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• FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES '2' December 6, 2004 Truth in Taxation Hearing (continued) Mr. Lageson asked about Court Fines and Revenue. The figures used for estimated and budgeted for 2004 are the same. That seems a bit odd. What is going on there? Administrator Worthington said the City has not collected all of the fine revenue through the end of the year. Mr. Lageson asked about the transfer of $204,315 that is coming from Reserves. What is the level of our remaining Reserves right now? Finance Director Olson said that Reserves are made up of all of the other funds that are not statutorily controlled, so you are specifically looking at the Infrastructure Fund; you are specifically looking at the Enterprise Fund; you are not looking at any money in the Debt Service Fund. In the Infrastructure Fund, $570,000 has been reserved for debt service. When you take and look at a very specific number, it is very difficult to come up with that number, if that is what you like. But specifically in this instance, the money is coming totally from the Infrastructure Fund, which. has a large balance. Administrator Worthington said that Mr. Lageson can get a copy of the City's 2004 CAFR, if he wants one. • Mr. Lageson asked about Expenditures -Regular Salaries. This shows a big increase of 25% or $53,705. What is that for? Are we adding additional staff, giving everyone big raises or something? Administrator Worthington said the City added the equivalent of a half-time person and there are also some costs related to fire relief. The rest of it is probably for insurance costs that have increased. Mr. Lageson asked about the addition of half a person. Administrator Worthington said the employee was half-time this year and will be full time in 2005. Mr. Lageson asked what she will be doing. Administrator Worthington said that individual will primarily be doing two separate roles: One is recreation supervision and the second will be administrative or citizen service. Mayor Gehrz said this position is also heavy weighted in the communications area. One of the requests the City has received is to increase the number of services that can be offered online. In order to do that, you have to have people, you can't just do it. That is one of the new items in the 2005 goals to try to expand what we can offer to residents to make it more convenient for those people who have access to online services and the ability to utilize them. Mr. Lageson said he is someone who uses the online website so he would welcome that. Mayor Gehrz said she wanted to make a comment, too, on salaries. For 2005, the City did an analysis of a couple of the positions. Every year the City compares its positions and salaries with other cities around it. The City Council wants good people and wants to stay competitive. We discovered that we are underpaying people in a couple of positions so we made some adjustments for the Finance Director and City Administrator positions, based upon how much lower our salaries were than similar size cities in this area.