04/19/2017 - Minutes City of Tigard
11
Budget Committee Summary
Wednesday,April 19,2017, 6:30 PM
Public Works Auditorium,Tigard, Oregon 97223
MEMBERS PRESENT (9):
Clifford Rone,Nathan Rix,Tom Schweizer, Stephanie Veal,Jason Snider,Tom Anderson,Marc Woodard,
John Goodhouse,Mayor John Cook,
MEMBERS ABSENT (2):
Raj Patel,William Ludwig
STAFF PRESENT:
Marty Wine, City Manager,Toby LaFrance, Finance and Information Services Director,Liz Lutz, Confidential
Executive Assistant,Joe Barrett-Sr. Management Analyst,Liz Newton,Assistant City Manager;Jared Isaksen-
Finance;Nadine Robinson-Central Services;Jamey McDonald, Kathy McAlpine,Lisa Shaw,Jim Wolf-Police;
Laura Barrie,Jessica Williams, Brian Rager-Public Works;Dana Bennet-Human Resources; Kenny Asher-
Community Development
1. Call to Order—Mayor John Cook called the meeting to order
2. Introductions—Committee and staff introduced themselves. A quorum was present. Finance Director,
Toby LaFrance discussed the role of the budget committee during the committee meetings and how the
budget becomes adopted.
3. Election of Officers—Nathan Rix was nominated and voted for committee chairperson. Clifford Rone
was nominated and voted as Secretary.
4. Open City Center Development Agency (CCDA) FY 2017-2018 Budget—for the purpose of election
of officers. Nathan Rix was nominated and voted for committee chairperson and Clifford Rone was
nominated and voted in as Secretary. CCDA budget committee recessed until April 24, 2017.
5. City of Tigard FY 2017-2018 Budget
a. Budget Message-Marty Wine, City Manager and Budget Officer:
Marty's budget message indicated that the city is at a tipping point in terms of being able to provide
current service levels. Residents are unaware that our current revenue doesn't cover our day-to-day
service level needs. Resident surveys show that they are satisfied with services and feel that they
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have a good value for the taxes they pay. We have been good stewards of the city's resources to try
to keep up with the increasing demands of the growing community. However,we cannot add
services without additional resources.
We continue to pursue a local option levy to shore up the resources to provide continued services.
Putting a local option levy to a vote by residents was approved by the City Council as one of their
2017-2019 goals. The most important focus of these budget meetings this year is to provide input
on what should be included in a local option levy.
In the last few budgets,Tigard has tried to strike a balance between providing current services and
starting to invest in becoming a more walkable, healthy and connected city,which is our strategic
plan. The real picture is of continued eroding service levels in our General Fund if we continue as
we have been. Police response times erode,people have longer waiting times in our Planning and
Finance areas, and the Library is open fewer hours during the week. We are behind in maintaining
our parks and trails, and the parklands and facilities have had major repairs deferred. We are unable
to maintain our current service levels or invest in the city's vision while our available resources grow
about'/2 to 1% behind spending needs. We will not be able to add services without additional
resources.
The city has commissioned several surveys to understand Tigard voters views about service levels
and their willingness to pay more for the services they value-Library,Parks, Police, Community
Development in the General Fund. The hope is for the budget committee to devote its efforts this
year to learn what the management has learned from these surveys, and advising us about what to
do next for the potential of a local option levy. So far we have learned through the surveys that we
have a gap-people overall are very satisfied with city services and feel they get a good value for their
tax dollars. No one wants to pay more and they don't know that we can't keep up with what we are
providing today. Additionally the survey shows that we need to reach out and do a better job of
communicating our story about what's happening with our services.We plan to launch a
communication and education effort to try to determine what voters will support and to convene a
levy and bond task force to review our financial situation and advise on how to obtain voter
support.
The budget also contains the city's performance measures that will begin to show the public how
we're making good use of the limited resources. We will launch an annual report that will come out
later this year.
For the last couple of budgets the city has embarked on implementing a Parks &Recreation fee.
This was a final step in enacting all the resources we can that don't need voter approval and many
of which show up on residents' utility bill. This fee generated over$1,000,000 every year that,
together with the general fund, supports the maintenance of our growing park and recreation
system. Creating this fee gave the budget committee some choices about where to invest these
dollars. This year those resources are already largely invested in ongoing services;there are fewer
choices to be made without the action of a local option levy.
There are two things in this budget proposal:
1. Invests only in existing programs that allows us to try to keep up with what we're already doing.
There are no additional services or expansion of existing services.
2. The budget suggests we put funding toward the education and communication campaign effort
that will help Tigard residents support a local option levy in 2018. These include funding in every
department like additional staff in the Economic Development program,Library, Emergency
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Management supplies and equipment, the next phase of our Recreation program growth that has
been planned over a five year period, and the first step in catching up deferred maintenance and
replacement of parks vehicles and equipment.With minimal impact to the General Fund,we're
investing in making improvements with our Capital Improvement Program with additional staffing;
updating our Indirect Cost plan for efficient allocation of internal service costs, and improve
efficient use of fleet with a new Fleet Manager position. The services we are supporting for the local
option levy include staffing support in Police in the Community Engagement area to support many
efforts,including telling the story of the department's facility needs and additional communication
and survey support to pursue a local option levy in May, 2018.
This budget is straightforward and wisely uses our limited resources. The city's leadership team,
which consists of the department directors, discussed that to make any other investments would
distract from the real need which is to figure out what to propose in a local option levy to make
available resources for our daily work.
The hope is that the budget committee will spend the majority of the time we have in these meeting
to act as a focus group for the City Council and staff to advise on questions such as what should be
included in a local option levy and what kind of communication and education that will help the
community understand to increase property taxes to support the services they value.
b. Budget Presentation-Toby LaFrance:
Tigard's most recent financial history included making cuts six and eight years ago and those with
the combined measures that lowered costs,has given Tigard a level of financial stability. Our
financial policies have enabled Tigard to have an increase in our Standard and Poor's bond rating of
AA+.
Financial Forecasting:
1. General Fund: Budget forecasting is done in a 6 year increments. We don't presume future
budget committee decisions.We forecast off of actuals,which is typically 95% of the
budgeted dollars. The General Fund is where Police,Library,Planning, Court,
administrative functions and a large part of parks is supported. We want to keep the ending
fund balance above the minimum reserved requirement-made up of cash flow (property
taxes) and $1,000,000 rainy day reserve which is a policy adopted by the Budget Committee
a few years ago. The reserves are trending downward; expenditures grow about '/2 % faster
than the revenues grow. This causes the reserves to erode. Due to the amount of turnover
in our staffing this last year,we actually spent less than 95%,which resulted in savings in
our personnel cost.We are not forecasting this to continue. This budget is sustainable for
our process until a local option levy is passed. If it's not passed,we will be faced with some
decisions.
2. Capital Improvement Plan (CIP):We have 87 projects in this CIP. Most of these projects
are fully funded,while others will require future application for shared funding.As
mentioned, this budget adds staff to help with project delivery. We are developing master
plans for Stormwater,Water,Parks and Transportation. The plan includes
sidewalk/pedestrian, trails projects, trails,and Cach Reservoir. We will need to monitor the
Gas Tax Fund,Water Fund, and Water SDC Fund due to the strain placed on these funds
by operations and capital needs during the 6-Year forecast period.
In conclusion, this budget is fiscally responsible,provides day-to-day services as well as possible
given the disparity between expenditure and revenue growth,pursues a local option levy and
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includes a CIP that is achievable,yet stretches available resources and is dependent on assistance
from partner agencies.
c. Public Comment: none
d. Report to Budget Committee on last year's budget decisions-Toby
Last year there were some dollars freed up by the creation of the parks utility fee. Four police
officers were added;Facility needs-roof over the Police station and a facilities condition assessment
to determine the conditions of the Permit Center, Police and City Hall buildings as an important
step toward a possible Facilities Bond to help improve the condition of our City Hall campus;
Summerlake Irrigation system improvement will be completed by the end of June.
e. Questions/Discussion regarding the 2017-2018 Proposed Budget
i. Councilor Goodhouse asked about the Cach Reservoir which is in the Water CIP and is
fully funded.
ii. Councilor Goodhouse asked about the Fanno Creek House usage-Marty indicated that our
Facilities department are making repairs and updating it so the city can rent it to the public.
iii. Councilor Woodard asked about the Facilities department and their need for a Facilities
Maintenance Manager. He said the city needs a maintenance person that is dedicated to
forecasting the city's maintenance needs. Nadine Robinson, Central Services Director
indicated that we have a Facilities Supervisor and in this budget we will be hiring a Facilities
and Fleet Manager. This position will be working on maintenance planning and efficiencies.
iv. Clifford Rone asked about a Facilities Bond program that was discussed during last year's
budget meetings. Marty said that we had funding set aside for and embarked on a Civic
Center Envisioning project that is a team of people to look at what the facility needs are and
advising the city on a Capital Facilities Plan-a phased in plan. There is no proposal yet.
v. He also pointed out a couple of scrivener errors that will be addressed for the final, adopted
budget. He pointed out how the indirect costs have a wide percentage variance between
departments and Toby replied that depending on the line item, some of the cost plan is
based on total budget for that division and/or number of employees,which leads to the
large percentage swing. He also said that in this budget is funds to update our cost plan
allocation.
vi. The committee would like a list of changes made during the budget process. Toby said that
we can show what changes are made between the proposed budget and the adopted budget.
He indicated that the committee votes and approves the Schedule of Appropriations,
located in the Appendix and none of the items mentioned will adversely impact the
Schedule of Appropriations.
vii. Nathan asked about the budget message-that the body be used as a focus group-how can
we be most helpful today and future meeting?Also,how to help communicate and educate
the public?Toby said that the best way to help during this budget is to review this year's
budget and approve the budget with any adjustments quickly so the focus can be on the
local option levy. Since there are not many changes or differences of note in this budget,
time would be better spent discussing the upcoming levy. This Monday's meeting will have
a consultant that conducted the citizen surveys to discuss their results. Marty said the
leadership team has been working on a set of messages for the upcoming months and the
results helped shape these messages.The Mayor gave several examples of potential
messages to share with the public and how to communicate these messages the most
effective ways. We could test some of these ideas with this group.
viii. Clifford Rone discussed system development charges, (SDC) and how we pay for
operations going forward for new development and not tap into the operating funds. Toby
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indicated that the lawsuit regarding system development charges with the Homebuilder's
Association has been settled.We are able to keep the SDC's that we have adopted.
Performance Measures-pertaining to the library (volunteers) and parks (maintenance level)
were briefly discussed.
ix. Councilor Woodard asked a question regarding the outstanding debt service level and Toby
defined the debt summary and specifically what is included in the summary and discussed
the city's debt limit.
x. The council members discussed raising the travel and training budget for next year. Toby
explained that the budget could be adjusted as an amendment to the original proposed
budget when the committee approves the budget.
xi. There was a question regarding the realignment of staff in Community Development which
the Director, Kenny Asher explained that they changed an Associate Planner position to a
Community Engagement Coordinator position to better meet their department's needs.
xii. Councilor Goodhouse raised the idea of increasing the rainy day reserve in the General
Fund from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 With the recession, the reserve was used as a bridge
and used$2,000,000 over a two year period of the recession to help with expenditures.
xiii. Councilor Snider requested from staff how much it would cost to open the library to full
services on Thursdays.
xiv. Marty reminded the committee members that the proposed budget was crafted with two
themes; 1. Keep doing what we are already doing; 2. Providing support for the local option
levy. The proposal for the library additions that you see in this budget are to enable the
library to keep doing what it's been doing. If you want to add dollars to this proposed
budget, there will need to be a tradeoff that will need to be discussed.
xv. Clifford Rone asked about many fund balances are earmarked for future expenditures. Toby
said the funds, not General Fund,like capital related funds, the fund balance goes up and
down because of using those earmarks and what we see as fund balance is based upon what
we know and what we're planning within the six years of operations and capital-what would
remain after we use some of those earmarks. The General Fund-some additional amount on
the rainy day reserve—eventually the fund balance amount would dip below the minimum
reserve requirement. That reserve is what we need from a cash standpoint,plus the
$1,000,000 rainy day reserve that has already been set aside. If we added another$1,000,000
to the rainy day reserve,it would accelerate the point in time in which we no longer are
meeting our minimum reserve requirements and would also accelerate the point in time in
which the budget committee and council would need to make some decisions about looking
for additional revenue sources or make expenditure reductions or tap into the $2,000,000
rainy day reserve to bridge the gap. The committee asked for additional information
regarding the rainy day reserve.
Toby summarized that the next meeting will focus on the citizen survey regarding the local option
levy. Time permitting,we will discuss the urban renewal and the city's budget.
The meeting was recessed at 9:15pm.
Liz Lutz, Confidential Executive Assistant
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ATTEST: Clifford Rone, Secretary
The next Budget Committee meeting will be held on Monday,April 24, 2017 at the Public Works
Auditorium, beginning at 6.30pm.
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