2013-0917 Special City Commission Meeting - 1st Budget Hrg

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Summary Minutes:Special City Commission Meeting September 17.2013 Sunny Isles Beach,Florida First Budget Hearing experience, modify the accrual definitely. What he realized with a strictly cash basis is the next day it could be way out of whack, at least if it is modified accrual we are going to anticipate someone coming in and reporting it in that quarterly report. Commissioner Scholl said no argument on the revenue side, it is pretty consistent, we kind of know what we are getting. The expense side is where it gets funky because you are paying for stuff, and City Manager Russo said yes but he doesn't think he has ever worked at a place where they didn't do some form of modified accrual. Finance Director Curts-Whann said that we believe it will provide you with some good information especially on the expenditure side. People don't mean to but a lot of times they will hold things for payment later and so lots of expenses all of a sudden hit near the end of the year because things need to be paid before the end of the year and they should have been recognized evenly throughout. We are encouraging just a little bit more leveling of your revenues and expenses. Commissioner Levin said with regards to the City Commission budget, there is an item in here for the Special Program Manager for$72,844.00 on page 71. She believes this has to do with the hiring of Lynn Dannheisser to come in and do a special project for the City with regards to grants for a proposed 501(c)(3) and the City Attorney has obtained some ethics opinions. City Attorney Ottinot said as you may recall that issue was brought up at the Workshop in June, and he advised the Commission that he would obtain a page file to the Ethics Commission that governs the City of Sunny Isles Beach. One is Miami-Dade County, and the State of Florida Ethics Commission both have issued an informal opinion leading to Ms. Dannheisser and her ability to work as an employee and basically both opinions indicated that if she intends to represent a developer in this City or outside the City that would impose a conflict of interest. In his opinion, and the opinion that was issued by the State Ethics Commission recommends that she be hired as a Consultant. Commissioner Levin said that she would request that the budget be amended to remove her as an employee and to put in an item for a Consultant. Mayor Edelcup said why don't we have the City Manager and City Attorney investigate this between now and the final reading of the budget because there seems to be a difference of opinion from what the City Attorney has issued to us and what Joe Centorino has written and what we have from the State. So, it is still not clear at least in his mind that the opinion that our City Attorney has given is in parallel with what we have gotten from the County because it appears that there are steps that can be taken by Ms. Dannheisser to rectify her position. So that depending upon if she takes those steps she would be able to be an employee and there still seems to be some confusion on it, and so he would recommend that between now and final reading that it be resolved. City Manager Russo said this is one minor part of the entire budget and we are here on a budget hearing. Since he is the one that does the hiring, this is an item that is budgeted in a department that happens to be the City Commission, and the funding is there. When this budget is approved and we deal with that issue he will do what he would do for the department head as to whether or not if we have the choice of hiring someone as a Consultant or a part-time employee, he will make that decision based on what that department head, in this case it will be the majority of the Commission. Therefore as far as he is concerned this is nothing but a place holder in terms of the funding. 5