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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOUNCIL - AGENDA ITEM - 07/05/2017 - FIRST READING OF ORDINANCE NO. 085, 2017, APPROPRIAgenda Item 10 Item # 10 Page 1 AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY July 5, 2017 City Council STAFF John Stokes, Natural Resources Director Mark Sears, Natural Areas Manager Barb Brock, Natural Areas Financial Coordinator SUBJECT First Reading of Ordinance No. 085, 2017, Appropriating Prior Year Reserves in the Natural Areas Fund for the Purpose of Land Conservation, Public Improvements and Related Natural Areas Programming Not Included in the 2017 Adopted City Budget. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The purpose of this item is to appropriate $10,790,000 in prior year reserves and unanticipated revenues in the Natural Areas Fund for the purpose of land conservation, construction of public improvements, restoration of wildlife habitat and other Natural Area Department programs to benefit the citizens of Fort Collins. STAFF RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends adoption of the Ordinance on First Reading. BACKGROUND / DISCUSSION Funding for the Natural Areas Department (NAD) for purposes other than capital projects, lapses each year if not spent. Unspent funds need to be appropriated into the following year’s budget before they can be used (any unspent funds are characterized at the end of the fiscal year as prior year reserves). Of the total appropriation, $9,130,088 will be used for land conservation. Over $9,000,000 in land acquisitions are under negotiation; there is a reasonable likelihood that most of these funds will be spent in 2017. In addition to prior year reserves and unspent 2016 appropriations, NAD received $1,241,088 in unanticipated revenues; these funds are being appropriated for the purpose of providing Natural Areas programming not included in the 2017 adopted City Budget. The funds for NAD come from the following designated sources of revenue, including: the City - Open Space Yes! ¼ Cent sales tax; the Larimer County - Help Preserve Open Space ¼ cent sales tax; and, miscellaneous anticipated and unanticipated revenues. All of these funds are restricted to the purposes of the Natural Areas Department, including unanticipated revenues which consist generally of income from sales tax revenues, easements, leases or grants. The prior year reserve funds being appropriated in this Ordinance are more specifically described: $ 9,548,912 Unspent 2016 Budgeted Funds - being reappropriated for same purpose $ 1,241,088 Unanticipated Revenues $ 10,790,000 Prior Year 2016 Reserves Agenda Item 10 Item # 10 Page 2 The anticipated use of these funds is as follows: Land Conservation - $9,130,088 will fund land conservation efforts per the Natural Areas Master Plan (including $1,030,088 in unanticipated revenue). Resource Management - $880,100 in unspent 2016 funds will fund restoration of Udall & Kingfisher Natural Areas, including wetland mitigation and seed. Public Improvements - $290,000 will fund:  ADA parking and trail improvements at Riverbend Ponds Natural Area Cherly Street trailhead  Drainage improvements at the south parking lot in Soapstone Natural Area  McMurry Natural Area - Poudre River Bridge repairs and new railing  A used tandem axle dump truck  Trail improvements at Goose Hollow Natural Area  Coyote Ridge Natural Area - additional parking spaces (funded with $40,000 of unanticipated revenue) Facility Operations - $16,000 will fund removal of hazardous trees around the Bobcat Ridge Natural Area ranger house (funded with unanticipated revenue) Land Management - $115,000 will fund:  $15,000 in administrative costs for Nature in the City  A utility off trail vehicle for Soapstone  Repair damages from the 2013 flood at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area (funded with $50,000 in unanticipated revenue)  Prairie Dog sylvatic plague management at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area (funded with $20,000 of unanticipated revenue) Department Management - $85,000 will replenish contingency funds that have been spent on an Organizational Assessment and other unanticipated department needs (funded with unanticipated revenue). White Water Park - $273,812 in unspent 2016 funds will help fund the restoration of Poudre River. CITY FINANCIAL IMPACTS The Ordinance increases 2017 appropriations in the City’s Natural Areas Fund by $10,790,000. The requested appropriation of $10,790,000 in the Natural Areas Fund represents 2016 appropriations that were unspent and unencumbered at year-end 2016 and unanticipated revenues. These funds are restricted to the purposes of the Natural Areas Department. BOARD / COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION At its June 14, 2017 meeting, the Land Conservation and Stewardship Board voted unanimously to recommend that City Council approve the appropriation. PUBLIC OUTREACH Natural Areas Funds will be spent in alignment with the Natural Areas Master Plan, which was extensively reviewed by the public prior to its adoption in October 2014. ATTACHMENTS 1. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board minutes (draft), June 14, 2017 (excerpt) (PDF) Page 1 of 3 Land Conservation & Stewardship Board June 14, 2017 Meeting DRAFT Minutes Excerpt Appropriation of Prior Year Reserves and Unanticipated Revenues in the Natural Areas Fund - Mark Sears, Natural Areas Manager requested the LCSB to recommend that City Council approve an appropriation of $10,790,000, in prior year reserves and unanticipated revenues, not included in the 2017 adopted City Budget. Mark provided a memorandum with a breakdown of prior year reserves, and the anticipated use of the funds. Discussion Mark - That dollar amount may seem rather large, the vast majority of that money is unspent money from last year, about $9.5M and there’s about $1.2M in unanticipated revenues and unspent funds. You can see the breakdown where we anticipate spending those funds. Vicky – I’m curious, what are hazardous trees? Mark – Trees that are about to fall down, if we don’t take them down. David – Are these earmarked funds? It simply says “restricted to the purposes”, whatever that means “of the Natural Areas Department”. I’m just curious. My question is, are these funds that you’re asking us to move into this year, are they earmarked? Mark – Well yes, they’re all earmarked very specifically with the exception of land conservation and that’s just earmarked for generic land conservation. All the individual bullets in the memo are for specific projects. Vicky – Do you have ideas for the land conservation funds? Mark – Yes, we have very specific ideas for that money. Joe – On the public improvements end, you’re going to make the parking lot at Riverbend Ponds ADA compliant. Is that the north end? Mark – That’s the northeast corner. Joe – That’s not going to be expansion right? Just ADA compliant? Mark – Yes. There will also be a paved trail down to the boardwalk. We replaced the boardwalk last year and we want to make it truly ADA compliant. Joe – And the Coyote Ridge Natural Area? You’re going to add regular parking as opposed to horse trailers. Mark – We’re actually reducing the horse trailer parking, I don’t remember by how many but I think we’re adding up to 15 additional parking spaces. Ed – Mark, the fact that we have $9.5M from 2016 presumably means that we were not able to spend it in land acquisitions. Mark – Right, but that figure has accumulated over a few years. That didn’t all accumulate in one year. It’s not all 2016 funds. We’ve been trying to spend that down as best as we can. If the land conservation deals go well this year, we’ll probably spend most of that money and may only carry over $2M into 2018. ATTACHMENT 1 Page 2 of 3 Ed – Have we ever had a year when we didn’t have a carry over? Mark – No, we’ve been carrying over funds for a long time. It’s been up in that 8 or 9 million for many years. Ed – If we could get that number down to zero then we could all be delighted that we carried out our mission. Mark – Yes, our goal is to spend 50% of the money we received on a three year rolling average. That’s just a metric we came up with recently. We’re doing really well with that now. Marcia – In the memorandum under the suggested recommendation I think the sentence needs to read “2017 adopted City Budget”, not “2016”. Mark – You’re right, it needs to say 2017. Good catch. Thank you Kelly – On the Coyote Ridge thing, often times you guys bring us things and I might have missed this one. Was that anything in the redesigning that was so insignificant that it wasn’t worthy? It’s not a statement but in the form of a question. Mark- You mean the additional parking spaces? Kelly – Yes Mark – I wouldn’t call it insignificant, but when we build these parking lots we make somewhat of an educated guess as to how many parking spaces there should be at any given trailhead that will fit that sweet spot of balancing the impacts to wildlife and user experience with the number of visitors we allow on the site at one time. We could probably triple the size of parking lot and it would be full most weekends. What we’re trying to do is make a minor tweak by slightly increasing the number of parking spaces. Kelly – But as you said it’s all done on the existing footprint. Mark – Yes, it’s all done within the existing footprint. We’re not expanding the footprint, but tweaking the layout of the parking spaces. Kelly – On Nature in the City administrative background and most of the Board knows this, Nature in the City started as a Planning initiative therefore it was funded out of general fund and then presented to the Natural Areas Department, who being the good soldiers that they are, accepted it and are running with it but does that mean, I thought, most of the NIC dollars, came from the general fund and not the Natural Areas fund. Mark – As far as I know these are the only Natural Areas funds that are going towards Nature in the City. Daylan – Yes, that’s true. Kelly – The $115K covers a bunch of things so I didn’t know, just a guestimate but are we talking $12K decimal dust or are we talking $60K just so we…..I just want to make sure we’re not absorbing the cost of NIC, which I worry about and predicted two years ago. Daylan – The BOB funding is limited on what we can spend it on, you know capital projects and things but there are certain parts of the program we still have to absorb. Kelly – Got it. The capital projects, the $273K, that’s unspent funds, and again, of all the things we’ve done out of natural areas dollars the museum was a shaky one for me, but the $1M for the Page 3 of 3 water park, out of natural areas dollars, I lost that one, this isn’t an additional $273K on the million is it? Mark – No we had $500K budgeted last year and another $500K budgeted this year. This is the amount that they didn’t spend last year. It just carries over. Ed - Thank you. Is anyone ready to venture a motion? Vicky McLane made a motion that the LCSB recommend that City Council approve an Ordinance appropriating $10,790,000 in prior year reserves and unanticipated revenues in the Natural Areas Fund for the purpose of providing Natural Areas programming not included in the 2017 adopted City Budget. Raymond Watts seconded the motion. The motion was unanimously approved. -1- ORDINANCE NO. 085, 2017 OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS APPROPRIATING PRIOR YEAR RESERVES IN THE NATURAL AREAS FUND FOR THE PURPOSE OF LAND CONSERVATION, PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS AND RELATED NATURAL AREAS PROGRAMMING NOT INCLUDED IN THE 2017 ADOPTED CITY BUDGET WHEREAS, the City is committed to preserving natural areas and providing educational, interpretive and appropriate recreational opportunities to the public; and WHEREAS, Natural Areas programming implements open land conservation priorities identified in the City’s Comprehensive Plan by purchasing conservation easement interests in key natural areas, community separators, or other open lands; providing stewardship for lands purchased; and developing trails and interpretive features for public use; and WHEREAS, the Natural Areas Department is funded primarily through the collection of City Open Space - Yes sales and use tax revenue, as well as revenues from the Larimer County Help Preserve Open Space sales and use tax, investment earnings, and other miscellaneous revenues deposited in the Natural Areas Fund; and WHEREAS, Article V, Section 9 of the City Charter permits the City Council to appropriate by ordinance at any time during the fiscal year such funds for expenditure as may be available from reserves accumulated in prior years, notwithstanding that such reserves were not previously appropriated; and WHEREAS, Article V, Section 11 of the City Charter requires all appropriations unexpended or unencumbered at the end of the fiscal year lapse to the applicable general or special revenue fund, except appropriations for capital projects and federal or state grants do not lapse until completion of the capital project or expiration of the respective grant; and WHEREAS, City staff has determined that the appropriations as described herein are available and previously unappropriated in the Natural Areas Fund; and WHEREAS, City staff has recommended the appropriation from prior year reserves in the Natural Areas Fund of a total of $10,790,000, comprised of $9,548,912 in unspent and unencumbered appropriations from 2016 and $1,241,088 in unanticipated revenue and prior year reserves, to be used for acquisition, construction, enhancement and maintenance of trail systems, wildlife habitat and other natural areas to benefit the citizens of the City. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS as follows: Section 1. That the City Council hereby makes and adopts the determinations and findings contained in the recitals set forth above. -2- Section 2. That there is hereby appropriated from prior year reserves in the Natural Areas Fund the sum of TEN MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY THOUSAND DOLLARS ($10,790,000) to be used for acquisition, construction, enhancement and maintenance of trail systems, wildlife habitat and other natural areas to benefit the citizens of the City. Introduced, considered favorably on first reading, and ordered published this 5th day of July, A.D. 2017, and to be presented for final passage on the 18th day of July, A.D. 2017. __________________________________ Mayor ATTEST: _______________________________ City Clerk Passed and adopted on final reading on the 18th day of July, A.D. 2017. __________________________________ Mayor ATTEST: _______________________________ City Clerk