Agenda - Council - 08/28/2018 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Administrator Ulrich explained that it would help the City to have a permanent part-time staff person that can coordinate for programming rather than having a constant rotating cast of interns. Parks and Assistant Public Works Superintendent Riverblood referenced the inefficiency of using interns. He stated that he would hope that the City would be able to attract someone that would want to work part-time. Councilmember Kuzma stated that the conversation began with the statement that the baseline increase to the budget will be five percent and asked what the increase would be with the staff positions added. Councilmember Riley replied that the increase with the staff positions would be 7.93 percent. City Administrator Ulrich reviewed some of the changes that were made to the proposed baseline budget following the last worksession discussion on the budget. Finance Director Lund noted that the 7.93 percent increase would be the total levy increase for the budget as a whole and confirmed that if the staff positions were removed, the proposed increase would be about five percent. She stated that the 2018 budget increased by 8.54 percent from 2017 whereas this proposed budget would be an increase of 7.93 from the previous year. She reviewed the proposed rate of growth for the community and compared that to the previous year as well. City Administrator Ulrich stated that staff has addressed the needs of the community as they see and experience and hoped that matched what the Council sees as reasonable requests for staffing as a result of the increased growth and activity the community has experienced. He stated that there is not a clear line for staffing needs for the police department and the requests are a result of planning to meet the needs of the community and respond to the calls for service. He stated that there would be similar needs for the fire and public works departments in order to respond to the calls for the service in the growing community. Acting Mayor LeTourneau asked for input from the Council on the proposed increase of 7.93 with the positions as proposed. Councilmember Riley stated that two police officers is too much of an ask. Councilmember Kuzma stated that everyone made compelling asks of what is needed in order to respond to the needs of the community and maintain the level of service. He stated that he would be inclined to support the request from Police Chief Katers for two officers. He stated that his bigger problem is the baseline five percent increase and would like to see that part of the budget slow down. Councilmember Johns stated that the baseline budget increase will play into the road financing discussions as the road funding continues to be impacted by the bonding for road improvement. City Council Work Session / August 6, 2018 Page 7 of 9