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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 1993-06-16Mayor Roberta Cerri Teglia Council: Jack Drago Joseph A. Fernekes lohn R. Penna Robert Yee MINUTES City Council Municipal Services Building Community Room June 16, 1993 AGENDA ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING CALL TO ORDER: (Cassette No. 1) ROLL CALL: PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: 1. Discussion of 1993-94 Operating Budget..5-/2. O ACTION TAKEN ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING 7:20 p.m. Mayor Teglia presiding. Council Present: Drago, Fernekes, Yee and Teglia. Council Absent: Penna. The Pledge was recited. Interim City Manager Martel and Finance Director Margolis presented their staff reports on the proposed Fiscal Year 1993-94 Operating Budget: on the pro- posed expenditure reductions, revenue option estimates and enhancements, use of one-time funds and a State tax shift contingency; direction on how to use the $720,726 surplus resulting from the budget proposal; restoring certain position cuts, etc. Mayor Teglia stated that the Subcommittee met with each department head with a given number they had to reach, with the exception of Fire and Police - whose number was reduced. All Departments met those numbers. She stated the Subcommittee was placing the result of that work before Council with their rec- ommendations. She stated the Council had many options: to implement the proposal; look at the sav- ings and plug some back, etc. Each Councilmember had a list of suggested cuts he could tolerate and of those he could not and Mayor Teglia proceeded to pass out her own personal list. Mr. Giancarlo Corti, 1059 Vista Grande, spoke on behalf of the So. San Francisco Swim Club and urged the Council to continue their support of the Swim Club. He stated the benefits it taught: to be good athletes; the power of commitment to a goal and trying to attain it; spirit and leadership. He stated that if the Council cut the funding to the Swim Club it will cause a severe economic burden to the families of the 60 members of the club, who would be forced to quit due 6/16/93 Page 1 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN 1. Discussion- Continued. 6/16/93 Page 2 to a lack of money. Discussion followed: how the 4% vacancy factor would be monitored; Finance would review the monthly reports through the year; the outside figure for the vacancy figure was $400,000; $300,000 needed for storm water drainage had to be dealt with before savings were allocated; $500,000 for the CIP - did the Council know what it was going to use it for; antici- pated from last year's Capital Improvement Program; Councilman Yee noted that layoffs were anticipated, yet $500,000 was to be transferred to the CIP without knowing what projects the money would be used for and this was a problem for him; potential reductions with no personnel impact; Councilman Yee had asked for a listing of current vacant positions with dollar amounts; this was a difficult listing because of part- time people and changes in status where they lose benefits; Councilman Yee was concerned about how much money could be stretched between now and the time a vacant position is filled, such as in the case of Director of Economic & Community Development; category B consisted of Department Head suggested elimination of positions currently vacant; the last category of $1.1 million involved filled positions; category B was part of the 4% vacancy factor; $31.9 million was needed to maintain the current service levels and the City was $2.2 million short; vacancy factor was $1.2 million; cut away from budgeted service levels $3.5 million and is a de facto service level; the deficit could be made up by using the $500,000 of the CIP or reserves and the $720,000. Discussion followed on the $300,000 for the storm water charges: whether it comes from the Enterprise Fund or the General Fund; Councilman Drago was against doing it at all, even though it was a mandated program; if $300,000 was transferred as a debt to the Enterprise Fund, it would force the Council to raise the sewer tax next fiscal year; if it was taken from the General Fund it would produce a further deficit. Further discussion then followed: increasing paramedic fees for those people covered by insurance; Vice Mayor Fernekes supported the stormwater charge being an Enterprise Fund because it was Federally mandated; Councilman Penna stated he supported establishing an Enterprise Fund for the stormwater charge because he felt the City did not have a choice in the matter; Councilman Drago felt that it was directly coming from the taxpayers AGENDA ACTION TAKEN Discussion- Continued. 6/16/93 Page 3 regardless of which fund it came from and he did not believe there were any fines involved by not following the mandate on water and air; Councilman Penna believed it was a $10,000 fine per day; there were fines involved with failure to implement the program by July 1, 1993; there were two issues involved - whether you should have a storm water management plan or not and, if so, then the money you are going to assess people goes towards that plan; that this was a part of the public works budget and that budget deals with the General Fund; Councilman Yee had a prob- lem with justifying the raising of this money and then eliminating a street sweeper, which was part of the plan; Mayor Teglia and Councilman Drago's list re- stored the street sweeper position; Councilman Yee did not want the storm management fund used to support the Fire Department; the General Fund money was to be used for drainage activities, catchment cleaning and maintaining the actual storm water system; Council was going toward scenario No. 2 - an enterprise fund being established. Discussion followed: projects in the 1993-94 CIP; Police Department reorganization presentation would be entertained by Council after the budget was adopt- ed; one time expenditures etc. Police Chief Datzman stated that listening to the pre- sentation after the budget was adopted would not work - they don't coincide. He had requested to the former and present City Managers that it be given consider- ation as part of this process. He stated he talked to the Managers about operating an organization in a different way and still provide servic- es and save money without detailing what he could and could not do in that plan. He stated his concern was that the request now for how we put the budget togeth- er was not offered on that same level. He was not saying he could not meet the numbers but, once the numbers were met, then that plan was very important and was why he needed to talk to Council as he had been promised back in October, etc. Discussion followed: debt service for Magnolia Cen- ter; Councilman Yee wanted the Interim City Manager to work with the Department Heads and reevaluate the CIP items and see how critical they are in light of potential layoffs; CIP items; current CIP fund balance not known by staff, but report will come; Councilman Drago felt the 4 % vacancy factor was a risk when 1. Discussion- Continued. 6/16/93 Page 4 3 % was conservatively used by former City Managers; positions were frozen last year so the factor was not valid. Mayor Teglia went through her wish list: restoring Building Technician, public works maintenance and two public works maintenance workers and the related supplies for $141,129; restore Asst. to City Manager, Asst. Planner, Asst. Recreation Supervisor and the 14 hourly positions; restore $1,000 in budget to keep Magnolia Center open on Saturdays and Sundays; restoring the mechanic position and the street sweeper position, for a total of $546,000; utilizing revenue en- hancements through raising fees on paramedic fees, commercial parking, commercial recycling fees, for a total of $530,000. She stated the budget covers on-going expenditures with on-going revenues and we are not using reserves or one-time funds to fund our basic operation. She stated the new fees were monies we can put aside for a State hit and $500,000 had already been put aside for economic contingencies. She stated, even with plug- ging back in the position restorations she was suggest- ing the revenue enhancements, there was an excess of revenues over expenditures of $174,826, which comes to $1,200,000 we can have on hand for the State hit when it comes, etc. Discussion followed: how the recycling revenue estimates were derived by staff; 7 % of the gross re- ceipts from this City; paramedic fees raised; Coun- cilman Drago wanted to reevaluate and retain Building Technican, two Public Works Maintenance Workers, Fire Safety Specialist, Mechanic and Sweeper Operator - he could not support retaining City Hall people because you could not correlate their direct service to the public; he was concerned about recreation program layoffs of Supervisors; he was concerned over the number of staff people at Subcommittee meetings - Mayor Teglia wanted her technicial staff with her at meetings for protection of the City. City Clerk Battaya stated she sat down with the Sub- committee and reluctantly agreed that $18,000 was going to be cut from her budget yet, when she finally got the budget figures, another $4,100 was cut without any explanation. She stated her department was the smallest in the City and had the largest personnel cut. Her budget was AGENDA ACII_ON TAKEN Discussion- Continued. 6/16/93 Page 5 based on 1-1/2 people plus benefits. She would have a problem in getting qualified people to work for her at a minimum of hours. She stated that unless they worked the minimum number of hours there were no Kaiser and/or dental benefits and taking away the $4,100 removed those benefits. She felt this was un- necessary and severe. She stated she had savings in her department due to the death of an employee and it was many months before the City Manager would allow her to hire contract employees and pay benefits. As a result, the department bought a scanner with the savings. She had then asked the Interim City Manager to use $5,000 more of the savings to get an optical disk and retrieval program for the scanner so that all ordinances of the City could be put on disk with complete retriev- al back to 1908. She stated the Interim City Manager put her off and she still did not have an answer. Mayor Teglia stated every department's savings was coming back to the Council for reallocation and ques- tioned if this request was included in the $155,000 one-time expenditures. Interim City Manager Mattel stated she had a number of requests from Department Heads to use department savings for capital purchases and, due to the fiscal situation, she elected not to act on those requests. She stated that the City Clerk was right, there were funds allocated during the year for capital purchases in her department from personnel savings. She stated there will be the opportunity to identify some one-time funds next year for certain capital purchases. Mayor Teglia stated, then the Clerk's item is still alive, however, on the $4,100 additional cut for the Clerk's department - the Council did not have to ap- prove it. City Clerk Battaya reiterated the unfairness of the $4,100 additional cut to her budget and questioned why she had had to meet with the Subcommittee when they did not honor their commitment to her. She stated that one employee worked 30 hours a week and the other 32 hours a week, which allowed them to pay a portion of their Kaiser and Delta benefits with the remainder picked up by the City. She continued, AGENDA ACTION. TAKEN 1. Discussion- Continued. (Cassette #2) Closed Session for the purpose of the discussion of personnel matters, labor relations, property negotiations and litigation. RECALL TO ORDER: now with the additional $4,100 cut it made an impossi- ble situation for the employees to receive those already reduced benefits and they would have to pay more. Discussion followed: employee paid different health care rates when working 20, 25 or 30 hours a week; Councilman Yee's recollection was a $18,600 cut to the Clerk's Office and there was no discussion of a 1/4 person with the Clerk - that came at a later time; he felt it was a very severe cut for a small department and maybe the Council should take a vote on the $4,100; Mayor Teglia replied, great, and maybe re- store the 1/2 secretary position to the City Attorney as well, etc. Discussion followed: Mayor Teglia wanted the Coun- cil to vote on restoring positions; Councilman Yee stated he would not vote on any positions tonight and felt it important to look at the bigger picture first; he stated Council planned to raise development fees so before reinstating the Building Technician the whole thing should be looked at as a package; complaints on slowness of Building Division, and questioned if rein- statement would help; many complaints on Building and Planning Divisions and dramatic changes would have to be made to improve the situation; street main- tenance; Councilmember Drago and Mayor Teglia were against deleting Assistant Planner, etc. Consensus of Council - Support restoration of 3,4 and 5 (14 hourly positions in Park & Recreation, Assistant Recreation and Community Services Supervisor, add funds for part-time hours to keep Magnolia Center open Saturdays and Sundays. Discussion followed: Councilman Drago wanted to restore Fire Safety Specialist; if cut Fire Safety Specialist could be Building Inspector; Vice Mayor Fernekes wants to restore Deputy Fire Marshall posi- tion and Legal Secretary I positions, etc. Council adjourned to a Closed Session at 10:27 p.m. to discuss a personnel matter pursuant to GC54058 for the City Manager recruitment. Mayor Teglia recalled the meeting to order at 11:45 p.m., all Council present, no action was taken. M/S Drago/Fernekes - To adjourn the meeting. Carried by unanimous voice vote. 6/16/93 Page 6 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN ADJOURNMENT: Time of adjournment was 1:46 p.m. _,~ESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Barbara A. Battaya, City Cl City of South San Francisco APPROVED. ~~a~~ City of South San Francisco All entries of this Council meeting show the action taken by the City Council to dispose of an item. Oral communica- tions, arguments, and comments are recorded on tape. The tape and documents related to the items are on file in the Office of the City Clerk and are available for inspection, review and copying. 6/16/93 Page 7