HomeMy WebLinkAbout03/31/1998 Study Session MinutesIi.
IIJ.
IV.
PLACE AND DATE
Marana Police Department, March 31, 1998
CALL TO ORDER
By Mayor Ora Harn at 6:12 P.M.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Led by Mayor Ora Harn
ROLL CALL
COUNCIL
Ora Harn
Bobby Sutton, Jr.
Ed Honea
Herb Kal
Sherry Millner
Michael Reuwsaat
Roxanne Ziegler
Mayor
Vice Mayor, excused
Council Member
Council Member
Council Member
Council Member
Council Member
STAFF
Hurvie Davis
Michael Hain
Jocelyn Entz
Sandy Groseclose
Jane Johnson
Roy Cuaron
Town Manager
Assistant Town Manager
Asst. to Town Manager
Town Clerk
Human Resources Director
Finance Director
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
A motion was made by Mike Reuwsaat, seconded by Sherry Millner, to
approve the agenda, as written. The motion carried 6/0.
GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS
A. Discussion and Review of Fiscal Year 1998-99 Bud_oet
Mayor Harn: I was very pleased last time about the time I got home. I hope
you gentlemen can do the same thing tonight.
Hurvie Davis: As we indicated at the last meeting, this is step two. Mike
and Roy are basicalJy running this process with my input from time to time.
Since our last meeting there has been a lot of work put into the information
we will present to you. I want to compliment Roy and Mike for working very
hard on this, and at times I might even categorize it as struggling when the
numbers did not quite balance. I think they have worked very hard on it and
they have done an excallent job. So, I will turn it over to Mike. Roy will be
doing most of the show this evening.
Mike Hein: As Hurvie said, we did struggle a little bit. As we explain the
process to you, it is going to be a little difficult the first year because we are
not always comparing apples to apples. Roy and I found that out the hard
way, but after several games of basketball yesterday evening we got back to
work and our minds were clear and we figured it all out. As you can see on
the spreadsheets, 5:07PM today is when we figured it all out. To go over the
process again, instead of starting with departments asking for their wish list
and then us having to cut down to match the resources, we are inverting the
process. We started with revenues and went through, line item by line item,
where all of the revenues are derived to run the engine, if you will. We went
through that and Council expressed some concern about the conservative
nature of our estimates. Roy has revised those. The next step, and what we
are trying to achieve tonight, is to get everyone to agree on fixed expenses.
Again, once you have your revenues, we are going to take the fixed
expenses out, along with all of the grants and special revenues. That is
going to reave you a net number and that is what you really have as far as
discretionary income, if you will, to program out. Let's start with having Roy
explain how we adjusted the revenues from the last time we met.
Roy Cuaron: In response to the Council's concern that maybe some of the
numbers were too conservative, we went back and revisited it. We adjusted
the "Sales Tax" and the "Building and Development Fees." Within the "Sales
Tax" we looked at the construction industry and adjusted that upward. We
adjusted the "Transportation, Communications and Utilities" industry and
"Retail Trade" into a lesser expense, as well as the "Restaurants & Bars"
industry group. All within historical trends but not as conservative as last
time. Perhaps I was a little too cautious but I think the new revenue numbers
reflect more likely what will happen. Again, it is probably not consistent with
the rural trend of the past but that is to be cautious, as well. The net result of
that was that the "Sales Tax" increased $520,000 and "Building and
Development Fees" increased $192,000. This gives us just under $800,000
in additional "Sales Tax" revenues. That was distributed to you, I believe in
your packet on Friday. If anybody needs a revised "Sales Tax" estimate to
show the industry groups, let me know and I will pass them out. Also, you
should be referring to the worksheet titled Fixed Expenses FY1998-99. We
just passed this out and it is dated today, hot off the press. So, it is the latest
information we have.
Mike Hein: We apologize again for the late information, I don't like getting
information in front of you at a meeting so hopefully we can explain it clearly
enough. The reason being, when we went through the numbers, we double
counted something. We omitted some things that were kind of tucked away.
Given the Council's clear direction to not use reserve funds, we had to make
sure we were talking apples and apples and covered all of the expenses.
Lets start with Fixed Expenses. FY1998-99, which is the top spreadsheet
that was handed out to you. Fixed Expenses, again, are those things that
are inflexible and we are obligated to pay. For "Insurance," which is pretty
standard, you see an increase of $58,000. I assume that is because Roy is
conservatively budgeting for that expense. We probably expect a little bit of
an increase as we acquire more assets and we get more invoJved. I haven't
seen how we have been performing to date, if we have had any issues with
insurance companies.
Roy Cuaron: We have had increases every year, particularly as we grow
and particularly in our police department. As we acquire newer assets that
cost more that also raises our insurance. I am not so sure that this is in line
with the previous increases we have had, it is something that I feel
comfortable in suggesting that we budget for.
Mike Hein: When is the renewal date?
Roy Cuaron: It runs from December to December.
Mike Hein: "Debt Service" is probably the most significant singular increase.
Again, that is a result of the recent bonds and it goes up about $600,000.
That is a fixed expense. "Lease Costs - Existing" is rent.
Mike Reuwsaat: When you are looking at "Debt Service," all of the bonds
have been sold so we are looking at principal and interest. Have you figured
any arbitrage in there? (no) Will that mat out any of that $850,000.
Roy Cuaron: That $850,000 is per the bond debt schedule. Basically, it
goes back into the interest reserve fund within the trustee and we really won't
see that until the end. I suppose we could ask for the interest earned on
that, but it will just go back into the fund.
Mike Hein: Arbitrage - we are not going to see any of it because of the
newer laws, over the last twenty years. The interest goes into a trust fund so
we don't see that. "Lease Costs - Existing" Js for rental space, the
Development Center, the Annex, this building and $75,000 is really right
where it is at. "Lease Costs - New" is an arbitrary number Roy and I put in
there. There has been several discussions about where are we going to put
ali of the people we have currently on staff. The Development Center is
stressed for space, the Administration is stressed for space. We do not have
a recommendation yet from the committee, or from anybody, whether the
answer is to go out and look at existing rental spaces within our community.
Roy and the committee have been doing an excellent job of going out and
looking at existing rental spaces, everything from the old Bank One building
to house the Building Department to stores in the Michael's Plaza to house
the Courts. They are really looking at all alternatives in addition to a couple
of modular buildings. So, we put a $100,000 in there for "Lease Costs -
New." That doesn't mean we intend to spend it but, again foreseeing that as
a possibility, we put that in there. For example, to throw something out,
when they looked at the idea of putting in two additional modular buildings,
one next to the Development Center and one next to the existing Town Hall,
to accommodate some of the growth, we were looking at $600,000 or
$700,000. We did not feel that was a good alternative to propose to the
Council, Given that we are talking about a new Town Facility in the future,
we weren't sure it would be prudent to sink that much money into those kinds
of assets. The $100,000 is an arbitrary number but both Roy and I feel it is a
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good number based on some of the quotes we have been getting for existing
lease space.
Mike Reuwsaat: What did we put into the bond?
Roy Cuaron: $290,000 for modular buildings and $200,000 for land
acquisition.
Mike Hein: Part of the problem with comparing apples and apples when we
get to the operating is a lot of these costs were hidden in each of the
department's budgets. For example, "Building Maintenance" was in Public
Works but we couldn't leave that to the discretion of the department head
because those are costs that have to be shared by all of the departments.
For "Building Maintenance" we budgeted $55,000. If we are going to put in a
new divider or lobby at the Town Hall, or do some other things that come out
of this line item, we are prepared for that. "Refuse" is for disposal services,
those fees are going up. For "Utilities" Roy budgeted a 10% increase based
on potential fete increases, as well as consumption. The $62,760 from
"Adopted FY97-98" totals the actual amount of the "Telephone" line item from
each department. We took "Telephone" out of each department's budget
and put $50,000 into this year under fixed. The reason being, the fixed cost
is really the telephone service and the monthly fees. We are going to ask
each department to budget cellular, long distance, etc. and we may have to
adjust that but we want to make sure we accommodate enough money to
pay for the basic fees and services.
Roy Cuaron: It was hard to extract from the budget, of the $62,760, how
much was long distance and how much was cellular. So, we just pulled the
entire amount out.
Mike Hein: These next two items I would like to spend a little time on, that is
why I asked Jane to be here. She did not expect to be here tonight so I
appreciate her staying. She can explain the next two items because I am not
familiar with how the Town has done it in the past and for explanation. The
first one is ~Salary Plan Adjustment." In the past the Town has adjusted
salades and hasn't called it a cost of living adjustment per say, but called it a
market adjustment. Last year it was 2.5%, based on a survey that Jane
performed looking at neighboring jurisdictions and what the market had
yielded. This number, $120,000, represents 3%. That is a maximum, we
don't expect it to be 3% but for the purposes of budgeting we put it Jn there.
What I want is for Jane to further explain that process, if I messed up, and
get direction from you on whether or not to put in now. Obviously, if you put
it in under fixed expense, everyone starts talking about, "Hey, we are going
to see a market adjustment." You would have to finally vote on the exact
percent and we would have that by budget time,
Jane Johnson: I have called the different jurisdictions and some public
sector entities, like Pima College, that are not part of the governmental
process, to see what people are doing. This is what I have done in the past,
also, and it looks like at this point 2%-2.5% is going to be the market. Ore
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Valley is going to be doing 2%, Pima County is going to be doing 2.5% or
30¢, which ever is greater, South Tucson is not doing anything and they did
not do anything last year and Tucson did not do anything last year and is still
looking at what they are going to do this year.
Mike Hein: Nothing obligates the Council, there is nothing contractually
which would indicate to employees they are getting a raise or deserve an
adjustment but in the past it was done on a market study so we put 3% on
there. It is up to you guys.
Roxanne Ziegler: If we wanted to do 4%, we could.
Mike Hein: Sure, you could do 20% or 0%.
Jane Johnson: I have looked at, from the League materials, 37
communities that are from 5,000 to 50,000 population because that is where
we range. Last year thirteen of the jurisdictions did not do anything, out of
the 37, and five of them did as much as 5%. So, it ranged in between those
amounts, just to give you a ball park of what everybody else did last year.
We did 2.5%.
Mike Hein: If you would like we can make a recommendation once we have
completed all of the study, or we can get direction tonight, or we can budget
this and you can review it anytime you want.
Roxanne Ziegler: Did you go outside the market study? These are raises
for employees that work here in Marana. I guess I am thinking along the
lines of keeping good people in the Town. A lot of people in the Town are
employees, fortunately, but I know we have had trouble with a few people. Is
it because we are not paying enough? I am not talking about the Public
Works guy we fired, I am just talking about our regular guys out there
working.
Jane Johnson: We have really two pieces. We have the salary base
amount, which everybody gets, and then on top of that they get from 1%-7%
for merit increase, basically a COLA.
Roxanne Ziegler: So, besides their COLA once a year, they'll also get from
O%-7%.
Mike Hein: There is nothing that entitles them to a cost of living adjustment.
They are entitled, via the manual, to get between the 0%-7% on their
anniversary date. Let me go to the next one because they are enveloped
together.
Herb Kal: Many years ago we really underpaid a lot of our staff. We have
made some big jumps. It is not necessary that we still have to do it but we
hope we are up to this level and that we are competitive. So, it is not a
necessary matter, it is just something the Council needs to think about.
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Mike Hein: The reason I want to talk about employee benefits is that it gets
back to Roxanne's comment about what makes us attractive to other
potential employees. The $50,000 that we are budgeting for employee
benefits represents an increase in the dependent care coverage. Right now,
we pay 0% for dependents, which is really below market. I don't think an
argument can be made that that is par. This would increase dependent
coverage to 50%, for what I consider not to be a lot, it is only $50,000.
Hurvie can attest that when I was coming here I remarked upon the
dependent coverage, insurance.
Roxanne Ziegler: So, this will bring it up to where they will cover 50% of
your children's care?
Mike Hein: Jane has done a little comparative analysis on this, as well, with
other jurisdictions and she can talk about what it means dollar wise to an
employee with benefits.
Jane Johnson: We are in the process of looking at the insurance rates. We
have been told by Health Partners that if we keep what we have now, we can
expect a 3% increase. There are some options that we can do to keep it
down, and even dropping it below where we are now. We are in the process
of doing all of that. If we were to take the amounts that we have right now,
per pay period an employee plus one person pays $63.96 (per pay period).
If it is for the full family, employee plus however many, it is $116.29 per pay
period. If we were to pick up 50%, at the employee plus one, that would
translate to the employee paying about $32.00 per pay period. For the
family, it would be $58.00 per pay period. Right now what is happening, we
have a single parent at the lower end of the pay scale and they can not afford
$64.00 per pay period. What they are doing is going out and buying
individual policies on their children, up to about twelve years old because
then they don't gain anything with individual policies. But from a year old to
twelve years old, they can go out and buy an individual policy with practically
any of the carriers for what we would pick up as half. There are some down
sides to them doing that, but when it comes down to the actual dollar
amount, it makes more sense to them. I have to admit, I have been
encouraging them to do this, rather than go with our coverage. We looked at
this in the Town. Tucson pays 100% of their lowest plan and 85% of their
dependent coverage. Pima County pays 62% of their dependent coverage.
Oro Valley pays 50%. South Tucson doesn't pay them, but we don't really
compete with South Tucson and we do compete with these others. I know
we lost one good person for a position in the Public Works area at Parks and
Rec. once that person looked at what their cost would be for their dependent
coverage and they could not leave the City of Tucson. Right now we are
planning on 50%. Part of the problem is we don't know if $50,000 is
accurate. I think that is way over, it is very conservative and I think much
more than we will really need. I don't know how many people, at this point,
who will drop their individual plans once they get the opportunity and take
advantage of this. Until we actually have an open enrollment with this
opportunity for these people to come in at a better price than what we are
offering right now, we don't have any accurate numbers.
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MARCH 31, 1998
Ed Honea: I think we should do it. I would be interested in even putting it on
a three year schedule to pump it up even higher than that. As a self
employed person, as a lot of us here are, I have forked out thousands of
dollars a year just for my wife and I for insurance. A lot of employees would
take a lesser pay if they thought they were going to get a 100% coverage for
a family, or 100% for them and 60% or 70% for dependents. If we did 50%
this year, we might look at going to 60% next year.
Roxanne Ziegler: The money that is paying for this coverage, where is it
coming from?
Roy Cuaron: The dependent coverage.
Roxanne Ziegler: How are we going to pay for that.
Mayor Harn: I almost think that when we are talking about a raise like
COLA, where you raise someone's pay $20 a pay period, or something, we
might be better off talking about the benefit. It is more money in the pocket
of the employee than to get a 2% raise in your paycheck.
Ed Honea: The thing is, with COLA, we have a lot of single employees. It is
not fair to say John and Joe do the same job and Joe gets an extra $200 a
month worth of medical benefits because he has three or four children and
John doesn't get any COLA or anything because he is a single guy.
Basically, it says we will pay you more if you are married with three kids than
if you are single, to do the same job.
Mike Reuwsaat: I am willing to support 50% right now. Another flip side to
the single, remember when you start adding $100 or $116 to another
employee through group benefit for family, that single employee doesn't get
that raise, in effect, that the person with the family life gets it. I think that,
from history, we will see a lot of people come in on the coverage and we will
probably loose employees at Kelly Green Trees because we have exactly the
same plan you do. Do we have our own pool or are we pooled with other
Municipalities or other major employees?
Jane Johnson: There is no pool.
Roy Cuaron: You hear year in and year out about health care rising. Our
premiums, over the last three or four years, have gone up an average of 3%
or 4%, which is pretty remarkable when you consider the rising cost of health
care. Part of that was because three or four years ago we were not getting
those attractive rates because we were only 50 employees and we have
gone up to 125 employees so we have a little bit more leverage. They have
actually maintained their prices pretty well below the market, I think.
Roxanne Ziegler: We have this incredible budget going here and we are
being very conservative. I know several years ago the Town didn't have it,
but now the Town is being conservative and if we are going to put any money
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MARCH 31, 1998
anywhere I really don't think it is fair to hold the budget at $22,000,000 and
have employees paying for something like this. It seems like that is their
money, we pay taxes, and if we are going to put money somewhere it ought
to be in the care of the children and the spouses of the people who work in
this town. As a tax payer and living in Marana, that is crap. I cannot believe
it. I am not blaming anyone here, but health care is just ugh.
Ed Honea: If we go to 50%, it will make it affordable, though. Then you are
looking at $32.00 a pay day, not a hundred and something.
Roxanne Ziegler: I am talking more than 50%.
Ed Honea: The only thing is Roxanne, I bet you a third of our employees are
single. Basically what you are going to do is give all of our married
employees a $150 or $200 a month raise and the single people aren't going
to get squat. You have to have some parity there.
Roxanne Ziegler: I was single with a child and I was thankful for what I had.
Now, I am single without a child and it doesn't bother me because I would
rather see the children have that coverage. I can't believe that. I don't know
how equitable that would be but they have got to be covered.
Mayor Harn: I think we have given them some feeling for where we are so
lets go on with the process.
Mike Hein: I wanted to point out the interrelationship because if we come
back and recommend a more modest COLA, we will make sure that people
will recognize the benefit side of it, as well. Jane will conduct her market
survey.
Mayor Harn: Have we ever talked about a benefit package? Where my son
used to work, there was so much attitude that they had a benefit package of
so many dollars and then they decided what they wanted to do with their
dollars in that package. If they wanted to take health care, they took health
care. If they wanted a raise, they did that. That may be something we need
to talk about in the future, if we have lots of single people.
Ed Honea: Like a CAFETERIA Plan, that would be more equitable for single
people. That way they could take that extra $100 and put into retirement or
something like that. At least they would not be getting $200 less per month
than the person right next to them doing the same job.
Mike Hein: We appreciate your input and we will get back to you on what
we are going to do in the final.
Mayor Harn: If we are going to do something like that, we might even
consider this 1%, or whatever we are talking about as COLA, for this
program instead of COLA. I think people get more out of benefits because
you don't pay the taxes on benefits. If you get a raise in your check, you
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MARCH 31, 1998
don't get half a good raise because by the time you pay the taxes on that, it
is not much.
Jane Johnson: Roxanne, we are really are very competitive with our
salaries, even with Pima County. We will never be able to match the City of
Tucson, but we really are competitive in a lot of ways and the trade offs
people see when they consider coming to Marana, lifestyle benefits out
weigh what is going on with Tucson, except the fact that they get such big
support with their benefits package. We are not losing people like we were.
We have a very Iow turn over rate.
Mike Hein: The next item, "Fire Service," as you are well aware, represents
the contract with Northwest Fire District. The $50,000 for proposed 98-99 is
really a carry over from the previous contract. In the contract, apparently
there was a provision where the Town paid a differential of wages for
personnel hired in this area for the last fiscal year.
Roy Cuaron: The current ICA we have with Northwest Fire allows them to
pass on to us any increases in their benefit plans to their employees for the
fiscal year. What we have done, knowing that the ICA is going to terminate
and they are still going to bill us for retroactive pay adjustments they have
given their employees during the contract period that will end in June. That
is through the ICA. As you recall, when we first started to enter the ICA it
was 435 and the difference between the 462 and the 435 represented the
COLA increases that their employees were awarded. Northwest Fire
originally wanted us to pay for that in advance and I said, "1 would really
rather not do that, you can bill me after the fact." We are budgeting in the
amount to allow that to happen in the next fiscal year, when they will know
what the true cost was.
Mike Hein: This should be the last year that you will see a fire service
contract. We are all aware of the new "Transit Service," there was $77,000
budgeted for this year and it wasn't a full year. I will be honest, the $150,000
is an estimate, conservative estimate. If the Council wishes to expand the
service, we are sure to see some increased cost.
Mike Reuwsaat: We spent a lot of contingency fund for transit service, so
what you are saying is that we will be going to contingency here for
expansion.
Roy Cuaron: If the Council wants to expand the service beyond what is
budgeted, it should give us direction to do so. This $150,000 represents the
current IGA with Pima County for two routes, rural transit and Sun Tran, as
well as an anticipated full year of the newer rural transit that commenced
operation just recently.
Mayor Harn: I would say to wait on any expansion for awhile because we
need to get what we have working well before we add something to it. If we
can keep the transit consistent so people feel they can depend on it for a
year then I think we might be able to really get it going well. I would feel
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MARCtI 31, 1998
reluctant to start to increase something and get it to an unmanageable cost
before we really get the basic service off the ground.
Mike Hein: "Airport Expenses" is an arbitrary number, we had $100,000 in
potential "Airport Revenue" and we put $200,000 in "Airport Expenses."
Obviously, we don't expect, while I have some meetings this week, any deal
to be forth coming. Roy is going to the airport tomorrow and will get
introduced to their finance people so he can start examining their books. It
will be a slow process and we may see expenses before we see revenue, as
well. We will be coming to the Council for direction.
Mike Reuwsaat: With budget going on, I want it to be slow enough that Roy
is not overwhelmed.
Mike Hein: We appreciate that and it is not a primary focus but we want to
show that we have not lost sight of it. I have been saying that we would
come over and look at the books, and we do want to look at the books. I
know Councilman Kal has been very accurate in his concern about wanting
us to find out the true cost. So, we are putting our foot in the door.
Roxanne Ziegler: While you are putting your foot in there, how well do we
know Gary Abrams? I think it would be worth our while to find out about
Gary Abrams, I don't mean that in a funny way, I would like to know his
background. I am not suggesting that they are not respectable people, at all.
I just want to know what the problems were between him and Tucson Airport
Authority and Pima County. It has nothing to do with his family.
Ed Honea: The County says they have been subsidizing it for $150,000 to
$200,000, they may not be counting the money they are making off the fuel
and such against that $150,000. If it is an offset, it might be a wash.
Mike Reuwsaat: My concern, too, is how tied in is Abrams into a long term
deal. If it is a short term deal and we are banking on Abrams, I want to bank
on airport potential, not on the Abrams family.
Mayor Harn: Surely we all realize that what the Abrams are trying to do is
jump out of Pima County and into Marana because they are squeezing them
and in some areas rightfully so. We do need to be cautious, but I still think it
is a good thing for the Town to go about, in the right process.
Hurvie Davis: You could sum it up and say, "Can you really identify many
people or groups that have had a good working relationship with Pima
County?
Ed Honea: Our relationship is getting better.
Mike Hein: Is everybody fine with everything up to this point, with the
understanding that we will come back to you on the salary plan adjustment
recommendation. I am real confident on most of these. "Special Programs:
Chamber of Commerce" shows an increase of $15,000. The rationale under
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that is to pool some more things into that. The Mayor is asking the
departments for an accounting of time spent of Founders Day because part
of the money, $20,000, is for facilitation and coordination of Founder's Day in
hopes to make some revenue for the Chamber and take a lot of the work or
burden off the Town staff. I think there may be some concern about how
successful that was, but I think the direction is clear. The additional $15,000
would be for them to also coordinate the Fourth of July. One of the concerns
they have is that they have only hired a person for half the year to coordinate
Founder's Day and then they loose that person because they haven't made
money. My idea, and the approach I took in Nogales, is to give them
increased funding up front and then have a contract. Then over time we can
talk about reducing the amount of allocation to the Chamber to a point where
they are self sufficient. The concern in Nogales was how the Chamber gets
the money from the Town and doesn't do anything. What we did was tie the
funding to performance and gave them five years to be self sufficient. The
other problem is coordination. I know Jan had a hard time finding sponsors
for Founder's Day because many of those potential sponsors were tapped by
Town staff, me. I had already hit them up for Fourth of July or they were hit
up for other things, like Home Depot. For purposes of putting a good face
forward, as well as coordinating sources of funding, it should be under one
house. In other words, I found out we are going to sponsor Fourth of July
and any excess revenue from sponsorship rolls back to the Town. So we
start thinking what makes sense, well Home Depot, because they are down
on their corridor, Kirby and his bar, Drivers' Mart. Well, the Chamber is also
thinking about them as Founder's Day sponsors. So, they are hit up by the
Town and then by the Chamber and pretty soon they get a little disheartened
about what we are trying to do to them. It should really be under one house.
That is the recommendation for the increase in the Chamber, is to house not
only Founder's Day, but also Fourth of July. There total funding would then
increase from 40,000 to 55,0000.
Mayor Harn: One of the reasons I asked Mike to do an accounting of time
spent by Town staff is because if we do this and move it to the Chamber,
then I certainly want to see a decrease in the dollars that the Town is
spending. I am having Mike put a dollar figure to the time, because time is
dollars.
Herb Kai: If there is a budget on the Founder's Day expenditures for the
Chamber, $20,000, where did this money go? It gives the Council a better
idea of where it is going and increases.
Sherry Millner: They are supposed to give us a quarterly report, and we
haven't had them.
Ed Honea: The report is coming on Founder's Day. What happened this
year, the Chamber intended to make a certain amount of profit on
sponsorships by doing the work on Founders Day. That is the advantage of
them taking on the work, maybe they make a little bit of extra money so they
can keep that second person on staff. The Chamber is getting so large now,
there are 160 or 170 members, that is getting harder to keep track of all of
]]
MINUTES OF COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
these people and do the functions and stuff for them. They actually did not
make any money on Founder's Day. By the time they paid for the flyers, the
bands, and did all of the stuff, basically it came out a wash. What you have
is people doing a lot of work and they weren't able to make any money. As
Mike eluded to, one of the things that they thought they would make money
on was going to Home Depot and some of the developers that have given
before and a lot of them were tapped out and said, "No, we have already
given to other Town functions and we are not going to give you any more."
They did not get the sponsorships like they had been getting, so it did kind of
squeeze them.
Mike Reuwsaat: What I want a real clear line on is that we are not
subsidizing the daily operation of the Chamber to support its membership.
Membership fees should be doing that. When we are doing our homework, I
want to make sure there is a clear delineation in terms of the Chambers
revenue sources and their expenditures and how our revenues fit into that
picture so that we can answer that question up front.
Ed Honea: The way this thing started is when none of us had a bucket to go
in. We were trying to annex the Ina/Thornydale/Orange Grove business area
and we were having a rough time. We went to the Chamber of Commerce,
and this was Rene Brazil Pierce, before Jan, and we said, "We are in trouble.
We need to get this business area to make our town solvent. Will you help
us?" The Chamber Director at that time said, "We'll go help you." They even
had some members down there in the Ina/Thornydale area that had not
signed. They went down, their director and some of their board of directors
people, and walked the streets with the Town. They got about ten or fifteen
signatures and we only had one more than we needed to get that
annexation, and then we went to a law suit over that. Part of the deal was
that if they would help us get that annexation, we would give them $20,000 a
year. That was just part of the deal, "You, Chamber of Commerce, go down
and talk to these business people in the Ina/-rhornydale area and if you can
help us be successful, we will give you a little piece of the pie. Basically we
get $6,000,000 in taxes and we give them $20,000, it is a half of a percent, or
something. The Chamber has done other things that have been very
beneficial, monetarily, to the Town. Some of you might not like the prison,
but if you want to put it in perspective, that prison was brought to this Town
solely by the Chamber of Commerce. Joe Riley was the president of the
Chamber of Commerce. He did all the legwork. He did not take a
commission for finding the land and he helped get that thing set up. In just
that prison and revenue sharing alone for state revenue sharing is $125,000
a year for this Town. The Chamber has done things and brought business
here and brought revenue sharing here to more than pay to help them run
their administrative costs not their members.
Mike Reuwsaat: I do not disagree with that. Where we do not have clear
view in delineation. We are paying GTEC for services. I want it to be clear
cut and, if we need to make a commitment to the Chamber for business
development, which is the Chamber's sole responsibility, we need to discuss
whether we need to contribute to the Chamber like we do for GTEC and do it
12
MINUTES OF COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
MARCH 31 1998
for that reason. I can justify that reason a lot more than giving $20,000 for
Founder's Day so that they can make some money to get another half-
person.
Ed Honea: The whole idea is to keep the business advocacy sound and to
keep a good relationship. The Town of Marana has a very good relationship
with our business people, either through the Business Advisory Committee
and/or through the Chamber of Commerce.
Mike Reuwsaat: I would like this Council to consider solidifying that and
making a commitment to the Chamber in writing to make a clear message to
the public about what we are doing and what our performance expectations
are out of that.
Ed Honea: The Chamber is doing something. The two motels that are
going in at Cortaro Road came to the Chamber about 6 months ago. I am
not sure that the Town is aware of this. They asked the Chamber to do some
studies and get them some research, traffic patterns and things of that nature
to see if it was feasible to do that. So the Chamber did expend a lot of time
and effort and money and both of these motels are coming now. That is
going to generate a lot of money.
Mike Reuwsaat: Do you understand where I am coming from? It is easier
for me to say that we are contributing to the Chamber because we are
contributing to the viability of the business community here rather than trying
to justify additional increases. I know I did, and other Council members had
reservations in last year's budget for increasing money for fireworks and
Founder's Day and stuff that doesn't hold the same type of credibility that
funding for GTEC or the basic function that they are already performing. It is
a packaging deal, perhaps, but I would like to look at it in terms of how our
presentation is and our relationship that would solidify and put it more on a
performance and business relationship in support of the business recruitment
and retension function that the Chamber has, rather than on the programs
that they are going to run for us.
Mike Hein: One thing I would like to suggest, and I think this is good
feedback for staff, is to budget a number and to actually spending it are
different things. At minimum I think we need and, I think the Chamber will
agree, they are going to need a contract tied to specific actions and specific
goals and objectives.
Mayor Harn: For this funding, they need to tell us what they need the
money for and how they are going to spend the money and give us a budget
so that we can look at it and say that this is legitimate budget. We will be
able to see where this money is going to go.
Mike Hein: The Mayor and I had this conversation and, basically, it came
down to, it should all be under one house and it should all be coordinated,
but we need a contract.
13
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MARCH 31, 1998
Mike Reuwsaat: Good. What I am saying is tie the other performance
things that they are already doing so this Council is getting a bang for the
buck for the contribution it makes.
Mike Hein: What I am hearing is that instead of $20,000 here $15,000 here,
$20,000 here, even though tonight it is the night to talk about numbers, so
let's say put the $55,000 together and tie it all together, including the
business recruitment, including the business retension, the facilitation of
workshops.
Mayor Harn: And then have a budget for that so we know where the money
is going.
Mike Reuwsaat: For me that is so much easier to defend from a business
standpoint.
Mike Hein: Next year you would see a lump sum, Chamber. You may even
see it this year, and probably will see a lump sum this year. Even though you
approve the expenditure, you will have to approve the contract and the goals
and everything else. So, for the tentative budget you will see Chamber,
$55,000, and it will be tied to a performance contract.
Roxanne Ziegler: How much does it cost, Ed, to join the Chamber?
Ed Honea: For a small business, under 5 or something, it is like $100 a
year. For an individual it is $55. For a large business with over 50
employees, it is $530 a year.
Roxanne Ziegler: Have we ever increased that or has that been the same?
Ed Honea: Do they increase the prices? They work independently of the
Town on what they charge. Every couple years they go up a couple percent,
and they have been very successful. They have almost all the major
developers - all but two or three belong. They have the Price Club, Payless
Cashways and most of the large companies belong.
Mayor Harn: Let me see if I can phrase what I think the Council is trying to
say here. We would like for you, Mike, to get with Jan and tell her to take the
$55,000, if that is the figure that you want to use, and provide us a budget of
how that $55,000 is going to be used and broken down so that we can see
that this is what you need the money for. Is this what the Council is asking?
Mike Reuwsaat: I think that is good, but I would just in more general add
what are the general expectations in terms of the requirements. I would
rather not deal with line items like fireworks in the budget. I would rather deal
with Chamber of Commerce functions and community responsibilities
because I believe we have responsibilities to the Chamber, just as we have
to GTEC, for its business development and retention. This is what brings the
sales tax to this community and what is funding the budget that we are
talking about now.
]4
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MARCH 31, 1998
Sherry Millner: This may not be the time to bring this up right now, but what
about community promotion. Some of us have talked about this, Public
Relations. The press comes in and gets information from this person and that
person. The Explorer comes in and wants to hit us with $1,600 a month to put
an article in their paper. All these folks are getting input from the Town -
interviews are different - but anything that is a Town function, we do not have a
person like that. I have heard in the past that there were not funds to do that. I
was hoping that we could find some. I have someone in mind that would be
great.
Mayor Harn: We are working on that as well.
Sherry Millner: Would that be under the Chamber of Commerce or not?
Mayor Harn: I do not think so. I think that is something that the Town need to
have input in.
Mike Hein: I think we have had some discussions about it and you will see
something.
Mayor Harn: You will see something come up under that. We have talked to
several different agencies and professionals in this area. That is a very good
idea.
Mike Hein: Fireworks. Bigger is better. That is why we increased it. You tell
US.
Mike Reuwsaat: I do not want to vote for a $5,000 increase. Just because we
did it last year, I not want to do it two consecutive years.
Mayor Harn: I say we keep it at $20,000.
Mike Hein: Sounds good. We save $5,000. Rodeo Parade. The Float? How
much did we actually spend this past year?
Jocelyn Entz: We spent $500. Let me explain why it was $500. To rent the
equipment from the Tucson Rodeo Parade Equipment Museum cost $450. That
was the fixed fee because we did not have the wagon and we did not have to
transport it down there and did not do anything, but rent their equipment. It was
another $40 fee for a non-profit otganization. The students from Marana High
School made everything for the float so they picked up the cost of everything
except for the equipment. So our only ongoing fixed fee was the $450 plus the
$40 entry, so it was $490.
Mayor Harn: I suggest $1,000.
Hurvie Davis: I think this gives a lot of good publicity to the Town of Marana. If
anybody should have a float in that parade, it should be us.
15
MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
MARCH 31, 1998
Mike Hein: Jail Costs. Obviously, that is the contract with Pima County. We
expect it to increase. The Judge is working out a situation. They have been
releasing a lot of our prisoners because they do not know the court system. We
need to work that out and we expect more detainees, if you will.
Roxanne Ziegier: They had an increase last year. Do we get an increase every
year?
Mike Hein: It is cheap compared to having your own jail.
Roxanne Ziegler: I understand that, but will we be hit with that every year. Is
that normal?
Roy Cuaron: Our contract with the County allows for escalation, the costs are
due in part to escalation in costs per day plus we are seeing an increase. We
are sentencing more defendants to jail.
Mike Hein: Animal Control. I have not seen Pima County Animal Control out
here ever, but that cost is fiat. Outside Agencies. I mentioned it during the
Revenues about the LTAF. The Lottery Transportation Assistance Fund allows
by statute up to 5% of that money to be used for cultural and recreational
programs. The rest Is used for street maintenance, etc. I am recommending 5%
that amounts to about $6,000. I just arbitrarily upped it to $10,000. I would
suggest then that we have a committee and evaluate once a year,. It has been
very useful in other communities, so instead of the soccer kids and everyone
else coming throughout the year, you have one or two rounds a year for this
funding and they apply. I think we can get a lot more mileage out of this type of
funding coming directly from the Town and show our regard for the attitude to
help the kids along. The Town gets the funds from the Lottery and disperses
them. There are some rules with the Lottery. They have to provide a cash
match before they can get the money.
Will you come back to Council with a simple policy outlining the fund matching.
Do we want to spread it out $500 deals or otherwise?
Mike Hein: What I did in Nogales was advertise in the newspapers and said that
this was what we had available. People would call in and a committee would be
formed with three of you and maybe a school person and someone active in the
community to decide who gets the money.
Ed Honea: Let's keep this out of Council. Once we open that door, if people
get upset, they will be at Council.
Mike Hein: I developed this in Nogales because they had a strong mayoral form
of government and they kept coming to the mayor for soccer uniforms and he
had no one to blame so we established this committee and this fund.
MINUTES OF COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
MARCH 31, 1998
Sherry Millner: I would like to see the Town help the Alternative School out with
the problems they are having. Would they need to come and apply to something
like this. Do we need to let them know?
Mike Hein: Yes, they would have 1o apply like anybody else. You can help
them out. Basically that wraps this up, because, quickly, Contingent Expenses
ties to Contingent Revenues and at the end of this whole budget process, I am
going to ask you to program it based on what you hear from Departments. If
police wanted 4 cars and we would get the money, then they could start buying
cars. O'Reilly Rebate is based on the development agreement where they get a
third of the sales tax rebated for the infrastructure they put in, and Northpointe
Condemnation is the potential high end that could arise from the condemnation
of the property of the Price Club Loop Road
Mike Reuwsaat: We can reprogram that $600,000 if it comes in at $1,200,000.
What was the O'Reilly Rebate?
Roy Cuaron: It was in the neighborhood between $555,000 and $600,000.
They submitted all the documentation about two weeks ago and it needs to be
reviewed by the engineers for accuracy and so forth. That has been submitted.
We pay this until it is paid off. It is about $600,000 to move the water
underground. I believe that we were going to pay on this until it was paid off
entirely.
Hur~ie Davis: We estimated based on projections of revenue how long it would
take to pay it off, approximately 5 or 6 years, and we may have cushioned it a
little bit longer just in case it did take a down turn. I do not think revenues are up
to where they expect when they get up and running, but it has been increasing.
It is a pretty good revenue amount coming in from Driver's Mart.
Mike Hein: Again, that kind of wraps up what we have said are Fixed Expenses.
Now once you take Fixed Expenses away, where does the money come from. It
is opportunity cost. If it is a Fixed Expense, it leaves less discretionary money
and we are short. We are going to get to that subject in a second. So can you
program money for a ladder to the moon. You also have money in the Mayor
and Council budget for certain things, Town Manager will have money for some
discretionary items, but if there is a single program that you think deserves
funding or if there a certain project or venture that you want to tie us into, now is
a good time to discuss this.
Mayor Harn: Would we want to set an amount, I know that we have outside
agencies, but $10,000 is not a whole lot if you are taking into account Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scout, and all those things. Would we want to talk
about every year the school comes with some projects and many of the projects
are worthy, but do not know how to say yes to one and no to the other. Would
we want to take a certain amount and say this is the amount we would put into
the budget for school projects and then tell the school this is how much money
we have and let somebody come to the school and decide what projects they
want. Make the school make the decision and let them come to the Town with
the list and the amount for each. We are making good progress in a working
]7
MINUTES OF COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
MARCH 31, 1998
relationship with the school and we need to continue that and if we were to set
aside $5,000 or something for school projects.
Mike Hein: You just took $5,000 from Fireworks. What we can do is put $5,000
as Special Projects.
Ed Honea: Do you want to limit it to the school, or do you want to get into FHA,
Boy Scouts, etc., because some of the organizations are not tied into the school.
Mayor Harn: That is what I am saying. We could call it Educational Projects or
whatever, but that it we could go to the school and we could say, we have
$5,000 on educational projects, but we would not try to decide and they would
give us the projects. This would take it out of the political realm and it would give
it more viability as it is coming from the school itself which says that these are
good educational programs that the school would recommend. There should be
some parameters that they are educational; otherwise they would fall under
activities.
Mike Hein: Let the Mayor, Roy and I get together and come up with some
guidelines and definitions and we will bring this back to you in the tentative and
final budget. As far as Chamber and things, you will have another chance when
you approve contracts.
Mayor Harn: I think it would be a very good public relations move to go to the
school and tell them that we are putting this much money aside for the school
district for educational programs and you get to decide how we are going to use
that money to the best advantage.
Mike Hein: Discretionary Spending. This will give you an overview of how this
works. Total Revenue/Resources $22,974,405 with adjusted revenue
estimated. You take out the HURF and LTAF, Transportation Fund, Restricted
Development Fees, fees paid by developers for our engineering services. In the
past that has been part of Atler's budget, so it looks like there is this huge
number in contracted services for engineering. That is paid by outside people.
Less Fixed Expenses. Basically, you just gave a fair amount of consensus to
$5,327,000; Less Grant Revenues, because they are for specific purposes and
we kind of went over those at the revenue; Less Special Revenues, which is
mostly the bonds and some of the reserves which we went over last week. That
gives you discretionary of $6,899,585. Last year, fiscal year 1997-98, and again
, the reason you do not have it up here. To get to apples and apples of the
$7,744,585, we actually went line item by line item through last year's budget
highlighting and circling to make sure that we backed out all the items that are
considered Fixed Expenses this year and things like that and this was your
discretionary funding last year that was given to departments. What you will see
is that we have a gap of $845,000. The reason for the gap can best be
described by several major categories. While our recurring revenue and revenue
in general has gone up modestly, we took out $3.4 million for reserves. We have
increased grant revenues and fixed expenses. These are dedicated Also in that
$7,744,585 was capital, cars, computers, and things of that nature. What we are
saying is that without that, you have $845,000 gap. With a strict conservative
18
approach, which was one of the options under the proposals, but the numbers
were wrong, would be to say we have to cut $845,000 from each department, is
that practical? I do not think so. We are not unhealthy fiscally. I think the key is
to try to get reserves dedicated toward specific uses like capital or contingency
as opposed to blending it into the operating and I think that this is a good year to
do this because revenues have increased so much. What we are
recommending, and we are going to walk you through the expense side, is $1.8
million for North point Condemnation. Our appraisal on that is $115,000. Their
appraisal is $1.8 million. We have to budget $1.8 million. Needless to say, we
are lots apart. I do not think it is prudent, given that case, to obligate current
revenues that are disposable to something which may never materialize. Plus,
we are shod. After much deliberating, that is the easiest one to tie something
to. So what we are recommending is taking $1.8 from reserves, matching that to
the potential $1.8 million liability toward the Northpointe Condemnation. So
when you asked earlier, if we don't spend $1.8 we don't use the reserves.
Hurvie Davis: On that, I have met with the two principals of Northpointe and
the vacant land to the north of Northpointe Shopping Center and we are trying to
reach a compromise. We have an engineering study going on to look at
maximizing the access to the businesses both from Thornydale as well as
Horizon Hills while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the traffic flow on
Thornydale and Horizon Hills and meeting all design for the 6 lanes on
Thornydale, which will be under construction soon and Northpointe and
Southpointe. We are trying to solve the whole thing rather than going to court.
We have an impartial engineering firm looking at that and both sides have
agreed to the 8 week study and they will get back to us.
Mike Hein: Eventually this decision will be binding. Thero are a couple routes
that can be taken.
Hurvie Davis: We had even talked about going to Larry Fleichmann to try to
get an arbitrator to try to settle it for whatever. We did not get to that point. They
would still have an access problem. We would like to see them develop it and
provide revenues, so we are working with them in a cooperative fashion to try to
reach a compromise that they will agree to and we will agree to, How much
bearing that has on the ultimate settlement, we have not been able to determine
yet. If we do go to court after we have gone to all this effort to maximize it, it is
really going to make us look a lot better.
Mike Reuwsaat: It looks like our appraisal was done before the improvement
went in and theirs is after the improvements have been made.
Hurvie Davis: When I was with the city, when we were so far apart on the price,
we would go ahead and condemn the property and go ahead to court to argue
our case there.
Mike Reuwsaat: I do not think it is in our best interest to go to court with Home
Depot moving in and the value of that property is just going up.
19
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MARCII 31, 1998
Hurvie Davis: That has been a good little roadway. It got us Price Club to sign
the annexation agreement and Home Depot going in there, it is a good little tax
generator.
Mike Hein: So with the added $1.8 million, you have total discretionary
spending of $8,699,585, so the difference between $7,744,585 and $8,699,585
is the increase. So if we were to keep departmental spending at the same level
as last year, we would have a surplus or an amount of programmable resources,
meaning whatever you want to do with about $900,000. That is exactly what we
did. We will go to the next sheet. Remember that the numbers we have in the
discretionary operating budget does not include the capital. That came out of
special fund. Tonight I hope that we can agree on the numbers to give to the
departments. Once the numbers are given to the departments, they have three
or four weeks to work on all the detail and then we will set up meetings. Maybe
one night we will have Public Works and Police, and another night we will have
smaller departments.
They will go through line item by line item to you and explain what they did. By
keeping the number basically the same as last year with a few adjustments here
and there, I am saying they can accommodate existing costs plus some
increase in their salaries and other things, plus capital. You will see that there
are some variances as to why I would believe they can do that. They may come
to you and the police department may say I need 24 new cars and I cannot fit in
my number. You will have that programmable resources available for that. You
will also have that $1,000,000 of contingent revenue. One can also look at debt
instruments too, lease purchases and other options. Again what we are
recommending is to show you that ail the numbers do actually fit in the next
sheet. This is the amount that we are recommending for each.
Department for discretionary. Non-Departmental is the Fixed Expenses that you
just agreed on. Nothing changes significantly from last year. Special Fund
means, let's take, for example, Police, Chief Smith is going to get a total of $2.6
million, but of that amount $522,000 is special funded meaning grants, mostly
those that we went over last week. He cannot spend that unless he gets the
grant. That is tied to a specific category.
He has $2.1 million and he is going to say "Wow!", but once he starts taking out
personnel, telephones, pagers, vehicle maintenance, etc., he is going to be tight
and when he comes back and submits to you, and you will have it in advance,
then you will ask him to defend each line item and ask questions and this is
when you will get a lot of answers. I know it is hard to ask you to set a number
that is not necessarily tied to a number from the year before, but I think this will
work
Mike Reuwsaat: I think it will work too. Considering everything that has been
pulled out. If we look at what the year-to-date projected expenditures and the
conservative nature of the expenditures - Thank you very much.
Mike Hein: One thing I want to draw your attention to. You now see a new
number and that is $23,819,405. That is the new revenue budget and expense
budget because we added $1.8 million. That $1.8 reserve is now added to the
$22,974,405. Scrolling down, you take out the Fixed Expense that leaves your
Discretionary Spending. It leaves Programmable Income and it is your Adjusted
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MINUTES OF COUNCIL STUDY SESSION
MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
MARCH 31, 1998
Discretionary Spending of $8,699,585. That is just to show you that it all fits.
The next line item gives you the historical figure of Adopted versus Proposed.
Non-Departmental - again, Fixed Expenses went up.
Roy Cuaron: To get to the Departmental Allocation, we take the Discretionary
Operating Budget from which we already pulled out all of the
Fixed Expenses and that supposedly represents their true cost of operating,
excluding the capital outlays and capital improvement projects. We then add the
special funding sources that are dedicated for specific uses - they cannot be
used any other way - and you add that to the Discretionary to get to your total
budget allocation of this $23,819,405. If you turn the page, the Non-
Departmental is $5,172.000 which is $1 million less than $6,172,000, but it is
picked up under Contingent below.
Mike Hein: Is that clear? On the last spread sheet you see the $6,172.00 which
equates to Fixed Expenses plus CDBG. That is what the $845,00 is, CDBG and
other. You go to the next page under Non-Departmental and you are going to
get $6,172,000, but we took $1 million and put it under Contingent to make sure
that people understand that that does not get funded unless the money comes
in. The bad news is that as a department head, the money is all allocated and
there is nothing for you to do.
Ed Honea: I hate to ask the question. What are we expecting from this fund?
Mike Hein: It is a wish fund. It is to budget in case in comes in
Ed Honea: So that we are on the same sheet of music, if we are going to make
a proactive approach toward the mall again, then we all need to be singing from
the same sheet of music. I don't want to say the $1 million is for something and
someone else says something else.
Mike Hein: The reason annexation costs are listed is that if you add up from
each department, there was a line item at the bottom, if you recall.
The costs added up equalS1,210,533, plus some extra. This year, I am saying,
let's assume that our conservative reoccurring revenues come in much higher
than we anticipated, we will plug it in here and we will program it out. The other
variance - Town Manager. We had to finesse that one a little bit to make the
numbers work. Police went up $210,000 and that is the difference between last
year's grants and this year's grants.
Roy Cuaron: We actually had to cut the amount for the Court, to $4,000, to
basically balance, but again I think you will see that this allocation that we are
recommending is well within what they have spent to date and what they are
projected to spend through the end of the year.
Mike Hein: Public Works came out remarkably close considering their stream of
funding changed somewhat radically because of bonds and because of the new
transportation fund, which you will have to program later and decide whether you
are going to spend it or save it or half and half. We will talk much more about
that in the future, but that is pretty close even though it has changed a lot.
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MARANA TOWN COUNCIL
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Water, the difference is in extra budgeted amount of anticipated revenue should
we acquire the Tucson Water service area - $500,000. That is for the revenue
side. The expense side is already programmed in the bond stuff. The extra
$500,000 is a revenue source. Capital Outlays - you see zero. Basically what
we are say is that it is going to be squeezed up, if you will.
Hurvie Davis: Mike, I'm not sure how you did that. Our salaries are not that
much different.
Mike Hein: Actually I am going to bloat the budget a little bit because we are
going to be changing some things. There was not a Town Manager budget nor a
Town Clerk budget, so there will be some awkwardness dividing up the pie.
There have been some personnel reallocations, grants used to be under
Finance. Dick and Dan are going to be under the Town Manager's budget, so
there will be some shifting here and there, but this was Roy's best effort at
splitting them up. The last page shows the variance. This lends some
creditability as to why we believe that they can squeeze the capital and some
other expenses out. Now that is a big number and a lot is explainable. A lot of it
is capital or projects that were not done.
Roy Cuaron: What we have attempted to do is we know what our actual
expenditures were through the end of February, we made an estimate of of what
we think the end of the year will look like, and, as you can see, we are saying
that we are going to come in at $11.3 million versus a budget of about $22
million. The biggest difference or variances occur in Public Works and Water
and that is simply because of funding for certain projects has not been done. An
example in Public Works, we have about $1. million in bonds of which $900,000
or so was reserved for modular building and land acquisition. Similarly in Water,
we have $2.2 million reserved for acquisition and that has not happened as well,
so those are the bigger variances. The others are general operating costs that
have not come in at budget level. I think the marked parts of the saving probably
is traced not to having full employment, full authorized employment, for four
years so they have budget savings that have accumulated over the course of
time. So our best guess of total expenditures for the year is going to be $11.3
million and you can see on a budget of $22 million we are going to spend about
half of what we budgeted. The bottom portion shows that given the allocation.
How does that compare to where we think we will end up.
Roxanne Ziegler: Are we incredibly thrifty? I understand what you are saying.
Roy Cuaron: $9 million is really the bond stuff that we did not use. $2.2 in
Water for specific pumhases and Public Works $1 million that has not been
spent that is earmarked for a modular building.
Hurvie Davis: We also have the $1.8 million for the potential settlement of the
right-of-way. We had a million or so for annexation of Foothills Mall for costs that
we would incur this fiscal year for outlays. As the Town grows and you get more
Public Works projects, streets, water, etc., historically you get these big three-
year projects, a year for design, a year for right-of-way, and a year for
construction. You have a $3 million project and you throw in that $3 million as
you plan to get that underway around the beginning of the fiscal year so you
need that. You find that you run into design problems, right-of-way problems,
construction problems, you get a delay here and a delay here, so you may not
spend all of the allocated funds for the year and they will have to be carried
over..
Mike Hein: When we get the detail, you will have a better idea of the
expenditures that are projected. I know it is a little awkward, but we are going to
give numbers and some departments like Roy is going to say I need two more
clerks because you are making me audit the airport. I will say, you have this
much, where are you cutting? There is going to be a point where they are going
to need more resources and that is where you are going to have to prioritize.
There may be some departments where the manager may come and you may
say, you really do not need this. I am going to take $30,000 or $40,000 away
and we are going to add that to the Programmable pot. So there will be some
shifting around and you are going to be real clear on the specific line items, and
the department heads are really going to have to pare. The Town is financially
healthy and this is a good opportunity to make sure that the operating growth
grows with the Town proportionately and everything is held in check. You will be
very familiar with each of the departments at the end of the process.
Hurvie Davis: I am not too familiar with this budget process and I am not sure
that Roy is and that is why it is new to him and he has been struggling with it to
some extent, but Mike can correct me if I am wrong. Mike probably does not
know the budget process that we had this year as well as Roy and I do, but to
me when the department budgets came in I would issue direction to the
departments - You basically start with your base budget that you have this year
and then come in with new programs. Even though you start with your base
budget, it does not mean that you will get your base budget. I may have given
you a chipper for Public Works last year that you do not need this year, so I am
going to reduce your base budget by that amount. We would have two or three
rounds and then I would put together a Manager's recommended budget and
come to the Council. In the past I did a lot of that work, this year they are going
to be coming to you that they did not get the chipper that the Manager promised
them for the past two years and now the Council has to give them money for it
this year.
Mike Hein: If you are comfortable with this process, Roy is going to give and
communicate in person with each of the department heads tomorrow, and then
he is going to meet with each of then individually to go over their line items and
the historical. About half of the departments already have a lot of the work done
and I think by the time it comes to Council, it will be pretty well flushed out. What
is going to be left for you is really to decide some extra things.
Ed Honea: I am used to the budget process and think there is enough
flexibility left with Roy and the department heads and the way that you have
pulled out figures. I do not foresee them coming with $6 million worth of
additional requests. You have pulled Fixed Expenses out and you have budgets
at the same level.
Mike Hein: It controls their expectations. The big thing you need to understand
is that the way we have structured; there is $700,000 less this year for capital.
This amount is really in your Programmable Fund. Again, there will be changes
just like there were to Revenues, and we saw a couple to the Fixed Expenses,
but if you are in agreement, we are going to use those Fixed Expenses and that
leaves the discretionary money to divide up. If those allocations for each
department look O.K., Roy will sit down and meet with them and work things
out. The next step of the process is really the department heads. You will not
have to have another meeting for a month or so, and then we will spread it out.
We will probably break it up into two or three nights.
Ed Honea: One thing on that thing with school. That discretionary money
needs to be spent in the Town of Marena, either at Coyote Trails, Estes, or
Marana Junior High or something like that. I do not think we want to spend at
Butte~eld in the County the Town's money. It needs to be kept in the Town
including the High School.
VI.
ADJOURNMENT
A motion was made by Sherry Millner, seconded by Ed Honea, to adjourn.
The motion passed 6/0. The meeting was adjourned at 8:05 p.m.
CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are the true and correct minutes of the
Marana Town Council held on March 31, 1998. I further certify that a quorum
was present.
'~S~~~E, TOWN CLERK