City Council Committee Agendas

Mount Vernon Finance Committee Parks & Enrichment Committee Minutes October 24, 2018 Present: Councilmembers Beaton, Brocksmith, Carías, Hulst, Molenaar and Mayor Boudreau Staff present: Doug Volesky, William King, Jana Robbins, Kevin Rogerson, Peter Donovan, and Chief Brice. 1) Minutes from September 26, 2018 were approved. 2) Parks & Enrichment Services Department: a. Events i) Veteran’s Day Celebration plans for Saturday, November 10, 2018 were reviewed. The “Bells of Peace” World War I Centennial Armistice Remembrance will be recognized. On November 11, 2018 at 11 am local time Americans across the nation will toll bells in remembrance of those who served and sacrificed. Individuals can sign up to have their cell phones automatically participate in this by enrolling at ww1cc.org/YourACE. b. RCO Grant Update the final ranking for the Parks application is 22 of 91 applicants. The City is now eligible to receive a portion of $110 million in state wide funding. c. Encampments Update - joint training with the Legal Department, Police Department and Parks Department is in the planning phase. Twenty-four camps have been posted with notice to vacate and are ready for the cleanup phase. d. Projects i) Kiwanis Spray Park resurfacing project was finalized and had 30 days of open use. ii) Hillcrest Garden fence is being removed and replaced. iii) Little Mountain – waiting on the September award by the RCO grant committee to determine if funding will be received. iv) Trumpeter and Stonebridge Trails are under repair. Concrete is being removed and roots removed and repaving will provide a more even surface. 3) Finance Department a. Budget Calendar - Doug reviewed the budget calendar. b. Sales Tax projections – Doug reviewed the historical data that he utilized to create the 2019 projection. From 2012 until now the sales tax has shown growth. The Nov & Dec revenues are consistently 17% of the yearly total. The total will be 7.58 million. The projection for 2019 of 7.6 million is not extremely conservative but within acceptable norms. The overall tax project is actually less than the 2018 collections. c. 2019 Major Budget Topics i) Revenue policies were reviewed. City of Mount Vernon Finance Committee October 24, 2018 Page 2 ii) Doug presented the current preliminary revenue estimates for the 2019 budget. Revenue projection is developed by analyzing history and trends as well as getting advice and guidelines from professional organizations. The overall revenue estimate is $72,471,451. The total estimated revenue from all sources is $72,471,451. There is no requested increase in the 2019 property taxes rate, as the $109,454 increase in predicted revenue is due to newly constructed buildings being added to the tax rolls. Mr. Volesky indicated that revenue for property tax, sales tax and all other taxes of $21,911,043 does not provide enough revenue to fund the salaries and benefits expenses that will be incurred in 2019. The preliminary assessed value for City property is $3.5 million up from $3.126 million in 2018. The levy rate of $2.4318 for 2018 would drop to $2.2048 for 2019. The property tax levy request is $7,727,043 for 2019. The governmental operating funds revenue estimate for 2019 is $34,259,636, this includes revenue from all sources. Tech fees were discussed and if a full recovery of tech fees was authorized it would add $60,000 to the revenue stream. d. Petty Cash Fund – Jana reviewed a request for a new Petty Cash fund. The City is changing from Bank of America to Opus Bank and part of this change will create a methodology for remote deposit of payments. The cash portion of each day’s deposit will be sent electronically to the bank. On Friday Loomis Carrier will collect the cash and deposit with Opus and replenish that fund. A request for resolution creating this fund with a balance of $15,000 will be presented to Council tonight. 4) Peter reviewed a request from 1st Baptist Church regarding a request for an agreement that guarantees on street parking in their proximity. A boundary survey will cost $10,000 and a street vacation would have to be approved if this request is to go forward. Peter was directed to ask the purchaser to pay for the survey in order to move forward with a lease for parking. 5) Current Revenue Update: a. Sales tax revenue year to date is 11.25% over the same period in 2017. To date the City has collected $387,315 over budget at this point. b. TBD tax revenue year to date is 24.27% over projected budget. There has been $1.3 million collected to date which is 93% of budget. c. REET taxes collected year to date are 114.02% of budgeted revenues. The last three months of collections have been lower than the same periods in 2017. This trend was considered when creating the 2019 budget estimate. 6) 2019 Goals: Mayor Boudreau reviewed the 2019 Goals and work plan. a. The Mayor reviewed the goals that Council updated at their retreat and said she would like to present those for official adoption since the budget is created utilizing the goals as guidelines. The meeting was adjourned at 6:50 p.m. Submitted by Rebecca J. Wade Submitted by Rebecca Wade