THE CITY OF KENT, OHIO FINANCE COMMITTEE WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015

Transcription

1 THE CITY OF KENT, OHIO FINANCE COMMITTEE WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015 This meeting of the Finance Committee of Kent City Council was called to order at 7:19 p.m. on Wed., May 6, 2015 by Wayne Wilson, Chair. PRESENT: ALSO PRESENT: MR. AMRHEIN, MR. DeLEONE, MR. FERRARA, MR. KUHAR, MS. LONG, MS. SHAFFER, MR. SIDOTI, MS. WALLACH, AND MR. WILSON J. FIALA, MAYOR & PRESIDENT OF COUNCIL; D. RULLER, CITY MANAGER; J. SILVER, LAW DIRECTOR; J. IDONE, DIR. OF PARKS & REC.; D. COFFEE, DIR. OF BUD. & FIN.; G. ROBERTS, SERVICE DIRECTOR; J. BOWLING, CITY ENGINEER; AND L. JORDAN, CLERK OF COUNCIL Chair Wilson said the issue of additional monies for street repairs would be moved on the agenda, and would be discussed prior to the discussion on amendments for the 2015 appropriations. Chair Wilson said the first item dealt with the renewal of two levies for the Parks & Recreation Department. Dave Ruller, City Manager, explained that John Idone, Director of Parks and Recreation, has decided on requesting renewal levies be placed on the ballot. Mr. Idone said these two levies represent 45% of their tax base or one-third of the budget. He said the last levies were ten-year levies, and now they are asking for continuous levies. Mr. Idone said this would stabilize their funding source. Ms. Wallach asked if they would be placed on the ballot, and Mr. Idone said that is correct. Ms. Long asked if there is any way they can be combined into one continuing levy, and Mr. Idone said it is his understanding that when they are combined, they are no longer a renewal and become a new tax levy. Jim Silver, Law Director, agreed. He said they can renew it as is, or ask for a new levy for the combined total. Mr. Idone said there is no advantage gained to combining them. Mayor Fiala asked what the millage was for each, and Mr. Idone said they are 1.0 mills and.43 mills. Ms. Shaffer asked if they fail as continuous levies, if there is a Plan B, and Mr. Idone said they have one more opportunity the following May without a loss of funds. Mr. Ferrara asked if the City had any levies on the ballot, and Dave Coffee, Dir. of Budget & Finance, said they have the West Side Fire Station renewal also that they will bring forward in June. There were no further questions or audience comments. MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE RENEWAL OF TWO LEVIES FOR PARKS AND RECREATION AS CONTINUOUS LEVIES. Motion made by Mr. Ferrara, seconded by Mr. Sidoti, and carried by a voice vote of 8-0-1, with Mr. Wilson abstaining. Chair Wilson said they will next discuss additional monies for street repair at this time. Mr. Ruller said this is a priority on all levels, including Council s level. He said it was referred to the Administration to see if they could look at their monies and see if there are ways to get the needed work done. He said finding the right fit was not easy, adding that a lot of work went into the proposal. Mr.

2 Ruller said that Council has previously allocated an extra $250,000 each year for the last three years, and that still has not been enough. He said they had a hard winter with greater needs. Mr. Ruller said that Jim Bowling, City Engineer, has worked with Gene Roberts, Service Director, on a combined proposal. He said they would like to go full throttle to get caught up with the existing potholes using City crews and overtime. Mr. Ruller said that Mr. Bowling has identified certain streets that need to be done by a contractor. He said there is a third piece that will come up for discussion in the capital budget discussions later in the summer. He said it would be ways to increase the annual allocation. He said this discussion is for their immediate needs to catch them up. Mr. Bowling said his department has worked with the Central Maintenance and the Service Department to come up with the best strategy to supplement what they are doing. He said they are already fixing potholes. Mr. Bowling said ten streets are listed for pavement repairs, while five are listed for milling and resurfacing. He said this still has not been enough to address certain areas that are bad or those they receive calls on a regular basis. He said one component of the proposal would be overtime and material costs for a crew of six to work ten hour days, six days a week. He said they would work on potholes, water main break repairs, and other repairs. He said there are also four or five streets that are considered hot spots that are well beyond what the City crews can fix well, but they were unable to get them into the street program. He said it breaks out to $277,000 for material and labor, with $340,000 for the contract to do the five streets. Mr. Bowling said they are requesting an additional $620,000 for street maintenance and repair. Mr. Ruller said that Mr. Coffee is recommending they take the monies out of the undesignated fund balance, and asked him to address that balance at this time. Mr. Coffee said their year end unencumbered undesignated balance was $11,026, He said that within that number, Fund 301, Capital, had $2.677 million. He said they are projecting a year end balance to be $2 million, after the additional $343,000 is used for the street repair. Mr. Kuhar asked if part of the funds are for the pothole machine, and Mr. Bowling said that was not part of the money. Mr. Kuhar asked if that was something different, and Mr. Bowling said that was correct. Mr. Kuhar said a good chunk of the request was for overtime, and asked if they could incorporate temporary help with their experienced help. Mr. Bowling deferred to Gene Roberts, Service Director, at this time. Mr. Kuhar said they are using three of their high skilled, high paid people on overtime, compared to the possibility of one trained person and two temps, adding that is a lot of difference in the money. Mr. Roberts said to get a temporary worker with experience is on par with the amount they spend on overtime. He said they would also have problems with their contract with AFSCME to bring in temporary help to do bargaining unit work. Mr. Kuhar said he had no further questions, but did not like the answer. Ms. Shaffer asked if they are taking the monies out of the undesignated fund balances, and Mr. Coffee said they would be, adding they have reserve balances in both the Capital fund 301 and SCMR fund 102. He said they would have to appropriate the monies. Ms. Shaffer asked why they cannot work with the Ohio Job & Family Services to get some summer youth employment. She said they would be paid by OJFS and they would be doing an apprenticeship program. Ms. Shaffer said they would reduce overtime and help the youth, along with helping them develop skills. Mr. Roberts referred to the second part of his first answer to Mr. Kuhar. He said their AFSCME contract does not allow them to bring in people. He said one exception was when they had the academic sports group partnered with the high school students. He said this was disbanded because of the window they could work. Mr. Roberts said staff would do all of the mowing until June, and would be back at it in August. He reminded them they came to Council, reducing the staff for service workers, and increased it with laborers at a lower pay. Mr. Roberts said they also partnered with Mr. Idone who hires two seasonal employees. Ms. Shaffer asked if they can explore some type of arrangement. She said she has been writing grants for JFS in other counties, adding that OJFS pays them and assumes the liability. Mr. Roberts said they

3 tried this once and it was not successful. He said they can explore it. Ms. Shaffer said these are perfect jobs to teach and increase skills. Ms. Shaffer asked about the sidewalks, adding that while they are putting money into their streets, they have a lot of deteriorated sidewalks. She asked if there is any additional funding for sidewalks, and Mr. Bowling said there is nothing that references an annual street and sidewalk program. He said what they have is the Summit Street project that will replace pavement and sidewalks. He said their street program is one large street this year. Mr. Bowling said with the new money, they will repair the concrete while doing the street, including sidewalks, like on Whitehall Blvd. He said some other streets, like Tallmadge and the VFW Parkway are uncurbed with no concrete to repair. Mr. Bowling said the other streets (Orchard, Elno, and Park) are already listed in the program, and do have concrete that will be done. Ms. Shaffer said it appears that one additional street has sidewalks being done. Mr. DeLeone said their entire allocation for streets and sidewalks was going to Summit Street. He said the money they are discussing is in addition to that money, and will repair the concrete and aprons also. Mr. Bowling agreed. Ms. Shaffer noted they would repair the concrete for those particular streets only, and Mr. DeLeone said it is better than nothing. He said it is $620,000 more going into the street program. Mr. Bowling said if they were not doing Summit Street as an improvement project, they would be resurfacing it this year and it would be expensive. Mr. DeLeone noted they planned this three or four years earlier, and knew there would be no street program. Mr. Sidoti asked whether West Main Street, to the Stow border, is the State s responsibility, and Mr. Bowling said ODOT paved it from West Main Street at the Stow border to Longmere Drive. He said it is not on their schedule for surfacing. Mr. Sidoti said there are a lot of potholes, and Mr. Bowling said those potholes were filled by their Central Maintenance department earlier in the day. Mr. Sidoti said when they had student workers, they needed supervisors. He said they would need someone responsible for supervising them. Mr. Roberts said the last year they were used, they had seven students with two supervisors. He said those seven did the mowing now being done by two people for a few thousand more. Mr. Sidoti said they could not do it without supervisors willing to give up their time, and Mr. Roberts said they were onsite working for six weeks. He said the City provided all of the equipment and the vehicle, and the adult had to be insurable. Mr. Sidoti said that people will be ecstatic about getting this work done. He said getting the information out is important. Mr. Sidoti said the average person does not know about Summit Street, but they do know they are tripping over potholes. He questioned how they get this information out, and Mr. Ruller said they will continue to do what they try to do. He said it is on his blog and in the newspaper. He said they talk about it at the City Manager s breakfast. Mr. Ruller said they do the best they can to talk it up. Mr. Ruller said it is amazing how the news does not get around, adding they will keep working on it. Mr. Sidoti commended the Administration. He said they were challenged by Council and came up with a great plan. Mr. Sidoti said the visibility of the crews will speak for itself. Mr. Bowling said he has been getting calls from some hot spot neighborhoods, adding they wanted to know about the meeting. He said they are keeping their neighborhoods in touch. Mr. Bowling concluded they must be happy, as they are not present at the meeting. Ms. Wallach said they discussed sidewalks before, and dedicated $50,000 for sidewalks every other year. She said it is being gobbled up by the huge projects they are doing. Ms. Wallach said if the people are frustrated, they can repair them and get reimbursed 50%. Mr. Bowling said that is not quite how it is done. He said they are reimbursed only if the City has the work done, adding nothing allows them to do the work. Mr. Bowling said he and Mr. Ruller have had discussions about this, adding it almost disincentivizes the people. Mr. Wilson noted that if it is done under the sidewalk program, they get a better price. He said if a city tree pushes up the sidewalk, the City pays the full cost. Ms. Wallach said they do not go out to individual blocks that are pushed up by trees and replace

4 sidewalks. Mr. Bowling disagreed. He said there were years when they have a street program, they carve out a small portion to do areas where they have some sidewalk problems in an area that does not have a program coming soon. He said when they get a complaint, they do one or two blocks. He said if the drive aprons are bad, they do those also. Mr. Bowling said they do it about every other year or every three year s, when there is a typical street program. Mr. Bowling said they need money to crack seal streets or chip/seal streets, preventing larger investment dollars later. Mr. Ferrara said they could fix them, previously, with assessments and Mr. Bowling agreed. Mr. Ferrara asked at what point that stopped and Mr. Bowling said they did not stop. He asked if it is feasible if people want the sidewalks fixed, and Mr. Bowling said that most people lose interest when they mention assessments. Mr. Ferrara said it can go on their tax duplicates. Mr. Ferrara asked how many years they can spread it over, and Mr. Wilson said the Council determines the number of years. Mr. Bowling said they mentioned it to people on Park Avenue last summer, and they did not want to be assessed. Ms. Long suggested with the education they talked about regarding how the money is spent and with what they put in the paper, they should also mention the assessment. Ms. Long said some will not want to pay an assessment, but others may be willing to do so. She said it is about education. Mr. Kuhar said he thought the question was asked whether people could do their own sidewalks, and that Mr. Bowling said they cannot do the sidewalks themselves. He asked Mr. Bowling if they can hire a contractor to replace the sidewalk, and Mr. Bowling said they can do them, but there is no reimbursement. He said if the City does it as part of their program for owner-occupied properties, they reimburse the homeowner 50%. He said they do 100% for low income. Mr. Kuhar said anyone can hire a contractor and replace the sidewalk, and Mr. Bowling agreed, adding it is their responsibility to maintain the sidewalk. Mr. Kuhar noted it would have to meet the City standards, and Mr. Bowling agreed. Ms. Wallach said the City would oversight the repair, and Mr. Bowling said that is correct, adding the oversight is fairly minimal. Mr. Sidoti asked the width of most sidewalks, and Mr. Bowling said they are usually four feet. Mr. SIdoti said with the average 100-foot frontage, it would be 400 square feet. He asked if he chose to do his sidewalk, whether it could be assessed, and Mr. Bowling said it could be only if they are petitioned. He said if the City is petitioned, they would run the program. He said the City would front the money and bill the property owners. There were no further questions or audience comments at this time. MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR STREET REPAIR AS PRESENTED. Motion made by Ms. Shaffer, seconded by Mr. DeLeone, and carried by a voice vote of 8-0-1, with Mr. Wilson abstaining. Chair Wilson said the final item deal with amendments to the 2015 appropriations. Mr. Coffee requested authorization of the appropriation amendments in his memo to the City Manager on April 29 with a few revisions. Mr. Coffee said the first revision was for Fund 106, Parks and Recreation. He said the amount listed included $375,000 for the land acquisition in April and should not have been included. Mr. Coffee said that will lower it to a total request of $65,000. Mr. Coffee said the other revision is the street repair program that they just authorized. He said they would be increasing SCMR, Fund 102, for a total of approximately $277,000 for wages and materials. He said it would also increase Fund 301 by $343,540 for the contracted work. There were no questions or audience comments. MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE 2015 APPROPRIATIONS. Motion made by Mr. Ferrara, seconded by Mr. DeLeone, and carried by a voice vote of 8-0-1, with Mr. Wilson abstaining.

5 Hearing no further business before this Committee, Chair Wilson adjourned this meeting at 7:55 p.m. Linda M. Jordan, Clerk of Council ACTION RECOMMENDED AT THIS MEETING: 1) TO AUTHORIZE TWO LEVIES AS CONTINUOUS RENEWAL LEVIES FOR THE PARKS & RECREATION DEPARTMENT 2) TO AUTHORIZE THE ADDITIONAL MONIES AS PROPOSED FOR STREET REPAIRS & PAVING. 3) TO AUTHORIZE THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE 2015 APPROPRIATIONS