11-23-2015 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Other Levy Factors: Attached is a Net Tax Levy Comparison prepared by Ramsey County. This is based on the preliminary levies certified back in September. (We certified 4.0%). The average percentage changed in levies for cities and towns based on preliminary certifications is 3.1% with a range of 0.9% in Mounds View to 66.3% in Gem Lake. Ramsey County is at 2.8%. School District 623 is at 24.0% but with a 15.4% reduction in their market value based levy. School District 624 proposed a 3.8% increase in their levy with just a minor reduction in their market value based levy (0.3%). Other Issues To Be Decided: 1. Provide an additional $10,000 transfer from the Cable TV Fund (#202) to the General Fund to offset costs such as insurance, utilities, payroll processing, work comp, etc. Franchise fees currently generate about $130,000 in revenue and we contribute about $30,000 of that amount back to North Suburban Cable Commission for franchise oversight and community access. Council Member Montour does not favor this option due to uncertainty involving the Comcast franchise renewal. 2. Do not create In-house Planner position. The total cost of this proposal is projected at $4,680 and the impact to the General Fund is $3,077. 3. Do not hire part-time Utility Billing Clerk (in association with In -House Planner position). We budgeted 16 hours a week for this position. The total cost is $16,640 with a General Fund impact of $5,491). If we reduced the hours of the part-time Utility Billing Clerk to 12 per week, the total cost drops to $12,480 and the General Fund Impact is $4,118 for a General Fund savings of $1,373 over the previous option. 4. Reduce administrative costs in the Parks & Recreation Department. The Parks & Recreation Director has indicated hours could be reduced for the Assistants position, maybe as much as a 1/2 time equivalent. If we were to do that, the savings would be about $30,750. Effectively, this eliminates one assistant position (keep in mind one is an employee and one is a contractor). The reduction amount is based on the assistants being budgeted at about 18.5 hours per week. 5. Another option would be to reduce the full-time director's position to %2 time. The rationale for doing so relates to the fact that the Assistants are the primary delivers of programming services. When you consider that registrations have dropped by over by over 45% from 2006 through 2014 and that the Director has indicated he "won't be here much longer" given his ability to retire, it would seem that for the long term benefit of the program, cutting the assistants' position would cause us an even great loss of institutional knowledge and experience. If we were to reduce the Director's position to %2 time, the salary and related benefit savings would total about $47,000. Obviously, this option merits discussion relative to the future direction of the program. 6. If the Park & Recreation Director's position were reduced to 1/2 time status, the position would not be typically be eligible for health insurance benefits. That would save about $11,800.