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01-22-1973 MinutesCity of Salina, Kansas Commissioners' Meeting January 22, 1973 The Regular Meeting of the Board of Commissioners met in the Commissioners' Room, City -County Building, on Monday, January 22, 1973, at seven o'clock p.m. The Mayor asked everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and a Moment of Silent Prayer. There were present: Mayor Jack Weisgerber, Chairman presiding Commissioner Leon L. Ashton Commissioner Robert C. Caldwell Commissioner Norma G. Cooper Commissioner Mike Losik, Jr. comprising a quorum of the Board, also: L. 0. Bengtson, City Attorney Norris D. Olson, City Manager D. L. Harrison, City Clerk Absent: None The Minutes of the Regular Meeting of January 15, 1973, were approved as mailed STAFF AGENDA None COMMISSION AGENDA "REPORT FROM THE CITY MANAGER GIVING THE ACTUAL AMOUNT OF CASH CARRY OVER AS OF 1 JANUARY 1973." (sponsored by Commissioner Losik) CoTi'missioner Losik asked the City Manager to go over the financial statement, "and specifically what I think would be very instrumental in going over the cash carry over, is an explanation of what is meant by unencumbered budget balance as opposed to the actual unencumbered cash balance. I think this would be real informative for the people to know, in part, how our budget is working." The City Manager explained the annual financial statements, of which the Commissioners received copies. The unencumbered cash balances take into consideration the cash the City has on hand at the beginning of the year, the actual cash receipts during the twelve months,' the total monies expended during the twelve months, leaving an unencumbered cash balance. He explained that the first sheet of the set is the one required by law to be published in the official city newspaper. He said when you get into unencumbered budget balances, you are speaking totally of the amount of money budgeted during a given year, and the amount of money spent in a given year for each of the funds, General Operating and the special funds. The unencumbered budget balance for General Operating was within $26,980 of the amount that was budgeted to be spent for the calendar year of 1972. The unencumbered cash balance for 1972, in General Operating was $50,454. Commissioner Losik said, "Now, I have a couple of more questions, just for clarification. Now the actual unencumbered cash balance, which is $50,454.88, is the amount of actual cash carry over from the General Operating Fund, isn't that correct?" Commissioner Losik asked if it could be spent as it was originally budgeted. The City Manager replied that it could. The City Manager replied, "Right." Commissioner Losik said, "Now, as another clarification, where is this money actua]ly carried over to and where are the limitations as to how this can be spent, and is it effected by the budget lid?" The City Manager replied, "It is carried over in the same account. In other words, the General Operating cash balance, as of December 31, 1972, becomes your unencumbered cash balance January 1, 1973, in those same General Operating Departments." Commissioner Losik asked if it could be spent as it was originally budgeted. The City Manager replied that it could. Commissioner Losik said, "I think this gives us all a little better understanding, because we are going to be into a budget here before too much longer again, and a lot of these things clarified as we go along, I think will be real informative when the budget hearing is, and this will help explain some of these things, where we are spending it, how it is being spent, where it is going, where it continues to go." The City Manager explained, "The unencumbered cash balances in any given fund cannot be transferred from that fund into another fund. It must be carried over in whatever fund it is in. It must remain there." Commissioner Ashton asked, "Am I correct in thinking then, that the amount we transfer reduces the mill levy for the budget for the next year?" The City Manager said, "No, the only thing that it effects in next year's budget, is that you try to guess a cash carry over as closely as possible. When we originally prepared the 1972 Budget we provide for no carry over, as such. It was anticipated we would spend every penny that was budgeted, but as you got into 1972, it developed that there would be a small cash carry over. You have to carry over monies to meet the first payroll, as I explained before, because you do not pick up any new tax money until after the 20th of January, so we must provide for a carry over." Commissioner Cooper commented, "But that only means if, by some unforseen circumstances, we have, instead of the $50,000, I am using round figures, cash carry over, that we had $100,000 cash carry over, when you get ready to set your budget for 1974 you wouldn't have to reduce your mill levy simply because you have that cash carry over. Right?" The City Manager replied, "Probably not, but it may work out that you could." Commissioner Cooper said, "You could, but you do not have to. It doesn't necessarily mean that because you have the buffer there that you are going to reduce your mill levy." Mayor Weisgerber said he would like to comment, "That these items hit remarkably close to the funds that were budgeted, with few exceptions. One was Street and one was Insurance and Contingencies. One was off one way and one was off the other, so they pretty well offset each other, but on a percentage basis we came pretty close. We were under somewhat on anticipated income, also, were we not?" The City Manager replied, "$63,000." Mayor Weisgerber asked from what cause. The City Manager replied that General Operating was down $63,000 on anticipated revenue. The City Clerk said, "I know some of it was that we over estimated Police fines for some reason or another, and they didn't come in; a little bit was on property tax, but of course it doesn't take too big a percentage there to make quite a difference; and there were a few different line item accounts we over estimated." Mayor Weisgerber said, "That made the cash carry over lower than it usually is, didn't it?" The City Manager replied, "Cash carry over was quite a bit less. We had $173,000 last year, as compared to the $50,000 this year, This will fluctuate," Commissioner Losik said, "I think this year though, we have turned around and authorized some additional expenditures out of the Contingencies Fund of the General Operating, that because of the various projects, and this, of course, has cut this down." The City Manager replied, "The Oblinger-Smith obligation, and the Cultural Arts obligation would knock it back a negative $17,000." Mayor Weisgerber commented this item would not require a motion. Commissioner Losik said, "No, I am pretty much, because we have been working hard to try to explain a lot of these areas and comes budget time, I think the more we put out and discuss these things, piece meal, it won't be such a big thing, when it comes budget hearing time, and that will be on us before long too, so this was the point of this." 'RECONSIDERATION OF THE REQUEST FROM KSAL AND KINA REGARDING 'TAP' IN LINE FOR THEIR RECORDERS, TABLED 18 DECEMBER 1972," (sponsored by Commissioner Losik) Commissioner Losik said, "I think when we tabled it, we tabled it with the view that we would have a chance to think about it, and frankly I don't feel there is any more need for discussion on this, I think we have discussed it and just wanted to think about it,, so I would hereby make a motion that we approve this request for these two stations, as they requested it," The motion was seconded by Commissioner Caldwell, Ayes: (5). Nays: (0). Motion carried. Mr. Charlie Harrigan, KINA, thanked the Commission for their consideration of that request. "CLARIFICATION OF THE KANSAS -DENVER STUDY AND COST OF LIVING THAT WAS ADOPTED ON DECEMBER 11, 1972." (sponsored by Commissioner Losik) Commissioner Losik commented, "Well, I think basically what I would like to do, even though when we approved this Kansas -Denver Study, we tried awful hard to make sure we didn't misunderstand and have a different interpretation, but obviously some of us do, and payday has rolled by and I think a lot of the employees did not fully understand what we adopted and how it was to be implemented. Maybe we could clarify this, and get back to what we had all intended it to be and see if we can't go from there, with the start of the New Year. It was my opinion that we would go ahead and adopt Plan 1, which was the lowest, and that we would also not accept the recommendation of the Kansas -Denver Study, as far as the cost of living. I was therefore of the opinion that we would adopt the job classification study, first table, using Schedule K and also continue with the cost of living. Obviously this is not what was done, so I am just wondering where we are off on this thing?" Mayor Weisgerber commented, "Run that by again, will you? We adopted Schedule K, as was outlined in the study, but I don't follow where we missed the boat." Commissioner Losik replied, "Well, we are missing in that Schedule K was adopted on the job classification study, Plan 1, which we identified as Plan 1, which is the first one, which would be the lowest amount of money to implement this plan, but we also carefully brought out that the cost of living pay would remain as it has in the past, because we did not agree with the recommendation of the Kansas -Denver Study on the cost of living. We felt that it should remain." Commissioner Cooper said, "Plan A, I believe the City Manager stated to us at that time that we adopted it, that the cost would be, in round figures $31,000 and something, and had budgeted $53,000 and some odd dollars for pay increases, but I agree with Commissioner Losik, I understood that we were going to go with Plan A of the Denver Pay Study and that it would include a cost of living addition as well as the job reclassification and the pay increase, so is this the understanding of the rest of the Commission?" Commissioner Ashton commented, "Norris brought up the point that it would only use about $31,000, this $21,000, because there would be some inadequacies in some of the i salaries, they asked for permission at that time to make minor adjustments out of some of this additional money at that time, and I was looking back in the minutes of that meeting, and I don't see quite all those comments there, but it was leaving $21,000 something left over. We talked about cost of living, but that was more for a year of adjustment, rather than a straight across the board increase, with the anticipation that next year, I think it was pretty much the feelings of everyone that we could go on a cost of living raise; because the figures had been pretty well set for like pay for like work all the way through, and this adjustment period was this year that we are just starting now." Commissioner Cooper said, "That is not the way I understood it. Now, I am not saying what was said in the minutes of December 11th, I reviewed them this afternoon, and in there I believe the City Manager did say that we could go with this pay increase and a cost of living addition for the next two or three years, then step back and review it. Now this is the way I understood it, and this is the way I understood the Commission, this is the policy I understood the Commission to be adopting. Now, at the end of that three year period he did say that we probably should re-evaluate the pay schedules and anything else that was involved, but I thought we, this was the understanding that I had. That is the only way that I can say it, and this was my intent, and so if there is a disagreement on that, I think we should get it straightened out." Mayor Weisgerber said, "Let me see if I can clarify this a little bit. When a man or firm does a payroll study, such as this, he does it with the idea of it going into effect at a certain date, it takes into consideration all the factors involved and in this case the pay for similar jobs in industry, the pay for similar positions in other cities. It also automatically deals in here, what I suppose you could call, a cost of living increase, in fact the salary that he suggests as being the ones that should be in effect for the date that the plan goes in effect, Now, I think where this cost of living has come in, in fact I am sure it is, is that all these firms would like to do this thing every year, and obviously that gets a little expensive for the changes involved, so it is my understanding that what we said was that we put this in for this year, change the classifications, enlarge the classifications so some have a chance for further advancement, then rather than re -do a study like this for 1974, we would, at that time, give a flat percentage of increase of whatever was available and we would therefore call it a cost of living increase, for probably 1974, 1975, and maybe 1976, then have another study. I know we considered when we were going to do this a cost of living increase for this year, because I felt that was built into this particular study.'? Commissioner Cooper replied, "No, I don't think it is, because Mr. Catherwood stood right here in this room and said to us that he, as a professional in this pay scale field, did not approve or endorse or recommend a cost of living, He did not see any kind of a relationship between what this individual earns and the price of potatoes, or whatever it is.,, Mayor Weisgerber said, "That is true, what he was meaning by this was rather than give blanket raises, he feels there should be a complete re -study each year." Commissioner Cooper commented, "Cost of living are not raises, as far as pay scale is concerned. Cost of living is just a method of trying to keep up with the inflationary spiral." Mayor Weisgerber said, "Yes, but they are a part of keeping the municipal employees in line with all other municipal employees." Commissioner Cooper replied, "That is your base pay you are talking about Jack. We are talking about two different things, Base pay is one thing that you try to keep in line with other similar jobs and the pay that private enterprise, or whatever other level of government that you are comparing it to or all of them collectively. That would be the base pay scale, but this cost of living thing is something that is placed into the machinery simply to keep even with the inflationary spiral. It has nothing to do with base pay or what your job classification is or your profession or anything else, or I don't view it that way anyway." Mayor Weisgerber said, "This allowance is in here anyway, for the first year. It would be my understanding of the way a consultant does this work, that he figures it is going into effect at one particular time, and he targets for that." Commissioner Cooper replied, "The City had a cost of living policy prior to adopting this increase of pay plan. How did that work?" The City Manager explained, "It was figured in 1966, and went into effect January 1, 1967. We then took the cost of living increase for the twelve month period from April to April, 1967 to 1968. The reason we use April to April was so that these figures could be fed into our budget worksheet that were distributed to the department heads the following May. I don't recall what the percentages are, say it is 2.6% of 3.1%. One year it was 6.10." The Director of Administration said this year it is 3.5%. The City Manager said, "We have always viewed a cost of living as an add on that would automatically become a part of your base pay the next year; and this is what we did every year since 1967 until this year when Kansas -Denver was asked to update the program. He reclassified some people, discontinued some classifications that were in the old schedule, created some new classifications and created a lot of problems in this area of reclassification. We have spent, I don't know how many man hours,trying to determine, for example, who got a promotion and who didn't among fourteen of the girl employees, We did not consider the Water and Sewerage girls, but some classifications were eliminated and other classifications created. It was extremely difficult to see if and who of the girls got a promotion." Commissioner Cooper asked if the changes were just title changes, or if there is a different job requirement? The City Manager said they have the same job duties, the same. job they have done before. Commissioner Cooper said, "When it comes to job classification under this pay schedule, I think it suggested in there what the duties of these individuals should more or less consist of. In other words, when you have a job title, you are saying someone with this kind of a job title should be doing this kind of work and that kind of work, so this does take time to go through and change the titles and analyze the jobs, what their duties are, and change the titles, but once this is done, then the job pay schedule says what this job title will pay for. Is this not correct?" The City Manager replied that it is correct. Commissioner Cooper said, "Then if the City employees have a cost of living adjustment in their pay plan, this isn't to say that the City will be able to give these City employees whatever your federal figures show that the cost of living has been, but it does enable you to budget and plan ahead for a cost of living increase for whatever the City feels like they can afford to give, is this correct?" The City Manager replied, "This study was done in the Summer of 1972 and to go into effect January 1, 1973. I know it was predicated on the premise that it would go into effect January 1, 1973, and according to Mr. Catherwood, the salaries at that time would be right. I don't know if they are or not, You have about $21,000 left, which if you wanted to put in an across the board 1% you could." Commissioner Cooper replied, "I think the pay increase was based, not when it was drawn up, it was based on the kind of job they were doing, compared with private industries, what the State pays, and all these other kinds of things, collectively. This is what the pay study was obviously based on, and I don't think it included anything in the way of cost of living, because Mr. Catherwood stated that they did not endorse this kind of pay plan; however, I did understand because of the conversation we had when we adopted the pay plan, I did understand that we were going to adopt Plan A, that we would include a cost of living increase in this and there seems to be some confusion on it, so that is what it is all about I guess." The City Manager said, "Well, I can assure you Mr. Catherwood did not endorse the cost of living concept because he said so, and because he suggested that each subsequent year the City not participate in the cost of living, but have another one of these studies done by Mr. Abbott. I stood here and said I did not agree with this because this is placing' too much of a burden on a staff member, whether it is Salina, Kansas, or Kansas City, Missouri. I firmly believe that it is unfair to ask Mel Abbott, or any committee, to shoulder this type of responsibility. I think the consultant, if he earns his pay check, earns it in keeping with a letter that I sent to all employees, and had posted on all the bulletin boards, telling them that Mr. Catherwood would be available at the Personnel Office to answer any questions or discuss any grievances related to his report and recommendations. I suggested that any employee or group of employees wishing to meet with Mr. Catherwood make it known to his supervisor, and the Department Head would contact the Personnel Office and schedule an appointment. He obviously doesn't agree with across the board cost of living adjustments because there were 22, plus or minus 1 or 2 employees, who did not get a raise, whose present salary is above the salary that he recommended in here. Those 22 are at or above the maximum step he recommended. There are 44 who were below the maximum step, and because of Mr. Catherwood's study going on an annual basis, where our previous study, for many of our categories, got their increases every six months. Forty-four of these employees would not receive as much pay under Mr. Catherwood's plan as they would under the old plan, which was budgeted for them, so we are making adjustments in that we will be creating new anniversary dates for those 44 employees so that they will get within at least a dollar or two of what they were budgeted for." Commissioner Ashton asked if that would come out of the $21,000. The City Manager explained that it would not, it was already budgeted. Commissioner Losik said, "Well, I think at this point that it is obvious there has been some misunderstanding as to what we were actually going to implement and how and I think that now that the first pay checks have come out, people are actually seeing what they are getting. I think this will probably bring forth the individuals on an individual basis. I would encourage it, to do this, in a view of spirit and intent of just how it is effecting them, so that this classification can be pinned down a little tighter, so that they can see where they are going because it is like anything else, we are all human. We can put this information out, but until that pay check actually comes out and you see it, we all say, well it is going to work this way, well when the check comes out, it is just like our revenue sharing, it didn't quite come out that way, so what we need to do and I would feel that part of this misunderstanding probably came in that we were discussing this in December and talking about next year. Well to me, next year is 1973, when we are in 1972 discussing it. Now this is probably what it is, and since we all pretty much agree and I know that you and I, Norris, discussed this, we agreed that we didn't agree with Mr. Catherwood on this thing," The City Manager said, "I was looking at the next budget year, Mr. Losik." 1190 Commissioner Losik said, "Well this is where, probably, this comes in, but I feel that since we do have funds, there are funds available that we come up with about a 2% cost of living in addition to implementing this, and I think we have the funds to do this with, and then I think we are in.a little better position to try and finalize an across the board and then we can get down closer on an individual basis from the job classification within the departments as it pertains to individuals filling that spot. This won't break us, we've got the money to do it with, we are not going to get hurt on it, and t think it will indicate again the spirit of attempting to get some of this stuff lined up so that at future years, we go because We have a job classification study that we have adopted, there are just some minor adjustments that need to be made. Cost of living as far as industry, as far as government goes is an accepted thing to adjust for inflationary spirals. This is not to be considered, and I have never considered it and I don't think anybody from the industry from the negotiations that have gone on would indicate that cost of living automatically becomes a base scale for the wages. It is a temporary adjustment up or down, and I would like for us to do this again since this study was designed to be in accordance with what we have in the locality with the various business houses. So I think we should attempt to follow this, because this is what the study was designed to do to get a comparable wage for the comparable work that is being done, and of course the adjustment comes with the cost of living. I feel we have the money to do this. I don't think we would be a bit out of line. I don't think there would be any criticism. I think, again, it is the spirit of attempting to go ahead and equalize these things with the surrounding area." Mayor Weisgerber said, "Let's do a little mathematical calculation. We set aside $54,000, and we allowed that that probably would be enough to give approximately a 3% raise. If we could have followed Mr. Catherwood's other suggestion it would have been way above what was in the budget, about 80 thousand and some, more than we had. If we spend $30,000, some of this in correcting the imbalance between the different groups of employees and we have $20,,000 and some left and a little bit of that is going to have to be used for some adjustment on this. It looks to me like we are going to come down somewhere ... we can't make 2%, that would run high, we could make about 1% or maybe 12%. What is our total payroll that is effected by this?" The Director of Administration gave the figure of $1,811,000.00. Mayor Weisgerber commented, 111% of that then is going to be $18,000 and that has the balance of your budget used up. I think we might consider going on with 1% and use only the amount that we had budgeted, but 2% is going to go $18,000 over the budget." Commissioner Losik said, "Jack, let me insert this at this time. We have from the standpoint of a cash carry over a $50,454 budget carry over from last year. We were quite generous last year through our Contingencies. We still ended up with $26,980. We could certainly use a portion of that to bring up ... yes, we are authorized to use this." Commissioner Cooper commented that it is in General Operating. Commissioner Losik explained, "What you are doing - you have added into Insurance and Contingencies $26,980.03, actually you have added in $50,454.88. We had budgeted $30,000 for Contingencies and we had budgeted $9,000 additional for the demolition so what I am saying is we wouldn't be effecting the Contingencies or the General Operating Fund in any way, shape, or form by using cash carry over to supplement this, as opposed to even bothering with the present budget. So the money is there to do it with." Mayor Weisgerber said, "I thought once the year was closed out and that cash was carried over, that it couldn't be used in this particular manner without effecting - I mean it has to be taken into the budget consideration. You couldn't just say, well I've got so much left." The City Manager said, "You are not going to use the $20,000. That was carried over from December and is in your 1973 Budget now." Commissioner Losik commented, "That is in addition to what we had approved, Jack." The City Manager explained, "You can't possibly spend anything retroactive." Commissioner Losik said, "You see this becomes an automatic part, added onto what we approved in our budget hearings for 1973, this is in addition to what we had approved." The City Manager said, "What Mr. Losik, I think, is saying, is if you are going to have a cash carry over January 1, 1974, and I can assure you, you will, because all employees like to get paid the 15th of January. In order to assure we have a cash carry over, there are certain positions that become vacant throughout the year and are not filled right away, and there will be a certain time of the year that we do not immediately fill certain vacancies, and it is through this mechanism, mainly, that we are able to generate a cash carry over. The City Attorney said, "I think what we are talking about here is, you can't spend something if you don't have it budgeted. We budget so much for salaries for next year, Now, even though you might have a $200,000 carry over on this, we could not exceed our budget even though we would have the money. We could not exceed the budget. Now we can shift these items around within the• General Operating, so I think what Mr. Olson said, is we budgeted this much for salaries, we had $54,000 left and maybe we can throw Contingencies in there and get it up to someplace else, but you cannot spend it unless you have it budgeted. We are under the budget and cash basis law, so the only place it would come in, you have $54,000, plus if you can squeeze it out of Contingencies for something else, even though we have plenty of money, if it isn't budgeted, you can't use it." Commissioner Losik said, "This still boils down though that we have the funds available that we could do this and so this would serve no purpose, and another back up fromi that standpoint until we had funds we can use, if we wanted to, we could use Revenue Sharing! funds in the safety end of this thing, which would take care of increases in the Police and Fire Departments, so we have money, we are going to, for example, accumulate approximately $4,000 worth of interest on the money we have on Certificates of Deposit at the end of the deposit period, which would be in about 90 days, less than 90 days." Commissioner Cooper said, "Well, you can't spend it because it wasn't budgeted." Commissioner Losik said, "No, this doesn't have anything to do with it. We can use this through the Revenue Sharing, so like I say, these monies are available." Mayor Weisgerber said, "The Federal Government takes a dim view of using it for salaries." Commissioner Cooper commented, "Yes, but that is an interim measure, that is all it is." Mayor Weisgerber said, "We have to stay in this budget. What are we going to cut to do it?" Commissioner Losik said, "You won't have to cut anything to do it, Jack." Commissioner Ashton said, "That is what I am worried about. I can go along with his program there, but I feel like we ought to first find out what it is going to cost to fund our policemen's and firemen's pension, then if we still find we can do with it what we thought we could do, then go ahead and go on this cost of living, but what are you going to do if you get back in a corner, and I feel when we do have a one time opportunity to finance our policemen's and firemen's pensions, we should." Commissioner Cooper said, "Yes, but we are going to have to do that regardless.", Commissioner Ashton said, "I hate to pull the rug out from underneath it until we get this funded and then if we get that funded the way it is supposed to be set up, when we actually get our dollar figure, what it is going to cost, we still have this money, then I will go along with that program, but I just feel like we ought to, we shouldn't stick our necks out on something like this, then have to pull back on the other program because we don't have sufficient money to finance it." Commissioner Cooper said, "The only thing I am saying on this salary schedule thing we have adopted is, you don't want to spend all this money for a salaries study, adopt a new pay plan and a new job re-classification thing, and then have the people who are working for the City end up in a poorer position than they were to start with, and this is what we are encountering if you don't have, because they did have a cost of living. You mentioned that some people are going to be paid less according to this proposal than they would have been getting under the old pay plan. Okay, then what is the advantage of having a salary study, adopting the new pay schedule and having them in a poorer position than they were to start with. This is the reason..." Mayor Weisgerber said, "This is where you are going to use some of that $20,000 to prevent. Anytime you rebalance the thing, some gain and some get hurt." The City Manager said, "We advertised this very much too, to the employees. In the 1967 study, for example, we had one employee who remained with the City probably for three or four or five years who never received a salary increase after that date." Commissioner Cooper commented, "Well, if you had a cost of living, that would have helped some." The City Manager said, "No, the theory is that even with the cost of living as heI was classified, he still was making more than the schedule called for, and the theory behind this is, and the League stated at that time, that you had been paying him more than you should have been paying him prior to 1964, 1965, and 1966, and this person, classified as he was classified, was being over paid." Commissioner Losik said, "We have a good example of that, right here on us now. We have started this classification.study to prevent recurrance of what you are saying, so you are not overpaying so*rebody for doing a job or at least attempting not to. Now in addition to that the cost of living index is required, and a good example of that is the health insurance for the employees is going up approximately $5.00 a month, isn't that correct? Here is an inflationary type thing. So there are five bucks of their raise gone already. This is inflation, gentlemen, and this is what we are, why I feel it is important to give them a cost of living to help offset this. These are the kinds of things we are trying to do, We cannot control the premiums, this is true, but that is the next best thing. We can control these things to help make this employee get a little more take home pay. 1„ Mayor Weisgerber said, "I certainly don't see any objection to going up to our budget figure. I question a little this going over it, however." Mayor Weisgerber asked the City Manager, "If this can be handled in some way, through the possible turn over of employees, or in some manner so we aren't going to penalize our other funds, and keep all this within our budgetary and transfer and limitations and the whole thing?" The City Manager explained that, "Of course not being able to forecast what turn over the City might experience this year, I would say based on past experiences this could probably be accomplished." Mayor Weisgerber said, "It would be safer, however, if we went with the budget figure and if we went just 1%." The City Manager said, "Of insuring that we have a cash carry over next year, yes. If you do nothing at all I can tell you that you will have a cash carry over January 1, 1974 to meet our first payroll. I can also guarantee that we will not exceed our budget. I dant guarantee that our revenues will all come in. We were down $65,000 in revenues this year, we apparently guessed wrong in our 1973 revenues. You just can't guess these things that exactly!" Mayor Weisgerber said, "If you are going to be down $65,000 more in 1973, in revenues, if we begin this early in the year by going over our budget," The City Manager said, "I don't mean to frighten you, but you are dealing with a 2.4568 million dollar budget. It wouldn't be that much of a problem in finding $13,600. Mathematically it is there." ,Commissioner Losik c6mmented, "I agree with you Norris. Mr. Mayor I would like to make the motion ..," Commissioner Caldwell said, "I would like to clarify the minutes. This is the first time I have seen this Commission not go on record of making amends to the minutes according to the next meeting, when they are called for by the Mayor. Prior to this, when we have found something wrong in the minutes, we have brought it to the attention and made that correction." Commissioner Cooper said, "I didn't find anything wrong, but I understood them the way I read them." Commissioner Caldwell said, "Well, as I look through the minutes, this is a quote here from the minutes. Mr. Losik, 'I agree we should have the cost of living deal filled in here, and I feel we don't need every year to have this thing re -studied. So this is why I am saying this. We don't want any misunderstanding that we are going to adopt his recommendations on this one item. I am 100% with you. Plan 1, which is the first one here, based on Schedule K, and then to review the plan and continue administration of the plan. These are the things I would like to see go into this motion and implemented to be effective the first of January. There is no misunderstanding about the rest of it. The rest of it we can look over and go with it, but this will get the thing off and running so we are not talking about something different. We just want to make sure we have a thorough understanding of the motion.' Now, I was under the impression that when this motion was made, and I think I made the motion, to accept this particular plan, that we had an understanding. The minutes go on further to state that there were five ayes and no nays on this particular motion and we adopted it. Now we are waiting three meetings later to say we did not understand this motion in the way it was presented, and this was just to put the plan into effect, not to talk about other things like cost of living and what have you, and I think we had a thorough understanding of that, I don't know whether the administration has heard any complaints from the last check that has gone through this month or not. I would be concerned about which group has been complaining about this particular item, this check that they received this last week. This would be my concern, because this has not been brought to my attention. I don't know which .. It seems as though Mr. Losik seems to have this information and I don't have it, and I would like to have a clarification as to which group feels they are being neglected in this pay raise. And at the particular time that we adopted this plan, we knew that everyone wouldn't get the same amount of raise, but no one would be dropped. I don't know a salary schedule to be lowered. It has to be raised, now what that amounted to was a few people would get the same thing. Now my contention is I don't know who the complaints are from, I haven't heard it from the administration, I would like to have a clarification as to who is doing this. Mr. Losik never stated, Mr. Mayor. Now if that was a five -zero vote, which is rare for this Commission, I am sure we had a clear understanding of it." Commissioner Losik replied, "Mr. Mayor, I can go along with Commissioner Caldwell in that it was a five and zero. There was no further clarification of the minutes or corrections or additions or deletions because it was the complete understanding that I stressed, the part we would not go along with and I didn't want to accept this whole book, as Commissioner Caldwell wanted it done. I stated which specific paragraphs we would adopt and which ones we would not specifically and one specifically we would not adopt, which would remain unchanged is the cost of living, on page 4. You are right, we agreed and the minutes showed we agreed, but obviously it wasn't implemented that way so you are right, this is one time and now this brings out the point that where there was obvious disagreement, then the minutes were correct in reflecting the - not a clarification - but to complete what was omitted from the minutes, now it is here, and you are right and as far as knowing who is complaining, I think that everybody that got a pay check has the right to complain and as far as pinning it down to individual groups, that has no bearing whatsoever on what we are discussing. We have not brought personalities into it, we have talked -about job classifications and positions, we have not discussed individuals, and I would like to leave it that way." Commissioner Caldwell said, "I would like to further state in the minutes, Mayor Weisgerber, and this is a quote from Commissioner Losik, 'I am going to be very honest here and straight forward. The reason I want to pin this thing down, I want to see a pay raise for our people. I have always said this. I asked which one of these installations of the pay you accepted, based on Schedule K, because I feel either one is good, let's do the best one we can afford, but I also feel that this next item on the review of the plan, the continuing administration of the plan, I am like Norris, I disagree with this other on annual adjustments.' Again we state we would go along with the plan we could afford. At that particular time we had not received Revenue Sharing, and as I understand Revenue Sharing they don't want you to use this money for some item you can't continue, because Revenue Sharing may not be with us forever. It's for a period of time. If we continue to put these people on a false pretense here that we will get a raise next year, then we are using the money that is actually ours, yes; but will we be able to continue it later on?' You can't use Revenue Sharing just at random. It has to be accounted for and it cannot be used for something you cannot continue." Commissioner Cooper said, "I would like to say that if Bob wanted to go back in the minutes about another paragraph earlier, he would find out that the City Manager was explaining to the Commission about the policy wording, and like I said, I understood that we did adopt Plan A that costs the $31,000, I also understood from the conversation we had that we were including a cost of living in this pay scale. This is what I understood, and I think this is what all this discussion is about. Didn't anybody else understand that?" The City Manager said, "The plan and continued administration of the plan is where Mr. Catherwood gets into discussing the cost of living, I believe, or saying that he does not concur with the cost of living, He is talking about having Mel Abbott review the plan in the next subsequent year." Commissioner Cooper said, "I know, but in the minutes where you were discussing re-evaluating, you were talking, we were talking in relation to the pay schedule, is this not correct?" The City Manager replied, "Not for 1973, I was not." Commissioner Cooper commented, "Oh, well I was thinking 1973 and this is what I am saying. I think this is how we came by this misunderstanding. I was thinking 1973 because this is when the pay plan goes into effect, January 1." The City Manager replied, "I think my statement there says something about doing it for a year or two or three, then go back and have it re-evaluated, then a cost of living for one, two or three years, then back to be re-evaluated. I took the study to be effective', January 1, 1973, then for 1974's Budget go cost of living, 1975 cost of living, 1976 cost of, living." Commissioner Cooper replied, "Okay, then this is how we can have this kind of a difference here." l:y4 Commissioner Caldwell said, "I would still like to say further that when this was proposed as we do now in our City Commission, we bring before the City Commission without any clarification of any Commissioners, we don't have a thorough understanding of what it is all about. We come, we vote and we go. We never talk to anyone about it, we never get a clear clarification as to what we are doing, It is true, Mr. Catherwood was here and explained it to us, but we did that here in an open meeting and not in an executive session where we could understand it perfectly. I think that is one of the flaws in our Commission now, and I will continue to say that, That you need briefing on things you don't quite understand. It is no need of us adopting something and then coming back to it a month later for clarification because I am quite sure I am not that sharp, I.don't know about the rest of you. But I do feel that you need clarification on items like this, because you can hurt a number of people in the City, or your employees of the City. They come up with an idea as to what they are going to get, and then we are changing it here today, or tonight, on what we want to do, because we said we are only going to adopt the plan as it was proposed, to get it implemented this year, and maybe next year or the year after that, then we can take further steps as far as the plan is concerned, That was my understanding and I still say it is, and I think it is the understanding of this Commission at that particular time, because I think they have probably had some reprocussions from some source, and now we are retracting what we have done." Commissioner Losik said, "I would like to clarify one thing. We adopted only four paragraphs, three paragraphs of this plan. This is what we adopted. This is right. There were no misunderstandings. We adopted the installation of the plan, review of the plan and the continued administration of the plan. Thi§ is where the misunderstanding was clarified. We would not go into the annual adjustments of the pay rates. We did not want to adopt this whole book. These are the only paragraphs we adopted, so we are not changing anything. We adopted. We are living with what we adopted. What we didn't adopt was Mr. Catherwood's opinion regarding cost of living. We left it as it was. All we adopted were these items. This is why it was clarified. So now I feel there was no misunderstanding. This is why there was no need to correct the minutes, when there was this that we adopted. Nothing else of this plan was adopted and Schedule K which pertains to this paragraph." Mayor Weisgerber said, "Let me say it the way I think it really is. Before the vote on the motion, there is a notation in the minutes that says, "Mayor Weisgerber reviewed the motion that it only included the actual salary schedule and that there is no mention about adopting all that is suggested in the study and called for a vote on the motion. The ayes were five, and the nays were zero, At that time I think all of us were agreeing that all we were going to do was put in the salary schedule as suggested. Now I have to believe the thing that has happened, and pressures have come about since this was adopted, has caused a couple of Commissioners to change their minds; however at the same time if there is a little leeway left within the framework, I think we might go ahead and give this increase but I do feel at the time this was adopted, the motion was understood by all and it has been changed since. This still doesn't mean that we maybe should not have some adjustment." Commissioner Cooper replied, "I don't agree with that at all. I don't agree with it because I think I have stated to the Commission, not at any particular meeting, but when we would just casually talk about this pay proposal, that at that time that I wanted to see a cost of living increase in the City employees." Mayor Weisgerber said, "This is one reason I stated this before we voted on the motion." Commissioner Cooper replied, "I know, but we had already discussed it, Jack. When you read the minutes there, you will find out that the City Manager mentioned it, Commissioner Losik made a point of it. I listened to the conversation and I thought we were including a cost of living clause in this pay schedule." Commissioner Losik said, "Jack, you are right and along those lines you stated here that you reviewed the motion that it included only the actual salary schedule that there was no mention about adopting all that is suggested in this study, and then called for a vote. You are right because this is the part where we had not gone along with the other suggestions in the study. We only went the four paragraphs, so this is why I am saying that by not adopting the whole study, we did not adopt his recommendation to do away with the cost of living, so this is why I say that we stress that these were the four paragraphs we were to adopt." Mayor Weisgerber said, "This would have been the time, considering that this was to be set up and put into effect the first of the year, this would have been the time to have said, well this sets the schedule, but what about... a cost of living or a 5% increase over and above it? But nothing was said. No additions were made to this." Commissioner Cooper said, "Because they had it and I thought they were going to continue." Commissioner Losik said, "That is right. I mean we weren't changing that part of it. It was there, we weren't going to change it; but in spite of all the controversy, if you do feel you would be willing to see an adjustment along cost of living, I would be ready to make the motion to that effect. I don't see why we continue hasseling over it, let's do it. 11 Mayor Weisgerber said, "I think the only question that might be a hassel would be to be sure we keep within the budget." The City Manager said, "I would like to ask one question for the record. Is it the intent of you five Commissioners that the 1974 Budget include in it the cost of living as dictated by the Central Division of the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics? Regardless of what you do with this, that when we prepare the 1974 Budget we will take into consideration the cost of living from April 1972 to April 1973? If it comes out 1.20 or 6.60?" Commissioner Losik replied, "Definitely." The City Manager replied, "I do want then for the record to say, that we cannot guarantee, under the tax lid budget lid law that this amount can be available at that time without resorting to Revenue Sharing, or some other ..." Mayor Weisgerber said, "I don't think you can anchor that firmly now, Norris. I think next year, from all the intent I am sure we all agree on this, that next year we ought to give a cost of living increase, but I think to give an absolute figure at this time would be pretty hard to do." The City Manager said, "I am not asking you to, what I am saying is, whatever turns out, April 1, 1973." Mayor Weisgerber replied, "We still might not be able to do that." The City Manager replied, "This is what I want in the records." Commissioner Cooper commented that this wasn't the practice in the past. "In other words you adjusted that cost of living figure to what the City was able to do." The City Manager said, "What the City was doing and we were able to do." Commissioner Cooper said, "Okay, this is the policy. This is the policy that I, as a Commissioner, would like to see continued." Mayor Weisgerber said, "I would have to agree on this. It has to be what there is money to do." Commissioner Cooper said, "This is all we are saying, and I quite flatly thought that we were going to continue this practice." The Director of Administration said, "Perhaps I can help clarify this a little bit. We go back to budget time this past year. This 3% package that was put in, if you recall at the time the Commission adopted this budget, you weren't certain at that time, how you wanted to utilize that 3%. Whether an across the board cost of living adjustment or to implement the study. You had the study but had not fully reviewed or made the decision on what to do with it. When we projected the budget effect of it, we found that to implement it, it was going to take $31,000 of the $53,000 that was in the 3% package. So that $31,000 used up 1.78% of the 3%. Now the cost of living index for the period of time we have been using each year actually amounts to 3.5%, so we cannot, obviously, implement it, or approve the entire 3.5% cost of living adjustment to become effective January 1, 1973. I think it has been pointed out here a time or two, apparently where the misunderstanding was, when the City Manager made the comment to go with this, and go with the cost of living next year. When he was saying next year, he was referring to the next Budget year in 1974. Apparently some of the Commissioners interpreted or understood the next year to be 1973, since at that time we were in December of 1972 when it was being discussed. And while I am on my feet here, I would like to suggest that you consider taking a look at this at the time we work up the next budget and adjust the current year budget and then decide what you want to do insofar as a cost of living adjustment across the board for the balance of the year. I think you could accomplish the same thing whether you put in a 2% now or 4% midway through the year, whatever, and at the same time we could provide you the benefit of projecting it into 1974, as to what effect it is going to have at that time. On staff, we could not see when we were aware that the cost of living index for the period of time we have been using amounted to 3.5%, and we were going to implement this salary schedule by going to the next dollar amount for all employees, where there would be more than approximately 1% that you could use for a cost of living." Commissioner Cooper commented, "You have a very good suggestion there. At the time we were holding budget hearings on this $53,979 figure staff had not projected out what these figures would be, so there was no way of knowing, -or at least as far as I was concerned as a Commissioner, no way of knowing that you couldn't do these things with that figure." Commissioner Losik moved, "To give a 1% increase now, and come 1 July, review this with the view of giving the balance of the year any increase that is available through the funding," The City Manager said, "Before you get a second, may I make one last comment? I just thought of this. We have been talking about General Operating where you do have a Contingency Fund. Whatever we do for the employees in General Operating, we must do likewise for the employees in Flood Control, Sanitation, Parking Meters, Golf Course, Central Garage and Water and Sewerage. We will go along with you on the 1%, but I call your attention to the cash carry over in Flood Works in 1972 $3.78." Commissioner Losik repeated his motion, "That we give them a cost of living increase of 1% immediately and on 1 July we review it with a view of increasing that, funds being available." Commissioner Cooper seconded the motion. The Mayor called for a vote on the motion, Ayes: (5). Nays: (0). Motion carried. PUBLIC AGENDA PETITION NUMBER 3292 was filed by Jim Benson, 2532 Highland, for the rezoning of the East 1,064 feet of the North 200 feet of the South 1,441.7 feet of the Southwest Quarter of 14-14-3, west of US 81 By-pass. Approx .7 acres. From District "A" (Second Dwelling House District) to District "D" (Local Business District. A motion was made by Commissioner Cooper, seconded by Commissioner Caldwell to refer the petition to the Metropolitan Planning Commission. Ayes: (5). Nays: (0). Motion carried. A MOTION was made by Commissioner Losik, seconded by Commissioner Ashton that the Regular Meeting of the Board of Commissioners be adjourned. Ayes: (5). Nays: (0). Motion carried. D. L. arrison, City Clerk