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Minutes August 16, 2004CITY OF DENTON CITY COUNCIL MINUTES August 16, 2004 After determining that a quorum was present, the City Council convened in a Special Called Work Session on Monday, August 16, 2004 at 7:30 a.m. in the City Council Work Session Room at City Hall. PRESENT: Mayor Brock; Mayor Pro Tem McNeill; Council Members Kamp, Montgomery, Mulroy, Redmon and Thomson. ABSENT: None 1. The Council received a report, held a discussion, and gave staff direction regarding the 2004-2005 Budget and the 2004-2009 Capital Improvement Program, including a draft charge to the special citizens advisory committee. Mayor Brock suggested a listing by Council on what was felt to be the remaining outstanding unresolved budget issues. She felt that the major issues included the debt service fi:om the 1996 drainage bonds and whether to transfer that back to the general fund budget; utility transfers in general; police funding; cutback in library and parks hours; and park maintenance. Council Member Mulroy requested a citywide table of organizational labor costs. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill noted that sales tax collections would be over budget by the end of the year. Council Member Mulroy questioned the deferral of the payment for general insurance f~om last year's budget to this year's budget. City Manager Conduff stated that that was an intentional decision based on the economy at the time. Past councils had held the line on tax increases and deferred certain payments. Council discussed the philosophy of deferring payments from a prior year to the next year and having to meet those costs in a future budget. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill stated that if property taxes were not raised to the proposed rate, items that would not be funded included the opening of the Emily Fowler Library, aA of the cost of the health insurance increase, and a reduction in social services funding. He questioned how those items could be prioritized, as those three items were not ones to cut. The citizens had voted for those items and now they needed to pay for them. He was not sure that Council was asking for enough of a tax increase. Council Member Mulroy agreed that 3 cents might not be enough based on everything that needed to be done. Council discussed the cost of adding two new police officers, the philosophy of the vehicle take home policy and whether that policy was still affordable. Council Member Mulroy and Mayor Pro Tern McNeill suggested that the vehicle take home policy be examined to determine if the total number of vehicles was too large for the philosophy. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 16, 2004 Page 2 Council Member Montgomery felt it was a utilization factor as expensive pieces of equipment were only being used 50 hours a week at most. The City was paying for vehicles whether they were being used or not and he questioned if the City was getting the full value for the cost of the vehicle. Mayor Brock stated that another philosophical discussion was the fact that the 2000 bond election had scheduled to add an additional cent to fund bond programs but the Council at that time did not want to add that increase and raise taxes. The voters had authorized the additional increase but it had not been added. Council Member Mulroy felt it was not honest to keep taxes artificially low and then next year again have to try and keep up. Council discussed the proposed tax rate, the rollback tax rate and the effective tax rate. A street maintenance fee was also discussed relative to assisting with future C1P funding. Council expressed the negative effects of a rollback election and how services would be severely affected if a rollback election were successful. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill asked if the proposed 3% salary increase for employees was an across the board increase or merit increase. City Manager Conduff replied that it would be an across the board increase as a merit increase typically had a minimum and maximum increase associated with it and with a 3% increase the numbers would be very small. Council Member Thomson stated that public safety was an important issue and he was committed to putting on more police officers. He was not sure that the function of a city was to fund social services and would be in favor of reducing the amount of funding to social services in order to help with the budget. He liked the idea of $1 per person per population for funding of social services. Council Member Redmon agreed and felt that the City had a large number of nonprofit organizations that could pick up the funding for social services. Additional police officers could be hired if funding were reduced to social services. A proposal was made to reduce social services by 33% that would provide $98,330 for the budget and to reduce the budgeting for social services by one third for next three years in order to have the funding level percentage at $1 per person per population. Council discussion on the proposed reduction in social services funding included the consequences for such a reduction, the fact that Denton was much higher in fund'mg for social services than many area cities, and a concern that a higher level of funding was attracting individuals to Denton for these services. Consensus of the Council was to reduce the social services fund'mg by 1/3 across the board with first priority for the recaptured funds going to public safety. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 16, 2004 Page 3 Council Member Mulroy indicated that his budget priorities would be to add one cent fi.om the prior approved bond package for public safety; restore the library and recreation center hours; incrementally restore the maintenance of the parks to an acceptable level; and empower the City Manager to find additional %% funding for an incentive based work environment. Mayor Brock indicated that she would like to keep the tax rate under $.60. Mayor Pro Tern McNeill indicated that he would like to keep the increase at $.05. City Manager Conduff stated that staff understood the Council's priorities and would keep the tax increase at $.05 to accomplish what was needed to be done. Staff would also work to find a ½ cent in the budget to go with 3% proposed employee increase that would be implemented through merit increases. Consensus of the Council was to address street maintenance in the budget but with no figures at this time. Council Member Redmon questioned if a CIP would still be viable given the $.05 tax increase. Consensus of the Council was to continue with the CIP process. Council discussed the drainage issue relative to the 1996 drainage bonds and placement of the debt. Council Member Mulroy listed his concerns as: Changes in the drainage structure were presented at City Council and Public Utilities Board meefmgs. The PUB had three tunes voiced strong concerns on how the issue was being handled. He felt the issues had not been fully presented to community and that it created a new tax for general government money. Charging ROI and a fi.anchise fee for a drainage fee was not correct. The drainage fee was not paying for new projects - it was paying back old debt. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill stated that ROI was not a separate line item for drainage and asked if it was a part of wastewater. City Manager Conduit stated that it was budgeted under wastewater. Council Member Montgomery stated that if correct, how could the situation be rectified. He felt that the City could inform the citizens that this needed to be corrected and staff needed to show how to get back on track. Mayor Pro Tem McNeill stated that from a procedural standpoint, a prior Council had voted to make that change, and whether right or wrong, it was a legal action. The current Council had the ability to change it back. City of Denton City Council Minutes August 16, 2004 Page 4 Council discussed the pros and cons of charging ROI and franchise fees on drainage. Consensus of the Council was to continue to very seriously examine the issue as soon as possible and get more information on the issue. Council then discussed the CIP program and the draft charge to the Advisory Committee, suggesting a few word changes to the charge. 2. The Council considered, discussed and debriefed outcomes on various local issues discussed at the Council Retreat of July 22 and 23, 2004 including without limitation: streets; planning, zoning, and development issues, including urban density, downtown projects, gas well drilling, and residential development; economic development; customer service; government efficiency and operating procedures; public safety issues; utility budgeting and transfers; workplace diversity; local environmental issues including code enforcement and green building standards; transportation; and statewide issues like school funding and Council operating procedures. Council reviewed the list of action items from the council retreat and made suggestions/changes to the list. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:45 a.m. EULINE BROCK MAYOR CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS JENNIFER WALTERS CITY SECRETARY CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS