08/26/2002 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special Council Minutes of 8/26/2002 2002-117 is a transfer ordinance to basically balance the General Fund, and this issue does not affect the General Fund. Would this be better served in a separate piece of legislation? Mr. Gareau said he could only speak for himself as to why he supports the amendment. First, he has a concern with respect to how the money is paid out. He does not believe there is an appropriate tracking system as to what amount of money is being used for each hour of secretarial services. The Mayor had replied to the question of how many hours were involved by stating approximately 200. But 200 times the administrative assistant's current amount of money totals roughly forty-seven hundred dollars. But there is nothing to indicate that that's the case. A command control was never put in place to control and keep track of whether the person is drawing their hourly salary while also being paid their stipend to be the secretary. Secondly, he believes the duties could properly be relegated to the Mayor's administrative assistant. He believes the remaining money could be allocated toward a Director of Planning. Mr. Limpert said he felt it miglrt be more prudent to discuss this in a committee meeting and draw up appropriate legislation since this affects the Economic Development Fund rather than the General Fund. Mr. Gareau answered that it was the funding mechanism that is being discussed. Whether or not the position is to be removed would be subject of further legislation. Law Director Dubelko said Mr. Limpert had asked whether there were legal concerns with this. He does not believe there are. But, as Mr. Gareau has pointed out, if this amendment goes through and the ordinance passes, there has to be some follow-up legislatively down the line. With respect to what may have been the intent when this process started, he has weighed in on this issue before on trying to determine Council's legislative intent. What a court does when they look at an ordinance is what was actually done. There's nothing in this ordinance that says that's the intent, only to make amendments dealing with balancing this $700,000 problem. This is simply, as it's crafted, an appropriations ordinance for transferring line items and Council's intent really is not legaily relevant if a court was to look at the validity of this ordinance down the line. Mrs. Kasler said she appreciated Mr. Dubelko's comments and believes that Council has an obligation to review every line item, whether it be for General Fund purposes or not. She has a concern about how the X4,700 is being spent because she has been told that the hours were not tracked this year. It is her belief that the duties could very appropriately be taken up with the administrative assistant's job description, which may be something fvr a committee discussion. Councilman McKay said that the Economic Development Fund was set up by the prior Mayor, and the secretary was paid according to his directive. That has not changed since then. He does not think it is fair to ask somebody to pick up this position for nothing after having been paid to do it. Having served on the Housing Council, he knows that there is a lot of work involved, especially at the end of the year. It takes cooperation between the city, the county and the state. Mayor Musial said he would like to poirrt out to Council that the current secretary is not only the secretary to the Housing Council, but also the secretary to the Tax Incentive Review Council. With regard to the Housing Council, the secretary analyzes and provides information for determination by the Housing Council in terms of tax abatements for commercial errtities. Whereas, the secretary, then acting in the role of the secretary of Tax Incentive Review Council, determines whether or not the corporations that have received abatements have complied with the rules and regulations and the commitments that they have made. When this position was appointed, it was appointed 9 _.. ~_