4/21/2020 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Finance Related Questions: 1. While budget specifics are tough right now given this is a fluid situation, based on what the administration is hearing, is it expected by the end of the year the City might be able to make up some of the lost revenue from this period? What happens if this pandemic plays out longer or if there is a second wave necessitating another shelter at home order? Does the City have the emergency reserves to withstand that? The majority of the revenues we have lost will not be made up. Withholdings don't happen for people who are furloughed or businesses that are closed. Hotel motel, Mayors court costs and fines, EMS runs, interest income, gas tax lost these last 45 days are not going to be made up. I think they will also be slow to recover. The individual income tax and net profit filings, which have been delayed until July 15th and with Federal extensions, it could be late in 2020 before we see that income. Building permits may or may not occur depending on the financial strength of the individuals and companies' who are making the improvements. The city has built up our financial flexibility and have monies in various funds that are for specific purposes. We can juggle some things to utilize this flexibility. We have $1,123,000 in the budget stabilization fund (we are limited by state law as to how much we can have). However, priorities will have to be determined and decisions made for next year's budget, because we cannot and should not balance a budget on this financial flexibility alone, because it is unsustainable. The administration has been working hard at determining budget reductions for this year (2020) to hopefully help soften the budget for next year. Time will tell and it is too early right now to determine the full potential impact. 2. Similar to the above question. Council would like to know more about the layoffs and financial impacts. The savings of furloughs/layoffs with wages and benefits are about $100,000 a month. This does not include the impact of unemployment costs, which have not been determined yet by the state and will be charged directly to the city. 3. Is there currently an expectation of additional borrowing need to compensate for the loss of city/tax revenue? Municipalities cannot currently borrow for cost of operations or lost revenue. 4. What was the four-week impact to the Mayor's Court revenue based on the stay at home orders? The impact of limited tickets being issued through March 2020 compared to March 2019 resulted in the number of new court cases being down 45% (though 2019 was our largest year since inception). New court cases are down 15% as compared through March of 2018. 5. Any information regarding Federal (i.e. NIH, EPA, CARES ACT, etc.) or State action to help cities through this process. We are monitoring possible opportunities, but at this point the CARES ACT is only for states, large counties and large cities and nothing requires them to share with smaller cities. We received $23,000 this week from Medicare toward COVID expenses we have incurred. No wages, benefits or lost revenues are covered. The state's rainy day fund sounds large but is only covers 17 days of operations. If history is any indication, we will have to solve our own budget problems and we will.