06/20/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 6/20/2000 is zoned multi-family. That multi-family zoning goes all the way to Bradley Road. It ~~. goes behind every one of the individual family homes that front Barton Road. He is potentially envisioning more apartments or condos built all along single family housing there and storage units over on the other side, and he doesn't like the picture. • Jim Burns, 3978 Dover Center Road, spoke about Ordinance 2000-61 which creates a reserve balance account within the General Fund. He personally does not think it is necessary because Council, during the appropriation process, creates or deletes expense account funds within the General Fund. Council may at any time during the year transfer money in and out of any account within the General Fund. Also, Section 4 of the ordinance states that Council has the authority to appropriate expenditures out of the account as long as they consider it meets a criteria for stated purposes. This ordinance does not have a criteria for stated purposes. Section 3 states, "The reserve balance is not to be considered a part of the unencumbered balance when the Director of Finance certifies available balances at year end." He doesn't think the Finance Director can do that--the Budget Commission requires her to report the fund balance less encumbered amounts. She is going to be required to give that full number to the Budget Commission. He believes a better alternative would be to pass a type of legislation, (which was approved by the State of Ohio in 1998) to create funds to put money aside for future unfunded liabilities such as accumulated sick pay and accumulated vacation pay. He personally thinks, if Council is going to be fiscally responsible, that type of fund should be established and should periodically be funded so that those type of expenditures (unfunded expenditures) which will come back, can be paid. Finance Director Copfer said she does not believe in re-creating the wheel so she used the Auditor of State's bulletin that delineated the guidelines for this and other cities' ordinances that have been enacted for several years. These questions haven't come up in these other cities. This is the way you do it for budget stabilization, and the stated purpose is for budget stabilization. As an example, if Moen burned down and was unable to pay their municipal income tax causing the city's General Fund to be $300,000 short, the reserve balance account would provide for budget stabilization. That is the stated purpose for which they can use that account. Mr. Burns said that Council can do the same thing by just not appropriating 100% of the resources. If only 95% is appropriated, then you will assure yourself of a carry-over. Typically, 100% of the appropriated money is not spent during the year for various reasons such as retirements and what not or all wage items aren't used up, etc. That's what the fund carry-over is all about. That's why that is a key number with Moody's, because that's supposed to be what's there to protect you in case, for example, Moen should shut down for a month or two. Mrs. Copfer said she agrees that the unencumbered balance at the end of a year could be used for that situation. But this is Council and the administration making a statement that they are intending to be fiscally responsible. She knows that Mr. Burns knows that there are some years in this city where there isn't much left over at the end of the year. He has lived it. Luckily, she is not going to have to live that way and that's why she wants Council to have to say we are saving this money in case something happens. She wants Council to have to make a conscious decision. She doesn't want the money to go away before they even see it. She wants them to have that authority to make those decisions and 21 i