Agenda - Council - 12/10/2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mayor LeTourneau stated that the Council and staff have been going through that exact process since May and the Council is at the place where a decision will need to be made to move forward. He recognized that the budget may not be perfect, but it has to get to a point where the Council feels comfortable moving forward. Councilmember Heinrich stated that while she is close to that point, she is still not comfortable. She asked staff to review the budget again to determine where "wants" could be cut. She stated that she is not asking call times or level of service to be impacted. Mayor LeTourneau stated that there is a possibility that the 180-degree view of that is that the question of wants versus needs has already been asked and responded to. Councilmember Kuzma stated that this is his seventh year on the Council. He stated that when he first joined the Council, the staff was in poor shape and overworked and it has taken time for the Council to receive honest feedback from the staff on their needs and have an honest working relationship. He stated that there is now a trust factor that has been built between the Council and staff. He noted that the Council asked for additional cuts and staff provided those cuts to equate to the directed amount of six percent. He explained that four percent of those increases were items that were already built into the budget and could not be cut. He stated that he is comfortable with the six percent levy and was unsure what else would be desired to cut. He commented that cutting a few thousand dollars on specific line items will not have a large impact on the overall budget. City Administrator Ulrich stated that some final adjustments will be made to the budget based on the discussions. He agreed that there has been a lot of discussion on wants versus needs related to the personnel requests based on priorities. He stated that the budget is an estimate and will not be finite. He explained that they do not want to underestimate expenditures or overestimate revenues. He explained that staff must make their best guess at construction costs and the state of the economy and therefore some contingencies are built into the budget. He noted that any surplus budget at the end of the year is allocated into long-term capital funds. Councilmember Musgrove referenced the employee survey and stated that it seemed that there were a lot of feelings involved in the responses. She asked if each department has a metric of the job tasks and duties that would determine if the department is short staffed. City Administrator Ulrich confirmed that to be true to an extent. He used the example of Community Development and time for permit review as well as Public Safety and response time. Councilmember Musgrove used the example of Public Works where certain elements are given priority over other tasks. She stated that there are instances where there is not enough time or manpower to accomplish tasks that are considered lowered priority. She referenced the Police Records Technician position that was removed from the 2020 budget and asked if that would reappear in the 2021 budget. Police Chief Katers anticipated that he would include that request in 2021 as a part-time staffing request. City Council Work Session / November 18, 2019 Page 10 of 14