Laserfiche WebLink
Committeemember Williams-Preston left the meeting at 5:48 p.m. <br /> Councilmember Dr. Varner asked, Do you see Fund#274 as a subsidy to get shows in or as cash <br /> available to get shows and hopefully they pay for themselves? <br /> Mr. Perri replied, Either way you look at it, it will be available to close the gap and take the risk. <br /> It is sort of a buy-down fund. <br /> Councilmember Dr. Varner followed up, Did the surplus go back into the General Fund? <br /> Mr. Perri confirmed, Yes, it did. <br /> Councilmember Tim Scott asked, Is this one (1) dollar generating fund a non-reverting fund? <br /> Mr. Perri confirmed, Yes, it is a non-reverting fund. <br /> Councilmember Scott followed up, Can you explain the $260,000 expense for the chandelier? <br /> Mr. Perri replied, That was definitely confusing to a lot of people so I am glad you brought that <br /> up. We are installing a structural beam above the house to support this one thousand (1,000) <br /> pound chandelier that is part of Phantom of the Opera. The promoter will be paying for that but <br /> because it is a Public Works Project, we had to set up the account for that. Not a single tax-payer <br /> dollar is spent on that improvement and it is permanently there for us as a permanent <br /> improvement to use again if need be. <br /> Leanna Belew, General Manger of the Century Center located 120 South Dr. Martin Luther King <br /> Jr. Boulevard, stated, Our vision is to achieve our financial goals enabling us to contribute to the <br /> overall economic impact in South Bend. We strive to be the leader in customer service by <br /> providing a healthy, safe and happy place for our employees to work. We have a balanced budget <br /> and we also had a stellar fiscal 2016. We are budgeted for a nine percent (9%) increase in <br /> revenues due to the opening of two (2)new downtown hotels. That is a conservative estimate <br /> because they are not open yet. We are budgeted for a six and a half percent(6.5%) increase in <br /> expenses to accommodate for the additional event-driven instances. We have requested$1.275 <br /> million from Hotel-Motel Tax. That is a County tax. We have budgeted a two percent (2%) <br /> salary increase for the employees as well as bringing every employee up to at least$10.10 to <br /> match the City employee pay. We have restructured our accounts to provide an enhanced <br /> comparability between accounting systems. This budget provides a five (5) year projection. We <br /> are not anticipating any staff changes. This ye we expect to exceed our budget by three percent <br /> (3%). Our net-promoter score is eighty (80) and our overall customer service score is ninety-four <br /> (94). We will complete $915,000 of Capital projects this year thanks to the Hotel-Motel County <br /> Tax contribution. She then elaborated on a few of the Capital Improvement projects. <br /> She went on, We want to continue to grow our presence in the convention industry both <br /> regionally and nationally. She then expanded ways of which they look to achieve this goal, <br /> depicted on the presentation(available in the Office of the City Clerk). <br /> 6 <br />