if we can have your attention we'll get
started here welcome to our workshop
December twentieth meeting and start off
here with responses to the City Council
and mr. city manager you had two
questions all figures for answers for
both and first what question had to do
with the municipal service center okay
and you were acting service enterprise
which the answer is that there's a long
narrative essentially the answer is that
we've been finding in this area and
regardless of what decisions are made
about beautiful service center
plaintiffs we covered all the doctor's
letter remember will suffer inspector
generally in that
somebody it's an area that's ripe for
redevelopment and so the areas along
south east 14 along South East connector
east to west through the area are
appropriate areas for us to target our
activity you have on the agenda this
evening one of the first purchases of
land down there so all of that would be
appropriate given our long-term
objectives for that area in terms of
economic development regardless of what
we do with municipal service in our
although our intentions are to pursue
the service center concept as council
has directed the second question had to
do with a topographic map of the
flooding characteristics of the site
that we propose for municipal service
center we have or will provide a copy
that to the mayor who's the one that
asked for it and there are copies
available for each of you if you'd like
to have it just let me know Eric wrote
em that's all we have I think it'd be
great to have that I'd like to have a
copy of the map adeje like the others
would too so if we share it with
everybody he'll be be great you know
okay next on our agenda bicycle master
plan I see mr. Tripp heading to the
microphone good morning Thank You mayor
pro-tem a halfie numbers of the city
council Don trip Park and Recreation
Director this will be the first time
you've seen this plan it's a
collaborative effort of several city
departments it will be presented today
by Richard Brown who has been at our
city parks planner that has been in
charge of trail system planning and
management development for the last
several years and Gary foxit city's
traffic engineer the plan seeks to build
upon the city's extensive trail network
by integrating the bicycle into the
city's transportation system just one
final note for me at your seats you have
a folder looking like this there are
several maps with this presentation that
are a little bit difficult to read in
the PowerPoint format so you want to
take a look at those and with that I'll
turn it over to Richard Brown
mayor pro-tem mahaffey members of the
council richard brown park planner 3
thank you for the opportunity to be here
to talk about a proposed bicycle and
trail master plan for the City of Des
Moines this plan seeks to build upon the
city's extensive trail network and to
integrate the bicycle into the city's
transportation system as I get started I
want to provide you a brief overview of
what we're going to discuss today in the
past few years a series of council
actions and policies has created a
paradigm shift in how the bicycle is
treated and accommodated in the City of
Des Moines this proposed plan builds
upon the city's extensive trail network
and seeks to integrate the bicycle into
its transportation system the focus of
the plan is not the trail system but
rather the on street bicycle facilities
that connect the community to our trail
system and finally we'll look at are we
hip in the right direction and what are
the next steps and where we go from here
as I just indicated the city's extensive
trail system is how we got to where we
are today the roots of the Des Moines
Cheryl system date back to nineteen
seventy three with the construction of
the Bill Riley trail the last 20 years
has seen a boom in the number of trails
constructed and connected together at
since those early beginnings in 1973 the
trail system has grown from 1.7 miles to
over 41 miles today this map shows trail
development in Des Moines up to nineteen
ninety the Bill Riley is the purple on
the left and the neil smith and Pat
dorium are the ones on the right this
map shows how the trail system in Des
Moines and the surrounding communities
has exploded as it was in early 2010
trails are clearly important important
to the residents of Des Moines a 2007
wreck Rachel recreational needs
assessment and satisfaction survey
revealed that trails where the number
one Park facility for the citizens of a
Des Moines refer you to a handout in the
folder that shows where trails ranked
among the priorities of citizens when
they did this survey
over the past few years previous council
actions and policy have integrated and
accommodated the bicycle into the City
of Des Moines of the council goals
adopted in 2006 this proposed bicycle
and trail map trail master plan most
directly relates to the city's
sustainable green community goal that
includes a directive that des moines
will offer safe reliable and convenient
transportation alternatives that reduce
the reliance on automobiles and parking
facilities the Complete Streets policy
is nearly two years old and has had a
huge impact on roads and left in the
City of Des Moines several roads now
have bicycle facilities including
Ingersoll Avenue the newly rebuilt
indianola avenue the brand new opened
southeast connector urbandale avenue the
newly rebuilt south east sixth street
and next spring 45th street south of
Grand Avenue will have bicycle
facilities this represents over 6 miles
of Des Moines streets that now have
bicycle facilities on them this proposed
bicycle master plan has many potential
benefits to the City of Des Moines
among these benefits more bike riders
mean less air pollution and carbon
released into our atmosphere people that
ride bikes are generally healthier and
on street bicycle facilities can connect
people to places that our trails cannot
creating this plan has been a nearly
18-month process that kicked off in July
of 2009 the city hired Ulta planning and
design on a Portland Oregon to conduct a
plan this started with a series of
public input sessions at the main
library that concluded well over 100
people working from that input an
advisory committee comprised of a group
of citizens city staff and other
interested organizations worked with the
consultant to draft the proposed plan
the heart of this plan is a series of
goals that are summarized here they
focus on several overarching themes
including health and wellness increased
bicycle use economic development and
fire environmental benefits and
bicyclist safety
one of the major aspects of the plan is
a proposed bicycle and trail on on
street bicycle network you'll find a
copy of this map in your folder it's a
little bit hard to read up above here
but this proposed network includes a
series of facilities some of which are
new to Des Moines and others that are
currently widely used around the city
the combination of existing and proposed
bicycle and trail facilities seeks to
integrate the bicycle into the city's
transportation network Gary Fox will now
take a few minutes to describe each of
these new facilities good morning Margot
I know it's hard to read this map but
the real image I want you to take from
this is think back on the map that
Richard had about where our trails are
and there were a lot of them in the
downtown and out to the west and
northwest there's a few in the northeast
corner and that's about it they're not
connected together there's more gaps in
there are trails it's a great system but
there are many many gaps if you just
look at this map without getting into
the details of you see that this is
represented all over the city there's
connections here that will get you from
all parts of town connect to those
trails that we have and then include
some key additional links to the trails
so how do we do that again as Richard
said this is primarily on street so in
some cases it's pretty simple restrike
the streets is there you can just put up
signs designated so you can do some way
finding and find your way on it these
are the types of techniques that are
used to create the on street bicycles
bike facilities of course the first one
is the off street trails that's what we
have and there's some expansion of that
to bring in the key connections but bike
lanes bike Boulevard that's a relatively
new term and we'll talk about that a
little bit what those are cycle tracks
that's also very new I don't know that
there are any in the state Iowa directly
but chair lane markings shoulder
bikeways the simple sign bike routes and
then as you start to bring these things
in that you need some additional
amenities bicycle parking and other
other amenities like showers
just a whole range of things start
getting added to the list to really make
it work hi doc well for those that
commute to work right to work and then
you're sweaty so you need to stop a
place park your bike take a shower go to
work some of them have them in the
workplace and we actually need some
public ones so just those are the extra
amenities that will kind of go along and
fit in with as people really start using
the bike as a primary form of
transportation again the off street
trails typically they're 8 to 12 feet
wide it's paved ad a compliant all that
stuff and generally they follow along
the rivers creeks and greenways and
going back again to that image if we've
got a lot of them but we got a lot of
gaps the kind of a burning image in my
mind as to why we need to do this is for
a lot of folks to use that great trail
system we have they load their bike on
their car drive to a trailhead take
their bike off and then get a ride on
the wonderful facilities that we have
seems to me that makes a lot more sense
just get your bike out of the garage or
whatever get on it you can ride on your
local street and then pick up a
collector x boulevard or bike lanes or
something and then right and eventually
get to that trail and and do the rest
you're right or maybe you're going to
school or to work or shop and so again
the bicycle lanes typically it's a
dedicated marked on the pavement the
image there is a nice picture that we've
taken there on ingersoll shows traffic
there's trucks there's parking the bike
lanes with a bike using it it really
just carves out in the roadway
designates the places where the
traffic's supposed to be and where the
bikes are supposed to be makes it work
pretty well as Richard said we have some
existing locations here southeast
connector indianola east sixth those are
new construction relatively easy to
build into it takes a little bit extra
of money to build the extra width but
relatively easy Cottage Grove was a real
simple restriping of that ingersoll's
will more complicated and controversial
with the additional things of parking
and buses on there but it can be fit
onto those kind of facilities urbandale
was a little bit challenging to
with residential parking but I think we
came to a good solution there east
walnut we have them and there hasn't
been a lot of discussion about those so
we're off to a pretty good start but we
got long ways to go to expand at the
bike boulevards is kind of a new
treatment that really bites have shared
the street with vehicles for a long time
on bike routes but this really picked
something it takes a street that serves
as a good bike collector and then
enhances it put some traffic calming
things in to help slow down traffic less
emphasis on the vehicular traffic and
more emphasis on the bicycle traffic may
one of the main things that may need to
happen with a bike Boulevard is as you
get to crossing major streets collector
and arterial streets there may need to
be some additional facilities built or
bite detectors just a variety of things
to help the bikes easily get across the
really busy and heavy streets just a
variety of things air enters there's no
one-size-fits-all they've got to be
really designed particularly to the
circumstances of the individual Road
cycle tracks it's really it when you see
this and it's kind of colored pavement
it's in a sidewalk that's one type of
cycle track it doesn't really have to be
that I think a sense of the the key
element that differentiates that from a
bike lane is it puts the the bicycle
lane on the other side of the park
vehicles like on ingersoll the park
vehicles are right by the curb where the
businesses are the bike lane is between
the park vehicles and the moving traffic
on a cycle track under certain
circumstances kind of makes sense if you
can take a lane of traffic out have the
park cars adjacent to the moving traffic
and then there's a bike lane between the
pedestrians and the park cars well bit
safer for the bicycles don't know that
there's a lot of places that this will
apply but again that's one of the
techniques and there may be some areas
where that's a better solution than
simply put in the bike lane on the
traffic side of park vehicles and shared
lane markings a fairly simple treatment
pretty similar to bike lanes but there
are some real specific standards that
you have to
to designate bike lanes on the street
sometimes if you have a little bit less
width and that rather than just give up
and not be able to do anything you can
mark it's called shero's is this bike
symbol with the chevron arrows in the
front of it it's ash arrow indicating
that the bikes and the vehicle share the
road this is kind of the area that that
bike should ride pretty much right over
the symbol and through the shero's it
positions them far enough away from
parked vehicles that they're a little
bit out of the door opening zone and
rather than wander all over the street
in front of traffic it's again sort of
designates the preferred area for the
bicyclists of the bikes and the motorist
can share the road a little bit easier
shoulder bike way it's really kind of
the rural version of bike lanes pretty
simple to do we don't have a lot of
applications for that in an urban area
but where there's the open ditch
drainage a four foot paved shoulders
adequate with them for bicycles to ride
on an area that's outside the normal
traffic lanes we do have a couple of
them with Paige shoulders they're not
designated bikeways yet but they're
proposed to being corporated into the
plan on East Army Post Road and in
Broadway Avenue and again under certain
circumstances that may be a real simple
and cost-effective solution to put the
bike facility on the roadway the
simplest and lowest level of treatment
is assigned bike routes we've had signed
bike routes around the city for longer
than I've been with the city so I know
that's quite a long time more than 30
years they've not had a lot of attention
it's really simple and basic probably
some signs missing the thing that the
that the master plan talks about adding
on us some additional wayfinding
information how far is it to some
destinations where our destinations on
this other than there's just being a
bike route and follow along some
additional information has shown an
example the waterfront park or Community
College those kind of things so very
helpful we have some of the routes that
are currently bike routes or appropriate
that way that signing just needs to be
improved and adds some of this to it so
that's a very simple and low-cost way to
have the bikes in the vehicle share the
street and again as we mentioned bicycle
park
as you start to have this and
particularly people use it for shopping
and commuter trips to work you need a
place to park your bicycle when you get
there and both short and long term if
somebody's riding to work they need a
place to park their bike all day long
and if they're just going short time to
shopping a little bit they may need part
for 15 or 20 minutes location style is
really a key to success there's a
variety of things you can attach it to
posts different things what some people
have very expensive bikes and they
really want to put it in a secure Locker
protect it from the elements protect it
from somebody vandalizing or stealing
their bike so you need a variety of
things in the downtown area now we've
installed about 600 racks not just in
the downtown a lot of it in the downtown
but also starting to spread out
ingersoll one of the follow-ups as we
got the bike lanes on there and the
acceptance of bicyclists out there some
of the businesses were asking for some
help and getting some bike parking
doesn't need to be a whole lot of it but
they recognize they've got bicycle
customers and so they want that amenity
have a few bike parking spaces right by
their business think that was is that
the last one ature do yep now back to
Richard
thanks Gary as you see with so many
different bicycle facilities proposed
for areas across the city the advisory
committee felt was important to
highlight three priority projects for
implementation that could have the
biggest implement or have the biggest
impact coming out of the gate for
implementation of this plan I will
briefly describe each of these three
projects to you and I will refer you to
maps in your folder that has a little
bit more detail in each one of them the
first priority is a series of proposed
bicycle facilities in downtown Des
Moines some of these facilities include
bike lanes shared lane markings also
known as the cheryl cycle tracks and
bicycle boulevards this combination of
the on street bicycle facility seeks to
connect the downtown to the existing
trail and bicycle facilities on the edge
of downtown currently most of our trails
connect to the edges of downtown but do
not penetrate into the downtown area it
also proposes to connect these on street
bicycle facilities to the new transit
hub being constructed for dart buses
the second priority facility is a
bicycle bowl of our proposed for
Southwest fourteenth Street on des
moines southwest side southwest
fourteenth Street parallels both fluer
and Southwest ninth street but only
carries a fraction of the traffic that
these two arterial streets do it makes
it a perfect an ideal candidate for a
bicycle Boulevard this Boulevard will
connect grayslake park to the blank Park
Zoo Fort Des Moines the superblock it
will also provide connections to the
newly annexed areas of South Des Moines
as well as all the residential and
commercial neighborhoods and schools
along this corridor
the final proposed priority project is
called the Northeast bicycle connector
currently there is not a good connection
from the very popular gayley Wilson
trail on the city's northeast side to
downtown Des Moines the heart of this
proposal is a series of bike lanes on
Hubble Avenue from East eighteenth
Street to each thirty-third Street
preliminary analysis has indicated that
traffic counts on this stretch of road
could handle a change from four lanes to
three lanes which would be a needed to
allow the bike lanes further study and
public input would be needed before
bringing any proposal like this forward
for approval finally I'd like to wrap up
where we've been and where we go from
here the proposed next steps for this
plan include the following you see here
they'll be important to get the public's
input on the proposed plan before
finalizing it and bring it through the
public improve public approval process
as I stated earlier this plan seeks to
build on the city's extensive trail
network and integrate the bicycle into
the city's transportation network thank
you for allowing me to spend a little
bit of time introducing this proposed
plan and we'd be happy to take any
questions that you might have go ahead
Christine can I have an update we know
maybe I need to talk with Don about this
what do we need to be doing on that to
get that forward because there been some
contacts made on that yes councilmember
Hensley this connection actually would
go all the way to grayslake it's a
project that would connect an off street
facility along Thomas Beck road
Pomerance services and through the
railroad marshalling yards we are
working with the neighborhood to
fundraise for that connection as you
know we've talked with the neighborhood
about this connection and either coming
up Druid Hill driver cassidy drive so
really the approval of this plan and
this particular step in the process is
important because the next step for us
is to get out to the neighborhood and
talk about the design at Southwest
fourteenth Street okay
Don what's timetable from the gate I
will someday I'll tuna I'll let me
talked about that currently the gay Lee
Wilson trail does connect through
pleasant hill to Altoona there's another
segment that polk county conservation is
working on to connect up to the city of
Ankeny and over to the Neil Smith trail
I believe they have all the property
acquired for that section up to ankeny
but are just waiting on the remaining
funds for krista's just to start
construction I misspoke i'm at ankeny i
knew it was on to help doing already
yeah yeah i know they have been able to
acquire all that property but i just
waiting on some final funding okay so
that's pretty near future you think we
can find out the exact answer but i
would guess in the next year or two is
probably appropriate yeah richard that
proposed section that runs along the
south edge of Waveland golf course where
we at with that currently well we do not
have any money to fund the section of
trail councilman more is referring to is
a section of trail that would parallel I
235 as well as the south end of Waveland
golf course we just completed a section
that goes north along there along the
west side of the cemetery do the
complexity of design we are estimating
be probably the neighborhood of a
million-dollar so we're looking for
grants and ability to design then get a
struct constructed I just made it's at
least five years out at this time Thank
You Don do you feel we're getting our
fair share of mpo dollars for trails
councilmember mahaffey will take more I
guess we always will but you've done a
great job through the NPO and our
representatives there to direct money
towards trails in central Iowa and in
Des Moines I think we've done pretty
well when I checked a couple years ago
our trail construction since the early
1990s had been somewhere in the range of
about forty percent funded outside Des
Moines either federal or state grants
good how will Mac is discussing a bike
ordinance as well and will that be part
of the are we going to bring that
forward and have it part of this master
plan yeah I don't know that I'm familiar
that have you been who's from the city
has been involved in the discussions on
that well I haven't been directly but
I've seen some of the things they're
doing and I think it's important
especially as you start to do some
things on the street because the
different communities have slightly
different bicycle laws I know in some
places it's actually illegal to ride on
the sidewalk des moines it's legal to
ride on the sidewalk but there are
certain restrictions so as you start to
get more facilities and and people in
the metropolitan area don't particularly
care when they cross a you know some
kind of a political boundary they just
are going on a ride from here to there
they may live in one community in the
park third 12 or whatever is in a
different one or they're going on a
longer ride through several so it really
be helpful if there's consistent
ordinance instantly so that's what the
that effort is about is to look at at
the different ordinances they've
compared all of them and seeing what's
in common and what some of the
differences are it looks to me like the
differences are pretty minor and it
wouldn't be a huge effort to get that
and have pretty consistent bike
ordinances across the whole metro area
just make it easier so they you know if
you're writing your bike you're trying
to be a good citizen and and all of a
sudden you go from one community your
illegal you go the next community you do
the same thing and it's suddenly it's
against their ordinances that's not a
good situation so close I don't think
that's coming along and it is and it was
presented at Mac last week so I guess my
question is can we have that before this
group so that we can incorporate that
because we were trying to get it in
place to eliminate the problems of going
from one jurisdiction to another where
there are different rules I don't I
don't know quite where they are with all
the communities if everybody's agreed to
the changes that would needed to be made
and we're suppose we're gonna add on
plankton yeah but I don't know if
they've really brought it up exactly
who's gonna change what but they've done
a lot of work on it shouldn't take too
much more to get it to the finish line
but just a final I found uh you're sort
of in mid process here you've got a
draft plan you're gonna go out and get
more public input you go through a
review process with boards and
commissions before it gets back to this
table but i would encourage council
members if you have comments or
suggestions the suggestion that
Christine just made is a great one and
now it's the time if you have those kind
of thoughts and neft be today but
anytime in the next I suppose a few
months right right probably about 90
days
there's a very comprehensive plan here
we can get you a copy of that it talks
to the specific locations in some of
these facilities and the next step for
us will be to get you a copy of this so
you can review this I'd also like to
recognize we had a citizen member here
today of the committee Carl boss is here
thanks Carl for coming and park board
president joe galloway the park board
has also been involved and want to thank
the rest of the city departments good
economic development and Public Works
engineering for their support on this so
we'll be back with you probably in the
next 90 days with a policy
recommendation I'm glad to see dart
continue to add more bicycle racks to
their variety of vehicles so that they
can help out and using of the bicycles
from that right now the usage of those
bike racks has been amazing as amazing
thank you very nice Thank You mr. mayor
councilmembers some would have a low
McKinley do the introductions here mayor
members of council al McKinley finance
director typically we do a workshop
presentation to you on the comprehensive
annual financial report in January this
year were able to have this present to
you today in December we have a
representative from mcgladrey are
outside audit firm sherry Myers she'll
be coming to make a brief presentation
to you the cafard document will be out
to you very shortly with a council
action scheduled in January just as a
reminder to you the audit process is not
something that simply happens within the
finance department but it really is
obviously a citywide review of our
financial actions and with millions of
dollars of grant funds that are flowing
through various departments primarily
airport engineering community
development and police department the
audit process touches all of those
people in all those departments and
without their assistance we couldn't
complete an audit that we're able to
complete and with that I'll introduce to
you sherry Myers from mcgladrey you're
used to seeing probably Mia frommel
they've had reorganizations and
reassignments and so this year we have
sherry with this council thank you for
letting me be here today as you know I
really want echo what Alan said everyone
across the entire city is very
responsive to us this is on top of their
normal work day of course we're in
digging out having them dig out support
for transactions and responding to
questions and everybody is extremely
responsive there's a communication that
we issue to the council and I'm just
going to kind of walk through the
highlight
of that probably the most important I
guess if I'm a council member is what
kind of opinion did we get we there is a
clean and unqualified opinion on the
financial statements we do believe that
the financial statements are materially
accurate that's probably the most
important the one-page actually well
there's a few pages but in the financial
section the one-page it's ours is that
opinion the rest is they are the city's
financial statements and Alan and his
group really do take ownership of that
process of drafting those financial
statements of questioning how things
should look how transactions should be
recorded so I'm very happy to report
that to you as well whoops they're too
many papers soon there were a few new
accounting standards applicable to the
city this year they did not have any
impact on the city there's also another
statement that will be effective in the
future you'll see that in the footnotes
and again the city is evaluating the
impact of that there were no significant
or unusual transactions no transactions
which are kind of in that gray area that
we had discussions with management about
that they're trying to you know record
one way or another no audit adjustments
to dust the trial balance presented to
us no disagreements with management
we're not aware of any consultations
management may have had with other
accounting firms to you know receive a
preferential accounting treatment that
we have open discussions with management
and are comfortable that we had full
responses to our inquiries I urge you as
a council to when you do get that kapor
read through note 1 understand those
accounting policies and how things are
accounted for the other thing that
that's key when we do a lot it we really
look at what are the risk areas and then
we look at those areas one area of risk
obviously is revenue recognition
the second is significant estimates and
the of the significant estimates to the
city some mosey allowance for doubtful
accounts post employment benefits
depreciation what are the lives that
have been assigned in all those cases we
obtained an understanding of
management's process and we concurred
not only with that process but what the
estimates as well very clean compliance
report the compliance report is required
because of a level of federal funding as
decentralized as the city can be a
special literal funding it's always
that's kind of a risk area as well and
we had good results there as well any
questions any question on how do you how
did you go about dealing with the amount
of cash that we have within the city
system what type of procedures are used
you go in and do I guess if you could
just describe that well we will confirm
cash with the you know the banks or
whoever they happen to be held with will
also test those reconciliations from the
bank to the book to see that if there's
outstanding checks that they're all
recorded or recognized in that
reconciliation that if there's transfers
between that our city accounts that are
significant we're looking at those as
well and we obtain an understanding of
the controls over cash processes and
we'll do a walk-through of those as well
so we're within the city structure do we
have cash in a lot of different areas or
is it just more centralized the most
part it's centralized the material
amounts of cash is obviously some
imagery lands but most of the cash is
centralized and really in a pooled basis
which is actually what I would from an
accounting standpoint what you like to
see ya better control okay thank you
anybody have anything else mr. Merrick
hey just make a couple companies but
first I'm very pleased with us resolved
a great testament not only the finance
department but all of our departments
that that keep the accounts and make
sure that we pay things and spend money
appropriately the other observation and
sherry perhaps you'd like to add to this
this year and in the years in the recent
past we've received a lot of federal
dollars and state dollars stimulus
dollars or other grant funds it has been
quite a challenge for the organization
to keep track of that spend it
appropriately in fact there were times
when the federal dollars would come yet
the regulations and requirements that
were part of those dollars we're not
always so easy for us to get and there's
always some apprehension at least on my
part about how we're able to manage
through all that and I'm really pleased
that this result because I think you've
essentially confirmed the fact that
we've done well in spending those
dollars anything you'd like to add about
tax effort for me that's one of the big
issues that we've had the last year or
two on finances I I agree with what you
say and you know as I said when you have
more federal dollars it does raise the
risk it's very rare to not have issues
because you've got you know if you look
at the city's obviously moving parts
you've got people transitioning and none
out of roles which may or in those
individuals may or may not understand
those requirements I have in the past
counsel clients in some cases not to
take federal funds because the strings
are are too large but certainly you need
to continue and I had a discussion with
my ear County about those well you need
to continue to look for those funds but
you need to be cognizant of what those
requirements are and I think the city
does a good job of saying what are those
requirements and what do we need to do
up front to be ready to comply with
those requirements sometimes that
results in a bit of a delay in spending
those funds but I think clearly came out
and good results and we did have an
additional what we call major program
which means we needed to test additional
programs this year
primarily because of those era funds
coming in they're presumed to be high
risk and see really need to if you've
got significant air dollars coming in
and spend time looking at those was
there an opportunity for you to have a
discussion with the mayor without staff
yes thank you which is their importance
yeah I think it's great we had an
unqualified opinion it yeah no journal
entries with always do to do from
accounts but I mean their hub seating
accounts it's a it's great to have a
report absolutely and kudos to honesty
okay good job thank you thank you all
right let's move on to our long-term
financial outlook mr. Merrick council
members Alan's gonna handle this we have
as some of you know with the legislative
meeting we had last week there was
discussion about preparation made for an
overview of our long-term financial
situation but we thought the information
that was gathered for that was so
pertinent that we wanted to review it
and share it with counsel here today as
well and I just make you aware of some
of the issues that we're looking at
going forward particularly for the next
year but clearly beyond that so with
that Alan please thank you Rick just as
a side comment the our audit
relationship with our auditor is an
ongoing relationship so throughout the
year as transactions or grants come up
that you know we need some advice on how
to handle or or what would be the best
treatment we can certainly go to them
and ask for their opinion and for us to
move forward and they like to be aware
of what's going on with the city
financially so that they don't come in
and have to be brought up to speed so a
comment that sherry just made to me is
I'm going to stay and listen to this
about our long-term financial outlook
gives her a better idea of what's going
on with the City of Des Moines a
long-term basis so that's just a good
example of their interest in wanting to
be involved in
and understanding what our financial
position is and especially looking
forward as well as Rick mentioned last
week we staff and some of the council
met with some of the local legislators
in anticipation of this year's session
and to just provide them a little bit of
information about the City of Des Moines
long-term financial outlook just wanted
to share some of that information with
you and some of the most of this you've
you've seen before we've talked about a
structural deficit that we have looking
forward we are balanced through FY 12
and working very hard on balancing in
fy13 and and getting very close but even
accomplishing that task you can see that
FY 14 15 16 and it just continues beyond
is a structural deficit we've listed
there the assumptions to arrive at those
numbers based on best information that
we have just to look back quickly what
have we been doing what have you been
doing 95 million dollars in reductions
it's a putting some of the information
that we've provided to you kind of in
bits and pieces into into one place 95
million dollar sound is a lot of money
and if you think that that's all you
know in our general Road use tax fund of
about 160 million obviously those
numbers aren't going to work that you
didn't cut your budget directly there by
you know seventy or eighty percent but
about 27 million dollars you'll see
they're listed on the left are the
actions that you've taken that our
savings annually about 24 of that is on
the expense side there's two or three
million that are related to revenue
reallocations but you've reduced we've
had to reduce staff we've looked at
contracting out we reduced the budgets
and contracts and supplies and travel
we've looked at privatization we
reviewed health insurance plans those
are all operating actions
actions that impact our operating budget
we've also done several debt refunding
zor refinancings that have generated 13
million dollars in net present value
savings that helps us to reduce our debt
service levy that allows us to increase
levies elsewhere to assist us in our
operations without raising the overall
levy and related to that again in
impacting the debt levy was we reduced
our capital financing of geo bonds you
may remember about five years ago we
were projecting a debt service levy
breaching five dollars we will most
likely be under four dollars for the
budget that will come to you and next
month what's the time period for this
Alan January first two thousand six so
about a four to five year period four or
five okay and all of this with no tax
rate increase so we're still at 1657
this is just a graphic presentation the
black line is is where we are today the
red line is where we would have been I
had none of those actions taken place
obviously we would not have never have
adopted a budget at 186 million because
you would have been in a deficit
position but it does show you the
magnitude of the actions that you've
taken one of the things that you may
have been reading about in the paper is
some proposals at the state as it
relates to implementing some sort of
commercial rollback similar to the
residential rollback this provide you
some statistics here the most recent
information that we have about fifty
three percent of the city's taxable
value is associated with commercial
that's not assessed value but that's
taxable value 93% of the city's
valuation in tif districts is commercial
that's not surprising sixty sixty
percent roll back and that should really
be understood as a roll back to set
values at sixty percent of assessed
value impacts the city to the tune of 26
million dollars and if you were to try
to make that 26 million dollars up by
raising your tax rate the tax rate would
have to go up twenty-seven percent and
then just some other things for you to
remember as you are hearing discussions
about this it has extremely complex
consequences we have tax increment grant
agreements in place we have bond
commitments that are to be funded with
tax increment valuations would those be
grandfathered in all I mean for example
of say a nationwide Allied where we've
got a pretty significant tiff
arrangement with would that be
grandfathered in or how would I think
that's part of the title of extremely
complex consequences we want to be sure
that we're at the Canadians on the
legislation Chris I think being able to
understand and to have the legislators
understand what the potential
impact of any decision that they make is
to protect us from that in the
worst-case scenario you could keep in
mind with tiff you've got you've got
outstanding debt that you've issued that
is being retired with tiff revenues and
you have contracts with the ones that
you just mentioned with allied well mark
and others those obligations certainly
on the bonds and on the other would
continue on into the extent they
continue on and you lose the TIF revenue
then those obligations have to be picked
up someplace else and if they have to be
picked up out of the general fund then
you have sort of a secondary but
extremely significant adverse impact on
those revenues and expenses as well and
that's a reason we're talking about it
here it's a it's an issue in this
discussion about commercial rollback
that people often overlook and that's
the impact on our tip one other thing
that I think that I'd like to pick up on
in this is there are constitutional
limitations against the impairment of
existing contracts that have made some
proposals I mean we've been looking at
this Chris for many years and some
proposals will not make it on that on
that basis because they they cannot be
set up to breach existing contracts
the analogy I like to make with touching
valuations in local government finances
whether it's cities or school districts
or the county the analogy is that you
know the trails of what impacts what are
amazing sometimes where what happens
when you do something over here it's
almost like turning off the light switch
and your kitchen faucet starts to run I
mean they seem like they're completely
unrelated but somehow it happens so we
just need to be careful that we
understand what all those relationships
are and that we are able to communicate
those to the policymakers we have a
concern obviously that it could affect
our bond ratings as the rating agencies
look at what happens to taxable
valuations and what what any possible
solution may be provided as it relates
to reduction in commercial taxable
property for cities across the state
this could have a huge impact on their
tax levy caps if they're if the text if
they happen to be operating within their
general fund 810 levy and the value goes
down and they are not provide any other
recourse they can lose lots of money
directly into their general fund so it's
not just the City of Des Moines issue
that this will impact all local
governments in the past we've heard of
replacement revenue proposals they're
just not a guarantee on on future
legislatures that those will continue
would continue on forever we've had some
past experiences and we've lost several
million dollars over the course of time
compared to where we were say 15 or 20
years ago and there are other funding
solutions or mechanisms or tactical ways
to address high property taxes for
commercial property owners and
and our encouragement is let us be at
the table let us provide some input and
provide some response to any of the
proposals that they may be making
another issue that's being raised in the
league of Iowa has taken a lead in this
and is supplied information these are to
the 49 basically larger cities and in
iowa and thats related to our chapter 4
11 pension contributions this came from
the actuary that is used by music fire
and police Retirement System of Iowa
that projects out city contribution
rates over the next actually the charts
go out for 20 or 20 plus years I've just
reported to you what with projected here
for fiscal year 11 through fiscal 16
fiscal 11 you'll see the 19.9 rate
that's what we're contributing today the
twenty four point seven six percent rate
is was adopted by the board and will be
the city contribution rate starting next
fiscal year next July first and then
you'll see the projections going out for
four years beyond that and then I've
also provided for you information on
total City dollars the 49 cities how
much that would equate to in
contributions to the system and then the
Des Moines impact as well it just to
interrupt for a second here that this is
an incredibly important slide the
information on here is critical to us
and it's really summarized in terms of
the impact on the city and the far right
column this year we're looking at about
9 million hours and 4 11 pinching costs
but you can see over the course of the
six years that are displayed here that
amount more than doubles to over 20
million dollars based on the current
estimate the the formula the method or
the amounts of funds that are paid here
are not within your discretion you
simply pay the bill it is entirely a
matter of legislative action that
controls these numbers but these are
these are terribly critical numbers for
us
and combined with other impacts it is a
very significant issue for the city if
you combine this with what we just
talked about on the property tax issues
the 26 million dollars plus the it's
huge absolutely major finally one of the
things that we wanted to make sure that
legislators and you know the general
public understands some of just what our
financial outlook is and how the City
Council has adopted in the past and and
that is that you have and you will
maintain a balanced budget that's the
policy that you've adopted and that we
have followed a year after year and some
of the things that that means in a
balanced budget is is that we don't
anticipate and bank on one-time revenues
but that we utilize ongoing revenues to
finance ongoing expenses that's an
excellent policy to follow but that does
mean that the council has and may reduce
costs and services it also means that
the council may increase the property
tax rate and then finally you know given
those first two items of those first two
issues and what our long-term projection
is we're always looking and and wanting
assistance to pursue alternative
revenues and that's also been a policy
that the council was has encouraged
staff to pursue the last two or three
years and we continue to do so Rick if
you had any comments on that well I
think just just a couple over all things
that you can derive from the information
in this presentation the first thing is
that the council has displayed just
incredible fiscal discipline over the
last four or five years you've done a
great job of modifying expenses they're
clearly has been an impact on the
services that we provide it's it's
stress the organization there's some
areas where perhaps we've cut too much
but we have to go back and make
adjustments on those things but
nonetheless the essential services by
large are
are being met with the budget we have
today but you've done a great job with
your fiscal doesn't blend that I think
people need to know that we've tried to
summarize that thing here the other
thing from a broader perspective to say
about the situation is that the fiscal
difficulties that we have here in the
city are to a large extent shared with
the state of Iowa the state of Iowa
continues to have fiscal challenges not
because somebody did something good or
bad it is simply the fact of it at state
level that they have extreme challenges
as well and what that means is it's not
going to be easy for them to come back
and do things that that help the city
with their own revenue so the state has
their own issues and my fear is that
there will be a tendency to want to push
obligations from state back to city and
we're just gonna have to be very
watchful of that if you look at that
nationally you say the same picture is
probably worse in a lot of other states
across country but in Iowa we have that
issue as well so as we go forward in
this session and probably in the
sessions in the next few years it's
going to continue to be a very urgent
situation the state to a large extent
will take action that will have profound
effect on our ability to continue
services either by things that they do
or don't do and it's not because they're
good or bad they're struggling with
their own financial situation but we're
gonna have to be very diligent and
monitoring all that we've talked about
some of the things here the pension
costs is extremely important to us
health costs are important but in terms
of health costs were impacted to a large
extent extent by the federal legislation
which is a little bit at least for me a
bit of a black box in terms of what's
gonna happen so we're gonna have to
monitor that very carefully as well so
we have we have big issues just as we've
had in the past but that situation isn't
abating in terms of the uncertainty and
the risk going forward but I will say if
you look back over their recent past
this council is done just I think in a
miraculous job of managing the situation
with the decisions that you've made
which have really helped the city keep
its head above water pay the bills keep
the organization going
so kudos to all of you sit anybody have
any other questions of Alan Ellen thank
you again then good pre-holiday work sir
let's open it up for public comment
anyone the audience have any comments
mundus her last meeting in the year I
mean somebody's got to have something
all right seeing none hopefully we'll
see our back here this evening thank you
you