Council Workshop 12/20/10

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