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| The following summary minutes have not been approved by Simpsonville City Council. An official copy of the minutes will be available after adopted by City Council at City Hall 118 NE Main St. Simpsonville. Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, notice of this meeting date, time, place and Agenda was posted on the bulletin board at City Hall and faxed to the newspapers, radio stations, television stations and any concerned citizens. |
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SIMPSONVILLE CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL BUSINESS MEETING August 19, 2008 City Council Chambers – 118 N. E. Main St
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor: Call the August 19 th Special Business Meeting of Simpsonville City Council to order. Thank you all for coming.
ROLL CALL Mayor: Ms. Clerk would you call the role, please?
Ms. Zeller: Councilmember Bridges: Here Councilmember Garrett: Here Councilmember Sanders: Here Councilmember Bagwell: Here Councilmember Curtis: Here Councilmember Larson Here Mayor Waldrop : Present
Mayor: Thank you.
INVOCATION Mayor: Would anyone here like to ask blessing on this meeting in your own personal way? Hearing no one, Councilmember Bridges would you ask blessings on this meeting in your own personal way?
NEW BUISNESS Mayor: Next item on the agenda is new business and Mr. Hawes it doesn’t have your name on it, but I’m going to let you lead off by telling us about the amendments to the T008 T009 budget.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, mayor and council as we discussed at last night’s workshop session economic influences that have occurred throughout the country and has affected all of us, is beginning to affect the city of Simpsonville’s Operations and Budgeting for the next fiscal year, the current fiscal year, and the future coming fiscal years as well. We discussed the fact that building firms revenue will be down significantly and expenses for items such as fuel cost, for the city’s vehicle fleet, have shown increases; and we must plan for such in the future. So what you have before you is an ordinance for first reading to amend the current year fiscal year budget to accommodate those situations. Also, along with that the actual drawn up version of the budget amendments; that you requested last night, which basically removed 1.5 percent of the overall budget across the board that amount has been removed from the budget. You can see on that front page of the Document titled City of Simpsonville for fiscal year 2008-2009 general fund of the amendments right on the front page for Operating Expenses dropping $7k from… near council 60, 900 administration 135K from Police 6700 from Recreation, and so forth so those our the amendment changes; which drops total expenses about $595,000. It also includes, which we discussed last night, on the revenue side $175,000 increase from revenues from a mileage adjustment of 2.9 mills. I’ll be glad to discuss any aspect of it that you might ask.
Mayor: Well, since none of us have had the opportunity to see this until now, why don’t you jus kind of quickly hit the highlights of the, just go down and hit the highlights so that you can help us walk through it and tell us exactly what we have affected and how we have affected it.
Mr. Hawes: Well, in light of the fact that we have final fiscal year numbers for prior fiscal year in every line item, which we don not have at the time of the budget is prepared; we were able to identify simple areas where some cut can be made knowing that while aspects of those services may be cut, these are the prioritized places that can work best. And the accumulative affect is the 1.5 % overall; cut to the budget that was requested last night. For instances got to page number 8, which is administration…
Mayor: Excuse me, for interrupting, but let me say one thing for now on when I get these reports, may I request that you number the pages. So, we can do exactly what you just did.
Mr. Hawes: Yes sir, oh ok.
Mayor: Well, some people have number on their pages, and some don’t.
Mr. Hawes: Oh okay, I’m sorry there not numbered, so I was looking…
Mayor: It’s really simple to do on Microsoft.
Mr. Hawes: Ok, no problem. Starting in administration, we’ll just turn pages from here on out. I won’t name pages, we’ll just turn one page at a time from here on out.
Mayor: So, we’re going to start on the administration page?
Mr. Hawes: That is correct; I can go one page back and talk about the fact that Mayor, council that basically last night that you offered that all of you travel/ office supplies budget could be adjusted and we did adjust those from $3k to $2k. Now to administration, we identified places in the operations of the city where we can do everything we can possible can, to quote unquote tighten our belts and work with the department heads to minimize expenditures that’s where we will be upon these amendments. $900 taken out of office supplies in administration right up to $3800 taken out of professional fees that was basically the consulting firm for the comprehensive plan while that’s the range $3800 out of professional training, we’re looking to minimize the travel and so forth, try to keep travel in state as much as possible along those lines. I’ll be glad to discuss any specific line items, but you can see most are $1k or less, utilities is $3k the actual utilities from last year came in a little less than the budget so we knocked that down, $3k, hoping we can keep or improve where we came in this past fiscal year in that line item.
Mayor: I have a question about building inspection fees; you reduced that $15k, the way that we have our building inspectors set up. It just seems to me that that just naturally reduce itself, if we don’t have permits involved in it, and we don’t pay that expense. Is this $15K based upon your projection reduction in building permits that does sound like much especially when we heard last night there is no building and the sky is falling, how do we, why is $15k that sounds like a minimum amount.
Mr. Hawes: Well, inspections still occur outside of new construction there may be improvements, I mean people are still doing improvements, I mean there are times inspectors may be called out to look at items that are not necessarily be called new construction. So…
Mayor: That wouldn’t be called; if a person didn’t purchase would it?
Mr. Hawes: No, this is regarding permits.
Mayor: It just sounds like a small amount based on what we’ve been hearing.
Mr. Hawes: Well, it’s over 10 % or it’s approximately 10%.
Mayor: Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: Just a couple of line items I’m curious about, one is professional training $18k I noticed that’s about $3K more then it was estimated for 2008, but as of March in the budget that we looked at was only 5542 only had been used in budget year 2008, fiscal year 2008, but yet were still looking $14,200 for this budget year.
Mr. Hawes: Umm-hmm.
Ms. Bagwell: Why, what are those professional fees for and is there any way we can cut those down any further.
Mr. Hawes: Those fees are for specifically for the training for all the office personnel for city hall. We have a new clerk, so we felt that it was appropriate that she be entered into the Clerks of Treasures Institute and some of the other training courses. One reason it was utilized, and this budget was extended last year, was our clerk was no longer with us and did not attend some of training, or was no longer with us. I also I did not attend the training that was budgeted this year because I was concerned, I normally I attend conferences; the only conference I attended this year was one in Greenville . So, I was trying to avoid some of the expenditures there myself. It is budgeted where it is, it could surely be adjusted further or eliminated if council felt the training was unnecessary.
Ms. Bagwell: Another question is
Mayor: Do you have nothing else to say about that?
Ms. Bagwell: I’m not saying we won’t come back to it, if you have something please feel free.
Mayor: No, I was going to say at this time I certainly feel that it is critical that our clerk get that training and get all situated, but I don’t see the reason to send others if we’re in such dire constraints, I think we need to cut back on that stuff, because we have had others attended these meetings, gone to the seminars, and things and perhaps as I have suggested in the past. Instead of sending everybody, send one person and let them take notes and we can do that to and I think that could be cut way back, if you could cut back and not go to whatever you go to, then let’s get that number on down there. That would be my suggestion.
Mr. Hawes: What number would you like to see there?
Mayor: $12 ( Laughter)
Ms. Bagwell: How much would training cost?
Mr. Hawes: Reasonably $2-3k for her alone, but we have employees of course Planning Director, Finance Director, Administrator; all of these are typically in training as well as training for, you know, there are mandatory trainings, for the Code Enforcement, for the Code Officials, Building Inspectors, all of that training comes out of that.
Ms. Bagwell: How far can you cut that down, and still gets the absolute mandatory along with Ms. Zeller’s training taken care of?
Mr. Hawes: We might be able to take that down to $10k?
Ms. Bagwell: Yeah is there anyway we can get an itemization of that, you know so we can see where that is going. I understand that you can’t do that for us right this minute.
Mr. Hawes: We can certainly provide that to you.
Mayor: So we can change that to $10k, is that what you are doing? Changing that to $10K?
Mr. Hawes: If that is what council would like.
Mayor: Do I hear conjunctions? (Background talk)
Mr. Hawes: I will say my concern just throwing numbers out there, is a terrible way to budget, just a terrible way to budget. So I just want to put that for on the record.
Ms. Bagwell: And I understand you position, but I also see that last year up through March we used $5,542 in that line item, and if we were to almost double that at $10k for last quarter I mean, you didn’t go, your not going to go, as we see it, you know, at this point, unless it’s mandatory or if it’s local. The other people, the mandatory training as obvious and Ms. Zeller’s is obvious, but if we can cut that down past $10 that’s great, I understand why you don’t want to throw out a number.
Mr. Hawes: What I’d rather do is say we will pay for the necessary training of Ms. Zeller and the necessary training for anyone, you know, that’s mandatory, but not set it at $10k , don’t just throw a number out there, because I’d rather work with actuals and we can have that done by second reading.
Mayor: Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: I understand what he is saying, I think what Rusty is saying is leaving the numbers in place, but operating under the understanding that we expect to cut where we can.
Mr. Hawes: Yes.
Ms. Bagwell: But we’ll see at second reading
Mayor: Before second reading.
Mr. Hawes: We can do that for second reading, on that line item, sir.
Mayor: If you can get these things two us a couple of days before.
Mr. Hawes: Absolutely, I would have had them a couple of days before today, except we didn’t discuss them until last nigh; so basically it was put together today.
Mayor: Okay, Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: Okay another, Mayor I’d like to go to another line item, one item community relations we budgeted $8300 as of March 31st of this year, we had used $2933. First of all, can you tell me what exactly that line item is for? Last we budgeted, for an estimate of $6,500 estimate but have gone up gone up significantly $8300.
Mr. Hawes: That’s correct.
Ms. Bagwell: Can you explain that to me, please
Mr. Hawes: City council requested that we have Honor’s flight Simpsonville we place it that line item and the rest of that line item is devoted to H&A taxes at state level, but if the city’s judiictitionaire agent for so that is a set level. So the two line items in community relations are Honor flight Simpsonville at $14k and the H & A taxes is the remainder.
Ms. Bagwell: One other question and that’s on, I don’t mean for this to sound like any kind of attack, it’s just truly a question, Employee Recognition, what is that exactly? I mean the $2500 that’s budgeted there, I mean what’s the recognition; cause I noticed it’s in each department.
Mr. Hawes: Right, it’s the cost of awards and other items that are given to employees, for distinguished service of the city. It is not necessarily used in every department, but it is budgeted for that.
Ms. Bagwell: I just wanted to make sure I understood.
Mayor: Okay anyone else before we go onto another page, Mr. Garrett.
Mr. Garrett: On a line of Equipment Rental, would you explain that to me, what we rent for 23K dollars?
Mr. Hawes: In the administration budget? Ok. That’s overall equipment rental for the city for events, it’s well its copiers, and we have 5 different locations where copiers are. That’s probably the primary, it is the primary, but it’s also for other rentals if we to do some things with red lighting or things along those lines, their leased, the copiers are leased.
Mayor: Alright, any one else on this page, before we go onto another one, Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: Can you speak on just for a moment on Insurance General, tell me what kind of insurance we’re talking about and why its $214K.
Mr. Hawes: Well the insurance that the city has is primarily liability insurance, its standard, that’s the premiums that the city has to pay, to maintain liability on all its assets. I’ll capitalize that as the buildings, the vehicles, all that is the General Insurance of the city. And liability in case someone trips on a sidewalk, I mean a sidewalk is an asset.
Mr. Curtis: Does it include insurance on Police cars, Trash trucks, Fire Equipment?
Mr. Hawes: Yes, all of that, that is the premium for that.
Mr. Curtis: Okay, I’m okay with it.
Mayor: Anybody else for this page? Alright, go on to the next page.
Mr. Hawes: The next one is Court , as you can see safety incentives on all these pages was reduced to half of it previously had been. I’ll give you a quick explanation of that. That comes in the form of a bonus at Christmas time for employees should the city’s Workers Comp Claims allow us to keep a modifying factor at Schmidt, which is our administrator for Worker’s Comp less than one. The one month the modifying factor where it is less than one allows the city to take a 5% discount on the premiums for Worker’s Comp as well as keep the premiums lower and out of the another range, all together. If you go over one, there is immediate penalty of approximately $70k, and then you get an increase of premiums. Plus, you don’t the 5%discount on top of that. This incentive has worked very well, because the city had a factor well over 1 the incentive was placed into affect along with monthly workers, safety meetings, committees were set up. We worked with Department heads directly to work to focus on safety in the city, that allowed the premiums to drop, that allowed the factor to go below one, and basically it’s incentives with this bonus that is given at Christmas time, as long as the factor stays below one, and the bonus is funded by through the amount of premiums that have to be there in the budget that are not used because it is below one, so we have cut that in half, in light of the current situation.
Mayor: Mr. Garrett:
Mr. Garrett: Does that discount 5% does it cover this rufely $30k?
Mr. Hawes: It itself does not, but the fact that the premiums are lower than it would be over one, yes.
Mayor: Okay, Alright anyone else on this page? Alright thank you, the Police Department.
Mr. Hawes: The major affect in the police department is basically a higher reprieve in through the fiscal year that will leave positions unfilled that are open right now, and that’s what you see in Salary/ Wages totaling 1615, along with the having of the safety incentives. You’ll see additions to vehicle operating expenses in all of the departments in the police it’s $47,400 and that’s a carry over from last night, from the materials you had last night. And again there are adjustments where we could make them Juvenile Housing we budgeted $6k. You never know how much it’s going to cost, how many Juvenile’s you’re going to have to send to Columbia . When you do send Juveniles to Columbia you pay a price, it depends on how long they are kept down there, and so forth. It is a very difficult thing to budget. Last year we ended up at half of what was budgeted and this year we’re going to role the dice and hope we come in at half at what we budgeted again. So basically we’re going to cut $3K out of the $6K and leave that at $3k. Other aspects because we’re not hiring these extra folks we won’t have as much need for physical examinations so we’ve dropped that. There were forty people in the police department, approximately and four people that would not be hired so that’s 10% so we took down physical examinations about 10%.
Mayor: I believe it is important to give credit where credit is due and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the police chief stepped up and said that he didn’t need to fill these four positions right now and that if it would help us he would hold off on them. There is no reduction in public safety or anything because of that.
Mr. Hawes: That is absolutely true that he stepped up to the plate on this. We requested that the department heads adjustments that they could make and he did step up for that.
Mayor: God bless him for that. Yes Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: May I ask a question, please? On those physical examinations I noticed that last year, through March, I’m sorry. I just keep looking at last year’s budget to make sure that we are comparing apples to apples. Last year’s budget, we looked at, through March, $2,415 was utilized. That’s significantly less than the $11,000 that we are looking at budgeting for this year and last year it was budgeted at $10,000. Is there a reason we went up on the budget even though we didn’t even use 50% of it.
Mr. Hawes: The actual for last year will be arrived at that entire, virtually the entire $11,000 was used. They take their physicals in April, May and June.
Ms. Bagwell: It was done at the last quarter? That’s what I wanted to make sure.
Mr. Curtis: You’ve got office supplies and then you have supplies under operating expenses 200. Office supplies at the top and then supplies about half way down. Can you explain what those, differentiate between those two?
Mr. Hawes: There are certainly safety supplies, office supplies and police supplies. Safety supplies are specifically safety items. Office supplies are pretty straight forward, for the office. Supplies are miscellaneous supplies that are not either office or safety.
Mayor: For instance?
Mr. Hawes: I hear Bob saying cleaning but they are just miscellaneous supplies. Toilet paper. Those types of things. You’ll see supplies in all the line items that don’t go necessarily with that department.
Mayor: Anyone else on this page? Alright, moving right along. I guess you covered both pages with the police department so, Dispatch.
Mr. Dawes: Dispatch, the primary change was the safety incentive. There was some computer software was, that’s primarily a support service. We didn’t utilize that expense so we cut that $700. But most of these are $300, $700, $500. Dues and subscriptions was cut in half. You’ll see dues and subscriptions cut in a number of places. It was in administration as well.
Mayor: Good, good. Anyone have questions about that? Alright, okay… Fire Department .
Mr. Hawes: Safety incentives cut in half again. Repair and maintenance radios, that’s another thing you’re not sure when your radios are going to break down. You want to have enough money in the budget to cover that. Last year, we did not have what occurred the year before where a number of electronic concerns happened and these radios are highly technical equipment. They are not simple walky-talkies. When we talking about the fire department radio systems, these are 800 mh. They are very important, or they’re going to 800 mh. We did take that down $8,000 because the year ends bore out that we didn’t need the full 18 in there. Vehicle operating expense in the fire department went up $27,400 for the cost of fuel, diesel. Physical exams actually were added because the new people that were added in the past fiscal year are going to have to be included in the physical exams. Community relations, those little Dalmatian handouts they give out at schools and things along those lines that Simpsonville Fire Department…pencils…we’ve asked them to cut back a little bit. We took $500 off that.
Mayor: Once again I’ll ask. I don’t see any major cutbacks in the fire department so, the public safety and as far as fire protection, it has not been compromised with anything we’ve done here?
Mr. Hawes: That’s one of the things we really kept in mind here is, we don’t want to diminish public safety at all. So Police and Fire were very carefully examined for what was appropriate and what wasn’t.
Mayor: Okay. Anyone else have anything on this page before we move on? Alright, thank you Mr. Hawes. Next page, Public Works.
Mr. Hawes: Computer software and support, that’s another item where hopefully the computers don’t have the glitches and bugs and things that can happen that requires call out techs. We basically took that from $4,700 to $3000. Uniforms, we’re going to ask some of the folks to try to make do with what they’ve got and took that down $3,000. That’s primarily cleaning costs and things along those lines.
Mayor: Excuse me for interrupting. They just got new uniforms, correct?
Mr. Hawes: In Public Works?
Mayor: Yeah.
Mr. Hawes: They got some pieces, yes.
Mayor: Alright, I just wanted to make sure. So it’s not like we’re going to have them thread bear or something?
Mr. Hawes: Oh, no, no, no. We’re talking about…you’re correct. Employee clothing allowance. That is one item that was basically eliminated in the departments where there was a clothing allowance. We felt that that was probably one of the items that will have the least direct impact on services. Professional training was actually added in the Public Works because some of the personnel and of course the Public Works Director has been the President of the APWA and he typically attends those meetings so we did not change that professional training in the same direction that we did in other places. We felt the Public Works training can be very useful. Concrete maintenance, these types of things, if you don’t have the correct training in Public Works, you may end up having more cost down the road so we felt it was important we get the training right in the Public Works and not deplete it. Most of these are smallish changes. The major change in this section of line items is the vehicle operating expense with an additional $92,200. Public Works is where the primary use of fuel in the city is with all the gasoline…diesel vehicles, trash trucks and so forth.
Mayor: Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: I noticed that salaries and wages, you’ve got a $23,000 reduction there. Can you explain that, please?
Mr. Hawes: I’m not seeing that.
Mayor: I believe you’re the only one that reduced their salaries. We’ll tell them that.
Mr. Hawes: Is that the one dated August 19 that you’re looking at?
Mr. Curtis: That’s been changed. Never mind, I see where, on the new budget, that’s been changed.
Mayor: We have about 3 sets of papers.
Mr. Curtis: On one of the old budgets I showed another $100,000 additional in asphalt and you’re actually reducing the cost of asphalt. Are we going to be able to patch potholes and things of that nature with that reduction adequately?
Mr. Hawes: Yes, we now have a patching machine that can be more efficiently used than what we had previously. We intend to do the same amount in really a valuation of what we were capable of doing for the money.
Mayor: Okay, Mr. Larson.
Mr. Larson: The very bottom item, the tipping fees? Is that number based on the estimated savings with the tub grinder?
Mr. Hawes: With the tub grinder.
Mr. Larson: That would be with the tub grinder?
Mr. Hawes: It is, because all the original ones had the tub grinder in it, That number hasn’t changed since day one.
Mayor: Ms. Sanders.
Ms. Sanders: I have to ask, the budget we got last night, I noticed in all these lines, there’s, we’re looking to cut. In comparing last night’s to tonight’s, that of $200 to small office equipment, number 203. We’ve added, I’ll leave the vehicle operating expense alone because that is gasoline. But we have added $200 to other supplies since last night, $600 to professional training, $1,000 to dues and subscriptions, $5,000 to inmate labor, $800 to landscaping services. Those are all added since last night where we’re looking to not add. I fail to see why.
Mr. Hawes: I understand. I understand the question completely and it might not be obvious. What we were looking to do was to try to make this as workable as possible with the information we had and still accomplish Council’s goal to drop 1.5% off the budget. But our concern is, is if we just attack the lines where there are monies to be taken out and don’t adjust those where we know that there are discrepancies or shortfalls compared to the information that has come through after the end of the fiscal year.
Ms. Sanders: Okay, but I’m talking about since last night. Last night, $60,000 was good for inmate labor and tonight it’s $65,000. And that is since our last numbers.
Mr. Hawes: Right
Ms. Sanders: I’m curious why that is.
Mr. Hawes: Because we went back through and looked at the actuals for the past fiscal year.
Ms. Sanders: And these weren’t, these that you gave us last night was not based on the actuals? I mean I’m not…
Mr. Hawes: It was…no…It was an adjustment to the existing budget without going through every single line item. This is with every single line item.
Ms. Sanders: Hmm. Nothing further.
Mayor: I find that somewhat disturbing. Ms. Sanders: I find it very disturbing.
Mayor: We were presented a budget last night that hadn’t been totally…
Ms. Sanders: That hadn’t been combed. Fine toothed combed.
Mayor: Alright, anyone else. Mr. Garrett.
Mr. Garrett: I just need an explanation, and I’m dropping over to the garage fleet. We’ve got vehicle operating expense for the garage fleet at $54,000 and vehicle operating expense for the Public Works $200…what, I mean what does the garage fleet consist of? I mean I would have thought it would be all under Public Works. I don’t know what kind of vehicles they got.
Mr. Hawes: The garage fleet division is the maintenance of all the vehicles in the city. That is the garage, it has the mechanics, it has the folks who work on the train, everything.
Mr. Garrett: Okay, I understand that, but vehicle operating expense? I mean what?
Mr. Hawes: That’s fuel and tires.
Mr. Garrett: That’s fuel and what?
Mr. Hawes: Tires.
Mayor: The service trucks.
Mr. Hawes: Services are in the garage fleet division.
Mr. Garrett: So these are the vehicles that we use to go out and repair the other vehicles? I’m confused, I don’t understand. I’m sorry.
Mr. Hawes: Are we looking at the division or are we looking…
Mr. Garrett: I’m looking at the Public Works and then if you’ll turn over to the garage fleet division, you’ve got vehicle expense there. I’m assuming that the garage fleet is where they work on other vehicles. We have vehicles there we go out in and service other vehicles.
Mr. Hawes: Yes, yes that is correct.
Mayor: Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: And that’s $50,000 worth of tires for four people?
Mr. Hawes: Virtually all the tires for the city are in that line. The tires are in the garage fleet because they’re part of the overall replacement for vehicles throughout the city.
Mr. Curtis: Then, please explain what repair and maintenance equipment at $170,000 is?
Mr. Hawes: That’s hydraulics, that is a line item that, if anything breaks down in the city, that takes care of the cost involved in it.
Mr. Curtis: So, for instance and engine would be in that line item.
Mr. Hawes: That is correct.
Mr. Curtis: And shocks and things like that would be in that line item. But that line item is separate from…it just seems odd to me that the tires are separated out. It almost appears, the way this is written, it almost appears that they’re for those four people.
Mr. Hawes: Repairs and maintenance equipment is for more than just standard operating the vehicle. It is for every piece of equipment at the city. Tractors, for generators. Anything along those lines. The tires are in vehicle operating expense because those are tied to specific vehicles.
Mayor: Somebody whose got last year’s budget, what did we actually spend? Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: As of March 31 st , it was on line 774213, it was $141,098 and that was repair and maintenance of the equipment. Then the other was, as of March 31 st , $41,405. So that was obviously pretty accurately budgeted for this year.
Mayor: Does that answer your question, Mr. Curtis?
Mr. Curtis: Yes it does.
Mayor: Anyone else? We are now at Garage and Fleet Division, Public Works. Next page, Recreation Department.
Mr. Hawes: The question was raised, why did we not go through with a fine tooth comb.
Mayor: Yeah, that really wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Go ahead and respond to that if you don’t mind.
Mr. Hawes: The changes that were made between last night and tonight that added some items were only made possible by the fact that the other ones were deleted from. We were not looking to add to the budget when we proposed last night. We were looking at actuals and needs overall for the city and trying to identify an approach. When City Council identified that approach, because City Council could have said, we don’t want to do anything; we want to work with the exact budget. That’s why we had a workshop before a vote. When you identified that approach, we then went back through so that was the intent.
Mayor: So that explains why every why we meet and every time we do this, we get different numbers.
Mr. Hawes: Partially.
Mayor: Okay, alright.
Mr. Hawes: We want to react to what you are asking.
Mayor: Is that it. Okay, thank you, Recreation Department.
Mr. Hawes: Repairs and maintenance equipment. Again, that’s another; any time you get into repair and maintenance you’re hedging your bet that you are not going to have major failures. But we do have some newer equipment and that allowed us to not reach that number last year. We hope that this year we don’t reach the number that was in there so we bumped that down to where it more closely resembles last year. So we took $5,000 off that and put it at $6,000. It was at $11,000.Vehicle operators expense again has been added for the fuel as necessary. Primary items, utilities that was at $60, we added another $5k, when we could from cutting other places. We felt it was more appropriate because there is more and more use of Heritage Park every year; we just want to make sure that we cover that.
Mayor: Hold on just a second, I don’t mean to belabor this point, and I really don’t mean to beat up on you; see what you just said if you felt like you needed $5k more dollars wouldn’t it have made more sense to make some of these adjustments on your own before coming to us and having us go through this process and keep picking knit. I mean wouldn’t have made sense to say, “You know we really need that $5k in utilities, so lets put that in and reduce whatever other category you getting it out of it now. Do you understand?
Mr. Hawes: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, that’s the rational approach.
Mayor: Okay, go ahead.
Mr. Hawes: The rest of them are primarily, again, employee clothing allowance has been depleted, deleted. And professional training, physicals have been dropped, electrical supplies we’ll try to cut in that area as well.
Mayor: Okay now is that the category that would have the field lining in it? ‘Cause I know those things are very expensive.
Mr. Hawes: Now for electrical and lighting? You know I believe this is primarily for
Mayor Like inside the facility, because as I recall it was like $600… (Faded out)
Mr. Hawes: Center Plex would be over at Heritage Park to so, I misspoke when I said that the $60k, going to $65 was because of Heritage Park, of course that was $137K; onto the next page.
Mayor: Okay Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: That line item Mr. Mayor that you are referring to last as of March was $751, so to drop it would be…
Mayor: So that’s likely then small bulbs, restroom bulbs.
Mr. Hawes: That’s Correct.
Mayor: Okay anyone else have, well, we are still on Recreation, Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: Alright, Recreational services went from $65k-$68k, tell me what Recreational services actually entails.
Mr. Hawes: The Recreational Services is all the athletics programs that the city puts on. Services provided for the citizens.
Mr. Curtis: For the citizens, okay and we also have landscaping services down here.
Mr. Hawes: Umm-hmm.
Mr. Curtis: I thought we did our own landscaping services, so please tell me what landscaping services we’re paying someone else to do.
Mr. Hawes: That is, this is the cost of replacement items that may go bad in landscaping; flowers die, or if trees have to be planted, or those types of things. That is just the cost that is allocated to Recreation. Yes we have our own labor who does that, but you have to buy those materials
Mr. Curtis: These are landscaping supplies, is another way to say that.
Mr. Hawes: Yeah.
Mr. Curtis: Okay that’s all I have to that.
Mayor: Anybody else have questions about Recreation?
Mayor: Ampa Theater lets read, do you want to comment on that, does any one have a question about that?
Mr. Hawes: Straight forward, I mean I’ll just clarify.
Mayor: Go ahead.
Mr. Hawes: That is, the yearly cost for professional fees for the consultant for the Ampa Theater.
Mayor: Okay and that was a page that was added last night, I think you explained it last night.
Mr. Hawes: Right.
Mayor: Alright, next is Debt Service Fund, which there is not much, well…
Mr. Hawes: These were all discussed last night, by oh I’m sorry.
Mayor: Me too.
Mr. Garrett: I just have one question on Heritage Park Division, (sounds like he says something about Soil being $2, not close enough to the mic to make out his words)How much profit do we receive back on those, I mean we are making money back aren’t we?
Mr. Hawes: Yes, we do absolutely. I mean…
Mr. Garrett I don’t want you to divulge how much we’ve made.
Mr. Hawes: The margin is I don’t think you’re asking here, but it is, we don’t operator that as a loss, concessions do not operate that as a loss.
Mr. Curtis: Thank you, Mr. Garrett.
Mayor: Anybody else? Alright, now we’ll go to Debt Service Fund.
Mr. Hawes: As I said Ms. Cawley explained last night the principal reduction being taken on by the county, through there G.O. Entrance expense is less than what we originally projected. These are numbers that had been born out by the release of the bonds, selling of the bonds, that has occurred at a county record. 10 % interest was a little higher, then what was projected at the time that the budget was done, it ends up being 45 rather then 35. Other interest was eliminated because of some of the workings with some of the county bond issuance. So, that was projected at 90/30 and it was eliminated so the total amendment, is dropping debt service for the city, dropping it by $251,756 for this fiscal year and that 251k primarily the 200 is principal reduction because we didn’t issue at a county level and we may defer that to next year and that’s the next item on the agenda.
Mayor: This is just a little off track for budget, I got to ask since you got these listed out here 2001-2003 GO Bonds, how many years do we have left on those until they pay out?
Mr. Hawes: Right in front of me, most of those are 6 to
Unidentified Man: They vary I think the 2001 sold for 10 years, and 2002-2003 I’m not sure about that, those sold for a sorter period of time they are all kind of different.
Mr. Hawes: Some are 6 and some are 10.
Mayor: So if it’s a 2000 we’re looking at 2 more years.
Mr. Hawes: Oh yeah some of these will draw clause.
Unidentified Man: And the principals go up every year.
Mayor: I’d like to have a list of those at some point, not tonight of course, but sometime in the next few days, the pay off debts for those.
Mr. Hawes: I’ve got the Debt Service Reduction List.
Mayor: Well, you don’t need to do it right now, if you’ll just write all of us a list out at some point, because that is a question that keeps coming up and I keep forgetting to ask it.
Mr. Hawes: Alright.
Mayor: Alright, anybody else have questions about that? Alright, Capital Projects Fund.
Mr. Hawes: Okay Capital Projects has been reduced at Loch raft Software, which is new software basically. The Heavy rescue truck the tune of $187.5K refinancing the two Pumpers that were at lease purchase arrangement from our GO and two light pick up trucks. The rescue truck and the sub grinder would be placed in a new GO to be issued soon by City Council. As far as the changes, we’ll be dropping the generator that the senior center, dropping the replacement vehicle in the police department. We dropped the land of Station 5, because that was picked up by the county in this issuance. The full amount of the Rescue Truck was in the original budget and it has been dropped by $62.5K, because the county has picked that up. I think that leaves us with $459,000 in the amendment, which lowered that’s a completion of the projected capital, lowers it to $842k.
Mayor: Okay anyone have any questions on that. Alright, that’s some pretty significant stuff there. Alright any one have any comments about the, that’s the last page. Does anyone have any comments about what we have done here, Ms. Sanders
Ms. Sanders: Can I just refer back to the Mayor and Council Page one moment please, Mr. Hawes. I’m just looking at some of these line items and I personally know that I don’t use them , so I don’t know if someone else uses them or not, but what is printing for $600? I understand that computer software and support $500, but supplies $200, but we’ve got our travel and office supplies what is the difference of that supplies and the other? As well as the Vehicle Operating Expense and Employee auto Allowance, basically that whole section I have a question about.
Mr. Hawes: The printing is basically the cost of any print cartridge that would be necessary or of the cost that’s basically allocated to the use if you rent a copier and things along those lines.
Unidentified Man: What’s that, business cards?
Mr. Hawes: Business cards…
Ms. Sanders: So those don’t come out of our travel and office supplies fund there?
Mr. Hawes: They haven’t previously, if you, okay.
Ms. Sanders: I just wanted to make sure because I was under the impression, okay, and then the supplies.
Mr. Hawes: Supplies again that’s,
Mayor: That’s part of it right there, so I turned that back in.
Mr. Hawes: We can probably eliminate, if City Council would like to eliminate any of these line items, if you don’t feel….
Ms. Sanders: The biggest one obviously is the vehicle Operating Expense, is that for when we travel and turn in mileage, that comes out of our travel account, does it not?
Mr. Hawes: It does.
Ms. Sanders: Okay, so what is the vehicle operating expense? Nobody pays for my gas.
Mr. Hawes: That actually is if you have something that is not necessarily travel related that you could put back in for. If you were called on an item out of town that’s not, I wouldn’t call it travel or office supplies. It really is a discretionary because you may have to go to a specific training or things like that that is not discretionary. That’s what it is there for. You reimburse to the city. Ms. Sanders: Give me just one second. As of March 31 st it was $246 that had been used.
Mr. Hawes: Right.
Mayor: For what?
Ms Sanders: That vehicle operating expense.
Unidentified Man: (Not close enough to mike to make all words) It’s required meetings for example, if the Mayor has to attend and things like this that have got nothing to do with the discretionary part by required meetings. Put those down in the… and the auto expense is when he gets reimbursed, it is strictly for gasoline. The employee part is if you get reimbursed the $.50 a mile like any other employee.
Ms. Sanders: Okay, but what I’m seeing here is a line item 231 I see vehicle operating expense, $900 and then I see employee auto allowance $400. They sound like they are duplicating each other form what you just said.
Unidentified Man: The employee auto allowance is when the city reimburses the mileage rate of $.50 per mile. The vehicle operating expense, and that is the one the Mayor uses when he goes to required meetings, not a discretionary meeting. He just gets gas and that is gasoline only. So there is a distinct difference between the two of them.
Mr. Curtis?: Anything we don’t use winds up back in the general fund.
Mr. Hawes: That is correct. That is true for every line item in here.
Mayor: Okay, alright anyone else. Anything in all this that you want to ask about or talk about?
Mr. Hawes: I can clarify dues and subscriptions for City Council if you like.
Mayor: Go ahead.
Mr. Hawes: You all received the Sandlapper Magazine among some other publications. If we don’t order those, we would not incur those costs.
Ms. Sanders: I’m good for giving it up, personally.
Mr. Hawes: Okay.
Mayor: If you want to get one magazine and pass it around.
Mr. Hawes: Do that? Okay.
Mayor: Anyone else? We’re down to magazines now so is there anyone else? Mr. Garrett.
Mr. Garrett: I certainly don’t know that my figures are exactly right. It concerns me that the amount of money that the city spends on cell phones, pagers. What I total up is about $86,000 bucks. Do we shop?... I mean if you add up every department in here that’s got telephones, cell phones and everything else, I give ‘em $86,000.
Unidentified: It’s for all the telephones and everything like that.
Mr. Garrett: Everything in the city?
Unidentified: We do shop around for that. In fact, we are in the process of reshopping cell phones because that has come up again. But we have shopped every telephone system in here and even had people offer to come in at no cost to the city to look and see if we are too high on anything and they say we are as good as we can get. We do watch that cost because the technology what it is, there are a lot of opportunities to drop that cost.
Mr. Garrett: Yeah, that seems like a lot of money.
Mr. Hawes: Some of that is T1 lines that are required by the county under the current software system that we will be eliminating when we go to the new software system. That’s $24,000.
Mayor: Okay, Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: Have we looked at getting voice over IP in the city and the reason… I mentioned this is to Mr. Hawes not too long ago but you can get better rates a lot of times using voice over IP than you can just a phone company.
Mr. Hawes: We have looked at that and we will look at that again, as I told you before. There are some concerns that VOIP that I have because service can go down. We don’t want any of the police, fire main lines being VOIP. I have a concern just as much as computer system at City Hall can go down every once in awhile; I don’t want to be without phone service for reaction to constituent concern for very long, either. I think they have improved VLIP. When we looked at it 2 years, it was a fledgling enterprise, but we did look at it and we had some vendors come in and explain what could work, and we certainly have not discounted the applicability of that to our current circumstances, but we will look at it again.
Mayor: There were two big negatives with it when I looked at it from a personal, when Charter goes down your phone goes down, when your power is down your phone is down.
Mr. Hawes: You have two ways of losing phone service.
Mayor: Yeah so that’s, your exactly right I mean, for those connections it’s absolutely imperative that they stay active that wouldn’t be an option.
Ms. Bagwell: Absolutely not.
Mayor: Alright any one else? Well, as aggravated as we have been with this whole process I would like to commend you for making this cuts and a way that I can’t see any damage done, any lessening of our security, our safety or our delivery of services. I just don’t see anything that we have done that will hamper any of that, and as I commend you I’m just going to ask you straight up; have you seen any affect through this process? Was there anything that you took out of here that you just kind of went “Eww, man that’s going to be a problem!”
Mr. Hawes: My only concern is that in some respects, we’re hedging a bet that some thing’s that normally would be planned for will not happen such as repairs to certain radio equipment and things along that line, but on the whole we were absolutely, diligent in our efforts to preserve the public safety and the functionality of all the city services.
Mayor: Well, operating tight in a lessening security, safety, and services is totally different things; so are you comfortable with having lessened any of that? That is what is important, so again I commend you and Bob for going through this and making this better, and remains basically sees how everybody feels about what we are doing,. At some point, we need to move to that and see what you all think.
Mr. Hawes: If I could,
Mayor: You can, would you like to sum up or whatever.
Mr. Hawes: Exactly. Well, not necessarily summing up I was actually going to move into another item on your desk there; regarding the property tax of the city.
Mayor: Okay, which item # 47, 46?
Mr. Hawes: It’s the one that’s highlighted City of Simpsonville Property Tax Rates Direct And Overlapping Governments/ 10 Fiscal years. This was just given indication of some of the constraints that the city has been operating with and frugality and tightness, and exactly what City Council was looking for and it’s born out in this line across from where it says City direct rates, basic rate; that currently we’re operating 48.6 mills. In 1998 we were 53.2 mills. We stayed at 53.2 through 2001, and in 2002 we dropped to 50.7 this is through adjustments and reassessment. In 2008 this is last year this is FY 2007-2008 we dropped to 48.6; so the number that has been contemplated on millage at 2.9 which is what state would allow at this point , according to growth and CPI, it would bring us to51.5 mills which is still less than millage rate, than what we had in 1998. So, while…
Mayor: And that’s significant.
Mr. Hawes: It is. I just wanted you all to be aware of that.
Mayor: It’s especially significant when you, I noticed you added for our perusal the School District of Greenville County rates, that access looks pretty good. But any rate, thank you for that information.
Mr. Hawes: Certainly and the Fire District as well 23.40, and has dropped to 22.7; so we have continually dropped our millage.
Mayor: Okay and it was a good thing at the time.
Mr. Hawes: It served as well.
Mayor: Yeah, alright anyone have anything up and including a motion? Ms. Bagwell.
Ms. Bagwell: I move that we accept the amendment to the FY 2008-2009 Operating Budget as discussed.
Mayor: Okay, Mr. Larson.
Mr. Larson: Second.
Mayor: okay Mr. Larson seconds, any discussion? Any body have any thoughts about what we have before us tonight? Ms. Bagwell
Ms. Bagwell: I personally would say it hurts, I ‘d like to say it hurts even consider what we are doing this is not pleasurable in any way shape or form, but I see, I thank Mr. Hawes for giving us this last piece of information we had showing our property taxes had gone down in the last year, and our municipality, but it does hurt just the thoughts of it especially in today’s economy.
Mayor: Okay Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: I’d like to echo those thoughts, I too feel that it is regrettable that we find ourselves in this position, but this position is not entirely of our own making. A lot of what is going on here has to do with outside rules and regulations, influencing how we run our city, and some of the things we’ve done in the past. The ability to produce militate apparently was not taken into consideration when the state and the county has passed rules, and ordinances, and things that our affecting us. Pass down mandates that have negatively impacted us. I too regret having to take some of these actions, but I think it’s the true thing to do. And at the end of the day it’s our job to do what its best for the city, and the citizens of Simpsonville. And this is probably the best thing we can do at t he moment. That’s all I have.
Mayor: Okay anyone else have… Mr. Larson.
Mr. Larson: I‘d just like to add to those words too, more or less. And I think Mr. Harris, Mr. Hawes, and the Department heads really worked hard to try to see a way out of this. And I think all of us have done everything we can, had hours of discussion, looking at numbers, talking about numbers and I just as point failure there is not another way we can go.
Mayor: Okay, anyone else? Mr. Bridges.
Mr. Bridges: I’d like to ask Mr. Hawes, how much money does one mill generate?
Mr. Hawes: Approximately $59,500 per mill
Mr. Bridges: For the individual tax payer based on the perivale $100,000 house?
Mr. Hawes: $11 at 2.9 mills per year.
Mayor: Which is almost two gallons of gas, okay; any one else? Well, I want to respond to what Mr. Curtis said in that I went down and testified for the Full House Wayne’s Committee, when they were considering this legislation and I said to them by doing what you’re trying to do who have been responsible and haven’t had tax increases in over20 years. And the response to me was, “Unfortunately all cities aren’t like that; so it’s going to hurt some of you.” So, probably about the dumbest answer I have ever heard in my life, and I want that on record and I hope they read our minutes. Maybe they will read that in the paper. Any how what they have don’t is put cities like Simpsonville in positions of having to respond in ways that has nothing to do with our fiscal health, or our ability to manage and has everything to do with playing the game; whatever that’s worth I just want to get that on the record. Okay, hearing no further discussion I’ll remind council that this is t he first of two readings and we will be having the second reading right away, I guess. So, sleep on it hard, but I’ll call for the vote. All in favor signify by saying Aye, opposed No. Aye’s have it. Okay, I have two no’s.
Unidentified Man: Mayor, we are going to either identify the Nay’s or do roll calls vote so the answer is clear.
Mayor: Let’s do a roll call vote, have you done this before? Just call names and record the votes of each individual councilmember.
Ms. Zeller: Councilmember Bridges: Yes Councilmember Garrett No Councilmember Sanders: No Councilmember Bagwell: Yes
Councilmember Curtis: Yes Councilmember Larson: Yes Mayor: Waldrop: Yes
Mayor: Okay, Aye’s have it. So, we will have a second meeting and I’m sure we will talk about it between how and then.
Mayor: Next item on the agenda tonight is the General Obligation Bond Ordnance. Mr. Hawes do you want to explain that, or does Mr., Mr. Hawes you’re going to explain that? 10/4.
Mr. Hawes: Okay, What we have before you is the G/0 Bond Ordinance for the Fire service area. This is an ordinance where by the city, signaling it’s intention to sell bonds at future dates it’s a deferred bond sale, contingent on the county approving such, and taking on half the cost of the new Fire Headquarters building. And the city following through with the sale of those bonds, so, basically approving this ordinance right now the city could still decide not to do it, after the fact that basically allows you a year to consider your position in moving forward and determine whether or not we want to approach the county to accept half the cost as they have indicated previously and I believe they probably would be willing to hear that proposal. The ordinance basically stipulates that the bonds would have to be sold by September 15 th of next year; that’s fiscal year 2009-2010. If they’re not then, then the bond ordinance goes away and no new millages are levied. The new millage levy would be 7.0 mills; however that’s pending reassessment next year and that could drop.
Mayor: Okay, but we have protection until then.
Mr. Hawes: Ms. Cawley probably explained it better than I did.
Mayor: She did, but I just want to make it clear on these amendments, in case someone slips over it on these minutes. Alright, I’ll entertain a motion on this, So that we can discuss it; Mr. Bridges.
Mr. Bridges: I move that we adopt an ordinance to purchase, sell General Obligation Bonds series 2009, is that good enough?
Mr. Curtis: Yes, I’ll second.
Mayor: Alright thank you Mr. Bridges and Mr. Curtis. I have a motion and a second, discussion? Mr. Curtis.
Mr. Curtis: I’d like to reiterate some of the things they were said yesterday,. Ultimately, what we are talking about here is putting in motion a trigger which will ultimately result in higher taxes next year. But we’re expressing out intent and we have a year for the public to respond and for us to look at what the New year brings, whether or not we can afford to do something like this, what the economy does is not something that we have to do , but this opens it up for Public input. And I think it is always a good thing to be as transparent as possible. And allow the public to know what we are doing, and that’s why I support it.
Mayor: Okay and if I may add to that and we’re also assure that county council will do it, their part, before we make a decision.
Mr. Hawes: Absolutely.
Mayor: Alright thank you, Mr. Curtis any one else? Hearing no discussion, I’ll call the vote, all in favor signify by saying Aye, opposed no. Aye’s have it, but I forgot to remind to you this is first reading, but you probably figured that so if I offended anyone. I’m sorry. We can recall the vote if you would like. (Pause) Alright, I’ll entertain a motion regarding anything else if someone…
Mr. Hawes: Mayor there was a third line item over there that I just need to clarify.
Mayor: Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t explain that. See I just scratched it off on mine so I figured everybody understood that. There was a third item on the agenda tonight but that we will not be discussing because that has been…that requires more action before we have discussion. Is that the correct way of saying it?
Mr. Hawes: Yeah, we’ll re-approach Council with that if necessary.
Mayor: So redo, that’s the best way to say it. Alright so now since that is all the agenda. We’ve already adjourned anyway.
Mr. Curtis: Have we adjourned?
Mayor: Yes, we have. Well we haven’t called the vote. She just automatically makes the motion. Mr. Larson, do you have something else you want to say before a motion is made?
Mr. Larson: I wanted to ask Mr. Hawes one more question. Following up on what Mr. Bridges said earlier and this is just for my own knowledge. If the millage increase on a hundred thousand dollar home raises the annual taxes $11, is that incremental? Like on a $200,000 home would be $22? So it proportionally goes up?
Mayor: The commercial is one and one-half times that. Alright, now, is everybody ready? I will entertain a motion…
Ms. Sanders: I move we adjourn this meeting.
Mayor: Do I hear a second. Mr. Bridges: I second.
Mayor: Mr. Bridges seconds. All in favor, signify by saying Aye, opposed, no. The aye’s have it. It’s unanimous. We are adjourned. Thank you all for coming.
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