[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 8-6-08

[Jim McGrath]

RE budget shortfall and adoption-

I thought there was a statutory deadline for adoption, like the second
week in August.

Keep in mind the city has a substantial cash balance which the mayor is
actually increasing in his budget proposal. Unless you have already
dipped in to that, I recommend you use that for these "last minute"
shortfalls rather than spontaneously slashing park's budget. 

 

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 11:31 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 8-6-08

 

Good Evening,

This morning we started with Conservation.  We had a presentation from
the consultant working on the Fort Missoula Regional Park Master Plan.
Several months ago there was an effort to get a levy on the ballot to
raise some number of millions to develop the park. The council voted not
to allow the effort to go forward. One of the main complaints was that
there was no plan as to how the money would get spent. We wanted to know
what was going to get built and how much it would cost. So we approved
the expenditure to hire a consultant to develop a park master plan. The
presentation today represented the first portion of the work. They had a
layout of roads, buildings, and soccer fields.  The whole thing will be
soccer and rugby. No baseball. When asked about this Donna Gaukler said
that in their surveys and studies they have found that we have
sufficient baseball and tennis facilities in the community. The 'Friends
of the Fort' group also said they had made efforts to bring in the
little league folks but they were not interested.

 

What I thought would be the most controversial aspect of the design was
the round-about entrance on South Avenue between Big Sky High School and
the guy with the big "go away city" sign in his yard. I wonder if he is
a fan of round-abouts?

 

In PAZ we covered two fairly simple items. First was a resolution of
intent to annex for a twenty acre parcel David Edgel is developing out
in the Mullan road area.  No controversy yet but we will see how it
evolves.

The other was a phasing amendment for Magenta Meadows subdivision. This
was the first subdivision we did when I got on council. It was very
controversial. They had proposed it in two phases. The first phase would
just have a few lots and would be on septic. The second higher density
phase would get built after the sewer came in.  They accidentally missed
filing the first phase so they asked if we would just make both phases
expire on the 2012 deadline. We were OK with that with the condition
that the whole thing go on sewer since it is out there now.

 

In A&F we heard a little about the $250,000 shortfall in our number from
the department of revenue.  There is still some lack of confidence in
the number. We are seeing a slow down in growth right now but the
revenue numbers are based on the situation 18 months ago when things
were still going strong.  They show a very large portion of the growth
in taxable value falling into URD III. That means the money goes to MRA
and not the general fund. The DOR shows a $1.2 million increase in
taxable value in URD III. Our own calculations show that number at
$500,000.  So there is still some uncertainty where the chips will land.

But in the meantime we are working on a budget that needs $250,000 taken
out of it in the eleventh hour.  But that's not all... There is also a
$103,603 shortfall due to an increase in our liability and property
insurance.

 

The administration proposed a number of places to pull money from. We
spent $46,000 less than budgeted on the Hells Angels weekend.

[Note: I would think it should be Hell's Angels with an apostrophe. I
saw on this one guy's jacket he didn't have the apostrophe. I was
thinking I should point that out but was advised against it.]

We can save $65,000 by postponing PC replacements. We can cut the
aquatics subsidy by $133,000. There were a few other things but the
aquatics subsidy was the focus of the discussion. According to the
original estimates we have budgeted $188,000 per year in subsidy. In FY
08 they only came short $55,000.  Parks proposed that they use the extra
$133,000 on $30,000 tile replacement for the currents bathroom, $40,000
for a UV filtration system, and put the rest in a reserve fund.  The
administration proposal leaves that FY08 money intact but drops the FY09
subsidy to the $55,000 level. This will be OK if FY09 goes as well as
FY08 except there won't be any reserve contribution.

We struggled mightily with trying to cobble together a proposal that
moved $20,000 of impact fees into buying the UV system and then moving
$20,000 back out of the subsidy to try to fund some of the parks
maintenance budget that was already routed to make up for the budget
shortfalls that were known from the beginning. We will try again next
week.

It is possible that we will postpone the final approval of the budget a
few extra weeks to make sure there is enough time to sort everything
out.

The other part of the discussion was about fee increases.  All of our
various fees are set to recover the actual cost of service. The
exception to this is OPG. The planning fees for developers are
subsidized 50%. And this is only after a substantial increase in fees
last year. So on the one hand this is an obvious place to look to raise
fees. But on the other hand those fees just had a dramatic increase last
year.

 

In Public Works we met with the consultant working on Parking for the
downtown master plan. I believe his name is Dennis Burns. I can't get to
any of my links right now to confirm but this should work later:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-07-21/Referrals/MP
C_PWreferral.pdf

There should be a link to the report on the referral.

There was a meeting tonight to discuss the proposal. They are talking
about how the parking commission could best be structured to serve the
community.

 

That was about it for today.

 

Thanks for your interest,

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us

406-728-1052

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