FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING

                                                                                                             FEBRUARY 16, 2016

 

Committee Chair Mr. Evers opened the meeting at approximately ­­­6:00 p.m. Members of the Committee in attendance were Mr. Evers, Mr. Hoefle and Mr. Zuren. Present from Council were Mr. Meyers, Mr. Kasunick, Mr. Spotton and Council President Ms DePledge.

 

In attendance from the Administration were Mayor Morley, Finance Director Slocum. Ms. Schindel is also in attendance.  All of the Director’s are excused.

 

Also in attendance were members of the public.  

 

2016 Budget Review

Reviewing the General Expenditures Budget

Mr. Evers: In the first meeting that we had we reviewed the revenue side and hopefully everyone graps that our revenue’s are very tight. In the second meeting we reviewed the budgets from the Director’s and I think that it was an eye opener for all of us and I think that we all learned that we have some enfastructer problems going on in this City.  We do not have the money or the funds to cover them at this time.  The purpose of tonight’s meeting is to review the General Fund Expenses.  With that I turn it over to Mr. Slocum.

 

Mr. Slocum: I know that we have touched on certain expenses in the couple of meetings. Mr. Zuren had some questions that we answered.  The one thing that just needs to be reiterated is that we do not have any new spending initiatives in this.  With the exception of getting two police cars a couple of years ago we were getting three police cars every year.  We have not bought any police cars in the last two years and the money for this is probably going to come from the General Fund.  There is also money sitting in the Insurance Proceeds that we collected on a claim a couple of years ago and hold that money until we use it for what the claim was for.  We have some money in Law Enforcement Trust Funds that are both State and Federal that we are going to be using.  The rest will be from the General Fund.  Other than that I am hard pressed to think of anything that we are starting new.  The one thing that I still do not have a good figure for is with the Worker’s Compensation and with that we are on a retro…we are retro rated for 2011, 2012, 2013 and for 2014 and 2015 we are group retro rated.  For those first three years any claims that come in for them we have to pay for a period of tens and we have reduced premimums.  I have made a guessemate of $40,000.00 as our cost for that.  I believe that number is high and I am hoping to have that number finalized before we adopt the budget.  If it comes in less believe me we are not going to spend an extra penny in Worker’s Compensation that what we absolutely have too.  If you look at what we have published I am showing you the changes from the actual budget to budget.  You may look and say the budget is higher than last years actual and in both years we are budgeting what we think that we need.  If we don’t need it at the end of the year…we have never operated to where this is the end of the budge and we better spend all of our money.  If we had every department doing that we would not have any positive balance in the General Fund and we do not operate like that.  With that I am open for any questions.  I think that you have had the document since January 19 which is about a month.  I will be more than happy to cover how we came up with anything and if I can’t tell you right away I will do my best to get you an answer for the next meeting.

 

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

 

Mr. Hoefle: My question is for the Mayor. In regards to the police cars and without Mr. Rubertino not being here are there any programs that we…maybe some equiptment that we are not using anymore that is discontinued like a program just say like the leaf pick up?  I don’t know how many leaf pick up machines that we had.

 

Mayor Morley: We’ve talked about the boxes but we haven’t made any decisions yet.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Now say if we were to sell those and if the funds came in with police cars were they purchased out of the General Fund? Would they have to go back in?

 

Mr. Slocum: Actually the leaf funds may have been purchased out of….

 

Mr. Hoefle: The Road Fund.

 

Mayor Morley: Or the Sewer Fund.

 

Mr. Slocum: If the money came in…and it got paid out of the Road Fund when we sell that asset it has to go back…

 

Mr. Hoefle: It has to go back into that.

 

Mr. Slocum: Just like what we sold to Chardon?

 

Maoyr Morley: The DuraPatcher.

 

Mr. Slocum: I mean we go pennies on the dollar for what we bought it. You may look at it and say gees we spent $40,000.00 for it but you may end up being able to sell it for $8,000.00.

 

Mayor Morley: The newest leaf boxes are maybe about four or five years old. So if anything we would keep those.

 

Ms. Schindel has now joined the meeting.

 

Mayor Morley: We scrapped out all of the trucks that we were not using. For the cars our machinics work on them.  What I told Mr. Rubertino to start looking at is when we get to the point and I think that the Chief touched on it a little and that is if we are going to spend $10,000.00 on something that is worth only $5,000.00. 

 

Mr. Evers: My question is for the Mayor and it is two fold. The public acess channel do you have any plans of operating that to get it back up on the air?

 

Mayor Morley: I have talked a little bit about it with North High to see if they have a program for kids and I have not talked with Lakeland Community College. I don’t know if does anything by me going on t.v.or for whomever to go on.  You guys know that it is not a big thing for me to be on t.v. I think that the access for myself and all of Council is there.  I get phone calls all the time and I answer them all.

 

Ms. DePeldge: I think that Channel 12 is a luxury for the cities that have that kind of money. If we could do something with Lakeland Community College of North High it would be more of an educational oppritunity for them.  It wouldn’t be a cost to us obviously I think that it is worth exploring but other than that it is just it needing to be included into the budget.

 

Mayor Morley: I think that Wickliffe and maybe…they pay Euclid $300.00 everytime he shots an episode. Do we want to waste $3,600.00 for me to go on t.v. to say something about our issues on garbage.

 

Ms. DePledge: That you wrote in the Gazatte.

 

Mayor Morley: Yeah that I wrote in the Gazatte and that is the way that I look at it. If we find or someone finds someone like the kids or Lakeland.that wants to come in here and do a program where there is no cost. The equipment in there is so antiquated.  You go in there in is like using something when my kids were little…what are those things called?

 

Mr. Evers: Video camera.

 

Mayor Morley: The giant camera.

 

Mr. Evers: The second question for the Mayor. Mr. Slocum?

 

Mr. Slocum: Just as a point we do not have any money budgeted right now for Channel 12 what so ever. For anything else we do not have it budgeted for right now.

 

Mr. Evers: For Willowick Dr. I know that we have put quite a bit of money into that and I know that we still have about 1,000 square yards yet to go. What are your plans for it this year?  It is just deteriorating.

 

Mayor Morley: Most of our money is already marked for the OPWC and one is for Ridgewood Dr. and one is for E. 344^th St. from Jennison Dr to Steves Blvd.  The State is going to becoming in to do Lakeshore Blvd. re-surfacing and we have to have money there.  Most of the money from the Road Levy is into there.  We are going to do Willowick Dr. as we see fit.  Luanna Dr. has to get finished from the contract that we bid out last year.  We will look at Willowick Dr. as we go.  Unfortunatly from what we are seeing again this year and it really wasn’t that bad is there has to eventually the crack sealing.  When we put the new raods in we have been doing that and all of the old roads that haven’t been crack sealed is where all of the issues are coming from. We will do Willowick Dr. as we have money obviously when the asphalt plans open with will try to do better patches.

 

Mr. Evers: Mr. Slocum?

 

Mr. Slocum: Does anybody have any questions on the different funds and what they are used for and what there restrictions are it maybe a worth while to spend a little bit of time on.

 

Mayor Morley: Like the Sanitary Sewer Fund that is the fund that we have the most money in but and the money that is there we can only us for sanitary sewer.

 

Mr. Slocum: The Sanitary Sewer Fund 501 and 423 are related funds and the money in those funds can only be used for the sanitary sewer. Or it can be used for the equiptment for sanitary sewers… the wages out of that fund.  WPCC is biggest and is one million two out of the fund.  Last year we had two poin three million in actual revenues and of our million eight in the expenses I think that one point two of it actually went to the City of Willoughby.  When I say the City of Willoughby it really is the plant.  The recreational capital improvement sounds good…on 438…actually we are re-doing the Houston Fisher Pool this fund was used for that and we had some money deposited into the fund.  The only thing that we can use the remaining balance for capital type goods….and we are not expecting any additional revenues in there.  I guess that I have about $1,700.00 budgeted but I don’t really expect that.  Sometimes when some sales of equiptment it ends up back in here and that is why I threw a number in there.  The fund that the Mayor is referring to is from 620 and there is a charge and I believe that it is $500.00 for every parcel it goes into this fund.  The only two things that this can be used for and they are land aquishion for recreational purposes which I do not think that we are going to be buying any additional land for recreational pursposes or it can be used to buy capital recreational equiptment.  I think that we budget it for $50,000.00 for this year and you may say that $50,000.00 for recreational equiptment.  You have to remember that any expenditure at $12,500.00 or greater needs your approval.  Although we are appropriating for $50,000.00 I guess that threoretically we can buy five $10,000.00 items but we have never operated in that method.  We are up front as to what we are doing and if it is hitting in that believe me I think that you will know of any new type of expenditure.  The only thing that is going to come out of this fund is new types of expenditures. 

 

Mayor Morley: I think that in fifteen what we did is all of the fencing that we needed to repair at the Houston Fisher Park. The neighbors fencing and that is what we spent all of that on because those fences were falling apart.

 

Mr. Evers: That was the walk way from the park to…

 

Mayor Morley: Waverly Rd.

 

Mr. Hoefle: To Waverly Rd.

 

Mayor Morley: We haven’t really looked into anything at any of the other parks for repair.

 

Mr. Slocum: Fund 402 is the Road Levy and 410 is the Fire Levy…the Bond Retirement…the only expenditures that we have out of the Bond Retirement are for debt service and paying for the Auditor to collect the taxes. A majority of the money actually comes in from transfers from the General Fund which then transfers from the Stadium Fund.  When we do have the legislation for the re-appropriation the one thing in the way that we handled it in the past couple of years is that you have given the Finance Director the ability to make the transfers that you have appropriated.  Conversly if you don’t do it I can’t make a transfer without going back to you and what we have done in the past is say that if you are going to approve the appropriation…the only moves that I can make are from the General Fund to the Bond Retirement Fund and from the Stadium Fund to the Bond Retirement Fund.  I will ask when we do the appropriation legislation that you give me that authority so that I do not have to run to you when I need to do it.  I am trying to think of what else is out there.  The Donation Fund…let me just point out that on 6-15 which is on page 38.  This is how we account for any donations that are to the City.  If you look as to what budget with the exception of the other contracts $15,000.00…that is a plug amount.  I will tell that it is a plug amount there and the unknown donations of $15,000.00 are also a plug amount.  Let’s say that I get a $500.00 check for smoke detectors I would then put that into that line item that says donation of smoke detectors.  I would reduce the budget for the unknown from $15,000.00 to $14,500.00 and increase the other one to $500.00.  I would increase the budget for the smoke detectors over here on the bottom and decrease the other contracts.  It just gives me some flexability.  Otherwise everytime we get a donation I would have to come and get new appropriation legislation from you so that we could spend it.  You are aware of all of the donations that we receive but I have found this to work very easily.  The balances for the amounts budgeted for each line item is the amount that we have collected in the past and it is less of what we have spent.  So you got $161.00 for the Christmas Program and we have gotten donations in the past…and I could go back to the first day when we put anything into this fund and show you all of the donations and all of the expenses.  The net as of 12-31-2015 is $161.00 left in the account.  Safety Town and rain supplies and the like…there is some flexability as to how we can spend it from the Administrative…as long as we are spending it for what it has been donated for.  The last thing that I want to see is for us to get a donation for x, y and z and we spend it on a, b and c.  I want to be able to say that if we collected it we spent it for why it was given or we return it.  In my mind that is your option.  We still have $250.00 for fireworks. 

 

Ms. DePledge: We are going to be asking for donations this year.

 

Mr. Slocum: Questions?

 

Mr. DePledge: Just so the new gentlemen know that Mr. Evers, Mr. Hoefle, the Mayor and I along with Mr. Slocum not so much Ms. Schindel have been over this budget line item by line item for the last six years and our hope is that maybe you guys something that we didn’t see. Or have some sort of an idea of something different and that is really what is going on here.  We have looked at this every year for the last six years so if there is anything jumps out at you or that you think…wondering why.  There is any answer for it and you know that we will get that answered or we may know it.  It maybe something real simple or it maybe something like why didn’t we think of that. 

 

Mr. Evers: Just so you guys know to I have only have only been on Council for two years but Mr. Slocum and I have served on the State over Site Committee together. Even though we are not dealing with the state I still bug him on occasions to keep an eye on things.

 

Mr. Slocum: The other thing that I would like to say here is that this…I am going to speak a little bit for Ms. Shcindel because this is just the way that I have always operated. If you have questions today is not the only day that you can ever ask them.  Even after you pass the budget…I think that we owe it to you that you have a good understanding of what we are using the money for.  We are here to answer your questions.

 

Ms. Schindel: The door is always open.

 

Ms. DePledge: Even if we have to approve the budget by March 31 usually we approve it before than. I think last year we ran into some jam up and we didn’t get it done.  We had to have a special meeting to get it done by March 31^st.  We always approve it before than.  Even if after it is approved and you guys have some questions or some idea or anything it is always on the table.  You can always put it on the table and it is always open for discussion.  The budeget is really just that a budget and it changes and it has flexability in it.  Like Mr. Slocum says sometime things have to be re-appropriated. If something comes up everybody here is going to listen to the idea or what ever it is.

Mr. Slocum: For the new Council members if you don’t like something after it has been appropriated you always have the ability to have new legislation presented and if it gets adopted and passed that become the new budget. This isn’t set in stone.  It is working…a lot of ours is because of the revenue.  I got word from Medaccount which does our ambulance billing and I got a voice mail two weeks ago that told me in January they collected close to $60,000.00.  This is going to be $15,000.00 higher than what we have ever had in a month.  I would like to see what we actually get.  If that call is accurate then the numbers that we have for the Fire Ambulance Trust revenue numbers are probably going to be under.  There should be a good chance that we are going to beat that and if we do the access money should still be used to off set the fire salaries.  That change you will not make until the end of the year.  It may be a safe place that if you are running close on the budget at the end of the year which I hope that you don’t have too…like we have done in the past…you may have a saving in there.

 

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

 

Mr. Hoefle: Mr. Slocum I am sorry but I am going to go back to the police cars again. Where you saying and this is out of Fund 310 is that where the fund of vehicles? 

 

Mr. Slocum: Yeah.

 

Mr. Hoefle: You say that we are going to budget for two vehicles? It is only $21,700.00?

 

Mr. Slocum: We are getting a good deal.

 

Mr. Hoefle: I am just saying two cars and we are only budgeting for $21,700.00?

 

Mr. Slocum: If you are looking at…

 

Mr. Hoefle: It is on page seven for those who are looking. Page seven 101 310 down torwards the bottom of the colum.

 

Mr. Slocum: There are several different areas…I will give you an example and I can give you something far more definitive.  On page 37 alarm monitors I have $3,600.00 budgeted there and for Law Enforcement Trust Vehicles on page 39 I have $23,000.00 budgeted there for Federal Law Enforcement Trust I have $9,345.00 budgeted there.  A total for the vehicles is close to $65,000.00 budgeted but like I said we are looking to grab out of a lot….

 

Mr. Hoefle: Different funds.

 

Mr. Slocum: I know the Chief Riek has forward something that is not shown in here but to reduce a couple of areas of expeditures within 310. To increase the 310 vehicles because I know that there are a couple of these others that he doesn’t really want to fully touch.  Auxiliary Police we have $3,880.54 and in the Insurance Proceed $5,900.00 because we had an insurance claim about two or three years ago on a damaged car that we just junked.  We keep that money for what we received it for.  I think that covers most of it actually.  The vehicle in 3110 it is the base.  It is coming from a lot of different areas.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Four or five different funds?

 

Mr. Slocum: Yes.

 

Mr. Evers: Ms. DePledge?

 

Ms. DePledge: Again so you guys understand when levies are passed like there is a Fire Levy, Sewer Levy and a Sanitary Levy the money that is collected for those funds can only be used for those projects. Sometime if you have a service worker and he is doing a road project instead of paying him out of the service department budget we can pay him out of the Road Levy budget.  Sometimes the money can cross over but like what Mr. Slocum was saying if you sell something that was purchased from that fund in goes back into that fund.  We have a Fire Levy so a lot of those expenses get recyculated and they don’t go into the Genereal Fund.  The Police Department does not have a levy so there entire budget comes out of the General Fund.  Which is unfortunate at this point because they do not have any set money so there are different funds that either through grants and I am not sure how all of the trusts came about.  That is how we can get the money for the Police Department but they do not have their own levy.  So we have to be a little bit more…

 

Mr. Evers: Creative.

 

Ms. DePledge: Creative in sustaining that department. Maybe you could shead some more light as to how the trusts came about.

 

Mr. Slocum: The Law Enforcement Trust…there really are two. The first one is 616 Law Enforcement Trust which we have a balance of $45,000.00.  These are fines that come from the court by statue they can only be used for specific things related to police expenditures.  We have to account for those seperatly I can’t co-mingle that into the General Fund.  The other one is the Federal Law Enforcement Trust and these are monies that we actually get from DOJ and as a matter of fact I just filed a report with DOJ because we did not collect anything last year and we carried forward a balbance.  A lot of that money came from Mr. Doyle who works very closely with the Feds and he has been gone now for about five years.  We just haven’t had the ability to assign any of our people to handle the Federal Task Forces that would generate any of that money.  When they go into these task forces you don’t do it with the idea that you are going to cover the guys expenses because that does not happen that often.  Of course they could make a two hundred million dollar bust and…

 

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

 

Mr. Hoefle: To get back to the items that Ms. DePledge was talking about. The Fire Levy that item is strictly for Capital Improvements and it doesn’t go towards the salaries.

 

Mr. Slocum: That is strictly Capital Improvements and equiptment.

 

Mr. Hoefle: And improvements.

 

Mr. Slocum: There are two components.

 

Mr. Hoefle: I have had people ask why would you lay off a fireman if we just passed a levy. That is when we had to let them know that it doesn’t cover their salaries.

 

Mr. Slocum: We do not pay salaries out of that fund.

 

Mr. Evers: I have two questions. Where do we stand with CEI?  Do we forsee anything more coming?

 

Mr. Slocum: With CEI we are looking at that we probably owe them $900,000.00 and we are giving them $20,000.00 a quarter. I don’t know if we can refute it the State has not been able to provide any clear documentation.  They show clear documentation of ….but a lot of this goes back to the earlier claims that were paid this year.  We have told them that we do not have the funds and especially with the reduction from them.

 

Mr. Evers: My next question is towards the Mayor I know that you have been working with the City of Willoughby on court cost is there any progress there?

 

Mayor Morley: We are still waiting on a meeting with Judge Fields. He wants to meet with all of the mayor’s and he hasn’t set that up yet.

 

Mr. Evers: Are there any other questions concerning the budget items? If not we have a couple of under Miscellaneous.

 

Mr. Slocum: If you are comfortable I will prepare the legislation for it. If you guys want to put it on First Reading?

 

Mr. Evers: We will poll the committee real quick to move it forward.

 

Mr. Hoefle: Move it forward as is.

 

Mr. Zuren: Yes.

 

Mr. Slocum: The only thing is that I do know that I have a couple of minor changes to this and I will give you a full accounting of any changes that I am going to propose. Between now and getting the final legislation if I get the workers compensation number I am going to go with the hard number that I know that I am going to have.

 

LAW DEPARTMENT

Mr. Klammer had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

 

FINANCE DEPARTMENT

Mr. Slocum had nothing to report

There were no further questions or comments.

 

MAYOR’S COMMENTS

Mayor Morley had nothing to report.

There were no further questions or comments.

MISCELLANEOUS

Bids for Housekeeping Items

Mr. Evers: We have some bids that we need to take a look at.

Mr. Slocum: We had a bid opening last week and the first one was asphalt. Our recommendation is to award it to Osborne Concrete and Stone and they came in at $43.75 and the next was for 49.50 from an allied coropartion. On the concrete bid this was a little bit of a screw up last year we entered into a two year contract. Just because we enter into a contract doesn’t mean that we can’t re-bid it also. Well we re-bid this one and Osborne is under contract for us for 101 Class E concrete. They bid $110.00 and then locked in for $120.00 of next year. My recommendation is to reject Osborne’s for 2016 and 2017 and to enforce the contract for 2016. We will just need to re-bid for next year. For stone and slag only Osborne Concrete bid for both years and I have not heard who Mr. Rubertino was fine with.

Mr. Evers: Before we go too much further you want to reject the bid for Osborne correct?

Mr. Slocum: Yes.

Mr. Evers: I will take a Motion to reject the bid for Osborne for Mr. Slocum’s recommendation.

Mr. Slocum: For the concrete bid and that we will enforce the contract that we are already under.

Mr. Hoefle: What is the dollar amount that we are under?

Mr. Slocum: Right now we are under contract for $101.00 and their bid was for $110.00.

Mr. Hoefle: I would recommend it.

Mr. Evers: I would need a second? The Finnace Committee has accepted a Motion and a second to reject that bid.

Ms. DePledge: Mr. Hoefle so moved and Mr. Zuren second.

Mr. Slocum: The profiling and grinding we only had on bidder and that was Chagrin Valley Paving. I recommend…they gave a two year bid. Their two year bid is less that what we are paying for the pavment profiling than what we paid in 2015. The concrete gutter grinding has gone up significantly about 50%. We got one bid and I don’t think that the concrete gutter grinding is a gigantic item in this bid. I do believe that a pavement profiling is the lion share of this and I recommend the Chagrin Valley Paving bid to be awarded.

Mr. Evers: Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: Is that the same one that we are using this year?

Mr. Slocum: Burton Scott.

Mayor Morley: Burton Scott got the bid and Chagrin Valley won the paving last year or the year before.

Mr. Hoefle: Burton Scott didn’t bid?

Mayor Morley: Burton Scott bid on the paving but it was too high.

Mr. Slocum: No they didn’t bid.

Mayor Morley: I mean years ago.

Mr. Slocum: I listed every bid that we got. We got one bid for this item. I recommend that you award it to Chagrin Valley Paving.

Ms. DePledge: Is there a Motion to accept…

Mr. Evers: We wouldn’t accept the we move them forward. We will poll the committee to see if the bid packages should moved forward. Mr. Hoefle?

Mr. Hoefle: Mr. Slocum you said that Mr. Rubertino is fine with this and everything?

Mr. Slocum: I believe so.

Mr. Hoefle: As long as Mr. Rubertino has approved it and is okay with it.

Mr. Slocum: You could ask Mr. Rubertino specifically if we look to get the legislation pulled together. Mr. Rubertino could specify it exactly.

Mr. Evers: All that we are really doing here is that we are not accepting the bid package we are moving them forward for all accounts.

Mr. Hoefle: For the bid packages are we mailing these bids to these contractors or are we just posting something?

Mr. Slocum: We advertise in the paper and they put it on a state site. Mr. Rubetino is also mailing it out various people. We are trying to get a wide distribution as we can but we do public advertising on this.

Mr. Hoefle: I as move it forward than.

Mr. Zuren: Move it forward.

Ms. DePledge: We haven’t had any issues with payments from actually us but we pay them.

Mr. Slocum: Some of them have had issues with us but we are taking care of that.

Ms. DePledge: Moving it forward.

Mr. Slocum: The motor oil and grease this is the second year that we did not receive bids on this item. I think that it is a state of the economy nobody wants to commit to anything for a year and that is for high or low. Nobody knows where it is going. When we go out to buy gas or dieseal we do try to get some competitive bids at the time and we are going with the lowest. We have nobody interested in bidding for our package. Finally we have the pavement lane markings and we did get from what I saw a decent references from Pat Flower Inc. I have never heard of them but they have done work locally and they were the lowest bidder and I recommend that we go with them.

Mr. Hoefle: Move it forward.

Mr. Evers: Mr.Zuren?

Mr. Zuren: It is good.

Mr. Evers: We will move them all forward.

Ms. DePledge: They were all moved forward approved by Mr. Hoefle and Mr. Zuren second.

Mr. Evers: Except for the Osborne package.

Ms. DePledge: This was rejected.

Mr. Evers: Do we have any other questions for the Mayor, Ms. Schindel or for Mr. Slocum?

REGOGNITION OF PUBLIC:

Angelo Trivisonno, 34186 Waldmer Ave. Eastlake, Ohio 44060

Mr. Trivisonno: I have a couple of questions and the first one is back to the Chairs question about the public access channel. Do we know how much that costs? So you have to pay a cable provider are anyone for that?

Mayor Morley: No. they had someone that the previous Mayor worked with on a contract and at this point in time with everything else going on it is just…I do not see a whole lot of what we could accomplish by going on there. That is my opinion.

Ms. DePledge: There was a blind item budget for where it was almost $12,000.00 if I remember a couple of years ago and we couldn’t afford it.

Mayor Morley: I was probably $12,000.00 or $13,000.00 it was more than that because we had that guy…

Mr. Evers: Mr. Slocum?

Mr. Slocum: We had Mr. Mesack.

Mayor Morley: He went to Euclid.

Mr. Slocum: He is still at Euclid and these other cities are paying Euclid to do it. At that time it was running us $60,000.00 or so a year. That hit the budget geotiene a long time ago. The equipment that we have is out dated. It would require a significant capital infusion to really bring it up and running.

Mr. Trivisonno: Is there anything other than programming like interviews or anything that would be usefull for a channel?

Mayor Morley: The only thing and I tred lightly on what it was used for and I am not that guy.

Mr. Slocum: I thought that he had a good use for it. He was communicating to the people. However it comes at a significant cost.

Mr. Trivisonno: I have a few other questions and the first one is on the budget. I saw a line item for I think $100,000.00 for data processing and sanitary sewer fund I think.

Mr. Slocum: Yes.

Mr. Trivisonno: Do you have any idea…

Mr. Slocum: I can tell you exactly what that is it is $3.50 is what we get charged per resident per billing cycle. I think that it is probably $105,000.00 if I remember correctly. We get charged for that by the Lake County Utilities and that is for the meter readers and for them doing the billing and the like and that is our cost there.

Mr. Trivisonno: My last one is the Planning Commission I think that I saw the budget for salaries in that and I thing that it went up from $3,000.00 to $4,500.00.

Mayor Morley: I think that the year before someone didn’t take their salary right?

Mr. Slocum: There is a splitting of the Clerks time that we are trying to get it more…because I think that if we look at that and look at some of the other commissions it is going down a little bit. Between all of the commissions it should be roughly the same amount. We have been paying the one Clerk’s salary out of one fund and it is really should be paid of the other two. It is all out of the General Fund.

Mr. Evers: Is there anybody else? Mr. Slocum?

Mr. Slocum: I don’t think that we can fully look at a appropriation legislation until I get a revised certificate of estimated resources. I will have to submit that to the County tomorrow. I know that the County can turn that around fairly quickly. Whether they can do it by next week I don’t know. If I tell them that I am going to leave earlier they will probably be more than happy too.

Mr. Evers: Ms. DePledge?

Ms. DePledge: We are going to have three more meetings before we have to submit the budget. So could we put it on a First Reading condition on that number or condition on that modification?

Mr. Slocum: You are not approving the budget so I am just telling you that you can’t approve the budget until you get from the County Budget Commission the Certificate of Estimated Resources. We tell them how much we think that we are going to collect and they have to put it on paper and sign it. It is beurcracy run muck.

Ms. DePledge: Again it doesn’t have to go to Three Readings either.

Mr. Slocum: No and that is fine.

Mayor Morley: March is a long month if you want to have a Special Meeting. If you want to go to Three Readings.

Mr. Slocum: If you can get the first Reading in February.

Mayor Morley: Meeting for Council in March are the 8^th and the 22^nd.

Ms. DePledge: That would be next Tuesday though would be our last meeting in February.

Mr. Slocum: I will just have to pull that together. I will pull it together with where I am at with the budget right now. I should be able to do it by Tuesday. The first thing that I want to do is to get the Certificate of Estimated Resources done.

There was no one else who wished to speak.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:46 p.m.

tms      

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