Final draft as adopted for review for accuracy.
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Article VIII - Financial Produres
- Thread starter Robert Owen
- Start date
Financial Procedures - unfortunately I can't edit the title thread.
Suggest we capitalize Resolution in clean copy line 194 and add Resolution to the Definitions - "Resolutions are formal statements of the cumulative will of the City Council. They can be oral, written, ceremonial, or have contractual significance." We may need to do a "search" for other places Resolutions are referenced.
Sec 8.08 re: request to check for scriveners errors, saw that somewhere now can't find it again, to many docs to shuffle thru.
line 71 - Robert, please check your mental hard drive, didn't we look at including wording from Aubrey section 11.05 making the use of he/she unnecessary? Very first sentence of Aubrey 11.05. He/she as used in line 71 of section 8.08 is just catering and not necessary.
If the answer is yes, then a search of entire proposed charter rewrite for he/she must be done to make necessary changes.
No problem with capitalizing Resolution
line 71 - Robert, please check your mental hard drive, didn't we look at including wording from Aubrey section 11.05 making the use of he/she unnecessary? Very first sentence of Aubrey 11.05. He/she as used in line 71 of section 8.08 is just catering and not necessary.
If the answer is yes, then a search of entire proposed charter rewrite for he/she must be done to make necessary changes.
No problem with capitalizing Resolution
Yes, we did agree to refrain from "he/she"
I have reconsidered and believe clean copy line 194 resolution should remain lower-case r in resolution. However, we do need to add Resolutions to the "Definitions."
I’d like to see includes in our definitions both a Certificate of Obligation (CO) bond, and a a General Obligation (GO) bond.
Both terms are littered throughout the existing Charter, but I don’t believe either are defined well. In my opinion, if you asked 100 residents what the difference is? Less than half would know. Yet both impact every citizen in the form of property taxes used to balance the budget.
Both terms are littered throughout the existing Charter, but I don’t believe either are defined well. In my opinion, if you asked 100 residents what the difference is? Less than half would know. Yet both impact every citizen in the form of property taxes used to balance the budget.
Final Article VIII as adopted 2/4/26 with two edits:
Line 71- Replace “he/she” with “the City Manager”; and,
Change line 78 to read “…proposed to be undertaken during the next five (5) years with appropriate…”
Line 71- Replace “he/she” with “the City Manager”; and,
Change line 78 to read “…proposed to be undertaken during the next five (5) years with appropriate…”
One other thought we do we want to reopen Article VIII in light of the mayor’s post yesterday? https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BnXu6zHxM/
My thoughts:
1) Create a voter-approved local homestead exemption:
Instead of residents hoping that four Council members agree to grant a homestead exemption, voters would approve and lock in a 10 percent local homestead exemption, on top of state and school district homesteads. Once in the charter, no future Council could lower or remove it without voter approval through another charter amendment.
I would want to see a heck of a lot of math on this one and even then, I don’t believe it’s prudent to lock into our charter. Only 3% of our properties are commercial. I’m not sure of the homestead ratio on the residential but it seems we have more homeowners than renters. Home valuations are falling setting up a budget crunch. 10% seem like it was picked out of the air. If implemented by charter, it can’t be easily changed – that’s his intent. If we have a revenue shortfall due to this exemption that cannot be readily changed, the tax rate will have to be raised and beyond NNR rate, that would require an election. To be revenue neutral, the impact of the exemption would have to disproportionately fall on businesses, non homestead households, and potentially utility rates. Or services cut when we are already austere given our infrastructure needs.
2) End no-vote debt through Certificates of Obligation
Certificates of Obligation (COs) allow cities to take on large amounts of long-term debt without a public vote. General Obligation bonds already require voter approval, but COs do not, which is why cities often rely on them. A city can issue tens of millions of dollars in CO debt and spread repayment over 20 or 30 years. Taxes may look flat in a given year, but families are still paying for those decisions through higher tax rates and longer repayment schedules for decades. This proposal restores voter consent and requires clear, plain-language disclosure of what that debt actually costs each household.
This is an excellent point that troubles me as well. I looked at this last year and I don’t believe any new bonds have been issued since. 79% of our bond funding was issued as CO and without voter approval.
While I share the mayor’s disdain for COs, I’m not convinced they should be banned and again, putting it in the charter could be problematic. Perhaps rather than banning them, we could put in the charter a requirement that CO bonds require a fixed vote of say five or six councilors, or even unanimity. We could set a high bar without potentially locking ourselves into a bad situation if we outright end them.
3) Reform the budget process and require ongoing transparency:
Each department would begin every budget cycle at 90 percent of the prior year. Any spending above that must be justified and approved by Council as an exceptional item. Quarterly reports would show citizens whether departments are over or under budget throughout the year. Council used this format in the past years budget and we were able to lower the tax rate below the no-new revenue rate. To ensure future council's continue to budget this way, citizens can lock this format into our City Charter.
It’s a good practice and our charter already requires monthly financial reporting to council. I’m agnostic on this one, but again, rather than clutter the charter, I’d leave to procedures. Fact is, if we elect councilors that are not engaged budget-wise, a mandated process won’t achieve a better outcome anyway.
My thoughts:
1) Create a voter-approved local homestead exemption:
Instead of residents hoping that four Council members agree to grant a homestead exemption, voters would approve and lock in a 10 percent local homestead exemption, on top of state and school district homesteads. Once in the charter, no future Council could lower or remove it without voter approval through another charter amendment.
I would want to see a heck of a lot of math on this one and even then, I don’t believe it’s prudent to lock into our charter. Only 3% of our properties are commercial. I’m not sure of the homestead ratio on the residential but it seems we have more homeowners than renters. Home valuations are falling setting up a budget crunch. 10% seem like it was picked out of the air. If implemented by charter, it can’t be easily changed – that’s his intent. If we have a revenue shortfall due to this exemption that cannot be readily changed, the tax rate will have to be raised and beyond NNR rate, that would require an election. To be revenue neutral, the impact of the exemption would have to disproportionately fall on businesses, non homestead households, and potentially utility rates. Or services cut when we are already austere given our infrastructure needs.
2) End no-vote debt through Certificates of Obligation
Certificates of Obligation (COs) allow cities to take on large amounts of long-term debt without a public vote. General Obligation bonds already require voter approval, but COs do not, which is why cities often rely on them. A city can issue tens of millions of dollars in CO debt and spread repayment over 20 or 30 years. Taxes may look flat in a given year, but families are still paying for those decisions through higher tax rates and longer repayment schedules for decades. This proposal restores voter consent and requires clear, plain-language disclosure of what that debt actually costs each household.
This is an excellent point that troubles me as well. I looked at this last year and I don’t believe any new bonds have been issued since. 79% of our bond funding was issued as CO and without voter approval.
While I share the mayor’s disdain for COs, I’m not convinced they should be banned and again, putting it in the charter could be problematic. Perhaps rather than banning them, we could put in the charter a requirement that CO bonds require a fixed vote of say five or six councilors, or even unanimity. We could set a high bar without potentially locking ourselves into a bad situation if we outright end them.
3) Reform the budget process and require ongoing transparency:
Each department would begin every budget cycle at 90 percent of the prior year. Any spending above that must be justified and approved by Council as an exceptional item. Quarterly reports would show citizens whether departments are over or under budget throughout the year. Council used this format in the past years budget and we were able to lower the tax rate below the no-new revenue rate. To ensure future council's continue to budget this way, citizens can lock this format into our City Charter.
It’s a good practice and our charter already requires monthly financial reporting to council. I’m agnostic on this one, but again, rather than clutter the charter, I’d leave to procedures. Fact is, if we elect councilors that are not engaged budget-wise, a mandated process won’t achieve a better outcome anyway.