Administration Minutes 2010 02-18-10
APPROVED 3/22/10
UNITED CITY OF YORKVILLE
800 Game Farm Road
Yorkville, IL 60560
ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE MEETING
City Hall, Conference Room
Thursday, February 18, 2010 – 6:00 P.M.
PRESENT:
Chairperson Robyn Sutcliff Valerie Burd - Mayor
Diane Teeling – Alderman Bart Olson – City Administrator
Gary Golinski - Alderman Kathy Orr – City Attorney
Susan Mika – Finance Director Wm Powell – Treasurer
Tony Scott – Kendall Record
PRESENTATIONS: NONE
The meeting was called to order @ 6:02p.m.
MINUTES FOR CORRECTION/APPROVAL:
The minutes for September 28, 2009 and
December 17, 2009 were approved. The minutes for January 21, 2010 were approved after
one minor correction.
NEW BUSINESS:
1.ADM 2010-05 Monthly Budget Report for January 2010
Alderman Golinski had no comment. Bart responded to Alderman Gilson’s list of
questions. He addressed Miscellaneous Build Outs and Remodels. Bart said $20K
includes Jewel remodel and the Buffalo Wild Wings build out, which if Bart
remembers correctly it makes up about $15K. Miscellaneous build outs or
remodels we are looking at $5K. All we really need is one or two of our existing
vacant units in the commercial businesses in the city to do interior build out or to
remodel from here to the end of the fiscal year. We’ve been doing about $7K or
$8K in revenue per month on that specific item. As for the 90 miscellaneous
permits for the rest of the year, this is very realistic. We usually do about 50
permits a month.
Legal Service – Bart said this is for special counsel all of your personnel attorneys
and landfill attorneys. This is expended because we didn’t budget at all for any of
the land flux. What we were doing up until a couple of months ago, we were
coding it the account receivable system. Eventually we said there is no reason in
coding it to accounts receivable, because all we’re going to do is write it off to
bad debt 12 months from now. We figured it would be better to try and budget for
this expense now and pay for it. If we pursue litigation and the appeal gets over
turned we can credit the line item back in from attorney’s costs.
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Susan Mika said we have not recovered any of the Bad Debts that were written
off.
General Fund Deficit / Surplus - Bart said this is an awful hard number to pin
down. There would be a lot of assumptions we would have to make. If everything
gets received on time, we can book it for this fiscal year we should be at zero, but
he can’t tell exactly where we stand right now.
2.ADM 2010-06 Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances Providing for a
Payment Plan Option for Delinquent Water Bills
Kathy Orr and Susan Mika presented a proposed policy for payment plan for
delinquent water bills. Susan’s concern was there are bills that never get caught
up. The policy states that you can only have 18 months to pay off your delinquent
bill, but you must pay your entire current bill and a portion of the past due
amount.
This item will move forward to consent agenda.
3.ADM 2010-07 Policy for Selection, Timing, & Number of Times to Place
Notes on Water Bills
Bart Olson talked about creating a form that would be completed by the charitable
organization that wants to put a notice on the bottom of the water bill. We can put
as many as we can on the water bill provided that there’s room. The moment
there’s a hundred organization backlog, then we will find a different way to
administer the program. Chairperson Sutcliff and Alderman Teeling are fine with
it. Alderman Golinski is still against the whole idea. He thinks it should be
reserved for official city business. He has the same objection he had the previous
month.
This will not move forward.
4.ADM 2010-08 Amusement Taxes
Kathy Orr addressed the consideration of amusement taxes. She said for the
record, we are collecting an amusement tax on Raging Waves. They agreed to pay
the tax as part of an economic consent agreement as they get a portion of it back.
The law has 3 different provisions where you can have taxes. You can license
businesses. If you want to do it to every business, you can set up a business
license. There are exceptions to that, Insurance Co., Lawyers and Banks, but we
need to get the specifics. Kathy also stated although you can tax and license, you
can’t tax an extraordinary amount. Amusement taxes are generally 5%, but there
is a statutory position, if it’s an athletic competition it is limited to 3%. What
amusement tax would we tax? We can do Restaurants, Bowling Alley, Putt Putt.
It is a possible way to generate revenue.
Mayor Burd asked if we license these places, would the places that are already
here be grandfathered in and not have to be licensed. Kathy said no, it’s all or
none.
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Chairperson Sutcliff asked how much a license would be. Kathy said typically
licenses of businesses are $50 to $100 dollars. Kathy also stated the meaning of
the tax. For businesses you call it a license and for amusement you call it a tax.
Mayor Burd said she would oppose the business tax right now, but she would be
for an amusement tax.
Alderman Golinski asked if there are any municipalities in the area have an
entertainment tax. Bart Olson replied he didn’t get a chance to research in depth,
but he found 2 articles on the internet. The town of Warrenville increased their
amusement tax from 2% to 5% in 2000 and their total budge that year was about
$6M. Gurnee has one in regards to Six Flags tickets. Alderman Golinski and
Alderman Gilson (memo) are against it. Chairperson Sutcliff and Alderman
Teeling think we should look into further. Bart will continue to research other
towns. This item will be brought back for further discussion.
5.ADM 2010-09 Governing Ordinance Discussion
Bart said he received an email from Alderman Spears about clarification that she
had requested to put a sign on the door on the use of laptops during the city
council meetings. Bart and Mayor Burd talked about cell phone use as well.
Chairperson Sutcliff doesn’t see anything in the governing ordinance about the
use of laptops, but she does see that cell phones should be put on silence.
Mayor Burd said when this was written; people didn’t silence their phones and
started talking in a regular voice. The main thing is to run the business meeting of
the city council without disruption or disturbance. Personally as the Chairman, the
Mayor has no objection to the use of computers as long as no one is disturbing the
meeting. As long as the Aldermen are not talking to each other via email or
twittering. This would circumvent the open meetings act.
Alderman Golinski said he doesn’t bring a computer or his cell phone to
meetings. It doesn’t apply to him, but it doesn’t bother him that others do.
Alderman Teeling doesn’t have an issue either. Mayor Burd doesn’t think there’s
an issue.
Chairperson Sutcliff asked if the ordinance is fine the way it is. All agreed. We
can remind people with a sign and be considerate and Mayor Burd said she would
say a brief statement at the beginning of the meeting.
6.ADM 2010-10 New Checking Account Request for Flex Spending
Susan Mika requested this item. Beginning May1, 2010 the city will have a
different Employee Benefits Program for Flex Spending. Employees can elect to
have an X amount of dollars taken out of their paycheck; pre-tax, that they can
use for Health Care or Dependant Care Re-imbursement. This new company that
we are starting out with, they are going to be doing things that is a lot more
convenient for the employee. They are going to have all of the money available
upfront. Each employee will have their own debit card. Susan proposes to open a
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separate checking account for Flex Spending to keep it separate from the General
Fund. At the end of April put the entire amount for the next fiscal year of the all
of the employee’s contributions into this account from the contingency fund. The
flex company will be monitoring it. Every payroll period as deductions are
processed for Flex Spending, we will transfer the money back into the
contingency fund. Chairperson Sutcliff asked at the end of the year the balance of
the Flex Spending account should be Zero and the balance of the contingency
fund should be totally reimbursed.
Alderman Golinski asked if there was any idea how much money was in the Flex
Account in the past. Susan said about $30K.
7.ADM 2010-11 Six Month Revised Budget
Bart said we are recommending to not approving a revised budget.
8.ADM 2010-12 Bad Debt Update
Susan Mika said they have finally completed writing off all of the bad debt that is
related to developer deposit. She presented a spreadsheet that is extremely
detailed. The grand total amount from 2003 to 2008 is $940, 049.
This list also includes Landfill Money. Susan said for 2009 there is still one line
item that is still sitting in the accounts receivable fund for $254K or $264K that
we will be writing off once it becomes a year old.
9.ADM 2010-13 Cost Cutting Ideas
Alderman Golinski talked about cost cutting idea that was presented to him by
one of his constituents concerning street lights. He said in Valparaiso, Indiana
they have certain areas that are not heavily traveled and they are turning off every
other street light on specific streets and saving a lot of money. This was emailed
to Bart Olson and the Mayor as well as Eric Dhuse and he is looking into it.
It occurred to Alderman Golinski that there are probably a lot of ideas in the
community. We can start some sort of campaign or contest to bring in some cost
cutting ideas. The incentive can be a flat amount gift card or a percentage of the
annual savings. This could be time consuming on our staff to sort through all of
the ideas that may filter in or we can do it at a committee level. We are always
looking for ways to cut costs and there is a whole untapped resource in our
community.
Chairperson Sutcliff talked about getting the word out via email, but. Mayor Burd
said the City News Letter goes to every home.
Bart Olson thinks the best way to sort through ideas is have the department head
that oversees the operation that the idea affects brainstorm the idea and submit a
small report to the committee. Susan Mika said the Aldermen can be the liaison
back to the constituent on the status or the outcome of the idea.
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Alderman Golinski said he can do some more research and maybe bring it back
next month. Chairperson Sutcliff warned that the next news letter deadline is the
Friday after next. Alderman Golinski said he is more than happy to get together
with staff to try and draw up guidelines for the Cost Cutting Program to present in
the upcoming newsletter. Mayor Burd agreed.
There was discussion on Alderman Gilson’s suggestions presented by memo. The
City has done some these already. As for the codification, Bart said if the
committee stops updating Ordinances then we can suspend codification.
OLD BUSINESS:
None
ADDITIONAL BUSINESS:
1.
Alderman Golinski brought up a problem submitted by one of his constituents.
They were complaining about unsolicited newspapers thrown in their driveway.
They were asking if we have some sort of ordinance or anything they can do to
opt out of this. They also said when they travel, they take all of the necessary
steps; they stop their mail and other newspaper deliveries, but these Shopper
Newspapers keep piling up in their driveway.
Bart responded, Littering, Soliciting? Kathy Orr said we would have to go after
the shopper. Bart is going to research the ordinances and place a call to The
Shopper.
2.
Kathy Orr brought up the pending Ethics Ordinance. She talked with Eris Weis.
He has written to the Attorney General’s Office but he has not received an
answer.
3.
Chairperson Sutcliff talked about cost cutting option of eliminating leaf
collection. Bart said you would probably have to vote on eliminating the entire
service. He said it is a very popular program. People actually use it and like it. It
would be a $6K budget savings and we would have a large vehicle we could sell
as well and the program uses a lot of manpower.
Bart also mentioned people can stuff their leaves in a bag and Violia will haul
them away. William Powell said if we stop the program and Violia is getting so
many bags of leaves, will they increase our garbage rate. Bart replied they cannot
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increase our garbage rate until the end of the contract which we are starting the 3
year on a 5 year contract.
Alderman Golinski stated that he received many complaints when this topic was
brought up before.
ADJOURNMENT OF THE ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE MEETING:
With no further business to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 7:42 p.m.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Tim Dlugopolski
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