 Excuse me, everyone. We'll call the Committee of the Whole to order, please. Thank you. First point of order is Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Alderman Waldman, would you please lead us? Pledge of Allegiance. Like with the Pledge of Allegiance 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. We would like to have approval of the minutes for the May 30th, excuse me, June 2nd, Committee of the Whole. Yes. Thank you. Second. Okay, so moved and seconded to approve the minutes of June 2nd, 2009. Any discussion? Can't hear? I got to my phone. Maybe it's under my phone. Okay, well, is this better? Yeah. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, moved and seconded to approve the minutes. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We're here this evening to consider the department proposals regarding the star resolution. And OK, we'll call before I'll do that and then we'll call. To consider the department proposals regarding the star resolution, I appreciate everybody coming tonight. And this is a difficult meeting. It will not be easy to hear some of the plans that are being made. We're trusting that the department heads are making the wisest decisions in regard to how they're going to address the shortage and the cuts. So with that in mind, we'll work toward making some recommendations to the Common Council for the meeting on Monday, June 6th. So we'll call the roll, Vice President Gysha. Thank you. Born here, Bowers, Decker, Gysha here, Hannah, Heidemann, Koth, Kittlesen, Clayunas, Montemayor, Crainflesh, I guess excuse it. Surik, Vanderweeley, Vu, Wongaman, 15 present. Quorum is present. We will change the agenda a little bit. A couple of the department heads have asked if they can be moved up on the agenda because of other commitments that they have. And I hope that we can honor that. First of all, we would be hearing from Paul that Ender's planning and development. And then after her, Steve McLean attorney, city attorney, would like to come next. Then we'll follow the order that's on the agenda. It's been passed out. So city planning and development will be first. Paulette, I believe, has put on your desk a document. It's a two-page document. If you have had a chance to review that, are there any questions that you'd like to ask Paulette this time? Can she come up and make a presentation? Paulette, do you want to make any presentation explaining this? Maybe for the sake of the public, it might be good to hear just a little summary of it. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yeah. OK. What I'll do is I'll read the memo for the benefit of the audience and the public. Dear committee members, in order to meet the required 3% budget reduction of $60,623, and that's for the divisions of building inspection, engineering, city development, and then under-building inspection is also clear water and environmental health, tourism is not impacted by this reduction due to the fact that they're 100% funded by room tax. So in order to meet that reduction by December 31, 2009, mandated by the approved STAR program, and that would be effective July 7, the Department of Planning and Development will eliminate its workforce by two full-time positions. Initially, I was proposing reducing the department's workforce by one, moving one part-time position from the general fund to community development black grant funding and utilizing 2009 rent for three months that will not be utilized after the planning and development's move to City Hall. However, the utilization of remaining rent funds was not approved by the city's finance committee. That caused the remaining recommendations to be insufficient. I did not want to eliminate two full-time positions, but in order to reduce the department's budget by the required $60,623, there was no other way to reach that amount. And I think it goes without saying that a cut that significant to our department will end up realizing some service reductions. We don't know exactly what those will be at this time, but it is a significant cut to cut two full-time positions. Alderperson, Luntz, Mearn. Thank you, Chairman Clayunas. At the finance committee, I did say that I would support the original proposal by Paulette Enders, and I still do support the original proposal because that eliminated money in one full-time person. So I won't be supporting this new proposal to eliminate two people. I think the first proposal met the criteria. Thank you. Alderman Sirich. Thank you, Madam Chair. I tend to agree with that, too. I mean, in the past, when you've done budgets and been asked to reduce budgets, it was up to the discretion of the department had to decide where the money would come from as long as you met the criteria set up by the committee. It seems we're having different rule changes here. I've been around for a long time. We're seeing that you're only allowed to cut people and not reduce your budget in other areas. So I'm gonna oppose to this program, too. Thank you. Alderman Hanna. Thank you. Question for Paulette. Thanks. Paulette, how many full-time employees do you have now in those departments? I think it's 22 with two part-time positions, and that also includes tourism. If we eliminate tourism and just look at the ones that are impacted by this budget resolution. 21 and one. Thank you. Alderman Gisham. Thank you. Just to comment regarding the, because it happens a couple other times through the presentation tonight, the changes the finance committee made and why those changes were made, the changes were made to comply with the language of the resolution, which calls on recurring expenses, reoccurring expenses. And taking out, and Paulette's got a little feel like I'm picking on her, we've talked about this. Rent across the street at City Hall was gonna be reduced whether we had a star program or whether it rained for the next 30 days. Doesn't matter, the rent was gonna be reduced as we're moving them to City Hall. So to count that as the same dollar twice to use for this as it is not a recurring expense, that rent was gonna be eliminated, was not proper. It didn't follow the language in the star resolution. It's a, we were paying the rent, it's no recurring or outside services qualify under the star resolution. That's what we passed. And certainly rent is A in outside service and B was gonna be eliminated anyway. So that's, and that kind of falls, fell into the city attorney's office as well. So just as an explanation as to the change, the only change is that we're just counting what is supposed to be counted. All the person, month of New York. Thank you. And Alderman Gisha, I have great respect for you, but I do think eliminating the rent forever will be a recurring expense that will not be reoccurring any longer. It was gonna be reoccurring, it was gonna be ending anyway. Correct. So it's kind of, I saw it as a double dip and I had conversation with finance director, so it wasn't just my opinion in the mayor as well. And I think the general feeling and they can correct me was that that was not an appropriate reduction. Okay, are there any other questions for Paulette at this time? We'll move on each proposal, not bring it back again. I think that would be the proper procedure because we wanna keep moving along. We don't wanna prolong and they have everybody's weight out every proposal. Okay, is there a motion to accept this proposal, recommend this proposal to council? So moved. Second. So moved and seconded to recommend this proposal to council meeting on July 6th. We'll take a roll call vote on this and start out please. Certainly. Born? Aye. Bout? Aye. Bowers? Aye. Decker? Aye. Gisha? Aye. Hannah? Aye. Heidemann? Aye. Kittleson? No. Clayunas? Aye. Montemayor? No. Reinflash is absent. Surik? No. Vanderwele? No. Vu? Wongaman? Aye. Well, four. The recommendation passes. We'll go on to council. Thank you very much, Paulette. Appreciate it. The second one on the agenda will be the city attorney's office, attorney McLean. Would you like to do a little presentation as well? Okay, thank you. You have that one as well on your desk. Just as a point of order too, that the star resolution was passed out earlier, in case you need to refer to that resolution for some specific detail. I didn't get Steve's new one. Can I just look around? I'm just here. Oh, so I don't have a beard looking. Thank you. Thank you. I thought I just misplaced it, Steve. At Chairman Clayunas. Let's just do that one. I'll read my proposal too, but as a preface, I got the message loud and clear. Finance committee that unused rent for the balance of the year that I had proposed as my reduction of $4,173 was not gonna be acceptable. At least it wasn't to the finance committee. So this proposal doesn't deal with the rent. It just deals with wages and benefits. My mandated reduction for 2009 is, as I say, $4,173. As the star program reductions are confined to wages and benefits, this office proposes to meet its goal as follows. Reduction of work hours for our two legal secretaries from 40 hours a week to 38 hours a week for our savings and wages and benefits for the balance of 2009 in the amount of $2,520.56. I would just comment that I could have met my entire star reduction by reducing the secretary's hours to 36 hours a week. I chose not to do that. I'm proposing to reduce them just to 38 hours a week and be a reduction of my salary for the balance of the year by $1,400, which results in a savings in salaries and benefits in the amount of $1,652.70. This will require an ordinance to be adopted because my salary, the city clerk and the mayor are set by council prior to our term for the four year term. And so it would require an ordinance change. And while as a general rule, the council most likely cannot reduce the salary of a non-elected, excuse me, of a non-governmental body elected officer midterm, I would not object to the reduction as proposed to achieve the star program compliance for 2009. I'd note that my proposal is just to reduce my salary for 2009, I guess it would be, I'd leave it open yet for whatever is coming for proposals for the 2010 budget. I would look at it at that point. Combined those two reductions, net meet the proposed star plan compliance of $4,173.26. Thank you, Attorney Queen. Alderman Fowle. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to compliment Attorney McClain. I think this is a terrific example of leadership and teamwork. And I would encourage all the bodies that are going to be discussing this, both represented and non-represented, to take a look at this example and see what he's done and dipped into his own pocket. When he's an elected official, we can't, we have no authority over Attorney McClain. You set a great example and we appreciate it, Steve. Thank you. Alderman Fowle, the first in line to be on. Thank you, Chairman Clioness. And I also applaud you, Attorney McClain. That's very hardworking, that's very decent of you to work on this. I again feel that not paying your rent forever is a recurring expense that won't reoccur. So again, this one I won't support because I support your first proposal. Thank you. Alderman Barn, excuse me. Thank you, Madam Chair. Attorney McClain, your two legal secretaries are non-represented employees, is that? That's right, they're non-represented. All right, I was just gonna, if they were represented, then your proposal may cause a problem based on what happened to Milwaukee yesterday, but as long as they're non-represented, there should not be a problem. Thank you. Alderman Bishop. I too wanted to thank Attorney McClain for his leadership and echo Alderman Barn's comments. It, none of this is easy, and Steve and I talked about it yesterday. It, Attorney McClain and I, nobody's happy, none of this is easy, none of this is friendly, and I think it was incredibly gracious of he and his team to come up with this plan. A question. The ordinance change, where would that come from? Does that come from saline grievance? Where would it come from? Yeah, ordinance, where would we initiate that ordinance? I guess I'd have to draft an ordinance to cut my own salary. I was afraid that was gonna be the case. And I guess I, I'll be in tomorrow in the morning, so if I get direction from the committee that that's gonna be acceptable, I'll work on that tomorrow and get it to sue. All right, thank you very much. Is there any other questioning for Attorney McClain? We need to approve Attorney McClain's proposal with an additional, if he needs it, direction to draft such a resolution ordinance. Ordinance. That would help us carry that out with our thanks. Second. Okay, second, thank you. I moved and seconded to accept this proposal from the city attorney's office and also asking him to draft the ordinance change, reflecting this proposal. We have to have a roll call on that one as well, okay. Born, aye. Bauch? Aye. Bowers? Aye. Decker? Aye. Gisha, aye. Heidemann? Aye. Kittleson? Aye. Clayunas? Aye. Montemayor? No. Reinflesh, absent. Suric? No. Vanderwele? Aye. Wongamon? 14-2. Okay, passes, thank you very much. Yes, yes, thank you and Paul out if you need to as well. Thank you very much for your presentations. Okay, moving on to the agenda as listed, the mayor's office. Do we have something from the mayor's office? Yes. This is from last time, I think. Would you mind if we have anyone? Is that the only one that he presented, I think? Yeah, okay. It's the same. Is there anyone here from the mayor's office who'd like to present this? Okay, Terry Hansen, finance director. Anyone has this one? It's a very simple sheet. A few numbers on it. Good evening. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll present this. I presented that finance committee and went over this with the mayor. His proposal, he has the mayor's office in the senior center and the star impact for 2009 supposed to be 29,410 and he has a 6% cut and with that he's proposing to reduce one FTE out of the mayoral office and that results in a 29,085 savings, a 6.1%. And the 2010 impact will be 10.55%. And as a result, a portion of the savings in 2010 will be rolled to another department that's assuming some of those duties that that position carried. Are there any questions for Director Hansen? Alderman Hanna. I just have a motion to approve. Okay, it's been moved and seconded to accept this recommendation from the mayor's office and to send it on to council. Okay, we'll have a roll call on this one. Born? Aye. Bauke? Aye. Bowers? Aye. Decker? Aye. Gisha? Aye. Hanna? Aye. Heidemann? Aye. Kittleson? Aye. Clayunas? Aye. Montemayor? No. Wrenflesha's absence. Surrick? Aye. Vanderwealy? Aye. Vu? Aye. Wongerman? Aye. 15 more. Okay, we passed and we will take this on to council on Monday, the 6th of July. Okay, next on the agenda is finance. Director Hansen, who might as well stay up. And finance, do we have a new piece of documentation of the same thing? It should be behind the public works. Okay. Information. Yes. Okay, for the finance department, that also includes the purchasing department and inventory of the stock room. And now information technology also fell under that realm for the time being. The 2009 impact was 59,324. Right, 48,210 is what the targeted amount was. The reductions will come in finance in April. The finance department reduced FTE as a result of changes in the accounts receivable or payable processing. That'll result in 22,406 in 2009 and 44,081 in 2010. Stock room changes, discussing with the public works director. There will be some changes in the stock room. That'll become an operational piece for the department of public works and moved out of the accounting realm to make it more efficient as a result. Some of those changes would be a reduction of about a half an FTE savings of 10,743 in 2009 and 32,228 in 2010. In IT changes, 2009, the thought was to not fill the IT director position and the other retirement, the other position tech support position that is vacant right now as a result hiring the consultant to fill in for the remainder of the year, perform those duties as charged. We would see a savings of 26,176 in 2009. And then for 2010, keeping those two positions on the TO, however, changing the support position to a three quarter time position versus a full time. And that will result in 28,465 in 2010. The recommended changes is a 3.69% decrease in 2009 and a 6.57% decrease in 2010. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for the director Hansen? Alderperson Montemayor. Thank you, Chair McLean. Terry Hansen, you've done a great job. I'll support this completely. Aren't you glad Alder and Bishop? Thank you. Thank you. Alder, Alder and Bishop, please. Thank you, Chairman. I just want to note that the finance department exceeded the 3% that we asked them to do. I think that's incredible leadership. And this actually gives an example of why, I hate to keep going back to it, but why the rent wasn't appropriate. The star resolution wasn't so much about 2009. It was a little about 2009, capturing some funds. But it was really to get us into 2010 and move us into the new future, unfortunately, that we have. And by Terry's graph, it kind of illustrates, in this case, a 6.57% reduction in impact that this has on his 2010 budget. I think that's incredible forward-looking. And it's exactly what I think the resolution was intended to do. So thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you want to try it out? Second. Okay. You're beating me to the buttons here. It's been moved and seconded to move this on, for the recommendation of the council. And we'll take a roll call vote on the finance proposal. Born. Aye. Bauke. Aye. Bowers. Aye. Decker. Aye. Geshevot's aye. Hannah. Aye. Heidemann. Aye. Kittleson. Aye. Klayunas. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Flesh absent. Suric. Aye. Banderwheel. Aye. Vue. Vue. And Wangeman. Aye. Thank you very much. Okay. Passes. We move down on the agenda to Sheboygan Transit. Mr. Ronald McDowell will take care of explaining this. Finance, yes. New stuff, Ron? It's the same thing. Okay. Then I've got it. I've got it. I think everybody has it. Okay, thank you. I think I have it. Yeah. We have the last one. Thank you. Thank you. This information is simply a copy of what was presented to the Transit Commission and then to the Finance Committee and now for your review. Sheboygan Transit is a little bit unique in comparison to most of the others that you're gonna be reviewing this evening, whereas we receive a direct levy rather than being part of the general fund. So the Star Resolution had very specific mandates for the general fund and then for the Transit Commission and the Mead Library, I believe, the resolution basically said we're gonna take, we want 3% back of what we gave you in direct levy, which equates to about $20,000 or approximately. On June 16th, the Sheboygan Transit Commission, who was charged with oversight of the Transit system, voted favorably to implement a fair increase to offset the direct levy reduction. And a number of thoughts were gone into that and why we did that. First of all, we had to have a public hearing that's a requirement as part of our policy and what we have on file with the Federal Transit Administration. We are funded by a number of municipalities and community partners, including the federal government, the state government, the city of Sheboygan, Kolar Falls, Sheboygan County, and then we get some money through the block grant program also. So we conducted public hearings on June 3rd. We had approximately 30 people in attendance in the morning session and then about another 20 people in attendance in the afternoon session and we received numerous comments. The most prevalent comment was, please don't reduce the level of service anymore than we already have in the last several years because it's to the level now that it's extremely difficult to use the system on a regular basis. As much as they disliked having a fair increase, that was preferenced over reducing additional services. As I said before, Sheboygan Transit receives funding from many sources, say from the Transit Administration, the state, other community partners. The city of Sheboygan comprises about 15% of our operating budget. In fact, it's just a tad bit under 15%. As far as what we receive from the city of Sheboygan, I started here in 2002. And in 2002, 2003, and 2004, we received $545,000 annually. So we had a 0% increase over those years from the city of Sheboygan. At the end of 2004, for the 2005 budget, I made a presentation to the Committee of the Whole and ultimately the Council decided to bump up the direct levy allocation for 2005. And then there was an across-the-board, very slight increase for 2006. And then starting in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, we had a direct allocation of $658,345,000. So the majority of those years, we had a flat fee being provided by the city of Sheboygan. We've had to make a number of tough choices over the years to make that happen. We brought in another community partner, Sheboygan County, a couple of years ago and started the RTC division without much fanfare, but it's out there and it's operating. The level of service is better than what it was. And they're contributing to our system now and it's helped us offset the lesser percentage of city of Sheboygan share. We've eliminated weekday evening services. We've eliminated late night services. We've eliminated Sunday services. There was a full-time or a management position eliminated throughout that timeframe. And our employees' wages and benefits have been reduced over the last three years from 78.6% of our budget to 72.1% of our budget. So we've been working on a very tight budget for many years and this is just another step in that progression, I guess. We had two options to meet the mandate of giving back approximately $20,000. The way the funding is structured, I try to refer to it as a funding pie and those of you that have the graphs see how that works. And we either have to reduce the size of that pie to shrink it by $20,000 on the city side, which reduces all the other components of it and we're now mid-year and we're gonna be having to deal with Sheboygan County, Kohler Falls, the State Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Federal Transportation, and to do that, then we would have to amend grants and try and get approval and quite frankly, it'll be the end of the year before we get approval on the grant process and then we're gonna have to try and get it done in a couple of month period, which doesn't work real well. And then the other alternative was to raise the fares from $1.50 to $1.75 for the cash fare. The last fare increase we had, I believe it was the end of 2001, just prior to my walking in the door here, we're in the mid to high range at $1.75. I think at this point it was the lesser of all the evils from the standpoint of the public who came to the public hearing, although it wasn't necessarily greeted with joy. My discussions with the Transit Commission and with the Finance Committee was that, we understand that 2010 is going to be a difficult at best budget year and along with the city of Sheboygan, I have to contend with what Kohler falls, Sheboygan County, the state and the federal government's going to be doing. The state budget was just signed, I'm not sure what the impact of that is gonna be, but it's probably not gonna be good overall. And the federal funding is up for reauthorization and the local community partners, of course, are gonna be having a rough road also. So we know this is the first step in a long process to get through next year's budget, but in the bottom line is that the Transit Commission voted favorably to implement a fare increase to meet the mandated star resolution. And in fact, that fare increase is slated to begin tomorrow morning, July 1. I don't know if anybody has any questions. I don't know if anybody has any questions. I think we're in some way. All the person, Hannah. Thank you. All the men, Hannah. Thank you. Ron, thank you very much. Can you tell us a little bit on the growth, since you joined the Transit Commission, what has the growth and ridership been from 2002 to 2009? Actually, it's down a little bit right now. And quite frankly, that's primarily because of the service cuts we've made. We reduce the level of service, less buses on the street, we're moving less people. It's a lot of the comments we heard at the public hearing was it's difficult to make connections because of the limited level of service on the street and the ridership has fallen with that. We did get a bump up. We had a community partnership with Aurora for a while and the ridership bumped up a little bit. And that has since ended with the gas prices coming back down, people have shifted modes a little bit again. So we're a little bit on the downside right now, but there's been a lot of discussion at the Transit Commission level and quite frankly, comments at the public hearing about marketing efforts to try and encourage new ridership. And those are things that are gonna be worked on that have to be worked on. Paul, Alderman Bowers. Thank you very much, Jim. Mr. McDowell, you said you curtailed the late night service somewhat. Could you expound a little bit on that? Sure, there was a late night service a number of years ago. We applied for a CMAC grant, which is congestion mitigation and air quality grant and the city contributed towards that on a local share level. And that was to provide a late night bus service to provide later night service for the shift workers. Those getting done at 11 o'clock at night our buses were coming off the street around 10 o'clock and we were hearing from people that they could get to work but they couldn't get home. So they weren't making the choice to get to work because they couldn't get them home. And we applied for that CMAC grant, which is a three year trial period. And it was going okay. It wasn't setting the world on fire, but it was going okay. And there was a decision at the council level not to continue funding that and that service was curtailed. Okay, I noticed the buses still run through roughly 10 o'clock at night. A limited number, yes. You mean at all routes or? After about 5.30 at night, the large majority of the fleet comes off the street. During the daytime hours, we have buses leaving about every half hour from the downtown transfer center, pulsing out to the outer limits and then coming back in. And half the fleet goes north and half the fleet goes south. After 5.30 at night, at quarter to the hour, the fleet basically heads north and then they come back downtown and then at quarter after the hour, they head back out. So over half the fleet is off the street after 5.30 at night. There's a handful of buses on the street at night. Cities of comparable size. Do they run buses that late at night or most of them cut it off at six? It's split. Split, yeah. Okay, thank you. Paul DePuis and Kiddleston. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Ron, can you speak a little bit to the marketing efforts? I mean, are there any plans in place to do some marketing to try and increase the ridership? Can you just, yeah, explain to us a little bit? Well, quite frankly, that was a voice of displeasure from the Transit Commission that something hadn't been done already. And understandably so. We hadn't done a lot yet, quite frankly, at the fact that as of the last Transit Commission meeting, we hadn't even received our state grant application or sign contract. We since have, we still haven't received our federal contract for 2009. So, you know, until the dollars are in the checkbook, I was trying to not go too far beyond, but we're to the point where we need to look at it. The grants are coming in. Effectives have had some contacts are looking it out for other RFPs have been out for advertising agencies and seeing what's out there and what's working and what it's gonna cost. And there'll be more information going back to the Transit Commission very soon in regard to that. Thank you. Just a question for you. I suppose it's been considered, I've heard of cities who lowered the bus route. In other words, making it cheaper and more affordable. Has that been considered like down to a dollar? So that people think, hey, well, this is really a deal. But I'm sure you have, well, you wanna speak to that one. You know, have I thought about it? Yes. Have I tried to put a pencil to what it would take to do that? No, I haven't. It's an interesting concept. There's a number of models out there that can tell me about how much I can expect if I increase the fare and how many riders I will probably lose by doing that and what the net income will be and that increase in revenue will be. I'm not aware of any models that can tell me what that point is. And the mandate was to tell me how you're gonna cut 20%. And I wanted to be sure that we're going to be able to meet, actually the 3%, $20,000. So we've talked about it, but we haven't thoroughly investigated it. You know, that's something I guess that we can consider and then look at and see what it takes to do that, but we're gonna be turning over all the stones getting into 2010 here. There's a lot of work ahead of us. In the next six months, that'll be part of your job is to really consider the whole service and not this 20,000 is satisfied, everybody. It's just a start. All of them are flowers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I noticed on your chart here, Mr. McGowan, you have 15% that is paid by the city, federal 33% and the state 25%. Are these percentages set in stone or is there a formula that comes from the various governmental agencies? Yes. Okay. They're all a little bit different in how they work. The state and federal allocation is determined by the state of Wisconsin Department of Transportation and those funds are dispersed on an equal percentage of systems of equal size around the state. And then the federal dollars, after that's all said and done, then we can spend up to the cap of the federal dollars without being penalized as long as it doesn't exceed 50% of our expenditures. On the state side, that's a percentage driven. So if we don't spend the money, we don't necessarily get all that money. The other percentages of Kohler and Falls and those are primarily based on the number of miles run within the municipalities. And then the county is actually determined by the state DOT based on population for their only elderly and disabled transportation. And the operating revenue, of course, is what we can generate by the cash in the fare box and such. And then the city share, quite frankly, when all is said and done, all of these other pieces of pie come into play and then the last component that goes into anything, quite frankly, is the cities. So if there's a couple of dollars left at the end of the year where we haven't spent everything, quite frankly, that stays in the city coffers. And now we may not recoup all of the state that's on here, but if there's, like I say, if there's money left over, it just doesn't go away. The cities is the last dollar to be spent, basically. So do we know right now what percentage we're gonna get from the federal and the state or is this gonna come down the road? For 2009? For 2010? 2010. Don't have a clue. We don't. No, as I said, I got my state grant application for 2009 about a week ago. So you're still working on 2009? Well, technically. The numbers are in, it's just a matter of dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's. But the reason I don't know is, number one, that the budget cycles are different. The state operates, basically July till June. The federal government works October till September, and then of course the city works from January through December, and then we try and mush all those together and come up with something that works. But I won't know those numbers for sure until we get a lot further along in the budget process. And quite frankly, by the time that the city adopts the budget in November, we should have a pretty good idea. But I won't be able to tell you to the penny what we're gonna get. It'll be very close. Thank you. Alderman Boer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. McBattle, I have in front of me here, proposed fare increases in the various categories. The cash fare is gonna be $1.75. What was it previous? $1.50. Okay. So most of the categories are going up a quarter or? Let me look at it here. The cash fare went up $1.50. The adult tokens were $1.10, they're now $1.30. The student tokens were 90 cents previously. And the half fare was 75 cents. The unlimited ride pass we left alone for the frequent riders and at $48, because that's one of the highest passes in the state. As you pointed out at the finance committee, I guess that's still a pretty good bargain for folks, but in comparison to other systems, it's pretty high. If I could just ask a question on that unlimited ride pass, is that like a forever stamp? If you buy that unlimited ride pass, and you would buy that, is there an expiration date on that? It's calendar month. Calendar month? Correct. Oh, okay. And then the other one is the RTC Pair Transit Program is gonna be going from $3 to $3.50. Just to add that in there. That's all I have, thank you. Holder, person Codd. Thank you, Madam Chair. So what I'm hearing is there's no other place to cut except raise the fare. Is it mandated not to cut anywhere or just to raise the fare? Well, can you cut, you know, I guess you can always cut, you know, we're trying to look and see what's best for the services that we're providing. The problem is, the way the system is set up, you know, if we cut a number of the routes, for instance, we got two different buses that travel within Kohler. Well, I cut those buses, they don't get to Kohler. So would I call up Kohler and say, we're not gonna go to Kohler anymore? And after, and that kind of thing. Based on where we're at in the year and trying to make the changes of this magnitude, again, I'm gonna have to go in and do a grant amendment which likely won't get approved for three, four months down the road. And then we're gonna be trying to make all of these changes in a 60-day period rather than a six-month period. And to get this done this quickly, the most advantageous way to get this done is a fare increase. And it was appropriate to do that in my estimation. That was my recommendation, the Transit Commission. The Transit Commission debated it and it was a close vote. I think it was a four to three vote. But in the end, that's what the Transit Commission thought was best for the system at this point. And then moving forward into the 2010 budget, knowing that there's gonna be additional changes that are necessary. Thank you. Alderman Panna? Well, thank you. I was one of the three no votes on the Transit Commission. Really what drove me was we had $50,000 allocated to marketing that hadn't been used. And I thought, well, this is just a tax on those that can at least afford it. So I couldn't support it. And I won't support it tonight. Thank you. Alderman Gisha? Thanks. Just procedurally, and correct me if I'm wrong, we have no authority over the Transit Commission. They're a decision to do this. And I was the second vote that said no to this increase for the very same reasons Alderman Hanna brought up. We can send it to ourselves as a note of displeasure if the council disagrees with this, but we have no authority to make any changes, corrections, or anything. Alderman Bowers, did you put your light on again? Yes. Okay. You and then... Thank you. Yes. You mean to tell me we don't have any authority over the Transit Committee and we're just blowing hot air now? Correct. The only thing we have control over is the checkbook one time a year. Okay, one time a year. Well word, the corrections such as this. But we can't instruct them what to do or how to do it. We say to them, we'll give you 500,000 and stuff to them to implement. Right. Try to coincide with the government programs. Because if I understand, we give them less money, the government gets less money. Unless they make it up in increased ridership or fairing cases. Correct. Try to offset, which is what he proposed to. I guess this is kind of a point. Thank you. I think the point is they're responding to our resolution. Right. And this is how they're responding to it. We can't say, no, you gotta do it a different way. But this is for informational purposes. They're telling us how they're gonna respond to our resolution. Alderman Bowers. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is for Mark or Jim. Your no vote was driven by the fact that there was money that hadn't been spent. And so rather than increase fairs, you were urging to look deeper. Is that, I just wanna make sure I followed your no vote. The motivation for the no vote. Yes. Yes. You think they could have cut more rather than raise the fair. I should address the chair. Alderman Hanna. Yes. My vote was really a statement that I felt, we needed to be looking outside of the box. There needed to be a bigger picture, look at how we deliver services. If ridership is dropping, if your clients are leaving, don't blame the client, figure out what you're delivering. And adjust your delivery mode to respond to the needs of the clients. Okay, thank you and a follow up, Madam Chair. Okay, yes. Then as we, well, never mind, never mind. Thank you, Madam Chair. Alderperson Kiddelson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I on the Transit Commission was one of the yes votes to go ahead with this fair increase simply because I was one of the few people on the commission who attended both public hearings. And I heard the people speak and they don't want services cut. And this was at this point in time, I think after hearing everybody speak, I felt, I feel that probably this is the only way to address this at this time. I feel that the Transit Commission is going to be looking at different things in the future. I think we have to look at how we're doing business and look at it differently. But at the present time, I felt after attending the hearings that this was the best way to address this at this time. Thank you. Madam Chair. Okay, thank you. Alderman Warren. Thank you, Madam Chair. I supported this fair increase in the finance committee and I realized there is a lot of pain and suffering out there because of the economy right now. But this unlimited ride pass for $48 a month, that's $12 a week, you cannot own a car, ensure a car, maintain a car and put gasoline in a car for $12 a week. And again, I understand that there's a lot of pain and suffering out there right now, but I think that the transit system is providing a good service. And I still think with these rate increases, it's still a very economical service for the majority of people. Thank you. First effort at marketing for the bus transit, or I should say first effort, but another effort. Motion to. Action, do we want to take accept? Accept the proposal. I would make a motion to accept the proposal. Okay, as presented. As presented. As I can. Okay, any discussion on that? Okay. Okay, we'll take a vote then to accept this proposal. Again, we can't take any action on it. We can't say go back, change it. But we accepting it as their response. Is it accept and file? Accept and file. Okay, because we're not going, it's not going any farther. Yeah. Okay, motion to accept and file. Is that agreeable? Yes. Okay. And okay, thank you very much. Roll call, please. Born. Aye. Bauch. No. Bowers. No. Decker. No. Gisha. No. Hannah. No. Heidemann. No. Klein. Klein, Unis. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Rindflush, Absentsearic. Aye. Vandalhealy. Aye. Vu. Aye. Anwongaman. Aye. For the record, I suppose, I'll be of this up. Yeah, we're going to come up that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yes. Seven. No. Okay, it passes eight to seven. Thank you very much. Director McDonnell. Then we will go to City Clerk's Office, Sue Richards, City Clerk. I believe Sue passed out something as well. It's a one-page memorandum, thank you. Thank you Chairman Clayunas. I'm gonna also just read this memo that I send to Alderman Clayunas and the Mayor and Terry Hanson and Alderman Gisha. My initial proposal to the finance committee for my department's 1% budget reduction, which is $3,628, was to cut the training and education for the City Clerk, which has been a recurring expense for many years. Training is not statutorily required, however it is to the city's benefit to have the clerk participate in continuing education to keep up on statutory changes and regulations. This training is very important, so at least in the short term, I was personally prepared to fund it myself to do my part regarding the city's financial crisis. This would then not affect my already small staff and would continue to offer full service to the public and the other departments. This was not accepted by the finance committee and I was directed to resubmit a proposal for this evening's meeting. My only option is to propose the following, staff reduction, reduce two full-time staff by three hours per week, which will total a reduction of $3,628, which will meet the 1% reduction. The impact, the office will need to close to the public one afternoon per week and ordinance change will be required to do so. This will allow the missing hours of necessary work to be done during the afternoon that we are closed to the public. Our workload has not decreased over the years, on the contrary, it continues to increase. My staff will need the uninterrupted time we are closed to complete the required statutory jobs of this office. Any other staffing reduction proposal would not be feasible. The immediate downside of this scenario is that we are heading into a very large election year in 2010, we will need full staffing, plus additional temporary help in order to administer the four elections coming up, including the governor's raise. So I guess my first proposal I'd like to just say that I was willing to take a cut in my salary to pay for the education that I do need to have. And this is my only other option is to cut staff. So this is what I'm proposing. Question, Alderperson Montemure. Thank you, Chairman Clionis. This is again, one that I feel the original proposal met the criteria of recurring expenses. And so again, this one I won't support because I support the original proposal. Thank you. Alderperson Kittleson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I agree with Alderman Montemure. I would support Sue's original proposal for the training, her training costs. I mean, that is a recurring expense. True, I believe it is. So I will support her original proposal. I will not go with the second proposal. Thank you. Alderman Hanna. Thank you. Good question for Sue. So was your original proposal to reduce your salary by the necessary amount? No, my original proposal was to fund my training and education. Okay, I think. And this year's budget is budgeted for about $3,200. So I would be funding that personally. Alderman Bauch. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess, first of all, let me compliment Sue on again, her showing leadership. Again, these leaders that are stepping up to the plate with their own pocketbooks first. That's exactly the kind of spirit that I think we need to have. Secondly, I guess our question would be, again, we probably don't have the statutory authority to reduce the city clerk's salary. But I see how the finance committee may say by Sue being personally generous, that doesn't generate reduced expenses in the future. That doesn't perpetually reduce future expenses, which is exactly what the Star Resolution was intended to do. Is there a way, and maybe it's too late, is there a way for Sue to be amenable to a wage reduction like Steve was? Because I think what we're trying to motivate here is reduced perpetual expenses. And her original proposal was, hey, I'll do it out of generosity and I'll write the check myself. But if we could cut her salary, that would be what we're looking for. I guess trying to honor her intent and also get perpetual savings while preserving her team's performance. So that's a long-winded way of saying, is it too late to give her the option that she's generously trying to offer while still ensuring the city's perpetual future reduction in cost? Alderman Gisha. It's obviously up to Sue. I would understand if she did or she didn't. The resolution reads, restricted to recurring expenses and that all required star reductions, totals exclude any projected savings or reductions in goods and outside services. And that's a training. A conference and a training. So I'm trying to stay pure to what we all voted for and a outside training is really important. I think we should be promoting more of that kind of stuff internally. But it is an outside service. It just is, just like ranked as an outside service when you're not paying it to the city and you're paying it to somebody else. So it's what we voted on. Gotcha. Thank you. Any response on any of those questions? Right now. No. It's hard. It is hard. Yeah. Okay. All right, we have the city clerk's proposal in front of us to reduce staff time. Three hours each week, two full-time staff and to close the city clerk's office one afternoon a week in order for them to catch up on their work without interruption. That's the implication of that. Yes. Okay. All right. Any action from this group? Oh, you had a motion? Move to approve. Okay, move to approve the recommended that we approve this to the council. I move it to the council. And a second was, okay. Oh, I understand. Got it. All right, discussion. All have been served. Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I feel that, you know, dollars are dollars. I'm very familiar with the city clerk's office and they are very busy, extremely busy at times. I think this reduction is gonna hurt the city and its citizens and their taxpayers in the long run. And I think the effort that Sue is trying to make is to, the training is reoccurring, except with Ms. Patricia, there's only just comments where for the point is these are dollars that we can reduce our budget for. And I'm going to vote against the proposal and I would have approved the previous original proposal. So I'll put that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or discussion? Okay, we'll have a roll call on this proposal. Born? Aye. Bowke? Aye. Bowers? Aye. Kisha? Aye. Hannah? No. Heidemann? Aye. Kittleson? No. Clayunas? No. Montemayor? No. Rindflesh? Nope, sir, it's gone. Suric? No. Vandewheel? No. Gotta get that E out. Vu? No. Wongamon? No. 2345, 2245, six. Nine. Six to nine, this proposal does not pass. What, because it doesn't pass, the city clerk has to come back again or are we just going to hold this part out? She could represent her original, can you do that extemporaneously, Lisa? Could you actually represent your original proposal to pay for your own training? Yes. Okay, everyone understand that I think it's in the proposal, the introductory paragraph. Introductory paragraph, and she explained it again. Do you want to just? I can quickly go through it. It was in the original presentation to the finance committee. Basically it says that the city clerk's budget is 362,832 dollars, the 1% reduction would be 3628. What I did was then I took out, I've got three line items that deal with education conferences and I came up with a 3628 reduction that I would fund at least temporarily for this council year, I mean for this in 2009. And then I would look at it again for next year and so on. Obviously as Alderman Bauch said, as an elected official, you know, I'm in as long as I'm in, but this is what I'm willing to do. Motion to approve. Second. Okay, there's been movement seconded to approve the second presentation that city clerk just made Alderman Hanna. I was just gonna make a motion to approve. Did it? Okay, wonderful. Okay, we have revised, let me get you off, revised proposal, and I think everyone's light on. Alderman Bauch. Thank you Madam Chair. We're playing dueling light switches here. Just a question for Alderman Gisha or anyone. Can, all we can do is recommend we're not a very powerful body as a committee as a whole. We can recommend to ourselves to approve this, but then as the body, the next time we meet, we will approve, if we approve this, Sue's second option, then we will be approving something that is inconsistent with an ordinance we've passed. Do we have the power to do that to ourselves? Okay, Alderman Gisha? I think we can do it. We had a discussion about it ahead of time, kind of anticipating and I believe the feeling is, and Sue, you're the clerk. I know, can I take my hat off and put the other hat on? Basically what you're gonna be doing tonight is because you're voting on all these separately, you're going to want to submit an RC, either total package or pull out the ones that are not exactly what you present or what's been presented, that RC should then go to council on the sixth. The RC is a report of committee. It's not something that you can amend, it's a report of committee. So you're just making a recommendation to council that this is what you decided to do in committee of the whole and you would like the council to recommend to do such and such at the council. So it's really an RC that you're gonna be presenting from this committee. So then the council can choose to do whatever we want once we're the council again? Well, the RC, you really, I mean, they can decide to not, I mean, you're really just accepting and adopting an RC, which is a report of committee. It's just reporting what happened tonight. Okay. Does that answer, does that help? I think procedurally we would separate this out since it's not. Procedurally you would want to do that. We'll present this as a separate RC. Yes. All right, I think we're off for another vote. We have a first and a second on this, I think. All right, call the vote. Certainly. Boren? Aye. Bauch? Aye. Bowers? Aye. Decker? Aye. Gisha? Aye. Hanna? Aye. Heidemann? Aye. Koth? Aye. Kittleson? Aye. Clayunas? Aye. Montemayor? Aye. Van de Wille? Aye. Vu? Aye. And Wongamon? Aye. You denounce. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, I appreciate your support. Okay, moving right along, we have human resources. Human resource director, Angela Payne will present. And Angela, do we have something from you on CASCO? Yes, you do. Okay, thank you. Madam Chair, committee members, per the star resolution response from the HR department, I was asked to reduce wages and benefits by 1%. The established HR budget is $282,843. A 1% of the total amount would equate to a savings of $2,828. On June 15th of this year, the finance committee approved my 32-hour work schedule proposal. With a 32-hour work schedule, the city would experience a savings of $23,720.97 over a year. After much deliberation, I still believe that I can preserve the integrity of my department by meeting the star resolution program challenge if I were to reduce staff work week to a 32-hour work schedule. Thank you. Mr. Question, this affects every employee in your department? I have two employees in my department. Okay, and I think at our finance meeting, you were picking up the slack. I generally do, yes. As a salaried person. Yes. Okay, now there are some questions. Alderman Hanna first? No question, I'm going to make a motion to approve. Okay, do we have some questions first? Okay, Alderman Sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. Angela, with this 32-hour work week, that would apply to the two employees only, and you would maintain, which would reduce their salary by $8 per week. Yes. And then would that really affect your salary at all? It would not affect my salary, but currently I'm working way beyond the required 40 hours a week. I generally work about 65 or better a week. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Director Paine? Alderman Dahl. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to compliment the director on such an overachievement when it comes to 2% and it looks like you're going to be 10 times that, so that's good if it doesn't reduce the services that the city needs from your office, and if it doesn't burn you out. It doesn't do us any good to have a director work in 65 hours and burn herself out. So I would just put that caution out there. I appreciate the wording of your schedule to flex this flex hour. I think it'll keep the employees more engaged. I think that it's very progressive, for a municipal office, I want to compliment you on that. I would just caution you and say I'm not sure that that expectation is what the city expects, or that that's good for us in the long run, either. Council Member, if you have a better suggestion, please, I will accept it. Okay. Anything else in terms of a question and comment? Okay, Alderman Hanna. Motion to approve. Second. It's moved and seconded to accept this proposal, we'll move it on to council. Take a roll call. Born? Aye. Bowke? Aye. Bowers? Aye. Decker? Aye. Gisha? Aye. Hanna? Aye. Heidemann? Aye. Ka? Aye. Kittleson? Aye. Klaiunas? Aye. Montemayor? Aye. Zurich? No. Vanduele. Vu? Aye. And Wanderman? Aye. 14-1. 14-1. It's been approved. Passed on. Thank you very much, Director Payne. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, the next on the agenda is Meet Public Library. Sure, it is here. We'll come up. Shit. It's another one of those. Yeah. This is Director Sharon Winkle. Would you like to do a little presentation first or what would you like? Yes, thank you. Should we have papers on this from, everyone have papers on the public? They were submitted, so. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Wood. Yes. I have my old ones. I can't find them. The Library Board has approved the following approach to reducing 2009 expenditures by $80,000, as called for in the STAR program. The Library Department is one of the 3% departments. Although the amended program adopted by Common Council at its meeting of May 18th assures that the 2009 funding allocation from Common Council for public library services meets the maintenance of effort funding requirement for 2009, the Library Board also wishes to comply with the intent of STAR as the Library Board understands it, as introduced through additional expenditure reductions. At this point, I would like to say briefly about the maintenance of effort requirement is that it is in place for every public library that participates in a library service system in the state of Wisconsin. At this time, the 380 plus public libraries in the state all participate in a library service system like NEED participates in Eastern Shores Library System. These are the expenditure reductions that were approved by the Library Board and presented to the Common Council Finance Committee at its meeting of June 22nd. There is going to be a budgetary amendment that the Library Board has approved, which will reduce the 2009 funding level to the maintenance of effort funding level. There is room to do that by some $22,000. The offsetting reduction will be a reduction in purchase of books and other materials for the general circulating collections of the library of some $20,000. The additional reductions will come through a one week furlough that has now been scheduled for August 10th through 15th. All library employees, including myself, will be on furlough during that time and the library will be closed for service during that week. So there's the service impact on the community. We think it's a better idea to get that taken care of all at one time rather than reducing our furloughing staff throughout the rest of the year and having services adversely affected for a longer period of time. The estimated savings there are $43,000. The Board also approved a suspension of the July 1st pay increase. It was scheduled to take effect July 1st at 1.5%, and that's an estimated savings of $17,000. So there's a total of $83,000 in expenditure reduction, which is, as we understand it, the intent of star. I would like to note that if the furlough does not result in the estimated savings, and you'll see these at the bottom of the page, if you have the same document I have, there will need to be more unpaid time off. And the reason that the furlough might not bring about the estimated $43,000 as if employees apply for and receive unemployment benefit. The other point I would make is that the percentage of personal services in the operating budget for Mead Public Library is approximately 73%. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from Director Blinken? Alderman Bowers. Thank you, Madam Chairman. As I understand it, the expenditures reduction are for the year 2009 only. Yes. What is proposed for 2010, or haven't we gotten this far yet? We are working on developing the 2010 budget at this time. Okay. The Eastern Shores, as I understand it, takes care of City of Sheboygan, Sheboygan County, and Ozaki County. Eastern Shores serves all libraries in Sheboygan County and Ozaki County, all public libraries, yes. And if I remember correctly, the City of Sheboygan citizens are charged roughly $55 per citizen. The Sheboygan County citizens outside the city limits, $5 for some cents, and Ozaki to about five cents. How has this far been arrived at? The funding for Mead Public Library as the Department of the City comes from the tax revenues that are collected by the city. At this time, the per capita support is in the range of $51, $52. Okay. The library through contracts receives payment for checkout services provided to residents of what we call un-liberate or non-liberate areas. People who live in jurisdictions that don't offer public library service. And it's those people that pay the county library levies that result in those payments. So from Sheboygan County, because of the volume of services provided, Mead Public Library receives roughly $550,000 a year at this time. There's very little activity of people coming from Ozaki County to use Mead Public Library. So the payment from Ozaki County is much less. Again, it's based on use. And all library costs, operating costs are loaded into the formula that's set forward in the statute about how the cost per circulation is calculated. So what would it be to our benefits to incorporate Cali Mead County and other counties around here so we could generate more revenue? We do get payments from adjacent counties. We, several years ago, the legislature added statutory language that requires counties that are adjacent to, for example, Sheboygan County to pay us for services. And we get around $40,000, $43,000 a year primarily from Manitowoc County. That's where most of the additional use comes into Sheboygan's Mead Public Library. So we do get funding. And it's based on the same statutory calculation. Would that be included in your, I believe in your annual report on the back of your annual report, do you have other revenues, $317,000? Would Manitowoc be included in that? I would have to look at that report. But if we didn't have a separate line for the adjacent county payments, it would be included in the other revenues. I was just wondering where the other revenues came from, $317,000. You don't have that in front of you, but. No, if things weren't lined out in the report that you're looking at, it could be interest income. It could be payments for lost materials and late return charges. It could be for services like prints and photocopier services. It could be gifts. So where would the Manitowoc $43,000 be included in your report, if we could look at it and find out? In that particular annual report? Well, in any report. I noticed you included Ozaki, Sheboygan County. Right. I didn't think about Manitowoc. It probably has more to do with the traditional way of reporting revenues, because those were always the outside revenues that were coming in. As I said, there was a statutory change several years ago, and we now get payments from the adjacent counties of Manitowoc, Calumet, Fontalac, and Washington. And interestingly enough, they do total up to be more than the Ozaki County payment. I mean, if the finance committee would like, that can be separated out in the finance system, and shown as a separate revenue line. Well, I guess that's up to the finance committee, but I would like to see it. Maybe. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Bowers. Are there any other questions? Yes, okay, Alderman Bowers. Oh, sorry, you're on, sorry, now you're on. Thank you, Director Winkle, and to the Library Board for living up to the intent of the STAR program, there's a lot of conversation about maintenance of effort leading up to it, and we'll have to have those conversations again about 2010, but I'm appreciative of the fact that you're delivering $80,000 in total expenditure reduction, and especially pleased to see the team of library employees stepping up to the plate and suspending their July one pay increase. That sends the exact right signal as we are engaging in conversations with lots of city employees, and we appreciate the lead that your team has set. Thank you, I would also like to take this opportunity to note that the furlough equates to a 1.9% pay decrease for all library employees. Alderman Gisham. Thanks, not getting into operational issues with the library and stuff like that, but, because I think the library is a well-run library. I do wanna, I'm a little miffed at a couple of inferences on this document, and I wanna direct my comments and questions to the document. The STAR resolution is not, the result of a one week closure of the library has nothing to do with the STAR resolution, and I think this document infers it does. We amended the STAR resolution to only bring it down to maintenance of effort, which is $23,000. Now, the library board decided to close the library. I don't wanna see a headline that says, the city council votes to close the library for a week. It's not what we asked. It's the library board that decided it. We never even put the financial requirement on them to do it, and I think this is very misleading in the way it's presented, and I don't appreciate it. Second, the one week furlough in August, based on that, is based on a construction project the library has, where the whole building is gonna be ripped apart. Number three, the 1.5% July 1st pay increase, note the word suspended. They never gave it back. They're holding it back just in case. There's a little caveat there. None of the represented unions in the city of Sheboygan don't give back their 1.5%, then they're gonna give it to them anyway, or not. It's the library board's choice to do that, but back to the STAR resolution itself. We required $23,000. That did not make the library close for a week. That's decisions made by the library. So I have concerns when I see it presented in a form that meets otherwise. The library can cut $300,000 from their budget. Doesn't mean anything for us, because we don't get this additional difference between the 23 and the 80. Our general fund doesn't get the money back. It's the way the state regulations are. They could cut a million dollars. Doesn't have to help the general fund of the city of Sheboygan at all. I'm uncomfortable with inferences, and I wanted to clarify that we amended STAR to a minimum and to meet some issues with the library. And I just think words like suspended rather than telling the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would do is kind of important. I appreciate that clarification. Okay, may I respond? Yes, please. I thought that the second paragraph made it clear that the board wanted to comply, and the board decided to comply by making these other reductions. And so if it reads otherwise, I would appreciate comments about that, so how that could be clarified. It certainly wasn't my intent to gloss over anything or to try to lead members of the public who might read this document to believe otherwise. Thank you. So if you have any comments about that, I'm sure you'll let me know. I will. Okay. The suspension, I think that gives the opportunity for the library board to respond to events that have not yet occurred. The library board, as stated in paragraph two, really thought it was being helpful in reducing expenditures for 2009. So those funds would be available for 2010 when we all are anticipating an even more difficult budgetary environment. So all those funds would not be returned to the general fund of the city. That's a very accurate statement. Those funds would be available to the library board to expend in 2010 for purposes of library services. I think the board is committed to this reduction, and if for any reason it would decide when it revisits the suspension of the July 1st pay increase to handle that in another way, it would need to also to do that through personal services changes because that's basically the only place that we have to cut at this point, even though, as I said earlier, 73% of the budget of the library, rather than the average, 85% for the general fund departments, is devoted to personal services costs. Alderman Bowers. I guess I'm really confused now because I thought we were looking at 80,000 and then all of them were just insisting we're not looking at 80,000. What are we looking at? A reduction. Are you asking me? 23,000, and that's it. Okay, and you say you're supplying us with 80,000. No. Is that right? Not the general fund of the city. We are reducing library expenditures by 80,000. If we had asked the library board and asked the Common Council to make a budgetary adjustment for 2009 in the range of $80,000, then the city would not be eligible to participate in Eastern Shores Library System, and that brings about a whole cascade of service disruptions. Back to Eastern Shores, so let's say that we were out of it, would we lose money from the state, the federal, where were we losing money? You would basically lose money from the state because even though there's not a direct state payment to meet public library for public library services, the state funds library system services. So if the city could not participate in Eastern Shores Library System, the library would need to replace the services that it currently gets from Eastern Shores that are paid for by state aides using local dollars. I'm sorry, what does Eastern Shores provide us with sort of like a informational system like Pugle or something like that? Is it more in depth or what? I guess I don't understand. The state aides primarily support a cataloging service and that's how records of what the library collection has gets into the online catalog. That's how people check in and check out. That's how we deliver materials around the Eastern Shores Library System by request. That's how we collect fees, payments for lost books, et cetera. It's kind of like, how can I say? It's all part of EZCAT, which is like an enterprise system for the library. The catalog records go into the catalog component. So there's a professional cataloging staff at Eastern Shores Library System that works with these special records. We don't have a cataloging staff. So we would have to have a cataloging staff or contract for that service using local funds if we didn't get that service from Eastern Shores. There's a delivery service that goes throughout the Tooth County area and that also hooks in with the statewide delivery service. So that underpins the Interlibrary Loan Service, the very local Interlibrary Loan Service that is in Sheboygan and Ozaki Counties and also the statewide and actually national Interlibrary Loan Service. I already talked about Interlibrary Loan related to delivery. That's also the Interlibrary Loan Service that we get. So when someone needs an item that's not held by any of the libraries in EZCAT in the Tooth County Eastern Shores Library System area, there is a network in place where those materials can be requested and indeed borrowed and delivered for the use of that customer. Those are pretty much what the state aides pay for. The libraries have joined together to pay for the library management system or enterprise system that I mentioned earlier and that would need to be replaced if we weren't part of Eastern Shores Library System. That's a major investment unless you want to handle that on an annual basis through software as a service or a lease program. Well, is there any way that we can bring Sheboygan County up to somewhere near our level of assessment? Well, you know, the thing to keep in mind is that those payments don't buy Sheboygan County any of the assets of Meade Public Library. The people are paying for the checkout services only. So the people aren't paying for any ownership of the library. Right now, as I recall, Sheboygan County is paying at the 90% level of the per circulation cost calculated by the state formula. So Sheboygan County has been moving up in terms of the payment percentage. The statutes require a 70% minimum payment. Just a point. I think we might be getting into operations here in the library and yeah, I mean, I do think that we're getting into micromanaging a department in a way or understanding a department. Can I ask if there are any other questions about this proposal as such? Okay, Alderman Hanna. Thank you. Does the one week furlough in August have anything to do with the Star Resolution? Well, I think it does. And obviously the library board think it does. No. Okay, so this was driven by the Star Resolution. Normally when the library board has renovation or expansion, for example that 1995 through 97, renovation and expansion project, I think we were closed for a total of one and a half days over that 18th month or so construction period. So no, normally we wouldn't close. We thought since we were doing the furlough that we might as well close and get a lot of the demolition work done during that time. One other question, UW Sheboygan's library, is it a member of Eastern Shore? No. Okay, thank you. Lakeland College is. Thank you. Alderman Alderperson Montemayor. Thank you Chairman. I would move to accept and file. Is that what we need for this? Again, this is a commission, the library is a separate commission. We can only talk about our city funds that are contributed. We do not manage the whole library. Accept and file is the correct wording? Yes, accept and file I believe is, yes. I saw it. There's a second on accept and file, this proposal. You'll take a roll call on that. Born. Aye. Bowke. Aye. Bowers. No. Decker. Aye. Gisha. Aye. Hannah. Aye. Heidemann. Aye. Coth. Aye. Kittleson. Aye. Clayanus. Aye. Montemayor. Aye. Suric. Aye. Vandewheely. Aye. Vu. Aye. One no. It's been approved to accept and file. The next on the agenda is Department of Public Works. That's it. Director Bill Bittner. I believe everyone has a handoff from that as well. By the union. Two proposals. Okay, Director Bittner, whatever you'd like to present. Yes. It's indicated by the chairperson have a memo that outlined our suggested to meet the resolution. This was the same memo presented to the mayor and the finance committee for their review. Sure can. General fund budget in public works department is about $10.5 million. We have about a comparable amount in our budget that's in restricted funds that have obviously restricted use and restricted revenues. But the general fund, which is what the star resolution is about 10 and a half million. The finance department calculated a savings from the 09 budget of $300,000, $17 and roughly, excuse me, 300,000, 317,400 dollars. We have the numbers you see here, we've annualized that amount because we saw these as reoccurring budgets and that was savings we were gonna bring forward into the next year. So the numbers you see are really 6% of the operating budget. That helps myself and my staff out because that's how we prepare the budget. So it's a little bit of a convenience item. You'll see some background there for a while. The intent of that was not to gripe about our budget cuts in the past years, although it does serve that purpose. The real intent was to set the framework of the fact that when you continue to cut the department, you're gonna start seeing service cuts. You have to, and if you're gonna make those type of visible service cuts, you have to have some framework of why they're being made. So that was the intent. On the back of the first page or the second page I guess is our outline budget. They're done on averages. These are a little bigger than we've talked about so far tonight. They're rather significant. There's two reasons for that. Number one, as I indicated, we have a large budget and cutting 3% or 6%. As these numbers talk about is rather dramatic. The other part of it is that the public works department, we talk a lot about what percentage and that our laborers is 85% of the total budget and maybe a little out of whack there. Well, the public works department laborers roughly 65% or 66%. So we're right about a two thirds, one third. While that's probably a good mix when it comes to across the board percentage cuts and you're limiting those cuts to an area or a specific area, we have to cut 6% of the street lighting power bill from some other area of the budget. We have to cut 6% of next year's salt bill out of some other area of the budget. So the cuts get rather significant in a hurry. But what you see there is our proposal is it's pretty straightforward. I think the resolution is looking for reoccurring expenses in municipal government. That's generally labor and labor related cost. So we're looking at eight basic maintenance operational positions, which using an average figure because we did not isolate the specific individuals or employees that are affected. We're talking to savings about 480,000 of which we think you're gonna necessarily have some overtime. It will just drive you into some overtime. So we've shown a net of about 460. We've also carried with it a reduction in fuel rental charges, excuse me, vehicle rental charges. That is an operating area that's restricted use money. There will be personnel cuts in that area also, but it's transformed into the general fund through rental rates. So far those rental rates are cut. And the other one we show about $50,000 in maintenance materials on the surface that might not exactly meet the requirement of ongoing expenses. But at some point in time, you have to recognize as you downsize the department, you downsize your ability to buy stuff for those people to use. If you have less people patching potholes, you will use less asphalt. So we're trying to track and recognize that the department as a whole gets downsized. And that's the proposal to get to the annualized figure of 635. About, I think December of 07, department had I believe 137 people. If this proposal is approved, that means between now and 18 months ago, we basically will have 21 less people. That is a significant change in your resources on a day-to-day basis and what you can do. So we talk about service cuts and the things that people will see in this item. The services we provide are not provided. One person does one thing. If you cut that one thing, that person, we plow snow, we cut grass, we sweep streets. Those things we do at a particular service level, what we're suggesting is we've now reached a point where those things have to be reduced. I've read some articles and stuff which imply these are the things that might be cut. My indication are these are the things that will be cut, but how we'd cut them, what we'd place in alternative service, just how we'd do that, how the council might change, ordinances and things have a lot of work to be done yet. But to change as much as we've changed in the last 18 months, you have to have significant change in what we can do every day. And I'll very quickly go through those. We're talking about a 33% cut in ongoing street sweeping. We're talking about reconfiguring our garbage routes to be able to pick up with four trucks. We've been doing some ongoing experiments for several months now. To make that work, we're going to probably have to change route designations. That's an interesting issue to go through with the public because they don't always like their garbage day changed. But we think we'll have to do that. We will reduce the number of snow plow routes, which means we don't have to man as many trucks through the course of the night, that will slow snow plowing down. There's just no way about it, but we have to have a plan that's consistent with the resources available. And we have to acknowledge, I think at one time if I think I told that a finance committee, it's easy to visualize that when you try to man 40 plus trucks in a bad snowstorm with 75 people, that's a whole different task than that same 40 trucks with 50 people. Because if you think about vacations and sick leave and doing a second shift, those things have to be cut back to what I call a sustainable effort in the snow plowing world. Really big one we're proposing is that we close the city drop off site for yard waste, putting in place several alternatives, such as working with some of the private sectors to take metal, doing a promotion to get people to put their lawn clippings back on the lawn, which is much more environmentally sound and consistent with some of the things we do, but it is a major impact on the service provided. Just to keep going, we're talking about eliminating utility cuts right now. Contractors come in and they opt to do the work themselves or opt to have the city do it. We're just saying that we're not gonna have the resources that we're just gonna set up a system that has the contractors do their own repair of street excavations. Interesting one is we're suggesting we close the A Street drawbridge. That's more for capital and the need that we have to upgrade the electronics and the amount of time we spend keeping that running as opposed to simply part-time people who actually open and close it. That one will take some Army core work. We're suggesting we reduce city tree maintenance and we will come back to council and do some changes in our ordinance to allow, if not require, that'll be a council decision for people to do some of their own trimming and maintenance. We'll talk about eliminating the outdoor skating rinks. That's a pretty high winter cost. And we're talking about designating areas in certain parks as low maintenance that again will take some council consideration of our weed ordinance and what needs to be cut and where. But we have several parks that we think we can take larger areas and turn it into a little more of a natural. That has growing pains. The first year it looks a lot like weeds. It doesn't look much like natural, but we just think we have to somehow if we're gonna have less people doing the mowing routes, have less acreage to cover. I guess that's very quick in a nutshell. I ask for questions. Any comments or questions for Director Bickner? Yes, Alderman Gysha. I'd like to recommend an amendment. I worked this out with Sue at any time and had it answered why. But I'd like to recommend that we amend the subs of resolution 60910, which is the star resolution. To add the following at the end of the last paragraph, where it ends with a period. Yes, eliminate the period and add after the 2009 date with the Department of Public Works to begin implementation no later than August 20th, 2009. Second. And if you'd like an explanation for doing that, our union contracts require us that if we lay anybody off, we also have to lay off part-time people which includes our summer children, children in the summer who work their way through college by working for the city of Sheboygan. The union contract would affect that. So to protect the kids and the work they do during the summer, if we move it to August 20th, it then allows the wording, the union labor and the wording in the contract to be less impacted to the great kids or working around town. Yes. You're changing the document. You're changing the document. You're not allowed to do that. I'm request, I recommended that we send, this is per Sue, and Sue, you might want to answer this. Excuse me. Basically there's a document. I just got to step up to the microphone. I'm outside of the residence. And basically to change a resolution like that, you would need to have a recommendation from a committee to then I would draft that resolution to be brought forward to the council as an amended resolution, whether it passes or not is up to the council. Can it be changed here? No. No, it's a recommendation to send it to the house. So this is again a change here. That's why I use the recommend. So this would be the committee of the whole recommending the change. Okay, is it ever everyone clear on that change? You want to repeat that at all the person, Gisha just so everybody finds it. I guess it's the last page around the back here. All right, I'm just adding after the July 7th, 2009 or suggesting that we recommend adding after July 7th, 2009 with the Department of Public Works to begin implementation no later than August 20th, 2009. Okay, thank you. All right, Alderman Baub. Thank you. Under discussion of the proposed amendment, I would just suggest that and for me, it's not only about the person Gisha appears to love the kids and them earning their way through college. I would suggest that it's a benefit to the city because those kids work at a rate that is very economically sound for the city to employ them as well. So we'd be biting our nose despite our face if we were to pass this before August 15th because we're getting very economically priced labor out of those kids that all the person Gisha likes so much. Yes, that's true. We have, do you have a? Yes, question on the amendment. Okay, question on the amendment, Alderman Hanna. Just want to make sure that there are no other departments that have summertime help that we might want to include. Does anybody, does any other department affected by STAR have summertime employment? I do believe there are none. Thank you. Yes, Dr. Ritter. I just wanted to add to that, it's not purely an economic situation when we make cuts of this magnitude, one of the things we'll be struggling with over the course of the next year is how to maximize the services we have with the resources we have because we're gonna see some cuts. If you make cuts in the height of the summer season with almost no time to kind of regroup, we're right in the middle of our construction season where we've got a schedule where we're repairing and fixing curbs and manholes. We've got a ton of summer kids that has been mentioned, our mowing lawns. We've got festivals ongoing. It's just very difficult in the heart of that summer season. It'd be very much like trying to change the snow plowing effort in January. So there's some benefit to give us and I would ask for what's been recommended because it would give us some time to regroup off our summer program. Thank you. Are there any questions? Other questions or comments? This is very serious, drastic reductions. Okay, yes, Alderperson Kittleson. Are you talking on the amendment? I think we have a discussion on the amendment. But I have a discussion on the whole document. Okay, let's go back to the document. We haven't had a whole document. So we can go back to the whole document. I guess, Director Bittner, I'm looking here on the third page here. It just says without the voluntary vacating of positions, the department would have to lay off 11 individuals. Is that what you're saying here? That's what we're saying. This proposal eliminates nine positions. Eliminates nine positions. We currently have two more positions filled that were not authorized in the 2009 budget. That's been discussed by council and we can move forward on that situation, but it obviously adds to that. The Human Resources Department, the mayor's office has been working through maybe some alternatives to encourage some early retirements. My take on that is any voluntary would certainly help us a lot in this situation. Now keep in mind, it doesn't help at all with the service cuts. It just helps the pain that the situation creates. I do not believe personally that we can move far enough along to avoid layoffs of that many people with the voluntary changeover. But obviously any situation that would create or help people wanting to retire or leave would help some other people who are put in harm's way with this. Correct, and then looking at the service cuts too, reducing the number of snowfalling and salting routes. I mean, this affects our constituents and closing the drop off site. I mean, I live right there, I see it every day, how much that area is used. I just, I don't know how we can do some of these things. And so therefore, I'm opposed to this. I don't know how we're gonna do it, but we need to think of some other things, some other ways to come up with some things that need to be done. So, okay, I have three lights on or are you commenting on this? So, yeah, Mr. Alderman Heineman. Thank you, Chairman. I guess I didn't agree with this at finance and would have liked to see something coming back that indicates something from management making some type of an adjustment rather than just doing it on the worker's end of it. So, I'm not gonna support this until I see something coming from management also. There are managers in this. Not non-union. Yeah, you need it responsive. I guess we reorganized management at the last set of cuts. If you go through history, there's been a number of management positions. I happen to think that with cuts as major as are being made here, that from here on, we have to focus on maximizing the effort and maximizing the service. I happen to feel one of the areas that the department's been weak on over the years is programming and planning work. The entire reorganization that was done was to try to get some individual manners responsible for definable and workable areas. And I would recommend not to allow that to come to fruition because I think that's how we keep the maximum amount of service. Alderman Ball. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the comments of Alderperson Kittleson that it does affect our constituents. And I would suggest that most of these though that appear to be big cuts for our constituents, if the alternative is to raise their taxes in order to provide these services, then they are better off. Each one of these cuts provides some entrepreneur the opportunity to start their own business and set market rates for labor and receiving grass. Somebody will have to receive that grass. And my neighbors and I, if I can't take it to the drop off site, I'll pay somebody to dump my bag of grass there. But my suggestion is that I'll pay that private company much less than I would pay if I had to have the city raise my taxes enough to maintain that drop off site. Same thing with the ice skating rinks. So it'll be a shame. I'll miss ice skating outdoors in the winter time. But guess what, Blue Line, a private company, Blue Line Ice Rink, they'll probably see an uptick in participation and they can provide that service at an economically cheaper rate than, apparently, than our city services can if we'd have to raise taxes. So as hard as it is to see some of these services cut, every time government cuts a service, there's an opportunity for an entrepreneur to provide a market price replacement for that service. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. We have... Alderman. Warren. Thank you, Madam Chair. I like Alderman Heidemann and Finance had real reservations about this plan because it was only affecting the union workers. After having some discussions with Mr. Bittner on his management, new management system that I did not support in council, I'm more comfortable with his management plan that he has in place. So I'm very reluctantly going to support his proposal here, but it's one of the tougher votes I've had to make on the council. Thank you. Alderman Wongerman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess it's up to this governing body to decide just to what level or what quality of service do we want here in the city? How far down are we going to go? I mean, there's got to be a bottom line someplace. Are we going to have parks with the grass six, eight inches long? Are we going to have unfixed streets and sidewalks, sewers that aren't regularly cleaned? There's got to be a way to work this out. I've been in cities that had extremely low tax rates and boy, you could tell it with just everywhere. The infrastructure of the city was crumbling, parks were crummy. Sheboygan used to have a reputation of really being a fine, clean city. It just seems to me that there's got to be some other way to work this out and the sting of losing nine or 10 or 11 employees is just too much for me to contemplate, so I could not support this. Thank you.