Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 2F: Approval of League of Oregon Cities Priority Agenda ECC UGENE ITY OUNCIL AIS GENDA TEM UMMARY Ratification of Unanimous Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) Committee Actions Pertaining to the League of Oregon Cities Legislative Priority Agenda Meeting Date: July 23, 2012 Agenda Item Number: 2F Department: Central Services - City Manager’s Office Staff Contact: Jessica Mumme www.eugene-or.gov Contact Telephone Number: 541-682-5127 ISSUE STATEMENT This is an action item to ratify the unanimous actions of the Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) Committee from the July 18, 2012 IGR Committee meetings. BACKGROUND The IGR Committee met on July 18, 2012, to review staff recommendations pertaining to the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) Legislative Priority Setting, and approved a preferred priority list to submit to the LOC. The list of legislative priorities was generated by the LOC’s eight policy committees, which involve members and interested parties from cities around the state – including several committees and City of Eugene staff. The IGR Committee voted unanimously to recommend six items to the LOC. These are labeled in Attachment A as Items A, D, F, G, K and Q with descriptions. In brief, these are: A – The Jobs/Economic Development Initiative that supports funding for industrial site development. D – Restore equity in our property tax system by resetting assessed value to real market value when a property is sold or constructed. F – Reform the court fines system in a manner that recognizes the value of both state and local courts. G – Amend the public contracting code to remove costly requirements that do not aid in the delivery of public improvements and defend against any new requirements that do not serve the public interest. K – Pass legislation renewing the 9-1-1 tax. Q – Recapitalize the Special Public Works Fund, Water Wastewater Fund, Water Conservation, Reuse and Storage Grant Program, and Clean Water State Revolving Fund. Also at the meeting, new information obtained from the LOC was discussed with IGR Committee members. The League of Oregon Cities Board of Directors is placing a land use suite and property tax suite on the legislative agenda for the 2013 legislative session. These are described in Attachment B and Attachment C. Attachment B relates to local option levies. During the 2011 legislative session, HJR 26 remained in the committee upon adjournment. This legislation would require a constitutional amendment that would give local voters the opportunity to pass local option levies outside of compression and for a maximum length of 10 years. Chris Fick at the league has provided a one-page document on this subject. S:\CMO\2012 Council Agendas\M120723\S1207232F.doc Attachment C relates to population forecasting. This is related to land use. The LOC has been engaged in legislative efforts to streamline population forecasting. The league has also been engaged in conversations with the Governor’s Office and other stakeholders regarding Urban Growth Boundary reform. In addition to the two concepts above, the League of Oregon Cities has released preliminary information as to the current vote count from other cities regarding the league’s legislative priorities. The greatest support is for Items D and G; Item G, under General Government, would amend the public contracting code and is a priority for the Purchasing Department. RELATED CITY POLICIES Ratification of IGR Committee actions is the making or affirming of the City of Eugene’s policy with respect to Federal and State legislative issues or such other matters as may come to the council from the committee. COUNCIL OPTIONS The council may ratify or decline to ratify the IGR Committee’s unanimous actions and approval of staff recommendations. Actions on which the IGR committee is not unanimous must be addressed by the full council in order to provide direction to staff in Salem. CITY MANAGER’S RECOMMENDATION The City Manager recommends ratification of the IGR Committee's actions. SUGGESTED MOTION Move to ratify that the IGR Committee's unanimous actions recommending Items A, D, F, G, K, and Q be the City of Eugene’s selections for the League of Oregon Cities legislative priorities for the 2013 legislative session. ATTACHMENTS A.League of Oregon Cities (LOC) Policy Committees’ Legislative Recommendations B.LOC Local Control Amendment (HJR 26) C.LOC Perspective on Population Forecasting D.Memo to Jon Ruiz from Jessica Mumme Regarding the LOC Legislative Priority Setting FOR MORE INFORMATION Staff Contact: Jessica Mumme Telephone: 541-682-5127 Staff E-Mail: jessica.l.mumme@ci.eugene.or.us S:\CMO\2012 Council Agendas\M120723\S1207232F.doc %88%',1)28% %88%',1)28& 0SGEP'SRXVSP%QIRHQIRX ,.6    (IWGVMTXMSR The League’s proposed constitutional amendment would allow local voters the ability to consider a local option levy outside of compression, and would lengthen the maximum duration of a levy from 5 to 10 years. The amendment would not raise anyone’s taxes, but would empower voters to authorize a tax to be used for local operations that voters want. &EGOKVSYRH Under our current system, statewide limitations can prohibit local voters from having the ability to raise their own taxes to support services they demand. Measure 5 limitations prevent general governments (cities, counties and special districts) and schools to levying $10 and $5 per $1,000 of real market value respectively. Any taxes levied in excess of those limitations are reduced, or compressed, proportionally until the limitations are met. Local option levies, temporary levies in excess of the municipality’s permanent rate that are approved by voters to provide funding for operating expenses, are compressed first under this system. As a result, residents residing in a municipality in compression are essentially prohibited from even voting to raise their taxes to support services they demand. )\EQTPI Take for example the city of Sweet Home, a timber-dependent community of roughly 9,000 residents in Linn County. The city has a low permanent tax rate for a city of its size. As a result, the city has provided essential police protection and library services via a local option levy since 1986. In 2010, voters in Sweet Home approved these local option levies with 60 and 55 percent of the vote respectively. However, Linn County passed a local option levy of its own soon thereafter, and property values in Sweet Home fell. As a result, the local option levy revenue losses due to compression increased from $300,000 to $730,000 – nearly a third of what the levy was supposed to collect. As a result, the public safety and library services are not being provided at the level local citizens wanted. DEOH6WDWHZLGHFRPSUHVVLRQORVVHV 7 7XEXI[MHI-QTEGXW Compression is becoming a growing problem for local 5HYHQXHORVWWR3HUFHQWLQFUHDVHLQ FRPSUHVVLRQLQFRPSUHVVLRQORVVHV governments statewide. Since 2008-09, compression for )< LQPLOOLRQV VLQFH)< all local governments has increased from $51 million, or 1.13 percent of property tax collections, to $144 million, 6FKRROV   or 2.8 percent of collections (see Table 1). All counties are &RXQWLHV   in compression, as are half of all cities and more than 90 &LWLHV   percent of all school districts. Last May, local voters approved 18 of 21 (86%) local option levies, including six out of six city levies and four out of five county levies. While voters may still be concerned about the state of the economy, in many instances they clearly realize the value of local government services and are willing to tax themselves to provide those services. Whether or not any local voters approve local option levies outside of compression limitations is irrelevant. What matters is that local voters currently do not have the freedom and opportunity to do so. For more information, visit www.orcities.org/toolkit or contact Chris Fick at (503) 588-6550 or cfick@orcities.org. %88%',1)28' %88%',1)28( Central Services Finance Division Memorandum City of Eugene th 100 West 10 Ave., Ste 400 Date: July 11, 2012 Eugene, Oregon 97401 (541) 682-5127 To: Jon Ruiz, City Manager (541) 682-5802 FAX From: Jessica Mumme, Program Coordinator, Finance & Intergovernmental Relations Subject: League of Oregon Cities (LOC) Legislative Priority Setting Synopsis of Recommendation With direct input from the City’s Legislative Coordinators, and review of the previous actions of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee (IGR) and the full City Council, the following two items rose to the top as high priorities for our City and the League of Oregon Cities to add to their legislative agenda: General Government Reform the court fines system in a manner that recognizes the value of both state and local courts. (Item F) Telecommunications Pass legislation renewing the 9-1-1 tax. (Item K) City staff has worked for many years on both of these topics, and these are not new issues to the legislature. th Item F: In 2009, the 75 Legislative Assembly enacted House Bill 2287. The measure established an eight-member Joint Interim Committee on State Justice System Revenues to make recommendations on Oregon Judicial Department fees, fines and surcharges, and to recommend distribution of the temporary fee and surcharge revenue to justice system entities. Representative Nancy Nathanson co-chaired this Committee. The Committee found that the current court revenue structure is exceptionally complex and lacks transparency. As directed by House Bill 2287, the Committee put forward three legislative concepts related to the civil and criminal state justice revenue structure; Legislative Concept 364-1, Legislative Concept 1168, and Legislative Concept 1168-1. Generally speaking, the recommendations would simplify the current criminal and civil revenue and collections process, preserve access to justice, provide transparency, and prepare for the implementation of the Oregon Court Program. The result of the three Legislative Concepts, which affects cities, is the local jurisdiction requirement to submit the first $60 of a traffic fine to the state. This requirement, along with other changes made to court fine amounts, has resulted in detrimental fiscal impacts to municipal courts and has the possibility of threatening their continued operation. Item K: Kristi Wilde, the 9-1-1 Communication’s Program Manager, has actively worked on 9-1-1 issues affecting the City of Eugene, and the entire State of Oregon. Revenues derived from 9-1-1 taxes are an extremely important revenue source for local governments. Cities receive approximately $13 million per biennium which they must pass through to the governing authority of the 9-1-1 jurisdiction serving that city. This is the backbone of the budget that supports the planning, installation, maintenance, operation and improvements of the 9-1-1 system. These funds are supposed to be used only for purposes of handling citizen’s calls to a network of primary and secondary Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) and local emergency responders. The statutory authorization for the collection of this tax contains a six- year sunset provision, and is due to expire on December 31, 2014. Additionally, pre-paid cell phone and VoIP users do not currently pay the 9-1-1 tax. Legislation attempting to correct this inequity has been introduced in prior legislative sessions but failed. The items that City staff has recommended as secondary items of interest include: Community Development The Jobs/Economic Development Initiative that supports funding for industrial site development. (Item A) General Government Pass legislation that will allow cities greater authority to regulate liquor serving establishments. (Item H) Human Resources Clarify that binding arbitration decisions may be overturned when those decisions violate public policy interests as defined by a local government. (Item J) Telecommunications Defeat legislation mandating the consolidation of Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). (Item L) Transportation While supporting the creation of a dedicated, non-roadway transportation fund, oppose any attempt to fund it from existing revenue streams – especially transfers from local governments to the state.(Item O) Item A: This is a top priority for our Eugene Airport. Item H: Our Police Department and 9-1-1 Program Manager have identified this as a high priority for their departments. Item J: Our Police Department and Human Resources Division identify this as a priority item for their departments. Item L: City staff firmly believes that PSAP consolidation should be locally driven, and that any program savings that result from consolidations should be redirected towards the actual cost of providing 9-1-1 services, not as a means to better pay for State general fund expenses. The Office of Emergency Management recently changed gears with one of the Legislative Concept placeholders. Rather than submit more refined language to fund a PSAP Consolidation Incentive Fund, they are submitting a bill to recommend that the 48 remaining PSAPs be consolidated into 9 regional centers. Our CLCC would likely be one of the 9 regional centers. Staff has met with Representative Nancy Nathanson and informed her that we want our legislative leadership to call the question on consolidation. We expected to see a proposal for one PSAP per county. City staff will be heavily involved in this legislation regardless of if the League of Oregon Cities has a priority for this item. Item O: Our Public Works Engineering staff and Finance/Disbursements staff identify this as a priority item for their departments. Previous Action from IGR and City Council In August of 2008, the full City Council voted on the League of Oregon Cities 2009 legislative agenda. The IGR Committee put forth five recommendations: changes to the property tax system; increased regulation on mental theft; transportation funding package; climate change legislation and; Oregon wireless interoperability network. The full City Council moved to approve these recommendations with a 6:1 vote, Councilor Bettman voting no. In June of 2010, the IGR Committee voted on the League of Oregon Cities 2011 legislative agenda. This did not go before full City Council. The IGR Committee recommended 7 legislative priorities at this meeting: reauthorization of BETC; overhaul of the property tax system; 9-1-1 tax for pre-paid cell phones; healthcare cost containment; additional funding for multi-modal transit and rail; recapitalize state municipal infrastructure funds and; protect existing and future water rights.