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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-YB-1998-07-27 I Ithaca Youth Bureau Board of Advisors July 27, 1998 Budget Review Meeting Present: Deb Traunstein, Nancy Zahler, Cathy Currier, Joanne Kingsley-Wells, Joan Spielholz. Excused: David Delchamps Staff: Sam Cohen, Allen Green, Marilyn Hall Sam distributed to members for review the proposed Youth Bureau 1999 Budget and extended great thanks to all division coordinators and Carol for their efforts in getting such a clear presentable budget. Meeting called to order at 7:40 by Sam Cohen in David's absence. Summary Page of total Youth Bureau Budget The sub-total shows an increase of$12,000 which is accounted for by a$12,000 grant that appears in the 1999 budget. The budget is zero percent. Revenues are down in Youth Development and up in Recreation with a net loss of$4,000. Youth Development(Allen Green) Allen pointed out that the 1998 budget has been amended somewhat. The changes are not reflected in this presentation. Highlights in the difference between the zero percent and the optional budget: 1) 2 canoes for Outing Program, $1200 each—adding $2400 in the optional column 2) Café Cayuga, total of$6100 expenses and $1500 in revenue reflected in optional not in zero percent(see attached supporting info sheet) 3) proposal from Karen Anderson to do a music mentoring program at BJM(see attached). $5200 in expenses with $2600 revenue source which show up in optional column. 4) PSMP—want to roll a portion of the $13,000 grant over into '99. Showing additional expenses in optional column but also additional revenues making it a wash item. Page 2 is a listing of the—3% proposed cuts and page 3 is a listing of the—6%proposed cuts. In the—3%budget there's $2,140 in the 120 account in PSMP which will affect the number of interns we have during the school year and during the summer(a 40% cut). In YES there's a $3,130 cut which directly affects employment opportunities for kids (loss of 2 part-time after school jobs during school year, and in summer it means 2 MJP jobs). There's a 120 account cut in 1-1 program which would be a reduction of interns from 5 to 4. Those same lines account for the biggest cuts and the numbers for the—6%budget are increased in magnitude. Questions: Cathy Currier fully supports the music mentoring program and stressed the importance of offering such a program. A suggestion was made to actually get in place a process for tracking children's academic success from this program and also the Fine Arts program as we get more involved with it. What happens if this grant is declined? We're proposing that the City fund 50% of it. Deb suggests a place to turn might be the Ithaca Public Education Initiative. (They sponsored the Adult Spelling Bee, raise money, and make connections between business and academics.) If half of the money became available then Karen could turn to the ECHO fund. Julie Conley Holcomb City Clerk ITHACA YOUTH BUREAU ADVISORY BOARD Ithaca Youth Bureau Building 1 James L. Gibbs Dr. First Floor Activities Room L Call to order/approval of minutes IL STAFF AND COMMITTEE REPORTS 1) Youth Development • PSMP Opening • One-to-One Funding Update • Safe Places Grant with Southside—Resolution of Support 2) Director • Possible New Meeting Time • GIAC Separation • Ithaca School District Grant with GIAC & YD • 1999 Budget 3) Recreation Items • Recreation Department relationship to YB Board and Recreation Partnership Board • Options for Rec Partnership's Future IV. BOARD COMMENTS/ISSUES V. OLD BUSINESS VI. NEW BUSINESS VII. ADJOURNMENT Recreation The Youth Bureau is considering supporting a private volunteer track and field effort by a person who attended Harvard, works at Cornell, and played track and field for Syracuse. Upon returning to Ithaca he started working with kids as a volunteer and has approached us with a desire to expand into the downtown community. He holds track and field in Barton Hall and Karen Anderson viewed his very amazing discipline routine and said the kids were deeply involved. GIAC is quite interested and if enough are interested they might be able to send a staff person with a group up everyday. Sam sees this as another opportunity for kids to get involved and if they're successful it will have positive influence and improve their school life. We would need to sponsor their yearly fee of$100/youngster. Sam and Alice will talk with him also regarding his idea to create a fall cross country event similarly to Jr. Olympics in a winter indoor Barton Hall track and field event. Sam emphasizes the value and importance of ECHO fund and the need to replenish this fund. With Karen Anderson spending more and more time matching families and kids to good enriching programs and with more needing scholarships in our regular programs, more money is needed ECHO fund. Recreation summary sheet: sub total without fringe is actually $4,000 lower with revenues up by $1,000. A key item discussed at this time was the need for another position to make up for the losses over the last several years. The new recreation supervisor position appears in all of the proposed budgets—0%, -3 and—6%. $20,821 salary is made possible by: $5000 comes out of Kiwanis because that person will do that job, small cut from Tin Can Fantasy Factory, Fall Creek playground is cut, Cass Park has utility savings, baseball fees will be increased, and an increase in partnership contributions. The cuts for the—3%include: Southside and one other playground (1 remaining), Tin Can Fantasy Factory(put it back in the optional with revenues—keeping the program if the revenues were raised), and other small cuts in different places. Part of the way the -6%budget is proposed is not by just making cuts but by fee increases. The Recreation Partnership Board is looking at this very closely. This would include elimination of the Christmas Hockey Camp. Questions: Since Joanne Kingsley-Wells missed the Rec Partnership Board meeting, she asked for summary of that meeting. What we gave to the Partnership at the meeting was from the new computer program implemented by the City which was very difficult to understand and members needed to have time to go through that and wanted us to put together a clearer summary such as the one we're working from this evening. Based on the law we're supposed to change some of the ways we charge. A municipality can't contribute to another municipality for purchase of equipment, we have to charge rental or leasing costs instead. There will be another meeting in two weeks and hopefully we'll have a much clearer picture that members could vote on at that time. Another point to add is the question of process for the future in looking towards a more permanent partnership. We have outlined a process to include: 1) writing a letter to all municipal/county officers and let them know that 2) the Rec Partnership Board will be meeting and brainstorming options and 3) then will invite everybody to get together and decide what direction they want to take and then work on it. In that letter we will give them some broad sense of what the options might look at emphasizing this is our attempt at giving them something to see so they can give us feedback before the board met. Our goal is to have a draft of that letter by the next partnership meeting. Letter goes out, we get feedback, we have partnership board meetings, we then call together some kind of a greater meeting. When we get near that point we hope to get the County Youth Bureau's help and decide they best way to facilitate to get good results. Recreation Mainstreaming Services RMS is fully a 100%funded budget and therefore should not be subject to cuts. The only cut that it is subject to is the cut to make up for salary increase. The salary staff goes up from $24,247 and hourly part-time comes down most of that leaving a$4,000 gap. The overall budget does however meet the 0%. The key loss would be money for mainstreaming aides. (We talked about the great loss that would be and how we really need more, not less). General Administration Salaries go up by total of$5,000, and an increase of$500 in the 115 line. The teen center cut more than makes up for this amount. The reason we have this cut is because the teen center has decided they want to be more independent. They are only asking the City for$2,000 for a small amount of staff time through the Youth Bureau and then they directly asked the City for money for operating expenses (rental money). The 0% shows increases for part-time seasonal help in the front office and leasing of a copy machine. The—3%would include cutting the teen center, cut utilities budget, cut part-time seasonal front office coverage. The—6%would include major cuts. Questions: Joanne asked for clarification of the budget process. Sam explained each department submits a budget to the Mayor and to council members. The Mayor then creates his own budget which he recommends to Council. The month of October will be entirely dedicated for budget meetings with each department presenting their budgets to Council. Council will have the Mayor's budget and each department's budget with the budget approval coming from the committee of the whole ACTION: A motion was made, seconded,and approved to accept the 0% proposed budget with powerful support for adding the new Recreation Supervisor position . All ave votes. Other business: The Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America Program will be conducting an audit of the One-to- One Program. Nancy asked about how much time this audit will involve. Allen responded that we are not certain about the time involved but that since we have spent a good deal of time reviewing One-to-One policies in recent years, it is likely that much of the work has already been done and that the investment of time will be a modest one. Meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.