City approves eight-year equipment replacement funding plan at meeting
The Lennox City Council met Monday, September 14.
The City of Lennox is exploring options for filing a soon-to-be vacant position under the agreement with the City of Hartford.
“At the August 24 City Council meeting, the City Council provided direction about doing this going forward and a shared position with the City of Lennox and other communities looked to be what we were all going for and with regard to the shared position, Nate [Vander Plaats] held a call with Dell Rapids, Canton, and Worthing exploring their interest in sharing the cost of such a position and he has drafted a job description agreement that would need to be agreed upon pending city attorney review,” said Finance Officer, Tyson Dahler.
In meeting with the communities, Vander Plaats found each of the communities has different needs, but together could fill a full time position splitting the hours between the communities.
“Do we have an approximate cost to this scenario compared to what we were paying Kyle through Hartford,” asked President Chad Swier.
“I would assume we would do something similar to what Hartford did for us where it was a full-time position there and they would split everything right down in half with the cost remaining around $40,000 per year,” Dahler responded.
“On paper it looks like our costs will be the same, but you also need to look at splitting overtime which may not be spent in Lennox, it could be because they spent an extra eight hours in Dell Rapids. I feel like there’s just so many unknowns,” Alderman Lauren VanDriel said.
“I’d like to see more data before I get behind the idea like what the employee would be doing, what are we pulling the other employees away from, we need a full picture of the role,” Swier said.
Alderman Laura Thiesse asked if it would be possible to have the new employee begin their role soon enough to be trained by the current staff.
“We could, we’d be adding to the budget though,” Swier responded.
“I think it depends on the experience of the person too,” Mayor Fergen added.
No action was taken on the item.
The Council was asked to consider an equipment replacement funding plan.
“Throughout the past few years, there has not been a consistent plan for how to fund equipment for a variety of city departments. Primarily the streets department is what sparked all of this and in the past it’s usually involved an asset completely breaking down for the streets department and creating an absolute necessity to purchase a replacement as soon as possible, which doesn’t help any sort of budgeting practices and that replacement usually gets purchased ends up being something well past its useful life item,” said Dahler.
President Swier asked what the backup plan would be if doesn’t pass voter approval on a $800,000 firetruck purchase.
“The thought was we wouldn’t even start the process of buying the fire truck until we have it set in stone,” Dahler responded.
“What of these assets could be purchased utilizing DOC funds?” asked Bill Daugherty.
“Well, technically, I guess all of them, but trying to steer away from using sewer money for a different department’s assets is what we’re trying to steer clear of,” Dahler responded.
“I think we need to have more discussion about our own appetite for this before we approve the plan,” Daugherty said.
Vander Plaats has been working through options for how to fund the upcoming capital asset purchases for the next 8 years through the City’s 2nd Penny Sales Tax Fund (212). A large part of this plan relies on the implementation of the CAPs program, which would cover the Firetruck purchase.
“I’m excited about this because if we don’t have emergencies anymore, we can have hey, we know next year we are going to need this or four years from now we will need this lets plan for that now and have proactive planning which is a big, positive step that sets us up for success,” Swier said.
Motion to approve the Equipment Replacement Funding Plan by Swier, seconded by Welch, motion carried.