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04/27/2015 - Minutes City of Tigard TIGARD Budget Committee Summary Monday,April 27, 2015, 6:30 PM Public Works Auditorium,Tigard, Oregon 97223 MEMBERS PRESENT (10): Don Fisher,Marc Woodard,Julie Plotz,Marland Henderson,Melody Graeber,Jason Snider, Clifford Rone, Bill Bigcraft,John Goodhouse, Zoe Monahan-Alternate MEMBERS ABSENT (1): Mayor John Cook STAFF PRESENT: Marty Wine, City Manager,Toby LaFrance, Finance and Information Services Director,Liz Lutz, Confidential Executive Assistant,Liz Newton,Assistant City Manager,Brian Rager,Public Works Director,Michelle Wright,Assistant Public Works Director,Laura Barrie-Public Works,Margaret Barnes,Library Director,Alan Orr- Chief of Police,Jim DeSully-Assistant Chief,James McDonald-Lieutenant-Tigard Police,TJ Hahn-Tigard Police,Lisa Shaw,Business Manager-Police 1. Call to Order-City Center Development Agency(CCDA)—Chairperson Don Fisher called the meeting to order. Because the CCDA meeting notice was published,it is required to open the budget committee meeting for the agency. However further discussion of this budget will be on Monday,May 4`'. 2. Recess of the CCDA Budget Committee until May 4, 2015-The committee was recessed to open up the city budget committee hearing. 3. Reconvene and call to order the city budget committee 4. Approval of the 4/20/2015 minutes • Change the number of members present to 11 • It was moved to approve the minutes as amended. MSP 5. Public Comment-None 6. Comment from City Manager-Marty Wine In the course of the discussion, questions are being asked and answered by staff. We have staff and the public here to comment on their program additions. In case any committee members wonder what the City of Tigard Budget Committee Page 1 staff would recommend that the budget we brought you-that is the recommendation. It has been deliberated by all the staff and we talked about many of the issues that you are talking about tonight. We did the best we could with the resources we have and did as much as we could to provide the whole complement of services that we could provide. We thought of police and library expansions as well. I just want you to know that we are bringing back your recommendations that you requested but we are not bringing back a proposal different than what you have before you. It is your prerogative to change the proposed budget. We wouldn't have been able to bring you a sustainable budget for five years if we had added some of the things under consideration. So you are working with a budget and organization that is at capacity-so we need to find the resources in the base budget or make new resources available. This budget is full of alternatives for new resources so we can make new things happen. 7. Follow up on Issue Papers and committee requests from 4/20/15 • Update on room rental information and the property tax residential vs industrial- requests- Toby Staff are actively working on these two issues. The room rental has been harder to find than we thought. Regarding the property tax question,we have contacted Washington County-they have 25 years of data-we will put in a data request for residential and non-residential-what is the assessed value, what was the property tax that Tigard received and the ratio based on population by year. • Commercial Crimes Unit Police Officer addition-Toby: The proposed budget has an additional officer in the CCU-established in 2008. They support the business community. They are funded through the business license fees. The proposal includes increasing the revenue from business license to pay for the additional officer. The proposal is for the budget committee recommend to the council (who sets the fees), to increase the business license fees to enable the addition of this officer. Public Comment: 1. Ralph Bentley-employee of Washington Square Mall-commented that the Commercial Crimes Unit has helped with apprehending organized retail crime rings that come from outside the Oregon area. When businesses come to the mall, they let the new tenants know about this unit,which is uncommon in other cities. 2. Russell Little-owner of Woodcraft in Tigard-helped his business with a shoplifting problem. They trained him and his staff. Committee discussion: 1. Is there additional support for this increase in fee? Sergeant James McDonald and Chief Alan Orr indicated that this unit does a lot of business contacts to provide a lot of information. The feedback they have received has been positive to the increase. 2. Various committee members expressed support for the proposal and the unit. 3. There is only a general inflation factor increase for the smaller businesses. 4. The unit has handled a wide variety of assistance to business owners from fraud, unpaid billing and theft. 5. The budget committee agreed with the recommendation in the proposed budget. City of Tigard Budget Committee Page 2 • Sidewalk Program-Gaps-Toby Citizens are concerned about gaps in sidewalks and trails. We would like to explore a program to close those gaps. $200,000 has been set aside for one time projects, called the Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper program. We've accomplished a lot of these gap closures through this program. We are putting in sidewalks in large development project areas, as well as redevelopment projects. We have a minor sidewalk pedestrian program in our Capital Improvement Plan ($140,000) in the out years as we cannot afford it now.We do not have a funding source for sidewalks;it has to be part of another project or transportation resources are used. We want to devise and right-size the number of gaps within the city by doing an inventory and obtaining cost estimates. WE would bring those results to council and see if we want to develop a program around sidewalk repair and determine a designated funding source. Staff thinks this initial inventory can be accomplished with existing budget. We ask budget committee to support the development of this program. Public Comment: None Committee discussion: 1. Councilor Goodhouse, Clifford Rone, Councilor Woodard, Councilor Henderson, Councilor Snider,Julie Plotz,Don Fisher all said there is large need for this program, and they would support it and finding a designated revenue source. 2. Maintenance-the program doesn't include this unless after scoping the program there is room for this. 3. It was suggested that there be an update on this program at the fall budget committee meeting-give it an hour of time. • General Public Comment: 1. Karen Hancock,Kyle Harris,Jan Thenell,Katie Harris,John Storhm,Linda Monahan, Scott Hancock, Kathy Sleeger, Stephen Bindiff,Marsden Smith all provided comment in support of opening the library on Thursdays. Additionally,Jen Vasicek provided written testimony in suppport of the library opening on Thursdays. Her written note is at the end of these minutes. • Parks Utility Fee-Toby The city is in a position where the expenditure growth is faster than revenue growth. Our path of level budgets make it so we cannot add staff or services. We've been able to add a little revenue over the last couple of years. We have 11%o fewer staff than at the beginning of fiscal year 2009, however the population of the city has grown 8%.We can continue this path,but know that as the city grows, the service levels will go down. This budget is thinking big. We fund Library,Police, Community Building services-planning, etc., and parks are funded by the general fund. Within the funding strategy of River Terrace,we did adopt a targeted parks utility fee for building and developing parks. The first issue is that this budget would take parks and treat it like a utility within the City of Tigard. We would put together a cost of service analysis to determine the cost to maintain the parks we have and the resources needed to develop parkland purchased with the bond. FY 16 is a budget neutral exercise. Money that would be spent in the general fund to support parks would be transferred to the new parks utility fund. The results of the cost of service analysis would be brought to the City Council for City of Tigard Budget Committee Page 3 consideration and they would direct staff on whether to do a parks utility,how much would be funded and adopt the fees for refer them to a vote. Money will be available on FY 17in the general fund that would have been spent on parks for the other core services of the city-Police,Library, Facilities, Strategic Plan Staff is requesting the following: 1. Budget committee determines that the current path we are following is not the preferred path; 2. Budget committee would approve the proposed budget that would place parks in a parks utility fund and approve the work plan noted in the issue paper to conduct a cost of service study for council to consider. 3. Budget Committee recommend to council your support and direction on implementation of a parks utility fee beginning in FY 2017. The second item and issue paper deals with alternative funding sources. The table looks at 2 other options-local option levy and gross receipts tax. There are pros and cons to each as listed in the paper. The con for the parks utility fee is utility bill fatigue which will be discussed later. Local option levy is paid voter approved so it is the will of the people and paid only once per year. It would be it does have time limitation and the amount cannot be changed until voter approved. The gross receipts tax has a high revenue potential and is paid for by residents and others that shop here. It can be approved by council or citizen vote. The con is that it's impact on businesses and difficult to administer. We lack data on what would be the right amount. The third item has to do with the planned utility bill changes. We have doubled our water rates to pay for the Lake Oswego/Tigard water partnership. Sewer, Street Maintenance Fee and Clean Water Services has had steady rate increase as well. The city has plans for additional rate adjustments. CWS will go up about 3%.We are looking at a sewer surcharge to pay for capital sewer projects. Council is looking at street maintenance fee at this time. Resident fee will go up about 50% for the paving backlog. Public Comment: None Committee discussion: 1. Councilor Henderson-1/3-2/3 paving program-would commercial also pay this fee?Yes, there would be a commercial component. The cost of service study would clarify this. 2. Don Fisher said that while Mayor Cook couldn't be here tonight,he is in favor of a local option levy. If we want to develop these parks,it would be more expensive and would require additional funding. To add development,it would be a larger amount on the utility bill and would be hard to go for a local option levy. 3. Clifford Rone asked if we can do the study before we pull parks out of general fund?Yes,we can do the study and not do the fund.We recommend the fund because it sets up the fund and if council determines we are implementing the fee, the fund will be set up and ready to go. It was a proposal that is optimistic and would allow us move forward without further action. 4. Councilor Goodhouse asked how much fees are charged for the park rental?Does it cover the cost?There is a revenue for parks user fees,it's not a lot but the fees are consistent with fees in the region. That revenue will be moved into parks utility fee to help. 5. It was noted that we've moved the water bills into the park division so we can see the actual cost of the parks. 6. Zoe Monahan talked about concern about fee increases. Would like to see the cost of service study done before making decisions. City of Tigard Budget Committee Page 4 7. Councilor Snider asked what is the resident/non-resident 80-20 split of the $2 million and what does that look like on a bill? Staff will report back next week. He is not in support of a local option levy. He would like to fund the library in this fiscal year. 8. Julie asked how much a local option levy costs to put it on the ballot or to implement the gross receipts tax?Toby answered that putting a local option levy on the ballot is not too expensive in terms of getting the word out (the city cannot lobby,just provide information), but the cost depends on which ballot the item is submitted. 9. Clifford asked if other communities have gross receipt tax and at what level and what is the cost to implement?Also he expressed we should do the cost of service study before implementing the parks utility fee. He wants to know what the components are , how much capital improvement will be done, what the cost will be to maintain the capital improvement and how the costs are distributed. Toby said the cost of service will do exactly what you would like to see done-how much does park maintenance cost today, what will be developed in the near and long-term and what will that cost? 10. Don expressed concern on the effect the gross receipts tax would have on smaller businesses, and getting businesses to come to Tigard, especially downtown. He would like an idea of how much the parks utility fee would be each month and if it's too much,we might do better with an option levy. 11. There was general discussion about the parks utility fee going on the utility bill and/or having the fee go to a vote of the citizens. 12. There was also general consensus from the committee that they are in favor of moving away from a level budget to create additional revenue sources and for staff to move ahead with the cost of service study and other revenue options would be examined at a later date. The meeting was recessed at 9:35pm. Liz Lutz,Executive Assistant ATTEST: Melody Graeber, Secretary City of Tigard Budget Committee Page 5 I came to last night's budget meeting but wasn't able to stay long enough to make my comments about reinstating Thursday hours at the library. Liz(Newton)said it would be ok to email them to you. I'll make it very brief,as I know this is your busiest time of year. I think it goes without saying that if the city had unlimited funds,opening the library 7 days a week would be a given. What I wanted to share is how the closure affects my family and probably many other families like mine. My husband and I have two kids,ages 2.5 and 5. My older child goes to preschool on Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays(at Metzger Preschool,as you may remember!),which means his mornings at home are Tuesdays and Thursdays. As a result,the library is closed 50%of the mornings he's home,so we miss out on a lot of opportunities to visit the library,which is something my kids absolutely love doing. There are a lot of preschools in Tigard that have similar schedules to ours,so I assume(as Councilor Snider said last night, "I hate to assume,"but I will anyway)there are many other families like ours trying to work around the closure. In my mind,a library is one of the greatest tangible benefits a community can provide. I completely understand why the city needed to cut hours,but it feels like it's time to be back at full operation. I hope there's a way to make that happen! Thanks for your time,Toby. Jen Vasicek City of Tigard Budget Committee Page 6