Council briefing update

Today's city council briefing session was full of good information. We ran out of time before we fully covered all the topics and tentatively decided to continue the discussions after we complete the business items at next Tuesday's regular meeting. City Manager Mitchell Johnson said the agenda for March 7 looked uncharacteristically short so we decided to take advantage of that time rather than schedule ANOTHER meeting.

Human Resources Director Connie Hammond provided a detailed analysis of the employee disability retirement issues about which the council had previously expressed concerns. Councilmembers had a much better understanding of the total situation once she explained the various levels and qualifications for retirement -- regular, disability for job (unable to perform this particular job anymore, but can do another), total disability (unable to perform ANY job) --plus additional available compensation options -- Worker's Compensation, state disability payments, and lifetime coverage by the city of all medical costs associated with an on-the-job injury. In the scenarios that were provided, city workers injured on the job would earn almost the same as their normal salary through these various benefits. Our program is consistent with what is offered by the state and other cities, and we did not direct that any changes be made to this program at this time.

We made a few last tweaks to the Urban and Corridor Investment Guidelines and requested that it be placed on the March 7 agenda for final consideration and adoption. This document provides a long-overdue, rational way to evaluate potential city investment in economic development projects located within the downtown, and designated redevelopment areas and reinvestment corridors.

The third topic of discussion was the 2006-07 budget. I'll write a separate post on that one to better cover the details.