1995/01/21City Hallr Anaheim, California - COUNCIL MINUTES - JANUARY 21, 1995 - 8:00 A.M.
The City Council of the City of Anaheim met in adjourned regular session.
PRESENT:
PRESENT:
ABSENT:
VACANCY=
PRESENT:
MAYOR: Daly
COUNCIL MEMBERS: Lopez, Zemel, Feldhaus
COUNCIL MEMBERS: None
COUNCIL MEMBERS= One
CITY MANAGER= James Ruth
CITY ATTORNEY: Jack White
CITY CLERK: Leonora N. Sohl
FINANCE/ADMINISTRATION MANAGER: Bill Sweeney
(Other members of administrative staff were also present.)
A complete copy of the agenda for the meeting of the Anaheim City Council was
posted at 12=10 p.m. on January 13, 1995 at the Civic Center kiosk, containing
all items as shown herein.
Mayor Daly called the adjourned regular meeting of January 17, 1995 (held
January 21, 1995) to order and welcomed those of the public who were in
attendance in the Chamber audience. (8=15 a.m.)
Mayor Daly. This meeting/workshop is to focus on the state of the City's
budget for the 1995/96 Fiscal Year and to get a view of what future year
revenues and expenditures look like at this time. He is going to ask the City
Manager to step the Council through some of the documentation that has been
prepared and available for members of the public who are present. (See packet
of documents entitled Council/Manager Workshop - January 21, 1995 - made a
part of the record.)
City Manager James Ruth. On behalf of staff, it is their pleasure to be able
to present a general overview of the City budget and specifically today to
focus on the General Fund. Staff has just begun the budget process and no
hearings have yet been conducted. The figures are very tentative in nature
but will give a "snap shot", isolate some of the major issues and outline a
course of action to address those issues.
Mr. Ruth's presentation (supplemented by slides, hard copies of which were
also provided) briefed pages 3 and 4 of the packet of material submitted, the
first entitled "State of the City" listing 21 significant accomplishments and
achievements and elaborated on each giving facts and figures where applicable.
As noted, these accomplishments were attained with fewer team members, less
management and a reduced budget. Following his presentation on these items,
Mr. Ruth addressed the challenges facing the City (see page 4 of the
documentation) during which he addressed the Orange County Bankruptcy and its
impact and the recession's impact on City revenues. The issues are many and
complex, challenging the City's ability to deliver needed services.
Following Mr. Ruth's presentation and before proceeding, questions were posed
by Council Members and the Mayor relative to when additional police officers
will be hired over and above the 22 hired within the last year and the status
of the 800 Mhz Communication System in the county.
Mr. Ruth then introduced the Budget & Audit Manager, Bill Sweeney to give a
presentation on City finances - a budget overview and detail.
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City Hallr Anaheimr California - COUNCIL MINUTES - JANUARY 21~ 1995 - 8~00 A.M.
Mr. Bill Sweeney, Budget & Audit Manager. Working from posted charts and
slides, hard copies of which were part of the packet submitted to the Council
and public, he briefed each major source of revenue (see General Fund -
Preliminary Projections excluding Orange County Bankruptcy Impact). Bar
Charts where also briefed showing actual property tax revenues, sales tax
revenues and transient occupancy tax from 1989-90 through 1993-94, estimated
for 1994/95 and projected for 1995/96. Mr. Sweeney also covered General Fund
transfers, status of General Fund reserves and available cash reserve
balances. He pointed out during his presentation that the City is looking at
an $8 to $9 million shortfall in the coming fiscal year budget.
Following Mr. Sweeney's extensive presentation, City Manager Ruth briefed the
status of the Orange County Financial crisis (bankruptcy) referring first to
the information disseminated at the public workshop held on the matter on
January 10, 1995 (see minutes that date). He also briefed the most current
information (see page 15 of the material submitted - County Bankruptcy). What
they do not know at this time is the County's plan with respect to the
distribution of pool funds, the County's intentions with respect to interest
allocation and the timing relative to both. He emphasized that the City is
aggressively working toward 100% recovery of all losses.
Mr. Ruth then briefed the plan for closing the gap (see page 18) of the
approximate 9 million dollar pre-bankruptcy shortfall with potential solutions
being expenditure reductions, reduced contribution to reserves and reliance on
one-time monies along with strategies. Looking forward, he briefed service
enhancements under consideration and potential funding sources. Mayor Daly
also asked the City Manager to brief pages 20 and 21 of the material
submitted, items a through i - Aggressive Asset Management which listed the
City's assets suggested for Council review.
Following Council questions of staff, Mayor Daly invited input from members of
the public.
Mr. Phil Knypstra, 2520 Gelid Avenue, Anaheim. Spoke on General Fund
transfers from Utilities and posed questions relative to those transfers,
General Fund reserves and reserve fund balances. He also expressed his
opinion that they should not touch the General Benefits Fund Reserve (see page
13 of the material submitted) to fund the current crisis.
Mrs. Horn. She asked for an explanation of figures on page 11 of the material
under the column, "Less Measure M Requirement" which was answered by Mr.
Sweeney.
Ben Bay, 2148 W. Grayson, Anaheim. (Member of the City's Budget Advisory
Commission.) He questioned the General Fund Transfer to the Anaheim Resort
Fund, that no matter what happens with the County that the City is going to
start out with a $9 million deficit for the coming fiscal year, how the City
is expecting to have no loss with regard to the County Bankruptcy, the PERS
rebate to the City of $9.6 million, etc. He also suggested that an oversight
committee be appointed of sharp business minds to look at the City's
investments from the standpoint of the public. He feels sorry for some of the
elected officials including County Supervisors when something like this
happens because that amount of detail with all the other "tons" of reading
that comes across their desk is very hard to follow especially to the point
where even experts in the City did not foresee a crash like the one that
happened, nor could they predict what Mr. Greenspan would do with interest
rates at the Federal level. Mr. Bay's questions were answered by both the
Assistant City Manager, Dave Morgan and City Manager Ruth.
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City Hall, Anaheim, California - COUNCIL MINUTES - J~M~WJARY 21, 1995 - 8~00 &.M.
City Manager Ruth. Further for Mr. Bay's benefit, he reported that the
potential loss of 22% of the City's investment in the County Pool would
translate to about $2 million a year, lost interest income. Also, the City
Treasurer has been working on the Council's recommendations to expand the
investment committee and will be coming forward with those recommendations for
consideration over the next couple of weeks.
Closing comments/questions were made by Council Members.
Council Member Feldhaus asked if it was expected that the State was again
going to turn to the cities to try and balance the State budget as they have
done many times in the past.
City Manager Ruth. They have received correspondence from the Governor's
Office in the past week reaffirming that the Governor does not anticipate
taking any more money from the cities, but anything can happen and they will
be prepared for that contingency.
Council Member Zemel. He is delighted and pleased in the fact that
considering all that has been presented, no tax increase is being recommended
by staff. He confirmed that his number one priority and the reason for
government in the first place is to provide public safety especially adding
more police officers. He reiterated it is the number one priority even if
they lose other things.
Mayor Daly. Council Member Lopez had earlier brought up the Convention Center
Arena and why is it not used as it used to be and how can that change. He
suggested perhaps the Convention Center and the Stadium could operate more as
a package. He asked the City Manager when he intended to bring that subject
back to the Council.
City Manager Ruth. On the operations side, it will be part of the budget
discussions. Relative to the Convention Center expansion, he deferred to Tom
Wood.
Tom Wood, Deputy City Manager. The economic consultant final selection will
take place the first part of next week and they will be coming back with a
recommendation to hire the consultant the first week in February. The process
will cover the whole series of questions the Council authorized them to look
into last fall. Also in February, they will bring forth to the Council the
request for proposal for the master plan architectural work. It will take a
number of months for the consultant to respond to that and the contract
awarded some time in the Spring.
A brief discussion then followed between City Manager Ruth and Mayor Daly
relative to the Fire Department, Mayor Daly noting that much has been said in
recent years that regionalization could result in delivery of services at a
lower cost. City Manager Ruth reported on what Anaheim has done in that regard
and while they have had no success in the past in trying to work with other
communities to consolidate, the City is continuing to pursue the issue.
Council Member Feldhaus suggested that they start looking at the way the City
staffs the Fire Department and perhaps do a financial analysis showing where
savings might be achieved if the department went on a 3/12 schedule like the
Police Department or a 4/10 schedule as well as looking at reciprocal services
that could be offered to nearby cities. At the League of Cities, it was
mentioned that some cities are going to volunteer fire people instead of
increasing personnel.
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City Hallt Anehe£mt Cal£forn£a - COUNCIL MINUTES - J~NU~RY 21~ 1995 - 8=00 &.M.
City Manager Ruth. One of the major issues as they look at fire services is
that approximately 90% of the calls are for paramedic service. They need to
look at the whole area of paramedic services. He has talked to a private
company recently in terms of getting greater participation by the residents of
Anaheim to pay into the program for paramedic services and try to increase
revenues to offset some of those costs. They are looking at using private
sector people to enhance revenue for the services the City is actually
delivering. He had that meeting as late as this week and it is looking
promising to enhance revenues.
City Manager Ruth. This concludes the presentation today but staff will be
working diligently on the finite details of the budget, setting budget hearing
dates and giving briefings.
Mayor Daly asked the next milestone in terms of presenting the 1995-96 Budget.
Bill Sweeney. The intent is to have the budget ready for the City Council by
the first week in May. In the interim, they will be giving periodic updates
in terms of progress.
Mayor Daly. He thanked members of the public who were present today as well
as members of the Budget Advisory Commission.
ADJOURNMENT: The adjourned regular meeting of January 17, 1995, held
January 21, 1995 was adjourned. (10:18 a.m.)
LEONORA N. SOHL, CITY CLERK
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