Finance Committee

200 South Hamilton Road City of Gahanna Gahanna, Ohio 43230 Meeting Minutes Finance Committee Michael Schnetzer, Chair Karen Angelou Merisa Bowers Brian Larick Jamie Leeseberg Nancy McGregor Stephen Renner April Beggerow, MPA, CMC, Clerk of Council Monday, November 16, 2020 Virtual Meeting *Immediately Following Regular Council Meeting* Meeting Call-in Details: 513-306-4583 Conference ID: 409 866 616# A. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Schnetzer called the Finance Committee Meeting to order at 8:01 p.m. All members were in attendance. B. DISCUSSIONS 1. 2021 Budget Appropriations ORD-098-2020 AN ORDINANCE TO MAKE APPROPRIATIONS FOR CURRENT EXPENSES AND OTHER EXPENDITURES OF THE CITY OF GAHANNA, OHIO DURING THE FISCAL YEAR 2021. Mr. Schnetzer stated that we will try to stay to 1 hour. Resuming with the questions that were started the previous week. BWT #8 (p. 135) - • As a priority 3 project, please describe the strategic importance to the Gahanna community of constructing BWT #8 in 2022, particularly vis-à-vis the city-wide trails master plan and be prepared to discuss the cost of the master plan. Mrs. Ferrell: in regards to trail section eight, it has introduced some unique challenges to overcome specifically an available alignment that crosses over I-270 in a cost effective way. Service and Engineering has identified an opportunity to pair this project, along with ODOTs Plan to City of Gahanna Page 1 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 rebuild the Hamilton Bridge over I-270. This opportunity is time-sensitive and will no longer be a viable option if ODOT commences without the design plan incorporating the Big Walnut trail. So it's either we go now, or it's no longer an option for us to to move forward with that alignment. Mr. Larick: So there's a an opportunity to coordinate with the other project, and historically, and I forget percentages, but the my recollection is the vast majority of our trail sections have been completed, along with grant funding that has covered a significant portion of those sections. This being, on a cost per foot basis, quite possibly the most expensive section, where do we sit with grant funding pursuits, likelihood, can you draw some of that picture as well? Mrs. Ferrell So this project is clearly a great project for grant funding. And we will go after Clean Ohio Trail Find- is one specifically and there's a maximum of seventy 75% of the total project cost. The recreational trail program is also an award that we'll go after, which is 80% of the total project cost. We do need the alignment before we move forward with those those grant requests. And the projects have to be completed within 15 months of application. So therefore we need to make sure that we have the funding in place prior to submitting for those. Mr. Larick: The the longer term costs, not the engineering for next year, but the actual build. Is that a complete section or is that the bridge component. Mrs. Ferrell: That's the complete section. Mr. Larick: And do we have any opportunity to split that if we run into challenges from a great perspective? Mrs. Ferrell referred this question to Mr. Moorehead. Mr. Moorehead: to the question of the funding splits between the ODOT portion and the portion that may be outside of ODOT's project. We are aligning this with a reconstruction of the Hamilton Road bridge deck over 270. So from ODOT's side, there's a larger structural element to this project that they're attempting to put forward. So some of those design costs, some of those construction costs will be part of that project. Mr. Larick: to be clear, that's in the context of the three million dollar estimate. In other words, three million would be the grand total. That's everything. And these are means of reducing that cost to the city. Mr. Moorehead: The means to reduce the cost to city correct would be for City of Gahanna Page 2 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 the portion of the trail that runs outside of the ODOT bridge project. That brings it back to its current termination now over by the Nazarene Church and then down towards Tech Center Drive. And those are the opportunities that we're going to try to seek grant funding for independently from the city through ODOT once we have a concept study prepared for how this might fit onto their bridge deck. We're going to begin working with them to see if they have an opportunity as the lead agency on that project to leverage the inclusion of a pedestrian element to seek some funding on their side. Mr. Larick: Ok, I have another question, if I may. The termination of this section actually in both the north and south, termination of the of the big walnut trail, is there any information, I tried to dig through the various Metro Park Trail plans and really couldn't identify the information. I was looking around any kind of timing perspective from the parties involved outside of the city of Gahanna for the further connectivity of both the north terminus and the south terminus of our sections of the trail. Mrs. Ferrell: Ok, I have another question, if I may. The termination of this section actually in both the north and south, termination of the of the big walnut trail, is there any information, I tried to dig through the various Metro Park Trail plans and really couldn't identify the information. I was looking around any kind of timing perspective from the parties involved outside of the city of Gahanna for the further connectivity of both the north terminus and the south terminus of our sections of the trail. Mr. Larick: Ok, and what about the north going into Columbus. Mrs. Ferrell: The north, I do not have details with we do have Red Westall, he is the I don't know his formal title, but he ultimately works in trails specifically, he is working with us as well on this project. But I don't have a timeline for that northern section either. Mr. Larick asked for more information. Mr. Leeseberg: In my understanding we wouldn't be constructing a separate bridge, we would be piggyback onto the ODOT reconstruction. So we'd have a bike lane bike lane on Hamilton Road. Mr. Moorehead: It would be a separate bike trail on the bridge deck. So the lane itself, the design that is being explored, would put it on the bridge deck behind the barrier. So it'd be off to the most western side of the bridge deck and elevated a bit above the travel lanes. Mr. Larick asked crossing Hamilton where? City of Gahanna Page 3 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 Mr. Moorehead: At this point we're exploring, bringing the trail through the wooded area that abuts the Big Walnut Creek and 270 on the north end and coming under possibly the slip ramp that goes to 270 from Hamilton Road going northbound, coming up to the bridge there, then crossing over at a signalized crossing of the other slip ramp and off ramp if you're coming to Hamilton from 270, at which point you would go back down into the the Wonderland area and ride along an existing roadway that's through there before ultimately coming to Tech Center Drive. So currently we are we're evaluating the geometry of that as it relates to the bridge to come up with the most, safest solution that also coincides with the bridge reconstruction project ODOT's working on. Mr. Leeseberg: In a previous life I had looked at ODOT revising those ramps and everything else to actually provide access to the Crescent property as another way out rather than everything coming out of Tech Center. I would, I guess, that asked to explore that the simplest and easiest way, or the example is, Cleveland Avenue, when they reworked Cleveland Avenue, those on ramps and things like that. Anyway, to kind of clean that up and actually give Crescent another way, the Crescent property, another way out onto Hamilton Road so it doesn't have to come out at Tech Center. But anyway, I looked at that and at the time there was no desire or ability to to rework that the, I believe it was, north northbound Hamilton on to 270 ramp there. And so that right of away would be where you'd have to rework that. While we're working that bridge, see if the folks at Crescent might be interested and if ODOT would entertain it. That would help them out immensely. • Does the $75,000 expenditure in 2021 commit the City to the $3.25 million expenditure in 2022? • No offsetting revenue is shown. Are there any grants associated with this project? Splash Pad (p. 136) - Mr. Crawford: Yes it would. The seventy five thousand is to fund the design of the improvements. Once we start moving forward with the design, it will be included in the project and ODOT's bid. So it's likely not possible that that could change once we are down the road of design. Mrs. Angelou: I would ask did anybody check with MORPC in terms of grants from attributable funding, etc., I know it's attributable funding kind of goes off a little.... We need more more time to be able to have that. But there's also the potential, if you go in there grants thing that there may be other ones that might be there for that would help with the cost. City of Gahanna Page 4 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 • How does this project fit into a master plan for SW floodplain area / Vet’s Memorial Park? Price Road House (p. 137) - Mrs. Ferrell: Only concept plans exist for the Southwest flood plain or the Vets Memorial Park. But we do know that the pools do exist within that future plan. And the pools have needed updates and improvements for for quite some time. And residents have expressed interest and a splash pad and including one at GSP, which would be the location where the splash pad would go, including a splash right into the GSP footprint and we'll add an updated amenity that will sustain overall improvements to the pool as well as the property surrounding it. So it definitely fits within the overall project of the Vets Memorial Park, as well as added those amenities within the pool that we exist now. So it fit together very nicely. Mrs. Mcgregor: I have a question using the splash pad would require a membership to the Gahanna swimming pool. Is that correct? Mrs. Ferrell: Not necessarily. So what the plan would be is that we would actually have a fencing around the splash pad. We would ultimately have the splash pad open longer than the pool season. So therefore, you would not have to have a membership. I will say once the pool is open for the season, then you would have to have a membership in order to enjoy the splash pad. So to ultimately be able to, it's a little bit of both. You would be able to enjoy it as a as Gahanna resident outside of the pool season, within a pool season, it's added to your membership. Mrs. Ferrell (on the topic of the Price Road house): The lack of indoor space for the Parks Recreation Department has has been indicated as an ongoing obstacle. The Price Road house, of course, would not be the sole solution to that barrier, but it does provide a sustainable resource to increasing programmable space to the community. So the Price Road house would be home to actually some existing programs which we currently pay facility fees on and also be for new multigenerational programming. The space could also be used as added rental space for community gatherings and meetings as well. Ms. Bowers: Thank you, would you share with us a little bit about the square footage. It's exciting to hear about the Price Road house. Could you just briefly explain about the square footage on that? Mrs. Ferrell: So I don't have the square footage at the top of my head. I'd be happy to get that information to you. Ultimately, the actual bones of the facility are very well. It's the internal is what will need to be updated and improved, of course, and it would be transformed into the space that we City of Gahanna Page 5 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 could be used appropriate to programs and again, rental spaces. I'm happy to follow up on what the on the truth, I don't want to give you wrong information. I'll give you the actual true total value. Mr. Larick: You mentioned the facility fees that we pay for some of the activities that we provide. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Mrs. Ferrell: For example, we do use school facilities for some programs. We do use we pay to use that space. Mr. Larick: Anything else besides schools? Mrs. Ferrell: Schools are the biggest location that meet the space requirements for the programs that we exist. We do a lot of outdoor programming, which, of course, we use our park spaces for. • What is the planned use of the property after renovations? Water Tower Rehabilitation (p. 148) - • Please confirm rate shown of $0.33/gallon is correct. Mr. Crawford clarified that it is $0.33 per 1000 gallons. It is incorrect in the CNA. Taylor and Claycraft Intersection Design, Hamilton Road Bridge Design (p. 37) - Mr. Crawford: The intersection currently functions at a level of service E. If you've traveled this intersection, you've likely experienced some very long delays. Nearby businesses have repeatedly expressed frustration with the current functionality of the intersection. The improvement would increase the level of service to an A, thereby reducing delays and congestion while also promoting economic development. A number of business businesses have also shared with us that they're planning to expand, and this would ensure that they can keep their operations within the city and not have to continue with the frustration of that intersection. • Please be prepared to discuss the strategic importance of these two projects. West Gahanna Sanitary Sewer Analysis - Phase 2 (p.150 ) Mr. Crawford: The result will identify what exactly caused the infiltration and inflow earlier this year, as well as identify any necessary improvements, it could include improvements to our sanitary sewer mains, as well as pinpoint necessary private improvements, such as City of Gahanna Page 6 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 removing interconnections with sump pumps, downspout lines and potentially leaky private lateral lines. It is an estimate for the entire study area, SSES Phase 1, but we may not need to do the entire study area based on the results of phase one. Phase one, sanitary sewer evaluation is still active. Flow monitors and rain gauges are installed and connected online. With that instrumentation in place, we are prepared to document the sewers response to the wet weather events of this fall and soon coming winter. We've also received over seven hundred eighty nine mailed responses to the survey and numerous other online responses. I'm not sure if you listed the last bullet point, but the total estimated cost for phase one was roughly three hundred thousand. Mr. Leeseberg: So am I hearing you right that there's another one point two five million in analysis? Mr. Crawford: Correct. This will pinpoint the exact properties, the exact lines that are causing this. This will basically result in actionable steps, whether that's going after certain property owners that have connected their sump pumps or maybe a sewer improvement project, if we see our sewer main could use improvement. Mr. Leeseberg: So we're going to we're going to have spent one point five million dollars to identify the project or the problems, but not solve a single one of them. Mr. Crawford: In a sense, yes, it would be a first step in solving it, though, with the results of SSES phase two. Let's say we identify 1500 properties that have connected their sump pumps that are contributing to the surcharged sewer. That is an actionable item on this immediately as by code you are not permitted to connect stormwater or rainwater to the sanitary sewer system. Mr. Schnetzer: Mr. Crawford, did I hear that the one point two five that's being requested is that there's a there's potential to not spend all of that. Mr. Crawford: Correct. The assumption is the entire area that has been studied in SSES, phase one, there is the potential that it does not include the entire area. Once phase one has concluded, we will know the entire study area for phase two. I feel that I should mention as well, it has been broken up over two years. The original CNA has the 1.25, all in 2021. It is split between 2021 and 2022. That should be covered somewhere else in the budget book. Mr. Larick: Just a quick just a question of scope. What physical area is all to be evaluated? City of Gahanna Page 7 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 Mr. Crawford: We're calling it western Gahanna. It's not completely the west side. It's including Gramercy Park as well as College Park, those areas. So basically, I would say west of Hamilton Road, south of the Creekside area. And then encompassing the majority of West Side, not necessarily like the Widmark Run area, they were not impacted by those two weather events or it's the same level of those two weather events. Mr. Larick: So west of Hamilton, south of Creek Side. Mr. Crawford: And then from Royal Manor, Brentwood, College Park, those large neighborhoods there. And there is a map of this that we'd be happy to share with you. Mr. Renner: Thank you. Grant, is is there like a list of all the items that this one point twenty five? I mean, I'm personally a little surprised by the estimate, to be honest with you, only because for a frame of reference, just so you know where I'm coming from, all the areas, the unincorporated areas that I had to do for an SSES and it was a quite detailed SSES, was 2.5 million. So I'm trying to understand relative a little bit about the one point two, five million. Mr. Crawford: And I guess I would like to know more about the SSES that you performed. We did perform in SSES back in 2009 nine as a result of the director's findings and orders from the US EPA. And that was a very high level, two thousand foot view. The SSES phase two that's proposed for western Gahanna is the nitty gritty, the, you know, one foot view to where it's going to include dye testing, smoke testing, blood testing, all those different aspects of it, home audits to where they are going to go house by house, street by street, line by line to determine what exactly the cause is. Mr. Renner: I understand and please, you know, my feelings on this analysis needs to be done. I'm just trying to understand, is there who put together this estimate and is there a list of the activities for that? Mr. Crawford: So the estimate was generated by Burgess & Niple at our request. This will be bid out through an RFP or RFQ process so all parties can bid on this or submit the proposals. So we'll certainly get the best company to accomplish this. So it could end up being something different based on how those proposals come in. Mr. Renner: Yeah, so I heard you say that a little bit ago is so is it really imperative that you have this now or once you actually get through and you have something a little bit more refined that you can actually come City of Gahanna Page 8 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 back? Mr. Crawford: That's a that's a great question. There is always the opportunity to wait, if that's what we truly want to do. But with what the residents felt, you know, what happened to them? You know, we felt that we needed to push this forward. We need to continue moving forward with this and budget for it so that we can get the quickest response and ensure that this hopefully never happens to them again. We can't prevent every storm, but we want to prevent, you know, storms like that from happening. Mr. Renner: Yeah. And thank you. So please don't misunderstand. I was not saying delay the project and delay the analysis. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the one point two five million dollars. What are we actually getting? And I am I understand that it's very detailed because you're looking for probably more than what we did. We didn't look for rooftops and connected downspouts to the sanitary sewer system. So I understand that element of this. Maybe looking at a map. And again, if you have a list of the items that went into the proposal and into actually the calculus of the estimate, I think that would be helpful if you could just send out an email. Mr. Crawford: Yeah, we can. We can definitely tell you high level, you know, what we would be expecting from that next step. Again, some of this will be fleshed out once phase one comes back and we expect that to come back spring of next year. So funding this would allow us to jump immediately into it in the late spring, early summer and fall months of next year. I believe, as I mentioned earlier, we are proposing to split this up over two years. It would be a lot to hammer out that much in one year for one point twenty five, you know. Yeah, huge SSES. So allowing us to split up over two years will allow us to be able to do that a little bit more efficiently and effectively. Mr. Renner: Right. And I really do get the point that having the funding in hand allows you to plan to work better. I do understand that, Grant. Mr. Larick: Grant, just kind of a I guess, a heads up more than anything. I want to follow up and have some discussion about the physical footprint of what the assessment area is in context of conversations I've had with then Ward 3 and certainly east of Hamilton Road, both storm and sewer issues inside homes and understand whether any of that is currently in scope or there's not in scope why and what not. But we'll deal with that outside of this conversation. Ms. Bowers: since we're doing the assessment over a two year period, City of Gahanna Page 9 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 would there be any potential that remedial work would be able to be performed after part of the assessment or one area is completed so that residents are not waiting potentially three years for this fix? If you could address that. Mr. Crawford: Certainly even with the results of phase one, it may provide us some actionable items after this phase one comes out. But having to split up over two years means there are going to be steps taken in 2021 that again may result and would likely result in some sort of actionable item. It won't be the full gambit of things until everything is completed. But I fully suspect that we'll we'll know more and hopefully have some, some steps that we can take. Mayor Jadwin: Just to reiterate and actually Grant just touched on, one of the things I was going to comment on is that it is possible once we as we start to get this analysis in over the next several months, that there will be what I call low hanging fruit type of remediation that we are able to do. And we will certainly look to be able to begin the one point two, five million that we're discussing. Just I know we've already touched on it, but just as a reminder, I think that that is the upper cap of what we could be looking to spend. And it is it is very possible that we will not get anywhere near that, depending on what the results of this analysis are. But we have to put that. I would rather put the upper limit in and say set the expectation for that and not need it versus the reverse. And then also, I believe the map is going to be sent to very shortly. Carrin Wester has that map. Is it something that we were using to send out to residents? As Grant mentioned, we received almost eight hundred survey responses from the residents that were sent. I think it was like three thousand households within the actual footprint. So all of them received the map. So we have that map available and that's being sent. You should have that shortly. Mrs. Angelou: the 1.250 Is analysis more analysis or will it actually have some of the actual things happening to resolve what's in the analysis. Mr. Crawford: I don't believe that there is going to be actual construction, a part of that, but it will result in the actual actionable items, which is likely going to be interconnections with sump pumps and downspouts. So immediately after that, we can or immediately even during it we can go property probably saying, hey, you know, your sump pump is connected to the sewer line. You need to run it to your yard and out of the street. Mrs. Angelou: So there could be 50 percent of what needs to be done would be at the at the expense of the citizens, because we don't we don't do with they have their sump pumps on to it's their it's their problem. Or are we going to be attempting to fix them and charge them. City of Gahanna Page 10 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 Mr. Crawford: I think that's that's a road that we need to, I guess, go down later on to figure out how we want to address that. If that is the result of these analysis, if it is a very costly venture for a resident, then maybe that's something that we do look at. As far as an assessment. Ultimately, we need to get this information back to better understand where we go from there. We can make assumptions and guess all day long. But honestly, I don't know until we get it back. Mrs. Angelou: And and this 1.250 Is only in the area that had the flooding in. And April and June was it. That is it, it's only them or is it over the entire city? Mr. Crawford: Is not the entire city, it's those that were heavily impacted by the flooding in March and April. So it's your Gramercy, your Brentwood, your Royal Mannor, or your College Park neighborhoods where the sewer mains were confirmed to be surcharged, completely full at the top, yet flowing as fast as they possibly could. Mrs. Angelou: And so Burgess & Niple is going to be continuing phase two, was that what was going to be was that you got him a phase one did they expect phase two or? Mr. Crawford: We will be we'll be sending in RFQ or an RFP to all companies to submit their proposals for doing phase two. So it's not guaranteed that Burgess & Niple will get phase two, but they would certainly be in the running if they were interested. Mrs. Angelou: If phase two is gets finished. And you know, in terms of the analysis. Who will decide that does the work, the person, the whichever engineering firm has done the analysis will make sure that the work gets done or how will that work? Mr. Crawford: I'm sorry. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. Mrs. Angelou: Ok, we're going to have let's say we have purchased in Burgess & Niple come in and they're the lowest and best whatever. And they they they take over this analysis and they they they do the planning for the future of how they're going to do this. So will they be in charge of that, making sure that the contractor comes in and does that, or is that the city that will do that? Mr. Crawford: They will provide us a report of their findings for us to take and do with what we want to do. So we could get this report and their findings and we could throw in the shelf and do nothing, or we can take it City of Gahanna Page 11 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 and do something with it and make some change. So if it involves hiring a contractor to complete the work, we would again seek proposals from outside firms to potentially help us with that, whether it's the creation, the design, the inspection or just the administration of it. Mr. Renner: has this work, and you probably said this before, but has this work ever been done before in the project area? Mr. Crawford: Yes, we, we do have some very high level records of this being completed on the West Side in Royal Manor and Brentwood back in the 90s. I believe council member McGregor has spoken to this in the past when her husband was mayor at the time, and the work that they did over there to remediate some of these issues. Mr. Renner: so twentyish, twenty five years ago, this similar work was actually done right? Is that fair to say? Mr. Crawford: I would say it's similar. We do not have the detailed reports anymore. What we have is some high level. You know, we worked on, let's say, 15 houses to connect 15 sump pumps and had this response in the sewer system. Right. And that's, again, about 30 years ago, I believe. Mrs. McGregor: I was just going to say the work was done twenty five years ago. They did have studies, but it was largely where a storm drops manholes that had sunk below the surface. And so some of those they raised so that the surface water didn't infiltrate those manholes. And then I think I've said before, some of them were basements where the driveway went down and into a garage underneath the house and they closed up quite a few of those at the city's expense. They closed those up and redid those. But that was just a part of it. You know, it's kind of like an onion. You peel back that and then you see what happens. And then nothing was done for a long time. And so now we have more things to do. So I'm glad we're addressing those problems. Mr. Schnetzer: So pretty robust discussion on this particular topic. I don't know if it makes anybody feel better about the spend. I'll just highlight for the sake of discussion here that, you know, this is coming out of the proprietary fund, the sewer capital improvement fund. It's not to minimize the spend by any means, but it is restricted and intended for these types of purposes and doesn't necessarily have competing purposes the way sort of general revenues would. Moving on, page 131 there is there's a project listed, sanitary sewer system maintenance. And just if you could comment, what is the expected outcome of the three hundred thousand dollars spent or ask? City of Gahanna Page 12 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 Mr. Crawford: this capital item is our yearly sanitary sewer cleaning and inspection and ensures the integrity of our sanitary sewer systems and is the first step in creating yearly maintenance projects. As well as our sewer improvement project. We inspect and clean roughly 10 percent of the city each year utilizing these funds. The project is a part of our capacity management operations and maintenance manual, otherwise known as CMOM, that was submitted and approved by the EPA in response to the director's findings in the orders. Director's findings and orders for those that may not be aware was a federal EPA initiative to ensure that sanitary sewer systems are being adequately maintained is and is an ongoing requirement by the EPA. The result of this item from the 2019 CCTV program was the generation of the 2020 Sewer Improvement Project, which will line over one mile worth of pipe and Royal Mannor in Brentwood. Mr. Schnetzer: I believe this is the last item under capital maintenance and improvements on page 97, the public service department list as priorities, a handful of items such as reducing congestion near US 62 in West Johnstown Road, a widening of West Johnstown Road. Also, any estimated cost for these in the 2021 proposed budget for these? And then what are the goals and objectives of those particular strategic items? Mr. Crawford: we did not ask for any funds for these projects. In 2021. We are currently working to address our biggest fires, which is our decade's worth of deferred maintenance with what funds we have left thanks to the pandemic, unfortunately. So we do not have anything in the budget for 2021 to start on these projects. However, our goal is to continue to evaluate these three projects and define the next steps for constructing them and budgeting them in years to come. Mayor Jadwin: I would just say what we have not specifically asked for in the 2021 budget, that doesn't mean that we will not be working on this. So part of the analysis that we have to do is to try to determine can we separate the West Johnstown Road widening project from the Agler/Stigler intersection? Do those have to be intertwined? That's going to involve some conversations with ODOT and some other exploring some other partnerships that we potentially have to do. So those are some of the goals and objectives we have for 2021. Those aren't necessarily going to cost us money to do outside of staff time and research. So it is on the agenda as a project item. It's just not a financial spend request for 2021. General Government 1. Page 33: seems to be some variance with total operation $, is it City of Gahanna Page 13 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 51.7M or 51.5M. From Fund Summary pages, it appears its $49.44M for operations, $15.3M for capital outlay, and $2.7M for debt services for a total of $67.49M. Can you help where we may disagree? Ms. Bury: that was just a clerical error in the three years. So the information on page 33 is correct. I was just a classification in the three year financials that I have provided replacement pages for those. 2. Page 38: what are the $818,845 transfer out for? If that is encumbered purchase orders, please provide a list of top 5 expenses. Ms. Bury: So encumbrances outstanding are reported as a reservation of fund balance. Transfers in and out are a movement of resources for specific purposes. In the case of the general fund there's Five hundred and eighty seven thousand and two hundred dollars that's going to the debt service fund. So this is to pay the portion of the debt that's not covered by the property tax revenue that's coming in and can't otherwise be paid for from other restricted funds. And then the two thirty one six forty five is a transfer to the leave payout fund for anticipated retirements or separations. 3. Page 38: How many more years are left to repay GF from Water Fund for the $266,490 advance for water bills to Columbus from a faulty meter? Ms. Bury: It will be fully repaid in 2023. 4. Salaries & Benefits: what is the typical multiplier to salary to understand value of benefits? Ms. Bury: when we look at the benefit piece, there's a portion that is a direct correlation of the salary. So that's the OPERS, Medicare and worker's comp. For that, we use a 16.95 percent, which is our usually our go to insurance benefits are a little difficult. First of all, some employees can decline and it's based on the plan that they choose and the tier of coverage. So it's not really a basis of how much they're making or their salary. So they can't really derive an accurate percentage for the insurance benefits. But we do use the 16.95 Percent Budget Discussion Continued to cap the large part, which is the retirement Medicare worker's comp. 5. Economic Development requests $228k in contract services: what City of Gahanna Page 14 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 types of services would this be? Mayor Jadwin: I'm going to start off with this one, because this budget actually was formed before Donna was hired, so she can she can pitch in a little bit on the end. However, the request for this was actually done with Sharon Patterson, Michael Blackford and myself, based on what the prior development budgets have been, it is actually less, much less than what was appropriated and requested back in 2020. In fact, it's even less than what was appropriated after we did cuts earlier this year for 2020, which actually scares me a little bit. However, what's included in this right now are what I would call standard carryovers things that are budgeted every year in the development department. We we budget for appraisal fees, both for the sale and purchase of real estate. If we're ever going to do that, we have to have appraisals done. So there is kind of a set amount that's budgeted every year for that, legal fees for expertise in fiber as well as small cell tower that we require very, very centralized, specialized expertise that we need to have. So some consultation there is included in that. It also includes Jennifer Syx, who has been working as our development consultant, continuing her services at a reduced capacity now that we have Donna on board. However, she has proven to be invaluable this year in helping us to put some deals together that have allowed us to really expand jobs and allow for expansion of existing businesses. So she will continue in that role, which allows us to add to our staff without adding to salaries and benefits. There's a miscellaneous vendors provision in there that really is for our office and industrial rebates that we have a policy and provide for that. And then we also pay COCIC every year. I believe it's remediation and redevelopment of the landfill area over off the Claycraft road. And then finally, let Donna speak to the last thing that's involved in contract services, because I know she did have input and a hand in that we figured into it. Dr. Goss: I did want to talk a little bit about the economic development strategy and refreshing that the current strategy was developed in 2015 and certainly the market conditions that were present at that time have changed, certainly with COVID and some of the things that we're dealing with now, some of our small businesses are particularly challenged in new and interesting ways. So really being able to understand and do a little bit of maybe more of an in in-depth analysis on those local market conditions, identify those market gaps and opportunities, and really refresh the economic development strategy in that way. Another piece of this is that some of the economic development strategies and the tools that we have available in our toolbox have changed and we have more available to us now. For example, council just approved the PACE financing. So that's something that we can offer now as an economic development incentive. And we have in our toolbox as a new strategy that City of Gahanna Page 15 Finance Committee Meeting Minutes November 16, 2020 we can help to entice businesses to come and redevelop and develop in our community. So that's just one of those. And then I would say to that, certainly we want to look at new development opportunities to really understand the sites that we have available, which targeted sites we would really like to focus on and which of those have a high priority so that we can really help to promote and sustain economic prosperity in the community. So those are the reasons why I would like to refresh the strategy. 6. The CARES expenditures...Please provide an overview of those that are one year/dedicated expenditures and those that while qualifying for CARES funds would/will be ongoing expenditures. Ms. Bury: all the CARES Act dollars received in 2020 must be used for 2020 items and moving into 2021, we know we're going to have additional CARES related expenditures, so what I did was I provided the guidelines that I'm using to determine what we may use those available funds for, either for reimbursement or for programs. So much for the grant programs that we ran. I believe each of you should have received those guidelines to look at. So under the eligibility, are the eligible expenditures or what we could actually use the grant dollars for that. Some of those items will continue, like your PPE, your sanitation, putting up barriers, items like that, depending on what may or may not be available, again, there's been no promise for any additional funding moving into 2021. My assumption is that the guidelines will pretty much be the same. If anything, they may add a little bit more flexibility rather than take away. And also wanted to kind of put out there that depending on what type of Care's act funding you've received, the requirements are different. So all of us that receive the state funding through HB 41 and 614 all have the same guidelines. Those that have received dollars directly have a different set of guidelines. And those that have received money from those who have received the money directly have different guidelines. So it's it's not a it's not your typical straightforward. If you receive this money, this is what you could use it for. Everybody has their specific set of requirements that they're looking at. So hopefully between the guidelines I sent and knowing that this is just a 2020 for what we have right now and there's been no promise for 2021, that's kind of where we're at. Mayor Jadwin followed up that the square footage of the Price Road house is 2,360. Not including the garage and screened in area above the garage. Meeting adjourned at 9:00 p.m. City of Gahanna Page 16