MINUTES - SHOREWOOD BOARD OF TRUSTEES Special Village Board Meeting August 29, 2018

Transcription

1 MINUTES - SHOREWOOD BOARD OF TRUSTEES Special Village Board Meeting August 29, 2018 Call to Order President Rozek called the Special meeting of the Village Board to order at 6:10 p.m. in the Court Room. Statement of Public Notice Clerk Bruckman stated that the meeting had been posted and noticed according to law. Roll Call President Rozek called the roll. Present: Trustees Davida Amenta, Jessica Carpenter, Michael Maher, Ann McKaig and Wesley Warren. Trustee Bockhorst was excused. Others Present: Village Manager Rebecca Ewald, Finance Director /Treasurer Mark Emanuelson, Court Clerk Norma Kunze. Tr. Maher moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to move item 3a, enhance collections processes of existing outstanding fees, to the beginning of the meeting. Motion carried 6-0. The Village Board went to item 3a. 1. Consider setting additional meeting date to discuss and provide direction on individual projects, funding levels, and implementation schedule for Long Range Financial Plan development, which was previously scheduled for August 27. The Village Board will convene Saturday, September 15 at 9:00 a.m. to discuss the Long Range Financial Plan. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by President Rozek to amend the agenda to move the discussion of item 3d, add public fire protection fees to the water utility bills, next on the agenda. Motion carried 6 0. The Board went to item 3d. 2. Consider the following fee schedule additions: a. Loading Zone Fees Mr. Emanuelson reviewed highlights of this memo: the initial application fee is $ (includes signage and installation) and $ for renewal. Additional fees include: up to 30 lineal feet $ per year and each additional lineal foot $ per year. If approved, staff would prepare the applicable revisions to section of the municipal code. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. Maher to approve adding to the Village fee schedule, fees for loading zones as proposed effective January 1, Tr. Amenta withdrew motion. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. Maher to direct staff to move forward with developing the process and ordinance amendments to implement the loading zone fees. Motion carried

2 b. Parklet Fees Mr. Emanuelson reviewed the memo. As part of this process, staff identified that the Village fees for requesting parklet approval does not reflect the cost of staff time processing these requests, or the implicit value of taking up on-street parking spaces which could otherwise generate revenues for the Village. The initial application fee would be $ and the renewal fee would be $ Additional annual fees (per 20 lineal feet or portion thereof) would be $75.00 a month. Village Board discussed notifying businesses if there are changes to the fees. Tr. McKaig moved, seconded by Tr. Maher to approve adding to the Village fee schedule, fees for parklets as proposed. Motion carried 4 2 with President Rozek and Tr. Warren voting Nay. 3. Consider pursuing other revenue opportunities / changes. a. Enhance collections processes of existing outstanding fees Mr. Emanuelson gave a brief summary. There are three different proposals that provide opportunities to collect on past due amounts which could result in increased revenues of $50,000 to $60,000. There is a backlog of unpaid court and parking citations as well as personal property. Court Clerk Kunze clarified the Village would utilize both TRIP (Tax Refund Intercept Program) and SDC (State Debt Collection); anything over $50.00 SDC could collect, anything under $50 would be collected by TRIP. At this time, the Village has $2,415,514 due by defendants. The estimated collection from SDC is between 33-35%, anywhere from $797,120 - $845,430 of past due citations would be collected for the Village. Both SDC and TRIP are run by the Department of Revenue. The Village currently uses TRIP and collects less than 3% of the delinquent citations. Ms. Kunze clarified the difference between utilizing SDC over a collection agency; the municipality gets back 100% of what is collected whereas the collection agency would take a percentage of what was collected. The Village Board discussion ensued on driver s license suspension. Ms. Kunze clarified that collections and driver s license suspension are two separate functions. Laws are implemented for driver s license suspensions and not all citations are related to the suspension of someone s license. If you receive a citation that results in a suspension of your license, it s suspended whether you pay your citation or not. There are defendants that have several different types of citations and they typically will only pay the ones that put their driver s license in suspension. Some of the Board members expressed concerns that other municipalities are moving away from the suspension of driver s license in order not to punish those who are low income. Tr. Amenta moved to approve TRIP intercept program for the Shorewood Municipal Court. Motion failed for lack of a seconded. Mr. Emanuelson clarified that unpaid parking citations result in notification to the DMV and will result in the suspension of your vehicle registration. The proposal f is to integrate Duncan s services and allow them to assist with the collection of those parking citations. Some Village Board members expressed concerns about the garnishment of wages. Ms. Kunze explained people are able to negotiate payment arrangements with the SDC; she did

3 express the importance of coming to court first to work out a payment plan with the Village. Some Village Board members asked what percentage of citations are unpaid, as well as what percentage of people who are d cited are from Shorewood. There was expressed support for the Human Relations Commission to take a look at the demographics of people being cited and how the Village can increase communications to residents on how they can pay fine. President Rozek moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to approve the implementation of the enhanced collection processes for outstanding municipal court fees as proposed. Motion carried 4 2 with Tr. Amenta and Maher voting nay. The Village Board discussed parking citations. The Village Board inquired if this (what is this would be future citations or previous unpaid citations. Mr. Emanuelson explained this would allow Duncan to auto-collect future and past due citations; which at this time there is an outstanding amount of $285,000. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. Carpenter to authorize the Shorewood Police Department to utilize Duncan for collection processes. Motion carried 5 1 with Tr. Maher voting nay. The Village Board discussed past due Personal Property. Some of the Village Board members expressed concern for the cost of additional attorney time if we go to small claims court; is the offset of attorney time versus what the Village would collect worth it? Mr. Emanuelson explained at this time we have $20,000 in delinquent Personal Property Tax and this process would only be done once a year. Some of the Village Board members expressed they would like to see an outline from Village Attorney Bayer on what the potential attorney fees could be with suggested language on what this process would entail. Tr. Maher moved, seconded by Tr. McKaig to direct staff to provide additional information from staff and the Village Attorney about consideration of the proposed changes to the collection of delinquent Personal Property taxes. Motion carried 6 0. Staff would review after one or two years if implemented. b. Install parking meters in the Capitol Drive and Oakland Avenue corridors Mr. Emanuelson reviewed his memo. As part of this process, staff has identified that by installing parking meters in the Capitol Drive and Oakland Avenue corridors, the Village could raise significant annual funds to help reduce reliance on the property tax levy for the Village. Staff estimates that between parking meters could be installed along the Oakland Avenue and Capitol Drive corridors and intersecting streets. The amount of revenues collected would be dependent on hourly fees and the total number of meters installed, and of course, would have to be netted against any collections or contract maintenance costs. But if you assumed $3.00 per day, 6 days a week, for 300 parking meters, that would equate to approximately $280,000 in revenues. Village Board discussed the parking meters need to be a part of a larger comprehensive parking study done and this would be a potential revenue option with taking away the $2.00 per single night fee. President Rozek moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to direct staff to include in our 2019 work plan, to study parking and for staff to come with options for revenue and changes in our parking ordinances. President Rozek withdrew her motion Ms. Ewald explained the need to evaluate transportation and parking together.

4 Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. McKaig to direct staff to add to prioritization for 2019 the issue of parking in the central business district in the context of complete streets planning including the review of parking meters and any regulatory changes and the study of all parking regulations in the Village. Motion with amendment carried 6 0. President Rozek moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to amend the motion to include the study of overnight parking in the entire village. President Rozek withdrew the amendment. President Rozek moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to amend the motion to include the study of all parking regulations in the village. Amendment carried 6 0. Arlene Altman, 4529 N. Wildwood Avenue, Shorewood, WI 53211; is a commercial property owner and expressed concern that this would be detrimental to clients and tenants. The Village Board recessed at 8:30 p.m. The Village Board reconvened at 8:37 p.m. The Village Board started with item 2a. c. Pursue implementation of a wheel tax Mr. Emanuelson reviewed his memo. Recently, the City of Wauwatosa began exploring the topic of a wheel tax to help fund transportation related projects. This method of revenue diversification could also be utilized by the Village of Shorewood. The Village of Shorewood has 7,000 registered vehicles. If the Village were to implement an annual wheel tax of $20.00 per vehicle, this would generate nearly $140,000 of additional revenues to help offset transportation related costs. Village Board discussed the Village not having a tax levy problem as other municipalities currently are experiencing. At this time, this is not a favorable option but something to consider in the future if the Village would need too. d. Add public fire protection fees to the water utility bills. Mr. Emanuelson reviewed his memo. Public Fire Protection Charges is usually a topic that is reviewed when staff is preparing to submit a rate case for the Water Utility with the Public Service Commission. These are the water utility fees associated with the recovery of the infrastructure costs incurred by the utility to oversize the system s water mains, and in order to accommodate the installation and use of fire hydrants within the community. Historically there has been some reluctance to make this switch for two basic reasons. First, property taxes were deductible for residents on their income taxes, so paying for these fees through property taxes provided residents some income tax savings. Second, moving charges that were previously paid through property taxes to charges paid through the utility, would require a levy limit reduction for an amount equal to those charges. However, the 2017 tax reforms have now significantly limited the deductibility of state and local taxes for income tax purposes. In addition, Act 59, as part of the State budget, now exempts these fees from the requirements to reduce levy limits. Therefore, staff has identified a significant opportunity to reduce the property tax levy, while still preserving levy limit capacity by moving the charges for recovering the cost of these services to the utility bill. Arlene Altman, 4529 N. Wildwood Avenue, Shorewood, WI expressed she does not want this fee removed from the tax bill. Tr. Maher moved, seconded by President Rozek to defer the consideration of the placement of the

5 water utilities public fire protection charges on the utility bill to a future date. Motion carried 6 0. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to amend the agenda to consider item 3b; install parking meters in the Capitol Drive and Oakland Avenue corridors. The Village Board went to item 3b. e. Re-define Parking Utility scope Mr. Emanuelson reviewed his memo. Historically, the Village s Parking Utility has been used to account for all parking related activities that required the issuance of a permit. However, the nature of creating a parking utility is fundamentally to dedicate the revenues earned through the use of the utilities assets to pay for and maintain those assets, or to accumulate reserves in order to acquire additional parking assets. This would also tend to include financial agreements for the use of privately owned lots for public parking administered by the Village through the issuance of permits. However, whether or not activities related to selling permits to park on public streets is a function of the parking utility is open to a policy decision based on the parking utility s goals and needs. Staff has identified $165,000 in revenues and $95,000 in costs related to selling permits for parking on public streets currently being accounted for in the Parking Utility, with a net gain of $70,000 per year. If so determined, these activities could be reclassified as general government functions and moved from the Parking Utility to the General Fund to support other municipal operations and reduce the need for property taxes to pay for those services. Village Board discussed if there would be an impact on levy limits or expenditure restraint. Levy limit would remain neutral because there are sufficient revenues coming in to cover those cost. It does adversely impact expenditure restraint because you are adding more expenditures to the general fund. Discussion ensued to include this topic when studying parking as a whole. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. Warren to defer redefining the parking utility scope until the budget meetings. Motion carried 6 0. f. Create a refuse collections utility. Tr. Amenta moved, seconded by Tr. Carpenter to consider creation of a refuse collection utility during 2019 and to receive public input for possible consideration for the 2020 budget year. Motion carried 6 0. The Village Board recessed at 9:30 p.m. The Village Board reconvened at 9:37 p.m. 4. Introductory Presentation Long Range Financial Plan Finance Director Emanuelson Mr. Emanuelson gave presentation on Long Range Financial Plan. Tr. McKaig was excused at 9:53 p.m. 5. Adjournment Tr. Amenta moved and Tr. Maher seconded to adjourn at 10:22 p.m. Motion carried 5-0. Respectfully submitted,

6 Sara Bruckman, CMC/WCMC

7

8