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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes MINUTES OF THE LONG RANGE FINANCE COMMITTEE OCTOBER 6, 2010 ROOM 406 The meeting of the Long Range Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, in Room 406, at Oshkosh City Hall, 215 Church Avenue. The meeting was called to order by Chair Harold Buchholz, at 5:05 p.m. Members Present: Harold Buchholz, Bryan Schulz, Don Simons, Jeffrey Thoms, and Bob Poeschl Staff Present: Peggy Steeno-Finance Director, and Lori Burns – Administrative Assistant Absent: Burk Tower, Ben Schneider, Jeff Herzig, and Jason Hirschberg (All Excused) Others Present: None I.APPROVAL OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 MINUTES No discussion on the minutes. Motion by Simons, Second by Poeschl, to approve the Committee Meeting Minutes of September 1, 2010, as presented. Motion passed unanimously. II.CITIZEN INPUT No citizens in attendance. Information Provided – Chair (~5:10 – 5:20) Buchholz shared that he recently attended a round-table breakfast with City Manager Rohloff and chairs of the various boards, commissions, and committees. This is a new initiative by the City Manager to bring the chairs of all boards, commissions, and committees together for information sharing and communication purposes. There were 15 – 16 in attendance. They discussed the diversity and tenure of members on the boards, commissions, and committees, and the importance of all working together. For future round-table meetings, the Mayor will be invited since he makes the recommendations for appointments to the Council for the boards, commissions, and committees. Meetings will be held quarterly. III.CITY FEE PROJECT (~5:20-6:55) 1.Overview of Discussion to Date 2.Review Memo Provided to Council on 9/15/10 3.Discuss Policy Ideas/Initiatives 4.Recommendations to Council 5.Next Steps The Committee reviewed the document staff presented to the Council on September 15, 2010 regarding this topic. Steeno outlined the Council’s discussion and Councilmember/Committee Member Tower’s input at the Council Meeting. The Committee agreed that the memo is a good synopsis of the Committee’s progress to date. The Committee worked through the Policy Ideas / Initiative list and began to form their recommendation to the Council. Ideas discussed were as follows:  Fees are a major revenue source in the City of Oshkosh.  Acknowledge / preserve the current level of fees (need for them) – there will be budget issues if fees are deleted without replacement fees, or substitute revenues to keep the budget balanced.  Every fee should stand on its own as far as the merit of the fee and if it is valid. The Committee isn’t concerned with deleting fees if appropriate, but wants to make sure that City operations do not suffer if fees are cut without replacement revenue in place. Fee neutral.  Look at the big picture. How do we compare with comparable cities with overall fee revenues, number of fees, items that we charge for, etc?  Some fees cover more than the cost to provide the service and some do not come close to covering costs. Also, some fees may be true revenue generators (no service provided, but fee still received).  Costs continue to rise, and raising taxes is not always feasible or the best option.  Regular, systematic, across the board increases may be appropriate for some of the fees.  Inflation adjustments should be done regularly where possible so that the fees do not get out of the range of realistic amounts, and need drastic increases.  The Committee wants to provide policy advice to the Council regarding where we go from here…how often the fees should be reviewed, what should be included in the review, how the cost of each fee should be established, what should be included in the costing, which comparables should be used, what role the ‘market rate’ plays in setting the fees.  The Committee believes all fees should be reviewed to bring them where they need to be (up or down), so we have a starting point. Then, periodic reviews, depending on the type/nature of fee would be scheduled. Could do something like 1/3 or 1/5 each year, so that all are reviewed over a 3 or 5 year period.  Fee reviews should include the affected depts. and the Finance Dept. Finance can help keep the details of the fees (costing, etc.) standard across all depts. Finance can also assist in monitoring the $$ impact of changing fees.  Could pick a sampling of fees to include in recommendation to illustrate why the Committee is making the recommendations.  The Committee requested that staff create a draft of the recommendation to Council so that the Committee can review and edit at the next meeting.  The Committee would like to have a recommendation ready to provide to Council as soon as possible, hopefully following the November Meeting.  The Committee would like to break the overall fee list down into logical, manageable categories. Suggestion as follows: Utilities: Water, Sewer, and Storm. These fees would be reviewed on a regular basis, in conjunction with annual budgets, borrowings, etc. Statutory: These are the fees that are either set by, or limited by state statute. Even though there isn’t as much discretion on these fees, it would be preferred to monitor these fees, and the cost to provide. This will be helpful for understanding how much is being recovered (and how much isn’t) and for informational purposes for local and state officials. Local Control: These are the fees that the Council has the most control over, as they are typically set by local resolution or ordinance. This category should be broken down further by high impact (on the budget), low-impact, and revenue generators (no service provided for the fee received). Staff to summarize the above information into a draft recommendation for the Committee to discuss at the next meeting. IV.INFORMATION SHARING (~6:55-7) 1.2010 Moody’s Rating – General Obligation (Provided on 9/1/10) 2.2010 Bond / Note Sales – General Obligation (Provided on 9/1/10) 3.2011 Council Budget Kick-Off Packet – (Provided and Discussed on 9/1/10) 4.2010 Moody’s Rating – Storm Water Utility 5.2010 Bond Sale – Storm Water Revenue Bonds The Committee did not have time to discuss this item. It was decided that approximately 30 minutes of the next meeting would be used to go through these and any additional information brought forward under this topic. Will continue to dedicate meeting time to this topic as it is important for the Committee to deepen their knowledge of City operations. V.FUTURE TOPIC SUGGESTIONS / ONGOING TOPICS LIST (~7-7:05) 1.Recommendation to add ‘Wheel Tax’ to the list (pending from 91/10) There was a short discussion regarding the priority of future topics. The committee requested that staff prioritize the list so that the committee can discuss at the next meeting, and be ready to look at another topic in the near future. The list staff brings back to the Committee will include a short explanation of each of the topics. VI.MOTION FOR ADJOURMENT (~ 7:05 pm) Motion by Schulz, Second by Simons, to adjourn. Motion passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 7:05 p.m.