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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-06-23 Government Operations Committee Minutes Government Operations Committee June 23, 2009 Minutes Councilor Attendance: Wheeler, D’Errico, Blanchette, Nealley Staff Attendance: Barrett, Farrar, Arno, Yardley, Heitmann, Sue Mitchell, Diane Lovejoy Others: BDN Reporter Eric Russell 1. Authorizing the Application for and Acceptance of $5,419 from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates in the Penquis Public Health District Yardley explained that this is funding that comes from Maine CDC in support of the City’s health promotions and specifically to increase awareness by encouraging the population to get appropriate screening for colorectal disease. Nealley asked if one of the reasons there is an increased focus is due to colorectal cancer having higher instances in Maine. Yardley responded by saying that it is a combination of high rates and the fact that many people do not get screened in a timely fashion. When the disease is identified it is more impactful, expensive and the prognosis is more severe. Yardley believes that it is population a based effort and not prompted by any specific spike in numbers. The money is allocated across the state and this is the City’s share. The Maine CDC is funneling a lot of their health promotions around chronic disease through the Healthy Maine Partnerships and Bangor is one of those partnerships. A motion was moved and seconded to recommend approval of this Order. 2. Authorizing Acceptance of up to $3,800 for the US Department of Justice, Project Safe Neighborhoods, for a Ballistic Bullet Catcher for the Police Department Arno stated that he sits on the committee that operates under the authority of the U.S. Attorney, known as the Project Safe Neighborhoods. As part of this, there is grant funding available to purchase one Bullet Recovery System. The goal is to place 3 or 4 of these across the state. This system allows a firearm that is recovered from a crime, or seized as part of a search warrant, to be tested in this system to recover a bullet and the casings. Each bullet and casings, similar to fingerprints, have their own identifiable characteristics. Once they are recovered, the bullets are sent off to a lab and identified. If they have been used in conjunction with other crimes, it will be flagged. Responding to Blanchette, Arno said that up until now the only resource available is the state crime lab. With the backlog and distance, the thought was to strategically locate 3 or 4 around the state so that departments could utilize them but would not have to travel a great distance and deal with the backlog at the crime lab. Arno stated that they planned to keep this system in one of the Police Department’s evidence bays. It is only 53 inches wide and 20 inches tall and 12 inches deep. Responding to Nealley, Arno stated that this is fully reimbursed by the U.S. Department of Justice and would be made available to other police agencies in the area. There would not be any fees associated with the use of this, but in return, there are not any recurring costs associated to the City. A motion was made and seconded that the Committee recommend authorization to the full Council for the acceptance of up to $3,000 in funds from the Department of Justice for a Ballistic Bullet Catcher. 3. Formalizing Liquor License Processing Policy Heitmann began by stating that staff met with the Committee in February or March to discuss changing the way Liquor Licenses are handled before the Council. For new applications the City has a public hearing before the Council. For renewals, the City does not have a public hearing. On occasion citizens have complaints and want to speak about a particular matter before the license is renewed. In these instances the City schedules hearings. Staff has come up with a written policy that certain licenses up for renewal will come before the Council on the agenda. This would not be a public hearing in terms of it being advertised, but a hearing before the public similar to Council Orders, Ordinances and Resolves which invites public comment. The licenses are divided into different classifications licenses and what the City would like to look at are those establishments that are considered bars. It does not require or put any burden on the applicant and there is no cost. This allows opportunities for citizens, Police Department, staff, etc. to address the Council before the liquor license is renewed. Sue Mitchell added that one thing the staff would be asking of the applicant is for them to attend the meeting when their license is being renewed in case there is an issue brought before the Council. In the past, most applicants did not attend. Heitmann responded to Blanchette stating that the focus is to line up the application’s liquor licenses to coincide with any special amusement licenses, but states that this will take time. Responding to Blanchette, Heitmann said that there have been times when an establishment has applied for a liquor license and then a few months later came back for a Special Amusement Licenses. This process will help line up these licenses for a one year time period. Responding to Wheeler, Barrett stated the 95% of renewals raise no issues. The 5% of the ones that due are usually a phone call from a neighbor or someone that has an issue with the facility. Right now that puts staff in a difficult position because the City has to make a decision to pull that out and deal with it differently. The staff feels that putting it on the agenda will allow the neighbor to come in and complain. The establishment then asks why was this done to them and not to others. This process formalizes the system where if there is a complaint or problem, there is a mechanism for the Council to deal with it and everyone is being treating the same way. The majority of these that appear on the consent agenda will just go through. If there is an issue this will provide an opportunity to ask the Council to remove it from the consent agenda and have it considered by the public and allow the public to comment. Barrett stated that he has not seen instances where Council Chairs have, on purpose, not recognized someone in the public to speak. Wheeler is concerned about the process of recognition of someone who wants to speak. Under the present procedure, a person cannot just speak without recognition. Barrett responded saying that under present procedure that person does not even know it is happening because the renewals are not made public and are done just by signing. If this is approved and staff is aware of a problem, they would inform people that there is an issue that someone wanted to speak. The only other option is to put all of the renewals under Regular Business and go through public comment item which would add between 100 to 200 renewals. A motion was moved and seconded to recommend approval of this policy. 4. Consideration of City Position on November Referendum Question – An Act to Provide Tax Relief; also known as TABOR II Barrett gave an overview of TABOR II by pointing out that for a number of years the City has been operating under a state law called LD1, which places certain limits on our tax levy. The City is allowed to increase our tax levy annually based on a certain formula. That formula takes into account the average 10 year real growth and income in the state and the new value added to the City’s tax rolls. This would amend that law in a couple of ways. First it would change the formula’s basis from what it currently is to income growth and forecasted inflation. Barrett explained that the City would no longer get credit for new value, which often requires additional services and it would likely be a little more variable than the current formula. The second thing is to exceed the cap right now requires the Council to vote separately. This was done last year in the budget process because of the extreme increases seen in energy prices. This can be done currently by a majority vote of the Council on a separate item. Under TABOR II any time the City wants to exceed the limit, a referendum election would be required. The Council would have to pass a budget exceeding the limit and then go to a referendum. This is similar to the validation election for the School Budget happening currently. This would also require a change in the City’s accounting system to conform to the State Planning Office’s model charter for chart of accounts. When cities like Bangor, Portland, and Lewiston are required to use the same chart of accounts as Coplin Plantation, for example, that might propose a problem. The larger implications are for the State. It would change the state’s formula from growth and personal income plus the 10 year average population growth to the most recent inflation rate plus the 3 year average population growth rate. Barrett believes this is a more variable formula and a little less stability. It would extend the limit beyond the State’s General Fund to the Highway Fund and all Special Revenue Funds. This would basically cover all of the State’s budget rather than just the General Fund. It would require a statewide referendum for any increase in state spending over the limit in those areas and require a statewide referendum for any new taxes including any adjustments in gas tax and any increase in tax rates or repeal of any tax exemptions. A required mailing would need to go out to all registered voters in the state providing them with information on the mentioned items. The estimated cost for each referendum election is about $800,000. MMA did an analysis on this and one of the points they make is that if this goes into effect in November, the state and municipal limits will be based on budgets that were adopted in an economic downturn. An example of this is the Highway fund; the state just canceled 75% of its maintenance paving over the next 2 years due to inadequate funding. Barrett shared his concerns saying that by doing this the City will eventually look like California, where the budget process becomes very difficult and it will be hard to get things together and will suffer for decades. California went from being first in the th nation in education to 46, they have an inability to invest in their infrastructure, and companies are leaving the state for various reasons to include the fact that the tax structure has been dictated by referendum. Blanchette stated that TABOR II is no better TABOR I. She stated that she has dealt with the State for many years and says that they promise to reimburse the postage and promised to take over the funding of all correctional facilities in the state, but the budget came out with nothing for the correctional facilities. She feels the need to get the word out that TABOR II will not work. Barrett stated that he feels the first step is for Council to take positions on these issues. MMA has been speaking to other groups that have an interest in both of these issues and Barrett suspects that there will be some form of Political Action Committee formed around them to try to get the message out. Barrett believes that TABOR II is confusing and not clear. People need to be educated about what it says and what it means. Nealley felt that it is for the people to vote. He feels that they need to be educated and understand the effect TABOR II would have on the budget. He suggested not taking a strong or angled political position on the issue. He is more in line with TABOR II and would like to see less involvement and less taxing of the state of governmental entities. Barrett responded by saying that he feels there is a representative system where the voters elect these people to make these kinds of choices. He believes that referendums, initiatives and people’s vetos should rarely be used. Responding to Wheeler, Barrett suggested that because this and the next item will not be on the ballot until November, staff should prepare a draft in order for the Committee to review it before it is taken to Council. No action is needed on this item and without any objections to a draft Resolve being prepared, the Committee moved to the next item. 5. Consideration of City Position on November Referendum Question – Revisions to Motor Vehicle Excise Tax Rates Barrett began by stating that this item hits closer to home. He pointed out that voters will be asked to dramatically reduce the Auto Excise Tax during the first 5 years of a vehicle’s life. In th the first year it is as much as 70% reduction and then it gradually goes down to the 5 year to a 40% reduction. Once the vehicle is older than five years, there is no change. 68% of the vehicles registered in the State of Maine are over 5 years old and so 68% of those vehicle owners would not see any change in their Excise Tax. The Excise Tax is one of the City’s major non-property tax revenue sources. It accounts for about $4.5 to $4.6 million dollars a year. If this proposition is approved by the voters, the City will lose roughly 40% of that revenue. This equals an annual loss of about $1.8 to $1.9 million dollars. In addition, Barrett stated that if it is approved in November it could technically go into effect in late December or early January. This would mean that it would go into effect mid-year and would not be able to be dealt with as an overall budget while looking at property taxes and other alternatives. The City would have to deal with this mid-year by looking at reductions. The City has just gone through a process were the City reduced $1.3 million dollars out of the original proposal. Barrett states that those reductions would largely have to be by eliminating programs and positions. This would require a minimum of about 30 positions, which equals about 6 to 7% of the City work force including Police, Fire and Public Works. To replace the loss by the property tax would require an increase of 75¢ on the property tax. Barrett stated that basically the amount the City receives in the Auto Excise Tax coupled with state aid for highways, is very close to the amount the City spends on maintaining the highway system. MMA has done some research and this is true statewide. The amount people pay in Auto Excise Tax plus the amount of Local Road Assistance that the state provides is about 99% of the local streets and highway budgets. Municipal finance in Maine is already heavily restricted compared to the rest of the country. The City gets about half its operating revenue from the Property Tax. In most of the Country, except for New England, property taxes account for about 1/3 or less. The City depends on property taxes, state revenue, and auto excise tax. Barrett recommends strongly that the City oppose this. Barrett also stated that the Auto Excise Tax is basically the same as when it was set up in the 1930’s. It was put in place to replace the property tax that was put on automobiles that was in effect at that point. A motion was made and seconded to prepare a draft Resolve and bring it back to this committee for review. The meeting was adjourned @ 6:30 p.m.