##VIDEO ID:LuZdmj2pH6c## okay it's October 16th 11 o'cl we'll call to order the city of Brainard personnel and finance committee will start with introductions car ter award one ultimate large Kevin stunich goe Danny Danny lock Finance man Connie hman Finance director J city engineer Chris Schubert HR director Chris Evans Public Utilities director Nick brole City administrator and Gabe Johnson chair of the committee we've got 10 items on the agenda today the first of which is to accept the resignation of CSO Drew Belton Chris CSO Drew Belton has submitted his resignation effect of October 18th staff is recommending that we accept his resignation and authorize staff to begin the hiring process to backfill the position I so move second any discussion all in favor say I hi all opposed that motion carries I was in the middle of a little breath yeah but I agree second item is update regarding arbitration with the IBEW Public Utilities Union Chris so what we have for an update at this point is we have selected an arbitrator his name is Patrick Kelly there is a bio on the BMS website um it does look like he has experience and um hopefully that goes well we have not selected a date yet they are still determining availability for everyone I'm hoping we will have that date before the packet goes out and if so the packet will be updated so it was just informational at this time thank you lot of experience he graduated Katon law in 1975 a quick question yeah you think we'll get it before the end of the year a date we are hoping to do arbitrations they ask for November and December availability so if it is December after the hearing it's usually 30 days before they usually do a post hearing brief and then 30 days before a decision is made so okay it could be very close to any just curious or later okay any other questions or comments no move to item number three approval of an MOA establishing wages for the public utilities director Public Utilities Department positions Chris yes in 2023 we actually created three new positions for the public utilities department we attemp Ed to negotiate the wages for those positions with the ibw local 31 Union um and during negotiations we were not able to settle on wages during negotiations but subse subsequently we have so in your packet is a signed Mo MOA from the union and um setting the wages for uh 2024 in January 1 of 25 depending on when we get the arbitration decision there is a provision in the Moa that the arbitration decision will supersede what is noted in the um information so staff is recommending to a motion to approve the mo MOA between the city of Brainard and IB ibw local number 31 establish establishing the wages for the business office support specialist facilities custodian and Journeyman Electrician positions I saw move second we have a motion and a second any discussion All In favor say I I oppos same sign that motion carries item number four ratify the hiring of Josh graell as line worker uh we received two more applications for our journeyman line worker position and we have offered the position to Josh crell he started with us on October 10th at step four of the line worker wage grid we are recommending to ratify Josh's hiring um and his step placement ni so move second any discussion just one more comment so so with that we are um we also advertise for an apprentice line worker that person is going through the pre-employment hiring process so we should be at full staff for our line workers hopefully by the next meeting good thank you all in favor say I I oppose same sign that motion carries next up is ratify the hiring of Michael Habor as Public Works director Chris we had three individuals that were interviewed for our Public Works director position Mr Habor hor was offered and has accepted the position um we recommend as the interview panel that we ratify the hiring of Mr haboc horse effective November 1st and that he be placed at step three of the wage grid I so move second we have a motion and a second any discussion all in favor say I I oppose same sign that motion carries item number seven approve new Administrative Assistant job description number six oh I SK over six item number six ratify hiring of Katherine Caswell as administrative specialist public works department so as you can see the HR department has been a little busy um we we received 30 applications for the administrative specialist public works department position and interviewed five individuals we offered the position to Katherine Coswell who will start with us on October 28th at step four of the administrative specialist Public Works wage grid so we recommending to ratify your hiring I second we have a motion and a second any discussion all in favor say I I oose same sign that motion carries next up is to approve the new Administrative Assistant job description Chris uh City administer BRS has requested that we create a new administrative assistant position that would report directly to him we are not requesting a new FTE just that the duties of the administrative specialist be modified appropriately in your packet is a revised job description and we have also included what the wage would be with the um increased um years of service as well as the organizational hierarchy change uh at this point um staff is recommending to approve the new job description and to authorize staff to negotiate the wage for the new position with the ibw local number 31 administrative support Union I'm not sure if Mr BRS would like to expand on this at all just a couple comments thank you I think as the city grows I think it's going to uh we want to make sure we grow staff congruently I want to make sure that we have a career path for our top performers and I think this is an opportunity to prepare uh for some future growth that I think is coming and um and uh this also gives us an opportunity to uh to make some of our positions more attractive to our top performers so I would fully support this and uh I hope that the the committee would concur I make a motion to approve second motion and a second any discussion I mean I I'm going to vote in favor but I do know on our last administrative specialist job we had 30 applications so I think I think these are pretty attractive jobs already but I'll still support this all in favor say I I oppose the same sign that motion carries eight discussion on franchise fees Jesse thank you Mr chair so the council requested that staff present this uh from the October 7th meeting uh to the PNF committee uh we did include the link to the full presentation obviously in the interest of time we're not going to have the entire presentation here at the committee level uh but if you'd like I can go through some of the high points again uh from that presentation um again right now we we fund our construction through the combination of you know leby Levy bonding and special assessments uh which doesn't include the utility funds uh those challenges right now is especially with the special assessment policy is uh how we address mixed use corridors and things like irregular shaped Lots um but even more so kind of the challenge of those significantly increasing costs of construction um and that special benef the special assessment benefit uh that we have to justify um but just as equally uh this hits both City and Property Owners hard as bonding and special assessments are expensive uh when you include the interest um how burdensome they can be and then how difficult they can be to budget for uh you what we've seen is many cities have moved to utilizing a franchise VI model as a replacement for special assessments uh for funding construction projects uh it is less costly and burdensome as an option for the city and for those people that do live on those projects uh overall all users are paying for the franchise fees rather than those that live on the construction project however this addresses folks that utilize the infrastructure every day that don't necessarily pay specialist assessments uh or levies um so folks that uh are renting um don't necessarily pay special assessments they might pay it through increased rent from the uh property owner or nonprofits that are not paying uh through the levy are contributing to the some of those construction costs uh so staff did include an example scenario showing um a a proposed potential franchise fee rate structure uh and what the difference would be for like a typical residential property uh which would be significantly lower under what we had proposed in the franchise fee fee model um so what we've done is we've included a few different options for something the council to consider uh one would be uh just no further action on franchise fees and just continue forward with what we have currently for funding and policies um another one would be just no further action on franchise fees but requesting staff to review the uh current special assessment policy and recommend some revisions or or you could direct staff to continue forward with exploration of the franchise fee model for funding uh and if so uh we would recommend uh Sumer all of what we have for listed of options uh starting with some of the public engagement stuff we want to go out um talk to folks like our businesses engaging like blade visit brainer a lot of our business folks but also a lot of our residents uh the folks that are going to be uh impacted by something like franchise fees uh make sure that we have in things like informational meetings uh to answer questions of what is is a franchise fee model and what that how that would impact people uh we want to be able to answer those questions for folks but also gather input from them um to be able to present that to the council um things like surveys and things of that nature uh begin preparation of a framework for a policy obviously it's going to be a very complicated policy so we want to make sure that we start um because it's complicated we want to make sure we take our time and make sure that it's done well uh so we want to start that work as well um and then potentially creation of a council work group to make sure that we get uh the council's wishes reflected in um in the creation of a policy again that's not necessarily an option that we need to have but uh we want to make sure that we reflect the council's wishes in the creation of a policy we don't want to uh create that in a vacuum by any means so um that would be something that we would recommend is identifying a couple folks on the council to help us uh get some good direction that we could bring back to the council at a future time again uh if we were exploring the franchise further franchise fees model further uh that would be some of the options that we would recommend from a staff level uh perspective so at this time we're looking for uh direction from the council how you'd like us to proceed um Jesse I'm assuming you saw the email from Matt Killian yes ma'am um can you address some of the bullet points do you have it in front of you otherwise I can read them too yep uh let me just pull it up really quick yep go ahead so the first one the electricity and natural natural gas usage are not directly tied to Road usage which you've kind of explained that some folks do pay through assessments other folks don't but still utilize the streets in which they assessments are paid by the owners of the property anything you want to add to that part it can be so it's it's a little bit different so to your point depends on the road user um depends on your point of perspective you know obviously from a business owner's perspective um doesn't always necessarily Drive um the road user uh depending on what what your business is um some residents obviously that that may impact as they're commuting from one spot to another um that that may drive up um with those costs the folks that are not living within the city of limits are not going to necessarily pay those franchise fees but they're also uh using our road so they're not always exactly tied to uh together but in some instances they are it's not it's not going to be 100% perfect and no model is okay um second one the franchise fees um are likely to present an unexpected financial burden for small businesses um they're already managing tight margins in the soft economy any comments to that it's not much different than folks in and residents I kind of indicated that through throughout the presentation um for trying to budget when special assessment projects come in it's a pretty high burden uh for folks that are seeing a pretty high increase to their property tax so this was a recommendation that we had as a potential alternative to kind of smoothening out over a long term uh of what those uh costs could be rather than those Peaks and valleys for property tax increases through like a special assessment um obviously everybody shares in franchise fees versus a special assessment to those folks that are on a construction project um in our in my mind at some point we're we're planning to eventually touch every single Street project so that you know it's not just residential corridors at some point we have to uh address commercial corridors and that includes businesses as well so um to that point um there's an unexpected financial burden for eventually a commercial cordor and assessments come with those as well okay um and then I assume that through committee that you were talking about as well as garnering feedback you know applying the same fee to all businesses regarding to the size or utility usage disproportionately impact smaller operations Matt says tying it to actual usage can create Financial strain on businesses with lower Revenue but High utility costs so as a part of the discussion that a committee might have for example it could be about the size of the business and the amount of franchise fee that they pay or something like that it's not set in stone at this point exactly all we've included here is a just a quick proposal um to achieve the the goal of what we have of that that generating the $2 million per year of what we have in the capital plan it's very very early and really what we're looking for is whether or not we want to continue forward with um with this model and continue to explore it further and develop a process or a policy um to his point here you can look at this in in a couple different ways and you can craft franchise fees in a couple different ways you can base it on per me or you can base it on per per usage like a a dollar per kilowatt hour so it could be based on that um obviously depending on which way you you go with it it impacts folks differently um so you can make make your policy however you you want it and obviously it makes a difference on how you impact it um you could also increase the fee for residents as you I think you have it in the spreadsheet of how many people there are uh in those different groups a smaller increase to the resident IAL side has a much bigger impact to the the dollar amount on the bottom than an increase to the commercial side or some of those other ones so depends on how you want to craft that if you want to uh lessen the cost on the commercial side you can do that you just balance that out with maybe a smaller increase on the residential side I I couldn't tell you rate off the top of my head but you know it could be at a $5 per month decrease on the commercial um franchise fee might be only maybe a 25 C per month increase on the residential side I again I can't say that for sure but it's it could balance out like that because of how many more meters there are on on each of those ends so it's a m it's a matter of math and trying to balance out those uh those numbers that's something we'd look into if we put other committee and continue forward yeah that's all I have okay so you're just looking for Direction on whether to continue forward or not I go back and forth I've had some emails in the last week or so since our last council meeting most of the emails are take it easy we don't want to do franchise fees we don't want to do that I'm not against franchise fees because I know the city's looking at ways to bring in more money however I think we need to get some input from the city or from the public scheduling informational meeting some things like that to see where they're at I think that might help guide us some more that's just my thought so you're saying number three continue forward but let's get some public engagement I think at this point I would say continue forward but let's get some public involvement businesses downtown see what their feeling is because this could impact a lot of people so would you say number two or number three sir I'd say one oh no on the bottom I'm going three and one okay yeah that's fine do we want to form a work group or I think the work group could be formed based on what we get for feedback if we get more if we don't get any feedback this could be our work gr yeah okay so let's just start with the public engagement and then after that maybe move forward with some framework and a work group and all that is that a motion number three number three continue forward with Exploration with the following option of let's do some public engagement well the public engagement isn't that moving forward in a sense yeah yes so do we need three I mean I'm fine attaching three so we'll say three in one three in one we'll start with three in one and then maybe we'll end up at one and maybe we'll I would make that motion I would second that motion we have a motion in a second to continue forward with exploration of a franchise fee model for funding and to in move forward with public engagement and schedule inform informational meetings and input sessions putting out an online survey and potentially other avenues any discussion all in favor say I I oppose same sign that motion carries next up consider insurance coverage rapid flashing Beacon signs Donnie so we had a um it was on Harrison I mean it was on Oak Street I do believe that an uninsured driver hit the RFB sign and it cost the city um almost over $8,000 to repair um we looked into it we did not have insurance for the $7,900 RFB sign um we discussed it with our local insurance and said we could do property in the open but we would have to list each in each individual signs we could just combine them um so they're estimating that if we had $100,000 in um Pio coverage for the signs it would be about $375 a year so staff is just seeking Direction on whether or not to add or not add the RFB signs as property in the open for the March 1st 2025 renewal this is something that we're coming with we have about 19 signs um it is subject to a $5,000 deductible when it is an insured driver we do try to recover it through Insurance um in this case it was an uninsured driver so this is just a possibility of a different way to ensure our signs we're asking counil Direction I mean a $5,000 deductible on a $7,000 bill doesn't seem I mean $375 a year isn't a lot but I don't know I can go either way what do you guys think $5,000 deductible and yeah because that's what are deductible for all of our in all of our property insurance I think it would signific if the cost would go up if we would lower the deductible mhm yeah I'm the $ 5,000 deductible because the repairs were only $7,900 so that would be covered by Insurance yes but if we had multiple signs that got hit hit at one time you know it's just I don't know what the level what type of Rampage would be happening I don't know page indeed so yes maybe it'd be good for the full Council to have a discussion on this and just bring it forward as a let's talk more about it a good yeah I like that not we won't take any action we'll talk about it on Monday night right so item number 10 approve funding to be budgeted for 2025 Council Retreat we're going to fund The Retreat maybe Nick so this was uh thank you committee members this was my idea and I just wanted to see if this is something that you guys would consider to bring before the full Council I don't think it has escaped anybody that we have an election coming up here in a few weeks and presumably if if there are new members of council they would be sworn in and seated in January and I would like to get together in February as a council I'm thinking right now at a minimum would be the council members and the department heads and I'd like to get together offsite somewhere this obviously would be a public meeting but we would provide some type of a light snack kind kind of breakfast a lunch we should be able to get a facility for No Charge there's several different options out there so basically what my intent of this offsite if the council decides to go this route and this is very conceptual at this point but initially my plans are fourfold to kind of come up with an exhaustive wellth thought out um organizational vision for the city talk about Mission Vision and values I'd like to look at the from a kind of a holistic approach at our facilities and how we could maybe maximize how we use our facilities and then lastly I would like to get some strategic priorities from the council um for the next year it could be a year it could be three years it could be 2030 you know some strategic priorities that the council would like staff to start working toward um so our request today is there's there's a line item in the budget for speal um city council special projects and it's $28,000 I think we could probably do this event um for under $11,000 I would say at the outset would be500 Stakes off the question but I just want to see if if the committee had an interest in this and and um and if you have any questions I'll be happy to address them but that's kind of the gist of what my request today go ahead sir I think it's a good idea I mean you're the new city administrator you have a new vision let's move forward we're working on that I would agree up to $1,000 and let's work work toward that so my thoughts um I know we could get a a qualified facilitator for this discussion through the county we have um a number of top facilitators not in the community services department but um I'm just thinking of Jory Danielson who is the administrative Services director is an amazing facilitator so there would be no expense there um I would also say that I think council members could their own food um and then if we can get a free site I don't think we would need to use any of this city budget um is my thoughts I don't know what you think council member yeah I we've done things like this in the past and we've all just bought our own Mickey subs and I think that that would be appropriate think we need to use taxpayer dollars to buy us food but I mean if there's going to be supplies needed or something I I think a small budget for Nick to be able to put together what he needs I think is appropriate but on the food we should the council cover their own food agreed Stakes back on listen to us we're all agreeing today Stakes back on I'll be I'll get the guy from Street Department to cook him okay so the motion is how much then nothing nothing as needed as needed City administrator deter nothing has needed determination by City administrator how much needs to be spent but utilizing the but no food special projects so we we have a motion to use to allow the city administrator to use the council special project projects funds to put together this retreat by chalk or paper except food and I saw a move second we have a motion and a second all in favor say I I oppose same sign that motion carries next meeting Connie the next meeting will be October 30th at 11 o'clock wear costume and with that wear a costume we're adjourned yeah do please do