10A Action 2008 0707 - Laserfiche WebLink

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filed by August in order to meet the November election calendar deadlines; due to the Council meeting calendar, a decision to proceed would need to occur by the last meeting in July. Below are the concepts for consideration: Utility Users Tax (UUT The committee is recommending the City Council place the City's Utility Users Tax (UUT) before the voters to update certain elements of the ordinance, address legal concerns and to lower the UUT rate for telecommunications from 6% to 5.7%. The UUT was originally adopted in 1987 and imposes a rate of 6% on telephone, electrical, gas and video (cable TV) service. Revenues generated by the UUT on an annual basis total approximately $10.1 million. It has been amended several times, the most recent update taking place in 2004. Due to technological changes in the telecommunication industry, as well as significant legal challenges to the Federal Excise Tax (FET), this revenue source has been placed at a risk. Therefore, it is recommended that the City update its UUT for both technological development and to eliminate reference to the FET as a basis for applying the City's UUT for telephone services. This update will include new areas such as private communications services, voice mail, paging, text messaging and II'-TV or IP-Video. If approved, the reduction will allow the Telecommunication UUT to remain revenue neutral, while also including some technologies which are currently not included in the ordinance. This would also ensure the revenue source to remain in place into the future. 91 1 FPP The committee is recommending the City Council place the City's 911 Fee measure before the voters for purposes of language clarification; changing the language to establish it as a "special tax." In order to ensure and improve the performance of the City's 911 communication system, the City imposed a fee, referred to as the "911 Fee" in 2004. If the proposed change to the ordinance does not pass (by 2/3 votes), the existing fee ordinance would still remain in effect and collection would continue pending recent litigation. Therefore, if approved, it becomes "revenue neutral" -meaning that no new revenue would be generated. However, should it pass, the City's revenue from this source would continue in the future. In summary, passage of this measure would secure a financial resource for the future. Police Services Parcel Tax The committee is recommending the City Council consider placing a Police Services Parcel Tax before the voters as an enhancement to the City's revenue sources. The Police Department has identified both ongoing and new programs (e.g., additional officers for patrol, schools and crime prevention) that the parcel tax revenue would support; uses of this new revenue source would be linked to the Police Department Strategic Plan. If approved by the voters, the tax would not be collected until the following year commencing with the 2009-2010 fiscal year. It is suggested the parcel tax have a four (4) year sunset clause. A public safety parcel tax measure was placed before the voters in 2004 and failed. Placing a police services measure on the November 2008 ballot may have some support due to recent discussions by the community related to crime, as well as several community-based neighborhood safety groups