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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBudget Advisory Commission - 03/30/2010 APPROVED MINUTES BUDGET ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010 6:00 P.M., CITY CENTER 8080 Mitchell Road EDEN PRAIRIE, MN COMMISSION MEMBERS: Chair Don Uram, Vice-Chair Rick King; Commissioners: Annette Agner, Eapen Chacko, Jon Muilenburg, Richard Proops, Gwen Schultz CITY STAFF: Sue Kotchevar, Finance Manager; Scott Neal, City Manager; Tammy Wilson, Finance Supervisor; Angie Perschnick, Recorder I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Uram called the meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. Commissioner Schultz was not able to attend the meeting, and Commissioner Agner arrived at 6:05 p.m. Uram requested approval of the agenda; King moved and Chacko seconded approval of the agenda without changes. The agenda was approved 5-0). II. MINUTES A. BAC MEETING HELD TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd, 2010 MOTION: Chacko moved and Muilenburg seconded to approve the minutes from the February 23rd meeting. The minutes were approved 5-0. III. 2009 FINANCIAL RESULTS Kotchevar explained the financial results from 2009. Overall the results were better than expected with net results of$160,000 positive versus $1,250,000 negative. The Community Center is performing better than budgeted. Liquor sales increased approximately 4%, and the profit on these sales was about$1 million (roughly the same as in recent years). The City does not receive good information from the county regarding which companies or residences paid their delinquent taxes, so Kotchevar could not specify who paid the extra delinquent tax revenue. The yearend quarterly reports will be available in the next few weeks for first quarter 2010. IV. PREPARE FOR JOINT CITY COUNCIL AND BAC WORKSHOP APRIL 20Tx Uram noted that he will not be at the April 20d' meeting with the City Council, and King will be absent from the meeting also. Scott Neal suggested that the BAC members who will attend could present different topics and share leadership of the meeting. Neal clarified that the City Council's schedule is busy enough that it would be very difficult to try rescheduling the meeting. Budget Advisory Commission Minutes March 30, 2010 Page 2 Kotchevar suggested the BAC prioritize its work list and discuss the list with the City Council since some items will most likely need to be pushed back to other years. Proops said he would like to see more detail added into the draft of the Possible Agenda Items document, including what the BAC plans to do for each item. Chacko mentioned clarifying the BAC's approach (a high level focus), and he noted there is a lot of information included in the drafted Agenda Items document. BAC members discussed whether the BAC could be useful in the categorization and prioritization of core vs. non-core City government activities. Muilenburg asked what the BAC's role could be in reviewing the work since much of it has already been done. King suggested the BAC could use the core vs. non-core services concept as a way to look at the CIP and operating budget(to see where capital goes—the amount and percent to core vs. non-core services). King added that the BAC could review the special projects and recommend which might be the most important ones to do. Proops stated he would like for the BAC to talk about specific problems and dollar amounts instead of general concepts. He requested that the BAC prioritize six to eight items the group would like to look at more closely. Neal mentioned that the utility rate study would be a good opportunity for the BAC to provide input since public policy decisions will be made in the next few months based on the results of the study. Uram said the BAC could review and make recommendations on the CIP and budget regarding whether funds seemed to be allocated appropriately for core vs. non-core services. Since the City already has the topics on a schedule, Uram noted the BAC may not need to prioritize the funding of the core and non-core areas. King added the City Council has placed items into core vs. non-core service categories since this is a policy decision. The BAC can review the projects already scheduled and add comments on those. Scott Neal added topics his staff is interested in to the list, and he gave a degree of difficulty or time commitment involved for each topic: Internal Service Funds —2 credit class, Fleet& Assessing —3 credits, Local PSAP—5 credits, Ambulance service (PSA) — 4 credits, Customer Service standards —3 credits, and City comparisons —2 credits. Neal noted Hennepin County will complete a study about countywide dispatch service to see if it would save money for some cities. In 2012, the window will reopen for cities to apply to join the HCDC; Eden Prairie police and fire say the service levels are much lower with the county model. The City improved its own dispatch center for$1.8 million fairly recently, but many counties currently use centralized dispatch. Muilenburg recommended tabling the issue of centralized dispatch until 2011 since the opportunity to join Hennepin County would not happen until 2012. The City of Eden Prairie does its own assessing so it can have its own style of assessing. There are extra services provided, and City leaders will need to decide on the value of these extra services in a tougher economy. Chacko asked if data crunching could be done by the county (centralized) and the customer service interface could continue to be Budget Advisory Commission Minutes March 30, 2010 Page 3 handled by the City. Muilenburg noted that there are economies of scale for the county to provide these services since the City needs to overstaff for peaks in demand. Muilenburg thought the storm pond issue was interesting but wondered if it could be pushed to a different year. Proops stated he does not think the BAC has a role in this issue. King wondered if there might be an opportunity for the BAC to become involved in studying the Community Center to see if subsidies could become unnecessary for its operations at an earlier date than originally planned. The BAC could look at the most and least utilized services and possibly recommend cutting underutilized services or expanding those services that get the most bang for the buck. King noted he would rather pose a question to departments about the City Center and ask for numbers to review with the staff at a meeting. Neal added,by City Council policy, some Parks and Recreation programs and services are subsidized. The City uses a cost recovery expectation model for its parks and recreation program, so some classes are profitable and others recover some percentage of their costs but not all. The cost recovery expectation model is used to determine whether to hold or cancel a planned class. Muilenburg stated he'd like to look into fleet services. King said he would like to know more about the two basic options for these services (keeping them in house and reducing costs, or outsourcing). City staff could explain these alternatives in more detail. Proops expressed concern that the incentive to do things more cost effectively may not be there for some departments. King responded the consensus among the majority of BAC members was to look at more of a high level overview of topics rather than digging into details with staff regarding how their jobs are done. Chacko wondered if the BAC could provide input for the options the City may want to consider for financing the MPCA-mandated storm pond cleanup. Scott Neal agreed the City has a lot of discretion in the decisions surrounding funding that project. After additional discussion, the BAC decided to include most but not all of the topics listed on the Potential Agenda Items document. Neal will prepare a memo detailing the topics the BAC proposed to review this year prior to its workshop with the City Council. Neal said the City Council may assist in reordering the priority of the topics chosen by the BAC. For the presentation, Muilenburg would prefer a high level overview with much of the detail removed. Neal stated he would write up a synopsis for each topic for the City Council to review before the workshop. V. ADJOURNMENT The meeting ended at approximately 7:58 p.m. King moved and Uram seconded the motion to adjourn.