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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION—APRIL 21, 2014 6 Staff would recommend continuing to use this formula. (The City's cost per employee per month has only increased by $22 over the last seven years since we started the High Deductible plans with HSAs. We have also gotten back over$40,000 in dividends in three of the last four years from the Co-op). • Update the five year CIP. Staff is currently in the process of updating the current plan to discuss with the City Council at the June work session. Does the City Council have any feedback or direction they would like to provide staff with in regard to the CIP? • An area where staff sees a need is in park funding. Park dedication fees are generally limited to capital improvements, not general repair and maintenance items, and there is not a steady stream of income. The PIR fund is used for a lot of the larger park expenditures and for some matching funds for grants. In looking at the financial plan, staff sees a need to set up a reserve for park improvements. This fund would then be a funding source for items which are included in the CIP. • Another area is street improvement funding as we corrected the structural problems in the budget last year and discontinued the $200,000 transfer from the General Fund to the PIR and moved the street maintenance items from the PIR to the General Fund Streets department — this was basically a wash as the amounts were close to the same amount. In looking at the financial plan, staff sees a need to find a funding source to build up reserves for this fund. • Another area where staff sees a need is in the EDA Budget. We need to find a permanent funding source for general economic development activities. Also the Round Lake TIF District will be expiring in 2015 and the City Council/EDA budgeted this fund balance after the bond is paid(February of 2015) for the Round Lake Road improvement project. • As a step in creating a quality budget document, performance measures/service indicators should be established for each department. Some of these may come about as a result of the community survey (if one is done) as areas that the Council would like to improve. Goals and objectives also need to be established for each department. These would need to be established in 2015, then in subsequent years actual performance can be tracked to show progress against these goals. This would provide Council and the public another tool to evaluate city services. Staff would appreciate input from the Council on this matter. Staff reviewed a proposed budget calendar and requested direction from the Council as it continues with the 2015 Budgeting process. Councilmember Holden wanted to start the tax levy at 5.0% based on the feedback received from the public. This would allow the City to begin setting money aside for Snelling Avenue road repairs. She recommended that salary increases be discussed after the compensation study is complete, and she suggested that health care cost increases be paid by employees. Director of Finance and Administrative Services Iverson noted that the compensation study will include salary and benefit for comparable cities. Councilmember McClung preferred to have a 0% levy increase. He is comfortable with the Council giving department heads up to a 1% increase for their budgets. It is his understanding that residents believe taxes are already too high and that they do not want additional fees (franchise fees). He does not support a 5.0% levy, unless there is a very good plan or explanation