Minutes - Council Work Session - 10/25/1999 - Budget

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Street Maintenance - Full-time salaries is increased by $17,892 because of the salary step plan increase. Culverts for resale shows nothing requested and it is because it was actually shown in two places. It is accounted for on another line item. Other contracted services shows an increase of $65,000 which is the 50% City's share of the Street Maintenance Program. Park and Recreation - Miscellaneous professional services - a decrease of $11,150, which will take care of part of Trott Brook Trail. Other contracted services is decreased by $5,000 because a park consultant was taken out for 2000. Heavy machinery amount was increased by $5,600 because of a bobcat and backhoe attachments. Community Programs - no major changes. Environmental Services - no major changes. Discussion ensued relating to grants and the fact that a lot of grants are dependent upon matching funds. Councilmember Zimmerman stated that maybe we should budget more than $2,000 for grants. Mayor Gamec stated that the money is there - it just needs to be transferred. Councilmember Zimmerman suggested finding more money to put into the environmental fund. Ms. Lund suggested that maybe we can take $3,000 to $4,000 from the Council Contingency Fund. Expenditure Reserve/Council Contingency Funds - an amount of $273,017 which is a $218,273 increase. The breakdown is five new positions: MIS (1/2 time), Fire Code Inspector, Engineering Tech, Street Maintenance Worker, and patrol Officer, reclassifying to City Clerk for Jo Thieling, Lump sum payment to Fire Relief and increase in Fire Officer's salary. Once this is all settled, these new positions will be moved into the proper place. Referring to page 251, it was stated that the money will be redistributed. It will be $62,000 - or $58,000 after $4,000 of it is transferred to the Environmental Services. Fire Chief Kapler stated that each year the department asks for increases for fire fighters but take a $1 an hour as a lump sum payment to the Fire Relief Association. That amounts to $7,000. Class 5 cities pay from $7 to almost $13 an hour and Ramsey is at $9. Ms. Lund stated that this would save the City money on Medicare and social security of over $500 this year. The increase for the officers is just to try to get it more in line with the market rate. Ms. Lund stated that basically what's left to discuss is what pertains to new positions. Mr. Norman stated that staff began working on more details on the new hire applications - Ed Shukle was asked to work on this. Five positions were listed but staff has also been discussing another position - administrative services/assistant city administrator. An idea is also to bring in part-time personnel and delete the City Administrator Assistant. There are two vacancies in the Community Development Department. However, we have begun talking about code enforcement. Chief Gustafson got brought into this conversation last week. We thought we could bring this back at the next meeting. Councilmember Hendriksen stated that he would like to have a workshop to talk about reorganizing but we should wait until after November 2. He stated he has no objection to seeing City Council Budget Work Session/October 25, 1999 Page 4 of 5