Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutBudget Advisory Commission - 10/06/2011 APPROVED MINUTES BUDGET ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2011 6:00 P.M., CITY CENTER 8080 Mitchell Road EDEN PRAIRIE, MN COMMISSION MEMBERS: Chair Rick King; Vice-Chair Jon Muilenburg Commissioners: Annette Agner, Eapen Chacko, Dan Funk, Michael Morris, Chris Nylander and Student Representative Charles Adams CITY STAFF: Sue Kotchevar, Finance Manager; Tammy Wilson, Finance Supervisor; Carol Pelzel, Recorder I. ROLL CALL/CALL THE MEETING TO ORDER Vice-Chair Muilenburg called the meeting to order to 6:05 p.m. Chair King, Commissioners Agner and Nylander were absent. II. MINUTES A. BAC MEETING HELD THURSDAY,AUGUST 4, 2011 MOTION: Chacko moved, seconded by Funk, to approve the minutes of the August 4 meeting as published. Motion carried 3-0. III. UTILITY BILLS A. OUTSOURCING OF BILL PRINT 1. Feedback of New Bill Wilson explained staff is seeking feedback from the Commission on the City's utility bill. She provided the Commission with background on a proposed new bill explaining the City did a Request for Quote (RFQ) for the printing and mailing of utility bills. This RFQ was done with eight other cities with the hope of getting a better quote than if they went out individually. They do have the option to choose a vendor individually. Wilson reviewed why the City went out for this RFQ explaining the City is a member of LOGIS along with 20 other cities. This vendor provides the City with an on-line utility billing application and in 2008 LOGIS looked at stopping the service of printing the bills. At that time Robbinsdale and Eden Prairie talked about doing a joint RFQ. Robbinsdale contacted the other member cities to see if they wanted to be in the process and Eden Prairie created the RFQ. Wilson further explained the City bills approximately 800 commercial Budget Advisory Commission Minutes October 6, 2011 Page 2 accounts monthly, 600 irrigation accounts monthly May through October and 18,000 residential accounts quarterly. Every month they bill approximately 6,000 customers because of the three quarters of billing for residential. Wilson explained the process used in preparing and mailing the bills. Wilson further explained the RFQ was sent out September 26 to 17 vendors and they have since heard back from a majority of them. None of the vendors were located in Eden Prairie. Wilson said this process will allow them to change the layout of their existing bill. She asked for feedback from this Commission on the City's bill and if there is anything they would like changed. Wilson asked if they should consider printing a color bill or if they should stay with the black and white bill. They could use paper stock that has some color on it rather than print the bill in color. She also questioned if they want to add additional information to the back of the bill such as rates, etc. In response to a question from Funk, Wilson explained LOGIS will no longer print the bills for the City. Staff did do a cost analysis for printing the bills in-house but will have to wait to see what the vendors' quotes are before they can complete that analysis. Funk asked if there is an option to not receive a paper bill today. Wilson said there is an option for on-line payment which they will be discussing later in the agenda. Funk said when he receives his bill he wants to be able to see what his year-over-year bill is. If a graph showing this can be added to the bill without an additional cost he would like to see that added. This would allow him to look at last summer's bills and compare it to this summer's bills especially based on the tiered billing. Funk said with the City's environmental initiative, he suggested they list the City's website link on the bill. This could be added in the message section. Wilson said during the summer they do include something about odd and even day watering and this information could also be added in the message section. Funk asked if there is a direct connection with the City's campaign on the 20-14-15 Initiative regarding water. Kotchevar explained water was not included in this initiative,just electric. Funk said they may want to consider including information on water restrictions and things residents can do to be environmentally friendly in using water in the message area. With regard to printing the bills in color, Funk said it would be nice and would add to the bill but not necessary and even if they used colored paper stock there would be additional cost for that paper. Muilenburg suggested they use the message section to call out additional information available on the City's website and encourage people to go to that website. This would cut down on printing the actual information that is also available on the website. Funk asked if it would be possible to list the tier structure in the description which would include the rate and bracket or direct the customer to a website where that information would be listed. He said if they only add a graphic showing year-over- year usage that in itself would be extremely helpful. Muilenburg said they could Budget Advisory Commission Minutes October 6, 2011 Page 3 include some of the environmental consequences as well and it may alert people to do some things that are not normal to them. Kotchevar asked if the Commission feels it would be worthwhile to print the bill in color. Chacko said he did not feel it is necessary to print it in color and Muilenburg said color would not enhance the bill that much. Funk said if staff gets common questions that pertain to the same subject they could direct the customer to the City's website that addresses those common questions. If there are two or three common questions they may want to address those questions in the message area for a particular billing cycle. B. BACKGROUND ON ON-LINE PAYMENT 1. Promoting On-Line Payment Wilson reported in 2009 the City was one of the first cities on the LOGIS system to implement the on-line utility billing system. Currently, there are two other cities using this system and there is a long waiting list for other cities to implement the program. (Commissioner Morris arrived at 6:25 p.m. during discussion of this item.) Wilson explained the on-line system allows the customer to develop graphs, compare usage with other people on their street, other customers in their billing cycle or everyone in the entire City. This system also graphs consumption for the year and shows the customer how their water consumption has changed. Wilson said the vendor for this application is the same vendor who currently does the City's utility billing and uses a Pay Pal account. Wilson reviewed with the Commission how the on-line system works. Muilenburg asked if the customer is still mailed a bill. Wilson said they are not. Originally the customer was given the option of having a bill mailed but the intent was to save money by using the on-line system so now the bill is only sent electronically. Wilson explained when the bill is generated the customer receives an e-mail telling them their bill is ready to be viewed. Once they sign up they can look at all of their bills from the date they signed up. Muilenburg asked if any analysis has been done by the City on the cost savings for using this service. Wilson said there has not been an analysis done but they know how much they pay for postage and printing and they could come up with a figure but at this time they cannot say what the true savings has been. Funk asked if there is a charge for on-line account maintenance. Wilson answered the on-line service does not cost the City anything because they are currently using the same vendor for the utility bills. Funk also asked if the City ever offered an incentive to have people sign up for this service. Kotchevar explained staff had talked about offering an incentive but did not move forward with that. Funk said another method to encourage residents to sign up would be to promote it through Face book or e-mail. Budget Advisory Commission Minutes October 6, 2011 Page 4 Chacko asked what the benefit would be to signing up for the on-line bill. Funk said the customer would never have to handle a bill or send paper. Wilson said information inserted in the mailed bills would now be included on-line. Also, if the customer has a water leak they can go to the appropriate page and report that leak on-line. Funk said the on-line system would save money for printing and mailing the bill and if everyone signed up the City would save money. Wilson said that is correct but they are not sure of the exact cost which would include paper,postage, stuffing, staff time, etc. This system would also allow the customer to receive their bill faster. Kotchevar pointed out they have 20 percent participation for the on-line bill and this is a good industry standard. The City would like it to be higher and it sounds like they need to work on awareness. Morris said it seems there are a lot of advantages to signing up and people would be interested in those advantages such as being able to determine if they are using more or less water for a certain period of time. Wilson said some people put other values on this service such as saving a tree. Morris said the way they craft the message may be dependent on getting additional customers to sign up for this service. Kotchevar asked if it would be worthwhile to try and incent people to sign up and questioned if they should use money as an incentive since the customer could sign up one month and then drop out the next month. Muilenburg said they could probably double participation by messaging and he suggested they try that first. Morris suggested they put this information on the bill. Funk said he believes the best time to do this is when people are receiving the paper bill. He said he also likes the idea of promoting this through e-mail. IV. FEEDBACK ON FINANCE QUARTERLY REPORT Kotchevar reviewed the City's Quarterly Financial Report and explained its audience includes the City Council, City Directors and City Manager. She said the challenge is determining how much of this document is being read and used. Funk said one thing he noticed as he reviewed the document was the lack of an aggregate summary. He questioned if there is a way to pull together the information into one simple spot where the reader could see the variances and then the reader could decide if they wanted additional information from there. Funk said he almost had to go through the entire document to understand what is happening and suggested staff include a summary chart or an executive summary including graphics that provides the reader an overview of everything. Morris said he agrees staff should incorporate graphics for a quick visual. Chacko said there should be a story of the report pulling information out. He said they cannot tell if the information is correct because they may not be reading the statements correctly. Chacko said he would like to see some basic message that states the City is on budget or funds have been overspent. The report needs to include an assessment of the data. Budget Advisory Commission Minutes October 6, 2011 Page 5 Morris asked if there is a reason for not including more historical data in this document. Kotchevar explained the purpose of the report is to provide the readers with year-to-date information because it is done quarterly. Morris said he would like to see more historical information from two or three years ago identifying trends. However, that may not be of value to anyone else. Chacko said the report addresses building permit revenue projecting a 20 percent increase over 2010 but the narrative in the report indicates a decrease in building permit revenue. He said it would be nice to know the rationale behind this and that information should be included in the report. Chacko said with regard to the water fund, it would be nice to know why water usage decreased and if the higher rates were in effect for most of that quarter. Kotchevar reported the higher rates were in effect from April to June and usage was down because of the wet summer. Chacko said this information should be added as a comment in the report. Wilson explained the report being discussed is the June report and they won't see changes in the water revenue because of the new rates until October or November. Chacko said in looking at Page 7 of the report, General Fund Expenditures, he went back and looked at the General Fund and Revenue Funds to budget. Chacko suggested a schedule tying revenues, expenditures and changes in sources together. Kotchevar said staff will call out any glaring differences or items that need explanation. Muilenburg said he would like to see items that are significantly over budget called out along with an explanation as to why the item is over budget. Morris asked if it would make sense to pull all of the reports together into one statement showing the City operating in the black or at a loss. Kotchevar said that would not make sense because of the different basis of accounting. There could be some consolidation of statements that use the same basis of accounting. Chacko said he would like to see Pages 8 and 9 addressing the CIP be combined into one page. These pages show the funds available, the significant projects and the balances and he would like to see all of that information combined. Also, on Page 15 he asked that the word"bem" be changed to"berm". V. ADJOURNMENT The next meeting of the Commission will be held on November 3. Kotchevar reported the Council was very pleased with the Commission's report and is interested in taking the next steps in looking at a franchise fee. Staff will pull together some proposed rates for Centerpoint and Xcel and will also develop a process and communications plan. Kotchevar indicated that by the time they go through the process the earliest time for implementing a franchise fee would probably be June of next year. Kotchevar explained she is working with the City Manager and City Council to determine what they would like this Commission to work on next. Vice-Chair Muilenburg adjourned the meeting at 7:05 p.m.