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COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - MINUTES - 10/18/2001 COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - CITY OF MUSKEGO Approved MINUTES OF MEETING HELD OCTOBER 18, 2001 Mayor De Angelis called the meeting to order at 7:10 PM. Also present were Aldermen Slocomb, Patterson, Le Doux, Salentine, Sanders, Wichgers, and Finance Director Gunderson. Ald. Petfalski arrived at 7:20 PM. The Mayor noted the meeting was posted in accordance with the Open Meeting Law. REVIEW MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING Ald Salentine moved to approve the Committee of the Whole minutes from September 13, 2001, September 20, 2001, September 27, 2001 and October 4, 2001. Seconded by Ald. Wichgers. Motion carried 6-0. Ald. Wichgers moved to amend the September 27, 2001 minutes to state he was present. Seconded by Ald. Slocomb. Motion carried 6-0. CONTINUING REVIEW OF 2002 OPERATING AND CAPITAL BUDGETS Mayor De Angelis turned the meeting over to Finance Director Dawn Gunderson who explained that she had distributed the most recent summary recap of the 2002 Operating Budget. Mayor presented a summary prepared by Parks & Recreation Director Craig Anderson and discussed the portion of the Parks Department budget that was neglected to be discussed at the previous meeting. Discussion took place on the Parks bathroom facilities and when to have them open. Ald. Salentine stated that she is in favor of having facilities open April through October. All agreed not to have facilities open during winter. The cleaning of the bathroom facilities is done by parks’ personnel. Ald. Petfalski moved to keep parks bathroom stth facilities open May 1 to September 30 and add $5,688 to Operating Budget to accommodate this motion. Seconded by Ald. Sanders. Motion carried 7-0. Road Program budget was further discussed. There is a dollar amount that must be met to keep up the condition of highways in order to get full funding of transportation aids. The City will start in 2002 with $450,000 and add $75,000 each year until 2010 that will take us to $1,000,000. Dawn Gunderson advised that after talking with Jim Gafney of Muskego Volunteer Fire Company she has now taken $15,000 out of Muskego Volunteer Fire Company Operating and put into Capital. Ald. Patterson noted that every year it is getting harder and harder to cut cost in the Operating Budget and the City, in the past, has had to bite the bullet. We’ve been doing a good job of running the City the way we have been. He feels it would be fabulous to have an HR person but they will not be giving much to citizens. We are proposing to add a lot of additional staff people who will be serving the citizens, but he feels that we need to eliminate a Human Resource/Assistant Administrator for this year. Ald. Salentine thought that the timing is appropriate because we are now in the beginning of negotiations. Mayor De Angelis said that the experience with our own unions would be invaluable and he felt that the timing is good with reaching the number of employees that put us at a new threshold with added requirements. Ald. Slocomb reminded the committee that we did have a past intern who became familiar with the research needed to keep on top. He strongly feels that this is an Committee of the Whole Meeting Page 2 October 18, 2001 important step that must be taken. When questioned as to whether this has been a big problem for employees, Mayor De Angelis did state that on occasion, an employee might have had to wait until he was available in order to address an individual concern. Capital Budget Gunderson reviewed updated Capital Budget with adding changes for Building (file system), Planning (file system) and Muskego Volunteer Fire Company (landscaping/paving). Mayor reported on conversation with City of Waukesha Fire Chief and Deputy Chief of Waukesha. Learned two substantial things, City of Waukesha already have a 32 person specialty rescue team (building as well as water). Training for this requires 16 hours basic, 200 hours in house, and 260 hours of school. Waukesha Fire Department is currently presenting proposal to Waukesha Council to sell their team services throughout the County. This would be similar to a contract. The amount would be based on annual basis plus per incident charge. Numbers are not available as they have not been presented yet to their Council. They use three different types of equipment and none of it is interchangeable. Ald. Slocomb attempted to call and thus far has not been successful with numbers that he has for a specific company in order to see if this company handles all of the required equipment and if it is interchangeable. Ald Patterson spoke to Tess Corners Volunteer Fire Department about offering use of their equipment at any time. They will be willing to make available their equipment at anytime unless it is being used for an emergency. Mayor advised that the equipment may not be compatible. Ald. Patterson explained that we were looking at other departments and delaying the hiring of additional staff, he suggested that the City start out with just the basic to allow for training and not spend a great deal of money on equipment. We then could look at Waukesha County to see if their program is cost effective. It their program is too costly the City could, at that time, decide to purchase equipment for one of our own departments. Mayor would like to see cost breakdown of the equipment and the dollars for each line item. The Fire department gave us a list of equipment, but not a breakdown of costs. We are pre- mature on making a recommendation for certain equipment items until we know the costs of these items. He explained that if we don’t know the dollars by the time the budget is adopted, The amount could be approved in capital with a caveat that it wouldn’t be funded until the costs are made available. Ald Petfalski would like to leave it in for now to get to public hearing. Ald. Slocomb suggested that we look seriously at Bio Hazard training and readiness not Hazmat. Resources must be distributed, not just put in one place. Ald Le Doux felt the City should not fund both Fire Departments to do the same thing. Further discussion took place. No matter which way the City goes resources will be needed. Ald Wichgers moved to recommend 2002 Capital Budget to Public Hearing. Seconded by Ald. Petfalski. Motion carried 7-0. Committee of the Whole Meeting Page 3 October 18, 2001 Finance Director Gunderson presented some minor changes in the special revenue budgets. The Lake Denoon funds will be returned to the Lake Denoon protection district and there will be no need to budget this fund in 2002. An adjustment was made to the Landfill fund to add the transfer to capital for the filing system and the $15,000 for fire department items. The final change in the Urban Foresty fund for the transfer from contingency to match prior grants. Ald Salentine moved to recommend Special Revenue to Public Hearing. Seconded by Ald. Sanders. Motion carried 7-0. Chief Johnson appeared before the committee to further discuss his requested community relations position. It was suggested that he go through need for this new position again. After the last meeting the Chief went back and looked at the ways to do it this year and maybe next year with existing staff. He found that difficult. The area of investigation was looked at closely and measuring what they do and how they do it. He discussed a recent survey from Sun Prairie which looked at all positions, but especially the investigation area. Based upon that survey, when comparing us to communities in Wisconsin our size, we are at the low end of the spectrum as far as staffing in the investigation area. There is only one other municipality that has 2 investigative staff, others are at 4, 5 and 6. Adding additional services to our existing staff of two just wouldn’t work. If a replacement could be hired through Police Core the City receive $10,000 per year for four years. The Chief’s proposal would be to promote someone in September, after summer because that is the time when personnel are gone. A replacement officer through the Police Core would start in December after Federal training. When asked if this change in plan was done under duress, Chief said no. Ald. Petfalski moved to present Operating Budget to Public Hearing. Seconded by Ald. Slocomb. Motion carried 7-0. November 12, 2001 Public Hearing notice will be sent to press tomorrow, Friday, October 19, 2001. Adjournment Ald. Slocomb moved to adjourn at 8:58 PM. Seconded by Ald. Wichgers, motion carried 7-0. Respectfully submitted, Dawn R. Gunderson Finance Director