I CODE S0
INCORFORATED 1839
CALIFORNIA
MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING OF MAY 9, 2023, CITY COUNCIL
OF THE CITY OF PALOS VERDES ESTATES
CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 5:01 pm.
ROLL CALL
Present: Councilmembers: Lozzi, Kemps, McGowan, Mayor Pro Tem Murdock, Mayor Roos
Also Present: Acting City Manager Seims, City Attorney Rusin, Community Development Director Brady, Interim Finance Director Balos, Interim Senior Accountant Smith, and Interim City Clerk Cowley.
COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC
None.
NEW BUSINESS
1. PRESENTATION OF DRAFT FISCAL YEAR 2023-24 PUBLIC WORKS AND
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS (CIP) BUDGET
Recommendation: Discussion and Direction to City Manager.
Acting City Manager/Public Works Director Seims provided a PowerPoint presentation of the draft Public Works Department budget providing a general overview including all the details beginning with the department employee compensation, benefits, and operating expenses. The department is requesting a new position, a Public Works Analyst, in Fiscal Year 2023-24. Ms.
Seims advised what the analyst's duties would be.
The City Council asked questions regarding the analyst position and the work the analyst would be doing.
Ms. Seims next provided an overview of the operating expenses, breaking down the costs for Fire Safety Weed Abatement, Landscape Maintenance, Tree trimming, and the Tree Inventory.
She explained the reason for the increases in the operating budget.
A lengthy Council discussion ensued regarding the tree trimming increase of $497,000 being placed in the operating budget when the funds included some of the one-time costs that was pulled from the Parklands General Fund, that wasn't used.
Further discussion continued regarding the placement of these costs in the account groups:
contractual services, and contractual services - parklands, on page 3 of the proposed budget.
Ms. Seims clarified that H.R. Green's contract was moved to Professional Services. The City Council then discussed the items that are included in Contractual Services Account Group, Contractual Services-Public Works, and Contractual Services-Parklands. The City Council requested a schedule of all the services that fall under each of the three contractual services groups, so the Council has a clearer picture of what is included in each of those account groups.
A lengthy discussion between the City Council and Ms. Seims ensued regarding the amount budgeted for H.R. Green for 2023-24, the reduction in revenue for building and engineering permits, and the costs associated with general engineering versus the revenue from building and engineering permits.
Council requested a list of all the vendors and projects being budgeted for and requested staff bifurcate the H.R. Green into sections of reimbursable costs via the building and permit fees so Council can relate to who the vendors are, the services the city is asking them to perform to compare that to what has been done in the past and what can be projected in the future.
The Council explained that they need to know they have achieved a balanced budget and that the operational expenses going forward are sustainable. The fact that the City has $2 million of ARPA money coming in and that these funds exist, they want to take the $2 million out, and take the one-time revenues out, to see how the budget looks. Thereafter followed a discussion on the lack of understanding of how the budget is presented to understand the actual numbers. Ms.
Seims suggested one way to treat these operating expenses would be as CIP projects and put them in the CIP budget as projects and take them out of the operating budget. A discussion continued as to the best location in the budget for these expenses, ultimately deciding they would be best in the CIP budget.
Councilmember McGowan suggested making a list of the contracts, making a list of the needs of the community, and how staff proposes to address them, who the vendors are, and then figure out how it fits into fund accounting. He thought that would make it clearer for the City Council and the residents to understand. Councilmember Murdock added it would be helpful to understand what the increases are for. Further discussion continued about requesting an increase when the amount in the year-end estimate indicates amounts budgeted for last year were not completely Ms. Seims then presented a slide showing the CIP which is still a draft. Staff will be finalizing that and bring it to the Planning Commission in June to ensure it complies with the General Plan and come back to the City Council for formal approval in a public hearing for the CIP.
Councilmember McGowan pointed out that the line item for the garage repairs indicates $266,000, and then increases to $1.96 the following year, however, there isn't a project listed for a similar structural engineering study for the City Hall building. He felt that if any judgment calls were going to be made for Fiscal Year 2024 or 2025 on the garage, that could only be done, when the City understands what the issues are with the City Hall building to determine if it makes sense economically. He requested an additional item be added to the CIP in 2024 to have some level of structural analysis done on the City Hall building. Discussion ensued regarding the fact that a structural analysis may not be needed since there are no identified structural deficits in the City Hall building. A lengthy discussion continued regarding when a structural analysis would be needed and an ADA report that was previously prepared that would be provided to a consultant to do an evaluation of City Hall which would be incorporated to determine what the City needs to do to bring City hall up to today's Building Code. A lengthy discussion continued with no direction Ms. Seims advised the City Council that all the projects listed on the CIP budget is doable with the requested amounts presented.
Councilmember Murdock felt it would be helpful to have the CIP budget sheet as well as the Operating Expenditure sheet state what staff thinks they will spend this year. She did not know how much actually got done, how much is carry-over and how much is new. Her second request was to understand how priorities were established, noting in the past, projects were categorized as safety, maintenance, and best practices, but when she looks through the backup sheets there are basically three classifications. One is urgent, which is the Pavement Management which she thought was already done; and one is considered enhancements, which is the corridor and the tree inventory, which may be an enhancement, and everything else is listed as important.
What she doesn't get a sense for is what is safety, and what is if you don't do this, it is going to
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING OF MAY 9, 2023
cost you more down the road. It would be helpful to understand a little more of what these classifications are in case the city gets to the point it can't afford to do it all. As part of that, Council had asked for a net present value capitalization for pavement management program. Ms. Seims interiected that she had that and would send it to Council. Her third comment was that there is a set of pages that show the funds these projects are coming from and, it would be helpful to have the beginning fund balance, what inflow of funds the city expects, and then based on the beginning fund balance and the inflows, what staff thinks the City is going to spend from these funds, and what the ending balance is going to be. She wants to make sure the City isn't going to fund the items from a fund that has insufficient funds, or that the City will completely deplete the fund, or whether there will be money still left.
Council discussed individual items stating they would not spend more than $100,000 on the Tree inventory. The council indicated they were not opposed to an analyst, but it is hard to see what the whole picture is regarding staffing and repurposing of staffing without an overall view of Councilmember Kemps discussed the need to increase the amount for Race Communications item on page PW-16, when the city went from one gig to 10, so he did not feel the amount listed in the budget is accurate. Air Springs will partially, or fully come out of the budget when there is a cloud phone system, and Fusion Cloud which is for the analog phones will also go away. Staff advised that the expense of $2,300 is for the television for the City Manager's and Police Chiefs offices, which comes out of city property.
Councilmember Murdock asked why the city was cleaning out private laterals. Ms. Seims explained that was because the city has had to respond to cleanup for private laterals when the owner doesn't clean up the street or refuses to, then the City has to clean it up. As part of the code enforcement case an invoice for reimbursement of the costs is included. Thereafter a discussion ensued regarding the process for recovering the costs, including attorney's fees for the private lateral cleanup.
Discussion ensued regarding street repairs being in the operating costs as opposed to putting it in the CIP.
Councilmember Lozzi asked what the city was expecting the increase in revenues to be in this budget. The finance staff responded with about $5 million in property tax. Thereafter followed a discussion regarding the revenue increases that will be expected this year.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business to come before the City Council, the meeting was adjourned at 6:06 pm.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Resal Conles
Carol Cowley, Interim City @lerk
Jim Roos, Mayor
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES 3
SPECIAL MEETING OF MAY 9, 2023