Memorandum - 2005 Preliminary Budgets

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rate for 2004 was$57/hour. I am estimating our 2005 rate will be$59/hour. I would also include some money for ordinance review(hourly) and another lake plan(lump sum by project). This would work out as follows: City Planning Services(see attached budget): $15,364 Ordinance Review: $2,500(estimated for Council review time) Sibley Lake Plan: $9,500 The other approach would be to simply bill you hourly on an as-needed, as-requested basis. Our hourly rate for this type of service is currently$76/hour,projected to increase to $79/hour in 2005. As a note, we offer the reduced hourly rate for the annual contract because,with the annual contract, we are able to plan and budget our time. This helps us be more efficient, and we translate that efficiency into a reduced rate. The regular rate reflects the spontaneity of an as-needed,as-requested way of doing business where I would have to juggle employees and schedules to make things work. We can do it, it is just less efficient for us,which is why the rate is higher. One thing the City may also wish to consider for 2005 is a downtown area plan. We need this badly because we need to get on the same page in energizing the downtown destination ahead of the TH 371 project. If we do this, I would recommend that you solicit proposals from other planners in addition to the Community Growth Institute. We are happy to do the work,but a little hesitant to be the punching bag again for reactionary downtown business owners. It would be nice to see what else was out there as there might be someone who would do this better than we would. We estimate a downtown area plan would cost somewhere between$12,000 and $15,000.