CC Minutes - 03/10/03 Mtg - Laserfiche WebLink

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Budget Manager Kitty Murdoch provided a staff report. She said the supplemental budget authorized $3.5 million across all funds, noting that there were three contingency items that included fire turn outs for $37,000, another request from the Fire Department for leave payoff for A@ $30,000, and a $37,000 request to join with other cities in undertaking an audit of Qwest. She explained that the largest item in the supplemental budget was a recognition of $2.1 million in telecom payments in the Telecom Subfund. She said the General Fund had fronted the costs of the telecom expenses and needed to be paid, and that the Telecom Subfund was paying off its debts with the proposed transaction. Ms. Murdoch said there was also a large loan in the Special Assessments Capital Project Fund to the Transportation System Maintenance Fund in order to get road maintenance projects planned for the summer underway and to start working on the billing system for the Transportation System Maintenance Fee. Mayor Torrey opened the public hearing. Seeing no one wishing to speak, he closed the public hearing and called for council questions/comments. In response to a question from Councilor Kelly regarding the telecom reserve, Ms. Murdoch noted that there was no money set aside in previous years and funds was owed to the General Fund. In response to a question from Councilor Kelly regarding the size of the interfund loan to the Transportation Utility Fund, Mr. Corey said there would be a component of the loan that would be set aside for starting a billing system. He added that there would in house engineering costs associated with putting plan specifications together as well as a substantial amount of outside consulting work necessary to do non-destructive testing in advance of the 2003 construction season. In response to a question from Councilor Bettman regarding the $1.2 million for billing and setting up designs for road maintenance and the way the ordinance was worded, City Attorney Glenn Klein said it was legal to use fees from the Transportation System Maintenance Fund for related administrative costs that included a billing system. In response to a question from Councilor Bettman regarding billing service for the City and possible cost savings of having one billing system, City Manager Carlson said the two new billing systems being initiated were the ambulance billing system and the Transportation System Maintenance Fee billing system. They were two very different systems. He noted there were elements of the billing systems that could be combined but stressed that the essence of the two systems were fundamentally different. He said one was a utility system that was based on a regular billing cycle with a similar payment each period, and the other was a fee for service system based on actual incidents that needed to be connected with Fire Med and insurance carriers. Councilor Bettman raised concern over creating a billing system just for a single utility fee and possible difficulties in the future when the City would add other fees to the billing system. City Manager Carlson stressed that there would be initial costs for setting up any billing system. He noted that there was a sunset date on the Transportation System Maintenance Fee ordinance and said that was one reason for contracting out the billing system. He said, if the ordinance was MINUTESEugene City Council March 10, 2003 Page 5 C Regular Meeting