Zionsville Town Council

Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 ZIONSVILLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2022 AT 8:00 A.M. EST ONSITE MEETING 1100 West Oak Street This meeting was conducted onsite. All Councilors participated in person. Council Members Present: Jason Plunkett, President; Brad Burk, Vice-President; Alex Choi, Joe Culp, Josh Garrett, Craig Melton, and Bryan Traylor Also Present: Adam Steuerwald, Town Council Attorney; Tim Berry, Crowe LLP; Kellie Adams, Chief Financial Officer; Bonnie Black, Municipal Action Center Professional, and other Town Department Staff OPENING A. Call meeting to order B. Pledge of Allegiance Plunkett I will now call to order the Thursday, October 27, 2022 Special Meeting. If you would please, stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. All Pledge of Allegiance. REQUEST TO SPEAK ON AGENDA ITEM Plunkett Up first is a Request to Speak on Agenda Items. I’m assuming we don’t have any requests to speak? Very good. Page 1 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 OLD BUSINESS A. Consideration of the 2023 Budget for the Town of Zionsville Ordinance 2022-21 (Final Reading) Plunkett Up next would be Old Business. Item A Consideration of the 2023 Budget for the Town of Zionsville. This is Ordinance 2022-21. This is a final reading. I believe Kellie and Tim are both here to answer questions for Councilors. Choi Tim’s here. Traylor I had one question, maybe more depending on the answer. Just to clarify and, and I don’t see the Mayor, maybe the Deputy Mayor would be willing to speak on this as well but just based on emails, I had asked last time to amend the budget to remove the contractual services from HR, Admin, Finance and Non- Departmental and since then we had some emails back and forth and I just wanted to clarify on the record that per the emails back and forth, the only long- term planning items that are budgeted are for the fire station location study of $55,000 and the public safety building study of $150,000 per the email and I wanted to just verify that there are no other long-term planning items in the budget that have not been disclosed to us. Adams No. Traylor Okay, so just making sure we’re – I just – Adams Yes. Traylor Wanted to confirm it on the record. Okay. That is, and, and just so that I can be even more clear – if such an item should show up on claims, I will personally vote to deny that claim. You know, my understanding is that any long-term planning ask will come back to the Council for an additional appropriation. Adams Alex, do you want to ask your question? I’ve got Tim up here at this time. I’m looking at the latest supplemental and I don’t see those numbers. So I want to – Choi So can you give me the revenue and expense totals? Adams I show that 2023 revenues is $35,617,034. Choi $35,617,034? Adams That’s total. Choi Okay. And expenditures? Adams Sorry. $41,891,575. Choi Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you. Page 2 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Plunkett What was that in regards to, Alex? Choi I had several different figures of similar dates of revenue and expenditures and I know that some of it included some things and some of it didn’t so I just wanted to clarify the final budget numbers because it goes into the calculation of what I’ll talk about. Plunkett I would just say a couple of things real quick. I would like to see – so we go through this today and then this is filed by November 1st, correct? Berry Within five days. Plunkett Within five days. I did ask Kellie and Cindy to send just a brief breakdown of the supplemental distributions that we’ve received, supplemental revenue, and just for Councilors’ perspective or reference, I think I forwarded this and I’ll say it for the public – 2019 supplemental revenue was $1.2 million dollars. This is above and beyond what we had initially anticipated and this is the revenue that comes in in the mid-year around June and then in 2020 it was $1.4 million, 2021 $1.9 million and I think that goes to – 2022 was $1.5. So I think a lot of that is where we have done a good job in budgets over the years and we’ve got this reserve. From my perspective, that helps me with the operational component of the budget. I would like, and I don’t know if this is something that we can do afterwards but I would like to better understand since we’re not using – I like the priorities that the Council has in here as well, right? Like in bringing everybody up to midpoint, agreeing with the 7, I think 7.9% increase, we still have this LOIT account that’s unused, right? Berry Correct. Plunkett And I’d like to understand how we can maybe identify something in 2023 that’s in the budget that we can use that for that maybe is a one-time hit that is, that we could maybe take off some of that operational needs. So I guess my point is I just think maybe over the next 14 months we probably need to work through that and try to identify it if we can. Berry And I believe and had talked with Heather about this previously, that those dollars could be transferred as well into the General Fund at this point in time – Plunkett Okay. Berry To cover some of those General Fund expenditures which is basically doing the same – Plunkett Yes. Berry Thing you’re looking to do. Plunkett Yes. No, that’s good. Would that be something where we would do a, a reappropriation in 2023 or – Page 3 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Berry You would do a transfer. Plunkett Okay. Berry You can do it in 2022 quite frankly and then it would just go into your year-end balance in your General Fund. Plunkett Okay. Melton Jason, what was the fund you’re speaking of? Plunkett It’s a LOIT Fund. What is it L-O-I-T? Berry It is a LOIT special distribution. It was a special distribution that came from the local option income tax prior to the local income tax prior to when it was changed to local income tax, I believe, it was from 2016. It was one of those supplemental distributions that you were talking about earlier and it is the remaining balance. I want to say there, the balance is somewhere in the neighborhood of $433,000 in that fund today. Plunkett This was the one he proposed to do the one-time bonus. Berry Correct. Plunkett So when we pulled the bonus away and went to the increase, we had to, so that money then was not used for a one-time expense and since now it’s operational, the income increases on operations, that money has not been identified for an expenditure yet so it’s just sitting there. Burk But it could’ve been put into this budget for a one-time expenditure? Plunkett For a one-time, yes. Which, which is why I think as long as we can, to Tim’s point, as long as we can transfer it either this year or next year – Plunkett And then we can, or find a one-time expense for it. Burk Right. Berry You could do either way. Plunkett Yes. Well, that’s all I had on the budget. Melton Does this Council have a preference whether to put that into this budget and do it with, do it now? Plunkett I mean, I think personally we can – Berry You would have to advertise that. Plunkett Yes, I think we can. We have to advertise for 10 days before we do it so – Page 4 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Melton But we can still do it in this year? Berry Yes, you can do it at any point in time. Or, like Councilor Plunkett said, you can look at an expenditure within the budget today and, and move that expenditure from the General Fund or whatever fund that it’s being spent out of today into that fund as long as it’s, as long as it is an acceptable use of those dollars, which most of your expenses would be. Plunkett My personal preference would be to spend some time working on it over the next few months and identify something that we can use for in 2023 that it’s in the budget and just do it then because it’s not going anywhere so. Melton Okay. Choi So based on the numbers that you gave me, which thank you for that, it looks like the difference between expenditures and revenue is $6,274,941? Does that look right? Adams I get $6,998,092. Choi Okay, then— Adams But – Choi Okay then something’s wrong about the numbers that I received. Adams Okay – I’m sorry. Let me make sure – I’m looking at Tim’s sheet and my sheet, so let me look at – Choi Yes this – Adams The latest. Choi This is kind of my confusion – Adams Yes. Choi Because I have so many different numbers floating around. Adams So this is from the 7th so we’ve got for revenues $35,613,338 – Choi $35,613,300 – Adams And $38. Choi Okay. Adams For, that’s for revenue. For expenditures $42,182,602. Choi So the difference being $6,569,264? Page 5 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Adams $7,292,813. I’m not sure where the – Choi I’m sorry Councilors that I’m – Berry These are the numbers from October the 7th. Choi Okay. $35,613,338 for revenue. For expenses $42,182,602? Adams $42,182,602 – Choi Okay. The difference in that is $6,569,264. Melton $6,569,000? Choi Yes. Yes. Adams It is. Melton So those numbers differ from what we were just presented. Adams Oh, I apologize. That’s, that’s my inexperience. We also have the estimated circuit breaker of $722,549. Choi Which is then subtracted from? Berry The revenue. Adams Yes. Choi Okay. Berry And, again, remember when we estimated this circuit breaker, we took the DLGF’s numbers which we believe to be inflated – Choi Yes – Berry So we believe that that circuit breaker impact is to be much larger than what it will be in actuality. Last, this, during this current year, the circuit breaker impact was about $125,000. We’ve estimated based on what DLGF provided to us nearly three quarters of a million dollars – Choi Okay. Berry So we believe that will be much less because – Choi The impact will be less. Berry Assessed values grew – Choi Right. Page 6 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Berry So much faster than the levy growth quotient – Choi Okay. Berry And so as a result we would not anticipate the circuit breaker to increase but we also did not know the impact of the additional levy on the library – Choi Yes. Berry That you adopted when we put this together so we used the conservative figures from DLGF. Choi And what was the circuit breaker figure again? Adams $723,549. Melton And that comes off of revenue? Berry Correct. It’s the impact of the 1, 2 and 3%. Traditionally Zionsville has had a very small because we have a low tax rate. You’ve had a very low circuit breaker impact. Plunkett Any other questions or comments from Councilors? Choi Yes, sorry. So the difference then is $7,292,813? Is that? Adams Correct. Berry Correct. Choi Okay. So we’re on the same page here. The, and, and Councilors, bear with me for a second because – so what we have here is, you know, we went through this as wanting to come up with something that is a balanced budget and the difficulty around it was what, what, how we were applying the capital outlays for this and, and I’m just finalizing my figures around this. So we have a difference of $7,292,813 in the deficit but what we talked about was that we take out the capital outlays because it is not applicable – that it is something that is for capital and would come out of our reserves that we would spend down the reserves around that but one of the things, and I’ve talked about this in the past, that I noticed in the capital outlays is recurring expenses and so when I went through and I asked Kellie to provide me the capital outlays from prior years as well to make sure that I understood what these recurring expenses were, they, they are things like a total of $1., $1,210,000 for DPW streets for tree service, sidewalk replacement, sidewalk repair, street repair, which has varied in how much we have budgeted for that in the past. In most instances it was higher than that – $314,000 for parks improvement, recurring parks improvement is how it’s labeled. Then things like, smaller items like firearm ammo for the Police Department, supplies, station repair maintenance. So when I just kind of went through and conservatively pulled those out, that equaled about $1,885,000 in expenses that really shouldn’t be pulled out and should be put in, back into what Page 7 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 we’re seeing as, you know, is this really a balanced budget? So that set up a difference of, we’re actually in the hole by a million dollars. Now, I’m comfortable with this but I think we need to start looking at this differently. I’m comfortable with this because of the supplemental distributions and because of the circuit breaker impact being probably much less. So, I am, I’m fine with this but I think when we look at this budget in the future, we need to make sure that as we’re pulling capital outlays out to say that these are going towards projects, that we’re, we’re dividing the capital outlays into two things – the recurring things that have been classified and I still don’t understand why the state classifies recurring expenses like street repair into capital outlays. In, in my head, that’s not capital but based on the supplemental distribution highs and lows over the last three years, we’re, we’re actually doing okay and we’re still building back up the reserves. So, I’m fine with this, I just want to be really cautious in the future about how we look at these expenditures and how we classify them and how we decide to pull them out to make it look balanced. So, that’s my only comment but it looks like from the calculations, I sent you an email with my calculation – that was based on old numbers. It looks like based on the calculations we actually, if you applied the, kind of the ranges of the supplemental distributions anticipated, anywhere from nearly $300,000 to over $1 million dollars positive. So just to let you know that I think we do have a balanced budget if the concept for the Council is that we apply supplemental distribution as part of the budget so. Plunkett Any other questions from Councilors or comments? Burk I would just request to Kellie, I mean, if I don’t know that I have the latest detailed breakdown of everything that now is included in the budget. Is there, can we get that – can you just redistribute it? Thank you. Berry It would’ve been the figures from the October 7th date. Burk Okay. Berry So you would’ve had them. Adams I’ll send it. Plunkett Anything else? Burk You want a motion? Plunkett Yes, I – Traylor You ready for a motion? All right. I will make a motion to approve the 2023 budget on the final reading with a couple of amendments. In my prior motion from the last meeting I had asked for the removal of contractual services, expenses from the HR Department, Admin Department, Finance Department and the Non-Departmental Department. I would amend that to add those figures back in. I can outline those line by line if I need to but as published with an additional Page 8 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 amendment of removing the $55,000 for fire station location study and the $150,000 for the public safety building study. Garrett Second. Plunkett First by Councilor Traylor, second by Councilor Garrett. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Thank you. NEW BUSINESS B. Consideration of the 2023 Non-DLGF Funds Budget for the Town of Zionsville Ordinance 2022-22 (First Reading) Plunkett Up next on New Business is a Consideration of the 2023 Non-DLGF Funds, Budget for the Town of Zionsville. This is Ordinance 2022-22. This is a first reading and Kellie is here for that as well. I do want to, as Kellie is getting this pulled up, I do want to thank her for getting this together. As you guys will likely recall, one of the recommendations from the State Board of Accounts was that we submit and file one budget, have everything together – DLGF, non-DLGF, all that stuff, and I know it was kind of a pain to get everything together in time but I appreciate you guys doing that and, take it away. Adams So, I just, I do want to point out – there is, there has been an update – excuse me – I inadvertently left out in 403, in our Parks – let me pull it up here – non- reverting capital there should be $300,000 in for the budget for 2023 that I had left out on accident. The rest of this I think looks pretty good. This has been with conjunction of all department heads. You’ll notice there are a lot of funds we’ve put in here that are not asking for a budget in 2023 but we have included those as well. For the, I believe everything is either the same as 2022 or actually a little less than 2022. Plunkett Any questions from Councilors? Garrett So, Kellie, just – I just want to make sure we’re on the same page here because I’ve got, I’ve been burned on this – I just want to make sure we’re fixing something because previously the Mayor had come and asked for an appropriation to renovate the Town Hall. We said no. She then went and took the money anyways and did it out of one of these non-DLGF funds. The State Board of Accounts came in and said no, you shouldn’t have done that and then the bond agencies came in and said why are you doing that and lowered our debt rating. Is, is that all fixed with this process? Can anyone – the Mayor, anyone else just go in Page 9 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 and pull money or now that it’s in a budget, if it’s something additional to the budget it would have to be appropriated like the normal budget process, correct? Adams Correct. Garrett Okay. Adams So that’s why I have even if you see there’s a lot of, there’s just been seeing a lot of funds in here that have a budget of 0 – I did that just so that you – every, every fund we have has been, has been appropriated. Garrett Very good. Thank you. That’s what I was hoping to hear. Traylor And just to be clear, are there any long-term planning items in, within this budget? Adams No there are not Councilor Traylor. Traylor Okay. All right. Plunkett Any other questions from Councilors? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. Garrett I’ll make a motion to approve on the first reading the non-DLGF Funds Budget for the Town of Zionsville, Ordinance 2022-22. Burk Second. Melton Second. Plunkett Second by I heard, first by Councilor Garrett, second by Vice President Burk. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. For those Councilors, obviously, to get everything filed at the same time, I would, if, if we’re amenable to this, I would like to make a motion to suspend the rules so that we can approve this today. Garrett Second. Plunkett Second by Councilor Garrett. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Page 10 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. I would also make a motion to adopt Ordinance 2022 – what’s wrong here? 2022-22 on first reading. On second reading. I’m sorry. On second reading. No, am I saying that right, Adam? Steuerwald Yes. Plunkett So, motion – it’s wrong on the sheet here so. 2022-22 on the second reading? Steuerwald Yes. Plunkett Okay. I’ll make a motion to approve Ordinance, adopt Ordinance 2022 on second reading. Melton Second. Plunkett Second by Councilor Melton. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. I do, real quick, before we adjourn, I just want Councilors to know this isspecific to the budget. We had a couple of conversations in the last few meetings about Zionsville Police Department, Zionsville Fire Department bringing items to us that that they would like done before the end of the year and we’ve received a number of those requests. We’ve got an appropriation that’s been published and will be heard at the November 7th meeting. Garrett Does that mean that those requests were not in the budget we just passed? Plunkett I believe they are in the budget because they, we would have to, if we didn’t, if we didn’t approve it then it wouldn’t be in the budget – if we decided not to approve it at the end of the year, it wouldn’t be in the budget for ’23. Garrett So if we approve the appropriation, should we make the corresponding pay down or, or, or rundown of that amount in the 2023 budget because let’s say it’s – let’s say we approve $500,000 for vehicles, there would still be $500,000 for vehicles in 2023 that could be spent without Council approval. I would suggest anything we appropriate now – Plunkett Yes. Garrett We just sort of credit down on the 2023 budget just so we’re even. Plunkett Yes. Adam – Page 11 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 Garrett Does that make sense? Plunkett Adam, does that make sense? Steuerwald Yes. Now, I would make sure that we’re not – Plunkett Sure. Steuerwald Jeopardizing any levy or anything – Plunkett It would be a de-appropriation or something, right? Berry What you would do is in January after the DLGF approves the budget, you would come back in January and do a de-appropriation – Garrett Yes. Berry Of those funds. Garrett Perfect. Thanks, Tim. Traylor Tim, before you go away, I think you might be the one to answer this – so, since we just made some last-minute amendments and we’re signing that we voted to approve this, will we have to sign something again with the amended version or is just the fact that it’s on the record will it be taken care of behind the scenes? Berry The de-appropriation? Yes. Traylor For, yes, removing, well, no – I’m talking about removing the $150,000 for the public safety building study and the $55,000 for the fire station location study. Will that – Plunkett That’ll all be done by you between now and November 1st, right? Berry Yes. Yes, based on your amendment, that’s what will be entered into DLGF – Traylor Okay. Berry Those two changes will be corrected – Traylor All right. Plunkett Yes. Berry And then uploaded to DLGF within the next five days. Traylor Thank you. Plunkett And then one last thing real quick Councilors, we’ve had residents bring to our attention – Lance and I have met with some, a resident from Colony Woods Page 12 of 13 Zionsville Town Council October 27, 2022 about a parking concern over on the west side of Colony Woods by the school – similar to what we had at the high school. So, I just want you guys to know we’ll be reviewing that here in the coming meetings as well so. That’s all I have. Am I allowed to make a motion to adjourn or would somebody else like to do that? ADJOURN Burk Move to adjourn. Plunkett Move to adjourn by Councilor Garrett. Garrett Second. First was by Vice President Burk. Plunkett First by Vice President Burk, second by Councilor Garrett. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. The next regular Town Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 7, 2022 at 7 p.m. in the Zionsville Town Hall Council Chambers. Final notice will be posted in compliance with the Indiana Open Door Law. Thank you very much. Respectfully Submitted, Amelia Anne Lacy, Municipal Relations Coordinator Town of Zionsville Page 13 of 13