Stacy City Council meeting briefs......

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Stacy City Council met June 13 for a regular meeting.

The council took a question from council member Tim Sawatzsky about employees of Stacy required to keep both short term and long term life insurance plans.

Finance director Michelle Hayes affirmed Sawatzsky’s question and told the council city employees receive a healthcare benefits stipend and life insurance is required.

Sawatzsky asked how is it possible to require the insurance and Hayes answered the requirement was passed by the council a very long time ago. The council agreed to have Hayes try to located the date the requirement was enacted before making any changes to the policy.

The council then heard a presentation from Dennis Oberloh of Oberloh and Oberloh CPA’s.

Oberloh told the council the overall financial shape of the city is very good. Oberloh said the genreal fund balance sits at 245 percent above operating costs. Sawatzky asked if that is too high, and Oberloh responded the city never knows what emergency will happen in the future that may require extra funding. It is recommended a city hold a general fund balance of 30-50 percent of its annual operating costs.

The general fund for 2022 came in at $574,711 which was down from $720,708 in 2021. But expenditures from the fund also decresed in 2022 from $793,297 to $680,934. Stacy saw its debt service fund increase from $693,730 in 2021 to 1,124,422 in 2022 due to lot sales in the business park.

Oberloh told the council the sewer utility fund decreased fro $905,000 to $682,000 in 2022, while water finds remained constant.

Liquor sales were up $140,000 in 2022.

Tax revenues in 2022 saw a 20.5 percent decrease due to a Levy decrease of 11 percent.

The city had a bond pay off that also fell off the debt account in 2022.

Council thanked Oberloh for all of his hard work.

In the engineer’s report, city engineer Dan Boyum and the council discussed setting up a meeting with Dressel Contracting to try and settle a billing dispute over a road project that has since been completed. Dresel (after change orders and work had been completed) billed the city $200,000 for the remainder of the project. The city counter offered with $95,000.

Soil borings were questioned by the council which resulted in more work prepping for the actual paving of the road project.

It was decided to schedule a meeting June 28 with Dresel.

The council then approved a partial payment to Dresel for a different road project in the amount of $57,810.20.

The council then approved the Stacy Lions for a temporary liquor license for Stacy Days to allow liquor sales at Rick Doyle fields and at Lions Park where the Lions will have a beer garden.

The council set a budget meeting for July 25 at 6pm. Finance director Michelle Hayes said she hopes to have Lent’s financial information soon to organize the township and city accounts together.

The council then agreed to discuss at a later date that residents of Lent - soon to be annexed —will not be getting the same Sheriff patrol services as those currently in traditional Stacy. Lent has no contract for extra paid patrol currently and demand for Sheriff is on-call.

Council member Dennis Thieling then showed the council photos of 311th street where the bike trail crosses. Thieling said the crossing is dangerous because of the brush overgrowth by the road. The council agreed to have maintenance look into clearing the brush.

Mayor Mark Utecht told the council he spoke with the owners of Revived Iron about the parking situation on the roadway into Stacy Ponds Industrial Park. Utecht said both came to the agreement to post no parking signs along the curve of the road on both sides of the road.

The council agreed to send a request to the ordinance committee to develop code.

Utecht also added that Revived Iron is planning on expanding their parking lot in the near future.

The council then heard from Thieling about a dilapidated fence along Foster and 311th Street. Thieling showed photos of s falling down slatted fence that belongs to the townhome development adjacent. It was agreed the city would send a letter to the townhome association asking to fix the fence or remove it.

Finally, Mayor Utecht said he would like to see council pay increased to $60 per meeting. Currently the council receives a check for $183 per month for meetings. Utecht said he envisioned quite a few more meetings with the annexation set to be final in the near future. Utecht also said he would like to see the mayor term changed to four years. A mayor term of four years with one council seat at two years is what Utecht suggested. The reasoning for the change would be to eliminate wholesale changes to the council in one election. The council agreed to discuss more in the future.