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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCCWkspAgenda 8-7-2013Falcon Heights City Council Workshop City Hall 2077 W Larpenteur Ave. 6:30 p.m. AGENDA Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1) Presentation by Applied Energy Alternatives on a Possible Solar Panel Array in Community Park. 2) Presentation of the first DRAFT of the 2014 General Fund Budget. If you have a disability and need accommodation in order to attend this meeting, please notify City Hall 48 hours in advance between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. at 651-792-7600. We will be happy to help. REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Families, Fields and Fair __________________________ The City That Soars! Item Draft 2014 General Fund Budget Description For the past several weeks, staff has been busy preparing their proposed budgets for 2014. A preliminary levy must be set by September 15th , so the City Council will formally act on the preliminary levy at the September 11th City Council meeting. The purpose of this workshop will be to present the Draft 2014 General Fund Budget to the City Council and allow staff time to incorporate changes before presenting it for possible continued discussion at the September 4th Workshop and then for preliminary levy approval on September 11th . Key points of interest for this draft budget include: 1) The unpredictability of Local Government Aid (LGA) has receded somewhat, and the City is scheduled to receive an increase in the amount for 2014. Presently, we are still waiting to confirm numbers in relation to final LGA and Fiscal Disparities amounts but things are looking positive. Because of this, we have not included the revenue sheets in this packet. We will take the Workshop as an opportunity to introduce the draft budget and focus on the expenditure side for the time being. 2) A special levy for the 2010 equipment certificates will need to once again be approved to pay the annual principal and interest payments that will be due in the amount of roughly $72,000. 3) Staff’s goal continues to be to keep a lean budget while still providing quality services to the residents. With this DRAFT Budget, expenditures are proposed to increase over the 2013 General Fund Budget by 2%, which is consistent with an estimated CPI index of 1.8%. The main components of this increase are the estimated medical insurance/hospitalization costs and Police/Dispatch costs. 4) Included in the budget is a 2% cost-of-living (COLA) increase for all city employees, which is consistent with many other metro and surrounding City’s increase for 2014. Staff is also estimating a 12% increase in health insurance expenses. Staff realizes this is high but without firm numbers, wanted to estimate on the high side. There are parts of the budget that are still undetermined, mainly the revenue side as explained above. It is staff’s goal to introduce the DRAFT 2014 General Fund Meeting Date August 7, 2013 Agenda Item Workshop 2 Attachment Draft 2014 General Fund Budget- Expenditures Submitted By Bart Fischer, City Administrator Budget framework at this time and then present a more complete version at the September 4th Workshop, which will be followed by preliminary levy approval on September 11th . Final adoption of the 2014 General Fund Budget is scheduled to take place at the December 11th City Council meeting. Budget Impact Dependent on eventual adoption of 2014 General Fund Budget Attachment(s) Draft 2014 General Fund Budget-Expenditures. Action(s) Requested No action required, but guidance on how to proceed will be beneficial as Staff continues to refine the Draft 2014 General Fund Budget.