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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02.06.12 Council Minutes COUNCIL MINUTES REGULAR February 6, 2012 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Mayor Larson at 7:00 p.m. 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mayor Larson led the audience and Council in the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. ROLL CALL Members Present: Larson, Bartholomay,Donnelly, Fogarty,May Members Absent: None Also Present: Andrea Poehler, City Attorney;David McKnight, City Administrator;Teresa Walters,Finance Director;Kevin Schorzman, City Engineer;Brenda Wendlandt, Human Resources Director;Cynthia Muller, Executive Assistant Audience: 4. APPROVE AGENDA Councilmember Bartholomay pulled items 7b) School and Conference Police and 7c) Memorandum of Understanding with Department of Homeland Security for questions. He also pulled items 7d)Approve Curbside Clean-up Day Agreement and 7e)Dakota County sentence to Service Contract for separate vote. MOTION by Fogarty, second by Bartholomay to approve the Agenda. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. 5. ANNOUNCEMENTS 6. CITIZEN COMMENTS 7. CONSENT AGENDA MOTION by Fogarty, second by Bartholomay to approve the Consent Agenda as follows: a) Approved Council Minutes(1/17/12 Regular)(1/23/12 Workshop) b) Approved School and Conference-Police c) Approved Memorandum of Understanding with Department of Homeland Security-Police f) Approved Temporary On-Sale Liquor License Knights of Columbus- Administration g) Approved Eureka Township Fire Contract-Administration h) Acknowledged Retirement Dan Meyer—Fire Department i) Acknowledged Retirement Kevin Kuehn—Fire Department j) Approved First Renewal of Lease Agreement with Allina Medical—Human Resources 5 Council Minutes(Regular) February 6,2012 Page 2 k) Approved Bills APIF,MOTION CARRIED. b) School and Conference-Police Councilmember Bartholomay asked if there was overtime for this training. Human Resources Director Wendlandt noted it depends on whether the employees attending are on their scheduled shift, if they have court that week,or other factors. Councilmember Bartholomay suggested they adjust their schedules for that week so there is no overtime. Staff noted overtime is kept to a minimum. c) Approve Memorandum of Understanding with Department of Homeland Security-Police Councilmember Bartholomay asked if this was for seizures and forfeitures. City Administrator McKnight will check with the Police Chief. Councilmember Bartholomay noted if a large sum of property is seized,the federal government gets the property and then they pay the officer's salary to assist in the investigation. If it originates from our department,he wants to make sure we do not lose that federal benefit. d) Adopt Resolution—Approve Curbside Clean-up Day Agreement—Municipal Services Councilmember Bartholomay would like to see historical numbers and projected costs for this service. He asked what we would save if we did not have this program or made it cheaper. At budget meetings we have heard residents and business owners say tighten the belts. This is a want,not a need. We are looking at filling a$300,000 gap in the budget. This is something we need to look at. He understood it has been budgeted for this year. Right now,we have a fire truck that has broken down. That is a need. City Administrator McKnight stated the source of revenue for this program comes from the utility bills,not the tax levy. The future of the program can be discussed at the March budget workshop. Councilmember May noted the money collected could not be used to pay for a fire truck. City Administrator McKnight agreed; it would reduce the utility bill. Councilmember Fogarty noted over the years,this is one of the things residents are okay paying for. It keeps garbage off the streets and out of the ditches. We have tightened the abuse, and she has gotten positive feedback and residents feel it is worth the money. Councilmember Donnelly stated it is a fee for a service in their utility bills. If we didn't do it,we cannot put the excess funds in the general fund so it would not reduce taxes. As a long-time country resident he is pleased to not see items in the ditches because that is what people used to do. This will be discussed at a workshop. Councilmember May stated the alternative would be having a site residents bring items to. Some would prefer that to eliminate the scavenging. Mayor Larson noted it changed to curbside pick up because residents did not have a way to haul items to a site. MOTION by Fogarty, second by May to adopt RESOLUTION R7-12 approving the agreement with J.R.'s Advanced Recyclers, Inc. for collecting and 6 Council Minutes(Regular) February 6,2012 Page 3 recycling appliances and electronics for Curbside Cleanup Days 2012. Voting for: Larson,Donnelly, Fogarty, May. Voting against: Bartholomay. MOTION CARRIED. e) Approve Dakota County Sentence to Service Contract-Engineering Councilmember Bartholomay asked if we have to have a City staff member present at the work site? City Engineer Schorzman replied no. Councilmember Bartholomay asked if the supervisor is another convict that supervises the crew or is it a county official. Staff stated the county contracts out the supervision,but the person supervising is not under court ordered mandate. Councilmember Bartholomay asked by doing this,what cost or savings does it bring to the City. What you pay is what you get. It might be cheaper, but if we had our experienced staff do this work,are we saving any money or are we taking work away from youth that could work during the summer? City Administrator McKnight stated in 2011 we received 1100 work hours of labor through this program at a cost of $8100. We cannot match that hourly rate using City staff, so financially it is a win for the City. He was not sure we are taking work away from the City's youth. City Engineer Schorzman stated the $8100 is at$7.25/hour. What we paid for the 1100 hours was closer to $4,000 so you are getting $4/hour or cheaper labor through this program. In the past the work done has been to remove weeds and garbage from around ponds. It is work that we could do,but if we can get it done cheaper, it frees staff to do more technical items. They were also used to build the boardwalk across the wetlands. There is a group of 5-10 people in the crew. That would be half or more of our maintenance crew doing that work. We would be tying them up on things were we could use their talents elsewhere. Councilmember Bartholomay agreed,but we have a lot of kids that could do that work. He asked if we have checked with the high school to utilize their help. City Engineer Schorzman stated we have had interns in the past and they were eliminated to save on the budget. This was done within the last couple years. Mayor Larson asked what we would have to pay a high school worker. Minimum wage is$7.25/hour and we pay the work crew$4.00/hour. Councilmember Bartholomay asked who carries the insurance for the crew. City Administrator McKnight stated they are the responsibility of the county. Councilmember Bartholomay asked what type of crimes they have committed. City Engineer Schorzman stated they are non-violent crimes. This program has been used for at least 10 years. MOTION by Fogarty, second by Donnelly to approve the Sentence to Service contract with Dakota County. Voting for: Larson, Donnelly, Fogarty, May. Voting against: Bartholomay. MOTION CARRIED. 8. PUBLIC HEARINGS 9. AWARD OF CONTRACT 10. PETITIONS,REQUESTS AND COMMUNICATIONS 7 Council Minutes(Regular) February 6,2012 Page 4 11. UNFINISHED BUSINESS a) Approve Administrative Policies and Procedures-Administration City Council approved the majority of the policies and procedures at the December 2011 Council meeting. Council had requested additional information on some of the policies. City Administrator McKnight provided comparisons of leave banks for vacation, comp time and sick leave using the non-union employees and comparing them to the four unions. The benefits non-union employees receive are either the same or less beneficial. The proposed policies for vacation, comp time and sick leave were provided to Council for their approval. One change made was a required payout for non-union employees for comp time balances in the second paycheck in December so comp time balances are not carried over from year to year. The PTO issue will be discussed with the union in the next few months and brought back to Council. Also provided, is the policy on step adjustments and merit pay. The language on merit pay is included in the policy, even though it has been suspended since 2009,because of a mediated settlement. This will also be discussed with the union this year. These policies are in place for all employees,but union contracts take precedence. Human Resources Director Wendlandt noted the only change in vacation and sick policies was recognition of the PTO policy. That line can come out until the PTO policy is brought forward. Councilmember Donnelly asked about having to keep the merit pay policy because of a mediated settlement. Human Resources Director Wendlandt stated there was a grievance filed in 2009 from the union. As part of the settlement,we agreed to put language into the step and merit pay policy even though they knew it was being suspended in 2009. This was in case the merit pay came back we can use this language. Councilmember Bartholomay asked why not have it stated in the policy that the merit pay has been suspended? Why have a false sense of something being there when it's not? If everyone understands that,why not state it? City Administrator McKnight stated staff can add a sentence in the merit pay section that this program has been suspended since 2009. Councilmember May asked if that was an action Council took as she does not recall suspending merit pay. Human Resources Director Wendlandt replied no, it was not a Council action. There was direction with concern with merit pay given budgetary issues. Councilmember May asked no one since 2009 has received merit pay or step increases? Human Resources Director Wendlandt stated the first part of the step process is different than the merit step process. Through collective bargaining they get a step based on years of service. From the time they start they go from step 1 to step 5 based on satisfactory performance. City Administrator McKnight stated if they were in step 5-9 they were frozen. Councilmember May understood union contracts rule. It is difficult to follow when you have union contracts and administrative policies. She tried to follow the comparisons and would like to know for the sergeants there is no sick time, 8 Council Minutes(Regular) February 6,2012 Page 5 but there is PTO. How much PTO? In looking at the charts, she feels there is too much sick time accrual. In the private sector it is use it or lose it. It should be the same number for all employees. In the private sector the number is 100 hours,not 1,000 hours. She understood with vacation time,the longer you are employed here,the more vacation time you get. That is a common practice and is not out of line. She appreciated the comp time being paid out at the end of the year and noted there is only one group not required to do that,which is the clerical and assumed that will be discussed. City Administrator McKnight assumed Council will give that direction for next year. Councilmember May stated in tough budgetary times,the more accrual we can take off,the better. As far as merit steps, she felt the union wants the best of both worlds. You either want the union packages or you want to go to the merit system. If unions want to negotiate what she considers a good benefit package compared to the private sector,then the discussion as far as merit pay is off the table. Councilmember Fogarty stated she would like to see everything moved to PTO. There are different types of employees and families and need to use time off in different ways. Councilmember Bartholomay agreed with moving to PTO,but we do need to discuss bridging the gap from 320 hours to when insurance coverage starts with either short term disability or starting long term disability sooner. The economy is turning, so we do not want to lose good employees because of benefits. MOTION by Fogarty, second by Donnelly to approve Administrative Policies and Procedures sections 5.13 (sick leave), 5.15 (vacation), 6.4(step adjustments/merit pay) and 6.6(comp time). Voting for: Bartholomay,Donnelly, Fogarty,May. Abstain: Larson. MOTION CARRIED. 12. NEW BUSINESS 13. COUNCIL ROUNDTABLE Councilmember Fogarty: The Community Expo was a great success. They had over 130 exhibitors and 2500 people attended. Applications are available for the Little Miss, Junior Miss and Miss Farmington Pageant. Councilmember Bartholomay: Asked if we could speed up the liquor store study and complete it in a couple months. We have asked the municipal beverage association to do a study and felt we should also ask the private beverage association to do a study as well. He has received several calls regarding the arena,pool, and senior center and we need to figure out how to make those funds more self-sufficient. Councilmember May: She also thought about a private beverage association. She wanted to thank Charlie Weber for his service on the Parks and Recreation Commission. 9 Council Minutes(Regular) February 6,2012 Page 6 Mayor Larson: Reminded everyone to shop local and support Farmington businesses. In order to attract more business we have to make our current ones successful. 14. EXECUTIVE SESSION a) Potential Sale of 431 Third Street MOTION by Bartholomay, second by Fogarty to adjourn into closed session at 7:33 p.m. APIF,MOTION CARRIED. 15. ADJOURN Council came out of closed session at 8:07 p.m. MOTION by Bartholomay, second by Fogarty to adjourn at 8:07 p.m. APIF,MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Muller Executive Assistant 10