The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About06/04/2018 Work Session City of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY JUNE 4,2018 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room,225 Fifth Street, Springfield,Oregon,on Monday June 4,2018 at 6:00 p.m.,with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors VanGordon,Moore, Stoehr,Woodrow and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi,City Attorney Mary Bridget Smith,and members of the staff. Councilor Wylie was absent(excused). 1. Master Fees and Charges Schedule Springfield Finance Director Bob Duey offered Council a staff report on Master Fees and Charges Schedule. The City's schedule of fees and charges are established by Council action. Staff consolidated past documents describing the City's various fees and the method for making changes into a single document titled Master Fees and Charges Schedule.This document provides an easy reference for citizens,Councilors,and staff to identify the current fees authorized to be levied and collected by the City. Changes to the City of Springfield's fees and charges can be modified through action by the Council or staff.The most common of actions by the Council is by simple resolution.The authorization to levy the fees may be contained in the municipal,building,development,or fire codes,but the actual amount of the fee itself is established by resolution.These are most commonly brought to the Council with a public hearing and are adopted at that time. Other fees may be authorized by the municipal,building,development,or fire codes,and the specific amount of the fee is also contained within that same code. In those cases,the code itself must be amended and most commonly requires a public hearing,a first reading,and a second reading prior to adoption. Councilor Pishioneri asked if Courts were included in the Police category of Governmental Activities Expense and Program Revenues. Mr. Duey said Courts was not included.He added there was some debate on where exactly to place Court revenues. Councilor Pishioneri said,without the addition of Courts to Police expenditure/revenue,the graph,and the report itself were made unclear. Councilor Moore wondered if Police and Fire levies were included in the Police and Fire category of Governmental Activities Expense and Program revenues. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4,2018 Page 2 Mr. Duey said they were,because they were considered part of the tax system. Councilor Moore asked if those levy funds she mentioned came out of the General Fund. Mr. Duey replied both police and fire services would be considered as coming from the General Fund if they weren't supported by citizen taxes. Mayor Lundberg asked if court fines were included in the bar graph in the staff report. Mr. Duey said they were represented in the bar graph, but they were not represented in the fees and charges manual itself. Mayor Lundberg asked if court fees had been set. Mr. Duey said some things were set, such as issuing warrants,and repayment fees,whereas penalty fees as may be handed down by a judge, are set through statute or practice. Mayor Lundberg asked, since part of those revenues goes to Lane County,and to the State,what percentage remained in Springfield. Mr. Duey said he could not give the exact percentage(s)off the top of his head. Gino Grimaldi asked if the percentages of revenue going to the County and the State were fixed. Mr. Duey said they were fixed. He pointed out since the amount of Springfield revenue monies going to the County and the State were fixed, if a Springfield fine was reduced, it would be the City who took the financial hit. Councilor VanGordon asked if the 15.8%of City Government revenues from fees and charges were to eventually be brought closer to 20%as suggested by Mr. Duey; he was also wondering how much additional City revenue would be generated. Mr. Duey said it would most likely generate around $2 million in additional revenue. Councilor Moore said as she pored over the staff report, she noticed a disparity between licensing fees for businesses; she said some of them seemed really high to her,while others seemed fairly insignificant. Mr. Duey offered that the current review of the Master Charges and Fees did not look at any business license fees themselves, but at the cost differences between year one and year two. Councilor Moore asserted those disparities should be examined more closely in the future. Councilor VanGordon said the balance between the fees and costs incurred by local developers through Springfield,and ways in which the City could offset those fees and costs—perhaps by changing the way the City did business—was of utmost importance. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 4,2018 Page 3 Councilor VanGordon wondered,as he looked through the Business License portion of the Master Fees and Charges document, if there were some of those licensing fees which were not being used,or could otherwise be collapsed for simplification purposes. Councilor Moore asked for clarification on the license fees associated with Sale and Distribution of Tobacco and Tobacco Products to Minors(page 3 of 77). Mayor Lundberg said there was an Ordinance tied to this particular licensing fee regarding the Distribution of Tobacco and Products. Councilor Pishioneri pointed out the annual licensing fee for tobacco retailers was$61 annually, whereas the annual licensing fee for tobacco vending machines was$38 annually. He wondered why these fees were not the same in both cases. Mayor Lundberg said it differed because the owner(s)of the establishment in which a tobacco vending machine was located,were not necessarily the same as the owner(s)of the machine itself. Mayor Lundberg requested City staff to look over the fees to see if there are any which could be combined for simplification purposes. Councilor Pishioneri asked if the Public Passenger License which was issued by City of Eugene(page 4 of 77)was a revenue generator for the City of Eugene. Mr. Duey said he believed City of Eugene collected and kept the fees in question. Mayor Lundberg posited Springfield should try to get Uber in place before beginning to dissect the Public Passenger License. Mr. Duey discussed Section 2 of the Master Charges and Fees—Fire and Life Safety. He said there was an up-front correction to be made on Life Flight helicopter rescue services. Mr. Duey said Life Flight services did not fall under Fees and Charges,but would be addressed in the contract City of Springfield will have with Life Flight. Councilor VanGordon wondered if the City was generating revenue from FireMed memberships. Chief Joe Zaludek answered that FireMed was still a viable product,and that viability was experienced mostly through social equity and access to healthcare for fixed-income individuals. Councilor VanGordon posited that FireMed needed modernizing to ensure it remained a viable product. Those present agreed. Councilor Pishioneri asked for a justification for raising CPR training fees by 25%(page 11 of 77), while all other increases were between 4-8%. Mr. Duey replied the CPR training fees were directly tied to the market for those classes. Councilor Woodrow said she would like to have a separate discussion about dog licensing fees. She opined if the fees kept getting higher, it felt to her like dog owners were being punished for dog ownership,and as the fees went up, compliance would most likely go down, defeating the purpose of City Springfield of S rin field Council Work Session Minutes June 4,2018 Page 4 the dog licensing fees in the first place. She also wondered where the monies collected from dog licensing fees were being applied. Councilor VanGordon agreed with Councilor Woodrow,that the subject of dog licensing fees should be a separate discussion,possibly its own Work Session. Councilor Stoehr agreed an ad-hoc discussion on dog licensing fees was needed, including the topic of mandatory reporting of unlicensed animals by Springfield veterinarians to the municipal government. Mayor Lundberg was interested in having a conversation in the near future about grant writing, and how to raise the percentage of approved grants. Mr. Duey said the two main topics of a future Work Session would be: Animal Licensing and Utility Right-of-Way fees. He asked the Mayor and Council if there were any other topics they wished to discuss at the next Work Session. Councilor Pishioneri said there were some other items he would like to address at an upcoming Work Session, but he would email that list to Mr. Duey offline. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:58 p.m. Recorded by Rodney Cimburke, LCOG Christine L. Lundberg Mayor AS1911 st: /.. .C.� AJ Ri!k. City Recorder