WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010

BUDGET WORK SESSION

6:30 P.M.

1. CALL TO ORDER. Mrs. Sanders opened the Budget Work Session at 6:40 P.M., with roll call as follows: Mr. Blair, Mrs. Hammond, Mr. Barletta, Mr. Sauer, Mrs. Sanders, and Mr. Wisniewski were present. Mr. Fix was absent as he was out of town. Others present were: Mayor O’Brien, Bill Vance, Lynda Yartin, Chris Schornack, Stephanie Spencer, Susan Crotty, Linda Fersch, Shane Farnsworth, Helen Mayle, Joy Davis, Chris Strayer, and others.

2. SCHEDULED MATTERS: Mr. Schornack stated prior to beginning the review of the budget, Mr. Farnsworth was present to address the Committee regarding the 33 Alliance.

Mr. Shane Farnsworth stated he is the Economic Development Director for Fairfield County and he had been asked to come in and talk about the Fairfield 33 Development Alliance. Mr. Farnsworth stated as a little background, the Alliance has been around in one form or another for at least five years and originally started out focusing efforts toward the by-pass. He stated it has now evolved into focusing primarily on business attraction for Fairfield County. Mr. Farnsworth stated Joy Davis from Violet Township, Chris Strayer from Canal Winchester, and Helen Mayle of the Pickerington Chamber of Commerce were present this evening and are all involved with the Alliance as well as Susan Crotty from Pickerington. Mr. Farnsworth stated this year they are focusing on their marketing and different products they are finding have value. Mr. Farnsworth stated he had provided some information for the Committee to review that gives an example of their marketing plan for the food processing industry. He stated what they are looking at is three key industry sectors; advanced manufacturing, food processing, and biomedical. Mr. Farnsworth stated the element of biomedical was proposed to the Alliance by Ms Crotty. Mr. Farnsworth stated the Alliance is focusing on letting companies know that Fairfield County has what they are looking for and also what we have access to within the region, such as OSU, Battelle Laboratories, etc. Mr. Farnsworth stated of their budget for next year, 96 percent will go strictly toward business attraction. Mr. Farnsworth stated as a result of the partners pooling their resources together, in return for your investment, you will have access to organizations such as NAIOP, IAMC, area development, and also the data and research they have. Mr. Farnsworth stated he wants to identify the needs of the community and let the community lead the Alliance. He stated further his goal is to administrate the program, to make it effective, and to bring companies here and get results.

Mr. Sauer stated two things that were stated tonight would help him support this Alliance, one being the quarterly deliverables as that is key to him. He stated he wanted to see goals, to see plans, and to see people either meeting them or showing the reason why they are not meeting them. He stated the second item is transparency with investors, because if we are making a contribution where is that contribution going; how are the funds being divvied out and what is coming in with them. Mr. Sauer stated it helps him if he can see the City, the community as a whole, and the County is getting something back. Mr. Farnsworth stated he had provided the Alliance’s proposed budget and also the plan of work on what they are going to be doing.

A. Review of proposed 2011 Budget for:

(1) Development Department. Mr. Schornack stated if anyone had any follow up questions for Ms Crotty, she was present this evening to answer those. Mr. Sauer inquired if Ms Crotty had checked to see if the data base she would like done could be done collaboratively with the Chamber, MORPC, or anyone else to see if we could combine what we have rather than creating a parallel. Ms Crotty stated there is no source for the updated data that she was looking for such as educational attainment, skills, occupations, etc. She stated this type of information can be obtained by doing a survey and asking people. Ms Crotty stated what she is using now is based on 2000 census data so it is not really accurate or reflects what is here because things have changed a lot over the past ten years. Mr. Sauer stated he just felt that this might be making a significant investment to create something that may already be out there. Mr. Vance stated prior to the development of these specifics, Ms Crotty will be getting the results of the $15,000 Council invested in the marketing plan in July. He stated with that information, with the investment in the 33 Alliance, at the very least Ms Crotty will be able to make four to six trips and market Pickerington with that information. He stated these specific result orientated tasks are dependent upon discretionary funding that Council may consider on a case by case basis. Mr. Sauer stated he was under the impression we were appropriating this money in the budget and it would be there to be spent and Ms Crotty stated her expectation would be that anything she would propose to spend these funds on would come back through Service Committee. Mr. Vance stated the allocation of discretionary funds would just place this flexibility within the budget. He further stated to attain this flexibility they would have to come back to Council and get permission to move forward with specific proposals. Mr. Vance stated further he would recommend $25,000 be set aside for economic development proposals and another $10,000 for business retention proposals. Mr. Schornack clarified there were no further questions on the proposed budget for the Development Department.

(2) General Government and Unfunded List. Mr. Schornack stated he had broken the Unfunded List down into what we have currently in the budget, items pending based upon the Master Plan for the utilities, items that are still on the unfunded list, and then items that Council has decided to completely remove, and the bottom section is what is still remaining on the Unfunded List. Mr. Schornack stated the 33 Alliance is shown on the unfunded list. Mr. Schornack stated as it is now, our ending fund balance estimate for 2011 is $1,584,000. Mrs. Hammond stated with regard to the OPVBA, she was all for promoting businesses, but she did not want to limit it to just promoting businesses in the old village. She stated they have some nice events and if we helped with some of those events was one thing, but she did not feel it was our place to fund everything they do every month. Mr. Vance stated the $4,000 for OPVBA could be allocated in the budget and they could come to us on a quarterly basis with a quarterly support proposal. Mrs. Sanders stated she agreed with Mrs. Hammond that we should support all of our businesses. Mr. Wisniewski stated this is an area that is historical to the city and it is bringing people into that area that normally wouldn’t come here for any other reason. He stated he felt it was more supportive of the downtown area and not supporting the businesses per se, it is funding events our citizens do come out to. Mr. Schornack stated he would also like to add that the Chamber is asking for $10,000 plus the $1,672 membership.

Mr. Vance stated he and Mr. Schornack had initially presented a balanced budget and with the balanced budget the carry over discussion came into play. Mr. Wisniewski clarified the $1,584,000 carry over does not include any water or sewer projects but does include all the adjustments to date plus the unfunded list. Mr. Schornack stated the budget is ready to go as soon as we determine what is left on the unfunded list or any other changes to be made to the budget. Mr. Wisniewski stated if we spend down our carry over balance it will not be there when we need, and 2012 or 2013 are not going to get any better. Mrs. Hammond stated she felt some of the items on the unfunded list that have been added should not have been added. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt they needed to review these items.

Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt we needed the $200,000 for the State Route 256 safety improvement project, and if we don’t get the safety grant he did not feel the $200,000 should be used for street repairs and should go back into the carry over. Mr. Sauer stated if the money is there he felt they would be irresponsible to not use it for the infrastructure. Mrs. Hammond stated she felt that money should be reserved for any type of safety grant and Mr. Wisniewski stated if we did not get the grant and used those funds to pave streets, then we got the grant in 2013, we would not have the funds for it. Mr. Blair, Mrs. Sanders, and Mrs. Hammond stated they concurred with Mr. Wisniewski that the funds should not be used for street paving if we did not receive the safety grant. Mr. Barletta and Mr. Sauer disagreed. Mr. Schornack stated the request for the traffic counters had been withdrawn by Mr. Bachman. Mr. Vance stated Council had included $60,000 for a performance audit of the City and some seem to be leaning toward just a performance audit for the biggest department we have, the Police Department, in anticipation of some kind of referendum in 2012. He stated other individuals want to audit the entire operation of the City and he would like clarification by Council which would be included. Mr. Schornack stated he felt our water and sewer rates were in the place they need to be and he did not feel that would be an area we would need a performance audit done. He stated the rates have been established and they are coming in at where we projected and are meeting our criteria. Mr. Schornack stated he has a meeting scheduled on November 17^th at 1:30 P.M. with the State Auditor’s office and he was inviting all of Council that would like to come to discuss the scope of the audit and what each member would like to see from it. Mr. Schornack continued that because we are not in a financial situation that they consider a distress, it will be driven by what we want to see. Mr. Schornack stated based on that, the scope could be aimed at one area, it could be aimed at several areas that generate revenues; it is up to us, but that would also drive the cost, how much work we want them to do. He stated the preliminary estimate on just doing the police department was about $20,000. Mr. Barletta stated in reviewing the performance audit information Mr. Schornack had provided, it seemed that the way it was structured it looked around head count, and in a lot of our departments the head count is down already so it may not make sense to do all the other departments. Mrs. Hammond stated she thought if we did the police department because it is our largest department and it is not really in transition, then perhaps we could take some of the information they give us from that department and apply it to other areas. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would recommend budgeting $25,000 for a performance audit of the police department for this year.

Mr. Wisniewski stated after the budget review, we are hitting a balanced budget with three less positions. Mrs. Hammond stated she agreed with Mr. Wisniewski that not knowing what would happen in 2012, she would like to carry over as much as we can. Mr. Wisniewski clarified that the police department budget right now is about $4 million, and approximately 80 percent of that is salary and benefits. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would support funding the OPVBA at $2,500. Mr. Vance stated he would recommend funding the Chamber with $10,000; we would get a membership in return, and see that as keeping our visitor’s center open and additional mainstream commercial activities. Mr. Wisniewski stated his problem with this was that we are laying off three people from the City and then taking $10,000 and basically funding an outside employee to help keep a visitor’s center open and he did not see how we could justify that. He stated he could understand a membership, but he did not understand the other money. Mr. Vance stated this is a policy decision and he would respect what direction council wanted to go. Mr. Wisniewski stated he would suggest funding the Chamber at $5,000 and that would include the membership. Mr. Sauer clarified that being a member of the Chamber did save us a little less than one percent on our health insurance. Mr. Sauer stated he would support $10,000 for the Chamber because he felt it was important to have an active Chamber especially in a community that was looking to develop an economic base. Mr. Barletta stated he concurred that we needed to have an active Chamber and would support the $10,000. Mr. Blair stated he felt our City Manager was building a relationship with the Chamber and he would support the $10,000 funding level. Mr. Schornack clarified that the majority of the Committee concurred in funding the Chamber at $10,000 which would include a membership.

Mr. Schornack clarified that there were no additional items on the budget for discussion and he would prepare a final budget document next week and requested a Special Finance Committee meeting be scheduled for November 16, 2010, at 7:00 P.M. in order to forward the budget to Council. Mrs. Sanders clarified that all Committee members concurred in the scheduling of this special meeting.

Mrs. Fersch stated she would be forwarding the Pay Plan and Authorized Strength for Committee action at the Special Meeting on November 16^th, and the Organizational Chart would be an attachment to the Pay Plan. Mrs. Fersch stated AFSCME employees will receive a one percent pay increase and the FOP employees will receive a 2.5 percent increase. She stated the recommendation is that non-union employees receive a one percent pay increase as well.

Mayor O’Brien stated he and Mr. Vance had been working on some ideas and the potential exists that we could reorganize our committee structure into new committees based on the Strategic Plan. He stated those committees would be the Finance Committee, City Planning Projects and Services, Public Safety and Community Affairs, and a City Administration Committee. Mayor O’Brien stated he had given a copy of this summary to Mrs. Sanders this evening for review, and as soon as she completes her review and gets back with him he will distribute it to Council.

Mr. Wisniewski inquired when discussion would be held on the plan that Mr. Fix had proposed and Mrs. Sanders inquired if everyone would like to have discussion on 2012 budget issues/concerns as an agenda item for Finance Committee. Mr. Wisniewski stated if everyone wants to follow the plan Mr. Fix submitted then we need to get it in place and work on it. He stated he felt that Council can’t come up with what to put on as a tax issue, and this plan would form a citizen committee to come up with something as a recommendation. He stated he did not know what another six or seven members of the community would offer when Council can’t make up their minds as it is, and further would Council follow the recommendations they come up with since they override everyone else’s recommendations. Mrs. Hammond stated that as everyone has heard during these budget discussions by 2012 we cannot afford the police department as it stands. She stated she felt Council needs to find something that everyone can agree on and try it. Mr. Wisniewski stated he felt $25,000 should be allocated so we can get someone on board and start communicating about the financial situation to the residents, to tell our story about where we are financially. He stated if this is not to be for a tax issue in May he felt we needed a professional start crafting what we are, where we want to go, and what situation we are in. He stated we should use the money that has been allocated in this year’s budget to start telling our story. Mrs. Sanders requested this be included as an agenda item for the next Finance Committee agenda.

3. ADJOURNMENT. There being nothing further, the work session adjourned at 9:15 P.M., November 10, 2010.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

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Lynda D. Yartin, Municipal Clerk