03 City Council Min 2-28-05 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting February 28, 2005 Page 3 seven items that he felt would help the City’s financials: I.Privatize selected city activities or services II.Reduce size of city staff III.Change benefit design for employee group health insurance program IV.Improve city purchasing procedures and practices V.Stop charitable donations VI.Reduce operating inefficiencies VII.Reduce financing cost Going into more detail of his proposal, Tony stated the following: Privatization - I don’t think the City should say absolutely we are going prioritize, but we need to receive proposals and bids and carefully analyze those to compare what is now being spent versus what private contractors would do these services for. You then could assess whether or not it is to our advantage. Staff Reductions - In 1983, city financed positions were 242. In the current budget, we have 347 positions. That is better than a 43% increase in persons on the city staff. I am proposing a level of 291, which is still a little better than 20% increase above that 1983 level. It is more moderate in comparison to the population increase. Group Health Insurance for Employees - Our insurance trust fund is in deficit some $680,000.00. We started a new insurance program the first of last May. Nine months into this program, we can project this insurance year we will exceed the anticipated costs by slightly over $500,000.00. Having looked at the financials, we do not have an extra $500,000.00. Purchasing Procedures - There can be significant savings by pooling purchasing and purchasing in volume. Stop Charitable Donations - I do not believe tax payer dollars should be given to any organization. Reduce Operating Inefficiencies - This city is a good sized water supply corporation and we sell a lot of water. Between the point of production and the metered to the customer number, we have unaccounted for water loss. Everyone has some of that, but that percentage needs to be a small, reasonable number. The way to do that most effectively is to do meter testing programs, meter replacement programs and proper sizing of meters.