Council Finance Committee
Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Call to order:
City Manager Isaiah Hugley called to order the regular meeting of the Council
Finance Committee at 4:21 p.m. on February 7, 2006 in the Ground Floor
Conference Room.
Roll call:
The following persons were present: Mayor Pro Tem Jack Rodgers, Councilors Gary
Allen, Skip Henderson, Evelyn Turner Pugh and Nathan Suber. City Manager Isaiah
Hugley, Deputy City Manger Lisa Goodwin, Assistant City Attorney Jamie Deloach,
Finance Director Angela Cole, Assistant Finance Director Pam Hodge, Tom Barron,
Human Resource Director, Jeff Meyer, Fire Chief. Recording Secretary Tameka
Colbert was also present.
Open issues:
a) FY05 Report Card for General Fund
City Manger Hugley opened the meeting by thanking everyone for attending. He
informed the committee members that an agenda had been prepared and said he
wanted to make sure the agenda was given out early to insure that the meetings
are open based on an opinion from the Assistant City Attorney. City Manger
Hugley stated in the future when we have budget meetings we will get the agenda
out when we get the Council packets out. He said minutes will be taken by the
Clerk of Council?s Office and the Assistant City Attorney or the City Attorney
will be present.
City Manager Hugley provided Committee members with a report card of the
closeout of the 2005 fiscal year. He explained that the report card would
display:
How departments ended the year in terms of spending.
How the year was ended in terms of revenue.
How the fund balance is impacted.
City Manager Hugley enlightened the Committee that as the 2005
fiscal year
closed out, revenues were up a little over 3% and the expenses
were down just
over 3%.
At this time City Manager Hugley turned the meeting over to
Finance Director
Angela Cole to clarify and answer any questions relating to the
report card.
(A copy of the report card was filed in the office and attached for the
records).
b) Fire/EMS Department
City manager Hugley advised the Committee that Chief Jeff Meyer was present and
also advised that last year there were a number of positions that were
eliminated and were not funded in an effort to try and assist with the budget.
He said one of the positions that were eliminated was a Lieutenant?s position
in Fire Prevention, which is appointed by the Chief. He explained that Chief
Meyer feels a need to go back and revisit filling that position.
At this time Chief Meyer came forward to express his concerns. Chief Jeff
Meyer said there is one Fire Fighter Inspector Lieutenant?s position that is
unfunded at this time. He said over the past thirty to forty-five days we have
had several positions to come open in our department. He said several years
ago we took on additional duties to address fire hydrant placement and one of
the inspectors we had at that time was assigned that task. He said we lost the
person that was doing those particular inspections. He said we have a
Lieutenant educator that conducts fire prevention education in grammar schools
during the school year and also goes out and inspects all of the hotels. He
said we have one other inspector that does some building inspecting but is
mostly dedicated to keeping all of the cases of the investigative services.
Chief Meyer said that he and his staff feel that the Fire Fighter Inspector
Lieutenant?s position needs to be filled to keep up with all of the new
inspections that have been added. He said that the department has gotten
behind due to doing burn permits, blasting permits, and fireworks displays.
Chief Meyer suggested that the positions that are vacant be utilized toward
filling the Fire Fighter Inspector Lieutenant?s position. He suggested that
the funding be moved from operations to administrative services.
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NOTE: Councilor Skip Henderson arrived at 4:30 p.m. Councilor Evelyn Turner
Pugh arrived at 4:35 p.m.
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Mayor Pro Tem Rogers expressed his concerns of the Chief possessing a full
compliment of firefighters. Chief Meyer assured Mayor Pro Tem Rodgers that
since the consolidation took place, there is a full compliment of
firefighters. He said there are fifteen in training at this time that are due
to graduate on February 17, 2006. Mayor Pro Tem said if there are three vacant
positions then there is not a full compliment of firefighters and if there is,
the TOD needs to be reduced by three people. Chief Meyer said you are exactly
right because when medics ride in the fire truck they are serving as
firefighters. He said we have augmented our staff with those personnel.
Councilor Suber said, personally I would not recommend that you do away with
those three positions. He said because this is being documented, if you come
back next year and ask for six positions then you would only be allowed three
because you said that you did not need those three positions.
Chief Meyer said that he would not be coming back next year asking for
positions that he has asked to be eliminated.
City Manager Hugley advised the Committee that the Chief came to him with a
plan to reduce the size of his budget and that plan is forth coming with the
budget that will be due Friday, February 10, 2006.
Councilor Turner Pugh said the two unfilled firefighter positions that the
Chief wants to delete were created to insure that we had the required number of
firefighters for each station to include the new stations that were coming on
board.
Chief Meyer said there are a small number of personnel that would have been
assigned to ambulances that we were able to utilize on the fire trucks because
the engines were converted to advanced life support engines.
City Manager Hugley assured Chief Meyer that he would convene with him after
consulting the Committee, to let him know the direction the Committee is
willing to support.
Adjournment
City Manager Hugley adjourned the meeting at 5:18 p.m.
Minutes submitted by: Tameka Colbert, Recording Secretary
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