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Budget Study Session May 18, 2005 2005. Citizen’s Comments Ed McCarthy, 7101 Princeton Avenue, asked how complete the budget is. Where is all the City renovation money that will be spent in the next six months? If that is millions of dollars, there should be bond proceeds coming in and there should be expenditures going out. He has not noted anything in the budget related to renovations. Secondly, “Club Heman” will require a million or two million dollars and presumably there has been a bond issue or there will be a bond issue, and he asked where these expenditures were? In respect of the swimming suits and fees, he asked that the City make the teenagers work for a month, or if they resign before the end of thirty days, they should return the fees. This is a cost the City should not have to shoulder. Finally, he referred to the recreation center as the “great unknown” and commented that he would speak about annual memberships shown on C-77, C-78, and C-79. He said the figures for the water bill were too low. He said the three thousand memberships have not been sold so far; the number is too high or additional advertising will be needed to sell memberships. If the number listed here is achieved, there will be much more money than is shown. Mr. Ollendorff wanted to know if the estimates were too high or too low and Mr. McCarthy said he did not know, that he was trying to figure it out, based upon the number currently sold, which is a very low figure. He questioned that the City would be able to collect 3000 memberships at $300 to $500 per membership. At that rate, the City would collect a million dollars. Either the dollars are not here or the membership is overstated, he asserted. He asked about the number of hours for field rentals. He asked how much the field rentals would be per hour? Mr. Ollendorff said he would provide a total analysis and he commented upon the figures Mr. McCarthy cited, explaining that the architectural design contract provided analysis of revenue and operating expense. The architect had to provide plans and a building estimate and an operating maintenance estimate and income revenue estimates. Mr. McCarthy said he thought the recreation center would experience “a tremendous loss next year.” It will be under completion; it will not have 3000 members and the demographics of University City can bring in this number, in his opinion. It will take a while to achieve this number. As for the Pension Plan, he commented that the contingency is $361,000 for the “uniform plan” and asked if there is also a tax to collect and which can be implemented at any time, so there is no reason to have a contingency item listed. Mr. Ollendorff responded that it is only for the non-uniformed employees’ plan. The City share of the pension for the non-uniformed personnel comes out of the General Fund; the City share of the police and fire pension fund comes from a separate property tax. If needed, a three per cent property tax can be added, and the authority to do so is all ready in place. His last question asked was for the figure of the total City real estate tax revenue. Mr. Page 14