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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/27/1992 Meeting e M I NUT E S Eugene City Council Studio One--Hult Center July 27, 1992 5:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Roger Rutan, Shawn Boles, Ruth Bascom, Debra Ehrman, Paul Nicholson, Kaye Robinette. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Bobby Green, Randy MacDonald. The meeting of the Eugene City Council was called to order by His Honor Mayor Jeff Miller. The order of Items A and B were reversed. A. Final Review of Financial Goals and Policies Tony Mounts, Financial Management Services Director, referred to the packet material saying that the council reviewed a first draft of its Financial Management Goals and Policies at the April 20 meeting. Comments received have been incorporated into this most recent draft. The council was asked to review and provide direction for additional changes to,the document prior to e adoption. Councilor MacDonald has suggested that Goal II read: "To have an adequate capital improvement program that maintains and enhances the public's access over the life of those assets and orovides for their reolacement." (The proposed language is underlined.) Additionally, Councilor MacDonald has raised a question regarding the need for separate service priority levels 4 and 5. He has also requested a new policy be considered that requires estimates of fiscal impacts for any new program or program enhancement be provided to the council to assist in the decision-making process. Ms. Ehrman suggested placing a period after the word "assets" in Mr. MacDonal- d's proposed change to Goal II, deleting the phrase "and provides for their replacement." She felt the phrase implied automatic replacement, which may not be the case. Mr. Boles defended inclusion of a "sinking fund" as proposed by Mr. MacDonald, saying the council has previously agreed to move toward sustainability. He suggested adopting the policy as written and defer the decision on whether to have a sinking fund The majority of the council voted to exclude the phrase as sug- gested by Ms. Ehrman. Mr. Boles and Mr. Robinette were opposed. The council agreed with the other changes proposed by Mr. MacDon- ald. e MINUTES--City Council Work Session July 27, 1992 Page 1 5:30 p.m. e B. EUQene Decisions: Results of Citizen InDut Barb Bellamy, City Manager's Office, said that the Council Committee on Eugene Decisions developed a process for working on a final strategy during August, which the council will have an opportunity to discuss on July 29. She said that will also provide the council with an opportunity to ask questions about the data presented this evening. She added that the committee will meet again on July 28 and can entertain questions and comments from the council then. Ed Weeks, University of Oregon, praised the collaborative effort on this project between the City of Eugene and the University of Oregon. He acknowl- edged the participation of Jennie Carmichael and Stephanie Buffum. Mr. Weeks described the methods used in gathering the data, saying that every Eugene citizen was offered an opportunity to participate and contribute ideas about service and funding strategies. The two sources of data used in this procedure were a tabloid questionnaire and a community workshop. The council also required a set of statistically representative data. There were two different instruments used for this purpose. The first of these was the budget-balancing instrument which presented to each respondent each of the elements included in the council strategy and allowed them the opportunity to construct a balanced budget from these components. The instrument was designed to avoid choosing mutually incompatible options. The other instru- ment presented the same basic information but in a multiple-choice format. It presented each respondent with the service changes included in each strategy and required the respondent to select that set of service changes they e preferred to balance the budget. This format included information on the impact to the household from options chosen. Mr. Weeks said the response rate to the budget-balancing survey was 61 percent (10 percent better than expected) and twice as many tabloid questionnaires as those received the first time were returned. He said the margin of error rates are 6 percent for the multiple-choice survey and 4 percent for the budget-balancing survey. Responding to a question from Mr. Boles, Mr. Weeks said the data can be trusted because there is consistency of findings, which attests to a well- designed survey. Mr. Weeks described the findings, saying that respondents indicated the least support for balancing the projected shortfall solely through service reduc- tions, preferring a combination of service reductions and funding through new taxes and user fees. Strategy A received the most support. The instruments were consistent in reflecting how respondents chose to balance the budget. All showed approximately $3.5 million in cost reduction through efficiencies and cost savings and approximately $7.5 million raised with additional taxes. Mr. Weeks reviewed service changes, grouped into six major service areas. Under Public Safety services, there is support for reducing animal control field enforcement and eliminating the spay/neuter clinic. There was very e MINUTES--City Council Work Session July 27, 1992 Page 2 5:30 p.m. ~ little support for reducing Library Services. Respondents favored increasing ,., user fees over reducing Recreation Services. Generally, there was support to reduce maintenance in Parks Services to a minimum level. There was support for changing many of the services provided by Planning and Development, but no clarity on what to change. Under Cultural Services, there was support for either eliminating or privatizing some programs. Mr. Weeks said that the only service enhancement that received considerable support was affordable housing construction. A sizable minority of respon- dents also supported human services and a new library. Much less support was demonstrated for either community policing or fire/emergency medical deployme- nt. With regard to funding, Mr. Weeks said that respondents generally supported taxes that did not apply to them, or that were discretionary. The restaurant tax was favored by 61 percent, followed by the hotel/motel room tax and the corporate income tax. The least preferred taxes are the personal income, payroll, and property tax. Mr. Weeks concluded his report by saying that the dialogue that the City Council has had with the community has worked. There was a brief discussion about the process the council will follow in choosing a final strategy. Ms. Ehrman questioned the rationale for deciding on council unanimity to arrive at a decision. The council decided to proceed as planned, acknowledging that there may be a need to back away from that ~ standard. The meeting adjourned at 7:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ?74~'~ .' / .L.("--" ' ,L' ( or~ ,~. Micheal Gleason City Manager (Recorded by Yolanda Paule) cc53027.072 e MINUTES--City Council Work Session July 27, 1992 Page 3 5:30 p.m.