HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-20-2004Minutes of the Jeffersonville City Council WOrkshop
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
The Common Council of the City of Jefferson~e met in Workshop session on Monday,
July 20, 2004. The meeting was held in Room 308, City-County Building. Council President
Phil McCauley called the meeting to order at 7:05 P.M. with Clerk-Treasurer Peggy Wilder
at the desk. Other council members in attendan~ce were Ed Zastawny, Keith Fetz, Connie
Sellers, John Perkins, and Ron Grooms.
Council President McCauley explained that this is the first semi-annual report of the City
Council to the residents of Jeffersonville by the City Council. He explained that by an
ordinance introduced by Councilperson Ed Zas~awny and passed unanimously by the City
Council, the President of the Council is to make; a report to the Citizens of Jeffersonville
outlining the actions taken by the Council in th{ last six months, including the anticipated
actions to be taken in the future, the financial cqndition of the City and other matters of
relevance and interest.
Council President McCauley described the duffels of the Counc/1 and explained how the
Council makes laxvs called ordinances that govern the City and appropriates the City's
monies. He said the City's revenues are from p~operty taxes collected by the county, excise,
gasoline and other taxes collected by the state a~d from fees and services primarily from
building perm/ts. He also explained that this ye0r for the first time Jeffersonville ~vould be
the recipient of income taxes that most other ciOes in Indiana already receive.
Council President McCauley explained that ther~ is much to do in the remaining term of this
City Council. He said it is the vision of the CoLl~cil to continue to put public safety first in
order of priorities. Secondly, he believes the C4uncil must fund and support a strong
economic development effort to increase Jeffer~onville's tax base. Thirdly, he said the City
Council recognizes the importance of helping ir~ prove the lives of those citizens least able to
care for themselves. Fourth, he said the City should continue and increase its efforts at
improving the quality of life in the areas of recreation, culture and beautification of the City.
He explained that while pursuing these matters ihe City must maintain its very important
day-to-day operations of maintaining efficient s~nitation operations and well maintained
streets and roads. To this end, he pledged the support of the Council in working with the
Waiz Administration to achieve these goals for [he City.
Please see a copy of the attached remarks for rrgore detailed mformanon.
As there was no further discussion, the workshop was adjourned at 9:10 P.M.
Council Pre uley
ATTEST:
Clerk ~tlkqsurer Peggy Wilder
State of the Jeffersofiville City Council
July 20,12004
This is the first semi annual report of the City CoUncil to the residents of Jeffersonmlle. By an
ordinance introduced by Council person Ed Zasta~ty and passed unanimously by the City
CoUncil, the President of the Council is to make alreport to the Citizens of Jeffersonville
outlining the actions taken by the CoUncil in the l~t six months, the anticipated actions to be
taken in the future, the financial condition of the City and other matters of relevance or interest.
Before getting into the business of the Council, I ~ provide some general information about the
CoUncil and its responsibilities and authority. This will also entail what the CoUncil is not
authorized or empowered to do.
The City Council (known statutorily as the comm~On coUncil) makes the laws (ordinances) tl~at
govern the city and appropriates the city's mouies; The Mayor is the city's chief executive and
governs the operations of the City through the ~ of Public Works and Safety and through the
City's various departments and the heads of thoSeldopadments. Generally speaking the Mayor
initiates programs and projects and oversees operations of the city as its chief executive and the
Council is responsible for the legislation and finahces of the city. SUCh a division of duties
exists throughout our country and is meant to be the checks and balances on power. The mayor
cannot spend what the council does not appropriaie and the coUncil cannot appropriate funds that
the mayor does not request. Sometimes mayors at~d councils clash over powers and in extreme
cases courts must decide who has proper jufisdic~on.
The city's revenues are from pr.o? taxes colle~ by the coUnty (both real estate and business
personal property), excise, gasoline and other tax~s collected by the state and bom fees and
services primarily from building permits. This y6ar for the first time JeffersOnville will also be
the recipient of income' taxes as most other cities' ' ~m~ indiana are. These taxes were imposed last
year throughout Clark County and are subject to QoUncil appropriations just as property taxes
The City also operates a sewer utility and chargeslcustomers for their sewer service. These funds
are controlled by the Jeffersonville Sewer Board. iWhile the City CoUncil must approve rote
hikes and indebtedness incurred by the Sewer Uti~ty the operational control is vested in the
Sewer Board and that board authorizes and approves all expenditures of the sewer operations in
Jefferso. nville. In the re. cant p.~t, the. City establi.s~ed a Drainage Board to deal with the century
old drainage Problems m this river city. The ~ge Board collects fees added to the bills of
sewer users and oversees the use of those funds ~ address the many drainage problems in the
City.
The City Council consists of seven elected mem~, five of which are elected from each of five
districts and two of which are elected from throughout the city. The Council this year elected a
president and a wee president and appointed members as hmsous and committee members for
purposes of accumulating and sharing informatio~ with the complete council regarding certain
aspects of city govemmem. The appointment of l~a~sons and commit~es is intended to funnel
informati°n through a common source rather thali >iecemeaiing information from many sources
which often results in conflicting or incomplete ififormafion.
· . . it
So much for the brief overview of city govemme.n and on to the business at hand, a report of the
first six months of 2004 and the plans for the imm~ ediate future.
One of the Council's first actions this year was td~ divide duties among itself for the purposes
outlined above. Council members were assignedlas liaisons with city depat~tments in certain
areas of interest. Run Grooms is the liaison with ~.~.~ts, roads, traffic and engineering, Barbara
Wilson with parks and recreation, John Perkins ~th downtown matters, Ed Zastawny with
redevelopment, Connie Sellers with animal shelter, end board of public works (as a member),
Keith Fetz with public safety, and Phil McCauleY with human resources. These duties may
change from year to year and since the original aJsignments as liaisons each council member has
taken on several additional responsibilities.
A quick recap of what has happened to date in th ~ area of legislation is as follows. The Council
has taken over 50 official actions legislatively in first si.x months with new ordinances and
resolutions. Ify°u are like me, you might ask the questmn, why do we need 50 new laws in six
months in Jeffersunville. But it really is not as bM as it sounds. Many of these new laws are a
matter of normal operations that must be done legislatively for the city to operate; Those types of
matters ineinde transfers and borrowing of funds!necessary for operation of the city, allowing for
the investment of excess funds, establishing a rainy day fund, restructuring bond issues to reduce
interest payments, enmplying with mandates of the state and federal governments, and grant
applications. Most of these matters have little eff~ect on citizens day to day lives directly but
accounts for about 40% of the legislative actionsltaken in the first six months. Fairly mundane
business matters but very important nevertheless~
The second most active area oflegislafiun is land usage accounting for approximately 25% of
actions taken. These matters deal with the eity's~.zoning code and primarily involve requests for
changes in property use. Changes m 2004 zoning to date have ail been passed unanimously by
the council with unanimous recommendations b3} the city's zoning board and aside from the high
rise downtown on Market Street have had no pr~tests from the public of which I am aware.
These changes have included properties being re~ned to allow for neighborhood commercial
development, to make the zoning more cousisterit, to allow planned unit development and
upgrades m development from radustnal to cominerc~ai, vacations for hospital development, and
industrial classification for recently added areas bf the Clark Maritime Centre.
The last third of the legislative actions include clty beautification wi.th ordinances regarding the
disposition of abandoned vehicles, trash removal, news rack permitting, and the establishment of
a tree board. Additionally, there was one armexa~ion, the Armstrong farm development
encompassing a substantial new residential development incorporated into the city. Incentives in
the form of two tax abatements involving about'.70 jobs and $3,200,000 in salaries were
approved on $3, 800,000 of new construction any $700,000 of new machinery and equipment.
The Council also acted quickly to update and e~.et new legislation to control sexually oriented
businesses. This was the bulk of the legislative itetion taken the first six months of 2004.
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On the fiscal side of council responsibilities, the city has operated on a budget passed in 2003 for
2004· Budget heatings for the 2005 calendar year~oegin on July 20 and all such mee.t?gs are
open to the public. So far in 2004 council fiscal ~ have been limited to approving
expenditures in line with the budget. A brief summary of that budget is as follows·
Parks and recrealion $1,323,485
RoMs, streets and hwy. 1,918,288
Sanitation 972,871
Police and fire protection ~ 8,859,155
Administrative offices including
mayor, legal, clerk treasUr?r,
Personnel and rent
Building, zoning and
engineering
City Court
Animal control
Court house rent and maint~
Equipment, vehicie
purehases and malntenan%
Health insurance
Property and liab. Ins.
Vehicle maintenance
Various other
Total
7.0%
10.1%
5.1%
46.6%
739,005 3.9%
584,710 3.0%
285,501 1.5%
276,246 1.5%
353,665 1.9%
877,943 4.6%
1,720,000 9.0%
420,000 2.2%
492,039 2.6%
176,871 1.0%
~ 100.0%
The c~ty reee~ves approximately $14,000,000 of the above expenditures from local property
taxes. The remaining $5,000,000 comes from the.exc~se and gasoline taxes, fees charged for
services and other sources. These funds are desig~n~ ated to roads, streets and highway, building
and zoning, city court and some to general fund e.,kpenditures. After allocating the $5,000,000 of
non property tax revenue of the city to the areas d~signated for those funds the Sl 4,000,000 of
property taxes the citizens of Jeffersonville pay can be broken down further. For purposes of
letting you know where your property taxes are spent the following would be the approximate
use of your property tax assuming a property tax bill of $500 for each the spring and fall
installment or $1,000 of property taxes for a year..
Amount which goes to C .1.1~k County $116 11.6%
Amount which goes to School Corp. 440 44·0%
Amount which goes to Stat~ and Twp. 8 .8%
Amount which goes to We[fare 43 4·3%
Amount which goes to Li tly~ry 25 2·5%
Amount which goes to Jeff~rsonville 368 36·8%
Total Tax Bill SL000 100.0%
Jeffersonvilie's share of yohr tax bill is spent as follows:
Police pro~xtion
Fire protection
Parks and recreation
Sanitation
Administration
Animal shelter
Roads and Streets
Equipment (including
police and fire)
$96 26.1%
$99 26.9%
$38 10.3%
$31 8.4%
$34 9.2%
$ 4 1.1%
$22 6.0%
$44 12.0%
Total for Jefferson~lle
$368100.0%
The preceding briefly describes the activity of th~ council legislatively and fiscally as far as
business this year to date is concerned but there i~ much to do in the remaining term of this city
council. The council can only legislate and appro~priate but d.~s not .direct the city's operations,
that remains the mayor's responsibility. However, I believe it is the visxon of the council to
continue to put public safety first in its order of l~iorities. Secondly, increased tax assessment is
the main way in which future tax rates will be kept from rising and I believe this council must
fund and support a strong economic development:effort to increase Jeffersonville's tax base.
This economic development effort must be directlxl at jobs paying salaries higher than the current
city average wages. Jeffersonville's success in tl~s area must be continued as it is vital to
economic well being of all Jeffersonviile citizens~ Thirdly, the city council recognizes the
importance ofhelping improve the lives ofthose ~itizens least able to care for themselves. It is
imperative for any community desiring progress ~md harmony to foster an attitude of help for
those citizens most in need and to create an atmosphere where the potential of every citiz.en may
be allowed to develop. Fourth, the city should cohtinue and increase its efforts at improwng the
quality of life in the areas of recreation, culture and beautification of the city. While pursuing
these matters the city must maintain its very impdrtant day to day operations of maintaining
eft'mient sanitation operations and well maintaine~t roads and streets All of these goals demand
that the council operate with fiscal efficiency and responsibility. All spending must be
scrutinized and fiscal responsibility must be exercised.
To these ends the council is worldng in concert ,~ith the administration on the matter of
providing additional public safety in schools and ~nore effective fire protection. The Council
urges the mayor to fulfill his stated objective ofbi-inging economic developmem to the city. The
Tenth and Spring Slreet intersection needs to be c[eveloped and the issue of the location of City's
offices needs to be pursued vigorously. Continued major improvements in the Spring Hill area
are foreseen next year with major improvements includin~ housing at the Greenwood aparmaents
among other substantial improvements. Perhaps [he mom substantial challenge of all to
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Jeffersonville's future will be the expan.qion of the City's sewer system. The system is too dose
to capacity to ignore and decisive action is require~. Inaction could result in economic stagnation
and inevitably higher taxes. The city has experienced substantial growth in income and
opportunities for its citizens in the last few years. Without an expansion of sewer capacity all
future gains could be lost. Jeffersonville has enjoyed among the lowest sewer rates in this area
and it is inevitable that these rotes will go up as in¢reased environmental requirements will have
to be met in the future and the capacity ~s expande~l. But the need to meet this challenge is clear
· and it will require action by the mayor and cooperhtion by the city council.
On behalf of the City Council
Respectfully submitted,
Phil McCauley