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City Council Minutes 11-26-2012 SpecialMINUTES SPECIAL WORKSHOP — MONTICELLO CITY COUNCIL Monday, November 26, 2012 - 5:30 p.m. Mississippi Room - 505 Walnut Street, Monticello, MN Present: Clint Herbst, Lloyd Hilgart, Tom Perrault, Glen Posusta, Brian Stumpf Absent: None Other: Wayne Oberg, Jeff O'Neill 1. Call to Order Mayor Herbst called the Special Meeting to order at 5:35 p.m. 2. Purpose of Workshop: Review of Final 2013 Budget & Levy Finance Director Wayne Oberg explained that this workshop will be a presentation of the budget and levy that is planned to be presented to Council on December 10t1i. 3. Budget Workshop Presentation and Discussion Wayne Oberg ran a presentation that started out with definitions related to budget policy. He noted the progression of the city's property tax levy over time from 2003 to 2013. He showed a comparison of the levy amounts for the last three years broken down by various funds. The net increase from 2012 to 2013 is .6 %. Monticello Community Center operations are increasing 13.5% and debt shows a decrease for the Community Center. Wayne Oberg showed a comparison between the tax levies that were approved from 2003 to 2013 and the tax levy totals if they would have matched the CPI for those years. Wayne Oberg displayed a graph showing the division of the proposed tax levy for 2013 between General Fund (70 %), Debt Service (26 %) and Monticello Community Center operations (4 %). He also had a graph showing percentages of the tax levy between city (36.2%), county (37.9%), school district (23.3 %) and hospital district (2.6 %). Glen Posusta asked if it was typical to have the city and county levies fairly close. Wayne Oberg will check into that. Next, Wayne Oberg showed the tax capacity rates between 2012 and 2013 comparing city, county, school district and hospital district with the city decreasing 15.1 %. Wayne Oberg talked briefly about the effect from increased tax value for Xcel Energy which had a big impact on the city tax rate. This increase in valuation was mostly due to the CapX power lines. Wayne Oberg provided an explanation of tax impact on homeowners to point out that inflation or deflation does not necessarily cause a change in taxes. Rather it would depend on the amount that the city levies in respect to the amount of valuation on a house. City Council Special Meeting Minutes— November 26, 2012 Page 1 Wayne Oberg went through anticipated revenues and expenditures for the General fiord for 2013 showing a balanced budget at a.6% increase. Glen Posusta asked if the city's reserves are where they should be with this budget. Wayne Oberg said this would create a reserve of around 30% of unrestricted fiord balance. This is slightly below what the city's auditors would probably recommend. Wayne Oberg suggested the City may prefer a higher reserve balance because of the high dependency on property taxes. Brian Stumpf asked why the reserves are dropping compared to prior years. Wayne Oberg explained that there were many interfund loans set up in past years, which are not likely to be paid back. At tonight's regular meeting, Council will be asked to approve a number of operating transfers which will eliminate a number of the interfund loans, which do not have a revenue source to pay them back. Wayne Oberg noted that for 2012, the City is showing revenues ahead of expenditures so we should not show a deficit at the end of the year. For the Monticello Community Center, Wayne Oberg showed the proposed figures for 2013 proposed which recommends increases in various fees to match the amount that is needed to generate the necessary revenue for 77% revenue recovery with eventual goal of 85 %. They are looking at rate increases of 10% in a number of areas to generate $124,000 in community center revenues. Some areas considered for increases are membership and use fees, birthday party rentals, swim lesson fees, meeting room rentals, and concessions. They also cut back about $33,000 in proposed purchases for 2013. These proposals were approved by the Monticello Community Center Advisory Board to make this recommendation to Council. The equipment purchase being proposed at the regular meeting tonight is incorporated into the 2013 budget. Jeff O'Neill explained that the property tax portion allocated to the Monticello Community Center is generally used toward capital while the user charges are balanced against user revenues. Glen Posusta pointed out that the increase in user fees is the first in 6 years. This is a very small cost for taxpayers compared to the savings they have encountered with property taxes. Wayne Oberg noted that the $100,000 anticipated deficit for 2013 will be addressed in the proposed budget and tax levy agenda item on December 10ti'. Wayne Oberg talked about a Capital Equipment Revolving fund that he would like to set up as an internal service fund starting with 2013. He explained that the City is allowed to bond for capital expenditures and pay for those expenses over a 5 to 10 year period of time. He presented a list of possible items totaling slightly over $450,000 which could be incorporated into this new fund and paid for over time. Wayne Oberg explained that each department would then payback the internal service fund for their share of the capital items over a period of time. Glen Posusta stated that this sounds like it would create a situation of automatic spending. Clint Herbst asked Wayne Oberg to explain how this would work. Wayne Oberg used a brush chipper purchase as an example. If the City included this in the capital equipment bonding, it might purchase a brush chipper for an estimated $35,000. In this example, the Streets Department would pay back the internal service fund over a period of time (ex. 5 years) plus interest and /or depreciation expense. Wayne Oberg explained that there would be two amortization schedules: one for debt City Council Special'Meeting Minutes — November 26, 2012 Page 2 and one for payback. Through this process, the city will build in a means of generating internal fonds to support our capital expenditures. Clint Herbst also mentioned that there may be opportunities to pick up some of these items through auctions or state bid lists. It may be worthwhile to set up a small group to manage these opportunities. Wayne Oberg provided a list of capital items that are in the CIP for upcoming projects, including West 7ch Street, Waste Water Treatment Facility, West -East Bridge Park lighting, and Bertram Park Land. He also broke down the 7`h Street Extension project showing the proposed costs for some of the portions of the project totaling about $1.5 million. Although these items and others are listed in the CIP, a funding source needs to be identified for each item. Wayne Oberg pointed out some challenges. The first one involves debt service. The city has been using debt reserves to pay down the debt service while decreasing the debt levy. Another challenge is related to the 2005A GO Bond which has a number of assessments that are not being paid, which support those bond payments. A third challenge is that there are no balances left in the Water Access fund to support debt in the amount of $1.7 million. The debt payments can be supported from the Water fiend for a few years, but then will need another source. The fourth challenge is the Sanitary Sewer Access fund which has been used to pay the waste water treatment facility loan. It is projected to have a balance of $677,000 at the end of 2013, but has remaining debt to support of over $5 million. Again, another source will need to be found for the debt payments. These challenges will have to be addressed starting with payments after 2013. Wayne Oberg mentioned that the City does have some new value coining online with the 2014 payable tax year which may help contribute to the tax base to support anticipated needs. He noted that Xcel is approximately 42% of the city's tax base. Clint Herbst commented that the City will likely need to take advantage of the increased value gained from the Xcel improvements in order to manage some of the challenges. Jeff O'Neill recommended that Council consider sitting down in the near future to discuss some of these challenges and come up with ways to address some of the needs. Wayne Oberg did note that the Council may also want to consider a small increase in water and sewer rates to help support the debt service needs and upcoming wastewater plant improvements. Brian Stumpf suggested that staff present some options for rate increases showing possible scenarios with different usages for residential and non- residential with the proposed 2013 Fee Schedule. Lloyd Hilgart asked about the Liquor Fund balance. Wayne Oberg said that there is a small balance in it. The DMV fund balance is looking very good. Lloyd Hilgart asked about FiberNet and where the funds would come from to cover deficits. Wayne Oberg stated that he has left the Liquor balances alone so that would be available for Council to transfer. Wayne Oberg also noted that Council will need to allocate $100,000 to cover the Monticello Community Center shortage for the 2013 budget. Lloyd Hilgart asked if there were future purchases proposed for Bertram Chain of Lakes and where that money would come from. Wayne Oberg explained that would most likely be taken from excess City Council Special Meeting Minutes— November 26, 2012 Page 3 bond fund balances created from excess special assessment payments in these funds, which would be available for the next three or four years. Wayne Oberg mentioned that there are some options for the City to set aside balances from various funds, other than the General fund, to help toward funding of future projects. 4. Adjournment LLOYD HILGART MOVED TO ADJOURN THE SPECIAL MEETING AT 6:44 P.M. GLEN POSUSTA SECONDED THE MOTION. MOTION CARRIED 5 -0. Recorder: Catherine M. Shuman ] Approved: December 10, 2012 Attest: Ci , inistrator City Council Special Meeting Minutes — November 26, 2012 Page 4