Agenda - Council - 11/10/1981 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I ,I I I -3- Commingling of revenue sharing~funds with other funds of the recipient government also raises'additional questions about compliance by the governmen~ with provisions., of the Revenue Sharing Act, as amended, involving the Davis-Bacon ACt, nondiscrimination, etc. T~er~ore~ alp~udent' local government will provide ~or the budgeting, appropriation'and disbursement of'its r~v~nue sharing funds separate and distindt from its general fund. ~ Public Participation Reminders Public notice of the revenue sharing proposed use hearing and budget hearing must be.published in a~newspaper of general circulation which serves ypur c~nit~ · . A newspaper, announcement must also be >s,ej,.~p,.prowi, d~oti~ce of .the availability of the summary of the enacted budget and use report for~nblic ~ins~ection. At a minimum, your government should place a paid advertisement'in the newspaper to satisfy this requirement, such ~oti~ ~eed not'take the form of~a legal advertisement, however. Newspaper news stories and the use of other news media to encourage the public to attend the hearings are commendable additional steps that may be taken. Some governments have sought our permission to use other means of giving notice because they are preferable in the opinion of the government officials. Unfortunately, we cannot waive the statutory requirements on that basis. The law provides that newspaper publication may be waived in favor of another alternative method only if the use of a newspaper is impractical, infeasible, or the cost is excessive. Publication costs must exceed 15 percent of the amount of revenue sharing funds in the proposed budget to be considered excessive. The term impractical means that newspaper publication may not be useful. This may be the case if, for example, you are-served only by a large metropolitan paper published some distance away and there are few subscribers in your gommunity. The term infeasible means that it is not possible to publish a notice in a local newspaper. This may be the case if there is no newspaper circulating at all in ~our community. In eithe~ c~se, a newspaper does not need to be p~blished within your government's boundaries to qualify as a newspaper of general circulation in your community. To grant a waiver of the newspaper publication requirement, the Office of Revenue Sharing must receive a written request signed by the chief executive officer. The request must indicate the conditions which make newspaper publication impractical or infeasible. It must also include a brief description of the alternative publication method to be used in place of a notice in a newspaper. If a w~iver request is based on cost, it must document that the cost of new~paper publication will exceed 15 percent of the amount of revenue sharing fund~ proposed for appropr£ation. The documentation may take the form of a written estimate that the cost of publishing the~notices will total a specific amount.