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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09.08.08 Work Session Minutes Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 1. CALL TO ORDER Acting Mayor Pritzlaff called the workshop to order at 6:30 p.m. Present: Pritzlaff, Fogarty, McKnight, Wilson Absent: Soderberg Also Present: Peter Herlofsky, City Administrator; Robin Roland, Finance Director; Randy Distad, Parks and Recreation Director; Kevin Schorzman, City Engineer; Brian Lindquist, Police Chief; Todd Reiten, Municipal Services Director; Tim Pietsch, Fire Chief; John Powers, Fire Marshal; Cynthia Muller, Executive Assistant Audience: Todd Larson, Charles Weber, Shannon Walsh, Todd Kindseth 2. APPROVE AGENDA MOTION by McKnight, second by Fogarty to approve the agenda. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. 3. DISCUSS 2009 BUDGET The levy has been reduced to a 5% increase. Debt service has been reduced which allowed an increase in the general fund. The Fire Chief position has been subtracted, the part time Fire Chief has been added back in, the Economic Development Specialist has been added back, existing staff will be assigned for the officer at the school and that position will not be added until 2010. The fire vehicle for the Fire Chief has been subtracted, some part time maintenance hours have been subtracted that will be allocated to the pool as the pool has been re-opened, a $25,000 transfer has been added to the Rambling River Center, the budget for salt has been reduced by $20,000, office supplies have been reduced by $10,000, and there are a variety of miscellaneous reductions. The swimming pool will need $75,000 transferred from the liquor fund. The debt service levy has been reduced by $28,401 due to revenue transferred from fire contracts with townships. Councilmember McKnight asked for an explanation as to how the debt service was reduced. Finance Director Roland stated last year the second fire station was included with the fire contracts with the townships. With the money from that contribution, the budget was adjusted for a $50,000 transfer from the general fund to the debt service fund. The point of doing the depreciation for that building is to help reimburse the debt service. Staff presented a detailed budget by department since 2005 and it includes the adjustments made since the August 18, 2008 Council meeting. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated rather than a complete dollar amount, he would like a breakdown on what exactly was required. Under fire services for 2008 there was $4,000 Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 2 in training that is not included in the 2009 budget. However, there is $8,000 for training in the Fire Department. Training for rescue services for EMT has been removed. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked Fire Chief Pietsch if they can do without this training. The Fire Chief replied the rescue budget includes training from outside sources. However, it is also important to keep up on the latest techniques. Councilmember Wilson was not comfortable with cutting the $4,000 for rescue training. He would support a $2,000 reduction which would be consistent with the last couple years. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff did not like to give up training that saves lives. He would agree with a $2,000 reduction. The cost to train one EMT is $1,000. Councilmember McKnight agreed with a $2,000 reduction. City Administrator Herlofsky noted they could take the $2,000 from the $8,000 for Fire Department training and make that $6,000. Councilmember McKnight and Acting Mayor Pritzlaffwanted the $2,000 on top of the $8,000. Councilmember Wilson noted last year there was a part time administrative position for the Fire Department they did not fund. Finance Director Roland noted it was part time in Fire and part time in Human Resources. Councilmember Wilson stated with that request and the request for a Fire Chief that will not be funded, there is a need out there. Depending on the needs the City has with ALF perhaps there are some opportunities there that could create some funding. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated if we have an engine down, we are down to one fire station and that would affect our ISO rating. An ISO rating is based from one City to another. It would not be attractive for us to have a higher ISO rating than surrounding cities to promote business. Finance Director Roland explained the ISO rating has stayed the same for a significant period of time. When it comes to commercial buildings, the biggest impact on insurance has to do with whether the building is sprinkled, not necessarily if the community has a higher or lower ISO rating. Our rating is not as good as Apple Valley or Lakeville, however we take care of far more acres of rural areas which lead to more of a problem with the ISO rating, than the equipment or number of people we have. It also has a great deal to do with the availability of mutual aid. The City's insurance agent has advised the biggest thing we can do is to encourage commercial buildings to be sprinkled and that will affect people's insurance far more than our ISO rating. City Administrator Herlofsky stated if one surrounding city has an extra vehicle and everyone has mutual aid, events can be covered. Getting the right equipment for the Fire Department is a high priority. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about adding back in the Economic Development Specialist and why it is $15,000 less than the EDA levy proposed. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the $100,000 was to allow for some extra for the fund balance. In another year, the EDA will be in better shape and Council will see the investment in staff. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about subtracting the School Resource Officer. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the City will be reimbursed for an officer at the high school starting in September 2009 and an individual will be assigned for the remaining of 2009. That will generate this amount of revenue. Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 3 Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about subtracting park maintenance hours allocated to the pool. City Administrator Herlofsky explained the pool is a separate fund. The costs of the people are being allocated to where they belong. Because they went to the pool, they did not go into park maintenance. The pool will be funded by transferring money from the liquor store. The $75,000 transferred would only go to the pool. It would not be available for park improvements or anything else. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about reducing salt and what if we could not achieve that. At the end of the year, will we have to add the $25,000 back into the budget? City Administrator Herlofsky stated if we need additional salt at the end of the year, we will make appropriate transfers in the budget to make sure it is funded. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked if we will be over as far as personnel in some departments. It will be slow as far as developments, and wondered if cuts should be deeper than this, such as staff reductions. If some of the proposed cuts are not attainable, what will happen at the end of the year? City Administrator Herlofsky gave an example with office supplies. Weare scanning documents and using less paper. If Council wanted to help out, we could send out a scanned agenda packet rather than paper copies. We squeezed everything tighter and will manage the assets appropriately. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff noted neighboring cities have been cutting jobs and wondered if we should do the same. City Administrator Herlofsky noted we have not replaced positions and have laid people off over the last few years. Councilmember Fogarty stated staff is doing a great job with finding cuts and adding to the fund balance which Council asked them to do. She noted some communities have switched to condensed 40-hour work weeks. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the biggest way a 4-day work week would help the organization is ifit reduced everyone's hours to 32 hours. It would not be available in all departments. If you work 10 hour days for 4 days, the savings would be minimal. Employees would benefit by saving gas. At this point it would not be as advantageous as we would like. If Council wants this, it would have to be negotiated in the contracts. Councilmember McKnight appreciated the cuts. He asked about the $25,000 Rambling River Center transfer and asked if that amount was consistent with the last couple years. Finance Director Roland stated in the budget presented before August 18, there was a $100,000 transfer out of the general fund to the Rambling River Center. That was supplemented by a transfer from the liquor stores of $42,000 to help cover the deficit. With the shift to $75,000 going to the pool, that additional money from the liquor store was not available. In order to make the Rambling River Center's budget balance we needed to increase the amount coming from the general fund by $25,000. Between the two it amounts to a $200,000 shift in revenues each year to support the Rambling River Center and the swimming pool. Councilmember Wilson asked if the $28,401 taken from the 2005 series C bond causes a problem with showing accurately what the debt service is. Finance Director Roland replied no, we are required to levy enough money to make debt service payments. If we Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 4 have that from other sources other than the levy, we are entitled to reduce the levy at any point by any amount which is covered by other sources of revenue. Councilmember Wilson asked how the ALF situation would impact the budget. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the ALF issue will not impact the budget. Councilmember Wilson would rather look for $20,000 somewhere else than reducing the amount for salt and having to do a transfer later. He had requested a list ofthe Recreation Supervisor's duties. There is nothing in the budget that would reflect why eliminating this position would be a good idea. There are the same number of programs and camps and an increase in the number of participants. The revenue for program fees is projected to be $3,000 more. lfwe have park and recreation programs, we need staff to run them. Parks and Recreation Director Distad provided Council with the job description for the Recreation Supervisor, a list of programs, and a list of general duties performed throughout the year. The budget identifies a reduction in 1.5 positions, but the Director's entire time was charged to the recreation budget. His time is now split between park maintenance and recreation. City Administrator Herlofsky noted the recommendation for the reduction was not the Park and Recreation Director's option; it came from the City Administrator's office. Parks and Recreation Director Distad stated the 2009 programs would be absorbed through existing staff. Missie Kohlbeck also picks up recreation programs in the summer even though her entire time is charged to the Rambling River Center. Finance Director Roland noted the narrative pages are preliminary. Department heads submit them as time goes along. The Parks and Recreation Director submitted the narrative in advance of the final draft of the document. It is possible that what is reflected in the narrative does not necessarily reflect what the Parks and Recreation Director would do in the case of a staff reduction. The narrative would be from the original budget submitted in July. Councilmember Wilson felt that information needed to be conveyed to Council. He interprets this as the interpretation of what will happen in 2009. lfthe information is not a reflection of what will happen in 2009, it is difficult to interpret what mayor may not be the actual numbers. Finance Director Roland stated we are short staffed and it would be nice to have the support staff to go through the narratives and have everything match by August 18. It is difficult to do given the short time line we have for budgeting. Weare trying to condense a huge task into six weeks. Without the clerical support staff to help out, she makes mistakes. Her Excel spreadsheets don't always add up. It is not perfect, and yes Council should have more information about what is leading up to this. City Administrator Herlofsky stated it is a recommendation and our objective still is to try to provide what is there. Councilmember Wilson stated residents appreciate the Parks and Recreation programs. His opinion is that the Recreation Supervisor position should be retained. The loss of this position will have a negative impact on the programs being offered. Parks and Recreation Director Distad has done a nice job developing, maintaining and providing a vision for our parks. That is a tremendous community amenity. We need to keep the same high level with the programs. He sees the program quality going down if the Recreation Supervisor position is eliminated. Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 5 Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated the quality of services is not the first thing he will take away from the residents. Weare at 5%, but he is not comfortable with how we got there. He wondered if it is better to keep this position and look at another department where we may be doubled up and it will not be needed during 2009. Weare lacking some Council input and he did not want to point out departments in a public meeting. In order to keep the programs, we need to keep the Recreation Supervisor position and look at others. He has discussed this with the City Administrator, but those discussions are not coming back to Council. Residents have noted that flowers in the downtown are nice, but residents see two people going around watering them. Another item was summer help for Parks and Recreation; do we need all that help? Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about the fire contracts with the townships and asked if we take an exact dollar amount and raise it a certain percent each year to cover the budget. He realized it was different for a call or services. Finance Director Roland stated the townships are billed on the actual cost incurred by the Fire Department each year. At the end of 2008 the computation is done based on what the Fire Department has spent; the actual cost of all the Fire Department plus the cost of the depreciation of all of the equipment and buildings. Then we take the number of calls, the tax capacity value and fit all of that into the formula. That is what they are billed under the contract. It is not a budgeted number, it is an actual number. If the budget for the Fire Department goes up 5%, the bills for the surrounding townships go up their proportionate share of that 5%. As Farmington gets bigger and more properties are annexed into Farmington, we see our percentage of those calls and that tax percentage go up and the surrounding townships go down. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about subtracting the vehicle for the Fire Chief. He may not agree with that as there are other vehicles in other departments that are newer. Finance Director Roland stated the Fire Department just got a new vehicle this year that was in the 2008 budget and was approved. When that vehicle was acquired, it was supposed to replace the vehicle that they requested be replaced in 2009. They have an S10 that the Chief has been driving since 1992. That vehicle is still in service. In 2008 they requested a replacement vehicle which was purchased and should be received soon. Once it is received, the S 10 was supposed to go away. They have since changed their idea of allocation for that vehicle and requested a vehicle for next year along with the request for the Fire Chief for another vehicle for that Fire Chief. By the end of 2008 they will have two fairly recently purchased vehicles. The Expedition is a 2002 and they will have a 2008 vehicle as well; one for the Fire Marshal and one for the Fire Chief. The rest of the Assistant Chiefs and others drive other vehicles that have been handed down, similar to what the Parks and Recreation Department drives for their summer staff and maintenance staff. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the only vehicles we are proposing to purchase in 2009 are two replacement squad cars. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff noted we have our own maintenance department that does oil changes and a certain amount of maintenance. Finance Director Roland stated it does all maintenance unless it is Fire vehicles that require work on the pumpers. Councilmember Pritzlaff asked if we have numbers on what a department is charged. Finance Director Roland stated we do not invoice departments for service. If you go to a local shop for an oil change, it costs between $50 - $75. The City keeps track of hours spent on vehicles in Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 6 various departments. The Finance Department multiplies those hours by $55/hour and charges that back to the departments where those hours were spent. Surrounding shops for union labor is $109 - $118/hour . We are less than half of that for labor, parts, shop supplies, and environmental costs. We buy oil in bulk and include that in the $55 fee as well as lubricants and tires will be included in 2009. Our mechanics know all of our equipment. The fleet internal service fund is an excellent way to manage both logistically and monetarily our fleet of vehicles. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated the information gives him some dollar amounts, but not specifically what is charged for an oil change. Is it 1.5 or 2 hours? Municipal Services Director Reiten stated they do more than an oil change; they rotate tires, etc. City Administrator Herlofsky noted those people are also used for snow plowing. Councilmember McKnight asked if Council was comfortable with the proposed levy. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff was comfortable with the levy and to work on the budget the next couple months. Councilmember Wilson was not sure at this point. There are a couple items he feels very strongly about. He stated 5% is a starting point. He would like to have a second workshop on the budget before the end of the year. Councilmember Fogarty stated she was comfortable with the 5% levy plus the EDA levy. She asked if the EDA levy needed to be decided by the EDA. Finance Director Roland stated with this revision, the EDA levy went away. If Council wants to add back $100,000 that would mean that it would not be a 5% levy increase. It would be more than that. The EDA would have to decide that by next Monday. Councilmember McKnight stated he was comfortable with the levy. He agreed with having a second workshop and felt all five Councilmembers needed to be here. Councilmember Wilson noted there is $114,000 of increase in benefits. That is a dramatic increase in the employee benefits. Human Resources Director Wendlandt explained it is a contractual obligation with the unions. There will be a 16% increase in health insurance. With the contracts, there is a cost share of 50% of the increase or decrease to the Health Partners distinction plan and would be split between the employer and the union. This is for health and dental insurance. The City offers a cafeteria plan, so employees have to take core benefits and then they can choose the other benefits that are right for their family. Councilmember Wilson noted training is being reduced by $10,000. He asked how much was used in 2008. Finance Director Roland replied the number for 2009 took into consideration the levy limit. Where we could reduce that line item, we did. It is not based on usage as some departments are over in that line item. It was based on what Department Heads felt they could do without in 2009 in order to help meet the budgeted 5% levy number. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked if out-state travel was cut to a minimum. Finance Director Roland replied the training budgets are using the same parameters as in the past. Out-state travel requests come to Council and can be voted up or down at that time. We did not cut them across the board completely. The City Administrator feels a well-trained staffis the best staff to have. There are things to be gained at national conferences. Councilmember Wilson asked about the amount for contracted services. Finance Director Roland stated it is for the DCC. The amount was $375,000. The number for 2010 is a $40,000 increase over 2009. Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 7 Councilmember Fogarty would like to see the $100,000 EDA levy put into the resolution. One of our primary goals is economic development, but we are giving ourselves zero funds to do anything. She was asking for the opportunity to leave it as an option. City Administrator Herlofsky advised they have a quick EDA meeting to make a recommendation to the Council. Councilmember Fogarty stated if Council would not approve it, there is no sense in having an EDA meeting. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked if additional cuts were made, can that additional money be put towards the EDA levy. City Administrator Herlofsky replied that can be done. Councilmembers Fogarty and McKnight agreed with that. Councilmember Wilson was not sure having a $100,000 EDA levy was a solution. He would not be inclined to add $100,000 unless they have a clear sense of what they would do with it. He would prefer to keep the resolution as is. 4. DISCUSS F AIRHILL DEVELOPMENT FEES Acting Mayor Pritzlaffhad a concern with the fees that were waived for the Fairhills development. There were $12,061,578 in fees. These are fees that every other developer in the City has paid. When the contracts for Fairhill and for 195th Street were approved, Council was told this was a self-contained development. He asked how it is a self- contained development. A self-contained development could be 10-15 houses in one area that has a community sewer just for that area. A septic system treats the water and it goes into a drain field. That is self-containment. The sewer from Fairhills connects to the Met Council interceptor line. So the sewer is leaving the site. We did not waive the developer's fees for paying the Met Council, but there are still fees paid to the City in other developments for sewer. How is it a self-contained development when the sewer leaves the development? Acting Mayor Pritzlaff also had a concern with the water supply plan. The development does not have its own water system flowing out of the ground. The water supply plan is coming from the City water pipes which comes from Riverbend. Water is supplied to a development that is self-contained through another development. Why is this a self-contained development? Houses that have their own community sewer, they would also have their own community well. Water is being brought in from off-site, sewer is going off-site, which tells him this is not a self- contained development. Also, storm water runoff is leaving the site. Ponds in the development are built with overflows. If a pond overflows it goes to the next pond and eventually into three different places by the railroad tracks and then into North Creek. There is a smaller portion of the development where water runs into North Creek which eventually goes into the Vermillion River. How is this a self-contained project when storm water leaves the site? Council waived $12 million in fees. If the fees were not applicable to this development because of it being self-contained he would not be asked to waive anything. Councilmember Wilson stated one thing that stands out to him is that we were in a hurry to get this done because of the roundabout and getting contracts finalized. Some additional clarification could have been provided. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the agreement with the developer was prior to having any development. Regarding the sanitary sewer, he had provided Council with a memo that outlined what the contract says; that we will not charge any fees for putting in the Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 8 sewer on that project because the sewer is self-contained and hooked up directly to the Met Council interceptor. Normally that is a sewer availability charge. There is a City sanitary sewer and a Met Council sanitary sewer. If there was a development west of Fairhills they would hook up into Fairhills. They would be charged a sewer availability charge from the Met Council and from the City because the pipe leaving their site might be 6 inches. Because of the size of Fairhills, it would take a 12 inch pipe to move the sewage from their area. Combining the two, the pipe would be 18 inches that hooks up to the Met Council sewer. The development to the west would have to put a City sewer availability charge to offset the cost of the extra 6 inches that went through Fairhills. Now we have Fairhills, which is self-contained, not going through anyone else and going directly to the Met Council interceptor. They only pay a Met Council sewer charge. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked if Mystic Meadows and Parkview Ponds are tied into the Met Council interceptor. City Engineer Schorzman replied Parkview Ponds may have a connection to the Met Council interceptor. Mystic Meadows runs through Parkview Ponds. Councilmember Pritzlaff noted Council was not asked to waive fees for Parkview Ponds. Finance Director Roland stated perhaps the phase self-contained is not what we need to use. When developers build infrastructure, they pay for the construction and if they oversize that, they get a credit back. Development Contracts with Mystic Meadows and Parkview Ponds took that into consideration. If the developers overbuilt they got credit back for what they overbuilt. As far as the sewer in Fairhills, what they are building is the same size as what they are using. There may be six different development contracts for Fairhills. The first one may charge a big amount for sewer, but the second one may have to give that credit back. That is what we mean by self-contained. In figuring out how the fees work for the amount of oversizing they would have to do versus what they are getting from it, the charges balance out. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the City does not benefit from any revenue from this. You only put infrastructure in. There will be developments along 195th Street. When that first development comes in, that one will be closest to the interceptor, so it needs to be sized larger for those homes so there will be a credit. A lot of the fees Acting Mayor Pritzlaff is concerned about were not given away, they are just not here yet because development has not been brought in so the fees can be calculated. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated Parkview Ponds hooked into the interceptor, Executive Estates hooked into the interceptor and there is no development around it. City Administrator Herlofsky noted there was also a $77,000 credit. He paid for what was there on that development and received a credit for the oversizing of the pipe. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated during his time on the Council he has never heard of self-containment and waiving fees. City Administrator Herlofsky stated none of them have been the size or the design of Fairhills. Councilmember Wilson stated a developer may be treated differently because of the size oftheir project. City Administrator Herlofsky replied no. Councilmember Wilson felt that was skirting around the edge of what was said. He has heard that the same treatment is not being applied to all developments. We do not want to be viewed as a City that will treat one developer different than another because of the type of proj ect. City Administrator Herlofsky stated he has correspondence from August 14 and 15 which relate to the site and was sent to all Councilmembers in an effort to respond to the questions. Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 9 Councilmember McKnight had a question on the sewer plan. In Parkview Ponds and Mystic Meadows there is a 12 inch pipe going to the Apple Valley interceptor. He asked if either development would have to pay to connect to that interceptor. Finance Director Roland stated they received credits against their sanitary trunk sewer charges. City Engineer Schorzman stated Mystic Meadows would have received a credit for oversizing the sewer line so that Parkview Ponds can put their sewage through Mystic Meadows into the interceptor. There is no connection charge to the Met Council interceptor. The charge for the Met Council is for the homes to hook up. City Administrator Herlofsky stated the SAC charge comes out at the building permit time, not at this time. Councilmember Wilson asked what would determine when a SAC fee would be charged and when it would be waived. City Engineer Schorzman did not know of any instance where the word self-contained has been used. Every piece of pipe that goes into the ground in Fairhills, that project is generating the sewage that goes directly into the Met Council interceptor. Nobody else is putting into their system, and they are not going through any other system that has been paid for by other developers. That is self- contained. Something of this magnitude has not been developed by anyone person that would put the City in this situation. City Administrator Herlofsky noted Council asked if we treat people differently. The answer is no. Do we treat people equally? No. No two parcels of land are ever equal. Are we fair and apply the same standards and policies? Yes. Councilmember McKnight understood the sewer issue. He was looking for the same answers on the other fees. City Administrator Herlofsky noted that work has been done. City Engineer Schorzman replied the storm water is very similar to the sanitary sewer. They are taking care of volume control requirements and sediment control requirements on their site. It does not go through any currently existing or future planned project of a storm water nature inside the City. As with the sanitary sewer, this site feeds to some points that leave their development, but they do not utilize any other City facilities that would have been constructed using those trunk funds and therefore, it is self-contained. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated Mystic Meadows had to build a 24-acre lake. They were charged fees for that to leave the site through North Creek and into the Vermillion River. Fairhills does leave the site. Council was told it was self-contained meaning nothing would leave the site. This is the second thing that is leaving the site. City Engineer Schorzman stated the goal of storm water management and the storm water plan is to reduce and contain the increased runoff because of the change in condition from agricultural to residential. These ponds in Fairhills are sized appropriately to take care of all the water that site generates before it leaves. Mystic Meadows may have been oversized to take care of storm water coming from the north and west into that pond. While they paid a fee, they also received a credit because they made it bigger than they needed to to take care of their specific development. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated every development has water that leaves and they have paid fees. City Engineer Schorzman stated it goes into some other City facility that has been funded through the storm water fund. Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 10 Councilmember McKnight stated he has a memo on the sanitary sewer trunk area charge. He needs the information on the other charges Acting Mayor Pritzlaff raised such as the surface water management fee, water main trunk fee, surface water quality management, and water treatment plant fee. City Administrator Herlofsky stated when they spoke, Acting Mayor Pritzlaff was under the impression the sewer availability charge included all the other fees so we have tried to work our way back from there. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff agreed he left it out. He should have asked for SAC and WAC charges and what he asked for was the total fees for sewer. Finance Director Roland stated there is a difference between what he is asking for and what City SAC and WAC is. SAC is sewer availability charges. That is paid directly to the Met Council on the basis of a building permit and the City is a pass through for that. WAC is water accessibility charges and would be the same thing as water trunk fees. It is a connection fee the City is allowed to charge on building permits. What we are talking about is different. It is the sewer trunk fees, the water trunk fees, and the storm water trunk fees. Those are different. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff noted his question when the contract was approved was why are we waiving the SAC and WAC charges. That is what came to Council on June 2, as being waived. Councilmember Wilson stated if there are developer fees paid for different categories wouldn't they be replacing the cost for the City to do something or a pass through to another governmental unit. It would seem there would be laws to prevent the City from arbitrarily charging water availability fees if we were to keep it for our own benefit and there would be no benefit for the developer for us to charge them. Finance Director Roland stated we have to justify the fees we charge to developers. We have to base them on the comprehensive plan and we submit them annually to the Department of Revenue. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked how we can collect these fees on building permits when we have actually waived them. Finance Director Roland stated there are two different fees. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated there are five different fees. Finance Director Roland stated there are two different types of fees. There are those that are parcel specific such as SAC. There are fees that are specific to the development and the number of acres in the development. Any development contract is based on developable acres, not total acres. We apply the rates based on the comprehensive plan. We apply the sanitary sewer trunk fee over the total acreage that is to be covered by the particular development. If there is oversizing, we give a credit against that. That is what happens with trunk fees. SAC is an individual per parcel, charged on the building permit fee that we pass through to the Met Council. There is a City WAC fee that is a connection to the pipe in the street. The pipe in the street is paid for by the overall fee and the individual fee charged on the building permit is to connect to that pipe. The water treatment plant fee is an area charge based on the developable acreage in the project. It is not charged with the building permit, it is charged at the time of the platting of the property. There are fees to be charged on this development, but there are also significant credits that go against those fees. In the end, the developer will build the entire amount of infrastructure in that whole area and give it to the City. The City does not have to pay for it. It is not different than any other development, but we are not losing out on fees. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked out of the five fees how many were waived? Finance Director Roland stated waived Council Workshop Minutes September 8, 2008 Page 11 means what they are constructing, we are not charging them for it and we are not giving them credit because it is not going anyplace else. Other developers that have sewage in their developments that in order to get it out, has to go through other developments. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff asked about the water main trunk fee. Finance Director Roland explained that is for any oversizing that feeds water to other places. City Engineer Schorzman stated as the plats come, they will figure the developable acreage, and figure the water main trunk fee based on that. Acting Mayor Pritzlaff stated what was perceived at a Council meeting is that we are waiving fees and the words self-contained development were used. We do not have plans and don't know how many houses will be built, so we do not know how much we really waived. Finance Director Roland explained staff had been working on this PUD Agreement for over a year. She would not let the City get by with not charging fees that the City needed. City Administrator Herlofsky will provide Council with the information Councilmember McKnight reqU(~sted. 5. ADJOURN MOTION by Fogarty, second by McKnight to adjourn at 9:15 p.m. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted ~~~~ Cynthia Muller Executive Assistant