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08-14-23 CC WS MinutesCITY OF SHOREWOOD 5755 COUNTRY CLUB ROAD CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION MEETING COUNCIL CHAMBERS MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2023 5:15 P.M. MINUTES 1. CONVENE CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION MEETING Mayor Labadie called the meeting to order at 5:15 P.M. A. Roll Call Present. Mayor Labadie; Councilmembers Callies, Maddy, Sanschagrin and Zerby; City Attorney Shepherd; City Administrator Nevinski; Parks and Recreation Director Crossfield; City Clerk/HR Director Thone; Finance Director Rigdon; Planning Director Darling; Director of Public Works Morreim; and, City Engineer Budde Absent: None B. Review Agenda Sanschagrin moved, Maddy seconded, approving the agenda as presented. Motion passed 5/0. 2. 2024 Preliminary Budget Finance Director Rigdon gave an overview of the 2024 preliminary budget and proposed property tax levy information. He noted that tonight's meeting was the first of two meetings dedicated to this topic of discussion and explained that the next one would be held on September 11, 2023. He reminded the Council that the property tax levy must be certified to the County by September 30, 2023 after which time it can be decreased, but not increased. He reviewed the preliminary budget figures and noted that the City is currently undergoing a compensation study, which could result in changes, but the current assumptions are based on the existing 2023 rates. City Administrator Nevinski stated that staff had met with the consultant this afternoon and based on this information they are anticipating about a $40,000 impact to the budget based on the preliminary numbers they have received from the compensation study. He explained that they had received this information too late to have it included in the report, but asked that the Council keep this in mind as they proceed with their discussion. Finance Director Rigdon reviewed the assumptions that are personnel related included new positions, step increases for pay, cost of living adjustments, and an expected increase in health insurance premiums. He reviewed General Fund expenditures and transfers out and explained that recommendation to work to structurally balance the General Fund budget with revenues equaling expenditures without the use of reserve funds. He noted that the City is estimated to received $342,503 in December from the State for Public Safety Aid. He reviewed the proposed property tax levy which is currently 10.6% higher than the 2023 levy and noted that the tax capacity is estimated at about a 10% increase. He explained that property owners with no change in market values should experience about a 0.9% increase in the City portion of their overall property tax bill. He stated that this tax rate is still pretty low in comparison with many other cities CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 2 of 14 in the surrounding area. He shared examples of City property taxes for homes that had a 5%, 10%, and 15% increase in market value. He reviewed budget details for the Shorewood Community and Event Center as well as Enterprise Funds. He stated that staff would like some direction from the Council on where they would like to go with this information and what they would be comfortable with. He explained that currently the preliminary budget included a 10;6% increase in the total property tax levy, but noted that if they include the impact of the recent compensation study, that would increase it to about 11.3%. He noted that the City had not had to use reserve funds for the last several years and reviewed the options for the use of General Fund surplus reserves. Mayor Labadie commended Finance Director Rigdon and staff for how well this information was laid out for Council review. Councilmember Callies asked for an explanation of the tax capacity versus market value information and why it was important. Finance Director Rigdon stated that it is very important because the levy is based on the calculations of the valuations. He stated that the valuations for 2024 were done in early 2023 and that is shown as market value and they are multiplied by class rates which are established by the legislature. He stated that these are basically a percentage of the market values and explained that tax capacity is very important. Councilmember Callies stated that there was a lot of discussion this past year about how much the tax assessed values had increased and asked what the average increase was for market values in the City. Finance Director Rigdon explained that some values went up over 25-30% and in comparison they are proposing a 9.2% increase in valuation as compared to 26.2% last year. He stated that he understands that is still a lot of money even though it went down quite a bit. Councilmember Sanschagrin asked if the $342,000 in Public Safety Aid was already included in the budget. Finance Director Rigdon stated that it was not, but explained that there will be an option to include it in 2024 and defer the revenue until that time, even though it will be received in 2023. He stated that the Council may want to talk about using these funds for operations as well as personnel. City Administrator Nevinski stated that salaries are an eligible use of the Public Safety dollars from the State, but shared that his concern with that if the City starts to use these funds to sort of `buy down' the levy, at some point they will have to face the fact that the levy has been kept artificially low, which means there will eventually be a bigger jump. Councilmember Zerby asked what the City's average property value was at this point. Finance Director Rigdon stated that for 2023 was between $600,000-$700,000 and would assume it went up a bit for 2024. Councilmember Zerby stated that it would be nice to change the table in the future to more accurately reflect the average property value in the City rather than starting the table at $200,000 value because that is somewhat unrealistic for the area. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 3 of 14 Councilmember Sanschagrin asked about the $102,300 that is transferred every year and asked about the logic behind this decision. Finance Director Rigdon stated that the City was originally levying $70,000 for the transfer and then they started doing a CIP budget, so they took the first years total which was the $102,300, less then $70,000. He stated that there is nothing really magical about it anymore and they could look at this again. Mayor Labadie asked Finance Rigdon to continue his review of the preliminary budget details. Finance Director Rigdon gave a high level review of the CIP projections and explained that things are looking a little rough. He explained that they are looking at the opportunity of taking care of this because there is an Equipment Fund that will come up short without some source of revenue. He stated that they are contemplating looking at some reserve transfers out of the General Fund. He gave a brief overview of the Shorewood Community and Event Center, park improvements, equipment replacement, street improvements, and utility funds. City Clerk/HR Director Thone summarized her five budgets and highlighted areas where there was a change from last year's budget. Her budgets include City Council; Administration; Elections; Municipal Buildings; and Recycling Utility. She explained that the only information that will be included in her summary for tonight's meeting were items that changed from the 2023 budget. If budget line items remained the same, she did not highlight them for the Council's review. City Administrator Nevinski clarified that he had requested that staff use the opportunity to highlight changes or shifts in the proposed budget and not to show detail for every line item. Councilmember Zerby asked what or who the City's biggest contractual services were for. City Clerk/HR Director Thone explained that there are several contract services that equate to approximately $5,000 to $7,000 per year, such as TimeSavers, the city website, newsletter mailing fees, and SeeClickFix, among others. She stated that much of the budget increase projected in contractual services is to secure a new city website. Councilmember Callies stated that in terms of printing costs, she thinks this may be something that they should ask the legislators to change the policy. She stated that she feels that publishing things in the newspapers is truly pointless, which means the City is spending all this money for nobody to read the information. City Clerk/HR Director Thone stated that she completely agreed with that thought. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that he knows that many residents like the Shore Report but wonders what their opinion would be if they knew how much it cost the City. He questioned whether they may be interested in moving to paperless delivery because he thinks that would reduce the City's costs by about $13,000 between printing and mailing costs. Mayor Labadie stated that she would be against cutting it out altogether because this is the only information that is guaranteed to get to every household and not everyone is internet savvy. She noted that the residents at The Landings really like the Shore Report and believes that those that CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 4 of 14 live in Shorewood Ponds also like it. She explained that if they cut it out altogether they run the risk of losing an entire demographic section of the residents that actually reads the information, but agreed that it is expensive. She noted that she would be open to discussing some possible cost saving measures such as switching from monthly to bi-monthly distribution. Councilmember Sanschagrin clarified that he was not implying the City should discontinue this, but give people at opt out option, if they were capable of accessing the information online. Mayor Labadie noted that was a very good idea because it is available online and could result in a good cost savings for the City. Councilmember Callies noted that a possible problem with moving to a bi-monthly publication is that sometimes there is an event that may come up that they want to include. She asked what the wellness initiatives were for staff. City Clerk/HR Director Thone explained that typically they have been holding an event once every month or two and gave the examples of a mental health awareness event they held in May where they had bingo and a lunch in order to get people to think about things that will help them stay healthy. Councilmember Callies asked if there was anything through the League of Minnesota Cities, that the City could pull speakers from for this type of event that could be free or for a minimal cost. City Clerk/HR Director Thone stated that she was not sure if they have free services but that it was a good resource for contacts. She noted that with their benefit vendors, they have had some good luck getting people to the City for free, but she can check into options for other wellness opportunities. Councilmember Callies explained that she was supportive of having programs like that for employees. City Administrator Nevinski stated that they have done a number of self -funded events as well, such as the chili cook -off and others that have relatively modest costs. He stated that it is one of the areas that the legislature has indicated that there is a public purpose in those sort of expenditures and noted that he feels that some degree of appreciation and investment in wellness for employees is an important part of maintaining a healthy organization. City Clerk/HR Thone noted that across the board, prices have gone up and the City is feeling it just like everyone else. City Administrator Nevinski noted that the City's systems are becoming dated, but are not yet obsolete. He stated that the City could look at spacing some of these costs out over the next several years. Mayor Labadie asked about what City Clerk/HR Director Thone meant when she said that the IT changes were recommended. She stated that when the SLMPD recommended upgrading their system, it was because there were concerns about security for things like maintaining evidence and records/logs. She stated that version of 'recommended' translated to her in all caps and red letters and asked if the recommended IT changes from City Clerk/HR Director Thone were also CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 5 of 14 in all caps/red letters. She asked if the recommendation was from a staff level because they were worried about things crashing and becoming outdated. City Clerk/HR Director Thone stated that she believes that $20,000 of the proposed upgrades will be needed in the next year or two. She stated that there are things, like the phones, that could be phased out over the next three years. She stated that without the IT upgrades the City's capacity will be limited and leave the system less effective. Councilmember Callies noted that Police Chief Tholen had spoken to the Council about some security upgrades and asked it that was included in this proposed budget. City Administrator Nevinski stated that it was not included and noted that he thinks many of those recommendations are relatively low cost and are things that could come out of the regular operations budget. He stated that doing some of the other items would be more custom, which means more expensive. He noted that staff feels there are opportunities throughout the City to improve things with additional or upgraded security cameras, but suspects that will need to happen further down the road. Mayor Labadie noted that in reviewing the budget numbers, her initial thought was that the Council needs to find a way to bring them down and make some cuts. She noted that Councilmember Sanschagrin had put together a list of typed questions that received answers from City Administrator Nevinski. She noted that one of the first things he had highlighted was a breakdown of needs versus wants and asked staff to keep that in mind as they highlighted some of the proposed changes in their departmental budget information. She stated that her gut feeling is that the City will not be able to do everything that is being presented. Councilmember Maddy asked if the City was running a net negative for the recycling fees, as in the City is paying more for the recycling than the fees are covering. City Clerk/HR Thone stated that the fees currently cover the costs with a little bit of revenue when all is said and done but that the cost of recycling services increases for the city each year although residents have not had an increase in over 20 years. Finance Director Rigdon highlighted the proposed changes in Finance and Professional Services. Mayor Labadie noted that she has had residents ask her if there was a way for the City to get away from involvement with the County Assessor. She asked if there would be any costs savings by going with a private assessor. Finance Director Rigdon stated that there is potential for them to be lowered, but explained that his personal experience has been that there are a lot of small-time firms with just one or two people, so you do not get the back up service that you can get with the County. He stated that it is something that the City would look at more closely. Councilmember Sanschagrin asked if the County based their fees on the number of assessments or if it was just a blanket fee based on number of households. Finance Director Rigdon stated that he did not know how this fee was determined. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 6 of 14 Planning Director Darling highlighted the items under the Planning and Protective Inspections areas and gave an explanation of her request for a half-time administrative assistant and also additional funds under contractual services in order to continue updating the City's aging zoning and subdivision ordinances. Councilmember Zerby asked if the City needed to take a look at their fees for building permits and applications. Planning Director Darling stated that she expects to have a full proposal for the Council by the end of the year related to that. She noted that one thing she believes needs to be done is to increase the initial escrow application fee so the City does not have to keep going back every month for additional funds. She reiterated the point that was made earlier that costs for everything are going up and believes the City will have to increase some of the application costs as a result. She gave an overview of the types of permits that they are seeing for pools, indoor sport courts, and batting cages. Councilmember Callies asked how the City decides on contracted services for planning consultants and if it was something that they had gone out for bid on. Planning Director Darling stated that they are almost all to the point where the City should really have multiple estimates or quotes for those types of services. She stated that they do not have to be public bids like they do with engineering services, but are high enough that there really should be multiple quotes. City Administrator Nevinski reviewed the highlighted items proposed for Police, and Fire. Councilmember Callies asked why the City was paying for services from the Mound Fire Department. City Administrator Nevinski stated that there are about two hundred homes on the islands that the City cannot reach in a timely manner. Public Works Director Morriem highlighted items that include significant changes in the proposed budgets for Public Works, Ice and Snow Removal, Park Maintenance, Water, Sewer, Stormwater, and the CIP. Councilmember Zerby stated that when the new vehicles are purchased, it would be nice to be able to consider the graphics that are being applied because the City seems to have a pretty inconsistent look on many of the vehicles. He stated that several of the line items that he highlighted contained `communications' which seem to overlap a bit with City Clerk/HR Director Thone's comments on communications expenses that she had planned for and explained that he was a bit confused why it was showing up in both areas. Public Works Director Morriem stated that many of the communications for Public Works has to do with their facilities, such as lift stations, and not things like mobile phones. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that in looking at the budget, the historical actual costs have been in the low $200,000 and the budget has been significantly higher than that. He asked if it would make sense to take a closer look and asked if the proposed increases were on top of budget versus actual. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 7 of 14 Public Works Director Morriem stated that he wrote down some notes with the information sent over by Councilmember Sanschagrin. He explained that a lot of what would potentially be proposed for reduction would be staff and cautioned that the City is bringing on more maintenance with the Country Club, the Smithtown Pond area, IPM, and working to keep the parks open more. He explained that if they had less, keeping up on these items would be a challenge. Councilmember Sanschagrin clarified that he was not advocating for a reduction in staff, because he knows they are stretched thin, but it seems as though the budget amounts in the past, prior to Public Works Director Morriem being with the City, have been too high. Public Works Director Morriem reiterated that he believes much of the differences were in staff time and ensuring that they are coded correctly. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that he also feels as though the Water revenues could be higher, based on trends. City Administrator Nevinski noted that since the Council was running low on time, they could recess this meeting and reconvene following the regular City Council meeting concludes. Parks and Recreation Director Crossfield gave a very brief overview of Parks and Recreation and the Shorewood Community and Event Center. Zerby moved, Maddy seconded, to recess the City Council Work Session meeting. Motion passed 5/0. Mayor Labadie recessed the meeting at 6:45 p.m. and reconvened at 9:20 p.m. Mayor Labadie reminded the Council that they had left off with an initial presentation from the Parks and Recreation Director. She referenced the hand-outs that were distributed by Parks and Recreation Director Crossfield and noted that she had only been able to review one of the hand outs prior to the recess. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield noted that her `call to action' during her time with the City is to grow the Department and gave an overview of the goals included on the second hand out and ways to increase revenue for the City. Councilmember Zerby shared a few ideas that he felt may be opportunities including kitchen start- ups, food trucks, farmer's market, and car shows. He stated that the City has a nice space with lots of opportunities. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that it looks like the revenue projected is just a carry over from past years. He stated that Park and Recreation Director Crossfield is doing a lot of great work and is already past that projected amount and asked what her thoughts were on doubling her revenue target. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield explained that with her still being new, she would be nervous to increase it and set expectations that were incorrect. She stated that she had not quite figured out if the City was just not saying no to as many rentals as in the past and noted that it CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 8 of 14 may just be an anomaly. She stated that she may be able to bring those numbers up, but admitted that it made her nervous. Councilmember Callies stated that she thinks there have been some great ideas for programming and noted that she had suggested having an outdoor opera in the park similar to what Theodore Wirth Park does. She stated that she thinks the City should have a discussion about how big they want the Parks and Recreation Department to be because the more programs they have, the more staff they will need and she feels the request for additional staff seems like too much of a jump for her this year. City Administrator Nevinski stated that in the past, the City had former Parks and Recreation Director Grout, but also a lot of assistance from City Hall staff. He stated that with Parks and Recreation Director Crossfield's position being redefined, there has been some clearer expectations set. He explained that he has struggled a bit with the clarity of what the Council wants this role and this Department to be. He noted that he thinks the hand out distributed by Park and Recreation Director Crossfield is really a good road map for where the City is and what they can be doing. He asked how fast the Council wants to `get there' because, at some point, they will probably need to add more staff and resources. Mayor Labadie stated that she believed that the Council wanted to continue to see the Department continue to grow, but it is all tied into how comfortable they are passing on a double digit tax levy to the residents. She referenced page 23 of the packet and asked about the request for a ceiling mounted projector and how often that amenity was requested. She asked if staff felt the City had lost rental opportunities because of the lack of this equipment. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield stated that she would say the screen and sound system are the items that have the most requests. She stated that the City has lost some rentals and there are a large number of daytime/weekday rentals where they are having seminars or instructional courses and they would benefit most from the availability of this equipment. She stated that there are also pretty frequent celebrations of life where they want to project a slide show that is running photos in the background. Mayor Labadie asked about the nesting tables that were being requested and explained that she understood the thought behind being able to fold them up, but felt that $10,000 sounded like a lot of money. She asked if there was a way to do any of the last three punch items from her list in a more inexpensive manner. Parks and Recreation Director Crossfield stated that there is always a way to do things more cheaply. She stated that the conference tables and chairs were coming up in future CIPs for 2025 and 2026 and explained that she had flipped some of those types of things. She explained that her long term plan is to make the conference room more flexible prior to redoing the activity room which was scheduled for this year. She stated that she thinks they can aim for cheaper than $10,000 or find something used. She stated that she can come back with a recommendation on prioritization of her CIP items at a future meeting and see if she can find different pricing for the tables and chairs. Mayor Labadie asked her to make her recommendation on what will be the most cost effective and help increase rentals. She asked what a wall application would be as part of the refreshing of the restrooms. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 9 of 14 Parks and Recreation Director Crossfield stated that for 2024 they already had $40,000 in the budget and she reduced it down to $30,000. She stated that she made the decision to keep the tile floor in order to help save money so she could move those funds over to the conference room changes because she feels that will really be a game changer for that space. She stated that in the bathrooms there is outdated wallpaper and noted that they receive complaints about the toilet height being very low and, for example, senior users not being able to get up from their very easily. City Administrator Nevinski stated that things are aging in the restrooms and he feels it needs some attention, but does not need a full remodel. Mayor Labadie asked how long ago the City had bought new tables and upgraded the ceiling and painting at that facility. Councilmember Zerby stated that he believes it was around 2018 or 2019. Mayor Labadie stated that it was not that long ago, so in her mind the City has already looked at that building quite extensively and poured a lot of money into it. She asked for an explanation of why the increase in travel conferences and school jumps from $200 to $4,650, including a national conference. She stated that she is having a hard time understanding why the City's Park and Recreation Director of a City that has less than eight thousand people needs to go to a nation- wide conference. She noted that she does not really care about what cities like Oakland or Virginia Beach are doing and thinks the time would be better spent staying here and learning about what places like Brainerd and Little Falls are doing. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield explained that it is common for directors to go to the national conference because it reaches both smaller and larger cities and is a great way to learn what is coming up, continuing education credits, capital improvement projects, interacting with vendors, and learning what other smaller cities are doing across the nation. She stated that she had attended the conference before when she worked for a small-ish city and found it to be very beneficial. She noted that the State conference is also beneficial but noted that it attracts different vendors and information. She stated that the former Park and Recreation Director did not attend any training which she feels can be beneficial to this position. Councilmember Callies clarified that Park and Recreation Director Crossfield is suggesting, for next year, attending the Minnesota conference instead of the national conference. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield clarified that it is for the NRPA Director's School rather than the NRPA Annual Conference. Councilmember Callies stated that she agreed with Mayor Labadie on this item because some of these things are really a big step up from our previous staffing had requested. She stated that she would suggest that the City slow down a bit on some of these items but noted that she understood that this is a professional position and that Park and Recreation Director Crossfield wants to advance. Councilmember Zerby stated that he believes that the desire of past Councils was for the Community Center to be economically self-sufficient and to make sure that it at least breaks even. He stated that he believes the intent was for the City to subsidize it for a period of time but not for CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 10 of 14 it to be permanent. He stated that he would like to get a balanced budget for the Community Center as soon as possible and wants it to be less of a burden on the taxpayers. Councilmember Callies noted that the Community Center is just part of what they are talking about and stated that in the information being presented the Parks and Recreation portion is the smaller part of what has been presented. She stated that this may need to be a topic of discussion for a future meeting. Mayor Labadie asked about Park and Recreation Director Crossfield's second document she presented she indicated CIP as large projects of athletic fields and turf. She stated that her information indicated that one of the organizations is interested in two turf soccer fields in Freeman and asked who had approached that City and if they shown the City any money for this request. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield stated that three athletic associations are interested in having artificial turf fields and are willing to donate money, but admitted that the actual amount they would be willing to contribute has been difficult to get from the associations. City Administrator Nevinski stated that the interest is there, but the trick is to pull everyone together, complete the planning, find grant funds but suspects that there will be a request for the City to commit some funding as well. He stated that this is very early in the discussion process and this is just information for the Council to be aware that there is interest and may be something that they want to pursue. Mayor Labadie asked if the City could approach County Commissioner LeTondresse about getting some help in this area. Planning Director Darling stated that the County grants that the City has used were for $25,000 for Badger Park and also $25,000 for Silverwood Park. She stated that the DNR grants have been the ones that have funded the most, for example $150,000 for the lacrosse field and $150,000 for the Badger Park rehab project. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that he has had residents ask him if they were able to donate to the parks for specific things. Park and Recreation Director Crossfield stated that they do have a donation process, where people can submit their donation and then it is reviewed and approved by the Public :Works Director and the Council. She stated that she is sure there is a way to accept a cash donation as well. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that the resident was specifically wondering about donating money to help defer the costs expended by the Public Works Department for watering at Manor Park. City Administrator Nevinski stated that if someone wanted to make a donation to the City and specify it to be used that way, he thinks that would be fine. He noted that there would have to be a resolution and it be acknowledged by the Council. Councilmember Callies stated that the City, at one point, had the Shorewood Park Foundation, but she was not sure if they were still active or not, but it was an entity for this type of purpose. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 11 of 14 Planning Director Darling noted that the Park Foundation formally disbanded just before Park and Recreation Director Crossfield started with the City. Mayor Labadie asked for Council comments on the budget reports that were given by staff. Councilmember Zerby stated that he was not in favor of a double digit budget increase and suggested that they find a way to get it down below ten percent. Mayor Labadie stated that she agreed. Councilmember Callies stated that she would also like to see it below ten percent and, for example, did not think the Council needed iPads for the upcoming year. She asked if there may be ways to cut costs and go paperless without that purchase. City Administrator Nevinski stated that doing anything electronically will be much more efficient. He stated that if the Council was comfortable using their own tablet or device, he thinks that would be appropriate. Councilmember Callies explained that the issue is that now this is government data so somebody could request your laptop for a data practice request. Councilmember Zerby noted that the agenda packets are put online for the public which is the same information that is printed and handed to the Council. Councilmember Maddy explained that he reads his City e-mails on his personal computer, but it is through his City e-mail account which has nothing to do with his computer itself. Mayor Labadie explained that if the City had a request come in and they are doing things from their phone or work computer, it could get requested that they release the phone, computer or its hard drive. City Clerk/HR Director Thone stated that this was correct and why they try to separate those things. Mayor Labadie stated that she expects this to be a rare occurrence, but noted that the City has had many data practice requests. Councilmember Callies stated that she was not suggesting that staff e-mail the Council the packet and then the cost would be transferred to them individually to print out the pages. City Administrator Nevinski stated that they could have conversations about what works for them because some of them may be comfortable looking at it electronically versus a hard copy. He noted that one thing that may be helpful for staff is the Council's thoughts on bigger expenses, for example, if the Council has goals or certain things that they think are important to focus on and what they feel is less important. He stated that if they can give them this information, they can go back and rework some of the numbers and bring back something that hits their target a bit better but also meets the things that are most important to them. Mayor Labadie stated that one of the staff members had mentioned some items that could be phased in gradually which is something she would be interested in for some of these items. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 12 of 14 Councilmember Callies noted that many of the things being requested by Public Works were market driven or simply the cost of inflation, so she did not see a lot of wiggle room in their budget other than perhaps the trees. She noted that with the Planning Department she can see adding the half-time administrative assistant because there is a lot of work to do. She asked if there may be a way to reduce some of the contract services amounts by getting bids. Councilmember Zerby noted that Planning also has the ability to raise fees and noted that he feels the fees should cover the time invested by staff and if they are not getting that, they should consider a change. Mayor Labadie remembers former Councilmember Johnson asking if the marinas had their dock fees raised and they had not for a very long time. Planning Director Darling stated that she had done a cost analysis for what it takes to administer the dock license and earlier the year, it was balancing out, but depending on the results of the compensation study and the cost of living raises, she thinks they may have to raise the rates by twenty-five to fifty cents per dock to make sure they are covering their costs. Councilmember Callies asked about the costs for the website and noted that what is presented seems high to her. Councilmember Zerby noted that there are pros and cons to every choice for example having an easy to use service would be helpful. He stated that Shorewood is so small, they do not really fit into a good price band for these services because sometimes the pricing is for `up to 25,000 residents' which means they end up kind of getting overcharged for these services. City Administrator Nevinski explained that in his few months with the City the feedback he has gotten is that the City's website is awful and hard to work with. He asked if the Council wanted a more robust website that is more workable or if it was more about money right now because there may need to be some type of trade-off. He stated that in his opinion, the website is something that the City should spend some money on and some of the other items could be pushed off for a year or two. He asked City Clerk/HR Director Thone what the ongoing costs would be for a new website. City Clerk/HR Director Thone stated that she believed that most of the ongoing fees would be the similar to what we pay currently or approximately $8,000 per year but agreed that it would cost a significant amount more that first year of implementation. She noted that one of the advantages of a new website would be that it would allow other features that are not supported or not as functional on the current website. Councilmember Zerby stated that he believes there is the ability through Laserfiche to do some interactive forms but he does not think they have done the training to be able to support that. Mayor Labadie stated that she has noticed that it is not always user friendly when they are looking at it on the mobile device and suspects that many people are trying to look at this information on their phones. She stated that she believes there is consensus among the Council that the website needs some improvements. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 13 of 14 Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that thinks it is clear that there are some opportunities for the City to sharpen their pencils on some of the proposed budget items. He stated that he understood that they were built based on past budgets, but noted when he reviewed past budgets he found many instances where actual expenditures were less than budgeted amounts. He gave the example of park maintenance being around $200,000 and the budgeted amount was about $300,000. He stated that this tells him that there are ways to carve out some of these things and also believes that in terms of revenue for the Community Center they should be able to get more realistic with that and not be quite so conservative. He stated that he would prioritize the website towards the top of the list because it is an important way to connect with residents and things like iPads for Council would be an easy one to defer. Councilmember Maddy agreed that an increase of ten percent does seem like too much. He stated that there is the compensation study as well as inflationary pressures, but in the past the City has been pretty conservative. He noted that his City taxes have been going down over the last few years. City Administrator Nevinski stated that he felt the compensation issue should be a top priority because it puts the City on a good track to be able to attract and retain talent. He reminded the Council that the budget is slated to come back for further discussion at the September 11, 2023 Council Work Session meeting. Mayor Labadie asked if the Council had given staff enough direction City Administrator Nevinski stated that he thinks staff can take a look at where they have flexibility and knowing their priorities will be helpful. He suggested that staff have some internal conversations and bring back a few options for Council consideration. Mayor Labadie expressed the hope that Park and Recreation Director Crossfield did not leave this meeting feeling discouraged. She stated that she just feels as though Park and Recreation has taken out of the starting blocks like Usain Bolt, but thinks the City perhaps needs to look at this more in light of it being a 10K rather than a sprint. She noted that she would also support the additional half-time administrative individual for the Planning Department. Councilmember Sanschagrin asked if the Council could get some feedback from the public and have them weigh on priorities for the City. Mayor Labadie stated that the public is welcome to come to any meeting and shared examples of how many meetings they had when they put together a survey about water. She expressed concern about bringing in a survey process because then they will not meet the budget deadline. She reiterated that people were welcome to come the meetings and get involved in the budget discussions. Councilmember Callies stated that perhaps there is a way to get input from residents on what they see as City priorities, in the future, but noted that information should be gathered prior to the budget deadline. Councilmember Sanschagrin suggested that Communications Coordinator Wilson may have some ideas on how to get this information. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES AUGUST 14, 2023 Page 14 of 14 City Administrator Nevinski stated that what he has heard from the Council tonight is that they want to be in a single digit increase, things that they felt should prioritized, and reiterated that he thinks staff can go back and take another look with sharpened pencils and bring options back to the Council. Councilmember Maddy noted that the City had purchased a lot of software lately that was supposed to make things more efficient so he thinks they are making progress. He stated that he would like to see what the various options may be and staff's reasoning behind them. Mayor Labadie reminded the Council that they are up against a time crunch with the budget deadline. 3. ADJOURN Zerby moved, Sanschagrin seconded, Adjourning the City Council Work Session Meeting of August 14, 2023, at 10:23 P.M. Motion passed 5/0. ATTEST: '04� — W Jq&hifer L adie, Mayor Sandie Thone, City Clerk