05/06/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/6/2009 Finance Director Copfer: 1) In addition to providing cash resources, she baked three stratas for the administration assistant appreciation breakfast that the directors organized for April 22. 2) She and the Assistant Director of Finance attended the mandatory supervisor training on workplace harassment organized by HR. 3) On April 24, the March financial summaries and detail were sent to the Mayor, directors, and Council. 4) She participated in a FOP labor negotiation session on April 29, and in mediation with the FOP on May 4. 5) She and the Safety Director and Law Director are reviewing the collection issue of EMS fees on non-residents and reviewing the average fines collected by the court to determine the adequacy of our fine structure for the judges to set a fine. They are looking at ways to garner more of the revenue that we should be getting. 6) She met with Charles Hawk of RITA on April 24 to discuss various issues on ways RITA can work better for us. She asked about the large number ofnon-responders to the subpoena program held this year, which totaled 2,100, and found that RITA does not pursue them. They only go after them after they file. It's upon the city to have a process to take them to court. She is beginning the background research, but knows it requires much coordination of RITA, the Prosecutor, and the court. But she has made contact with all of them to start the process. 7) The county sent notice to the city that our residential real property values will be reduced by 10% .citywide for tax year 2009/collection year 2010. Attached to the financial review distributed tonight is a spreadsheet that shows the decline by each levied amount. At a minimum, it affects the General Fund by $440,000; however, the citywide impact is $902,000. Some of the other fund's shortfalls may require the General Fund to get shorted in either millage or to incur additional expenses. This 10% overall decline impacts our budgets for the next 3 years until the next appraisal occurs in tax year 2012 for collection year 2013. She has spent some considerable time learning the process by which the county, and subsequently the state, used to determine the 10% decline and is reviewing it as she begins the 2010 estimated resources for the next year's tax budget. 8) Lastly, today she distributed the first quarter review. If Council wishes, a Finance Committee meeting can be scheduled to review it. She wanted to draw Council's attention to the General Fund on page one so that everyone clearly understands the impact of the first quarter results, but yet temper it with recognizing that it is one quarter out of four quarters. The revenues are 10% below the prior year, and they're relatively at plan. Expenditures are about 7.7% below last year, yet they are somewhat over the plan for the first quarter. However, some of that is timing with winter weather which takes additional expenditures. Regarding the General Fund and looking toward next year, even if revenues end at plan and expenditures end at plan, it means we will be $1.5 million in the hole January 1, 2010. We will have no carryover as carryover comes from revenues that exceed plan and expenditures that are less than plan. With less discretionary expenditures in this year's budget, it becomes more difficult to come by those expenditures that end substantially below plan. When including the decline in real property of about $500,000, that will be a $2 million shortfall for next year's budget. These next few months are critical. 4