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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_GGAF_05.29.2013 The General Government and Finance (GGAF) Advisory Subcommittee established by the Georgetown City Council met at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, in the Friends of the Library Room, located at 402 West 8th Street, Georgetown, Texas. MINUTES The meeting was called to order at 2:00 p.m. Steve Fought asked to remove “(regarding operationally and personally) from the 2nd paragraph below and these minutes were approved at the June 26, 2013 GGAF Meeting with the recommended change. Due to the appointment/replacement of new GGAF members at the City Council meeting last night (May 28, 2013), Steve Fought acted as the “chair” and called the meeting to order. After discussion (regarding operationally and personally) it was decided to officially vote on the new chair and confirm GGAF meeting day/time as the Wednesday following the second Council meeting at the next meeting. 1. Review minutes from the April 24, 2013 GGAF meeting – Danella Elliott, Executive Assistant Unanimously approved. 2. Overview of the Proposed 2013/2014 budget and five year plan for CIP for General Capital Projects (GCP), including Facilities, Parks and Downtown Projects – Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager and Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer Laurie Brewer gave a presentation on current and future projects, and noted that GCP planning is a collaborative effort among several departments. Staff has been meeting since February to discuss projects and funding sources, and the five-year plan, and any recommended changes, will be reviewed at the June 25, 2013 regular Council workshop and included in the 5 year business plan update. • The Facility CIP addresses general and public safety facilities. The Public Safety Operations and Training Center (police & fire) and West Side Service Center (GUS) are already underway. Other downtown city facilities are included in the Downtown CIP as part of the overall planning that area. • The Parks CIP is being presented for informational purposes only. This proposed CIP will be discussed at the Parks Advisory Board on June 13, 2013. Recommendations by the Parks Advisory Board will be included in the June 25, 2013 Council workshop. • The Downtown CIP will address items identified in the Downtown Master Plan including streetlights, sidewalks, and pocket parks; as well as City facilities in the downtown area. This plan will also be reviewed with appropriate boards during June. Members Present: Steve Fought, Tommy Gonzalez, Troy Hellmann, Joe Pondrom Members Absent: Karen Ivie Staff Present: Micki Rundell, Susan Morgan, Paul Pausewang, Mike Peters, Chris Bryce, Laurie Brewer, Jack Daly, Matt Synatschk The project identified in this budget will be funded through various resources, such as bond proceeds, parkland dedication fees and Downtown TIRZ. Steve asked how much flexibility Council had in changing funding for certain projects. Micki explained that bonds were approved, but Council can vote to not issue those bonds, but there would then be a need to reissue bonds for other projects. • He suggested that for Council’s presentation in reviewing the 2008 bonds, they be listed as “approved but not issued” if that is the case, and include more detailed information for more clarity. • Regarding emergency sirens: He also asked for a map or chart of where our emergency sirens are located throughout the city, as safety is a very important issue to him. • Tommy asked about doing a City building inventory to survey our needs. We could repurpose parking, etc. and possibly return money back onto the tax roll. Micki explained that Council votes on one year at a time, but looks at the entire five-year plan. This will be on the June 25th agenda. The committee suggested adding more detailed information into the presentation to Council rather than waiting for it to come up. The also suggested to let Council “up front’ that they are only approving the first year of the five year plan. The committee noted that it was a nice overview. 3. Consideration and possible action to contract with Winter and Company to update the Downtown Master Plan for the City of Georgetown for the amount of $75,000 – Matt Synatschk, Historic Planner and Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager Staff is requesting approval to contract with Winter and Company to review and update the City’s Downtown Master Plan. The City has not updated the master plan since 2003. Due to the changing economy and an ever changing, more vibrant historic downtown, the City feels it is appropriate to update the current plan to match changing demands. The consultant is prepared to start as early as June 1 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of December. The Downtown Master Plan update was bid out competitively and five responses were received. Winter and Company was the lowest bid received that satisfied all the requirements of the proposal, which included illustrating a working knowledge of the City of Georgetown. Unanimously approved. 4. Renewal of the ESRI Small Government Enterprise License Agreement (SGELA) for GIS mapping software - Chris Bryce, IT Applications Manager Staff recommends that the City renew its Small Government Enterprise License Agreement (SGELA) with ESRI. ESRI is the City’s vendor for Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping software. The ESRI small government site license is a three year contract in which the City pays a flat yearly fee and, in return, is able to install an unlimited number of GIS software licenses on our servers and workstations without additional maintenance and licensing costs. The site license includes all major software products offered by ESRI. The yearly fee is based on a community’s Decennial Census population and has remained constant over the last four years. Entering into the site license during this fiscal year offers several advantages: • ESRI pricing strategies make the site license more cost effective for organizations like the City of Georgetown who use GIS extensively • Planned acquisition of new software systems such as an Enterprise Asset Management and a Customer Information System will rely on GIS software to provide a portion of their required data, increasing the number of GIS software licenses needed over the next three years • The SGELA allows budgeting for a set amount of software maintenance costs as opposed to seeing large step increases occurring in a single year • Allows mapping staff to expand its GIS software toolset and fully capitalize on the City’s GIS investment • Includes training opportunities not currently available to mapping personnel Unanimously approved. 5. Consideration and possible approval of purchase of contract labor services to Modis, Inc. in the amount of $42,000 – Mike Peters, IT Director Mike explained that the Information Technology department has been using Modis, Inc. as an agency for temporary staff providing specialized IT assistance. Several purchase orders (POs) have been issued to Modis during this fiscal year, but none of them have met the size requirements for Council approval. However, the PO amounts have now cumulatively exceeded the Council approval threshold, so we are requesting Council approval on the upcoming PO which should be sufficient to fund the balance of this fiscal year. Unanimously approved. 6. Discussion and possible action to recommend proposed changes to the City’s Fiscal and Budgetary Policy for 2013-14 – Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer Micki went over the proposed changes to the Fiscal and Budgetary Policy for the upcoming budget and to gather feedback on various proposed changes. Proposed amendments include: • Page 4 - Wording for Operating Budget section updated to reflect the City of Excellence vision and 5 focus areas. • Page 9 – Adds the establishment of a Power Contract Credit Reserve to provide financial assurances to the City’s power supply contract providers. • Page 18 – Amends the years an external auditor may be retained to 5 years, consistent with GGAF recommendations in January 2013 and GFOA best practices. • Page 19 -Amends the Cash Management and Investments section to reflect changes to the Investment Policy adopted in January 2013 by adding Texas Municipal Obligations rated A or better to the authorized investments. • Page 28 – Amends the Staffing policy to reflect changes approved by Council for the Compensation plan. In addition, references to fiscal year 2013/14 have been updated and designated amounts have been left blank. These amounts will be included once they have been determined and will be included in the final document that is included in the 2013/14 adopted budget. Once the Policy amendments are reviewed and recommended by GGAF, a Power Point presentation will be made summarizing the Policy and proposed changes for review by the City Council at the June 11 workshop. First reading of the ordinance adopting the Policy will be included on the June 11 Council agenda. Unanimously approved. 7. Adjourned at 3:15 p.m.