04/18/2006 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 4/18/2006 have not expressly adopted either in Charter or in ordinance. This proposal to amend the Charter would add a sentence to Article II, which is our home rule statement. If a matter affects local self government, we should be completely free to deal with it in a local way. To the extent that a matter involves local self government power and the state attempts to impose regulations upon the city, those regulations would not be applicable unless they were expressly adopted by the city, either in its Charter or by ordinance. That was to resolve a potential problem in state legislation dealing with local matters which the City of North Olmsted has not adopted. Issue 31, is a very simple change to the city Charter. It indicates in accordance with an Ohio Supreme Court decision from 1987 that, if the city's Civil Service Commission wishes in governing its own procedures and adopting rules and regulations which govern its own proceedings and procedures, it can be different than the state statutes. This is the proposed amendment to Section 4 of Article VI. Important to keep in mind there are two operative sections involved, Section 3 is Duties, Section 4 is Procedure. Section 3, Duties, establishes a certain method for classifying positions in the city government. That cannot be changed. Section 4 is where the change that is proposed in this Charter amendment will occur. It will just allow the Civil Service Commission to have its own local rules and regulations which do not have to be the same as state law. The only limitation in Section 4 is the rules they pass cannot conflict with the city Charter, this is double protection against anything occurring in Section 3. This is a housekeeping measure to get our Charter in better shape and to continue to have better government in North Olmsted. Finance Director Copfer: 1) Two weeks ago, she and the Mayor went to Chicago to make presentations to Moody's and Fitch to obtain rating for bonds we are going to be selling in the market this week. Moody's upgraded our ratings from an AZ to an Al on the limited tax issues, and from an Al to AA3 on the unlimited tax issues, the voted issues, the library and the fire station notes and assigned those ratings to our outstanding debt as well. Fitch assigned an A+ to our new issues and affirmed that rating for our existing debt. Both cited our prudent financial management, which included conservative budget assumptions; managements dedication to cost containment and pursuing operations efficiencies; rapid debt retirement. Despite of the economic recession of our region, which we endured, we were able to modestly grow the General Fund balance when many municipalities were depleting theirs. They both also acknowledged the city's strength of a diverse revenue stream, 46% for municipal income tax, 27% property tax, 14% charges for services, 13% inter-governmental revenue, and that we were not dependent on one particular taxpayer. She has distributed a report to Council that includes those reports and also a press release on the subject. What do improved ratings mean to us: For her professionally, it's an evaluation by an independent source on the city's financial stewardship, which she is proud of in light of the extended recession that we endured. The administration should be proud of the decisions that have been made over the last few years to both garner more resources and controlling costs even when those decisions were difficult. For the city, it means that when purchase AAA insurance to insure the issue, we pay slightly less because the credit worthiness of the city did improve. Also, it means that we could potentially borrow at a lower rate because investors always look, even if an issue is AAA insured, at the underlying rate of the 4