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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-01-2011 workshop ~. City Council of Peachtree City Workshop Meeting Minutes February 1, 2011 The Mayor and Council of the City of Peachtree City met in a workshop session on Tuesday, February 1, 2011. Mayor Haddix called the workshop to order at 6:30 p.m. Other Council Members Present: Vanessa Fleisch, Eric Imker, Kim Learnard, and Doug Sturbaum. Staff present included Interim City Manager Nikki Vrana, Financial Services Director Paul Salvatore, Community Development Director David Rast, Fire Chief Ed Eiswerth, Assistant Fire Chief Joe O'Conor, Assistant Fire Chief Peki Prince, Police Chief H.C. "Skip" Clark, Leisure Services Director Randy Gaddo, Recreation Administrator Sherry McHugh, Programs Coordinator (The Gathering Place) Janet Werner, Kedron Manager Scott McCord, and Public Information Officer/City Clerk Betsy Tyler. Building Permit Fees Rast introduced Building Official David Mundt of Safebuilt, with whom the City contracted for building inspection services. Rastsaid staff was bringing forward a potential change to the fee schedule to reflect the industry standard valuation basis. Rast also had sample data from recent permits and how they would have been impacted by the proposed change. Rast said the building permit fees were referenced in Chapter 18 of the City's Code and were last updated in May of 2008. The current permit fees included $0.25 per square foot for a residential building fee ($300 minimum) and $5.00 per estimated $1,000 of construction ($300 minimum) for __ building fees, with additional set fees for activities such as plan review, demolition permits, roofing permits, garages, decks, etc. The proposed valuation method was adopted in the 2006 Intemational Building Code (IBC). Section 108.3 of the IBC required the submittal of an estimated permit value at the time of application, which included the total value of materials and labor for which the permit was being issued. A single permit was issued and included electrical, gas, mechanical, plumbing equipment, etc., for which the current fee schedule required separate individual permits. Rast said the single permit based on project valuation was a more efficient process. Rast continued that the International Code Council (ICC) established and updated the building valuation data (BVD), which gave an average construction cost per square foot, every six months, most recently in August 2010. Rasfadded that, for new construction, the valuation was based on the actual cost, while interior completion costs were based on 50% of the BVD. Rast gave a comparison of recent permits that had been issued for a single family detached home, 2,500 square feet, with a construction cost of $218,000. Under the current permit schedule, the separate fees for the building, deck, garage, plan review, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits totaled $1,073.70. Based on the proposed valuation method, the building permit fee and plan review would total $2,072.50. Rastnoted this was an increase, but the number of inspections would be the same. However, this put the fees in lines with industry standards. Rast then showed a comparison for an interior remodel of a 4,500 square-foot structure with a $350,000 construction cost. The current permit fees would have totaled $1,680, and the new fee would be $3,062. Rast said in a recent case, the officials had to visit a site 11 times for various City Council Workshop February 1, 2011 Page 2 ~ segments of the project due to its complexity. A smaller project of 130 square feet with an $83,000 value would have cost $106.50 under the current method, while the new method would bring in $1,000. In this case, the current rate only covered the cost of issuing the permit, but did not cover the costs of the necessary inspections. A comparison of new commercial construction that had recently been completed showed a 50 % increase over the current fees collected. Rast then showed how the fee structure would impact a large industrial building. In that case, the $168,282 in fees under the current model actually dropped to $128,275 under the valuation method. An office project also showed a slight decrease in overall fees by moving to the valuation. Mundt said that, as the cost of construction rose, the fee amounts leveled out. He added that engineers had developed the valuation method, and the valuation was updated every six months based on current market conditions. Haddix asked how using better materials could impact the permit cost, noting that better construction could be discouraged by a higher permit fee. Mundt said they reviewed the square footage and occupancy to calculate the value of the building. They would also review the submitted construction costs in comparison to the industry standards in ensuring that the fee was correctly calculated. ,......, , Sturbaum asked who else was using this method, and Mundt said the list included Chamblee, Johns Creek, and Milton. Tyrone and Fayetteville use a slightly different schedule. Haddix noted that the fee was automatically updated based on the values, rather than requiring the City to revisit and adjust fees periodically. Learnard asked if there were any other advantages to the valuation basis. Rast said, from a staffing standpoint, it reduced the internal time in dealing with permits for a project and the associated trade permits (gas, mechanical, electric, plumbing, etc.) in addition to the building permit. The proposed change would streamline the permitting process. Mundt noted the recent mechanical permit for SANY. The fee permit calculation came up to $76,000 for the fans and HV AC system. The valuation method would have placed the permit amount at $11,000 for that portion of SANY' s permit fees. Rast said the new structure would better reflect the actual time they being spent on inspections. Vrana said the fee review had showed some possible inequities in how the permit fees were currently set up in that they did not always reflect the actual cost of providing the service. The valuation method addressed that issue, with the staffing costs being covered by the associated permits. lmker asked why more municipalities had not changed to this method. Mundt said there was a perception among officials that the change reflected a fee increase. lmker clarified that, under the valuation basis, there were not separate fees for the trade permits, but that Safebuilt would still be conducting those trade inspections. Mundt said that was correct. ,......, Imker asked, if Council adopted the new schedule later this month, would there be any retroactive way to address the permit fees for SANY. Rast said that any additional fees due would be charged under the new rate, but said there needed to be a definitive starting point to any change in the fees. r-". ,...., "......". City Council Workshop February 1, 2011 Page 3 Learnard asked if the other cities using this valuation also used Safebuilt. Mundt said some of them used other companies similar to Safebuilt. R.ast said staff would forward a list of those jurisdictions when the topic was brought to Council. Fleisch asked that they include the rates for Fayetteville and Tyrone. Sturbaum asked for some additional smaller project comparisons, such as a deck or pool. Council consensus was to bring the item for consideration at the February 17 meeting. Rast said staff would also contact the Homebuilders Association on the issue. Fire Department Dive Team Eiswerth reviewed the department's specialty dive team and said he was looking for Council's opinion of disbanding the program. Eiswerth said the dive team was formed over 25 years ago and was composed of seven certified divers, two certified dive masters, and seven surface support personnel. It was the only dive team in Fayette County. The dive team's purpose was to search, secure, retrieve, and document body recovery or evidence recovery in water. Over the past 10 years, the team had deployed 31 times. Of the 23 drowning or suspected drowning deployments, 12 were in Peachtree City, three were elsewhere in Fayette County, and eight were outside Fayette. The four evidence recovery deployments were in Fayette County, three in Peachtree City. The team also had served on standby mode 12 times for special events on Lake Peachtree, including the 4th of July and triathlons. Eiswerth said he was proposing that the team be disbanded and that the associated equipment be transferred to the department's Swiftwater Rescue Team (SRT). Eiswerth continued that the past two years of budget constraints had required cuts or delays of equipment purchases and repairs. Following a team member attending a recent training, Eiswerth had learned they had an immediate need for over $18,000 in equipment to perform safely and meet NFPA and OSHA standards. The current budget only had $2,000 to address this need. Staff had asked about spreading the cost over the next for years, but the need was immediate to meet safety requirements. The problem was worse in FY 2012, when the department would need an additional $41,000 in communications gear. Staff costs in the following years should level to approximately $7,500 per year. Eiswerth said the department could not sustain the level of service at the current funding. If the dive team were disbanded, the SRT could perform some of the rescue duties. For underwater recovery, the department would need to rely on mutual aid from either the Cobb County Police, Henry County Fire, or Lagrange Fire departments. When asked if the City was reimbursed for responding to another jurisdiction, Eiswerth said those instances fell under the City's mutual aid agreements, with no cost recovery. Eiswerth noted that, since no other agency in Fayette County provided the service, the City might be able to recoup some funding through the upcoming Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) distribution negotiations. Learnard asked how disbanding the team would impact the staff with the specialized training. Eiswerth said the team members would rettirn to regular firefighter status. He noted that many of the current command staff had been on the team over time, but had rotated off as their duties changed. In those cases, their certifications expired. City Council Workshop February 1, 2011 Page 4 r"" Sturbaum said he was concerned about disbanding the team with the construction of Lake McIntosh underway. He said he would like to see more about what the department needed to keep the team in operation. Haddix asked Clark how disbanding the team could impact a Police investigation. Clark said the biggest impact would be maintaining a crime scene during the time it took for mutual aid to respond from another county. Haddix said he was uncomfortable losing the service. Eiswerth said he understood but had no way to fund the service and keep it viable. Cow eta County was looking at forming a dive team, but it would not be online for at least four years. Fleisch asked whether the dive teaJI) or the SRT supported events like the Triathlon. Eiswerth said both teams supported the programs, but the events helped fund that support. Gaddo asked if the support of the events could continup. Eiswerth said the SRT could perform some functions, but if someone went under the surface ofthe water, the SRT team could not respond. Fleisch was concerned about losing a service due to the distance of the other dive teams, and felt that LOST could help support the program. Leamard said, if the economy recovered quickly and Council did not keep the team, they could regret not finding the $61,000 in funding; however, the other issue was finding that $61,000 in the currerit economy. r- Imker said he was not prepared to make a decision that night. Vrana said staff was trying to get direction on whether to bring a budget amendment or a request to disband the team to a future Council meeting. Salvatore clarified that one of staff's continuing goals in developing the budget was to maintain current levels of service. It was at Council's direction that any level of service would be changed. Staff would bring forward a request for funding at the February 17 City Council meeting. Fire Department Work Cycle O'Conor said that the City had an opportunity in May 2011 to change how the firefighters were scheduled. In looking at every expenditure, staff was trying to be more efficient and reduce over. time costs. This goal had to be balanced with safety and with covering any staff shortages. Currently, the department used a 19.day (144.hour) work cycle. This had been implemented when there were only three firefighters p"r shift. Under this cycle, few of the employees understood how their pay was calculated. The schedule was made to address the imbalance in workweeks for the 24 hours on/48 hours off schedule. However, the City payroll went out every 14 days, making the 19. day cycle more confusing. ~ . O'Conor continued that the 19.day schedule allowed for six 24.hour days before any over-time was paid under Fair Labor Standards Act. The 19.day schedule allowed the department to mandate when someone had to take a day off without pay, known as a "Kelly Day." As a result, one shift had a Kelly Day in each 19.day cycle when they would normally have been scheduled on both the first day and the 19th day. Under the 19.day schedule, every firefighter had either six or seven Kelly Days per year, leaving about three vacancies per shift to be covered. This cycle made it far more likely that, if someone City Council Workshop February 1,2011 Page 5 -, called in sick, the City would be paying significant overtime to cover a 24-hour shift to ensure the required level of coverage. The department was proposing a change to a 28-day (212-hour) work cycle, which better mirrored the City's 14-day pay cycle. Under this proposal, the Kelly Days would be reduced to four or five per year for each firefighter. Unde~ this schedule, unexpected absences could be better covered by part-time or volunteer personnel. The change would also save staff time in payroll by allowing more automation due to the matched cycles. O'Conor said the budgetary impact was very close to neutral. Vrana clarified said that, taking into consideration the potential for errors in calculating payroll, the impact was negligible. O'Conor continued that that four hours of overtime would be built into each 28-day schedule, but that would only accrue if the employee had no other time off. Staff expected to save on both part-time and overtime payments, which would offset the estimated increase in full-time salaries and the anticipated built-in overtime. The net budget increase was anticipated to be $9,037 at the worst. At best, staff felt the department could manage the change under the current budget. r"" Imker asked if the change needed Council approval. Vrana said yes, because it would change the annual salaries of firefighters due to the additional hours worked, even though the hourly rate would not change. Imker said he Saw no reason not to bring this forward as an agenda item. Council agreed. Eiswerth and O'Conor noted that May of2011 was the perfect time to implement the change because the City's 14-day cycle and the Fire Department's 19-day cycle had a rare instance of coinciding, which would make the transition much easier. Gathering Place Business Plan Gaddo said staff was asked to bring forward a revenue and expense report for The Gathering Place. Staff had calculated an operating cost per square footage for the current facility's size of 4,820 square feet The 3,750 square-foot expansion being discussed would bring an estimated $96,603.50 in additional operating costs, totaling $245,166.50 per year in operating costs. Salvatore clarified that this did not include the construction costs or any associated debt service on the possible expansion, and Gaddo sflid that was correct. Haddix likened this increase to a $5.00 tax increase on the average home. Gaddo then reviewed revenues, saying the facility currently brought in $23,258 in class revenue and access fees, and $10,984 in space rental. The proposed expansion was expected to increase that revenue to $41,258 in class and access fees, and $19,534 in space rental. Fleisch asked if Gaddo had numbers on participants at the facility. Gaddo said that, based on the last six months, the center averaged about 590 people per month making 1,600 visits. These numbers were based on the user cards and the instructional count participation. ~ Vrana said she and some members of Council had requested participation numbers for specific events. The current system did not allow staff to generate immediate reports to have available that evening, but they would get the information for Council. McHugh said the participation counts did not include attendees at private rentals. City Council Workshop February 1,2011 Page 6 ...... lmker said he had concerns about Gaddo' s projected costs for the self-supporting programs and additional staff as costs necessary to complete the expansion. He preferred to see a calculation in which the anticipated annual operating expense did not exceed the anticipated revenue by more than $10,000. Gaddo noted that the self-supporting programs were actually neutral. He expressed concern that the City needed to make sure, if the expansion were built, that it could be operated properly. He said staff would do a more detailed analysis if the item were brought back for a bond referendum. Kedron Bubble Timeline Gaddo explained that the replacement of the bubble at Kedron Fieldhouse and Aquatic Center had been programmed for FY 2012, although that budget was not yet approved. However, there was a six-month lead-time to issue an RFP, place the order, and have the structure fabricated for installation. That meant that, to install the bubble in FY 2012, staff would need to issue the RFP on April 1, 2011. If the process was not started now, the existing bubble would need to be erected in October 2011. Staff said there was a roughly 50-50 chance that no problems would occur. However, since 2008, four tears had been mended, and some major repairs had necessitated bringing the bubble down to implement. The air handler that kept the bubble up was 15 years old and had been rebuilt four times at about $5,000 each time and taking an estimated two weeks each time for repairs. Gaddo said, if the bubble were damaged beyond repair, the air handler should still maintain the structure so staff could bring it down in an orderly manner. If the air handler were to fail, the bubble would come down, the facility would have to be evacuated, and the users would be displaced with no ,....., other facility to which they could relocate for the season. McCord said that, in the previous winter season, Kedron brought in about $50,000 in revenue. So far this year, they had brought in $48,000. The increase was due to the new fees as well as increased participation. Not having the pools available would eliminate this revenue. Gaddo said that, if Council opted to delay purchase, staff recommended bringing down the consultant an additional time this year to help look at potential repairs and storage. Sturbaum asked about the cost oftheair handler, and McCord said it was $72,000. Gaddo confirmed that was included in the $250,000 total replacement cost. Learnard asked how many of these structures were over pools. Gaddo said only about 15% of the bubbles were over water, and Vrana said the chlorine for pools impacted the air handler and some of the design elements. Learnard asked if any elements of the current structure could be reused, and Gaddo said the security doors that had been recently installed would be reused. Fleisch asked about the lifespan of the bubble, and Gaddo said the current bubble had been guaranteed for seven years and lasted 15. The new materials were guaranteed for 15 years, so he felt the City would get longer use out of it. The new air handling equipment would also be more efficient. "'""" Fleisch asked if the bubble would be enlarged. McCord and Gaddo said it would have the same footprint as the current bubble, but tl)e air handIer would be larger. Sturbaum said the size limitation was due to the sidewalk on the front and the slope on the back of the facility, leaving no room to expand the pad. City Council Workshop February 1, 2011 Page 7 ,......, Vrana said a new contractor had indicated the air handlers could be temporarily mounted on trailers and taken off-site in the off-seas9n, which might help reduce exposure-related issues to the equipment. Imker asked, if the City decided to replace the bubble, how it would be financed. Salvatore said it was programmed as an equipment lease for seven years, similar to a fire engine, at about $47,000 in debt service per year. Imker said he had a problem with nearly $350,000 in interest on a $250,000 project. Salvatore noted that banks were currently being very particular in lending money to municipalities on equipment leases in the current economy. The cost of the bubble was relatively small for financing, and it was not an asset like a fire engine that the bank could take over and resell if the City failed to pay. Imker said he was hearing that, if Council decided to move forward, the likelihood of getting an equipment lease was slim. Salvatore said one bank had responded that they would not be interested. However,since the lifetime would be at least 15 years, there was also an option to do it under a Bricks & Mortar loan. Imker said, if Council wanted to move forward, he recommended funding it in cash and replenishing it out of the debt service that would have been paid over the next seven years. The City was already planning to lower the reserves over the next few years, and with the current low interest rate being earned on the reserves, it would save so much in interest that it made more sense. He asked if that was a viable option. Salvatore said that was certainly viable. Imker said if Council approved Gaddo's moving forward with the bid, he would ask Council to adopt ".-., a resolution of intent to finance. This would allow them to change their approach to up to 18 months, so if the City paid cash, they could still decide to finance the project later. Salvatore said the City followed thllt process almost every year, paying in cash and adopting the budget and an Intent to Finance Resolution for the items that the City intended to finance. That way, the City could order items when needed and go to a finance company one time for several items that were to be financed. Salvatore recommended, if they were looking at going forward with the bubble, that they approve funding out of the surplus carry over and simultaneously adopt an Intent to Finance Resolution. That way, if other items came up to be financed, the bubble could be included. Sturbaum asked if a bank could refuse financing if the City had already paid for the item. Salvatore said banks could always refuse, but a larger dollar amount with more tangible assets involved might make the loan more attractive to a lending institution. Imker said he would like to consider this at a coming Council meeting, with the intent of debating the merits of doing the project. Haddix said the City adopted a policy of not doing things like this that could be construed as circumventing the budget process. Imker said that was an excellent point. Salvatore noted that Council was able to make budget amendments during a fiscal year through a majority vote. There was a policy in place that anything in reserves over 20% went into a restricted category; however, the net result on that restricted category in five years would be the same. ~ ~.. Council asked for more informatiol1 on the options, including other items that might be packaged with the bubble for financing, and the impact on the City's cash reserves at a future meeting. City Council Workshop February 1,2011 Page 8 ,..., Vrana recapped Council direction for the meeting: · The Building Permit fee restructuring would be placed on the February 17 agenda, and staff would have additional cost comparison scenarios and more information on what jurisdictions use the valuation method for their building fees. . Staff would be bringing a funding request for the dive team at a future meeting. . The Fire Department 28-day work cycle would be placed on the February 17 agenda . The Gathering Place expansion would be discussed at City Council Retreat and the data from the Citizen survey would also be available at that time. · A budget amendment for Kedron Bubble Acquisition would be placed on the February 17 agenda, and staff would have additional information on financing the purchase at that time. There being no further discussion, Haddix adjourned the mee ing at 8:20 p.m. dy~ Don Haddix, Mayor t/""""""'. -