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Minutes 11-21-11 MINUTES OF THE FINANCIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2011 AT 6:00 P.M. AT THE LIBRARY ROOM "A," BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA PRESENT Don Scantlan, Chair - Barry Atwood, Finance Director Dennis Dougherty George Feldman Terry Lonergan William Shulman Jeffrey Fisher, Alternate 1. Call to Order Chair Scantlan called the meeting to order at 5458 6:00 p.m. The Recording Secretary called the roll. Chair Scantlan requested a motion to move Mr. Fisher to a regular position for the meeting. Motion Mr. Schulman moved to advance Mr. Fisher from an alternate to a regular member for the meeting. Mr. Feldman seconded the motion that unanimously passed. 2. Approval of Minutes — October 17, 2011 Mr. Fisher pointed out that on page three, section seven, second line, there should be a space between "to identify ". Also, in the same section, third paragraph, change "tea member used a financial --ad icor, the advisor could become a mcmbcr of the Committee' to If any of the Committee members know a financial advisor, please invite them to be a member of the Committee. Mr. Schulman advised on page six, last paragraph of section eight, second sentence, another data point to the City Commission to make the their decisions. Motion Ms. Lonergan moved to approve the amended minutes. The motion was seconded by Mr. Shulman and unanimously passed. Meeting Minutes Financial Advisory Committee Boynton Beach, FL November 21, 2011 3. Consider Input for Questions for Use in Next Citizen Survey Chair Scantlan explained the purpose of the survey was to bring up another data point on what the resident's attitude was about how the City money was being spent and what things the City should be spending money on. The questions should be directed with the Committee's objective in mind. The first two questions were put in pace to obtain characteristics of the people taking the survey. Chair Scantlan expressed doubt on the value of question six which pertained to the length of time a resident had maintained a residence in Boynton Beach. There was discussion on whether it was a question that would give an indication of how long a resident has had to deal with certain issues. The response would not be presented to the Commission as part of the survey results and the Committee does not specifically do anything with that information. The same discussion applied to the question on the survey related to age. On the question that dealt with income, there was concern that people were not entering the income honestly. Ms. Lonergan mentioned that on surveys where family income was requested, people would either answer very high or not answer at all. There was continued review and discussion of each question to determine their relevance. There was also discussion on the tracking of where the source of the responses. Many residents do not include their address on the survey. An option for this year could be asking the resident which District they live in or using their zip code for tracking purposes. There was also a concern that many City employees were answering the survey, which would skew the answers to be more beneficial to them. There was agreement to add wording where it indicated answers were optional to read, "the following information is optional, but by providing this information, you would be helping the Finance Advisory Committee improve their study ". Mr. Atwood would clean up the wording. Chair Scantlan wanted the Committee to think about what questions could be added that would be more specifically targeted at the different functions of the City as far as what was supported and what was not supported. There was discussion on the question dealing with the millage and taxes which asked residents if they would rather increase taxes for more services or decrease taxes for fewer services. Chair Scantlan thought the millage could be taken out of the question so it would not have to be rewritten every year. There was discussion on the four -day work week and where the savings were. Mr. Atwood indicated the largest savings was in the electricity, even though electricity was being used for two extra hours per day. The residents would want to know what 2 Meeting Minutes Financial Advisory Committee Boynton Beach, FL November 21, 2011 services they could expect if the four -day work week was suspended. That would be an indicator whether residents thought there was value to a shortened work week. It was noted on the question about garbage services, the preponderance of people stated that since the City switched to the very large garbage can, they only put garbage out once a week or even once every two weeks. The research on savings would be continued and would remain as one of the survey questions. The question on raising water rates every year or every other year was removed. Chair Scantian advised five questions were removed and wanted suggestions for adding five questions back into the survey. He suggested one question could be to ask the residents what they wanted to see the City spend more on in the next five years. Another suggestion would be to ask the residents for their input on what they feel the City should do to close the budget gap. The remainder of the questions would be discussed and finalized as an agenda item at the next meeting. Items number 4 and 6 were switched to allow discussion by Mr. Feldman as his presentation carried many points related to the survey questions. 4. Discuss Conversation with Previous Delray Beach Financial Advisory Board Member. (This appears as #6 on agenda). Mr. Feldman recounted a conversation he had with an anonymous ex- member of the City of Delray Beach Financial Advisory Board. He shared some information he felt was valuable to target revenues or savings for the production of the new survey of this Committee. He reviewed what revenue initiatives were used by Delray Beach. All involved raising fees for parking meters, parking impact fee for commercial properties, impact fees, enterprise business increase for golf, tennis, water and sanitation and fire. He also mentioned that separating fire and ambulance services could be a savings or possibly entering in a County agreement for ambulance services. There were other items discussed, some of which Boynton Beach already had in place and some that would not be applicable or profitable for the City. There was discussion on different strategies and outside involvement for the Committee to investigate to start the budget review process. It was mentioned to possibly begin meeting twice a month again. Mr. Shulman suggested contacting the Financial Advisory Board in Boca Raton and possibly talking about how they do things. The Committee discussed if there was value -added in doing this. 5. Discuss Techniques for Collecting Citizen Survey Responses Chair Scantian inquired whether there was a way to insert the survey in the water bills to possibly 10 people in each voting district. Mr. Atwood advised the survey itself could 3 Meeting Minutes Financial Advisory Committee Boynton Beach, FL November 21, 2011 not be in the water bill, but a notice indicating they had been selected to participate and direct them to a website would be viable. Another suggestion was to tie a mailing in with property tax mailings. Chair Scantlan inquired whether there was money in the budget to do a mailing to 150 people, 10 addresses in each voting district. Mr. Atwood indicated it was a small enough amount that would be acceptable. This would be a second survey with the same questions as on Survey Monkey. Mr. Schulman mentioned that there was a suggestion last year about putting the surveys in Starbucks and offering free coffee if the survey was filled out. The issue was that someone would have to go around and collect them. After discussion, the Board agreed to investigate putting survey boxes in Starbucks. There was also discussion on getting the Commissioners to meet with their constituents to possibly promote the survey, finding ways of getting the business community involved, and possibly advertise in the local newspapers. 6. Continue Reviewing Selected Assignments for Next Year Chair Scantlan advised there were more opportunities for subjects. If someone wanted to switch an assignment now that Ms. Pamplona and Mr. Madigan had resigned, that would be possible. It should be noted that as of this current meeting, Mr. Madigan's resignation had not been accepted by the Commission and he requested being moved to an alternate position. Mr. Schulman announced he would take over items 22, 23 and 24 from Ms. Pamplona's assignment, in addition to what he had last year. Mr. Feldman added item 15 to his assignments. For Mr. Dougherty's benefit, Chair Scantlan explained the assignment process and purpose since he was new and had not been previously involved. He also explained the role of the City Services Institute. 7. Future Meeting Dates The next meeting date of the Committee would be December 19, 2011. Mr. Atwood advised he would need possible dates in order to reserve the Library conference room. He advised if the decision was made to hold meetings on the first and third Mondays, they would be back to back with the Commission meetings. Starting in February, Chair Scantlan suggested going back to two meetings a month, the second and fourth Monday. Mr. Atwood would check with the City Clerk to make sure the fourth Monday was available. The January meeting would take place on January 9, 2012 and it would be decided at the next meeting when the bi- weekly meetings would be held. 4 Meeting Minutes Financial Advisory Committee Boynton Beach, FL November 21, 2011 8. Adjournment Mr. Shulman moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded by Ms. Lonergan and unanimously passed. The meeting adjourned at 8:05 p.m. ait1 e EC - 2t.t ,a c ?`_ Ellie Caruso Recording Secretary 5