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This week included a couple of intergovernmental meetings, a banquet, and a ribbon cutting.
Monday evening was my first mayor’s association meeting as President. All Wake County mayors were in attendance with the exception of Mayor Holcombe who was on vacation. It was a little strange at first presiding over a meeting of mayors. We had a very productive meeting that started with a demonstration from Teen Road Angels.
Teen Road Angels’ concept is that teen drivers and their parents agree to a contract that will require the teens to place a bumper sticker on their cars. The sticker will have a phone number to call if the teen is not driving safely. The mayors were excited about their program and passed a resolution to support their cause. To find out more go to their web site at http://teenroadangel.com.
One other notable discussion at the Mayors Association meeting was the follow up to our joint breakfast with the Wake County School Board. The mayors were very encouraged by the meeting and agreed to request another meeting this year preferably within the next few months. The mayors also decided that future joint meetings with the school board should have more specific topics of discussion. The first meeting was mostly introductory and vision.
Tuesday I met briefly with the town manager and Mayor Pro-Tem discussed a variety of issues.
Later Tuesday I attended the VFW award banquet for fire, police, and EMS. I was extremely honored to be the guest speaker. Here are the points I talked from:
- Good evening. Thank you, Commander, for inviting me to be with you tonight.
Like most of the Cary Town Council and the 140,000 people who call Cary home, I have not served in our armed forces, either at home or abroad, and yet, I, along with so many in our community benefit each day from the sacrifices you, your comrades, and your families made for us. For that, please accept my heartfelt gratitude on behalf of all those who aren’t with us here tonight.
I am also extremely grateful to and proud of the men and women who serve as our community’s first responders during times of crisis and emergency and who are led by the best Chiefs around - Chief Bazemore and Chief Cain - and while technically Cary EMS isn’t a Town department, we’re very proud of Chief Cohen and his team and do think of them as part of our extended family.
I think it’s great that the VFW is recognizing their work; we just can’t draw enough attention to the importance of their service, in my opinion.
In 2009, Cary fire and police ran more than 136,000 calls for service; that’s more than one call every 3 1/2 minutes, 24/7.
Sometimes it’s for the best of times, like helping deliver a baby. But more often than not, it’s during the worst of times, like when a loved one dies or helping untangle the tragedy of a terrible car crash.
And while I also haven’t been a firefighter or a police officer, I have been a victim, and I’ve experienced their excellent service firsthand.
My house received a direct strike from lightening in June of 2002 while my family was on vacation in Nags Head. The force was so strong that it knocked the gable roof into the yard. it was basically destroyed. The third floor was incinerated, part of the second burned, and the first floor had about 3 feet of water. There were 5 fire companies at the fire. We were out of the house for 9 months to the day. While we lost most everything we were fortunate enough to have fire fighters recover most pictures and all videos. To me that was the only valuable things in the house.
Talk off the cuff…
So, that’s just one person’s experience, but I can say without a doubt that the level of service I was provided with is the norm in our community.
Some of you may know that every two years we do a scientific telephone survey of a representative sample of our citizens, called the Citizen Satisfaction Survey. In fact, consultants working for the Town are collecting the data as I speak. Anyway, every time we do the survey, we ask citizens to rate the service they’ve received from our police and fire departments, and the rating are always through the roof.
In 2008, which was the last time we did the survey, our police received scores of 8 or higher — and you can’t get much higher because we use a 1-9 scale - for courtesy, competence, fairness, and response time. That’s A’s across the board.
Same goes for Fire. In fact, Fire’s average ratings were nearly always an 8.8 out of 9 in every category.
I wish my kids got those grades. Heck, I wish I got those grades!
Clearly, and as I say over and over again, we truly have the best staff of any municipality in the state or nation. And not just police and fire, but across the board. I tell you with confidence that as Cary citizens, you could not be served by a better, more caring staff than you have right now at Town Hall.
I don’t want to close without mentioning a few other groups that are becoming integral to our community’s safety and, therefore, our quality of life. First is our CAP Team. CAP stands for Citizens Assisting Police. Do we have any members here? PAUSE
This is a group of about 130 volunteers who’ve completed our Citizens Police Academy and gone on to form a private, non-profit group that works closely with our police department on a variety of issues. They help provide security at public events and assist with fingerprinting, child safety seat installation, clerical duties, service center staffing, and lots more. In addition to doing a fantastic job, the CAP Team volunteers free up police officers to handle tasks that only sworn law enforcement officers are allowed to do.
The second group I want to mention is our CERT team, or teams I guess it is now. It seems like just about every month we have another group forming. CERT stands for Community Emergency Response Team.
Do we have any CERT members here? PAUSE
CERT training is a Citizens Corps program designed to enable citizens to care for themselves and then their neighbors during the first three days following a disaster. Our Fire Department takes the lead role in this program, educating participants about disaster preparedness, CERT organization, light search and rescue, medical care, fire extinguisher use, and disaster psychology.
While it’s been a very long time since we’ve experienced this in Cary, we all know that severe weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes, flash floods and winter storms can cause a lot of damage to communities, overwhelming emergency responders and in some cases, leaving neighborhoods cut off from outside support.
Anyone remember Hurricane Fran?
Well, what we didn’t have with Fran were our CERT volunteers, and I’m glad to say that the next time a Fran comes through - and it really is just a matter of time - our community’s going to be in even better shape as we train more and more friends and neighbors how to help us get each other back on our feet. Right now I think we have about 200 citizens who’ve completed CERT training, which is awesome.
So, in closing let me once again thank each of you for the role you’ve played in making our community what it is today. Whether you choose the armed forces or public safety or CERT or CAP or even holding public office, serving others is a high calling, one to be proud of and one that each of us needs to appreciate the other for.
I truly believe that if we strive to always put others first, we will ourselves receive the best and blessed reward.
Thank you.
I thoroughly enjoyed the award ceremony and hope they invite me back next year.
Wednesday I attended the TAC (Transportation Advisory Committee) meeting of CAMPO (Capital Area Metropolitan Organization). The hottest topic for discussion was the rescission of $13.2 million of federal funds. Basically, we didn’t have enough “shovel ready” projects so the federal government took the money back. Now the CAMPO staff is working to make sure this never happens again. Cary has already submitted a long list of projects that would use well over the funds rescinded.
Thursday I attended the ribbon cutting for The Meat House on Kildaire Farm Road. This is a true butcher shop with all the additional items you would need for a great meal. I think this business will do great in this location. To find out more about what great items they offer go to http://www.themeathouse.com.
News releases this week included Raleigh/Cary being the #3 Happy City in the nation. If you look into the report in depth you will find that Raleigh/Cary ranked #1 in work environment. It is good to be #1 in work environment especially in this recession. To find out more see http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/richard_florida/2010/02/happy_cities.php.
Emails from staff this week included summary of fiscal actions provided by the Budget Directory. This is in a response to a citizen that questioned whether we were doing enough during these tough times. Here is his response:
- Debt Service and Fund Balance Policy Guidance
On March 25, 2008, Council held a worksession focused on discussing financial policy. The worksession slides (Financial Policy Worksession March 2008.ppt) and a link to the minutes are attached for reference. The bottom line from this worksession and the subsequent staff follow up resulted in the Council effectively managing to a debt ceiling of 15% for the general fund and a four month general fund fund balance reserve target. The 15% figure refers to the total amount that debt service represents as related to total general fund expenditures in a given year. Prior to this worksession, there had been no formal discussion by Council on the topic of setting a threshold. The four month fund balance refers to a fund balance amount over and above that reserved by state statute being equal to four months worth of annual operating expenditures and debt service. Because the amount reserved for state statute is equal to about two months worth of expenditures, the net effect is that Council kept the amount being reserved equal to six months worth, which is what it had been previously.
Capital Project Related Actions
Staff and Council continuously evaluate the long term implications of debt issuances necessary to carry out the capital program along with the operating budget forecasts, and this was done again during the FY2010 budget development process. With the impacts of the economic downturn on the rate of the Town’s tax base growth and sales tax revenues, the streetscape capital project (largely funded with debt) was put on hold for one year to slow the rate of borrowing necessary. In addition, Council directed toward the end of the budget discussions that a comprehensive review of debt and capital spending be performed to address options and alternatives impacting future debt issuances. A work session was held on October 13, 2009 (minutes located at http://www.townofcary.org/Sunshine/Agendas___Minutes/Town_Council/Minutes_Archive/2009_Council_Minutes/Cary_Town_Council_-_October_13__2009.htm) and another related work session was held on December 15, 2009 (minutes located at http://www.townofcary.org/Sunshine/Agendas___Minutes/Town_Council/Minutes_Archive/2009_Council_Minutes/Town_Council-December_15__2009_Work_Session.htm). Through these work sessions, all 374 active capital projects were reviewed and information presented including a description, current status, and implication of stopping each project. In the October work session Council directed that staff further review the general capital projects categorized as “maintain” through “new” for which ones should move forward with the goal of minimizing the immediate need for related debt issuances. This resulted in 125 general capital projects being immediately put on hold as of October 14. In the December 15 work session, Council voted to continue with 67 projects, to delay 19 others, and to postpone another 39. With these actions, Council took $20.6 million in cash remaining from postponed projects along with $3.6 million of capital reserve fund balance and eliminated the need to borrow $24 million for projects selected to continue. In addition, Council put 19 capital projects on hold. Included on the hold list are projects with balances remaining totaling $68 million, $63.8 million of which is unissued debt. The need and related timing of these projects are to be considered along with future budget considerations including their affordability and the overall economic climate.
Additionally, as part of building the FY2010 general capital budget, a high degree of conservatism was used in light of the economic climate in which the Town is operating. The adopted general capital budget in FY2010 totaled only $5.1 million, which was $73 million or 93% lower than FY2009 and it was completely funded with cash sources.
Headcount Reductions
As a matter of regular business, operations are continually reviewed to ensure resources are being spent wisely and creating value. When positions become vacant, it provides an additional opportunity to reassess the continued utility of that position/program. As the economic situation has worsened over the last couple of years, staff began to hold certain positions open by not recruiting for them for an extended period of time. While executing FY2009 and preparing the FY2010 budget, management determined that a number of approved positions would indeed be held open through the end of FY2010. Knowing that certain positions would not be filled during the year, the funding associated with those positions was removed from the budget. During the spring of 2009, when the FY2010 budget was being formulated, a total of 22 positions met this criteria and funding for them was removed from the budget. Currently, there are 30 positions on the hold list. Exactly which ones will be held open and/or not funded in the FY2011 budget will be determined during the budget development process. We continue to evaluate workload in those areas associated most directly with new development and monitor existing vacancies to ensure that enough capacity exists to support the level of development while holding positions open or reallocating workload as appropriate to ensure the right balance of customer service exists in all areas.
As with the capital budget, a high degree of conservatism was also used preparing the FY2010 operating budget due to the economic climate in which the Town is operating. While 27 potential new positions were identified during the budget development process, only one new position was recommended to and approved by Council for approval (a water resources engineer funded through the utility fund).
Meeting the Budget in An Environment of Economic Uncertainty
To help keep the public and Council apprised of the economy’s impact and related Town actions, staff began providing regular updates on the subject at Town Council meetings in the fall of 2008. Regarding the FY2009 budget, Council directed that a $3.5 million reduction be made before adoption to help provide additional operating margin buffer to the economic slowdown. Throughout the year, staff also engaged in several efforts to delay and cut back on various expenditures to help maintain funding flexibility. The Town’s general fund ended FY2009 with an operating margin of $5.4 million versus an initially estimated operating margin of $6.2 million.
The most recent update provided to Council was at the January 28, 2010, Council meeting where it was shown that thus far during FY2010, we are expecting by the end of the year to have a general fund operating margin (revenues in excess of expenditures) of approximately $1.85 million versus an adopted budget margin of $0.25 million. Much of the better than expected performance thus far is due to expenditure savings on variable rate debt service and slightly higher than anticipated property tax billings. We plan to continue updating Council with the latest information at the 2nd Council meeting each month to help keep them and the public apprised of the current status.
One of the best single sources of information for reference regarding the economy’s impacts on the Town of Cary’s financial planning can be found in the Town Manager’s Budget Message which is presented each year with the Recommended Budget. It can be found on the Town’s website as part of the budget at the following link: http://budget.townofcary.org/budget/currentyearapproved/aob/010-messageoperatingbudget.pdf As an indicator of just how important and impactful the economy has been recently in budget development, there are 40 different occurrences of words derived from “economy” in the 24 page budget message document. Specific examples of areas impacted by the economic downturn are in the areas of new building activity and sales taxes. For example, the level of building and permit fee revenue budgeted for FY2010 is $2.8 million which is $3.2 million or 53% less than the $6 million in revenue taken in just two years ago (FY2008). Another significant revenue source that is even more quickly impacted by consumer confidence is sales tax. Given the uncertainty of just when and how quickly the economy might begin to recover, this revenue budget for FY2010 was reduced to $19.3 million, which is $4.9 million or 20% less than the $24.2 million in sales tax revenue taken in just two years ago (FY2008). Revenue earnings for these two areas thus far in FY2010 are performing in line with expectations for building permits and slightly better than budget for sales tax.
Scott Fogleman
Town of Cary
Budget Director
Emails this week included complaints about a tax increase (not true), Aquastar, toilet rebate, and Cameron Pond.
We have also received several emails about Google’s offer to install fiber optic in ten towns. Our staff is looking into this one.
Next week promises to be busy for me. Monday is the Cary Matters taping, Tuesday is a work session and a banquet, Wednesday I will be in Washington, Thursday is a council meeting, Friday I visit an elementary school, Saturday I run in a 5 K benefit in the morning and attend a Police Benevolent Association award ceremony in the evening.
Well that is all for this week. I plan to next post on Sunday, February 28th. Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.
