget highlights, there are some rate
increases that we are proposing, parks and rec, urn ... there are some rate
increases inside that operation, I think our goal is to try to get operations to be
covered about 50% by our fees for the different programs and facility rentals.
The water is in the second year of two year approved 5% increase, landfill we are
recommending (coughing) an increase in the tipping fee of $4, Neighborhood and
Development Services we have some site plan fee adjustments that are going to
be ... that are incorporated into the document and we'll come back afterwards with
the legislature after the budget is adopted to actually adopt those fees. And one
thing that we kind of came across that we've been having a lot of discussion on,
especially with all the new schools being built, is back in the 70's the City passed
a resolution that waived the fees for public buildings and Marian is researching
the resolution on all this. I think the interpretation on this has been we don't
charge building permit fees for the other agencies. That would all be well and
good if everybody was doing that but we are expending a lot of money um ... you
know... in building plan reviews, inspections of the new Alexander school and
eventually the school out on the East side. And at the same time we are doing
that without charging any fees our friends in North Liberty and Coralville are
charging building permit fees. Now, when you get to the size of buildings like a
high school or a grade school, those are tens of thousands of dollars in permit
fees and so my recommendation is going to be that we take a hard look at that
and consider rescinding that resolution. Now I don't know what all the dynamics
were when that was passed back in the 70's, I have a suspicion it might have
involved county buildings at the time and we would have been the primary
recipient of the county building construction but until Marian has a chance to get
into the minutes and see if there is any kind of dialogue on how that happened
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really don't know what that is but we'll come back with a recommendation when
we do the fee adjustments to deal with that.
Dickens/ there was a lot of urban renewal at that time too.
Markus/ But these are for public buildings and so you have to remember you are
taxpayers here in Iowa City are paying a significant portion of the property tax
that goes to the School District and so if the school district is paying their permit
fees in North Liberty and in Coralville we are paying that and at the same time we
are passing on our fees that come back to Iowa City so it is basically a subsidy
buyout from us to other jurisdictions. So again, you have to pay attention to
those type of things. I have mentioned it to the school administration um ... and
had those conversations, and we all want the schools, that is not the issue, quite
frankly I want the county buildings located in our city as the county seat, I think
there is some benefit in having that, so I suppose you can pick and choose but
we'll have to craft a resolution about that and I thought I would make you aware
of the issue ... We continue with an aggressive capital improvement program and
um ... as I said (coughing) try to follow our strategic plan in how we prepare our
documents. Um ... tax reform impacts, we keep taking about it but it is kind of a
reminder for you about what what's happening. In fiscal 15, which is the current
fiscal year you are in, commercial property taxes were rolled back to 95% and
the residential and agricultural values were limited to 3% state wide. Now the
important part of that slide, or that half of the slide, as you look up there is
cumulative 10 year loss on that provision alone is estimated to be about 21
million dollars. Now shift over to the right side of that slide, and in July of 15,
which is the start of the 16 fiscal year, commercial properties will be rolled back
to 90% and that rate continues in perpetuity. In many respects on the
commercial side I kind of think we, we could have Lived with that, that would have
been fine, it's when they moved into the multiple family that really clobbered us.
The commercial, I was okay with that. Um... and then the annual backfill that is
achieved that is a result of the state trying to make us whole is about 2 million
dollars, so again, that is what is at risk. What does 2 million dollars pay for? You
know, what does that mean 2 million dollars? Well it's about a fifth of your police
field operations or a third of your fire emergency ops or a third of your library
expenses or two thirds of your park expenses or two thirds of your trash
collection or all the aquatics plus all of the senior center expenses or all of your
hotel/motel plus all of your utility franchise revenue. It is meaningful. Go head
Throgmorton/ Tom you just said or?
Markus/ Yes, each — it could be any one of those.
Throgmorton/ Any one of those, not all of those together?
Markus/ Exactly, anyone of those.
Karr/ Jim could you wear your mic for me, thank you.
Markus/ I just trying to give you kind of a what does 2 million dollars mean in a grand
scheme of things right, if you had to make this up by cutting expenses that is
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what it means. Um ... and then you can just see the differential in terms of values
um... between the 3% and the 4% and that is what that 20 million dollar hit does
to you over that two year period of time. So let's move to the next... Um ... tax
reform impacts yet to come, here is the one you really want to pay attention to,
this is your multiple family, multiple residential property class is broken out from
commercial and so we are going to have three classifications of property now
right, you are going to have residential, commercial and multiple family. And,
um ... that value will decline to 8... it's at 100% right now but beginning in fiscal
year 17 it will drop to 86.25% and then every year thereafter it will have a
proportionate decline and until it gets to the rate of residential. Alright. So that is
a significant impact over that period of time in fact the estimate is, and this does
not have backfill, remember that, this is a 15 million dollar hit on our city. That is
what's going to happen to us, so when you start to look at our reserves and you
start to look at our fund balances and contingencies that's why we've put them
where we have. Because I want to cushion this airliner coming down for its
landing right, I don't want this to be just one big bang, I want it to be a nice
smooth landing when it happens so we are looking out and for future years and
for future councils and administrations as to what this impact will be. So we are
trying to create a nice smooth glide path on this without really knowing when it's
going to happen (coughing) if it's going to happen... Alright, so let's look a little bit
at our property tax comparisons (coughing) this has been a focus of mine and
there is debate on what this all means but we were tied for second (coughing)
four or five years ago and we are down now to I think the fifth position in terms of
our property tax rate but you can't just look at isolated parts of our budget
document, whether they be revenues or expenses, you have to do the
comparative analysis to really understand why, you know, why we are there and
why somebody else is somewhere else that we'll do that. Utility rates, um ... we
are kind of in the fourth position on that, a couple things I would note again as
you start to really evaluate things um ... you'll note that um ... Ames and North
Liberty their trash collection is provided by private contractors and so in the case
of Ames they are right at the bottom but there isn't nothing shown but obviously
they are paying something for trash collection so you know you get these, on
occasion a citizen complains that this is too high or that's too high, again you
have to have the context of what you are looking at in comparing everything so
we've done a comparison on this. And the other thing I would say to you is in
terms of your water and sewer production and treatment facilities they are very
contemporary so a lot of those costs are very current. Now I would say to you
while the plants are in very good shape and they have a lot of additional capacity,
I think some of your distribution lines and receiving lines um ... do need some
work. My ... Washington Street is a classic example of a water line that obviously
needs to be replaced and that gets to be very expensive when you get into that
kind of infrastructure replacement. As an older community we have some
sections in town that I have some challenges in terms of distribution system and
we are going to have to make some improvements and that is one of the reasons
we are really pushing for the, or recommended a year ago, the two year water
rate increase so that we can start addressing some of those distribution issues
Payne/ So on the utility rates I don't see Coralville on the list. Is that because they are
less than eleven?
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Hayek/ They are at the bottom there.
Mims/ They are number 10.
Payne/ Oh, why am I not seeing them, okay.
Throgmorton/ Because it's 8:20 or whatever (laughter).
Payne/ Yea, there you go Jim, thanks.
Markus/ Now then a good example though I would tell you, you can look at these different
rates and a year later a communities rates can jump significantly especially if
they have to get into a plant, you know, expansion or a total rebuild. And the
other thing you need to keep in mind is the Feds put a lot of pressure on us okay,
on these issues. So in terms of your sewer plants um ... they may say that your
outfall has to have um ... an additional treatment or you need to examine what it is
doing to the receiving waters and hen all of a sudden you are talking about a
major expansion of your plant. Um ... water facilities you know there is constantly
being monitored you know in terms of our water quality there may be
improvements that have to be made. And I can tell you in the mix of those
communities we showed you in terms of utility rates there are some places on
the cusp of having to do some major public works and your community, our
community, has done those things, we've made some major improvements you
know, we just abandoned the north plant we just gone through a major expansion
of the south plant so over time I see us actually creeping a little lower offset
somewhat by the actual line replacement we have to do. I think we'll move into a
better position over time um ... with our plants.
Hayek/ Do we face, in terms of water, sewer, those kinds of public utilities, does a city of
our population face different or higher um... requirements visa via federal or state
or is everybody in the same?
Markus/ No I wouldn't say they are higher requirements but one of the things I've noted
and Iowa is a great example of this um ... you know there is this whole discussion
going on right now about um ... the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico, the impacts
and then backing that all up here and I can tell you the debate that is going on in
the state legislature is going to put a lot of the responsibility on cities as opposed
to the agricultural areas. And so that debate is going on and I think it's going to
put some pressure on our rate and utilities going forward.
Hayek/ I think the Des Moines water system just filed suit against ag interests.
Mims/ Three counties.
Markus/ That is a raging debate and um...I have kind of mixed emotions. Rick and I had
a long conversation about that in terms of um... how you mitigate the impact and
as I understand what's going on is they are going to talk about protecting areas
around streams receiving waters into the water sheds right and so that would be
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cheaper for us than to do, you know it's always that last 10% of improvement that
you have to do, so what they are going to I think create is an environment where
we can buy rights from rural areas which will cause more significant mitigation
benefit instead of making that last incremental improvement here. And they will
actually, the net benefit to the receiving waters will be better. But that is how
they are orchestrating this process to occur. So they are putting a lot of pressure
on us for that last increment and the way that will work out is we'll end up having
to buy the rights from ag. And that is what I'm seeing kind of evolving the
conversation. Geoff, do you want to chime in and... that's what you are hearing
as well.
Fruin/ Exactly.
Throgmorton/ It's a very interesting idea and was originally proposed nearly 20 years ago at
least and especially in the state of New York and we had some discussions
about that 20 years ago on this council.
Markus/ Yea it's one of those things you have to keep your eye on and the other things is
Matt I think it's kind of an interesting conversation but what I've thought of is
some of these rural places around the state of Iowa, these towns that are
emptying out, water and sewer facilities are kind of a fixed cost kind of deal right,
they are heavy infrastructure and you have to have a certain minimal number of
people to plant operate these places. Well as those populations decline the way
you make money in these enterprises is you sell water and sewer service right,
so as that demand goes down, it puts more pressure on the utility and their rates
have to go up. So in a growth situation, where we have capacity, we should
have some marginal improvement in terms of what our rates are, we shouldn't
have to increase quite as significantly once we get past some of the
infrastructure improvement. We can continue that conversation when you get
um... Ron Knoche up here... So, um ... where was I ... two more, okay ... this is just
another example of a comparison of what other places do compared to us, I
mean look at Des Moines for example in terms of their utility franchise tax around
7.5% and of course that is a revenue source that comes in. Des Moines by the
way, if you look at what Des Moines has been going through for the last decade I
mean they have been in a ... you know... shedding employees left and right. The
impact on Des Moines is pretty dramatic and um... I think it is how they are jux
disposed and their metropolitan areas core city versus the loss of development
that has occurred in their suburban areas which is why I'm so concerned about
being competitive and getting reinvestment and getting economic development in
our community because we have challenges in terms of providing services and
you have to in the long run, you have to balance that with some property tax
um ... value increases to compensate for increases in services and demands.
And so these are some of the ways other places are generating revenues and
will continue with that. Um ... of course we had the whole conversation about
local option sales tax. Um ... I personally have encouraged um ... at least the staff
and Susan sits in on that discussion to kind of pay attention to what goes on in
our legislature this year. You know Branstad came out right after the elections
were over and he talked about um... increasing the local gas, the gas tax and you
know that was one of the major elements in our menu of what we wanted to
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accomplish so I think the other thing we want to do is I think we want to have a
conversation with our neighbors to a higher degree than we did this last time.
Recall that it did pass here in Iowa City, there is going to be some legislative
um ... recommendations, bills introduced this year, on local option sales tax and
we need to pay attention to those um... because they may change things up.
One of the ones I just read recently is one that may actually be something we
might be interested in, it causes councils to have the authority to impose the tax
and it changes the referendum to what is referred to what is typically a reverse
referendum so the Council would pass the tax and then the public could do a
reverse referendum and cause the issue to be placed on the ballot. I don't know
all of the terms of what that is proposed and what will happen. But the other
thing I would tell you when you look at this list, there is only two metropolitan
areas in the state of Iowa that don't have the local option sales tax. If you look at
the dollars, okay, that it's generated from these different places you can
understand why our tax rate is here and theirs is there, because they are
offsetting their property tax rate to some degree. Whether you use it for roads, or
debt retirement or just property tax relief that is having an impact on their
property taxes. So we don't have that and therefore you know we are at the
higher quartile of (coughing)
Dobyns/ Tom, why isn't there a sunset on some of those communities for their lost (local
option sales tax)
Markus/ They were able to pass the referendums and when they put their proposals
together they didn't require, they didn't impose a sunset and their public
approved it through the referendum process. We decided it was the appropriate
thing to do so that it was revisited at some point in the future and our proposal
was 10 years. Again it was marginally approved here, um... in the state and
there is all sorts of discussion and you know we've talked, our senators and
representatives at the state level and they don't necessarily agree entirely you
know there is going to be shift in you know the tax coming, generated in a
community, staying in that community, you know, but we've seen a lot of things
happen you know and you get into that legislative process you know, what goes
into the discussion and what comes out multiple family property tax reform, that
wasn't on anybody's, you know, discussion until right at the end. And that is the
most devastating part of that property tax reform to our community. So, you
know, to me it's, it's all bets are off I just think we have to pay attention to what's
going on because if they do come up with some amendments and we go down
this process before we know what that information is you know we may have to
make a major course correction in you know pursuing this. What I'd really like to
see happen is for some of our elected meet with some of the elected in the other
communities and start the dialogue and really talk about where we go with this
issue in terms of if it's still going to be a metropolitan vote ... Okay so we are going
to talk about revenue comparisons um ... while the um ... in terms of it I will just
kind of highlight where some of the more significant changes, if you look at other
city taxes um ... there are some projected increases in TIF, hotel/motel, and utility
franchise revenue that's making that significant impact of about a 17% increase.
If you look at um... use of money and property we are projecting a decline in
interest revenue, that drives that difference and then an intergovernmental we
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are estimating there will be fewer federal and state flood reimbursement grants
which results in that decline. And then in miscellaneous revenue there is a
projected reduction in parking fines but there is also a miscoded
um... reimbursement of expenses there that I think occurred in that area and that
caused that change there. In terms of all funds, in terms of revenues, this is kind
of a um ... (coughing) um ... the um ... just how the breakout of the major sources in
terms of all funds where the monies comes from in the City and property taxes,
charges for services, that's your fees and intergovernmental, that's your grants.
And it's kind of you know a fairly nice distribution of where the money comes
from. I've always argued that the widest array of revenue sources probably gets
to the more equitable distribution of who pays for things is in city government.
The problem is the wider array of the types of revenue sources you have, every
one of those has an administrative cost associated with it so what you try to do is
find revenue sources that have the least amount of administrative costs. Just like
when you look at you know social service agencies and who you contribute your
money to, you are always looking for ones that get the most amount of money to
the service you are trying to provide and keep the administrative cost as minimal
as you can so um... I think there are some revenue sources that over time we are
going to have to look at especially if backfill goes away ... In terms of general fund
revenue sources the big one of course in general fund is property taxes and this
is a big concern because if um... rollback goes away this kind of goes to your
core types of services, your police, your fire, all of the operating types of
departments that are not fee dependent. You know that is where the hit comes
and that is why when we talked about what gets cut you know that is why we
pointed out those 2 million dollar items and where that comes from. Um ... full
versus taxable valuations um ... you can see that there is a fairly steady increase
in 100% in the assessed values of the properties here in the city and you do the
comparison down to the taxable and you can see how that decline occurs from
what something fully assessed is at, like commercial used to be, and then what
taxable is so that taxable number is probably as a relationship to fully taxable is
going to show a greater gap. In terms of taxable value increase for 16 we are
estimating about a 1.5% increase. Obviously the rollback for residential was
higher than that but then that gets offset by the decline in the commercial
property values at 5% for years 15 and 16.
Dickens/ When is the next county reassessment?
Markus/ They do it every other year, odd number years. And then full versus taxable, I
kind of like to have everybody look at this chart because you know at the federal
level we always talk about this flat tax and everybody should pay this flat tax, let's
make it simple, let's not have all these deductions and all this stuff, but here is an
interesting comparison for you. The full value of residential property shows to be
75% of the total but when you move through all the you know manipulations, to
get to taxable value it reduces it down to 65%. Commercial, if you look at the
green up there, at full value commercial is 23% but when they go through all the
machinations, even after property tax reform, they are paying 33% of the total.
So we are still placing a much heavier emphasis on commercial properties in
terms of what they pay for taxes. It's a political decision you know, who's picking
up the burden, but with property tax reform and especially with multiple family
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property tax reform, the burden shift is going to residential. Now the only relief I
can provide as a manager in recommending a budget for residential property
owners is to cut the tax rate. That also benefits commercial even more so I think
what we have to do going forward is we have to look at these commercial
properties, especially the multiple family, and we have to make sure the services
we are providing them because they are multiple family are being charged fees
that cover the costs. And so we need to be on that every year making sure our
costs are appropriate. You know the sidebar for everybody when they talk about
property tax relief for multiple family is oh yea I bet you everybody's rent is going
down, right, we've all heard that, right, and you know darn well that isn't what has
happened. It's gone to somebody's bottom line but certainly isn't the renters so I
think we need to figure out ways to make sure our costs are being recovered
through the rental permit program, inspection program and any other things you
know we can be somewhat creative on. They certainly have managed their way
into a system of getting reduction and we are not getting any backfill for it.
Hayek/ What um ... what is the threshold in terms I guess of number of units or some
other measurement at which a rental property becomes a multi -family unit.
Markus/ Three units.
Hayek/ Is it more than three units?
Payne/ More than three, or three and more?
Markus/ I think it's three or more isn't it?
Fruin/ k believe it's three or more.
Hayek/ If you have a single (both talking) family house or a duplex that you are renting
you are paying residential rates.
Markus/ You pay residential to begin with right but three or more gets you to the multi-
family. But eventually it's just going to roll you down to the residential rate
anyway, it's just a longer period of time.
Mims/ Right, but I think the point Matt you are trying to make is those are the people
getting the break, if they had units of three or more.
Hayek/ Yea.
Marcus/ Well they are and they aren't its philosophical isn't it. Residential units are
residential units, they have been paying more all this time, that's the argument
they are making.
Hayek/ Yes they would say to bring in everybody with two units.
Markus/ You know it's that whole philosophical point about flat tax versus having different
categories of properties paying different rates of taxation, I mean it's
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philosophical you know. I mean I've always looked at the issue of commercial
properties and industrial properties and said you know every place across the
state country that I'm aware of usually charges those properties more but I
always go they don't produce any children, okay, they aren't sending any children
to school, so why are you putting the burden on them for the school system but
that's the culture okay, you know that's evolved over the years. So, I'm not going
to change that but...
Payne/ Well they are typically valued more and getting taxed at a higher rate also so you
could look at it like it's a double burden.
(laughter)
Markus/ Which is the argument and that's why when I go back to when they reformed
commercial property values, I think we came out of that okay. I was okay they
only reduced it to 90% it was the multiple family thing that really hurt us. I mean
just from a financial standpoint not the philosophical issue that's tied into that.
Botchway/ Do we have anything that shows um...I know you talked about increasing cost of
services, do we have anything that shows what we could be charging compared
to what we do charge?
Markus/ No l- think Kinglsey what my point is I think we are going to have to delve into that
and you know that all has to be completely above board and legitimate you have
to determine if there is actually additional costs associated with the process of
managing from the city's standpoint multiple family. And then tie your costs to
the actual level of service, it's not something you can just create it has to have
meaning and it has to have a direct connection um ... or else it isn't going to be
sustained. So no, we are not there yet but I'm saying as kind of a counter punch
that is something I want to look at least and see if there is some justification to do
some of those things. I'm not saying for certain that there is.
Fruin/ We do recover our cost on the rental inspection program and part of this budget
recommends a 5% increase in rental permits to help cover that cost but there are
other services that we provide that we probably don't recoup full costs on and
that's what we need to look at.
Botchway/ When I was also talking across the board as well because I think it would be
good for the public to see kind of what we do as far as um ... helping (coughing)
helping you know subsidized costs of making it more livable to be in Iowa City I
just think it would be something to see I think people would like.
Markus/ I think the other thing obviously we've had discussions about but it's this whole
revenue department interpretation that in mixed-use buildings once they reach a
certain threshold that the commercial property, legitimate commercial uses,
would be taxed at the residential rates, it's (coughing) if the local assessor
determined that the predominate use of the property is for multiple family
residential the rate at the commercial would be there. And um... Matt and I met
with Senator Dvorsky and Representative Jacoby last I think of all of our
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meetings with legislatures and we keep bringing that issue up and we are getting
kind of mixed messages as to whether we can get that straightened out. Part of
the problem with that whole discussion is that if in fact that rule interpretation
goes forward you are going to have a situation now where your commercial
properties, you know like commercial properties, are taxed at different rates and
that may be in terms of the ideology of certain individuals a desirable situation
because then at some point in the future they can say well then all commercial
properties should be taxed at that residential rate. So that is something we got to
watch, we haven't figured out the strategy on that one yet at either end, we aren't
getting a whole lot of really good ideas from our legislatures yet on how to tackle
that good ... you know we have an administration, the governor's office who I think
influenced that interpretation so there is a challenge in trying to get that reversed.
And the other part of it quite frankly is that it's a planning problem, I mean we
want mixed use buildings that's kind of the direction that you know the country is
going in terms of good urban planning and this is kind of a disincentive because if
you are not able to capture the higher rate of value you know there is less
interest in mixing up the building. I still think it's the right thing to do but it's a
crazy interpretation to create two distinct values for the same type of property
and it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it's a legal challenge at some point but
we're not there yet. So, um ... this particular chart is really a very good chart
because it shows you the burden shift okay, so if you just looked at the bottom
line that says residential, and you just went from fiscal year 14 to 15 to 16 you
can see how that residential category is picking up more of the tax burden. And
at the very same time you can see how the commercial property values are
paying less of the commercial burden. So property tax reform is doing exactly
what those that promote it wanted it to do and that's the proof of that. Um... in
terms of property tax receipts there relatively flat there really isn't a whole lot of
significant change in terms of what is happening there and that is partly because
um ... the values are not climbing greatly and we are actually pretty moderate in
our tax rates. So that's what's happening there. Property tax rates, you can see
that um... um ... there has been a steady decline, not great declines, but... and I
don't like to take things down abruptly, I like to you know I like to kind of finesse
them in over a period of time because then you don't get those major bumps and
interruptions of major revenue or in services and you know you don't have this
herky jerky kind of tax rate, there is, people can count on what's going on. But
even with the tax rates decline, because the values go up, people at the end of
the day are paying more taxes and we'll show you that in a minute. Urn... other
major revenue sources, this just gives you an example of what the hotel/motel,
gas, electric excise tax and utility franchise tax generate and these are actuals
and that is run through 2014. Just so you have an idea of what our other major
revenue sources are, they are pretty moderate. Next is moving into expenditures
and um ... the big one you know that you see that big dip in, is that um ... the
community economic development, the decrease is to fewer homes being
purchased through the universe city program. I can tell you, you know, we kind
of fairly significant inventory of houses that we are scrambling to get those on the
marketplace, get the improvements made, and get those out on the market so I
made a conscious decision not to be acquiring more inventory until we shed the
inventory we have. General government, the increase is due to moving cable
operation into the general fund, um ... cable is going to change significantly with
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the move from local franchise to state franchise and so we think incorporating
that more into the communications operations end and streamlining those
operations is the right direction to go. General fund expenditures um... in terms
of personnel, this is the combined increase of step increase, pension costs, and
reduced FTE's despite our best interest to streamline and cut out positions
through, mainly through attrition as time goes on there is an actual, you know
every time you have a contract settlement there is a burden added in there and
those are offsetting those things. Um ... going forward it would be nice to be able
to have our, especially because personnel costs make up 70+% of most of these
funds, it would be nice to be able to have those costs aligned with what our
revenue are so, or closely to that. But, um ... the other problem of course in the
negotiation process is that you have to be competitive in terms of what you are
paying your employees and we do all sorts of internal and external analysis in
terms of deciding what our pay scales are.
Dickens/ Has the market change helped as far as the pensions at all? Or has that effected
it at all?
Markus/ Um... I'll get into that Terry, um ... I still think we have some significant challenges
at least with what one of the pensions funding and I'll talk about that. Services,
um ... you know when you look at services a lot of these services are really
providing personnel service types of things, it's just through the private sector as
opposed to having full time employees. So those kind of get rolled into the whole
category of kind of personnel costs in my opinion. Supplies, there is an increase
in plants and trees, okay you are going to like this one, it's an increase in plants
and trees and a decrease in firearms and supplies. (laughter) It's kind of a nice
jux of position isn't it, that's what we should be doing. Buying more plants and
trees and getting rid of weapons. Um ... and several office supply lines, capital
out crease is one time capital fiscal year expenses that include a university home
land acquisition, Laserfiche software upgrade, and expenses associated with the
neighborhood development services merger review model. And the costs
associated with those. That floor, quite frankly, I don't know how we got away
with it this long, there is no bathrooms upstairs, I don't know if you knew this,
okay, so the people on the second and third floor or the tower, they have to go
down to the basement to go to the bathroom. Just think about the hours of
wasted productivity (laughter)
Hayek/ Sounds like a wellness program.
Payne/ That's what I was thinking, exercise.
Markus/ This will be a major productivity move once we get that done.
Throgmorton/ Staff ought to be moved in and out (several talking).
Markus/ So contingency fiscal year 15 amendment. Seems like kind of an inhumane
thing to do. Um ... the fiscal year 15 amendment budget is less than original
contingency funds were used, um... actual expenditures moved into appropriate
categories, um... so what this means is it shows this difference, but when we set
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up a contingency fund, okay, we have a percentage we use like .75 of
expenditures and transfers out, so that gives you a number, let's say that number
is $400,000 well then during the course of the year, we take those funds out and
we put them in the fund or the account where they are spent. So by the end of
the year the number goes down and so it looks like there is you know a big
increase in from one year to the next year. But the same thing will happen in this
upcoming year we'll take those funds out of that account and move those into the
appropriate expenditure. So that kind of explains why you have this difference in
terms of from one year to the next. Then debt service, university home
repayment, um ... fewer homes budgeted in fiscal year 16. General fund
expenditures, where does the money go, clearly personnel, and like I said before
if you added personnel to services you'd see that it's over 90%. Services are
really kind of a personnel function as well it's just probably a private contracted
relationship rather than a fulltime employee so ... we are a service oriented
operation, that's where the money gets spent largely, then that's the general
fund. General fund is running what I think, 50 million dollars. Yep, and then
um ... here's the conversation that you kind of wanted to have I think, um ... this is
public safety pension contributions and the City of Iowa City um ... 411 MF, it's
municipal fire police retirement system of Iowa, that's the acronym, I call it the
411 cause it's the statutory number related to it. Um ... for example what we've
done here is we've just shown you what the contributions are both out of fire and
police and they are significant. There is a decline this year in actually how much
is contributed but when I show you what we actually still contribute as an
employer you are going to go wow. Anyway... next... so here's the contributions,
so if you're in the IPERS system, which the bulk of our city employees are, right,
the contribution from the employer is 16.58%, if you are in the 411 System the
contribution is 29.22% and the reduction went I think from 32% or something like
that and the pension plan for the 411 if you look at that line down to 27.77%. So
what that says is you pay your employee a salary and then on top of the salary
the employer is contributing another 27% just for the pension system. Um... I can
tell you, and maybe this is something you wouldn't want in a city manager, but I
spent 22 years in Michigan and I paid a lot of attention to pensions, I sat on a
pension board, we managed a pension system of 100 million plus portfolios so I
have an intricate knowledge of how pensions work and how expensive they are.
And I will tell you the IPERS system is a very prudent system and it's a good
system and my view is that over time um... and I talked to Bob and Dave
yesterday and Matt will verify this, I just said look I understand you guys are
democrats and I understand pensions and employee benefits are a big issue to
you guys but I gotta tell you my experience is you need to do something about
this pension system, I said you need to figure out how to do it, and my
suggestion is, and Geoff and I have had these conversations, cause Geoff dealt
with it in Illinois too, is that you need to cap the system. Anybody that is currently
in it okay stays in it, gets the benefits that we agreed and contracted, but what
you need to do going forward in this state, is you need transition fire and police
employees to the IPERS system. IPERS also provides police and fire pension
systems but at a much more modest basis. And right next door, Coralville's in
the IPERS system, North Liberty is in the IPERS system, okay, and so there are
40 of the biggest communities that are in this 411 system and we are paying
those benefits and the pensions are much higher. Well what's the difference
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between a cop in Iowa City and a cop in Coralville? I mean to me, and I joked
with Bob and Dave yesterday, you know maybe I have to take a different tact,
maybe I have to go out and start rallying that every police and firefighter should
be in the 411 system 'cause I can guarantee you the cities, okay when they
heard that conversation would not be real happy about having to jump into the
411 system because it's that much more expensive. So this is an issue, its long
term, it's not going to get resolved in my lifetime, but I can tell you, and what
happened in Michigan both in the private sector and the public sector if you don't
deal with this issue you are going to have less officers on the street both in police
and fire. That's going to happen to you. Because more of your available
resources are going to go to that system to the point where you can't afford to put
people on the street. It's a generous system, I think going forward you could cap
it and put people in the IPERS system and eventually you'll work your way
through it. And I think it's a fair way to do it, and I think people can live with that
kind of approach, anybody that's going to be a police or firefighter knows what
the system is then coming into the system. So we've actually offered a solution
in this regard, hopefully as overtime, as this keeps getting hit, um ... maybe it will
get some traction and maybe get changed.
Payne/ People in the private sector would give their first born kid to be in the IPERS
system.
Markus/ Yes, let alone the 401 K system.
Payne/ It's way better than private (laughter).
Markus/ And you know that is, I always make the argument how fair and how honest is it
to agree to give employees something ultimately isn't sustainable. You haven't
given anybody anything, all you've done is created some real pain going forward
in the future, and that's what's going to happen. And I can tell you, read the book
Detroit, okay, and I'm not saying we are like Detroit but read the book Detroit and
see what's happened okay, there are a lot of people that were counting on those
pensions, they've got a court ruling, they've cut those pensions, they are getting
you know pennies on the dollar from what they were promised. And now they
are in a situation where they are retired and on fixed incomes, how is that fair?
So we need to be smart about these things and we need to look forward and not
just you know go to our political constituencies and protect all these things that
maybe aren't sustainable. Have I said enough on that? (Laughter)
Hayek/ I think you know, politically the cities affected by this are 40 or so largest cities.
Markus/ Right.
Hayek/ They are more urban, probably more democratic, which makes it a steeper climb
politically to affect change on a public pension system. And there is no incentive
for the rest of the state to engage.
Markus/ Yep, that is why my take.
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Hayek/ That is why your views.
Markus/ I'm encouraging this system for everybody in the state, 'cause I know they aren't
going to buy it. Alright, next is the pension system comparison, um ... yea, I talked
about that one... um... and this is another nuance of the 411 system that I think
you guys need to be aware of. There is a presumption that any lung, heart,
cancer infliction um... on a officer is geared to their employment. And I'm not sure
when they passed this legislation any actuary did any kind of evaluation on this
but that is a significant impact on the operations of our city and any city that is in
this system. So, here is an interesting comparison, and I think what this is
actually, we've talked about this chart, this compares like worker comp claims for
your IPERS employees versus the 411 system and the payments on the
presumptions. And so if you look at our workforce 81 % of your workforce is in the
IPERS system, 19% of the workforce is in the 411 system, but then go over and
look at your medical expenses, okay, and that 81% of IPERS is only accounting
for 46% of the expenses whereas the 19% in 411 is accounting for 54% of your
expenses because of that interpretation. So it was an expensive decision and
I'm not convinced, it might have been voted on party lines, and it was a nice thing
to do, I'm not sure they really understood the financial implications of that and I
think that is another thing that is really putting, it's basically an unfunded
mandated, you know that is a statutory thing. I don't know if you folks realize this
but I can't negotiate pensions, that's not in the realm of negotiations, that is a
statutory function so I mean it clearly falls into the realm of unfunded mandates,
and that is an challenge for us, a huge disconnect for us in my opinion, and again
it's adding to the burden. I, I'm, all about being fair, but how can you say that's
fair and look at that chart and then look at the rest of your employees and say
it's fair to the rest of your employees. I mean that, I can tell you when we had the
fire out at the landfill, firefighters were out there, but I'll tell you who the most
exposed people were to that fire and the toxic fumes coming out of that were
your public works employees. I mean they were right in the midst of it. You
know, they were out there, our firefighters know enough to be protected, that's
their business, they protect themselves, but our fire, public works employees,
quite frankly I was concerned about their health condition more so than the fire
service. 'Cause they were right in the thick of it trying to correct those problems.
So...
Mims/ Tom, let me ask a question I think I understand this but to clarify, I don't know if
everybody on Council has looked at this closely, when you look at this difference
in medical expense, while these people are still employed with the City, there is
no difference in terms of they're using whatever we have provided through the
City in terms of health insurance.
Markus/ Yes.
Mims/ Where the big distinction comes is once they retire...
Markus/ Post retirement (both talking at same time).
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Mims/ Your IPERS people are going on Medicare or their own private insurance if they
aren't 65.
Markus/ That is the distinction.
Mims/ But the 411 employees are going on Medicare but these kinds of medical issues
we are first payer for cancer or for heart or lung problems.
Markus/ Yep (both talking at same time).
Mims/ Medicare doesn't even kick in, we pay it. That is what is so ridiculous in my
opinion in that this wasn't structured where at least Medicare is first payer and
maybe we pick up any uncovered costs by Medicare. We're first payer.
Markus/ Anyway, it's just one of those things that I think over time and legislatively this
needs to be addressed. Alright, let's move.
Botchway/ Well Tom, I guess my point is you brought this up last year, or last time, and now
this time, outside of talking to our legislatures about it, what else can we do?
Markus/ You can't negotiate it. I've had conversations you know, I'm very candid with our
police and fire and annually our fire department runs a strategic plan I lay this on
them every year. And to the... it's an honest conversation, I actually think we
have some firefighters who do really, I think understand it, recognize um that this
is a very generous situation and they understand what it can do ultimately to our
fire service. One of the things quite frankly in a more strategic area I think this
dept ... this City needs to consider is a kind of hybrid operation in our fire service.
Um... I think we need to keep the kind of core fulltime employment we have but
supplement it with um ... volunteer service. And typically that is like oil and water
but that doesn't mean it can't work. I mean we, you are going to have to look at
alternative service delivery mechanisms because of the costs that are associated
with the fulltime service. Remember we are the only fulltime service in Johnson
County, Coralville is a hybrid, the last numbers I think I hear were they have four
fulltime people but the bulk of them, they are student fire fighters, and they are
living in quarters and they provide them room and board and there are
approaches to all of this. The other thing I talk about is people, you know when
we have mutual aid, um ... a lot of our fulltime fire fighters serve on volunteer
departments where they live. Okay, so when we have call back, we call back our
fulltime fire fighters and then we are paying them whatever the contractual is, I
hope overtime or whatever, and we get some volunteers once in a while from
these other departments but when we send, on the other side of reciprocity to
these other departments we are sending fulltime fire fighters down there with
exceptional training, exceptional equipment, all of that, so it's another one of
those services that I look at and say Iowa City is providing services beyond our
borders for which we are not being reimbursed.
Botchway/ So I have two questions, first one being, is it a part of our strategic, our legislative
priorities. I can't remember off the top of my head.
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Hayek/ Pension funds is, broadly speaking.
Botchway/ Okay, and the second question is it kind of goes back to what I was speaking
about concerning costs across the board or looking at increasing cost across the
board, is, I was thinking about the University's efficiency plan and they recently
did and is that something that we should do?
Markus/ Well I can tell you that I view that as an obligation of my office and I can tell you if
you look at what we in terms of paring down staff mainly through attrition
because I think that is the more humane approach to how you create a reduction
in workforce, I think we've made incredible progress. And that I can tell you I feel
is a personal obligation of mine as your City Manager and I can tell you I can't
imagine some consultant coming in here knowing more about this operation than
the people that work it.
Botchway/ I was more talking about from an overall corridor city standpoint, the cost that we
give, or the cost we take from Coralville, I mean burden ourselves with from
Coralville, North Liberty, the other areas in the County.
Markus/ Yea, we know those, I think there is some intricate governmental finesse that has
to occur to get to the actual results, we know what the differences are, but, like I
don't know what the solid waste industry professionals know. I defy most
consultants to know what we know about our own operation and we can make
this better. Another thing I'll tell you is I have seen, because of the places I've
been, and we've gone through reduction in workforce, I think most managers
failed to understand the capacity of employees to adapt to new environments and
changing circumstances and create new ways of getting things done. And when
you empower those employees to do that, you can, you will be amazed at what
they can accomplish. And when you let them do that, they take a lot more pride
in what they do... so I think we've had those kinds of engagements and I'm really
proud of some of the employees around here, and how they've stepped up to
some of the issues you know of changing staff services, circumstances, I actually
see a better energy as a result of that so ... there are ways to do that I think you
know an outside approach that I've seen in so many places for efficiency studies
and all this stuff, boy it's kind of agitating to me and to the employees I think.
The engagement of the employees is a much more important thing and we are
going to talk about a change that is going to be proposed as part of this budget
and I can tell you, you know, and Geoff, Geoff is kind of that good conscious on
my shoulder, (laughter) he says you know you got to go out and talk to these
employees before we propose this in a public setting and that is what we do. We
had three major engagements in this last week, where I went out with Geoff and
others and we engaged the employees that we are going to be working with,
change kind of who they report to and how they operate. And we are making
real progress in those areas, I think we are close to what, 40 employee
reductions in a four year period. And have you heard any major push back from
your public? We've done it in I think a very humane attributed way that people
understand, people got their pensions that moved on, they moved on to other
opportunities, every one of those times that occurs, we take a look at how does
the fit work. How does the organization adjust to that circumstance, and how can
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we you know end up being more efficient as a result of this thing so ... I'm very
pleased with that.
Hayek/ On the fire department issue, I'm glad you brought that up, we've talked about it
in years past, it, you know, that is a general fund service.
Markus/ Right.
Hayek/ It's very expensive, it's the only fulltime service in the area, it's going to be
impacted by property tax reform, um... and I continue to believe there has to be a
way to introduce an auxiliary component...
Markus/ Right
Hayek/ ...To our paid component to complement what we already have.
Markus/ Right.
Hayek/ And save costs over time. I mean, if you look at Coralville, I wouldn't even call
them a hybrid, they have four fulltime people as opposed to our, I forget what our
number is now, 60 something, um ... and then everybody else is volunteer.
They've got a large commercial and retail sector, including a massive mall and a
lot of other employers and large buildings and manufacturing and that sort of
thing...
Markus/ 64
Hayek/ 64 ... who are apparently comfortable with the level of fire service they receive
and they have an ISO insurance rating that is comparable to ours in spite of their
largely volunteer makeup. Um ... they are getting it done and maybe they rely on
our mutual aid and they have the fulltime professionals next door that can come
in the event of a major fire, maybe that's part of it but I just have to think there is
a way to, in that department, going forward, I wouldn't say the same thing about
police, that is an entirely different...
Markus/ I wouldn't either.
Hayek/ You don't want an auxiliary police force, but on the fire issue it seems to me that
there's something we can do going forward.
Bockenstedt/ Matt I will just add that a lot of these suburban fire departments that are, not are,
the term volunteer is thrown around a lot, but most of those are part time fire
fighters that are paid.
Hayek/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ and so a lot of those fire fighters come from Iowa City, Des Moines, were we are
training them and they are going to the suburbs as far as second jobs, so there is
really not a drop off in professionalism and training or service because we are the
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ones providing the fire service employees, they are not working for free, they are
working at a part time rate, say $50 a call or something of that nature so they get
a benefit from being next to us by getting firefighters at a reduced rate.
Payne/ Now my brother-in-law is a fire fighter in the Quad Cities and he was doing just
that, so he had several part time jobs and their union went to them and told them
they couldn't do that anymore. They couldn't do the part time thing anymore.
Markus/ Yea, the IAFF is unequivocally opposed to the volunteer core and they, they are
not very supportive. I will give you an interesting fact about our firefighters, a lot
of them come from volunteer departments to begin with and after they are
employed they maintain a relationship with the volunteer department. Okay so I
think we have a different dynamic than we can make work but it's going to take
some finesse and a lot of discussions there. Um... I'm getting the high sign that I
need to move this along so I'm going to hit debt service. In the state of Iowa you
are allowed to issue debt up to 5% of your total assessed value, we are actually
at about 1.3% so we manage our debt very closely. You will note that is the
comment, um ... the conversation we've, the community has weighed in on, total
debt in the area and that is something that requires management and you have
to pay attention to what you are issuing debt for. The debt should correspond to
the years of service to the item you are actually using the debt for. Um ... the one
thing that happened before I started here was you actually increased your debt
allow ability from 25% to 35% of the total city levy. That was of concern to me,
and we had that discussion when we interviewed, and we haven't breached the
25% since. So, um ... quite frankly I think that was a smart place to stay. The real
challenge in debt is that you do not want to start slipping into issuing debt for
more traditional operational types of things, you want to do it for legitimate capital
improvements, that have long value and that is a way of spreading out the cost
so that the people that benefit from that pay for it over a period of time, not just
the current folks picking up all that cost. Um ... this is just a, this is just a chart that
shows you in the blue what we would be allowed to issue for debt, and what
we've actually issued in debt. And if you look for example at fiscal year 16, we
are only at about 26% of what our allowable debt is so your community is very
well managed in terms of debt management. Next is our source of pride and that
is the Moody's Triple A bond rating, and um ... of all US cities were are in the
6.5% um ... that is again, I can't stress enough, that is one of, you know all the
surveys that you get and you show how good you are, that you are all at the top,
this survey is the most analytical evaluation of your community. Moody's, there
are three rating agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor and Fitch, Moody's is the
most conservative. To have this rating, is the gold standard and that is what you
folks are. And what is unique about Iowa City having this Triple A bond rating, is
we don't fit the typical profile of a triple A rated bonded community. So we have
a lot of things going for us differently than the hoity toity suburbs with you know,
you know, mcmansions on every lot, and real high end commercial, we have a
real community with real issues, real problems, and you are Triple A and you are
only one of two in the state of Iowa. And one of the reasons we maintain that is
because we maintain healthy fund balances and you have a very prudent
approach to management of your issues and how you deal with those things, so
you should all be very proud, um... and it's going to be a challenge because
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Moody's is becoming more conservative in the way they approach evaluations of
communities for bond ratings. So in the state we are only one of two, West Des
Moines, you know West Des Moines and Iowa City are very different places, but
West Des Moines is probably the more protypical of a Triple A community you
would see, heavy, you know, shopping centers, office developments and all sorts
of nice taxable value sorts of stuff. Take a lot of pride in that and keep a lot of
pressure on us to maintain that. Um ... the other thing I would talk about is
Enterprise Fund balances. And this is critical part of having that Triple A bond
rating is to have and maintain significant fund balances in all of your accounts.
And you know, a lot of times what you'll see is you'll get a conservative member
of council and they will say "yea, you are sitting on all this money you should be
spending that money, get rid of that money, cut that down" this is the thing that
Moody's takes a real hard look at, and says maintain those fund balances so not
only can you get yourself through cash flow situations, but that if you have a real
emergency you've got the funds there to take care of things. And so I just make
a couple comments, um ... we are looking at transit for possible funds increases in
that area, we are in the second year of a previously approved two year water rate
should help the fund balances in the water system, refuse will be impacted by a
certain degree by the landfill tipping fee we've increased, and of course we had
increased the landfill tipping fee by $4 which should improve that situation. A lot
of money in the landfill by the way is in reserve, the EPA requires us to have
what is called post -closure requirements for our landfill cells so if there is some
environmental disruption we have the funds available to correct those in a very
quick basis. And then finally the cable fund has been moved over to the general
fund so that was eliminated from that. Next items is the...
Throgmorton/ Tom, Tom, Tom, let me ask a question about that.
Markus/ Sure.
Throgmorton/ Are there any industry wide rules of thumb about the percentage of revenues that
should be, that about the percentage um...
Markus/ Of balances?
Throgmorton/ Of balances.
Mims/ Balances of revenue and expenditures
Markus/ Yes, in fact if you look at our fiscal policies, that drives a lot of what we do, and
then if, there is unassigned and assigned, the landfill is a heavily driven one by
the EPA that says you have to have certain amounts plugged in there. Some of
them quite frankly, like the refuse, you really don't need to hold that much in
there because it's pretty much a pay as you go basis, but its equipment potential
and may have an expansion of a service, so we keep you know a fair balance in
there. Nothing excessive in my opinion so yes there are industry standards and
Moody's by the way looked at the situation and Moody's is now for the first time
in my history, has established a 30% goal balance as they want to see for Triple
A bond rating communities. So now they are looking at the different categories,
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and they are kind of suggesting what they expect to see in terms of percentage
of fund balances.
Throgmorton/ Okay, thanks, that is helpful but I ask the question because the total here is
something like 35 million dollars or I don't know, and so why 35 instead of say 30
or 40 or some other number.
Markus/ But in those numbers Jim there is cash flow projections, there is assigned
responsibilities, and then the unassigned, and the unassigned is kind of for the
cash flow issues, the assigned is usually sort of prescriptive requirement so you
have to assign and set that money aside for those purposes so... um... it's a
conservative approach but once it's there, then from going on your tax rates deal
with the issue going forward and you don't have to build those all over again
so ... to me that is money well spent, and the real key is, you know, ultimately the
Triple A results in less interest rate costs when you have to go out into the debt
markets and that is directly connected to that. What is saving you money at the
same time, it's earning you money because those funds are invested.
Fruin/ Can I add to that. Just real quick a couple of examples, to point out this you
really have to look at the uniqueness of each fund to, for instance, parking and
transit you see a fund balance of 3.8 or 3.2 million um ... that may seem excessive
for their operation purposes but you have to think about what type of facility or
capital needs may be coming up and that is essentially your down payment on a
new transit facility or new parking deck. When it comes to waste water
treatment, that is a number that really jumps out at me, 8 million as a fund
balance, that seems like a lot, but then you dig down further and you understand
you've got the (clears throat) excuse me, the new treatment reduction study we
talked about earlier and some possible plant upgrades that might be forced on
us. lJm... we received a 6 million dollar um ... grant from the state to help with the
north waste water treatment plant, that is based on the assumption we will have
growth in state sales tax, and if we don't hit that sales tax growth over time, it's
the sewer fund that's going to have to pick that up so you want to keep a larger
balance while that grant is outstanding as a safety net, so there are industry
standards but um ... you have to use those standards and then adjust them for
your local conditions and that's the discussions we have with departments.
Bockenstedt/ I would agree with what Geoff said and one of the things they don't incorporate
into the industry standards because the way most utilities operate is cumulative
depreciation and on of the things we look at if you look at our financial report is
our net income um ... before transfers in and out for these operations, and are
they making a net income after appreciation is concerned. And we set our
revenues based on funding our cumulative appreciation which that then causes
additional cash balance. Most utilities do not fund their depreciation so
essentially they look at maintaining these funds balances and setting their rates
accordingly and they are not funding the deterioration of their assets. and
ultimately what happens is that goes on for a period of time and then you see the
hyper rate increases that have to catch up all those years that they did not
maintain an even rate structure. So, what you are better off doing is funding your
depreciation, setting your rates accordingly, I mean that is the the would be the
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appropriate, that would be a way a private business would operate, that's the
sustainable way of doing business and so when those um improvements are
required you've got the money to do them rather than going out and borrowing
revenue bonds at a higher rate of interest that character requirements to pay for
that depreciation that you did not fund preciously. and that is where a lot of
utilities and government operations get into trouble because they took a look at
their fund balances and they think we got to spend this down we got to use it up,
we got to get rid of it without looking at it like a private business would, the
bottom line, a private equity situation. And that is what is why is that money in
the bank to begin with, that is the more appropriate, we look at it from an
accounting perspective rather than just looking at one piece of of a balance
sheet, you have to look at the entire balance sheet.
Markus/ So there is a lot of analysis that goes into determining what those are. Let me
move on property tax impact um ... what we do use 100% assessed evaluation
because that equates, you know people can take that and apply it to whatever
the value are in their house is and then make the adjustment and then calculate
what their taxes despite a tax rate increase or decrease the rollback in the values
results in when you have a $100,000 home about a $19 increase um ... in the
um ... property tax. Um ... property tax on a $500,000 commercial property um ... I
would note it the fiscal 16 includes a state mandated 10% reduction in taxable
value, it dropped from 90 or 100 to 95 to 90 as well as the City's drop in
municipal tax rate. It does not include, and there is a provision in the state law
that that business can apply also for tax credits, it doesn't include that. So you
can see where these commercial values or property taxes have declined in the
burden shift is coming to residential. In terms of budget analysis, the proposed
rate increases will water fund as I said, in miscellaneous parks and recreation
program fees, the landfill tipping fees, the development services fees and that
public um ... building issue that we talked about, the neighborhood services fees.
And what we tried to do is make sure we look at these fees as an annualized
basis to make sure that we are not just allowing the cost to shift to property tax
so that um ... so that we get reimbursed for actual services provided. Annual
financial household impact, what we do is take property taxes, storm water,
refuse, sewer, water and we calculate what the differential is in terms of what
people will pay. Um ... the transmittal letter suggested the property taxes were at
929, there is a rounding difference so this one shows a $920 so you can see that
the percentage change in terms of what the um ... taxpayer would pay is is about
1.9%. In terms of the budget summary, um ... continued funding the emergency
fund to provide the stability for sudden drops in revenue in particular the
unfunded mandates and continued progress in making the community more
affordable and economically competitive. Their tax rates, status quo service
levels with the reduction of 8.74 FTEs from 15 to 16 and despite the FTE
reduction you have still have the roll up in the cost because of contractual
adjustments in pay and benefits. And then building the fiscal integrity to ensure
maintain of Moody's Triple A bond rating. Um ... in terms of budget summary
capital improvements, we have major flood mitigation improvements still going on
not the least of which is the gateway, the north wastewater treatment plan
demolition, the animal center completion, Rocky Shore Drive and West High
levee. Critical infrastructure, the big project there is 1 St Avenue grade separation,
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significant water main projects, water um ... on Washington Street, Wade Street,
sewer main replacements on Sycamore, American Legion Road, Mormon Trek,
healthy neighborhood improvements, um ... Mercer park playground, Iowa River
Trail, Pheasant Hill Park, Willow Creek, Frauenholtz-Miller Park, school district
recreation facility partnership, that is the expansion of the um ... the school down
at um ... Alexander School. And then the economic development um ... Towncrest,
RiverFront Crossings, and Moss Ridge and investments in those areas. Looking
ahead we are talking about reorganizing um ... and maybe what we'll do is just
shift to the streamline operations. Currently your Public Works department
includes engineering, equipment, water, wastewater, and streets. Transportation
Services includes parking and transit. My concern was from the very beginning
that I think the scope of work um ... this span of control over under public works is
quite burdensome and I think it really doesn't give the management of the
department the opportunity to spend some critical time in each of those divisions
so what what we are suggesting is moving the um ... landfill and solid waste
features from Public Works to the Transportation Services and um ... we refer that
to now as the new terminology is sustainable resource management. So that
would move under the transportation services department. We'll probably
change the name from transportation services to be more compassing to include
this. But what I think will happen is um ... the management of that department will
be able to give more attention to that. There is, and why do I do that, and not just
the span of control issue, but we've got a lot of retirements of key personnel in
Public Works and that was expected. In fact just last week we had three
retirements um ... major, key people in Public Works and if you recall when I was
hired and we went through the interviews attrition was a big issues. We knew
this was coming, you know that this, that we would be losing some key people.
To me those are opportunities to make some realignments and to make some
um ... decisions about who gets you know to assigned to who. So I think this is a
better balance of management to urn ... the actual service delivery and so we had
three meetings, we talked to the supervisors of the Public Works operations,
Transit operations, we met with the employees that are directly impacted with the
moves, having those conversations we told them we would be introducing this,
the actual financial impacts are not included in the budget document this time, we
will come back subsequently and introduce legislature to the City Council to
further describe what we are doing and describe the cost. The one thing I will tell
you is that my intent is to urn ... we have one person who supervises both the
wastewater treatment operation and the solid waste operations and the fact of
the matter is the person is stretched too thin and I don't think I'm going to be able
to go out there and find someone with that person's equivalence of knowledge.
That person is just a valued employee, okay, and has incredible depth and
knowledge of these issues. But to find somebody that is going to pick that up and
carry it forward is a real challenge so my intent is to create supervisors, one over
each division, and so those will be new positions, those enterprise funds can
support those individuals, but I think going forward we are going to need
dedicated supervisors in each of those operations. There are major changes
occurring in solid waste, the whole industry is changing as you probably know.
City Carton has recently sold their operational operations to Republic which is a
nationwide waste management firm, so that is going to change things up.
Um ... there is a whole field is in flux, my point to the employees is they have a
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role in all of this but the roles are going to change. The roles are going to evolve
and it's going to be more sustainable. We are going to try to get more recycling
product out of the waste stream um ... we are going to landfill less, doesn't mean
necessarily we are going to pursue the Fiber -Right proposal, there's other
proposals in fact the director has given me a very specific proposal on how we
can do some of the same things. So I think that there is opportunities for us for
us to really take a look at how we really manage our waste, get more
um ... material out of the waste stream and not put it in the landfill and get it back
into the market place as a sustainable product. So that is the direction we are
going, the whole movement is now referred to as restainable, sustainable
resource management and I think it is a good title for what we are trying to do, it's
not the old dump situation of years ago, it's evolving so we had some people very
dedicated to that. In terms of looking ahead, construction boom continues,
University has a number of projects, school district obvious has a bunch of
projects, not just here but across the school district. The City, we have a number
of major projects, not the least the Gateway project, the separation, North
wastewater treatment demolition, park improvement, the Washington Street
water main water and streetscapes improvement, the Moss Ridge Project and
Sycamore Street. And I would say to you, you know, you are well positioned,
you have an industrial park on the East end that has not gotten the traction we've
wanted to get and you'll have the Moss -Ridge Research Campus, you are well
positioned, you are going to have, you are going to have, shovel ready facilities
that we can recruit businesses into our community that here before we have not
have. I think we are going to continue to see sustained economical
development and I think we are going to continue to refine our incentive
packages um ... to be even more conservative than they are now, but we've got it
started and we've got a lot of projects um ... talked to us about and we have a lot
of projects in difference stages. I think our economic development is going to
continue to grow and I think quite frankly you have to make the nexus between
growing your tax base and the services the citizens here demand of you. So we
need to have that kind of balance, you need to have the tax base to pay for the
things your public wants. So ... life isn't about just one thing or another, it's about
the whole gamete. And I was just noting, in the last two weeks, and the next two
weeks, we have been dealing with affordable housing, diversity including police,
employment and housing, historic preservation issues, economic development
issues, corridor issues including getting a communication plan amongst the three
communities and a pilot project to consider consolidating how we operate
between the ICAD and the alliance up in Cedar Rapids urn ... the
interdepartmental issues of transferring departments, legislative issues at both
the state and federal levels, and school district issues not the least of which is
diversity, 28E agreements and infrastructure, and rec facilities. And at the same
time we are evolving this significant um ... budget document at 157 million dollars
with a 50 million dollar general fund. This is a lot of work, and we've got, we are
being pulled in a lot of directions right now and are just barely keeping up with a
lot of this stuff and there is going to be a lot of dialogue that is going to push and
pull us in a lot of different directions and so I think what I would say to you is we
are all going to have to be patient. We are going to need to pace ourselves
through these issues and in a very civil way to get to conclusions that we feel in
this community serve what the requests are, what the issues are, and some of
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them are going to be very difficult conversations, but at the same time we are
dealing with all the social issues, we are also running a major corporation here so
we need to balance all those things and make sure that we have the resources to
address the problems. It's been a real challenge just in the last month, and then
in the next month we are going to have a lot of recommendations on how to deal
with some of these issues. So with that I will wrap it up and um ... I think that was
pretty much it. Urn ... so ... any other questions? We start getting into the individual
departments what I would suggest is to we let legal go first so Eleanor can
deliver her budget and if we have to we can kick the management types of
budgets to the end 'cause we are going to be here anyway and then we can get
into the others and keep moving.
Karr/ So we either before or right after break do Eleanor.
Hayek/ How are people doing here (mumbled...).
Mims/ Eleanor said she needed five minutes (multiple people taking).
Hayek/ So let's have her go.
(laughter)
Botchway/ I have questions in 10 maybe 15 minutes (laughter).
Karr/ Hours.
Mims/ We'll cut him off (laughter).
Botchway/ Tom I had one question though, um ... I just forgot it. How do we show that our
debt is so good? I mean how we show from a community standpoint. I know we
get up here and say we have this triple A bond rating, it's great, but how do ... but
maybe other councilors can help me out, maybe not, but how do we
communicate that to the public. Because you know when you first got on council
and said it, granted, and explained it, it made since, cool, great, but how is that,
but is there any way we can show it differently so the public can see how big of a
deal that is.
Markus/ It really doesn't resound too much of a sound bite but maybe what the nexus is is
that we show how much our interest rate costs are as a result of having this bond
issue as opposed to maybe other jurisdictions with lower bond ratings, how much
that saves.
Hayek/ I mean the analogy is you have got a credit card that charges you 5% versus a
credit card that charges you 20%. That is maybe couching it in personal finance
language, I mean it's a hard thing...
Bockenstedt/ You can think of it as the same analogy as if you have a $80,000 balance on
your credit card versus $800 dollars balance, it's pretty evident one you are
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paying more interest and will owe a lot more down the road. So if you look at our
total debt versus other communities total debt that are smaller or even in
comparable size, we have far less debt um... and then something else we've
never shared with you is the Moody's score card, they actually gave us a report
card last year and you can look at those debt bubbles and see where we rank
among all other rated categories.
Dickens/ Tom, I have question for you, when I was looking through the budget, page 77,
just real quick, I just didn't figure it out why we have the general fund, the
beginning balance is $43 million and our proposed estimated is $23 at the end of
that, it's almost 20 million dollars less...
Bockenstedt/ That, that's total fund balance, 43 million, there is actually a line if you look
couple lines above that 23...
Dickens/ But this is the top line
Bockenstedt/ Yes, the top line, but if you go to the bottom at the 23 if you look just above the
23 there's another total, that's total fund balance, and then we back out what is
restricted. So out of that 40+ million there was...
Dickens/ Another 23 million there...
Bockenstedt/ There was 20 some million that was restricted. And a lot of that was maybe
sales tax funds or it's um ... federal funds, or it's other funds we have to spend in a
specific way...
Dickens/ So that should be included...
Bockenstedt/ So the total fund balance might have been 43 million but the amount that's really
available for general spending might only be 20 million.
Karr/ Eleanor's budget starts on page 113.
Hayek/ Thank you Marian.
City Attorney:
Dilkes/ So there's um ... not a whole lot to do with budget um ... people and pencils
(laughter)..
Hayek/ Books, things it takes to run a law office.
Dilkes/ and continuing education expenses, that's about it. You know there was a
change in my staffing level actually went from 5.6 to 5.5 'cause I went back to full
time and then I have 2, 1 have 1.5 assistants and actually you have to look at the
1, my budget, starting on page 113 and also look at page 140 one of my
assistants is fund by the um ... in tort liability, that's her area. I can answer any
questions you have.
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Hayek/ My question would have to do with the, the level of demand on your office. You
know as Tom mentioned the litany of things we've been dealing with and
um ... most of them seem to have some baring, most of them seem to result in
work for your office. Are you doing okay?
Dilkes/ No, yea I mean we are doing okay. It's been a challenging time but the economic
development um ... stuff takes a lot of work um ... I do, we do more and more of that
in house which I think is good, I mean we need to know how it works and how to
deal with it. We still use urn ... Ahlers as a resource when we need them for
development agreements but we are getting more and better and better at doing
those ourselves. Obviously things like the historic preservation, the cottages, that
takes, those take a lot of...
Dobyns/ Eleanor, what is a sign that you, your office is starting to need more um...
personnel, I mean is it contracting out I mean is there some sort of warning signs
that maybe...
Dilkes/ We don't urn ... outsource really the only time I hire outside counsel really is if
there is a wait, pay for it, like we've got a contract like when we were dealing with
the water plant issues, we had a contract that would require Knutson to pay
those attorney fees.
Dobyns/ The fact that you are not outsourcing tells me perhaps you are not creaking,
busting with too much work at this time. I'm trying to get a sense of the
foreshadowing of what the City Attorney's office...
Dilkes/ Well we're professional employees, we work harder (laughter)
Mims/ You work until the work gets done.
Dilkes/ If there is more work to do, we work harder.
Dobyns/ So that's foreshadowing.
Dilkes/ That is just the way it is.
Mims/ Have any of the alcohol issues started to fall off at all?
Dilkes/ I think there has, I think there has, I think Eric has been spending a little less of
his time on alcohol stuff.
Mims/ Good.
Dilkes/ Um ... it seems like (laughter).
Mims/ Maybe we can get to some really productive work stuff for him.
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Hayek/ I'll drink to that (laughter).
Dilkes/ Yea, no, I mean he's been really.
Hayek/ I couldn't resist.
Dilkes/ He's busy, the property acquisition stuff is also taking up a lot of time right now,
we have um ... 1st Avenue, um ... it's taking up a lot of Eric's time. Sycamore Street
is taking up a lot of my time because we are really pressed to get those, we are
going to start condemnations for some of the big property down on Sycamore
Street simply because we need to be in a position if we can't get things worked
out. Um ... okay.
Mims/ Thank you.
Hayek/ Okay, I don't think there are other questions which is an indication of of the
regard for your office that this Council has.
Dilkes/ Well, I appreciate it.
Dickens/ We could make up stuff. (laughter)
[BREAK]
Police (started mid report; recorder problems)
Dobyns/ I assume it's nice to have everything in house for when you need it but a city this
size, I'm not, I guess frequency of occurrence and need would be an issue, would
the alternative would be partnering with adjacent large municipals like Linn
County, Cedar Rapids, would that be the likely alternative.
Hargadine/ We do that quite a bit within Johnson County, examples being the dive team, the
drug task force, and the bomb team. Urn ... and those are, like the bomb team is
has been in the last 10 years, we've had um ... the drug task force, that predates
me, um ... Cedar Rapids, um ... they are big enough that they don't need help from
anybody. For example, a major case, it's not common for them to bring in the
state um ... division of criminal investigations, they typically handle theirs in
house.
Dobyns/ I was looking at it the other way Sam, they don't need help from us but would
there be a financial advantage for us to perhaps having less than a full service
police department? And contracting out with Cedar Rapids or some other
municipalities for lesser frequent police needs.
Hargadine/ Urn ... being able to do it cheaper, I'm not sure we could. And then there is always
the timeliness of it, are they available when you need them and for what I know
about the Cedar Rapids Police Department they have been really busy this year.
Can they, can they afford to have a team come down here, you know there have
been cases where um ... there have been investigations um ... throughout ... in this
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part of the state and ... the state criminal lab has been snowed in Des Moines and
couldn't get here, they call us, they didn't call some of our neighbors even in the
larger cities, they call us, and I think that just goes to the quality of investigators
that we have. I don't know that I answered your question.
Dobyns/ I'm just trying to do due diligence about our budgetary issues. while I recognize
the quality and value of timeliness of the police reference even if they are
seldomly used so...
Hayek/ Chief there's a ... a ... on the revenue tables, the administration services shows 28E
agreements of a little over $200,000 and then on the field ops there is a $10,000
28E line item, I'm just curious what those are. Is that animal?
Hargadine/ It's going to be animal. The $10,000 1 imagine in the field ops is for Dave
Schwindt's position that would the downtown district contribution (Fruin speaking
at same time), categorizes it as 28E but technically it's not a 28E.
Hayek/ But on the administrative that's all animal shelter...
Hargadine/ Un Huh.
Hayek/ Okay.
Mims/ Have we instigated any kind of conversations with University Heights, I mean I
know they have contracted previously with the County Sheriff and it just seems
just kind of crazy to me that a community that small has, I don't know if it's 3 to 5
full time officers now, when our officers are probably driving through there very
frequently because it's landlocked within Iowa City um ... I don't know if they have
any interest at all in talking to us, but I guess I would encourage staff if it hasn't
been done to ... and maybe it's just a roadblock that isn't worth going through.
Hargadine/ This is has come up before...
Mims/ I'm getting a look.
Hargadine/ This has come up before and I've discussed it with Tom and it really needs to
come from one political entity to the other.
Mims/ Okay.
Hargadine/ Because urn ... for example if their mayor contacted our mayor, hey are you
interested in this, could we do it, then we would look into it.
Mims/ Okay.
Hargadine/ And that is not what happened.
Mims/ Okay.
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Markus/ I would also say to you that ... your degree of prudency dictates a lot of their
decisions. And ... um ... I think they... they... their focus on traffic enforcement to
recover the cost for their operations, I think drives a lot of their equation. Another
thing I would say to you is think about fire service. We have a fire station a block
away, they negotiate a deal with Coralville, 'cause Coralville can provide them a
substantially reduced amount from us. Knowing full well, the reality that we will
be there, John...
Dobyns/ 20 feet away
Markus/ And ... and so
Mims/ Why would we?
Markus/ Well...
Mims/ Well, we can wait until fire
Hargadine/ I will tell you they have a new chief, new police chief, and um ... um ... the
communication that is occurring now is ... is.. 100 time more than I heard before.
And ... um ... um ... he's doing a good job there and I like him, he's going to, he was
a breath of fresh air.
Mims/ Thank you
Markus/ I think you know, I've seen these things in so many places and so many times,
and it...it...it's partly a control thing, partly a connection to their city identity and
those things are hard to change.
Hayek/ Oh it goes back to the old age stories of transit, and bus lies, and there is a
history there.
Mims/ Well, do you get a county -wide law enforcement, I mean ... how many different
ones do we have in the County?
Markus/ I think I counted 7.
Botchway/ Well and speaking to that point, has ... is that another political... between us and
other entities about asking that question. Because my next question was, I mean
as we get bigger, and I think we move to, you know I'm looking at, both some of
the things you've highlighted here but also some of what you've highlighted in the
document for the meeting on Tuesday, um ... which is getting out there for more
community outreach standpoint, from crime prevention standpoint, where is that,
I mean, because that is obviously going to cost money, so where is that burden
or where those cost burdens, they are going to lie with just us, or other
communities, or ... I'm just looking at ... again what...
Markus/ What we are promoting Kingsley, is going to be lying with us. At this point.
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Botchway/ Okay.
Markus/ And quite frankly these issues, these political boundaries are imaginary you
know, and...and people trip over them all the time going from one jurisdiction to
another and I don't think for a moment that the issues that were being confronted
with in Iowa City are any different than Coralville, North Liberty or Johnson
and ... that is part of the concern I have ... I think we are kind of the lightening rod
location to have these conversations and I think quite frankly there is kind of a
duck out of the way mentality by some of the other jurisdictions on those things.
They are glad to let us be the focus of attention and not stepping into those and
so what I think has to happen the constituencies that is demanding these
services, they have to get their act together and pursue these issues in other
jurisdictions so there is some potential for collaboration and cost sharing for
dealing with these issues. But ... we ... you know... culturally we are a very
differently than our neighbors so I think we tend to be more open, willing to
engage, and have those conversations, and the others are, you know, quietly
happy about being able to sit on the sidelines and watch the turmoil here. And
that is a dynamic quite frankly that this council, through the political process, has
to raise the bar on, and create the pressure to get the change. And I think you
folks have that ability, we need to push that issue. And sometimes it is going to
be very uncomfortable, but it is not going to happen unless it happens at the
elective level. I've confronted the administration several times. Chief has talked
to administration several times, it's easy to retreat back into your comfort zone.
Am I making sense?
Hayek/ Yes, and this is ... it is political... urn... and I think some of it falls to this body to take
up whether it is police, community relations, or housing, or the other issues we
deal with a lot. It is also the private sector, the non-profit, community activists
who also need to be part of taking the message to our neighbors. And I think
they do some, I don't think they do nearly enough as they should given that a lot
of these issues are shared across the jurisdiction across Johnson County.
Housing is a huge one. Um ... so I hope that changes.
Botchway/ From a communications standpoint (clears throat) this kind of speaks to the
whole idea, or our idea, of the metro police, it just seems like Iowa City PD is
always in the news, and I'm not saying rightfully so, could it be the University
Police, the Coralville Police...
(Several talking at once)
Hargadine/ ..they say police, could be someone shot in New Mexico but they say the
police ... the police did it ... or likewise with editorials, Tom and I have talked about
the different ways media behave urn ... on story ... it will be a similar story on
something that happens in Cedar Rapids or something that occurred here, but
the same station or newspaper treats them differently. That does go...
Hayek/ And don't we report more through the City website?
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Hargadine/ I think we work harder at maintaining the relationship with the media than
anybody else.
Hayek/ I'm just talking about like the police blog, I don't know...
Hargadine/ That's part of it, we put our more media releases though than any other, more
crime stopper releases than any of our partners.
Hayek/ Yea.
Markus/ You had an individual who is deceased ... in a holding cell, in a neighboring
jurisdiction, do you recall that? In the last year? What would that have been like
if that were here in Iowa City? You all know what it would have been like.
(coughing)
Throgmorton/ It's hard for me to see what could be done about that, we can't control the news
media choose to do.
(many talking at once)
Markus/ Well...
Throgmorton/ Look at our local newspaper, there is an editorial today um ... and the ... the editor
of the newspaper says we've got 6 staff, 4 of them are entirely new. And ... they
are covering the news around here.
Markus/ Oh yea.
Hargadine/ And that is ... we've had coffee with the editors before, but none of them are there
now.
Throgmorton/ That's a problem for us and I can't see what to do about it...
Markus/ And I ... and I ... I hope you see the distinction on Gazette coverage, I mean have
you watched what has gone on in the Gazette, in coverage areas in Cedar
Rapids ... and terms of violence ... and then compared it to what happens here in
Iowa City, I mean quite frankly it's a major incident ... I mean ... I look at some of the
crime in Cedar Rapids and it doesn't seem to ... the same kind of social dynamic
doesn't seem to occur there that it does here at all.
Mims/ They have a much higher level of tolerance or...
Markus/ Ignorance.
Mims/ Being used to it.
Hayek/ Tolerance... complex.
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Mims/ Chief, what um ... what efforts are you looking at in terms of the ... the um ... what do
I want to say ... the not the policy academy, the youth, to get more kids involved
and John I'll have the same question for you but I know maybe this first year my
sense we didn't get maybe as many young people involved as maybe we would
have liked and particularly...
Hargadine/ We did um ... about 12 in our first ever youth police academy, all good kids, but all
very white and um ... and we reached out to several of the different groups that all
deal with juveniles and youth and it was just unsuccessful. Going forward we are
working with diversity focus, Chad Simmons, um...
Markus/ Stephanie.
Hargadine/ I'm sorry...
Markus/ and Stephanie.
Hargadine/ And Stephanie, Stephanie's been very integral um ... there is another name I'm
thinking that works with Chad...
Fruin/ I think Fred Newell
Hargadine/ Fred Newell, that is the one I'm trying to come up with. So we are looking at the
possibility of doing an explorer post, this would be a year'round um ... probably a
couple hours a month and still culminating in a two-week academy, we are still
working out a lot of details, what's our target age groups for example, um ... but
um ... we will have it in place by this time around.
Mims/ Okay, good...good
Hayek/ Other questions?
Payne/ Are there budged dollars for that?
Hargadine/ They are, but they are already, they are already in there.
Fruin/ That is one thing we should probably just mention, everything that is contained in
the memo for your Tuesday work session is incorporated into this budget, so
whether it's the staffing, the overtime costs, the training costs, the police
academy outreach, that is all contemplated in this proposal.
Hayek/ Okay, thanks Chief.
Hargadine/ Everyone have a good day
Hayek/ Thanks for your time this morning.
Fire Department:
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Markus/ Fire Chief John Grier.
(laughter)
Grier/ Kind of warmed up.
Karr/ Fire department starts on page 166.
Grier/ Good morning.
All/ Good morning John.
Grier/ I'm going to steal a lot of Sam's words we too are a full service fire department,
urn ... staff of 64, 4 stations, have the typical breakdown through staff officers, and
then we have three shift captains, 13 lieutenants, one of those lieutenants is our
training officer, training is a big ongoing thing for us. and then we have 42 line
fire fighters. Minimum staffing would be 16 on duty at one time. But urn ... we've
um ... had a busy last year, we've urn ... did exceed 5800 calls, our numbers
continue to rise an issue we continue to have is overlapping calls, we are getting
busier is an issue for us. Um... as Chief Hargadine mentioned we also have a
number individuals involved in a number of organizations and an number of
teams, Johnson County Hazmat team is pretty much based at fire station number
2 and we have a number of people on that team, and we have a special
operations team in town. (clearing throat) Excuse me. then we also have an
(clears throat) ... I woke up with a little frog this morning ... we have urn ... one of our
captains is attached to the Use R Team in Cedar Rapids and all that training is
free, so that is always wonderful. And then myself in deputy Chief Jensen we are
both on the state incident management team, so if there were to be another
Parkersburg type of thing or ah some major incident, we could get deployed. We
are on different colors of teams, so we would never be gone at the same time,
but um ... I will hit a couple of highlights. One of the issues that has finally been
taken care of temporarily is our training center relocation issue with the
demolition, demolition of the north wasterwater treatment center went away so
we were able to lease some space to store some of our bigger ticket items but
um ... um ... continuing training will be an issue for us so we did re -do the basement
of station 4 made that into a training room, it looks very nice, a lot of hard work, a
little bit of ingenuity on our staff and then we are partnering more now with
Coralville to use the regional training center over there, the issue with going over
there is obviously being out of the jurisdiction. um..cause the response time is
the big thing for us, time is very important. so we are coming up with ways to
deal with that but um ... it's a challenge but we are up for that. that is kind of the
highlights, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Payne/ What are the weather alert sirens that have $20,000 from capital outlay for 2016?
Grier/ That is going down in the southeast part of the town, it is just a little coverage blip
down there where the new school is going we don't have as much coverage as
we'd like. And then eventually we are going to need to add another one to the
north as well. And then going forward we are starting to look at replacing
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(coughing) most of those are early 90's sirens so we are going to try to replace 3
a year at $20,000 a year or per siren, sorry.
Payne/ Okay so that $20,000 is one.
Grier/ That is one siren.
Payne/ Okay.
Grier/ And then there is another additional $5,000 for the radio equipment and a pole,
but the ones we are replacing will just be the siren cost because we have
everything else in place already.
Mims/ I've got a question, this might be more for Dennis but I want to ask it while I see
and think of it, on a lot of these budget sheets under revenues it says property
tax, and on this one on page 173 it says general revenue subsidy, so as I went
through all these spreadsheets and some said property tax and some said
general revenue subsidy what is the difference or is there?
Bockenstedt/ Um..well... I'm sorry, there may or may not be without having to go take a look...
Mims/ Okay, that's fine.
Bockenstedt/ There... there's a general pool of revenue like interest income, um ... franchise
taxes, property taxes, are basic pool of revenues that picks up...
Mims/ certain things...
Bockenstedt/ There are direct service fees, do not um ... but there are some that have direct
taxes or property taxes for that particular purpose.
Mims/ Okay, that's close enough.
Bockenstedt/ um ... so if I had some comparatives I could tell you if that's the case or if it's just
an inconsistency in the document that we would want to get corrected.
Mims/ Okay, thank you.
Payne/ I have a question on page 172 where it talks about the percentage compliance, I
work in a world if you are not a 100% compliance you are breaking a law.
Grier/ Sure.
Payne/ Is this a law or is this a goal?
Grier/ It's part of a goal, part of the accreditation process is to be ... the goal is to be, to
do it 90% of the time all the time so it's constant continue improvement issue.
um ... what these numbers represent is our inability to get to those far reaching
parts of our districts, quickly, safely. With the expansion out on Court Street,
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station 4 helps us a little bit but it doesn't get us out to that tip and there is
actually a place that is removed from um ... Court and Scott ... a little hard time
getting to in existing area. And then as the west continues to grow we are going
to have struggle to get there as well. But...
Payne/ So when the new fire station um ... went into service was that in '11, 1 can't
remember what year that was? I mean we went from a 11 prior response time
8:44 to 6:41 is that in direct response to the new fire station?
Grier/ It could vary on where the calls were as well.
Payne/ Right ... right.
Grier/ We all, it's where they are plotted and how many incidents we have. Some of the
higher times are also go to when we have a flood and we can't use one road and
when we write our document we speak to those issue and say our times are off
because of these potential issues, so to combat those we come up with different
ways to have another vehicle stack or on the other side of the river. But station 4
is going to continue to help us get to the east side and we can always jump on
the interstate and get up to the Peninsula area too so...
Payne/ A two minute reduction is a lot.
Grier/ Yea, it definitely helps.
Dobyns/ John, how many calls has station 2 had to University Heights over your tenure?
Grier/ Into University Heights?
Dobyns/ In the average year...
Grier/ I mean we've mutual aided with them. We don't respond in there right off the bat,
we have to be asked, and I ... I don't recall being asked anytime in the recent past.
Dobyns/ So we don't make ... so that... indirectly happens but it doesn't happen.
Grier/ It does happen, there has been a couple of fires in University Heights where they
would ask us to come help them. Coralville would call ... and I was at station 2 for
a number of years and we knew that if there was something that happened at the
school or University Heights, we were going to go.
Dobyns/ Were those calls you would have made even if station 2 hadn't been adjacent to
University Heights even if they had been far away?
Grier/ Yea, Coralville could call us anytime.
Dobyns/ Yea, I'm sorry I didn't phrase that right um ... is the fact that station 2 is across the
street from University Heights, do you think there is an incremental increase in
um... calls made to the station just because it's there.
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Grier/ I don't know... it's.... certainly have the opportunity there.
Dobyns/ Is that a call we would make, would we make a request ... how much ... how much
does that eat into our budget over the typical cost.
Grier/ Well the ... the amount of calls we go into University Heights and the amount of
time we would spend there I think it would be minimal.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Grier/ We are helping out and you know obviously use um ... the neighboring fire
departments to help us out too. But. And we did look at University Heights in the
last year and just the money, they are getting a great deal from Coralville, and we
just can't do what they do for what we need. I think the thing is the number of
people that live in University Heights have no idea that their fire protection comes
from Coralville.
Dobyns/ Coralville gets a great deal because of us too, so ... thank you.
Hayek/ John, there is a roughly 1.4 million dollar line item for state 28E agreements is
that our University fire protection?
Grier/ Correct.
Hayek/ Okay, and it's my understanding that covers 15 million square feet of University
property, something to that effect. I mention that because here is the budgetary
focal point on that, and we talked about the pilot out in Coralville and the
University paying at this point over a million dollars for one building and we are
getting paid 1.4 million for an entire campus.
Mims/ And theoretical our agreement calls for us to give fire coverage for the University
throughout Johnson ' County, correct?
Hayek/ That is correct.
Grier/ If you read the document...
Mims/ That is what the document says... -yes.
Markus/ So the properties at the research center and Iowa River Landing, they could have
required us to make that arrangement...
Mims/ Right.
Markus/ Instead they rolled into the cost they paid Coralville.
Mims/ John, when you talk about um ... overlapping calls, how, can you tell me, how
often have you had overlapping fire calls because I know you guys are first
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responders on basically everything.
Grier/ I could it would take a little research.
Mims/ Okay.
Page 39
Grier/ It does happen obviously the number of fire call, I think, I think we had 93 the last
calendar year, some of that might have changed. We could always find that out.
Mims/ But it's pretty minimal compared to just the number of overlapping calls you
having because of first responders?
Grier/ Correct, I mean it could be fire alarms that we are, we do run a number of fire
alarms, we have changed our response protocol for some of those less likely
events, we used to run a full complement structure event so everybody went,
now if it's a fire alarm but no waters flowing we, something like that, we will just
sent one unit. Because I think it's like .0016 of the time an actual incident on a
fire alarm. It was...
Mims/ I just raise the issue because we've had this discussion before of ambulance,
and who's certified, I mean who has the medical certifications and running our
fire trucks out every single time there is a 911 call and I would just like you and
all of our administrative staff to keep looking at ways we can increase our
efficiencies and I realize that means again inter jurisdictional agreements with the
county and other municipalities if we can find ways to be more efficient yet
provide the services we need and should be providing within our community
but..maybe helping others as well -but ... as we talked earlier about the expenses
of these full service departments, um ... and some of the things we are doing, and
the concerns of our budgets going forward with property tax reform, I just think
it's inherit upon us to try and find those efficiencies as much as we can.
Grier/ Agree.
Hayek/ John, I just want to mention um..in... in fairness to you ... we ... before you showed
up we were having a general conversation that got into um ... general fund issues,
and the fire department was mentioned. I just want to kind of repeat that
conversation for your benefit and it's something you and I have talked about and
I've talked to Chief Rocca in the past ... you know with ... with -with these changes
on property taxes the... the ... I ... you know -with the changes in commercial.... multi
residential .... and ... otherwise Iowa City is going to get hammered going forward,
largely in our general fund and of course that is where we fund fire department
revenues with a little help from the utility franchise. Um ... but ... urn ... and so .... we
are going to have to look at cost saving in the future um ... hopefully I can get off
this council before you guys make any hard decisions (laughter) but ... um ... you
know it strikes me as you know we are the only professional operation, fire
fighting operation, in the area um ... and you look at for example Coralville, they've
got about 4-5 full timers.
Grier/ Right.
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Hayek/ And the balance are volunteers, urn ... and that seems to work for them and
they've got a comparable ISO rating and they don't appear to be under pressure
from major property owners and businesses out there to do something other than
what they are doing presently and it strikes me as um ... that ... we should at the
appropriate time, look at what we can do to introduce some sort of auxiliary
component to our professional system ... um ... to ... for cost savings purposes going
forward. Because it's working in a place like Coralville where they have a lot of
commercial and office type facilities and a growing population. I just wanted you
to hear about it...
Grier/ Sure.
Hayek/ Because we spoke about it about an hour ago, before you showed up.
Grier/ I was expecting it
Hayek/ Yea, I knew you were expecting it (laughter) but I think it's relevant and I think it's
something we will have to do um ... if the ... the budgetary is as ... turns out to be as
we are currently forecasting. So...
Grier/ No, I know you and I had ISO conversation, I don't know how they have the
same, I really don't ... I would love to see the document, but it's not a public
document. The public part just says you are this ... the components of training
hours, I'm sure they get the full one, and equipment is pretty easy, if you have so
many widgets you get so many points um ... but ... just the personnel, I don't know
that part of it and the other thing I would say is, we are two different animals, I
mean it's hard to compare us to Coralville as far a fire service
Grier/ I mean we are running 58...
Hayek/ Sorry, I coughed right into my mic!
Grier/ We are running 5800 calls and I don't know what their fire department runs but I
know it's nowhere near, 'cause the police officers over there run EMS for them,
so it's two difference animals. And I think the expectation of this community is
you have um ... professionals that arrive in a timely manner, that are able to
assemble what we call an effective response force to get the job done. I'm not
saying they don't get the job done, it's just that I think we get it done more quickly
and more efficiently because it's what we do every day. And ... some of the things
you run into with that type of department is the turnover and a lot of those folks
that are on that department are trying to get on my department or someone else's
department for a professional career. So..but..yea... but I've certainly had the
conversations with the City Manger about different ways to look at it, and I call it
a response model re-evaluation, people don't like it when I say it, but we have to
look ahead and I understand what you are saying, we are certainly looking at all
the different ways to do it.
Hayek/ Okay
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Dobyns/ And this is the second year Chief that we've discussed these sort of things, this
community also the expectation that we use our funds in the most efficient way...
Grier/ Correct.
Dobyns/ Those are tough decisions and I think Susan came up with some ideas
regarding responders and do we need all out personnel to do that and I'd like to
see some work on this in the City Manager's office too in terms of giving some
more ... I think we've micro managed enough ... I think you guys need to take the
baton and give us some ideas over the next year...
Grier/ Sure.
Payne/ I had a couple questions, sorry Jim...
Throgmorton/ Go ahead.
Payne/ Um ... on page 173 there is a line for charges for fees and services, fire services,
is that like inspections? Or ... like inspections... urn... business inspections that you
do every other year I think.
Grier/ Confined spaces I think we do some confine space where we would get fees we
charge fees.
Payne/ And then, I think I remember last year talking about the ... or maybe it was the
year before ... um ... if you get a repeated calls, for the same thing, from the same
location, that they could get a charge?
Grier/ Correct.
Payne/ Is that this line that's the 2384 on the 2015 revised, same page ... so you don't
really budget for that because you don't know if you are going to get it?
Grier/ Correct, urn... sometimes the private ambulance service will call us to come help
them do something and since they are getting paid, we would bill them.
Payne/ Okay.
Grier/ Or if we go to a repeat customer that ... then we do bill as well.
Payne/ And then my final question is the capital outlay shows a trench rescue trailer for
$33,000.
Grier/ Correct.
Payne/ Is that something ... I mean ... Iowa City, North Liberty, Coralville, everybody
doesn't need that same piece of specialized equipment is that something that you
could um ... purchase as a together so everybody could use it, or does it take
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specialized training on it, and so you would get specialized training on it if they
need it they will call and we will bill them to use it, to use our services.
Grier/ Correct, the ... we all do specialized training in all the high angle, water, trench,
building shoring, all those... there's technician level classes and we are moving for
all our personnel to be a technician and the neighboring departments would not
have that expertise. So we would be the experts they would call upon. Now we
could look at something like the Hazmat truck, where it would be something
funded by everybody, but...
Payne/ So in those cases I know we have mutual aid agreements, but if they called for
assistance, would we bill them because they are specialized.
Grier/ We would not bill the city.
Payne/ No?
Grier/ No.
Payne/ Okay.
Grier/ If there was um ... we do some billing for Hazmat if a semi -trailer comes through
and does its thing we do charge that carrier. So if, I would have to check with
legal of course, but I do know we charge back for some things, whatever we can
we do.
Payne/ Okay. Thank you.
Throgmorton/ Looking ahead, when do you think we will need a new fifth fire station and where
do you think it would be located?
Grier/ Well ... I think we will need it sooner rather than later ... we might have to look at
some shifting around in what we are doing, planning to do over the next year is
do a no standard of cover document which basically looks at our whole ... all the
risks associated with our city and evaluates your station locations, your ability to
get to all the places in your city, so as we continue to grow south, we need to
look down ... we need ... one planned for down there and as we continue west then
there would be one over that way too. It kind of depends on what area grows
more quickly. Right now we have a difficult time getting out to the eastern fringe
of the town.
Fruin/ The reallocation of resources in this study they are going through that is
something that from our office stand point we are going to assist we look at
before we even start a conversation on ... on the next station or the next two
stations... it's ... um ... it's so much more um ... economical to even pick up and move
a station and spend 3 or 4 million as a one-time capital expense than to invest in
a station where you are going to have the kind of staff you see on that screen
there. So that is going to be something that is going to take a lot of analysis and
as John stated they are starting that process.
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Mims/ Yea it would seem to me that moving into some sort of auxiliary model along with
or prior to full implementing new stations just so we can help control personnel
costs is something we have to look very very carefully.
Grier/ And there are certainly models out there that have worked and getting the ball
rolling, because as you can imagine there is resistance to evaluating those
things.
Mims/ Understand.
Hayek/ Any other questions for John? Thanks Chief.
Grier/ Thanks much, have a great day.
Hayek/ Thanks for the service you department provides.
Grier/ Thank you.
Library:
Karr/ Library is page 205.
Trogmorton/ Hello Susan.
Craig/ Hello.
Fruin/ Good morning. Susan if you wouldn't mind just hitting next on the PowerPoint
there, the arrow ... or...
Craig/ I'm glad I was able to do that (laughter) I depend on my staff for some of my
technology. So this year, the Iowa City Public Library is still the single busiest
public library building in the State of Iowa, we had over 700,000 people through
the door last year and our ... the busiest time of year for us is in the summer, and
in the summer we were averaging between 20,000 and 22,000 visitors per week.
Um ... compared to the public libraries in Iowa's 10 largest cities, only Des Moines,
who has 5 buildings and 200,000 people had more people through their library
doors than we did. The average for the other 8 libraries, which between them
have 13 facilities was about 400,000 so 60% of what we do. Um ... our library is
truly a destination point. One highlight of the last year was the completion of the
two year building improvements plan. All those improvements have met with lots
of compliments and seem to be working really well for us, but the one I want to
highlight because I think ... I'm just so pleased with how it's working out is the
Kozer Family Teen Center for the first time we have a room with walls to put
teens in, and um ... they are ... you never know with teenagers whether they are
going to come ... if you build it will they come ... well they have been. The space
opened in the fall of 2013 and the number of programs last year grew over 50%
with an attendance of 3200. The first six months of this year that we just ended
in December, we had an attendance of 2961 at 197 events. We've partnered
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with the University for several programs in that space including a well -intended
called Way Cool Chemistry. Um ... and we didn't have the fire department there at
all ... and with the school districts we've been doing um ... we've been partnering
with their home school assistant program for a teen book club that's aimed at
home schooled students. I'm also very excited last year about our success with
renewed efforts to involve more kids um ... and adults ... in summer reading
program. You know all studies show that kids that continue reading through the
summer do not backslide um ... we worked with the Iowa City School District, the
Coralville Public Library, the North Liberty Community Library and the United
Way of Johnson and Washington Counties last summer to make special efforts
to reach out to under -served families and children. We made outreach efforts to
elementary schools serving lower income families and worked with the school
personnel to register kids for library cards. Um ... we worked with a local church
group to canvas an area with high concentration of Spanish speaking families to
drop off library card information and during the summer we visited the two
neighborhood centers weekly to promote reading and library visits. This work
resulted in a growth of almost 1000 more children registered for summer reading
program than the year before. Um ... we also promoted the summer library bus
that allows a free bus ride downtown during certain hours if you just show your
library cards and we saw those numbers double last summer. 2014 was also a
planning year for us, we engaged a consultant to conduct community surveys,
hold focus groups, and work with the planning committee. 94.3% of mail
survey ... m.a.i.l. every time I say that I go m.a.l.e. no, m.a.i.l. survey responses
said the library was either a central or very important to the quality of life in our
community and this was the highest positive rating that the consultant had ever
experienced. The 2016-2021 plan was adopted by the library board in
September, you all got copies of it electronically, I brought paper copies today if
any of you would like to see those. I just wanted to read you our um ... new
mission statement. The Iowa City Public Library is a center of community life that
connects people of all ages with information. Engages them with the world of
ideas and with each other. And enriches the community by supporting learning,
promoting literacy and encouraging creativity. Our FY16 budget request does
not include any major level service changes, staffing is down slightly due to some
position adjustments following a retirement. We will be continuing to develop
um ... partnerships we have in place, growing our outreach and summer reading
efforts, revamping our website, and planning for what I hope will be a great fun
series of music events during the 14-15 school year to welcome the College of
Music officially downtown. Urn ... looking further ahead in FY17 is ... is stated in our
plan and you see in the capital improvements budget request we hope to
introduce a book mobile service. Questions?
Botchway/ So ... I'm sure everybody else is excited, but I just get excited about the
library ... just because the ... of the ... I don't know if it's this year ... from last year to
this year ... just the changes you made just within the library have been
phenomenal. I think I was there yesterday for an annual review and was just
doing ... or an ... yea annual review ... and she was doing something else and um..
was in and out quick, I love that ... um ... I don't want to say anymore because I
don't want to take up anyone else's time, but you could just ... I like it a lot.
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Craig/ Thank you.
Botchway/ So good job.
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Payne/ I think our library is phenomenal too, I love to do there. Um ... I do have a
question on page 209 on capital outlay, the RFID tags, do these go on the
books? Are these a tag that go on the book?
Craig/ They go on all... all... both books and the media. It's urn ... what lets you check out
through self -check and also if it's not checked out it alerts at the gate that...
Payne/ It signals?
Craig/ Yes.
Payne/ Urn ... so are these replacements then of bad ones? Or do we not have them on
everything yet?
Craig/ No, this is for the new materials.
Payne/ Oh so it's to put on new materials that come in.
Craig/ Right, everything that comes in ... everything new gets a tag put on it.
Payne/ Okay.
Dickens/ What does the Foundation bring in every year as far as dollars?
Craig/ The Foundation gives us an annual gift from their annual fund and fundraising of
about $100,000 and then in addition, they channel to us designation gifts
so ... um ... if ... if someone comes in we get .... if someone comes in as this
happened at the end of the year ... and says here's $500 1 want you to buy
children's books with it ... you know that doesn't count in that $100,000 so we
typically um ... see revenue from the Foundation in the 100,000 to 200,000 range
depending on other kinds of gifts. They urn ... committed to raise a substantial
amount of money for those building improvements, it was about $250,000 that
they raised and they have committed, if we move ahead with the book mobile,
that they will raise um ... more than the half of the cost of that vehicle. So then ... I
think we are very fortunate with our Foundation because most foundations that I
hear about and have experience with for libraries typically only raise money for
big ticket capital items like a book mobile or a building renovation but we get an
annual amount of money that we use for collections and technology
upgrades ... and things like that.
Dickens/ Thanks.
Dobyns/ You know Susan, the blue zones um ... ideas are going through um ... the Power 9
as you market the library and um ... maybe you and Robin can think about this but
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the 8th and 9th part of the Power 9 Blue Zones they talk about ideas which I
agree about that but take a look at the final two parts of the Power 9 Blue Zones
um...in terms of ... I think there is a lot of wellness and it just isn't Mike in Park &
Rec that is about wellness, I think the library also makes people well in various
ways in terms of um ... avoiding social isolation and getting them to work with their
families in terms of their children... there is a lot there ... in terms of how you guys
market yourselves. I think there is a lot of overlap that you can be thoughtful
about what the library does.
Craig/ I just wrote a ... a blog post about that really ties into the top 10 reasons to really
visit the library more and the first one was you get to have some exercise getting
there because we don't have convenient parking so...
(laughter)
Dobyns/ Well that is (unable to understand, too much laughter and noise).
Craig/ And I also said when it's really cold come walk around the second floor because
it's a block long and if you walk around it twice you've walked four blocks.
Dobyns/ Well if Mike has books in his park, you should have at least exercise in your
library.
Craig/ There you go.
Hayek/ Susan, um ... there ... I see four contracts with local communities...
Craig/ Yes.
Hayek/ Um ... is there a consistency across those contracts or are they an ad hoc
negotiations?
Craig/ Well, well I have to call our Deb Mansfield here who figures out those contracts
every year and most of the ... the one that is a little different is University Heights
because they pay both Coralville and Iowa City for library service, but the others,
Lone Tree, Hills and the County um ... all are based on the same -you know each
of those contacts model the other. And they are based on a percentage of the
tax support we get from Iowa City and then we look at the percentage of
circulation that that district accounts for and um ... they pay that percentage and
our County contract um ... we get significant amount of money from our contracts
and are pretty much the envy of many other libraries in Iowa who pretty much
sort of take what County Boards of Supervisors give them. We have a history
that predates me that if you want the service you need to pay what it costs to
Iowa City people.
Hayek/ Okay you are comfortable with our arrangements?
Craig/ Yes.
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Hayek/ Okay. And then my other question is kind of a more ... it's a broader, more
abstract question, you know I look across the array of City departments and
services and I think with... with... with maybe a few exceptions with what we do
with solid waste and those type of things over the long run
and... and... and... where some of our Parks & Rec stuff goes, in like our rec center
you know which has seen a complete change at least in how the downtown
building is used now versus when I was kid going there on Saturdays ... Um ... a
library is vibrant now obviously, but is part of social changes that are just going to
provide us with an unknown future and as we digitize and as people's habits
change and there is less reliance on hard copy books ... all these changes ... are
you comfortable that the library is positioning itself to be relevant?
Craig/ I'm very comfortable with that.
Hayek/ 20 years.
Craig/ And I think we talked, the group that worked on the strategic plan, talked a lot
about that. We tried to address those kinds of issues in our surveying and ... and
the focus groups that were conducted and there is less reliance, our circulation
went down, I want to say 6%, we still have a very high circulation per capita and
people in Iowa City read more than most people do but they are reading in
different areas and doing different things. The difference gets picked up in the
types of social activities we do. You can't just sit in front of a screen all day and
every day and the meetings that people still want to have to bring people
together and the role that we play in early childhood literacy that really nobody
else does to the extent that we do it, and I think libraries are finally getting credit,
for something again 50, 60 more years um ... getting kids ready for school. So
some of those roles just don't change. And giving people a place to socialize,
see people face to face, um ... those are all ... I think we are doing good and that
we are looking far enough ahead to try and be responsive for what people want
from us. I am grateful many many times a week that we are where we
are ... when I think people thought we should not be downtown, when that building
was first built in the 1980's and again when the remodel was done, that would
have been such a mistake to put us out on the edge of town with a big parking
lot, you know, we bring people of downtown and it is the center of town, the hub
of what is going on and that is what we want people.
Payne/ And kind of going along with that, on page 206 there is a highlight on the top
talking about the circulation. Does that circulation include if somebody checks
out a book online?
Craig/ Yes.
Payne/ Okay.
Craig/ That is one area where our circulation is going up, people are still ... they are still
incremental rise of both... electronic media, both books that you download in print
format and audio books as well.
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Payne/ It will be interesting to see that trend, you know, the hard copy checkouts versus
the online checkouts and trend that and obviously one is going to go down while
the other goes up but it would be interesting to see that trend too.
Craig/ Nationally people are seeing the use of eBooks level off. You know, people are
not wanting to sit in front of a screen all the time and the most popular eBook
users are people who travel which makes sense, you don't want to lug three
books with you, you take one eReader. And certainly there are people devoted
to them um ... but you know one place where you ... it's interesting, you know in our
large print collections, our circulation is going down because people who need
the large print are using the eBooks because they can expand the contrast and
the size of the print. So ... it's just the little nuances with keeping up with it.
Payne/ Yea, I definitely understand that, I mean we get our packets online now, we
stare ... I mean we go to work and stare at the computer for 10 or 12 hours a day
and then come home and read a packet...
Craig/ Right.
Payne/ ...or read a book and I'm still online ... no ... I want a hard copy ... I don't want....
Craig/ Exactly, that is why I brought the hard copies of this ... I thought I would rather
read a hard copy.
Dobyns/ Some of us read it closer than others Michelle.
(laughter)
Hayek/ You learn to read. Any other questions for Susan? Thank you so much.
Craig/ Thank you. And I'll just leave some of these with Marian if somebody wants one.
Bockenstedt/ Susan, I would just point out on page 209 in there you asked about the property
tax versus the general fund subsidy and the ... um ... this is an instance where there
is a property tax levy.
Craig/ Right.
Bockenstedt/ Specific to the library...
Craig/ Yep.
Mims/ Thanks.
Bockenstedt/ And so that it is shown as a separate funding source.
Craig/ Thank you.
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Hayek/ And that is a levy with no sunset.
Bockenstedt/ Right it's a 27 cent levy dedicated just to the library.
Dobyns/ Was that by Council to create a pass or is that by public vote?
Bockenstedt/ Public vote.
Craig/ Public vote.
Dobyns/ Okay, that is what I thought, okay.
Parks and Recreation:
Karr/ Parks & Recreation starts on page 182.
Hayek/ Good morning Mike.
Moran/ Greetings everybody, how are you?
All/ Good ... good -thank you.
Moran/ It's early right.
All/ No ... not anymore ... (laughter)
Moran/ Yea...
Hayek/ That is correct Mike, it's still early.
Moran/ For some of us. (laughter) Um ... I'll start with Park & Recreation administration
and go through in the order you've got it in your budget book urn ... couple of
changes in administration or differences you will see is we had -we will have
quite a bit of neighborhood stabilization going on with spending down urn ... our
neighborhood open space monies. We have lots of projects you'll see on Tower
Court, Hickory Trail, Mercer Park Playground, Reno Street and Pheasant Hill and
those will all be project we are currently working with neighborhoods with and
have neighborhood meetings with and have them input on the design of their
neighborhood parks. Um ... in addition to that we will also have other
neighborhood improvements at Highland Park, Willow Creek Kiwanis Park, and
Fairmeadows. So we have quite a few projects with both neighborhood open
space money and then CIP money that you'll hear about on Monday. Farmer's
Market has added an additional Tuesday market at Mercer Park and this was in
lieu of going and staying at the Iowa City marketplace um ... we had a winter
market there and then a summer market last year, and with the addition of the
whole foods store, they asked us not to have a farmer's market there anymore so
we had to relocate and we moved out to Mercer Park in the summer. The winter
market, we still haven't found a place with think will be suitable for anything like
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that so we are still working on trying to relocate something we can use on a year
round basis for farmer's market.
Payne/ Did you see the same amount of traffic at the Mercer as you did at Sycamore for
that market, do you know?
Moran/ It was about the same and I think it was because of the newness of both
locations. They had to get used to going to the old Sycamore Mall and then they
had to get used to going to Mercer so that is one reason why we went back to
Mercer as we thought well they were familiar with that last year, or two years
ago, before we moved it.
Payne/ I'm glad it didn't drop off, I mean at least being the same, to me it's a positive.
Moran/ Yea. We tried it at Grantwood School as well, and that just ... we just could not get
population down there to attend. Um ... we may try it again at the new Archibald
School when that gets open to see how successful that will be ... but we want to
get that open and see how that goes first. But for the meantime for the summer
we'll have a Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday market.
Dickens/ Have you approached Eastdale by any chance for the indoor?
Moran/ We have not, um ... we are just trying...
Dickens/ Or is that too close to the...
Moran/ No, I don't think it would hurt with the Sycamore Mall you know we have a lot of
things to figure out like parking and it's getting real congested over there with
what they've got in there but we could certainly try that as well. And then to
address sustainability we've had a huge increase for the number of garden plot
requests throughout the city and that is because mainly Doug Paul's garden plots
off Rochester Avenue and Scott Boulevard will be closed down this year. He told
those folks that they won't be able to farm that as well so, the additional pick up
for us will be with the Chaddick Green Park and we ... I just met with Mike
Carberry and some garden folks yesterday and we always did tell the Chaddick
sisters that we would put garden plots there because that is what Carl did and
that is what that neighborhood is reminded for so ... we'll establish a garden plot
park program at that park as well as our existing program at Wetherby Park
(clears throat) and then we'll be meeting with the Chaddick people this spring to
see if there is anything else they want to bring to that park system and see if they
want to expand that or do something different that we've done over the years with
them.
Mims/ So at this point Mike the only place we'll have garden plots at will be at the
Chaddick and at Wetherby?
Moran/ That is correct. And we also have an edible forest and an edible fruit maze and
stuff there, we've been working with Backyard Abundance and we've got a USDA
Agricultural Land Grant to put the edible forest in last year and that will be
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Page 51
Payne/ Will we continue ... I think last year we did a thing where people could plant stuff
like between the sidewalk and the street that could be ... anybody could use it?
Would that continue? Was it very popular?
Moran/ It wasn't very popular at all and I ... we'll probably continue it we just didn't have a
heavy demand for that...
Dobyns/ You ask good questions.
Moran/ and most of that was because of care and the high weeds and we got into the
other weed ordinances and stuff through the city.
Payne/ Right, yea you have to take care of it.
Moran/ Yea, and that sometimes happens, and sometimes doesn't. (clears throat) And
then government buildings... how... we removed a 5/8 position and transferred it
into the park system to take care of our sports facilities and to assist those folks
in parks as well and then at Mercer we lost a custodian to attrition and now have
contracted that service out similar to what at transit and parking ramps, and that
just started in December so we'll going to see how that goes to help bolster our
maintenance needs at Mercer Park. And then just specifics in Park & Rec
Administration, we still only have 1511 acres of parkland um ... 43 designated
parks, 28 1/2 miles of trails, 486 acres of residential turf, 212 acres of rough
areas around water and highways, 31 playground structures and 15 bathroom
facilities if you are interested.
Throgmorton/ Mike ... Mike I am interested. So with regard to the parkland, to what extent have
you been exploring the possibilities of converting more of that land to natural
areas instead of being mowed areas and have you assessed the cost savings
that would be associated with that and the extent to which converted
um ... um ... areas could become more um ... um ... more natural habitat for wildlife?
Moran/ It is high on our list to get done this spring, last spring when our new parks
superintendent started in May urn ... he just (coughing) wanted to get a sense of
what was going on and didn't -and we didn't really want to institute many changes
with that. We did decrease the mowing times so we don't mow every 7 days or 8
days we mow now every 14 or 20 days and extend that out so ... that will be
something we will look very intentionally on to try to get some of the land
transformed. I'll talk about that a little about that in the parks section because
there will be some other significant changes you'll notice in that. Um ... also the
Iowa City Park & Recreation Foundation was instrumental of course in raising our
$400,000 that we used to ... for the Vision Iowa Grant, and just this week we got
our last installment from the State, we got our $310,000 check which brought that
grant total up to 1.6 million dollars for Terry Trueblood Recreation area and then
the Foundation successfully fund raised that as well. The Foundation currently
has a balance of about $90,000 to $100,000 and they'll use that to supplement
most of the maintenance cost for the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and the
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Ashton House. Um ... at least right now. We don't have any active fundraiser
going on with the Foundation right now, the $400,000 was enough to kill
everybody, just about did, but we were successful with that. In Recreation we've
transformed our 50 year old building, the Recreation Center, into a fitness center
and more program space and we are utilizing a central point of entry for the
public as well. If you've been in there, we just finished up the fitness room
enclosure with that and I think it's added some additional, so nice additional
space to that. Our focus next year will be to transform it into meeting ADA
availability. We meet ADA now but it needs some upgrades and we have had a
ADA audit in all of our facilities and we have a list of what we have to do for that
as well and we'll start chunking those off as we can get to them. Um..we are
entirely web based for customers, you can go online and get park shelters, you
can make reservations and everything which is a nice amenity to that, one of the
changes you will see is we have -we have had two layoffs for our clerk typist
positions, one in Recreation and one in Parks and we will ask for a programmer
to come in and communications and public relations and bring all of the contact
information for Parks & Recreation underneath one house and one number, so
you don't have to call Parks to do something and Recreation to do something and
Cemetery to do something, we want everybody to be able to make just one call,
sort of like the City Hall front desk here or the Public Library so that we can take
care of all their needs with one instead of sort of shuffling them around the
system with that. They'll also be in charge of our ... our entry folks, so they will be
greeted and make sure we can answer all their questions as sync -fully as
possible with that, so that will be a fairly significant change you will see in our
division next year. Um ... we are updating the fee structure, and you'll see the fee
structure probably at your first February meeting, as you are aware, you have
seen that before, we are trying to get to the 50% and we will get to the 50%
um ... fee structure so that we ... we collect those fees for that and then we will only
ask for limited property tax money because we know that is becoming
unavailable as well. You'll see a lot of different changes with that and I'll walk
you through those when you get that so you can approve those separately and
individually.
Fruin/ Mike, you might take this opportunity, the Council has probably read articles or
seen letters but has not been briefed by staff by the whole softball fee issue, can
you just run that...
Moran/ Yea, one ... one thing that we are doing, we've had numerous affiliate, what we
call affiliate, groups in Parks & Recreation and those are people like boy's
baseball, girls' softball, Babe Ruth, camera club, square dancers, the swim club,
all those folks have basically started way back in the 40's and 50's when the
department was created and a group of volunteers ran the program and we
supported them with that. They never paid a fee for the services we provided for
them so any of the softball diamonds we've fixed, baseball fields, any of the
meeting rooms we've provided them for any activities were all free of charge for
them. The Parks & Recreation Commission has been meeting with all the
affiliate groups for about the last four or five months just to have some discussion
with them about their stability and how they are doing and how they are not doing
and what we can do to help and the other reason is of course is that they want to
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institute an affiliate fee upon staff recommendation and initially we just want to
initiate a 10% affiliate fee which means they would pay 10% of whatever they
used in our facilities. So of all the ball diamonds they use ... if they use ball
diamond space 50 times a year they would pay 10% of what the going rental is
for that. And we want to initiate that so that they start taking better attention to
what they use, because a lot of the time they will want to come in and reserve all
the ball fields from Monday thru Friday from 5:00 to 10:00 and maybe only use
three of them or maybe only use eight of them, and that prevents us from going
in and renting them to other people. So we want them to take a little more... pay
a little more attention to what they use and be a little more appreciative of the
services we give them. Now that has caused some rubs between folks because
as you know, Kickers and ... and girls softball in particular have donated money to
us in the past, I mean Kickers has donated up to $400,000 to us um ... probably
since the 1990's for the creation of the new soccer complex and for additional
items. Girls' softball has given us up to $50,000 for the addition of lights at the
field and stuff as well. And while we are very appreciative of that we don't want
to get into a credit situation with them where we say well, you have $400,000 of
credit and how much can you use for that, because it should be a partnership so
we all do the same thing for everybody in the community. So we are going
to ... staff will make some recommendations to the Commission and then the
Commission will vote as to whether or not they want to institute an affiliate fee or
not or if they want to do it in a more sequential manner over numerous years and
then that recommendation will be brought forward with the fees and charges
recommendations will be brought to you. So you get a chance.
Dobyns/ Mike, I'm a bit confused like ... using Kickers as an example, on good faith they
have been partnering with the City and the upgrade of the facilities but you are
looking to transition that to a more fee based structure where they actually pay us
on a yearly basis for...
Moran/ They would pay us 10% on what their actual usage would be for example.
Dobyns/ So it isn't just baseball, we are looking at all...
Moran/ All affiliated groups, everybody that uses our services and doesn't pay a fee for
that.
Dobyns/ So it's a level playing field for everyone.
Moran/ Right yea, so we aren't going to say we are going to charge you only and not
charge you, it's going to be all or nothing.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Moran/ So that is also on the Recreation docket, underneath Recreation as well is the
new school additions, the Alexander School addition will open up this fall, we will
give them $750,000 for the expansion of the gym just similar to what we did at
Grantwood as well and we will do the programming of that gym after school
hours and on weekends and that will probably be more related to our own
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programming needs and rental to the community for basketball tournaments,
volleyball tournaments, soccer tournaments and stuff like that. That is scheduled
to open fairly soon this fall-ish, so we'll see how that starts out and we'll treat that
just like the Grantwood agreement we have with the school district. In the Parks
division the service contracts for Terry Trueblood, the Ashton House, the Marina
and Normandy Drive are working extremely well. We instituted an event services
coordinator and a company through an RFP program to run those programs for
us and they've been wildly successful and they've actually done a very good job
so we don't have any backfill for problems we have to pick up with them. The
Terry Trueblood Recreation Area has been extremely busy, in fact I don't think
we have a Saturday or Sunday open for the next 18 months. The Ashton House
has started to pick up but it isn't quite as full, it's about 50% full right now, but I
only anticipate that will get better. The division, to address some of your
concerns Jim, the division in Parks has got some ideas to split up the city in
quadrants, in four different quadrants, and change the work habits with the staff
so that they go from quadrant to quadrant so that they can all become familiar
with all the facilities we have in the city. Right now there basically assigned two
or three parks and that is all they do and which is fine, but I think the quadrant
system will people to understand the whole entire use of the park and what's in
each one of them so they become more knowledgeable of them as well. The
sustainability for that is we would like to institute "no mow Wednesdays" or "no
mow Fridays" so that we take staff and we start breathing some life into our
facilities that are well worn. Take care of park shelters, take care of bathrooms,
take care of trash can receptacles and things that we just haven't had time to do
since we've been so focused on mowing grass and doing other things, so now
we are going to take those off and not do those things and start breathing some
more life and start refreshing our facilities a little bit so they look better for the
public as well. And one of the reasons for that of course in the fees and charges
that we set as well is the park shelter fees, you'll see a fairly significant increase
in park shelter fees and that was because we let those go for so long, we never
had any fees and then all of sudden we better start charging. For example you
used to be able to rent a small shelter for five hours for $7. And so we doubled
those two years ago to $14 and we now have doubled those again to $28 and we
still feel that is significant um ... or reasonable cost for rental of a shelter of that
magnitude. We had University students do a study on what was acceptable and
what was palpable and what wasn't and we have fallen in line with that and we've
fallen in line with what all the other communities around us are charging for park
shelter usage. Um ... the dog parks are ... have been self-sustaining with the
addition of attendance, we've added attendance to that they can also sell dog
passes at the park, we can also purchase them at the recreation center at Mercer
Park and then of course at Animal Services so we have a good relationship with
the Animal Services folks. The dog pack folks were considered an affiliate group
of ours as well and they gave us some significant money to establish the two dog
parks. Just recently they told us they wanted to abandon that relationship if you
will, and it was nothing personal but what they want to do is now take their focus
in say our Johnson County dog pack into other areas of the county like Coralville
and North Liberty and help them establish dog pacts, or dog parks, which we
certainly welcome because I think it will take a little pressure off the dog parks
being used now in our county and we'll certainly help them with that, but they just
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don't want much of a hands-on approach with the two parks we've got right now.
Forestry ... the forestry folks are pretty much going to be identifiable with the EAB,
that is going to be their main point of focus we are going to start with street trees,
we are working very hard both budgetary and schedule wise to get to a one to
one tree replacement, I'm not sure we can to that so it may be a two for one or
three for one initially until we can put that program together. We've got about
1300 street trees that we have to concentrate on and look at, and we'll start doing
removal of those first and then go back in and try to get in to a one to one
planting basis. I'm not sure we'll be successful with that but that is our goal to get
to that point in time. The legislature loosened the restrictions, I think you were
told when Zach did his presentation, that we can now take that and take that to
the landfills and we don't have to do things they were talking about that we had to
do we thought we also ... add additional costs to that. We've also had talks with
the University of Iowa so that they can take our ash tree logs and use them for
burning in their incinerator program they have been working on as well.
Um ... that program I believe has some connection with Muscatine and so we may
have a little bit of travel with that but we wouldn't bear the cost of that, that would
be the University to bear that cost, they wanted to take our trees for that
program. So we'll see where that goes, but that would be a good way to get rid
of those trees so we wouldn't fill up our own landfill with, with that waste.
Throgmorton/ Mike, I'm a little concerned about the, the replacement rate description you just
provided us with, there is a huge difference between one for one, one for two,
one for three, so I wonder if you are going to be able to provide greater precision
for us about that.
Moran/ Yea, what will happen with that is the reason I'm a little vague with that is we are
trying to establish contracts and if we get contracts with stump removal and
assistance with removing trees and planting trees and we get good bids on that
we'll be able to do more (coughing) if the contract is not very favorable then
unfortunately we are going to have longer replacement values with that. So it's
purely a budget thing that we'll have and we'll fight through. I don't anticipate it
will get much past 1.3 or one to three ratio because we are going to strive to get
it down to that but it's all budgetary concerns.
Throgmorton/ Yea, yea, that makes sense. I don't want to engage in hyperbole but empty
streets have huge economic costs.
Morton/ No, we understand that.
Fruin/ What we talked about with Mike and Zach too is that um ... you've got really two
categories of trees, you've got your street trees and your park trees and um ... we
are going to um ... strive very hard to hit the one for one ratio on the street trees
and we'll let the park trees slip a little bit and then hopefully we'll be able to come
back and ... and um ... improve upon that after the rush of EAB is gone, but street
trees are our focus, it's Zach's focus, it's Mlke's focus and so we'll do everything
we can to get to that one to one hopefully like Mike said, the bids we have for
some of the contracted services come back good but, but we feel pretty
comfortable with the budget that you see right here in terms of street tree
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replacement um ... is significantly enhanced over what you had in FY15 and FY14.
Payne/ And I gotta notice that Park Road is going to be closed for some tree removal, is
that for the EAB or...
Moran/ No that is just for dead older trees that have to be removed. We are afraid they
are going to fall down, they are dead now and we don't want them to get caught
up in the spring rush of everything so...
Payne/ Or fall into the power line or something like that.
Moran/ ...Or fall onto a power line or something, where that isn't a high priority but we'll
get'em.
Payne/ (laughter) it is for the people that live there.
Dickens/ (laughter) yea and we start um ... maybe ... just throughout there and adopt a tree
program where you can get the private sector to step up.
Moran/ Yea, we've got that now and we'll have to pick that up a little bit and get that out
and that could be a ... a good program for the Foundation to pick up on as well.
Dobyns/ Like to avoid future blight. The replacements going to be having a multiple tree
species I assume?
Moran/ Yea that is correct.
Dobyns/ Okay.
Moran/ And we've had a tree inventories done up at the CBD and they've given us a lot
of different suggestions with the Dubuque Street projects we've got a lot of
different suggestions with that. Urn ... I will say we are sora of on a maple
moratorium right now those as well because we do have an overpopulation of
maples and feel that is going to be the next bug if you will. So.. you won't see a
lot of maple replacements. Ah..the Central Business District, you'll see a little bit
of transformation with eh Ped Mall of course with the construction that is going on
with that as well. Um..but we are going to do some things like decrease the trash
removal contract and try to do that internally with our refuse folks. We want to
pick up the ambassador program and make that a little bit more...
Payne/ Terry, quit playing (laughter).
Dickens/ It's alive.
Moran/ The Business District (laughter)... it's alive ... um ... and one of the things we did this
year with the Central Business District is we hired the Shelter House to come in
and ... and help us clean ... assist during home football games and they came two
hours before kickoff and then stayed through the game and then and stayed two
hours after kickoff, I thought it was a highly successful program and it was very
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visible, people saw them out and they saw what was going on and I think we will
continue that through the festivals. They will also help us through Jazz Fest and
Art Fest and do those types of things as well. It's good for the Shelter House, it's
good publicity with us and it's a nice contract we can put together with that. And
last, but not least, is the cometary division, and in the cemetery division you will
see some substantial increases in this. We haven't had any fee increases in the
cemetery division for nine years. So ... we went around and sort of did some
relationary things to Memory Gardens and to Oak Hill and all the cemeteries
around here so we would fall in line with this but you'll see changes anywhere
from $125 to $750 depending on what is being done and we'll walk through those
with the park fees as well. And ... if you are interested there is 40 acres of land in
the cemetery um ... 18,000 in interment sites and two columbariums that we are
responsible for there.
Markus/ Mike, talk about how many full-time staff are dedicated to that cemetery?
Moran/ Yea, we have three full-time staff um ... that uses that ... for the 40 acres and we
also have 2 1/2 miles of trails, roads, roadways we have to maintain in and out of
there.
Markus/ Do you think that ... do you think that's the most efficient way to operate, that
cemetery?
Moran/ I think that we'll look through um ... retirements and stuff as to coming through and
do some different things. We've been doing that a lot with maintenance and we'll
do that a lot with care as well.
Markus/ And are we actually providing the grave service?
Moran/ Yes that is part of the fee structure for it, and then what happens is that
um ... the ... funeral homes charge that to the parties and we bill them, and they pay
us. So we don't get paid directly from the person or the family or that, we get
paid through the um ... cemetery directors and funeral directors.
Markus/ And when is the last time we examined that?
Moran/ Nine years ago was when we had the last fee increase so we just examined it
now for fee increase that are coming right now. Should have been done every
three years and we've just let it go.
Mims/ So do our staff do all of the mowing, or is that contracted out?
Moran/ No right now those three do all the mowing.'
Mims/ Wow.
Moran/ And they do all the service for the digging and the removal and everything as
well.
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Markus/ And is there a perpetual care fund established?
Moran/ There is a perpetual care fund (coughing) established but we haven't utilized that
for a long time, it was established way back in ... boy I don't even
know... 1800... late 1800's. And ... um ... we can tap into some of that but I don't
know what the rules are, we have never really looked into that.
Markus/ So are we still selling grave sites?
Moran/ Yes we do.
Markus/ And do we extract a perpetual care contribution...
Moran/ No, no we do not.
Hayek/ Mike, I've a question about the ... the Rec Center..um... I was a staple there as a
child and this is my last opportunity to remind people that in the third grade I won
both the singles and doubles foosball tournaments at the Rec Center.
Moran/ Do you want me to put that up on the wall somewhere?
Hayek/ Yea I think you should (laughter) but, I mean I'm joking. I'm serious that I did win
it but I'm joking and bringing it up but there is a reason for that and that is that the
use of that facility has transformed over the years... and... and... the... I'm just
curious what your sense of just overall numbers at that facility is versus what it
was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. My sense is because population has
shifted ... um ... personal time spent differently, kids do different things, they are
more league, you know, travel teams and things like that and not coming
downtown and now with the rec, University rec building, what does that mean for
the Rec Center?
Moran/ The place where we struggle the most is during the week. Um ... weekends are
still busy and packed, you know when I went in there this morning we've got
indoor soccer going on and it will be going on until 2 or 3 o'clock this afternoon
and you get these hordes of 30 kids coming in and out every 45 minutes or hour
where we'll have basketball tournament in there, we'll have a volleyball
tournament. Gym space is still at a high premium during the week, I mean during
the weekend. During the week um ... we struggle a little a bit because we don't
have that population base, we don't have any after school type of activities that
occur in there because we just don't have any school kids in the area. So I think
what is happened is we've seen folks leave during the week and do other things
but still use it during the weekends and um ... our meetings rooms stay full at
night, but those are other people who come here intentionally to use the facility.
Yea, we don't have a kid base much downtown like we used to and so I think
that's where we see the biggest down, downturn in activities there.
Hayek/ I don't think kids are as mobile as they used to be ... I would ride my bike...
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Moran/ They don't hop on the bus anymore.
Hayek/ They don't hop on the bus...
Throgmorton/ Iowa City is more disbursed too.
Moran/ I think transportation is a huge issue for our youth sports activities and ... um ... we
have to figure out how we can better utilize that system to get people to where
we need to for activities. Especially during the summer, you know baseball,
softball, all those kind of things.
Botchway/ Well, um ... I had three things to bring up. One, since we are bringing up
accolades I remember um ... just recently winning the basketball um ... program
tournament, whatever, at the Iowa City Rec Center, so ... pretty good ... but...
Hayek/ Pretty good teammates...
Botchway/ Anyways...
(laughter)
Throgmorton/ That's what it is all about
Botchway/ Um ... on a serious note, have we looked at um...'cause we are kind of talking
about um ... you know having more people come in the week and the ability of
folks, have we talked about, I mean obviously I'm bringing up basketball, but
other programs or making those more robust. I mean I'm thinking about the
North Liberty league basketball program, they charge about $375 per team
um ... doing that. I know we have a winter program, but i don't think we have a
summer program, or a fall program, and again I'm just talking about basketball so
I'm not sure about all the other sports, but um ... is there a way to do that because
I'm also thinking about the closure of the field house for, and that was when I first
got here, from a lot of areas using that facility from a free standpoint, and
now ... not having anywhere to go, and I know some kids do come down to the
Rec Center, but if there is the ability to use multiple gyms, you know work with
the school district, or obviously use the facility that we have to make that
program, I mean again I'm just talking about basketball, but other programs as
well, more robust I think we might see some potential increases from a revenue
standpoint, from a usability standpoint, that we don't currently have.
Moran/ Yea, we do currently use the recreation center downtown for most of the adult
leagues, basketball and volleyball in the fall and winter and in the spring we do
have the senior high basketball or high school basketball league that also uses
the recreation center in the winter. And then most of our other kid related
activities happen at Mercer Park because of the relationship with Southeast
Junior High. And ... and if you were there at 3:30 in afternoon that is a total
different venue there because all the kids just transform from Southwest all the
way into Mercer Park. So we have the dichotomy of two different facilities, one
that is very busy all the time and one that is busy only at certain times and that is
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the downtown one versus the east side location. We can certainly open that up
again, but again I think transportation is huge issue trying to get those kids
downtown after school.
Botchway/ Um..the other things I was thinking about, and this is kind of um ... on line
with... downtown as well ... is the alley ways and everything, and I don't know if
we've ever talked about using those potential community gardens or I know light
placement and... that... kind of has an affect as well, but I guess I'm just getting
tired of seeing the nasty alleyways.
Fruin/ Yea... we're... we're ... um ... we got some wheels in motion there and um ... there is a
couple of things, one this semester through the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable
Communities partnership that we have, we have a graduate student in urban
planning that is going to help us um ... sort through the waste issue. And that is
really ... that has to be the first step, if we can't clean up the waste there it is not
going to be an inviting pedestrian way, you are not going to be able to public
garden there, whatever you want to do in alleys the waste has to be solved.
Um ... there is too many dumpsters, too many carriers, it spills out, um ... so that is
the first step. We think we can overcome that, it's probably going to take a year
of prep and planning, it's pretty complicated because each individual property or
business has individual contracts with a dozen or more different waste carriers
and so we got to figure out how to create a situation where folks can get out of
those contracts and we can consolidate dumpsters and coordinate building and
all that.
Dickens/ Can the downtown district help at all with that?
Fruin/ Yea, yea they are a partner with us on that, but we certainly think we can get that
cleaned up and um ... the second piece of that is that is we are going to look at the
waste first through the Sustainable Communities Program and then we are going
to have some engineering students the second semester develop a green
alleyways program, which has been successfully implemented in Dubuque and
Chicago and a few other communities, so we hope to convert those over time to
um ... areas of where you have permeable pavement, um ... you might even have
some vegetation and public art, and what communities like Boulder, Colorado or
Fort Collins have seen ... would be actual... seen storefronts open onto your
alleys. Um..and... and ... we are a long way from that but we know how to get
there, it's just going to take a little time.
Hayek/ That is a good point, you know Fairfield has some of that actually if you are down
there. It opens up essentially, not doubling, but increasing
your... your... streets... your.... you know ... it's a good idea.
Botchway/ The third thing I had was you had brought up doing an internal or external audit
of your um ... of ADA compliance with your buildings.
Moran/ Yea, we had an external auditor come in and do a report for our buildings.
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Botchway/ So then my question is, urn ... do you do an internal or external audit of your ADA
compliance as it pertains to services? Um ... and I know that, I think that Simon
and I shared an email about some services that occurred within the recreation
department but I guess as we move forward from a fee standpoint and getting to
that 50%, is there going to be some type of internal audit in making sure that ... if
we do charge ... I mean ... there's a whole bunch of different scenarios, if we do
charge a certain fee whether or not we charge a comparable fee to somebody
who might need some ADA services or whether or not there is a ability to charge
extra if we are going to do that, obviously we have to look at it from a ... from a
personnel standpoint and back and forth. So has there been any
thought... thoughts on that because I think that is going to be, and I kind of talked
to Simon about this briefly and I haven't been able to follow up with your, that's
going to be a push I think (coughing) in coming months just to make sure you
know we are above approach.
Moran/ We currently have had a budget of I think 2-4 thousand dollars almost every
summer because that comes up for our summer camp program and as long as
parents come in and give us a two-week notice and tell us for example they need
a sign language interpreter or they need extra help with their children, then we
provide that activity so we are currently doing that in our programs already. It
isn't highly used, but we have done that for a considerable number of years.
Hayek/ Um, I just wanted to follow up on something Jim had mentioned and we've talked
about it a last year, and this came up ... and it has to do with parks ... and our
approach in trying to shift from mow the grass, remove the garbage and move on
approach, to a more collaborate holistic one. You know the Northside Park is the
shining example of that and I know a lot of ... financial and time investment
occurred with that, but it is a good model, now um ... maybe the neighborhood is
more ... in that area, positioned to play a strong role um ... then we will see
elsewhere in terms... especially from a budget standpoint we need the
neighborhoods engagement in our parks going forward and I just hope we see
that...
Moran/ These projects that I mentioned in the very beginning, like Reno Street, Hickory
Trail and Tower Court have been great to work with and they are fully on board
with what we are doing and I think we'll get a lot of that ... we seen a lot of buy -in.
Markus/ You fully engage the neighborhood in these park issues?
Moran/ Oh absolutely. And you know we have up to 20 people at each meeting
and ... they tell us what they want, we come back with plans, and they review them
and they give us some suggestions, and then we go and ... and we say okay here
it is, what do you think. And you will see a lot of projects this spring actually turn
ground and get ready to be installed.
Mims/ Speaking of that Mike, what's the timeline on the new one on North Dubuque
Road? Jessie Allens' Public Palisades or what's called?
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Moran/ Yea, I don't ... we don't have a timeline on that yet, I have seen any dates on when
that is going to happen.
Mims/ I mean I know they've set the lot aside and they've planted a whole bunch of
trees around it which...
Moran/ Yea.
Mims/ ...concerns me...
Fruin/ So we'll approach like we did with Fraunholz Miller and it will be open green
space you know...
Mims/ ... for now
Fruin/ That folks can use but in terms of improvements it's not in our five-year capital
plan that you'll see tomorrow.
Mims/ Okay, good, thanks.
Hayek/ Okay, thank you Mike
Mims/ Thank you.
Moran/ Mr. Mayor I'm sure I speak on behalf of the whole council, we are looking forward
to the next 11 months hearing about your exploits to your childhood in Iowa City.
Hayek/ Well, you've got 11 1/2 months and I will get to work on my list. (laughter)
Markus/ Have you heard about his lifesaving award?
(laughter)
Hayek/ Just foosball.
Senior Center:
Karr/ Senior Center starts on page 2.1.6, 216.
Throgmorton/ Hi Linda.
Kopping Hi, good morning. Is there a special button I'm supposed to push up here or?
Fruin/ Just push the right arrow or the space bar would be fine too.
Kopping/ Technological genius. Urn ... to begin with um ... I'd like to update some of the
information about the senior center you've been given in the financial plan.
Urn ... since this information was compiled, we have more recent information that
represents ah ... FY14 participation programming. Urn ... I'm really happy to tell you
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that our membership and participation counts have increased by 3% in FY, both
of them increased 3% in FY14 and our volunteer count increased by 4% who ... all
the volunteers together donated 27,000 hours of service over the course of the
year. And I've said many times before we wouldn't be able to run the senior
center without the volunteers. I also want..um... point out that our current FY16
budget request shows less than a 1 % increase over our FY15 budget and it is
over $37,000 less than our FY14 actual budget. Now ... um ... this last year, since
January, has been a pretty exciting and eventful year at the senior center and
there are several upcoming challenges listed there and I think due to the events
of the last 12 months these challenges might be refocused and I'd like to talk
about some of the ways they will change. Urn ... first of all ... I don't think that we
will be trying to expand evening and weekend hours in FY16, 1 think that one is
on the list there, probably one of the last, we won't have the staffing available to
plan or monitor expanded hours of operation, and if we did have the time
available that would probably be the lowest activities I would want them to spend
their time on. Um ... and while we may look at the remodeling of the second floor,
um ... which is ... still needs to be ... work be done on it, that is going to be a lower
priority activity also. Um ... we will continue to work on increasing participation of
low income, physically challenged, minority seniors, in senior center programs.
Urn ... this spring, this spring and um..not this coming spring but last spring, we
started a project called the Earth Box, it was a pilot project, it turned out quite
successfully. This project was funded Friends of the Center, and what it involved
was, was the friends purchased a bunch of earth boxes, that are like self-
contained garden centers, and they can come with stands that hold them
up ... and like little box trellises that you can extend vegetables and such on,
um ... they purchased a variety of herbs and vegetable plants and um ... we
secured volunteers to support and help. And then we identified our target
population, which was um ... a low income and or less able older adults, and
partnered with Pathways, Emerson Point, Ecumenical Towers, and Assistant
Living at Bickford Cottage, and each of those locations received 8-10 of the earth
boxes and they spent the spring planting and um ... and the summer um ... nursing
these plants along and then they were able to harvest the, um ... fruits of their
labor. This was a really successful program, there were a lot of, many benefits
they enjoyed, along with exercise, a lot of socialization, not only during the
activity, but the sites planned activities in conjunction with the ... ah ... with whatever
they were harvesting. You know like if there was a whole bunch of tomatoes
they had a ... a ... program on what to do with a whole bunch of tomatoes and that
kind of thing. Some of them had small farmers markets where they could share
with everybody in their facility. Their nutrition, they were able to um..enjoy fresh
produce and of course they were involved with the planning and selection and
materials and such. Um ... I hope that we will continue to expand this type of
programming, um ... in other areas of the city um ... this kind of programming will
occur offsite and I think it will help us reach out into under -served areas of the
senior population and um ... make contact with people who are unable, seniors,
who are unable to get to the center and who can really use this additional
produce in their diet. Um ... I think the primary challenge, and um ... that we will be
looking at in fiscal year 16 um ... and this one is identified in the financial plan and
is one that was highlighted by the ad hoc senior services committee, is to
diversify the center's funding and lessen our compliance on the general fund.
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Now this is not a new activity for us at the senior center, um ... we have done
um ... fundraising to support our operational expenses since 2003 um ... before that
time we were fully funded by the city and the county together, but um ... since that
time we have gone from raising zero to 25% of our operational budget. Um ... we
built in an endowment that, that is now at $700,000 and annual provides money
to support operational expenses and our 501(c)(3) Friends organization has
provided us with well over $175,000 to provide equipment and other funding to
support programs in the center. But I think the needs for us to um ... raise
additional funding to support the operational budget are there, and I think we can
do better, I think we need to do better, and I think we will do better in raising
funding. When it comes to funding I think the first challenge we've face is staff
time and expertise. Um ... as I'm sure you are all aware, we have 6 1/2 full-time
equivalents at the senior center and two of them are maintenance support. The
other remaining other staff fill their time producing the programs and services we
currently offer and none of us have any of expertise in fundraising at all. I think it
is foolish for us to waste our time and resources on fund -raises that don't raise
any money, and we've done that many times in the past. Um ... and I think it's
um ... not a good idea to approach fundraising without a solid plan in place.
People have suggested things like um ... bake sales or other ideas might raise
$500 or $1000 1 think the kind of money we need to raise is far greater than that.
And..so..um... since the ad hoc committee produced this report, and as they were
working on it, I spoke to a consultant who works with an organizations to provide
guidance and strategic planning fundraising and grant development, um ... I
provided her with some background information about the senior center and its
funding, and we have set up an appointment that will take place in
um ... well ... about 10 days. And we plan to discuss the specifics about what
services her company can provide us and at what cost. She did mention that it
would be possible to have a strategic fundraising plan developed within six
months, for the senior center, which surprised me, and then she cautioned me at
the implementation of the plan and seeing any solid results from the plan might
take as long as 18 - 24 months because there are a lot of preparatory steps you
have to take in order to get ... get the plan operational ized. Um ... because this
plan um ... would involve and benefit the Friends of the Center and that has to do
with the endowment such an important part of um ... our operational budget, in its
annual contribution to our funding, um ... I plan to ask Friends of the Center to pay
a proportional amount, an appropriate proportional amount, of the expenses
associated with this consulting service if we should choose to um ... proceed in
that manner. So, while I don't know the shape of the strategic final plan, and I
don't know how ... what shape that is going to take, and I don't know what
recommendations you are going to make, based upon the plan from the ad hoc
committee I am fairly certain about several additional measures I believe will be
taken to reduce costs and increase revenues for the center in the near future and
I would like to go over a couple of those with you. Um ... first, because the senior
dining program no longer serves meals on weekends, that is really freed up the
assembly room during daytime hours and we think we should capitalize on that,
and what we plan to do is um ... reorganize our weekend programing on Friday
and Saturday nights so that the room is available for rentals. Um ... in conjunction
with that we would like to um ... move forward on our alcohol policy which we have
just been sitting on for a couple of years, do a really much better job promoting
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January 10, 2015 Iowa City Council Budget Work Session Page 65
the rooms availability and then I want to work with the Commission and Volunteer
Leadership committees to develop some recommendations for you so that very
large kitchen space um ... it is quite possible that changes to the room could
enhance the assembly room's rent -ability and on the other hand that space could
be redesigned to um ... to be a revenue generating space in and of itself. So there
are some possibilities there. (clears throat) Excuse me. Um ... as the ad hoc
committee progressed over the year, there was wide spread support among
members um ... for increasing membership fees, so I'm fairly confident that is one
of the things that will be taking place. Um ... most of our members feel that $33 a
year for Iowa City residents is a very modest fee and that could be raised.
And ... as a part of the increase, non -Iowa City fees are likely to see ... are
likely ... more closely reflect the level of operational report support received from
Johnson County than they do right now. The ... the amount of support we have
been receiving from Johnson County um ... is around $59,000 which is a drop in
the bucket when you think of the ... um ... overall budget. We appreciate the
support from Johnson County and we are very happy to have it,
but... when... when compared to the tax support provided by the City um ... it's very
ah ... small proportion. Um ... in conjunction with the membership fees while the
regular fees will be increasing I don't, do not, believer there will be in the
scholarship, low-income scholarship, fees, I believe those will remain at $10.
Um ... I just think they will remain at $10 those aren't going to go up. I think we will
identify an ultimate goal for annual fundraising, um..right... um similar to what the
rec center has... right now we are raising 25% of the operational funding, and our
goal in the financial plan is certainly nonspecific but it suggests it will increase. I
do foresee that we will identify an ultimate goal, but I think that we will have
incremental increases as annual targets. Um ... I suspect that this topic is going
to be a divisive issue when discussed at the center and having a ultimate goal
that we can approach incrementally may be a lot more palpable for some of the
people who will be discussing this. It's ... as I said, it's going to be a somewhat
divisive issue. Another thing that has happened um ... and it started long before
the... the ... um ... ad hoc committee ... um .... but the timing of it has been perfect ... is
the ... um ... we have worked with the finance department to reorganize our budget
presentation so that we had separated out our program expenses and revenue
for senior center television, our special events, senior center classes, and the
senior center choruses um ... we separated those out from the operational budget
and this is clearly illustrated how much money is being spent in each of these
areas and where there is a need to modify programming or generate additional
revenue. Um ... this was an eye opener for the ... me ... and for the other staff
members and it clearly shows where we need to put some work in and um ... to
either raise additional funding to support additional... particular area,
programming, or really consider if we want to continue with that area
programming or not. Very eye opening. Um ... finally, um ... I would like to add a
challenge to that list and that would be to address the recommendations you will
be giving us um ... that you will draw from the ad hoc Senior Services Committee
report to the City Council that I believe you will be working on the 20th. I look
forward to hearing those. So ... and I think everything else is pretty much self-
explanatory in that.
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Mims/ Linda I have a question if I heard you correctly near the beginning, you said that
your ... budget being proposed for 2016 is actually less than what you had for
2014? Did I hear that correct?
Kopping/ Yes.
Throgmorton/ Actual expenditures I believe.
Mims/ I don't see that in the numbers I guess.
Kopping/ Gosh, I hope I didn't read that wrong, that would be kind of an embarrassing
mistake.
Mims/ I mean, when I look on page 223, I'm seeing expenditure of 8, a little over
$807,000 for 14 and budget for 16 $831,000 almost $832,000. So ... I didn't know
if there was something I was missing or..l mean I know the increases for the
senior center have not been significant by any means but I didn't think we were
going backwards.
Hayek/ She may be looking at the 15 revised version.
Kopping/ Well now I'm really embarrassed because I did that wrong. You're absolutely
correct.
Mims/ No, that's okay, that's okay, I just ... well as Matt had said...
Kopping/ It sounded good though didn't it. (laughter) I ... what I probably did was use the
numbers for FY13.
Mims/ Okay.
Kopping/ I ... I am very sorry.
Mims/ No, that's okay
Kopping/ I stand corrected.
Mims/ That's okay, I just wanted to make sure I mean certainly the numbers have kind
of gone up and down as you look at, yea, if you go from 12 and kind of jump up
in 13, well I'm looking at revenues but even at the expenditure side down in 14
then 15 revised, can you remind me Dennis why 15 revised, I mean I know we
aren't done with 15 but why that looks so much higher?
Kopping/ Urn ... I talked to Dennis about that just yesterday and it had to do with some
budget carryovers.
Mims/ Okay, okay
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Kopping/ Is that correct?
Bockenstedt/ That is correct, there is some capital items (not speaking into mic) that carried
forward...
Mims/ So that is one reason that 14 looks lower than we would have maybe expected
and 15 looks higher because of carryover?
Bockenstedt/ (not speaking into mic) there was nothing in 14 ...
Mims/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ (not speaking into mic) so that was budgeted in and revised upward...
(unable to hear)
Mims/ Okay, thank you.
Kopping/ I think the only point I was trying to make in perhaps I should have said it this
way instead of reciting numbers and percentages, is our budget has been fairly
constant.
Mims/ It has.
Kopping/ Um ... for several years and urn ... again, I really apologize for making such an
embarrassing mistake.
Mims/ Don't worry about it, don't worry about it, things ... like you say get carried over
and things move and I just wanted to make sure I was understanding, and that I
could add and subtract.
Fruin/ The senior center, it's probably the one budget, there's you know, it's been kept
as Linda said , relatively flat um ... without changes in personnel and that has
been really difficult because personnel is so much of what the senior center is so
it's really been focusing in on some of those um ... service type of line items and
I'm not sure, as Linda and I have had this conversation, there is not a whole lot
more to cut in the senior center unless you want to touch staff.
Kopping/ I um ... I calculated yesterday, I hope this one is right, I think that out budget is
um ... 66% of our budget is personnel.
Mims/ Oh I would believe it yea.
Bockenstedt/ And she may have been going 2014 original budget because of those items
would have been in there that budget would have exceeded the 2016 budget, the
capital items so...
Mims/ Okay.
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Bockenstedt/
So that may have been the number she was using.
Mims/
From the actual or original?
Bockenstedt/
From the original.
Mims/
Instead of the adjusted?
Bockenstedt/
Instead of the actual.
Mims/ Okay, gotcha.
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Payne/ Which one of these lines items and on which page includes the membership f
fees?
Bockenstedt/ Um ... there should be a chart just for fees and services on page 223 about
midway down the revenues. Culture and recreation um ... under charges for fees
and services. I believe that would be the membership fees.
Payne/ That's ... so there is one of those on the next page too
Bockenstedt/ And that, um ... those would represent probably activity fees for program fees, so if
they sign up for an art program or something or programs that Linda mentioned
that is the fees they would pay to participate in those programs.
Mims/ So you are saying the $50,000 something is just membership fees?
Kopping/ Yes. Ah ah.
Hayek/ So um ... we'll take this up when we work session this, but um ... um ... I ... I fully
recognize that .... these are tough conversations and will be and we'll have no
choice for broader budget reasons to ... to get into this with time as Iowa City gets
squeezed tighter and tighter, but I'm glad you mentioned the membership fee
issue because .... I'm sure that won't be an easy conversation, but as we are
sitting here this morning I ... and Mike was here before you talking about Parks &
Rec things, I just pulled up the Parks & Rec website and just for purposes of
comparison if I wanted to get a um ... year long pass to the rec center swimming
pool, just one person to swim in the pool for the year, it's almost $200.
And ... which is almost six times what a membership fee to for me if I were age
eligible and a member of the senior center. Um ... You know which would give me
access to a lot of things including the workout facility and I think we even reduced
parking in the ramps...
Kopping/ Well you have to pay for it but then you, you'd be eligible to participate in the
reduced rate.
Hayek/ So ... I mean there ... that is just one comparison, and it may or may not be fair, but
the membership fees seem very low to me and I'm not convinced that as a class
seniors in Iowa City are less affluent. Um ... I mean... you could have your
scholarship program, which I am sure will not go away and might expand with
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time, but ... there are many seniors with considerable affluence for whom $33 is
nothing and ... I don't know how much that would move the needle, I mean I know
you have 1500 and some members and...
Kopping/ 16.
Hayek/ Okay ... so ... and there is probably some price elasticity there um ... you know and
so I don't know what people could support and what percentage of that 1600
are ... would be eligible for a scholarship subsidy but..l throw that out there
because I think it is something we have to look at. Long term ... and I don't know
where else you can ... maybe the programming is another area but, I agree I don't
know what more you can cut ... you've been operating with static um ... personnel
levels.
Fruin/
Kopping/
Fruin/
Hayek/
Mims/
Payne/
Hayek/
Kopping/
Hayek/
Mims/
Hayek/
(Lunch Break)
You certainly could cut personnel but you ... I couldn't sit here and tell you it's not
going it impact service levels and at this point...
Well you could cut personnel but then we'd lose membership.
Yes.
So ... well thank you, unless there are other questions.
Thank you Linda.
Thank you
It's a great organization and certainly appreciated in the community.
Thank you.
Well, look at this, one minute until noon. So we'll take a break.
Lunch just came in.
Food making its way in the door.
Neighborhood Development Services:
Markus/ ...(tape started in mid -sentence) the value of questions or the discussions going
forward our goal is to try to conclude by 3:00 .
Boothroy/ Wow, I thought I had until 2.
Hayek/ Your ten minutes just went to five.
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(laughter)
Hayek/ Alright, why don't we get started? Dr. Boothroy.
Boothroy/ Well I appreciate having you taking part of your lunch hour to talk to me about the
budget. Um ... this is of course the first time we've reported back as the
Department of Neighborhood and Development Services and if you recall last
year um ... as part of the budget process the Department of Planning and
Community Development and Housing Inspection Services urn ... were um ... joined
and urn .... so it's been almost a year that we've been together as one
department. I wanted to start out by talking a little bit about some of I think the
positive things that have happened in terms of..of urn.... communication within the
department, sharing of staff resources um ... urn ... just um ... a greater level of
um ... customer support I think by people working together going in the same
direction. And as an example with resources, you know when we have all the
inspectors being cross -trained and being able to step in either with rehab or
housing inspection or building inspection. That gives us a lot more flexibility in
terms of our staffing and also in terms of..of getting to using expertise in areas
when we need to. Um ... so ... you ... we were ... the intent was to try to make us
more efficient and also to improve the way we work with each other and the
planning and building inspectors, planners and building inspectors, in the same
division, I think that has worked out really well. John Yapp is the development
services coordinator and I think he has done a great job bringing those folks
together, it's a work in progress, we are going to continue to build on what we've
done. I think the other thing is when you do a reorganization people have a
chance to...to...um...get new perspectives as well as new jobs and I'm really
pleased that Tracy Hightshoe finally was ... after waiting in the wings for many
many years, has her opportunity to urn... be the um...be appointed the division
head for Neighborhood Services and of course when John moved over to take
development coordinator position that gave the opportunity for Kent Ralston to
become the MPO um ... director ... so .... urn ... with that leadership and change in all
these various areas in terms of the division, I think we've had a lot of energy
interjected into the operations. And one of the things that we will be doing as we
go forward and we'll talk about that in a little bit with the CIP and you'll see a floor
plan, is that order to further cement this, because we haven't really put people in
proximity with each other in terms of where they have overlapping or
responsibilities that are common, um ... next year, starting in maybe Tom already
mentioned this to you in his presentation, we will be starting late spring during the
summer the remodeling of the second floor ... of the north wing ... if we call it
that ... where the planning department is located and what we'll be doing is
bringing the building and housing inspectors up to that floor so we'll be putting a
lot more people up there, but we'll be opening it up, giving it a new look, and it
will be putting people together that work together within the Neighborhood
Services or Development Services on the same floor within eyesight of each
other. So we'll talk about that you'll see it more on Monday, but I think it's a way
to begin to cement some of those relationships that would begin um ... to build.
Any questions about the reorganization before I go on, or ... okay.
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Throgmorton/ Doug, are there heads of each of the subordinate units?
Boothroy/ I'm not sure what you mean by subordinate units Jim.
Throgmorton/ Well, well I mean there is for the Housing Authority but housing inspection?
Boothroy/ Yea, the way that those..when we did the reorganization the folks that were ... like
Stan who's in charge of the housing inspection, is still working as a team leader
for that group, but he reports to John, or excuse me, Tracy, I got the wrong one.
Of course Steve Rackis is with the Housing Authority, those folks are still in
place.
Throgmorton/ Okay.
Boothroy/ You know last year of course you know we..,in order to get the Housing
Authority's budget in ... in a sustainable situation we had to lay off a couple of
individuals, but as a part of this reorganization through attrition, um ... we did hire
one of those individuals back full-time and is now working in the Neighborhood
Services area so that is a positive thing that also came about as part of the
reorganization. Moving on I wanted to talk a little bit about our electronic plans
submission um ... process. The, what, it's, it's been successful in that all the
building permits and site plans that come into the city are electronic and those
few that don't come in we scan and put in the system at the counter so when
someone comes into the counter, like a citizen doing a deck, or a small
remodeling, they can type in the application online and then we scan their
documents and review it. We've essentially eliminated all our filing cabinets for
um ... building plans and there is probably 20 some filing cabinets that have been
eliminated as a result of this. Next year we will be um ... actually we are in next
year, in 2015, in the next month or so we will start um ... moving this to towards
some of the planning processes and the one we are taking on first is subdivision
reviews. So we expect it to develop that this spring and then by summer or fall
have that up and running. It will be a little faster this time because a lot of the
people that do the subdivision process also... submittals... also do the site plan
submittals ... so the training we did with the private sector will transfer over and the
process will be similar so I think it will be faster. um ... then the first time around.
Um ... but ... goal is that everything in the planning area at some point will be
electronic just as it is with buildings so that we reduce our paper footprint. And it
also helps customers as you recall because they don't have to make so many
trips down to the civic center, excuse me City Hall, sorry my age got in the way
there. (laughter) Any questions about that? The money is already in the budget
so it's just a manner of going into phase two of this particular... and by the way it
does fit very well with Laserfishe and there has been some upgrades there too so
it will be very compatible there too in that area. In the budget I wanted to
mention that this..every four years it seems ... we increase housing inspection
fees. We ... the budget that you see ... the revenue that is supported by a 5%
increase in housing inspection fees to support the housing inspection division to
make them um ... totally sustained by the fees or revenues they are generated.
Um ... it's a four year cycle, one of the reasons we do four years, is we have two
year permits so by doing four years and 5% we are able to go through a couple
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of cycles with people and we are not constantly changing the inspection fees with
them and it seems to work out pretty well, and it's not a significant change in the
sense that you know years ago ... we were doing ... we had to do a 50% or 100%
fee increase at one time so ... that is one of the fees you'll see in the budget. I
also um ... will note that the subdivision, zoning, and board of adjustment fees are
updated annually based on an inflation rate. We are going to be proposing a
nominal fee increase, a fee for our official zoning confirmation letters, we get a lot
of requests from financial institutions and appraisers to write a letter verifying
zoning and it takes time to do the research, so there will be a $25 fee for that.
Minor site plans currently do not have a fee and they take a significant amount of
time, that fee will be $100 so it doesn't really cover costs, but we need to have
something I think to help defray some of the costs. And major site plans are
going to go from $250 to $350. 1 don't know ... Tom whether you mentioned the
waiver for building permit fees for public...
Markus/ Yes I did.
Boothroy/ ...Okay so that, that will also be part of that resolution when we bring fees to you,
again in February or March, I'm not sure when, but whenever you get through the
budget process, I think we follow...
Markus/ Budget will follow up, but Doug the other one we talked about um ... was having a
TIF application and reimbursement for the National Development Council Fees
by anybody applying for TIF...
Bookthroy/ Okay.
Markus/ ... which is likely to be rolled through the gap but at least then the beneficiaries of
increment, of the economic development will be paying for that as well.
Boothroy/ Okay, Okay so that is kind of a summary of the fees and again over the years
um ... tried to keep our um ... fees from building inspections, building permits, as
well as housing inspections at a level that pays for the cost of our staff um ... the
building inspection fees are .... I didn't get into ... they are based on an inflation
factor also so we don't have to come back to you for a fee increase, they
automatically go up with the cost of ... with an inflation factor that is built into the
equation. Um ... let's see ... I was going to mention that ... with regards to the
building inspection revenue, jumping around a little bit, last year in 2014, and we
are on a calendar year, building inspection, just to make things a little more
confusing, um ... that was 152,579...152 million excuse me ... um .... and that was up
about 22% over the previous year, that was a good year, we have some projects
that need your approval that will make next year even better. (laughter)
So ... keep up the good work, we can use the fees. Um ... one of the things that is
interesting to note is that um ... with the current planning division, um .... urban
planning division, building, development services I should say, the fees from
building basically pretty much cover um ... um ... all of the expenses they are, just a
little bit short and when you add in the subdivision fees and the other things we
are almost 100% covered with fees in the development services division so,
that's kind of a good change that has come up as a result of um ...that. Um ... let
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me go, I'll come back to building inspection in a minute, I kind of jumped over
there because I got into talking about fees, um ... let me mention that ... I wanted to
talk about the Housing Authority, you know it was just a little over a year ago
there were some hard decisions that had to be made because to try to stabilize
the financial condition of the Housing Authority. It is stabilized, the revenue from
administrative fees from HUD have ... have stabilized it at about the same level as
we expected. One of the things that we ... our utilization rate is up even though
we've changed our staffing level, were were up at 98.9% for voucher utilization
rate and that equates to more fees. So ... we made some changes in our
operation in order to get our utilization rate up at almost the highest point
possible. Um ... projections are, is that, the federal government will once again
get 100% funding for vouchers, where we've run into problems is has been that
the administrative ... the administration fee for staffing that's where they keep
cutting, but we don't expect to see any cuts there so we should see a
much ... um ... should stay in the black next year anywhere from about 10 - 30
thousand dollars depending on ... on ... what our voucher utilization rate is.
Urn ... the FSS should be 100% funded, CAP or CIP for public housing will
probably be down a little bit, last year our total revenue including vouchers, public
housing, FSS, our CIP or CAP was about 7.6 million. On to other... and... all the
staff in that division are 100% funded through federal funds, either good or a bad
thing depending on how you want to look at it. CBDG and HOME was the same
and one of the things I ought to mention is that both the projection for CBDG and
HOME funds are expected to be down. CBDG is expected to be down at least
1 % which is about $45,000 loss and HOME is expected to be down about 10%
which would be about $56,000 so that's about $100,000 of less revenue that we
expect to get during this upcoming funding process that we are going through
with the Housing Commission. We don't know those numbers yet, we won't
know those numbers until probably February, maybe even as late as March but
um ... we'll certainly know them by the time the recommendations come back to
you as a result of the process. And typically what we do is if the funding goes
down and the dollars aren't there, then we just take that percentage and do it
across the board of everybody in terms of reducing the amount they receive.
Now one of the things that ... that helps make up that a little bit is we have
program income in both CDBG and HOME and the combined program income
and by that I mean this is ... when we give money to various projects it's loaned
out to be repaid under various different conditions over time and um ... our ... we'll
have over a quarter -we'll have about a quarter of a million dollars in program
income that we can throw into the pot to help defray the losses that we get from
the federal government through this funding session, period or whatever you call
it. I wanted to mention the Broadway Street improvements, you'll talk about a
little bit, this is a project that has been going on for a couple of years, it's finished
up now. Um ... I just wanted to mention that over the last two years we've spent
about 1.2 million dollars and the Broadway Condos that Southgate owns were
improved, transitional housing this year finished up their landscaping and
transitional housing is the first set of housing units you come into contract to
there just south of Casey's when you are going down Broadway Street.
Um ... and ... the whole street scape has improved significantly and some of the
crime issues that we had in that immediate area were the Broadway Condos
have diminished a little bit so, so I think it's money that been well spent in order
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to improve that corridor that was having some difficulty. Um ... we'll be continuing
with the facade improvement I think that is really downtown, with the..um... CBDG
money and it's..l think it's been a really good program. We have approved for
next year Cold Stone Brewery which is..Cold... excuse me (laughter)... Cold Stone
Brewery, sorry about that ... um ... the Cold Stone...
Throgmorton/ You've had too much ice cream.
Boothroy/ Yes ... Cold Stone Building ... I ... I have building abbreviated and I read it as
brewery. Um ... that is on the corner and I think that is a..a... nice corner to have
improved. Martini's, Yotopia, Joe's, and the Sports Column are slated to be done
this year ... in term ... as part of that programs, so some of those are along
Dubuque Street so it will be nice to see some of those improvements in that
area. Um ... owner rehab last year we did 37 homes... and ... um .... hopefully that
will continue on into the next year. UniverCity ... um ... to date we've done 38
homes, we have some homes, we have 18 homes, two of which we are in the
process of marketing and I think are probably sold at this point. And ... we've got
the other um ... 16 to market this year ... and that would be an explanation in the
budget why um ... we are only asking for $100,000 for the UniverCity program
because we have enough stock to move before we expand to additional homes
so the $100,000 would be for two more homes as we get that ... that stock
down ... um ... and ... um .... are able to manage it in terms of marketing and getting
people situated in those houses.
Hayek/ Is the UniverCity money dried up now?
Boothroy/ Yes.
Hayek/ There ... is not waiting for anything else?
Boothroy/ No.
Fruin/ They backed out of the partnership.
Boothroy/ Yes, yes they did. They are still back ... um ... one of the things Matt and Susan and
I ... in a memo we talked about using some of the UniverCity money, we'll talk
about at Council at some point, I think it was about 150 was it that we put in for
neighborhood facade improvements on the north side based on stuff the housing
code inspections, and the idea would be that.... that... this would be loan program
we could use to help improve both owner -occupied and rental property much like
the downtown to try to improve the street scape in the north side areas and do it
in a strategic manner. So ... that is something we will be talking about I think in
the future, whenever we schedule that for Council informal council session.
Throgmorton/ It could be a very good idea, I'm glad to hear about it and I know that there are
certain street segments that are significantly, in significantly worse shape than
others.
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Boothroy/ Yes.
Throgmorton/ And this district intervention in those particular street scapes would make a huge
difference.
Boothroy/ Yea, 'cause I don't see those... particularly as you get closer to Dubuque Street, I
don't see much opportunity for home ownership in those areas but I do see, think
there is a need for improvement of building appearances. Which helps
everybody feel better about the entire neighborhood as well as coming into Iowa
City. So it's time we get into something like that and ... um ... help spruce up that
area. Um ... just also wanted to um ... mention that the ... the single family new
construction program finally came to a close this year. Um ... this was in response
over the 2008 flood and I just wanted to remind you that um ... we built, or assisted
in, 141 houses that were available to low or moderate income folks. That was a
construction value of about 23 million dollars, some of that occurred right in the
middle of the recession we had so I think it was not only important in terms of
how we looked at our flood ... um ... control issues, but it also provided a lot of jobs
and economy ... in ... the construction area in a time where it was desperately
needed. Plus you know ... we have 141 homeowners that um ... that have new
homes as a result of that program. Down payment assistance that was a part of
that program was about 6 million. So ... I think that was a great program and
um ... it's finally done, I guess at this point, we don't have any more money to
spend in that area. Um ... another thing is..that..we'll... that will be happening on
the 28th of this month I will just mention is that we've been working with the
Riverfront consultants with regard to the Burlington Street Dam stafing, the
riverbank restoration, the west bank, as well as the riverfront part, there is ... that
information is coming together. Um ... there is a major wetland feature in the
Riverfront Park, part of that park is down there where the north west water
treatment plant was located. And we plan to have a presentation by the
consultants and an open house on January 28th, down at Terry Trueblood
Pavilion, is that what it's called? But at the Terry Trueblood.
Throgmorton/ Do you know what time that will be?
Boothroy/ Pardon me?
Throgmorton/ Do you know what time that will be done?
Boothroy/ I think we are going to run them from 5:30 to 9 maybe or 8:30 so part of it's an
open house, we'll have boards up so people can walk around, so if you miss the
presentation you can still, we'll be there to answer questions and you can
circulate and um ... get a feel for that so. I think the Riverfront...
Payne/ I think MPOJC might also be that night Jim.
Throgmorton/ Yea. I know, thanks.
Boothroy/ So you can come at any time. It's ... a ... we are going to have information coming
out shortly Jim, within the next week, next week sometime to set up the times
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and dates more specifically. Um ... that whole thing about the Riverfront Park is
going to make a huge, as I mentioned the other night at the informal meeting, it's
going to make a huge difference on how that part of town looks and feels and so
that is kind of really exciting thing to happen. Um ... building inspection, a couple
of things I wanted to mention, obviously revenue has been good this year, I
expect your approval process, our revenue will even be better next year.
Urn... keep up the good work. But we'll also be looking at the adoption of 2015
building code, two things I would highlight for that, most of the changes are
things that I think are important but not necessarily controversial or things that
need to come to your attention, but for the first time, in the building code, we will
be requiring on all new construction, single family construction, I'd have to go
back and look if it applies to the multi -family, but carbon monoxide protectors that
are interconnected. That is a technology that didn't get into the codes in past
years because of there was some problems with if you ... that would work ... with
false alarms and all that stuff, but now it's, now it's gotten to a point where you
can get combined smokes and carbon monoxide detectors as one unit and
um ... they can be placed throughout the residential units. Um ... outside bedrooms
as well as in the furnace areas. The other thing that we will be doing again
because most, many states have done this, including Iowa, we will be, once
again, eliminating the sprinkler requirement for single family dwellings. Um ... this
code amendment has not been adapted, adopted nation-wide, and one of the
things the code developers have been doing since that went into effect, I don't
remember when it went into effect, I think it was 2013, is they've done some
other changes in the building code to beef up floor assembly and things like that
so they can address some of the issues. Um ... we're ... in ... kind of ... lower the
requirement for the need for the safety for a sprinkler system in the building
so ... those are the two things I think I will just draw to your attention with regard to
the building code. And you won't ... you probably won't get that until late
spring ... um ... before you see a recommendation on the 2015 Building Code. I
hope I've got that timing right ... um ... With the other ... other things within the
development services division again, we had adopted the Riverfront Crossing
Form Based Code and you can see that it is beginning to be applied.
Um ... we ... um ... have rezoned the south downtown area, which is the area just
south of Burlington Street in the Court Street, Burlington Street approximately.
Um ... a big rezoning is the Goosetown/Mann conservation district, and we had
about 264 properties to this conservation district area which is urn ... a big effort
with regard to ... maintain neighborhood integrity and neighborhood preservation,
so you know it is important to note that and remember that. Um ... we have
started the south district plan update, it's at P&Z, um ... public hearing, I think it
was maybe held recently, and um ... we are also ... in both the south district plan
and the comprehensive plan for the central district plan, downtown plan, will be
coming back to the Council shortly. Um ... I'm not sure when that be, that will
probably be in February sometime. Um ... any questions about that? We are,
um ... looking at ... we will be looking at the exclusionary zoning over the next few
months, um ... we have on our work... schedule review of the sensitive areas
ordinance and we also have on our work schedule as a priority, the form -based
code standards for downtown Iowa City, so some things coming, that's you
know ... coming up in the future. Um ... on sustainability, one of the things we did
as the reorganization is we added sustainability into the department, to get, I
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think to give it much more presence in the process, much more visibility.
Um ... I'm very impressed with Brenda, her knowledge, and what she does, it's
pretty amazing. So I'm learning a lot about sustainability that I hadn't thought I'd
ever know. Um..but she is really busy with the, she's working with climate
adaptation group, there are five I think states involved in that and what that is
about is ... um .... looking at some of the things that are happening locally in terms
of like, let's say, rainfall, issues as it comes and how quickly, intensity of those
events, and how do you change your flood plain ordinances or what you do to
adapt to that particular climate change, and so that's... that's something that is
happening and they are in the process of pull all that together in the next year.
Um ... and she is got a sustainability initiative with the University of Iowa that she's
working with ... and partnering with the University of Iowa and there are University
students that would be involved with that. So that are a number of things going
on with sustainability, it's not something you see a lot of at Council meetings, but
we are pretty much involved with that and I've been looking... talking to her about
looking trying to get sustainability into a checklist that we can integrate more into
our development processes so that we are attune to thinking about that as we
look at subdivision plats and things of that nature. I mean we already look at the
sensitive area ordinance and review for wetlands and things like that, but there
are more things than that we are looking at.
Markus/ Doug can I say a quick word or two...
Boothroy/ Sure.
Markus/ ...about the work that work that Brenda is doing, I sat in on the first meeting she
held with the regional network sustainability coordinators, I don't know two
months ago or thereabout, it was held at the library.
Boothroy/ Yes it was.
Throgmorton/ Yea, and I was very impressed by the group of people she has brought together,
but also something that is really quite unique. They are taking advantage
climate, for climate change forecast, and bringing them down to a...
Boothroy/ Local level.
Throgmorton/ ... a local level and then trying to connect those projections about climate change
to actions that public works department and other units of local government could
be affected by and what that implies...
Boothroy/ That is what I was trying to say Jim, but you said it better.
Throgmorton/ Yea... yea... and that is really unique and um ... I was very impressed by that so ... I
want to make sure...
Boothroy/ I think it's a very good effort that the, I think that is a really important thing, of the
things she is doing, I think that is really...
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Throgmorton/ Yea ... one other thing though has to do with sustainability, you know most people
deal with that concept talk about the three E's. The economy, equity, and
environment. And ... it's not clear to me yet if whether the sustainability work that
Brenda is doing is connected to the equity part, so I.. I'm not saying it's not, it's
just not clear to me how much it is.
Boothroy/ Yea, she's got a lot on her plate so I would say that is probably not a strong
connection at this point.
Throgmorton/ Yea, she's doing great work.
Boothroy/ You know we have over 50 acres of wetlands that she is responsible for
maintaining so not just the reports that we are talking about, but there is also so
physical areas that have to be monitored and she's involved with that too and
I..and making sure they are kept as wetlands and function as wetlands. Um ... of
course she was involved with the LED lighting as well, so and she is still involved
with that in terms of seeing how that transitions in terms of replacement of
lighting in Iowa City and in using some of the money from you all to see that the
lighting gets...
Payne/ He started with you all...
Boothroy/ From somebody, I don't know where all it all came from...
Hayek/ It was paid for by us all...
(laughter)
Boothroy/ Us all -that overpayment that you made that came back, like a rebate, or
something.
Payne/ Savings plan.
Hayek/ Or savings.
Boothroy/ Yea, it was a savings account I'm sure there was interest involved there.
Um ... let's see, a little bit about the MPO, next year um ... they'll be ... I've not read
this plan, but they will be working on a long range plan which is like a
comprehensive plan for the area. And it -it's done about every five years and
um ... sort of sets the basis for a lot of other things you work on. So that is a
project, that they'll be working throughout next year to try to get that completed.
Um ... and maybe a little bit into 2016 actually, the spring of 2016, that is a thirty
year plan by the way, so I'm not sure about thirty year plans, but that is required.
Payne/ Thirty like 3-0?
Boothroy/ Yea.
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Payne/ Oh my gosh!
Boothroy/ I'm sort of one that thinks that thirty year plans are not relevant anymore but that
is kind of what the standard is, I think it's required in this particular plan.
Um ... the, the MPO shortly will be awarding the um ... the STP and TAP funds this
spring so that is coming up, I think in February maybe, I'm not sure about that,
but that's ... the other thing I should mention is that ... through the reorganization
they are down a half a staff person, and that was the in a memo that Kent sent
out to the Board. And what I will tell you is that we were able to fill that half-staff
position with a ... within development services, Sarah Walz was able to pick up
half time position. I'm really excited about that, she's going to bring that level of
energy to the transportation and I think one of the things she will be working on,
besides other things, will be the bike planning aspect and some of those kinds of
activities. As Kent mentioned in his memorandum there are some additional
funds put in there for consultant to pick up that half that's ... that they are down.
But this was also an opportunity for somebody that is highly valued in the
organization to go full-time and I think she'll do a great job. She certainly did a
great job with the south district plans so ... I expect that to be the case for the
MPO. Urn ... so there will be a reduction in the annual payment this year, part of
that comes about because they are down a half, part of it comes about because
Kent is making less than John, and Sarah is making less than Kent coming in
so .... there will be a little, some savings as a result of new staff people taking a
position within the MPO. Urn ... let's see...
Markus/ Thank you Doug.
Boothroy/ I don't think I have any else that that I know (laughter)... thank you Tom for
hurrying me out the door. (laughter) Did anybody see the hook?
(laughter)... Matt, I have to leave ... no questions...
Botchway/ I had a question about housing inspections, how does, I mean, how does it work,
because you know seeing some of the dilapidated areas around...
Boothroy/ Are you talking about the rental inspections I assume?
Botchway/ Rental inspections but also um ... I just remember a conversation where
somebody got up in front of public comment and she was talking about ... and
Tom, maybe kind of steer me where I'm going with this ... maybe it's a different
apartment, but she got up and talked about some of the areas in which people
you know were just letting...
Hayek/ Anna Buss
Payne/ Yes.
Boothroy/ Well, and her, I want to qualify that before you get too far, her information was
inaccurate.
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Botchway/ Well, and I'm not ... I'm actually not speaking to her particular point, I'm also
speaking to...
Boothroy/ Because the tenant got their furniture out on the curb because they had bed bugs
and so it was out there while they were sanitizing the unit. She used as that an
an example of ... of ... trash and debris of the neighborhood, it was far from that.
So...
Markus/ But I think what you are referring to is the aesthetics of some of the properties in
the area and your colleagues on Council have stressed that to us and we've
done a joint review of that and I think Doug will be coming back with some new
initiatives on how to address that in a more aggressive way.
Boothroy/ That is what those funds were for the facade improvements.
Botchway/ Okay, and then going back to ... from a rental property aspect ... do we ... is that
going to be in the same type of discussion from initiatives. Because I ... I am
thinking about the cottage discussion we've had, because regardless of what
side you landed on..l just didn't like how that came about in whether or not, and
that is just a particular example, there are more examples around Iowa City, I
mean use Dolphin Point for example, um ... where ... I would just like know from the
inside of any type of rental property or even housing properties, what is going on
with, I don't want to have a person come to Council and say you know um ... I've
been living in ... for the past five years ... a terrible unit, I feel like we can do
something towards that, I'm not talking about the cottages or anything else, just
in the event that they comes up, is there an opportunity where the City can
interject and say you know, we're going to run our own type of inspection or
figure out...
Markus/ We are doing that.
Botchway/ Okay.
Markus/ And we're actually shutting some down from future rental until they make
substantial corrections.
Botchway/ Okay.
Markus/ The other thing I would say to you is as we build student housing at higher
density levels closer to campus one of the by-products of that is we hope to take
pressure off some of our inner-city neighborhoods and hopefully get them to be
more attractive, to be gentrified with pioneer families moving back into those
areas, you know, are closer to jobs, or closer to transportation, or closer to public
facilities. And I can tell you that based on what I've heard from certain major
landlords in town, they're feeling that kind of pressure, okay, they know that these
initiatives to put more student housing in the Riverfront Crossings area is going to
shift the demand for housing there and diminish the demand in some of our
neighborhoods, which quite frankly I see as a good thing because it takes the
pressure off those neighborhoods for rental and hopefully gets to the point where
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we can start to re -balance the ownership issues in those neighborhoods.
Hayek/ And I think ... one thing that will help that .... as that shift naturally occurs, assuming
it naturally occurs is higher expectations of the management.
Markus/ We are setting the bar, and you know ... we are raising the bar again, and I think
that has to happen.
Boothroy/ You see that in new construction, you see in the newer apartments have more
amenities than they used to because of that ... there is a higher expectation. I
agree when the competition is there there will be higher expectations.
Markus/ But when you have not 100% rental okay, people are forced to take what is
available and so the bar is very low. When you start to raise the bar on the
quality of the unit, even though the price point is higher, I think that puts a lot of
pressure on these other units because I think they can see rates will start to go
up and I think that is when we have the opportunity to really make an impact on
converting some of these neighborhoods back to more single family
neighborhoods. Which I think would be incredibly desirable for people you know
moving into this area.
Throgmorton/ I couldn't agree more.
Hayek/ Quick..quick question or comment, we talked about it earlier this morning with us
getting slammed on property taxes going forward thanks to what they did in Des
Moines, both on the multi -family and on the Department of Revenue definition of
multi -use, you know we are going to get far fewer taxes on our um ... apartment
portfolio if you will in the future, and we are going to have to look at other ways to
recapture costs, and I'm sure you've had those discussions, but ... that will be very
interesting. And when you think about, not just the demands placed on not just
your department in terms of inspections and handling complaints and what not,
but shear traffic in and out of neighborhoods, we've got you know, 20 cars as
opposed to two on a given postage stamp, a plot of land, I mean we are going to
have to be creative and figure out ways to appropriately and adequately cover
our costs.
Markus/ When you look at the neighborhood services functions, a lot of those functions
are self-supporting, okay, um ... when you get into the building inspections and so
forth, those things are self-supporting and we want to keep that in play. What
we'd like to do is get some of those planning services that we provide to be more
self-sustaining themselves, and I think there are ways to get there, but
community development type operations tend to have a higher level of fee for
service payment rather than having to allocate taxes to them. So we have to
stay on top of that, especially moving forward.
Hayek/ Thank you.
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Markus/ It keeps the process honest too. You know we get less fishing, so thank you
Doug.
Boothroy/ Thank you.
Dickens/ Run, run before we ask another question.
Airport:
Fruin/ Mayor, if you don't mind I think we are going to flip-flop here and have Mike
Tharp come up and talk airport before transportation comes up.
Hayek/ Sure.
Karr/ Airport is page 439.
Tharp/ Well, good afternoon. In terms of the airport operating budget we're proposing
essentially a status quo budget maintaining the operational levels we have. One
of the big things with our ... our general levee support we're asking for about
$30,000 which I think is half of what we had last year, we were just under $70
last year. Part of that is coming from our land sales of airport commerce park is
running through, we've got a couple of purchase agreements we are hoping to
close on the next couple of weeks and that should, that will take the airport out of
debt. We'll have no outstanding debt at that point and time and be able to take
another look at our operations and just make sure we are running things
efficiently and keeping going on the trajectory that we've been going on. One of
the biggest things with the airport, we've got a lot of buildings out there, a lot of
buildings that are aged, the terminal building is a 1951 vintage so that does
um ... increase our maintenance costs, and that is one of the focus areas we've
been on the last couple of years, and we'll continue to focus our operations
heavily on making sure we are presenting a good appeal to folks that are using
the airport. Business users that are coming through the airport into the city.
Um ... and ... and ... making sure we have a facility that um .... is able to capture and
handle folks that are using the airport and coming into Iowa City. Um ... with
that ... I don't really have a lot else unless there are particular questions about the
operations.
Mims/ In talking about that, and maybe this is directed as much to Dennis, we were
talking earlier today about budgeting to cover depreciation, um ... you know in
terms of getting the money there to replace, are we doing that at all with the
airport yet?
Bockenstedt/ No, not really.
Mims/ Okay, that is what I figured.
Bockenstedt/ And some of these we look at, we talk about depreciation and I think transit that
will come up as another one, and the airport are heavily subsidized in their
capital outlay so, it ... there ... you wouldn't normally have to for those operations
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fund 100% of the depreciation because about 90% of is funded from elsewhere.
Mims/ But will the FAA, I mean is it possible to get grant money from the FAA like to
replace the terminal building? I mean if we got to the point where it made more
sense to replace than to keep repairing it.
Tharp/ To some...the terminal building would be an eligible FAA project.
Mims/ Okay.
Tharp/ It may not weigh very high on the FAA scale of a ... of funding but it would be an
eligible project.
Mims/ Okay.
Markus/ The challenge we've had in the past is the hangers don't, they don't price out.
Mims/ Right.
Markus/ And so ... you need hangers to attract business, and yet the hangers you know,
you can't do a proforma that makes any sense. They're... they're a loose
proposition so that's been one of the challenges in the past that created the debt,
but then we used land that we were able to develop and the proceeds for and we
came up with an arrangement between the city and the airport and we wrote
down most of the debt now, and in the same process we have ratcheted down
the city's participation even though in additional to the 30, 1 think it's $100,000
that we contribute towards GO for basic improvements on match with our grants.
Bockenstedt/ Yea, and we did ... I'm sorry ... we did change that process in this year's budget and
one of the things we wanted to do because right now the airport does not cover
it's debt service cost on those improvements is to try to move that away from
debt service funding for their capital program. So ... using what formerly had been
an operating subsidy, and we ... you know, promises capital outlay, we are
essentially moving that over to the airport fund to allow them to fund their capital
program and take that matching funding off the debt service. So there are things
like that we are looking at ... pulling out of our debt services, out of our GO bond
issues, and moving to them to funding out of ongoing operating's versus, if
possible, to help alleviate some of that pressure on the debt side.
Mims/ Are all the lots sold now?
Tharp/ All the lots are either sold or obligated. There is four..
Markus/ That haven't closed yet.
Bockenstedt/ Yea.
Mims/ So the real challenge going forward is that resource is gone. The debt is gone.
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Bockenstedt/ There is a site that is at the south end of the airport that is potentially develop-
able but there is some flood issues, and I'm not sure we want to create more
industrial lots with a lot of infrastructure investment until we've had more success
with our east side industrial park...
Mims/ Right.
Markus/ Otherwise we are just competing with ourselves.
Tharp/ And the airport is currently in the process of updating our airport master plan
which is a 20 year plan and part of that will take look at our rates and fees not
only the hangers we also do annually, but ground leases, and future
development opportunities especially in light of that ... that sound area that is
available.
Markus/ I sat in on the airport managers selection process for Eastern Iowa Airport and I
sit on the planning committee that Mike is talking about, and there is
classifications of airports, we are in GA airport, general aviation, Eastern is a
commercial but they also have GA traffic up at Eastern Iowa Airport and so one
of the things I heard pretty clearly is they are trying to mend some fences with
their GA airport community. They have had some rough relationships, and so I'm
seeing that as potential competition. The other thing I would tell you is, using
Josh Schaumberger who's on the board of the Eastern Iowa Airport, and the
previous manager, we did look at potential collaboration, between Eastern Iowa
Airport and our airport as kind of a main reliever back to the Eastern Iowa
Airport. The numbers don't really seem to warrant and justify that it can be done
any more efficiently under their umbrella any more that as a stand-alone airport.
So ... we are going to struggle, but if you know we pay attention to the numbers
we'll make it through this. The other thing I'd say to you is that this airport has
economic development type spin-off, but that spin-off benefits not just Iowa City,
but Coralville, North Liberty in terms of potential business locations there that
might use that airport. But again, this is one of those things where the City of
Iowa City, through subsidy's, even though it's $30,000 and $100,000 for capital,
we are the ones that are paying the price of that subsidy to create that benefit
that creates economic benefit spin-off so ... I'm pretty cognition about how much
money we stick into that.
Hayek/ Mike, a couple of questions. First on rentals, the hanger rentals, I think your
position is that, those prices are pretty elastic, meaning if we were to bump up
the rental rates we'd lose tenants...
Markus/ Yes.
Hayek/ Is there ... do you...
Tharp/ Possibly ... the airport commission has held a position where they want the rates
at Iowa City to be at a premium compared to the airports around us. So when we
talk about raising rates, we are walking that line of ... of the top of the market value
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versus going overboard and losing the tenants.
Hayek/ Yea, okay.
Page 85
Payne/ I did see in your last commission you did talk about rental rates and some of
them were going to go up slightly and some were going to stay the same.
Tharp/ Yea, we have kind of two vantages of hanger buildings... building... three buildings
that were built in the 1950's, 1960's and then three building area that was built in
the 1990's and we adjusted the rates to the 1990's area buildings but we left the
older ones the same. And part of that reasoning was because of the market cap,
if you look at the airports around us you can find hangers for about half the cost
that are almost equivalent space and size and age.
Payne/ So people do read your meeting minutes too. (laughter)
Hayek/ And then my other part has to do with the ... the main... terminal itself and I
suppose broadly the whole facility, but ... things we may want to consider doing to
capitalize those assets more, make them more of a destination, yes the building
is old but it is also pretty darn cool art deco piece...
Tharp/ Yes it is.
Hayek/ ...of architecture that a lot of people love and ... and I don't know if it's within the
pilot demographic or the public in general if there is something we can do to draw
more feet down to that facility, I don't know, and maybe that would make the
hangar space more attractive and I just throw that out there.
Dickens/ Do we get any money from the fuel sales or...
Tharp/ Yea, we have a 10 cent fuelage fee on fuel sales, so every gallon of gas...
Dickens/ So where is that in the revenues, is that in a separate, I didn't see it in there. And
also when was the last time we built a hanger?
Tharp/ Um, we just built two box hangers in 2012 that were rented for $650 a month
each.
Markus/ The amortization on them?
Tharp/ That one was built with cash and state grants so ... there is no debt attached to
those.
Mims/ And the fuel tax is all staying with the airport.
Tharp/ Yes.
Mims/ Okay, I just ask because I just heard about a lawsuit yesterday or the day
nationally before about fuel tax money.
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Bockenstedt/ On page 441 in the airport fund summary, there is royalties and commissions
revenue.
Dickens/ Okay that is where that is located.
Bockenstedt/ That is the royalties off ... the commission off the fuel.
Hayek/ Well, thanks Mike, I remember when I started on Council, we were well into the
six figures on the annual subsidy and the debt was, I don't know, half a million or
something like that.
Tharp/ When I first got here it was about 3 1/2 million and the levee was $170,000 it's
been substantial progress and we hope like I said to keep the trajectory going.
Mims/ Great improvement
Tharp/ Thank you.
Throgmorton/ Good deal.
Transportation Services:
Payne/ You have a thick folder there.
Karr/ Transportation, parking and transportation, 353.
O'Brien/ I was going to actually walk up here and say "Chris O'Brien, transportation
service, thank you".
(laughter)
Fruin/ Before you leave Chris, I want to get a picture of you and Nick together too.
O'Brien/ Yea, I know, I saw that when I walked in. (laughter)
Markus/ How about Mike? (laughter)
Payne/ If it's orange.
Hayek/ It's got to be orange.
O'Brien/ I think the purple gray glasses thing going on, I saw that when I walked in ... leave
it to Geoff, thanks. Parking and Transit, I'm sorry which one would you like to
start with?
Dickens/ Your choice.
O'Brien/ Let's go transit first. Um ... transit operating budget... pretty status quo from prior
years, there is really nothing put in this budget that ... um ... carries the operational
piece higher than we've seen in prior years, we aren't proposing any rate
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increases we just ... did our last rate increase 13 and we have another 15 years
before we can raise it again if we keep going with past trends. Um ... I think it was
15 years prior when we did our last rate increase. Um ... we do have several grant
funds coming to us for bus purchases, 12, 12 buses is probably what we'll be
purchasing over the next 12 months, 4 of which are light duty ... that PO was just
issued this week for ... those are replacement of vehicles of our para -transit fleet.
Then we have eight vehicles that will replace our 1997 heavy duty buses ... that
we have grant funds for, we are just waiting for the contract to be approved, and
then we'll make our purchase off those, and those are about $400,000 a piece
with about 80% funding so we'll have, I think it's $620,000 is our share and 3.2
million is what the Federal share will be for those purchases. As you know, we
switched transit over to an enterprise fund, meaning we are self-supporting,
obviously we receive levee funds through the transit levee, which we obviously
sense an impact from that from the tax reform, so that will be something to keep
an eye on. Um ... and then we also receive federal and state operating assistance
for our transit as well. Just some highlights of some things we've done over the
last, last year or so, and we have upcoming, so we had BONGO for several
years, we are actually going into our fifth year of..of... our next bus AVL system.
We added a trip planner piece to that which allows people to get online and
actually plan their trips. And that utilizes all three systems, Coralville, Cambus
um ... as well as Iowa City, so they can plan, they just pick a point they start and a
point and end at and it builds the route for them, tells them their transfer points.
And that was with assistance from University IT, using a .... what was it called .... an
open map I think was the trip planner. Portland was who originated it. Um ... we
completed a joint project with Coralville to replace our fare boxes. Um ... we are
going into year three, this budget year, of our para -transit contract. I believe we
are looking at 1.4 million up from 978,000 was the last year, the previous
contracts, we are up to about 1.4 million. Um and we are ... the maintenance
costs were a little bit higher than we anticipated which led to our budget being a
little tighter this last year, there were about 140,000 and I think we anticipated at
about 50 in maintenance. I'm getting those caught up, so these four replacement
buses are going to help a lot in keeping those maintenance costs down. We had
our tri annual review, so every three years FTA sends us a packet, and you
thought these folders were bad, the FTA packet is more like this ... um ... I think it
was 157 pages of information and I think we sent them several, several megs of
data back and then they come down and do a site visit. And we had one finding
out of the 17 areas that they evaluate and it was resolved in like three days. We
get in the findings, so it was a very very minor finding. And then upcoming, this
spring we will be coming in front of Council to talk about potential transit
changes, route changes, looking at rate structures, looking at hours of servicing,
things like that. So we can talk about how to better serve the public and looking
at some of the route changes as developments have occurred, has jobs have
popped into different areas, so we can serve those areas better.
Payne/ On the BONGO thing, we can go in and kinda map your route and it tells you
what bus to get on, does it tell you how long it's going to take you to get...?
O'Brien/ Yep, it gives you an actual, it tells you the distance walking from wherever you
start to the nearest bus stop what that bus stop is, um ... and then it will tell you
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your whole trip and give multiple options and allow you to plan per time of day as
well.
Payne/ So Denver has one of those with the same type of...
O'Brien/ Yes, there are several places that have them, there are just different back end
systems that operate those.
Hayek/ We have historically, and I believe still do, had a system that um ... blankets as
much of the city as it can versus...
O'Brien/ I believe you referred to it as peanut butter, peanut butter last time, you spread it
all over the entire community is how you referred to it that last time.
Hayek/ I'm not sure I did...
O'Brien/ Yea it was good.
Hayek/ ..I hope I did ... its brilliant.
O'Brien/ It's a good one.
Hayek/ Yea, I don't think I did though, versus through...
O'Brien/ Coralville.
Hayek/ Metaphors fish where the fist are, sending buses...
Dickens/ Did you know he was the foosball champ...
(laughter)
Dickens/ What do fish have to do with peanut butter, I'm a little confused...
Hayek/ Well, they might bite on it. No the fish, go where the population where needs the
transportation the most you know, is there...
O'Brien/ So when we come in front of you we'll have both.
Hayek/ Okay.
O'Brien/ What it will look like and similar to how we do things now and what ... a ... go with
where the highest rider density is, sort of a...
Hayek/ We see lots of buses in neighborhoods, with if anybody ... with maybe one person
on the bus, and maybe those are non -peak hours, but there are a lot of buses
riding around almost empty and that may, you know, may be policy reasons to
maintain that, um ... but ... you're .... Tom's laughing ... but how do you make the
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argument that...
O'Brien/ I know what he's laughing actually so...
(laughter)
Markus/ I just had a vision of your future .... (laughter)...
Mims/ Riding around in a bus.
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Markus/ ...we have a longtime attorney in town who brings that issue up on a regular
basis...
Hayek/ Oh ... I know who he is... And he burned out Adam and he's working on Simon,
and I'm going to take over when he retires ... I'm going to complain about those
trees on Kirkwood too. (laughter)
Dickens/ Taxi vouchers...
Hayek/ Anyway...
O'Brien/ Yea we are going to come with both scenarios and see, and talk about some
different express options and some day/night differences to how we do things
now, it will become an all-encompassing discussion about how we move forward.
Mims/ Will there be anything on there with Sunday service?
O'Brien/ Um ... we'll present what that options would look like and what those costs would
be going later, starting earlier, offering later night services on Saturdays, all of
that will be part of the discussion. And then we can, we will roll that into
something we talk about for the ... so maybe a year from now ... the next
budget... anything we talk about can maybe implemented into that budget...
Botchway/ And when will that be?
O'Brien/ That'll be this spring, I think March is what we are looking at.
Fruin/ It's on your pending list, so we'll schedule it when, when we can here, it's not
looking like it will be February, probably March.
Botchway/ I thought you said summer, that's why I was asking.
O'Brien/ Spring, I'm sorry did I say ... I meant spring, my mistake.
Throgmorton/ Speaking of pending lists, in the past I've suggested that taxi regulation seems to
me should really be part of transportation services. I know this is a city
manager's choice so I'm not trying to dictate anything here at all, but I wonder, I
would hope there have been conversations about the ... the possibility and viability
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of ... of .... linking the three into a coherent transportation.
O'Brien/ Yea, I think there ... there have been some discussions, we've had some brief
discussions with some taxi providers just to kind of high level discussions of what
that would look like and what type of options are out there in order to ... maximize
the amount of ... utility out of all of the resources. Meaning ... you know ... to kind of
get to your point, areas where one or two people are riding you certainly don't
want to take away a mode people depend on, but can you provide some other
types of modes urn ... subsidy cab programs for work options ... I mean there's
different things you can look at and that will part of the discussion we have,
coming up in spring and possibility, depending on how, early spring to late spring,
depending on when I am back here.
Parking:
Hayek/ Thanks.
O'Brien/ Okay ... on to the parking piece ... I went to parking much like transit as an
enterprise fund the only difference is we operate seven days a week on the
parking side of things. On street parking. Off street parking, parking
enforcement, maintenance of the facilities, maintenance of the equipment. We
also do a lot of downtown snow removal, we assist with streets department in
helping clear the downtown so the parking stalls are open. Zip cars is something
jointly with the University of Iowa, we brought in um ... and ... I think that contract is
up for renewal as well. And then we work closely with the downtown district to
help out with events, event planning in how we set up the parking for that, as well
as any new initiatives that maybe coming up, or technology that might be able to
be used to help the parking convenience to people. Um ... we have 1142 metered
spots, we just did a, last, well over, a year and a half now, a meter upgrade to the
smart meter system with credit card, um ... credit card access for people to utilize.
We also have 3086 off street spaces in our facilities. We've got a, we are
working on a designs for lease purchase that will be coming before you guys
here in the next month or so. Um ... as far as highlights for the parking operation,
you know I mentioned the lease purchase, that is a 600 space facility that will be
fully automated much like what we've done over the past couple years with eh
Court Street Transportation Center and with Tower Place, we've fully automated
both of those facilities. Um..we do still have a cashier presence at Capital Street
and Dubuque Street just because, I think Dubuque Street with the hotel aspect of
it, both the Vetro and the Sheraton, it makes it having a person there is still
beneficial from the standpoint of giving directions, assisting people who are in
from out of town, and Capitol Street just because the size of that facility, 875
spaces, um ... still having a presences for people who, it's always the more utilized
facility that we have, so we still have a cashier presences there. Upcoming
technology changes that we see. We've just in the last year gone to online
permit renewals which has been um ... it's been a great process for us, a module
in our software that we've had there, but just ... the online renewal portion was
available until this last year so customers really like that piece. Obviously we
automated Tower Place and Court ... Tower Place and the Court Street
Transportation Center ... um those automation ... um ... aspects have actually raised
our credit card usage in those facilities up to 70% depending on which facility we
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are talking about. So 70% of our revenues are coming in on credit card.
Um ... going back to the smart meters, last year when I was, when were six
months in, were were at about 36% were credit card, we are up to 45% overall,
and we just had our first month of over 50 in October. Where 50% of the meter
transactions were done with credit cards.
Mims/ Do you get many complaints about those, or problems with them...
O'Brien/ Um ... we did at first, we had some issues with the coin reads and the speed at
which those credit cards were processing so we made some adjustments to the
modems and the software in order to speed up the transaction times um ... but we
still get the occasional, much like we did with our other meters, you are going to
have malfunctions at times, as (a) it's battery powered and (b) there are other
components that lead to failure at times.
Payne/ It's still really slow when you put your credit card in...
O'Brien/ And I think that ...the tough part is with those, you know, it depends on the
modem connectivity, it's actually down, I forget, we timed it there for a while
there, we tracking it, and it was ... I think we got the time down, we cut in half from
the when we first got it in.
Payne/ I'd almost rather pay the ticket, then stand there and wait for it.
Mims/ Well I couldn't figure out if it was working one day, when I tried to do it so...
Payne/ It's like, it seems like .... five minutes
Mims/ I left it and got a ticket.
Payne/ But it's probably more like two.
O'Brien/ Usually we are in the seconds when we have those, so we don't see too many
above, but ... we'll keep an eye on it.
(many talking/laughter)
Botchway/ I've had really quick speeds with it, I know I've talked to you before where it was,
I didn't like it at first, but now, I mean..20-30 seconds tops.
Payne/ I think it's really convenient... yea ... I think it's extremely convenient to be able to
use it, but I just don't like to stand there and wait for that little, that little hour glass
thing, it seems like it takes forever.
Dickens/ The first hour free, how is that affecting...
O'Brien/ I'm actually, that is one of the big highlights I was going to cover. Um...
Hayek/ Stand there and read your airport commission minutes while you waiting...
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O'Brien/ First hour free was something that we've been through the first year, we are six
months into year two, and um that has been a very successful change for us.
Dickens/ It's still an education thing because I know we, on a regular basis, we tell...
O'Brien/ I think because people turnover so much I don't think people anticipate that we
are going to give anything away from free, from the parking side of things, so ... in
the first year of operations, we gave ... there were 1 million 70 thousand free hours
of parking that we gave away in our facilities. I mean that's a ... anything over ... we
were hoping to get to a million and it was really really close. What's awesome
about it is we are up 11.3% in usage this year already. Which was ... and we are
up 18% last year from the year prior to that so the changes that we've made of
trying to get people into the facilities did exactly what we wanted, which was
open up more on -street spaces, turn them over, increase the usage of the
facilities, I think that is 27.8% is what we are up July - December this year versus
two years ago before we went to first hour free.
Dickens/ And in dollar wise, how did ... did it equal out?
O'Brien/ We actually ... we anticipated a slight decrease and we actually had a slight
increase because what we are seeing is more people and they are actually
staying longer. So our average length of stay is up. Um ... and then obviously
with on -street, with the changes we made, we had a decrease in the usage, but
an increase in the rate, so we saw an increase in the revenues from that as well.
But we are well beyond the point of needing to up that on -street, so it was higher
than the off-street, that was a ... that was a good decision for us, and it worked
exactly like we wanted it to, it was keeping those on -street spaces free for the
short term, and getting the people who are going to park a longer term into the
facilities. It resulted in a 160,000 more vehicles than the prior year, so you take
that out over ... how many extra vehicles a month um ... and actually this year
we ... it's looking like another 150,000 to 160,000 increase from last year, so
that's... urn... that was a good program for us. Urn ... a few projects we have
coming up, pay by cell ... that is something that we'll have, that will be a joint
University project, along with electronic charging stations. We are looking at joint
procurements for University and the City on those. Um..bike sharing, another
University/City joint ... got some news that it's looking like the recommendation
came through on that, now we'll see if the funding comes through on that, for the
bike sharing program. Um...
Payne/ The bike sharing program that'll be like you can put your credit card in and you
take bike out and take it around...
O'Brien/ Yea, there are different, there's different ... you can either set up memberships or
some that it's... it's... you could actually utilize um ... a credit card to do it and you
have either an account or it charges you and then you have different stations at
different locations so you can get a bike at one location, dock it at another, and
somebody, either us or the University is responsible for balancing those out on a
regular basis to make sure you don't have empty docks and somewhere all ones
fully loaded. So ... And this is just the initial ... I think they will have three to four
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stations they are looking at, and then they are all on the east side of the river with
eventually goals to expand it once ... if it's successful to the west side so that we
have that connectivity with the east and west sides of the river.
Hayek/ I ... the first hour free ... is ... is great PR, I mean people love it, it's like this ... almost
like an unexpected mini tax break or they... they... you see their faces change
when they learn about it and the relief that comes over their face when ... you
know ... that's great. Quick..on the zip cars, I know they are very popular and it's
going, doing well. They do take up on -street spots, prime parking spaces. Is the
plan to still leave them outside there at those spots or is it...
O'Brien/ Yea, we really on have two right now that are actually in ... and that's on Linn
Street, we got rid of the ones on Iowa Avenue.
Hayek/ Oh, Okay.
O'Brien/ So if there are some up in front of Burge, and then you have the ones on Linn
Street, we got rid of the ones on Iowa...
Hayek/ Okay.
O'Brien/ ... and relocated those. But we only have the two that are on Linn Street right
now. Um ... I mean we could always look at that, I mean...
Hayek/ It's just a couple ... it's not that big of deal, but...
Throgmorton/ So how is that experiment worked?
O'Brien/ Every month the amount of people that have joined, as well as the utilization had
increased. Um ... now obviously when you hit December the usage drops a little
bit, when the University is out of session. Um ... but they actually added, for the
first time they added a vehicle in October, and we had, usually when you hit to
40% is kind of when they start ... well we had on vehicle at 49%, on at 42, one at
38.9, so as our utilization got up there they added another vehicle to make sure
they didn't have too many times where vehicles weren't available in those pods.
So ... it's been a good program for us. Um ... I think, unless you guys have other
questions about parking, I'm...
Markus/ Thanks Chris.
O'Brien/ Yep.
Hayek/ We appreciate it. (laughter)
Payne/ You see how this works...
Dickens/ It's that hook...
O'Brien/ I told you I was just going to say thank you and walk away.
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Markus/ We were thinking that maybe Marian..you would...
Karr/ You want to have Ron's since he's here?
Markus/ No, we are going to give him a chance to relax for a second and have you jump
in.
Karr/ Okay.
City Clerk:
Karr/ Mine is on page 109, mine is as lengthily as Eleanor's. Um ... basically the city
clerk's office, there are two major functions. Duties assigned by state and city
code as well as those assigned by Council in achieving your strategic goals.
Duties for the state and city code, which are outlined on ... in the budget and on
the report, maintaining records, publications. The general requirements. The
strategic plan goals we are spending a considerable amount of time converting
our old documents, saving of storage, and also making them accessible 24/7.
Um ... we have, we are being contacted by a lot of the major cities actually right
now, there are some major ... major survey going on across the state. Many cities
are in the process of converting their documents and are going through a
retrieval system. Many, none of them however, do what we do and after, once
they are electronically they are archived, destroy. They are all looking at that
because of the obvious, you take your time and effort and resources to electronic
preserve them, make them available and then you still have to maintain them or
store them, and you still have the constraints. Many of them are looking and
um..hopefully will follow our lead and take look at the advantages of that.
Mims/ You're saying that we are destroying them?
Karr/ We are..we have had a ... a .... schedule that goes through, through Council, it is
updated every few years, and it allows the destruction of the documents once
they are electronically archived. Um ... many are looking at doing it in phases and
identifying certain ones that they do the first year, certain ones they do the
second. Getting ultimately to a five-year plan. We are about 10 years ahead of
that plan.
Mims/ How many archived versions do we have of our digital stuff, I mean...
Payne/ You are saying do we have a back-up?
Karr/ Oh yes we do ... at least one.
Mims/ I know we have a back-up, but I'm just, in this crazy world where you think of
everything electronic going kaput...
Karr/ We are backed up minimally three different ways.
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Markus/ She has one at her house. (laughter)
Karr/ Under my bed (laughter) I sleep with it. Um ... we are looking also um ... at ... we
recently as you've heard from a couple of other departments, we've undergone a
Laserfishe, which is our software provider, um ... upgrade and we are really taking
a look at streamlining and working more closely with departments on workflows
and agenda preparation management. There is a lot of time spent each week
getting those electronic packets to you, and several iterations of um ... changes
made, and what we are taking a look at is improving that with a better electronic
workflow and allowing departments to change it themselves, rather than once
submitted letting me know to change this part, and then getting back to letting me
know they changed that part. And putting it back on the departments to create
that package, ultimately that final agenda items, comment and materials that go
to you. Um ... we've had no new employees, the largest additional cost you'll see
in the budget is the off year election costs. I always laugh when I see our, my
budget going up 42% or down 42% and it's elections, it's not really....
Mims/ And how do you see ... the state law, that changed the way elections are run,
basically took a lot of things away from the City Clerks and gave it to the County,
how do you see that working in terms of coordinating?
Karr/ I don't know yet, I think we'll have a better feel after we go through the first one.
That's ... we've not experienced other than the local option sales tax, which isn't
really a city council election...
Mims/ Right.
Karr/ Since the change in law ... um ... I don't see the any ... I don't see the cost, the actual
cost changing in the short run, when you talk about the actual costs of the
elections, you still pay the precinct workers, you still have the same number of
precincts, you still have the paper ballots, you still have the satellite voting. All of
those things, how it's going um ... what's its going to cost in other ways we won't
know until after we go through it. Um ... there is, there's an option that the
Commissioner of Elections may deputize cities upon request, um ... whether we'll
be part of that or how that will influence us, we'll know after the next one. I think
in the long run, it could end up essentially costing the city more as well.
Botchway/ One of the things, when we talked, whenever we are going to talk about
elections, I know that is a previous role of mine, but um ... they were, or we were
talking in the county about consolidating precincts, is that something you can do
for off-year elections? You can't do it for governor, gubernatorial or um ... or big
elections ... um ... and that being a potential cost savings.
Mims/ Well school does that, they do that for the school elections.
Botchway/ Right, but for the fact that Iowa City has 24 precincts and for the fact that the
County basically starts voting at onset, so 40 days prior to the actual election
day, nobody is really ... is realizing cost savings in that. So somebody should ... I
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think
Karr/ I think that before we can add to that we'll have to wait and see what the Charter
Review Commission um ... makes any changes or recommendations on the
district. Both representation and the election process.
Botchway/ That's true.
Karr/ Because the school board election combining is very different than the
opportunities and the voting restrictions within precincts we have.
Botchway/ True.
Karr/ So certainly some of that can come into play. Um..this year also in the budget
you'll see a slight increase for the legal counsel, for CPRB because we replaced
a previous attorney who represented the Commission for over 13 years, so we
did see an increase in the hourly rate on that as well. Special projects for 2014,
um, of course we were involved with the Senior Services Ad Hoc, Charter
Review, started almost, it's still in the process, the 175th celebration, and going
into 15 um ... as I mentioned we had the electronic prep and management,
working a little bit more with the new software and workflow opportunities that we
have, as well as expanding the taxi regulations that you have before you.
Finance:
Markus/ Dennis, you are next.
Hayek/ Thank you Marian, we appreciate what your department does in so many
different areas.
Bockenstedt/ Alright, um ... the finance department, we are actually made up of six different
divisions. We cover a lot of territory in the internal services realm. The first
division...
Karr/ Finance starts on 117.
(several) Thank you.
Bockenstedt/ Thank you, I've got actually ... So um ... administration we've got four employees,
and we take care of the health and dental reserves, employee benefits, the
general obligation bond issuance, and other general long-term bonds, prepare
the budget, we do the investment in banking management, and um..we
also ... manage the community funding program that's in the budget. The major
things, initiatives we've been doing on the administrative side is to continue to
implementing software packages that are going create efficiencies and the, the
MUNIS software package has done a lot to decentralize a lot of the processing of
information as well as making a lot of the information into images. Where people
can access what used to take, individuals to do research, go through files, to try
and find things it's now all digitized and accessible to the end user. What would
take seconds or minutes used to take days or weeks to research? Another
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package we've added is a CIP software package and if you've looked at that
section of your book, um ... what was formerly done in spreadsheets or journal
entries is now done through a, kind of a access database system that was, we
were able to take information that the department submits and transfer it right
over into the access database and it reduces a lot of double entry and addition
work in managing those project. Um ... one system we are looking at
implementing now is a time -keeping solution, and this is hopefully, we'll create
more efficiencies, we are kind of in that system now where people will punch in
and out on a time clock or computer and that will transfer right over to the payroll
system, rather than people having to hand enter time sheets, which requires a lot
of effort for everybody to gather that, put it into a format, and then hand enter it,
so hopefully we'll see some additional efficiencies created there. And ... another
area we are looking in our ITS department is creating a ... tracking software to
track programs, service calls and other events to see not only performance
measures, how are people are preforming, how long people are waiting for things
to take place, but also to document the activities that are taking place down
there. So ... that's really ... in our area we are just trying to look at streamlining
through automation and software and we've really been in that process for the
last several years, and will probably go on for another year of implementation
software, which does take a lot of effort from a lot of people to do that. Um ... the
second division, accounting, and this division has seen a lot of change because
of the MUNIS system implementation, has decentralized a lot of the work and
changed a lot of how the workload takes place. Where a lot of it is now
paperless, they just look at monitors and screens and things are transferred back
and forth electronically. we completed our first year under accrual basis
accounting versus cash basis and that has been a real learning curve for
everybody as far as ... because you are changing processes, you are changing
the timing of your reporting, and whose expecting what and so that has been a
big change. Also in accounting we were affected by, basically three disaster
events in the last, about a year. We had two in 2013 and one in 2014 and ... at
the time we were preparing to eliminate um ... a ... our grant accounting position
that was hired from '08. We had three events in basically one year, um ... and so
we had to bring that position back as a part-time person to assist us with working
through those three disaster events and any more of these FEMA events, even if
the dollar amounts are significant take a tremendous amount of time dealing with
that agency and the, and the detailed documentation requirements that they
have. Um ... our third division is our purchasing and central services. They do our
purchasing and bidding and manage our copiers, they do our postage for the
City, and they do radio maintenance. Um... you know, something that we did last
year, we really kind of went in and revamped the purchasing policy, we felt we
built a lot more efficiencies into that, and helped streamline things from a end
user, as a well from a department management perspective. Um ... we chopped
the document to only about half the size it was (laughter) and tried to simplify
things and we think that has been very successful, at this point. Something new
that is in this division that once we changed all the radio system, all the radio
maintenance now goes through the central services division. And they handle all
those contracts, so that is something new for them. Our fourth division is our
revenue, our utility billing division. They are actually in the middle of their MUNIS
implementation now and they have been so since, for about a year, I think we
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started a year ago in January, and this is something that will affect everybody
who, city-wide, so it will be something you will be getting a report on, or hear
more about as we get closer because essentially we are going from a very old,
old system um ... and replacing it with a new utility billing system which will affect
everybody's water bill city-wide. So ... if nobody knows about it, that means it went
well. (laughter) But you know, anytime you are flipping over from one computer
system to another there is a potential for issues, problems, errors and one that is
affecting 25,000 customers, bills, that they expect to be flawless every month,
has potential for heartache, or heartburn. So ... we are getting closer to that
implementation and hopefully, as we get closer you'll hear more about that.
So ... um ... Information Technology services is our fifth division, and they handle
the City's fiber-optic network, PCs, network services, they also handle all the
telephone systems city-wide, and ... some of the major issues going on right now
with that is the incredible ramp up of the storage requirements of the City's
needs. You know as we continue to proliferate video camera systems, into
buildings, into water systems, you know, um ... you know after the terrorist attacks,
a lot of the water stations, the pumps and the meters, or the pumps and the
different areas for security purposes they put video cameras all over the place.
We've added more of them into City buildings for security, monitoring, and then
of course now as the police department, we get into body cameras. The storage
requirements for all that video and all ... and plus as Doug mentioned, the plan
sets for engineering and planning, heavy, heavy load requirements for all that
storage. That is definitely a challenge that we are seeing and working on.
Throgmorton/ How long do we store that stuff?
Bockenstedt/ It varies, you know some of the stuff like emails, we may store for three years,
things for the police department of legal department we'll store indefinitely,
depending on you know, if there is a murder case or something like that, those
files, they would would be permanent. Like Marian's stuff, they would be
permanent, or it may just be stored until those cases are resolved or...
Throgmorton/ I had in my mind an image of this ... the drinking water plant, and a camera that is
on, it's on all the time, does that video, do we store all the video just
observing... whatever the seem is?
Bockenstedt/ No, we do not. And you know that can present challenges because sometimes if
there is vandalism or there is an event, and you found, you find out about it after
the fact, that video may be destroyed. So I mean there is always offsets between
how long to store things, or how long to keep things versus when do you destroy
it, versus when you may need it and you wish you had that video back and I
know those are issue the police department are dealing with right now with the
body cameras and how long do you store this because of the ... of the
requirements and there is stuff, because of legal reasons that we maintain
permanently or for a very long time that does have a steep storage requirement.
And there is a cost to that, 'cause each megabyte, gigabyte, we're into terabytes
now, to store has a cost associated with that.
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Mims/ Dennis, can you, this is simply a way this is presented, when I look at most of
these spreadsheets like under City Attorney, City Clerk, or whatever, the ... total
revenues equals the total expenditures, okay. When I look at yours, and I've
seen a few others like this, and yours is on page 138, it shows total revenues of
30, over 30 million dollars and total expenditures of $440,000. 1 don't...
Bockenstedt/ We like to maintain a profit in the finance department (laughter)...
Mims/ I mean obviously there, obviously there is a transfer of money going on, but
it's..it's now showing up here and I guess that's what got me when I was looking
at this stuff.
Bockenstedt/ Yea, that is, that finance admin page you are looking at, that is really the area
where all that other revenue comes in, that's subsidizes all the other operations
and, you really you have to pick a cost center to run it through it's like all, all the
primary property taxes and other general tax and general revenue that maybe
isn't affiliated with one operation or one activity, comes into this one cost center
here so, and then that is when it transfers out of the general fund to the other
areas. So that is why it's...
Mims/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ Off set that way.
Payne/ I mean, with what you are saying, should there be a line item on there that says
transfers out?
Mims/ That would have made more sense to me. But I'm not the accountant or finance
director that knows how these things should be laid out, so.
Bockenstedt/ That's fine ... so ... but that is why that revenue...
Mims/ I mean that's what I assumed, and there are a couple others too that I saw with
revenues a lot greater than the expenses.
Bockenstedt/ There are some programs that do make a profit, that do make income, or...
Mims/ Yes, some are enterprise so I'm sure, I know...
Bockenstedt/ Um ... and then our sixth division is our risk management function which handles
insurance, claims, safety programs, and reporting. Um ... we have made some
changes in this area. One of the things we've done, normally we've bid our
insurance programs out each year, and last year we tried it where we bid it for a
three-year basis thinking we'd get more bidders and better bids and I think it was
moderately successful but that is something we are going to just try out, 'cause
there is a lot of administrative paperwork when you apply for that insurance, the
applications are as big as notebook, so ... um ... so we are going to try doing that
seeing how that goes. And, um ... something else we did was we outsourced
claim processing for the police and fire, medical claims, and retiree claims
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that... formerly been handled in house and just for reduction of paperwork and
HIPPA, other reasons that we've farmed that out to our other claims processor
and then they make adjustments and do those filing for us. Those are some of
the issues we've dealt with and are dealing with and urn... if you have any more
questions I'll try to answer them.
Botchway/ I had a quick one, just from kinds a public standpoint, is there any way we can
get like a ... some type of chart or map of each department, and I know that we
kind of have that right now, but that's ... like, budget for dummies 2015 from where
you know exactly how things are expended and why and so in transit
they're ... that money can't be transferred um ... to the police department or
something like that. I think, I'm going back through a couple of discussions, or
people that came up even from like the housing standpoint where we were
talking about those two positions and who pays for those positions, and why can
we pay 25 million dollars here for a particular TIF but then you know we are
cutting these positions here. Is there any way we can show that on a ... again you
know book for dummies, that I mean I could co-author or whatever the case may
be, to make sure that, that type of rhetoric can be proactively stopped.
Bockenstedt/ Yea, I mean there's... there's certain things you could learn from a broad
perspective I think, you know, just far as like what an enterprise fund is. You
know, how's that accounted for, 'cause really we operate a lot of different funds
and they... they.... the requirements and what, how that money is used and how
they are accounted for are different. And some of them, like the ones you just
mentioned, the housing authority, has additional layers to it that are even deeper,
that have federal requirements as far as how those monies are expended.
So ... to ... to ... we could to try and make it as simple as this is public finance for
dummies but it really is a ... a complex set of rules that each fund and within those
funds activities, there is different layers of requirements that need to be met. And
so ... um ... you know I think there are some generalities you could start with to say
special revenue funds are special revenues that are... have... required to be used
for legal purpose. You know, enterprise funds are business type funds that are
meant to be operated like businesses although there are exceptions like airport,
transit, and what have you. But within those generalities there are additional
layers of requirements that have to be met depending on the source of funds that
have come in, if they have restrictions, um ... if they have been ... and there are
different layers of restrictions from whether it's assigned, or you know, restricted,
unrestricted, committeemen, if I can remember all the different types of
commitments there are. So ... so although ... um ... I can sit here and tell you
that... that.... you know there are generalities we can make, to ... to put that out
there, and if you read some of the notes about this they talk about those in the
notes of the financial statements and budget book, it is..it's generally more
complicated specifically when you get into some of those funding areas like
housing because of the ... and Doug touched on ... the admin fees that are based
on the utilization that are restricted for certain ... we don't necessarily get into all
those nuances of the requirements of the budgets.
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Markus/ I've seen citizen guides to municipal budgets that kind of breaks it down in more
layman's terms and we'll go online and see what we can find and accumulate to
our situation and see what we can come up with.
Hayek/ Okay.
Bockenstedt/ And that's why, if you look at a lot of the narrative within those funds...
Mims/ That's helpful.
Bockenstedt/ Yea, there is a lot there to read. So...
Markus/ It will be somewhat simplistic, and for every statement we make there is an
exception.
Mims/ There is a caveat, yea.
Botchway/ I mean that, I think that is what you are saying as well, I mean I'm sure there is
going to be a disclaimer line on each and every page, but I think, I think it would
help just from a...
Markus/ And we'll load it on the site.
Botchway/ Yea, that's fine.
Throgmorton/ I think it would help too, you know, I recall President Lincoln's words
"Government of the people, by the people and for the people" and if the people
cannot understand anything about the, how the government operations are
funded, and how a budget is balanced, then can't possibly a meaningful role
other than to elect their representatives, and that's not what Lincoln, among
others, had in mind. So I know the world is different from what it was in 1861-5
but a...
Markus/ But that is what representative democracy is all about. So like (many talking,
laughing) selecting people to make decisions which in their best judgment serves
the entire public.
Throgmorton/ True enough but there always...
Dickens/ And exception to the rule.
Throgmorton/ ... a possibility, and I'd say a desirability of the general public playing a
meaningful role in shaping such documents as the budget and the
comprehensive plan, etc. It's not simply a matter of electing seven people who
then appoint the city manager, it's ... it goes deeper than that.
Bockenstedt/ One analogy I like to make with the city budget is, you know we are not a widget
company making widgets. You know, I mean, if we were, you know, we could sit
there and tell you all the revenues and costs that went into making a widget, we
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really have an operation that really has about 50 different widgets we are
making. And each operation has its own funding sources, its
own... everything... the way they operate, the way they do things, their own
uniforms, their own equipment, waste water department is nothing like parks
department, or the parking department, I mean there may be some overlap there
but each one is very unique and to its own individual self...
Mims/ And different kinds of restrictions which makes it so complex.
Bockenstedt/ And so when we prepare this book, it ... yea there are some interrelationships, it's
like preparing a budget for 50 different organizations not just one. But ... that
being said, I think there are things we can get for you, and there is a set of
handbooks as prepared by the Government Finance Officers Association that
covers all sorts of public finance for elected officials. And I probably have a
number of them in my office alone. And they are just pamphlets that basically
cover whether it's insurance, or budgeting, or accounting for elected officials. So
it's breaks it down to similar concepts to understand.
Hayek/ Well, we'll look at that. Um ... let's move on, before, Dennis thanks for the
presentation and as the storm clouds gather of all the important things your office
does, any forecasting and helping as Tom described, helping the City make a
soft landing with the roll-out of property tax reform is so critical going forward, you
know that, but just had to say it.
Karr/ Just for the record, wanted to apologize finance of course started out on page
135, sorry.
Mims/ Yea, we found it.
Hayek/ Got it.
Public Works Program:
Markus/ And so now that Marian and Dennis have modeled for Ron Knoche's first attempt
at presenting the budget (laughter), Ron you're up.
Karr/ And that is page 259.
Payne/ Hopefully you won't be quite as long winded as your predecessor. (laughter)
Because that would take to like 5:15.
Knoche/ Yea, that won't happen. (laughter)
Hayek/ ...leaves are already throwing him under the bus. (laughter)
Mims/ not CIP
Knoche/ He is in Hawaii so it's...
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Hayek/ Yea, he was terrible
(many talking at once)
Hayek/ A breath of fresh air to have you come in.
Knoche/ Alright, urn ... Public Works department is split up into six divisions and
nine operational areas. Urn ... we have the first division is the admin area, and
that area we take care of all the sidewalk cafe, street cafes um ... right away use
permits that go on, agreements that go on, are all managed through that area.
Um ... the Public Works Engineering division obviously deals with all
the... the... division... construction that goes on in our community, oversees all
subdivision work that occurs and site plan work that goes on. Um ... the ... I think
the biggest challenge that we are going to have is the management of the capital
program over the next few years with the Gateway project coming on, that will be
a big one. We've finished up or in ... continuing to finish up on our waste water
plant construction. Um ... and we'll move forward with that. Urn ... obviously we
know one of the challenges that we do face all throughout Public Works, in
engineering and Public Works admin especially is retirements. Um ... you know
with Rick retiring, Denny Gannon and Rick retiring, that you know is 70 years'
worth of experience that walked out the door last week, so it's urn ... it will be a
challenge for us, but I think we have the staff that are capable of moving forward
with that. Urn ... as we move on, the streets division, you know I guess overall in
the Public Works department I think we are going to move forward with the
standard of service that we've provided in the past, with the current budget that is
before you there aren't any major um ... changes that are going to occur within this
next budget year. And ... and that stands tall for the rest, for all the divisions. The
streets division will continue to provide the services they have, um ... with Jon
Ressler at the helm I think we are doing a good job, or a better job of, getting out
and taking care of street patching, getting staff trained and moving forward with
those things. Um ... the streets division, that is page 284, is where that starts in
the budget book, um ... the challenge that is there is funding in that area. Road
use tax it sounds like there may be some interest in increasing the gas tax, but
that depends on the day to day thing as far as the legislatures goes. Um ... within
the ... within that area we are continuing pursue the public works site and
development of that site and now we are in the process of putting out our RFP to
do the master planning, or a remaster planning of that site and moving forward
down there. Urn... continuing on ... Waste Water Treatment, that's page 376 in
your budget book, we ... obviously are bringing a new plant online, and in... that is
going... coming along very well. One of the things we will have to do is a nutrient
study after the first year of operations to see what our limitations will be on
nitrogens and prospheres at that plant. Urn ... we will continue with the demolition
of the north plant, they have been onsite starting the mercury abatement project,
that is moving on ... moving along very well. They have found some mercury
onsite but it's not a ... not to the state ... we are hoping it's not to the state where it
was thought to be. Um ... the asbestos in ... hazardous waste folks are onsite also,
taking, getting rid of those materials to prepare the site for the demo. And
um ... you will be seeing, within this current fiscal year, the plans and specs for the
demolition of that site moving forward. Water division, 395, page 395, they ... we
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continue to provide a high quality water product to our citizens, um ... you know
with the ... with the conditions we've had, you know the cold weather, um some of
the drought conditions we've seen, we still are experiencing some high levels of
water main breaks in our community. But, urn... obviously we have the folks on
staff that can take care of that. Um ... refuse collection, page 415 starting, urn ... we
are ... um .... doing very well with the one arm bandits out on the, out in the
community and as far as the collection goes, we've been very happy with those
trucks, um ... one of the things that we will be looking at with regards to recycling
is single stream recycling and looking at moving forward with that initiative.
Um ... you may be aware that City Carton has sold their operations to Republic,
and one of the things Republic is looking at doing is to do more with single
stream recycling in our community. So ... that's a big thing... currently when we do
the single stream recycling, which we are doing some pilot areas, that material
has to be hauled to Cedar Rapids because that is where that facility is to deal
with those, that type of recycling. Um ... landfill ... we are um .... you know, after the
fire, we've recovered very well out there, we have rebuilt the cell that... partial... we
have rebuilt partially the cell that was, that was damaged in that event. Um ... we
have put some material in that cell and we are continuing to finish out use of the
exiting cells that were in place prior to that event. Stormwater management, we
continue to work with our citizenry with regards to best management practices,
grants, and also stream bank protection grants. Um ... the best management
practices are impervious payments so pavers, rain gardens, those type of
facilities that people want to place on their private property, we help fund those.
Um ... in our community we also have a lot of the creeks, bank areas are not ... are
privately owned, not publicly owned, so we help with erosion control in those
areas. Um ... stormwater arrangement was on page 446. And then ... the last part
of our function is the equipment division, page 565, um ... the um .... Tom Hanson
obviously retired last week, we have ... a .... a good replacement in regards to Dan
Striegal, and um ... you know there it's .... we've um .... bringing the new fuel facility
online, and then we continue to provide maintenance operations and
replacement operations for the equipment fleet in the city.
Botchway/ So ... you talk about single stream recycling, um ... so my whole thing is, is there
any ... is there any plan or thoughts on just getting recycling at our major hubs, so
I"m talking about specifically about downtown. For example, when we have our
jazz fest and stuff like that, we have recycling, but then that disappears when we
don't have those particular programs. And then going to other cities, and I know
it costs money, but then going to other cities, just nearby they have that feature.
And so, what are we doing about it, are we doing something about it?
Fruin/ Yea, I can jump in because I've been working, um, this has come up on the street
scape planning a little bit, we do have some recycling stations downtown but
they've, they don't, um ... they are contaminated to the point where we are not
recycling that stuff, it's going to the landfill for the most part. Um ... this spring we
are going to start pilot project downtown with some solar trash compactors and
recycling stations, thy are called Big Bellies, and they are used throughout the
country, I'm sure you've probably seen them in your travel, travels, you just may
not know it, but they will provide a couple of things. One with the solar power
compaction, we won't be picking up the trash as much, you can cut the collection
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down by several days, instead of doing it every day you might need to come back
every third or fourth day to pick up the trash. But they also have companion
recycle stations and I think the way they are built and constructed will help us
minimize or hopefully eliminate the contamination. So you'll see those on Iowa
Avenue, we are going to install four on Iowa Avenue this spring when the
weather warms up. We got through Jen Jordan, secured a grant from the DNR
to help pay for those. And if those are successful you'll see those built into the
Washington Street Improvement, the Ped Mall improvement and Dubuque Street
as we go along. So, take a look online, just Google Big Belly, and you'll see what
we are talking about.
Dickens/ The paper this morning just had some more recycling where you can do your
milk cartons and everything now, it was in this morning's Press Citizen so there's
been an increase.
Markus/ Yea we are expanding the items, but the downtown issue is as Geoff said, we
are exploring that, we hope to move into that in a larger area. And you heard his
comments earlier about the alleys as well, we are trying to figure that out.
Botchway/ And then on the, maybe from a 30,000 foot level, from a city initiative standpoint,
and I think maybe this question is kind of directed at Council and Tom and Geoff,
um ... is there any way we can get to the point where, I don't know necessarily if
we require it, but if there is some type of push that all buildings recycle? I mean
it...
Markus/ You mean multiple family?
Mims/ That was my question.
Botchway/ I'm talking about multiple family, and I know we've talked about it briefly because
you are waiting, but I'm also talking about all buildings, like every single building
needs to recycle as being a part of, you know, Iowa City's initiative from a
sustainability standpoint. And...
Throgmorton/ Restaurants for example.
Botchway/ Restaurants, um ... I'm thinking of places I've worked before and there's not...
Dickens/ I work in a University building and we have no, there is really nothing for us to
recycle, we do it ourselves, but it's not offered.
Markus/ I think we are moving towards the multiple family to begin with, but I don't think it
will be a major ordinance change. Most of what we are going to require is the
privatization of that service. Um ... back to the, to the recycling, we are not going
to take that on as city crews and try to gear up with all the equipment to do that.
The other thing is, we do not have at MRF here in Iowa City, MRF is up in Cedar
Rapids and...
Payne/ And what does that stand for?
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Markus/ Material Recovery Facility. And there is clean MRFs and dirty MRFs. Dirty
MERFs, you know everything gets thrown in one truck, it gets taken to a floor, it's
gets separated, or there's conveyors taking it all over the place, there's shredders
involved in it. I've had some experience with MRFs and there is all sorts of
different things going on. The attractive part of FiberRight proposal was they
were going to build the dirty MRF and then they kind of transitioned away from
that and were going to put it up in...
Throgmorton/ Marion.
Markus/ Marion and so now you are shipping all this stuff, so Dave Elias, I don't know
how many of you have the chance to talk to Dave, but Dave has a lot of insight
into these issues, so he's kind of laying out different scenarios. Jen Jordan we've
been having these conversations. We are trying to figure out, you know, we don't
want to just step into something because we've felt compelled to do it, we want to
do something that is pretty strategic, makes some sense and extracts a lot more
of this material out of the waste stream successfully and gets it into the recycling
markets. And that is typically MRFs do, they sort, separate all this material and
they get into the plastic and the glass, and the metal and the newspaper markets
and they sell the stuff all over the county, and they take bids on this material.
And so we are thinking rather than shipping all this stuff out of the area, which
doesn't generate a whole lot of value when you have to move it, you know, with
fossil fuels that if we can do it somewhat locally there may be some advantages
to doing that. But that is going to take a lot of research, investment, maybe some
upfront capital to pull that off. That is kind of what we are looking at in terms of
trying to get that done, that discussion is moving pretty fast and furious and Ron
didn't get into the conversation, but that, that conversation is moving with the
relocation of that department into transportation, so we are going to have those
conversations continuing. It might cause a little bump in the time, but we are
committed to try and figure out how to reduce the amount of stuff that just gets
flat out landfilled. And... FiberRight made it very clear, there is a huge ... huge
amount of material that's going right into our landfill that's clearly recyclable.
Mims/ Well and I think, I think there are so many components to this, I think the
experiment that Jen Jordan was just involved in with the organic matter was
really small pilot program that sounded like to try and get that stuff out of there
and then you take the multi -family units that we've talked about but kind of put on
hold because of kind of waiting on FiberRight.
Markus/ And we are shifting gears on that again.
Mims/ Right, and just ... yea I'm glad to hear you are talking about it and you know, just
encourage a faster ... we can figure something out the better so that, one, our
landfill lasts that much longer, and then just from an environmental standpoint
that we're, you know, being better.
Markus/ I think FiberRight, as I recall, was talking about, you know, 80-90% recovery,
reduction in what was going into our landfill.
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Mims/ Well somebody, I don't know if it's Jen or somebody said how much cardboard is
going into...
Markus/ Oh yea, it's amazing how much.
Mims/ And how up in Cedar Rapids or wherever they banned cardboard, and I know
there are some issues there, but just ... some things like that that seems we need
to be ... looking at a lot more strategically.
Hayek/ We've got to do something about our dining and bar... scene... downtown, I mean
the amount of waste generated from those places is extraordinary.
Fruin/ We will tackle that when we look at the alleys, 'cause remember the alleys are
public property, so we govern what goes on there. Currently we permit
dumpsters as long as you can fit on there, but its well in our power to say, we are
going to have two dumpsters on this ... on this block of alleys and we're going to
have a large recycling compactor and then there is different ways to figure out
the billing. And you know, people have figured it out to where if you're not
recycling you are paying a heck of a lot, based on the weight you are putting in
the dumpsters so...
Markus/ They have these coin operated leach boxes now ... and ... or cards, and you can
use the card that opens up, and it compacts it all. Part of the problem is, if you
start getting into sort separating stuff out of the alleys you are going to chew up
the alleys full of these leach boxes, picking up cardboard and plastics and metals
and everything else. So it would be nice to get it into a single location and then
probably have to sort/separate afterwards. To make, to get to the point where
you have alleys that are functional and they aren't just filled with you know all
sorts of garbage boxes up and down the alleys.
Botchway/ And to Matt's point as well, I mean we obviously live in an unique community,
well, I guess taking it further, because of the turnover that we see obviously on a
yearly basis that ... I mean... there's ... I mean I was a part of that product as well, I
mean there is just waste, I just mean I remember trying to just dump everything
in a dumpster because I didn't want to take it anywhere and, you know, urn ... if it
was me, I know there was tons more.
Throgmorton/ People do.
Markus/ Yea, it's true.
Throgmorton/ I have a question, a couple questions for Ron, I'm a little leery of asking these
questions because Ron is kind of like my teacher in law ... because Ron's wife
teaches my daughter computer science so (laughter) I'll be delicate here. So,
two questions, one has to do with recycling, to the extent that anybody can talk
about it and have discussions taken place, either with the previous or current
owner of the recycling facility about moving their operations somewhere else. I
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don't know if anybody could feel free to talk about that.
Markus/ You mean City Carton?
Page 108
Throgmorton/ Yea, City Carton or Republic.
Markus/ Oh yea, we've had all sorts of conversations, moving everything from trading
sites out, to putting them in our industrial area, to building MRFs in the industrial
area. We've had extensive conversations.
Throgmorton/ So they didn't want to move, but now there is a new owner right.
Markus/ Well ... they are selling their operation but there's... see what's going on is they've
had all sort of um ... interest expressed to them about selling the property for
potential redevelopment, because it's in the Riverfront Crossings area. You'll
recall that part of the Riverfront Crossings has a provision in there that if they will
dedicate land they could transfer development rights, I can tell you they don't
necessarily see the merit in that particular provision, they like cash instead,
so ... we are talking about all those issues, Jim. The other thing is over on the
other side of the river we have development proposals going on, they don't like
looking at the other side of the river, so we have, you know, impotence to try to
clean that area up. Despite, you know, the service it provides it's not the most
aesthetic way to have your riverfront represented.
Throgmorton/ Yea, of course.
Markus/ So ... so all those conversations are taking place, and I think the other thing you
have to understand, they are kind of in a life... changing time ... in the ownership
themselves. I think they are kind of questioning where they fit in, you know,
so ... when ... when they sold to Republic it didn't really surprise me. So I think
there are still a lot of discussions that need to take place, to get how this is all
going to end up.
Throgmorton/ Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought that the ... City Carton's site was in the
flood plain part that is intended to become part of the park.
Markus/ Yea, the area when you extend, is it Capitol Street south? And then it goes over
to...
Throgmorton/ Kirkwood.
Markus/ Kirkwood, pretty much everything between, including, well between the road and
the river is flood plain, but the other stuff there is some height there that gets
them out of the flood plain and is actually develop -able as I understand it.
Throgmorton/ Okay, second question...
Markus/ We know way more about it than we want to.
Throgmorton/ Good, let's not talk anymore about it then right now. Um ... second question has
to do with um ... stormwater regulations pertaining to new subdivisions. Um ... my
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gut sense from talking to a whole variety of people is our stormwater regulations
really need updating. That they are, there is a lot more that can be done with
regard to ... for example, using ... what are they called... rain gardens more
effectively, instead of just having all that water going into a pond somewhere, you
know, you know I just don't need to say any more so, what do you know, what's
your sense about...
Knoche/ You know our stormwater management ordinance that we have in place is, is
pretty restrictive. I mean, if you look at it just based on what ... what most
communities, the way they deal with stormwater management, they would refer
back to pre -development and go to 100 year event, we limit the outlet of those, of
those detention basins just based on a per acre area. 1.5 CFS per acre which is
actually less than the 5 year event. Um ... you know we have looked at urn ... th
idea of the best management practices and um ... looking at impervious pavement
and um ... rain gardens and some of those other things, and the concern that we
have with that is if ... initially if you don't build your detention facility large enough
to deal with your stormwater management, based on somebody in a rain garden
or impervious pavement, and down the road that item goes away based on lack
of maintenance or just redevelopment, it kind of puts you in a bind, on how you
deal with stormwater management in the future. And so, we've tended not to,
give credit to folks for those types of facilities to be put in. It's just ... it's kind of the
conservative nature of ... at least of engineering, of public works. And kind of
conservative of our community a little bit.
Throgmorton/ Yea, yea. I don't feel confident enough to say more any about it I just hear from
a whole variety of friends that a lot more can be done.
Knoche/ Sure.
Throgmorton/ People I respect you know.
Knoche/ You've ... and one of the things, right now the way that our stormwater
management is set up, it's really based on a quantity based, not a quality based.
And, we are seeing a shift to go to the quality side of things, so I think as we
move forward we will probably see some shift in that part of it, so we'll be dealing
more with stormwater quality beginning with the first 24 hour storm and you
know, trying to get rid of the oil, the oil that's on the roads and those such of
things and deal with that in a better manner than what we do currently.
City Manager:
Throgmorton/ Okay, thanks.
Markus/ We have one final budget and that's management and Simon I think is going to
walk through that for us.
Hayek/ Yea, okay.
Knoche/ Thank you.
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Hayek/ Ron, thank you very much, and welcome to the position.
(many)/ Thank you.
Throgmorton/ You've done good.
Karr/ City Manager is 117.
(many talking at once)
Andrew/ We are going to start on 107.
Karr/ Okay, we are going to start on 107.
Andrew/ We'll start on 107 with the Council budget I will tread lightly (laughter). These
should all go pretty quickly, they are all very personnel heavy, not a lot of
services or supplies. On 107 is the City Council budget, it is a small increase
over the previous budget in the um ... in the membership and dues category.
Um ... city dues for the Iowa League of Cities and the National League of Cities
have gone up slightly compared to the previous years. Urn ... one other item of
note in this budget is the welcome letters to University students, still budgeted at
$4,000 it's been pretty well received and we recommend leaving it at the same
level as in previous years.
Markus/ How are we doing with the International Students?
Andrew/ Um ... we sent those out by email this year, that was the way the University
preferred to do that, obviously here is a lot lower cost with sending them via
email, but that is something we work with their registrar on as well. So that's all I
have for the Council budget, did you all have any questions on that? I did
recommend across the board raises but was told we didn't have the funds for it,
so ... (laughter) property tax reform. But...
Throgmorton/ Quintuple the raises or ... salaries.
Andrew/ Yea, that's what I recommended. (laughter) I'm still low on the totem pole so ... No
questions on that one, then next one I'm going to jump to is on page 117 is the
City Manager's budget. It's a less than 1 % increase compared with the prior
year's original budget. A notable changes from the previous year is a decrease
in $26,000 in temporary staff, um ... that was for the management intern from last
year, the intern last year was a master's of public administration graduate and
was a full-time employee and was what we felt at that time justified the hire
expense, but this year's interns are working for free. Which is good for us, and
they've done a fantastic job. Um ... couple of other notable items from the City
Manager's budget is a $5000 increase in city sponsored event, we like to have
this available, for instance, this line items was used for the wrestling
championships a couple years ago that we put on events to try and welcome
those University events so ... we have an increase in $5000 recommended in that
budget line item. The lobbyist contract is also in the City Manager's budget, that
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is $30,000 a year, same contract as in the previous three years and an attorney
service for collective bargaining agreements. Again ... flat from previous years.
And certainly entertain any questions on the City Manager's budget.
Throgmorton/ I do have a question but it may reveal that I was not paying close enough
attention earlier. I'm wondering about the website update, and where that stands
right now.
Andrew/ Sure, that will be in the communications budget which Geoff will get to here in
just a second.
Throgmorton/ Okay, in there, thank you. Never mind.
Andrew/ Yep
Throgmorton/ Sorry, okay, never mind.
Hayek/ Thank you Simon.
Andrew/ One more, page 126, Human Resources, and then Geoff will take the other three
divisions from administration. Again, status quo budget from previous years,
services has dropped 17% prior, um ... compared to previous years, because of
police and fire promotional testing that isn't an annual expense, its sporadic base
on hiring needs. Um ... so that was one decrease, and then another item of note
in their budget is a position advertising for vacant positions, but by and large it's
again personnel heavy budget. Okay. Thank you.
Fruin/ Alright so I'm going to take us through Communications, Cable, and we will wrap
up with Human Rights. The, this budget is the first budget to reflect.
Throgmorton/ Page Geoff?
Fruin/ Oh I'm sorry we are starting on 121. That's Communications. It's the first budget
to reflect the merging of Communications and Cable TV that we undertook this
past year, um ... and as such it reflects the cable formerly enterprise fund, into the
general fund. Jim, as you inquired about just a few seconds ago, the major
initiative with Communications office right now is to wrap up the website
redesign. If you recall, we did a, we executed a 28E agreement with the
University to complete a website redesign which was a first for the University,
they had never provided this type of external service and it's been a real
phenomenal partnership for us. Um..and... and we are really excited to get that
going, the timing is probably that we are looking at last spring, early summer for a
launch. Um ... the ... the University portion should be wrapped up sometime this
spring and then we're responsible for transferring the content over, rewriting the
content essentially so there is a little bit of a mystery on how long that will take,
but we feel real good about it. And ... and it's not just a simple website redesign
for us, our current website, it certainly challenge for anyone who wants to access
it, but it really hamstrings the Communications team. It's a homegrown website
that was written by a former employee of ours and we can't utilize video, we are
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limited on subscription services that we can do, so there are a lot of
communication strategies that we are geared up and ready to go with, but our
website won't support them. So we are really looking for this transition to launch
us into a new era of communication with the public.
Mims/ Geoff, I was just comment ... you made the comment about what a good
partnership this has been with the University. Earlier in the fall I happened to be
at a function with the individual from the University who oversees all of this from
their end and she had nothing but the highest of compliments for city staff that
she and her staff are working with on this project, so...
Fruin/ That's good to hear.
Mims/ Yea, I had forgotten to pass that along so ... wanted to do it while I thought of it.
Fruin/ Yea, Shannon and Kelli from our Communications office have really been
heading that up, they are doing a nice job. Um..the bulk of the expense in the
Communication division here lies with the three staff folks that we have, there are
some service expenses that you'll see in the budget, those are really website
support of hosting fees, maintenance fees, that sort of things. It is a also where
we keep funds for translating documents and we've been a lot more of ... of
translation of pamphlets and different documents, so this is where those funds
are parked going forward. That is a very expensive endeavor, particularly
contracting out the translations itself, but we've got a pretty good system in place
and what we do now is just try to prioritize those city documents and which ones
should be translated and which ones are okay remaining in one language. Any
questions on Communications? As we shift to Cable, it's reported on as a
separate division within Communications, primarily because they have their
unique revenue source. As Tom mentioned earlier, Mediacom has shifted from a
local franchise to a state franchise and that's... that's considerably impacted our
operations. If you look at the, on page 125, I'm sorry, here ... oh we've got it split
between two areas now, so 125 just shows the 2016 budget, if you were to look
later in the document, there is the cable reported on as an enterprise for those
previous years, but we've lost about $100,000 over four or five years in cable
franchise revenue so we've had to adapt to that. We have eliminated one
position and then in this budget we are anticipating, or we are showing the
elimination of a second. We have a known retirement that will be coming up in a
couple of months and we'll take that opportunity to shrink the staff down one
more. Urn ... in 2018 there will be another hit, and that will another $100,000 to
$120,000 hit for our operation, and we'll also um ... the community will feel the
brunt of the hit to PATV and that's when the roughly $230,000 that we transfer to
PAN every year will be stopped. It's not being phased out, it's just going to be
cutoff. So ... I've seen some materials from PAN where they are starting to ramp
up and looking at fundraising which I think is very wise on their part because
really their primary revenue source is ... has an expiration date on it that is coming
up quick. Um ... I don't think there is really anything significant to point out in the
cable budget, I can tell you our plan in adapting to the new revenue will be to
continue to look at staff reduction when ... when opportunities arise and I think
you'll have to ... you'll see us necessarily start to pull in those operations a little
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bit. Unfortunately we probably not going to be able to do the amount of
community programming that we do now. We see them out at festivals and
special events, or ... taping for nonprofits and that sort of thing, that's probably the
area where we are going to have cut back on. We are really going to have to
focus on the government aspects making sure the meetings are taped and
broadcast and that sort of thing. So ... It's not going to happen right away, but it's
on the horizon. Do you want to switch to Human Rights.
Hayek/ Sure
Fruin/ Human Rights starts on page 130, we have two staff members including our
equity director Stephanie Bowers. And um ... that drives the bulk of the expense
as you would imagine. We have increased the services line considerably over
the last couple of years and that is really in response to the Ad Hoc Diversity
Committee and some of their recommendations. So included in those services
lines, is a $60,000 figure for agency partnerships we've used these funds in the
last couple of years, to partner with diversity focus and if you recall a couple of
years ago when, um ... the fast track funding issue came up, we were able to use
these funds to help extend that service in the emergent times. So that gives us
some flexibility to move quickly, they're not necessarily designated for 2016 and
who exactly we'll partner with, but as opportunities arise, we have that flexibility
to form those partnerships. We have, increased their budget for special events
and for outreach and advertising so they can reach out to um ... populations
throughout the community in different ways, they can ... um ... work on the Latino
newspapers or the Sudanese Newsletters that get circulated and make sure City
information getting distributed in those venues as well. And then Human Rights
has very special events they do, there are funds in there to support those special
events and sponsorship of other events that may not be City run, but certainly
help meet our strategic plan goals, we have sponsorship monies in this budget
for those too. Questions?
Hayek/ Okay ... any questions for Geoff? Back on the letter we send to students, do
we ... can we give any thought... or has the University given any indication about
sending part of that message in Mandarin or whatever to the international
students. I mean we've got a critical mass...
Andrew/ And that's why they refer to do the international letters via email, is that correct,
had to do with the translation I think.
Hayek/ Did they translate?
Andrew/ Yep, they did the translations for us, is that correct?
Fruin/ No, actually they don't translate, they don't translate any admissions materials to
international students. And that was originally our hope, that they could have
them translated.
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Hayek/ It's a political move to avoid scrutiny from Regent's types who ... that's how I
interpret it.
Fruin/ Yea...
Mims/ They do expect them to be fluent in English if they are going to go to school
here.
Fruin/ That's what we were told.
Hayek/ Anyway, it was just food for thought. So...
Markus/ But it's my understanding that Ames may be doing something differently in that
regard so we are trying find that out. I serve on an international committee which
is really designed through ICAD to work with the student community from foreign
countries and we pick up different information. And Kate Moreland by the way, is
our kind of our staff liaison for (can't hear) and we are trying to open up that
whole conversation.
Throgmorton/ I'm looking at the most recent report from International Programs about how
many students come from various countries and from China, this year, there are
2558 student out of a total, I don't know, what's the total?
Hayek/ 3500 maybe, 4000?
Throgmorton/ Yea, and... (too much rustling and noise)
Hayek/ Okay. We are done for today, we come back ... the economic development
council meets at noon on Monday, and then at 1:00 we hold our CIP.
Markus/ Yea, but before you go I just wanted to point out you have Deb Mansfield sitting
here, and you have Nick Schaul and who's not sitting here today is Cyndi
Ambrose, and those are kind of three of the people behind the scenes that help
put this whole document together. You know Geoff is actively involved and
Dennis is involved and Simon is really involved in this budget process, but these
folks spend a lot of time doing that and you should know that they do that and
acknowledge how much they provide in this process. (applause)
Hayek/ Excellent document. Thank you so much everyone.
(Adjourn 3:05 p.m.)
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Session of January 10, 2015.