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99-394Council File # R 9_ 3q � RESOLUTION Green Sheet # 60757 CITY QF SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA �a7 / Presented by Referred To Committee Date RESOLU7'ZON Requesting an Update on the Progress of Implementation of theMetropass Program i WHEREAS, the Saint Paul City Council adopted the Metropass Program on December 2, 1998, as part of the 2 City of Saint Paul's 1999 annual budget; and WHEREAS, the Metropass Program has not yet been unplemented; now, therefore, be it 4 RESOLVED, that the Mayor haue a report provided to the City Council by the admnustration as to the progress 5 of the implementation and the expected implementation date of the Metropass Program; and be it 6 RESOLVED, that this report be given to the City Council at the May 19 Council meeting. Requested by Department oE � Form Approved by City Attomey � Adopted by Council: Date Approved by Mayor for Submission to Council Adoption Certified by Council Secretary By: BY� �_ � . � Approved by Mayor: Date Ii �. \ ._ _� \ I _ — - , ` ' , �� � NYYB9tFOR ROUTNiG ORUER T07AL # OF SIGNATURE PACaES GREEN SHEET �..�,�.��.� No �� qq-3°!`f 60'757 ❑ CT/ATlOR16Y ❑ CRYCIfRK ❑HMMtJ11LfENNCFtOYI ❑lN4KJ�L1flMACCTO ❑ MYart(ORw4LSS)Jff) ❑ (CUP ALL LOCATIONS FOR SIGNATURE) �A���.eri_ ���,��� e+rn, G,�e�,�e, oh,�Z ��°�°c� .���p�n�„$� °� �� �n.�f� `���, PLANNING COMMISSION CIB CAMMITTEE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION SOURCE Has mis persoMmn emr warked unaer a conhaatorthie departrnerA� YES NO Has this peisoMnn Bret been a dty empbyee7 YES NO Ooesthts C�� P� a slall not no�nel�YP�� a7 anY aurte�R tlFf �P�oYceQ YE$ NO Is Nis pereoruh�m a fsrpeted venAOR YES 1� COETrttEVENUEBUDGETED(CIRCLEON� I!�31i11i7:0;'iyd:7 YES NO INFORMn'SION(IXPWH) 9q-�9y Excerpt from 12/2(98 Budget Hearing —(Y�.E'�"*b (� C� �� � Lantry: Coleman: Items 54-56 - Is there a buming desire to fund this? I just would like the question marks filled in. Well look, there's the ��scu�� c7� parking and transit fund of ail things. Maybe that's one of the uses. I guess I'd like to know if those quesrion marks can be filled in with any numbers, because I think Metro Passes aze really a good idea. Think about it - we could get some of the people who are City employees who park in the ramps - we could free those up for people who are coming down to shop and do whatever. Mr. Reid, I imow you had some conversations. Have you been enlightened at all in terms of how we might vest upon this...... 7oe Reid: I had a fairly long meeting yesterday with Ann Hunt of the Neighborhood Energy Consortium, and also a representative of the MTC. What I said the other day is still true, that it is a matter of collective bargaining. I have talked with the labor negotiator and we think that something could be worked out with the unions in terms of some type of Memorandum of Understanding since there should be a strong interest - a dual interest in both the City as the employer and the unions as representing the employees in accomplishing this and keeping the costing of this benefit out of the normal negotiations that go on. What I do think in terms of the cost of the program is there are a couple of things. I want to clarify one mis-statement I made the other day or a couple weeks ago when we first talked about this, the cost did not escalate over future years or at least not for the fust two or three years. 'The cost would be set. What would change is if the number of employees that aze eligible grows or decreases; that would influence the cost or if the monthly charge of $54.00 which is what they're using as their base now would change, that would influence it. But if we went from a 19% ridership to a 40% ridership, that wouldn't change; it would still cost us $189,000 if that's what it cost us in 1999. Coleman: And that's really the goal of this progr�m, is that you fix your costs up- front with the goal of standing the rash'of downtown. I'm still unclear as to why you consider this a necessarily bargain-for benefit. Obviously if we're taking something away or we're trying to swap some things during the course of negotiarions that makes sense, but to say we as a city have a policy objective of getting more of our employees on the bus, taking transit, q9 -5qy rage a freeing up parking spaces in downtown, doing those things and we can fix our costs up-front, that just doesn't seem to me to be something that needs to be part of a collecrive barganung agreement. Reid: As I said, I don't lrnow that it needs to be part of the bargaining agreement; it does need to be part of a Memorandum of Understanding. I have talked to the City Attorney's Office and they concur that it is something that does need to be negotiated. As I said, I think there should be a strong dual interest in both the bargaining units and the City in finding a way to do that, so I don't see that as an obstacle to saying that it is part of the process. Harris: We just had a discussion about a park facility and we took off the historic preservation (undecipherable) because we say there isn't enough money but then we want to allocate $120,000 of general fund money to give City employees who are riding the bus now free transportation downtown. You talk about all these flowery things, we waut to increase ridership on the buses but the nuts and bolts of it is that $120,000 of generai fund money would be paid so that City employees could ride the bus for free. I mean that's what it is, isn't it Joe? Reid: It's not quite that. The information, as I said, is subject to how many employees are eligible and what the rate is. $54.00 a month is what the bus company would charge. An employee would get an ID card that would be good for a year. Employees who would request that ID card, under the companies that currently are participaring, pay $25.00 per month. The cost to the City - if their assumptions aze correct and they are estimating that there are 1500 employees downtown - we think there are fewer than those. If there were 1500 at $54.00 at 19°l0, it would be $189,000 a year at $25.00 per employee assuiniug that there is a 5°fo growth in the number of employees that use it. We would recover about $115,000 in revenue so the cost to the City would be somewhere around $75,000. Harris: Question - tape ended. Reid: ......over a month ago when PED provided that informarion to me. As a result of my meeting yesterday, I would change that to $189,500 and to the revenue $215,000. q4-� Page 3 Harris: So basically it's like half, a little less than half. I still dodt understand it. When I go to work, I pay for my gas. That's how most people are, if they're going to work somewhere, I mean that's just the way it is and right now in our employee contracts, we do have allohnents for parking and people get paid a certain amount per day for mileage and parking. That's in our employment agreements and that's above the IRS rate anyway so people are getting compensated for the use of their vehicles to go to and from work and to drive while they're on the job. I just can't quite figure out why we'd take general fund money that we could use for other things to give people who drive downtown a discount - our own employees a discount to wme downtown to work. That should be part of the negotiating process. Reiter: What we're trying to do is increase ridership. Employees in downtown Minneapolis - 40% of them ride the bus; St. Paul 10%. If you can come up with another idea to increase bus ridership, I'd be in favor of that but this seems like a good thing. I think we set an example for other companies in downtown to do the same thing. Lantry: We get free parking, Mike. We get 140 bucks a month for mileage. We get those same benefits too. Harris: I guess the point Pm making - it gets back to the question, what is the role of the City? If you think people elected you to increase bus ridership, that's great, but we're looking at limited resources and Pd rather use the $75,000 or $80,000 or whatever it is to fund positions in the library or expand the hours at the Riverview Branch or do some other things, fix up playground equipment. I just don't think that's the right use of City money. I'm not saying that's a bad goal to increase ridership but there certainly are other ways to do that than have it come out of my property tax dollazs. Bostrom: Pm wondering if this isn't something that should be discussed throughout this year and have a proposal for next year also because there is a lot at stake here and, again, there are a lot of people who are taking the bus already. dq. 39�{ Page 4 Coleman: My sense is that we have support for this item among the Council right now. 5econd of all, I think it isn't just sunply should we be paying for our employees to ride the bus or shouldn't we. What it is - we have a 2500 pazking space deficit right now in the downtown area. We applaud T`KDA when they provide this benefit. We look at IDS and their financial services and they provide it. Not just because we're happy for their employees; we're happy because there is a significant transportation crisis in the City and it's only going to get worse. We can debate this thing for a couple years as the crisis grows and all of a sudden we're trying to take steps to make up for the fact that there's no place to park in downtown St. Paul, that the congestion getting on and off the freeway is increasing and people can't get in and out. We need to do something. IYs not just giving something for nothing, iYs as much a part of City policy as favoring open spaces and river&ont development. I think it's important. Benanav: I want to go back to what Ms. Lantry said at one point, transfer from Parking and Transit Fund - first of all, I need to lrnow exactly what thaYs used for and would this be a good use of some of that funding? It says transit fund, I don't lrnow if this would be an appropriate program for that. What do you use it for. Bob Geurs: The Parking and Transit Fund historically has been used to fund the building of parldng ramps in the downtown area. They are mostly HRA assets so when projects have come along, we have used it for that purpose. This is certainly an eligible use for the money. It is technically a City fund; some of the assets in the fund are from the HRA owned ramps in downtown. Benanav: Why can't we just transfer whatever the difference is to this program? Geurs: You could. Harris: Mr. Geurs, what are some other uses? Like in the last four or five years what has the Parking and Transit Fund been used far? Geurs: The Parking and Transit Fund in the last four or five years, with the exception of the transfer that Councilmember Harris helped with to put into the Wabasha Street Bridge project, has basically been used for keeping and maintaining ramps or expanding ramps. It becomes the credit mechanism a�-�q� Page 5 when we issue debt to build new ramps. For example, the underground Civic Center ramp. This fund serves as a credit mechanism in order to ha�e done that so that there's a new facility owned by the HRA that helped with over near the RiverCentre. Harris: So the $8 million ramp thaYs underneath the Civic Center, part of this fund got transferred? (Geurs) ThaYs correct Harris: Where do the revenues come from this? Geurs: The revenues come from three different places basically: from meters and from fines. 'Those monies basically go back out to pay support services for the Police DepaRment. The fund balance basically grows because we operate these HRA assets. Lanhy: I thought you said this fund was used as a credit mechanism for the RiverCentre underground ramp which means this was just collateral. Is that what you mean? Geurs: It is collateral, ff the quesrion is, can you take $70,000 or $80,000 from the fund balance to do this policy issue, iYs available and illegal (sounds like he's say illegal but it may be "legal") to do that. We are going to bring forward a couple of projects in January to deal with the 2500 car shortage in downtown so there are projects on the board that we are bringing forward for the HRA for consideration. Benanav: I would support it if we transfer the $70,000 or whatever is appropriate from the Transit Fund to this. Bostrom: And it passes. Council File # R 9_ 3q � RESOLUTION Green Sheet # 60757 CITY QF SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA �a7 / Presented by Referred To Committee Date RESOLU7'ZON Requesting an Update on the Progress of Implementation of theMetropass Program i WHEREAS, the Saint Paul City Council adopted the Metropass Program on December 2, 1998, as part of the 2 City of Saint Paul's 1999 annual budget; and WHEREAS, the Metropass Program has not yet been unplemented; now, therefore, be it 4 RESOLVED, that the Mayor haue a report provided to the City Council by the admnustration as to the progress 5 of the implementation and the expected implementation date of the Metropass Program; and be it 6 RESOLVED, that this report be given to the City Council at the May 19 Council meeting. Requested by Department oE � Form Approved by City Attomey � Adopted by Council: Date Approved by Mayor for Submission to Council Adoption Certified by Council Secretary By: BY� �_ � . � Approved by Mayor: Date Ii �. \ ._ _� \ I _ — - , ` ' , �� � NYYB9tFOR ROUTNiG ORUER T07AL # OF SIGNATURE PACaES GREEN SHEET �..�,�.��.� No �� qq-3°!`f 60'757 ❑ CT/ATlOR16Y ❑ CRYCIfRK ❑HMMtJ11LfENNCFtOYI ❑lN4KJ�L1flMACCTO ❑ MYart(ORw4LSS)Jff) ❑ (CUP ALL LOCATIONS FOR SIGNATURE) �A���.eri_ ���,��� e+rn, G,�e�,�e, oh,�Z ��°�°c� .���p�n�„$� °� �� �n.�f� `���, PLANNING COMMISSION CIB CAMMITTEE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION SOURCE Has mis persoMmn emr warked unaer a conhaatorthie departrnerA� YES NO Has this peisoMnn Bret been a dty empbyee7 YES NO Ooesthts C�� P� a slall not no�nel�YP�� a7 anY aurte�R tlFf �P�oYceQ YE$ NO Is Nis pereoruh�m a fsrpeted venAOR YES 1� COETrttEVENUEBUDGETED(CIRCLEON� I!�31i11i7:0;'iyd:7 YES NO INFORMn'SION(IXPWH) 9q-�9y Excerpt from 12/2(98 Budget Hearing —(Y�.E'�"*b (� C� �� � Lantry: Coleman: Items 54-56 - Is there a buming desire to fund this? I just would like the question marks filled in. Well look, there's the ��scu�� c7� parking and transit fund of ail things. Maybe that's one of the uses. I guess I'd like to know if those quesrion marks can be filled in with any numbers, because I think Metro Passes aze really a good idea. Think about it - we could get some of the people who are City employees who park in the ramps - we could free those up for people who are coming down to shop and do whatever. Mr. Reid, I imow you had some conversations. Have you been enlightened at all in terms of how we might vest upon this...... 7oe Reid: I had a fairly long meeting yesterday with Ann Hunt of the Neighborhood Energy Consortium, and also a representative of the MTC. What I said the other day is still true, that it is a matter of collective bargaining. I have talked with the labor negotiator and we think that something could be worked out with the unions in terms of some type of Memorandum of Understanding since there should be a strong interest - a dual interest in both the City as the employer and the unions as representing the employees in accomplishing this and keeping the costing of this benefit out of the normal negotiations that go on. What I do think in terms of the cost of the program is there are a couple of things. I want to clarify one mis-statement I made the other day or a couple weeks ago when we first talked about this, the cost did not escalate over future years or at least not for the fust two or three years. 'The cost would be set. What would change is if the number of employees that aze eligible grows or decreases; that would influence the cost or if the monthly charge of $54.00 which is what they're using as their base now would change, that would influence it. But if we went from a 19% ridership to a 40% ridership, that wouldn't change; it would still cost us $189,000 if that's what it cost us in 1999. Coleman: And that's really the goal of this progr�m, is that you fix your costs up- front with the goal of standing the rash'of downtown. I'm still unclear as to why you consider this a necessarily bargain-for benefit. Obviously if we're taking something away or we're trying to swap some things during the course of negotiarions that makes sense, but to say we as a city have a policy objective of getting more of our employees on the bus, taking transit, q9 -5qy rage a freeing up parking spaces in downtown, doing those things and we can fix our costs up-front, that just doesn't seem to me to be something that needs to be part of a collecrive barganung agreement. Reid: As I said, I don't lrnow that it needs to be part of the bargaining agreement; it does need to be part of a Memorandum of Understanding. I have talked to the City Attorney's Office and they concur that it is something that does need to be negotiated. As I said, I think there should be a strong dual interest in both the bargaining units and the City in finding a way to do that, so I don't see that as an obstacle to saying that it is part of the process. Harris: We just had a discussion about a park facility and we took off the historic preservation (undecipherable) because we say there isn't enough money but then we want to allocate $120,000 of general fund money to give City employees who are riding the bus now free transportation downtown. You talk about all these flowery things, we waut to increase ridership on the buses but the nuts and bolts of it is that $120,000 of generai fund money would be paid so that City employees could ride the bus for free. I mean that's what it is, isn't it Joe? Reid: It's not quite that. The information, as I said, is subject to how many employees are eligible and what the rate is. $54.00 a month is what the bus company would charge. An employee would get an ID card that would be good for a year. Employees who would request that ID card, under the companies that currently are participaring, pay $25.00 per month. The cost to the City - if their assumptions aze correct and they are estimating that there are 1500 employees downtown - we think there are fewer than those. If there were 1500 at $54.00 at 19°l0, it would be $189,000 a year at $25.00 per employee assuiniug that there is a 5°fo growth in the number of employees that use it. We would recover about $115,000 in revenue so the cost to the City would be somewhere around $75,000. Harris: Question - tape ended. Reid: ......over a month ago when PED provided that informarion to me. As a result of my meeting yesterday, I would change that to $189,500 and to the revenue $215,000. q4-� Page 3 Harris: So basically it's like half, a little less than half. I still dodt understand it. When I go to work, I pay for my gas. That's how most people are, if they're going to work somewhere, I mean that's just the way it is and right now in our employee contracts, we do have allohnents for parking and people get paid a certain amount per day for mileage and parking. That's in our employment agreements and that's above the IRS rate anyway so people are getting compensated for the use of their vehicles to go to and from work and to drive while they're on the job. I just can't quite figure out why we'd take general fund money that we could use for other things to give people who drive downtown a discount - our own employees a discount to wme downtown to work. That should be part of the negotiating process. Reiter: What we're trying to do is increase ridership. Employees in downtown Minneapolis - 40% of them ride the bus; St. Paul 10%. If you can come up with another idea to increase bus ridership, I'd be in favor of that but this seems like a good thing. I think we set an example for other companies in downtown to do the same thing. Lantry: We get free parking, Mike. We get 140 bucks a month for mileage. We get those same benefits too. Harris: I guess the point Pm making - it gets back to the question, what is the role of the City? If you think people elected you to increase bus ridership, that's great, but we're looking at limited resources and Pd rather use the $75,000 or $80,000 or whatever it is to fund positions in the library or expand the hours at the Riverview Branch or do some other things, fix up playground equipment. I just don't think that's the right use of City money. I'm not saying that's a bad goal to increase ridership but there certainly are other ways to do that than have it come out of my property tax dollazs. Bostrom: Pm wondering if this isn't something that should be discussed throughout this year and have a proposal for next year also because there is a lot at stake here and, again, there are a lot of people who are taking the bus already. dq. 39�{ Page 4 Coleman: My sense is that we have support for this item among the Council right now. 5econd of all, I think it isn't just sunply should we be paying for our employees to ride the bus or shouldn't we. What it is - we have a 2500 pazking space deficit right now in the downtown area. We applaud T`KDA when they provide this benefit. We look at IDS and their financial services and they provide it. Not just because we're happy for their employees; we're happy because there is a significant transportation crisis in the City and it's only going to get worse. We can debate this thing for a couple years as the crisis grows and all of a sudden we're trying to take steps to make up for the fact that there's no place to park in downtown St. Paul, that the congestion getting on and off the freeway is increasing and people can't get in and out. We need to do something. IYs not just giving something for nothing, iYs as much a part of City policy as favoring open spaces and river&ont development. I think it's important. Benanav: I want to go back to what Ms. Lantry said at one point, transfer from Parking and Transit Fund - first of all, I need to lrnow exactly what thaYs used for and would this be a good use of some of that funding? It says transit fund, I don't lrnow if this would be an appropriate program for that. What do you use it for. Bob Geurs: The Parking and Transit Fund historically has been used to fund the building of parldng ramps in the downtown area. They are mostly HRA assets so when projects have come along, we have used it for that purpose. This is certainly an eligible use for the money. It is technically a City fund; some of the assets in the fund are from the HRA owned ramps in downtown. Benanav: Why can't we just transfer whatever the difference is to this program? Geurs: You could. Harris: Mr. Geurs, what are some other uses? Like in the last four or five years what has the Parking and Transit Fund been used far? Geurs: The Parking and Transit Fund in the last four or five years, with the exception of the transfer that Councilmember Harris helped with to put into the Wabasha Street Bridge project, has basically been used for keeping and maintaining ramps or expanding ramps. It becomes the credit mechanism a�-�q� Page 5 when we issue debt to build new ramps. For example, the underground Civic Center ramp. This fund serves as a credit mechanism in order to ha�e done that so that there's a new facility owned by the HRA that helped with over near the RiverCentre. Harris: So the $8 million ramp thaYs underneath the Civic Center, part of this fund got transferred? (Geurs) ThaYs correct Harris: Where do the revenues come from this? Geurs: The revenues come from three different places basically: from meters and from fines. 'Those monies basically go back out to pay support services for the Police DepaRment. The fund balance basically grows because we operate these HRA assets. Lanhy: I thought you said this fund was used as a credit mechanism for the RiverCentre underground ramp which means this was just collateral. Is that what you mean? Geurs: It is collateral, ff the quesrion is, can you take $70,000 or $80,000 from the fund balance to do this policy issue, iYs available and illegal (sounds like he's say illegal but it may be "legal") to do that. We are going to bring forward a couple of projects in January to deal with the 2500 car shortage in downtown so there are projects on the board that we are bringing forward for the HRA for consideration. Benanav: I would support it if we transfer the $70,000 or whatever is appropriate from the Transit Fund to this. Bostrom: And it passes. Council File # R 9_ 3q � RESOLUTION Green Sheet # 60757 CITY QF SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA �a7 / Presented by Referred To Committee Date RESOLU7'ZON Requesting an Update on the Progress of Implementation of theMetropass Program i WHEREAS, the Saint Paul City Council adopted the Metropass Program on December 2, 1998, as part of the 2 City of Saint Paul's 1999 annual budget; and WHEREAS, the Metropass Program has not yet been unplemented; now, therefore, be it 4 RESOLVED, that the Mayor haue a report provided to the City Council by the admnustration as to the progress 5 of the implementation and the expected implementation date of the Metropass Program; and be it 6 RESOLVED, that this report be given to the City Council at the May 19 Council meeting. Requested by Department oE � Form Approved by City Attomey � Adopted by Council: Date Approved by Mayor for Submission to Council Adoption Certified by Council Secretary By: BY� �_ � . � Approved by Mayor: Date Ii �. \ ._ _� \ I _ — - , ` ' , �� � NYYB9tFOR ROUTNiG ORUER T07AL # OF SIGNATURE PACaES GREEN SHEET �..�,�.��.� No �� qq-3°!`f 60'757 ❑ CT/ATlOR16Y ❑ CRYCIfRK ❑HMMtJ11LfENNCFtOYI ❑lN4KJ�L1flMACCTO ❑ MYart(ORw4LSS)Jff) ❑ (CUP ALL LOCATIONS FOR SIGNATURE) �A���.eri_ ���,��� e+rn, G,�e�,�e, oh,�Z ��°�°c� .���p�n�„$� °� �� �n.�f� `���, PLANNING COMMISSION CIB CAMMITTEE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION SOURCE Has mis persoMmn emr warked unaer a conhaatorthie departrnerA� YES NO Has this peisoMnn Bret been a dty empbyee7 YES NO Ooesthts C�� P� a slall not no�nel�YP�� a7 anY aurte�R tlFf �P�oYceQ YE$ NO Is Nis pereoruh�m a fsrpeted venAOR YES 1� COETrttEVENUEBUDGETED(CIRCLEON� I!�31i11i7:0;'iyd:7 YES NO INFORMn'SION(IXPWH) 9q-�9y Excerpt from 12/2(98 Budget Hearing —(Y�.E'�"*b (� C� �� � Lantry: Coleman: Items 54-56 - Is there a buming desire to fund this? I just would like the question marks filled in. Well look, there's the ��scu�� c7� parking and transit fund of ail things. Maybe that's one of the uses. I guess I'd like to know if those quesrion marks can be filled in with any numbers, because I think Metro Passes aze really a good idea. Think about it - we could get some of the people who are City employees who park in the ramps - we could free those up for people who are coming down to shop and do whatever. Mr. Reid, I imow you had some conversations. Have you been enlightened at all in terms of how we might vest upon this...... 7oe Reid: I had a fairly long meeting yesterday with Ann Hunt of the Neighborhood Energy Consortium, and also a representative of the MTC. What I said the other day is still true, that it is a matter of collective bargaining. I have talked with the labor negotiator and we think that something could be worked out with the unions in terms of some type of Memorandum of Understanding since there should be a strong interest - a dual interest in both the City as the employer and the unions as representing the employees in accomplishing this and keeping the costing of this benefit out of the normal negotiations that go on. What I do think in terms of the cost of the program is there are a couple of things. I want to clarify one mis-statement I made the other day or a couple weeks ago when we first talked about this, the cost did not escalate over future years or at least not for the fust two or three years. 'The cost would be set. What would change is if the number of employees that aze eligible grows or decreases; that would influence the cost or if the monthly charge of $54.00 which is what they're using as their base now would change, that would influence it. But if we went from a 19% ridership to a 40% ridership, that wouldn't change; it would still cost us $189,000 if that's what it cost us in 1999. Coleman: And that's really the goal of this progr�m, is that you fix your costs up- front with the goal of standing the rash'of downtown. I'm still unclear as to why you consider this a necessarily bargain-for benefit. Obviously if we're taking something away or we're trying to swap some things during the course of negotiarions that makes sense, but to say we as a city have a policy objective of getting more of our employees on the bus, taking transit, q9 -5qy rage a freeing up parking spaces in downtown, doing those things and we can fix our costs up-front, that just doesn't seem to me to be something that needs to be part of a collecrive barganung agreement. Reid: As I said, I don't lrnow that it needs to be part of the bargaining agreement; it does need to be part of a Memorandum of Understanding. I have talked to the City Attorney's Office and they concur that it is something that does need to be negotiated. As I said, I think there should be a strong dual interest in both the bargaining units and the City in finding a way to do that, so I don't see that as an obstacle to saying that it is part of the process. Harris: We just had a discussion about a park facility and we took off the historic preservation (undecipherable) because we say there isn't enough money but then we want to allocate $120,000 of general fund money to give City employees who are riding the bus now free transportation downtown. You talk about all these flowery things, we waut to increase ridership on the buses but the nuts and bolts of it is that $120,000 of generai fund money would be paid so that City employees could ride the bus for free. I mean that's what it is, isn't it Joe? Reid: It's not quite that. The information, as I said, is subject to how many employees are eligible and what the rate is. $54.00 a month is what the bus company would charge. An employee would get an ID card that would be good for a year. Employees who would request that ID card, under the companies that currently are participaring, pay $25.00 per month. The cost to the City - if their assumptions aze correct and they are estimating that there are 1500 employees downtown - we think there are fewer than those. If there were 1500 at $54.00 at 19°l0, it would be $189,000 a year at $25.00 per employee assuiniug that there is a 5°fo growth in the number of employees that use it. We would recover about $115,000 in revenue so the cost to the City would be somewhere around $75,000. Harris: Question - tape ended. Reid: ......over a month ago when PED provided that informarion to me. As a result of my meeting yesterday, I would change that to $189,500 and to the revenue $215,000. q4-� Page 3 Harris: So basically it's like half, a little less than half. I still dodt understand it. When I go to work, I pay for my gas. That's how most people are, if they're going to work somewhere, I mean that's just the way it is and right now in our employee contracts, we do have allohnents for parking and people get paid a certain amount per day for mileage and parking. That's in our employment agreements and that's above the IRS rate anyway so people are getting compensated for the use of their vehicles to go to and from work and to drive while they're on the job. I just can't quite figure out why we'd take general fund money that we could use for other things to give people who drive downtown a discount - our own employees a discount to wme downtown to work. That should be part of the negotiating process. Reiter: What we're trying to do is increase ridership. Employees in downtown Minneapolis - 40% of them ride the bus; St. Paul 10%. If you can come up with another idea to increase bus ridership, I'd be in favor of that but this seems like a good thing. I think we set an example for other companies in downtown to do the same thing. Lantry: We get free parking, Mike. We get 140 bucks a month for mileage. We get those same benefits too. Harris: I guess the point Pm making - it gets back to the question, what is the role of the City? If you think people elected you to increase bus ridership, that's great, but we're looking at limited resources and Pd rather use the $75,000 or $80,000 or whatever it is to fund positions in the library or expand the hours at the Riverview Branch or do some other things, fix up playground equipment. I just don't think that's the right use of City money. I'm not saying that's a bad goal to increase ridership but there certainly are other ways to do that than have it come out of my property tax dollazs. Bostrom: Pm wondering if this isn't something that should be discussed throughout this year and have a proposal for next year also because there is a lot at stake here and, again, there are a lot of people who are taking the bus already. dq. 39�{ Page 4 Coleman: My sense is that we have support for this item among the Council right now. 5econd of all, I think it isn't just sunply should we be paying for our employees to ride the bus or shouldn't we. What it is - we have a 2500 pazking space deficit right now in the downtown area. We applaud T`KDA when they provide this benefit. We look at IDS and their financial services and they provide it. Not just because we're happy for their employees; we're happy because there is a significant transportation crisis in the City and it's only going to get worse. We can debate this thing for a couple years as the crisis grows and all of a sudden we're trying to take steps to make up for the fact that there's no place to park in downtown St. Paul, that the congestion getting on and off the freeway is increasing and people can't get in and out. We need to do something. IYs not just giving something for nothing, iYs as much a part of City policy as favoring open spaces and river&ont development. I think it's important. Benanav: I want to go back to what Ms. Lantry said at one point, transfer from Parking and Transit Fund - first of all, I need to lrnow exactly what thaYs used for and would this be a good use of some of that funding? It says transit fund, I don't lrnow if this would be an appropriate program for that. What do you use it for. Bob Geurs: The Parking and Transit Fund historically has been used to fund the building of parldng ramps in the downtown area. They are mostly HRA assets so when projects have come along, we have used it for that purpose. This is certainly an eligible use for the money. It is technically a City fund; some of the assets in the fund are from the HRA owned ramps in downtown. Benanav: Why can't we just transfer whatever the difference is to this program? Geurs: You could. Harris: Mr. Geurs, what are some other uses? Like in the last four or five years what has the Parking and Transit Fund been used far? Geurs: The Parking and Transit Fund in the last four or five years, with the exception of the transfer that Councilmember Harris helped with to put into the Wabasha Street Bridge project, has basically been used for keeping and maintaining ramps or expanding ramps. It becomes the credit mechanism a�-�q� Page 5 when we issue debt to build new ramps. For example, the underground Civic Center ramp. This fund serves as a credit mechanism in order to ha�e done that so that there's a new facility owned by the HRA that helped with over near the RiverCentre. Harris: So the $8 million ramp thaYs underneath the Civic Center, part of this fund got transferred? (Geurs) ThaYs correct Harris: Where do the revenues come from this? Geurs: The revenues come from three different places basically: from meters and from fines. 'Those monies basically go back out to pay support services for the Police DepaRment. The fund balance basically grows because we operate these HRA assets. Lanhy: I thought you said this fund was used as a credit mechanism for the RiverCentre underground ramp which means this was just collateral. Is that what you mean? Geurs: It is collateral, ff the quesrion is, can you take $70,000 or $80,000 from the fund balance to do this policy issue, iYs available and illegal (sounds like he's say illegal but it may be "legal") to do that. We are going to bring forward a couple of projects in January to deal with the 2500 car shortage in downtown so there are projects on the board that we are bringing forward for the HRA for consideration. Benanav: I would support it if we transfer the $70,000 or whatever is appropriate from the Transit Fund to this. Bostrom: And it passes.