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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes-03/07/2011March 7, 2011 The Council of the City of Waterloo, Iowa, met in Regular Session at City Hall Council Chambers, Waterloo, Iowa, at 5:30 p.m., on Monday, March 7, 2011. Mayor Ernest G. Clark in the Chair. Roll Call: Cole, Getty, Jones, Greenwood, Schmitt, Welper, Hart. Moment of Silence. Pledge of Allegiance: Larry Smith, Superintendent of Waste Management Services. 136020 - Hart/Schmitt that the Agenda, as proposed, for the Regular Session on Monday, March 7, 2011, at 5:30 p.m., be accepted and approved. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136021 - Hart/Schmitt that the Minutes, as proposed, for the Regular Session on Monday, February 28, 2011, at 5:30 p.m., be accepted and approved. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. Mayor Clark read a Proclamation declaring March 12-20, 2011 as World's Greatest Spring Break for Kids Week. CONSENT AGENDA 136022 - Hart/Schmitt that the following items on the consent agenda be received, placed on file and approved: a. Resolutions to approve the following: 1. Resolution approving Schedule AP642, pp. 1-72, dated March 7, 2011, in the amount of $811,572.48, a copy of which is on file in the City Clerk's office, together with recommendation of approval of the Finance Committee. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-144. 2. Request of Iowa Heartland Habitat For Humanity for tax exemptions on improvements totaling $80,000.00 for property located at 726 Willow Street and located in the Consolidated Urban Revitalization Area -Submitted by Shane Graham, Planner II. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-145. b. Motion to approve the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. Travel Requests Name & Title of Personnel Class/Meeting Destination Date(s) Amount not to Exceed Nancy Gulick, Community Development Coordinator National Healthy Homes Conference Denver, Colorado June 19- 24, 2011 $2,385.00 Captain's Tim Pillack and Joe Leibold FBI National Academy Association Training Conference Des Moines, Iowa April 20-22, 2011 $446.00 Luke Even, Forestry Foreman Minnesota Shade Tree Short Course Arden Hills, Minnesota March 15-16, 2011 $355.00 Eric Thorson, City Engineer American Public Works Association 2011 Mid- America Conference and Exhibit Show Overland Park, Kansas May 18- 20, 2011 $532.00 March 7, 2011 Page 2 Beer License Permit Application Class B 5. Iry Warren Memorial Golf Course, 1000 Fletcher Avenue 3/31/12) (Includes Sunday Sales) 6. South Hills Golf Course, 1830 E. Shaulis Road (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) Beer License Permit Application Class C 7. Hometown Foods, 1010 E. Mitchell Avenue (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) 8. New Star Liquor, 1309 Lafayette Street (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) 9. Sycamore Convenience, 617-619 Sycamore Street (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) Liquor License Permit Application Class E 11.Hometown Foods, 1010 E. Mitchell (Includes Sunday Sales) 12.New Star Liquor, 1309 Lafayette (Includes Sunday Sales) 13.Sycamore Convenience, 617-619 Sycamore (Renewal) (Expires (Expires 3/31/12) (Expires 3/9/12) (Expires 4/15/12) (Expires 3/11/12) Avenue (Renewal) (Expires 3/9/12) Street (Renewal) (Expires 4/15/12) Street (Renewal) (Expires 3/11/12) (Includes Sunday Sales) Liquor License Permit Application Class C 14.Big Daddy's House of Booze, 2000 Hawthorne Avenue (New) (Expires 2/28/12) Wine License Permit Application Class B 15.Hometown Foods, 1010 E. Mitchell Avenue (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) 16.New Star Liquor, 1309 Lafayette Street (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) 17.Sycamore Convenience, 617-619 Sycamore Street (Renewal) (Includes Sunday Sales) Outdoor Service Area Application 18.Iry Warren Memorial Golf Course, 1000 Fletcher 19.South Hills Golf Course, 1830 E. Shaulis Road Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. PUBLIC HEARINGS 136023 - Schmitt/Welper Avenue (Expires 3/9/12) (Expires 4/15/12) (Expires 3/11/12) that proof of publication of notice of public hearing on request of Roger and Hope Knebel for the sale and conveyance of city -owned property generally located 261 Cottage Grove for $6,251.00, as published in the Waterloo Courier on February 25, 2011, be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136024 - This being the time and place of public hearing, the Mayor called for written and oral objections and there were none. Schmitt/Welper that the hearing be closed. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136025 - Schmitt/Welper that "Resolution authorizing said sale and conveyance, and authorize City Attorney to prepare and deliver deed accordingly on the request of Roger and Hope Knebel for the sale and conveyance of city -owned property generally located 261 Cottage Grove for $6,251.00", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-146. 136026 - Greenwood/Schmitt that proof of publication of notice of public hearing on Purchase of One (1) 2011 Rear Load Garbage Truck, as published in the Waterloo Courier on February 22, 2011, be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. March 7, 2011 Page 3 136027 - This being the time and place of public hearing, the Mayor called for written and oral objections. Greenwood/Schmitt that the hearing be closed. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136028 - Greenwood/Schmitt that "Resolution confirming approval of specifications, bid document, etc. in conjunction with Purchase of One (1) 2011 Rear Load Garbage Truck", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-147. 136029 - Greenwood/Schmitt that "Resolution authorizing to proceed in conjunction with Purchase of One (1) 2011 Rear Load Garbage Truck", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-148. 136030 - Greenwood/Schmitt to receive, file and instruct City Clerk to open and read bids and refer to Superintendent of Central Garage for review: Bidder Bid Amount Harrison Truck Centers PO Box 1708 Waterloo, IA 50704 $129,884.00 Truck Country of Cedar Rapids 700 29th Avenue SW Cedar Rapids, IA 52404 $118,758.00 Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136031 - Getty/Hart that proof of publication of notice of public hearing on F.Y. 2011 River Renaissance Upper Plaza, Contract No. 808, as published in the Waterloo Courier on February 22, 2011, be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136032 - This being the time and place of public hearing, the Mayor called for written and oral objections and there were none. Getty/Hart that the hearing be closed. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136033 - Getty/Hart that "Resolution confirming approval of plans, specifications, form of contract, etc. in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 River Renaissance Upper Plaza, Contract No. 808", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-149. 136034 - Getty/Hart that "Resolution ordering construction in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 River Renaissance Upper Plaza, Contract No. 808", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-150. March 7, 2011 136035 - Getty/Hart Page 4 to receive, file and instruct City Clerk to open and read bids and refer to City Engineer for review: Bidder Bid Bond Bid Amount Chosen Valley Testing 550 Hwy 18E Clear Lake, IA 50428 None $3,878,281.87 Prairie Construction Co., Inc. PO Box 626 Waterloo, IA 50704 5percent $1,569,800.00 Peters Construction Corporation 901 Black Hawk Rd. PO Box 2940 Waterloo, IA 50704 5percent $1,514,212.00 Tricon Construction Group 2245 Kerper Blvd Suite 2 Dubuque, IA 52001 5percent $1,794,000.00 Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136036 - Welper/Hart that proof of publication of notice of public hearing on F.Y. 2011 Asphalt Overlay Program, Contract No. 796, as published in the Waterloo Courier on February 25, 2011, be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136037 - This being the time and place of public hearing, the Mayor called for written and oral objections and there were none. Welper/Hart that the hearing be closed. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136038 - Welper/Hart that "Resolution confirming approval of plans, specifications, form of contract, etc. in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Asphalt Overlay Program, Contract No. 796", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-151. 136039 - Welper/Hart that "Resolution ordering construction in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Asphalt Overlay Program, Contract No. 796", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-152. 136040 - Welper/Hart to receive, file and instruct City Clerk to open and read bids and refer to City Engineer for review: Bidder Bid Bond Bid Amount Aspro, Inc. 3613 Texas Street PO Box 2620 Waterloo, IA 50704 5percent $3,878,281.87 Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. RESOLUTIONS 136041 - Schmitt/Welper that "Resolution approving a Cooperative Agreement with Iowa Civil Rights Commission to ensure an efficient, effective and coordinated State -Local civil rights enforcement partnership for Fiscal Year 2011; and authorize Mayor to execute said document -Submitted by Abraham L. Funchess, Human Rights Executive Director", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-153. March 7, 2011 Page 5 136042 - Schmitt/Welper that "Resolution approving First Amendment to Iowa Jobs Program Agreement with Iowa Jobs Board and Iowa Finance Authority $5,000,000.00 from the State of Iowa I -Jobs Program to be used for Grant Award to receive the City of Waterloo Public Works Building; and authorize Mayor to execute said document - Submitted by Mark Rice, Superintendent of Central Garage", be adopted. Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-154. 136043 - Schmitt/Welper Ayes: that "Resolution approving recommendation of award of contract to KWS, Inc. of Cedar Falls, Iowa in the amount of $103,985.00 in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Downtown Wayfinding Signage, Contract No. 783; and authorize Mayor to execute said document -Submitted by Jeff Bales, Associate Engineer", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-155. OTHER COUNCIL BUSINESS 136044 - Hart/Welper to instruct City Engineer to prepare plans, specifications, form of contract, etc. in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Sidewalk Repair Program - Zone 1 And Trail Repairs, Contract No. 804, be received, placed on file and approved. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136045 - Hart/Welper that plans, specifications, form of contract, etc. in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Sidewalk Repair Program - Zone 1 And Trail Repairs, Contract No. 804, be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136046 - Hart/Welper that "Resolution contract, etc. in And Trail Repairs, preliminarily approving plans, specifications, conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Sidewalk Repair Program Contract No. 804", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-156. 136047 - Hart/Welper form of - Zone 1 that "Resolution setting date of hearing and bid opening as March 28, 2011 and instructing City Clerk to publish notice of plans, specifications, form of contract, etc. in conjunction with F.Y. 2011 Sidewalk Repair Program - Zone 1 And Trail Repairs, Contract No. 804", be adopted. Ayes: Seven. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-157. BUDGET HEARING 136048 - Schmitt/Greenwood that proof of publication of notice of public hearing on FYE2012 Budget, as published in the Waterloo Courier on February 17, 2011, be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136049 - This being the time and place of public hearing, the Mayor called for written and oral objections. Michelle Weidner, Chief Financial Officer, we've been trying to balance this budget for at least two months and it is now time to get something set and move on. I do like to talk about the city's mission as we go into this conversation because it is important to remember why we are here and why we are taxing anybody anything. The City's Mission is to effectively and efficiently utilize the various resources of city government in order to help make Waterloo the best possible place to live, work, do business, play and raise a family for all citizens. In order to accomplish that the top strategic priorities as defined by Mayor and Council are: support economic development (jobs, investment, lower taxes); implement Downtown Redevelopment Master Plan; improve housing (variety, quality, cost); improve service delivery; enhance inter -governmental cooperation; collaborate with statewide elected officials to reduce the burden on local property taxes and it would seem that there is a trend to reverse this one right now in Des Moines; address workforce needs (attraction, retention, training); ensure safe neighborhoods; enhance quality of life for our residents March 7, 2011 Page 6 and that will help attract workforce. We accomplish that in the City of Waterloo by using a number of revenue sources: property taxes is just one of them; we also use user fees; licenses and permits; grants; and interest income when we can earn some and that is difficult in today's market. There are restrictions on the use of certain revenues and we need to be accountable for them so you will hear us refer to accounts called funds that we use to track various sources of revenue and expenses. Its both difficult and in some cases illegal to mix those funds. So we do require the revenue expenses separately for them. The general fund is our largest fund that is funded primarily with property taxes. That funds just a review: public safety which includes Police, Fire and Building Inspections; public works which is our MET bus system, parking and things like that; health and social services is our Human Rights Department; culture and recreation would include Leisure Services, Library, Culture & Arts Center, Young Arena; community and economic development of course is our Planning & Zoning and urban renewal activities; and of course general government which would include Mayor, Council, Finance, Facilities Maintenance, and those kinds of things. There's another fund that is funded primarily by property taxes and that is our Debt Service Fund. The revenue is restricted for debt repayment. And we are budgeting total expenditures of $13.5 million for FY2012, $7.8 million of that from property taxes. The city has a number of other funds. Some are funded by user fees such as sewer, storm water, and sanitation. Some are funded by state fuel tax and that's the road use tax fund and those activities would be street maintenance, snow removal, traffic lights, traffic signals and engineering. We also have others that are funded by grants and debt and that would be the Federal Block grant, housing funds and other capital projects. A question we often get is how many employees does the City of Waterloo use to provide services. And excluding some seasonal part-time labor for fiscal 2011 we used 525 full-time public employees to accomplish all the services. And that includes general funds and all of the other funds. We are also asked questions about how property taxes are calculated. This is kind of a complicated three-part process. The County Assessor has the job to set property values for everybody's home or business. The State also has a piece of it. They set something called the rollback factor, which is the percentage of the value that's taxable. Which is two equalization orders which is designed to equalize the values of different categories of property primarily between residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial. And after all of those people do their part they hand us or taxable values. And then cities, counties and school districts all set our portion of the levy rate. So when you get your tax bill it is not all coming to the city. Some important things for FY2012, the State increased the residential roll -back resulting in 48.5299percent of a home's value becoming taxable. So if your home is valued at $100,000.00 if you were to sell it you would get $100,000.00 that's the presumption with the assessed value. But your only going to have to pay taxes on less than half of that at 48.5299percent. That percentage has reduced dramatically since the 1970s. I believe in the 1970s that was as high as 72percent of a home being taxable. So that has taken away our revenue source from cities. The change this year because of the increase in the roll -back for residential shifts more of that property tax burden to residential properties and reduces the burden on commercial and industrial properties. So right out the gate even if we were not going to raise taxes our residential property owners will have to pay 3.45percent more than commercial property will for fiscal 2012. When we add up all of the individual properties within Waterloo this is a chart that shows the growth of our property values. The total assessed evaluation has risen to 3.62 billion. Unfortunately, our taxable is only at 2.15 billion and that's the effect of that roll -back that we are talking about. We also have 150 million that is in special tax increment financing districts. And those are a tool used so that we can develop the infrastructure and get businesses into those tax increment districts. So for fiscal year 2012 we had a 0.76percent new growth in total assessed value and 1.03percent new growth in taxable value. The reason the taxable value is higher is again because of that increase in the roll -back factor. So 43 cents of every property dollar you pay goes to the City of Waterloo, 38 cents is for the Waterloo School District, 15 cents is for Black Hawk County and other agencies (Hawkeye Community College, County Assessor, etc.) that absorb the other 3 cents of that dollar. So you may ask do all of my property taxes pay all of the City's expenses? You might assume yes and its really kind of surprising how much or how little they actually do pay. Property taxes only account for 27 percent of the City's expenses. 15 percent is charges for services, 21 percent from Federal sources (a variety of grants), 11 percent from State and Local funds (road grants and a number of other grants that come through the State), dept proceeds which is our annual bond issue is projected to be at 8 percent this year, 4 percent is TIF revenue, 8 percent is other City taxes (hotel/motel tax, local option tax, gaming tax). Some other things that I'd like to point there because I hear a lot of questions on trying to compare our tax rate to other cities. For example the City of Dubuque uses 50 percent of their local option for general fund property tax relief. So if Waterloo used 50 percent of our local option tax for property tax relief that would be $4.5 million going to the general fund that would reduce the property taxes. On the other hand that would cut in half the amount that we are able to spend on streets every year. So our voters at this point to say we need to dedicate 100 March 7, 2011 Page 7 percent to streets. Some of the other cities our size have a source of revenue that we don't reflect on here at all. That would be things like the utility franchise fee. We don't currently have one on gas and electric. At least Dubuque and Council Bluffs do. And some other larger cities do use that. So that provides them another source for funding those general fund services that we currently do not have access to. Gaming revenue is also used differently in many cities. The City of Waterloo will receive about $1.2 million in fiscal 2012 that goes to the general fund to support general services. Dubuque actually owns some of their racing casino facilities and its millions of dollars that go directly to their general fund. Where most of the revenue from our casino is directed to the Black Hawk Gaming Association and they have made a decision to restrict that to be used primarily to capital projects. So most of that casino revenue, while it is building wonderful projects, it is not supporting our general fund and providing services in keeping our property taxes low for the general fund. So what do we use that money for when we get it? 74 percent of it is used for public safety (police, fire and Building Inspection services). Building Inspections actually returns money so if we did not include them in that category that would probably be 75 percent to Police and Fire. The second largest is our Cultural and Recreation area. 15 percent is dedicated to the Library, all the Leisure Services activities and all the Arts activities. 5 percent is taken by City Administration and facilities maintenance. 1 percent is used for Planning and Economic Development. We do have the Airport on here as part of the 4 percent, although probably for at least five years there have been no tax dollars being budgeted from the general fund for the airport. So while it's counted in a category on the state forms the expenses offset the revenue to zero tax dollars. Parking and Met bus service are all also included in that category. We also have 1 percent for the Human Rights department. That is how your general fund property tax dollars are spent. The types of things that it's spent on, another question I get quite often is how much goes for personnel? And that's about 76 percent of the general fund is used for personnel costs and that's everything including all of the benefits (workers compensation insurance, health insurance, etc.). 14 percent for contracted services (utilities, printing, etc.). Professional and technical costs absorb 7 percent of that. That is where we have to record fuel and other types of expenses like supplies. And 3 percent is used for other types of things. How are our debt service funds used? We've got the break down here: $10,170,000.00 is spent on Bond Principal; $3,128,090.00 is spent on Bond Interest; we have a Federal grant that we use to pay debt on the Ridgeway Towers facility for about $86,364.00 a year so that actually nets to zero. And then it takes about $102,438.00 to administer the debt payments and to handle the new bond issues each year. For the fiscal 2012 budget, very similar to last year, departments were asked to follow the general parameters: personnel staffing levels to remain static, no new programs, try to be conservative on other costs and operating revenues. So generally used a three-year actual average unless we knew there were reasons that that was not a valid figure then we adjusted them. And our goal is always to maintain city services at the lowest possible cost. So the types of increases that we have to deal with for the fiscal 2012 budget: is our largest category is our Personnel because we talked about that's 76 percent of our cost. Most of these costs are defined by contract and we really don't have a lot of discretion with them. We are in the last year of a three-year contract with our bargaining units with pay increases at 3 percent this budget does reduce non -bargaining pay increases to 1 percent. We generally attempt to make those equal and give the non -bargaining the same package that the unions are getting. That is not the case this year. So payroll increases include about $525,207.00 (includes payroll taxes, overtime and other pay -outs). Health insurance, which is the lowest increase we've had in a number of years, that increase is projected at $82,538.00. One thing that's significant about health insurance for the City of Waterloo, had you choose to compare us to other cities across the state, Waterloo pays 100 percent of health coverage for our early retirees. That's people retiring before age 65 and that is unusual. That costs us 79 cents on the tax levy. That is projected to cost about $1.7 million dollars for general fund employees only for fiscal 2012. That's just a difference between us and many other cities. 46 percent of our employees are covered by the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS). Both of our pension systems are experiencing increases that really is primarily due to the national investment market. I know that we've all heard it on TV about how the investment market is not performing the last couple of years. And we're seeing that impact our pension plans now. So the IPERS increase, the State Legislature did pass a 16 percent rate increase to 8.07 percent of payroll. So for the 186 employees that are covered by IPERS we will have to pay an additional $105,602.00 for fiscal 2012. We have a similar situation for the Police and fire pension. They had a 24.42 percent increase in the contribution rate. And that covers 216 employees in the general fund or 54 percent of our general fund employees, just over half. That increase amounts to $732,419.00 for fiscal 2012. And again that rate is set by the pension board. The city has no control over the State over the rate. If we pay employees we have to pay that rate. So the only way to reduce that is to pay fewer employees or pay them less money. Now we also are seeing fewer retirements this year so we were able to reduce the retirement payouts by $92,907.00. So our total personnel increase for fiscal March 7, 2011 Page 8 2012 is $1,352,859.00. Other significant changes that are not related to personnel is the self-funded workers' compensation insurance costs we are projecting to increase at $30,000.00. About four years ago we were not even covering Police and Fire by work comp at all. We are now and we are barely costing the same as what we were paying just for the non-police and fire employees. So that program is working very well for us right now even though as we are on the program longer we do have injuries and do have to fund those. We are also projecting an increase in our liability & property insurance that's expected to be approximately $40,550.00. And it is an election year so we need to budget for elections and we've budgeted $55,000.00 for that. We are also expecting an increase in our data processing expenses because we are going to go thorough a software conversion at about $55,000.00 for that. We will be beginning negotiations on our next contract. We budgeted about $30,000.00 to help pay for that. Utilities citywide are various increases of $25,982.00. We are increasing our legal expense budget by $12,300.00, library materials about $13,300.00 and fuel expense at about $63,210.00 citywide. Which based on the way fuel prices are jumping this week I don't know if that is going to be enough. We hope so but we will have to see how that goes. Our Black Hawk County Consolidated Dispatch Services costs are expected to increase to about $17,829.00. As you probably know a lot of the county and cities merged a number of years ago to try and reduce costs and to provide more efficient services with our dispatch system. So that is primarily personnel costs even though to us it's a contractual cost it's really for the personnel that work in the dispatch center. We are also projecting a 1 percent increase for the MET bus service of $13,197.00. And actually a decrease for the Black Hawk County Emergency Management costs of about $7,823.00. That's because last year, I don't know if you remember, we purchased the Code Red software and now we just have to pay for regular maintenance so that's a little bit lower. All of the other expense changes added to about $37,633.00. So our non-personnel expense changes are $386,178.00 for fiscal 2012. Significant revenue changes: we have increased the sale of property from $50,000.00 to $100,000.00; increased our ambulance fees about $60,000.00; increased cable franchise revenue about $46,160.00; we have reduced various airport fees about $25,000.00; and all of the other revenue changes net to about $28,560.00. So we are increasing our revenue a total of $159,720.00. So to summarize all of those our increase in personnel is $1,352,859.00 and most of that is contractual. It's not new employees or additional. It's to fill our contracts that we already have. All of the other expenses increase about $386,178.00. Our revenue is increasing $159,720.00. We are projecting again to use fund balance and I had recommended 50 percent of the increase we had in fiscal year 2010 and that amount is $229,056.00. So the net increase in the general fund property taxes required to fund all of that would be $1,579,260.00. I know the common question this year has been why doesn't the City find ways to reduce the cost of government? So I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the internal processes that we went through. We did eliminate two department head level positions in this budget. One is the Fire Chief position. You may remember the Public Services Safety Services reorganization. We also are eliminating the Street Superintendent position and consolidating that with another. The projected savings are $84,729.00 for the Street Superintendent and $108,221.00 for the Fire Chief. We did reduce overtime requests by $174,406.00 and part-time by another $21,925.00. One of the tools we often use is try to increase our part-time salaries because we don't pay all the benefits on part-time that we do on full-time. But we were even to the point we are even trying to reduce that now on just shrinking our service. Another administrative policy the Mayor implemented was reducing the number of on-call vehicles driven home. There is very few now and we are projecting that to save about $25,000.00 in fuel costs. So those reductions were all made really prior to presenting the first draft of the budget to council. At that time I had recommended that the choices to reduce taxes below that level they would need to cut programs and we needed councils direction as to what programs they would want to cut. Otherwise we would need a tax increase to continue to support services at the same level. The total net change in our property taxes is the $1,579,260.00 that we just looked at. We need to increase our debt service fund property taxes by about $280,447.00. And the Library special voted Tax Levy increases by $12,708.00 simply because property values increased. That voted levy is just at 27 percent of assessed value. So the net increase in the total property taxes needed from the current fiscal year 2011 is $1,872,415.00. Total property taxes needed to support the budget would be $40,813,154.00. There's an increase of about $1,872,415.00 from the prior year. In terms of total taxes collected that's an increase of 4.81 percent for Waterloo. And just to provide a reference to that I read in the paper that Cedar Falls total collections are going up 4.6 percent, Black Hawk County is only going up 3.6 percent but they do not participate in the Municipal Police and Fire Pension Plan which I think would make a difference to their situation. The proposed levy rate we presented was $18.70991 and unfortunately that results in a residential tax increase of 5.98 percent. While commercial tax would increase 2.44 percent. And again that difference is because the State increased that rollback factor pushing more of the tax burden on to residential properties and away from commercial properties. Why are we projecting to use fund balance in 2012? Well, we have set a target to get to 25 percent of our general fund March 7, 2011 Page 9 revenues and expenditures. We are nearly at 20 percent now, we aren't quite there. And that's one reason we're feeling that we can begin to use some of that fund balance to try to keep taxes a little bit lower. Another common question I get is, haven't my property taxes gone up faster than inflation? Well the interesting thing is when we actually put a pencil to the numbers the median home sales price has nearly doubled in the past 15 years. And that's information that I gleamed from the Courier and provided from the local realtors. The Consumer Price Index has increased 39.4 percent over that same 15 year time period since 1996. Social Security payments, which we all have heard about, have actually increased 36.6 percent over that same time period. And I realize in the past two years there has been zero increase in social security. But for example the third year before that was a 5.8 percent increase so they had a large increase in one year and unfortunately no increase after that. During that same time period, city residential property taxes have increased 34.6 percent. And that's after taking into account that changes in your assessed value. So if your assessed value doubled over the 15 years your taxes still increased 34.6 percent over that period. And I am just going to fly through other funds very quickly. The sewer fund, funded by user fees, we use it to operate and maintain our sanitary sewer collection and treatment facilities. Total expenditures for the sewer fund are budgeted at $16.3 million for fiscal 2012. And that's broken out $7,720,704.00 for plant and system maintenance operations, $4,443,865.00 for debt service for sewer system improvements and $4,000,000.00 in bonds issued for system improvements. System improvements are being imposed on us by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Natural Resources. So we have to do them and we have to pay for them. The storm water fund is also funded by user fees. That's used to operate and maintain the storm water collection system and maintain the flood control system. And I think you've all heard us talking about the new Stormwater regulations that are requiring additional resources for that. Total expenditures for the storm sewer are budgeted at $1.8 million for fiscal 2012. $818,795.00 of that is budgeted for system operations and maintenance, $267,325.00 for street sweeping and $700,000.00 for actual system improvements. We have the garbage fund that is also funded by user fees. Total expenditures are budgeted at $4.0 million for fiscal 2012. $3,236,570.00 of that is for actual garbage and yard waste disposal, recycling and neighborhood clean-ups. $460,000.00 will be used for equipment, primarily a garbage truck. $291,822.00 will fund our code enforcement in the city. We also have the road use tax tund that is funded by your state fuel taxes. Those funds are restricted for use on the streets and right-of-way. We use them to maintain our 430 miles of streets, including snow removal, pothole repair and right-of-way forestry operations. That's how we help pay to maintain and operate our traffic signals and streets lights and provide engineering services for street construction and repair projects. Total expenditures there are projected at $6.9 million for fiscal 2012. They are split out with $1,695,475.00 for snow removal; $1,798,515.00 for street maintenance throughout the rest of the year; $406,000.00 is what it costs to keep all of our street lights on; traffic signals because we switched to LEDs has declined dramatically to $35,000.00; traffic operations costs $1,305,293.00; engineering is at $946,318.00; and we are spending about $580,000.00 on forestry right-of-way operations. We also have our local option tax fund that is funded by the one cent sales tax. That revenue is restricted by the referendum language for reconstructing, repairing and improving nearly 430 miles of streets. We also provide engineering services for that from here. We also have invested $125 million since 1991 to repair and reconstruct them. Total expenditures of $11.5 million are budgeted for fiscal 2012. And you can see that in this fund $10,100,000.00 will go directly to street repair and construction. $751,147.00 will go to our unimproved streets and $600,721.00 for engineering services. Then we also have our community development and housing funds. Those are both funded primarily with federal grants restricted by federal law as to what you can do with them. They are vested in home rehabilitation, including lead-based paint removal. We administer federal rental assistance program and administer the Renew Waterloo Housing program. Total expenditures of $10.7 million are budgeted for these activities for fiscal 2012. You can see here that nearly $3,894,200.00 of that will go directly to housing rehab and construction. $972,233.00 for administration and $81,538.00 for neighborhood services. And then I gave you a little more of a break down on how the housing funds are used. Housing assistance is $4,200,000.00; Ridgeway Towers senior public housing is $270,900.00; we provide down payment assistance of about $597,000.00; and administration of the housing fund takes about $694,500.00. Another major expenditure for the city is our capital projects. Those are funded generally with obligation bonds that we have to repay with the debt service levy. But we also use federal and state grants as well as grants from Black Hawk Gaming Association and anywhere else we can find them. We use those to provide our infrastructure, equipment and facilities. Total expenditures of $44.3 million are planned for fiscal 2012. This shows how we will spend that money. The largest category would be flood mitigation at $15,554,432.00. If you have any other questions I would be happy to answer them. You can always call myself or Mayor Clark. We would be glad to try to help you. I owe a big thanks to the City Council, Mayor Clark, the Finance March 7, 2011 Page 10 Department staff and all of you City departments for their work to develop the budget and for the service they provide to our citizens year-round. Mayor Clark, thank you Michelle. As always a very good presentation and you've gotten quicker at getting through that. Mayor asked if there were any questions for Michelle. Councilperson Cole, could you set the table for people on how many hours of meetings there have been. Mayor Clark, Ms. Cole brings up a good point. Just in speaking of meetings, we've had four budget meetings which many of you have been at. Most of them have been somewhere between 1 to 2 hours looking at the numbers, trying to pair this down as much as possible to get to a levy rate that while is still high it was tolerable. It's been my goal and I have not been bashful about talking about it from the beginning. Every year no budget is easy and we always try to keep it as low as we can. And we have just gone through the process over the last several years of reducing the number of people that we have working for the city. There is very little movement. And I understand in our employee numbers we actually have more than we have had in the past but we have so many more programs now that we are trying to administer with those people. It's been my intent to try and get through this budget without having to layoff anybody or to let anybody go. Also to get through it without having to cut any of the services that we provide to our citizens. Well, not all of you play golf but golf courses are important. Well, some of you don't go to the library that is still important. There are so many things that provide quality of life issues to the City of Waterloo that we just have to maintain. We have to be vibrant; we have to be growing and prosperous. When we start closing things then we are going backwards. So what we tried to do was get to a point that we had at least consensus from some that we had a budget rate that again while higher than we wanted was livable and acceptable while still keeping everything open. So we spent probably 8 to 10 hours with this group talking about how we could get there. For the last two months I doubt that Michelle Weidner has been at work less than 70 to 80 hours a week. She comes in on Saturday's, Sunday's and is here at 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. She has put in a lot of hours so we have a lot to thank you for there. We've done a lot of work on this and to get to the point we have to this number that we are presenting to you tonight there are a lot of reductions already. We cut the requests from the department heads considerably. They'll get it done with what they've got but it's going to be not necessarily easy. We didn't just sit down overnight, throw some dice in the air and come up with some numbers. We put a lot of thought into this and with a lot of thought of the repercussions of both that tax asking and the effect of the police, fire, leisure services, library, and other departments that are effected. Councilperson Schmitt, Michelle that $100,000.00 and some odd dollars that you identified in overtime, was that kind of across the city or was that certain departments? I wasn't familiar where that came from. Ms. Weidner, that would have been included in the budget reductions. One of the printouts that I gave you is mostly police and fire. Because that is where most of the general fund overtime is so that is where that was cut from. Mayor Clark, I will open the public hearings to those of you that would like to speak. We have a timer and I'm going to ask each of you to come forward, step to the microphone, give us your name and your address. And please limit your comments to three minutes. Lawrence Wheeler, 433 Bratnober, from what I've seen in the budget some of the things that you might need to take into consideration on MET Transit bus services. It's been 10 years since they've had a fixed route rate increase. You might consider raising that. Plus also too another thing that's going on in other states and it hasn't happened in Iowa yet. Public libraries are charging fees to use the public access computers. And the thing of it is, is that also too in the past the library has offered free computer classes. We need to get certified instructors because what's going on is social security is going to be trying to kick people off the disability rolls. And the thing of it is most of those people within the disability qualify for Pell Grants and if the instructors at the library for the computer programs or classes can go ahead and have increased revenue from teaching those classes from the Pell Grant or funds. Another thing that would be helpful to the city on cutting down drive time for the police budget is to camera phones are real popular. There is a new stimulus program to Assurance Wireless from people on social security, food stamps, welfare, etc. and the thing of it is that instead of sending an officer out to take a report on a burglary or hit and run or vehicle break in to take their own photos of the damage. Prepare a text message on what was stolen, damaged, etc. for insurance information. And have an IT file or domain where they can file that report without having to send out an officer. Plus it will reduce traffic, cost of enforcement to start putting the red light cameras and the speed March 7, 2011 Page 11 cameras. Matter of fact Cedar Rapids and Iowa City they put out a budget for their predicted budget for their cameras and speed cameras. They make three times more than what they project they were going to make. Mayor Clark, thank you for your comments. They were well thought out and a few of those we will take a look at. Marilyn Dekoster, 215 Lillian Lane, last week I attended the Culture Fest at the Waterloo Center for the Arts. The building was alive with people celebrating the cultures of our community, their music, activity, food and dance. And in addition over 1,000 pieces of student created artwork was put on display for the all school exhibition. The Center is a place where we celebrate creativity within others and ourselves. It is a community place. It is a building that houses experiences and memories. My children remember the times that they spent there in classes, being a part of instruction, junior art gallery exhibits, participating in plays and looking at the wonderful art work on display. Now my grandchildren look forward to trips to the Phelps Youth Pavilion. Memories are ties that help bind our connections and build our connections with our community. The Waterloo Center for the Arts could not be what it is without the wonderful staff that work so hard to provide the valuable experiences found there. They hold themselves to a high standard, care about what they do and those they serve. My grandmother, when confronted by difficult decisions used to describe herself as being caught between a rock and a hard place. This is where we now find ourselves as a community. I'm here to encourage you to continue to support the Waterloo Center for the Arts. Charles C. Peyton, 220 Linwood Avenue, I wonder where they got the social security increased 36.6 percent? I worked until I was 73 years old. 50 years in the packing house. I'm 79 now. And I haven't got a raise in social security in two years and will probably never get another one. What I'm trying to put to you people is that social security isn't going to increase any. And the thing about it is the more you people tax us the less I can afford. When I bought that house in 1991 my taxes were $600.00 a year. When you reevaluated my taxes went up over $545.00 in one year. Now if you keep raising the taxes pretty soon I'm not going to be able to do it. And you people have got to understand that we're living in a person where everything is standing still. We are in a recession yet. When they had cameras in Cedar Rapids now I understand they talked to you people about them. Was there any reason why you didn't put cameras in? That would have brought money into the city. Mayor Clark, the question about the red light cameras we set that aside. There are two or three bills in the legislature right now regarding the legalities and the operations of those cameras. So for the time being we've tabled that issue completely until at least the end of the session to find out what the legislature does about whether or not they are going to be legal, what restrictions are going to be put on them and so forth. While it's something that we're looking at still we haven't decided one way or another. We're not going to address it again until after the session and then we'll take a look at it again. Thank you for bringing those up. Very heartfelt comments and I think we all understand where you are coming from on your social security. You have our ear and our empathy with those issues. Marianne Burk, 375 Derbyshire Road, I am well aware of the difficult decisions facing each of you as you review present needs and future needs of the city and how to pay for them. Joyce Wilder Daniel Rucker Forest Dillavou, 1725 Huntington Rd., Bob Reisinger, Craig Fairbanks Colleen Tourney David Gangler Rucker ? John Sherban Mayor Clark Herb Moore Michelle Weidner Denise Hoskins Celia Simmers Dan Somerhays, Schmitt/Welper that the hearing be closed and oral and written comments be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. 136050 - Getty/Hart March 7, 2011 Page 12 that "Resolution approving said FYE2012 Budget with a total tax levy rate of $18.53336 and total property tax askings of $40,433,154", be adopted. Mr. Welper Mr. Getty Mr. Welper Mr. Getty Mr. Welper Mr. Getty Mr. Welper Mr. Getty Mr. Welper Michelle Weidner Mr. Getty Mr. Welper Michelle Weidner Mr. Welper Michelle Weidner Mr. Schmitt Mr. Greenwood Ayes: Four. Nays: Three (Jones, Schmitt, Welper). Motion carried. Resolution adopted and upon approval by Mayor assigned No. 2011-158. ORAL PRESENTATIONS Lawrence Wheeler, 136051 - Hart/Cole that the above oral comments be received and placed on file. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. ADJOURNMENT 136052 - Hart/Cole that the Council adjourn at 7:32 p.m. Ayes: Seven. Motion carried. Suzy Schares City Clerk