CC Minutes 1998 12 21CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
SPECIAL MEETING
DECEMBER 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino called the meeting to order at 6~30 p.m. This special meeting is a continuation of the City
Council meeting held on December 14, 1998. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mancino, Councilman Berquist and Councilman Senn. Councilman
Mason prior to item 4 on the agenda.
MEMBERS ABSENT: Councilman Engel
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Todd Hofknan, Charles Folch, Para Snell, and Steve Kirchman
FIRE DEPARTMENT PENSION, APPROVAL OF NEW RETIREMENT BENEFITS.
Public Present:
Name
Address
Mona J. Kerber
Stephanie Unze
Leah Hawke
Jack Atkins
John Wolff
Mark Littfin
Bob Halverson
Dave Carlson
Cori Wallis
Patsy Bernhjelm
Michael Lee Kerber
500 Chanview
1080 Lyman Court
7444 Moccasin
220 West 78th Street
31 Basswood Circle
8052 Erie Spur
7469 Saratoga Drive
6199 Cascade Pass
951 Redwing
9380 Kiowa Trail
500 Chanview
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, Council members. This item was on your last agenda, however it was tabled to
get additional information to Council. Included in your packet is the additional information from the
actuarial company. With that I think there were some questions regarding how this, the total dollar
amount, which will cost the City of Chanhassen this year and in the budget we have reserved $42,000.00
for the 1999 budget. For '98 we are looking at $40,000.00. With that I would open any questions that the
Council or the Mayor may have.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Thank you very much. Questions from council members.
Councilman Berquist: I think in looking at this material Todd, I mean it's a tremendous amount of
information. It's fair to say I think that the fire fighters, I mean you become a fire fighter not necessarily
for the pay. You do it because of love of service and love of community and the desire to get involved.
From what I understand of the fire, the volunteer fire departments, the pension is the really the primary
reason for, a big reason for folks continuing to be involved from year to year. So offering a package that's
commensurate with other areas in the immediate vicinity is important.
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Todd Gerhardt: I would agree. It's one of the tools that attract the volunteer firemen to be volunteers.
You know camaraderie is another. Wanting to learn how to fight fires and also just to give back to the
community is another big part of it. There's some excitement that goes along with it and right now the
proposal in front of you, we're not on the bottom of any comparable cities and we're not at the top.
There's some communities that have gone back and received special legislation to try to go up and above
the state mandate for lump sum payments and right now Chanhassen is I would say right in the middle of
meeting those needs.
Councilman Berquist: Currently or with this new proposal?
Todd Gerhardt: Both.
Councilman Berquist: And does the new proposal put us on the upper echelon? The upper tier?
Todd Gerhardt: No. We would be, if you looked at Mr. Halverson put together some comparable lump
sum payments. If you look at Minnetonka, in 1999 they're at 108 where 1999 we are proposing.
Mayor Mancino: $16,400.00 for a lump sum.
Todd Gerhardt: Right.
Councilman Senn: Are you talking about the '98 increase now or the '99?
Todd Gerhardt: '99.
Councilman Senn: Because the first part of the request here is 1998.
Todd Gerhardt: Right. What we're proposing in this report is to deal with '98 and if the council wishes we
can take it all the way out to 2002. Most cities will do annual budgets. Tonight where the last two I think
that we've negotiated... Bob come in. The last two, haven't they been four year contracts?
Bob Halverson: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: And so what we're proposing is a four year contract with lump sums in '98 of $54,000.00.
'99 of $60,500.00. 2000 of $67,000.00. 2001 of $73,500.00 and then 2002 of $80,000.00. So the four
years would be '99, 2000, 2001, and 2002.
Councilman Berquist: Okay, and the second memo says that in 1999 we'd be in a position to examine and
approve then the fifth year increase scheduled for 2002. So you're asking us to go '98 through 2001 at this
time?
Todd Gerhardt: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. I have a couple. On the $54,000.00 for this year, for 1998. That assumes 20
years of service, correct?
Todd Gerhardt: I believe that is the proposal.
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: And I'm sorry, who am I speaking to?
Bob Halverson: Bob Halverson.
Mayor Mancino: Oh. Bob, could you come forward. Would you mind just sitting next to Charles if we
have some questions. Thank you very much. For 1998, just so I understand this. The lump sum
distribution for those 20 years of service would be $54,000.00?
Bob Halverson: Correct.
Mayor Mancino: For those who have 30 years of experience it would be $81,000.00, correct?
Bob Halverson: Yeah, it goes up whatever $54,000.00 divided by 20 is. That's the per year of service.
You just add them up to 30 years.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So that top cap is not 54 but actually 81,000 and we have quite a few that will be
getting that at some point.
Bob Halverson: We have about three people in the department right now.
Mayor Mancino: Right now, okay. Good. The other thing that's contained in here is not only for
retirement benefit but is there not also a request for an active death benefit increase, for a long term
disability benefit increase for current retiree monthly benefit increase, etc?
Bob Halverson: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. And tell me, in 1998 according to your numbers that I have Bob that...
Bob Halverson: Oh yes, I remember that.
Mayor Mancino: You would show the 1998 increase of approximately, or the contribution from state aid
and from the city would be a total of $74,300.00. And that would be 61426 from the state aid and
$12,874.00 from the city. Is that $12,874.00 also covered from those ancillary benefits?
Bob Halverson: No. These benefits on this sheet are for '99 and beyond. 1998 is the last year of our
current benefits.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So you're saying if we were to go ahead for 1999 and on, there would be
increased cost because of increased ancillary benefits?
Bob Halverson: No. If you add up all the numbers in this column, that's $21,100.00. That's the proposed
increase for next year. Basically the required contribution right now is $74,300.00 to keep it at the
$54,000.00 level of lump sum benefit. And our proposal is to go up to the $80,000.00 in four year. The
jumps if you will are caused by these numbers here. Like I say, if you add them all up it's $21,100.00.
The items 3 and 4 are one time charge basically. To get those up there so if you subtract the numbers 3
and 4, which is $1,500.00 from the $21,100.00 increase in 1999, that would give you the additional
increases for the next three years. Or as the required contribution goes. Now the required contribution is a
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
function of our investments. 2% state aid and city contribution. Those three items. And these numbers are
based on a 5% return on investment.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So you took the conservative approach.
Bob Halverson: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. And we just have two sets of numbers in front of us because we see the city
contribution in 1999 as being $30,289.00. So they don't quite correlate with the numbers that you have
here. So that's why I'm asking some of these questions. There's not the correlation between the two sets
of numbers that we've got. Any other questions for council members? Councilman Senn?
Councilman Senn: Let's see here. I think you hit most of them here. Am I understanding this correctly
that you're proposing to go back and increase the benefits of the already existing retirees?
Bob Halverson: The retirees have taken the lump sum, or not the lump sum but.
Councilman Senn: The annuity.
Bob Halverson: The annuity benefit, yes.
Councilman Senn: So you're going to increase, you're going to go back and increase the annuity of the
pension plan even though they retired under a different pay system? Is that normal?
Bob Halverson: Some departments go that way. Some departments will freeze the retirees.
Councilman Senn: Is that normal in pension plans?
Bob Halverson: Yes. Like I said it can go either way as far as the fire relief pensions are concerned. One
thing we have done is, in our new by-laws is gone strictly lump sum. There is no more annuity available so
everybody who retired from 1998 on will be taking a lump sum.
Mayor Mancino: And why is that?
Bob Halverson: It's more cost effective. We can get, for the same dollar we can get a bigger increase if we
go strictly lump sum versus lump sum annuity. A combination plan like that. Because it takes a lot of
money to fund annuities and it's, you know looking down the road it's better for the fire fighters that are on
now and the fire fighters that will be joining in the future, strictly lump sum because our benefit levels can
increase you know even just with our investments would cover increases where they wouldn't if we were
going lump sum and annuity. So the annuities tie up a lot of capital. We have approximately 1.1 or 1.2
million dollars in a special fund and about $450,000.00 of that is tied up just to cover the annuities that are
out there right now.
Mayor Mancino: And how much do we spend for management of the fund?
Bob Halverson: Management of the fund? It's.
Mayor Mancino: Percentage of the total value.
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Bob Halverson: We're with Prudential and it varies depending on the year but it's been running in the 6 to
7, $8,000.00 a year range for management. And we're required by the state to do actuarial every two
years so that's an additional charge above and beyond the operation of the fund so. Actuarial run about
$2,000.00...
Mayor Mancino: What I would like to suggest to Council that we go ahead and fund 1998 for certain and
I'd like to spend.
Bob Halverson: Question? 1998's already funded. We're talking '99 through 2002.
Mayor Mancino: On here we're being asked to fund 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001.
Bob Halverson: 1998 is in there just as a base line basically because we've already received the city
contribution and the state aid for 1998.
Mayor Mancino: Is that correct? Because we haven't voted on that as a council. We have not had this in
front of us before .... We just received this two weeks ago for the first time to look at '98 and to look at '99
and to look at 2000. This is the first time we've seen it.
Bob Halverson: Well I can go back to my previous statement that 1998 is the last year of the agreed upon
benefit increase so that's, 1998's already been taken into account as far as that goes.
Mayor Mancino: So we're already at $54,000.00. We're not at $51,000.00. That's rather new news to
us. Todd, can you give us any light on that?
Todd Gerhardt: Well, just the conversations I've had with Don is that 1998 needed to be approved and his
memo states that, and then wanted to take it out to 2001 with the final fifth year scheduled for 2002.
That's all I know.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Excuse me, John.
John Wolff: Can I comment?
Mayor Mancino: Yes.
John Wolff: I was evaluating the salary and wage, line item 4020. I noticed that the city does allocate
approximately $40,000.00 a year towards this special fund which is slightly less, well it's significantly less
than what is actually required between, for the actuarial funding and there's an approximate reserve. I
couldn't locate the memo of around $160 to $170,000.00 that have built up within this city held fund.
Mayor Mancino: It's the Internal Revenue Fund, yeah. Service fund, thank you. And John that is right.
We have been putting in $40,000.00 a year but as you will see according to Bob, if we take a conservative
5% ROI, when we get up to the year 2000, then we would need to increase the levy from $40,000.00 to
$47,000.00 and I don't know, and I'm sorry I don't know what's sitting in that fund and how much has
accrued interest. Bob, what I'd like to do is this and to councilmembers, and that is, we do need to make a
formal motion to okay 1998 because we have not. And then I wondered if Bob, you and John could come
back on January 18th at a work session and we could go through the 1999 through 2002 because our, some
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
of the numbers we have are different than what you've supplied us and we just want to make sure that
they're in sync. We want to make sure that the 1998 is funded. We will do that tonight and go forward. If
you don't mind spending some time and maybe even is it Duane Hanf?
Bob Halverson: Hanf, our actuarial?
Mayor Mancino: Yes. Is he from Wyatt or is he on his own?
Bob Halverson: He's on his own.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Because also the memo showed the Wyatt Companies had helped in the
calculations and I'm not sure who that was. We didn't get any back-up but the memo said that the Wyatt
Companies were involved.
Bob Halverson: Yeah, the Wyatt Companies did our actuarial I think before but Duane's a lot more
economical.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Well it would certainly help us get in sync with the numbers if you don't mind.
Bob Halverson: Sure. And I'll see ifDuane might be able to attend the meeting too.
Mayor Mancino: Great. And that would be our first work session in January, which is January 18th.
Okay? And we can sit down, roll up our sleeves and appreciate that. So with that, may I have a motion?
Councilman Senn: I'll move that we approve the fire relief benefit to increase for the year 1998 and that
the remaining years and issues be placed on a City Council work session on January, what was it?
Mayor Mancino: January 18th.
Councilman Senn: January 18th.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. One of the other topics if we could cover that I think that would be helpful is
looking at again whether we stay with a defined benefit or define contribution and how some of those are
starting to change. Just talk about it in general to give us a little bit of background.
Bob Halverson: Right. See I'm not familiar with that familiar with define contribution but I will call some
people in the organization.., talk about it then.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you and thank you for all your work. Appreciate it.
Councilman Senn: No, we haven't seconded or voted on the motion.
Mayor Mancino: I'm sorry, can we have a second?
Councilman Berquist: I'll second.
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Berquist seconded to approve the increase for the Fire Relief
Benefit for 1998 and to table discussion for the remaining years until the January 18, 1999 work
session. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PRELIMINARY PLANS FOR PUBLIC WORKS FACILITY
EXPANSION~ PROJECT 99-1.
Charles Folch: Thank you Madam Mayor, members of the Council. If you remember back from
November I presented the Council with a preliminary needs study for the public works facility into the near
and long term future and if you recall back then, one of the items I prepared was information on the relative
planning cost numbers for making comparisons to the existing site versus new sites, etc. While these
numbers are good for comparison, I don't believe they're tight enough or refined enough numbers to really
nail down a cost in order to be able to program a funding proposal for the council's consideration. So what
I'm proposing we do is that we make use of the construction manager to prepare preliminary design
drawings and an analysis of the existing facility in terms of letting out the proposed expansion. Reviewing
code issues. Reviewing zoning issues. Existing HVAC changes. Things like that that may need to be done
in order to present you with a better layout for consideration and also allow staff to be able to define the
number, the cost number and prepare an according cost proposal to present to the Council. At this point in
time we believe that Amcon Construction, Amcon Corporation who was the construction manager for the
City Hall expansion has the expertise to provide this type of service. They're very experienced in the
construction aspects of buildings. The drawings that they would be preparing would be the basis, should
the council elect in the future to do an expansion project, would be the basis for an architectural firm to be
able to pick up and run with and preparing a formal construction document so. Amcon has submitted a
proposal, a scope of services for this phase of the work and an associated cost for that proposal and staff
would recommend that we move ahead at least with the preliminary design. And as I stated in the staff
report, this is in no way interpreted by staff as an authorization to proceed with the project. We're just
trying again to take another step to better define numbers in order to prepare a funding proposal for the
council's future consideration.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Questions from council.
Councilman Berquist: The schematics, the schematic floor plans, the schematic site plans. The elevations.
Assuming that they're adoptable, how close to being able to take those out for bids would the
schematics... ? Are we going to save any additional, any money on architectural fees I guess is the
question.
Charles Folch: We probably will save some time on the architectural in terms of the layout will be readily
defined. I think if, with these documents it will probably save one or two review steps in refining
architectural drawings. I think also in terms of an architectural firm submitting a proposal to us, I think we
give them a much better information up front as to what they are, what's going to be involved in the design
that they're going to prepare for the project. So I think it better defines to the architectural firm what
they're going to need, what basically the expansion is going to entail if you will.
Councilman Berquist: Does the architectural firm use a computer aid assisted drawing?
Charles Folch: Most of them nowadays yes they do. Amcon will be using this, this will be set up on a
CAD format.
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Councilman Berquist: I don't have any other questions.
Mayor Mancino: Councilman Senn?
Councilman Senn: Charles, the $7,500.00 not to exceed is a little bit of a misnomer. It's not $7,500.00
not to exceed. It's $7,500.00 plus cost, right?
Charles Folch: Yeah. It's a fixed fee plus reimbursables, you're right. The mileage and duplicating that
sort of thing are above that but the actual labor time involved is a fixed fee.
Councilman Senn: Okay. Did you get any more than one of these or just off Amcon?
Charles Folch: Just Amcon. Being that we've got a working relationship with them. We know the type of
work they can perform and the services and we've got a good relationship established with them and it's
likely that the council may want to consider making use of a firm such as Amcon when we actually do the
improvement project to function as that project, construction manager again. I think that worked real well
for the city hall expansion project.
Councilman Senn: That's it for questions. I assume we'll come back on comments.
Councilman Berquist: I have one other question. This doesn't include anything with the other site?
Charles Folch: Basically a site at this time is, we aren't proposing to locate any physical structures out
there. We would basically plan on doing our own layout of the bone yard in terms of where we would keep
materials and things like that but really we don't need any outside expertise to lay out the other bone yard
site. We'll do that in-house.
Mayor Mancino: Do you know what a bone yard site is?
Councilman Berquist: I do.
Mayor Mancino: Oh okay. I think someone who had asked on that one. So the predesign schematic will
be on the existing building. What you were there at, you would do at that existing site. The night when
you introduced this and talked to us about it, along with the rest of your budget, Council gave the comment
that of all the options you gave us, we would like it to stay at the existing site. We really didn't talk about
square footage and how big the site would be or how big the building would be and all that. We didn't give
too many comments on that. I've seen from your numbers that we have increased the facility from 1980 to
1998 about 138% in square footage. That's gotten bigger.
Charles Folch: I'm sorry, run that by me again.
Mayor Mancino: Well, on pages 3 and 4 your building area. It started out at 10,300. It went to 19,700
and now it's 24,500.
Charles Folch: Right, and the original size was built back in 1980. Then they did the second expansion in
'87. That went to 19,000. Then we built 4, about 4 ½, 4,500 square foot of cold storage in 1990 which
we then heated in, oh I think it was about three years ago we actually added heat to that. Although you're
correct. We haven't actually done any facility expansion since 1990 and again, we're at 24,000 square
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
foot we're about, slightly less than half of what we expect to be our ultimate size as we develop from the
needs study, we estimate it's going to be somewhere between 50 and 60,000 square feet ultimately of
building space that we will need. So we're less than half of where we need to be right now.
Todd Gerhardt: And the cold storage facility that was built in 1990 replaced another facility that was
bought by the City of Chaska as a part of the Mammoth construction. So that was replacing an existing
facility.
Mayor Mancino: Yes, Councilman Senn.
Councilman Senn: In the hopes that we were coming back around on comments. I have a number of them
but also as many questions as I do comments because your reflection was accurate I believe of our last
meeting on this issue which was just kind of to can it and to kind of say that what we want to deal with the
site and stuff. From there I'd like to really see us spend some time talking about how we do see the project
going forward in terms of size and cost and everything else, especially given where we're at on the plan and
other facilities that we already made a priority in relationship to the strategic plan. So I think it'd be
helpful if we took this back to work session basically and really talked through.., before we would simply
run out and get a... because I think it'd be premature at this point.
Charles Folch: Actually the schematic would help you determine costs. And in terms of a, when you're
looking at like garage space. Okay, I mean one of the major improvements is you're building more indoor
or more enclosed garage space. So let's say we're $150,000.00 short of budget, or let's say we're
$200,000.00 short of budget. I mean it's not that big a deal to take a drawing and say okay, we move that
outside wall on the end of the garage in 20 feet. Knock off that cost if we need to. But again, we can't give
you very, I can't give you confident numbers on where we're at until we really look at what's involved. We
can, we'll probably start off with some relative size. I think we're looking at probably maybe in the range
of 12 to 15,000 square feet but again, if there's a budgetary problem and we can't deal with that.
Mayor Mancino: Build it modular?
Charles Folch: Exactly. We can adjust that as need fits. But again, it's hard to debate sitting around the
table at this point in time how much we have to work with in terms of funding and how much that's going
to buy us until we really have an outfit like Amcon set this up for us and really evaluate the costs that are
going to be involved with the materials that will be used. And then we can evaluate where we need to
maybe cut back or add or whatever the case may be. Or change potential materials. They may have some
recommendations on changing some alternative type materials to save cost. Things like that. I think during
this process too I'm going to try to work with NSP because they have some energy savings loan, rebate
type programs to help change over some energy to more efficient type, energy efficient fixtures, windows,
things like that that they basically will cover the cost on a loan and a payback period over a certain number
of years which is based on your cost savings or energy savings. There's a lot of things out there I've got in
mind here to try and put this piece together but again, I'm just throwing darts right now until we can really
take a look at it you know.
Mayor Mancino: And we can work with that and do it very modularly as we... You know we have other
costs that we're going to be spending, bringing to our planning, etc. So if we took some away from public
works expansion and maybe said we only needed to build 10,000 square feet instead of 15, we can kind of
see how to do that.
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Charles Folch: And the intent here too is to show how this, how these phases will all integrate. We want to
lay out a master layout and then show okay, step by step each addition is going to fit together like a puzzle
here.
Mayor Mancino: And how long will it take to do the schematic? Six week turnaround or.
Charles Folch: We'd like to bring it back I think in two months. We were trying to shoot for maybe the
second meeting in February for the Council meeting. We may have to push it back to the first meeting in
March but basically about a two month process.
Mayor Mancino: So let me bring that back to Councilman Senn. This is, you know I don't think what we
want to do is spend a lot of upfront money and then say we can't do it. Or etc, so if we can be, as far as
I'm concerned, very modular and...
Councilman Senn: Well yeah, I'd like to clarify that because I mean when I read the goals and objectives
and the scope of services, that's not in there at all. I mean you're talking about basically an expansion
project all encompassing. Okay I mean so I mean are we now talking about something that they're going to
look at just different possible phasings? Different possible incremental approaches. That sort of thing
because that's not what I'm reading in here.
Charles Folch: That will, we will show an overall layout and then we will show some suggested phasing
and the cost associated and then if we have to refine that based on council input, I don't see it as being a
problem because again, especially when it's different when you're expanding a finished building like this
versus putting up basically a big garage with cinder block walls and... Things can be adjusted a little more
readily than they can when you've got an inside finished building like here.
Mayor Mancino: I would just want you to be upfront with them about that. That we want to see the
options and we may be going back and forth so that Amcon understands the gist of the project.
Charles Folch: Sure.
Mayor Mancino: Any other questions or comments? Councilman Senn, do you feel comfortable with that?
Councilman Senn: Well, I'm not sure I do or don't. I don't know. I look at a lot of the data and there's
been a lot of growth and when I compare it back to measurements like increases in street mileage and stuff
like that, you know the increase in building size has already increased quite a bit more than the increase in
mileage and population, etc so I guess I have some questions as to need for this project at this time. Now...
define it now and that's useful any time when everybody wants to go with that, that's fine but I just see
much, much higher priority right now in relationship to other things we've discussed like the library and
things like that. That we've called out in the strategic plan as higher priorities and I see those...that we
really need to proceed more deliberately towards those things and things that may be on the after burner so
to speak.
Mayor Mancino: So do you feel comfortable saying that we can keep the predesign schematics for use 5
years down the road if we decide?
Charles Folch: Sure. I mean it's, it's going to be used. Whether it's used this year or next year or the year
after, it's information that will be used, you bet.
10
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: Well after looking at highway designs and knowing that we can only keep them for two
years and then we have to redo the design, it makes us a little wary of spending money as you know.
Charles Folch: Unfortunately yeah, you're dealing with outside agencies and their rules and regulations.
Here I think we pretty well control our cards as to what we want to do.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, good. And maybe you can talk with Councilman Senn about some of those
expansion and your numbers, etc. May I have a motion please?
Councilman Berquist: I move that we authorize Amcon to conduct the pre-construction services as per this
proposal dated December 4, 1998, Project 99-1.
Mayor Mancino: I'll second that.
Councilman Berquist moved, Mayor Mancino seconded that Amcon Corporation be authorized to
conduct the pre-construction services in accordance with the proposal dated December 4, 1998,
Project 99-1. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
APPROVAL OF JOINT ASSESSMENT AGREEMENT WITH CARVER COUNTY FOR
YEARS 1999-2000.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. A joint assessment agreement was tabled at our last meeting.
Or not tabled but continued to this meeting and discussions were to look at soliciting quotes from maybe an
outside vendor to do a comparison. Staff, to do that it's time consuming to put an RFP together. To go out
and solicit that. Staff would recommend that you direct us to prepare a request for proposal for 1999 to do
a true comparison of fees, or services that Carver County provides versus a private sector firm and make
that a goal and work session item for staff for 1999. Based on that staff would recommend approval of the
1999-2000 joint assessment agreement with Carver County based on a $7.50 per valuation for 1999. A
rate of $7.50 per parcel.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Now you just said that you would, we could prepare an RFP for 1999 to go out
and get.., and at the same time go ahead and sign Carver County assessment.
Todd Gerhardt: With modifications that this be for the 1999 year.
Mayor Mancino: How long would it take us to get competitive bids for 19997 A month?
Todd Gerhardt: I'd say probably a month to prepare and another month to get them back. I don't now
how much research the private companies are going to have to do to go down and...
Mayor Mancino: Well aren't they just going to base it on how many households? How many dwelling
units we have to assess?
Todd Gerhardt: Well I think they're going to want to sit down and take a look at you know what Odin's
files are. They'll have to do some sharing of information to create a database.
Mayor Mancino: But I mean just to give us a bid...
11
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Todd Gerhardt: Well, there may be some specifics that we want to... What areas? How many of the new
homes and how many staff people do you want assigned to this? Time schedules.
Mayor Mancino: Do we do that right now with Carver County?
Todd Gerhardt: No.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. We don't do it right now with Carver County. We don't tell them how many
people we want doing it nor do we give them times, etc.
Todd Gerhardt: Right. I mean they've allocated at least one full time person to Chanhassen with another
individual responsible for commercial property so, and then you'll get the occasional overlap with another
staff member to help out.
Mayor Mancino: Well we need to sign their agreement by the end of January, correct? For Carver
County. I think that that's what I read as far as what they would like to see. I would like to see us within
that period of time just get some competitive bids. See if we can draw up an RFP. I don't know about
other council members but.
Councilman Berquist: I've got two questions. First question is, are there any other opt outs, are there any
opt outs... And the second question, in Odin's memo refers to the $7.50 is, whatever the new cost is,
$7.65 is roughly 45% of the total cost to the county.
Mayor Mancino: The average cost per parcel...
Todd Gerhardt: Approximately 45% of the actual.
Councilman Berquist: So $7.50 is roughly 45% of the average, the actual average cost per parcel so the
question then becomes, it would be a fairly safe assumption that any other form of... as an average. Is the
county then going to participate in this as they do current.., really considering a proposal.
Councilman Senn: I'm not understanding the last part. You mean will they still review it?
Councilman Berquist: If Carver County, look. Currently we're paying roughly 45% of the actual average
cost per parcel. I mean assuming that that number is accurate.
Mayor Mancino: I don't know because.
Councilman Senn: I mean the county has their functions in relationship to that. They have to continue one
way or the other without charge. I mean that's covered in your taxes you pay the county. We hire them for
an additional service over and above that which is where the added charge comes from.
Councilman Berquist: How so? Valuation on the parcel is needed by the county as much as it's needed by
US.
Councilman Senn: I understand that. We pay for that service to come in and do our city.
12
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Councilman Berquist: Right. So...
Councilman Senn: No. He's saying the $7.50 is 45% of the average cost per parcel. Some parcels cost a
lot more. Some parcels cost a lot less. So all he's doing is benchmarking it at 45%.
Councilman Berquist: I think what he said is that an average. Every parcel, for sake of round numbers
costs $15.00.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah I would agree with Mr. Berquist.
Councilman Berquist: The County is paying half of that and we're on the hook for half of it. That's what I
infer by the memo.
Councilman Senn: I don't know. The quickest way to find out is to do a quick RFP and get some bids.
There's plenty of cities that privately contract to do this so.
Councilman Berquist: Well that's the first question. Are there any in Carver County that opt out? Opt
out a program. And the second question then is still, if in fact my assumption is accurate, is Carver County
willing to participate? Insofar as they won't have the work involved.
Councilman Senn: I mean I can't answer you on Carver County. I can answer you that there's a number
of, quite a number of cities in Hennepin County that do their own. In fact most all of them do. The
Hennepin County assessor does very few of them. So I mean it shouldn't be hard to throw together, get an
RFP from one of the cities that does contract with it and just get some quick feedback from private firms in
terms of what we might be able to accomplish.
Councilman Berquist: The questions that I have don't preclude us from going out and getting a proposal...
The questions that I have also should be included in...
Mayor Mancino: I agree.., what it was because we've never competitively bid this.
Todd Gerhardt: Well I think the difficulty that we're going to be up against on this is that there aren't a lot
of communities our size that contract for this type of, that I'm aware of. It's, they're either in-house or
they contract with the county. There are a lot of contracts out there with smaller towns and you see the
occasional construction in the community that it is fairly easy to maintain. You know a firm to come in
and deal with 300 single family building permits and roughly 20 commercial or industrial buildings each
year, that's a task. So anybody bidding on this, we wanted to give them clear definition of what they're up
against.
Mayor Mancino: One of the questions that Councilman Berquist asked was were there any other opt out in
Carver County. Are there any other cities that.., right around $70,000.00 a year. And would it be worth
our while to...
Todd Gerhardt: Well we've talked about that in the past and we definitely couldn't do it for the $7.50 per
parcel. And just gear up and to have staff on and support staff. The computer system...
Mayor Mancino: I would like to see you make a... on January 11th and we still have... I don't know if other
council members feel comfortable with that. Have Todd make some preliminary investigations by calling
13
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
independents and just come back and say what kind of lead time they would need to answer an RFP etc and
come back to us on the 11th. Again we have until January 30th and we can get at least a look preliminary
numbers. So may I have a motion please.
Councilman Berquist: Move to table.
Councilman Senn: Second.
Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Senn seconded to table approval of the joint assessment
agreement with Carver County for the years 1999-2000 until the January 11, 1999 meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried.
(Councilman Mason arrived to the meeting during this next item.)
ADOPTION OF THE PROPOSED 1999 BUDGET.
Public Present:
Name Address
Dennis Unze
Patsy Bernhjelm
Michael Lee Kerber
Leah Hawke
Mark Littfin
John Wolff
Deb Kind
Kenneth A. Block
1080 Lyman Court
9380 Kiowa Trail
500 Chanview
7444 Moccasin Trail
8052 Erie Spur
31 Basswood Circle
2351 Lukewood
7015 Dakota Avenue
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Included in your packet is review of staff's recommended cuts
as of 12/07 and the comparison of those with Councilmember Senn's 1207 recommended cuts. And then
staff meeting with department heads here this last week and providing you with another list of proposed
cuts and shifting of funding sources to other than general fund. Right now staff would open it to any
questions that the council has on our proposed 1999 budget.
Mayor Mancino: With all these sheets of paper and looking through all the work that has been done.
Todd Gerhardt: Everybody has put a lot of time and effort into this and when Mark put his numbers
together, he wasn't privy to what our 1207 cuts were and so we tried to do a comparison of those.
Showing that we have recommended a $6.2 million. Mark showed $5,900,000.00 and then staff coming in
right now with $6,054,000.00. Do you want to go through line item by line item? I do have some staff
members here that could update you on what, why we... some of the cuts. Or do you want to just.
Mayor Mancino: Why don't we take comments from people who are here first and then. Oh okay. We'll
take comments from people that are here from the audience but we'll get you copies in just a moment. So
we'll stop for just a second and get copies and get you copies. And we'll take comments.
Deb Kind: I have a copy.
14
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: Oh, okay.
Deb Kind: So are you ready for me?
Mayor Mancino: Do you mind waiting for just a minute so that, if you have a copy and if what you're
going to say has to do with a copy and nobody else can follow along with you, would you mind waiting?
Deb Kind: I'm not going to refer to the copy really very much but sure. I could wait.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay at this time I'd like to open it up. The
budget, the 1999 budget to audience input. If you'd like to come up. State your name and address and
please give your input on the 1999 budget and some of the cuts proposed, etc. And increases. You may
certainly come up and give input now. Anyone who's here.
Deb Kind: My name is Deb Kind. I live on Lukewood Drive in Chanhassen. I'm here because I'm
bothered by the conflicting budget numbers coming from City Hall and also to encourage the Council to
hold the line on property taxes. I would like the council to either freeze taxes at the '98 level or better yet
reduce them. I would also like to see general fund spending kept to a 5% increase or less. You may
wonder why I did not come to the first Truth in Taxation meeting. It's because our official notice of
proposed 1999 taxes showed a city tax increase of only .75 %. Our house valuation did not change so the
.75% amount should be an accurate reflection of the city's proposed increase. All other areas on the 1999
statement were reduced, including school, county and metro taxes. The .75% amounts to an increase of
only $8.55 and I was not too motivated to come to City Hall to dispute such a small increase. So I didn't
come... Truth in Taxation meetings. But the city tax increase bothered me in principal. My husband and I
already pay over $5,000.00 in total taxes, $1,000.00 of which goes to the city. And we're not interested in
paying a penny more. Then I read in the Villager that the city staff wants to increase property tax revenue
by 12.8% and increase spending by 1.8%. Where do these numbers come from? Even though with the
expected 5% growth of Chanhassen, that leaves 7.8% for current taxpayers. This is not even close to the
.75% that I was notified about. It bothers me that this new amount is so different than the official
notification. It appears that residents were given an artificially low number to keep us away from the Truth
in Taxation meetings. Then I got a copy of the budget packet and it has another totally different set of
numbers. A 12% property tax increase and 13% general fund increase. Also I noticed the total funds
balance at the end of 1998 was $9.3 million. And then the balance forward number in 1999 is roughly $4.6
million. That's a 56% increase. How did that happen? 56%. That's a pretty big return on investment.
I'd like to invest in that. And if we have 14.6 million balance, shouldn't we be looking at reducing property
tax revenue? I notice that a large percent of the balance is set aside for required reserve. The required
reserve also increased by over 52% since 1998. That also seems like a big increase. What's the required
reserve for? Do we really need a contingency fund in addition to the reserve? Some may think that this
council's micro managing. I think that over seeing the budget is your job and I support the council's efforts
to make sense of the city budget. I encourage the council to find the answers to my questions and to other
questions that I'm sure you have. Please freeze property taxes at 1998 levels or consider reducing taxes
and hold general fund spending to a 5% increase. And in my attempt to understand the budget I created
some excel documents. Using the most recent numbers that you all have. The 12/18 numbers and I'm
wondering if I can give them to the council at this time.
Mayor Mancino: Please do. And then I want to get a copy of your questions.
15
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Deb Kind: Thank you.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to address the council?
Leah Hawke: 7444 Moccasin Trail. I guess I just had a question. At the last council meeting, Mayor you
said there would not be a discussion as to whether or not there would be a public safety director spot. I'm
a little confused coming away from that because either it's in or it's out. So I'm here to ask, the budget
that we have in front of us. It looks like Councilman Senn recommended that the public safety director
position be removed. Is the final column telling me that the staff recommended it be back in?
Mayor Mancino: First of all the staff is not recommending or I don't think Councilman Senn was
recommending whether we cut or do or not have the public safety director in or out at city hall. Just one
second. But the money that is associated with that gross salary is out. But it is also covered by, and we
will continue to make sure that it is covered by the surplus that we have.
Leah Hawke: Okay. Because my question is, the city ordinances provide for a public safety department
and a public safety director and my question is, can you in adopting the budget in effect change city
ordinances because we do have a city procedure for changing ordinances that you adopted in January of
'98. My question is if you take it out of the budget, those dollars, I understand there's a surplus that can
cover it but my question is, if you take it out of the budget dollars are you in effect changing a city
ordinance without following the appropriate process.
Mayor Mancino: We'd have to refer to our in-house counsel for that.
Leah Hawke: And are you going to do that before or after you make your decision?
Mayor Mancino: Well either way you call it, we will still have the money to cover the public safety
director's position so Leah regardless, excuse you. Regardless, that money will be there whether we call it
public safety director or surplus. Now staff has given us some suggestions of what to do with the surplus.
We have not adopted that yet.
Leah Hawke: With all due respect, I would like to go on record as having my question answered by Roger
Knutson.
Mayor Mancino: That's fine.
Leah Hawke: And I will just say that I would hope the City Council would find out whether it's actions are
appropriate or not appropriate before they take the action here tonight to the extent that you are...
Patsy Bernhjelm: My name is Patsy Bernhjelm. I live at 9380 Kiowa Trail and I guess I just have to say
that I am not happy with the answer that you gave Ms. Hawke. I think that the question still remains. It's
a violation of a city ordinance.
Mayor Mancino: And I said I could not answer that. I don't know the answer to that.
Patsy Bernhjelm: So wouldn't it be prudent then to not adopt the budget pending further investigation?
16
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: I'm not even sure we are going to adopt the budget tonight. Whether we will get through
it all.
Patsy Bernhjelm: Okay, then that's fair.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. In fact why isn't Roger here tonight with us?
Todd Gerhardt: I tried calling him and we didn't connect.
Mayor Mancino: Anyone else? Wishing to address the council. Anyone else wishing to address the
council on budget items? Okay, then we will go forward and, Todd what would you like us to do next? As
we look at this budget.
Councilman Senn: First of all better move we close the Truth in Taxation hearing.
Mayor Mancino: ... close the public part of the Truth in Taxation hearing.
Todd Gerhardt: I haven't had a chance to go through Council's... recent proposed cuts.
Mayor Mancino: ... tonight and then take all those comments together and have in a work session.., can't
keep going back and forth...
Todd Gerhardt: Well right and you know I don't know if a regular council meeting procedure like this is
the appropriate way to sit down and roll up your sleeves and come to a resolution on some of these items. I
think it needs quite a bit of discussion from staff standpoint of why they feel some of these items are still
needed and.
Mayor Mancino: Would you like to... would that work?
Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Sure, we can do that.
Mayor Mancino: ...
Todd Gerhardt: Well let's start with the public safety department portion.
Mayor Mancino: Did everyone understand what we were saying? Okay, two things. Number one. I asked
our city manager which way he would like to go now and right now we have before us again, we're kind of
going back and forth on the numbers. We have been presented numbers from staff and we went through
the numbers and did kind of a line item, yes or no. They would like to be able to respond to us and then
we're going to have probably one more work session with them. Kind of roll up our sleeves. Before we do,
so that would give time to have our attorney, Roger Knutson, find out the answer to your question and it
would give us some time between now and then to listen to staff tonight and some of your concerns as what
you see cut and we can kind of take our notes and then come back together and finish it up next Monday.
So with that, Todd if you would like to go ahead.
Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Let's kind of start with the public safety department portion of it. Under the
discussion regarding the sirens. Right now we've allocated $25,000.00.
17
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: Would you show me where we are so everybody can kind of follow along? Okay, so
where we're going to is, tonight what you received, the December 18, 1999 budget memorandum. And
we're on what page?
Todd Gerhardt: Page 3. Under uses of the 1998 reserves. Staff is recommending that tornado warning
sirens, that $25,000.00 of the reserves, which are approximately $700,000.00. I chose $850,000.00 but we
believe that number to be closer to the $700,000.00 amount. And that we would use $25,000.00 out of the
reserves and then the remaining $50,000.00 be allocated out of those sirens in tax increment districts. Is
staffs recommendation on funding the remaining $75,000.00 for sirens. As to.
Mayor Mancino: Todd, may I ask you a question on that. At our last meeting you said that sirens were
already included in the 1999 budget at our last meeting under, was it under public safety? You said it was,
the entire amount was already included. We've asked that at two work sessions. The first one it was not
included and the second one it was not included. But this last one it was.
Pam Snell: It was included at the last public hearing.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, at the last public hearing. Pam, where is it?
Pam Snell: It was under public safety administration capital outlay.
Mayor Mancino: Public safety administration capital outlay.
Pam Snell: Yep.
Mayor Mancino: And I'm sorry. Why would it be moved?
Pam Snell: We proposed that it be paid out of 1998 reserves.
Mayor Mancino: And why not out of capital outlay under public safety? I mean is there.
Pam Snell: To lower the property tax levy.
Mayor Mancino: But is that general fund?
Pam Snell: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: Then you're saying it's a general fund expense. Okay. And is the reason that, well it
would still be under general fund if it were a 1998 surplus.
Pam Snell: Right.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. So either place it would be under general fund. Okay. So under public safety
administration we should see a $75,000.00 decrease.
Pam Snell: It's already been removed. The budget that we presented already reflects the reduction from
public safety to be funded out of 1998 reserves.
18
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: Well you know it's funded out of, $25,000.00 is funded out of reserves. $50,000.00 is
from.
Pam Snell: And then $15,000.00 out of Gateway tax increment district and $15,000.00 out of your
downtown tax increment district.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. $15,000.00 out of the Gateway TIF district. $15,000.00 out of, is that District
No. 17
Pam Snell: Yes.
Mayor Mancino: So we've got $30,000.00. And then there's an additional $25,000.00.
Pam Snell: No. It's 55 total for 1999.
Mayor Mancino: But the other 25 then is from the.
Todd Gerhardt: How much have we spent already this year?
Pam Snell: Approximately $50,000.00. Approximately $50,000.00. We haven't paid the invoices yet.
Todd Gerhardt: I thought the total was 124.
Pam Snell: I would have to go back and look. This is what we had discussed back several weeks ago of
what still needed to be funded.
Mayor Mancino: ... sirens covered. $15,000.00 from Gateway TIF. $15,000.00 from District No. 1 TIF,
or HRA. $25,000.00 from the 1998 surplus. That gives us a total funding.
Pam Snell: For 1999 of $55,000.00.
Mayor Mancino: Of $55,000.00. So I'm assuming then.
Pam Snell: That the rest will be paid in 1998.
Mayor Mancino: Which is approximately $100,000.00. I think the estimate was 150 and we probably
came down. And is that, the other $100,000.00 coming out of the surplus for 1998 also? The contingency
fund?
Pam Snell: We did a re-estimate for 1998 and that's included in our re-estimate in the 1998 budget.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thanks for making that clear...
Todd Gerhardt: New half time support staff. Mark had recommended a $6,000.00...to that. Staff is still
recommending that the position stay in place. Steve Kirchman had provided me with some information on
the average number of calls. The highest number of calls per day that we receive through public safety is
254. The average call per day is about 162. Usually I have about two people, occasionally one person
19
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
receiving building permits and walk-in. Walk-ins are the average of 47 per day and we've had a high as
96. So based on those numbers, we would ask that the increase in the part time secretarial position stay.
Mayor Mancino: So excuse me. Right now under public safety, I just want to make sure I've got this
right. Under inspection, enforcement plan review and general inspection we have full time salary...
Todd Gerhardt: Correct. And Betty's time is also full time that is split between fire administration and
back-up.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: As to adding an inspection intern. Mark's proposal was to cut that position. Staff has
agreed to not include that as a part of the '99 budget. Inspectors uniforms. No change there. Copying
machine, $12,000.00. Staff is still recommending that the copying machine be included as a part of the '99
budget. Right now, what we are doing is we have a maintenance agreement with a copier and that's
running on an average of about, was it about $2,500.00 a year?
Steve Kirchman: $2,200.00.
Todd Gerhardt: $2,200.00 a year. With any proposed increase for 19997
Steve Kirchman: It will increase to $2,500.00.
Todd Gerhardt: 25. We expect that again to go up after reviewing some of the costs here in the last few
years, it's been running.., approximately that amount of money to continue to repair the machine so staff is
still recommending the replacement of that copier.
Mayor Mancino: So again, the $2,500.00 maintenance, do you have a maintenance agreement with, and
includes administration and fire department administration, you have a $285.00 a month maintenance
agreement with the fire department also. Those are two copiers. Question on the memo that talked about a
$6,000.00 repair. How come that $6,000.00 repair at the beginning of this memo about copying machines
and we have a maintenance agreement with Ikon. I mean I know they don't cover drums but they do cover,
at least every one that I've had, cover parts except for the drums. Do you have any idea Steve on that?
Steve Kirchman: You're referencing the cover memo here?
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, that says this is a very small copier having an original cost of $8,000.00. The
question was in the $6,000.00 repair cost.
Steve Kirchman: The $6,000.00 repair cost is a cost that Don pulled off of what the repairs would have
cost if we didn't have a maintenance agreement. We've got a list saying we spent $6,000.00 in repairs but
we didn't really spend that. We spent the $2,200.00.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. How old of a copier is it?
Steve Kirchman: It was purchased in January of '95.
20
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: Okay, thanks. Just trying to put the two together. Seeing the maintenance agreement
that we're paying for every month and seeing a $6,000.00 repair cost so thank you.
Steve Kirchman: Can I add something else?
Mayor Mancino: Sure.
Steve Kirchman: It's true, we've got a maintenance agreement and it's going to cost us $2,500.00 next
year and maybe 28, you know I don't know what the year after that. And they'll keep, they'll have to
maintain it for that as long as they keep giving us an agreement. But the problem with the machine is more,
not that it breaks down but that we're using it too much. We're, it's not a big enough machine. When we
purchased it, it was but it's, you know we're making more copies now.
Mayor Mancino: They always make.
Steve Kirchman: There's more people using it and more requirements so the problem really is, it's not
designed for the use that we're putting it to now.
Mayor Mancino: And that they gauge by how many copies a year that you make, etc.
Steve Kirchman: Yes. Based on the number of copies we make, exactly.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thank you Steve.
Steve Kirchman: Okay. I'll stay up here until he's finished with me, or are you finished with me?
Todd Gerhardt: That's all I had for the public safety. There was the moving of the public safety director's
salary from the general fund and moving that to the reserve account. Other than that, that's all you have
for the public safety. Right now let's move to the fire department.
Mayor Mancino: Before you go on. I mean it shows in here, it's kind of a move but your suggestion here
doesn't particularly point out clearly that it would be the public safety director's salary. Is that what?
Todd Gerhardt: Well the council would have a contingency fund of a dollar amount that would be agreed
upon at the time of budget approval and as the city council meets in January, February to discuss the long
term organization of the public safety department, at that time you would make a budget reallocation for
that position if council wants to see that.
Mayor Mancino: But again you did not put that in as a line item specifically for public safety director
salary.
Todd Gerhardt: No I did not.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: At this time let's move to the fire department's proposals here .... is to stay in line with
other cities on increase fire call per call and officer pay. We are proposing to increase approximately
21
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
$31,000.00 for that included in the 1999 budget and. Pardon me? 167 Do you know why we showed 31
on that one Pam? I'm looking at page 1 for the audience.
Mayor Mancino: And how far down are you? You're at.
Todd Gerhardt: Under 122, fire prevention administration.
Mayor Mancino: Oh you're under, okay. John, would you like to come forward so you can answer and be
ready. Thank you. So again John you're saying that the increase in fire fighter per call and officer pay is
not a grand total of 31 but a total of 167
John Wolff: Yeah, the '99 budget request is $180,000.00. The '98 budget, according to my figures, was
$163,000.00. And there was a reduction in what was anticipated workers compensation costs. There's a
$20,000.00 expected increase to change the call pay and the salaries and there's approximately a $5,600.00
reduction in anticipated workers comp cost and it nets out at $180,000.00.
Mayor Mancino: How do you get the decrease in workers comp?
John Wolff: That's something that staff, city hall staff provided us. I'm not sure exactly where that
number came from.
Pam Snell: That's based on activity that we get from Dolliff Insurance. And I believe, where I came up
with the $31,000.00 increase in fire fighter pay was a comparison of the 1998 re-estimate to 1999 budget
which is, the '98 re-estimate is $157,000.00 with a reduction in workers comp and the 1999 budget,
proposed budget was $185,000.00.
Mayor Mancino: So your request, I mean you know.., passing this but I would just like to say that your
request for a call pay from $7.00 to $8.00 seems very much in line with, as I look through the DCA
compilation of other cities...that it's just right in there. It's not top. It's not bottom. Chaska's like still at
$2.58 a call.
John Wolff: Actually we just got a study from Anoka/Champlin we'll share with you. It's specific to just
call pay. I think Chaska was in the $8.00, actually $8.78. Shakopee's $8.00 even. Anoka/Champlin is
$9.80. The area average, there were about 20 departments there, was $8.67 and that was performed in the
spring of '98.
Mayor Mancino: Well I also got the impression, I mean I obviously...but a lot of them just tie it to CPI so
that there isn't 10 years of no increase and then all of a sudden this big, huge one.., like it might be a good
policy.
John Wolff: I think it would be. I think it would make sense for future planning.
Mayor Mancino: ... helpful for us to have is maybe the difference between officers pay from. I know it's
a 24% increase or something like that so again that might be worth it to see what it was originally. What it
is now and again some sort of policy so that there is not the peaks and valleys that we're doing it
consistently. I think would be helpful.
John Wolff: Sure. We can certainly provide that. I have that in my file.
22
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Todd Gerhardt: At this point if John could go through sort of their proposed operating and capital,
equipment proposed to be purchased this year. Staff has come up with approximately $20,000.00 in
additional cuts that they can hold off. At this time I'd ask John to go through what he is proposing now to
purchase for the ;99 budget.
Mayor Mancino: John, at the end of it could you also compare it with Councilman Senn's suggestions? Or
his recommendations so it'd be helpful to us.
John Wolff: Sure. Just so I don't forget that point maybe I'll just start with that. Councilman Senn
suggested a 5% increase to our operational budget. Which is about $14,000.00 and a $35,000.00 capital
outlay budget which is about a $30,000.00 increase to the capital budget. Our capital budget last year was
approximately $5,000.00. What our proposal, which is inclusive within your package, there's a couple
ways to look at it. But just kind of putting the numbers down and sort of just talking about it on an
overview basis. What we're looking at, if we pull out the capital and the one large non-recurring expense
within the contractual and services budget of $14,000.00 for the floor refurishment. And the capital piece
is approximately $44-$45,000.00. If we pull that away, what we're asking for is an 11% increase to our
operating budget. Now we recognize that this is higher than other, well then just the overall growth within
the city. It's higher than what other departments are asking for, but if we kind of take a couple steps back
and find out why we're here, maybe that will help us understand our situation. And I'd like to just take a
moment to do that. Our city population has grown 50% approximately since 1991. Our calls have gone up
90%. From about 400 to 750. Our overall city budget's increased by 85% for that same period whereas
the fire department budget has increased 36%. If we look at just the fixed costs portion which is not the
salary because the salaries and the call pay portion has gone up because we have taken on more services
there or we perform more service there. The fixed cost portion has grown approximately 19% over that 8
year period. Our cost per citizen is $15.23 which is about 30% below the metro area average for volunteer
fire departments. A couple of other interesting points. Our call pay, as you just mentioned, what we just
spoke about, is 23% below the area average. Our pension benefits are between 30% and 50% below other
area fire departments if you look at the defined benefit plans. We are starting a study on the defined
contribution option and there are a number of fire departments in the northern metro area that have
embraced that and we will hopefully have that information for you for our meeting.., and just to the way we
find or look at handling our growing plant and equipment structure over there. I went back in the records
and I couldn't find anything that showed any real significant increase to our repair or our maintenance
budget over this period and our plant and equipment is growing significantly with the new equipment that
we have and the new facilities we have added over the last 10 years. Some of our major concerns are that
we need to maintain a cost effective and viable organization. If you look at the cost of a volunteer fire
department versus a full time fire department, we're about a quarter to a third of those costs so the value
that we add for our citizens is significant. But to do that we need to maintain adequate and capable
members and one of our greatest challenges is the issue of maintaining membership. Our calls have
doubled in the last 10 years approximately. The demands from family and job outside of the volunteer fire
department has really challenged our members and turnover has been significant in the last couple of years.
In '98 alone we lost 6 members. Actually 8. 2 came back and quite frankly we think we might lose one of
the folks that came back for the same reasons that the individual left originally. Our budget's not growing
with the increase service demands. Our pay and benefits aren't competitive. Not that fire fighters actually
shop from Eden Prairie to Minnetonka, but if you look at where our members live, there are significant
number of our members that could respond to either Chaska, Eden Prairie, Excelsior or Minnetonka and
they would live in the area. So that may be a challenge down the road and it is a concern for us as leaders
of the fire department. The investment that we've made in maintaining and repairing and replacing our
23
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
plant and equipment needs to be increased. And we need new, we need to take advantage of the new
equipment available so that we can provide our services in the safest possible way and taking full
advantage of technology to make us as efficient as possible. And so these are some of the issues that we
have talked to you about in our work sessions and that we've addressed in our proposal. So in summary,
what we're looking at for this year is really a catch up. We're hoping that if we can get our operating
budget up to the 11% range this year and we may need a slightly higher increase next year, we feel that by
the year 2000, that we will be in line with other area fire departments and that we will be looking at more
typical growth related based on the services that we perform, versus a catch up type of situation that I find
us in this year. The net dollar increase to our operating budget is approximately $32,000.00 if you look at
pulling away the non-recurring costs. One of the things that we would like to be able to do is, with your
permission of course, is based on what you do come back from a financial perspective, that you allow us to
prioritize the equipment or the technology or recruiting or benefit issues that we've requested. And so
depending on what does come back from the council relative to actual dollar amounts.
Mayor Mancino: I think that would be very helpful to have you prioritize what's the most important for
you.
John Wolff: And we have some of that documentation right here. In fact we can share that with you right
now if you'd like.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
John Wolff: What you'll be getting here is, it's basically a line item of all the cost increases that we've
requested in our budget and it's in priority order. The first three items are either a cost reduction or a no
cost change, and they were just put at the top just so we could start with the neutral or reductions. They're
not necessarily the most important issues but starting with number 4 on that list, we begin to show you
where the priorities are. And the comments sort of address the areas that we've talked in the past.
Attracting and retaining members. Increasing capability, safety or effectiveness so it sort of catalogs it for
you also. Or a repair and maintenance of plant and equipment issue. Those are the three major areas that
we identify. And I would be happy to take questions that anyone may have regarding these priorities or
these specific issues.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. This is, you know it's very helpful to find out what's the most important to
you. Give us just a second to look at the list. I'll ask a question. Infrared rescue device. So many of your
calls are not you know fire in the house, fire in the commercial building. So many of them, 70% are around
medical and around accidents, etc. Why the infrared rescue device?
John Wolff: Well it's a significant safety and effectiveness improvement that the fire service has now has,
it's now available to the fire service. And it's, while the frequency of house fires are low relative to other
calls. Less than 1% of working house fires where we have to do a search and rescue situation, the amount
of danger involved to not only the occupants of the home but also the fire fighters going in, it is the
probably the most high risk activity that we perform and with the technology of the infrared cameras or
viewing devices, our fire fighters basically have eyes where they didn't before and it's literally, if
everybody had to go to the council meeting with a blindfold on versus being able to see what you're doing,
it's night and day. And so it's not like TV where you can see inside a fire, you know where the made for
TV movies, Backdrafl or TV shows. When there's a fire, the smoke banks down within a couple of
minutes and our fire fighters and victims are unable to see so it would allow our fire fighters to get to
victims quicker because they would see them faster. They also would avoid dangerous parts of the
24
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
structure. Whether there's a hole in the floor or there's a significant flame activity above the smoke area.
The second value that the infrared device adds, and it does come into play with more of the situations we
run into, is that it would allow us to locate hidden fire which is a significant part of fire fighting operations.
And a number of the departments we've talked to that use these devices that they get a lot of use in that
area and it adds a lot of value in terms of property conservation and so forth. Being able to quickly find the
hidden fire behind the wall and so forth.
Councilman Senn: John, in terms of, in personnel services you're showing an increase of $28,150.00 is an
18% increase. Now on your priority list that you just handed us, can you show me where that $28,000.00
is?
John Wolff: Yeah, quite frankly I come up with a total of $20,000.00 and change for salary increases and I
think what we have here, there's been a number of iterations of the budget and the budget process is, I have
to keep throwing away the ones that aren't date the most current you know for myself personally and we've
been able to rerun the numbers off of, because as we get closer to the end of the year, there are less
assumptions in the data and I'll say that some of the earlier iterations had significant assumptions and some
of those assumptions were wrong. So what we come up with, if just changing call pay from $7.00 to $8.00
is approximately an $11,000.00 change to the salary budget. To the 4020 line. And then there is a change
for salaries themselves from $19,200.00 to $23,000.00 and change, which are the officers salaries and I'm
trying to.
Councilman Senn: The $3,100.007
John Wolff: There you go.
Councilman Senn: Is that the $11,250 above. You've got $3,100.00 there and then you've got.
John Wolff: And then there's a small change to the general fund which is, that's a part of the pension
program. It's a dollar per call per man hour. Personnel hour and that would go to a dollar and a quarter.
And I believe that gets us to the number.
Councilman Senn: Well if you're talking the $20,000.00, I think I see the $20,000.00. You've got
$11,250.00 on the... You've got $3,100.00 in salary increase and you have $6,048.00 in training pay
increase.
John Wolff: That's right. The training pay is the other one.
Councilman Senn: So Pam, the 185 number is not the correct number any longer?
Pam Snell: We've got personnel costs of $180,000.00 in there. If you look at your 1999 budget under
public safety/fire administration personnel services.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Any other questions?
John Wolff: Just a final comment. There were some items that typically have come out of, at least
formally came out of reserve funds, like vehicle purchase. The radios are new and this is, I don't know
how much background the council has relative to the radio change that's going to occur in Carver County,
but we would be happy to actually sit down and spend some time maybe at a future work session but we're
25
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
looking at approximately $100,000.00 cost that I keep, I'm not the expert. The financial expert. To me
that would be like a 15 year amortization and if you started that today you could maybe present value that
so in terms of how that would come out of the budget, I guess I would leave that to the experts but.
Mayor Mancino: But the change over is for, to have it done by 2007.
John Wolff: That would be the tail end of the changeover. We would be one of the last departments and
our hope is that we could be in fact one of the first departments to change over because it does increase
capabilities also. The 800 megahertz has a much stronger capability in terms of you know working in and
outside of large buildings and going through concrete and so forth. And just carrying from one part of
town to the next.
Mayor Mancino: Any other questions? Thank you. Mark, do you have anything to add?
Mark Littfin: No, he did a fine job.
Mayor Mancino: Now it's interesting that we never.., internal revenue fund as a part of it.
Pam Snell: All vehicles are budgeted in the internal service fund.
Mayor Mancino: I'm sorry, internal service fund. But that has never included the fire chief.
Todd Gerhardt: No, it's in there.
Mayor Mancino: Is it?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. It's a Blazer...
Mayor Mancino: Alright, thank you. We're taking notes fast and furiously.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, we're going to skip through public works department because of no change on
either side. Vehicle equipment fund. We continue to recommend that we fund that project at the
recommended amount of $430,000.00 and just to stay up with our equipment purchases, it's essential that,
we talked about with increase in firemens per call pay, that you tie it to some type of CPI but you don't
want to get peaks and valleys. You don't want to see a $600,000.00 bill one year and then a $200,000.00
in another so staff is recommending that that remain at the $440,000.00 rate.
Mayor Mancino: And I would just like to speak to that philosophically and that is, I think for the last three
years we have used that fund up completely every year and so that we don't have peaks and valleys, I mean
I would like to see that funding stay the same but also looking at the vehicles and making sure that we're
not using that full funding every single year. So that when we do have to buy a new fire truck or a new
expensive vehicle, that we have those reserves on hand. So again it doesn't mean just because it's funded
$430,000.00 a year that you use it all up. Excuse me, can we close the door? Thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: I would agree with that philosophy and would leave it up to public works director and our
maintenance superintendent to review those equipment and give council a report at the time of awarding bid
on those. Or soliciting bids.
26
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Yes, do you have a question? Oh okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Okay, that moves us into the park and recreation department that Todd Hoffman, our ark
and Rec Director did to go through some of his proposed '99 expenditures.
Todd Hoffman: Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. I'll continue to go off of page 1 and make
comments in response to Councilman Senn's recommendations of 12/7. I'll be addressing five separate
funds that have to do with parks and recreation. We'll start with the park and recreation administration.
Both Councilman Senn and staff support the addition of a park department secretary. That is one vacancy
or hole in our department which is long overdue and we believe it will increase the efficiency of our staff
members that we currently have a great deal.
Mayor Mancino: How long have you wanted one?
Todd Hoffman: Secretary? Many years.
Mayor Mancino: Pardon?
Todd Hoffman: Many years.
Mayor Mancino: Many years, okay.
Todd Hoffman: Approximately, we estimate approximately a third of the work we do on a daily basis
could be accomplished by a department secretary and so those dollars that are currently expended from my
salary, Jerry's salary, Patty's salary are really not, should not be taken out of that area. The second item in
administration is the Chaska Community Hockey Association contribution of $6,000.00, and that was
approved by the City Council this past winter. Park and recreation administration, second printing of a
park map. Three years ago the city printed a park and trail map. It's the full color brochure that you'll I
believe all would recognize and I have the remaining half a dozen in my bottom drawer.
Mayor Mancino: We can't cut that. I mean you know the citizens use that constantly Todd. That's just
my little you know. Now was that suggested to cut?
Todd Hoffman: Yes.
Councilman Senn: Not by me.
Mayor Mancino: Councilman Senn you suggested to cut printing our map?
Councilman Senn: No. No. I did not.
Todd Hoffman: No.
Mayor Mancino: And I'm sorry, why would you be recommending printing.
Todd Hoffman: To make it through a year and then bring it back next year.
Mayor Mancino: But we certainly passed it out. People have used it...
27
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Todd Hoffman: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mayor Mancino: And what would be the quantity of printing?
Todd Hoffman: About 10,000.
Mayor Mancino: Okay.
Todd Hoffman: Jumping to 145, recreation programs. There's a variety of items. Special recreation
services. We talked about this at a past meeting. $2,500.00 to co-op with West Hennepin Community
Services and their adaptive recreation section. It provides just in co-oping with them and better access to
their service for our residents. Soccer goals for Bandimere Park, $4,500.00. And Councilman Senn asked
that that be moved to Fund 410, park acquisition. Park and trail acquisition development. Then we also
talked about having the associations purchase those soccer goals and that would be our first move is to ask
the association if they could purchase them. If not, we certainly agree that that could be funded out of 410
at that amount. Utilities for Bandimere and City Center Park. We're building new parks. With $6 million
of additional improvements in 1998 alone, we incur additional costs to maintain and to provide services at
those locations. This essentially pays for the lighting of the ballfields. Recreation programs. Additional
portable warming houses and staff and utilities, $3,500.00. Over the past 10 years we have added a park,
a neighborhood park, an average of one park per year and about 50% of those receive neighborhood rinks
and as such we incur additional costs on an annual basis. And yes we did start flooding around the clock
this morning at 6:30 a.m. and we will flood continuously until Christmas morning and all 14 of our rinks
should have ice on them by Christmas vacation.
Councilman Berquist: I was hoping we'd get by without an ice this year.
Todd Hoffman: Some communities, by January l0th if they have not maintained rinks, they'll just
completely.., the program for the entire year. Christmas vacation is a real important part in that program.
We switch then to the Lake Ann Park operations and the lifeguards at $23,000.00 are included in the 1999
budget. Moving to park maintenance. Lake Ann access.
Councilman Senn: Just to make one thing clear. Nothing that Todd has covered so far is anything that I
suggested cuts to. He's simply going through his laundry list of increases that he asked for.
Todd Hoffman: Correct. And I'll make that clear as I go through. Lake Ann access road and parking lot
and trail. We need about $150,000.00 in addition allocations from water resources to address the drainage
and the runoff problems that we have at Lake Ann Park. If you look at the road, we have two issues. Over
50% of the entire old road and parking lot is severely alligatored. On an annual basis that fails and we
replace it and patch it. And then the second issue, which we're not very proud of as a community is that
we do not have surface water management in Lake Ann Park. So we're taking the oils and the residues off
of those parking lots and draining them directly into Lake Ann... I believe is good stewardship so we would
like to see that changed.
Mayor Mancino: And can we do some of that in-house again? Much of the work that we've done in the, in
Michael's neighborhood where we've gone in and done some creek work and etc with our own staff. As far
as building retention ponds, etc in the area and pre-treat it before it gets to Lake Ann.
28
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Todd Hoffman: We may be able to do that. This is a larger, where we're doing some of the in-house work,
they tend to be a small, single focused project whereas this we would be.
Mayor Mancino:...
Todd Hoffman: Or we would be bidding the entire reconstruction of the parking lot and what you're going
to see happen, if it's approved, is that everything's going to come out. It's going to start from new and to
try to integrate city forces into a project like that becomes somewhat inefficient but we could certainly
address it as we take a feasibility study. And again, Councilman Senn asked that, or recommended that
that be moved, I believe that was to Fund 410. Under the park acquisition and development. Staff does not
believe that that fund can absorb those costs and we would recommend that that be paid up in 1998 excess
revenue. Meadowgreen Park.
Todd Gerhardt: Before you go on, could you just, or Pam, update the council on the resources in 410. I
think there's a difference of opinion regarding the balance in that account. Can you update them on 4107
Todd Hoffman: Sure. The referendum approved $4.9million for expenditures for park improvements. As
the feasibility studies were prepared for both the trails and the park projects, it became evident that in order
to meet our goals as a community, the dollars allocated to those projects would not be sufficient. Those
issues were addressed in length with the council at that time. Response to that included, or was two fold.
For community parks, really 2/3 of the complete 1998 budget allocation for Fund 410, park acquisition,
park and trail acquisition and development was $100,000.00 each for Bandimere and City Center and so
that takes the fund down $200,000.00. And then the trails was even a bigger impact upon the fund. That
was up to $300,000.00 to fund the complete construction of all seven trail segments which were included in
the referendum, and so those, this fund has taken a half a million dollar hit in 1998 to finance those projects
to ensure that they were successful and met our full intent. So what the commission has recommended the
City Council do is take a conservative approach to Fund 410. Take at least 2 years, if not 3 to rebuild it
and make, that it has the strength to carry us into the future. One thing we want to be careful as a
community, to hesitate to think about. Fund 410 right now is getting some front end money. It has to carry
us to our full maturity as a community and fulfill what we have specified under our comprehensive plan for
park and trail development. It has to do it all when we're all said and done. We are currently upfronting or
building some money in up front by collecting 1/3 of all park development right at the time of development,
at the time that the plat is approved. So you see that money coming in and the money, as the fund goes up,
the tendency is to use it for everything that needs to happen in the community and what that fund has really
been established for is to develop new parks in our growing areas of our community and new trails. And
over the years we have abused that fund by spending those dollars for redevelopment of existing parks and
reconstruction in existing parks. And the commission did not feel that that was a proper use of those
dollars.
Mayor Mancino: But we've also been able to supplement that fund by using TIF dollars in TIF districts.
We just, as a commission and council put in $200,000.00 for additional land in the Gateway TIF district.
In that area we also fund through that TIF district, that increment. We also funded to the roadway and the
landscaping in the wetland area so we have also been able to add, in creating more parks and more trails,
TIF districts too so that is another source that we have used quite well in Chanhassen. Not just this
particular fund. I do have a question about this fund so maybe at another time this week you and I can look
over it because the numbers that I'm getting from you and Pam don't seem to be what I've got from our
1998 budget. I have an itemized list so just to go over it with you so that I understand it better would be
helpful. Thank you.
29
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Todd Hoffman: We'll move on then to the Meadow Green parking lot overlay and that's an item which we
feel can be pushed off for a year. Currently it's oxidizing to a great extent and we do not want to risk the
break-up of that piece of pavement.., so we need to get to it in the next year or two. Tennis court repair at
the recreation center. We funded it $20,000.00 or requested $20,000.00. What we're recommending we
do is again, in talking with the school district, request that they fund 50% of that repair which would be
approximately $10,000.00 and so we'd reduce that by $10,000.00.
Councilman Berquist: Have they agreed to that?
Todd Hoffman: No .... the new superintendent as of yet. The hockey boards for City Center Park,
$30,000.00. We have ice back here. What we'll do this year is build up snow banks. We do not have
hockey boards built into any budgets as of yet. We are estimating that we can reduce that by $10,000.00
and build one of those rinks and then do a second one in the following year.
Councilman Senn: What happened to the boards that were there before?
Todd Hoffman: They were removed and demolished as a part of the project. 22 years old. They were
repaired annually by a sentence of service workers at no cost to the city. For the last dozen years or so.
Skate park for City Center Park. We feel that this component of the park system is going to be a, just will
represent something that is missing. The value of this investment will be tremendous. The response that
we will receive from the youth. The skateboards and inline skating and aggressive skating.
Councilman Berquist: ...
Todd Hoffman: I haven't heard. But stories of success out of each one of these is what you hear. Just to
bring the council up to date on the current concept. This piece of pavement is so close to City Hall that we
do not believe chainlink fencing it with an 8 foot chainlink fence and then putting a padlock and a gate on it
and establishing hours and guards is the way to go. We think this facility can work 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
like any other park facility in our community and then if we need to get more proactive, go from there. But
right now we'd like to put the jumps and the ramps up there and let the youth of our community use it.
Mayor Mancino: Do we have a sign about liability, etc in those areas?
Todd Hoffman: Do we have a sign?
Mayor Mancino: A sign. Something about stated liability and who should be skating.
Todd Hoffman: We'll certainly provide some signage at the park. Liability, these facilities nationwide has
not been a big problem. It's an obvious concern which comes up but again it's proven to be, in all
recreation the parents, participants recognize a certain level of risk and assume liability for that but we will
sign it... for those risks. We already have them on our front steps on a nightly basis. I talk to them there so
they can skateboard on our front steps or on a facility designed for them. Light equipment operator under
park maintenance. Again going back to the.., a year for our park department. We have five full time
people that maintain our parks on a current basis. And I'm as much to blame as anyone for falling behind
in our park maintenance, in our area of park maintenance. We have always prided ourselves on the
maintenance and upkeep of our parks and it took a few outsiders who work in my industry to point out that,
who happen to live or work in the area, to point out that we've been falling behind. We have a park
30
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
superintendent who manages our office. A park foreman who manages our crew and we have three left to
manage and we have 27 park sites. Over 500 acres. 21 miles of parks and we are falling behind on
maintaining these on an annual basis.
Councilman Berquist: It's nice that they're noticing a change.
Todd Hoffman: For the worst. Quickly moving through the rest. 50% forestry technician. $19,000.00.
Everybody's recommending that that be cut. I would like to put a plug in for the trees however. Just a
quick inventory shows that we have invested well over a million dollars in public trees in our community in
the past oh, dozen years or so. And those trees are often ignored. They're at the bottom of the heap for our
department and I think the value of having somebody keeping track of them and keeping watch over them
and maintaining them would be well invested. Money well invested and would have returns much higher
than the investment that would be required. Recreation center coordinator. This is not new money. The
$40,000.00 in a salary. That person is currently working there as a recreation center greeter at the center
and what we are doing is aligning the responsibilities in a different fashion. I feel the benefit which we're
going to receive for, this is a shift in personnel. A shift in how we're operating, managing the facility and
the benefits we're going to receive will far outstrip the cost. The additional costs in there are really rolled
over in the $5,000.00 which you have just on the next item.
Mayor Mancino: Todd, isn't the recreation center coordinator, isn't that Patty's position and it's part of
our 1999 budget?
Todd Hoffman: No.
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Where, Patty's position is not on here.
Todd Hoffman: No. Patty's position.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, which has not been filled at this time.
Todd Hoffman: No. No. I chose not to fill it to allow for 6 months absence in the department and to move
forward with staffing changes. We have significant staffing changes that we're asking you for in 1999.
Mayor Mancino: So you are not going to fill it?
Todd Hoffman: Yes we are. I chose to wait until we had the entire reorganization designed. The
recreation center really hit a low point in staffing. We're short on staffing. We're in a more or less just a
basic operation mode and need to move forward with these positions to get our department back up to a
level which we can provide the service that we feel is necessary to the community. The $5,000.00 in
recreation center staffing. Again, a portion of that is to allow that coordinator position to come on full
time. There will be somebody there at the center Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. to
manage those employees. Self supporting programs. $15,000.00 increase or decrease in self-supporting
program has to have an accompanying increase or decrease in revenues and so those balance annually. An
intern. We have lowered that cost or that is an investment from $5,600.00 down to $4,000.00 by cutting
the time that that intern would be in our office. These interns come in seasonally during the summer when
we're at our busiest point in the year. In recreation programs, 145 which is non self-supporting. This is
what the community feels is a base level of services to provide in recreation. We ask or requested
$5,000.00 in increased salaries. Generally in the area of playground leaders and supervision, which we are
31
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
recommending be cut. Again the park maintenance and irrigation systems controller. We have 7 irrigation
systems now throughout the city in our park system. This controller would allow an operator to operate the
systems from one locale instead of all 7, but again we feel we can get, it just takes more time and effort but
we can certainly do without that at this time. Maintenance materials for Bandimere. The $4,000.00 and
that's $4,000.00 worth of fertilizer to put on the new park next year to make the grass grow. I certainly
wouldn't want to do without that. Park maintenance. A John Deere tractor at $9,500.00. We've added the
new ballparks at Bandimere and we have ballfields at the recreation center. City Center Park. Lake Ann
Park and all of our outlying parks which we've currently maintained with two 1972 Allis-Chamler tractors
and we would like to replace one of those just so we don't have all of our eggs in one basket, which
happens to be over 20 some years. And then increase in seasonal labor-park maintenance. Where we do
the bulk of our work, in those 9 to 10 seasonal labors who come in and mow and maintain our parks on an
annual basis. What we saw occurring over the years is as we did not increase our hourly rates, our
employees came from farther and farther from the west where we finally started.., our employees from out
of the Cologne area and beyond because we are not competitive in the local market in hourly salary so we
found it necessary to ensure that we have quality employees in that area. That concludes my remarks and
I'll be more than happy to answer any questions of the council.
Mayor Mancino: Any questions at this point? ....just one minute. I think my main one will revolve
around 410... on that, the numbers that I have. Do any councilmembers have any questions?
Councilman Senn: The big one is mainly on 410 at this point. Same thing.
Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and council members. At this time I'd briefly like to go through the administrative
department increases regarding administrative salaries. As a part of the '99 budget we have reallocated a
portion of my salary to the administrative portion of the budget. This is money that was in the McGlynn
Tax Increment District. With that district coming back on line for 1999, staff recommended allocating my
portion of that salary to administration based on the revenues coming back on line from that district.
Mayor Mancino:...
Todd Gerhardt: Well, a portion of it probably could but with the activity budgeting portion, I do some
administrative roles that I will need to allocate some of my time to and right now there's not any of my
salary in the administrative portion of the budget.., activity budgeting portion, there will be some time
allocated there so we need to put some.
Mayor Mancino: ...back.
Todd Gerhardt: In the finance area, the increase in that department was for the interns position and so the
$29,000.00 increase, that included the intern position in that which was recommended by Councilman Senn
to stay in the budget. MIS/GIS portion of the budget. We have asked that $125,000.00 of that be
allocated to reserves and that the budget remain as proposed for.., out of general fund.
Mayor Mancino: So you are still recommending $509,000.00, the total amount.
Todd Gerhardt: I'd like to talk a little bit. We have agreed to the cuts on historic preservation and the new
Bobcat. As to the old bank building, that will play a factor. That building does net $32,000.00 a year in
32
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
income to the city.., and also, it also provides approximately $15,000.00 in taxes a year to that so that's a
net of $47,000.00 back to the city.., project, you know that will have an impact on revenues.
Mayor Mancino: ... I don't know Councilman Senn, was your suggestion weighing demoing the project?
Todd Gerhardt: Tearing the building down.
Mayor Mancino: The old bank building?
Councilman Senn: Yeah, that was in keeping with basically what we said in the strategic plan and
beginning with the.., set-up of the park or the gathering area up there.
Mayor Mancino: Well, City Center Commons, okay.
Councilman Senn: And that's basically the offset, what it was was pretty much that facility at least on the
information we had was offsetting revenue expense so whenever you cut off the revenue, of course the
expense cut off and it's a neutral so.
Todd Gerhardt: It nets $32,000.00.
Mayor Mancino: But I would think we'd have to pay that in contracts for the City Center Commons and...
Todd Gerhardt: Right. I mean it's inevitable someday that it's going to have to happen but...
Councilman Senn: ... because the numbers I have had offsetting.
Todd Gerhardt: Pardon me, I didn't hear that.
Mayor Mancino: I want to say that I... revenue on that particular building.
Todd Gerhardt: I can give you the 1998 revenue/expenditure sheet on the building. That concludes, what I
would like to do is continue this meeting to, is it next Monday?
Pam Snell: Will it be during the day or? ... adopt by.
Mayor Mancino: By noon or by 4:00 or something like that.
Todd Gerhardt: Do you want to pick a time? What works for council for that. In the interim I would also
ask that staff meet with yourself Mayor and Councilman Senn to go through this in a work session if that's
agreeable to the rest of the council.
Mayor Mancino: I would just like to first say thank you very, very much for looking at projected cuts.
Reviewing it as you have in such a articulate, itemized way. It's really, really appreciated and hopefully in
1999 we'll start out the year looking at the strategic plan and doing our budget from that. Having our
strategic plan and our comprehensive plan be the tools that guide us in budgeting and looking to help
forward so very, very appreciated for all the time that everyone has spent reviewing the budget and looking
at it. I'm very honored that you've done that. I would be certainly fine meeting, Councilman Mason are
you going to be here on the 28th or are you out of town?
33
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Councilman Mason: I will be out of town.
Mayor Mancino: Okay, you may if you'd like to give me comments, etc on any of the proposed things that
are staying and being cut, just on the overall budget. I could certainly meet on the 28th at 9200 in the
morning. Anytime is fine. Councilman Senn?
Councilman Senn: Fine.
Todd Gerhardt: I would like to meet yet this week prior to the meeting.
Councilman Senn: ... when do you want to do that?
Todd Gerhardt: Whatever would fit in.
Councilman Senn: This week?
Pam Snell: Christmas Eve I will be out part of the day.
Mayor Mancino: Good. What about on the 23rd?
Councilman Senn: I'd have to check in the morning but I think I can move someone and we could do it that
morning if that works.
Mayor Mancino: Okay in the a.m.
Councilman Senn: Can I let you know in the morning and we'll get a time set?
Todd Gerhardt: Sometime in the morning of the 23rd?
Councilman Senn: Yeah.
Mayor Mancino: Pardon me? Sure. Come forward please and state your name and address.
Patsy Bernhjelm: Patsy Bernhjelm, 9380 Kiowa Trail. Is that a public meeting then that anyone can attend
or is that?
Mayor Mancino: The work session is, sure. On Monday the 28th and we'll let you know time.
Patsy Bernhjelm: Okay, will that be in the Villager then or should we call you or what would be?
Councilman Senn: Let's set a time now for the 28th.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, we might as well do that. I'm again, 9:00 in the morning. Whatever works.
Councilman Senn: Fine by me.
Mayor Mancino: 9:00 December 28th. Here in City Hall.
34
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Patsy Bernhjelm: Thank you.
Mayor Mancino: Great. Two things.
Councilman Senn: Do we have to formalize that as a continuance or whatever then?
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. What did we do last time? I don't think we.
Councilman Senn: We just continued it until today. Do we need to do that again?
Mayor Mancino: Okay. Before we do, Pam...two couple things that would be helpful to have at the
meeting on the 28th. One would be the fund balances as they go from 1998 to 1999 and what they are.
You know, the internal, whether they're cash or assets. That would be helpful. The other thing that would
be helpful is that looking at our sheet for 1999 consolidated budget sheet and we have the first line item is
current property tax, which shows a general fund property tax, internal service fund property tax, special
revenue fund and GO Debt Service. We have a couple items missing from that list.
Councilman Senn: The easiest way just say include all the debt service.
Mayor Mancino: Well, which is a special assessment debt service and the park revenue debt service that
we have. So if we could also include that so that we have all the numbers for the levy from the city.
Pam Snell: Those are not operating budgets so will not show expenditures for those because your
revenues, property tax revenues would be less than your expenditures. We do not levy the full amount for
special assessment debt. It's just a small portion of our special assessment debt.
Mayor Mancino: Yeah, but we do have five bonds that we're still levying for special assessment debt.
Pam Snell: But that is not our total special assessment debt.
Mayor Mancino: No. But it is the part that we've levying taxpayers for so that part on the special
assessment debt, if we could include that.
Pam Snell: Okay.
Mayor Mancino: And we are levying again taxpayers for the park referendum money. So if we could see
those two numbers to be included, I think it would show us the whole snapshot that is city levy. Okay,
thank you. May I have a motion please?
Councilman Senn: I move to continue to the 28th at 9:00 a.m.
Mayor Mancino: I'll second that.
Councilman Senn moved, Mayor Mancino seconded to continue the adoption of the proposed 1999
budget to December 28, 1998 at 9:00 a.m. All voted in favor and the motion carried.
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
35
Special City Council Meeting - December 21, 1998
Acting City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
36