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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20021021 APPROVED 1/21/03 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS WORK SESSION OCTOBER 21, 2002 5:30 p.m. The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a work session on Monday, October 21, 2002 at 5:30 p.m. at the Government Services Center in Hillsborough, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Barry Jacobs and Commissioners Alice M. Gordon, Commissioner Carey and Stephen Halkiotis COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Commissioner Brown COUNTY ATTORNEYS PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill and S. Sean Borhanian COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Managers Rod Visser and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. Chair Jacobs said that two County employees died within the last week— Henry Day from Public Works and Thomas Tempia from Planning. He asked for a moment of silence. Commissioner Gordon asked to speak on transportation issues and she distributed two handouts which are incorporated in these minutes by reference. She said that the Transportation Advisory Committee is going to meet on October 23'' and she wanted to give updates. She made reference to the comments at the meeting on the October 15`h about the fiscally constrained preferred option for the long-range transportation plan. She explained her handouts on October 15 about the fiscally constrained preferred option for the long range transportation plan. She then explained her handouts. She asked for comments from the County Commissioners to take to the meeting. She would like to set aside some dedicated time to discuss this. There are 45 days left to comment on the fiscally constrained option. Commissioner Gordon made reference to item # 7, the request to modify the 15-501 transit corridor and said that this is the first time it has appeared on the TAC agenda. The first time that the TAC is to be officially notified of this request to modify the US 15-501 transit corridor is going to be at the meeting on October 23''. This was in the paper today. 1. Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Planning Director Craig Benedict said that the purpose of this discussion is to bring the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance in front for comment by our Board of Commissioners. This document has been worked on for many years and has been in a work group for nine months. A version of this was approved by the Schools and Land Use Council in November 2001 and their version was sent out to all local governments in February 2002 and all have reviewed and made comments. Now it is in front of the Board of Commissioners. The memorandum of understanding includes a model ordinance. The goal was to get all jurisdictions to sign onto this general understanding of an ordinance. Craig Benedict referred to a handout— School APFO Memorandum of Understanding Elements. He explained the seven elements on the handout, which is incorporated in these minutes by reference. The base elements are the levels of service (elementary — 105%, middle — 107%, and high — 110%); membership date (November 15`h); and building capacity (not including portables). The variables include the capital improvements program (as approved by BOCC in June each year); student growth rate (average of five models); student projections (approved methods and average of five model projections); and student generation rate (Tischler and Associates, 2001). It was always intended that there would be two separate agreements, one for each school district. The aspects within both agreements are equitable. He said that the consensus on the 5 models is that it is best to average them all because there are some conservative and some aggressive models. Chair Jacobs asked whose consensus this was and Craig Benedict said the Schools and Land Use Council and the School Facilities Task Force. Commissioner Gordon said that the School Facilities Task Force spent a lot of time on projections and levels of service. One of the things is that the two school districts have a different number of students and a different growth rate. This can affect the percentage rates of the level of service. The task force got through all of the other issues except the level of service. Craig Benedict said that what the discussion has been reduced to over the last few months is now that they have new membership projections, if the ordinance is implemented in February 2003, would we be over the levels of service. The answer was yes for Orange County middle schools. In the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district, schools will come on line before any de facto moratoriums will occur. There are four ways to resolve the levels of service issue — start off with a higher level of service and then lower it when a new school comes on line (not preferred), change the capacity of the schools, adjust the capital improvement program, or delay implementation of the ordinance until the levels of service are met. Commissioner Gordon said that the CIP change of having the third high school for Chapel Hill-Carrboro has not been approved yet. There would be a de facto moratorium if the third high school were not approved. Craig Benedict said that the drawback for delaying implementation is that if one area implements delay then development would go to the place of least resistance. Commissioner Halkiotis said that this has come a long way since the attorneys met about this and this document has made significant progress and it is time to move on with it. John Link said that an important point was made that these levels of service are district-wide and not for each school. His concern is that all understand this and reinforce it. He said that people think the whole school system is overcrowded when only two or three schools are overcrowded. He said that we should make it clear that we are pursuing a system-wide process. He made reference to attachment 1-h, which shows the capacity of each school. Craig Benedict said that attachment 1-h is the certified capacity numbers. He then described attachment 1-g. He said that the actual measure of how many seats are available before you go over the level of service will be from 105% for elementary schools, 107% for middle schools, and 110% for high schools. Commissioner Gordon said the Schools and Land Use Council had discussed if we should convert some of the elementary seats to middle school seats in the Orange County Schools. Orange County schools were worried about the revenue stream and they do not want a de facto moratorium because the impact fee revenue would be cut off. Chapel Hill-Carrboro is very concerned that the levels of service not be changed. Craig Benedict made reference to a de facto moratorium and said that the intent with the SAPFO is that development would be deferred to another year until the schools can accommodate it. Craig Benedict then summarized the comments of the local governments in passing the ordinance. Chapel Hill passed the MOU with the model ordinance without comments. Carrboro passed the MOU with two provisions. One is that they would like to dissolve themselves from this agreement if the Board of County Commissioners does not create a financially feasible capital improvement program. The other provision is that they are concerned about the levels of service standards and a short-term moratorium. Hillsborough conceptually approved the MOU as is but they do not know if they need to put an ordinance into effect or if they could do it informally. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools approved the MOU as it is written. The Orange County Schools passed the MOU in December of 2000, but there have been changes since then, so they have concerns about the projection methodology. Orange County has had two or three public hearings and the process is to take the MOU and model ordinance as an agenda item and pass the ordinance with any conditions and set a public hearing and to add this to the land development code. Commissioner Gordon asked Craig Benedict to go over the draft projections to show where the problems are. Craig Benedict described each projection method. Chair Jacobs asked about capacity and if people in Raleigh want to reduce class size and if this would throw us off. Craig Benedict said that this would throw off the projections. Chair Jacobs asked if it would be more prudent to have a higher level of service if reducing class size is going to be the political trend. Craig Benedict said that you can look at the impacts of new legislation and see where it affects your over capacity situation. He said that SAPFOs that have run into legislative changes have not moved their levels of service, but they have taken a breather to catch up to the new standards. Chair Jacobs asked Craig Benedict if he said that these were some of the lowest levels of service that he had seen anywhere in the country. Craig Benedict said yes. Commissioner Halkiotis said that there was an outcry from the County Commissioners' Association about 10 years ago against a mandate for construction standards statewide that would include offices for each teacher. He said that you do not have anything to fear and this has been dealt with in many ways. He said that he has a problem with people in Raleigh telling us what to do with capacities of schools. County Attorney Geoff Gledhill said that they have thought about that and the building capacity cannot be mandated by anyone other than the County Commissioners and the school boards. Chair Jacobs said that if the school system has 22 students per class and the legislature said that it should be 20, would the County Commissioners have to agree to that. Geoff Gledhill said that we did not have to agree to that for the purposes of the SAPFO. It would require an increase in the levels of services. Commissioner Gordon said that this is one of the places where it impacts the two districts differently. The Orange County schools have smaller class sizes. Chapel HiII- Carrboro schools would need to reduce class size if the legislature reduces the class size. Geoff Gledhill said that the Board of County Commissioners has to agree to that change before it affects the way the SAPFO operates. Craig Benedict said that the only part that he would like to add is where to go from here. Commissioner Gordon said that she would like for Craig Benedict to wrap up the projections. She said that Carrboro did have one other problem and that is when the information from the planners and the schools groups goes out to everybody, they want to make sure that the jurisdictions have the chance to comment. At the Schools and Land Use Council they came up with some language to handle Carrboro's and Hillsborough's concerns. The representatives were ok with the addendum. Commissioner Carey asked what happens if a development company wants to build but gets a deferral until school space is available and then another company wants to build when the deferral period is over. He asked who would get to build first. Craig Benedict said that it would be a first come, first serve basis. Geoff Gledhill said that the developer is able to, if there is a capacity problem, voluntarily submit a phasing plan and get their project approved and when the capacity is there, they can start building. Craig Benedict said that there is a deadline when someone gets a CAPS. They cannot hold onto it for an undetermined amount of time before starting the project. Commissioner Halkiotis gave a cautionary note about possible grade configuration and moving 6`h grade back to the elementary level. It is a very sticky situation. There was a lot of trauma in the past when there were migrations of grades. Chair Jacobs said a lot of work that has gone into this. He wants to raise the issue about high school space being devoted to daycare. He said that this would reduce high school capacity. He wants to be comfortable with the level of service and that it is set at a place that we could live with. He made reference to the de facto moratorium or a deferral and said that he thinks that for some it is a tactic to create a moratorium. He said that if this is the case, then they should go ahead and say that. He does not think that this is what the Board of County Commissioners is about. He said that we should honestly confront this issue. He made reference to treating the two school systems differently related to the implementation of the SAPFO and said that he would like to see the pros and cons of doing it differently for the school systems. Craig Benedict talked about time lines and said that he wanted to bring the MOU back to the Board of County Commissioners for approval on November 6`h. They are trying to get all of the entities and to meet the MOU approval by all by November 15`h so that they can collect data. They have heard feedback that it is unrealistic to adopt the ordinance by November 15`h. They hope to have the ordinance in effect by the winter break at the latest. John Link said that one topic that should be addressed at the Assembly of Governments meeting is a revised timetable and giving the jurisdictions a timeframe for which they can adopt the ordinance. Commissioner Gordon said that we need to have a reading to see if we can have an addendum to the MOU for Hillsborough and Carrboro. Chair Jacobs said that attachment 1-d-could be taken off the recommendation. 2. Orange County/Durham 1-85/US 70 Economic Development District Area Craig Benedict gave a PowerPoint presentation. There are a lot of undeveloped properties in this general region and the jurisdictions are looking at urban growth boundaries. With existing land use plans of the County, we need to ensure that the public services in these areas will be compatible with the master land use plan. He said that the Economic Development District in Hillsborough has been reexamined to see how it works and does not work. Presently, there are no utilities in this general area. He explained several maps of this general area (Stoney Creek Basin, Durham County, newly adopted water and sewer management planning boundary agreement, etc.). Craig Benedict answered several questions from the County Commissioners about the maps. Craig Benedict said that he could bring forth a resolution of intent and an annexation agreement to begin more cooperative planning efforts with Durham. John Link said that if the Board of County Commissioners wants to go forward then the Administration needs to meet with their counterparts in Durham and then there should be a meeting with the Chairs and Vice-Chairs to solidify the process and move forward. Commissioner Halkiotis asked what happens to an ABC store or a fire district when Durham annexes it. He is troubled about this and it almost sounds like a fait accompli. He does not know what is gained from all of this from Durham's perspective. John Link said that this could be a win-win situation for the EDD area because we have nowhere to go but up as it relates to economic development. He said that there is not anything for Durham to be attracted to out there unless there is an EDD. Chair Jacobs pointed out that we do not have an annexation agreement yet. Craig Benedict said that it would be good to have some sort of land use plan agreement in place before a large project is proposed and annexation takes place. Commissioner Gordon said that she would feel comfortable if this could be brought back to the Board with more information on what to talk to Durham about. Craig Benedict will bring this back at the November 11`h work session. 3. 2002-03 State and County Budget Impacts Budget Director Donna Dean distributed a handout (purple) and John Link gave a summary of the fiscal year 2001-02 financial update. Attachment 3-e is what was adopted as part of the budget. He said that we expect to receive $600,000 every quarter, but we are only going to receive $1.2 million of this during this year. This can be used to address fund balance, certain frozen capital items, employee and compensation package (classification study), etc. John Link said that they have also tried to get from the State budget what impacts that our agencies and non-profits will face. The Governor still has to balance the budget and he believes the human services programs will receive further cuts. He believes that the Human Services Safety Net Fund will be adequate to address any unknowns. Donna Dean spoke on category 3 and said that the cuts are about $95,000 to DSS. They have set aside $300,000 to deal with this as well as other cuts. Chair Jacobs asked if the $40,000 for childcare is part of the $300,000 and Donna Dean said yes. Chair Jacobs said that one of things that staff was proposing was that if Chatham County were to split the difference with us on the Criminal Justice Partnership, then it would cost us an additional $13,000 and we would ask them to make up the remainder. John Link said that there are some unknowns that the winter months will bring as it relates to fuel assistance, etc. He said that he does not think that the Board needs to address some of these areas of service provision until we get the first revenue picture of sales tax in January, 2003. Chair Jacobs asked that we write a letter to Chatham to see if they are interested in matching funds with the County. Also, he would like to have the discussion of the fuel fund to go ahead so the Board can make some decisions before the winter break. John Link said that they would reorganize the group that addresses fuel and emergency assistance. Commissioner Halkiotis asked if we know everything that has happened with the State budget. John Link said that the Governor still has to balance the budget. The Governor has already cut $25 million. He does not see any additional big cuts that were not already anticipated. 4. Employee Pay and Benefits a. Employee Health Insurance for 2003 Chair Jacobs said that the Board has to make a decision tonight on employee health insurance for 2003. Personnel Director Elaine Holmes gave a summary of the Employee Health Insurance renewal for 2003 (starting January 1, 2003). She gave a presentation from the yellow handout. There are presently three health plans — Blue Cross Personal Care Plan (PCP) has 497 employees; Blue Cross Preferred Provider Plan (PPO) has 41 employees; and CIGNA has 136 employees. There are some changes initiated by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners' Health Insurance Trust and by Blue Cross. One of the changes is that they are replacing the PCP product with a product called Blue Care and PCP will no longer exist. Blue Care is an HMO model with open access to physicians within the network. There are also some increases in the co- pay for specialists from $10 to $20 and an increase in the prescription drug benefit. There are also changes in the PPO product to Blue Options. This involves an increase in deductibles and co-insurance amounts. There is also an addition of a co-pay with 100% co-insurance after co-pay as opposed to 90% before. CIGNA is changing to an open access plan, increasing prescription drug co-pays, and adding a co-pay for hospital admission and hospital outpatient facility. The three renewal options are as follows: - renew current plan with an increase in Blue Cross of 25% and in CIGNA of 12.55% -renew plans with alternative benefits with an increase in Blue Cross of 16% and in CIGNA of 12.55% -renew with alternative benefits and NCACC Trust as sole provider with an increase in Blue Cross of 13% The first option is closer to the plans that we have now and the increase is due to the general trend in health insurance costs and the County's higher utilization over the past six months. In the past, the County has contributed 100% for the individual employee only coverage and 40% of the cost of dependent coverage based on the Blue Cross PCP rate. Currently, 42% of employees have dependent coverage. If the rates are calculated as usual, the cost increase for these employees would range from $420 to $900 a year. Most of these employees are at salaries below $50,000 and many are at salaries below $35,000. The Manager is recommending that the Board adopt option 1, to renew with Blue Care Plan 1 and Blue Options Plan 1 through the NCACC Trust and continue to offer CIGNA. The Manager also recommends that the Board temporarily increase the subsidy for dependent health insurance for 2003 to 52% based on Blue Care Plan to fully mitigate Blue Cross increase. This would cost an additional $184,000 for fiscal year 2002-03. This is in addition to the 18% increase in health insurance costs that was budgeted. Of this $184,000, $145,000 could be funded using the Employee Pay and Benefits Contingency Fund and the remaining $39,000 could be funded from the new % cent sales tax revenue. Commissioner Halkiotis said that we were not able to do much for our employees this past year. He is concerned that 40% of employees are at salaries below $35,000. He thinks that we need to send a clear message to our employees that they are important and valued and we need to offer them a package that will help them. He supports doing something for our employees. Commissioner Carey said that we did not do anything for our employees this year and he recognizes that the Manager's recommendation attempts to insulate the employees from a pay cut. The trend in the industry is 20-30% for insurance renewals. He asked if we get good utilization rate data from the companies that we deal with. Elaine Holmes said that it is difficult to get data from the Trust and others. Commissioner Carey said that he supports the Manager's recommendation. Chair Jacobs said that he agrees with Commissioners Carey and Halkiotis and he does not want to see employees go backwards. He would like to see the numbers before 10:00p.m. tonight in terms of the costs. He would be supportive of this for fiscal year 2003 and hold employees harmless. He is also concerned with what is going to happen with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and he said that having multiple options is probably wise. Elaine Holmes said that these rates would be effective for the entire 2003 calendar year. There was a break at this time at 8:55 p.m. Elaine Holmes prepared a handout of the health insurance costs. The total additional costs would be $749,000 for the health insurance increases. Commissioner Gordon said that she agrees with this year but that we need to look seriously next time at the hospital deductibles, which are generally larger than the county's deductibles. She asked for clarification on the chart, and Elaine Holmes answered her questions. Commissioner Halkiotis said that they had done internal surveys of employees and asked why the 136 employees wanted CIGNA. Elaine Holmes said that they hear from the employees that it is because of the physician network available under CIGNA. She said that they tried hard to get a list of the physicians under CIGNA that employees were actually using so that they could compare it to Blue Cross. They were not able to get this information from CIGNA. John Link said that we need to look at this next year. Chair Jacobs said that employees enrolled adds up to 80 fewer employees than we have and Elaine Holmes said that there were about 45 vacant positions and 35 employees on the health insurance waiver option. A motion was made by Commissioner Halkiotis, seconded by Commissioner Carey to accept the Manager's recommendation to adopt option 1 — renew with Blue Care Plan 1 and Blue Options Plan 1 through the NCACC Trust and continue to offer CIGNA and temporarily increase the subsidy for dependent health insurance for 2003 to 52% based on Blue Care Plan to fully mitigate Blue Cross increase. VOTE: UNANIMOUS b. Classification and Pay Study Elaine Holmes said that this plan was supposed to be implemented in 2002-2003 and because of the fiscal restraints it was not implemented. They have completed a significant amount of the work. If the Board decides to pursue the study, they would complete the study and final reviews with department heads and employees and would complete the final report and present it to the Board for consideration. The study would establish equitable salary relationships, build a more competitive pay plan, and improve entry-level rates. The total estimated cost of the study is about $2.5 million. This would include implementation of new job classifications and salary schedule, moving employees below new minimum up to new minimums and granting service-based salary increases. The implementation could be phased in over three years. The estimated cost for 2002-03 if phase one were implemented in April 2003 would be $372,000. Regarding other pay and benefits matters, funds were not budgeted this year for cost of living increase, in-range salary increase, meritorious service awards, or 401(k) plan improvement. Commissioner Gordon asked about the statistical pay equity analysis and Elaine Holmes said that it would just be statistics and not an analysis or a written report. The staff still needs to work with the consultant on this. Chair Jacobs said there was a discussion in the cover sheet about deferring this until February 6, 2003. He asked when the sales tax revenues come in for the quarter. John Link said that it would not be until February 15`h. He said that the recommendation is to wait until the work session on February 6`h. As the sales tax revenue comes in, then other items can be addressed. Commissioner Halkiotis asked about payment of the consultant and Elaine Holmes said that he is on a retainer. There is money to pay the consultant once the job is finished. Chair Jacobs asked about the timing of the completion of the study and Elaine Holmes said that it would be up to the Board. Commissioner Carey said it makes sense to complete the study and then come back in February with the data to see if we want to pursue further steps. John Link said that he would not want the employees going over all of this until the County Commissioners decide to follow through. Elaine Holmes said that she could go ahead with some things that are remaining in house and hold off on interviews until February. Chair Jacobs asked about the thinking behind the April date. John Link said that this date would capture the last quarter of the year before implementation. The Board will discuss this matter in February when the data from the sales tax revenue is known. c. Other Pay and Benefits Matters None 5. Drug and Alcohol Policy and Employee Assistance Program Elaine Holmes said that the Board asked in June to talk about the EAP and the drug and alcohol policy, especially the difference in the alcohol and drug policies. The current policy is that if there is a positive test for illegal drugs then the employee is dismissed and if there is a positive test for alcohol then it could be dismissal or other actions depending on whether it occurred on duty or off duty. They need to do updates on the policy over the next several months to reflect some changes in the federal transportation regulations. She said that she had been asked about the EAP, whether it is possible for employees to share visits. Under the current program, each employee can have up to three visits per problem or incident. Visits may not be shared between employees. The Board also asked for a survey of other counties and cities (attachment 1) on what they do with drug and alcohol testing and this might need more analysis. Chair Jacobs said that he brought this up in the spring. He made reference to attachment 2 and said that numbers 8 and 9 should be the same. There should be the same treatment for a positive alcohol test that there is for a positive drug test. Commissioner Gordon said that alcohol is a drug, but one is legal and one is not. She asked John Link for comments. John Link said that if you poll any employees about how long an illegal drug stays in your system they would get it wrong and thus suggested emphasizing to all employees that an illegal drug stays in your system longer than they think. After seeing what other employers do, he is willing to consider what has been recommended. He would like to look at how the other local jurisdictions handle how Managers, supervisors, and department heads make a determination whether or not someone is given another chance. He thinks that if someone is in a position where they are endangering lives, then they should not be given another chance. But if it were tolerated in some workers and not others, then we would cast very poorly upon the organization, the County Commissioners, and our citizens. He recommended coming back with the language for a revised #9 that incorporates the best aspects of the other jurisdictions. Commissioner Halkiotis said that both Chapel Hill and Carrboro portray a greater sense of sensitivity and we come across as uncaring, cold, and insensitive. He said that our belief system and policy do not coincide. John Link will bring back language to address this and protect the organization and the employees. Part of the process is to get help and assistance for individuals. Commissioner Gordon said she would like to mention that if you are trying to make the alcohol and drug tests the same then you may have to make the alcohol one more strict and make it more compassionate so that someone who is trying to get help, thye would be able to do that. With no further items to address, the meeting was adjourned at 9:35 p.m. Barry Jacobs, Chair Donna S. Baker Clerk to the Board