Minutes 03/31/2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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March 31, 2014 operational costs. This change provides budget savings of almost $51,000. We will reuse the stables to house our Police Special Operations Vehicles. In doing so, we will free up necessary space at the Special Investigation Unit Garage at the Operations Center, and this will also allow the Police Department to store bulk property and evidence at the facility. This budget proposes funding the Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) in the amount of $2,541,833 for ferry, transit, and pars-transit services. This is a five percent increase over what we paid for HRT services in Fiscal Year 2013-2014 ($2,420,793), but it is less than the $2,753,499 amount HRT proposed for Fiscal Year 2014-2015 services. We believe our increase is sufficient to cover our share of HRT's cost increase for health insurance and pension funding. We anticipate that our proposed funding for HRT may result in HRT reducing its service, as it is $211,666 less than the amount HRT estimates as the cost to continue the same services as Fiscal Year 2013-2014. We will work with HRT to identify the reductions that would have the fewest impacts. HRT identified the services listed below as the City's poorest performing, so the discussion of service reductions likely will begin with these routes: • Weekend service on Route 43 (County/Bart Streets), which averages less than five riders per trip • Weekend service on Route 50 (Academy Park/Victory Crossing), which averages less than seven riders per trip • Weekday service on Route 43 (County/Bart Streets), which averages less than seven riders per trip • Weekend service to Route 47 (Downtown/Churchland}, which averages less than nine riders per trip As a reminder, the adopted Fiscal Year 2013-2014 budget included $3,047,838 for HRT services, as an overbilling error was discovered by City staff after both Portsmouth's and HRT's budgets were finalized. We have been reducing our payments to adjust for HRT's overbilling error. This reduction will result in the City actually paying HRT a total payment of $2,420,793 for the current budget year. Local Support for Education In maintaining City Council's commitment to the goal of high quality public education, I am recommending that you appropriate the sum of $46 million for Fiscal Year 2014- 2015, the same recommendation I made last year. I also recommend that you make this appropriation on a categorical basis, in quarterly increments. By changing to quarterly categorical appropriations, the Schools will need to provide regular quarterly financial reports to the City, which will allow us to better monitor their financial activity. Past Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports have shown that the City has historically appropriated funding to the Schools beyond their needs. In making this recommendation, we are attempting to "right-size" the funding level for our schools. As you all know, this misalignment of funding has allowed the School System to consistently generate year-end surplus while maintaining aper-pupil expenditure and beginning teacher salaries that are not only the highest in the region but are also higher than the state average. Portsmouth spends $11,230 per pupil, compared to the State average of $10,969. Our starting salary for a teacher with a Bachelor's degree is $42, 134, which is the 13th highest in the State. The State average is $38, 582.