AUGUST 1, 2005 The City Council of the City of Carrollton, Texas convened in a Special Budget Worksession on Monday, August 1, 2005, at 6:00 p.m. with the following members present; Mayor Becky Miller Councilmembers Tim Hayden, Pat Malone, John Mahalik, Mayor Pro Tem Terry Simons, Larry Williams, Ron Branson, and Herb Weidinger. Also present were City Manager Leonard Martin, Asst. City Managers Beth Bormann, Marc Guy, Bob Scott, Director of Managed Competition Tom Guilfoy, Assistant to the City Manager Erin Kasal, Assistant City Attorney Clayton Hutchins and City Secretary Ashley Mitchell. * * * * WORKSESSION * * * * 1. Discuss Denton County Library Funding for Restricted Internet Access. The City of Carrollton currently receives approximately $87,000 annually from Denton County through an interlocal agreement to provide library services to Denton County residents. Denton County Commissioner s Court and Judge Mary Horn have given cities and libraries in Denton County a mandate, to filter all public service computers or lose Denton County Funding. In 2001, the Carrollton Public Library staff and Library Advisory Board worked together to establish an Electronic Resources and Internet Policy. This policy was approved by the City Council, it has been in effect approximately 4 years, and it has worked with our customers and staff. Based on Judge Horn s recent recommendation to the Commissioner s Court, our Electronic Resources and Internet Policy is not satisfactory and does not meet her requirements because all public access computers are not filtered, presently those in the adult area are not filtered, unless a user has restricted access. On May 10, 2005 the city shared our internet filtering policy with Judge Horn and proposed it as a model for Denton County to consider. The city has not yet received an official response from Judge Horn. There are several options for Council to consider A) Filter all Carrollton Public Library Computers and receive $87,000.00 in Denton County Funding for FY 2005-06. Use a two-tier filtering solution shown in Exhibit C. There is no guarantee that Denton County Libraries will continue to receive funding in the future or that other requirements would not be added for cities to receive funding. The city can also enroll in the state Lone Star program at Level 1 (provides service to any citizen of Texas) and receive approximately $25,000. B) Continue with current library Internet access policy and charge a nonresident fee to Denton County residents (not in Carrollton) choosing to use the libraries. Primary users from Denton County, out of Carrollton, are from The Colony and Lewisville including the Castle Hills subdivision. If this option is selected, the library will lose approximately $13,000 in state Loan Star Library funding. The Loan Star program provides funding incentives to libraries to serve all state residents. In addition to annual funding that the libraries have used for materials or computer needs, Carrollton citizens are able to access any participating TexShare Card Library, including area universities, without charge. Non-Resident Fees could range from $50.00 - $100.00 and it is estimated that approximately $5,000 - $10,000 could be recovered from non-resident fees. The City of Denton recently instituted a nonresident fee. C) Continue with the current Internet access policy and provide access to Denton County and other state residents by enrolling in the state Lone Star program at Level I and receive approximately $25,000.00.
SPECIAL BUDGET WORKSESSION AGENDA AUGUST 1, 2005 PAGE 2 The city s funding condition would be greatly improved with additional revenue from Denton County. Current revenue projections do not include county funding ($87,000) for library services due to the ongoing uncertainty of library funding from Denton County. Funding continuation for Denton County Libraries has been an annual discussion and decision point for the Commissioner s Court for several years and future funding is uncertain. Libraries are an economic value to the community. Access to books, ideas, resources, and online information in the libraries supports citizens of all ages and small business. The library is a fundamental sustainability building block for a community s education, employment, diversity, quality of life, and self-government. Councilmember Weidinger asked if they agreed with the Commissioners Court, Ms. Bormann replied no they did not. She said there had not been anything formal received from the Court yet and these figures were from their Workshop types of meetings. Councilmember Malone asked why the City of Carrollton s Libraries offered full internet access services to everyone. Ms. Bormann indicated that filtering is not an absolute for protecting citizens from accessing inappropriate internet cites because it would cause the Library to have to block some cites and leave others open. She indicated that libraries have long held up the First Amendment rights that a person should not be told what cites they can and can not choose to access. She stated by adding the Tier System Software it would allow the City the ability to monitor what cites are being accessed. Leonard Martin, City Manager stated that the Council s decision in this area needs to be focused on should we filter or not filter as a Policy statement by the City of Carrollton. He further stated the other alternative, is the City of Carrollton going to filter for money and when the money goes away in a year or two then does it mean that the City immediately open up the filters. He said he thought it was clearly a policy decision. He said when other Libraries were surveyed it was discovered that most of them do filter. Ms. Bormann stated that the survey was only in the Denton County area and a state survey was not done. Mr. Martin stated that The Colony does not filter and Plano filters all but one computer. Mr. Martin stated that it was a community value decision. Mayor Miller stated that there had been problems in the past with people complaining about kids being able to access inappropriate cites. She stated that she was in favor of filtering. Councilmember Hayden stated that in the community the majority of family s value family, churches and other family oriented areas. He said that people who complain are probably those that can not research a subject at home and come to public libraries to find their information. He said some of those doing the research seem to find ways to get around the filters and go through other cites to get to what they want to view. He said that if people want to frequent inappropriate cites they should do this in their own homes. He said he did not know of any reason why the City should not filter certain cites. Councilmember Weidinger stated that he understood that the filtering would be aimed at adults. Ms. Bormann stated that a recommendation was made a while back and the computers are filtered heavily that the youth use. She said that it was not Council s decision as to what cites would be considered the most troublesome.
SPECIAL BUDGET WORKSESSION AGENDA AUGUST 1, 2005 PAGE 3 Councilmember Branson stated that he was in favor of the filters. He said he agreed with Mr. Martin that as the Council for Carrollton their decisions needed to be based on what is best for Carrollton and not decisions made by Denton County. Councilmember Mahalik stated he was in favor of filtering. Clayton Hutchins, City Attorney asked if there was a written policy in place at the present time and if so, it would need to be changed. Ms. Bormann commented that there was a written policy. Mr. Hutchins stated that since it would need to be changed that the Council could not vote on this matter at the present time but it could be placed on a future agenda. Ms. Bormann stated that the Policy was presented in a newsletter to Council and Council did not formally voted on it. She said the policy was done as an awareness action to Council. She said that the Policy would be update and presented to Council after staff had the opportunity to review the software that would be used for filtering. Ms. Bormann stated that a response would be made to the Commissioner s Court through the Denton County Library Advisory Board. 2. Discuss Budget Preparation Process FY 2005-2006. Bob Scott, Assistant City Manager and Chief Financial Officer gave the budget overview. Mr. Martin stated that the budget was being presented for Council s analysis and the opportunity to ask questions so that the budget could be finalized. Mayor Miller asked what the Kronos Timekeeping System was about and what did it do. Mr. Scott stated that the City currently uses Kronos as the citywide timekeeping system to track employee hours. He stated that it is an electronic timekeeping system where everyone has cards and the cards are swiped and read electronically. He stated that there would not be paper printout for employees to sign that worked out in the field and time would be kept online through the computer for employees who had access to computers internally. He said that files can be transferred electronically from the field to the Payroll. He stated that the upgrade related to the new HR/Finance System. Mr. Martin stated that Congress had introduced Legislation that would eliminate all the Franchise fees on telecommunications except for federal fees. Councilmember Malone asked if companies would be allowed to use the City Right-of-Ways for free. Mr. Martin said they would be able to do this free of charge if the law passes. Mr. Martin stated in regards to recycling that Alliance/Trinity Waste was proposing to go from the open recycle bin type system to roll out containers and that would be an every other week collection and additional cost would be incurred because there would be a need to buy a large quantity of containers. He noted that these roll out containers are very expensive. He said that the biggest complaint that the city had been getting comes from problems with the collection of solid waste recycling because items blow out of the open bins. He said that some of the area cities had gone to roll out container recycling. Councilmember Branson asked if this was the second year for the Alliance/Trinity Waste Contract. Mr. Martin stated yes. Mr. Branson asked if the rate went down this year. Mr. Martin stated that the rate had gone down. Mr. Scott stated that Alliance/Trinity Waste is asking to revisit the rate structure. Mr. Scott stated that the first year the rate structure
SPECIAL BUDGET WORKSESSION AGENDA AUGUST 1, 2005 PAGE 4 was over $10 and after the City s debt service went away and the last debt service payment was made the rate went down. He stated that the City reduced the amount it needed to get from the rate for debt service which allowed the rate in the second year of the contract to go below $10 and then it inches up from there at a rate of 2-3% a year based on Alliance s estimates of what CPI would be over the remaining years of the contract. He said they are now asking for an amount in addition to these figures. He said that if the City did everything they were asking, the rate could increase by $1.50 and the rate would reach $11.50 or higher if the automated recycling were done. He said that it would be the City s recommendation to pass those charges to the rate payer. Councilmember Malone asked if $11.50 figure would be the rate if the city decided to use the automated recycling route. Mr. Scott stated that the figure was simply an approximate number but the rate would be somewhere close to that number. She asked if this figure included the roll out bin and the pickup of the regular trash. Mr. Scott responded yes it would include everything. Mr. Scott stated that staff would be coming back to Council for a recommendation to change the financial policies regarding the Solid Waste fund because the original financial policies were developed around an in-house city operation and now things have changed and this service had been outsourced and was no long a debt service. Mr. Martin stated that last year Council had indicated that they wanted more decision points in the budget. He said that Council priorities were studied and it would be Council s decision to solve the budget that reflected community values. He said that Council might consider instead of increasing the tax rate it might want to cut the tax rate and staff was to cut the budget as far back as possible so that Council could actually see how the rates could be reduce from the $.59 tax rate to $.57-$.58. He said that it was noted that public safety was the number one priority of Council and was exempt from any reductions and did not participate in the exercise. He stated that what was before Council was the City Manager s recommended budget based on the perception of the operation and what it takes to continue services as they now exist and to enhance services in those areas that Council has voiced an interest in expanding. He stated those items have resulted in the $03.6 cent tax increase. He said that the final budget that the Council adopts is actually the City Councils budget and there are two things that can happen. He said the presented budget was staff s proposals of specific types of cuts. He stated that there had been a reduction of 50 employees that had already been eliminated this year. He said secondly this budget allows for an increase in taxes and not a decrease of services. He stated that the salary study revealed that Carrollton is not keeping up with other cities. He said that by looking at the health fund, staff was able to restructure and go from three plans down to two plans which would raise costs for employees. Councilmember Branson asked if the projections for next years budget had been studied and if so, did the projections reveal that it would be in the red again. He stated should the tax increase to $.04 to carry the city forward into the future. Mr. Scott stated that the projection for the rollback tax rate as being 1.6 cent increase. He said that the $.03.6 is $.02 over rollback. Mr. Scott stated that the decreases in revenue would continue and the downward trend would continue for some time to come. He said that Freeport exemption would continue to grow and that legislative would continue to take action that would cause tax caps on the City those would be punitive and lower than they are currently. He noted that there would be tight budgetary times for the foreseeable future.
SPECIAL BUDGET WORKSESSION AGENDA AUGUST 1, 2005 PAGE 5 Councilmember Williams state that any taxing entity would need to be careful about the reasons they use to raise taxes and be available to explain those reasons in a logical and tangible manner. He said when it is apparent that County and Schools are raising their tax rates and not knowing what the Legislature is going to do, it was his thought that to raise the taxes and do whatever it is that has already been committed to do year after year. Councilmember Hayden asked if the City was loosing part of the Franchise fees, had there been discussion regarding selling some of our wireless system to try and recoup some of the losses. Mr. Martin stated that Cities would not be able to get into selling wireless access because State Legislature had done away with it. He said that the wireless providers were trying to stop cities from getting into that business and it would not be an option at this time. Mayor Miller asked how Addison was able to sell some of their wireless systems. Mr. Martin stated that they are with a private company and Addison is blessing it. He said to try and have a true citywide network would be hard to sell with all the places where it is easily accessed for free. Councilmember Malone asked if the Council decided to raise taxes how do we inform the community that this is the right thing to do. Mr. Martin stated that the newspaper s job is to tell what is wrong with government not what is right. He said there could be general information regarding the goals of the city and its future. He said the only option at the present time is to buy newspaper ads. Ms. Malone stated that she felt if the citizens were educated and aware of the reason taxes are being raised they would be more supportive of the decision. Mr. Martin stated that the next meeting regarding the budget would be for public input and participation. Mayor Miller stated there had been several articles in the newspaper about the budget and she thought citizens already knew where the city was headed. She stated that she had not had any phone calls regarding taxes being raised. Councilmember Malone stated that she had one call. Ms. Miller stated that most of her calls had been from citizens stating they did not want their services cut. Mr. Martin commended Bob Scott s staff for the outstanding job they had done with this budget as well as all the outside and weekend work that had been put in on the preparation of the budget as well as implementing the new HR/Finance System that is coming in the future. Councilmember Simons stated that he was not surprised with the increase. He said that he was impressed with the work that had been done by the staff. Mr. Scott stated that putting together this budget proposal was a true group effort and that his operation was small and depended a great deal on other department staff to provide background information. He indicated that Mark Mills had done an outstanding job coordinating everything and Pam Hodges had put in many long hours. He further stated that the entire budget process was a total team effort. Councilmember Simons stated that he wanted the new and old councilmember to know and understand that the City of Carrollton has an outstanding staff. Councilmember Weidinger stated that in years past there had been some creative things done, but this is the first year in a long time that there has been a tax increase. He said recognizing the shortfalls that were coming this year, is very important to be able to pinpoint and identify
SPECIAL BUDGET WORKSESSION AGENDA AUGUST 1, 2005 PAGE 6 those items in the budget that would connect the proposal of raising the taxes. He stated that he would be writing an article for the Country Place Newsletter explaining the increase. He too commended the staff on an outstanding job of preparing the proposed budget and how well it had been presented in the documents that council had received to review before the meetings. Mr. Scott stated that it is a requirement of state law to have two public hearings and can advertise one time and then hold the public hearings within two weeks of the advertisement. He stated that September 13, 2005 was another option; however the budget had to be adopted no later than September 20, 2005. He said the adoption could not be any later than that because there is a requirement in the City Charter to adopt the budget 10 days prior to the beginning of the new fiscal year. He also noted that if there were any changes on September 13 th that it would be difficult to get those changes into the budget and the budget on the agenda for September 20 th. Councilmember Weidinger stated that he would be out of town on August 30 th. Mr. Scott indicated that the public hearing on August 30 th would be the first public hearing and Councilmember Weidinger would be present for the second public hearing. Mr. Scott also indicated that all the discussion, wrap-up and changes would take place at the second public hearing. Mr. Scott stated that staff would plan on the first hearing on August 30, 2005 to begin at 7:00 p.m. Mayor Miller adjourned the Worksession at 7:28 p.m. Becky Miller, Mayor ATTEST: Ashley D. Mitchell, City Secretary