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HomeMy Public PortalAbout2019.05.24 Special Council MinutesMINUTES McCall City Council Special Meeting McCall City Hall -- Legion Hall May 24, 2019 Call to Order and Roll Call Work Session Adjournment CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Mayor Aymon called the special meeting of the McCall City Council to order at 9:00 a.m. Mayor Aymon, Council Member Giles, Council Member Nielsen, and Council Member Sowers all answered roll call. Council Member Holmes was absent. City staff members present were Anette Spickard, City Manager; Shay Tyler, Deputy Clerk; Erin Greaves, Communications Manager; Linda Stokes, City Treasurer; Michelle Groenevelt, Community Development Director; Meg Lojek, Library Director; Chris Curtain, Information Systems Manager; Traci Malvich, Human Resources Manager; Nathan Stewart, Public Works Director; Amanda Payne, Local Option Tax Administrator Also, in attendance were Cami Hedges and Tabitha Martineau, Local Option Tax Commission APPROVE THE AGENDA Council Member Giles moved to approve the agenda as submitted. Council Member Sowers seconded the motion. In a voice vote all members voted aye and the motion carried. BUDGET WORK SESSION Purpose & Agenda City Treasurer Linda Stokes shared the purpose of the work session and briefly went over the FY20 Budget Development process. Public Comment Mayor Aymon called for public comment at 9:04 a.m. Hearing no comments, Mayor Aymon closed the comment period at 9:04 a.m. Local Option Tax Commission Local Option Tax (LOT) Administrator Amanda Payne reported on the online application process. She shared there were 51 applications received with one who did not make the deadline for a total of $1.2 million in requested dollars. MCCALL CITY COUNCIL May 24, 2019 Special Meeting Page 1 of 4 Cami Hedges, LOT Commission Chair, presented the FY20 funding recommendations. She gave the rationale for who received funds, the reason for the amount allotted, and the priority ranking going through each funded application. She explained why some of the applications were not funded. Council Member Sowers asked about assets purchased with these funds if the charity closes soon after. City Manager Anette Spickard will bring this up with the City Attorney of how this should be addressed. The suggestion was made to use the same model applied to grant funding. Council Member Nielsen disclosed he works for an entity that has been recommended to receive funds. The Council discussed the LOT applications. Each Council Member present believed housing should be at the top of the list for funding. Council Member Nielsen had some concerns regarding the Park and Thompson Streets sidewalk/bike path project. Public Works Director Nathan Stewart explained the issues with Park/Thompson Street. Street improvements are about 10 years down the list but due to safety issues with pedestrians, the need to add sidewalks and a bike lane is important to do now. The sidewalk/bike way project will be in two parts with the second portion to be delayed until next year due to costs. These funds will only be for the sidewalk and bike lane portion as the street paving is being taken care of through other funding. The importance of keeping this street area in good working order is due to increased traffic from those avoiding Railroad Ave. Council Member Nielsen would like to see staff look at routing the bike lane through the Public Works property and avoid taking it over the hill. If approved, staff will add the alternate path option during the engineering phase to present at a later date. Tabitha Martineau, Local Option Tax Commission, would like to see a finalized report of the completion reports turned in each year. Also, she was concerned about the library funding taking away from smaller requests. Library Director Meg Lojek clarified some erroneous information floating around about the library funding and shared the scheduled timeline for construction. The Council shared their priorities. Mayor Aymon would like to fully fund the housing, has issue with the snowmobiler's trail grooming, and wants to revisit the library funding. Council Member Nielsen will be absent at next meeting so gave his recommendations. He would like to move the Park Street into contingency and move the housing up. Council Member Sowers would like to lower the snowmobiler's funding to $20,000 and to see work force housing continue to be top priority. He would like to look at how funds are being used and still has some issue with the durable goods requests. His suggestion was to move some of Park Streets funding to the Library. Council Member Giles will present his priorities at the next meeting. Review of Draft CIP Information Systems Manager Chris Curtain presented the Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) process and shared how the process has become much smoother since its inception. Currently, 18 new or revised projects have been called out. Public Works Director Nathan Stewart answered questions about snow gates and the need for a new lease as the piece of equipment has failed. He explained that the new snow gate will allow the staff to service more areas throughout town and MCCALL CITY COUNCIL Page 2 of 4 May 24, 2019 Special Meeting gives the capacity to provide better service overall. Staff answered questions about various projects. Council Member Sowers left the meeting 10:26 a.m. There was some discussion on the Civic Campus Plan. Treasure Valley Transit (TVT) is scheduled to revitalize their new campus location next to City Hall in 2020, driven by their Federal funding requirements, thus the importance of the civic campus design focus. Part of the City's agreement with TVT was to move the generator to a new location to accommodate the new roadway between the buildings. Staff addressed the City's responsibilities regarding TVT, entrance location issues, and construction bonds. The Council recessed for a short break at 10:40 a.m. Council Member Sowers rejoined the meeting at 10:42 a.m. Council reconvened the meeting at 10:52 a.m. Review of Personnel Costs and Benefit Plan Proposals Human Resource Manager Traci Malvich presented the review of personnel cost and benefit proposals. She shared the proposal of a 2% Market / 3% Merit increases, the small PERSI increase, five percent (5%) increase for medical, five percent (5%) increase for dental, and fifteen percent (15%) increase for vision. She was very impressed with III -A at the meeting she attended. III -A suggested cities to budget for trend increases which is about 7% in medical currently but it is estimated to be less than that. She went over the estimated cost for any changes to Council benefits due to any changes created by the upcoming Council Member election. Council feedback was to keep the 2% Market / 3% Merit increases. Property Taxes City Treasurer Linda Stokes presented the property tax numbers and went over the levy rates and values. She discussed the 3% maximum allowable increase of $181,340 which is at the discretion of the Council of how much to take but not to exceed the maximum allowable amount. She shared the foregone amount is at $400,772. The Council shared their thoughts on what direction they want to take. Council Member Sowers would like to wait until there is a base budget without the increases before addressing taking any increases. Mayor Aymon would like to take the 3% as there is much to be accomplished around the City but does not like to use foregone unless there is an emergency. Basically, set the bar high but adjust down if the need is not there. Council Member Nielsen would like to build the budget without the 3% but is open to using it if it needed. Council Member Giles is open to trying a different method of a base without the increase but does not have any issue with taking the 3% as there so many CIP projects needing attention. He would prefer to build in the increase for flexibility as it can always be adjusted down. MCCALL CITY COUNCIL Page 3 of 4 May 24, 2019 Special Meeting City Manager Spickard talked about openness with the public and explained how the Council can set up the housing to be a required funding piece with LOT. Staff answered questions about housing strategies and talked about how a housing fund would put the City in a position to purchase land. Mayor Aymon suggested dedicating the 3% tax increase specifically to housing and would like to know what is needed to land bank property. City Treasurer Stokes pointed out the foregone could be applied for housing, one time only, but it would need to be clearly stated in the resolution. City Council Budget Priority Discussion Staff and Council discussed a variety of concerns and projects for priority including sidewalks, streets, flooding issues, testing the market for consulting services such as legal, accounting, engineering, etc. to see if they are competitive, and funding the water system and other CIP items to keep those projects moving forward. There was discussion about street project scheduling and the LOT Street 10-year plan and the Highway 55 swap. Staff would need to get costs prior to having the discussion with Idaho Transportation Department about a swap but even so this project would still be on a 5-10-year time frame. FY20 Budget Development Next Steps The tentative budget work sessions and public hearing are listed below: • Council LOT Work Session on June 13 Regular Meeting • Council Work Session on June 28, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. • Council Work Session on July 26, 9:00 a.m. to TBD (set a tentative budget) • Council Work Session on July 29 (if needed) • FY20 Budget Public Hearing on August 08, 05:30 p.m. • FY20 Foregone Public Hearing on August 08, 05:30 p.m. if needed • FY20 Budget Adoption on August 08 or August 22 ADJOURNMENT Without further business, Mayor Aymon adjourned the meeting at 12:09 p.m. owowuu,y� -*: Sz, :S= ATTEST: % • - -`-4 • > T. n BessieJo Wa -% r, City C MCCALL CITY COUNCIL May 24, 2019 Special Meeting Page 4 of 4