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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - CC - 08/10/2020Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 14 1 CALL TO ORDER Mayor: That will conclude our work session. So, now we’ll move into our special called meeting. I appreciate everybody being here. I would like to call the special called meeting of the Milton City Council for Monday, August 10, 2020 to order. Will the City Clerk please call the roll and make general announcements. City Clerk: Good evening, Mayor and Council. I’ll be happy to call roll for the August 10, 2020 special called meeting. I would like to remind those in attendance to please silence all cellphones at this time. Since there are no public comment, I will waive the public comment rules. As I call roll, please confirm your attendance. Mayor Joe Lockwood? Mayor: Here. City Clerk: Council Member Paul Moore? Paul: Here. City Clerk: Council Member Peyton Jamison. Peyton: Here. City Clerk: Council Member Carol Cookerly? Carol: Here. City Clerk: Council Member Joe Longoria. Joe: Here. City Clerk: Council Member Rick Mohrig. Rick: Here. City Clerk: And for the record, Council Member Laura Bentley is absent. Would everybody please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 14 2 Councilmembers Present: Mayor Joe Lockwood, Councilmember Peyton Jamison, Councilmember Paul Moore, Councilmember Carol Cookerly, Councilmember Joe Longoria and Councilmember Rick Mohrig. Councilmember Absent: Councilmember Laura Bentley. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE (Led by Mayor Joe Lockwood) Group: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mayor: Alright. If the City Clerk will please sound the next item which is the approval of the agenda. APPROVAL OF AGENDA City Clerk: Next item is the approval of the meeting agenda, agenda item No. 20-216. Mayor: Okay. Do I have a motion on the agenda for approval? Joe: Mayor, I move that we approve the agenda as prepared. Rick: Second. Mayor: Okay. I have a motion from Councilmember Longoria with a second from Councilmember Mohrig. All in favor, please say Aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve the meeting agenda. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Bentley was absent from the meeting. Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 14 3 PUBLIC COMMENT Mayor: That’s unanimous. Our next item is public comment. Do we have any public comment? City Clerk: No. Mayor: Okay. Then we will move on to the Consent Agenda if Tammy would please read that item. CONSENT AGENDA City Clerk: The first item is approval of the request for an emergency vehicle hybrid beacon traffic signal on State Route 9 at the new fire station emergency access driveway, agenda item No. 20-217. Mr. Robert Drewry. Mayor: Okay, I believe this is on the Consent Agenda. So, I’ll bring that up for a motion. Rick: Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we approve the Consent Agenda as read. Carol: Second. Mayor: Okay, I’ve got a motion from Councilmember Mohrig, a second from Councilmember Cookerly. All in favor please say Aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to approve the Consent Agenda. Councilmember Cookerly seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Bentley was absent from the meeting. Mayor: That’s unanimous. Alright, we’re going to move on to Unfinished Business if City Clerk would please sound that item. Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 14 4 UNFINISHED BUSINESS City Clerk: Consideration of an ordinance of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton, Georgia to establish the Ad Valorem Tax Rate of the City of Milton for Fiscal Year 2021 and for other purposes, Agenda Item No. 20-213. Ms. Bernadette Harvill. Bernadette: Okay, I’m going to wait this time until I’m sure the presentation is shown. That IT family pays off. Tonight, we’ll be discussing the millage rate for the 2020 tax year which corresponds to the FY 2021 revenue projections we outlined earlier this evening. First, I will review some definitions to clarify some of the topics we will be discussing. Next, I will go over the meeting and advertising requirements for setting a millage rate. We will review the millage rate options in the breakdown of the digest. We will review anticipated revenues. We will discuss ways property owners can reduce their tax liabilities and how to calculate a tax bill. And lastly, we will go over the value of your tax dollar and how it corresponds to the budget discussion we had earlier this evening. The first definition we will see is for a mill. A mill is equivalent to $1 per $1000 of assessed property or .001 times the assessed value. A millage rate is the tax rate that is applied to the assessed property for taxing purposes. Next, we have the fair market value. This is the estimate of the market value of your property as determined by Fulton County. Please keep in mind that this may differ from MLS figures or other values you may find on the internet or through a private appraisal. If a property owner has concerns about their fair market value, they have a right to appeal to Fulton County when the assessments are mailed, typically around May to July annually. The assessed or taxable value is 40 percent of fair market value we just went over. Exemptions are deducted from this figure and that subtotal is multiplied by the millage rate in order to determine taxes due. We will go over this calculation in detail later in the presentation. The rollback rate is the rate which bring the same amount of revenue on existing properties as last year’s millage rate did. This Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 14 5 is the estimated for when the exemption is reported to the state vary from – In this year, sorry, the estimated floating exemption as reported to the state vary from the final values in an amount that yielded a higher rollback rate than last year’s millage rate. And again, we’ll discuss this later in the presentation in more detail. But that is what is requiring us to only have this one meeting this year as opposed the three in years past. The millage equivalent is the calculation used to determine the impact of reassessments on real property, the current year digest values. And again, in Milton’s case this year, the calculated rollback rate was higher than the proposed millage rate of 4.731. So, here we are tonight. We had the first presentation back on August 3. Tonight, we’re having unfinished business where you will vote at the conclusion of this presentation. Before you, you have the required advertisement of the current and five-year history of levy. This calculation shows all the values according to the initial information proved by Fulton County’s consolidation and evaluation of digest. That is compared year-over-year. So, this is not actuals. After the appeals have been finalized, it’s the initial value sent over. When you compare initial values of ’19 to initial values of ’20 you’ll see year-over-year there is a neutral variance, 0 percent. The other advertisement that we use for the rollback rate. It zeroes in on the impact of reassessments to existing real property or inflation. You’ll see that here in the column, Reassessments of Existing Real Property, you can see the floating exemptions had a large impact from what we originally anticipated to what the final reassessed values yielded. This is the math behind all the ads. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I wanted to use it and have it here for transparency purposes for anyone to build a follow through of what we must advertise. You get that 10.4 percent decrease. That’s not saying that every property is going to experience a 10.4 percent decrease in taxes. That is saying in order to maintain the typical amount on the existing real property, you’d have to have a 5.259 millage rate. Which again, the city has a capped millage rate, so we can not exceed 4.71 on the maintenance and operating side. Here is the math behind the five-year history for a digest ad that we talked about earlier, which was really yielding that 0.0 percent Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 14 6 variance year-over-year. Again, that compares at 100 percent collections to initial values distributed by the county. So, here we have before you our capped millage rate which is equal to our current millage rate for FY 2020. And then you can see that rollback millage rate which we cannot consider this evening because it’s above our capped rate. I’d also like to show you this evening the separately calculated Green Space Bond millage rate is being proposed at 0.538. That is a decrease from 0.588 last year. And that will yield enough funds to cover the debt service due in FY 2021. Here before you, you have the M&O Digest at $2,691,008,413. At 100 percent collection rate, that would yield a levy of $12,731,161 at a 4.731 millage. Again, as we discussed earlier, the city uses a 95 percent collection rate for real property. This keeps us able to consider any of the possible variances due to appeals of property that we have not yet had the information on and the impact that that floating exemption will have in addition to any possible delinquencies. Our actual delinquencies are typically a lot lower than that, but this gives us the ability to ensure that we are adjusted for those appeals. At the personal property level, we’ve seen historic values closer to a 65 percent collection rate and for our motor vehicles, 50 percent. So, those lines are exactly what you will see in the revenue lines for those items in the budget presentation we spoke about earlier this evening. And just for a point of reference, I have here the FY 2020 Real Property Amended Budget at $11,9400,084 and our total collections to date right under that at $11,937,561. I’d like to take a minute to explain to some of the property owners their opportunities for tax savings. We have several exemptions here at the city. The first being our basic homestead exemption which you can apply for at the county. There is no age or income restrictions. Anyone who resides in the property is eligible for the exemption. It takes $15,000 off of that assessed value, the 40 percent value we talked about earlier. The floating homestead exemption is the new CPI, Consumer Price Index exemption. I have a specific slide that explains that math so I’m going to skip over that one for right now. But again, you can apply for that at the county. Once you apply at the county, it Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 14 7 trickles down through the digest to the city. Our Senior Exemptions here, you have to apply for with the city. We have an age based one at 65 and older for an additional $15,000 on top of that basic Homestead Exemption. We have if you’re 65 and meet the income qualifications, you get $25,000 on top of that $15,000. And if you’re 70 and you meet income qualifications or if you have a disability certified by a doctor and meet the income qualifications, you have a full value exemption from the City of Milton on the Maintenance and Operating side. So, again, our income-based exemptions apply to both. The non- income-based exemptions do not apply to our bond. Clarify that one more time, the first ones do not apply to the bond. So, again, this Floating Homestead Exemption or the CPI exemption as people may have heard it referred to, I have revised this slide to be a little clearer. The original slide had last year’s data. I have spoken to the county and obtained our CPI value for FY 2021 or 2020’s tax year. And you will see that the Consumer Price Index is 1.8 percent. This example is assuming that the entire property is eligible to be under the CPI exemption. So, if it would happen to be five acres or less, not have any additional improvements including a pool or any additions to the home. You would take last year’s adjusted base value that we have highlighted in yellow on the left-hand side and that would become your new adjusted base year value. That value is then multiplied by the CPI inflation rate to give you your new adjusted base year value for 2020. You take your 40 percent of that. And let’s say the county came in and reassessed your property and the assessment came up from $460,000 to $500,000. You now do the difference in these two 40 percent values and you can see here where your Floating Homestead Exemption increases to account for that additional appraised value, yielding overall a 1.8 percent increase in your taxable value before any other exemptions. So, I just wanted to show how that works out. A lot of our residents have been calling asking about it. They were very concerned when the very first appraisals went out. So, I’d just like to say it’s an exemption, it’s not a value. So, when you get your tax appraisal, it’s still going to show the value of your home. You just want to make sure that value’s right and your CPI Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 14 8 exemption will cover you in the difference in the exemption. We also have our CUVA which is our Conservation Use Value Assessment. This is when you have a tract of land that you are maintaining in a conservation use that’s been proven to the state as such, you can apply at the county. There is no minimum acreage but if you have less than 10 acres you have to submit additional paperwork to prove that bona fide conservation use. You’re agreeing to maintain that property at that qualifying use for a period of 10 years. And that is a property value now based on your land use instead of your market value. And so, you’ll see that come straight to the city as your value decreases. It’s not an exemption, it’s actually a value decrease. So, here I’d like to talk about how you calculate your tax bill. Again, we removed the Floating Exemption because they are very unique and specific to varying properties and I just based it on a fair market value of $400,000. That’s kinda the average of our home value on last year’s digest. I include that $15,000 basic exemption. So, you take your assessed value which is 40 percent of the $400,000. You remove your exemptions. So, if you do know your floating exemption, you can remove it right in that line. And then you take that subtotal and you multiply it out by our millage rate and that would yield for a $400,000 home with the basic Homestead Exemption a $686 Maintenance and Operating tax bill. So, this is not including our bond millage. Here you have value of your tax dollar. I took this formula, I took all the requests we’ve had for FY 2021’s budget, broke that down by percentages and put that $686 across those different departments and you can see here that daily, you’re spending 77 cents in order to have your public safety, that’s your fire and your police coverage. Two cents on court, 19 cents public works, nine cents on your parks and recreation, 13 cents on community development, 30 cents on the rest of the general government body and administration, 29 cents on that Pay-Go program we spoke about, and about 10 cents on the revenue bond debt service due. So, a $1.89 a day for your city services at that 4.731 millage rage. So, lastly, we have our rational for the 4.731 millage r ate. This allows our city to continue funding the Capital Improvement projects as planned. So, that we can continue on the seven-year plan as proposed. It allows us to implement the master plans we’ve Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 14 9 completed in a timely manner. So, they’re not just sitting there as ideas. They are actually being carried out. Some of the challenges we’ve had with the capped millage rate, Milton has a very limited commercial tax base and limited zoned footprint. So, our millage rate at the residential level is what is able to maintain those revenues. Assessed property values have not kept up with the market. Now, as I’ve shown you, the Floating Exemption is keeping those increases at bay even more. Our community’s vision to retain rural character also reduces density opportunities. So, if we defer any kind of maintenance, a lot of times that will end yielding in more costly long-term replacements. We’ve talked about if we forgo paving or filling potholes, we may have to do a full depth reclamation which is much more expensive in the long run. So, here we have kind of our budgeting philosophy. We always have our current operations have to be considered first. That’s always our first priority. Once we have allocated funding towards those current operations and maintaining any service levels we’ve given to the citizens, we then consider any new initiatives or increase service levels. And below, I have an example of that. If we’re talking about repaving roads as scheduled according to our five-year plan, that’s our current operations. An enhanced level of service would be repaving a road that maybe someone has seen that needs addressing that wasn’t in the current five-year plan. And then a new initiative would be something like constructing a new road in order to ease congestion. I always like to use Heritage Walk as an example of that. So, here we have our service level requests. We have an opportunity to increase service levels. We get a lot of citizen feedback as well as the Mayor and Council do, requesting things like adequate maintenance to the newly acquired green spaces. They want them to look a certain way. Maybe some more manicured mowing on certain areas of town. Improved debris management, like we talked about with that pilot program for the street sweeper. That would be a service level increase we’re looking at this year. The timely implementation of our city plans. And then we also talked about our capital contributions. We have capital contributions to the local schools that we share and IGA Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 14 10 with. This keeps overall cost on buildings down and we utilize those capital costs to offset the need for fields and basketball courts. Lastly, we talked about this a little earlier that we utilize our 4.731 millage rate, helps us maintain and attract a highly talented workforce. As you know, vacancies in a small city like ours can delay a lot of projects. So, those help us maintain attractive salaries for our departments. That, in a nutshell, is our proposal for a 4.731 millage rate and a 0.538 bond millage rate. Mayor: Any questions or comments on that? Okay. Do we have any public comment on that? City Clerk: No, we do not. Mayor: I’ll close the hearing on that. I’ll open up for a motion for approval. Peyton: Mayor, I’d like to make a motion to approve Agenda Item No. 20- 213. Paul: Second. Mayor: I have a motion for approval from Councilmember Jamison, a second Councilmember Moore. All in favor please say Aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Mayor: That’s unanimous. Bernadette: Thank you very much for your time. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Jamison moved to approve the Agenda Item No. 20-213. Councilmember Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Bentley was absent from the meeting. Mayor: Thank you Bernadette. Alright, if the City Clerk will please sound our next item. City Clerk: Next item is consideration of an amended emergency ordinance of Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 14 11 the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton, Georgia under Section 3.18 of the Charter of the City of Milton, Georgia to provide the operation of the City of Milton, Georgia during the public emergency known as the Novel Corona Disease 2019 Global Pandemic to become effective upon adoption by the council to supersede the existing emergency ordinance and for other purposes. Agenda Item No. 20-218. Mr. Ken Jarrard. Ken: Mr. Mayor, members of Council, thank you very much. I’ll be brief. The City Council at this point has a lot of experience with this. We have been imposing an emergency ordinance pursuant to the city charter since literally March. We have, at this point, sort of evolved in our thinking. We are still running determination with the Governor’s Declaration of Emergency as the council is likely aware, the Governor has extended the Declaration of Emergency through September 11. Our existing Emergency Ordinance expires on August 11. So, if the council was to adopt this Emergency Ordinance this evening, it will become effective on August 12 and then run through September 11. We have to have them run on 30 day tracks pursuant to the charter. The reopening plan was implemented by way of a previous ordinance. So, that’s already in place. And candidly some of the emergency enactments you have done, all of them, candidly, have been to mitigate the impact on business. We have slowly weaned off of those. We still have a few in place. But the reality is we are continuing to impose this because A: we are obviously still in this health emergency as manifested by the governor’s order. 2.) We want to continue some of those protections with respect to our businesses. And No. 3 we want to make sure we are entitled to the full funding of any emergency-based funding that may come from the state or federal government. And so, it’s better to have your emergency declaration in place. Mr. Mayor, that’s my presentation. Again, if the council does in fact adopt this this evening, it will become effective on August 12 and run until 11:59 p.m. on September 10 unless of course we extend it further. Mayor: Okay. Any questions on this item? If not, I’ll open for a motion. Joe: Mayor, I move that we approve Agenda Item No. 20-218. Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 14 12 Rick: Second: Mayor: Okay. I have a motion from Councilmember Longoria with a Second from Councilmember Mohrig. All in favor, please say Aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Mayor: That’s unanimous. Thank you, Ken. If we can move on to new business and if our clerk will please call this item. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Longoria moved to approve the Agenda Item No. 20-218. Councilmember Mohrig seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Bentley was absent from the meeting. City Clerk: The item is consideration of a resolution appointing the chair and Ex Officio officers to the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, known as CPAC, for the City of Milton 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Agenda Item No. 20-2019. Mr. Parag Agrawal. Parag: Mayor and City Council Members, we have a resolution in front of you that will basically name the chairperson of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee. And it will also name the two City Council members as the Ex Officio members of the CPAC. As you know, we are launching the comprehensive planning process and the Comprehensive Planning Committee will basically guide the comprehensive planning process. Mayor: Okay. Sorry, chair. We discussed this. This is the formal action on the chair and was the planning commission chair and what not. So, Mr. Ron Gilbert. Parag: Ron Gilbert, yeah. Mayor: And then we also discussed having two appointees from City Council to sit in, which I had recommended Paul and – Carol: I recommended Laura. Mayor: – and then Carol had stepped up and recommended Laura. So, I Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 14 13 think you guys have had some discussion. So, I’ll open up for a motion on this and some names. Carol: Those names? Mayor: Yeah, whoever. Peyton: Mayor I’ll make a motion that we appoint Ron Gilbert as Chairman of the Comprehensive Planning Advisory Committee and the two Council Ex Officio members as Paul Moore and Laura Bentley. Carol: Second. Mayor: Okay, I have a motion and a second as read. Any discussion from council? Hearing none, all in favor, please say Aye. Councilmembers: Aye. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Jamison moved to approve the Agenda Item No. 20-219 which appoint Ron Gilbert as the Chairman of the Comprehensive Planning Advisory Committee and the two Ex Officio members as Paul Moore and Laura Bentley. Councilmember Cookerly seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Bentley was absent from the meeting. ADJOURNMENT Mayor: Any opposed? That’s unanimous. Thank you, Parag. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Joe: Motion to adjourn. Mayor: Do I have a Second? Rick: Second. Mayor: Alright, I have a motion and a Second to adjourn. All in favor, please say Aye. Special Called City Council Meeting Monday, August 10, 2020 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 14 14 Councilmembers: Aye. Mayor: That’s unanimous. Motion and Vote: Councilmember Mohrig moved to adjourn the meeting at 8:24 pm. Councilmember Longoria seconded the motion. The motion passed (6-0). Councilmember Bentley was absent from the meeting. Date Approved: September 21, 2020 __________________________________ _____________________________ Sudie AM Gordon, City Clerk Joe Lockwood, Mayor