By ELI LUTGENS
Editor
A lot was discussed at the recent special meeting of the New Richland City Council Tuesday, Jan. 19.
Originally scheduled as a workforce meeting, the first items on the agenda were the cause for the name of the meeting to be changed.
During the previous week’s council meeting, Chris Schlaak proposed that the City cover former ambulance worker Monica Schutrop’s EMT refresher course. The idea was quickly shot down.
“I don’t think it’s going to take much discussion because she isn’t a city employee anymore,” stated Mayor Gail Schmidt. “It wouldn’t set a good precedent. What would stop other former city workers from coming forward with similar requests?”
Following the short discussion, the item was dismissed. Applications from Tonya Hohansee, Zach Rinehart, and Aidan Kruckeberg were accepted for the ambulance department.
After the items of the special meeting were concluded, the council moved onto the workforce meeting requested by Mayor Schmidt.
Each member of the council came prepared with their own list of wants and expectations for 2021 at the request of Mayor Schmidt.
Mayor Schmidt was the first to speak on the matter.
“We really need to do some work on the budget this year,” stated Mayor Schmidt. “It’s 34 pages. We have a lot of work to do. We need to be tighter on the budget. More cognitive of the needs and separate those from the wants. […] We may not be very well liked, but we gotta get it back in shape.”
Mayor Schmidt would add that she does not remember the budget ever being this long during her time with the city and is requesting an inventory from the heads of different departments in the city, specifically starting with the police department.
“You hear, 'Well, we got that because we get reimbursed,' Well you don’t get reimbursed 100 percent,” remarked Mayor Schmidt. “There should be a reimbursement line and an expense line. Then we know exactly how much the city is paying.”
Dialogue continued regarding the amount of money the city has in cash reserves.
Councilperson Chad Neitzel asked, “Do you know how much we have in there now?”
“You can’t tell,” replied City Administrator Sara McKay.
“The only reason I ask is because it goes way back to the ambulance,” stated Councilperson Neitzel who would later go on to say, “That’s the reason we’re short on cash.”
It was reported by former City Administrator Wayne Billing that the city had roughly $360,000 in cash reserves at the end of December. Cities are supposed to have half of their annual budget in the city reserves. The City of New Richland has a budget of a little over $1 million per fiscal year.
Mayor Schmidt went on to discuss what she called her “wish list,” which included getting the “city sign” project active again and cleaning up the ditch along City Park.
“This one is not a wish list item,” stated Mayor Schmidt. “The enforcement of ordinances. We have to do better. It’s my understanding that when the city adopts an ordinance and they don’t follow it, a community member can come forward, and if the city doesn’t react to that, we can be fined for it.”
“What if that was part of the agenda?” responded Councilperson Casey. “That way we look at the stuff before it becomes a problem. Like the lumber yard. If it was on the agenda, we could at least say, ‘nothing tonight’ and move on.”
The idea of expanding office space for the city administrator was brought up by Mayor Schmidt as an area for concern that should be addressed. “Obviously it’s not in the budget, but something I want to plant a seed of is, we really need to, whether it’s this year, next year or five years down the road… We really need to do something about space for the city clerk and all the supplies,” stated Mayor Schmidt.
Councilperson Neitzel recommended a plan that would involve eliminating a hallway to expand storage and office room for the City Administrator’s office.
“You blew me away here with what you said,” remarked Councilperson Casey. After which Casey went on to request a blueprint be brought to the next meeting.
Mayor Schmidt went on to request a pay equity scale.
“Explain pay equity scale, for who?” asked Councilperson Casey.
“It’s for all the employees and the steps they are assigned to goes by their job description,” responded Mayor Schmidt. “And then the length of years they’ve been working. It’s kind of a graph or chart. […]And then every time the council likes to raise it (the pay equity from the average two percent cost of living increase), she (Administrator McKay) can plug in one number and it can change the whole scale.”
Mayor Schmidt went on to state that Administrator McKay would start providing job descriptions for city employees along with evaluations, which, according to Schmidt, “Has not been done.”
“I have some hard questions for what’s being done or not being done,” stated Mayor Schmidt. “For example, Streets and Water. I would like to know what their typical day schedule is. That will help us when it comes to summer and they want somebody to mow; whether it’s necessary or not.”
A request was made by Councilperson Neitzel for permission to start plowing the snow in front of the sidewalks in front of all businesses along Main Street instead of just the required buildings. According to Neitzel, clearing the snow from the entire sidewalk would be easier than avoiding the select areas not required to be cleared by the city.
Councilperson Wynemmer suggested removing the franchise fee from the electricity and gas bills to save residents a few extra dollars per month. His justification was that maybe this could help save folks some money because their bills went up because of the trash collection cost added to the water bill.
Other topics discussed at the meeting included printing the council’s agenda in the Star Eagle newspaper; filling the various open positions on city boards; the public hearings portion of meetings was directed to be changed to public comments, to sound more inviting for the public to come forward with questions or comments for the council; Councilperson Wynemmer suggested a 10-percent charitable gambling tax; and Mayor Schmidt also requested the removal the three-minute speaking rule for members of the public wishing to address the council.
The meeting adjourned a little after 8 p.m.