City Council Meeting Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 7:15 PM City Hall

The Sidney city council will once again meet this Tuesday evening at 7:15 PM in the council chambers for the purpose of discussing several items, reports and updates from city staff. Public comment is welcome.

Among the items for consideration are will be consideration of the city's animal impound and veterinarian services agreement and the consideration of bids for the north side power transformer replacement project. The sales tax refund fund legislation update for LB 967 will also be covered, along with a request to review and approve the financial statements for the month of February, 2010.

Supporting documents for this council meeting may be viewed or downloaded from here.


The vet service bids have been opened, but are not part of the supporting materials. Council members will be presented with the specifics from each vendor Tuesday evening. Two local vet clinics were invited to participate, though the bid was open to other interested providers.

City Management is recommending the bid from Delta Star, Inc., be accepted. The bid chosen was for $485,520.00 minus tax, with an estimated lifetime total ownership cost (TOC) of approximately $1.9 million dollars.
Other TOC numbers for bids submitted:

1. CG Power - $1,811,258.00
2. Delta Star - $1,909,420.00
3. ABB-Kuhlman - $1,937,710.00
4. Virginia - $1,990,110.00
5. Howard - $2,019,076.00
6. GE Prolec - $2,055,454.00
7. Waukesha - $2,131,765.00

Sidney City Manager, Gary Person also provides an update on District 47 Senator Ken Schilz's LB967 legislation. Person provides financial statistics on projected financial aid for the upcoming year and makes a point of that most second class cities (Sidney is a first class city over 5,000 residents) receive more state aid. The supporting documents for the council meeting noted above provide access to these statistics.

As of last Friday, Sidney received notice from the Nebraska Department of Revenue, indicating a monthly loss of 62,792 for the current month with an additional 91,932 next month. A chart showing the as of current date sales tax loss to state programs is likewise enclosed in the supporting materials.

According to the memo from Person to the city council, Sidney has received $501,597 in local sales tax, which includes funds from LB840 and street. Person added that 56% of the entire sales tax collected this year has been lost to state programs. As of this date, Sidney has refunded (to the Nebraska Department of Revenue) during the first seven months of the fiscal year was $643,133.09.  The total refund last year was $650,822.67. Person said he will meet with department heads this week to discuss the situation.

In illustrating the growing magnitude of the problem, Person cites  a recent article in the Journal Star newspaper (March 14, 2010) highlighting the problem and the solution proposed by LB967.  The opinion piece says, in part, that due to the lack of the bill, along with a similar bill by South Sioux City Sen. Bob Giese (LB954), there is a high degree of probability that the problem to spread to, "many more of the 184 Nebraska towns and cities," with local-option sales tax before action can be realistically taken. The article also notes that several cities are discussing a potential constitutional challenge to the the practice of using local monies to fund state programs and suggests the governor's office publicly recognize the issue and show more initiative in resolve the problem.