 And would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge of Allegiance is to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Hey, I will entertain a motion to approve minutes from the last committee of the whole meeting. Motion to approve. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Thank you. And then item 1.5, public forum on agenda items. Is there anybody here that wishes to speak to the committee of the whole for either one of the agenda items tonight? Do you have to say that more than once? Yep. You don't? No. Okay. Seeing nobody wants to, public forum. We're going to go down to item 21, RC number 16, 17, by strategic fiscal planning, the committee review and approval goals and parameters for the city administrators, 2017 executive budget as defined by the city administrator. And just a comment on that, when this was presented to the common council, one of the reasons I wanted to come to the committee of the whole is because, again, we want to further educate ourselves on the budget process. There's many council members here in this forum that have never been associated with the city budget and more information and better education is in the best interest of the citizens of Sheboygan. So I'm going to turn it over to city administrator and we'll go over what the document was at the committee. Thank you, Chair. As the resolution identifies, this was last discussed before the strategic fiscal planning committee, middle of May, May 16th. There are 13 parameters that were discussed and recommended at that committee meeting. They are being referred tonight to the community of the whole for further discussion and possible feedback. Let me go ahead and run through that list for you. The first one, and again, before I start on the list of 13, the department heads have been busy for approximately a month and a half developing and working toward a submittal deadline is this coming Monday. And then the finance director and my work begins as we start to put together collectively or a combined budget ultimately for presentation to you for your consideration. In order for the department has to begin their work, clearly they need to know what the guidelines or parameters are and trying to identify sort of the bigger picture, I put together these list of 13 items. Item number one is that the general fund budget retain eligibility for the Wisconsin expenditure restraint program. This is a program put together by the state which rewards communities that meet a minimum levy amount as far as a tax rate. And then a second criteria is that if the community remains below inflationary levels, there is some consideration for increase in tax base or growth. The expectation is with an increase in tax base there is an increase in services to serve those new projects, those new developments. And so there's a slight adjustment. It's a fairly large amount as far as financial reward and the community has been receiving that reward for many years, probably over a decade. Equalized tax rate to increase no more than inflationary levels. Again, to be fiscally responsive to the citizens and the taxpayers, the goal is on an equalized basis that that tax rate remain at or below inflation. Many of you are aware that there is a difference between assessed tax rate and equalized tax rate. This specifically denotes equalized tax rate. Maintain city services with no decrease in service levels. That is the recommended goal. And again, I'm not aware of any requests for any cuts in services that have been discussed at the committee, commissioner or board meetings. And as a result, my direction to staff is no change in service level. So continue to provide services that have been provided in the past. Item number four is leverage city resources through partnerships and shared services slash facilities with other entities. Again, if we can use our taxpayer money to leverage services with nonprofits with other governmental agencies to sort of enhance our investment, that's something that management team members are always in search of. I sort of folded in the next item, leveraging intergovernmental monies to help offset city costs for projects and programs that promote city priorities, goals and or objectives. This would also include applying for any grants in addition to again, coordinating with other government agencies. Funding for a 2% increase in wages for city workforce. Again, this is simply a parameter. I recognize that there is a separate decision that you will make as a common council toward the end of this year. But fiscally, I will be presenting a budget to you should you approve these parameters that identify funding to support up to a 2% wage increase. Review user fees, including utility rates. Again, for those members of the community that are asking and use a special specialized service, the thought is there should be a relationship and as a result, we should have in place and you do have many user fees. More common user fees, of course, are water, sewer, bills, rates. Of course, we will have up for discussion sometime and relatively soon and that is garbage user fee. It's a specific user rate or user fee. But the thought is to look at the existing user fees, make sure that they are appropriately reflecting the cost of the city providing those services. And again, any change in user fees of course would go to a respective committee commissioner or board. Identify planned borrowed funds which would not affect the city's current AA2 bond rating. The city is very proud of its credit service rating. We wanna make sure that we maintain that. So finance department and myself will continue to monitor the criteria in order to make sure that the city remains eligible for that credit service rating. In fact, earlier tonight there was discussion of possibly a refunding and the rating plays into being able to get the most advantageous, in this case a lower interest rate than if we had a higher bond rating. So again, we do not want to jeopardize by any actions that we do have control over our Moody's credit service rating. A continued garbage user fee which frees up property tax levies for funding street projects. Again, I briefly mentioned this as I discussed the user fees. As you know, the current garbage user fee sunsets. I know that there is a planned for a separate discussion on a separate night for this to be debated. But for parameters, again, for the department heads to work with, parameters for the finance director and I to begin working on putting the budget numbers together. At this point in time, I'm making assumption that you will vote to continue that. And again, as I mentioned, there is a separate anticipated discussion coming later. Balance all fund budgets if necessary, utilizing applied fund balances or planned borrowed fund proceeds. The city is in a very planned way has tried to increase its fund balances and many of its funds. As you know, there are over a dozen different funds that the city manages due to conservative use of planned expenditures due to conservative projected revenues. The city often comes in with higher than expected higher than expected sort of use of funds. And as a result are able to increase its fund balances. The hope is that should there be a temporary shortfall in any given fund that the first opportunity or first manner to balance the budget may be to utilize some of that fund balance. And the term is use of applied fund balance as we put together a budget. Another possibility and it's something that the city council has used in the past is to look possibly at borrowed funds or funding borrowed proceeds. As a funding source, I know for the 2016 budget, the city did borrow funds for several projects. And so that's a possibility as well going into the 2017 executive version of a budget for your consideration. Item number 11 is to incorporate 2017 projects, equipment, vehicles, identifying the 2017 to 2021 capital improvement plan. City staff has been busy working on updating the five year cap improvement. I know that you've reviewed portions of that five year cap improvement plan in the past. I sense as the new city administrator that maybe there are some projects that have been presented to me that maybe haven't been presented in the past or maybe haven't been included in past approved CIP. But I think it's important for the department heads to in fact identify if nothing else for there to be a public discussion of projects, whether they will financially fit in the next five year cap improvement plan. But I think nothing else is important to at least discuss those projects, those equipment purchases, those vehicles. So you're aware of the needs as identified by the management team. Number 12 is continued use of donations between tax incremental districts. The state statutes or the state law does allow for transfer of any excess funds. And fortunately, the city of Shboygan does have several TIF districts that in fact are financially positive. And as a result, there are some excess funds. We have several impact fees. I'm sorry, tax incremental districts that are not financially as well off. And as a result, it may be necessary for the city to take advantage and make donations from those funds that are financially positive to those that are not financially well off. Last item is to maintain a minimum of 25% uncommitted fund balance in the general fund budget. Currently, I think the general fund uncommitted fund balance is over 40%. And as a result, there are some additional funds that possibly can be used for short term needs. But at minimum, I'm looking to commit to retaining at least 25% fund balance in the general fund. Typically, the general fund balance is critical for credit review, again, by Moody's credit service. And as a result, I can assure you that I will not be recommending a budget that goes below the 25% of that fund balance. With that, Chair, Mr. Chair, that concludes the recommendation of the 13 parameters that were discussed back in May at the Strategic Physical Planning Committee. Thank you very much. Are there any questions of the city administrator as to Alderman Gallinger? Thank you, Chairman. Darrell, this was presented on May 16th and we became aware of the county's surprise offering to the city on June 2nd for the sales tax increase. Have you given any reconsideration specifically to item number nine of the likelihood of that passing in light of this sales tax if that gets jammed down our throat? I mean, we just did a wheel tax. Now we're gonna have a sales tax and then we're gonna renew the garbage fee. I mean, I don't know how optimistic or how likely that is. And I would hope that we would plan for contingencies in case that scenario does play out. In light of concerns that you've raised in the past, it's expected that a resolution or a decision will be made on the garbage user fee prior to my executive version of the budget being presented. So that information will be available and as a result, as you indicated, options or alternatives will have to be taken into consideration in light that ultimately that was a funding source in order to free up money to transfer to our Capital Projects Fund, specifically for the street improvement program. Would I follow up? Thank you. What timing are you looking at to have this voted on by, I'm assuming to probably come to the committee the whole, the garbage fee, and then go to the council? Because the reason I ask that is July 17th is when supposedly the county is going to vote on this sales tax. And I certainly wouldn't be interested in considering anything prior to that until we know what the heck's gonna happen with the county. Well, first of all, the next committee of the whole meeting would be June 27th and the garbage fee would be on that agenda. So we will be addressing the garbage fee before the county. Or we know whatever's gonna happen. Right. To what end? Unless the case that I get a request that you'd wanna hold it after that, whether the finance or whether the city administrator wants to prolong that and wait till after that, we can look at it at another time if that's what the one of the wishes of the council. Well, I could only speak for myself, but I would either abstain or vote no because not knowing what the heck's gonna happen down the road. I mean, I need to have as much information as I can get. And certainly voting a tax on another tax and piling on is not in the best interest of our constituents. We could look at it at another time in July then too. I'll take that on our advisement. Alderman Sartre. Couple questions. The first one saying that you're not going to be cutting any of the jobs. Is what you had said you're not doing any cuts? I mentioned no cuts to services. I thought you had said employees. I'm concerned because, excuse me, in the strategic planning meeting there, it showed on the budget that you are not going to be hiring three firemen. Now, we had approved those seven firemen to be in the budget and it was approved. And now the new budget's gonna show three firemen short. And I'm in objection to that. I'd like to know how everyone else on the council feels about that. Alderman Warren. A couple of things. Chairman, the date of the next meeting you said was gonna be June 27th. Right. And what were the agenda items gonna be on? The garbage fee was made on them. I would agree with Alderman Bellinger that we postpone that until after the county decides what they're going to do because I have pretty much the same position as Alderman Bellinger is that I want as much information as possible before I would consider voting to renew the garbage fee. I'll take that into consideration. I had a couple more things. In answer, I wanted to just add to what Alderman Lassard was saying. Last May, the former city administrator and our finance chairman requested that the fire chief come up with a proposal, a number of things in that proposal. I believe the big part of it was what we were going to do with this fire station over here with the million dollars of potential expenses. Another $400,000 on the fire station over on Ashland Avenue, that's $400,000. And come up with a plan of are we gonna have five fire stations? Are we gonna have four fire stations? Are we gonna have three fire stations? And I think I have the same concerns that Alderman Lassard does as far as what we're gonna end up with as far as employees in the fire department. But I don't think, and it's been 13 months now since we've had this request into the chief and his staff to come up with a plan. And I don't think we can answer Alderman Lassard's concerns and my concerns until we have a plan of how we're gonna go forward with the fire department. What is it gonna look like? How many stations? I also have concerns, and I've met with the city administrator, the mayor and the chairman of our finance committee on the ambulance receipts for the last three years. And I guess to put it mildly, they're abysmal. We're writing off 60% of the gross receipts. So I'm concerned with the fire department just like Alderman Lassard is, but before we can decide on adding people or subtracting people, we've gotta have this plan. And it's been 13 months. So I'd like to see something definite on the plans for the fire department as we go forward as part of looking at this garbage fee and the budget in its entirety. I have one other thing, Mr. Chairman, and that is we're funding a 2% increase in wages for the city workforce. It's my understanding that our salary and benefits for city employees is now between 80 and 82% of our total budget. And I'm just wondering how that compares to some other like-sized cities in Wisconsin. Are we competitive in that regard? Are we too low? But I'm all for increases for wages to stay competitive with the public sector and the private sector. But I also think we have to take a look at only having 18% of our budget left for all the necessary things that we have to do, like hiring new firemen or hiring people for the public works department, whatever it is, but if we've only got 18% of our budget left for these necessary things, I think we have to make sure that we're competitive with other municipalities instead of, you know, every year it's a 2% raise and that adds up to about another $400,000 every year that we're adding to our budget. So if by the next meeting, if we could maybe get some comparables to where we stand with other like-sized municipalities like Oshkosh and maybe Fond du Lac, Nina Appleton, just to give us some comparison of where we stand on what percent of their budget is going to salary of benefits compared to ours. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, please. If I could respond. The 80% that you're referring to is associated with the general fund budget, which is where almost 100% of the city's staff is assigned. Each community identifies different services in their general fund. It may be difficult to come up with apples to apple comparison, but we will check and we will also do a trend analysis over the last five years and possibly the last 10 years as far as the percent in the general fund for personnel related services to see what changes have occurred during that time, especially with Act 10 being implemented along the way. This week, public protection and safety committee will begin to review the recommendations of not only the police chief, but also the fire chief relating to capital projects. I know that he is recommending a new fire station. He has also identifying what the costs the city would incur if they were to retain long term to existing fire stations that would be impacted potentially by a new station and to fire stations closing. So the committee will get a chance to start looking at the financial aspects. In light of those comments this week, he will be presenting in the month of July to that committee recommendation regarding a specific location or possible locations for that committee and ultimately for the common council to consider. Thanks. Thank you, Alderman Matthew. Thank you, Chairman. I'd just like to go off of what Alderman Lassard said. I'm also concerned about these three firefighters that previous administration said that we should not hire back, although it is in the budget for this year. And whether we have four or five stations or whatever, I have never seen a fire station go out and fire, put out a fire. We need the bodies to put out fires. We need bodies to save people. Buildings do not save people. I do not wanna see us not hire those three people back. We really need to. And if we're saying we're gonna keep services, that's what we need to do. I really think we don't have enough also of police officers in this city. I get a lot of complaints from constituents saying they call, they need help and they can't get anybody there. That is a big concern for me. I think with everything that we're doing in this city, we gotta plan for roads, even though it's kind of been with the county itself bringing this proposal into place. But we're doing roads. We're getting all these people coming to Sheboygan. We're building more apartments, bringing more people in here. And yet we're talking about cutting three firefighters and not adding any services to this. And I think we're not looking at that correctly. I think we really need to be ahead of the game before we get all these people in here to have them a safe place to live. So I truly believe we need to either, we need to hire those three people back and keep it the way it is and actually look at more police officers also. Thank you. Alderman Tressor. I too am concerned about the three firemen and feel that with all the construction going on downtown, we really need to stay on top. And I think our fire department definitely needs those three people. Thank you. Are there any other questions? One question I had, and Alderman Bourne kind of touched on it. The funding of the 2% wage increase, what is that impact as far as the budget is concerned? Over all, is it $400,000? Approximately. Okay, all right. All right, any other questions? Okay, then what I'll do is I'll entertain a motion to refer this back to the common council for approval or they can look, we can have a council meeting also. Alderman Wolff. Thank you, chair. I make a motion to approve and forward this to common council for review. Okay, thank you, there's been a motion to second. All those in favor, oh, Alderman Bourne, under discussion. So if I vote for these parameters tonight, I'm still going to have a chance to make an ultimate decision on whether we go forward with the garbage fee. Is that am I correct in that? Well, the garbage fee is going to be talked about as a separate issue. And again, I don't know if you want to amend the resolution to take out item number nine until that's taken care of. Alderman Wolff. Thank you, chair. I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Darrell, this is just parameters for you, guidelines for your department to follow. It's kind of the goals that you're going to be, you're going to be reviewing and looking into. There isn't really a lot of detail. So like the garbage fee is a discussion point for later, nothing in here says that we're accepting or denying it at this time. That is correct. It's guidelines. And then, I'm glad you pointed it out because that was my concern when I originally saw the document. And again, what I want to do is I wanted to get a discussion with the committee of the whole so that the people that are new to the budget process knows what's going to happen, is going to have an understanding what's going to come to the public protection committee, what's going to come to public works, salary and grievance. And we get a better understanding of what this proposal was. So if you have any questions and you get a chance to ask the city administrator right now, I would take that chance or I take that opportunity, but there's been a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed. Thank you very much. Okay, item 22, resolution number 28, 16, 17 by Alderman Bellinger, the resolution to oppose the county proposed sales tax increase. Alderman Bellinger. Thank you, Chairman. What I'd like to do is just go through the details of the proposal, why I've gotten involved with this issue, seeing as though it's a county issue and why I oppose the sales tax increase. So on June 2nd, the city administrator forwarded a document from the county stating that they wanted to provide a, or have a half a percent sales tax increase on top of the existing 5% sales tax, which equals a total of a 10% increase in the sales tax. The estimated revenue that they expect to generate is approximately $10 million annually. And the unique component of this half-cent sales tax increase is that the county is willing to share revenue to the 28 municipalities based on an equalized value calculation. And I've done some research on equalized value. I've talked to the city administrator and equalized value has nothing to do at all with measuring sales tax volume within a given municipality or population. It's just an arbitrary figure that they came up with to try to equalize the amount that they're gonna distribute to the 28 municipalities. Cheboygan's equalized value is 27.41%. And I can give you the definition of equalized value is the estimated value of all taxable, real and personal property in each taxation district by class of property as of January 1st and certified by the Department of Revenue on August 15th of each year. And an annualized, equalized value of each municipality represents the Department of Revenue's estimate of the total value of all taxable property. Changes in the equalized value from year to year are caused by many things. Increases or decreases in market prices, annexation gains or losses, new construction, demolition of buildings, relocation of businesses, taxable status of property and statutory changes on the basis for valuation in various classes of property. So that really doesn't tell you anything about how sales taxes are collected or who's paying the sales taxes or who's paying the vast majority of the sales taxes. It's just a value that is determined and they're using it for this calculation. So Cheboygan's portion of the shared revenue is $411,000. So if you take that 1.5 million in the total shared revenue that the county is willing to pass on to the municipalities out of that 10 million total, that's 15%, 1.5 is 15% of that 10 million. Cheboygan's getting 411, so if you take that 1.5 million and figure out 27.41% of that, that equals 411,000. It's a straight calculation. One of the problems I have is the population of Cheboygan County is 114,000. The city of Cheboygan is 49,288. The city comprises 43% of the total population of the county. So in my estimation, 43% of the population of the city is gonna be paying 43% of the total sales tax that's gonna be collected. So, yeah. And the sales tax increase of, if you've read this Sunday paper, the sales tax increase of $10 million equates to a 68% increase in the county's transportation, operating and capital budgets. According to George Marthensy, the Cheboygan County Supervisor, I believe he handles falls in Howard's Grove. So that's the background on the sales tax. Prior to this meeting, I've had some conversations with Daryl and he generously offered his services and trying to get a hold of Adam Payne to see if Adam would be interested in meeting to see if there could be some middle ground that could be gained on this proposal before it goes before the entire county board to see if there could be a amended version that would be more beneficial to the city. Daryl reached out to him, they spoke. I'm paraphrasing Daryl, please correct me if I'm wrong, but Adam Payne had no interest in getting together. He's confident that he's, apparently he's got the votes for this and doesn't really have any interest in speaking with the city regarding this matter. Maybe just to provide a little bit of clarification. In addition to County Administrator Payne, as well as the County Board Chairperson, Tom Wagner, Mayor Van Esdien and I met with both gentlemen and had a discussion on behalf of the city in regards to questions that we had as to how they came up with the local funding allocation they identified as was originally presented that they were going to be using equalized value for the distribution of the roughly $1.5 million of which Fortner and Laban is the city of Sheboygan share. We did ask whether there were other options or whether they considered other mechanisms to allocate the local share and we asked whether population, sales tax, proportion of streets in the communities were considered. They ultimately responded that they felt the fairest way to allocate the 1.5 was through equalized property tax base. We also asked of them if it was possible for that 1.5 number to increase of the roughly 9.5 in anticipated sales tax revenues to be earned within Sheboygan County on this additional sales tax indicated that 1.5 was a maximum that they would consider for allocating to communities within the county. Any other questions? Yep. Alderman Valger. So then I'll go on to why I got involved in this issue to begin with. When I first got this email from the city administrator, I immediately called my county supervisor and made her aware that I wasn't pleased with this proposal that was being floated by the county. She agreed with me and let it go with that. It was a pleasant conversation. Subsequently, I got a phone call a couple nights later asking and she called me back and said, and I got a couple other phone calls asking me if I had changed my mind on the sales tax issue for the county. And I said, no, why are you calling me to ask me that? And I was told that the city's stance is that they are in favor of the sales tax and that the mayor was calling county supervisors lobbying county supervisors that the city is in favor of it and that's the city's official stance. I sent that mayor an email explaining that I was not happy with this and I don't agree that it's the city's position that the city should be touting that we're in favor of something that has never come before this body. We've never voted on it. The mayor told me that he met with the leadership and the city administrator and that was the position they came up with and that's what he was going with. I subsequently talked with the leadership in the city administrator and they don't remember it going that way. So somewhere something got lost in translation. I'm not here to argue that point but that's why I got involved. I'm not pleased with the way this is being ramrodded through by the county. Then I'll go through the reasons why. 43% of the revenue being generated by city residents and businesses with little or no direct benefit to the city. The city has got very little county roads within its 14 square miles. So we're gonna get $411,000 back, $411,000 that equates to 1.6 miles of road if you were to mill and fill, grind it off and put four and a half inches down based on the county's calculation. So we're getting 1.6 miles of road. We've got over 200 miles of roads and we're paying 43% of this tax. So I have a huge problem with that. So there's no equitable benefit for the city taxpayers and anybody that has come up to me, talked to me, emailed me, called me, I have not found one person that is in favor of this proposal. In fact, I haven't found one person that I spoke to that lives outside of the city in the town and the surrounding communities. It's in favor of it either. So that's one point. And the second point is the county's been poor stewards of the taxpayers' money in my opinion. And we just need to look back at the combined dispatch. Combined dispatch was a duplication of services between the city and the county. We thought it would be a noble idea to combine them to save money. We could do it for $430,000 at the city, just would need a fiber optic and a new station. We'd be up and running. We'd be good to go. It would be all set and done. The county would run it. The county would supervise it. And we would use a combination of county and city employees to man the station. Instead, it got ramrodded through and it's costing now 12 to 13 times what it should have cost. It's $5, $6 million. The county decided they needed to add a new wing onto their building to do this. They needed to be a hardened facility. I called the Wisconsin Emergency Management Personnel in Madison and in Waukesha and they said no, it does not need to be in a hardened facility. Hardly any Wisconsin emergency service facilities are hardened facilities. So that's kind of what happened. So we had a solution for $430,000. It's over $5, $6 million now. That's one example where the county has not been good stewards of taxpayer dollars. The second one is this $20 million garage that they want to build on the west side of the county. I can't imagine what a $20 million garage. I tried to do some research for other municipalities in Wisconsin, in the United States that have built a $20 million municipal garage. I can't find one. So I have no idea what a $20 million garage even looks like. I mean, this has got to be the most outstanding structure in the state of Wisconsin to park trucks in. So I don't think that's a good use of taxpayer money either. And we've got the current economic climate. Right now the city of Sheboygan, we're on an economic roll. We had expansion of American orthodontics, acutes expanding. Everybody knows about the Boston store development. We've got the new housing going up on South Pier. We've got the A Street apartments going. Cease is building a new facility. Old Wisconsin is building a new corporate office in production facility, as well as Parker Johns. So employers are looking for skilled, unskilled workers. We're looking to bring people into the city to move into the city. And now we're gonna jam them with a sales tax increase. I just think it's ridiculous to be doing to the people. We're trying to attract people in the city, in the county. We do not need a sales tax increase. I hear from other people that why, there's only 10 counties in the state of Wisconsin out of 72 that do not have a sales tax increase of half a percent. And I think that should be a badge of honor. I would like Sheboygan County to be the last county in the whole state to ever have a sales tax increase. I don't know why we're rushing to judgment to quick get a sales tax increase because other counties have. The last time another county did a sales tax increase was 2010, I believe, from Fond du Lac County. So they're not happening all the time. These other 10 counties aren't saying, you know what, we should really do this because every other county's doing it. I mean, if it was such a great idea, all 72 would be doing it. So I think we should resist the temptation and keep it the way it is. And there's also some pending initiatives that we have. We've got the county sales tax proposal. We've got the extension of the garbage fee, which we alluded to earlier. I don't know how many people in this body are gonna be excited about renewing the garbage fee if the county jams us with a sales tax increase. After we've just done a wheel tax. Then we've also got the school board putting a referendum on in November for $29 million for new taxes for the schools, for maintenance for the schools. So it seems that everybody is rushing to get into the taxpayers' pockets. And I just think we need to slow down and figure out what we're doing and the county just needs to take this proposal off. It does not benefit the city in any way. The sales tax, it's a regressive tax. Disproportionately affects lower and fixed incomes. So I think that's a point as well. And to get back to my $20 million Taj Mahal that the county's building on the western part of the county, if you were to take that same $20 million and do a millen fill with four inches of overlay, you could do 80 miles of roads with that. If you were to take the same $20 million and do a two and a half inch just an overlay and not do the millen fill, just an overlay, you could do 166 miles of roads. So I don't know what they're doing and why they need to have a garage when they've got these pressing issues with their roads. So I think there's other ways that they can do it. They've proved to me to be fiscally irresponsible and they wanna balance their inefficiencies on the backs of the taxpayers of the city and I am against it and I'm sick and tired of getting taken advantage of by the county and I would like somebody, this body particularly, to stand up and say we've had enough county, you can go away and take your sales tax with you. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Belanger. Any other questions as to the resolution? Alderman Barn. Well, I would just add as far as the regressiveness of the tax, I saw some information about 10 days ago either in the Wall Street Journal or the Milwaukee Journal. I can't remember which one. That for inflation since 2000, the per capita income in Wisconsin is down 34%. Now, I've heard some people say, well, we see people out there, they're going to restaurants and blah, blah, blah. Maybe that's the only time they can afford to go a whole month. I mean, we've got constituents that are probably working two or three jobs to make ends meet and now the county wants to come up and hit them with another half percent sales tax and maybe it's not much in a case of beer or whatever, but when you get into more expensive purchases, that has an effect on whether people can afford this stuff and they may just go to a county and it could end up even hurting our businesses, the bitter numans of the world, if somebody's going to go and can maybe afford to get a new kitchen, some new appliances, they may just go to a county where they don't have the extra half percent sales tax and buy it there and that's going to hurt the bitter numans of the world. So it's very regressive. There's a lot of people in this city that are hurting and you see this phony, baloney unemployment rate of 4.6% whatever it is. When you take the people that have dropped out of the workforce in this country that have given up looking, the worker participation rate in this country is the lowest it's been since the 1970s. The actual unemployment rate is probably over 10%. If you take those people into consideration, so Alderman Bellinger said, the wheel tax, the garbage fee and now a half percent sales tax, our constituents are going to start crying uncle because they simply can't afford it. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from the committee? Paul Professor. Part of what I do is listen and I can tell you that people that are in the lower income brackets and senior citizens on fixed incomes, the only place where they're gonna be able to take this extra tax from is going to be from their food budget because they're not having anything extra. And I would hate to see the children in this town and the poor families in this town and the senior citizens using their food budget to pay this extra tax, especially if it's really not needed. Thank you very much. Any other questions? We have a resolution before us. Alderman Mosey. I'm sorry, Alderman Teal. Oh, you can go on. Okay. Thanks, Chairman. I think what the city did before all this came up is we came up with a plan for our roads. We were thinking about our roads, exactly why I presented a wheel tax so we could come up with a game plan to take care of our roads. The other people in the county are not taking care of our suburban roads. That little bit of portion ain't gonna do anything. We have a plan in place. I agree with just about everything that John had to say. I don't need to add anything to that. But I think as a city, we took care of our own and what we needed to do. Heck, if they can do a wheel tax for all the rest of their county people, let them do that to take care of their issues. We took care of our own and I don't agree with the increase in sales tax either. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Jose. I agree with Alderman Bellinger. It seems like a bad deal. We're gonna spend 43, pardon me, 43% of the sales tax, our constituents, get back about four point, by my calculations, about 4.4%. For every dollar we're gonna spend, we're gonna get back about 11 cents or so. I think for the city of Sheboygan residents, it's kind of horseshit. Thank you. Mayor first and then Alderman Bellinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A few points that Alderman Bellinger made, first of all, on dispatch. Yes, we did make a proposal to take the dispatch into our center and that would cost us $400,000. But unfortunately, that wasn't a proposal that everybody endorsed. We went on and continued to talk and yes, the dispatch is gonna be more expensive but it's something that everybody agreed on and this body voted to approve the Intergovernmental Agreement to do that. Now when we talked about giving the county $2.5 million to pay for the improvements that they're building, we, I think, thought that that was gonna cover all the cost and to be quite frank, some of the supervisors did too. But it's actually gonna cost 4.2 million and they have to fund that difference because we're capped at 2.5 million. Some comments about the highway garage. I think it's a little disingenuous to call it just a garage because what they did is they took two of their complexes and their highway department and they combined them into one. So they're selling land, they're closing down operations and going for one larger highway complex and yes, it's gonna be a $20 million cost but the Sheboygan Transportation Department and Highway Department is one of the more robust road builders in all of the counties that are out there and it is a big operation, it's bigger than our DPW and I think you'd be surprised if you tried to price a new DPW or what it would cost. The state allows municipalities many tools to use to raise funds and no one likes the idea of new taxes or fees but we went ahead and passed the wheel tax as a way to get additional funds for our roads. Alderman Thiel mentioned our plan but our plan, the wheel tax was only the first step in that process. The subsequent steps were to bond for $2 million more every year and to keep the garbage fee in place. The wheel tax is only a small down payment on that. Sheboygan County is considering enacting the sales tax so that they can fund their road improvement needs and it's their decision. It's gonna be a very difficult decision for that body and whether somebody thinks they have all the votes or not, it's still gonna be a tough decision. There's dissension as you saw in the newspaper this last weekend on that decision and I'm not sure it's gonna be a sure thing there. The other thing that I'm concerned about is the discussions we're having here could lead to that being passed without any benefits for the city or the other municipalities. They could remove that $1.5 million. According to their plan, they need $11 million a year to meet their transportation needs and they're not funding all of that with the wheel tax. They've divided out the $1.5 million and whether you're in favor of the formula or not, it is giving some benefit to all the municipalities in Sheboygan County. Good roads are a priority for me just as they are for all of you and all the leaders across our county. The sales tax is a county decision and we should concentrate our efforts on decisions that we control. Our budget, the garbage fee expires at the end of 2016 and the discussions we're having tonight has really been a lot of shadow boxing about an issue that we don't control at all. This is the county's decision. The real showdown is gonna come when we pass a 2017 budget without a garbage fee and I respectfully request that the Committee of the Whole file this resolution and we do our job to work on our 2017 budget. Thank you. Thank you very much. Alderman Sard and then Alderman Bellinger. Thank you. I want you to know, John, I agree with what you're saying but I'm not certain what we can do about it. That's where I agree with what you say but we can't do anything to change it and I don't think that because the county is doing what the county is doing, the city should stop doing what we're doing. So in that I'm in a dilemma and kind of echoing what the mayor said with the shared dispatch as a body we agreed on what we move forward with and may I throw in a reminder, the body also agreed to hire seven firefighters and I think we should continue to do what we have already said we're going to do. If there is a way we could stop or do something to stop this tax, John, what would it be? What could we do as city of Sheboygan council members do to stop what they're doing? We may all oppose it, we all may be verbally against it but what can we physically do about it? Is my question to you, John. Thank you. I'm gonna, Alderman Donahue wanted to get in before Alderman Bellinger and I forgot the tone on her. I will address it after Alderman Donahue, thank you. I think the thing that disappoints me most about the county in this proposal is it's a pretty complete lack of communication with the city and other municipalities in the area. We have a joint shared services committee that I have served on for a number of years as some of the rest of you have between the county and the city and other municipalities. We work through joint dispatch on that committee, that was not the most pleasant process in the world but it finally got worked out. We did a really nice job with fiber optics, the fiber optic network that's going around the city. That was a joint effort among the school district, the city and the county, that worked really well. There are other joint city county operations that really help us to work together as municipalities but that didn't happen here and so I have this motivator in my life which is, and it just springs in and it says, it's not fair and so that's how I make decisions to do a lot of things in my life because I think it's not fair. This sales tax, the way it's designed is not fair. Now, the county can do this. As citizens of the city, we assist the county quite a bit, we help pay for their roads, we help pay for the sheriff's department, for services that we either use not very much or not at all and that's just the way our municipal government has come at it through the years. I was disappointed to hear that the mayor and our city administrator met with the leadership of the county and there was just really no, there was no indication or inclination to try to work with the city, to increase the amount that the city is going to get from this and in fact, there are threats that if the city opposes this in any fashion at all, there's at least a faction of supervisors who are going to vote to remove the $1.5 million from municipalities. So it's getting to be kind of an ugly situation. I will say, and I think we as Alders need to keep in mind that for the past 12 years we have done a very good job with the tax money that we have. Our tax rate has not increased. It's been flat or dropped a little for 12 years. So it is not that the city has steadily increased its tax rate, we've had small increments in the amount of taxes actually levied because we have new construction and so forth, but we've been very responsible stewards of the money that we get from our taxpayers and we should never forget that. The wheel tax I agree with Alderman Thiel was a way that we could address the significant needs for road repair that all of our municipalities agree on. If you read through the county's analysis of their needs, it's very good, it's very on point, but so is ours, which is that we have very significant road costs. We've assessed this wheel tax. The garbage fee provides us, was a way for us to make a small increase in the tax levy by calling it a fee. It's this kind of game we play with the state. But these increases, the wheel tax and the garbage fee have really been, and I understand Alderman Truster's view, there are some members of our community for whom this is a real hardship and sales taxes are regressive taxes as our property taxes, but I don't want anyone walking away thinking that the city has not done a good job of being stewards of the taxpayers money because I really do think that they have been, and I don't think the county has necessarily been irresponsible either. Their tax rates stayed pretty much the same. I am just profoundly disappointed that this proposal was brought forth without any discussion with the city. And so if this resolution is brought forward, I'm gonna vote in favor of it as sending a message to the county leadership and also to city supervisors who represent us after all, that this isn't fair, it just isn't fair. And we need to go back to the drawing table. You'll remember Alders who've been here for a while, Todd Berry from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance addressed us about funding and road fees and such and suggested that working together with other municipalities is a way of approaching this. I agree. I think it's something that we could have taken to that shared services committee and chewed on for a while. But I can tell you that just as a person, city supervisors will hear from me that it's not fair and they need to go back to the drawing board. Thank you very much. Alderman Bellinger. Thank you. I think we've had a nice discussion on this. I would like to first make the point that the city administrator invited Adam Payne and the county chair to attend this meeting and they either didn't want to or had other commitments. And so I just would like that out there to address Susie's question, what can we do? I think Alderman Donahue stated it very eloquently in stating that we can send a message. What we can't do is our opposition to this doesn't mean anything legally or legislatively. It's not gonna impact whether it goes through or it doesn't. That is for the county board to decide. But this body represents 49,000 residents in the city, 16,000 some homes in the city. And I think what we can do is we can send a message and say our constituents, the people that we represent, don't think this is a good deal. We don't think it's equitable. We think that it's successive to the point that the city is paying roughly 43% of the balance of the tax and we're getting virtually nothing in return. In the idle threat that will pull our 1.5 million, oh really, so 411,000 we're not gonna get. So 1.6 miles of roads we're not gonna be able to do. I mean, go ahead, take it then. If you're gonna pick up your ball and leave and not play, go ahead and do that. I don't consider that a real threat in any way. And to the mayor's point, his comments, I found it very curious that he spent the majority of his time defending the county. You're the mayor of the city. You represent the city. You were elected by the city. The city is not getting a good deal on this. And for the combined dispatch to go through that, you were on the county board. You wanted the city to pay 5 million. We got it down to 2.5 million. So I mean, this is out of control. Okay, I'd like to close on it. We have a resolution before us and it basically says that we're gonna oppose the sales tax increase. Okay, I would like to have a motion and a second to see where the committee of all are interested. I'd like to make a motion that we reject the sales tax. Oh, second. Is there, okay. Well, wait, we've got a resolution here that does that already. Right. Nobody ever made a motion. Nobody ever made a motion. So there's been a motion and a second. And I think what I'd like to do is have a roll call vote on that. The resolution says that we... Appose the increase of the sales tax. Yep. Get a resolution. Get the record of the resolution. Okay. John shouldn't make that motion. Okay. Okay. I would make a resolution to oppose the county proposed sales tax increase. Resolution number 28-16-17. Okay, a second. Okay, thank you very much. There's been a motion and a second and I'd like to have a roll call vote. Aye. Better? Aye. Warren? Aye. John? Aye. Reduban? Aye. Sassard? Aye. Samodowski? Aye. Braz? Aye. Chester? Aye. And Wolff? Thank you very much. So the motion has passed and we've showed our support as to how we feel about the proposed half percent sales tax increase. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your support. It's greatly appreciated. Okay. The next meeting was scheduled for June 27th. We're gonna take a look at that issue. It's again, I haven't sent an agenda to Mary yet so we'll take another look at it and we'll further, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Okay, thank you. There's been a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much for coming.