Buffalo City Council Budget Goal Setting Workshop

00:01:00 - This is the first budget workshop. The budget will be approved in November
00:01:57 - 2020 Results
00:02:25 - 2020 General Fund status
00:03:20 - End of 2020, 216k surplus
00:03:41 - 50% Fund balance (Savings/Emergency Fund), only 30% can be used
00:04:10 - Are there any other funds inside this? No, this is just the general fund. Taxes go into the general fund.
00:04:57 - We are on target with State Auditor's unassigned fund balance
00:05:30 - Will this change? We get taxes twice per year, the fund balance will change through the year
00:06:00 - Is this the lowest it is through the year? Ending balance is more important.
00:06:40 - Special Revenue Funds: Fire, Library, Airport, Civic Center
00:07:00 - Fire and Library funds are healthy, won't need to issue debt until we get to a very large purchase
00:08:30 - Let's say we decide to purchase the parking lot near the Library. Could we use the Library fund for that?
00:08:50 - Yes, we could.
00:09:25 - Airport is a bit lower. We have to spend money first then get reimbursement. Looking good though.
00:09:48 - Civic Center Bonds and State Mandated closures hurt the Civic Center's bottom line
00:10:45 - Properitary funds. Should pay for themselves.
00:11:45 - The numbers for Electric and Water look good, but note that they don't account bonds payments
00:12:12 - Have you noticed an increase? The rates will be applied in 2021, you won't see them here.
00:12:40 - Downtown Liquor had a roof replacement, hence the decrease
00:13:00 - Golf Course
00:13:22 - Cities have to recognize our share of the pension liability
00:14:40 - This is all revenue all loss for the year, but this is after the removal of a pension liability (~147k)
00:15:20 - FlashVote Survey - 350 people respond, slide says 272 responders
00:17:15 - Short Term Goals
00:17:40 - We surveyed staff and council to find out what they think that the city cares about the most
00:18:50 - The first 4 are the highest priority from staff/council
00:19:15 - If we want to achieve those goals, we need to budget for them
00:19:45 - When you say infrastructure, I see utilities. But I'm not seeing roads?
00:20:00 - Pavement management plan is the roads
00:20:36 - We've already looked into automated metering. Why is it still here?
00:20:52 - We slated it for 2021, but with a new utility director and new technology we want to hold off
00:21:20 - We purchased the automated meters for residential water, but it takes time
00:25:19 - I'd like to see by a certain year that we're caught up (Roads, etc)
00:25:56 - We're going to address that in a minute
00:26:34 - Potential Budget Impacts
00:27:08 - A) Golf Course Funding: estimated $300k gap
00:27:45 - Avg loss of $331k/year
00:28:08 - Request of $75k for 2022 for repairs
00:28:26 - Traditionally Utility funds pay for the golf course, can't anymore
00:28:55 - If the Golf Course is paid for out of the general fund (governmental funding), it could jeopardize the bond rating
00:29:30 - If it's changed over to parks, it's still a governmental funding
00:29:50 - Recommended: Transfer from the liquor store to the golf course (Enterprise fund)
00:30:20 - We'd have to also increase the general levy for parks - $350k
00:30:53 - Will we be discussing this at the next meeting?
00:31:04 - We have a preliminary budget meeting in August. It would give us a month before we adopt the levy in August
00:31:30 - Assuming a 5% increase in tax capacity, about $65/house/year
00:32:20 - When you have money that leaves the bank, (taking money from water/wastewater)
00:33:40 - Our cash balance is about $7 million lower than what it should be due to loaning the money to the funds
00:34:09 - We have to address the funding for the golf course, and what the loan forgivness would look like
00:35:10 - Because we're a city, we have funds to afford a golf course
00:36:29 - We have an issue where we're spending more than we're saving. If we're intending to keep operating, we need to find the money
00:36:45 - I think we're doing things the right way now.
00:37:50 - If we pull from the liquor store, we're going to raise taxes less than we have to
00:38:32 - B) Pavement Management Funding
00:38:42 - 2021, funding $500k. No additional levy capacity until 2025
00:39:15 - Levy increase to about $160/year
00:39:41 - If we don't increase our budget, we'll stay at $500k/year
00:40:00 - If you don't want to increase the levy, wait until 2025. A large amount of taxes fall off then, you can then keep the taxes up without increasing taxes on an average citizen
00:40:43 - This is only talking about maintenance
00:40:58 - After we finish the repairs, we can reassess the value of all the properties in the city after the upgrades on all the roads
00:42:28 - Have we ever done a study to tell if it's beneficial to assess all properties?
00:42:56 - It does add value to the property owner's property
00:43:22 - In the past, owners paid 70%, city paid 30% for improvements
00:44:00 - The electric franchise I'm for. What's it based on?
00:44:40 - We have to treat everyone the same, the franchise fees would be more equal
00:45:15 - Utility rate changes starting 2021
00:46:10 - D) Election Budget - 2022 election
00:47:10 - We will hear from the end of May from the Superindendent if the school will be used for an election site
00:47:40 - What's our normal budget? Before 2020, it was about $20k. After absentee ballots it ballooned.
00:49:10 - We did almost 6000 people at Buffalo Covenant Church
00:49:45 - We have to consider parking. Setup/Takedown. It becomes a lot of check the boxes to do it.
00:50:00 - Would the fire station work? It's been done before, but it's not a good option.
00:51:10 - Citizens interfering with a school is a concern for hosting voting at a school. Posting an officer is considered intimidation
00:51:45 - We asked the superintendent to schedule a no-school day, but they've already planned the school
00:52:15 - E) Bentfield Mills Improvement
00:52:36 - F) Sanitation Contract with Randy's expires this year
00:52:50 - It's been 5 years, staff has been very pleased with Randy's
00:53:10 - We may come to you to request renegotiating with Randy's instead of putting out a Request for Proposals
00:54:20 - Randy's was purchased by Republic Sanitation
00:55:12 - G) American Rescue Plan (ARP) Funds
00:55:20 - Estimated $1.8M in 2 installments between 2021 and 2022
00:55:40 - Recommended to place it in Water/Sewer, reduces need to bond
00:56:20 - Will this save us anything? Instead of a $2.3M project, it would reduce it by the bonding amount.
00:58:06 - Staffing Assumptions
00:58:15 - Health Insurance anticipated increase, Workers Compensation Insurance anticipated increase, Police Union Pay Increase Adjustment, Compensation Study Results in July
00:59:20 - Structural Changes in Budget
00:59:34 - Parks Budget is separate, but accounted for in the general fund
01:00:46 - Eliminiate the general fund transfer for the Pavement management, allocate directly from general fund
01:01:30 - Next Steps: Meetings with departments, then put budget together
01:03:01 - We have 5 more FlashVote surveys in 2021
01:04:56 - The City of Buffalo has a Twitter. We don't know how many people actually know about our social media sources