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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, December 2,2019 Page 6 Councilmember Etten asked Mr. Trudgeon if he had a plan in place already or was it a suggestion to talk about the communications function going forward. Mr. Trudgeon indicated it was the intention as identified in the budget messages to start looking and bring forward discussion for some options, whether it is re- structuring the communications efforts to shave off costs or finding additional revenue on that. He did think in this budget it was mentioned that the city would not take any action and this budget does implement some actions to help stabilize that fund, namely shifting some staff costs out to the general fund and also into the capital funds. There are also some things that need to be looked at, one is the city's relationship with CTV and if that is something the city wants to still contin- ue. He thought if the city wanted to be open and flexible to all options that needs to be considered as well and one potential opportunity for cost reduction. He thought if specifically looking at line items, the newsletter and website have been mentioned to not necessarily touch but, for instance, there is a community survey in the budget for 2020 for $20,000. The city finds this survey very valuable but when some of these decisions are made like this tonight, without really having that conversation, some things put in place would be in jeopardy. Mr. Trudgeon explained he did not know if the city needed to limit its communi- cation efforts to what is in the bank in the communications fund. The city has been very lucky over the years to fully fund its communications efforts and ex- pand the communications efforts because the funds were there. But it is not a written rule that communications have to come out of a communications fund. He did not know exactly the number of cities that fund communications through levy, but was sure there are cities out there. It comes down to a matter of priorities, which is what he would like to have a discussion on to find out what is really im- portant for the city, what needs to be done, what is that cost, and how can the city afford it. If the city can afford that within some non-property tax revenue, that would be great. But if some things are really important for them as a community to have, then there will need to be a hard discussion whether that is from property tax, a combination of different funds, or looking at different things. He thought there needed to be those discussions versus just making a decision to cut a certain number and be good with it, which is his opinion and recommendation to the Council. Mayor Roe indicated the Council did not need to take any action at this point but is a start for conversation. He suggested to the extent this impacts the budget mo- tions, the Council come to a conclusion about that at some point. Councilmember Willmus stated that at the rate the fund is being depleted, what he didn't want to see is that the city gets one to two years out and having to look at shifting a significantly greater percentage or all of it to the levy. He thought that as the city looks at either a two- or three-year approach, to wean themselves off deficit spending, which is a prudent measure the city should look to take. He