In a special session Monday night, Warsaw City Council responded to its 1782 notice and reviewed and updated its strategic plan.
A 1782 notice is used by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance to inform taxing units of necessary cuts still needed in the current budget.
Warsaw approved those cuts Monday and plans to respond to the state today, ahead of a Thursday deadline.
Mayor Joe Thallemer told the council, “You’ll notice that the rate listed on that 1782 Notice was $1.3492, and obviously, we will reduce that tonight with our line 1 cuts.”
Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen prepared a resolution for the council approving of the cuts from the city’s 2017 budget.
The budget cuts total $780,790, including $238,248 from the general fund; $468,712, fire territory operating fund; $24,600, aviation; $16,000, cemetery; and $33,230 from parks and recreation.
“When we sent our line 2 cuts in, a lot of those cuts were just put down into the reserves. Those don’t necessarily stay there. By requesting a particular rate, adding the line 1 cuts that we have before you tonight, that will adjust those rates down … as well as set your tax rate after these cuts have been enacted,” Thallemer explained.
The proposed tax rate for 2017 is $1.2741, about 2.8 percent higher than the 2016 rate of $1.2391, he said.
“We were able to keep that underneath the DLGF growth factor of 3.8 percent,” Thallemer continued. “We had a pretty decent year in our revenues in 2016. I don’t think our tax cap credits were as high as they had projected based on revenue that we projected to receive versus what we actually received. We did pretty good.”
He said he felt comfortable setting the operating balances at 15 percent.
Last year, Thallemer said, the tax rate was only raised a penny.
“We probably overlooked the fire territory reserves. We got through the year, but those reserves needed to come up from last year and that’s probably where the increase is this year, is the fire territory reserves. We’re asking to get the fire territory reserves up to 15 percent. Most of them are at 15 percent, but (not) the fire territory,” he stated.
The DLGF requires the council pass the ordinance, giving it direction to set the tax rate, based on the line 1 and 2 cuts and the budget as presented, he said.
The council, by a vote of 5-0, approved the line 1 cuts as presented, setting the tax rate at $1.2741, and maintaining a minimum 15 percent operating balance. Council members Jeff Grose and Diane Quance were not in attendance at the meeting at that point.
Council President Mike Klondaris said he knew it took a lot of work to get to this point.
“I’m pleased,” councilwoman Cindy Dobbins said.
The council then moved on to review its strategic plan to see if it was heading in the right direction. It re-examined and updated the plan about eight to nine months ago. The council’s original strategic plan was formulated in 2012.
“This is just pretty much an open discussion, led by (City Planner) Jeremy (Skinner),” Thallemer said, asking that discussion be kept at the planning level and not get “too deep into the weeds.”
Skinner said, “The intent of this meeting, more or less, is to take those goals we laid out … and give me your feedback so we can basically finish the document.”
He said some of the objectives of the goals were met or worked on since the spring meetings. He gave an example of the city’s Facebook page and GoWarsaw app, which came out of the 2016 meetings. In July, the Facebook page had total posts of 31,746 and 1,600 likes; by December it had a total post reach of 56,796 and 3,500 likes.
“Some of those goals in the Communication and Processing, obviously we’ve been working on,” Skinner said.
Along with communication and processing, the other objectives include growth management, business retention and expansion, business attraction, neighborhood revitalization and downtown Warsaw.
Under business retention and expansion, Skinner said a goal he added, but that the council discussed, was job training.
Thallemer said, “I think this community realizes how critical a skilled workforce is. While it certainly is a city responsibility to do anything we can, there are many players,” naming Grace College, local school corporations, OrthoWorx, AcceLINX, Ivy Tech, Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and KEDCo, formally known as Kosciusko Economic Development Corp.
“This is the No. 1 issue in the community, not just the city participates in, but everyone understands the importance of sustaining our industry, that workforce development is a big, big issue. A skilled workforce is not just a workforce, it’s a skilled workforce,” Thallemer said.
Quance mentioned the Goodwill Career Center and the work it does.
Dobbins said she didn’t want to overlook the city’s small businesses which is the city’s “bread and butter.”
As for the downtown, she said maybe the city needed to push a little harder on its partner Warsaw Community Development Corp. to get the word out about the downtown.
Klondaris noted the word “marketing” was mentioned repeatedly. “Are we getting to the point where marketing is becoming so important in all of these areas that we need to think about hiring somebody to do that marketing for us?”
Skinner said no and that the “bigger issue you have is you’re not marketing one thing, and the marketing field is so diverse that I don’t know that the city could.”
He said he didn’t know if a marketing firm would be more efficient, but it was something the city could look at, though he also wasn’t sure it would be a “cheaper way to go.”
Thallemer said he’s had discussion with other mayors and got their descriptions for communication directors.
“A lot of it depends on the size of the community and what they’re trying to do. We’ve got a pretty big story we’re trying to get out, and there’s so many ways to get it out. I don’t know that hiring … it just depends. You need someone who can control all types of media. It becomes very expensive, and I don’t know that just hiring a marketing director is the answer,” he said.
The city currently is paying 212 Media to maintain its Facebook page.
After further discussion, including issues of downtown parking, business spaces and First Friday, Skinner told the council he will finish the text of the strategic plan in the next week. The final draft will be sent to the council within weeks. The council was invited to send any more ideas on the strategic plan to Skinner over the next week.
