HomeMy WebLinkAbout05172010Budget Workshop AgendaCITY OF SEBASTIAN
CITIZENS BUDGET REVIEW ADVISORY COMMITTEE
WORKSHOP AGENDA
MONDAY MAY 17, 2010
6:00 PM
CITY HALL 1225 MAIN STREET
SECOND FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM
1. Call Meeting to Order
2. Roll Call
3. Discussion Items Attached Memorandum Dated April 21, 2010
4. Adjournment
Memorandum
To: Budget Review Committee.
CC: .Al Mintier, City Manager
From: Ed Herlihy
Date: 5/13/2010
Re: Meeting May 17, 2010
See you Monday night.
Best regards,
Ed Herlihy
Please by to make our roundtable meeting at 6 PM on Monday, May 17
Attached is my memo from April 21" with sonie suggested topics. Please review them
and bring your own topics for discussion.
The new budget season is very close and we will. be busy through June and July. The
better prepared we are, the easier the budget review process will be.
Keep in mind that by early June, we will have an idea of where the assessed valuation is
going, or how much it is shrinking. This will give us a better idea o.f the budget gap the
City needs to fill.
7
Memorandum
To: Budget Review Committee
CC: Al Minner, City Manager
From: Ed Herlihy
Date: 4/21/2010
Re: Discussion items at next meeting
Board Members:
The Budcom will review the 2 °d quarter City budget on Monday, May 3 at 6 PM. I
will ask for a "roundtable" setting on the floor of the Council Chamber so we are
better able to hold a discussion. Please review the budget documents and bring your
questions or concerns.
On Monday, May 17 at 6 PM we plan a workshop session. I thought that it might be
helpful if we spent some time discussing how we are going to approach the budget
review process and some of the key factors that we should probably examine in
detail. Keep in mind, these are my opinions only. We need input from the entire
group to reach a consensus on how we will move forward.
First, I thought it might be helpful to list some key points made by Ken Small from
the Florida League of Cities at our March 3 meeting.
1. Sebastian property tax is well below state average.
2. Sebastian Police Department budget is about 110% of property tax levied.
State average is 68 -70%
3. Sebastian has a low employee count.
4. Sebastian financial reserves (General Fund Reserve) very fair. Suggested
reserve should be higher due to hurricane exposure. We need to talk up
with taxpayers the Plant City story re sinkholes and effect on reserves.
Briefly, during winter, heavy strawberry watering to keep frost away. This
drew down ground water. Created big sinkholes. Had to use up City
reserves to fix. No one expected this problem. Example of why keep
reserves high.
1
April 21, 2010
5. Sebastian has good long range planning.
6. League projection that next two budgets are going to see more falling tax
base (assessed valuation). Median sales price of homes still dropping. See
Yahoo News article attached. Indian River County foreclosures are up
drastically just as our real estate friends predicted last year. League also
predicts that many commercial real estate loans are "resetting" and will go
into foreclosure.
7. Sebastian needs to look at fee structure to see if raising fees is meaningful.
With these items in mind and other important budget issues, I suggest we start
reviewing how we are going to examine the following:
1. Discussion of possible property tax drop this year and effect on budget.
2. How do we examine the Police Department in light of its high budget
versus property tax?
3. Examination of fee structures.
4. Cost of retirement programs: City and PD
5. Possible savings projected on upcoming union contracts.
6. Health care costs and amount employees contribute
7. Building Department and Growth Management costs
8. Discussion of General Fund Reserve versus tax rate. This is always a
"tough issue How do we approach it and what do we recommend?
Please review these thoughts and modify, change and add so we may all discuss how
the Committee will operate this year. Remember, this is really going to be a tough
year. Bring your ideas so we can plan for the next few months.
Please mark your calendar for our meetings on Monday,May 3, 2010 at 6 PM
in Council Chambers and Monday May 17, 2010, 6 PM in the 2 floor
Conference Room of City Hall. This will be a "workshop" discussion.
Best regards,
Ed Herlihy
Enclosure:
2
U.S. Cities In Free Fall Yahoo! Real Estate Page 1 of 4
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U.S. Cities In Free Fall
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Apr 13th, 2010
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Economic indicators in these metros have gone from bad to worse, with
no sign of recovery.
Miami boasts a popular South Beach club scene, Art Deco Architecture, and perhaps the
best Cuban food in the country. But residents don't have much else to celebrate.
More than three years after the economy started its downward slide, the Miami metro area,
like a handful of Sun Belt cities, still hasn't begun to recover. Median home prices in Miami
have fallen 38% since its market peaked in the second quarter of 2007; the city's 11%
unemployment rate is above the national average and has grown more than most of the 40
cities we surveyed.
List: 10 U.S. Cities In Free Fail
Cities in the "Sand States" of Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada, where overbuilding
was rampant, are also in trouble, claiming nine of the top 10 spots in our list of cities in free
fall. In Las Vegas. Riverside, Calif., and Phoenix, median home prices have fallen 50
44% and 37% from their respective peaks. Jobs are vanishing. Though country-wide,
employers added 162,00 jobs last month, Riverside gained 13% fewer jobs in February
2010 (the latest numbers available by metro) than it did the same month three years earlier.
Tampa, Fla., saw a 10% drop, and Los Angeles added 9% fewer jobs over the same time
period.
These cities are also slow to absorb their glut of unsold foreclosed homes, keeping recovery
at bay.
"These were highly speculative housing markets," says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller
Samuel, a Manhattan -based real estate appraisal firm. "In the markets that have unloaded a
lot of foreclosed housing stock there's still a lot more coming."
Behind the Numbers
To find the country's cities in free fail, we rated its 40 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas
(MSA) on six metrics.
We ranked each MSA on the percent its median home price has fallen since its individual
peak, using data provided by Local Market Monitor, a housing market data tracker. To get
an estimate for the number of new homes being built, we used data from the U.S. Census
Bureau, which tracks how many building permits are issued. Roughly 98% of these permits
become new home starts. We looked at the percent change in new budding permits
between February 2007 and February 2010.
We also wanted to know how many people were moving in and out of these metros, since a
growing population buoys a local economy. We used the Census Bureau's most recent
population estimates to rank each metro on its net population change between July 2006
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U.S. Cities In Free Fall Yahoo! Real Estate
and July 2009. To judge each city's productivity we also ranked each metro on its per capita
gross domestic product in 2008, the most recent year available, using data from Moody's
Economy.com. Finally, we ranked the metros on the percent change in unemployment
between January 2007 and January 2010 and the number of jobs they added between
February 2007 and February 2010, with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We
averaged these rankings to arrive at a final score.
Sunshine State Stagnancy
Florida cities dominate our list, with Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville joining Miami.
Florida's real estate market keeps falling even as some herald the start of a rebound. The
state's comparatively sluggish foreclosure process keeps those homes from getting easily
flushed out of the market. Because every foreclosure must be approved by a judge, the
procedure takes a minimum of five months to complete.
in states with complex foreclosure laws, the recovery is clearly being delayed," says Mike
Simonsen, CEO of Altos Research, a Mountain View, Calif. -based real estate research firm,
who adds that lengthy foreclosures may be driving away real estate investors in these cities.
A Trouble Spot in the Northeast
Picturesque Providence. R.I., is the only New England metro on our list. Economically, its
struggling far more than other dties in the region. Although Providence saw a slower three
year increase in unemployment than some other major metros, it still has a high
unemployment rate, at 14 The city also added 9% fewer jobs in 2010 than three years
earlier. Workers are getting the message and leaving town. Providence is the only city in
our top 10 to see a net loss in population.
Grim News for the Golden State
California cities are struggling too. Riverside, Los Angeles and Sacramento are suffering
because of the knocks they took after their inflated housing markets began to plummet.
Unemployment in the City of Angels has nearly tripled in three years, to 12 Riverside's
unemployment has also ballooned, to 15 Meanwhile Sacramento saw a 75% drop in new
building permits. These are troubling signs for Cali metros, but not surprising. The end of
the state's home -price climb triggered more than just a housing slump.
"9n California, so many jobs were concentrated in construction," says Michael Fratantoni,
vice president of research at the Mortgage Bankers Association, the professional
association for real estate financiers. "Jobs building single family homes wound up not
being sustainable, and there were a lot of job losses."
The long -term consequences of the housing crash in these cities are still playing out, and
new factors that complicate a recovery keep cropping up.
"Places like Phoenix and Riverside may take even longer to recover because people might
just pick up and leave to go to places doing better," says Fratantoni. "It may make more
sense to leave, rather than wait for jobs to return."
Top 5 Cities in a Free Fall
1. Miami -Fort Lauderdale- Pompano Beach, FL
Net Population Change, 2006 -2009: 1.47%
Per Capita Gross Domestic Product $42,645.52
Change in New Building Permits, February 2007 February 2010: 77.46%
Change in Unemployment, January 2007- January 2010: 202.70%
Change in New Jobs Added, February 2007 February 2010: 9.68%
Change in Median Home Price from Market Peak: -38%
2. Tampa Clearwater, FL
Net Population Change, 2006 -2009: 2.33%
Per Capita Gross Domestic Product: $42,562.92
Change in New Building Permits, February 2007- February 2010: 44.18%
Change in Unemployment, January 2007- January 2010: 235.90%
Change in New Jobs Added, February 2007 February 2010: -9.87%
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Change in Median Home Price from Market Peak: -32%
3. Riverside -San Bernardino Ontario, Calif.
Net Population Change, 2006 -2009: 4.40%
Per Capita Gross Domestic Product: $32,403.49
Change in New Building Permits, February 2007- February 2010: 65.69%
Change in Unemployment, January 2007- January 2010: 177.78%
Change in New Jobs Added, February 2007 February 2010: 12.94%
Change in Median Home Price from Market Peak: -44%
4. Jacksonville, Ft.
Net Population Change, 2006 -2009: 3.83%
Per Capita Gross Domestic Product: $16,035.65
Change in New Building Permits, February 2007- February 2010: 66.09%
Change in Unemployment, January 2007 January 2010: 227.03%
Change in New Jobs Added, February 2007 February 2010: 7.74%
Change in Median Home Price from Market Peak: -23%
5. Phoenix Mesa Scottsdale, AZ
Net Population Change, 2006 -2009: 7.85%
Per Capita Gross Domestic Product: $40,870.16
Change in New Building Permits, February 2007 February 2010: 83.61%
Change in Unemployment, January 2007 January 2010: 148.65%
Change in New Jobs Added, February 2007 February 2010: -10.01%
Change in Median Home Price from Market Peak: -37%
Click here to see the full list of Ten U.S. Cities to Free Fall
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