July 9, 2024

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Good evening, everybody. It's July 9th. Call the roll. Alderman Buse.

Here. Alderman Patel. Here. Aldermen Gary Feder.

Here. Aldeman Rick Hummell. Here. Alden Jeffery Yorg.

Here. Mayor Pro Tem McAndrew. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Here. City Attorney O'Keefe. Here. Thank you.

This is the time where we can have any public requests and petitions on anything that's not on the agenda tonight. I know. So we will go ahead and we just start going to move into our consent agenda. Everybody's looked at it.

Any discussion? I move that the board approve the consent agenda. Second. Second.

Alderman Gary Feder. Aye. Alderman Rick Hummell. Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem McAndrew. Aye. Thank you. Chuck.

Jeffery Yorg. Aye. I'm sorry. Alderman Jeffery Yorg, I'm sorry.

Aye. And then the next item on the agenda, the city manager will report on the second quarter financial report. Yes. And this evening we have with us Karen Dilber, our director of finance to go through the second quarter financial reports that was in your packet.

Let me just start with, does anyone have any questions? Okay, well I'm just going to do a brief overrun and afterwards if you have any questions based on what I've said, please let me know. So overall, the major thing I want to point out is that the property taxes the real estate taxes not the personal property taxes are lower due to reassessments the rest of the assessment year in 2023 and protests that have come through St. Louis County.

It's affecting this year, but it's for the last two fiscal years, according to what St. Louis County is telling me. So it's basically protests that are out there that came from the assessor's office and have filtered down to St. Louis County.

They have sent me a letter. link with more links that don't actually work that tell me which properties are protesting. I'm supposed to be able to click on them and have them tell me where they are in the process of being resolved, but the links don't work, and so I can't get the additional information. But in a nutshell, through 331 in the general fund, In delinquent taxes, so that's taxes from previous years, we have a negative $285,407.83.

So that's the big thing I really just wanted to bring to the board's attention. It's going to flow through to the end of the fiscal year. I really can't get any, I've exhausted all my resources to try to get additional information and we're not the only city who is having this issue. So that's the major thing that I really wanted to point out.

It's showing up in this report. You'll see it again in the third quarter report. So I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Karen, on protests, when a taxpayer protests, do they still have to pay some tax or do they not pay any tax while the protest is in place?

I don't know. I don't think they pay. Oh, you don't pay at all. Because what happens is...

Actually, they're required to pay the full amount of tax. Oh, but it's held. And then they hold it. The county holds it, right?

And so we're not... So what I'm getting at there is, well, that number is impacting us because we haven't received it. It's not that we're going to get zero. We're going to get something between zero and whatever the tax was based on the outcome of the protest.

So what that means is that it was likely released to us at a given time. So when people protest, we get the majority of our taxes in December and January, and then we receive another large distribution around May or June, which is typically the resolution. They call it the resolution of protest. But then they come back around, like if they protested higher than, you know, to the assessor's office and whatever, and they just keep pushing it through.

That's what these things are, is what they're telling me. So we actually could be negatively impacted? If I may. It is correct.

Those taxes are paid due December 31st. 90-something percent of the distribution occurs in December and January. When a taxpayer protests, they have to pay the amount in full. The county holds the amount in full, even though they say, I should have only paid half of this much.

And then there is a lawsuit filed on behalf of taxing districts every year in about March or April. And they get a court order authorizing the county to release most of the impounded funds, which is the distribution that takes place in May or June. And that is against all the taxpayers' promise that if there's judgment and there's counties not holding sufficient funds the city will make up the difference on any given claim but the cases could take two years to settle and generally that involves then a subsequent adjustment to distribution in subsequent taxes so i guess what i'm getting at is whether or not we should be um whether we should take any comfort that if the protests are resolved in our favor, we'll see a bump or not. But it sounds to me like we've already kind of seen the light and we're going to be adversely affected by this relative to our expectations.

Is that fair to say? In this fiscal year, yes. Now, I did pull some numbers from fiscal 23. We ended the delinquent tax account with positive numbers.

The general fund was about $6,000. And in fiscal 22, we did have a negative number, which was about $2,500. So it's not typically this high, which is why I really wanted to bring it to your attention because $285,000 is a significant amount. Okay.

Hard to believe that every other, a lot of the other municipalities that are, that everybody kind of misjudged or, you know, didn't. Right. And I'm not saying everyone is having this issue. I've just heard from multiple new municipalities asking if we're having issues like this.

The dispute with the taxpayer is with the county assessor or the taxable status of the property. But generally it's a dispute between the taxpayer and the assessor. and all the taxing districts that tax that property are caught up in that. Right, yeah, I'm just concerned about how this is going to affect our revenue, and it sounds to me like there's no reason to be optimistic about it.

In fact, it is what it is. That's what I'm hearing. So our revenue for current year collections is up, not a huge amount, but it's up, but this offset is making it look like we've received lower because the actual revenue that we received is lower because of this, if that makes sense. Okay, to clarify, now I'm confused.

So she said $285,000 is essentially what we're missing. And so that is still under protest as far as we know. No, that's a result. It was resolved against us or not against us, but against the assessor, which negatively impacts us.

Right, so that's not something we're going to recover. And that probably carries forward as well because their tax base has already been resolved from the protests, right, into future years as well. I think you can talk. Yeah, Karen, I think you can put it or get to this in a minute, but we're talking 285 to the negative just on property taxes.

So that from a total budgetary standpoint, we may be able to make that up through the sales tax growth and some other things this year. Or are we looking at like a bottom line 285 loss at this point? No, that's just for the real property tax line item. We will likely make it up, assuming everything goes like it's been going in other revenue streams.

It's just the real estate taxes. And it's a big number, so I wanted to point it out and make sure everyone was aware so no one was blindsided later on. Okay, thank you. Okay, let's see.

Moving on to the next item of any sort of significance. Sales taxes and utility taxes are up. These are obviously user-driven, but inflation is still kind of having its way with the sales taxes. And then Ameren and Missouri American Water had significant rate hikes this year, which is why we're seeing a flow through of some additional revenue there.

So I also wanna point out that the funds that also collect real estate taxes like a couple of the debt service funds, the SBD, they also are impacted by the negative previous year distributions. So if you're looking and you see that, that is why that's doing that. And then really the only other point a couple of things I wanted to point out our contractual services are down this is the general fund, our contractual services or down due to the solid waste contract when you're comparing year over year so we're still seeing that flow through. And then our commodities are less due to some snow and ice control purchases, you know, based in year over year.

And then I did have a question for the board, the comparison between This fiscal year and fiscal year 21, sales taxes by type shows that the sales taxes are significantly higher. And I wanted to know if the board still wanted to see a comparison of the current fiscal year to the pandemic year, or if you just want us to do like year over year or a couple of years. So can you just, because right now you compare a lot between like pandemic years and like kind of getting out of it a little bit. Yeah.

So for instance, this year in this second quarter of fiscal 24, we have a 51.6% increase in sales taxes versus the pandemic period, which kind of makes it look like we have this huge influx of money, which we do compared to the pandemic when everything was really not great. So I just was curious if the board was still interested in seeing our revenues as compared to the pandemic or if you wanted me to compare more recent time periods. So just to be clear, like for example, it's page 17 in the agenda that is the table that says the percent change from FY21 to 24 and percent change 23 to 24 because you're showing us all those years. And I guess like overall, we typically show a five-year range, but the five-year range is picking up a year that's definitely an anomaly there.

I think it's still helpful. I mean, it's not like it's a surprise. It's just, it's helpful to me, at least to say this is a reflection of the economic activity and how it impacted us. So I think that I think, and also just seeing the trend that this is, yeah, the five-year history, I think is helpful.

I would just add, I mean, I still think the community hasn't forgotten the pandemic. It's still lingering out there. And so I still think that perspective is still valuable. Maybe one more year out, it wouldn't be as important, but I still think it is.

I'm happy to do it. I just wanted to make sure it was still relevant. Okay. Any questions?

Anything I didn't cover that you want me to cover? Okay, thank you. Thank you. That's the end of the...

You guys want to go around? Anybody been up to anything the last couple weeks? Not much. I think one thing I can share is that with sustainability there was an article that we haven't had a meeting since the last There's an article that went around about a massive bird death during migration in Chicago and some cities with bad circumstances and an overview of different cities that, whether through point systems or by law, are requiring more state-of-the-art construction techniques so that they don't have the collisions with the migration and their buildings.

So it's something that I'm certainly hoping that the Sustainability Committee can look at more closely if it's something that that's that that easily can be put into whether it is our point system or an actual ordinance, something for us to look at. Thanks. I'll just note that I appreciated the city sent out communications through Engage Clayton about the progress and planning around the Concordia Wash U overlay districts, and so appreciate that that communication went out to let folks know kind of what's going on and where we're at um and I guess it if I remember correctly we think it'll be August that sometime in August that we'll have public hearing looks like it's potentially going to be later so that's what we were trying to get out there were there were numerous uh individuals within the community that that understood it to be August and it looks like we're going to probably miss that timeline we have some additional things to work through so it's likely going to be September uh potentially late September before it gets to the plan commission Okay, thank you. I'm in theater.

I attended the National League of Cities visit to the Center of Clayton yesterday. Didn't really know much about National League of Cities, but they apparently are celebrating. They're in Washington, D.C., and I think they're essentially an advocacy group for a lot of cities and towns and villages. Sounds like their speech.

But anyway, it's their 100th anniversary, and so they are visiting. They've got this big van, and they're visiting 100 cities. I don't know over what period of time. Sounds very grueling, but...

David gave some very nice remarks about the city of Clayton and then the folks from National League of Cities talked about what they're doing. And so it was a nice event. And I guess I would raise just because I never had a chance to ask David, I understand we are not Clayton, a member of the National League of Cities. I was impressed with them.

It may be that, you know, The economics of being a member, it doesn't necessarily make sense. But anyway, it seemed like a neat organization. And so maybe something we should at least think about why we are or are not a member of that organization. It's been a number of years since we've been a member organization at National League of Cities.

We can send out some information on the group and have further discussions about it. But I think at the time it was cut, it was just a decision was made that we weren't getting the value out of it. They do have conferences that are really well attended with delegates from all over the country that go. Lots of advocacy on behalf of cities at the national level and a lot of good educational opportunities.

But we typically hadn't sent anyone to conferences. Nobody wanted to go. And outside of the conferences themselves, while they have some newsletter sort of things that would go out, there's not a lot of information that they're actually pushing out to those member communities. So I think that's where the value was sort of lost.

If you look at it and you're interested in going to those conferences, perhaps in the future, then membership definitely lowers the conference rate. And that's one of the huge advantages of being a member. So we'll send out some information so you can evaluate it for yourselves. The only other thing I would add is that we spent the weekend in Nashville, where on Broadway they have 60 musical venues.

And I kept thinking, if only we could have one of those 60, we would be in good shape. So anyway, it's for a little bit younger audience, I think. But it was still, it was a lot of fun to go visit. And so, again, made me think about how much it would be great to have some entertainment venues in the city of Clayton.

I don't have any updates. Jeff, do you have any updates? All I'm going to say is, you know, luckily we didn't have a lot going on the last couple weeks, but I do appreciate the updates and letting us all know when some of the stuff's going on in the city so we were prepared in case one of our residents asked us. So, Andrew, everyone, thank you for the updates when David was out, and everybody else, thank you for getting us updates as we need.

Otherwise, I have nothing. Um, I would just say, um, I actually, because I was on vacation last week, I wasn't at the plan commission meeting, but, um, Just I know it was well attended. There was some suggestion. I know the plan commission continued the property on Bemiston, which has kind of been the subject of some big discussion in the community.

So I think the plan commission suggested that there perhaps need to be some architectural changes. And so we'll see. I don't know if David, do you know when the property will come back? My understanding is it will be at least a few weeks.

So I would think maybe two or three meetings down the road. Okay. But not the next meeting, David. That's correct.

But because I wasn't there, I can't really share what else was discussed at the meeting. And I guess, David, you weren't there either. So other than that, I was in Wisconsin. So nothing else to report.

Anything else from anybody tonight? motion to adjourn second all in favor aye aye opposed you're efficient thank you have a good night everybody have fun

07-09-2024 BOA Minutes07-09-2024 BOA Minutes July 9, 2024 Page 1 of 2

THE CITY OF CLAYTON

Board of Aldermen In-Person and Virtual Meeting July 9, 2024 7:00 p.m.

MINUTES

Mayor Harris called the meeting to order and requested a roll call. The following individuals were in attendance:

In-person: Susan Buse, Becky Patel, Gary Feder, Rick Hummell, and Mayor Pro Tempore Bridget McAndrew.

Virtual: Jeffery Yorg

Staff: City Manager Gipson, City Attorney Jones, City Clerk Frazier, and Assistant City Manager Muskopf

Absent: Michelle Harris.

PUBLIC REQUESTS AND PETITIONS

None

CONSENT AGENDA 1. Minutes – June 25, 2024 2. Resolution – Readopting Procedure to Disclose Potential Conflicts of Interest 3. Liquor license - First Watch Restaurant, 8001 Forsyth Boulevard, Suite 101 4. Boards and Commissions appointment.

Motion made by Alderman Buse to approve the Consent Agenda. Alderman Patel seconded.

The motion passed on a roll call vote: Alderman Buse – Aye; Alderman Patel – Aye; Alderman Feder - Aye; Alderman Hummell – Aye; Alderman Yorg – Aye; and Mayor Pro Tempore McAndrew – Aye.

FY2024 2ND QUARTER FINANCIAL REPORT

Karen Dilber, Director of Finance, presented to the Board a summary of the FY2024 2nd Quarter Financials as provided in the Board packet.

OTHER

Aldermen Buse reported on the following: • Sustainability Advisory Committee – reported on an article about a massive group of birds that died in a single night in Chicago during the migration period. The migrating birds flew into high rise buildings. Researchers are looking into a law, possibly a point system for developments that will help prevent such occurrences.

07-09-2024 BOA Minutes07-09-2024 BOA Minutes July 9, 2024 Page 2 of 2

Alderman Patel expressed her appreciation for the continued communications sent via Engage Clayton on the Washington University/Concordia Seminary Overlay project.

Alderman Feder reported on the following: • Attended the National League of Cities Tour stop at The Center of Clayton in recognition of their 100th Anniversary. • Recently visited Nashville and commented on their vast (60+) musical venues; it would be nice if Clayton had at least one entertainment venue.

Alderman Yorg expressed his appreciation for the many updates on various projects/works happening in the city.

Mayor Pro Tempore McAndrew reported on the following: • Plan Commission met on 7/1 – very well attended; the Commission will continue discussions on the proposed S. Bemiston property project.

Motion made by Alderman Buse to adjourn the meeting. Alderman Patel seconded.

The motion was approved unanimously on a voice vote.

There being no further discussion the Board adjourned at 7:19 p.m.

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Mayor

ATTEST:

______________________________ City Clerk