City Council Meeting Date: December 6, 2022
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Ben Martig, City Administrator
Title
Consider College Voluntary Donation Policy.
Body
Action Requested:
The Northfield City Council consider approval of donation policy.
Summary Report:
Staff is preparing the formal policy to be submitted as a supplemental memo. The following is the background on the substance of the policy that will be included in the proposed policy.
Policy Summary
The City Council had discussed at their November budget worksession an interest to allocate the annual donation from St. Olaf and Carleton to the Parks Capital Fund. The recent practice has been to deposit as a revenue to the general fund of the City.
The Council Finance Policy Subcommittee met on Wednesday, November 17th to discuss considerations of the policy. The recommendation included the following general direction:
• Acknowledge the historical donation of colleges (versus what the formula is or how much);
• Prescribe the City will not commit to projects or revenue of funds before receiving with the goal of not creating a potential financial liability (i.e. don’t budget as a revenue to be received);
• Direct the deposit into the Parks Capital Fund.
Background
The City has completed an estimate of about $8.6 million for the annual 10-year maintenance of parks (including riverfront parks). If the current contribution of $80,000 per year were continued for the next 10-years this would provide an extra $1,600,000 in near dollars allocated to maintain these parks. This is about 18.6% of the estimated total costs of just maintaining our parks during this time period.
Council was interested in dedicating these funds to assist in increasing parks capital items whether maintenance or new improvements.
Alternative Options:
The Committee did discuss an alternative option to direct deposit to General Fund, then as part of the upcoming audit clarify the City’s general fund reserve target (40% - 50%) must first be met then if it is then automatically authorizes the transfer to the Parks Capital fund.
+ Provides extra contingency for General Fund reserves for upcoming bond rating analysis that could be negatively impacted if we are under minimum reserve policy to ensure a better interest rate
- Does not guarantee money to immediately go into capital parks fund
There was significant discussion about the potential liability of the general fund shortfall. After discussion, there was a comfort about the level of liability as well as ways to mitigate if there was a shortfall to replace funding in the following year. Therefore, this option is not being recommended.
Financial Impacts:
The following Table 3 shows the historical contribution of both Carleton and St. Olaf from 2000 to current:
Table 3. Carleton & St. Olaf Historical Contribution for Each Entity (2000-current)
Year Contribution (each) Change Prior Yr % Change Prior Yr.
2000 $ 59,000.00
2001 $ 82,000.00 $ 23,000.00 39.0%
2002 $ 61,021.00 $ (20,979.00) -25.6%
2003 $ 63,000.00 $ 1,979.00 3.2%
2004 $ 65,500.00 $ 2,500.00 4.0%
2005 $ 67,039.00 $ 1,539.00 2.3%
2006 $ 69,190.00 $ 2,151.00 3.2%
2007 $ 71,000.00 $ 1,810.00 2.6%
2008 $ 73,000.00 $ 2,000.00 2.8%
2009 $ 73,000.00 $ - 0.0%
2010 $ 73,020.00 $ 20.00 0.0%
2011 $ 74,000.00 $ 980.00 1.3%
2012 $ 75,000.00 $ 1,000.00 1.4%
2013 $ 75,000.00 $ - 0.0%
2014 $ 76,000.00 $ 1,000.00 1.3%
2015 $ 77,500.00 $ 1,500.00 2.0%
2016 $ 78,000.00 $ 500.00 0.6%
2017 $ 78,000.00 $ - 0.0%
2018 $ 78,000.00 $ - 0.0%
2019 $ 80,000.00 $ 2,000.00 2.6%
2020 $ 80,000.00 $ - 0.0%
2021 $ 80,000.00 $ - 0.0%
2022 $ 80,000.00 $ - 0.0%
Tentative Timelines:
The policy will go into effect immediately upon approval by the City Council and would then lead to the 2023 contribution to be allocated directly to the Parks Fund. This will be reflected in the resolution accepting donations that comes in early 2024 for all 2023 donations.