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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB Minutes 2020-10-01Meeting of the Ithaca Town Board Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. BUDGET MEETING AGENDA https://zoom.us/0/5664892655 1. Call to order and Pledge of Allegiance 2. Consider approval of 2021 Elected Officials' salaries 3. Continue discussion on the Town of Ithaca 2021 Preliminary Budget a. Consider any amendments 4. Discuss and consider setting public hearings regarding: a. Regarding a proposed increase to the Town of Ithaca Water Rates and Sewer Rents Effective January 1, 2021 b. Town of Ithaca 2021 Preliminary Budget 5. Adjournment MEETING OF THE ITHACA TOWN BOARD Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. Budget Meeting Minutes *Meeting held via ZOOM platform due to Governor Cuomo's extension(s) of Executive Order suspending certain requirements of the Open Meetings Law due to COVID 19 and health and safety precautions. Board Members Present: Rod Howe, Supervisor; Members Eric Levine, Rich DePaolo, Bill Goodman, Tee -Ann Hunter, Pat Leary and Pamela Bleiwas Staff Present: Judy Drake, Director of Human Resources; Marty Moseley, Director of Code Enforcement; Susan Ritter, Director of Planning; Paulette Rosa, Town Clerk; Mike Solvig, Director of Finance; Donna Shaw, Deputy Finance Director and Dan Thaete, Director of Engineering Agenda Item 1: Call to order and Pledge of Allegiance Mr. Howe called the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. and lead the pledge of allegiance. Mr. Howe reported that the Director of Finance/Finance Officer Interview Committee is recommending that Donna Shaw be hired to fill the anticipated vacancy of Finance Officer. A resolution will be prepared for discussion and action for the October 19, 2020 meeting. There is also a tree -planting ceremony/activity associated with the Fischer Award being presented to the Cayuga Bird Club and if anyone is interested, please let him know. Agenda Item 2: Consider approval of 2021 Elected Officials' salaries Mr. Howe noted that this is a NYS yearly required resolution prior to the budget public hearing. There were no comments. TB Resolution 2020-131: Approval of 2021 Proposed Elected Officials Salaries Resolved that the governing Town Board of the Town of Ithaca does hereby approve the below proposed salaries (paid bi-weekly) for the elected officials for the year 2021; Supervisor $ 59,615 (includes Supervisor's Administrative Function pay) Deputy Town Supervisor $ 41,133 (includes Board Member pay) Town Board Members (5) $ 15,584 Each Town Justice (2) $ 25,876 Each TB Budget 2020-10-01 Pg. 1 Further resolved that the Town Clerk is hereby authorized and directed to publish the said proposed salaries as required by Section 108 of the Town Law. Moved: Eric Levine Seconded: Pamela Bleiwas Vote: ayes — Levine, Bleiwas, Hunter, Howe, Leary, Goodman and DePaolo Agenda Item 3: Continue discussion on the Town of Ithaca 2021 Preliminary Budget Mr. Howe asked for any questions on the Preliminary Budget. He noted that many of the members sit in on the Budget Committee meetings and are familiar with the budget and have asked questions along the way. Mr. DePaolo started and asked about the contribution to the City waterfront and parks and if the City has given any indication of continuing their level of support, and if not, should we be discussing proportionately reducing our contribution. Mr. Solvig said he has not heard anything yet, and this particular contribution requires a local law because it is considered a gift, and we can make adjustments then if need be. Mr. DePaolo said it is something to watch, because we are all having to make hard choices, and if they are not going to support their parks, then we should not be back -filling any gap in funding that they choose to make. Mr. DePaolo asked about the funding to Community Science Institute (CSI) and whether we should maintain the same level and not increase as it seems all our other discretionary funding of other groups are not getting the same increase. It is not a lot of money, but why are they singled out for more? There was some discussion on what the letter from CSI had sent, and the standard has been a 2% increase and Mr. Solvig is not sure if there was any decrease in their activities due to the pandemic. Ms. Hunter responded that CSI's funding has been cut out of the County's budget in the neighborhood of $18-$20K. She thought an over -target request was being submitted, but they are potentially losing funding from the County and it is an important service. Ms. Hunter said no governmental entity is doing water quality monitoring data and we really do rely on CSI for that service. Mr. Solvig will get their request letter and report at the next meeting. Mr. DePaolo asked about the designation of $50K to the County's Housing Development Fund; and he thought he might have missed a previous discussion about this and asked for a synopsis. Mr. Howe responded that this is the fund that Martha Robertson came and talked to us about and it is a fund where the County and Cornell and some other municipalities contribute to help with TB Budget 2020-10-01 Pg. 2 affordable housing. It is set up so that we would have representation on the committee and the money we contribute could only go to town projects, unless we vote to use it elsewhere. Mr. DePaolo said he had an observation about page 10 and Personnel costs, and the chart showing increase over the last 6 years which were 9.25 FTE's, and maybe we were understaffed, but that does represent a significant cost and about a 20% increase. That doesn't seem sustainable moving forward, adding another 20%. He asked Ms. Drake to give a quick summary. Ms. Drake stated that the increases were at Public Works, Codes and Engineering and some of that was from 2008 and the economic downturn where we had a lot of attrition and this is getting us back to a fully functioning workforce. Mr. DePaolo asked about the phone system costs and whether this is a recurring cost or the initial upgrade spread out over time? Mr. Solvig responded that this is a recurring cost. We didn't purchase the system, we are long- term renting and most of the equipment to run it is housed at First Light. Mr. DePaolo asked what functionality justifies $85K a year. That seems like a lot of money for 60 employees which figures out to about $1K a person a year. He asked if there was a bid and process to do this. Mr. Solvig responded that we did look at the companies in the area that could provide the services that we needed and there were multiple meetings about it. This is phone and data. He will look for the memo and get that out to the Board. Mr. DePaolo asked about the $35K for IT support and who is the primary company? Mr. Solvig responded that there is another spreadsheet that explains that a bit and he will get that to the Board also. Mr. DePaolo asked why we need that when we have an IT Specialist. Mr. Howe responded that we now have a person who can do some of that support. Mr. Little will have a clearer sense of the budget for next year and he is already saving us money in certain areas. Mr. DePaolo asked about the breakdown on pg. 23 where we list the impact of exempt property, and he wondered whether we could be a little more specific on the educational uses to highlight them more. Mr. Howe added that the Budget Highlights calls that out (pg. 5). Mr. DePaolo turned to the General Townwide Fund, pg. A4, and the Apprenticeship Program. What is that? TB Budget 2020-10-01 Pg. 3 Ms. Drake explained that that is a program we started with the County and the City which was focused on diversity and increasing the diversity of the application pool for Public Works for all of us; three people were hired and they worked for one quarter at each location. Mr. Solvig added that last year was the first year and this year it was budgeted to triple the size 2021 and Ms. Drake noted that no one is funding it this year, but we hope to start again in 2022. Mr. DePaolo asked about pg. A13 and the estimate of the Post Office rental rate which he thought it was going to go up. Mr. Howe said it is not a done deal yet, but the rent may go up a bit, but we may also be paying for parking passes for some postal employees which will offset that. We haven't figured in the added rent or possible costs yet. Ms. Hunter had questions on the Rec Partnership budget and what happened to the money from 2020 given the pandemic. Mr. Solvig responded that we were not making a payment for the Yd quarter and may not for the 4d'. Both the JYC programs and the Partnership are still working their way through the issue. We do not expect that they have not spent their funds, but the bigger concern is what the County is going to do. The County has asked for a 12% decrease and we just put the same amount in our discretionary funding. Once that gets passed, we can make adjustments and decisions, but right now, this is the best information we have. Ms. Hunter asked about the budgeted increase in sales tax and what that was based on. Mr. Solvig responded that this goes back to the State and how they have told us we now have to slice our property taxes a different way than we have for the past 10+ years. Mr. Solvig went into a detailed explanation on the way the property taxes and sales tax is distributed, and next year, hopefully we will be squared away and back on track. Mr. Howe noted that assessments came up in discussions recently with Mr. Franklin (TC Assessment) and he asked Mr. Solvig to summarize. Mr. Solvig said that pg. 25 shows the 5 -year projections for Property Tax and Assessed Values and looking forward, best guess, is the assessed values we only increased by 1% over 2021. Mr. Franklin thinks the property assessments are going to stay stable as they have been, at least for residential. Apartments might be different, depending on whether they are losing money, but he said the sales data he has seen so far, nothing is selling for less than the assessments on file. Mr. Solvig said Mr. Franklin thinks the areas that might be hurt the most will be commercial and office properties and the Town doesn't have a lot of that, so the assumption is that will hurt the City much more than us. We are not looking at assessed values going down; back in 2010-2011, our assessed values never went down; they slowed for a few years, but they never went down. TB Budget 2020-10-01 Pg. 4 Mr. Goodman asked about the Gateway Trail construction line item for 500K. He thought that was 80% grant funded and asked if that figure is the Town's share and whether we got an estimate from Fischer Associates. Ms. Ritter responded that we have received an estimate from them and Mr. Solvig said this number came from the CII' from Public Works. Mr. Thaete added that their estimate was $380K and knowing that bids have been high lately, we budgeted high. Mr. Solvig said looking at the budget as a whole, the total budget decreased .8% from last year; the tax levy is going up 2.1% which is under the tax cap this year. The tax rates will go down slightly due to the increase in the assessments and the final calculation for a typical house which is $300K, there will be a decrease of about $86. It is important to note that the State defines "typical" as the most of, not an average of all. Ms. Hunter asked about the $200K for the Planning Study and whether that is earmarked for zoning changes and Ms. Ritter responded that it is. Mr. Solvig noted that other studies have been paid from that line also; Behan Planning and Design, a sidewalk planning study and the Inlet Valley Economic Study. Some discussion followed on summarizing the budget and being prepared for any questions; the budget summary page is pretty comprehensive and is sent out via the newsletter and posted on our webpage. There were no other questions or comments. Agenda Item 4: Discuss and consider setting public hearings regarding: a. Regarding a proposed increase to the Town of Ithaca Water Rates and Sewer Rents Effective January 1, 2021 TB Resolution 2020 - 132: Setting a public hearing re2ardin2 the proposed increase to the Town of Ithaca Water Rates and Sewer Rents effective January 1, 2021 Whereas, the Town Supervisor filed his 2021 Tentative Budget with the Town Clerk on September 16, 2020 and the Town Clerk presented it to the Town Board at its September 28, 2020 meeting, and Whereas, the Town Board discussed and considered the proposed increase to the water rates and sewer rents at its October 1, 2020 budget meeting; now, therefore, be it TB Budget 2020-10-01 Pg. 5 Resolved, that the Town Board will hold a public hearing via ZOOM, per Governor Cuomo's Executive Order re. COVID-19 and its extension(s), on the 19" day of October 2020 beginning at 5:30 pm, for the purpose of hearing public comments on the increases to the Town of Ithaca sewer rents from $5.16 per 1,000 gallons to $5.34 per 1,000 gallons and the water rates from $7.97 per 1,000 gallons to $8.26 per 1,000 gallons. Moved: Tee -Ann Hunter Seconded: Eric Levine Vote: ayes — Levine, Bleiwas, Hunter, Howe, Leary, Goodman and DePaolo b. Town of Ithaca 2021 Preliminary Budget TB Resolution 2020 - 133: Settintz a public hearing restarding the Town of Ithaca 2021 Preliminary Budget Whereas, the Town Supervisor fled his 2021 Tentative Budget with the Town Clerk on September 16, 2020 and Whereas the Town Clerk presented the Tentative Budget to the Town Board at its September 28, 2020 and the Town Supervisor reviewed his highlights; now, therefore, be it Resolved that, the Town Board, per Governor Cuomo's Executive Order re.: COVID-19 and its extension(s), will hold a public hearing via ZOOM, on the 19st day of October 2020 beginning at 5:30 pm, for the purpose of hearing public comments on the Town of Ithaca's 2021 Preliminary Budget Moved: Eric Levine Seconded: Pamela Bleiwas Vote: ayes — Levine, Bleiwas, Hunter, Howe, Leary, Goodman and DePaolo Adjournment Meeting adjourned upon motion and a second at 6:30 p.m.; unanimous. SubmittefifIg Paulette Rosa, Town Clerk TB Budget 2020-10-01 Pg. 6