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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/03/1997 Study Session MinutesMINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JUNE 3, 1997 IlL TIME AND DATE Marana Town Hall on June 3, 1997 CALL TO ORDER By Mayor Honea at 5:45 P.M. II. ROLLCALL COUNCIL Ed Honea Vacant Ora Harn Herb Kai Sherry Millner Mike Reuswaat Bobby Sutton, Jr. Roxanne Ziegler Mayor Vice Mayor Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member STAFF Hurvie Davis Sandy Groseclose Roy Cuaron Dave Atler Dan Hochuli Jerry Flannery Jane Johnson Russell Dillow Dave Smith Brad DeSpain Floyd Foster Ann Meaders Town Manager Town Clerk Finance Director Public Works Director Town Attorney Planning & Zoning Director Human Resource Town Magistrate Chief of Police Water Department Supervisor Water Operator Manager Water Administrative Manager APPROVAL OF AGENDA A motion was made by Bobby Sutton, Jr., seconded by Mike Reuswaat and carried unanimously to approve the agenda as written. IV. GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS General Discussion of the Proposed 1997/98 Fiscal Year Budget Hurvie Davis: Advised staff transmitted to Council, about two weeks ago, the proposed tentative budget for fiscal year 1997/98 in the amount of $20,985,618. There are some changes to be presented tonight, for consideration, over and above the proposed tentative budget. With changes would be a total budget of $22,670,618 an increase of $1,685,000 over the proposed tentative budget. The majority of this basically comes from Public Works projects. The big project being the Price Club/Horizon Hills Loop roadway that was put in as a result ora pre-annexation and development agreement -- $I .8 million. 1 MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JUNE 3, 1997 There are some other adjustments: $31,000 in employee benefits, $12,000 in engineering for increase in some costs, $50,000 for Twin Peaks right-of-way (which is an item on the Regular Meeting of this evening) and finally was the adjustment for reimbursement to O'Rielly Motor Co. Drivers Mart on the drainage improvements that we put in as a result of that project. Staff is asking Council to at least consider the upper limit of $22,670,618. The primary purpose of tonight's meeting is to establish the upper budget limit. Mr. Davis advised, what ever amount is agreed on tonight, cannot by law exceed the amount when the final budget adoption on June 17, 1997. You can, however lower the amount. The budget is made up of basically reserves, at $3.4 million, bonds in the total amount of $6.9 million and other revenues at $12.3 million. We currently have in our reserve funds approximately $7,000,000; which is bring in about 5 V2 or 5.6% interest - it varies from quarter to quarter. The reserve fund does give the ability to handle emergencies - you never know what's going to happen to the economy from one 6-month period to another. Mr. Davis feels this is a responsible budget, it would increase employee staff from 114 to 144 - assuming the annexation of the Ina/La Cholla area. With the regular program, there's not that many staff increases in it. The Police Department would have the larger increase. With that, Mr. Davis turned it over to Council. Mayor Honea: I think we'll start with Council Member Millner and work down the line and if there are any clarifications, we'll discuss them. Sherry Millner: First of all I'd like to thank all the department heads for giving me a detailed budget, that I asked for. It's nice to have a breakdown and find out exactly what's going where. I have some concerns about the Chamber's portion of this. I'm trying to figure out, if someone can explain to me by reading ... Mayor Honea: Tell us what page you're on or something. Sherry Millner: I don't think everybody has this, because I requested things for my own personal use. Hurvie Davis: If I may, under the Town budget, which is Tab #3, it shows the breakdown to some extent of the items in the budget which shows the Chamber of Commerce. Sherry Millner: This is talking about $20,000 for Founder's Day. By reading this it looks like they are going to hire an events coordinator, but still use everyone in the Town that's always been involved and I'm trying to find out "why"? Hurvie Davis: The Founder's Day has jumped back and forth from the Town to the Chamber several times. The proposal from the Chamber is that they would take over the operation and running of Founder's Days. The Town would be involved somewhat, but not to the extent that it has been before. Obviously you can't run a Founder's Day parade in the Town of Marana, without the Town having some involvement, but we would not take the lead involvement in running the Founder's Day. It's a matter of 2 whether or not the Town wishes to have the Chamber take over the primary function of running Founder's Day. If so, transferring $20,000 for them to administer. Mayor Honea: One of the problems, is the last five or six weeks before Founder's Day, if you come in and try to find someone, and I'm not saying they're goofing around - there's so much work in coordinating the fair, parade and who's going to come and who's going to do what and everything else. Our staffwas overburdened with Founder's Day. The whole $20,000 is not to administer, I think basically it splits about in haiti There are expenses of where you have to actually buy things, copy things, telephone bills, etc .... They would hire an individual, not the director or current staff, have a computer down there to coordinate the entire project. They would have to make some contact with the Town. Basically they would do a lot of the work that Ms Groseclose and Ms Entz ended up doing last year. Sherry Millner: That's not what this says, that's my point. They would still be utilizing Town staff. My question is, why are we paying someone to do all this work, when we're still going to utilize the Town staff to do it also? Mayor Honea: 1 don't they are going to be putting in the same amount of time. You may have Town staff members that volunteer to be on the committee and meet once a month or something, but I don't think they actually mean the Town staff is going to be used for hours and hours. Sherry Millner: Town Clerk and key personnel would be required for the first year or SO. Mayor Itonea: Mainly for just coordination - call the Town Clerk and say, is this going to be available or what do we have to do to get these permits or something. Then they would do the work. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: From what I understand, what they're trying to do is - in the last statement that Council Member Millner said where for the first year or so. I think it's a transition period to eventually have no hours coming out of anyone from staff. But there's going to be a transitional period because it's a relatively extensive event to put everything together. What I understood, the first year would be a transition and rely on the key personnel to say - this is how it's usually done and things like that. Hurvie Davis: One of the things this would do is have a central lead for the parade itselfi Right now with the Town running it, we don't have anyone that's a central lead. I would envision that this project with the Chamber, where the Chamber would take the lead and the Town would still be in some support role. Mike Reuswaat: What we're looking at is not a cost savings to the Town, because there's no reallocation or reduction of our budget for that. Basically we're increasing our expenditure level for this event, but freeing up our personnel to do their regular duties. When I look at it, l look at it a little more critically and say, this thing is costing us more money. I have to look at it from that standpoint and say, this rather than the JUNE 3, 1997 Town doing it - is the cost benefit of the Town doing it better than the increase of the budget allocation to have someone else do it, because we're not decreasing our own budget? Mayor Honea: We have allocated $8 or $10,000 last year for out-of-pocket type things. So we did spend money before. The only difference is (and this can be done in-house too) I know, I complained several times when I would come in and need to see Ms Groseclose and have to make a connection with somebody and she was out trying to get a contract for who was going to do something for the parade or something like that. I'm not putting any fault on her, it's just the fact that she wasn't here. I mean literally, the last month it takes all the time. Mike Reuswaat: My point is that I believe staff feels strong enough that it's appropriate enough to appropriate more money to move to have someone else paid to do it and to free up staff's time. That the $12,000 is justified from a City service standpoint, bringing our service levels back to a normal routine level rather than coming in and not finding anybody. Mayor Honea: Made the statement - there's no profit for the Chamber, it's not making a big bunch of money. They am kind of providing a service and working as a catalyst. Ora Harn: In the past I had chaired the parade committee and we always had good public cooperation, volunteer cooperation. Are we not having that anymore? Mayor Honea: Do you know what's happening with that? You have people come in, they volunteer to do the job, and then they don't do it. You really need someone with a phone to coordinate all of the aspects of the Founder's Day. I could go either way with this, I just think it's tying up a lot of staff hours. Ora Itarn: Do we have other events that are time consuming like that. Would we maybe be better off to take some member of our staff and give them a little extra money or whatever we're going to do and make them the person that will be in charge of these things - not only the Founder's Day, but the 4th of July. Maybe we need to appoint somebody on our staff who would have that responsibility or use that extra money to hire somebody during events. Hurvie Davis: Other than the Founder's Day and the 4th of July, ! don't know of any other events. The 4th of July event is mostly coordinated and headed up by the Sports Park people, we do participate in that. They put a package together and we send out for sponsors and things like that. Ora Harn: How many sponsors are we getting for the Founder's Day? Are we getting good response from the community? Mayor Honea: We did fairly well last year, but I can tell you that even the 4th of July celebration - sponsorship is off about 50% from what it was last year. It's pretty tough. I think we should go to something like this, it could be a part time person inside. If we go to an events coordinator - we're looking at 25 - $30,000 a year and they're only going 4 to be busy half the year. If we just kind of contract it out - it's a certain amount of money and then it's done. And if you don't like it, you can change it the next year. Roxanne Ziegler: Do we just use them for the Founder's Day - even if we had 4th of July and Founder's Day, is this person coming on board as a full time employee of the Chamber to sponsor these two events? Did I miss something? Mayor Honea: They would be a contract employee to do that service and they wouldn't be guaranteed to come back next year. There'd be no benefits. Hurvie Davis: My observation is there is no one that we have that we could put as a lead person to handle it. Mayor Honea: Let's get a general Council opinion on this. I'm sum we've got several more items to talk about. Do you want to try and change it or do you want to do it as is for a one year deal? Sherry Millner: I look at 8 to $12,000 to hire a person to do this event, a lot of money. I think the Chamber should be able to pull up some of their businesses. Mayor Honea: The Chamber is trying to do it as a service. If they're going to be responsible in raising the money, then they're not going to do it. Sherry Millner: I think that's a bit much. Mayor Honea: The Chamber doesn't make any money, this is a contracted service. Jocelyn Entz: Just a couple of things that Council Member Ham brought up: 1) Public volunteering - we solicited public support and public volunteerism for the Founder's Day event this year. The response we got when we got any at all was "I'm burned out, I've done it for years and years and I don't want to do it any more". 2) We raised approximately $12,000 in sponsorships from various businesses in Town and developers and that was this year. Regarding the 4th of July, they are having trouble getting sponsorships for their event. They're about $2,000 short of their goal. They're having difficulty finding sponsors because they've done it, they've done it, they've done it. I don't know if that's going to change, I hope that it will. But those were three questions I've heard. I don't know if that helps you at all with you decision. Roxanne Ziegler: I think I have to say, you always need someone to drive the train, and if you don't you don't have an organization. I know, just the time that I've been involved in the Town, these guys have worked really hard for both the 4th of July and the Founder's Day. I would like to see the Chamber take it over because then we don't have to worry about it. Marana, right now is going through a difficult time with the annexation. We've got some bad press out there, we need to do what we can to turn that around. On one side of my mind - to have someone organize a party - it's a lot of money, but on the other hand, we really need these ladies in here working for us. MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JUNE 3, 1997 Mike Reuswaat: I'd like a detailed budget on the $20,000. My assumption is that $12,000 will all go to the special events coordinator, so a detailed budget on the remaining $8,000 - what that expenditure is for. If in fact that Council does approve this, I think it would be real prudent for staff to keep accurate hours and look at the real benefit to the public. Regardless of what we give, it's an increase, it's not decreasing the City budget and the benefit of the service level increases to the citizens of Marana. We need to have that and we have to be able to tell people that. Roy Cuaron: Cost for the current Founder's Day - we have a budget of 14 or $15,000 in the current fiscal year. That was broken up into 2 separate events: the 20th Anniversary and the other was Founder's Day. Obviously we won't have a 20th Anniversary come around but every 20 years. 1 think the Founder's Day that occarmd in October, actual out of pocket cost was about $5,000 - excluding in-house contributions of staff time. For the normal annual event, we spent about $5,000 this last fiscal year. Ora Harn: On What? Roy Cuaron: We received a billing from the Chamber and I don't recall the specifics of it, but it's postage, letters, publicity, pamphlets and so forth. We could provide you with that detail if you'd like. Mayor Itonea: I guess what we're asking for, and I guess you'll take care of that Roy, is a more detailed breakdown of where the expenditures will go in the proposal. Roy Cuaron: What we'll do, since this is a request from an outside agency, we'll go to them and ask them to provide additional detail. Mike Reuswaat: Could we get a copy of last years expenditures, for comparison? Roy Cuaron: Certainly. Mayor Honea: The next item? Roxanne Ziegler: Economic Development/Annexation, fiscal year 96/97, 95/96 - there was nothing in the last two fiscal years and now we're up to $245,000 - could you explain what's in that cost? Roy Cuaron: This is a sum of money that's been budgeted specifically for annexation and economic development. In past years, it's been absorbed within the planning and zoning department and within the Towns budget under some consultant services. I'll ask Mr. Flannery to address it as well. Because we are pursuing annexations and economic development - we felt it suitable to appropriate money specifically for that function so we can track what our costs are, related to that. It's a pool of money that's been designated and how we use that depends on the Manager and how the Council wish us to spend that. It is specifically earmarked for that purpose, unlike past years where we didn't have a specific budget. Roxanne Ziegler: I know Jerry's group was the annexation folks, how did you come up with $250,000 - I don't need all the detail. Is it mostly based on the annexation of Ina/La Cholla? Jerry Flannery: What I did was break it out into a specific annexation budget. I left the option of where that was going to go, depending on a number of events that were ongoing. One of them being the Assistant Manager position and the duties that were being assigned to that position. Providing an annexation budget specifically under that. The $245,00 that's on the Town budget, I should maybe let Hurvie speak to it, but 1 assume it's generally in line with the proposed one that I put together. Roxanne Ziegler: Is this just a group of folks that are going to work on annexations? Jerry Flannery: Most of the line share of that money, would be to professional services either through contractual basis or otherwise. There would be other incidental type money allotted to office supplies and those types of supportive type funds. That's basically what I put together. Mike Reuswaat: One of the quesetions I was going to ask was prior to final budget adoption, I would like to see if we could get a budget detail so we can look at the detail - what makes up $245,000. Being able to look more in-depth at all of the budget. The other thing I was going to ask, if it's available - salary schedule by actual staff. Rather than the pay range, so we could see our staffand what their actual salary levels are. Mayor Honea: I think one of the masons everything wasn't extremely detailed, is if we broke everything down on every aspect of the budget - we'd have 400 pages of budget. The reason we try to get the budget out to everybody 2 or 3 weeks ahead of time; was so if they had a question they could call a department head and get the questions answered. We didn't break down every employee and how much they make and things of that nature - it's pretty much generalized, but any of that information is available to anyone. Ora Harn: I was just wondering, do we have opportunity to maybe call a Special Meeting next week or is that going to cause us to be operating without a budget for a couple of weeks? Do we have some maneuvering time that we could call a Special Meeting? Bobby Sutton, Jr.: ! think what Hurvie was saying was for us to set a max. cap tonight and then we have until the June 17, 1997 meeting to bring that down or to do whatever we needed to do. Once we set the max., we can't go over that. Maybe that's something we can look at - maybe seeing what would be a max. cap for it and then Studying again. Mayor Itonea: We're just setting that cap. If we decide not to fund something, we can always push that money into the contingency. And as you know, in the last couple of years, we have not come close to spending our budget max. But in order to have those funds available, should it be necessitated to spend them, you have to have it in your budget. You cannot over-spend your budget without jumping through a lot of hoops somewhere down the road. If we set that cap tonight, then we can do the infinite details later. 7 MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JUNE 3, 1997 Ora Harn: If we set the cap tonight, I still would like to have a meeting next week, where we set and we say, we have some concerns we want to ask. Hurvie Davis: What we need to do, do we have tonight to set the upper limit within the time frames which we have to operate? Roy Cuaron: We're not obligated to adopt the tentative budget tonight. We were doing so under the premise that the Council wanted to adopt the final budget by July 1. I think we have until July 4 or 5, is the last date by which we have to adopt a tentative budget. We then have until August 19, I believe to adopt a final budget. But, on the premise that Council wanted to start the new year with the budget, we accelerated our schedule to meet that deadline and therefore today was the day that we chose to adopt the upper spending limit, but it does not have to be today. Mayor Honea: The fiscal year starts July I, so we were trying to maybe have a budget available - at least the upper limits and have it available by July 1. Hurvie Davis: You might remember that a few years ago we were on that delayed cycle and it was Council's desire then, to get the new budget in place by the beginning of the new fiscal year. For the last two or three years we've been operating on that premise that we adopt the new budget prior to the end of this fiscal year. I would also like to say that each department has a working detailed budget. The salary for each employee exists in the Personnel/Human Resource Department. All that detailed information is available and ready for you if you like. It'll take a couple of days maybe to prepare some of that. Michael Reuwsaat: The information that the Police had, that is sufficient information. I've been on the budget process on the staff for fifteen years myself and I prefer to have at least one working meeting which is more than an hour. That, we as a Council can look at that, ask staff questions, be a little more informed, increase/decrease before we set that cap. If we can reduce that or if we have to increase, let's do it at least through one or two working meetings. Have the opportunity to interface with staff. Hurvie Davis: Generally speaking, I go through each departments budget with the department director and Mr. Coaron twice. We go through with the first cut and we go through with the second cut. So that detail does exist and I think all of the departments can just about explain every detail that you wish. Mayor Honea: 1 don't think it's our job to micro-manage the Town. I think it's Council job to macro-manage and to set policy. That's why we hire a manager and a department head - to set this up. We have done this in the past, over the last couple of years we've gotten away from it. We could spend ten hours going through this, if we really get detailed. That's why, I think, we hire competent staff and a Manager and Financial Director is to glean the material. Take the things out that are un-necessary and bring it to us. I don't mind having another meeting. Michael Reuwsaat: I would agree with you, but it's also important to have the information so that you don't have to ask the questions. I do want to be knowledgeable. 8 Mayor Honea: Mr. Davis, you're going to have all of the department heads copy all of the detailed information and try to get it available to us prior to this next meeting? Hurvie Davis: If that's the Councils desire, yes we will. Mayor Honea: It appears to be, so we would like each departments budget information. Roy Caaron: What we've included in the budget am all requests for additional staffand justification. We've included schedule of travel and training in detail. We've included a schedule of capitol outlay. The big dollar schedules have been provided. A discussion ensued as the date and time for the Special Study Session, which was set for Tuesday, June 10, 1997 at 5:00 P.M. Hurvie Davis: Consideration of a $22.7 million budget, if you want to reduce that - how you want to reduce it is up to you. If you don't want to sell $6.9 million in bonds and you don't want to draw down $3.4 million out of the reserve funds - we have to reduce the budget. The way that we can reduce the budget significantly is in our Water Department and our Public Works Department. With the Water System acquisitions and delaying some of our roadway, capitol improvement projects in the Public Works. We've come up with about $5,500,000 out of those two departments. We've got other minor amounts. ADJOURNMENT Study Session was adjourned at 6:45 P.M. CERTIFICATION I certify that the foregoing minutes are the true and correct minutes of the Marana Town Council Study Session held on June 3, 1997. I further certify that a quorum was present. "~ ~RA~Sr~"L-~E, TOWN CLERK 9