CITY OF PICKERINGTON

                                           FINANCE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL

                                               CITY HALL, 100 LOCKVILLE ROAD

                                                     MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005

 

                                                          REGULAR MEETING

 

                                                                      7:30 P.M.

 

1.         ROLL CALL.  Mrs. Riggs called the meeting to order at 7:30 P.M., with roll call as follows: Mr. Wisniewski, Mr. Hackworth, Mrs. Riggs, and Mr. Wright were present.  No members were absent.  Others present were Judy Gilleland, Mitch O’Brien, Lynda Yartin, Linda Fersch, John Gallagher, and others.

 

2.         APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF July 26, 2005, Regular Meeting.  Mr. Hackworth moved to approve; Mrs. Riggs seconded the motion.  Roll call was taken with Mr. Hackworth, Mr. Wright, Mr. Wisniewski, and Mrs. Riggs voting “Yea.”  Motion passed, 4-0.  

 

3.         FINANCE DIRECTOR:

 

            A.        Review and request for motion to approve draft ordinance amending the 2005 appropriation ordinance 2004-81.    Mrs. Fersch stated a draft appropriation ordinance had been provided to the Committee.  She stated she was requesting an increase in Debt Service as we are getting the SIB loan, we need to pay off the Ohio Municipal Bond Pool debt, so she was requesting an increase of $2,000,000, and an increase in FEMA as we are receiving an additional $4,806 from the State to reimburse the Street Fund.  Mrs. Riggs moved to approve and forward to Council; Mr. Wright seconded the motion.  Roll call was taken with Mr. Wisniewski, Mr. Wright, Mrs. Riggs, and Mr. Hackworth voting “Yea.”  Motion passed, 4-0.  

 

B.         Finance Director’s Report:  Mrs. Fersch stated her report had been distributed and she would answer any questions. 

 

C.        Review and request for motion to approve a resolution accepting the amounts and rates as determined by the Fairfield County Budget Commission and authorizing the necessary tax levies and certifying them to the County Auditor.  Mrs. Fersch stated  she has not received the paperwork from the County Auditor, however, at the Budget Commission meeting they approved our inside millage of 2.3 and 5.5 mills for the Police.  She stated the Auditor has until August 31st to provide us the paperwork, and this is routine legislation we do annually to accept the budget rate.  Mrs. Fersch stated this needs to be filed with the County Auditor by October 1st, and we should have the documents by the next Council meeting.  Mrs. Fersch stated this will require three readings and declaring an emergency in order to meet the deadline required by law.  Mr. Hackworth clarified this will certify the rates, however, the effective rate of the Police levy is actually lower.  Mr. Wright moved to forward the legislation to Council with emergency language; Mr. Wisniewski seconded the motion.  Roll call was taken with Mr. Wisniewski, Mrs. Riggs, Mr. Hackworth, and Mr. Wright voting “Yea.”  Motion passed, 4-0. 

 

D.        Review and request for motion to discontinue participation in the Central Ohio Health Care Consortium.  Mrs. Fersch stated she had provided the Committee with a memorandum regarding the City’s health insurance.  She stated an Insurance Review Committee was formed that included members of both unions and various employees to review our health insurance.  She stated this Committee had presentations by various insurance brokers, the company that helped Reynoldsburg leave the consortium, and a representative from the consortium attended one meeting and explained how the consortium worked.  Mrs. Fersch stated Tony Lombardo of McGohan-Brabender was selected to solicit quotes from various carriers.  Mrs. Fersch stated we received quotes from both Nationwide and Anthem Blue Cross for coverage that is very similar to what we have, and our union contracts require we continue the same level of coverage.  Mrs. Fersch stated the quotes provided appeared to indicate a savings from our current coverage.  Mrs. Fersch stated she did not need a decision on which insurance to select this evening, however, we are, by law, required to inform the consortium if we want to withdraw by September 1st.  Mrs. Fersch stated Marysville has been in the consortium about a year longer than we have and they are also looking at separating from the consortium.  Mrs. Fersch stated if we notified the consortium that we were going to withdraw, we would not be able to change our mind since they have to set their rates for the entire group and if we would drop out that would effect the rates for everyone.  Mrs. Fersch stated when we were provided the quotes, they did not have a claims history and when we would actually fill out forms for a claims history it could change the rates.  Ms Gilleland stated she was under the impression initially that these rates would need to be experienced based, however, in speaking with the broker they said they are not experienced based because we are a large enough group that they did not do the health questionnaire for each employee before they gave us the rate.  Mr. Wisniewski clarified they will need that information before they give us a final rate.  Ms Gilleland stated that was not her understanding so she would need to get clarification on this.  Mrs. Fersch stated we do not need to determine an insurance carrier tonight, we do need to determine if we want to put the Consortium on notice that we are actively seeking other insurance.  Mrs. Riggs inquired if we could get more information by doing the questionnaires so we would know more about what the rate would be.  Mrs. Riggs clarified that changing coverage would have the union’s support as long as the new contract closely mirror the current coverage.  Mr. Wright clarified that once we give notice, then we are out of the Consortium.  Mr. Wisniewski stated he would like to have a written guarantee that we will have insurance on January 1st, even if we have a major health incident.  Mrs. Riggs stated she would like to have Mr. Lombardo come in and address the Committee so we would have assurance that we would have insurance coverage if we notified the Consortium we were going to discontinue or participation.  Mr. Wisniewski further clarified that he would like something from the Unions stating they concurred with the new coverage.  Mr. Wright stated he concurred with Mr. Wisniewski that he would like something in writing from the broker guaranteeing that we will have insurance on January 1st if we drop out of the Consortium.  Mrs. Riggs moved to authorize Mrs. Fersch to notify the Consortium of our intent to discontinue participation in the Central Ohio Health Care Consortium contingent upon receiving a written guarantee from the broker that we will have insurance coverage on January 1st, and that the Unions are satisfied with the new coverage; Mr. Wisniewski seconded the motion.  Roll call was taken with Mr. Hackworth, Mr. Wright, Mrs. Riggs, and Mr. Wisniewski voting “Yea.”  Motion passed, 4-0. 

 

Mrs. Fersch stated with regard to the CORMA insurance legislation that is at Council for our liability insurance, our increase will be approximately 30 percent.  She stated, however, we are looking at requesting our broker to do more things for us and we are looking at hiring an accountant instead of having the risk manager at Westerville doing the bookkeeping, and these might increase our cost.  Mrs. Fersch stated she would like the amount of not to exceed $190,000 be authorized in the legislation at Council as that should cover our premium with the additional costs if necessary.  Mr. Wright stated he would request the not to exceed amount of $190,000 be added to the legislation that is Tabled at Council. 

 

            E.         Review and request for motion to direct the Finance Director to initiate the  borrowing for a traffic signal study and improvements. Mr. Hackworth stated Service Committee had requested Finance Committee consider authorizing this borrowing.  He stated Service Committee has been reviewing this issue for several months and Mr. Gallagher has recommended several ways to upgrade our traffic signals, however, it has not been a high priority.  Mr. Hackworth stated we have approximately $292,000 worth of rough estimates to do controller upgrades in the cabinets, an initial study, and a number of smaller items.  Mr. Hackworth stated the issue that needs to be addressed would be if we borrowed for this what effect would it have on our debt ratio.  Mr. Wright clarified the study would address all of the City’s traffic signals and would cost approximately $33,000 and was included in the contingency list on our budget.  Ms Gilleland stated she and Mrs. Fersch had reviewed the contingency list this afternoon and Mrs. Fersch is confident that at the end of the month she will be able to release the $33,000 for the study.  Mr. Wisniewski clarified the study will give us a better idea of the actual cost for the work that needs to be done to upgrade our signals.  Mr. O’Brien stated we need to get a baseline technology on our signals so when we need to add more signals or whatever we can get them all to work together and the study would help with that.  Mrs. Riggs stated she felt this was an important issue because we need to move traffic in and out of the City.  Mr. Wright clarified the $33,000 was on the contingency for the budget, but was not appropriated.  Mrs. Fersch further clarified Stilson would be doing the study under their Category B and therefore a separate appropriation would not be necessary.  Mr. Wright stated he would like to have the study done under Category B as long as it was identified.  Mr. O’Brien stated further he felt we needed to consider other things as well, such as an on-going maintenance program.  Mrs. Riggs requested an agenda line item be included on the Finance agenda so we can get an update on the study and be able to plan for discussion on borrowing for the entire project.  Mr. Hackworth stated he felt the on-going maintenance project would be something that was included in the budget process. 

 

Ms Gilleland stated she had provided a letter from our financial advisor that reviewed the City’s current debt position to determine the legal and budgetary capacity to incur additional obligations over the next several years.  Ms Gilleland stated we have a lot of ways to calculate our debt limit, but the lowest common denominator is our unvoted general obligation debt.  She stated the maximum we could borrow, based upon our evaluation today, would be $12.4 million, however, you do not want to ever get anywhere close to the maximum borrowing and you want to reserve half of that capacity.  She stated our financial advisor recommended we look at $6 million in borrowing over the next five years that we can use as a guideline for projects we want to get involved with. Mr. Hackworth inquired when our impact fees could be going into effect, and Ms Gilleland stated as soon as our Growth Management Plan is accepted, hopefully by the end of October, we could begin collecting them yet this year. 

 

Mr. Wisniewski stated he had to leave for a prior obligation and was excused from the remainder of the meeting. 

 

4.         PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT:  No Report. 

 

5.         DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT:  No Report.

           

6.         CHAIRMAN:

           

            A.        Law Director Search – Update.  Mrs. Riggs stated she had no update this evening. 

 

            B.         Review of Ordinance 2004-94, authorizing the City Manager to enter into a contract with the City of Lancaster for the provision of prosecution services for Pickerington misdemeanor cases in Lancaster Municipal Court.  Ms Gilleland stated she does not have an update on this issue this evening.  Mrs. Riggs requested this be continued on the agenda.  

 

            C.        Review of Ordinance 2004-95, authorizing the City Manager to enter into a contract with the City of Lancaster for the provision of prosecution services for Pickerington’s Mayor’s Court.  Ms Gilleland stated she had no update on this item as well.  Mrs. Riggs stated this would also be continued on the agenda. 

 

7.         OTHER BUSINESS: 

 

A.        Review and request for motion to set Police Security charge for water and sewer facilities at $12,500 per year for each department.  Mr. Wright moved to set the Police Security charge for water and sewer facilities at $12,500 per year for each department; Mrs. Riggs seconded the motion.  Roll call was taken with Mr. Hackworth, Mrs. Riggs, and Mr. Wright voting “Yea.”  Motion passed, 3-0.  

 

B.         Review and request for motion to approve draft resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute a Memorandum of Understanding with Village of Canal Winchester and Violet Township.  Ms Gilleland stated the Committee had been provided with a draft resolution and a copy of the agreement.  She stated this would allow the here entities to discuss the concept of mutually beneficial economic development opportunities and would also potentially allow for participation by Fairfield County.  Mr. Wright stated there was a typographical error in the agreement and requested the number “two” in Section I be corrected to “three.”  Mr. Wright moved to approve the draft resolution and forward to Council with that correction; Mrs. Riggs seconded the motion.  Roll call was taken with Mr. Hackworth, Mrs. Riggs, and Mr. Wright voting “Yea.”  Motion passed, 3-0. 

8.         MOTIONS:

 

A.        Motion for Executive Session under Section 121.11(G)(1)(b), Matters involving an employee’s or public official’s employment, Section 121.22(G)(2), Purchase or sale of public property, Section 121.22(G)(3), Conference with law director regarding pending or imminent court action, and Section 121.22(G)(4), Matters involving bargaining sessions with public employees.  Mrs. Riggs stated an Executive Session was not needed this evening. 

 

9.         ADJOURNMENT.  There being nothing further, Mr. Wright moved to adjourn; Mr. Hackworth seconded the motion.  Mr. Hackworth, Mr. Wright, and Mrs. Riggs voted "Aye."  Motion carried, 3-0.  The Finance Committee adjourned at 9:05 P.M., August 22, 2005.

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

 

 

________________________________

Lynda D. Yartin, Municipal Clerk