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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 11.27.2012 CC-WMinutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Tuesday, November 27, 2012 The City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Patty Eason, Danny Meigs, Bill Sattler, Tommy All Council Present. Gonzalez, Troy Hellmann, Rachael Jonrowe, Jerry Hammerlun Staff Present: Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Bridget Chapman, Acting City Attorney; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Jim Briggs, General Manager for Utilities; Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager; Minutes Policy Development/Review Workshop - Call to order at 03:32 PM A Workshop review and possible direction to staff regarding the 2013 Citizen Survey questions and process -- Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer With a PowerPoint Presentation, Rundell described the proposed 2013 Citizen Survey. She spoke briefly about the vendor, Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center. She said, this year, the survey will be a paper survey which is different than what has been done in the past She spoke about the Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center and said it provided the best overall product of all RFP responses received. She said they have a national reputation for this type of work. She said the budget for the process is $21,700 which is less than what was budgeted. She said the survey this year will be a paper survey instead of a telephone survey. She noted many people no longer have land lines and it is difficult to use cell phone. She said the trend seems to be more toward paper surveys. She said this survey will have a 600 sample response. She noted the survey is designed to collect demographic profile, citizen evaluation of major City services, areas in need of improvements, service level acceptability and other current conditions. She said staff looked at the proposed questions and noted the purpose of the survey is to affirm the "City of Excellence" vision. She said staff provided the previous survey questions and the consultant rewrote some of those questions to conform to the paper surrey. She said 95% of the prior questions were used. She said additional areas included parks and recreation and tourism. She briefly went over some of the proposed questions on the survey. She noted they left a lot of existing questions, particularly regarding quality of life. She said these questions include what are the top issues Georgetown faces in the next three years, which are the most important aspects of economic growth, rating the maintenance and condition of City streets, are property taxes in Georgetown too high, about right or too low. She said they continue to have questions about where people get their information, if they access the City's website as well as basic demographic information. She said the timeline for the survey is a little rushed and noted questions will be finalized by December 11. She said a letter will be pre -noticing to the respected respondents and signed by the Mayor. She said a draft of that letter is included in the Council packet. She said the document will be mailed no later than January 4, with a reminder mailed on January 15. She said the survey will not be open to the public, only to these particular respondents. She said the preliminary report will be presented to Council on February 26. She said staff will be supplying the letterhead and logo and the Citys GIS department will be providing quadrant information for the vendor. She noted staff will supply all previous City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 1 of 4 Pages survey raw data and responses as well. Eason asked for a clarification on the type of responses from the public. Rundell said those are in draft form and she will work with the consultant on the responses. Eason asked about the special events questions and Rundell said the ones on the survey are the major city sponsored events, not necessarily all of them. Rundell said she ran them by the CVB group and noted staff liked this list. Hammerlun spoke about question number three and thirteen and the issue of picking one out of a list of eight options. He said if a respondent was equally excited about multiple choices, they should be able to pick one and two and then a weighted average can be done. He said the thing that was clarified on question twelve regarding events is that only people who attended the events can answer the questions. Jonrowe asked about a couple of the questions and also about property taxes and also the portion of the taxes actually related to the City. Rundell said the City should be in questions that most people will understand. Jonrowe said she would like to see a question added about youth services Gonzalez spoke about the survey and that it is important to be as specific as possible on city issues so there is no confusion by the public. Rundell said the City has tried to do this on a lot of areas and noted what will limit the City is the size of the survey. Gonzalez said he would like to see a larger sample size based on the growth of the City, maybe at 1,000 or 1,200 respondents. Rundell said she spoke to Round Rock and was told they did 400. Rundell spoke about how, after this surrey is done, staff can put this on the web to garner additional responses. Mayor also mentioned the tax issue Jonrowe brought up and asked if the survey can indicate which percent of property tax is city taxes. Rundell said the survey consultant said the word tax means tax Rundell said she will visit the consultant about this but noted, if you get too much into taxes and those issues, people will not want to spend time answering the questions. There was much discussion. Mayor asked and Rundell reviewed the timeline for this process once more. Eason spoke about how this process has improved because it has been more personalized. She spoke about the letter from the Mayor and how people will feel they have been chosen and feel an obligation to fill out the survey. Brandenburg said this is a really helpful tool and noted it validates what the City is doing as well. B Workshop overview and possible direction to staff regarding this non -City utility franchises and related fees -- Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer With a PowerPoint Presentation, Rundell said this workshop will be to review the non -city franchise fees. She said franchise fees are payment for using the City's "right of ways." She noted it is a payment in lieu of paying taxes. She said the payment is paid either quarterly, semi-annually or annually. She noted the revenue from these fees is recognized in the general fund. She showed Council a graph of the franchise fee revenues from the different companies including Suddenlink cable, Oncor, PEC and ATMOS. She described which areas each of those companies service. She said ATMOS gas pays 5% of their gross revenues and noted that franchise extends indefinitely. She said there will be amendment to these franchise fees over time. She said the annual revenue received from ATMOS is $369,731. She said ONCOR pays 4 % gross revenues and she added that agreement is indefinite. She said the annual revenue from ONCOR is a little over $53,000. She said Suddenlink is the cable provider and she spoke about the history of the creation of this franchise. She said annual revenue from Suddenlink is slightly less than $500,000. She added the current franchise expires February 13, 2013. She noted this franchise will fall under Senate Bill 5 of the Texas Utility Code and she described the bill for the Council. She noted the state Suddenlink franchise is based on broader description of revenues. She said the one big difference is the allowance of a Public Education Grant fee, or PEG fee. She noted this grant would be used for only the specified purpose of public education. She continued to describe this provision. She spoke about the PEC franchise and said they currently pay 2% of their gross revenues. She spoke about how the contract allows for an increase. She noted if any PEC's franchise fee increases, Georgetown can increase its franchise fee as well. Rundell spoke about some options for discussion and noted the Council can possibly increase the PEC franchise rate or they can implement a PEG fee on cable bills, which would be effective after February 13. Mayor asked and Rundell said these items can go to GGAF, if necessary. Rundell said both of these will require Council action and noted staff would be happy to bring back any necessary resolutions for discussion Mayor asked and Rundell clarified the direction staff is looking for tonight. Gonzalez said the companies should be paying at the same rate as the City is paying. Rundell said her recommendation would be to go through the public process to determine whether this change would be necessary. Hammerlun asked if the GGAF committee is the most appropriate party to look at this issue. Rundell confirmed GGAF would probably be the best place for that Hellmann said this is not entirely a tax and Rundell agreed. Briggs said a lot of the money from these fees go to the street department as they are the caretakers of the right of way. Meigs said he likes the idea of bringing this through the regular budget process. Rundell said the PEC fee is the one that is on more of a deadline. Mayor asked and Rundell said this presentation was more of an educational overview and added she is hearing that Council would like this to go to GGAF. There was much discussion. Hellmann asked and Rundell said Senate Bill City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 2 of 4 Pages Five is strictly for cable. Hellmann said he has a problem with the fact that Georgetown is paying more than PEC. Mayor asked and Rundell said she has received all of the feedback she needs from Council. Meigs asked why companies such as Verizon are not able to offer their services in Georgetown. Rundell described why this is the case. Briggs said Verizon is a telecommunications company and not a cable company. He added municipally owned utilities were specifically barred from being able to offer telecommunications because of the government lobby. He said municipally owned utilities were written out of the bill. Meigs said he will have to get more information later offline so that he can understand that issue. C Overview of the September 30, 2012 year end preliminary financial information -- Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer With a PowerPoint Presentation, Rundell provided a preliminary year end budget report of the fiscal year ended 9/30/2012. She said the numbers are preliminary but better than anticipated. She said this report is unaudited and will be the difference between the actual year end and what the City thought we would have She said the general fund sales tax was good. She said base line sales tax increased about 6%. She noted this is due to increased revenue from building materials, due to population and recurring information services sales for Citicorp. Mayor asked and Briggs spoke about how Hurricane Sandy has affected Citicorp. Rundell said she thinks the City is in good stead moving forward. She said the City continues to see positive economic growth and she noted that is reflective in the City's sales tax numbers. She said regional building activity continues to have positive impacts on sales tax revenues. She showed a graph demonstrating the sales tax history over the past two years. She noted the City will become stagnant without new retail facilities being built She showed Council a graph of the sales tax per capita and noted it shows the health of community. She said the general fund preliminary fund balance ended at $9.6 million or 100 days of reserves. She said the City has excess funds over more than $543,000. She noted the majority was related to savings primarily in the street department She noted development related revenues were 34.6% higher than the previous year. She noted the City has permitted the most valuation than the City has had in five years. She spoke about other general fund revenues and said they were just about the same as last year. She said there has been a decrease in court fines which has a lot to do with the staffing levels in police. She noted the program revenues more than exceeded the various areas, except for the recreation center memberships due to the increase in dues. She said the overall fund balance is $543,000 higher than projected. She said revenues are on target and within $35,000 of projections. She spoke about the potential uses for the general fund excess. She said the Council could reduce the proposed debt, offset some short term funding for police and fire vehicle, put it into "reserve" funds for future furniture and fixtures related to Public Safety Facility or appropriate it for one time funding on future projects. She spoke about special revenue funds and how the majority are higher than anticipated. She spoke about some of the internal service funds. She said the debt service fund was $46,000 less than projections, mainly due to the timing of tax refund impacted revenues. She said the airport fund was $712,000 less than projections. She noted the ending working capital is $66,000 less than projections. She spoke about the utility funds and the growth. She noted there was 1.1% growth of the electric customers including 29 customers in Round Rock. She said the water customers had a 2.9% growth and added the largest growing utility was wastewater utility with a3.2% increase. She showed Council a graph of the utility customer growth over the past ten years. She said there was $2.8 million more than projected in the electric fund. She said the CIP was also a little more due to timing of some of the project. She noted ending working capital is $2.3 M more than projected. She said on water services, the total revenue was about$ 700,000 more than projected. She said they have had more capital recovery fees than in many previous years. She said expenditures were $4.7 million less than projected. She said ending working capital for the water services fund is $5.4 million more than projected. She said a lot of that was related to capital improvements. She listed the capital projects that were completed last fiscal year including Fire Station 5 and training facility, Rock Street extension, Madella Hilliard improvements, electric system improvements, stormwater curb and gutter improvements and South Austin Avenue waterline. She concluded and said the general fund position continues to be positive, utility customer growth continues and the overall 2011/12 condition is solid. She said the audit and financial statements are underway. She noted the financial statements will be on file will the City Secretary by January 31, 2013. Recessed to Executive Session under Sections 551.071 and 551.074 of the Texas Local Government Code -- 4:57PM Returned to Open Session and adjourned -- 6:12PM Adjournment City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 3 of 4 Pages Approved: Mayor George Garver City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 4 of 4 Pages The meeting was adjourned at 06:12 PM. Attest: City Secretary Jessica Brettle