11-24-14-WS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Memo - City Council 2015 Budget and Tax Levy Discussions 9 Finance and Administrative Services is proposing to add back in the intern positions that were cut in 2014 which is 0.75 FTE. TCAAP expenditures were increased for Other Professional Services, Administration reduced Other Professional Services by $8,000 to help offset. Due to the new calculations by the LMCIT, insurance costs have been adjusted based on 2014 actuals and reduced by $11,000. ISSUES TO CONSIDER Public Safety Public Safety costs are set to increase as listed above. This alone would amount to an $86,118 increase in the budget or a levy increase of 2.6%. TCAAP A TCAAP Capital Fund was established and only general TCAAP expenses are being budgeted in the TCAAP department – all items related to the JPA which the City is responsible for are going to the TCAAP Capital Fund. Finance and Administrative Services In November of 2010, the Council reorganized Finance and Administration into one department called Finance and Administrative Services and added the Finance Analyst (comparable to adding the Associate Planner in 2014). This was done to allow additional capacity for the City Administrator to delegate duties to the Finance Director and reduce the amount of backlog created in the Finance department each time a new intern came onboard. The Personnel Committee reviewed this proposal and recommended it to the City Council. A copy of the Council agenda item, which outlined the change to the department in 2010 with the explanation, is attached (Attachment D and E). This was authorized and approved by the City Coun cil on November 29, 2010. It should be noted that this still allowed interns/student workers of 0.35 FTEs in the Finance Department and 0.5 FTEs in the Administrative Services Department totaling 0.85 FTEs for the department for clerical help in the general routine tasks as outlined in the attachment. During the 2014 budget discussions, the Finance and Administrative Services department suggested eliminating the intern/student workers and replacing this with a permanent part-time position to give more continuity and eliminate the constant training period as interns/student workers were replaced causing backlogs and many times preventing staff from accomplishing projects and Council goals in a timely manner. Council chose at that time to deny this request and eliminated the intern/student workers from the department entirely. This request is also attached with the cost justification that was given to the Council at that time (Attachment F). The 2015 budget does include the re-establishment of the interns/student workers in the department, but Council should be aware that they are also a revenue source to the General Fund as an Administrative Service Charge to other funds – removing this expenditure will decrease the expenditure budget by $17,224, but it will also decrease the revenue budget by $10,831 giving a total change of $6,393.