City Council Committee Agendas

Mount Vernon City Council Finance Committee Minutes February 25, 2015 Present: Councilmembers Urban, Fiedler, Molenaar, Lindquist, Quam, Hulst, Ragan, and Mayor Boudreau Staff present: Finance Director Alicia Huschka, Fire Chief Hari, Police Chief Dodd, City Attorney Rogerson, City Prosecutor Eason and Equipment Maintenance Foreman Gary Owens 1. Committee minutes from January 2015 were approved. 2. Financial Update - • Property tax accounts for 27% of all City governmental operating fund revenues. Ms. Huschka discussed with the committee recent DOR tax exemption rulings. • Sales tax accounts for 21% of all City governmental operating fund revenues; collections for February 2015 are up 2.7% compared to the same period in 2014. • Real estate excise tax collections for December 2014 and January 2015 were in excess of $102,000 for each of these months compared to the monthly average of $30,500 for the last three years. • Utility tax – electricity utility tax for January 2015 is down 3.2% compared to January 2014, and natural gas utility tax is up 10.5% compared to January 2014. 3. There are several pending or upcoming budget amendments that will need to be presented to City Council. These include amendments related to the purchase of a street sweeper ($60,000 increase), retirement pay-outs (total amount is not yet known), Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) elements will need to be added to the budget with grant funding providing 90% of the revenue, the College Way/ LaVenture Rd safety improvements project (estimated at $110,000), and the restroom capital project fund (approximately $600,000). 4. City Prosecutor: Pat Eason presented an update on what his office has been accomplishing. The Wilbur decision has had a direct impact on the number of cases that go to trial. The City of Mount Vernon takes approximately 1.2% of the cases to trial. 5. Street Sweeper purchase: Gary Owens informed the Committee that the price for the sweeper that had been approved in the 2015 budget was going to be $59,960.87 over the budgeted amount. 6. Legislative update – Councilmembers Bob Fiedler, Gary Molenaar and Dale Ragan, along with Mayor Boudreau and Ms. Huschka attending the AWC Legislative Action Conference in Olympia last week and met with state representatives. Items of interest were: City of Mount Vernon Finance Committee February 25, 2015 Page 2 • Transportation - The Mayor has drafted a letter to be sent to our state representatives urging them to pass a statewide transportation revenue package that includes direct distribution of gas tax revenues to cities at a percentage that reflects the actual amount of travel that occurs on city streets. The transportation package includes an 11.7 cent gas tax increase to be implemented over 3 years. • Marijuana – cities are urging the State to fund critical criminal justice needs by sharing a portion of the excise tax on recreational marijuana. • Capital budget funding requests – the City has requested $2.0 million for the final phase of the flood control project. • Janicki Bioenergy- the City supports the Port of Skagit’s efforts to help secure the former Northern State’s campus as the site for developing this new technology. • Federal legislation – The Marketplace Fairness Act was considered during the last legislative session of the US Congress, and will hopefully be introduced again. This act would enable state governments to collect sales and use tax from on-line and remote retailers with no physical presence in their state, which would level the advantage currently given to on-line retailers compared to brick and mortar businesses. Additionally this would result in new sales and use tax dollars to the states and local governments. 7. Investment update and investment policy review – postponed to next Finance Committee meeting 8. Miscellaneous • The State Auditors will be auditing the City during the month of March in conjunction with an audit of the State Department of Retirement Systems (DRS). The audit is estimated to be 40 hours and DRS will pay for the audit. • The City Finance Department is interested in going through an RFP process for banking services. • Enhancements to website agenda center are being tested with the goal being to have Council agenda packet information available on the website for viewing. Adjourned at 7:00 p.m. Submitted by Rebecca J. Wade