 Well, it's seven o'clock, so we'll get started with the meeting. We will start with the roll call boring Berg Serta present Davis excuse graph Hannah here Kittleson here Clioness here Manny excused Meyer Montemay or excused Ratke here Ryan Susha here Vanderweally here rehearsal 13 presents Corners present I will call the order of the community of the whole meeting tonight at seven o'clock and With that I will ask for approval of minutes of the last meetings held June 26th and June 27th Motion is second is there any amendments I Would just like to point out that all the person Renee Susha was indeed present and there was a full 16 present Thank you. Do we need a motion? I have a motion to amend the minutes to Say that element Susha was present to have a second Motion is second all in favor, so nobody by saying aye. Sure. Well, it's I motion passes Moving on we'll start with communication number 30607 from April 18th, 2006 Summitting a communication from Asher Heimerman chairperson of resources of Sheboygan Club Requesting that the common council look into having a youth council in the city of Sheboygan Asher had told me that he was not going to be here tonight. So is there a Name discussion Holderman Racky Thank You mr. Chairman I would make a motion we hold this because this is something I hear from a lot of young people that They'd like to have something like this within the city If not for our purposes for theirs or or maybe both and they can't hurt to look at that's having Such a council with younger people on you on their teens and early 20s So I think we should hold on to this for till he can be here Have a motion a second under discussion Alderman Hanna Yes, I would just I'd like to see some involvement on the part of the school district with this Could you I would like to see the school district involved on something like this? I think it'd be a nice fit for the social studies Political science area to be involved so that there's some some guidance Thank You Alderman Susha. Thank You mr. Chairman. I think this is also a good cause I'm not sure how old this young gentleman is and I'm I don't think he's old enough to drive or come to a future meeting Being that they're held at seven o'clock at night. I don't know if we need to hold this document I think we should pursue this idea and put something together, but I don't see a need to hold on to these documents I would suggest that we make a motion to file this I've a motion to file in a second which would take presence over the motion to hold under discussion President Berg This is not on under discussion on the filing, but it is on the document So if I could proceed, I think Alderman Hanna raised a point and I Would I don't want to confound things with multiple motions, but it would appear that if we could send mr Hymerman's communication to the appropriate school board committee I think that would be a good parallel referral and through that system Perhaps they might be able to set up a mechanism where we could cooperate to to assist them in I guess understanding municipal government and For that purpose I would Make a I guess a parallel motion to refer a copy of this document to the school district Committee that can deal with it. All right. I have a motion a second to Yeah, we have a motion to file which takes precedence over all motions Correct or not struggling in this one motion to refer I believe will take precedent All right, well my feeling is that Communications coming from citizens we look at them in the in the committees and we had one from MPPS from a Boy who was probably 10 or 12 and we treated like it was a communication from an adult It was about parks and and his concerns with that and we have another one going in from a child too so I feel With the communications that way they can be involved in local government that way if we treat them like adults And that the concerns are valid, but if this committee would prefer to send it to To the school board that's up to the committee I guess my question is does the for anybody who knows does the Motion refer to the committee or to the school board Take precedence over the motion to file Racky Thank You mr. Chairman. I think what would happen here is we can do a duel here We can refer this to the school board with file it on our it will disclose the matter here And that's what we're going for and that's I think prop, you know, totally proper All right. Thank you Alderman graph I was going to suggest that you you vote on the motion to file and then put separately on the motion to refer to the school board Treated as two separate motions, and I think the outcome will be what we're looking for Right. Thank you With that all in favor of filing the motion of a filing the documents identified by saying aye I True votes. I any opposed so it's file. Thank you Moving on So, okay all in favor of Referring the document to the school board signify by saying aye True votes I any opposed That motion passes All right, so we referred it to the school board, okay moving on communication number 0607 from Debbie Desmond Staying her concerns with the issues of dog owners and offering a proposal to allow leash dogs and Maywood Dave Beable if you could start start us off with the Conversation about Maywood allowing dogs and Maywood and Evergreen Park. Yeah, if you could approach the podium Thank You mr. Chairman Real quickly the the issue of dogs and parks has been an issue that we as a department as well as The Parks and Forestry Commission and this Common Council have been discussing for some time The issue of having allowed leash dogs in Maywood was also an item that was discussed at the Parks and Forestry Commission As well as the Public Works Committee As well as currently Evergreen Park as well as was a proposal and that currently is being under under study right now In the Parks and Forestry Commission. It's being held in the committee and we're looking at Bringing in some of the other key stakeholders that use the park system All right Regarding the issue of Maywood in allowing leash dogs the Department of Public Works We talked about this and we do not favor this proposal Talking with Dave Cooke-Cooke and I believe you may have received email if not I can just share it with you basically I'll summarize it real quick is that Maywood has always had a Preservation and education as a high priority as the use of that property It's one of close proximity to residents within the city. It's 120 acres of of Biodiversity Dave Cooke-Cooke the director of Maywood is a dog owner himself and he personally Feels that it would be inappropriate to bring dogs to Maywood Simply for there's many school groups with children then the nature of the park He feels he feels that this could I guess disrupt the the balance of what they're trying to Preserve and educate provide that setting for educational setting for natural reasons so In that in that quick summary, I guess from a department perspective. We're not in favor of this proposal It's not to say that we're opposed to Dogs in any of the park system. In fact, we're going through a Re-study of a master plan of our entire park system I think there's a great opportunity when we when we do our master master plan for our park system I'm sure the issue of a dog park Dog areas within parks will be will be an issue that will be discussed and researched in detail So I guess with that I'll answer any questions if anyone may have All in sushi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman I'm glad that we have a park and forestry commission and also public works committee that are looking into the dog issues And I think that once you do all the research and you're ready to make a recommendation I would like to see it brought back to committee the whole because I've received a lot of calls and regards to the sell side dog run and I wasn't on any committee and I didn't have a whole lot of background information to answer these Questions, but I'm trusting that you're doing the research and I would ask that in the future that you bring a proposal back Just to give us some insights that we can ask questions at that time rather than just focusing on Maywood tonight And with that said I'd make a motion to file this document I have a motion a second to file a document under discussion Alderman Hanna. Yes I concur with all the person sushi that I look forward to Your group getting a diverse group of opinions and bringing those conclusions back to us I too am getting quite a few phone calls more related to the possibility of utilizing Evergreen with a leased dog Situation and I'd like to get some good balance feedback on that. So thank you Thank you, Alderman Hanna Alderman Meyer I just have a question for mr. Bebel So I'll just wait till we do the vote if you'd like to ask them now Well, I would just like mr. Bebel to just name the areas in the city that people at present can take their dogs Because we do have a couple of dog runs in the area Yes, well, we do have the the the off leash dog run which is located on the beach area East of Lakeview Park access it through the parking lot area and then access to the beach That's the dog run off leased area. There's another off leased area. That is on the north side, which is Along the Pigeon River corridor east of Excuse me east of the the wayside the LS wayside And the dog owners are allowed to go walk their dogs on least there as well We have another dog walk area that is leased Which is at our green wing ponds off of Washington Avenue on the south side as well as Any sidewalk and any of our bike path areas and recreational trail areas on leased are clearly acceptable for dogs Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Brassel. Thank you, mr. Chairman Dave I know that you work close with the Park Commission Could you as you look at this plan over the next six or 12 months and Specifically at evergreen opening it up to dogs Could you also help us understand at that time if there are any challenges with opening evergreen as it relates to Maywood? Because I know the two parks are joining correct in some areas Yes, there's there's a trail system the Law and the Pigeon River that connects the two parks together Just so that we better understand that at that time if we do decide to open up evergreen Thank you I'm born Thank You mr. Chairman Dave something that I talked to you about a couple of weeks ago I had a call from another elderly constituent who has some trouble walking about the About the dog run on the south side with possibly putting a railing there something have you had a chance to research it any further? We're looking into that. We're trying to get some pricing put together and some costs and If it's feasible at cost wise we might be able to do it this year But we're just getting some of that material put together and we'll probably Bring that to you to the public Works Committee as well as Park and Forestry to give them an idea of what we're looking at there But yes, thank you President Berg. Yes, thank you. It's generally just as a note. I think this has been Kind of a dogged problem. We've been chasing around for quite a period of time and I guess I would just like to ask if this will be a a Significant priority where we can expect some level of decision understanding you're going to have a long-range park plan But I think the interest in the community continues to to be there. I would say that in the past Looking at the direction the council has provided I think we've asked that the parks Commission Look at it at that time the there was an unfavorable reaction to opening if you would any of the parks to to pets and I think that then created somewhat of a backlash and a renewed interest on the part of many of the pet owners in our area and I guess the only a Couple of questions would you find it would would it be helpful if the council provided you some direction in terms of our wishes regarding having Limited access for pets and parks because I think then we can not determine park by park Should this park be a dawn park or should we have access to to pets? But a general direction to the parks of forestry to commission which affirms that we believe is a council that pets Should be allowed under certain conditions and I think then we can we can fight that out on the council floor we can if you would look at That as being a direction we want to follow and then that hopefully could give the park and forestry commission some guidance And you come into that Clearly that that's the council's prerogative if they if they so choose to desire to to to send a directive to the Commission to Study by all means we would we would do so I guess part of the process of doing the master plan is that We're going to survey the key stakeholders of the park system and that can be you know recreational groups sports groups families the dog owners for instance and try to Identify all their needs and and concerns with the park system and and try to come up with some solutions to their to those problems But clearly if this this council so desires to have such a such a directive by all means that that would be Be looked at very seriously by that by the study Thank you. Oldman Racky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Just a suggestion. It's not a it's not an immediate Solution, but I believe it's January until March 31st or April 30 something like that is the period for registering dogs What would be wrong with having a little survey downstairs in the finance department when people come in to register their dogs? Asking people just to fill out a little card just so we have a little information which parks people would really like us to look at and Work with it from that from that standpoint, and that would give us a lot more information Thus sitting you're trying to second-guess where the dog owners really want to go I wouldn't have any problem with taking the extra minute to just fill out such a survey and I'm sure a lot of other dog owners Wouldn't have that's wouldn't have a problem of either Thank you Yeah, and anything like that would would help give us direction from the from the citizens Is there any other questions for Dave Bebel? Thank you Debbie Would you like to take the podium and and And add to your communication I still don't understand why leash dogs would be denied any access anywhere Because they can't disturb the children if they're on leash and they can't disrupt the the ecosystem in Maywood any more than You know bikers Fishermen What else do we have there were hunters there one evening I Mean you know there are so many people using the park I don't I see dog owners denied access almost anywhere and I myself get burned easily So all those supposedly free access for dogs. I you know I can't go unless it's late at night and it's the further away from my home if all dog owners were allowed Leashed dogs in all parks and they pick up after themselves. I don't see the problem if their dog I mean if their dog isn't You know trained or is aggressive even on the leash that would be case-by-case I also heard just recently this guy who works in the city a lady came to Sheboygan for a vacation and She was Really upset when she found out she couldn't bring her dog anywhere She had to keep him in the hotel and she had traveled 10 hours to Vacation Sheboygan so she decided Sheboygan will no longer be a vacation spot for her She was just furious and she wanted to call the city and ask him why and this guy talked to her tried to calm her Down he says that's just the rules here and she says the most ridiculous rules That beach on the south which every it's outside that everyone fought for the park view I mean that you know they got permission for is so inferior to the place We had before next to the Blue Harbor. It's kind of like segregation And there's really not a whole lot of place for a dog walker to walk I mean it's someone who wants to walk with their dog and not just sit there and watch their dog run there's not a whole lot of place there and So I just feel like if we study park by park will get the worst parks Because it's just kind of a place to throw dog owners at so no one sees them and because I mean dogs socialized just by Being around people, but if they're always segregated I ran into a guy Just recently who has a dog and he says this area is bad because I can't take my dog anywhere So my dog stays in the house and doesn't get any exercise And I get to take my kids to the parks because that's where they want to go And then I have to do a separate walk for my dog And he goes when you work you can't do children once and then dog once you just can't add everything together So I think we're we keep on trying to deny access to dog owners And if we keep them on the leash, they're no more of a threat than bike riders Anyone else who wants to use the park? I also took a walk through Maywood and there is trash in a lot of places so it's You know not everyone's respecting the ecosystem, you know There's plastic cups and papers and all this up So and we end up picking it up a lot, but it's not you know It's not like dogs are going to add as much as some human humans add so I really wish we would work with this and not keep denying accent the access like I said in my Communication that I emailed to everyone below. I all their parks are open to leashed dogs So I really like this to be considered and not make us all outlaws if we want to walk our dog anywhere besides Along pesticide and lawns Thank you, thank you If anybody else would like to speak I'm gonna ask for a three-minute limit and But first I'm going to get all them and Ryan Just one second. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I I Do agree somewhat that that we should have multiple parks for dogs with short sheblegen becoming more of a tourist destination and more of a more of a metropolitan community with multiple Communion projects going up in the downtown area, etc. I think there should be Multiple dog parks not saying that I would agree that every dog every Area of every park should be open to dogs But if we are going to attract more young professionals to this area that may be condominium Dwellers and empty nesters, etc to come to this area I think we need multiple locations that can be walked to Rather than putting your dog in a car and driving, you know, five or ten miles to go to a dog park Okay, thank you. I'll miss usha. Thank you, mr. Chairman We do have two subcommittees looking at this information right now the park and forestry Commission and public works I think it's a little premature to try to have a full-blown Discussion on this topic right now when there's too many issues that we need answers to I think the more appropriate venue to Provide feedback right now would be park and forestry and the public works. They're doing the research right now We're not as a committee of the whole so I would ask that everyone who has suggestions and feedback Direct them to the committees that are doing the research and once the research is gathered and a recommendation can be made It should come back to this committee So we have a chance to get educated and ask the questions and make the final decisions and with that said I'd like to call the question All right When the question is called For those of you don't know then there's no other discussion and we have to vote on it so To the citizens that would like to speak on this Aluminum Susha Like Aluminum Susha suggested we have two other committees looking at it so we can You can go to the committee meetings or we can direct your communications towards those committees So all in favor of filing the communications signify by saying aye Triple Si any opposed motion passes. Thank you I Been asked to pull Ford item number seven RC number 570607 My elder person graph and minor establishing the monthly premium equivalent rate for the medical benefit plan effective for January 2007 coverage on the graph Thank You mr. Chairman. I make a motion that the RC be accepted and adopted and that we We recommend establishing the monthly premium equivalent rate for medical benefit for the medical benefit benefit plan effective January of 2007 I have a motion a second under discussion Mayor prez. Did you want to address this? Good evening everyone We have mr. Gephardt and I Richard have Synopsis if you may of Our health benefit plan and we wanted to give you somewhat of a cursory review or introductory review of the history of this health benefit plan and Some of the activity that has been occurring over the last two years We hope to do this in order to give you an idea of what we're faced with when we talk about Healthcare in the city of Sheboygan. I Believe Richard you gave everyone copy of this If you will refer to your health benefit plan here I'll talk to you a little bit about the the history and the recent health plan history Little bit about the expenditures and the revenues by groups in 205 Rich will come in and talk to you about the stop-loss insurance the expenditures for prescriptions in 205 And he will continue with the expenditures for medical services in 205 and the 207 rate Calculation then I'll just sum it up with the projected trend Which is a very brief brief summary and then I'd like to show you some visuals that? Will live an image leave an image in your mind as to where we are in terms of history and in terms of cost and in Terms of participation between the city of Sheboygan and the employees This is not intended again to be a full blown discussion or debate on the on the health Benefit plan or health care issue what is intended to you Intended to do is to give you an idea of what's going on so that you can start thinking about it because this is an issue It's going to come before us. It's going to Call us some serious debate Because it's it's it's a it's a plan that has as you know Have our city employees pay two and a half percent that are represented and the non-representative are paying Five percent, so it's a it's a matter that's going to cause some debate And again, we'll go down By my bullet point and then I'll come back with the visuals the health benefit plan As you'll see there began in the 1st of January in 1998 as a self-insurance internal service For the city of Sheboygan all the departments and retirees that use the third-party claims There are currently a hundred and seventy-five single plan participants and four hundred and thirty-seven family plans This is about twelve hundred covered Now mind you we only have four hundred and seventy nine employees right now So you would ask why in the world we'd cover them for twelve hundred. That's because of the retired Employees that are still benefiting from the plan and That coverage covers them their dependents and and spouses and so forth percentage-wise the annual rate calculation for the health benefit plan is based on a formula that was derived from the insurance division of the micro Virchile cross and the city's previous auditors from discussions with the previous states a third-party administrator for the health benefit plan In this formula is similar to what the insurance company is used Now and before to develop monthly premium plans for all the employees If you look at the recent health plan history here between 02 and 05 the medical claims increased from three point four million to five point two five million and The prescription claims increased from one million to one point three So you can see that in a period of three years There's a significant increase and you can almost expect and we'll talk about that briefly also You can almost expect a constant increase in this health care cost The total expenditures increase as you will note from four point eight million and oh two to six point Eight million and oh five so there again a three point a three-year span from four point eight to six point eight Two two million dollar increase and this is a general trend that has been occurring the total revenues increase from five point one million and oh two to seven point three million and oh five The fund balance was in a deficit and you'll notice that that the fund balance was a deficit at the beginning Oh two and has increased to a positive in one on one point a positive one point three million balance at the end of oh five Now it is anticipated That the stop loss premiums and Richard will talk about this That they will continue to increase and that the city will have to take on more of the risk By increasing that stop-loss level in order to maintain Stable premiums throughout our city and throughout every department As the city has more risk exposure It will be important to maintain a fund balance in the health benefit plan They can absorb potential increase in large claims The obvious question there is where is the money going to come from? Expenditures and revenues by groups in oh five In oh five the total expenditures for the active employees were five million four hundred and sixty five thousand nine hundred and eighty six and The active employees paid contributions of two oh three two hundred and three thousand nine hundred ninety two and I'll be showing you some visuals in a minute The total expenditures for the retirees were one million two hundred and eighty nine thousand twenty three The retirees made payments of one million thirty six thousand five hundred and thirty four and the city paid 188 382 in accordance with the union agreements The total expenditures for the previous employees that are on Cobra were sixty thousand six hundred and twenty three and Payments by the participants were twenty seven three sixty C three sixty six So you can see a little Variance there where the city is paying more than the employees are paying and that's been a very common trend And one of the issues that you'll be confronted with is are we going to change that? How are we going to work cooperatively with our employees so that they can participate in a more Active role in paying a little bit more for their for their health care costs Now as I said the stub loss and the expenditures for prescriptions in oh five and going down the line Mr. Get part of it will address and then I'll come back and talk to you show you some of the visuals Thank You mayor. Thank You mr. Chairman The city purchased commercial insurance that covers claims for each individual above 125,000 per year Which is term stop-loss insurance? The policy also has aggregate claim coverage if the total claims of the plan were to exceed an attachment point Which is eight point seven million for two thousand and six The stop-loss coverage premiums increased from two hundred and thirty eight thousand and oh two to three hundred thirty six thousand and oh five The stop-loss level had been for claims above a hundred thousand dollars during those years And added note that in 2005 the stop-loss carrier paid over a half million dollars For five individuals whose claims collectively told over one million dollars So you can see where our some of our concern is about where the future of the premiums will be going The estimated premium for two thousand and six is four hundred and six thousand For a stop-loss level of one hundred and twenty five thousand And the expenditures for prescriptions in 2005 the city paid 20,000 prescription claims for a total cost of one million three hundred eighty nine thousand Which was an increase of six percent over two thousand and four Fifty percent of the oh five claims are for generic prescriptions at an average cost of sixteen dollars per generic claim And fifty percent were brand claims at an average cost of a hundred and eighteen dollars the brand claims when When generic was available Total 483 or two point four percent of the total claims with an average cost of sixty four dollars And that's of course where we like to concentrate on but our consultants are saying that we're doing fairly well there already And the expenditures for medical services in all five the claims for medical services at hospital facilities and including surgery total three million four hundred and thirty one thousand and this was an increase of a hundred and thirty four thousand or four percent The claims for physician office visits x-rays and lab total one million four hundred twenty six thousand Which was an increase of two hundred and forty six thousand or twenty one percent The claims for other medical services such as drugs prescribed for patients in the hospitals total total five hundred and eleven thousand and This was an increase of a hundred ninety nine thousand or sixty four percent as these can see that's a significant increase and apparently one of the factors in that is there are new specially injectable drugs that are given at the medical facilities and These new droids can cost thousands of dollars per month and We think that is part of the reason that we're seeing that increase in that area and will probably be a trend in in the future And one of the concerns on keeping our plan stable We have been addressing that we had It's hurricane and I had a meeting with our third-party administrators both Prairie states and restat Last week to look at a different Team between the them to try to address those areas and to get better pricing on on those high-cost drugs The total claims for medical services no five or five million 369,000 increase of 580,000 or 11 percent the 2007 rate calculation the portion of the Rate calculation for the medical claims Uses the attachment point from the aggregate coverage along with a trend factor that is obtained from a third-party administrator Prairie states The trend factor is currently six point eight percent and is based on the experience of the local search organization the medical claims for 2007 I've rejected to be five million nine hundred and eighteen thousand compared to an estimate of five hundred and forty five million four hundred and eighty nine thousand for all six The estimated cost in oh seven for the prescription drug claims stop-loss premiums and third-party administration fees is projected to be two million two hundred and eighty eight thousand compared to one million nine hundred ninety six thousand for all six The calculation for all seven would require a month monthly rate for employees and retirees not a Medicare of $570 for a single plan and $1,425 for a family plan in old seven This is an increase of fifty four dollars for a single plan and a hundred thirty five dollars for a family plan on increase of ten and a half percent The monthly rate for retirees a medicare would be four hundred and three dollars for a single plan and eight hundred and seven dollars for a family plan This is an increase of $40 for a single plan and eighty one dollars for a family plan on increase of eleven point three percent The total expenditures for the health benefit plan for 07 are currently estimated to be $8.2 million, which is an increase of $729,000 over the 06 estimate. I'll now turn the presentation back to the mayor. Thank you, Rich. If you look at the projected trend for the health benefit plan, it's a very interesting projection here, but it's a very reasonable deduction to make based on the history and activity that we are experiencing now. And that is that based on the past trend from 02 to 07, with total expenditures increasing from $4.8 million to an estimated $8.2 million, the trend for the next five years would be projected and increasing approximately $1 million per year on the average of $13 million for 2012. And that would reflect an 11% increase per year. Now, these numbers are staggering. And they're staggering because that's one of the big issues that's going to face you and me and Rich Gairdpart and Mr. Surrick, all of us together. And we're going to have to find a common ground and a workable solution amongst ourselves and our employees. What I want to do now is just show you some visuals. And if you have some questions with the visuals, I can try to explain a lot of that, and Mr. Gairdpart can do too. But the TV's not on, is it? What is on? Yeah, we're on TV. It is on right now? Yeah. I hope everyone can see here. I'll step on the side here. Can everyone see more or less? Maybe too low. But you see now? Now you can't. We're going to do this. Now you can't. OK. We do have copies. You do have copies? OK. OK. OK, this chart reflects the charges to departments for health benefit plan from 1997 to 06. Now what's critical here for you to understand is how it has increased. And then it actually took a little drop in 1999. But from that point on, you can see this thing just skyrocketing all the way up, even an 05 to almost $6 million. And then it's still rising a little bit. Rich and I joke a little bit because we say that next time we show it to you, it'll be out of this chart. I think that's what we joke about, Rich. But this, again, will give you an idea of the activity in the last few years from 1997 to 06 as to what has happened. And again, point out that there was a drop. But then from their point on, it kept going up. And it continues to go up. And based on the trend that we can expect, it's not going anywhere but up. Your next chart, and obviously these are not in the same order that you have them. So try to find them in there. Monthly charges for health benefit plans for employees with family plans. Here, again, is a graphic view of how in 2002 to 06, and projected for next year, how it just continues to go up from $560,000 to almost $1.5 million. Now, folks, this is a very significant increase in during this short period of time. And it's also significant because it illustrates pretty clear and convincing of what we can expect in the next few years. And this is not going to change. It's going to continue to go up. And health care costs, obviously, is a great benefit to our employees. And by all means, they deserve that. The struggle for you and the challenge for you is going to be how can we afford to pay it and how can we balance the need to provide this valuable service and benefit to our employees and being able to afford it. This is duplicate. OK, the lighter color. I think Rich is playing games with me here. I keep it fun. Now here, the health benefit plan charges to departments. And this is an important one if you will take a look at this because you will see, for example, police having a little over $1,600,000 in charges. And then you've got public works and fire. And you would ask, or most people would ask, why are the costs associated more high than anywhere else? They're bigger departments. The police is a bigger department than public works than fire. So that's reflected in the numbers. And then you can see where finance, city buildings, general government. And if you'll recall when I did my budget sessions, my presentations on the budget, these were the same categories that we talked about then. And these are the charges that are being made to each of these respective departments. These are the charges that are being made on health care costs. The next chart is what Rich was talking about is, well, we're paying a lot of money. But where exactly is it being paid? And what areas are really being paid? And this will give you an idea on the health benefit plan fund expenditures for 03 and 05. It will give you an idea of where it's going. For example, here, if you look at the blue would be 03. The other color would be 04. And then the other color would be 05. Every year. But in surgery, for example, and 05, we're looking at about $1.225,000, more or less. And you can see an increase going outpatient facility. You can see an increase there. And then we've got some of the claims that are going inpatient prescriptions. And you've got x-rays, mental nervous. And then you've got other medical service and the claims administration. So these are the areas where this money is being paid and this illustrates, again, the increase that continues to occur. And finally, I think this is probably the one you need to look at because this will demonstrate what we're talking about in terms of a challenge and in terms of a need for our employees and the Common Council to work cooperatively to find a good solution. You will see this one here. The black represents the city's portion of health benefits cost. And you can see that in 02 and then in 03, it keeps going up. In 05, it just popped up all the way. But here, you will see in white, right at the bottom, what the employee portion is. There's a huge difference. Now, that difference is reflected, again, in what represented employees paying 2.5% and non-reps paying 5%. So again, this is what we're faced with. When you look at 05 here, you're looking at what we were talking earlier about the $6 million range, which is a city's portion that we have to cover for health care costs. And then the employee portion being way down there that they're responsible for covering. And that's where the struggle is going to be to try to balance what the city has to pay, what the employee has to pay, and still maintain a fair and equitable distribution of that cost where we can continue to provide a benefit for our employees and their families. That's going to be the struggle. And it's not going to be an easy one and we've got our job cut out for us. Does anyone have any questions? Mr. Alderman Hanna? Yes, Mr. Mayor. When we look at other cities of comparable size in the country, I've seen data that indicates that employee contributions are closer to 8% to 10%. Rich, when we looked at that Kaiser study, what was the set of fair assumptions? About 18. When you're looking across cities within Wisconsin, what sort of trends are you seeing in participation? That one I would defer to Ed. What are we seeing? Come here. We'll take turns. Thank you, Mayor. I would say we are behind, right? As Mayor mentioned, a two and a half for representing employees and five for non-rep. And that's one of the issues we're going to address very strongly in negotiations. But there's two sides of the story, too. I mean, a lot of cities and municipalities have also purchased, you might give more in wages to get more in contributions. But we are still, and be that as it may be, we still need to work very hard on increasing employees' contribution. And we are... Shall I continue? Okay. A number of things are working on over there. I'll give you a short snap. I think at the end of the day, we'll probably need a statewide insurance plan. All the persons, Kettleson and Madam Mayor and I went to Madison a few weeks ago. And eventually, what's going to have to happen is we're going to have to have a plan that's quite similar to Workman's Comp, where every employer contributes. Right now, it's a smaller portion of employers and employees contributing to the plan, which increase our costs. We're paying insurance, so people are not insured. And that's one of the main problems. But that's not going to happen tomorrow. Specifically, we are looking at... I was just down in the raised scene with a representative from the county. And myself, we looked at a joint venture with the county and the city of Racine to have a walk-in clinic, where missed employees would be offered probably a lesser service. They won't be seeing a doctor. They'd be seeing a nurse practitioner. But about half the cost of a visit that you normally experience here right now. So we're working on that. In fact, we have a meeting coming up already part of next month with the unions. And we'll be talking about putting in HSA's contributions and other items that can help reduce the cost. And again, we're going to stress very strongly negotiations that the employees have to contribute more to the insurance. It's a given. But it's not the total answers to the problem. It's a very complicated issue. And that's about all. Thank you, Ed. And again, it's not going to be... There's not going to be an easy solution, as Ed said. But I think you asked about comparisons here, Alderman Hanna. I was informed today that the average and the private sector of employee contribution to health care programs is about 23% to 24%. That's what the public sector is playing... I mean, the private sector is playing pain. And obviously, we're way below that, even ourselves. So we do have a challenge before us. And the only answer is, how are we going to balance that challenge that those needs with our employees? Just have a question, then I'll get Alderman Bourne. It looks like in 2004, employees are paying more than in 2005. Is that correct? Yes. And Ed's going to explain that to us too. He's got the history of that one. I wasn't in a position to know then. What happened was that we had... We had a pretty strong discussion with the union. And they agreed, almost all the unions, particularly the larger unions, agreed that they would take whatever increase they got for half the year and put it back into insurance premiums. And that was an effort to keep the cost down. And there was a one-time deal. I don't think they'll do it again, but... The one thing we have to be careful with also is that it's very common for negotiations to go in the direction of, we'll pay you 3% more on healthcare costs, but give us that difference in salary. That doesn't really help us much because at the end of the day, the impact on the budget is still the same or pretty near to it. So it doesn't really help us. I think that, as Ed said, the only solution here is going to be how are we going to ask our employees to contribute more? A little more of a fair share. I got a bunch of lights up there. Lights are going up, huh? Alderman Bourne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for Mr. Sirk. Mr. Sirk? Yes, sir. Mr. Sirk, you mentioned that community that was thinking about having a walking clinic together. Are there any cities and counties that have combined in Wisconsin to have their medical insurance as one group rather than, you know, just the city and the county? Can that legally be done? Would it be practical? Or are there any communities doing that? I don't know specifically on the medical plan. I know, like, for ourselves, we have combined with the city, the county, and the schools and ourselves on the prescription drug plan with restate. So you save a few dollars there. One of the problems we have, particularly in the city of Chicago, is that our PPO is with PHN St. Hicks. The county currently is with Morial, and so are the schools. There is a plan down the line. We're looking at next fall where they may open up both of them. In fact, the school board just went through a plan with, it does offer discounts for both groups. The county is looking at it, and we'll be looking at it too. It'll save a few dollars, but it doesn't, I mean, the costs are there. I mean, you can't, it's like, you're buying a product, unless you cheapen the product, or the person providing the product gives you a very good discount, you're not going to really solve the problem. And we're not, this is not a Wisconsin issue, it's a national issue. And again, I think I mentioned earlier about, but we had talked at one time with Gene to offer, the county's offered a resolution in to back the new plan, making the statewide plan. But again, that's probably years away, but something we might want to do, we should talk about anyway. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sirk. You might want to stay up here. Alderman Ryan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sirk, now, Prairie State's, that is simply the third party administrator for the funding, for the city's funding of the plan I take it. Prairie State's is a plan administrator. And in effect, we're kind of a do-it-yourself program, in that we don't have an agent or really, that handles the case. When the bills come in, they are submitted to Prairie State's and they have a program of software that process the bills, takes the discounts, then we provide them dollars to pay those bills. And so they're basically just a processing of claims. So they're basically paying all the claims. They're processing, at one time, some years ago, we had a larger company, we had looked at, perhaps doing it ourselves, unless you employ an area around 10,000 employees, it's not worth it. Right, right. Now, the reps at 2.5% to nonreps at 5%, is there a deductible on these plans? Or is that simply their only out-of-pocket costs if they rack up $50,000 of health insurance costs a year? Or is that just 2.5% of the premium and they never pay anything on top of that? Well, they pay a DOV doctor office visit at $12. So every time they go in, they'll pay the $12. And on prescriptions, do they contribute to that? There's a deductible for it, $8.25, I think it is, for generic and $20 for branded. And the same for mail order, they go for a 90-day prescription. Is there any limit on their... if you have somebody that has half a dozen children and every time they get a sniffle, they take them in, are there any limits on coverage as far as the city's policy of you're covered for six visits per child per year? Or can they take them in on a weekly basis because they have a headache? No, that's why they... it's a $12 copay every time they go in. But again, we looked at that and that's one reason we like to look at a walk-in clinic so that you really reduce the cost on that. So on the... I'm not an insurance expert, don't get me wrong, but I'm just judging from what I've dealt with insurance in my own company. Everything has to be negotiated with the unions, obviously. If the city is to change anything on their health insurance as far as their contribution or the plan in general? Yeah, all plan design is negotiable. Any change would have to be agreed by both parties. Anything right now is agreed by both parties and any changes anywhere have to be agreed on by both parties. That's correct. Thank you. Thank you, President Perug. Yes, following up on Olderman Reins' questions, the premium copays are negotiated individually with each individual bargaining group. However, the total plan is not negotiated. You have representatives from each of the major bargaining groups and then you look at the structure of the plan. That's correct. And that will be coming up. And so the issue, if you would, of deductibles could be something that could be looked at for individuals assuming more individual risk if you would as part of the plan and then we could do a cost comparison of that. That's correct. And that would require then that group or that committee to... And would that be by majority or how does that process work? Well, we can tell pretty well which group is costing more. And actually, it's pretty much across the board. I mean, there isn't one group that stands out over another. We do seem to see more stress in the protective services than we do in the other groups for obvious reasons. But generally the plan, I mean, as long as, even prior to my being here, the plan was pretty well across the board for all participants, all employees. And in fact, we were finally got at one point our contracts are up at different times. It's difficult to negotiate across the board changes in the plan when you're dealing with a splintered party. So we're able to get all the unions on one key. So in fact, we did make some changes a few years ago and that was agreed to by all parties. And for unfortunate part, if you have one union that wants the whole pet and they decide to go with arbitration and they prevail, we have lost. So it's best to look at the whole picture before you try and split one group off. Thank you, Vice President Serta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this information is helpful in terms of giving a cost analysis, a fair cost analysis and the trends that we'll foresee in the future. There was suggestions made tonight and I was wondering if there's any way that we could rate those suggestions in terms of what's feasible immediately, what would be our ideal wish list because it was reiterated how we as older persons could help. And I think if we could stay on top of that, I don't know if it would be appropriate to conduct that information within salary and grievance and then have a report full report given back to the Committee of the Whole if that would be helpful. Anything I guess in aside, negotiations is one thing and you had said we are somewhat restricted because they are negotiable but any other suggestions that we could pursue. Something tangible, a timeline. To answer your question, we are in process of meeting we have an insurance committee which is composed of several Alderman and the union presidents which will be open to all of them and in that meeting we're having Jay Scott with JABIS, our insurance consultant will come in and I've gone through the process through three times trying to figure out what HSA is, HRA and all these other programs that reportedly can save you money but he will explain them to them and then we've got to prioritize. I think one of the issues we're talking about right out of the box is higher deductibles and a copay and premium share. I mean we've talked about that and it's been a very hot discussion and negotiations for as long as I've been here. It's been a very difficult struggle to come along without providing a larger increase and it's the kind of to go hand in hand. Thank you. Alderman and Clajonas. Thank you. Ed did you say either deductibles at all? It's a 12 dollar doctor office visit. That's the only thing but there's no like 500. No we do not have that. First 500 is employees responsibility. No. Nothing like that. Okay. I encourage the creative ways you're looking at things I think is great. Healthcare is a national issue. We can somehow solve it here but we can at least create a look at ways in which we can be looking forward, looking at the city's obligations to its employees and having the employees understand their obligations to the city to get this coverage that they have. This good coverage. I think it is good. Is it good health insurance? I mean do you find the quality of it in the care? I mean the coverage is, I don't see the plan in front of me but you know in terms of what it covers. The plan design is very good. They get a good benefit. A good service. It provides very good coverage. What more can you say? Thank you. Alderman Graf. Thank you. Mr. Sir, in 2004 when some of the bargaining groups participated in their raise was what they gave as a contribution. Did all the bargaining groups participate in that? No, they did not. And what the bargaining groups that did participate what percentage were they paying at that time, do you know? It was still at the 2.5%. But then they contributed an additional, didn't they? Well yeah, what they did they took the raise which was like 1.75 I recall or 2.5 and it said okay we're going to forgo the raise, the money was put into a POP premium only plan and then money went into, they took an additional premium share for that period of time. But not all the bargaining groups participate in that raise. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Susha. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First I would like to thank all the retirees for paying their fair share. I'd say very good share. I mean last year it looks like their expenditures were 1.2 million and they made payments of just over a million dollars. So I want to thank the retirees. I do get a lot of calls and being that they're paying about $1,400 a month for that service they'd like to see anything happen that we could bring that cost down for them as then it would trickle down to the city as well and that's one of my questions is that who's doing the negotiations with PHN and Saint and Aurora for our rates. Is Prairie States negotiating that for us or are you who's doing that? No, we actually belong with the consortium called Search and it's about 43 companies in the city of Sheboygan and Search and Tamalot from Warath is like the chairman of it and then they have a committee that sits down with both Aurora and PHN and Saint Nex and negotiates rates with the two groups. Good and then my other question is that are we currently covering experimental drugs or experimental procedures? I don't know that category I have to look at. Because if we are that's going to have a big impact and that's something we need to make sure that are in the contracts in the futures that we don't pay for things that are not approved by the FDA. Our plan is pretty standard I don't know of any exceptions that we would grant that any other plan would at this point in time. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Alderman Recky. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sirk when it comes to the insurance we offer our employees is it just one standard plan for everybody or are there different levels that the employee can pick from depending upon what level of service they think they might need? Right now we have one plan and that's why we are looking at the HSA's which would be a higher deductible. The only problem that you run into is an item where you have lesser coverage and we have adverse selection where you have the employees and the families or large groups of families that really use the plan. Don't take the better part of the plan and pay that premium where the people that don't use the plan don't have any prescriptions and don't see the doctor over a couple of years. They will take the cheaper plan and that's where you run it. You are really walking a tightrope when you are trying to say is this going to save us money or is it going to cost us money? The same thing with the HSA's where we would say okay here is $2,700 and we are going to make your deductible $2,700. How do we know we are just trading dollars? Are we really going to save money? Now we have been torn around for a couple of years. I don't want to recommend a plan that is going to look real good on paper and then it will cost us more money. So I'm not totally convinced that offering an HSA without some real control over it is going to save the city any money. Thank you. Thank you. Vice President Surna. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. During our last negotiation process was there a union that was willing to contribute more than the 2.5% and I guess for us to deny if they want to contribute more was there a different offset just so we could understand why we wouldn't take that offer? I've heard that before. And unfortunately they didn't tell you the other part of the story. We will only give you 5% why we want this, we want that and it was a package deal. Now we'd be a fool and I'd be a fool negotiating a contract to ignore someone willing to contribute more without having its cost more. But if you look at the whole plan and how we had initially had in there, I think we had initially 2.5 going to 5, 7.5 and a 10 and they basically said no, we won't even look at that. And then they came back, I think maybe the police association was perhaps, I don't want to go into groups, but anyway when we look at the whole picture it said that was not a good deal for the city. But I heard some of you say well we were willing to give but the city wouldn't do it. Well you've got to look at the whole picture. Thank you. Is there any other questions? Hearing none then we have a motion on the floor to accept and adopt the RC. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Sure votes aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Next on the agenda is discussion regarding the Mean Public Library and Maintenance of Effort and how it will affect the city of Sheboygan's participation in the Eastern Shores Library System and the Easycast System. Sharon if you could, thank you for waiting. And if you could come to the podium and give us your presentation. Thank you Mr. Chairman. You do have an outline of the presentation in front of you. It was distributed earlier and there are some handouts attached to that outline. Just by way of a little bit of background information there are 17 library service systems in the state of Wisconsin and they are established to help libraries cooperate to offer services. That is expensively that might be the case of each individual library was providing those services or responsible for those operations and in large part the system services are funded by state aides so for example Sheboygan residents currently get the benefit of state funded services through Sheboygan's membership in Eastern Shores Library System which is the next item on the outline. I would like to say that David Weinhold who is the director of the Eastern Shores Library System is here this evening and if I can finish my presentation in time he will be available in case there are any questions. He does have another commitment that will call him away shortly. Eastern Shores Library System is the library service system that serves Sheboygan and Ozaki counties and there are participation requirements for the city's membership in Eastern Shores Library System and the one we are talking about tonight is called the public effort funding requirement and I do have an excerpt from state statutes a municipal public library may participate in a public library system if it receives funding from the municipal governing body at a level that is not lower than the average of such funding received for the previous three years. So it's a fairly simple arithmetic calculation. It's complicated because there have been some statute changes and some attorney general opinions related to what counts toward maintenance of effort. So just to be very clear about that it is the funding from the Common Council that is considered to be qualified toward maintenance of effort. It's not any capital support. It's not any gift. It's not any carryover funds. The Common Council has authorized Meade Library to participate in Eastern Shores Library System and that is the function of the Common Council. That is a decision that the Common Council made in the past that the library, its library, should participate in the library service system in the area which is Eastern Shores Library System. The maintenance of effort requirement for 2007 is listed in the outline. It's $2,627,455 or $19,120 more than the funding for 2006. I'd like to stress that again it's the average funding for the last three years. Funding the library at maintenance of effort level does not mean that you're funding the status quo, so to speak. That you're funding the current level of services and allowing those to continue going forward because again it's simply an average of the last three years and as addressed in the earlier presentation naturally there are costs that increase from year to year. I'd also like to point out that if the library department were to be funded at the maintenance of effort it would still need to make budgetary adjustments in order to meet the financial constraints that all of the departments will be facing. So it's not as though saying funding at maintenance of effort holds the library harmless in some way or means that the library isn't going to have to make budgetary adjustments, reduce staffing, reduce services, etc. As the other departments are facing for 2007. I had the opportunity to attend the common council finance committee meeting just prior to this one and my understanding is that that finance committee has adopted a resolution that calls for the library department to be funded in 2007 at the 2006 level. So that means that if things continue forward along the line of that resolution that the common council funding will not meet the maintenance of effort funding requirement for 2007. There are, as I understand it, no degrees of making or not making the maintenance of effort funding requirement. You either fund at or above maintenance of effort level or you don't. There's four bullet points on the back side of the outline that you have. The maintenance of effort funding requirement is required for Sheboygan's continued participation in Eastern Shores Library System. ESLS provides state-funded services to Mead Public Library. The state-funded services are essential to library services for residents of the city. And local funding would need to replace the state-funded services that would likely be lost if the library doesn't participate in Eastern Shores Library System or if it's penalized because it's no longer a member in good standing. So there's some alternatives that we're listing here going back to the outline. A library, a community that doesn't meet maintenance of effort can be expelled by ESLS and I understand from talking a little bit more with David Weinholt and from information provided by representatives of the Division for Libraries Technology and Community Learning that that is a last resort. It's not something that's going to happen on November 27th or November 28th the day after you would adopt your funding level for Mead Public Library for 2007, but it is something that's taken quite seriously and that would cause system representatives and state representatives to treat with the Common Council to see if there's any way that the Common Council is able to meet maintenance of effort naturally if that's not going to come to be and a certain amount of time passes then the law, the statutes do speak to expulsion from the system. There's also the opportunity for the Common Council to withdraw from Eastern Shores Library System. That's addressed in the statutes because once again whether or not your library is going to be participating in the library service system is a policy decision as well as the funding decision of the Common Council. Looking at that alternative, the earliest time by which this council could withdraw from participation in Eastern Shores Library System would be effective for fiscal year 2008 due to contractual obligations to give at least six months notice prior to the end of the system's fiscal year which is a calendar year. While this talking back and forth about coming into compliance is going on it is possible that the system as determined by the system board and also reviewed by the Division for Libraries Technology and Community Learning could invoke penalties and my understanding is that the penalties are withholding service from Mead Public Library. Now the thing is that the services are essential to the operation of the library for the most part and I'll go over those a little bit further down the list. At one point we were looking at perhaps missing the maintenance of effort by 152,000 and looking at the effect that would have on the maintenance of effort for 2008 so that's what that note is there. Now we're looking at missing it by about 19,120 dollars. Thanks to some creative efforts by Rich Gebhardt to make funds available for the debt service. There's also when I'm understanding what I'm calling de facto expulsion because to expel a municipality from Eastern shores library system brings about a reduction in the resources available to that system to continue serving the remaining libraries and I understand that there's been some recent conversation at the state level about penalizing a library that doesn't meet the membership requirements by withdrawing or withholding all of the services from that library but not officially expelling that library so that's another alternative that's listed here and this is kind of complicated because a lot of these decisions of course are made by bodies other than yourself made by Eastern shores library system reviewed by the division for libraries technology and community learning and we frankly don't know what some of these entities may do. Although the library in order to continue serving the public needs to budget to replace the services that could be lost if maintenance of effort funding is not achieved for Sheboygan. So there's another special category that's the next thing on your outline and that's participation in the shared integrated library system or ILS that's called easy cat in this area it's a big shared system a big shared customer database collection database with requests and materials moving around the two county area there's a contract that governs participation in that service of Eastern shores library system and that contract says that members of the system must be in good standing in order to participate. So that's a different animal than any kind of statutory penalty that might come up because there's a contractual obligation that Sheboygan would not be meeting if the council does not fund the library department at the maintenance of effort level. We've been talking with the vendor of the software for that system it's an international vendor and the latest figures show that the cost of replacing the ILS through purchase would be a little over $300,000. One thing we've also talked about since we're needing to look at different budget scenarios is participating in easy cat as a nonmember of Eastern shores library system now that would mean that the city would need to withdraw the common council would need to withdraw from Eastern shores library system making mead a nonmember or the system could expel Sheboygan and then mead library would be a nonmember public library. This is an idea that the shared library automation committee made up of representatives from all of the libraries in the two county area has proposed in that will be presented to the Eastern shores library system board for its decision about whether or not that could happen. So again that decision is not anything that we can make. That's something the Eastern shores library system board has to decide. But again as a nonmember we would need to pay for services provided by Eastern shores with local funds rather than having Sheboygan residents get the benefit of the existing state funded services. We also lose revenue if we're no longer in good standing no longer a member of Eastern shores library system. Mead library serves as a resource library for Eastern shores library system and there's an annual income of around $43,000 for that. So that would be in jeopardy. The major services that I mentioned that are necessary to operate the library that are provided cooperatively at this point in time by Eastern shores library system are cataloging delivery among the various libraries participating in the system, internet service and interlibrary loan all of those things would need to be replaced in some way using local dollars if the maintenance of effort is not met and if negotiations don't result in its being met. You've got in your hand out a double-sided sheet that presents the cost of library system services and the value of those services. And this was prepared by Eastern shores library system. It shows the cost for Sheboygan of various services, the major ones that I mentioned, the interlibrary loan, delivery, internet services and cataloging services. And then it shows the value on the verso of that page. And the value is shown for delivery and cataloging on the basis of Meath library not getting the services from the system and needing to go out into the marketplace and purchase them elsewhere. And you can see that there would be some significant costs based on the assumptions that Eastern shores library systems staff members made when they created this value sheet. So our problem, if you want to call it that, our challenge in looking at budgeting for 2007 is what is going to be the cost of replacing the Eastern shores library system services that are necessary for the operation of the library that are going to be jeopardized by the common councils not being able to meet the maintenance of effort funding for 2007. And I would just sum up again that, you know, some important points for consideration. I suggest that Sheboygan residents will lose the benefit of state funded services, will lose the benefit of the ability of Eastern shores to cooperatively provide services for a much lower cost than a library would realize by going out into the marketplace to purchase them. And there's also the big gigantic number out there, in my opinion, for replacing the integrated library system purchase again at over $300,000. David Weynold is here. He does need to leave shortly. And I wonder if anyone might have questions for him at this time that he could address. I got lights everywhere. I'm going to start with Vice President Sertl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to indeed ask finance specifically, Chairman Groth, if indeed this resolution is going to have a shortfall of 19,000 because given the information that was just given to us, it looks like we would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to supplement the same service just for that shortfall of 19,000. The resolution is coming to council. It is with the $19,000 shorting of the library. That is correct. And does the finance are, have you explored the idea of some type of arbitration with the eastern shores? How are you going to address these issues? No one from finance has talked with eastern shores. The only one who has talked with eastern shores, I believe, is, excuse me, Sharon, but that doesn't say that we won't in the future, but right now we're making this recommendation just to let everybody know the extent of what finance is recommending is that we go with what we did in 2006, and so everybody knows, all the departments know that what we're looking at right now. At least finance is making that recommendation to council. Council can change that if they so choose. But you have to keep in mind that we're talking 19,000 here and there are other things that Sharon mentioned something about that Rich did some creative financing and so forth to cover some other things. And I think there's some other creative financing things that he could do to possibly cover this. But my question that I have also is regarding what eastern shores may or may not do because we don't know for sure if they are going to hit us with any penalties or not. That's why I have my light on to ask a question that will later we'll take. So you would like him to address? Ultimately, yes. But I have a question, but if... That would be a good time. He's got to get going. Okay. My question, then if I may, Mr. Chairman, would be is there such a thing? I know Sharon had mentioned that she feels that we will get sanctioned. We might be expelled. We might do this. No decision has been made on what may happen if we do not fund the maintenance of effort with need public library right now. Is that correct? That's correct. We can't make a decision until there's actually a non-compliant act. Okay. So until you make a decision about funding, we can't do anything at all. We can just tell you what the possibilities are. Okay. Is it also possible that there wouldn't be if say the city of Sheboygan would say, okay, we have to do things this way this year and it looks like we're not going to make the maintenance of effort, but it's only going to be a one-year period. Would that be taken into consideration and could there be no penalty or something because need public library is a huge part of the East and Shores library system? Is that correct? Again, certainly our efforts will be to try to bring you back in compliance. So if that's the case and we sit down and discuss with the city and we learn what the conditions are, those conditions can be taken into consideration. There has been some examples in other parts in other cities in the state so this is not unusual that cities don't meet that cities have a problem meeting the maintenance of effort requirement is the system sits down with the city and talks about why and gives all the reasons and then comes to some conclusion so maybe it's the best I can answer. One final question if I may sure is are there any other cities within the Eastern Shored library system that presently are in the same situation Sheboygan is? You're the first city that's talking about their budget this early. None of the other cities that I'm aware of in the Eastern Shored or any of the villages have begun any of these discussions yet so we're not aware of any problems yet. Thank you. Thank you. Alumran Clare-Hunas? Alumran Graf asked each of my questions. He beat you to the punch. Alumran Susha? Thank you Mr. Chairman. Just to give you some insight of what we're looking at this year we just came from a finance meeting and public works, the fire department and the police department this year are all going to be hit roughly four to five hundred thousand dollars. We're talking about not being able to find nineteen thousand dollars to fund the library and we're going to have department heads screaming at us that they don't want to be cut four to five hundred thousand dollars each. Currently the taxpayers of Sheboygan just the city residents are paying about seven thousand dollars a day to keep the library running. When you add in the other sources of revenue from the county you're running the library at about nine thousand dollars a day 365 days a year. That's what we're giving to them which is a full load of money. One year we're a little bit tight on money and we are not going to properly be able to come up with this extra nineteen thousand dollars. If we have an extra nineteen thousand dollars in the budget I'd rather see it go to the police department rather than cutting them five hundred thousand dollars. The library is an important part to the eastern shores this would be a one year temporary situation and I think we will be able to level off the maintenance of effort after this year and I would ask that you take into consideration perhaps a one year probationary period for the city of Sheboygan because it would probably be a one year situation. So I would ask that you just keep that in mind because we have much bigger shortfalls with our other departments than just with the library. It's not really a question but I guess I just want to make the comment and as was pointed out earlier is the library system uses state funds which are paid for by the city of Sheboygan through your state income taxes and sales taxes to provide cooperative services. I think certainly those state funds are for the benefit of everybody and I guess we would hate to see the opportunity for you to lose the ability to take advantage of those state funds where we can save considerable amounts of money for the library we have over the past 20 or more years that the library has been in the library system to achieve certain economies of scale that the city has taken advantage of because the library has had to make those purchases. So certainly I hope you keep that in mind too as you discuss whether or not that $19,000 is a worthwhile investment. Thank you. I'll get Alderman Ryan and then I'll get Vice President Burr. So sir what you're saying is that the eastern shores library system if the city of Sheboygan does not come up with the extra $19,000 would be willing, you would be willing to forego the Meade Public Library participating in your program over a $19,000 one-year shortfall? Well I don't know if it's a one-year shortfall. We're all speculating at this time. You haven't passed the budget. We're assuming that there are going to be a non-compliant act. I'm not assuming that there's going to be a non-compliant act. How is the maintenance of effort formula? Is that a constant number or does that increase annually with inflation et cetera, et cetera? It changes based upon what you appropriate to the library. So let's use, you appropriate $100,000 one year, $150,000 the next year and $150,000 the following year is the average of those three numbers. So it depends upon your appropriation. What we're saying is that at the end of the year, you have to meet that average in order to maintain your membership. And that is not adjusted for inflation? No, it's adjusted based upon your decisions. Thank you. Thank you, President Berg. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Presumptive that need public library essentially is the big dog in the system. It's the largest library in the system. And the one that then suffers most, I think, the term is negative borrowing, where we tend to distribute more resources than we receive from others. Correct. And that being said then, are each of the library systems, like Eastern Shores, are they autonomous? So for example, we're need to withdraw, I'm assuming it's a two way street, that the library would not get, if you would, the resources from Eastern Shores. But on the other hand, the library wouldn't be bound to lend material to any of the Eastern Shores is that reasonable? If they're no longer a member of the system, then the library is responsible for serving its own residents. It doesn't have any responsibility for serving other residents. However, the statutes do allow it to participate in the county library service. So if they want to receive those county funds then they do have to share their resources with what we call the non-library residents of Reagan County. Then as a follow-up question, I don't know how parochial the library systems are, what Eastern Shores then have the ability to find a resource library say through Milwaukee County? The statutes allow us to look for alternatives to resource libraries if the largest library in the system does not wish to be the resource library. Media library could decide that already if they wanted to, but so far as chosen to maintain that role because they do have a contract with us and receive $43,000 of state funds to serve in that role. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is, how many libraries make up the Eastern Shores system with me being basically the anchor library? How many smaller libraries are there in the system? There's 12 other libraries in the system. There are five in Sheboygan County, five in Ozaki County and seven others in Sheboygan County that make up the Eastern Shores library system. And with those libraries making up the Eastern Shores system and us being the resource library, we're sending out more than we're bringing in. Are costs covered in doing that first off and second off with us being the big dog in the system and we have what Necwan and Grafton and things like that in there? There's libraries that benefit the city of Sheboygan taxpayers that fund the Mead Public Library for everyday operations yet the resources that we need are sitting on down in southern Ozaki County. How does that benefit the taxpayers in the city of Sheboygan? I think that's a sharing question. There is a system of shared resources in place through the EZCAT integrated library system that I mentioned is a shared database. It's a shared collection of all of the libraries that participate in Eastern Shores library system including Lakeland College added on top of that. So there is a delivery system and you could get next day or second day delivery depending at the time you make a request in the automated system. So yes, residents outside of Sheboygan do call upon the Mead Public Library collection and yes, Mead Public Library is a lender now but the other thing to keep in mind is that Sheboygan residents do have access reciprocally to these collections and other libraries. So that's how Sheboygan residents benefit in addition to the state funded services that are lower costs and going out into the marketplace. So when I follow up how many times a year do we actually pull resources in from the other libraries since we're mostly pulling out to the other libraries? How many times a year do we pull in? I mean what does it benefit me to be in the Eastern Shores system if I'm going down to the Mead Public Library, the tax periods Sheboygan paying the bills in this library to get a book and it's out for the next 60 or 90 days in southern Uzaki County because it's on an interlibrary loan. How does that benefit the people here when they need that resource that's not here? Well it's not going to be out for 60 or 90 days most likely due to loan periods that control that money. Also we pull in materials every day from the other member libraries. There's probably not a day that the library operates that there aren't things delivered from all of the other participating libraries to Mead Public Library for Sheboygan residents to use. It's just that being a large concentration of population and being as you said the largest library, the largest collection that Mead is a net lending library. One could look at the value of the library services provided by Eastern Shores and consider that that is a fair trade. Now that's something that needs much more in-depth analysis. Look at the cost of replacing the integrated library system. We did ascertain last year that that is an optional service provided by Eastern Shores library system. Mead Public Library would not have to participate in that particular system and that system is pretty much what drives the net lending position that you're talking about. But is the library, is the city, in a position to pay to replace that? And also to realize then that Sheboygan residents won't have the advantage of calling upon this much larger collection of resources if we go it alone. That's a policy decision. That particular decision would most likely be made by the library board with a lot of in-depth discussion with the common council probably sitting as the committee of the whole. That's a really kind of a separate question from whether or not Mead Library is going to be a member of Eastern Shores library system and continue to receive the shared services that are funded by the state because as I mentioned earlier, there's a contract in place and I don't know if that's would be negotiable or not. That contract was agreed upon by each and every participating library that participates in EasyCat and again, that contract states that each library must be a member in good standing of Eastern Shores. So I understand your interest in negotiation. I understand that you're going to evidently miss maintenance of effort by 20,000 rather than a larger amount that we had anticipated earlier but I don't know that that contract is negotiable. So realize that that's hanging out there. That's by contract not by not governed by statute related to the negotiations, the penalties, et cetera. Thank you. Alderman Susha. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier this evening, the Finance Department or the Finance Committee accepted a donation for $1,100 to buy a bulletproof vest for the canine unit. So the dog now is protected and I'm wondering if there's any problem if a private citizen or a service club wanted to contribute 19,120 dollars to the library to make up this shortfall. Would there be any conflict with that? We gladly accept all donations and we have had some wonderful contributions to the library through the years. However, contributions are not considered as part of the maintenance of effort. The Common Council needs to provide the funding through city funds. As a follow-up question, however, if they made the donation to the city and earmarked it for that particular cause, I believe then it would be able to be applied. Would it not? I don't know that it could be earmarked by the donor. I suppose that if the city were to receive some funds and the donor said do with money is what you will and for some reason the Common Council decided that it wanted to use those monies to meet the maintenance of effort funding requirement. That having been general money available to the city, money generally available to the city, however we want to phrase it, I don't know that that would be a concern but what is David Weinholtz thinking? I think you'd have to ask the city attorney to interpret that part of it because in the statutes there are definitions about what can and can't be used to meet maintenance of effort so I think you'd have to get that type of advice for that thing. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Graf. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to follow up on Alderman Ryan's question regarding the maintenance of effort and so forth and Sharon please correct me if I'm wrong but I think we were always contributing the maintenance of effort and always kind of meeting that until about two years ago when there was some additional funding that was available and the library received more than the maintenance of effort which kind of put us in this situation where we are now because I thought that instead of contributing the maintenance of effort I thought like two years ago we contributed like I want to say $100,000 or $75,000 or something which was considerably more than the maintenance of effort. Let's remember that the maintenance of effort is not a recommended level of funding for your public library. It's simply the average of the last three years. Historically the maintenance of effort never really played into the equation when common council was determining the appropriate funding for the library department because the library was funded well above that and then I would say just recall it since I don't have that in front of me. Maybe it was perhaps about 10 years ago or so that the council reduced the library budget below the maintenance of effort level and then needed to bring it back up and ever since then the council has seemed to want to fund the library pretty much around the maintenance of effort which again is the average of the last three years and as you know as costs increase that's probably not going to be allowing any development or growth in the library but then I understand we're not in a growth phase here in the city with any sort of funding for operations. So it's not something that you did to yourselves by funding the library above the maintenance of effort level except that it is the mean. It is the mean of the funding for the last three years. I think it was back in 2004 when we were looking at the budget for 2005 there was a bait on the floor and the question was should we give all this funding to the library and I believe I made the motion to cut it in half. Yes you did. And then Alderman I think it was Alderman Warner made a motion to increase it by certain amount which was more than the regular maintenance of effort and I think that's why you're looking at the last three years you're going to have more in that one year that we have to make up now. I think you actually moved to eliminate that and then Alderman Warner moved to decrease it by only half. I think that's actually how it was done. It could have been that way but I know that was one of the things that was done that particular year that now is concluded in those years so our maintenance of effort was we gave more than the maintenance of effort that particular year and now the last couple of years we've been shooting for this maintenance of effort. One would think that your maintenance of effort would increase every year if you are able to fund your library to provide for increased expenses. One would think that your maintenance of effort requirement would increase every year because the operating departments increase every year but if you're not in that situation and you're funding around the maintenance of effort you will get fluctuations you will get it going up and then you will get it going down a little bit and then because of the funding that's included in the mean for the immediately preceding three years it will tick up again a little bit and that's kind of the that's where we are now it's in this little tick up year here. A little bit too much. Of 20,000. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Weinholtz. Thank you. Alderman Clarence. Yes. Sharon, first of all answering Jeff, I have a book in my house from the MEP1 library right now. I get books from the lot you know I'm constantly looking for books and it's nice to know that if Sheboygan doesn't have it you can get it in two days usually if somebody else has it and they had the Easy Cat system shows you exactly where they are when they're due it's an amazing system and it's amazing resource for us to get things from all over the eastern shores so it works wonderfully it's a great example of shared services. Yes it is. My other thing is here I'm looking at and I know this is hard to get but county money I mean you've got cities in the county Cedar Grove, Elkhart Lake, Kohler, Usberg, Plymouth, Random Lake, Sheboygan, Sheboygan Falls those are all in the county and they're all within the system. Yes. But we also have town people who aren't paying anything. Yes they are. They are. And they can't help us with this? That's what Mr. Weinholt referred to earlier when he was talking about who would meet public libraries serve if it were not part of eastern shores library system. So we'd have to pay this. So the people who would have no library service if they didn't use established libraries like people in town Wilson, town Sheboygan etc. do pay the county library levy. Okay they do. And people who live in areas that support libraries are exempt from the county library levy because their municipalities etc. can't exempt and we do exempt here in Sheboygan. So those people out in the towns do pay and the income from Sheboygan County is between 500 and 600 thousand dollars this year. Okay. From those people in the towns and it is based on usage. That's all tracked in the integrated library system and there is a cost formula for each library and that gets calculated and that's the payment then. There's a Sheboygan County library planning committee that met a couple years ago Alderman Manny was on the library board at that time and he represented Sheboygan and the report from that committee that was adopted by the Sheboygan County board is going to move the funding up until the county is paying about 90% of the cost per this calculation I just described. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman for hassle. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Sharon could you explain the non-member option with EZCAT that you mentioned in your report here? Can I assume it's a streamlined version or is it going to be an identical version if they approved it? If? Okay. First of all we'd have to be a non-member. If we withdrew our work spelled. If we withdrew our work spelled. The other library representatives at a meeting of the shared library automation committee that controls the operation of EZCAT proposed that perhaps a non-member public library could buy in to use EZCAT and the figure that was talked about at that time was that 99,000 so that's an estimate and it was derived from the cost of providing the services on your you can look at that on your cost sheet that are related to using EZCAT and delivery using the cataloging there's some shared automation costs that are in there and you'll probably come up to about 99,000 and then we would have to pay existing fees that are currently owed now. On top of that we do pay relatively small fees and the range of $10,000 if I'm recalling correctly annually but we'd have to be out of the system first in order to be considered a non-member of course and that would have to be approved by Eastern shores library system. So understanding that it'd be a similar level of service. Yes. Okay it'd be a similar and the 99,000 is a annual fee? Yes annually. Okay. Remember that you're paying that from local funds and prior to that time it was paid through state funds derived from the state taxes that Sheboygan residents and everyone throughout the state pays so that's going to be the trade off. You'd be paying around $100,000 with local money that you weren't paying before. That was being paid yes by taxpayers but in their state taxes and that frankly Sheboygan residents aren't going to get a refund for if Sheboygan is not in Eastern shores library system. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Ryan. Thank you Mr. Chairman. From the looks of this I believe it is essential that Sheboygan stay in the Eastern shores library system as far as it makes good economic sense for the city. However I do not see the Eastern shores library system expelling the city of Sheboygan or Mead public library from participating for merely a $19,000 shortfall especially as Mr. Graff had noted that there was a major increase a couple of years back that is factoring into our formula right now. I think the Eastern shores library system I think should understand that right now the city is in a serious budgetary that could crunch right now and there simply is not the money and I don't believe that it is proper to fund the library to give more funding to the library when other departments are being cut back. I believe it is my own personal belief that we should take our chances on this. Thank you. Alderman Graff. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'm looking at what Alderman Rohansel had said regarding the $99,000 for the current share of that contract. Okay if we were no longer a member of Eastern shores we wouldn't be required to have any maintenance of effort and therefore we would take the $99,000 or say the library needs to take that $99,000 out of the $2,627,000 that we would be giving you. You could very well do that. If you no longer have the maintenance of effort that you seem to have been using as a guide for funding the library department then you'll need to develop some other means of determining what level is appropriate. Okay thank you. Thank you. Is there any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. We can go to item number eight which would be adjournment. Second. Motion is second to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. We are adjourned. It is amendable. It's amendable. But there was no second. Is there a second? There's a motion and a second to refer to the committee of the whole instead. That will take precedence. That is debatable. That requires a majority vote. Does anybody want to say something? Excuse me. Let me hook you on. Point of order. I don't have my Robert's rules of order but if I recall when an amendment substantially changes the intent of the original amendment then that has then that is a valid amendment. It's a hostile amendment in this case. It's a hostile amendment. And if that's the case would this be considered a hostile amendment? It does not change. It only does refer to another committee with all the old one present. So I don't see it would change the substance of the amendment itself. That's why I allowed it. But it does refer to as a hostile amendment because it is contrary to the original intent of the first one. So we're back. Does anybody want to discuss the referral to committee of the whole excuse me. I was just going to support that. We send it to salary and grievance and then we get it the opportunity to attend that meeting. The library board gets to be there and we can discuss it there at that committee. Thank you. On the amendment to the committee of the whole. Sir. Thank you. If anybody listened to the radio or read the paper they all know that we're going to discuss this tonight. So I would ask us if there is any other members besides Susan Humley of the board here tonight because they could have come and spoken to us tonight if we would have asked. That's a good point. Thank you. Okay. We have Alderman Matty. Sir. Thank you. Dialogue is a good thing. Opportunity for conversation with other board members present. I think that would be advantageous. I see nothing to be lost in that. So wherever place it goes I would like to referral. Okay. We will call the roll on motion. This would be on the motion. Motion to refer to or it's an amendment to send to a committee of the whole instead of salary and grievances. So an aye vote would be to send it to the committee of the whole. Let's see here. Segali. Aye. Stephan. Susha. No. Van Akron. No. Vanderweal. No. D-Berg. Aye. Eberg. No. Serda. Aye. Graf. No. Kittleson. Aye. Manny. Aye. Meyer. No. Montemayor. No. Radke. Aye. Seven ayes and eight nos. Motion fails. We'll take a vote on the other amendment to refer to salary and grievance. Stephan. Aye. Susha. No. Van Akron. Aye. Vanderweal. No. D-Berg. Aye. Eberg. No. Serda. Aye. Graf. No. And Segali. No. Seven ayes, eight nos. Motion fails. Go back to the original motion. Okay, hold on. The original motion, I believe, was a... The original motion was to pass... I'm sorry. We're... We still have on the floor the amendment to ask for the resignation of Altan. No, that failed. Oh, we failed. That failed. Back to the original motion to pass the resolution to ask for the immediate six. Great. We're back. Back to the original. Eberg, you look like you're... Yes, sir. Thank you. It's symbolic of the vacillation. I think many of us have failed tonight to pull the trigger or not pull the trigger. And I think in that regard, what we're having is a symbolic discussion about this reflective of the feelings and frustrations with one unique decision that was made. And one vote. And a part of me that looks at my life in some ways, I'm hired to be a professional voter. This week with the committee meetings, I'll probably cast something like 60 or 70 votes. So there's a part of me that personally is reluctant to ask for someone to resign based upon only their decision on one vote. So I think for me the question is, does this vote really meet that threshold for me to request that someone really quit their job as a result of what they've done on one vote? Conversation is a two-way street. We expect the library board members to come and talk to us. How many here have thought about contacting the library board members? I can't say I've talked to all of them, but I've talked to about four or five of them. And as you might guess, they seem to be about as mixed as perhaps we are in terms of their stead fastest regarding matters such as this. So as a result of that, I guess I came back from town, out of town, and I heard that there was this resolution to call for the resignations. And I thought, well, that seems to be kind of strident. And then I got older than Radke's resolution and I started reading it and saying, hmm, I could agree with all your warehouses. Everything you say under the warehouses seemed to be what we're talking about and there seems to be a general consensus that we've reached regarding those issues. So I think while we agree on the problem, I don't know that we have clarity of agreement on how that problem is resolved or the solution. That's what brought me to spend some time talking with some of the library trustees. Also had the occasion with Mayor Perez to meet with the library director, to, I guess, ascertain her read on the situation and perhaps her willingness to revisit some of the issues that were brought up in the agreement that was signed. And I guess out of that what I came to, even though we agree on the problem, we have somewhat different solutions. I don't think I can support asking for resignations because I think that just increases the divisiveness. But from listening to the discussion, document 1040, 1940 cannot be acted upon tonight because by the time we finished our meeting on Thursday it was too late to get anything in. Therefore, in my long-winded way, what I want to do is make an amendment to this resolution, yet another. Goes like this. The whereases will remain the same and on the back if you can look at 1940 and say, now be it resolved that by this action the common council of the city of Sheboygan respectfully request that the need library board of trustees act to reopen contract negotiations with the library director to modify said contract in mere the terms of employment that apply to other appointed city department heads. So what this does is the strike that language that speaks to asking for the immediate resignation and that includes the body, in other words, to strike on the top a resolution asking for the immediate resignation of meet public library board members and then to substitute under the be it resolved that part that feels with a request that they go back and give consideration to reopening contracts. Second. Point of order. Yes, that's a hostile amendment that changes the substance. That's what you were against earlier. You can't allow that. Okay. Thank you, Alderman Berk. Alderman Graf? That was it. Alderman Seva. That was it. That was it. Nice try. Thanks for making your right on that. Alderman Sousa. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a couple of things. I think that this is a rather somewhat ugly part of the job of an older person is having to make a decision to either fire somebody or to reprimand anybody in any way because some of these people that are listed here are very good people. They just made a major mistake that I don't think we can overlook. We just need to let them know that we noticed what happened and they expect them to take some responsibility and change what they did. A couple of things. I know earlier this evening we had talked about having Attorney McLean get an opinion from the legal municipalities and I would suspect that if we do that the library board will probably turn to the Department of Public Instruction and yet have their attorneys draft an opposing view possibly even though I know that some of the talks going on with the Department of Public Instruction even they are shocked that the library board in Sheboygan actually gave this type of a contract to the director. But there is a possibility that they would present an opposing view point so we'd have two major entities with opposing view points. So earlier today I had requested from the mayor to take this issue straight to the Attorney General's office and get a written opinion from her on where this issue stands because I know that Attorney McLean appears to believe that the library board can set compensation levels for them whereas I guess the opposing view could be that you have to look at the spirit in which that law was written and I don't think the spirit in the law says okay you can pay this person you know a $500,000 payout but anyway I just think you would be better to get it straight from the top person because then nobody would I don't think you can refute what the Attorney General has to say so I hope that we follow up with that avenue in regards to what we can and cannot allow them to do but in regards to