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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998 08-08 MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL BUDGET WORKSHOP P & Z, ATTORNEYS & MAYOR HUMAN RESOURCES AUGUST 5, 1998 Corrie: The legal department, Planning and Zoning, the Human Resource and the fourth the Mayor's budget. We'll open with the proposed budget for the legal department. Prior: I'll start at the top and I'll try to be as brief as I can. The first four items on the budget are items that are being removed from the previous year's budget as they are no longer applicable to the present budget. The only correction - Bentley: Excuse me you are removing wages and FICA? I don't have anything else but this. Corrie: What's that? (Inaudible) Prior: What I'm doing is with the office space, we longer require at least this next year to pay for office space as we did last year. The accident insurance, the contract for the prosecuting attorney. The fourth item that shows a zero for 97-98, that should be $12,000. That's being taken off as well. I apologize for the zero there. Then you go down to the first item, and I guess I'll address that. For 97-98 under city attorney and law office contract, it was $126,00 in 97-98. For 98-99 proposed $223,400. If you turn to the second page on the very bottom, there's some printing there, and it lays out exactly what the law office contract is and the assistant city attorney salary. I discussed with the Mayor and the Mayor approved a $200.00 a month increase in my salary or at least suggested it to me - Corrie: I did not approve. Prior: You did not approve? Excuse me, I caught myself before I said that. The Mayor noted to me that it would be appropriate the $200,00 for me to put a $200 a month increase in my salary on that. Obviously that's up to you folks what that figure is, but $185,000 plus my salary there will give you the $223,400 for 98-99. Bird: John where's the $185,000 is that a contract that's been entered into? Prior: I beg your pardon? Bird: Is that a contract? Is that a firm bid? Prior: No, basically what we've done is we've sat down with them now. Time is of the essence and I want to -I can't emphasize that enough. Your prosecutor will be leaving in 19 days. They'll provide a prosecutor, they'll provide two additional attorneys who will have office hours in the office over there, and those will be jobs - the jobs they will Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 2 basically be emphasizing is the comprehensive plan, the ordinances, any question that I might have regarding the day to day stuff and basically any special projects that you folks need along with basically handling all of the lawsuits that the city is involved in, Their policy and the policy they have with Nampa is that there is no contract and they won't require you to enter into a contract. It will work out to be about $15,000 every month and it's basically -I mean they are being up front about this. We'll go from month to month and when you folks say enough is enough, we cut the strings and you do whatever you want at that point after that. That's the way they do it with Nampa. That's the way they suggest they do it with the city as well. They are basically going on a handshake and saying you know we'll take you at your word that you are willing to do this, and I think that speaks a lot for this law firm. Anderson: Do we even have an hourly rate? Prior: That's the one thing that it's not - if we work out to an hourly rate, Ron, their top hourly rate runs somewhere I think $125.00 and $175.00, $150,00 an hour. The city cannot afford $6,000 a week in -- $6,000 to $8,000 a week in attorney's fees. That would be that would work to be $30 some thousand a month in attorney's fees just for the prosecution work and some lawyers showing up with office hours. If this contract were for the - and I know that Councilman Bird expressed some interest in privatizing the whole thing. If that's his interest, that's wonderful. But my opinion is that you're probably looking at maybe two and a half to three times what the city attorney law office contract is right now. You're going to be up in the $600,000 range I'm guessing because you are basically going to have to - they're going to basically provide their own staff. They are using our staff. They are using our facilities. They're using everything that we have here. If you're going to require them to take over the whole contract, just multiply that 223 time three and you'll be in the ballpark probably for what it will require for them to do the job to take everything over. But obviously that's your prerogative. Just on a personal note, if that's your decision I'd like to know relatively quickly so that I can make arrangements on my own if that's going to be something you folks are interested in. I'd like to know like very quickly or otherwise- Bird: You're entitled to it John. Prior: I think I am, Anderson: By the end of the meeting then? Prior: Yeah, If you want to let me know right now, I could have the stuff out in an hour and I'll move on Ron. That's fine with me. Bentley: Take another pill. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 3 Bird: Weill think it needs to be looked at, but I don't think- Prior: The one thing is that time is of the essence on this thing. Like I said you have a prosecutor. I cannot do the prosecution work and the attend your city council meetings and attend the Planning and Zoning meetings and get everything done. It's just physically impossible for me to do that. Even if I worked every day 24 hours a day, it wouldn't be possible for me to do it, so you have 19 days to make the decision and that includes the time to bring a prosecutor on and hire somebody, so- Bentley: So they are going to provide two attorneys, plus the prosecutor. Prior: They are going to provide full prosecution services for us, Okay? That means someone who is going to prosecute all the cases and they do this for Nampa, plus they are going to come in with two attorneys who are going to have office hours here and they are going to be a little varied with their office hours. They are not going to necessarily be eight to five. But they'll have office hours every day and someone to be here, and in the meantime what they are going to do is they are going to work on basically taking care of the ordinance books and getting us up to speed on the ordinances so we do have the three copies of the ordinance books in the Clerk's office as opposed to the none that we have right now, and making sure that all of you have a copy of the ordinances. They will look at our comprehensive plan and basically clean up some of the procedural stuff that are nagging procedural issues that are out there. Bentley: Well my opinion would be to continue with what we're doing here until we get this thing straightened out and then we can in the interim take a look at what can be accomplished if we go the other direction. I'm not in the mood to rush into any outside huge agreements you know to contract it away right now, you know privatize. I'm not ready for that. Prior: So I guess if I'm clarifying you are in agreement with what we're doing at this point as far having these guys provide these services? Bentley: Right have somebody here right now that can get things straightened up for us. Prior: And on a personal note I guess from my perspective I guess if I were to add that is that you folk you let this law firm clean this up and if it's agreeable that I do what I've been doing now and handle the day to day and let them clean this up, in a year from now when everything's done, then you folks can basically sit down and hire a city attorney and he'll be pretty much free to hire his own staff, and that includes me. I mean it's probably no secret that I probably won't be here a year from now and I probably don't plan on being here a year from now. I'll be around long enough to help you get through this and then I'll probably move on to something else, and that will be Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 4 about the time that you will be wanting to bring somebody on and you'll have an opportunity to have a clean slate and basically put on who you want to put on. I think it's a golden opportunity to do it, but it you don't want to do that it's fine as well. I mean you folks handle the purse strings. You do whatever you want. I'd like a little notice though. I'd like to know in the very near future so that I can - you're laughing, but I would appreciate it. Bird: I'm not that hard hearted. Prior: Well the next issue is the $103,404. That was 97-98 for the staff. I've cut that down to $68,100. Again on the second page it talks a little bit about the break down there. I've got one senior legal secretary. I've showed her her salary. I've got two legal secretaries and that salary, obviously you divide that by two and that gives you what their individual salaries are. I also put in there a runner, and the reason I did that is because one of our secretaries spends an inordinate amount of time running back and forth to Barrister picking up files, filing papers, back and forth and it's time consuming and cuts out of her productivity during the day, and what I'm going to do is just hire with you permission is to hire somebody for $5.50 or $6.00 an hour to do exactly that two or three hours a day. And basically also do some of the filing that takes an inordinate amount of time. And that will help productivity without having to bring on another full time staff and pay benefits and that sort of thing. So that's the reason for the three staff wages and the one runner. Bentley: What is the difference, I mean where did we go from $103,000 down to $68,000. Prior: Well I had difficulty in Wayne's budgeting. I looked at it and I really couldn't figure out what he was doing and where he got his numbers. To this day, I'm not really sure where these numbers came from, but I took it off of the other budget, and I think what he did - I think is that he had planned on bringing on more legal secretarial staff, and at this time it would behoove us to maybe just put that on hold at this point. I can manage with what I've got right now. That law office has expressed that they'll use their legal staff for some of the things and they won't allow this to back up, and I think it's manageable at this point. If it becomes unmanageable, believe me you'll be hearing me come to you screaming for additional staff. I can assure you I will. FICA, retirement, workers' comp., Blue Cross, all of those are pretty basic. The office supplies, there's a little bit of an increase in there. I just think it's necessary to have a little bit you know we're getting close and we use quite a bit of office supplies. Postage and mailings, I'm going to try to get the secretaries as opposed to - we send a lot of stuff by fax machine. And the secretaries do a lot of faxing, and I'm trying to get them away from that and trying to figure out a way to do with postage and mailing, so that's the reason for the slight increase in the postage and mailings. We didn't have anything for recording fee and filing fees. I don't know where those were put in because I know we filed papers, Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 5 and I filed at least a half a dozen briefs. I don't know where the money for that was on the budget, but somewhere we paid for at least $4-500,00 in filing fees, but I put an item in there $1,000. If you are inclined to skim a little fat, you can skim some there. Mileage reimbursement with a runner, I'm anticipating that we may need a little bit more for mileage reimbursement, so if you would be inclined to allow me to have a little bit there. Anderson: Do we have a vehicle for this runner, or they would be using their own vehicle? Prior: No, they would provide their vehicle and we would figure out some way in terms of the liability. We would work something out here, and that's what all the law offices do. Myoid law office did the same thing. And maybe my new law office will do that if we go this way. Bird: John, $4,000 is over 1,000 miles a month. Prior: You're also paying for my mileage as well. I don't know if you are aware of that, but I incur some mileage as well. I don't know if you are aware of this, but I go to every Planning and Zoning site that the city is involved in and I walk the site. I literally go out there and see what's out there and see what's out there. I also when I travel, I assume that I should be reimbursed for having to go to the sewer department to meet with them when they call me and say they have a major legal emergency or any other department. I assume I should be reimbursed for that. I go down to the Courthouse at least once a week to Barrister. I also go down to District Court unfortunately a couple three times a month. I also have to go to the law library on occasions, and I may be the only attorney at the office at the time who is doing that, but I do that. So I incur a little bit of expense. Anytime - Bird: How many miles a month? Prior: My last mileage check was $50-60, they run $50,60, $70 a month for my mileage checks. Bird: What are they giving you per mile? Prior: $.25, which is a little lower than the- Anderson: State's ,31. Prior: State's .31 or .31. Bird: What kind of liability do you have on your car? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 6 Prior: Full liability insurance. Bird: What's the dollar amount? Prior: I don't remember what I've got. Bird: The City you should have a million. Prior: What's that? Bird: You should a million dollar liability on a city vehicle. Prior: I don't drive a city vehicle. Bird: That's what I mean. You're getting paid, reimbursed. Just like what we talked about last night. Prior: Well, if that's your prerogative increase my mileage so I can afford to do that instead of .31 cents a mile. Bird: We get a rider that goes on your car when you are using it. Prior: As long as you are willing to pay for that, I'll be happy to do that. Bird: I have no problem with that. It's just your own benefit and the City's benefit. You're out there representing the city in your thing, you get in a wreck and you don't have the liability on it or the city don't have a rider with theirs on that John, then we're hung out to dry. Prior: You may want to - if that's a big enough issue you may want to have to review basically every single employee who submits a mileage check because there are more than me that are doing that. You've probably got every department- Rountree: That might be an issue that's taken care of by ICRMP too. (Inaudible) Prior: If you want to look into that go ahead, but at this point that's the reason for the mileage. It may be a little high again, but- Bentley: I'm kind of wondering if we go into this runner situation, if we wouldn't be ahead to buy a little pickup. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 7 Prior: Well the point is that- Bentley: I'm not talking about you, but I'm talking about the runner themselves. Prior: What I'm thinking is that at this point this is just a Band-Aid, and in the long run let's just see what you folks are going to do. If you are completely happy with this law office a year from now, and they absolutely dazzle you why don't you think about it. Bentley: What my point is you take $4,000 and even if only half of that is a runner, that's $24,000. We could by a pickup for $14,000 and a year from now if the runner service goes away, we've still got a little truck that can be used in the city. Prior: That's something if you're willing to look at that, that's fine. I guess I was just thinking short term. And I wasn't thinking this runner position was going to be something - I'm trying to keep this down. If you look at the bottom totals, you have $12,000 as opposed to $437,000. I was trying to keep this thing down as best I could and there's a little extra there as well. On the second page we've got travel and meetings, education and expenses, personal training. I wasn't really sure about the maintenance and the janitor, the phone expense. Those were all kind of guessimates. The books and library, I cut $2400 off of that. It's not necessary for us to have $7,400 for the library, and I'm guessing that we could probably get by with $4,000 on the library with the updates and some of the other legal books that we might need, So that has a possibility. Miscellaneous, that's just those odd things that come up that you know for lack of no other place to put them, you know I think it's important to have some type of miscellaneous account. Capitol outlay, equipment, furniture, building, 97-98 it was $28,844. I'm not really sure why that was in there. We've used $8,000 of the $28,844. I put the $28,000 in there again because we have the potential of acquiring a system with Ada County where city clerks can - our legal secretaries can get into the court system at Ada County and it will help improve their productivity in terms of being able to find out when certain court dates are, verifying court dates, checking and Angel can tell you that it's something that is absolutely needed. It will- it's a necessity. And that thing is going to run between 8, 10, $12,000, somewhere in that ballpark. So that's the reason for the $28,000. The rest of it is I don't know what other expenses are out there in terms of furniture. The Mayor assures me there aren't any. I'm a little uncomfortable with all those desks and everything else what else is out there, so that's a big question mark, that $28,000. If you're inclined to cut that in half, have at it, but I'm comfortable I'd rather have a little bit of that in there to see what else is out there. In the event that something hasn't been paid for. Rountree: John, what's the system again? Is it a software package? Prior: No, it's basically a line that we're going to be able to put in which will- it's basically on line with Ada County. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 8 Rountree: It's on line access to the County Courthouse. Prior: Records, courthouse, everything and what we can- Sims: We are probably only one of the only entities that don't have it. Prior: Garden City has it. Boise has it. Kuna probably has it. Everybody has it except us. We're the only ones that don't have it, and what it does is basically when someone violates their parole and doesn't pay their court costs, and doesn't pay their fine, we have no way of knowing that. And we don't do anything about it. So those people skate. Well what happens is that and the only way we can find out is if we call up the court and we have their name and everything else. What this will allow us to do is we dial up - we go up on the thing and we see a name and we put a tickle file with these people and say they have six months to pay this fine. If they don't pay it we type their name up in six months if they don't pay it we go after them. The city loses money every time one of these people doesn't pay because we get a piece of the action. We're not getting that piece of the action now. We are literally losing thousands of dollars a month because of that. Because we have no way of checking on it. This thing will pay for itself in probably eight months. Rountree: What I'm asking is what are we paying for, the updated service? The access is free. Anderson: A subscription, software? Prior: I think the actual cost of installation. Sims: Yeah, the installation to become on line. And the last time I checked it was less than $30.00 for the maintenance. The initial start up, they never gave me a dollar figure. Prior: The dollar figure is 8-$10,000 at this point. Rountree: So, it's a subscription to be able to utilize it. Prior: It's basically having - I guess for a better word it's like a subscription but it's basically having access to the Ada County Courthouse records, Ada County Courthouse, the judges' dockets and everything like that so that we can type it up and say what's on the calendar for today. Let's make sure the prosecutor has all the files he needs. Let's see who has been violating their parole, probation. The only other way we do that is that Kathleen gets on the phone, calls up, they put her on hold and then she has to ask each individual person, okay would you look this name up? They look the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 9 name up and it's very onerous. It takes a long time. For her to do five people would take her better than half an hour for her to do five people. Now we probably have - Rountree: It sounds like a good racket for the county because I assume - Prior: It is a good racket for the county. You're paying for whatever they decide they are going to charge. Rountree: Public information anyway. Prior: But the point is the that the easy access to that information and the ability for us to be on line on that is going to save us in the long run, and we're going to be able to collect on some of these fine and court costs that we couldn't collect. Bird: John this thing for $10,000 what you're doing is basically buying a line. Prior: I'm buying a line into Ada County's computer system to allow access to thing and basically it will - I assure you it will pay for itself because we'll be collecting more money in terms of fines and fees that we don't collect and that we just basically write off and the people go Scott-free on these things. Basically what that does is runs it down to $437,119. I'll answer any questions you might have if you have any. Bentley: I have none. Bird: I have none. Rountree: I have none. Anderson: I have none. Prior; And just to re-emphasize my point, the prosecutor is leaving on the 25th of this month. If we don't have anybody show in Court on the 26th of this month, everything starts getting dismissed. And then the judges start calling up and notifying the attorney why he shouldn't be held responsible for not having someone there to answer these things, I don't want to be there and have to go in front of half a dozen judges and explain to them why we don't have anybody there. Please. Bird: I think we're already entered with the White firm for a month aren't we? Corrie: Well they are going to supply us. Prior: They are starting August 1st which is - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 10 Bird: They've already started. Prior: We owe them for the services for July, whatever they were going to provide in that time. But as of August 1st_ Bird: We owe them for August and September and the fiscal year don't start until October 1st is when this budget would take affect. Rountree: I guess the question is they are on line on a temporary basis for the remainder of the fiscal year. So the- Bird: I thought what we originally - Bentley: I think originally when we set it up, we weren't aware that the prosecutor was leaving, but I think we need to make sure that they are aware that- Corrie: I had a meeting with them and they are getting them on line and John has already talked to them and they should be here. Prior: Well Terry and Bill will be stopping by tomorrow to talk to me. I guess I'd like to- they are going to spend the time and money to hire on their own expense a prosecutor to fill the position. If in three months you tell them sorry guys, you've done a good job, but you are out of luck. They are going to have to layoff a prosecutor and he's going to Corrie: And we're going to have to hire one if we do that. Prior: Yeah. Bird: Well unless we go to another firm. But I mean I'm not just going to - I wouldn't - for something that large, I would want to if we were going to go that way I would entertain more than one firm coming in and giving us - Prior: The law doesn't require us to send a bid out on a professional firm though. Bird: I realize that but I think that it would only be proper to do it for the public. Bentley: And as I before I don't have a problem with staying with these until we get our things straightened up and then we can take a look at whether we are going to shop for firms or hire our own in house staff again. Prior: I think someone ought to tell that firm then that the City is looking at this until October 1st and then they are going to review it again. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 11 Corrie: I don't know that we are. Prior: Weill guess I'm trying to get a position as to where you stand. Bird: Well John really and truthfully we can't do - we start a new fiscal year October 1st. Okay? That's what these budgets are for right now. We're working on next year. This year is another year. That's the way I look at it and maybe I'm off base, but the same token we've agreed to go through this year on this deal. Prior: I guess my point is that if you - what exactly would you like those folks to do for the next three months? Would you like them to start your ordinance changes and then when you hire a new law firm, you're going to let the new law firm come in and let them pick up where this other law firm gets off in case you decide to change your mind. Or do you want to get half way through a comprehensive plan? Do you want to get half way through the procedures that we're going to set up? Anderson: John, I think that's for us to decide. Right now we're hearing your budget and that's what we're here for and the rest of that we'll discuss. Prior: And I understand that. I guess logistically it put everything in kind of a difficult situation and it's difficult to say to these guys this is where we're at. This is what we're doing, and I guess you're throwing it on me to do this, and personally I think it's a little unfair. Rountree: I don't know that we're throwing it on you. Prior: Okay. Rountree: The council's position on legal was to get temporary services for the remainder of the fiscal year. That's my understanding of what we asked the Mayor to do and that's my understanding of what's been done. I don't think there was any intended or implied commitment on the part of the council that that would then result in a full time contract to provide legal services to the City of Meridian because at that point in time we were and as far as I know and have been told advertising for city attorney. Apparently that's not the direction that some folks want to go and/or the direction you've been given. If we are not in the active process of seeking a city attorney and to be honest with you as far as I'm concerned the contract attorney at this point is probably the appropriate way to go. But if in fact we're not going to do that, then the council needs to know what it is we're going to be budgeting for and who it - and at that point if it's a contract, I think we need to be afforded the opportunity to discuss who is going to provide those city services to be the recipients of that. Whether it's a for service agreement it's obviously not going to be an hourly rate, it's not going to be a not to Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 12 exceed agreement. It's going to be for professional services, and pretty much what you explained, we will limit it based on what we see as monthly expenses. I'm not sure I'm real comfortable with that, but that is one approach. You offered a lot of stuff in this budget that hasn't been discussed. And I'm not saying right, wrong, or indifferent, I'm just expressing what I'm hearing. The council is hearing things much different right now than what's been discussed over the past couple of months. Prior: I guess my other option would have been to put in a - and I guess I took on myself to do this budget with the Mayor, I guess I'm not in the position. I shouldn't have been doing it, but I took it on otherwise you wouldn't have had the budget offered to you. So I took the initiative to do this, and maybe I'm out of line for doing that. Rountree: I don't say that as a criticism. I personally don't understand where we are with the legal department. The last direction we gave as a council was to hire a chief a city attorney and get temporary legal services. Prior: I guess I could have put in here for the city attorney's salary. I could have put in for the prosecuting attorney's salary and my salary, but I guess I was under the mistaken impression that you wanted to kind of get the ball rolling on this thing. I can assure you that if you hire another city attorney, and you hire another prosecutor, and assuming I'm still around, you are going to be in the same position that you are in before as far as legal services and you're going to be in the same position as the status of where things are right now. Rountree: And for those reasons I think we need to discuss it, but I can't imagine that any of us are in disagreement with that approach. Because we do want to hit the ground running, but the deal is we need to talk about it. We need to know what it's going to cost. Now we know. Now we need to talk about the concept and if we are going to approve a budget for that concept, we need to understand that concept. Prior: And I understand that. I guess it puts that law office in kind of a situation as to well, what projects would you like us to start on, and I guess what I'll do is I'll defer _ I'll do whatever I've been doing. I'll do the day to day stuff, and I'll say well the City Council and the Mayor can go to you folks and you folks can tell them exactly what they are suppose to be doing in the next three months. Rountree: I would suggest that if we have needs, we'll work through the Mayor and the Mayor will instruct the legal department what it is they will be establishing as a priority in addition to his needs. Bentley: Well I think too the thing you have to remember is John is we're going to be consolidating the budgets together within the next week, and it's not that far down the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 13 road that we'll make a decision in which direction we're going to go with this budget for your department. Rountree: As far as a draft. Prior: It's not my department, but that's all right. Bird: It is your department right now. Bentley: But the point is to give you an answer tonight, we can't. But it's not going to be that far down in the future. Prior: The reason I'm getting a little worked up about it is because I'm concerned about the work load, and I am concern that one, the prosecution is something that's imminent. In my mind it is absolutely imminent. The other thing is you folks last night approved a lot of projects that you want ordinances on. You have a lot of Findings to do, and I've got probably six to seven weeks of work on my desk that has to be done in ten days. (Inaudible) Prior; I was under the impression yes, they can help me some of those things. But I was under the mistaken impression that you wanted them to address some of the more serious concerns and I'm not going to get into detail on some of those. Bird: But I thought - John when I left the meeting after the Mayor was going to bring this - just like Charlie said the way I understood we were going to bring these guys on, the Mayor was going to advertise for a city attorney and they were going to come in and help get this thing going. If that meant helping you do facts and conclusions or whatever you needed done, I took it that was going to be part of their deal. I mean you can't do it all by yourself. Prior; And I guess I was under the mistaken impression that what you wanted them to do was work on the ordinance book and the comprehensive plan and get those things straightened out so that the procedures that have been going on and some of the things that have been going on are cleaned up and you get the infrastructure in place because I think that's extremely important, getting the infrastructure in place and just doing business as usual for the next three months until you folks make a decision. Anderson: If that was your assumption can you keep up with all the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for P & Z and Council and litigate the- Prior: I have been for the last two or three weeks and they've been- Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 14 Anderson: Can you continue that? Prior: I can do it for another thirty days maybe but at that point you folks I can guarantee you I'll probably be saying goodbye because I've had enough, I mean I'm going at a pretty good clip right now. You're pulling me into meetings every week, and I'm doing a lot of - she's shaking her head because she knows what's going on, and she knows how busy I am and how much works going across my desk. Bentley: The point is we brought that group in to help, and if that's what they have to do and if it means they have to go on the back burner with some of the major projects, then it goes on the back burner until we get this budget set and we get the direction going that we want to go with the legal department even if it is a one year interim until everything is cleaned up and we hire then or whether they are going to carry us through until we hire immediately or within the next foreseeable future of the new legal department. Prior: I guess what I would request then is maybe someone contact the lawyers over there and let them know about that so that they know that this is a temporary situation and that the City Council's desire is that this is until they look at the budget and review the thing that they do that. If that's the position they are going to take, I would appreciate that someone would let them know that. Corrie: They are going to have to supply us with a prosecuting attorney. I don't care what goes on here, and what they do the council does we have got to have a prosecuting attorney. Rountree: The Council has already - when we discussed it, that's what we directed was to get somebody on temporarily. The words comprehensive plan, I don't think went across anybody's lips. The idea of the ordinances and updating the ordinances, I think we all think that's a grand idea, but I don't think any of us were inclined to think we were going to take that on in the next three, four months until we had a new city attorney, or in this case a new contract for attorney services to then get going on that direction. I don't know what the firm that we have - understands but maybe there is a misunderstanding. Prior: I think there is and I think they are under the impression that they want to basically place some infrastructure and get some things done. My concern and I'll tell you this right now is you're asking me to enforce something that doesn't exist. Okay? And you are asking me to do a very difficult job, and there is not infrastructure for me to do my job. You're putting me in a very difficult position and I don't think you realize the magnitude of the situation you've put me in. I'm trying to enforce some things that we don't even know that we can enforce. And I don't mean to speak in front of all of these folks, but the fact is you've got to know. I'm trying to enforce a municipal code that has Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 15 a lot of problems and has a lot of difficulties. I'm trying to enforce ordinances that our City Clerk doesn't know exist. And when I go to him and ask him for a current copy of our city code, he doesn't have it, and I end up going to a department head to get a current version of it. I don't have a copy of our municipal code, folks. I don't have a current copy of what our municipal code is. I don't know if anybody in this city does. Okay? There is no infrastructure right now and it's very troubling. I'm getting a little upset because I don't think you realize how serious the situation is. I don't think you realize the magnitude of what's going on. And things that you are doing right now are not being done correctly, and if you want examples, you can come in to my office and I'll sit down with you and I'll show you specific examples of things that are being done that you have got to stop now. Okay? And I can't emphasize that enough, and if you don't want to do that, and you just want to go on the way you're going, I can't do that. And I'm letting you know right now I'm not going to do it. So you folks make your decision. I'm not putting you on the spot and I'm not threatening you. I'm speaking honestly to you and I'm telling you my position. If it take three months, and I know this is going to upset you Keith and I can see it on your face, but the fact is if it takes you three months to find somebody you're going to have a lot of problems and you're going to bring somebody on and they are going to inherit a lot of problems. I guess I am imploring you and I'm begging you to take some action and take some action quickly because it needs to be done. I can't be any more serious about this. This stuff needs to be done. Bird: John I thought this is what we had done when we had decided to get the temporary people. I didn't know what direction they were going. On the same token if we need the stuff we need to get out to run our Council meeting to get our developers and stuff going through so there's not the delays and we're not getting ordinances and stuff the night of the meeting like we have in the past and drafts and crap like that, and I was under the impression that the instructions were that we get these people to come in and we'd figure out in the interim what we're going to do. Prior: I was under the mistaken impression too and I apologize for that and I don't mean to get all worked about this, but I'm just telling you that - Rountree: But you did. Prior: I did get worked up and maybe you know and maybe that's something that I'm telling that you know it would be very easy Charlie for me to say folks you are on your own. I'm out of here. It would be real easy for me to do that. I can do it tomorrow, and I'm prepared to do that if that's what your intention, and that's what I want to know so I can make the plans to take care of myself because I'm the most important person at this point to me, Bird: I don't think John that that has ever been mentioned. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 16 Prior: I'm just telling you that I'm uncomfortable with the process that you folks are doing in terms of passing certain things, and I'm extremely uncomfortable with the way certain things are done and I would rather cut it off at the bud and address them now than have to handle it in litigation later. Okay? Bentley: Well John I tell you I appreciate the candidness and the up front because that's something that I believe in. If there's a problem we need to fix it. But I think tonight you know you've expressed your concern, and I think maybe we need just to have an Executive Session and sit down and go over some of these things when we decide which direction we need to take as far as formulating a legal team and the legal department, but I think right now we need to really get back to what we're going at. Prior: And I apologize I didn't mean to get off the thing. I guess I was a little confused as to how I was suppose to draft this budget up for you folks and I was under the impression was that the way I draft it was with the assumption that you were going to bring this law firm on and they were going to take over and basically work through me and I was going to take care of the day to day stuff with their approval, and we were going to do it that way and try to get this thing addressed immediately and I apologize for that. Bird: I think short term John that's probably what everybody thought was going to happen, but we're going into a new fiscal year, I think we better have something better planned than that. Don't you? Prior: I think you put in the plan now and I think you address it now, because if you have these guys do something for a while and then you have someone else do it, you're creating more of a problem than fixing anything, but this isn't the proper place to do this. I've given you the information. You folks can do what you need to do with it, and I assume I'll be hearing from you at some point in the future, Rountree: Either way it isn't going to vary an awful lot. Corrie: Here's the monkey wrench that's been thrown in everything is our prosecuting attorney is leaving. So ending up with one city attorney, and you've got a hell of a lot of work to do and a lot of things to get covered, And I ask him to present this way so that you guys can make the decision later. And if you're going to get into a personnel thing, 1 think we should do it Executive Session. Bird: I agree with you 100%. But I have nothing wrong with this budget. It looks good to me. Anderson: I guess I was just - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 17 Prior: I am an emotional guy. Anderson: I guess I was still confused that even bringing this temporary law firm, how that's going to help reduce the work load for you yourself. If they are going to work on the ordinances and the comprehensive plan, how is that going to reduce the day to day work for you? Prior: Basically what they are going to do is they are going to sit down and say all right, these are imminent problems at this point, and I would sit down with them tomorrow or Friday or whatever it is and say okay, you help me with some of these day to day things but let's get the infrastructure in place, and once the infrastructure is in place and the faster they do that, the faster we get them out of here and you folks get into the process of hiring your new legal staff. Anderson: So really they would be working on more than just the comprehensive plan. They would be helping you on the day to day. Prior: They are going over every single legal document this city is involved in and they are going over everything. Bentley: And I think that's something that needs to be done so we can catch the errors and repair them. Prior: And my thought process was you clean this thing up and get everything done and then when it's cleaned up you bring in a new city attorney who hires his own staff, his own attorneys, his own prosecutor and he comes in and he comes in on a clean slate with what he wants to do and you folks are up and running and everybody else is gone and you won't have me up here any more screaming and being emotional and demanding and whatever adjectives you want to use to describe what I've done tonight. But what I'm saying is this is probably one of the best municipal law firms in the state. There is no better in my mind. There are no better attorneys than the ones that are involved in this law firm. They are a top notch law firm, and to shop around go ahead and do it if that's what you want to do, but I'm telling you these are good at it. They know what they are doing and they know how to fix what's going on, and they are acutely aware of the problems and how to fix them. They've done them with Nampa. They've done them with Caldwell. They've done them with Notus. They've done them with Parma. They done them with a half a dozen other cities, They know what they are doing. I know these guys, and I can speak for their work ethic and I can speak for some of them personally. Anderson: Okay. One more question, the $15,000 a month figure that you threw out, was that what you got from them or was this an estimate or - Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 18 Prior: That's what I got from them. They said this is where we could work out a - and that's subject to depending on how intense this thing becomes because - and the reason they don't want to sign into a contract is that it maybe a little more, it maybe a little less, but it allows for flexibility. You are not going to get that with any other law firm. No law firm is going to say come in to you and say great we'll enter into a deal with this and when you guys have had enough, enough is enough and move on. These guys are willing to do that and say no deals, when you guys have had enough you tell us to go and you bring on your own staff. I don't think there's anybody else who's going to be that flexible. I am sorry I don't mean to - this isn't the proper place to be discussing this and doing this and I apologize for that. It's just - Anderson: Okay, you made your point. Bird: John, you did a nice job on the budget. Prior: Whatever. Corrie: Go home to your wife and little one, Thanks John. Okay, Shari. Stiles: Oh, man, I wish I had gone first. Mr. Mayor and Council, I presented my budget to each of you. I'll go over the items that have had some significant changes I guess you'd say. Number one the wages, I have increased those wages so they'll be a little more comparable with the market and then I'll be able to offer a salary that I might be able to keep some planners. And the next most significant item would be the professional services. Bentley: Can I ask a question? Stiles: Sure. Bentley: Down at the bottom, you've got the wage summary, but you've got it listed under '97 '98. Stiles: Oh, I'm sorry, it's not related. That was a mistake. Bentley: That's the new one. Anderson: Do you know what our current figures are for those positions? Stiles: I'm currently at $40,000. Anderson: $40,000? Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 19 Stiles: Yes. The planner I hired with not a lot of experience, he's making $30,000 right now. The planner I lost to Ada County is making $40,000 with them. Rountree: What's our starting for that planner? Would it be $30,000 as well? Stiles: The new planner that I'm going to get if they've got some experience, I would like to start them at least $35,000. Bird: You are going to start them at 35 and you're not going to bump them up in six months or anything? You're going to make them go the whole year at 35? Stiles: I think I'll have enough to cover that with what Brad's not making now. Bird: You'll be able to give them a- Stiles: Six month's raise, yes. Bentley: So is it correct that you are saying that the planner you have on now is making 30 and not experienced? Stiles: He has some experience, not specific to what we do here. It's kind of a specialized planning field that there's not a lot of people out there. Anderson: So you only have one planner now? Stiles: Yes. Bentley: My question is you're looking to bump that one to 35 also? Stiles: I would like to probably give him $2,000 to $2,500. Rountree: Both those however were in last year's budget so - Stiles: Yes, they were at $30,000. Code enforcement, this is a figure with no benefits. I believe that was budgeted about $26,000. Not too many takers. It's a pretty thankless job. That figure if I did have to go to a full time person and pay benefits, I would probably have to end up paying them I'd say $28,000-$29,000. Rountree: The $35,000 is for the two part time? Stiles: Yes. Administrative Assistant, she is currently at $19,500. She doing a great job. She's taking on a lot of responsibility and is very willing to take on more. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 20 Bentley: She's a keeper? Stiles: Yeah, I want to keep her. Bird: You don't want to lose her, huh? Stiles: No. The next most significant item, probably the most significant item on the budget would the professional services for the capitol improvement plan. Some of that work is being done now with Dave Eberle. He will be doing some additional work after the fiscal year begins, the new fiscal year. I've also been in contact with Nancy Taylor at JUS Engineers to facilitate the comprehensive plan update. She does a lot of work locally and throughout the state. She is partnered with John Bertrum who is very involved in entryway corridors, parks, historical elements. I know I've been requested a long time ago to get started on those changes. It just hasn't been possible for me to do it, and I think she's very capable and with the last night's approval of the $124,000 to go to JUB for the water and sewer mapping, it would mesh very well for them to do the update with the land use plan at the same time. (End of Tape) Stiles: Just to make a statement about what John said about the legal, I don't see that the attorneys are going to be involved a lot in the comprehensive plan. It really doesn't have anything to do with legal. It's a document that's prepared by the citizens. It's their document. Maybe in some of the implementing ordinances, they could be involved that way, but I don't see attorneys as having anything to do with the comprehensive plan. Anderson: So on that capitol outlay then, how much of that is for a new vehicle and how much is for this study that you talked about or the consult? Stiles: The consultant, they would be under the professional services, That $120,000 figure. Anderson: Okay. Stiles: Capitol outlay would be for computers and I'm buying another computer before the end of the fiscal year that's in my budget already. And I don't see that we're going to have any other capitol outlay in our department, so that would cover possibly like a Toyota pickup or something. We'd keep the old vehicle just to have for going to meetings, something like that, but it's getting pretty expensive as far as putting money back into it for repairs. I had a $600.00 bill for air conditioning. Bentley: This year? Corrie: You could probably use a pickup better than a car anyway with stuff in the back. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 21 Stiles: Right, throw signs in. The ordinance enforcement expense has gone up a little bit. We did enter into that weed abatement contract that has a not to exceed figure of $10,000. It may exceed that, but hopefully it's a pass through item that will be able to get the money reimbursed as we spend it. I don't know if you have any questions about any of these items. It is a 7.9% increase over last year's budget. Bird: Shari, is your (Inaudible) Stiles: Will our fees take of it? The filing fee? Bird: Is your fees need to be updated is what I mean. Stiles: That's something that the attorneys are looking at. We are starting to keep track of the time that we spend on different kinds of items. Bird: Is your fee structure need to be revamped for the new fiscal year too? Stiles: There could be some items that we want to get paid for such as the certificates of zoning compliance that could generate some additional revenue. We're pretty comparable with most of the other cities except for charges they assess to different things like if you went in to Boise City with a change in a plan, right up front you are going to be paying for them to even look at it. And that's one thing with the letter you got today that it's probably appropriate to do something like that so people don't continually come back in and try to negotiate after the fact, but there's no way you could ever recoup your costs in filing fees. I mean you could substantiate, you know, tripling the cost, but it just wouldn't be feasible with what the surrounding communities charge. Bentley: Shari, did you use $9,000 in postage last year? Stiles: Through the end of June we only had almost $3,000 spent, but that was before we started sending out certified mailings for code enforcement. It seems a little low, and I don't know if Angel uses another account ever - Sims: When I first started, I put all the certified mailings on the City Clerk's account. But then I was told, and I changed. They told me they were going to work that out. Bentley: The rates are going to go up January 8th. Stiles: A penny? Bentley: Yeah, but I don't know what - all the other services, I don't know what all they are changing. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 22 Stiles: The certified, registered, and it may be that the -I asked the temporary attorneys to look at if we are actually required to do those certified mailings. I think more people are irritated by the fact that they've got to go pick up certified mail, then they could just get it regular mail. Sorry you won't get your raise this year, Glenn if we do that. Anderson: Just for myself, what kind of expenses are in the code enforcement expenses? What does that go towards? Stiles: The ordinance enforcement expense that is the stickers that we place on vehicles and on signs. Anderson: Pretty spendy stickers. Stiles: Camera equipment and film and processing. The $10,000 was really a maximum. You weren't here last night, but the city agreed to enter into a contract with Rocky Mountain Tractor and Dump Truck Services to actually do weed abatement. And there needed to be some line item that we actually payout of to pay them as they perform the services and hopefully we would recoup a lot of that through special assessments or liens or however we end up doing it, but certainly that's not going to be a pure expense. We're going to get some of that back. Anderson: So this $10,000, the big increase in that is because we're going to hire someone to start abating the weeds? Stiles: Yes. Rountree: Probably the correct thing to do since that is an indebtedness that we incurred as far as that agreement goes, it's a not to exceed $10,000 and we should have realistically a line item of $1 0,000 to cover that in case it doesn't pay back. What Shari's done is included that in addition to the other expenses they have within the code enforcement. So if anything it's probably a little low. I don't have a feel for how much pay back you are going to get versus how many filing fees you are going to have to make to put liens on property. Stiles: And it probably won't certainly be within the year the same fiscal year. Rountree: No. Corrie: You could always put it as a separate line item if you want with the max of 10, if they want to separate it. Stiles: If you want to do that we could. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 23 Rountree: I think having that agreement on the books, it probably would be something that would make the auditors a little more comfortable. Corrie: You got to keep them comfortable. Stiles: So then we could actually have a weed abatement contract line item. Rountree: One thing I don't see on this is the revenue side. Where are the revenues shown in the city that are generated by the Planning and Zoning Department which if I recall by ordinance was established as a supposedly a self sustained department. Bird: That's what I understand, Shari. Stiles: I don't have a break down of how that building fees, building permit fees are allocated. I don't think that was established in the ordinance at all, except that ifthe building permit fees went down the obviously we'd have to lay people off because it wouldn't cover it. Filing fees are approximately $40,000 a year. Building permit fees- Rountree: I guess I'm going to tell you this right now. I'm not going to write all this down. I want to see it, I want to see it in the budget. I want to see it as proposed expense and projected revenues so we can see how they are going to balance and I want to make sure that the projected revenues are not double counted in the building department. Stiles: I guess I would have to work with Gary to do that. Rountree: You're going to have to work with Gary to resolve that. My recollection is the direction is at least those fees and that fee structure that you reviewed some months ago with the council and indicated that they were consistent with your needs, Somebody is collecting those fees. Those fees should be directed as revenues to this portion of that department and we should see them in the budget. We need that fairly quickly. Stiles: I didn't ever do that before so I didn't realize that is what you wanted. Rountree: I understand, but we did by ordinance establish that. Stiles: But there is no formula within that ordinance. I guess I would need to look at how much was spent for the electrical, plumbing - Rountree: You know what were the actual collected this year for those various fees as they relate to Planning and Zoning and do a projection based on the number of Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 24 proposed commercial and residential units and project the revenues in those accounts and show them as revenues here and they shouldn't be double counted in the building department. I don't see that that's an unusual budgeting process. Stiles: It's not except that I've never done that with the city before. And I would have to do that with Gary, because I don't know how he allocates that money. Rountree: And this is I think the first year that that ordinance has been in effect. Stiles: Yes. So if he has earmarked those funds to go somewhere else, then I need to know. Rountree: Because they need to show here in terms of deferring some of the overhead costs or the costs of doing business in Planning and Zoning. The intent was to have those increased growth fees help pay for the increased staffing in terms of planners and planning requirements. Stiles: And you want to see that done through the building permit fees or through new fees or both? Rountree: The fee structure, my recollection, is that you evaluated the fee structure and said the fee structure was okay to take care of your needs. Stiles: I don't recall that meeting. Bird: That was in the planning session in November right after Ron and I was elected. Stiles: I don't recall that I meant that the filing fees would ever - what I looked at were filing fees. And they would never support the Planning and Zoning Department, no way, shape or form. Rountree: But they are to support those activities as they relate to the things those filing fees are being collected for, like mail, notices, permits, staff time, proportion of staff time, and right now we don't see any revenue to support planning and zoning. Based on what I have here, I have to assume this is all general fund revenue. Corrie: No, it isn't. It's enterprise fund. It's changed over. Stiles: No, it's not enterprise. It's building department. Bird: It's self supporting is what I understood. Now you guys clarify this for I think Ron is just as confused as I am. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 25 Rountree: This was taken out of the building department by ordinance. And as such it's to be a self supporting entity. And it's suppose to be supported based on growth or no growth, more growth, more staff, more ability to keep up with those things that need to be kept up with as a result. As growth dwindled or the economy sagged, there was to be a reserve amount built up and give you a three to six month cushion so you could adjust, if you had to let somebody go based on depression or a sag in the economy, you would have okay it's going to be a couple of months, I can keep them on. It looks like It's going to be a long term thing, you are probably going to give them notice then in two months that they no longer will be employed and cut back services. I think that we probably all ought to pull that ordinance out and study it a bit, but it's my recollection that this was removed out of the - Bird: It was out of the enterprise fund as I understand it and reading it myself and like I said I'm like Charlie, we all need to go back. This department and that's why I was asking you about your fees, but through the fee system, you're suppose to bring in enough revenue to cover your expenses. That's what I understood. Now I could be-I don't know. That's the way I understand the ordinance. Rountree: I think we need to look at that very closely because I don't think this budget reflects the intent and maybe the specificity of the ordinance, and if the ordinance is unclear then maybe we need to deal with that and go on with this budget. But we have to figure where this money is coming from, Stiles: I had no input into that ordinance. I didn't know what generated it. I know Walt started it and to tell you the truth, I haven't even read it closely enough to know what it says. Rountree: The intent is to make Planning and Zoning self supporting entity. Stiles: I understood that much. But as far as a formula for how that was to take place or what Gary needs and he's allocated from these building permit fees towards his existing staff and existing operation, I don't know. I could get that for you hopefully within a week. Bird: I see Bob is confused as I am so I don't feel too bad. Rountree: We know which side of the book to take this out of. I mean it make a pretty significant difference if some of it's going to have to be born by a general fund as opposed to enterprise fees. Corrie: I understood it was pulled out of the general fund and put in the enterprise fund for that very purpose, but I'm confused about the amount of money that was involved. If Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 26 we pull it out of the enterprise fund and make it pay for itself, I don't think you are going to get the job done. Bird: I think it was in the enterprise fund, wasn't it? Stiles: No, it was general fund. Rountree: It was always general fund? Corrie: It was in the general fund and Walt Morrow made the motion that it goes into the enterprise fund so that it's paid out of that enterprise fund and not have to come out of the general fund for general property taxes. Bird: And I would agree that that is probably where it should be, but I also reading the ordinance am like Charlie it's on a supply and demand budget. If you bring in so much revenue, you have this size budget. It's suppose to be self supporting and that's why back in November when Ron and I was invited to the planning session we talked to you about coming back with your costs for your fees and stuff figuring out if you had enough fee to cover the cost of what it was taking to allocate that fee. And because of that reason. That's the way I understand it, Shari. I don't know. Stiles: The only thing I looked at were filing fees and to see how comparable they were to other fees, and that's what I stated before there is no way I am ever going to be able to charge enough filing fees to recoup back the expense. Bird: I know in last year's budget your revenues matched your expenses. If I remember right. Stiles: I don't have any idea. As far as looking at the budget, I don't know where the money comes from. I don't know that the budget even tracks that I'm able to find. I have never been able to find any documentation in the budget and the way the expenses and revenues are done that I would have any idea. Rountree: I would direct you to get a hold of the ordinance and sit down with Gary and fashion a budget that reflects the intent and then I think we need to take a look at the ordinance and the intent so we know what it is that we've got before us. Stiles: But when you're talking about filing fees, Angel spends a lot of time. I don't track how much time she spends. I mean probably 95% of her time. The city attorney's time do you want that kind of detail? I mean I don't have any idea. Bird: No, it's out of your department. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 27 Rountree: You don't budget for that. Stiles: So I just need to verify with Gary that there are the funds available within the building permit fees that can cover my budget. Rountree: Right. Stiles: Okay, no problem. Bird: Did last year have that Mayor? Corrie: No, it just had general fund revenues. It had the revenues for the water department. The building department didn't have revenues. Bird: They didn't have revenues for planning and zoning? Corrie: Nope. Planning and Zoning all it showed on this budget was planning and zoning department it showed that they had a budget of $363,715. No income whatsoever was shown on this one. The enterprise fund shows a revenue of three million two hundred twenty four for the water department and then the revenues for the waste water was $2,345,000 so that's the only two revenues that showed up on this budget. Bird: What I had even showed revenue from the police and everything. Corrie: Well that could be possible but I'm just going over what the budget showing here that the public gets. Bird: I certainly would like to get it clarified. Stiles: I don't believe the enterprise funds -I think we're totally separate from the enterprise funds because that's the sewer and water billings- Bird: That is what I had understand - (Inaudible) Corrie: And there's fees that come in and we need to find out what they are, where they are and they go. Stiles: So since that ordinance was passed, where's the tracking that shows that? Rountree: It could be in the building department and/or city clerk. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 28 Corrie: It's suppose to be but let's find out. Talk with Gary, we need to cover that, and we will also need to get with the Treasurer of where it went. Stiles: Well the way I understood it is at the end of the year whatever is extra, I mean as far as building permit fees just went right in the general fund. That's what I was told. But where it's tracked and how it's tracked, I don't have a clue. Corrie: Okay, we'll have to find that out. (Inaudible) Stiles: That's not the way the budget is set up. Bird: Weill know that but that's the way it should be. Stiles: It would be easy then. Bird: Then we could track it. Maybe this new set up will help us. I would say we were backing in the 60's in this city with our accounting, but we didn't have computers in the 60's so it had to be the 80's. Rountree: 70's. Stiles: Yeah, it would be great if the expense numbers matched the revenue number. mean that's the way to do it. That's the way - Anderson: I have one more question. I guess being the new guy, what justifies a $5,000 increase in your salary? As near as I can figure, that's about a 12% raise? Are you putting in more hours? Did you get some more training or is that to retain you or what is that large of an increase for? Stiles: Well partly is because I'm the lowest paid department head in the city, and I certainly don't think I'm the one that works the least. The person that I lost to Ada County is making the same amount I am as a planner, not as a department head, not as a director. I just think it's fair. Anderson: Is it comparable to what other - Stiles: It's not even close. It's close to what a maybe a planner 3 at Ada County - well $40,000 is what a planner 3 makes at Ada County. I mean I'd love to make what Boise City's director makes. His job is no where near even the same not even close to what I do. He's able to be a planner and to focus his energies and time to that. I mean with Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 29 the customer service aspect of it as we've all taken that to heart and I've worked very hard at servicing the public, and I think I need to be compensated fairly. Rountree: On the professional services, Shari. It's a lump sum, Can you break that down as to what you are intending for that to go to? Stiles: Approximately 20-$30,000 would probably go to Dave Eberly as part of this comprehensive plan, the capitol improvement program. I don't have a scope of work yet from Nancy Taylor. She offered a ballpark of between 50-100,000 and that would include all of the comp plan meetings, typing up the comprehensive plan and also the mapping for the generalized land use plan. I hope I'm high, but I would rather be a little bit high than not have enough to cover it. I know that Tom Kuntz had in his budget I believer 25-$35,000 just for parks element of a comprehensive plan. I mean a little more detailed because it would actually be an inventory and a parks plan, but that could also be incorporated into the comprehensive plan. Rountree: And the Planning and Zoning commissioners' expense doubled. Have you spent that? Is that a result of - Stiles: I've been working with - talking to Claire Bowman and working with Erp Olin on possibly getting them some training in what their responsibilities are and what they are charged with through the state code and local planning act. Bentley: Are you going to train Claire? Stiles: Train the Planning and Zoning Commission. We're trying to set up something with maybe LaMar Orton from Twin Falls, Boise City attorney and some other people that I don't know yet ,but it may include some mileage expense for them to get there, meals. The expenses last year I show so far $518.00. They did attend some workshops, some subdivision and zoning ordinance workshops that were put on by Will Harrington and Jerry Mason. I don't know if the newest ones have yet. They may want to attend those as well. Also the turkeys are put in that line item and the Christmas dinners. I don't know if they have ever been asked for mileage. Did you hear Gary Richardson asked for mileage reimbursement for riding his bike? Corrie: Don't go there. Rountree: That somehow doesn't surprise me. Rountree: Any other questions? Stiles: Okay, I'll get that to you within the week. (End of Tape) Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 30 Corrie: All right this is the Human Resource proposed budget. The new department which would be put in under the same auspices as the city attorney, the department head Gary Smith, City Clerk. It would be proposed to the city council for a name and they would come back and make approval. So we have taken off of the hiring and firing out of the Mayor's office and put in to the city council and Mayor's office together. Administration cost for the - that would be $40,000 on the salary. The contract labor should there be any extra duties other than herself and she may have to pull somebody in to help her to cover that expense. FICA, PERSI, life insurance, Blue Cross, Blue Cross deductible, unemployment. The accident insurance, I think this one should be out of there, the $165.00. We don't have that insurance any more, Workman's comp., operating expense would be for the office expenses that occurs that they have here at city hall. Travel, meeting, education, membership dues, this $5,000 includes a $3,000 fee that IEC has in that, so that actually the travel, meeting and education would be $2,000 and $3,000 would be with the IEC dues. Training consultants, we didn't know what to do here. She said that if we have to have them come in and do different things, we would have to put it in the budget. It seemed like there was a budget item in Will's budget, and I don't know what's that until he comes back, but he had a 60 or $90,000, and it may include this. I don't know. If it does then this will come out of there, because she didn't know if we have to have -like they are doing right now with the $16,000- Bird: Mayor would that have to budgeted out of her? Wouldn't that be a general fund expense? Corrie: Yeah, and this is a general fund. Rountree: We talked about that in Will's budget. In the administration budget, I mean it was my preference that city wide we'd look at employee development as it related to supervision and evaluation, performance, etc, It would be a general fund city wide. (Inaudible) Bentley: That's what he said. This may be in there. Corrie: It may be. I don't know, Will is gone. Until he can come back and tell us that's what he put in there, If it is in there, then this $20,000 would be out of here. And I think we should - we can just take it out if you want to and I'll make sure that that's in the administration budget and you can come back to that one. Seminars is $1,500. Postage and mailings $1,000. Glen she thought that would be enough out of her - because of her studies that she went through with - Bentley: She'd probably know better than me. Corrie: Okay. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 31 Bentley: The only reason I keep bringing it up is a lot of these people forgot that the increase is coming. Corrie: And janitor and maintenance service, she got that from Will. U.S. West! AT & T again is cut and dried. Gas is that and the capitol outlay is for computer software and things that she has as well as things that she has to have here in the office and she wasn't - she felt that would probably cover everything that she's going to need to start the department under Human Resources for capitol outlay in her office. Bird: Mayor, Charlie I got another question. If we are going to take that training and consultants into general administrative deal, why wouldn't we take the $3,000 for IEC membership into the same thing and not hit her with it. She shouldn't have to do that, and I've got another question, Mayor. Is the contract labor for her? I don't see that she's going to be able to do this without the help of a secretary. Maybe not a full time secretary, but she definitely going to have some help. Corrie: That's what it was for. She said she didn't think she needed a secretary full time and this would be one to come in and help her. But starting this department hers is mostly what she would be doing herself. Bird: I understand that but she's not going to be able to do it all by herself. Anderson: Is this seminars that she's going to attend or is this ones that she's going to bring here and put on for the rest of the staff? Corrie: Both. Bird: We should take $23,000 out of that budget and see you've knocked it down to $77,000. Bentley: I have one other question on this maintenance and janitor. Now if this goes forth has this been deducted out of I guess it would be Will's budget? Or is it still in there too? Corrie: Now it is. Right now it's MUBS. Bentley: What I'm saying though is we're charging two areas again if unless it's been deducted when we consolidate we have to watch this because these little items are winding up getting charged into two accounts. Rountree: They double. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 32 Bird: I see what you mean. I bet you they are doubled up for the simple fact that some of them didn't know that we was even bringing this one forward. Bentley: And that's my point. Because when we start pulling it together, all of a sudden we've got these bills doubling up all over the place and it's going to amount to some money before it's over with so we need to watch that. Corrie: What will happen, she will- you're right absolutely right, Glenn. Going to move her over to the back office where the attorneys are. Primarily getting away from all this - everybody's moving in and going and talking and moving around there and the Human Resources should be where somebody can come in and not be interrupted or be seen or anything else and so I said to - we had a discussion. We're going to put her in that back office over there and she can go through that back door. Bird: Is that the one Wayne had? The double office? Corrie: No, the one behind. The next one over. See there's four offices over there. Bird: Is that big enough for her? Corrie: Yeah. Bird: You realize that other than the payroll, she's going to have as many files as Janice and that office is going to be big enough? Corrie: It will be until we get the new building. Yeah. She seemed to think - she had no problem with the space. (Inaudible) Bird: Well that's an ideal location because some employees feel funny coming in and talking to somebody like that if they have to walk through and see everybody. Corrie: But yeah, you're right if you take the 20 and the 3,000 you eliminate $23,000 right off that budget. Bird: We're down to $77,000, and her department shouldn't be knocked with both of those. Corrie: You're right. And that's why I wanted to let you know we didn't know for sure where you wanted to go with this since it being a new department. Any other questions? When we do the second phase, we can bring her in. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 33 Bentley: I'm going to add a couple more to them. Your gas and electric would fall into that same category of being doubled up. Corrie: Okay, I'll check those. Bentley: Your phone possibly could be too, Because the phone lines are in. Corrie: The phone is - each one has a certain share the way Will's got it set up. Bentley: Yeah, and that's fine, but the gas and the electric you know, it's still going to come out the same furnace. Bird: Let me ask you a question. In the City Hall and you and Charlie can answer this, other than the MUBS which is an enterprise fund, why isn't that what I call utilities based out of the administration? Why does each department have - there's no way unless she going to be making phone calls daily to New York and be on the phone for three hours, should she run $2,000? I run five lines and a deal and mine don't run much over that in a year's time. Rountree: A deal? Bird: A fax. Why can't the gas and all this stuff go into the administration budget and leave it out of each one of these individual budgets? It don't make sense to me because we could double it up. Bentley: Well if you're in the same building and I'm in agreement with him, this always blew my mind. You're under the same roof. The trouble is you are tracking it. Why bother tracking it? Anderson: To me it's hard to track. I mean I don't know what it cost to heat this building, because I got to go through five different budgets to find out how much they are all paying. If it was just a one line item deal I could look and see what the gas and electrical for this building is for a year. Rountree: I think the advantage and I'm saying this to stay with it, because I tend to agree that your tracking - your spending time to track something that doesn't need to be tracked. But you do need to track the cost of those things for this building so you can charge the enterprise fund. The MUBS, as far as the other aspects of the city that are supported by general revenue, other than just general information if somebody wanted to ask how much does it cost the HR to heat the building. My guess is the same formula used to distribute the funds here would be used, but it's $70.00 for a cubic foot, and if somebody wanted to run that calculation, they could do it and they could give that to a public, but I agree to have it in four or five different budgets makes it very difficult to Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 34 find out exactly how much is being spent because they are all being charged on a monthly basis. Bird: And it is the true budget that way because I'm telling you none of them are going to spend that amount and as far as charging the MUBS, you go off and you take what it cost you this last year to do all this stuff, they got "x" amount of square foot up here. They got "x" amount of things. That's what they pay, and to me this utility bill is not a true picture. It's something that we throw in here and I'll guarantee you it isn't taken out of each budget each month per say, is it? Rountree: Yep, it's a line item on each budget. Corrie: It's a line item and it's taken out Bird: To me that's wasted work for our overloaded bookkeepers. Anderson: And the other thing that it does is every one of these numbers are nice round numbers so they are obviously round them up a little bit so now you got four or five departments that are rounded up $100 or $200. There is a potential there for a $1,000 worth of waste. You know? Bird: You're right. Corrie: What it ends as it's revenue that you can have that's not being used. I watch it pretty close as what's going on so that they don't use it, but at the end of the year you may have for gas and electric you may have budgeted everybody at $50,000 and it comes out to $32,000. Well you know what that does. That just puts the other side of you at the positive. Rountree: That's $18,000 we could have used. Corrie: That's right and you can use it somewhere else more valuable, and I think you are absolutely right. It should be knowing exactly where you are. And we come up with this override every year that we have flush or whatever you want to call it and it shouldn't be there. It shouldn't be there. Bird: That's what I'm saying is that we do not get a true cost accounting of our utilities doing it this way. Corrie: That's right Rountree: I would suggest with that discussion based on this is we have Will assemble those line items in the offices in the city hall. We provide a line item in the Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 35 administration budget that handles all city hall utilities, establishes a pro-ration formula to back bill or whatever MUBS. Let's do it once instead of five times. Corrie: I'll see that it's done Monday morning. Bird: How about postage and mailing? Can we do that the same way? Corrie: Sure, well yeah. Bird: To me that's utilities. Corrie: Yeah. Bird: If we get a bulk rate Bob I mean it all comes out of the same funds, people. It's all general funds. It's not as if we're going through twenty different funds. It just simplifies the budget to a stupid idiot like me. Corrie: I wouldn't go that far, but you are absolutely right. We need items lined up and it should be simple. Rountree: And the same thing that we don't keep track of and it's probably just as expensive as postage is copy work. Bird: True. Rountree: And office supplies. You don't office supplies in any of these. That's all in the administration budget and they have a (inaudible) for supplies for everybody at city hall. Bentley: That was a point that I was going to bring up next week when we sit down and talk about pulling this stuff together. We're getting big enough now and talking with Bill Musser. He shops around for stuff, supplies for the police department and he comes up with some pretty good prices. We maybe getting to a point where we're going to have to look at a supply clerk. Central services to order this stuff to take the time and shop and we can probably save some pretty good bucks because I know a lot of times Will says well I'm going over here over in Boise to pick up this and then I'm going over here to pick up that. Well that's all well and good but by the time you crank in man hours to go and everything else you haven't saved a dime. Rountree: I'd say at this point, I'd be willing to explore some services that are out there that will do that for you. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 36 Bentley: And that's fine. But I'm just saying that they have a central place and then you dispense it from there. Anderson: I think there would be a real benefit in looking at all these budgets. I mean if you just go through the budgets we saw so far this year, how many of them have request for computers? How many of them have request for vehicles? There are a lot of them requesting the same type of stuff but yet they are all out doing their own thing. They are all doing their own researching for prices and shopping and all those types of things, which is wasting man hours, plus they may not be the best buy either. Bird: A thought on this guys, we're starting up a new Human Resource office. Let's make a purchasing agent right in with her. Bentley: But Charlie say too there is contract people you can do that with. Rountree: There are services that can do that for you, and it's not that expensive. Bentley: Maybe we take a look at that. Bird: The more we can purchase of the same stuff the better price we'll get. Bentley: You go and buy instead of ten boxes of copy paper, you go buy a pallet. There's a huge difference. Anderson: Toilet paper, hand soap, paper towels. Those types of things. Bird: And vehicles. Just like Ron said if all the departments go together and go get a bid, you get a better shot on ten to fifteen vehicles than you do on two or three. Rountree: I would say they need to take advantage of state bids that are out there that they can piggy back on, and they can do that for a lot of - they could do that computers I'm sure. Bird: I think Will does that on furniture a lot don't he. I think we need to take a hard look at this budget formula and get a bunch of stuff out. It's more simple. Corrie: Are we all through with that one? For a couple of three items, it's actually less than it is last year, but I need some direction from the council. This is the proposed budget for the Mayor's office. Mayor's salary, of course that's fixed. The secretary at 22-2 to $24,000 with the increased job that she's going to have to be doing with Treasure Valley Partnership. Anyway floating secretary this is necessary on vacations and we were thinking that there might be a chance to have this one with Human Resources at the same time. So this is the case of whichever way you go here, we Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 37 could work that one in. I didn't know at the time that she was doing the same thing, so that's an item that we can add or subtract from either one of the budgets. FICA, PERSI, insurance, Blue Cross, unemployment, workman's comp., accident insurance of course is out now. Maintenance this is what you were talking about. That's the maintenance on this whole building. Utilities, gas and electric we're going to look at that one again. Telephone $2,000. I don't use $2,000 worth of telephone, but it's all part of this whole thing in here. So we look at that one again. Certified mailing, postage and fax, we're already in the hole on that and we figure that we need to bring that up and of course with Glenn's comment increase postage, we'll have to increase that one. Meeting, travel, I got the possibility that I'm going to have to go back to Washington D.C. about three with the Treasure Valley Partnership and plus the water thing that we're looking at EPA funds. Office expense again I'm about $2,000 in the hole, but what is here is we need to bring that up. I think the office expenses we had before was about $3600, and I'm being charged with some of the things that I don't even know that I use. Rountree: That's good as long as you are paying them. Corrie: I'm paying but it's coming out of - Bird: Bologna. The parking lot come out of ours. Corrie: Well Ron finagled that some way. I ended up $1700 out of my budget. Rountree: Good job Ron. Corrie: Capitol outlay, the 21 was for the office deal. What I'm looking at here is I need to buy - we need a new computer, some equipment and also need furniture for that office of mine and also out in the regular public area. We don't have any chairs. People come in and they want to sit down. We don't have those. Bentley: Massage chairs? Corrie: Yeah, I can do that, but that includes the computer, printer, credenza, the tables and chairs, inside and outside the office is involved in that one, The rec. center committee, I didn't know how you were going to do that. I think Tom has got some money there, but I thought if we had a committee and you want to put a rec. center committee together you probably would need some kind of a compensation. Bentley: Community center? Corrie: I'm sorry community center. I will have to lash my secretary for that word. I though maybe if you guys had a committee and they had expenses, it maybe should come out of that. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 38 Rountree: Actually I think the discussion on the parks and recreation budget was as part of their professional services was to provide to do the feasibility study on the community center in that. So I would suggest that we take that item out. That's covered as a feasibility element within that whole comprehensive parks and rec. study of 25,000 or whatever it was. Corrie: I'm going to skip the next line and go to Treasure Valley Partnership dues. This has been approved by all the cities so far that we have the dues that was cut up based on the population and ours size of Meridian is $3,000. I think Boise was $25,000 or something. Bird: There's another item. Why is that in your budget? Corrie: It is just - it comes out of the Treasure Valley Partnership. It's all the Mayors. Bird: That shouldn't come out of your budget. It's a general item that we all- Bentley: It should be tied in with the same thing that the APA dues are in. Bird: Yeah, but it shouldn't show up in your budget. Rountree: Okay, with APA. It should be with IEC. Bird: Yeah, all that stuff. We throw it in the general. Corrie: I just want to make sure that you got- Bird: You shouldn't have to pay for that. Corrie: Okay. As long as it's in the budget to cover it. I don't care whether it's my budget or their budget just as long as we got the coverage. And the last item is the senior citizen budget as you know that the senior citizens has requested to the council for $13,000 help in the center. I didn't - we didn't get it in anywhere on the administration budget, so you need to eithef to put that in there Of you either give it, take it away, do what you want to with it, but I had to put it somewhere so to bring it to the attention of the council and you have to decide what you want to do with it. Rountree: My recollection on that particular item was not so much the amount and not so much where it went in the budget but more to the line of is that an activity that we can do? And I don't that we ever got any direction from - I know we didn't get any direction from the legal side on that. I'm not other than the investigation I've done personally which didn't yield anything in that arena. I don't think the council has been Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 39 advised as to the legality of it from a practical standpoint. I think we pretty much discussed that we would do what we could do for the senior center. But I think we've got to - it's got to be within the bounds of what we can do and for the matter of the budget, if that's the item in the budget, before we approve the budget I think it better on pretty sound ground that one we can do it, and two that's the amount we can agree to. Corrie: Right from the other cities that they have senior citizens the city has done it. think you are right. The ball was dropped by our past legal advice. Rountree: I know we asked that that be done. Bentley: And this is the only question that I got on it too, and you and I discussed this when we first mentioned it because definitely- Rountree: I know we've participated in the attainment the underwriting of grants for the senior center to a great degree. (Inaudible) Rountree: The fire system and the van I believe. So again not to put it off, I want to be assured that we're on pretty solid ground in that arena. (Inaudible) Corrie: Sure come on up so we can put it on the record here. Thank you. Marshall: Don Marshall, treasurer of the Meridian Senior Center, and I appreciate the time, but we as I mentioned last time we do need sidewalks repaired. This is critical because if seniors break their legs, why then we're in trouble. We're going to get sued. The (inaudible) group that was going to paint our building. (Inaudible) was going to do this for us. Well they come out and take a look at me and we're as old as you and we are not going to get up high and paint that building so we didn't get that done either. So now we got to bid on painting the building of $6,500. We're looking at about $8,000 for every pair of sidewalks over there, and these walking places and stuff need repaired and $6500 for painting it. Why this week also we cropped up some electrical problems. The older building is about 35 or 40 years old and we're getting a lot of heat in these boxes and they are kicking off and so we've got to get some electricians there to look at that and could run us two or three thousand dollars. And so far this year we're doing fairly well as far as actual cash, but we're not running in the red any more and we had a wind fall in June. We sold a blanket and Wal~Mart helped us and donated some money to us so we made $2,000 on one blanket. That windfall we wished it would happen pretty frequently. Of course it doesn't. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 40 Rountree: On a daily basis would be fine. Marshall: So we keep trying all these promotions and they just don't quite produce everything we want really, And also now this month we're looking at salary increase. Of course $5.15 an hour give them a .50 an hour raise. That's only going to be about $400 a month additional from what we're paying now. I hear these big salaries talked about so ours are pretty small compared. And then something else has come up. We got the contract back with Weiser for $9459.00 that we were talking about when we had that big thing that we had your attorney look at. (Inaudible) the state's protected, but we're not. And we're having trouble getting (inaudible) because we're hanging out over there. If somebody gets sued, the center has no money to speak of. (Inaudible) back on some of the board members. Of course we don't have much either, but we may need some insurance to cover the board over there, and it's getting down to a point that people are looking at this thing and - Rountree: Is that a corporation? A limited partnership? Marshall: We're a corporation. 1982 something like that. (Inaudible) Rountree: Yeah, I know but there are ways around that. (Inaudible) Marshall: Weill talked to a couple of insurance companies that will (inaudible) but they want about $2500 a year to protects us. There are nine of us and four officers. Of course us three guys go off the end of December and I'll be kind of relieved to get off that thing. If Weiser is not going to protect us, the federal government or the state is not going to protect us, and we're trying to do something for the seniors, why should we hang out like maybe you guys are here. Corrie: Let me ask you one question. It's a little bit on a tangent here. The county gives you that van. They furnish the van, so they furnish the van. Marshall: It's based on mileage and we got a new van last year and the other one I think had about 80 some thousand on it. Corrie: So the county is giving you then and we're giving the license. Marshall: But we pick up the insurance on the building which is about $2400 a year. The van insurance alone is $1900 a year and things like that. Of course right now with five air conditioners running, the utility bill that's pretty high too. (Inaudible) And when Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 41 we're limited for cash flow, I mean if we miss a grant from some place if we don't get it mean we're going to be in trouble. We'll be here with our hat in our hand on bended knee. Bentley: Well that's (inaudible). I don't have a bit of problem with the help aspect of it, but we just need to make sure that we're on legal ground. Marshall: And we may not need all the funds. We asked for $30,000 initially and the Mayor said 13. Well if we were assured that had another 15,000 here we would be available to us if we need it for some emergency. That would be an insurance to us because with our limited cash we can't go to a bank and borrow money on the building. We can't pay it off. That would be pretty poor business. Rountree: You ought to be in the city business. Marshall: That would be nice. Rountree: I don't think you would like to look at the numbers. Anderson: Yeah, I don't think you would like to see what we are. Bird: Let me ask you a question. When I asked a person regarding this, as I understand it, all the other cities are helping the senior centers are owned by the existing city. That's the reason they can help. And this is the one legality when 1 asked about this to an outside attorney he said he thought there was a way the city could do it. He said if you'll look around all the ones that are getting city help are meeting in city owned buildings, maintained buildings and stuff like that. Let me ask you a question, when do you want to take it over? Bird: Do you want me to -I mean I just got elected. I can get thrown off real fast. Marshall: Since May when we come to talk to you the first time, we talked to a lot of people over there, and the three of us support this and talked to everybody over there and almost everybody and we got to have a vote with the membership and I haven't had one person tell me no they thought it was a bad deal. They'd love to have you take us over and then we could turn this to you and budget it in your rec. center. We'd love to participate like Nampa is doing and have you take it over and we'd be glad to do that. Bird: Looking into it right now, I think this is one councilman who will pass, Right now. Corrie: (Inaudible) Bird: I'm not too far from there and a lot of my friends go there. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 42 'Anderson: I'm turning 40 this year. (Inaudible) Bird: I'm like Glenn and Charlie, I'm glad to help you, supply some money to you, but I want to know what the legality if we can do it and if it's legal for us as a council to do something like this. Rountree: I had a question for the Mayor on the insurance. They're talking about a $2500 bill for insurance on the building. Is there a way that we can some how have our insurance carrier by some arrangement with them be quasi city quasi senior center get them covered with ICRMP at a lesser cost saving us both money. Have you looked into it? Corrie: The answer to that question is no I have not looked into because I hadn't even thought about that Charlie. I would think that the insurance would probably be a stumbling block by the city paying for and doing something and going together when we're not even the same entity. There's a line there. Marshall: On our van there, there's five senior centers this is (inaudible) through Ada County where each senior center is billed $1907 per year in this group insurance to cover the insurance on our van, and it is a lot cheaper than going out singly and trying to do it. Corrie: It's a good idea. I don't know whether we work with buildings or not, but it may we need to talk to Jim Johnson and have him give us a call on that and then call ICRMP. I doubt if ICRMP can -I donlt know Charlie. Bird: Is there any reason we would have to legally justify leasing that building from the senior center? If we were to lease it from them then our insurance would cover it, but we've got to justify and that way we can give them legally - this isn't my idea this is coming from (Inaudible) Rountree: I suppose we could get into the bingo business, Bird: But if we was to lease it for "x" amount of dollars a year, then our insurance our ICRMP insurance would automatically go over there because that's an entity of the city of Meridian, and then that gives them income. I don't know. Bentley: I think we could dance this thing all night, but I was just thinking - Bird: Let me ask you one question. You're having problems with your van insurance, ~~ Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 43 Marshall: Well the van insurance and then - Bird: What is the van insurance? Marshall: It's $1907 a year. Bird: $1907? Marshall: Right. Bird: I see if I can get an organization to cover that. Okay? Marshall: And then the building insurance I think is 24 some fraction dollar a year. $2400. Bird: Let me see what I can do on those parts. Marshall: But anyway we talked to the Mayor about two weeks ago and you mentioned going to the Ada County Commissioners or something on the sidewalks. Corrie: ACHD. Marshall: Okay. That's our crisis over there is that sidewalk. Rountree: Is that the one up to the building? Marshall: The one that goes around the front and around the side and we've got a - (Inaudible) Marshall: Even going up to the steps it cracked at different levels and we've had several people stumble and nobody has sued us yet, but it's very possible they could, Bentley: I'll come stumble and I'll sue you and then we'll collect the money and I'll donate it back. Marshall: Just so you don't get hurt. Bird: When is your two insurances due? Marshall: They're due about October. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 44 Bird: October. Rountree: Well Bob I guess at this point on that item I don't hear any major objections to the line item, but one is it doable and if it's not doable since we don't have ownership, would it be doable as he suggests if we could find a reason to lease that building from them or whatever for some city function on an annual basis. (Inaudible) Corrie: (Inaudible) Let me call1CRMP tomorrow and I'll get with the legal tomorrow- Bird: Ask John if there's anything legally about this. This was brought to me by an attorney, but- Corrie: I'll ask Gary tomorrow. He's going to come in. Bird: When we discussed this earlier these people have done a great job over there. I don't like seeing them in this kind of deal. I know it's tough. Most of those people live on fixed incomes and they have a lot of fun over there and I want to continue having the fun, These people are the ones that built the city to what it is today, and I'm not too far from being there. Corrie: Well with the civic center over in Nampa, you could do the same thing here and take care of it and be done. (Inaudible) Bird: Like I say I'm not too far away. (Inaudible) Bird: And you have a big breakfast this Saturday. (Inaudible) Bird: We will. Corrie: I'll look into this and keep you informed of this. Thank you. Gentlemen that concludes the hearing. Bentley: Bob, before we dance away, I'd like about ten minutes in private. Executive Session. Meridian City Council Budget Workshop August 5, 1998 Page 45 Rountree: Can we in workshop format? Corrie: We noticed the workshop. Rountree: We noticed the workshop. Corrie: But I don't know whether we can go into executive - we'll have one tomorrow night Bentley: Okay. Corrie: Is that soon enough for you? Rountree: Turn the recorder off. Bentley: Motion to adjourn. Rountree: Second. Corrie: Motion made and second. All those in favor say aye.