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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Operations - 06/02/1998 OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MINUTES JUNE 211998 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Judy Woods, Sandy Amodt, Tim Clark STAFF PRESENT: Ken Chatwin, John Hodgson, Capt. Jim Miller, Brent McFall, Sue Viseth, Cheryl Viseth Approval Of Combined Check-Detail Vouchers Dated May 29, 1998 May Miller, Finance Director, presented the voucher summary totaling $2,143,078.51. Committee Member Sandy Amodt asked what the Golf Complex Fund was last year at this time. Ms. Miller answered that the expenditure trend runs pretty consistent all year long. The expenditures are customary for this time of year, and include the percentage paid to the contractor, plus contract fees for the subcontractor for merchandise sales, and the regular expenditures for golf maintenance. Tim Clark moved to recommend the approval of vouchers dated May 29, 1998. The motion was seconded and carried. Ms. Amodt made the comment that she noticed the wide variety of different vendors used by the City and thought that was good. Donation Of Old VHF Portable Radios To The Bremerton Police Department Captain Jim Miller of the Kent Police Department presented a letter request from the City of Bremerton to support their reserve unit with the donation of some VHF portables in two series of radios, the MX360 and the MX350 Capt. Miller said those radios were inexistence when he was hired on at the City of Kent in 1978. In the early 1990's, the City went to an 800-megahertz radio system and did away with the VHF but it was kept for a period of time as a backup for the emergency response unit and if there was a problem with the new system. The City has now moved from that radio system to a regionally 800 megahertz system and the portable radios are totally obsolete and valueless. The City of Bremerton is on VHF, which is a 155-megahertz system. Captain Miller requested that the radio units be donated to the City of Bremerton. Sandy Amodt asked the difference between VHF and megahertz Captain Miller answered that there are three common phrases for radio systems. There is a VHF radio system, which is on a 155- megahertz band. The UHF, which the state patrol is currently using is a 450-megahertz band, and the City of Kent uses an 800-megahertz band There are also actually 900-megahertz radios Megahertz is a unit of frequency measure. VHF, UHF, and 800 are the band frequencies. Sandy Amodt made the motion to recommend to the Council authorization to donate the 14 Motorola Model 350 and 360B VHF portable radios to the Bremerton Police Department. The motion was seconded and carried. 1999 Budget & Capital Improvement Proiect Calendar May Miller went over the CIP Calendar for dates when the Council would be involved in the budget process. She said departments are preparing their operating and capital requests The council workshop is set for August 4ih to go over the 6-year capital facility plan and levels of service that deal with the capital requests for the City. There will also be a public hearing on the capital facility plan that night at the regular Council meeting. Two weeks later there will be another workshop on the baseline forecast in the budget. Later there will be a public hearing again just on the budget. After the public hearings and input, a preliminary budget and preliminary capital plan will be presented in another Council workshop on August 20`h. At that point there would be a recommended budget that would have the annual portion of the 6-year capital plan included. Another public hearing is scheduled for November 11"' at the Council meeting so there will be two public hearings on the budget. The Tax Levy Ordinance will have to have a separate hearing. One of the ongoing problems in getting the budget adopted is that the assessed value from the County is always received late so the budget is based upon estimates. There will be minor adjustments in the end based upon what the assessed value actually ends up being. That ordinance probably won't be adopted until December 8`n Word has been received from the Sound Transit Board that they anticipate action on site selection for the train station June 11`n. Bonds would probably not have to be sold to finance the garage construction until late this year or early next, but the sale could be at whatever time is necessary. The amount will be included in the capital plan. The financing is always done separately outside of the plan. In terms of dealing with the financing of the bonds themselves, the funds that go to make the principal and interest payments, the source would need to be determined no later than at such time as the bonds would be prepared for sale. Anything that can be done to show the bond rating agencies and potential bond purchasers that revenue is there to meet the debt obligation, the more marketable the bonds are The first commitment issue that the City needed to make so that Sound Transit could go ahead with their decision was whether the City will fund a structured parking garage, and the Council has declared that it will. That bond sale will need to be included in the expenditure of those funds to build the garage, probably in the 1999 budget. Finance Report for April 1998. May Miller presented the Finance Report for April, 1998. Operating expenditures were about $200,000 higher than they were in May because property taxes were collected earlier than normal. People buy and sell land, sometimes they have to pre-pay and the property tax will come in a little earlier. The sales tax continues to be strong. The General Fund revenue is up 10 7%, which is exceptionally high for April. The City received 12% over the sales tax in the month of May and that gives accumulative sales tax of almost $750,000 so far this year and is about 15% over budget. That is completely dominated by one-time-only vendors that aren't Kent vendors, but are doing huge computer and radio type projects. Recreational fees are down a bit because of the shut down of Russell Road Park Overall the general fund is still looking strong Right now, it looks like it should end with about a million over what was expected, but a million and a half over budget is needed because that is the amount used to start next year's budget, and is the amount of the beginning fund balance that is needed to have a solvent budget for the following year. Building Permits are up, not just in Kent but the entire region. There is continued vigorous activity in the area of commercial and industrial building and standard improvements and reconstruction, also significant building of residential property Since the annexations on East Hill, there have been a number of plats completed and the construction value is already at $40,000,000 through the month of April. In overtime, the area of the greatest struggle is in the Public Works Department in the engineering review of plans. The strategy in the past has been to contract out some of the work, but all the consulting engineering firms are busy and there isn't anyone to farm the work out to. The plan is to find the peak and actual ongoing levels and to staff to that level to cut down on overtime and contracting out of services. In the Capital Improvement Fund, even with adding the Technology Plan, Russell Road, and the budget changes that's been authorized, there is still a balance of$765,000 that hasn't been allocated Because of the low interest rate, property is selling and the City is getting higher real estate excise taxes. The strong one-time-only sales tax is also affecting that fund. The golf course has had a disappointing first four months April looked better but revenue was down a much larger percentage in January, February, and March than in April. Altogether, revenue is down about 14'h % or $110,000 through April. The green fee areas, both for the 18 hole and 9 hole, and the driving ranges are the primary areas running behind Small Claims First Quarter Property Report Kent Chatwin provided the Small Claims First Quarter Property Report for the Committee's information. The meeting was adjourned.