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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-21-201 1 1 Minutes of the Budget Work Session held at 6:00 p.m., April 21, 2020 in the Council Chambers of the Town Municipal Building at 42 First Street, N.W. with live cast through the Town's Facebook page and Zoom digital audio/video communication software. In attendance were: Mayor: David L. Clark, presiding Councilmen Present: G. Tyler Clontz, Brooks R. Dawson; Gregory C. East; Joseph K. Goodman; Lane R. Penn; James A. Radcliffe Administration: Shawn M. Utt, Town Manager Nichole L. Hair, Deputy Town Manager Staff: David Quesenberry, Clerk of Council Staff Attending Electronically Chief Robbie Kiser, P.F.D. Rebecca Leeper, Finance Director Bill Pedigo Town Engineer Chief Gary Roche, P.P.D. 1. Call to Order Mayor Clark called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 2. Roll Call After the Call to Order, the roll was called. Present were Mayor Clark, Mr. Clontz, Mr. Dawson, Mr. East, Mr. Goodman, Mr. Penn and Mr. Radcliffe. Since all Council members were in attendance, a quorum was present to conduct business. 3. Modification of the Agenda No modifications were requested for or made to the agenda. 4. Recognition of Guests and Visitors Mayor Clark welcomed those in attendance for coming to the meeting. Council next moved to consider the FY 2020-2021 budget. 5. Finance a. FY 2171 dget Work Session Mr. Utt thanked the members of Council for the one-on-one meetings noting the sessions were very productive. Referring to the packet, Mr. Utt said that he compiled a summary from each department of the changes that were made as compared to the "baseline budget". He defined the "baseline budget" as where the budget was today, minus the Downtown Grant and the EPA grants. Those were the two major areas in the General Fund that were not ongoing operations. Removing the two grants resulted in a $9.7 million "baseline budget" which was calculated from the proposed amended budget for the May meeting minus the EPA and Downtown grants. Mr. Utt said he created an expense budget, based on a revised revenue projection of $8.8 million. Also performed were: (1) identification of the budget's proposed cuts; and, (2) movement to a Page 1 of 7/April 21, 2020 cuts would continue despite the possibility that the Town could end up to the good. Employees could be brought back, but there was the possibility that they could go somewhere else. Mr. Radcliffe expressed his appreciation to Mr. Utt and others for their work and expressed his determination that the Town's bills and its employees would be paid and the citizens would come out at the end of this thing better than the surrounding communities. Mr. East asked Mr. Utt what the process was relating to Police and Fire. Mr. Utt responded that the Police Dept. had two vacancies when the discussion started. There had been discussions on funding the Drug Task Force expansion, the two positions, or other potential options. Council came back with un -funding the Community Resource Officer for now to keep the Drug Task Force as a priority. Regarding the additional vacancy, due to the hiring freeze the costs, ($50,000) for that position were placed into the "budget set aside". The funding for the position was in the budget, but it was in a different department. It would take Council action to move it back once it was determined what amount of money we have to work with. Mr. Utt reiterated that in the proposed $8.8 million budget, the monies for the Police, Fire, General Properties, Vehicle Maintenance and Community Development positions were all there in the "budget set aside" during the wait to see what would happen. Mr. East ventured that the budget was being arranged around the hiring freeze. Mr. Utt said yes that he had accounted for the hiring freeze and put the funds elsewhere. Regarding the drug task force, Mr. East opined that they would not be impacted. Mr. Utt responded in what Council was given tonight, they would not be impacted as he understood it. Hopefully there would not be any more turnover in the Police Department. Right now there were three in the academy with one set up for the first phase of the task force. With respect to the Fire Department and the volunteer fire services, Mr. East observed there was a lot of training and investment that went into these persons to make them effective in the field. He asked was there was there any concern, if there was a pullback from that position, that it would put the Fire Chief and his team at a disadvantage. Mr. Utt said the current budget had $20,000 in it for the volunteer fire service. Every volunteer that went out on a call was paid for that call out of the volunteer fire service account. There was also payment for Saturday training. For the last several years the Town had spent between $14,000 and $17,000. Mr. Utt said he proposed taking the $20,000 down to $17,000 as a placeholder to find every single penny for the budget. The $3,000 could be added back from the "budget set aside" at a later date if it was needed. Mentioning that he thought Mr. Radcliffe had some valid concerns, Mr. East asked if the money in the "set aside" funds could be reallocated at a later date if necessary so no services would be jeopardized. Mr. Utt said that was right so long as we did not jeopardize the "set aside" fund by moving more than $88,000 at a time, which could be done by a simple Council action. Moving $89,000 or more required a public hearing. Either way Council action was necessary to move funds out of the budget "set aside". On the budget "set aside", Mr. Goodman ventured that assuming that all revenues, $8.8 million, were available for the budget, then all the things in the budget set aside would able to be funded and moved forward. If revenues were under $8.8 million, then decisions would have to be made as to what in the budget "set aside" would be cut and not done. Mr. Utt said given the way things were set up, the answer was yes. If a better determination on revenues came about in Page 3 of 7/April 21, 2020 been a "pull back" of what Mr. Dawson described as "leeway". He thought it very well could cause, and Council should be comfortable with the thought, that there would probably be a request for additional funding. It would be both understood and acceptable that persons would request funds with an explanation of what was going on and why additional funds were needed. Mr. Dawson said the current situation was completely different from 2019 in which there was a shortage of $600,000 without any requests. Being financially responsible he continued, meant we should run a budget that was so tight that if something happened it would require a request. He did not think that Council would deny any needs. Mr. Dawson added that he did not have a problem with the reduction in the budget as it was. He agreed with Councilman Radcliffe that the budget needed to be passed and that there needed to be a continuation of discussions on what would be done for the future as we understood things better. Mr. East said this budget was more of a "living document" than others and would require a lot of attention as we moved through this new process with all the unknowns. He requested that in addition to the budget he would like a list of items that had been "flagged". Mr. Utt asked if he was referring to the items in the "set aside". Mr. East described it as more of an overall action item that listed the points that were raised during budget discussions. It would be a few months before these issues would be discussed again and it would be of benefit not to have to start out at "ground zero". One example Mr. East mentioned for discussion was community development and how to move forward in that area as a Town and Council. This discussion did not need to be done now with all the uncertainties Mr. East said, but it needed to be done. Another example was Police and Fire. Mr. East felt it was important to understand what was being done there especially with regards to bringing people in and making sure they were trained, etc. The goal he said was not to cut services but to be fiscally sound during these uncertain times. Mr. East felt that Mr. Utt had done a good job of "drawing that line in the sand" and holding the Town's position while things were figured out. He added that if others had budget issues they wished to discuss further that it be placed on the list for reference. Mr. Utt suggested that it could be placed into the budget narrative that additional discussion on issues (e.g. Community Development, Drug Task Force, etc.) would be expected. Mr. Goodman suggested that the budget narrative would be very important this year. The priority list needed to be in the narrative along with reasons that changes needed to be made and the potential long-term effect of the COVID-19 virus on the budget. He felt that this would let people know that these issues were coming and where they might be going. Mr. Penn asked why grant money had to be in the General Fund budget. Mr. Utt explained when the Town got a big grant like the Downtown Grant there were five or six line items that have to come out of the grant. Having the grant as its own department made it much easier to track those expenditures since the grant agency (DHCD, etc) wanted to see the specific amount spent on each line item. Mr. Goodman felt it was important when the budget information was released to have what he called the "core budget" which he defined as the "normal business of the Town" for the General, Water and Sewer funds. He suggested that if there were any grants or specialty projects for which funds were borrowed, that they be displayed along with the "core budget" and a final total. Page 5 of 7/April 21, 2020 participation a lot. He said he had received more comments from people being aware and actually listening than he did previously. He felt there was a lot of benefit to having things this way. Mr. Goodman thought it would be a matter of looking at the IT budget. There were better cameras that could be used and also directional microphones since most of the complaints had involved not being able to hear very well. Mr. Utt said there were speakers, but the acoustics were difficult. He thought the best alternative could be a full system that could be incorporated into the sound system. Mr. Goodman added something was needed that would tie into the microphones directly, mesh the data with the video stream and broadcast it out. Mayor Clark asked if there were any further remarks. There being none, Council moved on to adjournment. 6. Reminder of Future Council Meeting and Adjournment Mayor Clark reminded Council that the next meeting would be Wednesday, May 6th. Given that there was uncertainty about the May 5th election, Mayor Clark said the Council meeting would be on May 6th at 7:00 p.m. since public hearings had been advertised for that date. Mayor Clark then requested a motion to adjourn. The motion to adjourn was made by Mr. Goodman, seconded by Mr. East and approved by the unanimous voice vote of Council at 6:42 p.m. Approved: avid L. Clark Mayor ATTEST: zaJeZ,�Z" David N. Quesenberry Clerk of Council L1 Page 7 of 7/April 21, 2020