City Council Committee Agendas

Mount Vernon City Council Finance Committee Minutes October 21, 2015 Present: Councilmembers Fiedler, Molenaar, Lindquist, Quam, Hulst, Ragan and Urban, Mayor Boudreau Staff present: Alicia Huschka, Fire Chief Hari, Police Chief Dodd, Kevin Rogerson, Bob Hyde, Gary Duranceau, Mike Love, Blaine Chesterfield, Esco Bell, Gary Owens, Tom Wenzl, Scott Sutherland, Linda Brookings, James Weppler, and Jason Brickley 1. Kevin presented the committee with information regarding recent activity by the State Legislature regarding the billing rate for jail inmate’s medical care. 2. The Council reviewed Public Safety Budgets by department: • Police: Chief Dodd presented opening comments that focused on operational priorities of the department. These include filling open position, replacing outdated equipment and adding technical improvements through the Spillman system for imaging. Alicia indicated that there was a 3% increase to this budget but if the jail tax pass through is removed the increase is only 1.3%. The request for the part time records clerk to be moved to full time was not included in this budget. • Municipal Court: Alicia indicated that the salary for district court judges will have an increase. • Public Defense: This budget will not see as much of an increase as in previous years, but the City has been notified that there will be additional public defense screening. • City Attorney: Kevin indicated that there are no major changes are requested in this budget other than an increase of $5,000 for outside counsel and additional hours for the part time staff person to aid in the fulfillment of public records requests which increase each year. • Fire Department: Alicia said that 2016 budget increase is $172,000 over 2015, the majority of it is in wages. Chief Hari added that the department plans to utilize college students as interns and these volunteers will be compensated through a grant. Three new FTE’s were requested that were not approved by the Mayor. • Other Public Safety Budgets: Department of Emergency Management expense has increased over 2015 because it was under budgeted in 2015. The City’s obligation to Skagit 911 has increased because the center is working to upgrade equipment and staffing to current needs. 3. Public Works Departments: • Engineering: Esco indicated that there were no new employees requested for 2016. The engineering budget is only up 2.2%. Asset City of Mount Vernon Finance Committee October 21, 2016 Page 2 management software that would be a 3-way split with Wastewater and Surface Water utilities is requested. There is a proposal for Solid Waste and REET 1 to each put $100,000 into the 2016 budget to establish a capital budget that could be used to start the engineering on new shop complex. The construction of the city shop would be in excess of $4 million. • Street Fund: This budget includes traffic signal controllers that need to be replaced. There are 15 controllers that DOT is requesting that the City update. Five are going to be updated in 2015, and this budget is for 10 in in 2016. • Wastewater: This department’s budget has only a nominal increase. This includes the annual $1.0 million transfer to the Wastewater capital fund. At this time there does not seem to be a need for a rate increase. • Solid Waste: This budget includes the $100,000 transfer to establish a capital budget for a City shop complex; increases in the solid waste disposal fee is related to the increase in tonnage associated with new areas that are now in the City’s collection area. • Surface Water: This budget has a decrease of $42,000 from 2015. The public works trust fund loan will be paid off in 2016. A rate study for surface water will need to be done in the near future. 4. Capital Budgets • Vehicles/ Equipment: Requested vehicles were reviewed. • Transportation Projects: The annual street overlay project is the main focus for 2016, with other projects like the College Way at I-5 widening entering engineering stage, the LED street light installation project coming to completion, and the Section Street/ LaVenture Road intersection being studied. Sidewalk projects are in various stages of work. • Parks Projects: The various Park projects budgets for 2016 are $167,000. These projects include improvements to Hillcrest Park, Little Mountain Park, various trail easements as well as normal recurring park projects. • Wastewater Projects: These capital project budgets total $4,556,500. Of this $315,000 is for debt service on the PWTF loan. • Surface Water: These capital project budgets total $330,000 and include annual storm water relining program, and Kulshan Pump Station upgrades. 5. Parks Department: This department budget is up 3.7%. A major portion of the increase is an increase to equipment rental as this department has been significantly underfunded in previous years. The hire date for an Enrichment Director will be delayed to February 2016. City of Mount Vernon Finance Committee October 21, 2016 Page 2 Budget discussions will continue at the October 28, 2016 Finance Committee meeting. Adjourned at 9:00 p.m. Submitted by Rebecca J. Wade