7.0. SR 08-25-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Budget Worksession Memo August 25, 2003 Page 3 of 13 A YMCA facility would be a huge positive benefit for the city. In terms of economic development, the city would likely provide a tax increment financing incentive or tax rebate incentive in order to get a business like the YMCA to come to Elk River; however, the YMCA does not generate taxes so this funding option is not available. Nonetheless, some financial incentive to encourage the YMCA to come to the community does not seem unreasonable. From a different point of view, if the city has money to put into a YMCA, then citizens 0ike members of the Park and Recreation Commission) may question why these monies are not applied directly to the city park and recreation system or for a city community center versus helping to fund a YMCA facility. This is a good question and an issue that needs to be addressed. 2005 Fire Truck A significant CIP expenditure for a f~re truck is proposed for 2005. The new fzre truck is needed but whether or not it can wait another year is always debatable. The funding source for this truck is proposed to be equipment certificates; however, it may be appropriate to buy down the initial cost by using some equipment reserves. In 2003, the equipment certificate total was $357,000. In 2004, the equipment certificate total is proposed to be $331,000. When a truck of this magnitude is proposed it causes a sharp increase in the amount of equipment certificates that are needed, but there may be ways to spread this cost out more evenly. 2005 Barn Floor It is impossible to deny the need for the future replacement of the ice rink floor in the barn and it is getting very difficult to delay this expenditure much longer. The city may need to be proactive and replace the floor before a failure in order to avoid experiencing the "worst case" scenario whereby the floor becomes unusable during the ice season. The cost for a new floor and dasher boards is expected to be slightly less than $500,000. Under ideal conditions, the ice arena manager would like to do more than just replace the floor and dasher boards and would like to consider such things as expansion of the Zamboni room, a new roof for the barn, and an expansion of the lobby area; but these items are not urgent or of an emergency nature. It would be nice to fred parmers to help fmance this floor; but on the other hand, it also would be nice for the city alone to do this replacement project, receive some acknowledgement for being proactive, and save the financial partnerships for other projects. Even if partners are located for replacing the barn floor, their financial participation is likely to be only a small percent of the total project. The city cannot use equipment certificates for replacement of the barn floor and bonding would be difficult as the arena has never operated in a positive cash flow manner. The ice arena has always needed general fund monies (tax money) annually to meet its financial obligations. In the attached CIP information (on page 48) you can see that the funding source identified for the ice arena barn floor is the ice arena, which doesn't really work. The most likely funding sources for this project include the NSP reserve, the government buildings reserve, and the liquor store, or a combination of