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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,December 8,2014 Page 18 needed to be repaid if it represented excess money sitting in reserves if the Coun- cil chose to utilize it for funding operations of capital expenditures. Councilmember Etten stated that he believed that the City was not actually paying back reserves, but filling in with levy dollars paid with one-time dollars. By fill- ing in that budget amount previously agreed to versus one-time money, Coun- cilmember Etten opined that there were no additional monies going into the re- serves. Councilmember McGehee concurred with Councilmember Etten's comments. However, when thinking of a way to pay reserves back, Councilmember McGe- hee noted the amount of time to build up some of those reserves; and if the City considered building a License Center at some point, it would need the money, ei- ther from reserves or by bonding. Councilmember McGehee stated that she strongly supported a "rainy day" fund; and opined that the City wasn't paying the funds back, but they needed to be available to avoid terrible fluctuations, such as being experienced in 2015. While the City was lucky those reserves were availa- ble, Councilmember McGehee opined that if they continued to be used as a gen- eral policy, the City Council would not have them available in the future to help taxpayers, and suggested caution. Councilmember McGehee stated that she was less hesitant to use the reserves this year due to increased property valuations; and expressed her hope that there were programs that could be cut, some significantly, in the future, including utility rates with increases laid entirely on residents, and requiring further review in the future compared to commercial utility rates. Mayor Roe clarified that the utility rate increase was to the base fees and applied to all utility customers, whether commercial or residential, with commercial prop- erties affected according to their meter size. In response to the preference to not use reserves for ongoing expenses, Mayor Roe suggested one way to look at it as proposed for 2015 (referencing page 3 in the RCA), under budget additions, such as additional CIP replacements, if it cre- ated more comfort, the reserves could be used to pay $500,000 of those proposed $723,570 additional 2015 capital replacements, and not considered to be used for ongoing expenses. While not being able to remember the proposed 2016 capital needs and whether or not it was sustainable, Mayor Roe noted that it fluctuated annually, as evidenced with this 2015 CIP including a$700,000 increase. Specific to saving for a new License Center, Mayor Roe noted that the discussion had been held earlier in 2014, and it was not actually a City Council policy per se, it was certainly worth having a conversation about. However, Mayor Roe further noted that his proposal did not completely eliminate those reserves, but it would set them back, but still allowed that conversation to move forward while still us- ing funds to provide relief for Roseville taxpayers at this time.