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1984-09-06 Budget Workshop3526 8#-#5 [!,LJDGET WORKSHOP THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6~ 198~ The City Council of the City of Okeechobe held a budget workshop session in Council Chambers~ ~3 Southeast Third Avenue~ Okeechobee~ Florida, at 7:00 P.M. The meeting was called to order with the following Councilmen present:, Edward W. Dougals~ Chairman James Knight~ Vice Chairman Dowling WatIord, Councilman Oscar Thomas~ Councilman Oakland Chapman, Councilman Others present were: Bonnie S. Thomas,City Clerk Richard C. Fellows~ City Administrator I]~dia 3.qan~WilkersQ~, Deputy Clerk vzd~. ~onlon~ ~ty Attorney Chairman Douglas statedthat the purpose of the meeting was to discuss salaries and health insurance. INSURANCE Counciimembers discussed the following alternatives for health insurance: Current Plan: The City shares total cost ~0/~0. $3,323. per month Alternate 1: City pays 100% oI employees insurance and employees pays Ior dependents. $3,318. per month Alternate 2: City pays 100% o~ the employees'-insurance and contributes $18.23 toward family coverage $3,938. per month Alternate 3: City pays 100% oI the employees' insurance and splits family coverage ~0]~0. $4,983. per month After considerable discussion, Chairman Douglas called ~or a vote on either Alternate I or 2. The voting was as follows: Alternate 1. Alternate 2 Watford Thomas *Chapman Douglas Knight Chairman Douglas stated that the City would pay 100% o~ the employees insurance 'and the. employees would pay for their dependents. *See the minutes of next meeting, September 10, 198#. Action changed. SALARIES Chairman Douglas stated that the proposed budget provided for a ~% pay increase across the board (excluding the attorney). Council also discussed with the Department Heads the city paying ~or the employees education for certification in their job ~ields. After a lengthy discussior~ Councilman Knight made a motion that the City go with ~% across the board salary increase. Councilman Chapman suggested that the total salary increase ($~9~000.) be divided equally among all employees. Chairman Douglas questioned Fire Chief Tomey about giving two employees a ~% pay increase when the money was not budgeted. Chief Tomey replied~ "Because of schooling." Chairman Douglas~ "Because of schooling?" Chief Tomey~ "Because they're EMT's." Chairman I~ouglas~ "You didn't have that bud§eted~ did you?" Chie~ Tomey~ "No, but at the time it all happened~ Donnie Metzcher had quit and there was quite a lapse in salaries there. I talked to the Finance Officer and we,didn't think there was anything unusual about it so thats x~hy I did it, I was unaware that there was something wrong." Chairman Douglas~ "You mean you ~eel like you have the authority as a Department Head to disburse money that hasn't been budgeted?" ChieJ Tomey~ "I didn't Ieel like I was doing anything wrong, if I had I would never have done it. If t.hats disbursing Junds that wasn't budgeted - the money was there, in md approved bddget and it v~s in lapsed salaries. Chairman Douglas~ "Maybe ] misunderstood, I understood that you increased salaries that the money wasn't budgeted Jot." 3527 Chief Tome¥, 'I'Il explain, if you want me to. Donhie Metzche~ quit~ so I had to have a Lieutenant. I pcomoted Jim Th~eewits to the rank of Lieutenant~ which all came before Council. With that he went up, Donnie was making tight at $1(;~000.00~when Jim started out as Lieutenant he was right at $1~,000.00. $o there was a lapse of salarie~ in there of $~00., 6, $700.00. He's an EMT. Ronnie Suit's and FMT. They never got ~% for being an EMT. They went to school on their own and got it, it didn't cost the City anything~ We have F. MT firefishters within our job descriptions in our Fire Department. For which they get ~% more than a firefighter does. $o I gave them a five percent pay increase to pay for their schooling because they went out and got an education and again, like I say, I went to the Finance Officer, we sat down and discussed it, and if I thought something was being done wrong, I would'nt have done it. I hate to see the employees penalized now because I was unaware of something, there was a procedure that I didn't know we had." Councilman Watford asked the Clerk for clarification of the procedures when an employee had received certification or completion of schooling.. _ Clerk Thomas answered, "We have an employee payroll change form that the department heads fill out to explain what the salary was and what the salary is changing to. Whenever Keith made this transaction it was to me the same as any one of the other department heads making a pay change with consideration §iven to his budget, permitting the change." Councilman Warlord, "I think maybe what hhs. caused the problem here, is that perhaps another department maybe would have planned for that. Does he normally plan in there that I'm going to have X number of policemen trainees become patrolmen, or X number of sewer operators become..." Clerk Thomas, "Yes, we have the transactions that Keith put in, other changes, where the money was still there." Councilman Warlord asked if the procedure had been changed. Clerk Thomas referred to a recent memo regarUing budgeted monies for salaries. Administrator Fellows then said he thought the Council needed to make a determination regarding firefighter/EMT because the City does not furnish EMT training. Should it be in the pay . plan? Councilman Chapman stated, "It's nice to know that we have somebody with F_MT training", and went on to say that he has no problem with it because maybe a life would be saved, and he felt there were other areas to consider cuts not as important as that. Fire Chief Tomey said that an F~MT certificate has to be renewed, and all of his firefighters are aware that they are expected to do that. Councilman ~Vatford asked what the cost was for a firefighter to get an EMT certificate. Chief Tomey estimated that it would cost $~00 - $~00 initially. Then a re-f~esher course had to be taken in 2 years. There was further discussion about the 5% increase for those firefighters who become EMT certified. Chairman Douglas asked for a vote on the ~% increase. There was further discussion regarding budgeted and non-budgeted items, i.e. changes in personnel, changes in responsibilities, of education of personnel to be determined by administrative determination. Chairman Douglas said he thought that was brought before the Council. Councilman Chapman asked that all changes be brought before the Council. He said that he would like to know who has finished school. Chairman Douglas said, "It will now from the way Mr. Fellows has got it set up." Chairman Douglas asked for a vote on the pay increase. Councilmen Kni§ht and ~/atfo~d voted for ~% across the board. Councilmen Chapman and Thomas voted for ~% disttibuted across the board. Chairman Douglas voted for ~% across the board. AttOrney Conlon addressed Council as follows: "I wanted to discuss my compensation. Having a contract laid out very similar to what the services like the F-n§ineer would provide ov the auditor. What we have done before is budget a certain amount and it was undecstood that it co~ered 3528 everything that I needed to do except lawsuits. But what's happened is things have grown, in the last few months, it has been very time consuming taking care of matters that are sort. of non-routine (re-searching, a lot of meetings, t~ying to head off litigation, etc.) they are beginning to take up so much time that I talked it over with Mr. Fellows and he felt this might be the best way - to pre-. sent it to you (the Council). Outline what is covered by the compensation and what would be additional. I would actually hope that we could do that and there wasn't any additional matters coming up other than the usual things. It has been very difficult to say, well, for x amount of dollars I'll handle whatever the problem is or how many times the people want to see me about something important. I would want to distinguish between the routine things. The routine things I have always done, I don't see any problem with routine things. If a Department Head calls me up and asks me a question about a statute, I get the book out while we are on the phone and we try to resolve it. The non-routine types of things are if we are into some kind of a complex written agree- ment or a threat of litigation matters, things where Mr. Fellows and I are together and he asks me to do specific research." Attorney Conlon asked Administrator Fellows to comment. Administrator Fellows stated, "I have discussed this with David, and I felt that for the benefit of the Cbuncil, we ought to remit his responsibilities in writing some type of contract with him. The Engineer has one, the Auditor. That way at least the Council will have an idea as to what they are paying the attorney for. So I suggested to him that he lay out some type of a special services that he would provide and what he felt were additional services that he should be compen- sated for. I think it is something that needs to be looked at. Something needs to be put into writing. David has been here since 1972, I believe, working just kind of on the motion of the Council. I'm sure the level of his work has reached above what it was in 1972." Chairman Douglas asked, "If we go to a contract, don't we have to go through the bidding process?" Attorney Conlon explained, "You have to with an Engineer or General Surveyor, but I don't think attorneys." Councilman Chapman asked what the difference was between a surveyor and a attorney. Attorney Conlon explained, "There is a statute mandating the bidding process with the Engineer, etc., but not one with an Attorney. But if the Council wished they could request bids." Council discussed the attorney's possible contract. There was no action taken at this time. Administrator Fellgws stated, "The Council needs to give. serious thought to what we are going to recommend relative to raising additional revenues. We have several ways to look at it. We can go with the roll back millage which in essence there will be no increase in property taxes, and increase our public service tax or we can increase our prolBerty tax a little bit and increase the public service tax a little bit or we can increase the property tax a little bit. If we increase the property tax the full 15%, about $#5,000.00, is what we would raise from that. We will be able to tell you as soon as the August report comes out, in the next few days, we will have a much better handle on our cash carry forward. We feel that the deficit we have shown here will be covered by what we have in the way of cash carry forward. So anything that you raise in additional revenues is going to be sort of like a reserve fund. Keep in mind, that if we operate that close next year, I would recommend to the Council, that no capital expenditures be made without first coming to the Court,cji, if given authority to ad- vertise, to give us another look to see whether we want to buy that truck or buy that thing~ at that time. If we are going to operate that close to the line then we need to take plenty of time before we authorize expenditures to capital items. Because this is the only area where we have any flexibility." 3529 Councilmembers discussed the public service tax, property taxes, etc. A public hearing will be held September 10, 1984, to discuss the possible tax increase. There being no further business to discuss, the budget workshop meeting was adjourned at 8:26 P.M. '-EI~WARD W. DOUGLAS, D~.' Chairman ATTEST: BONNIE S. THOMAS, CI~ City Clerk