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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 04-24-2012 APPROVED 8/12/2012 MINUTES BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS BUDGET WORK SESSION April 24, 2012 7:00 p.m. The Orange County Board of Commissioners met in regular session on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 7:00 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center, Chapel Hill. N.C. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Bernadette Pelissier and Commissioners Valerie Foushee, Alice M. Gordon, Barry Jacobs, Pam Hemminger, Earl McKee, and Steve Yuhasz COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: COUNTY ATTORNEYS PRESENT: John Roberts COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager Frank Clifton, Assistant County Gwen Harvey, Assistant County Manager Michael Talbert and Clerk to the Board Donna 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. 1. Fiscal Year 2012-13 Budget Drivers Financial Services Director Clarence Grier said that they currently anticipate the FY 2012-13 General Fund budget to be approximately $178 million. Although it is anticipated that this will be the approximate amount of the budget, they are aware of several major budget drivers that will need to be addressed as the budget is formulated and finalized. The known budget drivers for the FY 2012-13 budget are as follows: • Medical Health Insurance increases — up to 11.5% $ 0.75 million • Retirees Health Annual Funding Requirement 5.20 million • Emergency Services Requests 1.80 million • School Districts Budget Requests — up to 6.10 million • Total budget drivers/impacts $13.85 million This represents 9.01 cents on the current property tax rate for the FY2012-13 budget. Health Insurance Clarence Grier said that currently, the County pays approximately $6.6 million for health insurance across all funds for employees ($5.5 million for the General Fund) each fiscal year. Additionally, the County pays approximately $1.4 million per year for all retiree health insurance related costs. For the upcoming budget year, Mark III Benefits and United Healthcare have informed the county that they can expect up to an 11.5% increase in health insurance for employees and retirees for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. Staff estimates the increase and the effect on the FY2012-13 budget to be as follows: • Employee health insurance $0.75 million • Retiree health insurance 0.85 million • Total $1.60 million Additionally, staff anticipates, based on past experience that our health insurance costs will continue to increase by 15 to 20 percent per year as a result of claims paid in previous fiscal years, and the current average age of the County's workforce. Annually, this would represent an increase of$1.1 million to $1.5 million per year in health insurance for current employees and retirees. Clarence Grier said in the next few months staff and County insurance consultants will be bringing forth proposals from which the Board of County Commissioners can select an appropriate course of action. Frank Clifton said they had a big spike this past fall in elective surgeries due to changing insurance companies and employees concerned about their new coverages. He said if they go self- insured then how will this affect retirees. Other Post-Employment Benefits (Retirees Health Insurance Funding) Clarence Grier said that the County currently funds post-employment benefits/retirees' health insurance (OPEB) on a pay-as-you-go basis. Our required annual actuarial contribution is approximately $5.1 million per year. As a result, this leaves the County with a funding deficit and an unfunded OPEB liability of$62.8 million, as of June 30, 2011. Putting this in perspective, the County recently issued debt to fund an elementary school, equipment, and refund existing County debt that totaled $58.9 million which represent the County's largest, most current, combined debt issuance. Our current unfunded OPEB liability is greater than that debt issuance. He said that they will be proposing an approach to fund the liability beginning in the FY2012-13 Manager's Recommended Budget. Frank Clifton said that if the County does not start addressing this issue, it can and will impact discussions with the bond rating agencies, impact our bond rating and the ability of the County to issue debt in the future. Additionally, as previously mentioned, the annual cost is increasing proportionately with the number of retirees. Clarence Grier referred to articles at their places and said that some of this will affect how they issue debt. Frank Clifton said that as part of the budget ordinance, staff will bring forward an action to change the benefits plan for new hires and to restructure the retiree benefit. The requirement for retirees will be proposed to be for employees that have served 20 years instead of 10 years. Frank Clifton said that the County is very close to the 17% reserve fund policy and they are planning to do preliminary estimates of revenues and expenditures. He is going to propose a policy that states that any money left at the end of the year is to be set aside to fund the retiree health insurance fund. He said that the changes they make will have a gradual impact. There will be no impact on existing employees or existing retirees. Emergency Services Clarence Grier said that staff will be proposing increases in expenditures for Emergency Services (911 and ES) in FY2012-13 to improve response time. These proposals will be provided prior to completion of the effort of the Board's appointed Emergency Services Work Group and the expected consultant's report. The final allocations can be adjusted based on later input, but considering the importance of these services to the public, necessary increased financial commitments are a reality. School Districts and Education Requests for Funding Both the Orange County and the Chapel Hill — Carrboro City Schools districts have requested increases in the per pupil allocation that the County provides to each district in the FY2012- 2013 budget. Orange County Schools has requested an increase in the per pupil allocation from the County that would increase the current expense allocation $220 per pupil. This would raise the County's current expense allocation for both school districts to $3,322. This would represent an increase of$6.07 million based the projected average daily membership (ADM) provided by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) for both systems. This funding request would represent 3.95 cents on the current property tax rate. Chapel Hill — Carrboro City Schools has requested an increase in the local per pupil allocation increase of$67. This requested increase in the local per pupil allocation for current expenses would increase the per pupil allocation to $3,169. This funding level would represent an approximate increase in the current expense for both school districts of$3.05 million, which would represent 1.98 cents of the current property tax rate based on the projected ADM provided by NC DPI for both systems. Frank Clifton said that Clarence Grier has looked at each of the schools' fund balances and both have a generous fund balance and maybe this could help the schools fund some of their requests. He said that the schools have had little variance in revenue growth and remain basically flat. He said that the County is at a point in time that the schools are at or above the 48.1% limit and to fund the requests would require a tax increase. Commissioner Hemminger asked about the increases in per-pupil. Discussion ensued about the formula staff used to calculate this information and Clarence Grier— at end of meeting— brought forth a hard copy for them to review. Commissioner Hemminger asked if the same amount was given to each student whichever formula amount they choose and staff said yes. Employee Compensation Frank Clifton said that this is a budget driver that has not been quantified, but an issue across all of the departments of the County is employee compensation. As they are interviewing and attempting to fill vacant positions, they are experiencing difficulty obtaining and maintaining employees due to the constriction of employee compensation. County employees have done an outstanding job of responding to increased demand for county services, provided by a smaller workforce, under difficult conditions. Staff will try to address this issue as they formulate the FY2012-13 budget. He said that others are proposing salary increases and thus they would like to propose a salary increase for all employees and they will bring this back to the County Commissioners as part of the budget process. Commissioner Gordon asked if the Emergency Services work group would be coming forth with recommendations and if this was a placeholder. Staff said that this is a little of both. Frank Clifton said that they need to add another ambulance on the roads and to increase the number of dispatchers. Frank Clifton said that if the County is going to stay as it has been in the past three years, the Board of County Commissioners will need to make some decisions since they have not raised taxes in the past three years. Commissioner Yuhasz said that he would like to see a budget that does not require a tax increase. Chair Pelissier said that the Board needs to assess first what it wants to accomplish and she does not want to say no at this time. Commissioner Foushee said that she would like to see variations — no tax increase, a two-cent increase, and a five-cent tax increase. Commissioner Jacobs said that this discussion is premature and they have not even met with the schools yet. Commissioner Gordon said that the County Commissioners need to consider what would be the difference with different types of tax increases. Without committing, she would like to at least look at the different variations of tax increases as Commissioner Foushee suggested. Commissioner McKee said that the County Commissioners need more information before making any commitments. Frank Clifton said that their intention is to bring the County Commissioners a budget with no tax increase for basic services and the Board can add in items as they see fit. 2. Follow-up Discussion of the Manager's Recommended 2012-2017 Capital Investment Plan (CIP) McGowan Creek Outfall Paul Laughton said that this project was originally included within the Central Efland/North Buckhorn Sewer Expansion Project (page 53 of the CIP document). Since then, staff has been notified by the State that the McGowan Creek Outfall project is eligible to receive State Revolving Loan funds in the amount of$755,450. (See Attachment 1, which is located in permanent agenda file in the Clerk's office) Central Efland/North Buckhorn Sewer Expansion Paul Laughton said that Attachment 2 (a copy is located in the permanent agenda file in the Clerk's office) is a revised Central Efland/North Buckhorn Sewer Expansion project (pages 53- 54) page to reflect the removal of the McGowan Creek Outfall project from this project. Communications System Improvements Paul Laughton said that Attachment 3 (copy of which is located in the permanent agenda files in the Clerk's office) is a revised Communications System Improvements project (pages 33-34) reflecting a funding plan for the replacement of 800 MHz radios for the Emergency Services and Sheriff's departments only. This project, as well as the Viper Radio System and Future EMS Stations projects, continues to be reviewed as part of the charge to the Emergency Services Work Group. Commissioner McKee made reference for the MHz radios of$620,000 in the first year and said that this was a question that came up this afternoon and why the County is trying to replace all of the Emergency Services radios. Chair Pelissier made reference tothe standardization of radios issue and asked if it was being addressed in the Emergency Services Work Group and Commissioner McKee said that there are not major compatibility issues with the radios. He said that the Highway Patrol basically controls the compatibility and standardization issues with radios. He said they need to move toward standardization and they are very close to it as well. Sportsplex Paul Laughton said that Attachment 4 (a copy of which is located in the permanent agenda files in the Clerk's office) is a revised Sportsplex project (page 68) recommending the shifting of funding for Lobby Renovations, estimated at $125,000, from Year 2 to Year 1 of the CIP, due to a prominent need for renovations to enhance the appearance and appeal of the facility. Commissioner McKee questioned having this type of savings. Frank Clifton said that the Sportsplex has been performing very well and this is an enterprise fund. The lobby is the first impression that they can make. Commissioner McKee said that he was wrong since this is not part of the general fund. Commissioner Gordon asked how debt financing works for an enterprise fund. Paul Laughton said that the County would issue the debt and would separate it out between projects and enterprise funds and this would be outside of the County project funds. Commissioner Gordon asked what the rating agencies look at regarding total County debt with regard to this enterprise fund. Frank Clifton said that the rating agencies look to see if this fund makes enough revenue to cover operating costs and to pay the debt. Commissioner Yuhasz asked when the debt would be paid off for the Sportsplex purchase and Clarence Grier said maybe 2019-2020. Paul Laughton said that the County Commissioners have at their places a pink debt capacity revision of the pages the staff has given in previous work sessions. Paul Laughton said that this is the last scheduled discussion of the CIP. The next discussion would fall in one of the budget work sessions. Clarence Grier showed a slide to clear up the school per pupil formula. A motion was made by Commissioner McKee, seconded by Commissioner Yuhasz to adjourn the meeting at 8:25 p.m. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Bernadette Pelissier, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC Clerk to the Board