OFFICIAL MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL MEETING HELD BY THE MANASSAS PARK GOVERNING BODY ON TUESDAY, May 11, 2004 AT 7:00 PM AT CITY HALL, ONE PARK CENTER COURT MANASSAS PARK, VIRGINIA
Change Order of Business on Agenda:
Agenda Item #2 (a – e) and 3a will be addressed at this time. At 7:30 pm SPN Representatives will arrive and the Governing Body will address 1b Fire Station.
MOTION: Councilmember Slater
SECOND: Councilmember Wren
VOTE: Unanimously passed
1a. Budget Discussion:
The City Manager stated they have incorporated all the changes that Governing Body made last week. He thanked Councilmember Brendel for his review of the budget over the weekend. He found several changes that needed to be made to the budget.
There is $51,000 in general fund balance and $5,600 in additional savings available from Governing Body because they had been enrolled in VRS, which they cannot do.
They netted $46,000 from fund balance. The FY04 numbers have been reduced significantly. The projected surplus (deficit) FY04 is ($612,904). Projected fund balance on June 30, 2004 is $4.777,474, which is about $487,813 above the 15% thresh hold that Governing Body adopted.
11010 Governing Body: Mayor salary $635 a month; Governing Body $585 a month.
12310 Commissioner of the Revenue: $5,000 overtime: Consensus of majority of Governing Body members to reduce that to $2,500. The employee that is on maternity leave should be back to work before beginning of new fiscal year.
12210 Legal Services: City Attorney General Matters
Councilmember Brendel stated based on city’s latest attorney billing ($17,000 a month), he would like to reduce the amount from $250,000 to $230,000. Thirty thousand of the $250,000 is for prosecuting attorney. The City Attorney amount is $220,000.
Councilmember Slater would like to take $20,000 from City Attorney and $20,000 from City Engineer. The Governing Body should advise Staff to figure out a way to make do.
City Engineer does not have to come to all public works committees. Stop the e-mails to City Attorney. Is the City Attorney needed at every meeting?
Consensus: Reduce amount City Attorney budget by $21,000 to $120,000.
The City Manager talked with SPN about providing some inspections services. They can probably do inspection at a rate cheaper than the engineer. It would be hourly rate but he cannot determine the amount of hours at this time. There is heavy-duty design engineering that PE must do; you have project management, and inspections. Inspections would be the least expensive and that you could contract out with SPN.
You still have to have a person to manage projects such as sidewalks, utility lines, storm sewer, resurfacing and resealing streets, etc.
Councilmember Brendel stated the city does not have a lot of grant revenue in this budget that would supplant local funds. Everything the city has gone after are grants associated with projects that have some local match. Councilmember Brendel recommends putting $21,500 in grants and let the grant coordinator go out and find grants that supplant local money. The City Manager stated that most grants would not let you supplant. He signed the resource officer grant today and had to certify that the city was not supplanting but was supplementing. Generally grants do not want you to do this.
MOTION: Councilmember Slater moved to send this budget to advertisement for Public Hearing.
SECOND: Councilmember Brendel
Councilmember Wren stated the city has a general fund reserve of $4,726,159. City has emergency reserves in amount of $1,251,000 for a total of 21.1% of the total general fund budget. Councilmember Slater stated this was not relevant to the motion on the floor. The Mayor stated we are in discussion and Councilmember Wren has the floor. Councilmember Brendel stated he has not heard enough to make a personal opinion of whether or not what Councilmember Wren is talking about is germane to the motion of sending the advertised budget out. Councilmember Wren stated he wants to modify the budget you are sending out.
Councilmember Wren stated this is the highest reserve of any jurisdiction in northern Virginia and we are not rich. We do not need that kind of rainy day fund. That does not equate to an AAA bond rating by itself. The emergency reserves is one time monies but it is in the general fund and we should draw down from that sufficient enough to go back to 6% salary increase for employees and reduce tax rate by five cent. That would still leave plenty of emergency reserves. Five cents on tax rate would be $575,000. The difference between 4% - 6% is $200,000. This would be $500,000 left in the pet project reserves.
Councilmember Slater asked where would you get the funds if you had six very disturbed children in social services (CSA) that needed residential treatment for a whole year where would the money come from because it could be as much as $130,000 per child and it is a mandate service.
Councilmember Slater stated that every time the question of the emergency reserves fund (ERS) has come up Councilmember Wren was the first one to say put money into it. Why the sudden change? Councilmember Wren stated he does not know if he was always the first one but he has gone along with what he perceived to be the majority because if you every want to bring up something on the table again you must be on the prevailing side.
Councilmember Bunner stated for the first time and we did not do it last year or the year before we have not had a balanced budget. This is the first time we have taken steps to create a balanced budget and not levering off any future tax decreases or rebates. We must make sure this budget goes through first to see where we are at and if it is going through the way we expect it to do go ahead and do the rebate midyear. Councilmember Wren asked if 21.1% of emergency reserves justified. Councilmember Slater called the question. Councilmember Wren stated he wanted to say something about the high tax rate. We have always had an incredible amount of development we have always had an atmosphere in the city to promote the developments we are trying to
do. This tax thing could nip this thing in the bud. We have a robust improvement in the economy going on in the country. This tax increase in this locality can turn this around.
Councilmember Slater stated we have gone through the budget week after week and now we are done to five minutes to ten and this comes up at 9:30 as a motion to forward the balance budget for the first time in many years. Councilmember Wren asked to modify the motion but was not accepted as friendly motion by Councilmember Slater.
MOTION TO AMEND MAIN MOTION: Councilmember Wren moved to amend motion to increase salaries to 6% and lower tax rate by five cents coming out of ERS.
SECOND: Councilmember Correll
Councilmember Wren stated this does not affect the schools because they are still at 57%.
Councilmember Bunner asked how would the city pay for these increases next year. We just had to cut $600,000 from proposed FY05 budget. Councilmember Wren stated you would create an atmosphere that this will generate more funds next year. Councilmember Brendel stated what would you do next year when the reserve is gone. You will get funds from Park Center to put back in fund.
Councilmember Slater stated ERS is a special fund that Governing Body had the foresight to put in place for a good reason. You needed to have an extra pocket of money. You have a very large population under the age of eighteen proportionate to general population. There will be a substantial increase in arrest and juvenile detention.
Councilmember Brendel was here when the ERS was enacted. The City of Manassas had a situation where they had IBM go out and they found themselves with a $1million dollar deficit. City is in an area prong to hurricanes so what would we do if a hurricane leveled a third of the city. You cannot assess real estate taxes on vacant land and make up a deficit. When this was set up the goal was to have one million dollars in this fund. The April 2004 general fund had $2.7 million and year ago that fund had $8.6 million. We have dropped $6 million dollars in one fiscal year. We need to provide our staff with the means to have funds available for normal city operations among which is payroll. Councilmember Wren
asked why we couldn’t pull the $480,000 off general fund reserves and the rest out of the ERS.
Mayor Treuting stated he supports the tax decrease. He does not support the other because it fixes it for this year but does not fix the out years. Long term that would be as irresponsible as what we are doing now with the tax rate at what it is.
It would be harder to fix next year by taking it out of the emergency reserve because there is not anything else to make up that.
VOTE ROLL CALL ON AMENDMENT: Yes: Wren, Correll No: Brendel, Bunner, Privett, Slater, Treuting
VOTE ON MAIN MOTION: Yes: Slater, Brendel, Bunner, Correll, Privett No: Wren, Treuting
The Public Hearing will be scheduled for Tuesday May 25, 2004.
MOTION: Councilmember Brendel moved that the 4% would be a COLA.
SECOND: Councilmember Bunner
VOTE ROLL CALL: Yes: Brendel, Bunner, Privett, Slater, Treuting
No: Correll and Wren
Councilmember Bunner thanked everyone for all of their work in balancing this budget.
1b. Fire Station: Jeffrey Crook, SPN, Inc:
Councilmember Brendel asked about architects. The City Manager stated he would invite them if it is decision of Governing Body but you have to pay them. They do construction administration and review of plans. They interpret shop drawings and plan. They will be here monthly during construction. We bid a project they designed and submitted a budget for. It came in over budget. Will they have to help revise the designs to get it within the budget that they gave to the City? Will they have to fix it if we choose alternatives? City Manager stated we had a discussion before it got to completed plans as to whether we wanted to have a detailed cost and decided we were close enough to bidding that ultimately bidding is ultimate
cost estimate. They did what the city asked. We are in the construction administration stage of it and we have paid them for revisions to their plans as needed.
Councilmember Brendel stated we hired an architect to design a fire station. We had a budget in mind and what the constraints were. We have gotten bids back. They are higher than what we had. Don’t they have to provide services to get it back down to budget? Have we negated that by upping our budget every time?
The City Manager stated we did not negate and he is not sure that we are not obligated to design to a budget of $1.8 million dollars before the work design ever began. They were asked to design a 12,000 SF building. They met with staff and various groups and it was revised and added to. The plans were approved by the city and accepted long ago for design of fire station. They were not obligated to design to a specific budget and no budget in their document as City Manager recalls in a contract.
Councilmember Brendel stated what he is hearing is they could have given the city a $6 million dollar design if it would have bid out at that. They had no obligation to come back and redesign it to get it to a more acceptable level for the City. The City Manager stated for a 12,000 SF building generally. One issue was sprinkler systems, which were not required throughout the building, but city included that which was an additional cost. There are several issues such as redesigning the living quarters.
The City Manager stated there was a specific item in their contract documents that called for detailed construction cost estimate for $8,000 and the Governing Body decided against approving it in order to save money.
The City Manager agreed that ultimately the construction cost estimate is just that with reasonable efforts and proceeding to bid we could get a true cost which can vary by hundreds of thousands of dollars. We asked them to design a 12,000 SF fire station and they did that and did a good job.
The City Manager stated that part of design is based on the contract construction cost. Councilmember Brendel stated there is no incentive to design a $2 million dollar building and every incentive to design $3 million dollar building because they get paid a percentage. The City Manager stated they knew there was no $3 million. The feasibility study for the fire station was completed by an engineer without benefit of cost estimator or architectural firms. There were significant changes made after the city hired the architectural firm. The site became just for a firehouse and not police and fire.
City Manager will get copy of architecture contract and what has been paid to date.
Mr. Crook stated he wanted to get started on any of the site work related and also to move the metals ahead as soon as possible because of the price of steel and well as the potential lead time. There is a process of shop drawing review and actual production.
He has not had specific set downs with contractors to review the scope but does have some scheduled over next couple of days.
There are 25 units of work.
Recommendation:
2.0 Earthwork: Eric Finley, Finley Asphalt: Bid price $144,115 Scope reviewed: reduce haul off cost (schools need the dirt), survey as general contractor, delete p&p bond (not recommended at this time because he has not worked with Finley before but has good references): Award at revised bid price ($89,400.00)
2.3 Utilities: Finley Asphalt: $234,185 Scope reviewed deduct storm filter, deduct permits, deduct 3rd party testing and delete p&p bond (not allowed per VA procurement): Award at revised bid price ($168,752.00). The storm filter is required but he is recommending that it be deducted out of this contract understanding that ultimately the city wants to put something in its place. They believe they can find it at a lower cost. This is a sole source vendor. It is a big concrete box in the ground with 26 separate filters that are designed to pull phosphorous from the storm water flow off the site. This is to meet the requirements of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
2.4 Site Concrete: Finley Asphalt: Finley Asphalt $88,780 Scope reviewed, delete furnish bollards, negotiated price change, delete p&p bond (not recommended) Award at revised bid price ($85,000)
2.41 Asphalt Paving: Finley Asphalt: $74,600: Scope reviewed; delete p&p bond (not recommended). This number is close to budgeted number. Award at revised bid price.
There is a full scope of work for the four elements: Combined there is a total of $147,000 over budget number for the four units.
All permits and fees are waived for city projects.
MOTION: Councilmember Wren moved to award 2.0 ($89,400), 2.3 ($168,752), 2.4 ($85,000), and 2.41 $74,600) contracts to Finley Asphalt with the recommended changes and allowing City Manager and SPN to give the final thumbs up or thumbs down on the P&P bonds.
SECOND: Councilmember Privett
The City Attorney has reviewed the standard forms that have been prepared by SPN. The City Manager stated that if these contractors do not have performance bonds there is a danger that if they do not pay their subcontractors or vendor it becomes sticky on our site.
Councilmember Brendel stated he does not have an issue if SPN has done the research on the contractors and come back with a recommendation on whether to waive it or not. Councilmember Correll agrees as long as SPN checks out their references and is comfortable with the contractors. Councilmember Slater stated she is okay with the waiver. Councilmember Bunner, Councilmember Privett, Councilmember Wren agreed.
VOTE ROLL CALL: Yes: Wren, Privett, Brendel, Bunner, Correll, Slater
5.0 Metals: Champion Iron Works: Bids $50,000, has Full Scope of Work, metal at dumpsters (verify if this is double coverage with fencing contractor) Recommendation: award at bid price +/- potential $1500 - $2000 based on information from VE.
MOTION: Councilmember Slater moved to award 5.0 to Champion Iron Works in the amount of $50.000.
SECOND: Councilmember Privett
VOTE ROLL CALL: Slater, Privett, Brendel, Bunner, Correll, Wren
2.5 Landscaping: Commercial Scapes: $12,015: No scope review. It is within budget. SPN needs to confirm scope of work.
2.7 Fencing: Hercules Fencing $12,040. Have not reviewed the scope. Add alternates: fencing at water tower is standard galvanized aluminum finished fence as well fencing along the retaining wall has same finish. Councilmember Wren asked could this be taken out of this contract and paid for by water & sewer fund. City Manager stated anything associated with water tower or retaining wall could be taken out of water & sewer fund. Staff has recommended that PVC coating be added back in because it gives better finish. PVC coated fence at retaining wall. Board on board fence around the dumpster and a board on board screen for the transformer would not come out of water & sewer funding.
SPN needs to confirm scope of work.
2.8 Segmental Retaining Wall: $16,460: Segmental Wall Specialists: Scope not reviewed. Over budget. SPN recommends meeting with them confirm their scope and attempt to negotiate the work and if necessary rebid. Portugal has an annual concrete work for the city. Staff will contact them to see if they will give a price for this project.
3.3 Building Concrete Waddell Construction $135,000 over budget: Scope review has been made and they have Full Scope of Work He negotiated a price but he recommends they go out to bid on this project. He thinks city can get it nearer to $100,000, which might allow the city to waive the p&p bond.
MOTION: Councilmember Wren moved that SPN go out to bid on 3.3 Building Concrete.
SECOND: Councilmember Privett
VOTE: Yes: Wren, Privett, Brendel, Bunner, Correll, Slater, Treuting
4.8 Masonry: Temple Masonry: $249,250. Not reviewed scope. Come back next week with a recommendation.
5.4 Cold Formed Metal Framing Stafford Systems $209,040 over budget. (Heavy gauge metal studs that make up roof truss system). Scope not reviewed. The truss cost was $99,000. SPN asked Metal Framing to look at alternate systems. Possibility of wood truss and wood decking system that could save 20/25% on cost. SPN will pursue possibility of negotiating with contractor or city can choose to go out to bid. Governing Body is okay with looking at the alternative.
6.0 Carpentry: Master Carpentry: $215,600, over budget: Scope not reviewed
6.4 Architectural Woodwork: Master Carpentry: included in 6.0
Does not want to be considered for Unit 6.4 only.
SPN will negotiate and go out to bid if necessary.
7.4 Roofing: Brothers Construction Company: $164,000: scope not reviewed. Negotiate/award at revised price. Base bid does not include is the eyebrow dormers that would add significant cost to the project (over $50,000). There was a difference of $70,000/$80,000 to substitute shingle versus metal. Staff made a decision to go with metal roof. Eyebrow dormers could be added later if funding allows.
8.3 Overhead doors: Overhead Door Co. $38,438: Scope not reviewed. Negotiate/award at revised price. Recommendation next week.
8.5 Windows System: Del-ray Glass: $33,500: over budget: alternate window system could save $16,932. Believes city budget amount was low. Scope not reviewed. Recommendation next week.
9.2 Drywall and Ceilings: Stafford Systems: $179,990: Scope reviewed, over budget: Negotiate and rebid if necessary.
9.3 Ceramic Tile: David Allen Co. $17,300: within budget: scope not reviewed: Review and award. Recommendation next week.
9.6 Flooring: Stafford Systems: $14,900: within budget: full scope of work: negotiate/award at bid price
9.9 Painting: Hunt & Walsh $16,900: scope not reviewed. Within budget: review/award
10.0 Specialties: Stafford Systems $13,000: scope reviewed but incomplete. Review with second place bidder.
10.4 Signs: Metro Sign & Design $5,425, Scope not reviewed, over budget. Review/negotiate and award revised contract
15.0 Mechanical Precision Mechanical $404,000 Scope reviewed, over budget, VE/Negotiate/Award Alternate fixture package, kitchen hood and mechanical modifications (high end commercial type of system), direct purchase of equipment by the city (requires confirmation and approval by owner). When you get into building components you begin to deal with waste factors. You could pursue mechanical equipment and electrical. If you go with direct purchase you could lose a piece of your warranty.
15.5 Fire Suppression Systems Kennedy Fire protection: $31,800 Scope not reviewed, within budget. Review/award
16.0 Electrical DTS Electrical $242,900 Scope Reviewed Over budget VE/Negotiate/Award. Delete/reduce fire alarm, alternate fixture manufacturer (pursue), direct purchase equipment/fixture (purchase), generator via federal grant. By code this building is not required to have a fire alarm system. You would have a monitored sprinkler system.
Staff would like to have some form of fire alarm system more than minimum code requirement. SPN will set down with Staff and evaluate what exactly they would like to see in this facility in terms of fire alarm system. Based on what they see they should be able save from $5,000/$20,000.
Generator: city wishes to pursue the purchase of the generator at $27,000. That is cost to them directly from their vendor.
Review and come back with a recommendation.
Councilmember Brendel stated when this was bid the bids came back about $590,000 over budget. They will increase project dollars by $300,000, which leaves $290,000 short. The realized actual savings are dollars SPN picked up today from negotiations with Finley. SPN believes they can knock the $290,000 down to about $30,000.
Total cost to add alternates:
Alternate #1: $110,765.00 portico
Alternate #2: $ 91,100.00 bell tower
Alternate #3: $ 13,050.00 dumpster from board on board enclosure to masonry wall
enclosure
The Governing Body will entertain these alternates once they have a complete cost of this project and if there are any additional savings.
Mr. Crook will confirm the P&P bond with Finley and the one element with metal contractor. He will issue a one-page standard form notice to proceed.
There is no address for this project at this time.
Item 2a Monthly Financial Reports
Councilmember Slater asked, under delinquent real estate tax, we show a total amount of $39,027 for current amount. YTD is $210,000. Can this be broken out showing how much was collected by attorney and how much was collected by Treasurer’s office in-house? The Attorney does not collect real estate taxes only personal property tax. All of the collections are in-house. The Director of Fiscal Services stated they could run one report next month and then every three months afterwards.
Personal Property Tax in total: The Director of Fiscal Services stated at amended budget we added $360,000 to raise total from $2,040,000 to $2,240,000. We are now $87,000 short of meeting that goal with our increased activity in Treasurer’s office. He is confidence we will make it but it is a clear demonstration of some of the efforts going on that we were able to set a goal for ourselves and have a good shot of achieving that.
PPTRA: It is up to date. City will keep sending request for reimbursement. They run on a calendar year. The $70,000+ received in May is not part of the report. City still needs to collect $170,000.
These reports are for July 1 – April 30, 2004 not April 4 that was a typo.
Sales Tax: City has collected $100,000 out of $144,000. Average $20,000 a month. Might be a little bit short.
Page Nine Special Meeting May 11, 2004
The Commissioner of the Revenue put in a HELP request from Bright today to try to get the issue of utilities resolved.
The Director of Fiscal Services stated there are areas where the city is good and some areas need to be looked at to see where we are in the budget. The new Treasurer will come aboard June 1, 2004.
Expenditures:
Collection of taxes: The department has had to slow down the collection of delinquent taxes because they are short handed. They have two people to keep the office open. They cannot devote the type of energy they anticipated. It takes more than 2.5 people to run that office. The Treasurer stated they committed to do the level of efforts based on staff in that office with four full time people.
CSA: Social Services 5734: The total amount budgeted for the year was $575,000. The state’s part is $300,000+. We had $137,673 this month alone. You could get two payments once first part of month for prior month and one late at end of month or before the month actually closes. Will there be money left over since the year to date is $288,866? Have we gone back for additional reimbursement that we would need from CSA? The projected budget shows a reduction from $575,000 to $540,000 for this year and next year. There was a savings in both years.
Social Services: No funds used in over time for the year but under part-time wages & salaries it has gone over by $22,000 and the year is not over yet. There no new part-time positions added.
Management Services 1201: Part-time: budget $20,000. That was for a part-time administrative assistance. The intern salary is in finance.
The monthly expenditures for legal services this past month were $17,000. The City Attorney will monthly to see how they can keep the fees down unless there is some major exceptions.
b. Balance Sheet: The Director of Fiscal Services stated the only thing that goes up and down during the year is the cash accounts. Investments: no problems
c. Cash Balances: City transferred couple million dollars to the schools and will have to transfer a couple million more before end of year. The Director of Fiscal Services is comfortable with the low balance right now because the City is getting ready for real estate tax collection. If you put all of the city accounts together, you maintain a safe operating balance because the Treasurer can transfer funds if needed.
Councilmember Wren asked for the balances for FY02 and FY03 budgets for July.
The June 30 audit will show these figures.
d. Potomac Rappahannock Transportation Commission: Gas went up again $.04 over night. This fund is in good shape. The appropriations for the sidewalks were passed last Thursday night according to Councilmember Wren.
City Manager stated there were two resolutions sent but only one approved. City Manager will find out about the second resolution.
e. Accounts Payable: Bills to City of Manassas are identical ($6,411.28). This is a bill that is split in half (fire department and police department)
3. Management Report: a. Personnel Report: As presented. Majority of vacancies are in fire department and the recruiting process for rehiring is on going. The paramedic positions are harder to fill.
Adjournment at 10:00 PM:
MOTION: Councilmember Brendel
SECOND: Councilmember Privett
VOTE: Unanimously passed
Approved June 1, 2004
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