03/21/2006 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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" Couacil Miautes of 3/21/2006 the judge with joint stipulations of facts and exhibits. Those were submitted on the March 14. Briefs are due by April 14 from both parties. • Received notice that the city's objections to the transfer of ownership of the liquor permit at Krobar has been set before the Division of Liquor Control for April 13. Finance Director: 1) Attended a minimum staffing committee of the Fire Division on Thursday, March 9. 2) This week, employees in the Safety and Service Departments are being trained on the on-line requisition entry and approval through the MLJrIIS system. This is intended to make the process to obtain a purchase order more efficient and effective. The on-line requisition will limit data entry to once city-wide; limit the ability for divisions to issue requisitions when the budget is overdrawn in that line item; will reduce paper and forms costs. The training is going well. 3) The Council budget hearing process will come to a close this evening. Had expected, working with a rookie administration, amajority of first-year Council people, and the new accounting system, that the entire process was going to be a disaster. She was pleasantly surprised that did not occur. The budget hearings where the departments made their presentations and Council asked questions were good. Council did not nitpick into the detail. For the most part, the discussions were excellent, and they focused on forward-thinking issues, ideas and concerns that were addressed in the budget and will be addressed. She supported Council's choice to review the entire budget before they made any final decisions. She was disappointed in the wrap-up meeting that, while Council did have good debate amongst themselves, the administration was not adequately able to respond to Council's changes. This was a large missing element because they did not know their initiatives and programs were being held up potentially and cut for Council's issues while they were going through their particular budget hearing. She would have liked to have had the division and department heads to have the opportunity to talk with Council on those particular issues that Council discussed on the last evening. She does ultimately respect that Council has the ultimate authority to control the purse strings. She believes, if Council and the administration had had pre-budget preparation meetings where each had open and honest discussions as to what their priorities were for the coming year and even more long-term, possibly a different budget would be passed this evening. Hopefully, that can be worked in for next year well in advance of the preparation process. She looks forward to assisting both the administration and Council during the remaining part of the year as she hopes they may revisit some of these initiatives and issues that did not make the final cut in this first budget. Councilman Tallon, chairperson of the Finance Committee: 1) The committee met on Tuesday, March 14, 2006. In attendance were all of Council including the Council president, Finance Director Copfer and Service Director Limpert. The purpose of this meeting was to compile all the information and recommendations of the Finance Committee and Council from the previous appropriations meetings. The committee and Council met on February 25, February 28, March 4, March 11, and March 14. The Mayor, Law Director and Finance Director, along with all the Mayor's directors, their division heads, department heads and foremen came before the committee with information to help Council in its formation of the final appropriation ordinance. On 4 _ ~„,~.,a , _ _ _ ~ _ rr ~,.