Agenda Packets - 1999/03/01 - Laserfiche WebLink

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since we will likely be doing so soon again, some general understandings about ways the City can work in those situations maybe helpful, particularly if there are preferences for something else. Item 7- Golf Course: John Hammerschmidt will be present to review issues coming up at the golf course and to help get familiar with concerns the Council may have with the course. We have been approached on the matter of billboard signs on golf course property, and other properties owned by the City. We may need to spend a little time on that issue, but also I think it would be helpful to review the fiscal operations of the course, our debt and operating commitments and our staffing arrangements. Item 8-TIF: Can anyone really get enough of TIF? Let's go through it again,if for no other reason in that it is so fun. Just kidding. We do need to discuss this issue though. I would like to stress that from staffs perspective it is more assuring knowing Council understands TIF than what decisions you may actually make regarding TIF. Please remember this as the discussion goes on and forgive us if it seems as though TIF is being defended. The Council has a variety of options it can consider in regards to the City's use of these funds,but we are also faced with some obligatory commitments in our bond issues. Bruce,Rick,Kevin and myself will participate in the discussion, but ultimately the decisions on direction will be the Council's. There has also been some public discussion of decertifying district 4 and removing some parcels from the other districts and we can review those options as well. No one should expect to cover this whole thing in one meeting, but knowing how much work some of the Council have already done to understand TIF should be helpful in charting its course for the near future. Item 9 - Catering Service Agreements: Bruce will report on these items for the MVCC. Item 10-Police Chief Severance Agreement: With Chief Ramacher retiring,an interest in utilizing a heretofore collective bargaining provision has been requested. Two years ago, I proposed a provision in the patrol agreements that would allow a retiring officer to utilize 65% of accumulated sick leave as a pool from which to pay for monthly health insurance premiums until age 65 or when those funds ran out. This was an alternative to the existing severance of receiving a lump sum payment of up to half of the equivalent of 960 hours unused sick leave, a provision intended to reward long term employees with the added affect discouraging use of sick leave. Upon my arrival I felt too much sick leave was still being used because some officers had accumulated far in excess of 960 hours and therefore had no incentive not to use sick leave. Since a sick officer not only still gets paid, a replacement likely getting paid time and a half gets scheduled, meaning a sick officer is an expensive one. Aside from management checks on the legitimacy of the sick leave, it was still hard to control. My proposal was also meant to address another issue that may come up,that being the officer that would like to retire if it were not for the ongoing health insurance costs. It also allows a slower depletion of funds, albeit potentially more, than the one time payout of severance. While turnover is not encouraged,there are times when the ability to create it is in the interest of the department and the employee. Also, as a tradeoff to getting the policy,the bargaining unit agreed to cutting down from 15 to 13 sick days a year. So this leads us to now. This policy has not been utilized to date because no one has retired. Chief Ramacher naturally is aware of the policy and has expressed interest in utilizing it even though he