HomeMy WebLinkAbout04/22/1992 Meeting (2)
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M I NUT E S
Eugene City Council
McNutt Room--Eugene City Hall
April 22, 1992
5:30 p.m.
COUNCILORS PRESENT: Shawn Boles, Bobby Green, Ruth Bascom, Debra Ehrman,
Randy MacDonald, Paul Nicholson, Kaye Robinette, Roger
Rutan.
The special meeting of the Eugene City Council was called to order by Mayor
Jeff Miller.
I. WORK SESSION: EUGENE DECISIONS--DEVElOPMENT OF DETAILED STRATEGIES
John O'Connor of the City Manager's Office facilitated the meeting.
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Linda Norris, Acting Assistant City Manager, reviewed a memorandum prepared
by Director of Public Safety Dave Whitlow regarding the costs of community
policing.
Responding to a question from Mr. Nicholson regarding long-term reductions in
costs, Mr. Whitlow said that the long-range plan had not provided a specific
point at which costs would be reduced. Mr. Rutan pointed out that community
policing was designed to reduce costs in other areas.
Discussing the needed funding for the community policing component of the
Public Safety long-Range Plan, Mr. Robinette said that any funding mechanism
must provide funding for the ten-year life of the plan. The council agreed.
He suggested that the council chart the costs of the program and divide them
by ten. Mr. Boles said that funding the program over ten years would require
a commitment of about $45 million. Mr. Miller clarified that the costs of
the program do not reach $4.4 million until year 10.
Mr. Whitlow stressed that the figures in his memorandum were taken directly
from the council-adopted long-range public safety plan. He said that the
Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) had not developed figures showing the
final implementation costs of the plan before it referred it to the council
for adoption.
Responding to a question from Mr. Boles, Mr. Whitlow said he would recommend
that the council fund a phase of the components described in the memorandum.
Mr. Boles asked about the costs of funding phase 1 across the three
components. Mr. Whitlow said that the cost was $1,722,021, as described in
the memorandum.
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April 22, 1992
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~ Responding to a question from Mr. MacDonald regarding the other components of
the long-range plan, Mr. Whitlow reminded the council that the long-range
plan also included employee training and development, the Short Mountain
training facility, metropolitan coordination, and capital costs. He said
that the social services component of the plan was included in the community
policing element.
Mr. Nicholson suggested that the council's assumptions about the costs of the
program include the assumption that dollars will be saved by community
policing and the revenue base will increase annually by six percent. Mr.
Boles opposed Mr. Nicholson's suggestion as he believed it did not address
the actual program costs and it was not clear that Mr. Nicholson's
assumptions about the increase in revenues and savings realized from the
program would be true.
Mr. Whitlow said that full implementation of the phases identified in the
memorandum was about $3.4 million per year.
After some discussion regarding the costs of phasing in the program as
opposed to identifying the full costs of the program over time, the council
agreed to tentatively assume the costs of community policing at $3.4 million
per year. Ms. Norris said staff would provide further information about the
costs of phasing in the program to the council at the April 23 meeting.
The council briefly discussed a memorandum prepared by staff regarding Hult
Center rental rate options. Bob Schutz, Director of Cultural Services, said
that the nonprofit arts community had previously indicated that it could
accept a nonrehearsal rate of $250 per use.
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The council reviewed the list of excluded strategy components that resulted
from council action at the April 20 meeting. Mr. Miller proposed that
component 131 regarding street trees (address life safety issues only, within
Road Fund) be added to strategy package A or C. The council agreed to move
component 131 to Strategy Package C.
Staff indicated that $4.5 million would be required to balance Strategy
Package A.
The council discussed the information about alternative revenue options
prepared by staff and took a series of straw polls to gauge support for
inclusion of revenue options in strategy packages A and B.
Mr. Robinette said he had made inquiries about Multnomah County's business
net income tax, and discovered that the County adds the salaries of
stockholders of closely held corporations back into the net profits for
calculation of the tax. Mr. Mounts added that the City could approach the
issue of the differences between corporations and other business entities by
allowing noncorporate business owners to deduct their salaries when computing
business net income; however, that would allow an owner to claim all net
income as salary. The Multnomah County business income tax requires
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April 22, 1992
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corporations to add back compensation of controlling shareholders (those with
five percent or more ownership of the corporation).
Mr. Miller asked if US" corporations were excluded from the Multnomah County
tax. Mr. Mounts said no. Mr. Miller pointed out that owners of such
corporations must take any profits from the business as income, and must pay
both income and corporate taxes on the profits.
Mr. Mounts said that he would provide the council with information from
Multnomah County regarding the business net income tax. Responding to a
question from Mr. Boles, Mr. Mounts said that he had not had time to examine
the information provided by the Department of Revenue and could not give an
opinion about the equity of the tax. Mr. Boles asked to what extent would
including the salaries paid to the major shareholders increase the amount of
the tax. Mr. Mounts said he did not know. The Department of Revenue had not
been willing to offer an estimate of how the inclusion of stockholder
salaries would change the revenue yield.
Mr. Boles said that he wished to ensure that the council's revenue selections
did not result in double-taxation of any business or person. He noted that
76 percent of the respondents to City-sponsored surveys indicated their
preference for a mix of revenues.
Ms. Ehrman asked if the gas tax could be used to support parking. Deputy
Director of Public Works Terry Smith indicated that the Oregon Supreme Court
is discussing the potential of using the gas tax to support road-related
items such as air emission reduction programs which affect parking. He said
that at the present time, the gas tax could not be used to support off-street
parking. The gas tax is currently limited to those facilities supporting
transportation within the street right-of-way. Responding to a question from
Mr. Robinette, Mr. Smith confirmed that gas tax revenues could be used to
support street trees.
Ms. Bascom asked when the council would discuss the relationship of its
revenue choices to State and County actions. Mr. Robinette suggested that
the discussion depended on the revenues the council considered.
Mr. Miller maintained that the City should examine the property tax as a
revenue source. If the council decided to seek a levy that increased the tax
rate by $1 to dedicate to public safety or the library and the County also
decides to seek a property tax increase, compaction would result in an
approximate 90-10 split in the yield, with 90 percent of each dollar going to
the City.
Responding to a comment made by Mr. Nicholson, Mr. Robinette suggested that a
combination of corporate and personal income taxes would avoid the problem of
double taxation and capture revenues from closely held corporations. Mr.
Nicholson agreed.
Mr. Rutan suggested that the council had tentatively shown support for a
combination of corporate, personal income, gas, and property taxes. He said
MINUTES--Eugene City Council
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April 22, 1992
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that while he was not prepared to vote on a mix of taxes, he wanted to
present the community with a mix of taxes for the purposes of eliciting
feedback. Mr. Rutan proposed that the council provide the community with the
strategy packages and ask citizens to indicate how they would fund the
balances for "A" and "B." He added that 50 percent of the residents of lane
County live in Eugene, and stressed the importance of working with lane
County, the City of Springfield, and the school districts on those revenues
that all the jurisdictions might be seeking, such as property taxes.
Mr. Green and Mr. Miller indicated their interest in further discussion of a
local retail sales tax.
Mr. Boles pointed out that the council had committed to return to the
community with a set of balanced, sustainable strategies. He said that the
council needed to be specific about the revenue sources it supported and the
amounts to be realized from those revenues. Regarding Mr. Rutan's comments
on interjurisdictional cooperation, Mr. Boles said that there had been
considerable effort on the part of the council to persuade the other
jurisdictions to delay action for the sake of a coordinated approach to
revenue shortfalls. He said that the other jurisdictions did not appear to
be interested, and the City of Eugene was on its own. Mr. Boles regretted
the failure of that effort.
Mr. MacDonald proposed to balance Strategy Package A with a combination of
corporate and personal income taxes and a gas tax increase of two cents. The
increase in the gas tax would be used to fund shortfalls in the street tree
program. He noted that if the State decided to place a sales tax before the
voters, it could pre-empt the City's ability to collect a local sales tax.
Responding to a request for clarification from Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Smith said
that the City is investing $700,000 to $1 million of Road Funds in street
rehabilitation at the current time. The City requires about $3 million each
year for ten years to fully fund street rehabilitation and maintain its
infrastructure investment. A two-cent increase would not fully provide that
funding. Responding to a question from Mr. Boles, Mr. Smith confirmed that
no General Fund moneys were used for maintenance of the transportation
infrastructure.
Mr. MacDonald anticipated that the State would increase its gas tax,
resulting in more money for municipalities. He suggested that the City did
not have to fund its entire street maintenance needs with a local increase.
Responding to a request for clarification from Mr. Mounts regarding the
percentage yield to be realized by a mix of personal and corporate income
taxes, the council directed staff to prepare information regarding the
anticipated revenues realized by a corporate income tax at varying
percentages for further review. Ms. Norris observed that previous analysis
indicated that a one-percent corporate income tax would yield about $1.5
million.
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5:30 p.m.
April 22, 1992
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The meeting recessed at 6:55 p.m. and resumed at 7:05 p.m. Mr. MacDonald
left the meeting during the recess.
Mr. O'Connor said that staff had split the balance of Strategy Package B into
base services ($S,676,000) and enhancements ($8,979,000). Responding to a
question from Mr. Rutan, Mr. O'Connor said that public safety enhancements
were about $4.5 million of the total; the proposed library was $2.4 million.
The council agreed to a suggestion by Mr. Nicholson to tie public safety
enhancements and the new library to dedicated revenues.
Ms. Ehrman proposed to fund base increases in Strategy Package B through a
combination of corporate and personal income taxes and a two-cent gas tax
increase. She suggested that the personal income tax rate for Package B be
2/10ths of one percent. The council accepted Ms. Ehrman's proposal.
Mr. Boles asked the council to consider a five-percent restaurant tax to fund
and operate the library and perhaps provide an offset for Hult Center
funding, moving center funding outside the General Fund.
Responding to a question from Ms. Bascom, Mr. Boles pointed out that the
council could pass a restaurant tax without a vote.
A straw poll gauging support for Mr. Boles' suggestion failed.
Mr. Miller asked the council to consider financing the Public Safety
Long-Range Plan and fire redeployment with a $1 increase in the property tax.
He suggested that any additional revenues could be used for library
operations.
The council briefly discussed the implications of an increase in property
taxes on Eugene rates. Mr. Nicholson pointed out that, were a County levy to
pass, an increase in the Eugene property tax rate would not result in an
increase in taxes but in redistribution of taxes between the County and City.
Ms. Ehrman suggested that such an argument might be too complex to offer the
public.
Mr. Mounts said if both the City and County competed for the additional
margin, the City would realize about 85 cents of the dollar from Eugene
taxpayers as compared to 15 cents for the County.
Mr. Boles and Ms. Ehrman indicated their opposition to an increase in
property taxes.
Mr. Rutan suggested that the council consider a means to expand the yield
from those revenue sources already included in the strategy package rather
than ask the citizens to consider a multitude of revenue sources.
Mr. Nicholson said that a major issue regarding property taxes was whether
the City was going to continue to capture its traditional proportion of
property taxes or cede those taxes to the County. Mr. Miller agreed. He
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April 22, 1992
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said it appeared that the County was going to take the property tax rate for
general purpose government to the $10 cap, and it was important to test the
community's willingness to go to the cap.
The council agreed to include a property tax increase as proposed by Mr.
Miller in Strategy Package B.
Returning to the restaurant tax previously proposed by Mr. Boles, Ms. Ehrman
asked how much such a tax would raise. Mr. Boles said that the tax would pay
for the library in four years and operate it for ten years. Ms. Ehrman
indicated her support for inclusion of the proposed restaurant tax in
Strategy Package B if it had no ties to the Hult Center.
Mr. Rutan strongly opposed a restaurant tax. He said that the council would
not meet its goals through single-purpose, narrowly focused taxes. Eugene
would be the only community in Oregon with a restaurant tax. Mr. Rutan said
that the restaurant industry would be opposed to such a tax. He spoke of the
diversity of businesses in the community providing restaurant services, and
called the proposed tax unwise, politically unfeasible, and unfair to
low-income residents.
In response to Mr. Rutan's comments, Mr. Boles asked how the community could
capture dollars from those visiting the community. He said that while one of
four visitors to Eugene stays in a motel or hotel, the other three stay in
private homes and do not pay room taxes. He pointed out that dining in
restaurants was a generally discretionary expenditure. Mr. Boles suggested
that the proposed tax was a progressive way to attach a revenue source to an
amenity the community supports.
Ms. Ehrman endorsed Mr. Boles' comments. She said that a restaurant tax
would capture money from such residents as students, who did not contribute
to the community outside of rents that contributed to the property tax base.
Ms. Ehrman did not believe that a restaurant tax was unfair to low-income
residents.
Mr. Robinette did not want to put the community at an economic disadvantage
through the proposed tax. He questioned the link between the library and a
restaurant tax.
Responding to concerns raised by Ms. Ehrman and Ms. Bascom about the use of a
restaurant tax to support Hult Center operations as previously suggested by
Mr. Boles, Mr. Boles said that he did not believe that citizens were opposed
to the Hult Center but rather to the General Fund moneys spent on the center.
In response to Mr. Robinette's question regarding the connection between the
tax and the library, Mr. Boles said he perceived the tax as a way to provide
the community with an amenity it wants. He said that the tax was
discretionary and based upon the ability to pay.
Mr. Nicholson said he was interested in supporting a tax that also addressed
other discretionary expenditures, such as video rentals and movie tickets.
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April 22, 1992
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Mr. Green indicated his opposition to a restaurant tax due to the burden it
would place on business. He reiterated his interest in a retail sales tax.
Mr. Boles pointed out that the tax was not a tax on restaurants, but rather a
tax on those who ate in restaurants. He likened the arguments made by Mr.
Green and Mr. Rutan to those made 15 years previously in relationship to the
room tax from the hospitality industry. He supported Mr. Nicholson's desire
to widen the base of the tax.
The council took a straw poll on the proposal in support of a five-percent
restaurant tax, which failed to gain the support of five councilors.
Mr. Green proposed a 1/2-of-one-percent retail sales tax to support the
library. He said that the tax would exclude food, medicine, rent, and
utilities.
Mr. Nicholson suggested that the yield from the tax would not justify the
high externalized administrative costs for business.
Mr. Rutan believed that a retail sales tax was sensible, broad-based, and
would yield sufficient revenue to support the library, while questioning the
appeal of the tax to the electorate.
Ms. Ehrman said that Eugene would be the only community in Oregon with a
retail sales tax, which she believed would put the community at an economic
disadvantage. Mr. Boles added that the tax was not discretionary and would
disproportionately affect low-income residents. Noting that he had moved to
Eugene from a state with a sales tax that had originally been one percent and
had moved to 4-3/4 percent without voter approval, Mr. Boles considered a
sales tax dangerous as it raised revenues without accountability. Mr.
Nicholson indicated his agreement with Mr. Boles' remarks.
Mr. Miller suggested that a sales tax could be capped through the charter.
He said that in informal polling of audiences he addressed, about 80 percent
of the audience indicated support for a sales tax.
Ms. Bascom said she preferred to present the community with a range of
options to fund the library. She did not support a retail sales tax unique
to Eugene. Professor Ed Weeks indicated that the next survey would test the
community's reactions to the range of suggested revenues as well as the
specific strategies.
Mr. Robinette said that although he could support a retail sales tax in
conjunction with Springfield and lane County, he could not support a sales
tax unique to Eugene as he believed it would drive consumers outside the city
limits.
Mr. Green's proposal for a retail sales tax failed to gain adequate support
for inclusion in Strategy Package B.
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April 22, 1992
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Mr. Nicholson proposed to include a two-percent restaurant/entertainment tax
in Strategy Package B to support the Library.
Mr. Rutan indicated his continued opposition to the proposal. He believed
the tax would have an adverse effect on businesses in that it would add to
the price of a product and put Eugene at a competitive disadvantage.
Mr. Boles said he supported the proposal due to the discretionary nature of
the expenditures involved and the community's continued desire for a new
library. He did not think that residents would leave the community to go to
restaurants because of a two-percent tax.
Mr. Nicholson's proposal received sufficient support from councilors to
include in Strategy Package B.
Ms. Ehrman suggested that the proposed tax be increased to three, rather than
two, percent, to support the remaining enhancements. Ms. Ehrman's proposal
failed to garner sufficient support for inclusion in the strategy package.
Mr. Robinette suggested an increase in the proposed personal and corporate
income taxes sufficient to support the additional enhancements. The
suggestion received adequate support for inclusion in Strategy Package B.
Mr. Miller proposed to raise the Transient Room Tax by one percent to offset
property taxes currently being used to support the Hult Center for both
strategy packages A and B.
Mr. Boles argued that the amount to be raised by such an increase was
inadequate to address Hult Center needs and would not sufficiently supplant
General Fund support.
Mr. Rutan indicated his opposition to such an increase as it would place
Eugene at an economic disadvantage with other Oregon communities along the
Interstate 5 corridor. He agreed with Mr. Boles that the increase would not
raise sufficient funding for the proposed purpose.
Mr. Miller withdrew his proposal for an increase in the room tax.
Mr. Boles suggested that any revenue source proposed by the council have an
automatic sunset date attached to it, requiring a vote by the electorate for
continued use of the revenue in the future.
Ms. Ehrman said that a sunset date did not address the question of
sustainability that was a keystone of the Eugene Decisions process. She
suggested that a sunset would pass the community's revenue problems onto
future councilors. In response, Mr. Boles pointed out that a sunset date
would give the City an incentive to perform.
Mr. Nicholson said that the council should ensure that the revenue sources do
not sunset at the same time to avoid the concerns raised by Ms. Ehrman.
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April 22, 1992
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Mr. Robinette said he favored Mr. Boles' proposal as it would provide
citizens with control over revenues and enhance the likelihood that a tax
question will receive voter approval. Mr. Miller suggested that programs,
ordinances, and policies should also have sunset dates attached.
Ms. Bascom questioned whether attaching a sunset date to a revenue source
would create additional support for any proposed tax.
The council agreed on a sunset date of seven years for revenues attached to
the library and ten years for revenues attached to public safety programs.
Ms. Bascom reintroduced Mr. Miller's proposal for a one-percent increase in
the room tax. The proposal did not receive sufficient support for inclusion
in a strategy package.
The council meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m.
Mic eal Gleaso
City Manager
(Recorded by Kimberly Young)
MNCC 042292-530
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April 22, 1992
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