03/17/2009 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Minutes of 3/17/2009 going on for a year. Mayor O'Grady answered that the Service Director has the question, and he will get an answer to Mr. Orlowski. He declined to give a firm commitment and suggested Mr. Orlowski call his office. Assistant Law Director O'Malley reported on behalf of Law Director Dubelko: 1) The Court of Appeals released their decision on March 5, 2009 regarding the case of the city of North Olmsted v. the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1267. The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the trial court. Exactly a yeaz ago today, the trial court had confirmed two arbitration awards that were rendered in 2005. The first arbitration award was issued by arbitrator Stephen Hayford. It addressed a call back policy on staffing procedures in the Fire Department. The second arbitration award was issued on May 5, 2005 by arbitrator Jonathon Klein. This addressed a memorandum of understanding that was dated January 7, 2003 regarding the interpretation of overtime rates of pay. Trial court Judge Sutula on March 17, 2008 confirmed the arbitration awards. An arbitration award is subject to review under Chapter 2711 of the Revised Code. In 2005, City Council authorized the Director of Law to take an appeal from those arbitration decisions. That appeal was conducted and argued before Judge 5utula. He confirmed the arbitration awazds and a further appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals; and, on March 5, 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's decision. The arbitration awards have been resolved at this level of the court proceedings. This is subject to further appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, and that determination will be made by the Director of Law. Council's thoughts and comrrients on that subject are certainly welcome. If Council would like to consult with legal counsel regarding the nature of the city's legal affairs, that would be done in executive session or otherwise directly with him or the Law Director. The status of the case is the city lost the appeal. Finance Director Copfer: 1) February 2009 monthly summaries and detailed reports were distributed to Council today. While the General Fund revenue being down 9.2% below last year's revenues may be alarming to some, our revenue projections are 11% down for the General Fund in total from 2008. If revenue was received equally each month, we would be ahead of plan on that. We have received 46% of our property tax revenues for the first half collections. We know that being at 23.8% of plan on receipts through February when looking at the detail reports is artificially inflated because of the timing of property tax receipts. We are slightly below plan in municipal income tax collections through February, though better than January receipts thanks to a large net profit payment made with the 2007 return. Building related fees are well below the prior year and below plan to date. Other fees and fines are at plan, while in the Inter-governmental Revenue Fund it's too eazly to tell as the property tax rollback only comes twice a year. Interest receipts aze far less than the prior year. If this continues, the estimates may have to be adjusted downward. Expenses are relatively at plan, which she judges by the number of payrolls for the year. For February, there were four payrolls. So that equals about 15.4% of the total expected expenditures. Having expended 15.5% in total dollars that were budgeted in the General Fund, it looks like we aze holding the line there. The 2009 expenditures through February are 10.3% below 2008 expenditures through February. But again, that was all anticipated to be below last year when the appropriations budget was set. While reviewing the fund summary, note most of the revenues through February 3