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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCalled Commission Meeting August 23, 2018 CALLED MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER August 23, 2018 PRESENT: Hons. Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor; Jefferson, Sias (participates by telephone), Davis, Fennoy, D. Williams, Hasan and Smith, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. ABSENT: Hons. Frantom, Guilfoyle and M. Williams, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. Mr. Mayor: All right, we’ll call this meeting to order. All right, we’re here to talk about two items. This is our agenda, special called meeting. The Chair recognizes Madam Clerk. The Clerk: 1. Discuss and adopt funding proposal for comprehensive street light program. (Requested by Mayor Hardie Davis, Jr.) (Deferred from the August 21, 2018 meeting) Mr. Mayor: All right, the Chair recognizes Madam Administrator. Ms. Jackson: Yes, sir, we have a brief presentation that we’re about to que up. A very brief presentation that we sent out to you around 12:30 today. We will go over it very quickly and then we’ll turn it back over for the (inaudible). Mr. Mayor: Do you have copies of it, by chance? Ms. Jackson: We do. Much of this information is repetitive so I can go through it very quickly. Our goal is to generate sufficient revenues to operate the current system systemically reducing the current deficit and to provide some funding to enhance or expand the current level of operations. Our goal best case scenario is generate $6.5 million dollars projected to cover $5.8 million dollars in operating cost, a three-year plan of reduction of the deficit, $400,000 per year for three years and $300,000 for maintenance and upgrades of the current system. In the fourth year of that we would have $700,000 of that available for maintenance and upgrades. This chart is the very same chart that we had with you the last time we discussed this in detail. The option that you voted on at that time was to generate the $6.5 million dollar flat rates for all with commercial being 50% higher than the residential rate. That would mean that those without a bill currently they would pay, residential customers would pay $87, commercial customers would pay $131. All other residential customers $87, all other commercial customers $131. We also at that time, you all did not vote but we discussed at some length in that meeting as well as in subsequent discussions with several of you the last line in pink, the patch option, which would generate $6 million dollars by having each customer pay $23 on the residential side, $35 on the commercial side, which is to say that currently if you have no bill you pay $23. If you have a bill currently you would pay that bill plus $23. I looked at my bill, it’s $24. I’d just add $23 for a total of $47 for my particular bill under that scenario and for commercial customers it would be $35 plus what their current bill is. Necessary options. Necessary actions are determining a billing rate, amending the ordinance and implementing a new billing structure for inclusion on the 2018 tax bills. As you 1 all are aware, I have asked the Tax Commissioner for additional time pending resolution of this issue but this is the last time I can ask for that. He’s got to go on and do what he has to do. As an alternative, given the fact that we did not have consensus, I sent out an email to you all earlier today, this describes the patch structure which I’ve already described. That would give us a fix and let’s be clear, that would be in effect for 2018 only. We would still have to discuss a new structure for 2019. If we go that route, I would recommend that we begin discussions about 2019 options as soon as possible. The patch would add $23 to tax bills of all residential properties outside of Hephzibah and Blythe and $35 to commercial properties as we had discussed and it provides revenue for 2018 that when added to the revenue from the existing billing of suburban area and the transfer from tax collections in the urban district, it keeps the deficit from increasing so basically this is what we call the stop the bleed option. Impact. If you all cannot select either of the rate structures that we have discussed so far, we as staff are recommending that you approve removing $1.8 million dollars from the General Fund reserves in order to take care of the $800,000 which is expected as an operating deficit as well as to replace the million dollars that we budgeted in 2017 for arterial lighting that we did not budget in ’18. As you will recall, we did not budget for that in 2018 because you all had committed to fixing the system so the total would be required from fund balance to take care of this in 2018 would be $1.8 million dollars and obviously any time we take money from fund balance that requires a vote of the Commission. So that’s it. Timeline is today. Mr. Mayor: Ms. Jackson, a couple of questions. And I’m certainly not going to belabor this. If you go back to your impact slide, bullet point two, one million to cover arterial lighting. What does that mean? About 3600 lights that we own in our system, does that one million cover any of those lights? Ms. Jackson: Can you define arterial, John, for us? Mr. John Ussery: As far as the arterial lights, arterial lights are the lights that are on streets that have two lanes in each direction or three lanes in each direction. Out of the 4,000 or so lights that Augusta does own, there are maybe a few hundred on the arterial streets but the majority of them are in the downtown area and they are not on arterial streets so the million dollars would cover, say like Riverwatch Parkway, Calhoun Expressway, those types of things but the majority of the lights that we own are not on arterial streets. Mr. Mayor: All right, I’m going to stop there. I’ll take any other questions if there be any st other questions. The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 1. Mr. Fennoy: I’d like to make a motion that we go with the 87/131. Mr. D. Williams: Second. Mr. Mayor: We’ve got a motion and a second. The Clerk: Did you hear that, Commissioner Sias? Mr. Sias: Yes, ma’am, I just want to be clear. I believe that was Commissioner Fennoy 2 that said the 87/131. The Clerk: Yes, sir, and Mr. Dennis Williams seconded that. Mr. Sias: Okay, are we voting yet? Mr. Mayor: We are. The Clerk: I’ll ask you once they’re finished voting here. Mr. Mayor: All right. Voting. Ms. Davis, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Hasan vote No. Motion fails 4-3. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Administrator, if you’d approach again. I’m going to go back to the same slide, the impact slide. We talked about effectively $800,000 deficit and today we’re talking about a $1.8 million dollar effective transfer from reserves. Okay. One of our challenges is to draw down or pay down the deficit. That probably is priority one. This issue around one million to replace the transfer to cover arterial lighting I’m concerned about that from the perspective of when you look at our system again as we learned on Monday to those of us who were at the meeting even if we use a round number of 4,000 lights and their associated annual cost of that and then of course we know how many lights are on Riverwatch Parkway, i.e. the arterial streets, this is a fairly large number, one million. I’m curious to understand how we arrive at that number and maybe this is not the right time to talk about it and if it’s not, I’m okay with that. But I think what we’re next going to ask this body to support is effectively a $2 million dollar transfer from fund balance. Ms. Jackson: You have that option as well as having the option of the plus 23. st Mr. Mayor: All right, the Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 1. Mr. Fennoy: I’d like to make a motion that we adopt the plus 23. Mr. Sias: Ms. Bonner, I’m going to have to take out my appointment. It’s missing. The Clerk: Okay. Mr. Sias: Thank you. The Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor: Now here is what I would suggest. All right, I can immediately say that motion has failed without a proper second, which is the case as it is right now, but to that end, I think our posture is the following. One, there is a desire to pay down the deficit and what is the 3 effect of only paying down the deficit and not using the one million to replace the transfer to cover arterial lights? Ms. Jackson: The deficit grows. Mr. Mayor: And again the deficit will continue to grow which we already all acknowledge and we’ve known for a couple of weeks that there was not support for this. I think that’s a fair statement but I also would submit that there’s probably not support largely for us to take $2 million from the fund balance in order to do this and that’s just Hardie Davis talking but I think that that is probably a fair statement and that’s not the posture we want to be in. So what is our middle ground in terms of paying a portion of the deficit from multiple sources? The gentle lady from the rd 3 has expressed an interest in taking portions of contingency to use that as a part of that and I think that’s certainly still on the table as it should be. And again we may not pay it down in full in the year 2018 but what we can do is get to a place of where we have a clear target of what we want to accomplish for 2019. I’m pretty confident we’re not going to solve this today. But what we can do is give some sense of assurance that this is where we are as we track towards the budget conversation in September and October and we at least give some sense of direction for that. That’s where we are. Ms. Jackson: Our current contingency remaining is approximately $470,000. The most I would recommend that you take from that right now is $200,000. Mr. Mayor: All right. Where can I get another $600,000 from? Ms. Jackson: I wish I could tell you there are some other sources. I guess the biggest issue we have right now, we’ve had this ongoing discussion about electric franchise fees. They were actually less than, a million dollars less than what we projected for the year so in the absence of that electric franchise fee, we may very well not generate the amount of money that we budgeted for 2018. That’s why our fund balance was on the impact sheet unfortunately. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Ms. Jackson: I may also add that under the plus 23 scenario my recommendation would be to also take $200,000 out of contingency and pair that with the plus 23 as a way to use the $200,000 from contingency to pay down some of the existing deficit and the plus 23 generates enough revenue to ensure that you cover this $1.8 million dollars that you’re talking about up on the screen right now. Mr. Mayor: Okay. All right. Okay, I’m going to be blunt right now. There are insufficient votes to move anything forward. There are insufficient votes to do it. So what I’m going to suggest is that we table this conversation. There are insufficient votes to do it and let’s take the gun out of our hands so that we don’t shoot ourselves and decide what is perhaps the best approach to at least begin attacking the deficit that we have in light of knowing that if we get into the budget discussion, we’re going to get to a better place for the year 2019. Because again the math is simple. There are insufficient votes to get anything done and there’s no reason for us to just keep talking. If we 4 can do that, that would be most helpful to this body. All right, the Chair recognizes the th commissioner from the 5. The Chair recognizes the Mayor Pro Tem. Ms. Davis: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess this goes to the Tax Commissioner. I think he had mentioned something today that he still does need a vote as far as at least moving forward with the last year’s fees for street light in order to get on the property tax bills. So I wanted to check on that with Mr. Kendrick and check on that time line as far as if we’re not going to do anything different do we need to go ahead and move forward with what was last year’s fees. Mr. Kendrick: Well, I just talked to my property tax director who is in charge of the bills and he basically told me that you know it’s kind of tough to say it like this but if you guys have an opportunity to fix this, he can extend more time. We are going to submit the digest tomorrow. The digest that we submit has nothing to do with this portion of it. The part that we add to the bill is a line item that is usually a submission from an outside department to our office so we will begin the part of the process to do the bills anyway. There is a deadline to put this line item on. That deadline is not today so if you guys get to next Tuesday and you can fix it next Tuesday, we can probably still put this on the bill with no problem so a submission is not required today. By next Tuesday we can talk again. I’ll tell you where we are and we’ll know. But as it stands right now, you have a few more days to get that done in order for me to meet my statutory guidelines we’re well within our (inaudible). Mr. Mayor: All right, Commissioner Kendrick, here’s a follow-up question. I think it’s important for you to share with this body what that means when you say get this on the tax bill. Mr. Kendrick: So when we submit a digest and we go to Atlanta, we are given the permission to bill for ad valorem taxes. The agreement between the City of Augusta and the Tax Commissioner’s office to carry both street lights and solid waste is an independent agreement. So that is a line item on a bill that is given to me by submission. So each year the Solid Waste Department sends me a file. That file indicates to me this is what you want on this bill. As of this time the City has not produced any file for me officially that tells me what to put on this bill. Now as I mentioned to some of your earlier, we could take it upon ourselves to put in what happened last year but that would not be with any direction from this body or from a particular department. We would prefer a department much like GIS or Engineering does normally send us something to say here is our official submission. As of right now, we haven’t received no official submission. Mr. Mayor: Okay. I would ask, Commissioner Kendrick, for you to qualify that statement because there is a distinction between last year and what is being considered for this year and if you would again for this body explain what the distinction is particularly with regards to those who do not get a tax bill from you and those who will pursuant to any action that this body will take. Mr. Kendrick: And if we did what we would do normally you will get the exact same production and the people who received a bill last year will get them in the same format as they did last year so those who did not get a bill last year won’t get a bill. Those who received the bill with whatever charge there was for street lights will get that same bill. It would replicate the same revenue generation as we’ve done in past years which would continue the same deficit that you all 5 are working in right now. What’s dangerous and really why I need the submission is because if I put nothing on there, nothing will come in so the deficit will be much larger so at least from my office’s standpoint, we would like to see something be submitted. Now I have had conversations with the Finance Department. Ms. Williams did send us a file and we were working under the premise and we were doing some testing under the premise that we thought we could predict what this body would do so we felt like we knew what the number was so we were working on it. Unbeknownst to us that did not happen and so we received some information from the City but that was our department and Finance that tried to do our testing. Right now what we have is a complete file from last year that would go to the exact same parcels as last year. Nothing additional has been added. Mr. Mayor: I appreciate that, Mr. Kendrick, Tax Commissioner. I want to further draw the distinction here and again we want to get to a better place. As I’ve said, I don’t have to do much math, but I know there’s insufficient votes to do anything. At the end of the day the difference between the current file and I’m concerned with your analysis that you need something from this body because what I would submit is that we’re going to do what we’ve done last year without any additional actions from this body so the deficit will only grow to the degree that there are new lights added to the system. Otherwise it will remain what the deficit grows by annually anyway. The only thing that will change substantially is that if we adopted any of these proposals is that this body would now be levying a fee against parcels that currently do not have a fee. That’s the distinction. So we’re growing that list which thereby brings us that additional revenue to close the deficit and I think everyone needs to fully understand that. That’s the difference between the current shaped file and the shaped file that will be implemented if we adopt any of these measures. Mr. Kendrick: Mr. Mayor, what we meant by the submission from this body, and I probably misspoke, I really meant from a department, we typically only submit and put things on the bill when we received it from the department that is responsible for making that calculation. If we don’t get anything this year and we haven’t, then it would be presumptuous for me as Tax Commissioner to put on the bill what happened last year. Each year we receive a file from someone saying here’s what we want. Having received nothing this year I told my office that if we don’t receive anything, and I put on what was there last year, then I could come under criticism from this body for saying who told you to decide that was the number. So what we decided was that if we don’t get a submission, I have no way of knowing what your agenda was, what your thoughts were. All I had was last year’s. And I’ll just add I’m not sure anywhere within this government there exists a document or an MOU that describes the relationship between the Tax Commissioner’s office and the billing of those things on what is considered across the state the Tax Commissioner’s bill. This gentleman’s agreement that has been going on has happened for at least ten years because I’ve been here. But at the same time without anything that directs me to put that on there, I’m at a loss for how to decide whether to put 2017’s numbers there or nothing there and so I just ask for someone, it could be the same department Engineering, they could send me the file from last year again then at least I would have a document of something that says somebody told me this is the number. Mr. Mayor: I understand. Very well. I really appreciate that, sir. Thank you. All right, th the Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 5. 6 Mr. Jefferson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My question was pretty similar to the Mayor Pro Tem but I would also like to ask the Administrator and the Finance Chairman we spoke about the franchise fees from the two power companies and I thought that was a substantial amount of money and you said that’s short. Explain to me how much have we collected in franchise fees – Ms. Jackson: It’s not the two, it’s the one, Georgia Power, where we’re seeing a substantial decrease. When we went into the budget process last year at that point Georgia Power was projecting that there would be a decrease in the amount of revenue. We built some decrease into the 2018 budget. When the actual check came in around February/March, it was even less than what they projected it to be. Mr. Jefferson: But we weren’t quite sure of the number of lights that we had so how – Ms. Jackson: Separate issues. Yeah, separate issues. The franchise fee is just based upon they pay us – Mr. Jefferson: -- consumer – Ms. Jackson: -- their revenue. Yeah, their total revenue and that is the check that came in later and I was just using that, as the franchise fees as one of our major sources of revenue and that has been down a million dollars from what we expected. Does that clarify your question? Mr. Jefferson: It clarifies but I’m still trying to figure out how you know how was the projection off that much. Ms. Jackson: We have to take the numbers the best guess that they give us. At the time we formulate the budget, we ask them for an estimate. They gave us an estimate as again saying that it would be less than the previous year. It turned out to be even more, more of a difference than they thought from the previous, more of a decrease from the previous year than they thought. Mr. Jefferson: We don’t have a way of tracking it from our end? So it’s strictly based on what they give us? Ms. Jackson: What they give us. Mr. Jefferson: Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Again we’ll proceed as we indicated a moment ago, Madam Administrator. Item number two, given our current posture, I would ask this body if we would table that until our next meeting and we don’t have sufficient enough votes who have expressed an interest in weighing in on submitting names. We’ve got, I know, two commissioners who have expressed that they have some names and they’re not here in Frantom and Williams. And if it pleases the body then let’s table that until our next meeting. All right, the Chair recognizes the commissioner th from the 6. Mr. Hasan: For the record as well, Mr. Mayor, I have names to submit as well. 7 Mr. Mayor: Say that again, sir. Mr. Hasan: I have names I’d like to submit as well. Mr. Mayor: Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Hasan: Mr. Mayor, I don’t think you were here as well. Mr. Mayor: Will you speak into the microphone? Mr. Hasan: I’m sorry. Were you here much earlier Ms. Bonner was giving us some historical knowledge about what the representation looked like, not that we have to stay with that model, but we was trying to get a feel for that because we – Mr. Mayor: I wasn’t. I got in here late. Mr. Hasan: -- and we was trying to do that because when they were saying there was a slew of names I was trying to make sure did we want to deviate from past history for whatever reason and that’s our prerogative to do that but based on she was telling us some of the players that, appointees that had been on the board previously and most of those were commissioners right down to Walter Sprouse from the Executive Director to Commissioner Mason our latest representation but previously Commissioner, I’ll let Ms. Bonner. She’ll do a much better than myself. The Clerk: I’ll just put it on the screen. Common set of facts, sir. Preface that, a memo was sent to the Commission about a week and a half ago, I think all of ya’ll may recall getting it. th Mr. Mayor: Okay, commissioner from the 6 continue, sir. Mr. Hasan: So my point was in looking at what we have done historically, number one, I just want to make sure that we, if we want to consider, will it be a consideration to keep a commissioner in play, but at the same time I reached out to the current Economic Development Director yesterday and spoke with him about it and he definitely had an interest in being (inaudible) be on it as well. So I wanted to use (inaudible). The other day a commissioner was mentioned and so just wanted to make sure when we say we have a slew of candidates I was trying to figure out how far we were going to veer off of history. Mr. Mayor: Well, my only comment to that would be I think we’ll follow the will of the body and if we want to follow that similar path, I’m certainly not one to stand in the way of that. I’ll advocate for it if that’s what ya’ll want to do. All right, the Chair recognizes the commissioner st from the 1. Mr. Fennoy: Mr. Mayor, what would be helpful to me if I could get a list of names from my colleagues that they want to put on this authority so that I would at least be familiar with them so that when it would be familiar it would be easier to narrow down two people as opposed to a 8 bunch of people nominating people at the Tuesday meeting and then try to come up with two names from that list. Mr. Mayor: Yeah, okay. So I think that’s certainly appropriate as well. Okay, I’m looking at it from a historical perspective. Madam Clerk, do you know what the state of meeting was for this body? How often they would engage or did they upon adopting a slate of members, they would activate the board at a time uncertain or when necessary? Does that make sense? The Clerk: No, sir. Mr. Mayor: Okay, in other words you’ve got a group of people from 13 counties that say we’re going to be a part of this board. When did they meet? The Clerk: Okay, they do have bylaws and the agency that is in association with them is the CSRA Regional Development Commission. They are the ones that assist this board with their administrative duties and bylaws regarding their meeting times, how often they meet, that sort of thing. Certainly I can request that information from the source that submitted this request to us to have Augusta appoint its two members to the Authority and also, well, go ahead. Mr. Mayor: We’re listening. The Clerk: And what I was going to offer is to give you all some insight onto the thought process regarding when the Commission entered into this partnership and I think I’ll send those minutes out to you and you can hear the thought process, the reason for them finally agreeing to become a part of the Authority and why that was all done so I think that might help you in your deliberation process. Mr. Mayor: That would be helpful. I believe that would be helpful. The Clerk: And then I’ll get the bylaws and I’ll get that out to you all. nd Mr. Mayor: The Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 2. Mr. D. Williams: My question has something to do with the item that we finished already. Mr. Mayor: All right. You can certainly – Mr. D. Williams: The (inaudible) project (inaudible) lights (inaudible). The Clerk: Can we get you to speak into your mic, sir? Mr. D. Williams: I need some lights in certain parts of my district. And that’s why I’m voting for the increase, you know. And no matter how much we sit down here figuring out how many light poles we have and curb lights and traffic lights, you’re going to need some more than you have. Our city is growing, there are a lot more arterial lights needed in my district alone. 9 Need a bunch of street lights. Folks have been on my back since I got here. And we go fuss about some $87 a year. Mr. Mayor: Well, commissioner, let me say it this way. I understand exactly what you’re wanting. Again, you do not have support for anything today. Mr. D. Williams: I understand that. I just wanted to say my piece. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Mr. D. Williams: Because I’m not going to change my vote. Mr. Hasan: We’ll talk. Mr. Mayor: I’m trying to make this easy on all of us right now because we can just keep talking about it and talking about it. We’ve got to get to a better place. \[MEETING ADJOURNED\] Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission CERTIFICATION: I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Called Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on August 23, 2018. ________________________ Clerk of Commission 10