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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,December 4, 2017 Page 8 Also, Councilmember Willmus noted that the city continued to grow its number of employees and programs/services and stated his interest in pacing the city and that growth in a reasonable manner. Given the current environment, Councilmember Willmus opined that a proposed 6.4% levy increase was higher than he would prefer; but offered to have some- thing available for consideration by his colleagues at next week's meeting after he further reviewed and considered the favorable work done by the Finance Com- mission, and asked that the City Council would take a hard look at those recom- mendations and options coming forward at that time. Councilmember McGehee repeated her request for information prior to next week's meeting, asking Councilmember Willmus that any information he had available before Wednesday noon of this week be provided to staff to include in meeting packet materials for consideration. At this point, Councilmember McGe- hee opined that she viewed the proposed levy as her preference. Specific to historical issues from her perspective, Councilmember McGehee opined that her biggest problem was in actions previously taken by the council creating significant commitments on things without a plan in place to maintain them. However, Councilmember McGehee expressed frustration in last week's council action to reject all License Center bids for remodeling, even though this enterprise was a proven revenue-generating service. Councilmember McGehee expressed her frustration with what she considered often-repeated actions, clearly not a staff problem but a City Council problem. Having now served on the City Council for seven years, Councilmember McGe- hee also referenced the previously-completed Compensation Study conducted by the city for non-union staff, and subsequent setting of city non-union compensa- tion at 98% of peer city averages. Since then, Councilmember McGehee opined that the city had approved cost of living adjustments (COLA) below their ap- proved policy at 98%, resulting in moving back to its original position in not providing compensation for valuable employees in the municipal and private market place. Councilmember McGehee stated that she found it difficult when coming to budget time when the City Council didn't admit it had created these problems, while continuing to build additional programs and buildings without clearly thinking about how to address their ongoing provision and/or mainte- nance; but willingly continue to cut city staff because of perceived significant in- creasing employee costs. In response to tonight's public comment, Councilmember McGehee agreed with many of his comments; but clarified that the increase in full-time firefighters would serve to eventually create cost-savings with a full-time department versus hiring so many part time firefighters, with this last phase in the reorganization of the department. Given that a good majority of those full-time firefighters also