City Council Committee Agendas

Mount Vernon City Council Finance Committee Parks & Enrichment Committee Minutes August 23, 2017 Present: Councilmembers Hulst, Hudson, Lindquist, Molenaar, and Quam Staff present: Doug Volesky, Bill King, Kevin Rogerson, Chief Dodd, Peter Donovan, Isaac Huffman, Chris Phillips 1) Minutes from July 2017 were approved. 2) Parks and Enrichment Services: a) Bus Contract with Mount Vernon School District – The summer programs are using the School District busses for transporting children and this is working very well. b) Stokely Tower – A professional services agreement for $6,210 with TEC will be presented to Council soon. This agreement provides the technical specifications necessary to develop a Scope of Work for the Stokley Tower’s diagonal brace replacement/repair, repair/replacement administration and oversight, and a certified structural engineering inspection of all work. c) Lions Park – The old restroom has been demolished, site preparation is underway and September 7 is the target delivery date for the new unit. d) Little Mountain Survey – The boundary survey between Silver Arrow Bowman and Pacific Quarry is complete to include a survey of the access road easement. Drawings will be reviewed prior to final legal description delivery. e) Noon Kiwanis Donation - The Noon Kiwanis decided to sponsor a new project and selected 25th Street Park. They would like to put a playground at this park and made an initial donation of $15,000 towards this project. They have committed to follow-on donations of an additional $30,000 over the next two years. The city will explore submitting an Recreation Conservation Office (RCO) Grant to match these donations. 3) Finance Department: a) 2018 Budget Calendar and Process. i) Budget Calendar Status: The individual departments have submitted their preliminary budgets to Finance. Doug is meeting and discussing the operating and capital budgets with department heads. ii) Major Budget Topics: (1) Fiscal policies – The current policy was adopted in August 2015. This policy was designed to protect the assets of City; ensure maintenance of open and accurate records of the City’s financial activities; provide a framework of operating standards and behavioral expectations; ensure compliance with federal, state and local legal and reporting requirements as well as provide a means to update and monitor polices with annual review during the budget cycle. (2) 2018 Capital Projects – Doug reviewed various Capital project requests that were submitted by the departments. One of the goals of this year’s capital project budgeting is to try and centralize the requests for general maintenance and repairs of the various facilities. Capital projects for 2018 totaled $235,000 for the General Fund and a grand total of $9,255,500. Of that $5,365,500 is the ongoing capital project funds that don’t require direct funding through the current budget process as the budgets are not re-set to zero at year end. (3) Unfunded Capital Projects – The Library, Fire department improvements, a parking facility and public works facility projects were reviewed and various funding options were reviewed. Potentially some of the design and preliminary engineering can take place in 2018 for these projects with the goal of acquiring funding for construction to begin in 2019. City of Mount Vernon Finance Committee August 23, 2017 Page 2 (4) Salaries and benefits – the HR department is currently negotiating our healthcare rates. The healthcare increases have been quoted as potentially being in excess of a 14% increase. The salaries and other benefits in the 2018 budget are estimated at a 2% increase. (5) Surface Water Rate Study – FCS Group is conducting a rate study that could generate the first rate change since 1999. b) Sales tax collected for August was $48,134 over the same month last year. The City has collected $378,618 above budgeted estimates for this time year-to-date. 4) Miscellaneous: A citizen came forward at the last Council meeting and requested a revision of previously adopted minutes. Mayor and Council agree that the minutes of those sessions are related to action items and are not intended to be verbatim, the sessions are recorded and those recordings can be accessed if more detailed information is desired. No change in the minutes was authorized. Adjourned at p.m.6:45 Submitted by Rebecca J. Wade