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Councilmember McGovern asked how many years this equates to causing negative amortization. Mr. <br /> Bartel stated in short, the asset smoothing gets the City to an amortization if it is looking at unfunded <br /> liability on a market value basis. Ignoring smoothing, negative amortization is almost too big to think of. <br /> Mayor Hosterman asked if 20 years or less will get the City where it needs to be. Mr. Bartel said yes; the <br /> City should be diligent in continuing to look at this. <br /> Councilmember Sullivan questioned what this means in terms of what the City needs to contribute. Mr. <br /> Bartel said if the City were contributing 6.5% for safety and higher than CaIPERS asks the City to pay, <br /> while not perfect, this is roughly correct. Mr. Bartel said the City could set up its own City service fund to <br /> allow for the increase in the contribution. <br /> Mr. Fialho likened it to the principal and interest payment. The City could direct the organization to come <br /> up with annual, 5-year benchmarks, evaluate them annually and to the degree that would be satisfied and <br /> reported out or why extra payments could not be made. <br /> 2. Reduce the City's unfunded liabilities by a minimum of 10% - Mr. Bartel said this is a benchmark <br /> which is one of the more interesting ones to have; the City's unfunded liability is directly related to <br /> what CaIPERS on their assets. The City should be careful in measuring its benchmark. It could <br /> meet that benchmark by doing nothing, it could fall short of it despite significant efforts to do <br /> something, and the City should think of it in terms of what would have happened if it had done <br /> nothing. Eliminating the negative amortization in and of itself helps with the unfunded liability. <br /> Councilmember McGovern questioned if the City could determine what savings there would be if it were <br /> able to reduce unfunded liabilities by 10%. Mr. Fialho noted that it also depends on how unfunded liability <br /> is calculated. <br /> Vice Mayor Cook-Kallio said eliminating negative amortization might go concurrently with reducing the <br /> liability by 10%, and she confirmed they are not independent. <br /> 3. Reduce personnel related cost as a percentage of payroll to about 70% of the operating budget- <br /> Mr. Fialho stated this objective could be overwritten by specific Council action, as well as others, <br /> to support short term policies and objectives like adding a new program that adds staffing and <br /> resources associated with it. He said the Council does not have to do objectives or benchmarks, <br /> and could adopt the paper as it is presented, make modifications, adopt it and adopt benchmarks, <br /> or invite public comment and have that influence the parameters the Council provides the <br /> negotiating team in closed session. <br /> Councilmember McGovern asked if the number of consultants is taken into account with the 70% of the <br /> budget. Mr. Fialho stated no; however, the exact number the City spends annually is about $1.2 million <br /> out of a$150 million operating budget, which is miniscule. It is also not skewed by the CIP. <br /> In response to Councilmember Thorne, Mr. Fialho said the 70% would also include any set asides for the <br /> amortization reduction if the Council chooses to go in this direction. <br /> Mayor Hosterman opened the public hearing. <br /> Public Comments: <br /> David Miller recognized the problem of the City's need to address unfunded liabilities and said SB 400 is <br /> killing the state. He is part of California United for Fiscal Reform and they are currently tracking the new <br /> GASB rules which will change the way cities report their financials. Overall, he asked that serious <br /> progress be made and he looks forward to a positive outcome with negotiations. <br /> Bart Hughes emphasized that the more spent on expensive retirement plans the less the City spends on <br /> critical services. He urged that the Council agree to a personnel cost pension reform framework and <br /> thinks the League's paper is a great starting point. Other elements also include reduction of personnel <br /> costs down to 65% to 70%, the pay down of the current unfunded liability which is $180 million based on <br /> market value MVA for services already consumed, controlling the escalating employee medical costs, <br /> increased built-in flexibility, shorter timeframes to deal with future uncertainty, and he asked to establish a <br /> City Council Minutes Page 10 of 18 August 16,2011 <br />