2008-11-06 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

To: Honorable Mayor Adams and Council From: Julie Feier, City Manager Date: November 6, 2008 Subject: Weekly Update delinquent refuse collection program The City’s continues successfully. To date, the City has collected $405,000 in additional delinquencies since the program began. The majority of this amount was collected last fiscal year during the amnesty phase, but we continue to collect delinquent amounts on properties where service has been stopped and then reinstated when residents begin to make monthly payments. The City has moved through three of the five sections of the City and there are just over 350 properties with stopped service where no payment or payment plan has been received. Code enforcement staff is checking for inappropriate accumulation of trash on these properties, but so far, no problems have occurred. After the first of the year, the City will resume sending shut-off notices to the last two parts of the City. With the September 1 residential refuse service billings, the City Council authorized increased penalties for non-payment. Previously, the penalty for non-payment was just $1.00, which was too low to encourage timely payment. The first increased level of penalty began on October 1, 2008 with a penalty of 10% of the billing. Since this was a higher penalty, the City allowed a grace period of one additional week before adding the penalty. For residents who did not pay the regular six-month billing of $90.30 (cost of regular curb-line rate) by the grace period, a penalty was added of $9.03. Many residents have called to complain of the higher penalties but staff remains consistent with the new penalty schedule. This Saturday, November 8, 2008 the University City School District will hold its fifth Community Engagement Meetingregarding the District’s finances . The meeting will be held at Julia Goldstein Early Childhood Center 737 Kingsland Ave from 9:30 to 11:30 am. Director of Finance Scott Hafertepe will present information about basic school finance, the history of how we got where we are and how the District could finance the proposed capital improvement plan and provide for financial stability in the long term. In presenting its financing plan, the District assumed the new configuration of schools would be: 2 new elementaries, 2 renovated elementaries, a renovated middle school and a renovated high school. With this configuration the Administration would propose a no-tax increase bond issue which would raise approximately $53 million and extend payments until 2029. It would supplement the bond issue from the sale proceeds of the McKnight building ($4 million). The proposed bond issue would be on the April 2009 ballot. To address the long term financial stability of the District’s operating budget, there is an expected cost savings of $2 million once the school