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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 09/14/2009 - MINS 09 14 09 WS (Migrated from Optiview)Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 1 of 18 This summary is provided as a convenience and service to the public, media, and staff. It is not the intent to transcribe proceedings verbatim. Any reproduction of this summary must include this notice. Public comments are noted and heard by Council, but not quoted. This document includes limited presentation by Council and invited speakers in summary form. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Official Meetings are audio recorded. The Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on September 14, 2009 at 6:00 PM, Mayor Joe Lockwood presiding. Council Members Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman, Councilmember Julie Zahner Bailey, Councilmember Bill Lusk, Councilmember Burt Hewitt, Councilmember Tina D’Aversa and Councilmember Alan Tart INVOCATION Councilmember D’Aversa led the invocation. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE The Sons of the American Revolution led the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Lockwood • Work Sessions are a more informal setting to update Council on business items. • No votes will be taken. • Public comment is allowed that is germane to an agenda item. • If you wish to speak you are required to fill out a comment card and turn it into the City Clerk staff. • Public comment will be allowed for a total of 10 minutes per agenda item and no more than 2 minutes per person. • Public comment will be heard at the beginning of each item. • Once the item is called no other comment cards will be accepted. City Clerk Marchiafava read the first agenda item. Proclamation for Constitution Week Councilmember Lusk • Read the Proclamation and presented it to the Sons of the American Revolution. City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Discussion on the proposed change to the northwest quadrant in Crabapple. Councilmember Karen Thurman • J.T. Adams is putting forth a plan for some changes to the northwest quadrant which would require a change to the Crabapple Master Plan. • She thought it would be best to let him show everyone what the plan is and get some input from the community on the plan. Mayor Lockwood • So everyone knows, this is not a City sponsored plan, but something that he is presenting to the Planning Commission and the City Council. • It is not something that we have approved. J. T. Adams • Presented the plans to Council and the audience and showed what was there already and what they planned. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 2 of 18 • Showed proposed sites for City Hall, library, and the courthouse. • Showed an area for parking. • The funding is chiefly through a foundation which has several columns and their primary focus is on cancer research. • They also have an education in arts column and they are very interested in his concept called CIRCA. • It is a history shop where we do lectures. • To put it simply they want to invest in a community to further the educational goals of history specifically the United States but world history and how that interacted with our republic. • The buildings are mocked up for size and there is nothing certain about it. • They plan to do works of arts in all of the squares (think of Savannah). • They will pay for mature trees so there will be shaded squares. • Described some of the buildings and what they would look like. • They believe that having that synergy with the City, the performing arts theater, CIRCA and all the other elements that make up a community in one place is a smart way to develop. • It also reduces traffic. Councilmember Thurman • As far as the performing arts center and history center, she asked what the cost would be to the City. J.T. Adams • Zero cost to the City. • The foundation is going to be generous. Councilmember Thurman • Asked when they would need to have an answer because this would require a change of zoning. J.T. Adams • It is zoned C2 and it has some zoning constraints on it. • As long as the process is moving along they will be patient, but they are anxious to do something particularly with CIRCA. • All of the other elements to it just allow them to create a synergy in the community. • They want to do a documentary about the whole process. Councilmember Tart • Asked the name of the foundation. J.T. Adams • It is called the Southern Foundation. • They want to be anonymous so that is far as he will go with it. Councilmember Tart • With the City being behind the development, he would like to know who is giving that money. J.T. Adams • At the appropriate time if a caution light if proffered by the City then they will be happy to sit down with the Council and talk about it. Councilmember Tart • He understands the changes that would need to be made to the Crabapple Master Plan, asked if he could explain how that would reduce traffic in Crabapple. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 3 of 18 J.T. Adams • He was alluding to density in urban planning is known to reduce traffic because people tend to stay in the same locality for longer periods of time and it reduces the burden on the subsequent. • Density tends to lower traffic by virtue of the time spent on the site. • They are trying to raise the quality of the social utility of a certain area and mass the municipal elements all together. Mayor Lockwood • This is a proposal that J.T. has done and what they would like to propose. • This is not something that has gone through our staff and has not previously been presented to us. • If this were to go through then we would get a lot more detail to make decisions on. Betty Ann Wolff, 1000 Lackey Road, Roswell, Georgia • Asked how this would affect the zoning of surrounding properties. Tom Wilson, Operations Director • Something of this magnitude would need to be looked at in the context of and update to the Crabapple Master Plan. • They would take a look at all of the zoning around there. Kim Horne, 415 Wade Glen Court, Milton, Georgia • She is a member of CPAC, but she is not representing CPAC. • They have seen this before and she thought they would see some changes to the presentation but there are no substantial changes from what they saw. • It was her understanding the CPAC did not endorse this or any other plan. • They would like to see other developers come forward and other sites looked at and explored. • She thinks this is putting the cart before the horse, before the needs analysis is done. • She does not think they should be presenting this before the Council until other developers have had their chance to weigh in on other areas. • If he is doing this at a Work Session she would guess every time there is a rezoning, there is going to be presentations sponsored by different Council Members. Dennis Potts, 2745 Webb Road, Milton, Georgia • Asked if Fulton County decides to put the library on another spot would they continue building the rest of the buildings for the City? J.T. Adams • He wants to build a community. • He is a citizen here and wants his children to grow up with a small town feel. • If there is a better site to mass all of those elements together then they should do it. • This particular location just seems to have its own natural charm. • He thinks in order to have a great community they have to not live so anonymously so massing community with municipal with commercial with residential is a smart development so he wants the development to be the best it can be. Mayor Lockwood • It is his understanding that this is J.T. Adams wish list and what he would like to create, but that in no way means that the City is endorsing it. • The City has gone through a needs analysis that is not site specific. • Everyone will get their chance to present. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 4 of 18 Heidi Sowder, 525 Sunflower Court, Milton, Georgia • It was her understanding that Mr. Adams presented this at the community participation charette and she has heard this has been talked about a lot. • She wrote in to Council that she would like to see proper procedure followed. • Her understanding of proper procedure would be the needs analysis would be done and then an RFP would be put out so that everyone that is interested can come and present their plans and she really hope that happens. • She had heard the police and fire facilities were also going to move over there. • In 2000, Fulton County had already identified this area needed a fire station and they do not have a fire station. • The fire station that services Highway 9 Deerfield area is located on Thompson Road which is 4 miles from here. • It affects everybody’s homeowner’s insurance prices and it affects the response times. • Since city hall has been here they have seen a better response time and a better police presence in the area and she does not want to see that sacrificed. Sandy Jones, 1125 South Bethany Creek Drive, Milton Georgia • There are some great opportunities being presented, she asked how independent the library is from his plan if the board chooses not to go forward with the library would they still be moving forward. J.T. Adams • Yes, but what he is trying to convey is the massing of municipal elements together is the smartest way to develop. • Having the library near city hall is common sense, but it is not necessary. • Every town of this quality should have its own downtown. Sandy Jones • Given that there is an independent board that will be making the decision, they are not looking at it from a master plan or are they. J.T. Adams • One of their criteria is proximity to public transportation and another is it being near schools. Sandy Jones • Asked if the library board chose another location it would put in jeopardy the fine arts facility they are proposing and the possible location of a future city hall. J.T. Adams • It does not put it into jeopardy but it does make it less desirable from a planning standpoint. • The foundation wants to do something good for this country. • They are of the mind that they are fed up with politics as usual and they think putting all of these things together would be a great opportunity to develop a community that gets to know one another and gets to speak to one another. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • It sounds like there is a separate process that needs to take place. • This is just a component of the whole of Crabapple and the master plan that is currently in place. • We have the responsibility to look at the whole and not just one piece. • We do have laws in place and should be mindful of that fact. • Asked if the foundation was part of the entire proposal. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 5 of 18 J.T. Adams • The foundation has eight different pillars that they focus on. • Seventy percent of what they do is cancer research and they have an arts and education pillar. • The purpose for doing it is to create a community and they do not want history discarded so they are willing to purchase the land and put these elements in place. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked if the Wieland property has connectivity to this. J.T. Adams • That is correct. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She thinks they need to be cautious that they do not get into a zoning case because this is not a zoning hearing. • She wanted to make sure as they look at this if this was the zoning as it relates to Fulton County and what was approved or if this plan was contemplating the Wieland zoning modification that will coming before them. Tom Wilson, Operations Director • He thinks this plan can be accomplished with or without the zoning modification approvals. Councilmember Lusk • He commended Mr. Adams for coming forward with a plan like that. • He would encourage other developers to take the same initiative to come forward with plans. • He thinks they have an opportunity to create a natural downtown community. • He thinks in order to meld the since of community here, we really need a downtown area. City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Update on the Space Needs Analysis Roland Davidson, Lyman Davidson & Dooley, Inc. • This is their first formal presentation and Nelson Ruiz the director of design will be helping with the presentation. • They have a government studio which is focused on doing this type of work with cities, counties, state government agencies and federal agencies. • This is an exciting process because it is a historical precedent. • Programming understands what goes in the project. • They have worked with the City Manager and staff and interviewed all of the departments and came up with a detailed list of each space in the building and assigned square footage to it. • They have done a lot of research in terms of how city hall works and at some point they will do research as to how a similar government building looks in terms of coming up with a design that everyone will be very proud of. • That is not part of their scope however. • As part of the research they did for the planning analysis, they visited Duluth city hall which is a very nice traditional building. • The interior was nicely done with a lot of wood trim, traditional columns, grand stairs etcetera. • He will highlight what they learned from Duluth and Suwannee and then show how they applied them to Milton’s design. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 6 of 18 • One thing Duluth did really well is once you go into the central lobby there is an easy to see reception desk and the doors at the bottom go to the finance/city clerk offices where citizens visiting city hall can conduct their business in private in a nice setting. • At the top of the stairs was a large conference room and they decided to imitate that in the plan. • The Council chambers for Milton will be larger because it will include the court room. • Both Duluth and Suwannee was more expensive than they think Milton needs to do with their building. • He showed a diagram of the floor plan with the court room, the main lobby with a separate lobby for the court use. • They have the municipal court spaces office areas. • Public safety in this building is nothing more than the Police Chief and the Fire Marshall plus their top aides. • The fire station and police station will be separate at a different site. • On this floor there is also public works and community development and they have a shared reception lobby. • They propose a second floor with a finance department, city clerks, records, communications, the administration department, IT and human resources. • The diagram shows the main entrance going into the lobby with the reception desk to the right, the public restrooms to the left, you will go through into a rotunda space and once you go through there, you go to the reception area for the community development and public works on the left or you can go to the finance, city clerk and cashiers office for everyday needs. • If you need to go to the second floor there is an elevator at the rotunda that will take you upstairs to the departments up there for daytime visitors. • One thing that will be different form Duluth or Suwannee is there will be a separate court house lobby space which will have a separate entrance with a security pass through and desk. • In viewing the needs there is a need for Council Chambers and a very distinct need for Municipal Court so in order to be cost effective, rather than building two separate spaces they are proposing to make a joint space that will serve both needs. • They think the city will need about five acres of land which will allow for expansion if needed in the future. Robert Smith, Finance • The used the programming document that Nelson described which says how many square feet for each use. • The estimate they came up with is conceptual. • They put in a provision for construction contingency and the design contingency is a portion of these costs. • They also considered the general contractors fee and escalation to be zero between now and a projected start of next year. • The resulted cost is $8,200,000 for a space that is about 30,000 square feet. • That would include the capital construction cost as well as the FF&E furnishings. • This was based on the sketches that were shown as well as the programmatic documents. • The site is not specific but the assumptions were no rock, no water, no deep foundations and no hazmat etcetera. Mayor Lockwood • He does not want the people to think the city is entertaining spending 8 million dollars. • We have to take what we are spending right now on a lease fee and we need to look at a project whether we lease it or lease to own or whether we purchase and we need to make sure that whatever we do is cost effective as possible so we are not spending more money than we are spending now. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 7 of 18 • Whatever we do we would amortize it to be within or less or at least close range to what we are spending now. City Clerk Marchiafava read the next agenda item. Discussion on FY 2010 Budget Stacey Inglis, Finance Director • This is a living document and has changed since the last discussion. • She will take them through each department to discuss the budget requests for maintenance and operating, capital request and other fund request pertaining to that particular department. • The first thing to talk about is revenues. • The change from the original document was a total amount appropriated revenues which went up to approximately $15,000. • That is for re appropriating funds for the Highway 9 Design Guidelines. • For the most part revenues remain flat in comparison of 2009. • Excluding the almost $4.2 million in Fulton County SSD money received last year the total projected revenue for FY2010 went up by approximately $600,000. • She still has no news on the 2009 digest. Councilmember Thurman • So it is greater because of having to reduce current year because we are billing so late that we will not receive the taxes in the current year. Finance Director Inglis • That correct. • Overall it equals out to be pretty flat. • There are work sheets for each of the revenue sources and they show the collection history by month and fiscal year. • Her goal is to incorporate this information into a new revenue book so they can have a description of the revenue source along with the history. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • On the insurance premium, asked if they anticipated that to be flat every year or does it fluctuate. Finance Director Inglis • Unless the population projections go up, she does not anticipate that. Councilmember Thurman • Last year a lot of people paid property taxes on line and we ate the fee where most of the other cities charged 3% or whatever, asked if they had made the decision on that for this year. Finance Director Inglis • They were looking into a solution for that which was to use a different credit card company, but at the time they presented their proposal they did not have the ability to do on line credit card payments so they are planning on going out to market to see if there is another solution. • Accepting credit cards is a convenience for both the user and for us so we are looking at different options. • Before we get started with expenditures, she thanked the department heads saying they did a great job in managing their current budgets and in being conservative with the FY2010 requests. • In the Mayor and Council budget, included are the salaries and benefits for the seven, as well as training, travel and supplies. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 8 of 18 • The only capital project that falls in that department is the city hall needs assessment. • There is no new funding appropriated for that project in the coming year. • In the City Manager budget, there are salaries and benefits and expenditures related to the City Manager, an Assistant City Manager and an Executive Aid. • There is a large increase because the Assistant City Manager and the Executive Aid are now being funded for the entire year. • There are no new initiatives or capital requests for the City Manager department. • In the City Clerk’s department the budget reflects salary and benefits and expenses related to ½ the City Clerk because she is the City and Court Clerk. • The remainder of her time is appropriated in the Municipal Court budget. • The CH2M Hill contract is booked under the professional fees contracted line item and includes the cost of the Deputy City Clerk and the Records Clerk as well as supplies, travels etcetera related to them. • There is an increase of a little more the $85,000 due to the cost of the elections and the annual maintenance of the Municode and Granicus. • There are no new initiatives or capital requests. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Know that we are transitioning from the CH2M Hill model and we do not know what the full transition period will be, asked if this budget contemplates the full six months before resources are transitioned internally or is that the shortened time framed that has been discussed. Finance Director Inglis • This contemplates an entire year of funding because they did not quite know how to budget or what the transition would look like. • We do not have any cost figures to put toward that so they will see in every department, it includes the annual contract. Mayor Lockwood • To clarify, and we may have to do a budget amendment in the middle of the year but keep in mind that yearly amount is a lesser amount than the current contract was so what should happen as we transition we will have some cost and we may save somewhere else but it should balance out. • We will have to adjust it but the thinking was it should be fairly accurate through the whole year. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Before we formally approve a budget one thing that would be helpful would be to look at various scenarios. • When we start looking at taking away dollars from land acquisition for parks and rec it would be helpful to have some sense of what some of those savings could be if we are successful transitioning within a six month period. Mayor Lockwood • The cost that is in the budget is much lower and our cost probably will not be very much less than that. Finance Director Inglis • In the fiscal year 2009, the Finance Department was lumped in with HR, Public Information, marketing, legal and risk management under general administration. • They are in the process of splitting that up in the amended budget. • The amended budget does not represent all of the amendments that are being brought forth because they have not been approved yet. • She tried to estimate what the amendment was going to be and she thinks it is close. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 9 of 18 • If you take into account the proposed amendment there is a decrease of almost $100,000 between FY09 and FY2010 due mainly to reduction in the CH2M Hill contract allocation for this department. • There are no new initiatives or capital requests. • Under legal the projected cost is $200,000 which is a slight increase due to current trending. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • One of the things she thinks that have not done as thoroughly as they could would be to look at specific items and there are some things that are already on their plate that they understand will continue to require legal input and now they are tracking it on a project basis. • She asked Mr. Jarrard if they could go through and look at those specific projects and determine which they feel will continue and which will not. • She asked if the increase was realistic. • She wants to keep the cost as low as possible but she does not want them to not include items that they already know are going to utilize legal fees. City Attorney Jarrard • There are the day to day administrative things that he gets asked to do by the City Manager and staff which is fairly inexpensive and then there are the bigger long term things. • One of the big cash cows is litigation. • If there is a lot of litigation there will be more cost. • He is trying to keep the City Manager and the Mayor up to date on a month to month basis as to where their fees are so it is being monitored very closely. • If there is an opportunity for fee recovery in litigation they will pursue them aggressively so long as they feel like there is a payoff at the end of it. Finance Director Inglis • They also took into account the transition of the contract and that there will be a lot that would have to be sent to the attorney for review. • The IT budget includes salary and benefits for the IT Director and the cost for an IT Manager, GIS Technician and an IT Technician are included in the CH2 line item. • The one initiative for them was the network band width optimization which will increase the speed for mobile units for police and fire. • It was mistakenly entered at $17,000 when initially presented but that figure did not include the monthly Ethernet metro Ethernet cost which brought it to $32,120. • There is also a capital request of $35,000 for the purchase of color ortho photography. Councilmember Lusk • Asked if that could be explained. Kelley Christy, IT Manager • Basically, the ortho photography will be for the aerial. • Right now they are up to a meter and they are from 2006. • Lidar is where they take a plane and fly over and shoot a laser down and it spans the ground and gives us topography. • It will tell us the elevations which they can then lay on the aerial map and give them the idea of where there is a hill or gully or something like that. • It will help a lot in public works and public safety. • It is basically updating our aerial topography maps. • We are doing this in conjunction with Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, and Roswell. Councilmember Lusk Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 10 of 18 • Asked if this information was available through the federal government. IT Manager Christy • He is not sure. • He thinks they were doing an original cooperative purchase agreement with the other cities and that did not work out somehow so they went back to the $35,000. • He does not know how it fell through the cracks but what they have now is from the federal government purchased from Fulton County. Carter Lucas, Principal Engineer • The information that they have seen from the federal government that is available on the public record is not to the level of detail that this will provide. • This will probably be 2 foot topo and six inch pixel resolution as opposed to 1 meter pixel resolution which allows you to get in and see detail. Finance Director Inglis • Included in the HR budget are the salary and benefits and expenses for an HR Director and a generalist. • These positions will transition on October 1, 2009. • They will also maintain a part time position on the CH side to manage their employee’s benefits. • There are no new initiatives or capital requests. • Risk management which is property and liability insurance and there are really no changes from one year to the next. • She did bump up the general liability $20,000 to anticipate new employees and contracts etcetera. • She decreased the unallocated which was accounted for in claims and adjustments. Councilmember Lusk • Asked if there was a need for extended liability. • Asked how they established going from 2008 actual of $158,000 to amend 2009 of $190,000. Finance Director Inglis • In the amended 2009 budget you will see the unallocated amount so if you take the $15,000 out of there it gets you a little closer to the actual figure for 2008. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Looks like there is some additional liability coverage for certain officials, to cover law suits and things but that is an additional liability that was not there before and it makes up about the majority of that differential with some increase for the general liability premium. • Knowing that they are moving away from CH2M Hill, in the past, a question she has had about how to look for more effective insurance premiums as it relates to their coverage, it may be important to have some additional discussion with CH because if this contemplates 100% of our coverage, asked how they are doing that balance between the transition and what liability CH will maintain versus the liability the city needs to have. Finance Director Inglis • As they transition, they will talk with GMA to discuss when they need to bring on the additional liability. • They may not have additional liability cost because she thinks what they have now would cover all of the employees if they brought them all on. • This is just an estimate. • When they were going through the renegotiations with CH that was one of the things they discussed. • They were saying it would be an additional cost to the city so she estimated $20,000, but it may not even be that much. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 11 of 18 Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Another thing they had talked about in the past was some of the park lands which may not have as much active recreation but is still available to citizens, asked if they could verify through this process that they would not need to increase that and that they are in good shape. Finance Director Inglis • She has already spoken with them about that and we are covered. City Attorney Jarrard • He can envision there being no discernable increase in premiums particularly to the extent that public safety is already under the municipal umbrella and that is where a lot of liability is. Councilmember Lusk • Umbrella liability is a premium that CH had been charging since day one, asked where that premium cost was included. Finance Director Inglis • It is included in the monthly contract amount. Councilmember Lusk • He asked going forward how they would compensate for that premium. Finance Director Inglis • Bringing on new employees should not be an additional cost in liability insurance. Councilmember Thurman • The fact that what they are paying now, they will not continue to pay as they transition that out. Finance Director Inglis • That is correct and that will be discussed when they figure out what the transition will be for each department. Councilmember Lusk • The extended general liability limits over and above the basic underline liability limits. • The basic policy limits probably go up to $3 million per aggregate and your extended general liability will extend your limits to whatever you want and he thinks in the original contract CH stated that the extended general liability limits were $50 million. • When they first charged us for it they were looking for $250,000 a year for premium on a 50 million dollar policy. • He does not think they need $50 million, but somewhere that premium is buried here and he thinks they need to investigate what umbrella limits they need to carry as a city. City Attorney Jarrard • He concurs that $50 million is a bit rich. • He is not used to seeing that in any of the other jurisdictions he works in. Finance Director Inglis • There is an RFQ out that is being contemplated. Councilmember Lusk Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 12 of 18 • He would like to see some investigation as to what coverage is primary through this transition. • He would hate to get into a claim situation and battle it out our insurance carrier and theirs. City Attorney Jarrard • He would think that analysis from GIRMA’s perspective has already been done. • They are always looking to see whose primary versus secondary in every claim. Finance Director Inglis • General government buildings are taking into account the city hall lease and any additional operating expenses that fall under that. • Public information and marketing is a department that was formally known as communications and was changed to represent the responsibilities of the department. • This includes the Communications Manager and the Special Programs Coordinator. • There are no new initiatives, but they did increase the postage for annual report. They are going make a bi-annual report. Councilmember Tart • Regarding the Special Events Coordinator, we have the Roundup, the Christmas celebration in Crabapple, the July 4th parade, Memorial Day, and Crabapple Arts Festival, asked if there was a need for a full time position for that or could it be done through committees or something along those lines. Finance Director Inglis • At the time they were making the budget, they kept things the same and they will be looking at that as they go through the process of transitioning. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Asked where the cost for advertising was imbedded. Finance Director Inglis • It is through the CH contract. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Before we became a city there was some questions about the legal organ and how they were going to do that. • There were some issues with performance measures and there was some input from Jarrard and Davis that said how they had proceeded with the legal organ may or may not be the standard. • Without know how much of that $482,000 is being expended for required advertising and she would like to see what that would be broken out to be. • Asked if they could break that out and see what they spend monthly. Finance Director Inglis • In Municipal Court, this includes the salary and benefits cost for ½ of the City/Court Clerk, Municipal Judge, Associate Judge, Solicitor, Deputy Court Clerk, and Admin Assistant. • The Deputy Court Clerks were previously CH, but on October 1st they will be transitioned to City employees. • Costs have gone down because they have transitioned that department so there is no CH2M Hill line item in this budget. • In the police budget there are 30 and ½ people. • The ½ is the crossing guard and that is included in the salary and benefits cost. • It also includes the initiatives of 2 police officers, a crime prevention officer and a narcotics detective. • There is also purchase of the warranty extension on the laptops. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 13 of 18 Councilmember Thurman • To her it looks like salary and wages are going up. Finance Director Inglis • That is because in FY09 they had a public safety administration budget, which included the Police Chief and the Fire Chief, the Admin Assistant and the Records Clerk. • In FY2010 those are being split out and going to the proper departments. • In the Police Department there is the Police Chief’s salary included along with the Records Clerk and the Admin Assistant plus the initiative requests. Councilmember Thurman • It looks like that is going up 25% with pensions going up almost 50%. • Pension is a hot point because she has seen what it has done to many other municipalities where it has caused long term problems. • She asked why the pension was going up at a much higher percentage. Finance Director Inglis • Pension costs were at 3.27% for the city contribution and she thinks it went up to 3.54% this year. • That started in May so they have to account for any additional cost. • That is the full cost projected for every employee if they maintain full staff all year long. Councilmember Thurman • They had discussed freezing pension planning and putting in a profit sharing plan. Finance Director Inglis • They are still contemplating that. • In the Fire Department there are 54 full time employees. • There are 3 stations located inside the city limits. • The new initiatives are the heart ready city, the rescue harnesses, and the exhaust extractors. • In the capital projects fund there is a first year funding for a pumper tanker truck which is $100,800. • It is a seven year funding for a new fire truck Fire Chief Edgar • One of the issues is that our units are now out of warranty. • They put an initiative into the budget to maintain those units but anytime that unit goes out of service for maintenance or if there is some reason the unit is taken out of service then they have nothing other than the resources that Alpharetta has available when they are available. • With this initiative they budgeted for a new unit that would serve as a front line unit and then take one of the existing units and put into a reserve status. • They would continuously rotate those units throughout the system based on mileage and repairs. • With the ISO coming in they wanted to have some type of initiative to show they are making efforts to increase their water supply. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She asked if he had contemplated purchasing used equipment. Fire Chief Edgar • They are looking at different options. Finance Director Inglis Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 14 of 18 • The EMS operations budget is the annual contract for rural metro and is the same and FY09. • In the public works department are the Director of Public Works, a public works citizen responder, a transportation engineer, field services manager and a field services technician. • The new initiatives are partnering with the City of Roswell by way of a use agreement that will allow the City of Milton’s residents to utilize their recycling facilities for $50,000. • There are funds to support volunteer efforts for cleanup programs for $5,000. • There is additional funding for overhead trimming of trees and bushes in the city rights-of-way of $18,000. • In the capital projects fund, $500,000 in pavement management, $25,000 in striping existing roads, $25,000 in traffic calming,$675,000 bridge replacement and $425,000 NPDES. • They are talking to a consultant that would cost no more than $75,000. • The reason they are talking to a consultant at this time is because if they decide to transition public works, it is a very intensive process and they would need to consult with an outside firm on bringing over those services. Councilmember Thurman • She thought they were using Roswell’s recycling. Carter Lucas, Principal Engineer • One of the things that the City of Roswell is looking at right now is a membership fee so for those people who are not residents of Roswell there would be an option for them to become a member of the recycling facility at some established rate. • They approached us to see if we would want to become a member as a city and they proposed back to them it may be a possibility but they would want to base it on the number of users that are actually from the City of Milton. • For the past five or six weeks they have been doing some surveys at the facility to try and determine how many City of Milton residents actually use the facility so they can talk about what type of rates they could charge us as a city versus providing individual memberships. • The $50,000 was really just a place holder. • The discussion is in the initial phase right now. • They have roughly a $400,000 operating budget for the entire recycling facility. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Her question ties into the fact that there is an Ordinance on the books that requires the waste haulers also provide recycling. • It seems that whether or not they want to partner with the City of Roswell that they would also evaluate what they need to be doing as a city to ensure that the current waste haulers are meeting the Ordinance requirements. Councilmember D’Aversa • The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board members were asked to put together what they felt the needs were going to be with regards things they were advocating. • She asked how much of what they put together was incorporated into the budget. Finance Director Inglis • They have a lot of money in the capital project fund for parks and they looked at a lot of the request they had and have the funding for a lot of them. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • Regarding public works, she asked what the line item is for the consultant. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 15 of 18 Finance Director Inglis • It is in professional fees under contract consultant. • To explain it a little further, public works is the most complicated in terms of the transition other than IT. • The person they have been speaking with is a subject matter expert and has institutional knowledge of both Milton and CH2M Hill. • He was the former interim Public Works Director when Milton came on board. • It is Vic Jones. • CH2M Hill has also instructed their employees that they cannot participate or have anything to do with any RFPs of transitioning over the contract so the city employees would have to do this and because they are already over extended at this point they decided to talk to a consultant about it. • It is a time and material contract that is paid hourly. • They can terminate it at any time. • She knows that the contract is an actual cost not to exceed $50,000 but can be modified up to $75,000 so they went ahead and put $75,000 in the budget. Mayor Lockwood • Asked Mayor Pro Tem D’Aversa to take over the meeting because he had to leave. • He asked for a consensus to do the variance training at another time. Councilmember D’Aversa • She would support that in order to give it due diligence. Councilmember Tart • The City Attorney said he would be available at 5:00 before the meeting next Monday. Finance Director Inglis • In the Public Works Department, in the capital grants fund, there are 2 projects that require funding this year. • The first is the Birmingham at Providence Road design and the second is the Arnold Mill at New Providence Road design. • They are both intersection improvements that have had funding from fiscal year 2008, 2009 and 2010. • In the Parks and Recreation Department, we have the salary and wages for a Parks and Rec Manager. • There are no new initiatives in this department. • There is funding in the capital projects fund for any capital request that are presented by Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • She asked what the contracted professional fees outside the salary were. Finance Director Inglis • The $15,000 is for Birmingham Park mowing and liter pickup. • In community development, it includes in the contract cost for CH2M Hill a Director of Community Development, 2 planners, environmental engineer/arborist, 2 construction/plan review inspectors and a code enforcement officer, a building official, building plans reviewer, 2 building inspectors and a permit technician. • In that lineup, some of those positions are provided by subcontractors so the actual cost for building official and the plans reviewer and the building inspectors are actually paid for by the revenues that they generate so it is not totally included in the CH2M Hill line item. • There are no new initiatives and no capital requests. Councilmember Thurman Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 16 of 18 • She asked if the Highway 9 Design Guidelines and the Crabapple Master Plan update are still in the requested budget for 2010. Finance Director Inglis • Correct, they did put $15,000 back in the budget from what was presented last week for the Highway 9 Design Guidelines and the Crabapple Master Plan was included in Alice Wakefield’s requested budget. Councilmember D’Aversa • She thinks that the chairman and co-chairman consulted with the City Manager and made the decision that $15,000 would be appropriate based on what their needs were. Finance Director Inglis • Debt service includes the next year funding for the lease purchase agreement to start the police and fire departments. Councilmember Thurman • She knows there has been discussion on the fact they may have to get another TAN depending on when Fulton County gets the digest. Finance Director Inglis • She did some additional cash flow analysis and it should be fine provided we get the digest in time to be able to bill this year. • If we cannot get the digest then we are stuck. Councilmember Thurman • If we cannot get the digest, we will have no choice. Finance Director Inglis • We cannot get a TAN even then because if we cannot bill, it gets into a very serious issue. • Every other city is going through the same thing so she doubts that Fulton County would wait to give us the digest. • We have to bill by October 31st in order to have property taxes billed this year because they have to be due in the same year they are assessed. • That is the state law and she knows that Fulton County is working very hard on getting that information because if they do not get it they cannot bill either. • We are still operating on the temporary collection order for 2008 as well. • Once the digest is approved for 2008 the temporary collection order is lifted. • Included in the other financing uses is the 1% of contingency that we by our policies have to put out and that is $163,630 and then transferred out to the various other funds based on what the request are for those funds. • In the special events fund is basically the cost for the events that the city sponsors or hosts. • It is funded entirely by donations and the hotel/motel tax. • The operating grant fund is the next year funding for the SAFER grant. • There are 3 firefighters that are funded by the SAFER grant. • Federal government matches 80% of the salary and benefits for the 3 firefighters. • In June of next year it goes to 50%. • In the hotel/motel tax fund, we are projecting $47,000 in revenues and $40,000 is going to the special events fund and $7,000 is going into the general fund for website hosting maintenance. Councilmember D’Aversa Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 17 of 18 • In the capital projects fund under Parks and Recreation, she asked if they had something allocated for the expansion and enhancement of Bell Memorial. Finance Director Inglis • It is land acquisition and park enhancements but there is no specific project. Councilmember Zahner Bailey • On the tree recompense, that number has been about the same for a long time and she thought that was one of those locations that if they did not have a place for recompense it would go, she asked if there had not been any funding for that. Finance Director Inglis • They have not received any revenues for that. Councilmember Thurman • Asked if the Safe Routes to School grant was included. Finance Director Inglis • We will not receive funding for that but will get the assets for it. • GDOT will be doing all of the work for that. Mark Reed, 14240 Phillips Circle, Milton Georgia • He looked at the Parks and Recreation budget, in the goals and objectives, under identification of potential capital improvements, it had mentioned development plans for Birmingham Park, but he did not see the expense for hiring the consultant and the same also goes for the comprehensive needs assessment. • The RFP is scheduled to start October 1st and he wanted to make sure that those items are in the budget. Finance Director Inglis • The goals and objectives that were included in this document were what was submitted at the time everybody submitted requests. • As they go through the process they will tailor the goals and objective to what was actually approved in the budget so just because it has something that says the goal is to do this, it is based on what was initially submitted as a request. • We do have funding in the capital projects fund for those specific items that can be transferred into the general fund to cover them if needed. Mark Reed • In the budget summary it has the salary for the Parks and Recreation Director at $77,500, but in the maintenance and operating initiatives, it had recreation programmer $31,600. Finance Director Inglis • That is what was submitted, but it was not proposed for Council to approve. Mark Reed • His input on a Parks and Recreation person for FY2010 is that we do not need a Parks and Recreation Director as somebody that has programming experience and that type of thing. • He really does not think they need the position at all in 2010. • To conduct a needs assessment and conduct this first phase of the development planning, he thinks that could be spearheaded by another position underneath the City Manager. • He thinks it is premature to bring a Parks and Recreation person on board. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, September 14, 2009 at 6:00 pm Page 18 of 18 Councilmember D'Aversa • The job description that was posted contemplates what he is saying. • We are Iooking at someone that would be a very nigh level big picture of Parks and Recreation, as opposed to a programming person or person that is actually running Parks and Recreation, ■ He is looking at how we will develop these parks and having experience in evaluation and development, but then also being able to transition into what would be a true Parks and Recreation director. After no further discussion, the Work Session adjourned at 9:58 p.m. Date Approved: October 5, 2009 3 r �J�ette R. Marchiafava, City Clerk Joe Lockwvo , Mayor i