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09 City Council (7/28/2003)MINUTES OF SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL July 28, 2003 The City Council of the City of Paris met in a special session, July 28, 2003, 6:00 P. M. at Paris Junior College, Applied Technology Building, Room 1206, 2400 Clarksville Street, Paris, Texas. Mayor Curtis Fendley called the meeting to order with the following Council Members present: Jim Bell, Jay Guest, Willie Weekly, and Benny Plata. Also present were City Manager Michael E. Malone, City Attorney Larry W. Schenk, and City Clerk Mattie Cunningham. Resolution No. 2003-123, approving and authorizing the execution of a Sub- recipient Agreement with Texas Engineering Extension service (TEEX) under the State Homeland Security Grant Program; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Bell, seconded by Councilman Weekly, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 5 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-124, accepting the Texas Automobile Theft Prevention Grant entitled "Northeast Texas Automobile Theft Task Force, No. SA-TO l- 10062-04, for the period beginning September l, 2003, and ending August 3 l, 2004, in the amount of $155,689.00, with $52,528.00 to be provided by the City of Paris in the form of cash and $19,700.00 in the form of in-kind services, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Bell, seconded by Councilman Guest, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 5 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-125, authorizing the submission of a grant application to the Texas Historical Commission to receive a Texas Preservation Trust Fund Grant to partially fund the completion of an updated Historic Resource Survey of the City of Paris; authorizing and conditioning the expenditure of funds; accepting said grant award upon notice thereof; authorizing the execution of any and all documents necessary for acceptance and implementation of said grant upon notice thereof; making other findings and provisions related to the subject; and declaring an effective date, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Guest, seconded by Councilman Plata, for approval of the Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 2 resolution. The motion carried 5 ayes, 0 nays. Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy entered the Council Chambers and assumed his seat at the council table. Mayor Fendley announced that the next item on the agenda was a workshop discussion of fiscal year 2003-2004 Budget-related issues: Scheduling for presentation and review of the City Manager's Proposed Budget. City Manager Malone advised that they are attempting to get the budget out a few weeks earlier this year. He said they have all the information from the departments and are putting that into the computer and he expects to present the budget on Thursday, August 7, 2003. The City Manager said they needed to talk about what time that meeting is going to be held because there is going to be another event honoring Bobby R. Walters, President of Paris Junior College, who is retiring. City Manager Malone advised that they had furnished the City Council with a summary of budget and tax rate deadlines and they can see August 7, 2003, is shown to be the date to submit the budget to the City Council at the regular city council meeting. At the same meeting, they will give notice of subsequent meetings to vote on the tax increase and authorize preparation of an ordinance setting the tax rate. He said that there are various other dates listed. The last date to adopt the budget is September 26, 2003. The City Manager said the City Charter sets out in detail how the presentation of the budget is to be made and the format that is to be used. City Manager Malone said they would like some input from the City Council as to how they would like to schedule workshops. He requested that the City Council suggest dates to schedule workshops, if they were inclined to have workshops. He advised that they were open to any input that the Council would like to give in terms of what they would like to see included in the budget. City Manager Malone said they were putting in things that are being brought to their attention and they would certainly be able to amend it at any point during these workshops. Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 3 City Manager Malone said that one item that he would like to ask the City Council about at this early date is the fact that the city has not received any requests from other organizations for contributions. There is a line item in the City Council's budget for contributions to the various service organizations such as NETCADA, Children's Advocacy Center, Lamar County Human Resource Council, and Keep Paris Beautiful. The total for the line item for these contributions and the contribution to the Health Department will be $157,049.00. Since other organizations might come forward during the budget process, the City Manager requested guidance from the City Council as to this amount. City Manager Malone advised that they need to be making reservations for the TML trip if the City Council desires to attend that conference and participate in that event. They normally send all of the Council Members who want to participate. Also, out of the same budget, there is funding for the Think Child Safety booth and the employees to go to that as a separate line item outside of the EMS budget. That group is normally comprised of employees from the EMS, Police, and Fire Departments. This is public relations that the city does each year at TML. City Manager Malone asked the City Council to let them know if it is their wish to attend this conference because they have to make reservations in advance. He said part of that is paid out of the present budget, and part is paid out of next year's budget. That entire trip cost is approximately $11,000.00. The City Manager advised that the dates were November 21 through the 22, 2003. Mayor Fendley told the City Council that they have the tax rate deadlines that were provided to everyone, but that does not address any workshops they would want to have. Heretofore, the Council has met weekly and gone over the department's budgets, or just the summaries. City Manager Malone advised that different councils have done this in several different ways. He said they have been going through the budget, in recent years, line item by line item and scheduling meetings every night at least four nights a week for about two to three hours a meeting. There has been as many as 9 to 11 meetings on the Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 4 budget going through it that way. In recent years, they have had the department heads come up and go through their budgets and allowed the City Council to ask questions about their budgets. So, it is basically as much information as the Council asks for or as little as they want. It was the consensus of the City Council to not go through the budget line item by line item. Mayor Fendley asked Councilman Plata and Councilman Weekly if they would like to address issues like payrolls, large items of capital improvements, or expenditures that are over a certain amount. City Manager Malone advised that they can call the Council's attention to submit the changes in line items in a particular department and make notes in advance about that. City Manager Malone advised that the budget will be presented to the Council on August 7, 2003, if everything goes according to plan. The City Manager said if there is a particular item that the Council wanted additional information on, staff can have it ready for them. Mayor Fendley asked the Council if they wanted to wait and see the summary on August 7, 2003, and decide if there is any particular department they would like to look at in more detail. Councilman Bell said it would really be nice if the city would come forward with a balanced budget with no tax increase and, yet, give the Council what they are concerned about like the increase in salaries for personnel, and have it all worked out that way without having to have all these discussions. It was the consensus of the City Council to look at it. City Manager Malone stated that they have been asked to do that and there would be no cost of living increase at all if we presented a budget such as they have suggested. Mayor Fendley said they do need to address that and he felt that this is something that needs to be done because they have gone without a cost of living raise for two years. On a question from Mayor Fendley regarding the amount that has been placed in the budget for an employee raise, City Manager Malone said one suggestion was 5% across the board cost of living increase based on the fact that they had not covered that in two years. City Manager Malone advised that he also calculated it at 3.42 which is the CPI for the past 24-month period. City Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 5 Manager Malone asked for direction as to which one the City Council would like submitted. Councilman Bell asked if he had a calculated figure for what each 1% increase across the board amounts to in dollars and cents. The City Manager advised that he did not have that at this time unless the Director of Finance could do a quick calculation on that. Gene Anderson, Director of Finance, advised that they have not pulled those numbers together, but could give that number by August 7, 2003. City Manager Malone advised the City Council that most of the department heads have presented a very lean budget similar to what they had last year. He informed Council that he has elected to place an additional firefighter back into the Fire Department budget that was eliminated in the present budget. He explained that this would restore the minimum number of employees as recommended by a Citizen / Council Committee several years ago that agreed that the city was going to have a four-station setup. In order to effectively implement the use of that system, the city needs to include that position back into the budget and that will be his recommendation. The City Manager advised that there are grants running out in the Police Department and he wanted to keep those programs going and they are going to receive some income from the schools, but the grants will only fund one and one-half police officers. So, in effect, the proposed budget will be adding one and one-half police officers, one firefighter and one part-time employee for personnel. Councilman Plata said he thought that the last Council voted to cut six firemen through attrition. City Manager Malone said that is correct, but that was not upon his recommendation and the budget that will be presented will be his proposed budget. He said this Council will have the opportunity to have input and they can cut that person out, cut five more out, add, or do whatever they want to. Councilman Guest asked Mr. Anderson what percent of payroll is the benefit package. Mr. Anderson advised that it varies by employee but he estimated it to be 30%-35%. Mr. Anderson explained that we were self-insured and that Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 6 claims are substantially up as we have had a bad couple of years on health insurance claims that were not budgeted. He advised that he has been working, trying to come up with some numbers to make a recommendation on ways to save money on that. He advised that it is funded partially by the city and part by the employees, and approximately 80% to 90% is funded by the city. It depends on what package the employee has. City Attorney Schenk advised that he needed to know two things because his office generates the schedule. He said there is a dinner for Bobby Walters at 7:00 P.M. on August 7th which is the regular meeting night for Planning and Zoning matters. Planning & Zoning has already mailed letters indicating that the public hearings would be at 6:00 P.M. If City Council wants to discuss budget items, he suggests that they begin the meeting earlier than 6:00 P.M. and then discuss Planning and Zoning matters at 6:00 P.M. After discussion, it was the consensus that they start the meeting at 4:30 P. M. City Attorney Schenk said the way this is currently arranged is the first public hearing on the proposed budget is August 25, 2003. He further advised that the Council can have meetings after the public hearing. He just wanted to make the Council aware of their options with regard to how much they wanted to go through and into the budget so if they could identify changes they would like to make. They can have those changes identified and presented at the formal public hearing on the August 25, 2003. Mayor Fendley suggested waiting until August 7, 2003, to set those meetings and public hearings, but it could be placed on the agenda for August 11, 2003. Councilman Plata said what he is hearing from Mr. Malone is that if any cost of living increase is given there will be a tax increase. City Manager Malone advised that the city just received the tax roll today, so, he did not want to make any predictions, but based on the facts that they have been presented, there will not be a tax increase. He said, if Councilman Plata would remember, the budget he presented did not include a tax increase. The Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 7 tax increase was a result of the selling of bonds to pay for the police station. Mr. Malone advised that he had been presenting budgets on that basis for several years in a row. The City Manager advised that he did not see revenue growing any great deal and it is a significant amount to give any kind of cost of living increase. He is assuming, and he may be totally wrong about this because he did not have the tax roll and all the figures compiled at this point, but he was assuming if there is any kind of cost of living increase, it would probably require a tax increase, or other things would have to be cut from the budget. Councilman Plata said he remembers the city having a 5% increase for the Police Station, and then they went 3% over. Mr. Anderson came forward stating that the tax rate is at 69.5 cents and it was 61 cents and 5% of that was for the 2002 Bond Issue, and the balance of it, as he recalled, was to make up for the revenue shortfall in the sales tax and some of those franchise fees. Councilman Plata said that Chip Harper said the city was actually better than staff had predicated. Mr. Anderson advised that he did not know where he got that number but it does not coincide with any numbers that he has and he did not feel like standing up in a public meeting and questioning it, but those numbers did not match up with any percentage by looking at the city's actual income numbers. The City Manager said he was incorrect as he recalls the statement. Councilman Plata said that Erik Roddy of PEDC also said that. City Manager Malone said he was incorrect also. Mr. Anderson explained that the PEDC's mistake was that he did not take into account the fact that there was an audit adjustment for the previous year which reduced that artificially so it looked like it was a big increase. He said the actual net increase over the previous year has been running about a percent and a half to 2% collection increase over last year. Councilman Guest stated that it looks like they have two challenges. One is to give pay increases to the employees and the other one is not to increase the tax rate. If he is reading the Texas Municipal League correctly, the city is in the top 10% of the state tax rate now, and wanted to know if that was correct. Mr. Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 8 Anderson said he had not checked that. Mr. Anderson reminded the City Council that is a real number, but it can be misleading if you do not know what the associated taxable value is. He said that someone that has a taxable value that is significantly more than the City of Paris can raise more money on a lower tax rate. You have to consider the rate and the taxable value together to get a true picture. Mayor Fendley called for a report from Kent Klinkerman, Director of the EMS, regarding projected cost of the ambulance contract with Lamar County for 2003-2004. Mr. Klinkerman came forward giving the City Council a handout containing figures for the EMS Contract estimate for the year ending September 30, 2004. Mr. Klinkerman said, as the City Council could see by his handout, the personnel cost is a combined cost of the EMS, Dispatchers, and Rescue personnel. The balance of the categories applies to the technical equipment, medical expense, audit and capital equipment comes straight from the EMS budget for a subtotal of $2,204,131.00. He said there is a 6.5% Administrative Fee of $143,269.00 for another subtotal of $2,347,400.00. Mr. Klinkerman said they were projecting collections of $1,600,000.00 with a net cost of $747,400.00 and 40%, of that was for Lamar County's share of the net cost which would be $298,960.00, or $24,913.00 per month. Mr. Klinkerman directed Council's attention to the second page, which is the history of the contract for the past 13 years, noting that historically they typically bring in more revenue than what the proj ection is; thereby, upon the settle-up, they rebate back to the county. There being no further business, a motion was made by Councilman McCarthy, seconded by Councilman Weekly, to adjourn. The motion carried 6 ayes, 0 nays. Regular City Council Meeting July 28 , 2003 Page 9 CURTIS FENDLEY, MAYOR ATTEST: MATTIE CUNNINGHAM, CITY CLERK