The Official Unofficial Minutes of the WL BOA
What's in the City's Wallet, 2008 Budget WrapUp
Jerry discussed final numbers for 08. The City finished with a surplus of around $200,000. Wow, you ask, how did they do that? Remember the 08 budget was formulated and passed in December 07. At that time the State telephone franchise fee litigation was dragging on, with no end in sight. Turns out the litigation was settled in early 08 and the one time payments by the phone companies poured starting in March. Final settlement tally around $125,000. (There is still one company, TMobile that has not settled +/-$46,000 under protest) Budgeted building repairs were not done ($27,000) to City Hall and computer/office equipment turned back in $18,000. George conducted a very successful auction of used equipment that brought in $10,000 over budget, great job!
What's in the City's Wallet, 2008 Budget WrapUp
Jerry discussed final numbers for 08. The City finished with a surplus of around $200,000. Wow, you ask, how did they do that? Remember the 08 budget was formulated and passed in December 07. At that time the State telephone franchise fee litigation was dragging on, with no end in sight. Turns out the litigation was settled in early 08 and the one time payments by the phone companies poured starting in March. Final settlement tally around $125,000. (There is still one company, TMobile that has not settled +/-$46,000 under protest) Budgeted building repairs were not done ($27,000) to City Hall and computer/office equipment turned back in $18,000. George conducted a very successful auction of used equipment that brought in $10,000 over budget, great job!
Jerry also mentioned the Community Center made money, and then kind of under his breath, minus certain expenses...Pat White must not have heard the last part, because she repeated with a smile, the profit made in 08. A member of the audience asked a yes/no question, did the CC end up with a positive balance?...answer from Jerry..."No...but"...if the upgrade expenses weren't counted the CC would have been in the black. You might recall the BOA spent $11,000 in unbudgeted expenses last year to give the CC that lodge look.
One other area raised a few eyebrows, the Employee Recognition funds were basically untouched, $915 out of a budget of $1000. Historically there has been lunch/dinners around Christmas time. Grinch? I guess we were too busy. Too bad, our small group of employees certainly deserved something in their stocking. Jerry mentioned a dinner hosted by him and the aldermen at the CC in Feb or March in the offing. Ok.
There was some discussion of the disposition of the surplus. The idea of encumbering funds for particular uses was brought up and dismissed. Tony White suggested some of it be used to increase the pay of police officers, who he feels, are underpaid. Does the current BOA and Mayor have the discipline to keep the money tucked away? Time will tell.
15 comments:
Can the city council apply the surplus funds to anything they want? Can't, for once, the community have a vote in it? Don't fully disagree with the police department but eventually the funds will run out and we will have to come up with funds to continue salary payments. (Pat and Tony White are good people but they have a weak sense of income and expense.) Did anyone address at the meeting Jerry Bos' recent legal issues? Thank you so much for your updates Mike.
The BOA can do just about anything it wants with the surplus, and we do vote in a way, by the folks we elect. We should tell them what we think. I do think the salaries for part-time officers is low and contributes to the difficulty in finding staff, but you are right, it shouldn't come out of the surplus, this was a one shot deal. Furthermore we are currently maxed out on the tax levy, any increase beyond current levels would require a vote of the people
The DFA situation and Mr Bos was not brought up at the meeting. I'm not sure if there is general awareness of the issue.
How many full-time and part-time officers do we have? Does WL have around the clock coverage? Didn't know our officers' salaries were on the low side. What are the salaries? This is why it is hard to get on board with new entrance signs and updates to the CC certain fundraisers when our roads and police department are in need.
This is the 5th full time officer, 4 patrol and chief. I haven't seen the roster lately but there were at least part-time officers, used as fill in when full time were not available. This should happen less with staffing as it is. Part time officers start @$13.50. Oddly enough, the motion to hire the new officer(which carried) did not include the pay rate. I will post.
Ooops somehow the word Ten in regard to part-time did not show up. I think the number available is around ten.
I think it said on the agenda that the finance report had a motion to amend Ord #1053 to correct Captain Lonny Gower's rate of pay from $17.95 to $19.71 and OT from 26.92 to 29.56.
Actually I was at a BOA meeting several months back when a new part time officer (young blond lad) was brought in by Gary and I believe they said the salary would be $12 per hour. I see people doing desk jobs making $12/hour no need to possibly risk thier life for that amount!
As far as employee recognition. How many employees was the $1000 to be split between? I think a few office workers get enough money
I guess the point is this, when the Mayor and BOA crow about a $200,000 budget surplus for the year, but do not spend money allocated for employee recognition, something that has happened in the past, how would you feel if you were an employee? There are five full time employees, plus part-time. If we were in a budget deficit it might be different, even then I'd try to find something to say, thanks for your service to the Community.
For as wonderful a community as this is, what our city and WLIC employees are subjected to and have to put up with warrants a nice end of the year thank you to say the least. 9:14 is probably an example of that.
There are 168 hours in a week. 5 full time officers times 40 hrs equals 200 hours. That is a lot of crossover and even figuring in vacations....we are overstaffed in the police department if you include part time. Gary is supposed to be a working officer too. I guess this will leave him time to do his other outside jobs.
Wow, that is interesting. Do we need more than one officer on call? Wonder what the other cities' ratio of officers to public are?
Gary has outside jobs? Paid?
what is wrong with you people? when police coverage was reduced because of funding, you screamed and yelled that we needed more. now that we have full coverage again, you want to scream and yell that it's too much. name me one city where only one officer is on staff during a shift. how absurd. so if the police officer is at my house responding to an alarm i'm sure it's ok with you that they don't respond to your family member who is having a heart attack. honestly. it never ceases to amaze me how stupid some people are. why not find out the facts before you start complaining? i bet because then you wouldn't have as much to complain about, and what fun is that? the primary reason our community is so safe is BECAUSE of the police coverage. cut that out, crime goes up. then you'll be complaining about that. so stupid.
When there was a claim by the city of no funds we were threatened with and it came to fruition with NO police patrol at certain times during the week. So we voted in additional funds. Anonymous January 11, 2009 7:14 AM, you need to get your facts together. Of course people were upset with NO police coverage. In addition, for your information, if there is a dire emergency you have the whole of Platte County enforcement on call. We have police officers living at the lake. They are available and there is no reason they can't be on call for backup. It may look noble to stand in front of city council asking for more funds for the police department but there needs to be a practical balance. This is not by any measure a high crime community compared to inner city. As asked before: What are other officers' in other jurisdictions being paid? What is the ratio in other cities of officers to the whole of a community? Repeat, there needs to be a practical balance.
January 11, 9:01am.. While yes you do have Platte County as a back up do you really want to be the one waiting around for them to show up. They may be available to us for that purpose. However that does not mean they are available when the call comes in. Also if you were an officer and lived here at the lake. Should you have to be "on call" as you said to help back up, becuase there are some that don't want any "overlap'? Does your company expect you to be on call when you are not at work, to come flying when there is an emergency?? Lets think about all these officers do before we complain about a small percentage of overlap. Most companies have overlap. You just have to in certain jobs to let the next shift know what is going on. Lets use some common sense
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