IRON MOUNTAIN - The city of Iron Mountain's membership in the Dickinson Area Partnership was discussed again at Monday's meeting of the city council with no action taken.
This year, the city had budgeted $3,000 for the membership although the Partnership board had requested $6,000 from municipalities for its efforts at economic development.
At an earlier meeting of the council, Bruce Orttenburger, president/CEO of the Partnership had discussed the various benefits that the city receives from its membership. He said he would discuss the city's budgeted amount with the Partnership board.
The city has heard nothing further from the Partnership except to receive a bill for $3,000 for a six month membership.
Councilman Ted Corombos noted that the finance committee had discussed this issue at its meeting earlier on Monday with two major questions still unanswered - what does the city get from its membership and how is the amount ($6,000) established or decided on by the board?
"Did they arbitrarily pick $6,000 as the number? We've received vague lists of what we are getting from
their networking. Iron Mountain doesn't have any significant land to sell except the Khoury property for industrial development. All the rest of the property near the highway is privately owned. My recommendation is not to do anything with this request. We've already tabled it, so just leave it alone," Corombos said.
Mayor Bruce Rosen felt that since the city had already budgeted $3,000 for its membership that it should pay that. "We can't increase it at this time. It's not in the budget. "
It was also noted that the city helps to maintain the area around the Partnership building with snow removal and other maintenance where other municipalities do not.
Councilman Dale Alessandrini felt that the city needed to belong to the Partnership and should pay the $3,000 it had budgeted for it.
"They (Partnership) promote the county and we indirectly benefit from that. The city gets benefits by belonging. They are out there fighting for Dickinson County," said Councilman Collin Jacobetti.
Corombos felt that they should be able to give examples of what it done by the Partnership for the city supporting the economic development efforts.
Alessandrini agreed that the city does maintain the yard around the Partnership's building and provide plowing and that should account for something.
A motion to not renew its membership in the Partnership was rescinded in order to give the Partnership's executive committee a chance to meet with the city's finance committee.
Rosen was in agreement to give the matter two more weeks allowing for the two committees to meet and clarify some of the city's questions.
"One way or the other we can give them the courtesy of sitting down and discussing it. We budgeted $3,000 for the membership this year and it's an investment in the community," Rosen said.
City Manager Jordan Stanchina said he would contact the executive committee at the Partnership and set up a meeting.
The council's finance committee will come back at the first meeting in March with a recommendation.
At Monday's meeting, the council also went over and approved the mid-year budget amendment for funds prepared by Carol Bartolameolli, chief financial officer.
Revenues in the general fund had increased in the state grants area by $79,895, which was based on projections released by the state of Michigan. Of this amount, Bartolameolli noted that $28,949 is an increase to the constitutional sales tax and $50,946 was an increase to statutory sales tax.
She added that the at the time the budget was adopted, it was unknown how much the decrease in the city's population would affect revenue sharing. They also did not know what the state's plans were regarding statutory revenue sharing.
Other increases included $8,500 in the charges for services to reflect the increased sale of cemetery lots through the end of December and an increase of $10,200 in interest and rents to reflect what is expected to be received over and above the budget from tower lease revenue. The city is not receiving a portion of the lessee's net income on several of the leases and this was unknown when the budget was prepared.
Other revenues were increased by $37,788, which includes $12,788 in donations/receipts related to the City Park Improvement project; $8,000 related to higher than budgeted employee contributions to health insurance; and $17,000 related to an unexpected worker's compensation dividend check received during the year along with higher than budgeted regular worker's compensation dividends received.
These changes, Bartolameolli noted, resulted in an increase in budgeted revenues of $136,383.
On the expenditure side, there were also changes including an increase of $11,160 in public safety to cover expenditures for an accumulated sick leave buyback for an employee; increase of $4,348 to cover unbudgeted expenditures incurred for the city park improvement fund-raisers; a decrease of $14,718 which is the difference between budget and actual costs of the general fund's portion of property and liability insurance costs; and an increase of $110,134 in other financing uses which includes a one-time payment of $100,000 from the general fund to the Motor Vehicle and Equipment Fund for the fire truck loan payoff. All these changes resulted in an increase to budgeted expenditures in the amount of $110,924.
She noted that this overall had an effect to the general fund of a decrease in the budget deficit from $276,876 to $251,417.
A public hearing was also held at Monday's meeting on the purchase of a squad car from the USDA Rural Development grant program. The grant would be for up to 20 percent of the purchase prize for a car and related equipment. The estimated cost is $30,000 and the city will be purchasing a Dodge Charger for the police department.
The city belongs to the state of Michigan MI Deal program, which bids out vehicles.
Stanchina noted that other local municipalities have purchased directly through the MI Deal program because it is difficult for other vendors to beat the MI Deal price. The council opted to purchase directly through MI Deal for the squad car, which is a 2012 Dodge Charger V6 police package.
In other action, the council
- Approved a waiver of conflict letter from Miller Canfield law firm regarding American Transmission Co. The majority of the city's use of Miller Canfield in the past has been for matters regarding the Tax Increment Finance Authority and the city attorney did not have a problem with the request.
- Approved the renewal of a taxi cab license to Tri-City Cab and a new license for City Cab.
- Agreed to give authorization to solicit two year audit proposals as is directed by city charter.
- Heard from Corombos that the city should check into the water bonds that were taken out in 2004 and go through 2034. He felt that the city should look into a possible refinancing and check with the city's bond counsel to see if it can be done. He noted that the interest rates are low now and that the city may want to consider pursuing this at this time. "We have four percent we are paying on the bonds now and I think we can do better. I think we can save some money for our water users by looking into this at this time."
Linda Lobeck's e-mail address is llobeck@ironmountaindailynews.com.