Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout06.08.11 Work Session Minutes Council Workshop Minutes Administration I Economic Development Budget June 8, 2011 Mayor Larson called the workshop to order at 3 :06 p.m. Present: Absent: Also Present: Larson, Bartholomay, Fogarty, May Donnelly Kevin Schorzman, Interim City Administrator; Brenda Wendlandt, Human Resources Director; Randy Distad, Parks and Recreation Director; Tina Hansmeier, Economic Development Specialist; Danielle Cahlander, Communications Specialist; Cynthia Muller, Executive Assistant MOTION by Fogarty, second by Bartholomay to approve the agenda. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Administration-Legislative Control covers the Council's budget. It includes legal fees and Council training. Human Resources Director Wendlandt stated as we look at the budget, staff budgeted below actual costs. If actual costs run higher than 2011, then we should budget 2011 costs for 2012. There are no changes proposed to the Council budget. Administration - Historical Preservation Commission. This budget should remain the same. Administration budget will be actual costs. Staffhas cut office supplies and is working on going paperless. Human Resources Director Wendlandt asked Council to consider adding back in a clerical support person in Administration to provide clerical support globally, not just for one department. This person would do a little bit of everything for anyone who needs help. This would be the biggest addition in Administration. Staff proposed full time, but would accept part time. The previous person was at a higher level and this would be at a lower level to get some basic clerical support back. Councilmember May asked ifthere was a particular area that needs more support than others and would like to see this more defmed as to where the real need is. This may include some reassignment of duties to place them in a certain department. Staff stated that can be done, but there are a lot of areas that need clerical support such as economic development, general administration, parks and recreation, fmance, and planning. Councilmember May noted the Finance Director has already talked about adding someone to the Finance Department such as an accountant. Staff noted the previous person also did clerical work for fmance which was separate from an accountant. They are looking for someone who can type memos or update spreadsheets, filing, scanning, general clerical support. Staff can look at any options for assigning a clerical person to one area and then look at restructuring of duties for others as a possibility. Mayor Larson asked about the pay rate. Interim City Administrator Schorzman asked what is driving having the person assigned to a specific area. Councilmember May stated there would be more accountability for a specific department and trying to evaluate what their needs are. There should be accountability for each department. It could also be frustrating for someone to answer to several different people rather than one department head. Staff noted when you are short staffed from an administrative support level as we are now, the 17 Council Workshop Minutes June 8, 2011 Page 2 more cross-training you can have the better. Human Resources Director Wendlandt stated the intent would be to have the position report to one person. We have positions now that report to one person, but do work for several areas. The intent is to look at the clerical help we have and have them focus more on two areas rather than four areas by adding another person. The pay range would be $17 - $18/hour and it would be a union position. Councilmember May asked if it could be two part time positions; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There is currently more need for full time in the fmance area. Councilmember Bartholomay noted part time would save on benefits. Councilmember May noted this may be an opportunity to advance someone who is already full time and split another position. Staff agreed with the part time suggestion. There is some training in Administration for a position that was laid off. That has been left in the budget for the new City Administrator to decide. Administration - Elections. There will be an election in 2012. The actual 2010 budget was a little under the budgeted amount. Human Resources Director Wendlandt felt we should use the same numbers as 2010 with the exception of needing to buy some voting machines. Cynthia Muller noted 2012 will be a presidential election like 2008 so we should follow that budget. We did not update equipment for 2010 and the amount in 2011 was for the maintenance contract. Human Resources Director Wendlandt noted there were changes in 2008 so some of that would not be implemented again. Administration - Communications. Human Resources Director Wendlandt is looking at slightly increasing website training for the Communications Specialist. A piece of communications is money from the cable franchise fees goes to the general fund to pay for staff time to prepare the newsletter. Councilmember May recalled that we were not going to use franchise fees for salaries. Staff explained the salary is still under Administration; the money is more to support the function. The City designates a portion of the cable franchise fees to the general fund each year to fund the City newsletter and communication costs. Most of the actual costs come out of the enterprise fund as far as printing and mailing costs. Councilmember May asked about the original purpose of the franchise fee. Staff explained it pays for broadcast, maintenance~ capital improvements. Through the Cable Commission it does fund some of the Cable Coordinator~s time and those who run the control room. Councilmember May asked if there was a fund for the capital acquisitions. Human Resources Director Wendlandt explained it is in the budget under communications projects. Councilmember Fogarty noted this amount does not come from the general fund; it comes from the franchise fees. Councilmember May stated the money we are collecting is getting carved out. She would like to see more detail on how that is carved out and where the balance is. It should be specifically for communications equipment. Councilmember May felt there should be a specific fund for communications projects. Staff will provide that information. Councilmember May noted it is a hot button when money is collected for a specific purpose. She would also like to see how money is added to the capital acquisition fund for communication. Councilmember Bartholomay asked that budget breakdowns be added to the budget books. Danielle Cahlander and Missie Kohlbeck prepared information on combining the City Newsletter and the Recreation Guide into one publication. Ms. Cahlander presented publications from other cities that combine these publications and the cost. Currently Farmington Printing is used to print the Newsletter and Northfield Printing prints the Rec Guide. Council liked the 18 Council Workshop Minutes June 8, 201] Page 3 publications from Chanhassen and Lakeville. Northfield Printing could print the combined publication for $.52/each. The City currently prints 11,300 Rec Guides. The City would save $10,000 by combining the publications. Staff would go out for RFP once a year. Parks and Recreation Director Distad stated in this format the publication would go out 4 times a year. Currently the Newsletter is sent 6 times a year. An issue could be that the Rec Guide goes to the entire school district which includes the townships. Some City information could be confusing for them. On the other hand, this would educate and inform people beyond the boundaries of Farmington on what we have to offer. Interim City Engineer Schorzman asked if the $10,000 is split between all the participating funds. Staff explained it is $10,000 overall. How the savings would be split has not been determined. Currently the Rec Guide is paid from the general fund. They also have advertising to offset the cost. If advertising is requested for the combined publication it would be competing with the calendar. Council felt some businesses may be more interested in advertising in one rather than the other. The Newsletter is funded through enterprise funds for solid waste, water, storm water and sewer. Interim City Administrator Schorzman stated one funding partner has indicated reducing the number of printed publications would be in the City's best interest and are leaning towards not wanting to participate in the cost. Staff noted the number of publications will be reduced from 6 to 4. Councilmember May stated regarding ads for the calendar, ifwe now have an online calendar, maybe we should not do a printed calendar. Council and staff stated the information is not the same. There will always be a dispute about whether we need online pieces versus print pieces. We should not focus on one population and expect people to go online to bookmark things. Sometimes they enjoy having a publication to read. The calendar is something that hangs on the wall and is used. Councilmember Bartholomay suggested sending a postcard with a QR code for those with smart phones so they could scan in the brochure and others could go into City Hall to pick up a brochure. Staff felt that is not very convenient for everyone. Councilmember Fogarty noted she registers online, but uses the booklet. Councilmember Bartholomay stated we could send the postcard ahead oftime and say printed copies are available at City Hall. Parks and Recreation Director Distad noted in the community survey 80% said they get their information from the Rec Guide so it is an important publication. Mayor Larson asked ifthere was a way to start leaning people towards electronic copies. Councilmember Fogarty suggested the other way around. After this year, ask people if they prefer electronic format to go to the website and opt out of the mailing list or when they register have a question if they would like to receive a copy electronically rather than by mail. Staff explained the addresses come from utility billing for the Newsletter. Northern Concepts gets addresses from the school district. There are issues with renters receiving copies if the bills go to the landlord. Councilmember May asked if staff can go out for RFP's now. Staffwill bring the RFP request to Council for approval. Administration - City Hall. City Hall is a new building, but it is getting older. Maintenance is difficult to predict. The previous cleaning contract with ROC was $60,320/year and the new contract with Coverall is $27,000/year which is a savings of$33,000/year. There is an elevator in City Hall and money has not been budgeted for inspection and maintenance. Staffwill confirm that this is not already in the budget. The building is three years old and some walls need painting which would increase the budget by $500. The landscaped areas are good. Utilities are hard to predict year to year and may have to be adjusted up or down. Parks and Recreation Director Distad encouraged Council to consider long term capital outlay for the building. At some point we will need work on the roof and the exterior. Mayor Larson asked 19 Council Workshop Minutes June 8, 2011 Page 4 staff to put together a plan for that to start putting money away now. Councilmember May asked why this is in Park and Rec. Staff explained building maintenance has always been under Park and Rec. Previously it was under Administration. Park and Rec does maintenance on all the other facilities and this is not uncommon. Councilmember May wanted to discuss everyone moving to one floor. She asked if anyone has determined what the cost would be. Interim City Administrator Schorzman felt it would be beneficial for Council to walk around City Hall. Moving everyone downstairs would be adding 10 people downstairs. This would include utility billing where they should have a space accessible to the public. Ifwe still want a Deputy Registrar that will occupy the entire east side of the downstairs. You would be putting 10 more people in a space smaller than we moved out of. There would not be a savings in utilities because we have a server room upstairs. Before any decision is made, Council should look around to see what that proposal means. There are also 3 or 4 storage rooms upstairs, the lunch room, and the training room. You cannot board up the upstairs and walk away. Human Resources Director Wendlandt stated they did check on moving the server room to the lower level and we do not have the space so it would require some construction. Also to move the server room was estimated at $20,000 - $30,000 because of the amount of equipment, recabling everything and having an independent cooling system for that area on the first floor. It would take a long time to recoup those costs. Councilmember May felt we need to look outside the box and that it is a viable option. Not only will we have the ability to rent the entire upstairs, we have a bigger income opportunity in addition to saving on cleaning and some utility costs. She wanted to take a serious look at it. Mayor Larson has spoken with the school district regarding renting the upstairs. The school district would be more interested in the space the City already occupies. If that is the case, then maybe the school can pay to build out the other half upstairs. Councilmember May stated with a rental opportunity upstairs that still leaves us room to grow because it is our space. This building sitting here fairly vacant is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of residents. Councilmember Fogarty asked about the reverse. What ifwe moved staff upstairs and put the liquor store downstairs. Councilmember May stated we have to be proactive and fill this building. In these budget meetings, there are a lot of needs and wants. The public will be open to us saying we have to increase taxes for the CIP, etc. but look at what we are doing to save money as well. Interim City Administrator Schorzman stated Council said one reason was to lease the space. Even if we move everyone downstairs, thinking long term, as the City grows with employees you do not want to create a landlord/tenant relationship that would be long term and then they need to move out. Mayor Larson liked the option of moving everyone upstairs and having the school district downstairs. Councilmember Fogarty stated we would have to keep the deputy registrar area and the front desk, but the rest may work for them. They are looking for conference rooms and office spaces. Parks and Recreation Director Distad noted the purpose of having Park and Rec and Building Inspections downstairs was to make it easy access for customers. Councilmember May asked if the conference rooms are fully utilized and maybe they could be offices. She wanted to look at the entire building and repurpose some rooms. Mayor Larson suggested calling the school district as their lease is coming due on their extended campus. They want to move that to the administrative office building and move the offices to City Hall. Interim City Administrator Schorzman had that discussion with the school this morning and they are not as far along in the process as we believed they were. The 20 Council Workshop Minutes June 8, 2011 Page 5 Superintendent's suggestion was to wait for the new Superintendent and the new City Administrator to discuss it. This may have been moved to the 2012 - 2013 school year. The Superintendent was in favor of doing this, but it has to make sense to do it. Ifthey have to spend a lot of money to move and remodel things, it has to make fmancial sense. To facilitate this happening, what is the City expecting to get out of this. Is this a source of revenue for the City or a cooperative effort with another governmental entity? Councilmembers felt it is both. If the school district does not have to build new spaces, that saves the residents money. Ifwe have some revenue to offset costs for City Hall that is great and the building is more utilized. Interim City Engineer Schorzman felt working with another governmental group is an ideal goal, not to try to generate additional revenue. The money comes from the same people. Parks and Recreation Director Distad stated the school has to do their own fmancial analysis on what the cost is to move to City Hall. They have invested a lot of money in their extended campus and the school was concerned if they walk way what message does that send. Mayor Larson stated when he met with them they were ready to get out of the leased space. Staff felt this is an excellent opportunity for the new Superintendent and new City Administrator to come together. In the meantime, we can look at options internally of what does moving around mean, but it will be a big picture. Depending on the tenant, it may mean a different plan. Community Development - This is tied with Economic Development. Tina Hansmeier, Economic Development Specialist stated Community Development is made up of salaries, professional services, IT, dues, training and mileage reimbursement. Some ofthe pieces of the Economic Development budget would make more sense being under Community Development. Community Development comes out of the general fund; EDA is a special revenue fund. The Farmers' Market and training would make sense to move to Community Development general fund. With that, the general fund budget for Community Development would increase by $29,000. Human Resources Director Wendlandt stated the Farmers' Market is more a community based event and while it relates to Economic Development, it is separate. Some of this goes back to Council's overall goals with economic development. There are two different budgets because one is general fund and one is special revenue fund. Staff discussed the option of moving Community Development into Economic Development, but there isn't an advantage to doing that. It comes down to what Council is looking at globally for community development and economic development. Ms. Hansmeier also considered where the EDA is with the deficit and what revenue sources do we have to help cover the cost to operate and help pay that down. Ifwe have some things in the EDA where we do not have revenue sources to cover, maybe they should be split out to focus on what it takes to operate the EDA side and pull the others to the community development side. There are standing expenses that will need to be covered which amount to approximately $5,000 and there is no revenue to cover them. Human Resources Director Wendlandt noted Council could also consider an EDA levy to get rid of the deficit. Staff is projecting a shortfall in the EDA for 2011 with a budget of$19,000 and expenses will be $25,000. The proceeds from the liquor store will go to the EDA fund which was $112,000. This will bring the EDA deficit from a negative $242,000 to a negative $130,000. Councilmember May did not see the need for two funds and felt these would fall under the EDA. She was an advocate for the Farmers' Market, but did not see the City always running it. The EDA's focus is on economic development. We also need to look at whether we will have an Economic Development Director. Mayor Larson stated the EDA is not really sure why the EDA 21 Council Workshop Minutes June 8, 2011 Page 6 deficit occurred. Human Resources Director Wendlandt recalled some ofthe discussion being annexation issues in 1993. There is some research taking place. Mayor Larson felt it was important to fmd out what happened and how the funds were appropriated. We had a deficit for years and years and no one knew about it. Councilmember May stated regardless of the answer, we need to know and cannot leave a negative balance in the EDA. She felt we will be forced to do a levy. Regarding combining Community Development and the EDA and what is the true cost for community development and economic development, perhaps the new City Administrator can determine that. She asked if we need these two areas and suggested combining them under one. Councilmember Fogarty was not sure we can combine the two; the EDA has to have its own budget. We can put the Economic Development Specialist under the EDA. Most of the EDA budget is that position. Council suggested moving the Community Development budget under the EDA budget. Staffwill check with the Finance Director if there are any issues with combining the two. Councilmember Fogarty stated ifwe combine the two, we should recognize it as an lIRA-EDA. Councilmember Bartholomay noted one of the EDA's objectives for 2011 was to develop a marketing plan, but we don't have money set aside. Ms. Hansmeier explained we have money in the EDA fund to cover the minimum expenses. We would need money for marketing and long term planning and to update the market study. Councilmember Bartholomay felt staff should determine the amount of money needed for marketing to attract businesses to Farmington. Councilmember Fogarty wanted staff to determine what we need for 2012 to market better. Councilmember Bartholomay noted the broker contracts have lapsed. Staff stated the broker is still representing the old Rambling River Center. Both parties will uphold their obligations for the next six months. Council noted staffwill have to determine the best broker and if there is a change, bring it to the EDA. Staff should bring this to the EDA prior to the end of six months so we have something in place. Council asked ifwe could use that building for the liquor store. A sprinkler system would have to be installed which is a large expense. MOTION by Fogarty, second by Bartholomay to adjourn at 4:40 p.m. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Muller Executive Assistant 22