CC_Minutes_2019_1202 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Regular City Council Meeting Monday, December 2, 2019 Page 3 the above-referenced Transfer of an On-Sale Intoxicating Liquor License; with no one appearing for or against. Etten moved, Laliberte seconded, approving the 2020 Group LLC's request for an On-Sale Intoxicating Liquor License contingent on a successful background check and submittal of outstanding items. Roll Call Ayes: Willmus, Laliberte, Etten, Groff and Roe. Nays: None. c. Adopt the 2020 Final Budget& City Tax Levy Interim Finance Director Jason Schirmacher briefly highlighted this item as de- tailed in the Request for Council Action and related attachments dated December 2, 2019. Mayor Roe noted on the communications budget, staff handed out some infor- mation on fund balances. He had a concern regarding the fund balance trend in the communications budget. Based on the current trend, within three years the fund balance would be depleted completely and that is with taking the capital funding out of the picture and using the entire fund balance for operations purpos- es. He noted at the end of 2018, the fund balance was around $262,000 and it is projected in the memo from staff that at the end of 2019, the fund will be at ap- proximately $179,000. In 2019, there was a deficit spending of about $83,000 leading to that fund reduction. In 2020, the budget as proposed has deficit spend- ing of approximately $90,000 which would bring the fund balance down to about $89,000 which is essentially one more year worth of deficit spending and by the start of 2021, the city would be at essentially a zero balance. One possible solu- tion would be to eliminate the deficit spending in 2020 altogether and would freeze the fund balance at the $179,000 level which is approximately thirty-six percent of the 2020 operating budget and above the ten to thirty percent target range for that fund balance. The other approach would be to eliminate the deficit spending over two years. At the end of 2020, the fund balance would get to around$134,000. Mayor Roe thought a lot of discussion was needed if the Council were to pursue either of those approaches and decisions will be needed if the Council were to go forward status quo as well. However, it might make sense to allow a year of tran- sition in figuring some things out through a two-year approach to reduce that def- icit spending. Mr. Trudgeon explained, as he identified in his budget memo, this was an issue going forward and one of the primary drivers for this is the reduction in franchise fees. People subscribing to cable is dropping and is expected to continue to drop. One of the measures taken for this budget was paying a portion of administration