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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Operations - 08/14/1987 OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MINUTES AUG 1 8 1981 August 14, 1987 CITY OF KENT COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Bailey CITY CLERK Berne Biteman Christi Houser STAFF PRESENT: Brent McFall Tony McCarthy Rod Frederiksen Marie Jensen Mike Webby 4 Charlie Lindsey OTHERS PRESENT: None w APPROVAL OF VOUCHERS A, All claims for the period ending August 15, 1987, in the ampygn,',of $1,153,119.13 were approved for payment. CORRECTIONS FACILITY LOAN WRITEOFF PROPOSAL Finance Director McCarthy reminded the Committee that in the summer of last year, in conjunction with finishing the landscaping of the Correctic� $, Facility, the CIP Fund loaned the Corrections Facility project $94,402 to co "l�e that project, with the understanding that the State Corrections Board would pay-t e .City back those funds based upon the negotiated split in the cost of the CorrgctibnS Facility. The State would acquire this money through interest earnings on thj,ir bond proceeds. Chief Rod Frederiksen informed the Committee that the interest"proceeds have since been turned over to King County for overruns on their project. "The Corrections Board has been sunsetted and all other monies have been transferred to the State's General Fund, and thus there is no possibility of loan rep ayt� 1, Finance Director McCarthy told the Committee that because of the potential of i* 1s, the funds had not been considered in any 1988 Preliminary Budget forecast. Based on this information, the Committee agreed with the staff recommendation to reflect the writeoff of this loan. VOTER'S PAMPHLET PARTICIPATION The Committee was updated on the proposed voter's pamphlet participation presented to the City by King County. It was noted that other suburban cities are participating, and the cost of participation would be between ;250 and $500. Based upon this and discussion related. to the fact that it is the c „ didates responsibility to write their own pamphlet information and th4t information will be edited by King County. The ,Committee went alovtg with the recopnendation to include ; this information in the voter's pamphlet. + f v •w'1.' .oP.V Operations Committee Minutes : ; August 14, 1987 ;` Page 2 LIBRARY BOND ISSUE Finance Director McCarthy told the, Committee that he had just finished an hour long discussion with Dick King on the proposed bond sale for the li4rary. The issue centered around the discussion of the calculation of the interest rates and their relationship to the bond buyers index and recent issues by ,ottvor municipalities. Also discussed was the gross underwriting spread to be charged;on sych issues. Both these items were explained to the Committee, which recommended4the approval of the sale of the bond issue to Shearson Lehman Brothers, based upon final presentation of their purchase offer at the August" 18 Council meeting. HIRING OF RELATED EMPLOYEE POLICY City Administrator McFall explained to the Committee that the proposal on the hiring of employee relatives is being rewritten to include that a department head requesting such a position would explain in writing to the Personnel Department why this particular relative should be hired. Additional change in the policy was to treat spousal equivalents in a cohabitation relationship as a relative. These changes were submitted to eliminate individual requests coming` to the Council throughout the year, but also in order to establish a more coDsistent guideline to avoid any discrimination either in hiring or nonhiring of 4 re-lative. After some discussion, it was decided that this policy is consistent with, what would happen in other municipalities, not only the area but in the country, and that also discussed was the supervisory relationship where that could occur. Brent provided an example that since he, in effect, has direct supervision over the entire City, that no relative of his could work for the City. This satisfied Councilmember Biteman's concern with respect to his experience in the school district. used upon this, the Committee recommended this be included on the consent calendar for the first meeting in September. TELEPHONE SYSTEM CHANGEOVER Finance Director McCarthy explained to the Committee that the4,City was in the final stage of wrapping up its telephone system implementation project, following an extensive two year period of analysis and implementation. He ,explained to the Committee that the project was much more extensive that origin4,lly anticipated, that changes in technology during the project plus growth in *.'gaff size required many changes that were beyond the original scope of the pr©jot. , These changes have resulted in two change orders previously approved by the ;Co mmittee. The final change order, which closes out the project and is within 4011r, "inally , ;amounts to $8,000 to provide some extra phone sets and wiring to meet Cityand also provide boxes to cover a larger amount of exposed wiring than was anticipated. The Committee approved this on a 3-0 request. 66F-IF Operations Committee Minutes August 14, 1987 Page 3 METRO B&O TAX REBATE PROPOSAL Finance Director McCarthy explained to the Committee that the City had received from Metro a $148,000 rebate. In addition, Metro will provide a decreased charge to the City for the rest of the year. Options for handling t4l s rebate were discussed. The options ranged from writing a check to each residential equivalent in the City for $7.16 to using the refund to offset future raise increase or proposed capital needs. This last option is what is being chosen b� other cities. The Committee, noting that over the past years rates have been raised substantially for City utilities, desired that a one-time only oi:fset be given.oh" the customers' bills and that a special memo be put together explaining this reduction in charges. Based on this, they asked the staff to come back to them at the August 31st meeting to discuss this issue providing information on the timing, costs, and proposed information to be sent to the citizenry. 66F-1F