2008 0221 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting February 21, 2008 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida Mayor Edelcup said he has no problem in approving this, however, he believes that when material like this comes before them we should also be looking to see if there are any downward revisions, we only seem to be making upward revisions which he personally does not necessarily want to approve in black. He said that there are items today that could offset these and therefore not totally increase the budget by $659,000. He said that he would like to approve this request with the proviso that the City Manager comes back next month and gives us the minus ones. He said as an example, Pelican Park had a budget for the entire year which we now know, we are in the fifth month of this fiscal year, is not going to be spent from day one, and so he believes there is a major significant reduction there that should come in. He is sure that there are others in various departments as well, for example, we had planned for a Purchasing Agent who is yet to be hired, if that happens it would be for only part of the year so that cost is also a reduction. He said it is very easy to come in here and ask for the pluses but he wants to put the City Manager on notice that he needs to give us the minuses as well, and his challenge would be to see how much we can reduce that $659,000 for the March meeting. City Manager Szerlag said he would like to do a couple of things, one is to specify that this is a philosophical decision that is being made to come up with a budget amendment essentially every time there is an approval by the City Commission via legislation to proceed with something. He said that every item on here can correlate with the Commission resolution, some cities actually take those resolutions and maybe twice a year come in and say here is a slate of approvals that the legislative body approved and this is your extra cost, we can do that, we can do it on a monthly basis or as they occur. He said he can ask Assistant City Manager Haag to prepare this but he prefers to do it on a quarterly basis because of the work load involved as there are a couple thousand line items that have to be checked constantly to get a gauge on what the reductions would be. He said we make amendments based on the Commission's resolutions, and if we can proceed on a quarterly basis we can have an adjustment of what has been added, either by recommendation of the City Manager or by initiation of the Commission, against cost savings that we have, so that the result is not always an amendment that results in a reduction in our fund balance. Mayor Edelcup said that he has no problem doing it on a quarterly basis, but like he said, he would like to see those in because every time we add these pluses it is taking away from our unrestricted surplus and he would prefer to maintain the integrity of that as much as he can. He said that certainly we can look at it in the overall, and that is not to say that on a quarterly basis we wouldn't be adjusting upward in some areas where we had undershot the estimate up at the front end, but he thinks it is good fiscal training to try to be more current on our dollars and cents, and know exactly where we are going. City Manager Szerlag said that we now have the budget document that can accommodate that. Mayor Edelcup said again that for the March meeting he would like to have Doug Haag look at it through February which is more than the quarter, he doesn't want to come back andjust do it through December, he would rather do it October, November, December, January, February, and then we will play catch up maybe three months from now again. Commissioner Scholl asked when we pass a resolution for these types of items that are not budgeted, we are not approving the transfer of the funds to pay for that by virtue of that 22