City Commission - Regular Meeting

But i've never seen the one where helps you, but it's nice and they just everybody's blades and, like the same.

You want to raise them. let's change.

They come.

Now I'll call to order the June 22nd, 2026 City of Abilene, Kansas City Commission meeting. Shayla, may we please have a roll call? Mayor Ryan. Here.

Mr. Taylor.

Here.

Mr. Kohlhoff.

Present.

Mr. Lytle. Here. Mr. Meisenberg.

Here.

Roll call is complete.

Okay. If we could please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First item is approval of today's agenda.

We're removing 7A, correct? Yeah, we can. I make a motion to approve with the removal of item 7A.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote. Vice Mayor Taylor?

Yes.

Commissioner Koloff? Aye. Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg?

Yes.

Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is the consent agenda, which consists of the meeting minutes for the June 8th, 2026 meeting appropriation ordinance A-062226-26 and the AP payment register. I make a motion.

We approve the consent agenda as written.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Kohlhoff?

Aye.

Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item under heading six, public comments and communications is 6A, a public forum. If there's anyone here that would like to address the commission on an item not on our current agenda, they may do so at this time. Okay. Please state your name and

Julie Roller Weeks, Tourism Director for the City of Abilene. Wild Bill Hickok served as Abilene City Marshal from April to December 1871, during the height of our cattle drive era. He was killed on August 2nd, 1876 in Deadwood, South Dakota, while playing poker, making 2026 the 150th anniversary of his death. To help commemorate that anniversary, we are excited to announce that a recently rediscovered Wild Bill Hickop sculpture by the late artist David R. Young will become a new bronze monument at Old Abilene Town. The sculpture was gifted to the community by Young's family and will add another significant piece of Western history to Abilene, recently recognized as a Top 10 True Western Town of the Year. This sculpture is a companion piece to the monument that is on his grave in Deadwood, South Dakota. The public is invited to join us for Chisholm Trail Days, Longhorns and Legends on Saturday, August 15th, featuring the popular Longhorn Cattle Parade and Wild Will Hickok reenactments. The official monument dedication will take place on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Old Abilene Town.

And here's what he looks like.

He's really cool.

Very nice.

Thank you. I hope if I turn the mic on. Do we have anyone else that would like to address the commission on an item not on our current agenda?

Okay.

You just please state your name, address, and there's a three-minute time limit.

I'm Gary Boyd, and I live at 301 Northwest 17th Street here in Abilene. We have a major flood thing going on up there. All the water from Buckeye, from I-70 down there, to my street, comes down, and it can't get away. It just floods the street, runs around my house. I mean, I have a terrible situation there, and I don't know what to do about it. I've been working with Brad, and I've worked with Joe, but I spent $45,000 getting my house jacked up a couple years ago because it settled four inches. I have since put dirt in and filled up And between my house and Andy Hess's back here, I mean, it's like a river. My wife has sent all of you videos that should be showing up sometime this evening, probably, on what exactly is taking place up there. But, I mean, it's wiping my trees out, my bushes out, taking the gravel and spreading it all across the yard. I mean, there's just nothing I can do about it. So... I came down here three years ago, and we talked about the same thing, and we were going to check and see what the sewage drains would carry or whatever, but it's massive. I mean, it blows the lid off of my manhole. It blows water up six foot in the air, and there's nothing I can do but watch my house go away. Now, there's another thing Brad and I talked about this morning. If you wanted to buy my house... tear my house down and tie the sewer line in the way it should have been done in the first place instead of putting two 90-degree angles in it, there'd be a possibility that you could get by. But it just, I think when they put 14th Street in, they didn't get a big enough tube, and all the water coming from the cemetery and down Mulberry Street, and especially all of it that's boiling up out of my manhole, cannot get away. It fills up Mulberry Courts, and it's just... backyard of it it's a terrible mess so whatever you can do be greatly appreciated thank you thank you

Name, address, three minutes on my phone, but I'm Andy Hess. I live at 303 next door to Gary. So it truly is. It's a raging river. I mean, it's kind of scary. And I watched it this time get really close up to both our windows and their windows. And they did just spend a lot of money jacking their house up. And out of curiosity, like coming up from the north end of Buckeye, like has the city looked at other ways to divert water? I mean, I don't know if that's been talked about in the past. Yeah, I don't mean.

The last I know.

Yeah, probably.

You would know more about it. Yeah. Brad Anderson, Public Works Director. The last study I know of anything done in the North End had to do with the drainage detention in behind the lumber house area. This particular bit of water, when you look at our storm drain lines, begins around the McDonald's and Home Chevrolet area and then travels south on both sides of the road. And then when it gets to the Pizza Hut area, it goes underneath Buckeye and it crosses in between O'Reilly's and on AutoZone. And then it makes its way down into the neighborhood area that they're at to the west of there. There is another section of road that it picks up from that hilltop in the summit area and collects into that area. So these residences are the low point of the area. I do not know... not the engineer here, whether or not that at the time that this was all meant, a lot of this was installed many, many years ago, just like a lot of our infrastructure was. Whether or not it's undersized for the amount of runoff it's capturing now, anytime you increase any kind of asphalt area, parking area at all, it's going to change what flows, obviously. Um, I know that the size of the, the box put underneath the road on the 14th street project was upsized significantly, but when that leaves that and runs down the drainage ditch on the West side of the quote practice football field, or just that, that area ends up down in the Mulberry area. Um, I'm not so sure that as it continues, it's not undersized going that way, too. So it is a collaboration of a little bit of everything. And to my knowledge, there has not been a redo of a drainage study in that particular area of town. I know it was talked about at one point. But once again, this is just one of many areas that... In my opinion, and that doesn't mean anything because I'm not the engineer, that a lot of our infrastructure might be undersized from the time that it was put in many, many, many years ago. So with all of them here today to express their concerns, we'll just need to be deciding if we want to look into a new drainage study in certain areas of town.

Pretty much all I had to say. Good job, Brad. Thank you. Thank you.

I've seen it. I haven't, but if you want to email it to me, that'd be awesome. It's a nice riverfront property. this is 17 so it'd be 301 and then I'm 303 so that's okay just so you get a I mean that's a lot of water Brad you sent kind of a rough map of the drainage infrastructure out here last week or maybe two weeks ago I've got that up here in front of me and it looks like the drainage infrastructure is kind of right there It is. It's exactly right there.

I guess I just don't understand. I just feel that by the time it gathers that much water pressure and flow working its way down to their exact area, there's so much inflow, it does not help. I'll be honest. By the way, Gary brought the attention to me this morning that maybe the city should buy. I didn't mention buy his property. But there are a couple... of hard 90-degree or stronger than 45-degree turns, which any time you do that, it's going to slow down water. One of those happens to be right at the inlet that helps catch water in their area. But when the pipe's already full because there's so much pressure coming that far downstream, the inlet area can't accept anything else. Therefore, it backs up. I know several years ago, well, I don't know how long ago, three, five, it was prior to me getting here, Public Works went down into that area, addressed, basically put a grade area in behind the Boyd residence. in the event that it, the pressure would build, that it would actually, um, two things. It would either let water in or it would release some of the pressure and let it continue on the, uh, on the flow on down towards Mulberry and behind, um, I don't know the name of them apartments in the, mulberry court apartment sorry there you go um as a relief area but um yes um commissioner kohl if you are correct there are drainage inlets exactly on both sides of the street right at that residence it's just uh i just think they're so full by the time um that amount of water pressure gets there that it can't it can't let anything in them and let it flow we've had the manhole lid blown off of that um lifted by water and and we actually fastened it down with some rubber sealant so you can get back in it if we need to but within the hopes that it would keep the pressure in the line and let it flow so it's just several different things that we need to look at on how this is what what we can do to help them out

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, What i'm looking at this, and I guess for the benefit of anybody else, it looks like it kind of runs down behind the 17th street homes and kind of connects at park place court before running down mulberry to 14th. I mean, so from Mulberry to 14th, there's that old trucking station, and it kind of takes kind of a northeast curve up to right behind you.

I don't know if you have that blown in, but, well, when I invited all of you to come down and take a look at our system, there's a flow. You can see the diamond flow chart on there. That actually gives the direction of flow on everything, so how it's designed. yeah i do you know i guess my my follow-up question there is how many manhole covers or inlets are there between that 14th street and uh 17th i i don't know i've got to count them up every one of them is mark and id numbered in that system there so if you like a blown up yeah that's not that was just a synopsis of what our system looks like i could definitely count them up um

I think I mentioned this when we were having the railroad issue, but is there any standard process for cleaning out those drains to remove any sediment or anything like that?

No, we really don't have anything unless we flush them if we know we have a problem in them. But with this amount of water that we've had in them recently, I wouldn't think there's anything really sediment-wise built up in them. I'm sure they've all been blown out by now. But other than us going around and doing routine inspections if we know there's a problem somewhere. So I honestly don't, I think it's a capacity issue. I think our tubes are just not large enough to handle that amount of capacity. Was this designed back in the day for that 100-year flood? I don't know. It may have been, and this is just a scenario where we've had I asked Gary this morning when he was in office how often this has happened. And yes, recently, this spring specifically, it's happened at least twice. But when I asked him in the previous years, it might be that one-time deal, and it might not be. And this has been an unusual year for almost all of our drainage structures in town.

When Brad and I met with Gary, I believe it was last year, and the manhole cover blows off. Like Brad, I'm not an engineer, but that tells me it's a volume and pressure issue. So being blocked with gravel or something, that'd be blown out completely. I believe last year, Gary even showed us a video of the water running between his house and Andy's house, just like a river that way also. So this is one of those items of the many drainage issues that we're gonna have to take a look at. Yep. Yeah.

Thank you. Yep.

Oh, here's the same thing, which has been pretty well covered.

My name is Jeff Hindman. I live at 304 Northwest 17th Street. And really, I've stood outside and I've lived there for five years now, and I've seen it happen at least two times in the last month. And I've seen it happen almost five years ago when I first moved into town. What happens is all this water comes from down up down north. comes through the, what Mr. Kolhoff was saying, it comes through, we have two drainage, two drainages right on either side of the road and all the water comes down and then it's just too much and it starts bubbling up through those, and it fills up to at least, I'd say at least two feet of water. At least you couldn't get your vehicle through it So, um, I just think there's inadequate drainage and I don't know, I'm not an engineer either, but it seems like when it does come down there to those two and it starts bubbling out somewhere in that area, it's almost like you have to double your capacity on how much it drains through. If you have one four foot pipe, if you can put a second next to it and come through, I'm not sure. Um, but, uh, And then, yes, once it gets up to that certain, you know, two feet, maybe a little higher, then it starts running like a river between these guys' house. It's crazy. I've seen it. It goes all the way up to his foundation at his house. The first time before they put in some grading to try to direct it, it went all the way up to their house and wore away everything up to their windows, touching their walls up to their windows. And for me, it's... I don't want a lake in front of my house if I can help it. At least, you know, unless it was supposed to be there. So I'm just saying, I think just the current system does need to be looked at, hopefully expanded. I think it's causing property risk, safety hazards, possible road damage. And I asked the commission to see what they can do to help fix this drainage failure and direct Abilene Public Works to investigate and permanently fix this issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Absolutely. Just state your name, address, and three-minute time limit.

I'm Judy Boyd, Gary's wife, and we live at 301 Northwest 17th. I encourage you to please look at the videos. We have done everything in our power, and as you all know, home insurance doesn't cover flooding. We've had it to the top of our windows. We have Undone all of the landscaping in our yard at 70 years old. We've had the house peered because of so much water. We hauled in, I don't know how many tons of dirt. We are engineers and we're at risk when we do these things of causing damage to Andy's house. And it could go down the street up the driveway to Bopat. we're just asking, please send some engineers out and try to help us on this matter. Um, It's too close for comfort. It really is. And if you had a gorgeous home like ours, you wouldn't want it dozed over and having pipes through it. But hey, if that's what it's going to take, we just need to have some help while we're living there. I really encourage you before the next meeting to try to get us some help from some professionals. We can come down here and talk and talk and talk, and it's not helping our homes. And we're getting old to do this. We've disassembled landscaping. There's nothing else we can do. Look at it as if it was your home and see what you would do. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone else that would like to address an item that's not on our current agenda?

Okay.

We'll move to 6B, fiscal year 2025 audit report.

Good afternoon. April Swartz, partner at Morning Associates.

It was a pleasure to work with your team again this year on the audit. You have in front of you, I realize you received an electronic version, but in front of you is a loose letter, and then there's also the burgundy binder. It's a clean audit as far as the letter goes. There were no journal entries proposed to Kelsey to correct anything that we found in the audit. There were no budget violations or cash violations or any other statutory violations that we noted. If you turn to the actual book itself, the auditor's opinion begins on page one. As you know, you report under the Kansas Municipal Accounting and Audit Guide, which is the regulatory basis. So your clean opinion is in the third paragraph. We feel your financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects. I also like to point out at this point is that we were engaged to do a financial statement audit. So we don't audit internal control. We assess internal control to determine where risk is. We don't do forensic auditing. We simply do a financial statement audit, which means we do the work we need to do in order to express an opinion that these financial statements are fairly stated. So I always like to kind of clear that up. We don't look at every transaction, but we were engaged to do a financial statement audit, which is what we completed. On pages four and five, this is the actual financial statement for the city of Abilene. This information comes directly from your software system, which I want to say is so much better than the one you had. So it seems to be working well for everyone. If you go down the left-hand side of the report are all the funds that are used by the city to record the ins and outs of the city. We show beginning balance, receipts, expenditures, and ending cash, unencumbered cash for each fund. We then add back any outstanding encumbrances or accounts payable that have been deducted from your cash for budget purposes to come to your ending reconciled cash, which is in the far right-hand column. So if you look on page five, the totals there, you started the year with $4,971,000 in all your funds combined. You took in $25,724,000. You expended $16,690,000, leaving you with $14,004,000 in unencumbered cash. Reconciled cash is $14,380,000. And down below, you can see where that money resides. The bulk of that money is in checking money markets and CDs. You also include the Public Building Commission in your report, so you can see that their funds are also listed there. Any questions on that? The next several pages are the notes to the financials. They are required by the KMAG. There were no new ones required this year, so I won't go through the notes in detail. If you will turn to page 10. Page 10 is a summary of the debt of the City of Abilene. There were two new debt issuances. You issued a 10th a temp bond, temp note of $10,320,000, series 2025. And then you paid off one street sweeper lease, and then you had a new street sweeper lease. So you can see the new edition of 307517. All payments on the debt were made timely and in accordance with the statutes. You did pay off your series 2015A. You can see there at the very top of the page, the final $25,000 payment was made on that, as well as the final payment on that first street sweeper. Then if you'll turn to page 16, this is the demonstration of the city's compliance with the Kansas budget law. Not every fund in your financials is a budgeted fund, so that's why there aren't as many on this page as there were on the front page. These are the budgeted funds. For each budgeted fund, we show your certified budget, expenditures, actual expenditures, and then the variance. And as you can see, all funds were under budget for a total of $5.8 million under budget. The rest of the report is one page with the exception of the general fund. It gets more than one page. One page for each fund. And I'll go through the general fund to kind of show you the layout. On page 17 is the revenue for the general fund. So you can see your actual from the prior year, your current year actual for 2025, your budget, and then the variance therefor. And as you can see in your general fund, the bulk of the revenue comes from your ad valorem and sales tax. That's the biggest funding sources in that fund. Beginning on page 18 and continuing through 19 is the general fund expenditures. The general fund is large enough that it's broken down by departments. And so you can see by department the same information, actual current year, actual prior year variance over and under. I will point out if there is a variance that's over by department, that's not a violation because the budget law applies to the fund in total. So they're that first administrative is over budget, but that's not a violation because if you go down to the bottom of page 19, far right-hand column, you'll see the general fund was under budget 1.1 million, 279,000. So no violation, each department line can be over if they need to be. And then the rest of the report are all the additional funds with that same information. The funds that are not budgeted funds, for example, on page 41, if it's not a budgeted fund, you'll simply have last year's actual and this year's actual. The very last page of the report is the related municipal entities. So this is your public building commission that we include in your report. So basically it's the lease payments coming in and the bond payments going out. But that's that very last page. Questions? If not, we appreciate working with your city and look forward to it.

Thank you, April. Okay, we will now move to heading seven unfinished business. Start with 7B with removal of 7A, discussion regarding the city manager recruitment process. Any initial thoughts?

Okay.

Um, I was thinking that we probably ought to start looking at recruiting firms, whether we put out a. RFP RFQ combo, you know, something that can save time by doing them both answering. All our questions specifically get a recruiting firm in. and then get started, and then give them all the specifications that we need. I don't know, we need to build on the specifications that we had last time, so where we avoid the pitfalls that we did. I think we learned some lessons there that maybe we can fix this time. So, yeah, that would be step one for us. It would be, or for me, it would be to put together an RFP, RFQ process sheet to get out to pitch for potential recruitment companies.

Yeah, that's where I was at as well. Just ready to get that sent out.

I don't know if we need to put that on a study session to hammer out the details on what we need or what we're looking for or how that would work out process wise for us. But I mean, we've got some pain points that we've identified that we need to tweak and fix. And I think I'd like to have that in the RFP RFQ process. So that way everything's hammered out step by step with what we're looking for.

Generally for the RFQ, you're looking just for the qualifications. Right. What is their approach? Then when you, the commission decides that they want, it's kind of like hiring a city manager. When you decide you're one, two or three or your finalist, then you can sit down and say, okay, this is exactly what we want. Here's the issues we found last time. So. we want you to make sure that these are addressed, uh, whatever those are. Um, and I'll just use an example, not that this was necessarily a pinch point, but if you get down to, uh, one, two or three finalists, um, does the commission want to have a public meet and greet before you start, you select the finalist and then negotiating, um, what level of vetting do you want? Do you just want to see if they have a valid driver's license and what shows up on social media, or do you want a more in-depth vetting for that person? But I think you can issue the RFQ for qualifications, get that down, and then meet with those individuals. I mean, we can do it both ways, but if we try to identify the pinch points, put that into the RFQ, or RFP, when you identify that finalist, you're going to go over it anyhow, and they may have some issues or some things for you to consider based on how the last one went. Generally, the last ones, most of them are going to have the very basic, which is what we got last time, and you'll have them up to the ones that, I mean, they do it all.

real in-depth so we can bring those to you and then at a work study go through those and say okay based on what we're getting we want to sit down with these folks here and get that detail okay so that uh the search firms uh that way we will have an idea of what their capabilities are um and you know what they're looking for from us and then Interview the firms, find a couple firms that we're looking at. That would be potential options. And then once we do that without have to be voted on as far as. We like option B versus A and C. You would get an agreement.

So if you like this company A as opposed to B, we would ask them for a professional services agreement. The city attorney would look at it as the form, make sure that the scope of services that they're presenting match exactly what you discussed when you interviewed them. And then the commission would vote on approving that professional services agreement. Because that would also have a timeline that they would build in based on their experience.

Is there anything that you're looking for from us today to get the ball rolling on putting like an RFQ, RFP?

If it's a consensus of the commission to... go out and start looking, issuing a request for qualifications, we can do that. I believe we received 15 or at least 15, I think. Shayla, do you remember? From those. Those were given to the commission to review all of them. And then the consensus was, let's go with the league. So I envision the same thing. You'll get all of them and we can have a study session, which we did not do last time, where the commission can talk about, okay, out of all these proposals or these responses that we received, I want to talk to these people and get a consensus at the top, how many ever you want.

And then we can run an interview process like candidate on the search firms also. Yes, sir.

Because if you have a search firm that doesn't want to do an interview with the governing body, I wouldn't consider them because those folks need to be working hand in hand with the governing body to make sure that they're out there looking for what you want.

Do you recall how long, I guess, the length of time that last RFQ was out? Was that usually like a two-week process on those?

We made it pretty short, and we got quite a few responses. With today being the 22nd, if we put one out tomorrow, we could have responses back by the 13th. Or if you want to wait until the 27th of July to give them some more time. And then we can package them up, send them to you to look at before. So you're not getting them on the same day we're asking you to go through and make them. So ideally, if you say, hey, issue an RFQ, we'll send it out. We'll want to have it back 10 days before the meeting that a work study. So 13th of July is the first meeting. So it'd be the 27th of July. We'd want those back in about a month. And then we can package them up. get them to you so you have time at least a week to look at them before you sit down as a body to talk about it. If that's okay with you guys.

Yeah. Would we have that on the study session to talk about them on the 27th if we do require them to be in on the 20th?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. The idea of that is to get those actual proposals to you beforehand so you have time to look through them.

So get the proposals in on the 20th and then have them and then discuss them and talk amongst each other in a study session on the 27th. Yes. I like that.

And it may be sooner than the 20th depending on how So we'll have to get them, put them together and get them out to you. I'd like to give you at least a week. Okay. So if the study sessions on the 27th, we probably have to do on the 19th.

Okay. Do you need anything from us as to what needs to go out on the RFP RFQ process? Or is that something that you.

It's pretty standard. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. That's.

Are we all good with getting that started?

That's why I'm not. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. Our next item is 8A, consider approval of Resolution 062226-1, a resolution accepting the independent audit of the financial statements of the City of Abilene, Kansas for year-ending December 31, 2025, as prepared by Varney & Associates, CPA's LLC.

I'd make a motion to approve Resolution 062226-1. I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote. Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Commissioner Koloff? Aye. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is 8B, consider approval of ordinance number 26-3483, an ordinance rezoning certain property located within the parcels generally described as 1300 block of North Brady Street and 1319 North Brady Street from C1 Office and Service Business District to R1 Low Density Residential District and amending the zoning map of the City of Abilene, Kansas.

Good afternoon. Before you, you have Ordinance 263483. This is an application for rezoning that we received from Randy Lecron and Mary Dewey back on April 30th. Both properties, as you mentioned, are zoned C1 currently, and they are looking to the proposed rezoning to R1 would allow the property owners to build a single family dwelling on the 1300 block North Brady Street parcel. Per the applicant, the dairy farm operation ceased approximately 10 years ago, so that's most likely why it was zoned C1 in the past. The future land use map of the comp plan 2024-2045 shows the parcel shifting to single-family residential R1. So the Planning Commission held a public hearing on June 2nd and recommended approval of the rezoning with a vote of 4-0. 14-day protest period expired on June 16th, and there were no protests received. And I also attached to the agenda packet the staff report that was presented to the Planning Commission. So Randy and Barbara here, if you have any questions, I did want to point out the photo on there because I'm a visual person. It just basically shows the two parcels that will be rezoned. They are right inside the city limits. If you have any questions, I can try to answer those or...

electrons answer those as well i didn't really have any questions when looking at i did the same thing just looked at the map because that's what i needed i don't know legal descriptions off the top of my head so yeah um or brandy do you guys have anything that you want to discuss or okay any questions concerns okay

I'll make a motion to approve ordinance number 26-3483, an ordinance rezoning a certain property located within the parcels generally described as 1300 block of North Brady Street and 1319 North Brady Street from C1 Office and Service Business District to R1 Low Density Residential District and amending the zoning map of the city of Abilene, Kansas.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Meisenberg? Yes. Vice Mayor Taylor? Yes. Commissioner Kolhoff? Aye. Commissioner Lytle? Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is 8C, consider approval of the low bid for replacement fire hydrants.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners, Brad Anderson, Public Works Director.

I will, if we get into any technical questions, I'll also refer to Chief Strunk and Assistant Chief Stuck. But in the packet was the bids and information given for us needing to replace five fire hydrants. Um, the city staff conducts annual fire hydrant testing to verify hydrant functionality and ensure adequate water flow. Um, so basically, uh, we find several more problems out there yearly when we're, we're testing this stuff, but we've identified some stuff that we need to get taken care of right now. Um, this is one of them, um, safety protocol. situations that they need the water pressure and they need our components to work when we're in that capacity of an emergency. But unfortunately, fire hydrants are not a cheap object and everybody sees them out there almost daily and doesn't think anything about them. But The bids were put out. Municipal supply was the amount of $41,484.90. Corn, Maine was $43,099.90. And Salina supply in the amount of $48,781.95. So the low bidder was municipal supply for that amount of $41,484.90. So we're just wanting to get these going. Just so you know, Mueller is the brand of hydrant that we do use specifically in the city. They are in our city spec codes for what we recommend being put in. So a lot of the vendors do happen to carry them, but just giving you that information of what we're looking for when we go out for bid on these projects. Okay. So we're looking for the possibility to approve the low bid in the amount of $41,480, $490 to get these fire hydrants going.

Do you check any of the open source? What is that? Source well or any of those for the equipment?

Like the aided purchasing system that we use? No, we never really have. I mean, it's specific to the Mueller, so we just went with the companies that we generally have used from the history I've been here. Kale, would you know a source well, even an option?

Possibly, without checking. Yeah.

Is that worth taking a look at before we approve it?

Yeah, I think so, probably. One thing I was wondering, I saw on this request for purchase sheet that it was restocked for shop. That note on there?

Yeah, that note is... Not 100% correct. One of the guys filled that out when we collected the bids. So a lot of these parts are going to be used immediately out there. And then we generally like to have some parts on hand, although, because if we have an emergency with a hydrant down, we got to get it back up and going.

Okay. These still haven't been replaced yet, have they? No. Okay. So, okay. Do you have a timeline on the replacement of them? I mean, is there a mandatory dead set date that they need to be replaced?

Not necessarily other than we've got some problems out there that we want to get taken care of as quickly as possible. Are those five still operable or? I would guess they're operable, but we definitely got problems with them. And these two are, we assist with all the hydrant flushing.

Yes. Some of them, um, are, but there's a handful of them that we will not use due to safety reasons. Some of the, where the hose attaches on, the press frit have let, they're let it in there and they're getting loose and they can blow out of there high pressure.

So there is safety issue, like?

Yeah, some of them are, yes.

Okay. That supply system, John, is there any way to check like right now to see if they've got the Mueller hydrants?

Do we know I don't have access to that, but I guess i'm also kind of looking here it looks like some of the there's some kind of some inconsistencies here to on like the. Some of the some of the things that meters are cheaper, I think the overall bid obviously still cheapest all in with municipal supply but. Think some of those fittings. Like maybe the i'm sorry i'm trying to find it here again. The meters were a little bit cheaper, maybe a corn main and sideways in my screen here too soon. You guys have that funny or do you remember what that looks like i'm trying to. Get my eyes on it, you want to read that.

So I just did a quick search on SourceWall for fire hydrants. SourceWall does not specifically offer dedicated contracts for fire hydrants. However, agencies can use it to purchase things. So they do not. Just doing a quick search on SourceWall.

Perfect. That was what that was. Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate that. Well, being that there's a couple of them inoperable right now, and it does look like you've done some pretty extensive bid shopping, I would consider approving today. I don't know about you guys.

I would, yes.

Does that include shipping and all that? I just noticed there's only one that mentioned.

Yeah, we reviewed. We definitely checked with municipal supply, and they do not have a purchase for shipping or delivery to us, so. So that price that's quoted from them is what the price is on that. We did definitely confirm that.

Yeah, I think I saw that in there that they did confirm that the shipping was included.

Perfect. Yeah, I'd say let's do it.

I make a motion to approve the little bit of replacement fire hydrants.

I'll second.

Motion has been moved and seconded. Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Vice Mayor Taylor?

Yes.

Commissioner Kulhoff? Aye. Commissioner Lytle?

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg?

Yes.

Myself, yes. Motion carries. Our next item is 8D, 2027 Budget Discussion, Enterprise Funds. Kelsey?

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. The preliminary 2027 budgets for the recycling, stormwater, water, and sewer funds,

Sorry, that's really loud.

The preliminary 2027 budgets for recycling, stormwater, water and sewer funds are before you for review and discussion. These are enterprise funds, meaning they are supported by user fees rather than property taxes and are intended to be self-sustaining. The recycling and stormwater budgets remain largely consistent with prior years. The proposed budget for stormwater improves transparency by separating operating reserves from capital improvement funding and includes approximately 467,000 in capital authority for future stormwater projects. No stormwater rate increase is included in the preliminary budget, but future adjustments may need to be considered to address the fund's long-term sustainability. The water and sewer fund budgets reflect the utility rate adjustments previously approved by the Commission. Those additional revenues will help address rising operating costs, rebuild reserves, support capital improvements, replace aging equipment, and meet debt service obligations. Both utilities also include transfers to their respective improvement funds to help reduce future reliance on borrowing for infrastructure projects. The budget also continues the transition of employee benefit costs to the employee benefits fund, improving transparency and consistency in how those costs are tracked across all city operations. Overall, these budgets are focused on maintaining reliable utility services, rebuilding financial stability, and planning for future infrastructure needs while keeping the utilities financially self-sufficient. If you have any questions, I can answer them.

There was one question. I was looking at it previously under the water. I can't remember. I don't have a page in front of me. But the 2025 actuals for fines and penalties was $13,068. And then 2026 and 7 projected, it was up to $51,000. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Yes. So those include things like cut off charges. So all of the things that increased delinquents are included in that.

So when we raised the rates, those also will increase as well based on their percentage.

So like if someone is delinquent, it'll go into that line item versus the actual funds, like the charge for services. Okay.

If that makes sense. Previously it wasn't, and that's why it was reading so low.

Um, no, it's always been separated like that, but, um, we, with those increases, they, it's trending to be higher this year.

Did you use like the same percentage?

Correct.

It just seemed like a big discrepancy, so I wasn't sure.

And it's also based on if we get those, a lot of the things that are in set-off or CBK, those types of things, so those will fluctuate if we actually receive those funds back or if they're still sitting in collections. So this is a good estimate of those.

Kind of along those lines, too, you've got the interest on the EIDL funds. Maybe I'm reading the wrong line. I guess I saw it on one. And then there's a miscellaneous. It's under sewer. It's interest on idle funds. But then I'm not sure if that's supposed to be under miscellaneous or if that's supposed to be interest on idle funds underwater.

Yes, the sewer does have what we do have one investment that goes back into the sewer fund. So based on the fluctuation of interest rates at the time, we do have, excuse me, we do have those idle funds for the interest that are going in there. I did reduce that a little bit just based on 24. We had, I'm sorry, 25. We had higher interest rates and we have trended to go down. Obviously interest rates have dropped. come, come down over the last year. So I did trend those down just to be on the safe side and because conservative on that.

Can you kind of illustrate that for me? I guess I was kind of expecting that with the increased revenue, that that might actually be closer to even or, um,

So if we're just talking about the interest on EIDL funds, that one line where it went from 14 to 75, I just trended that down because of our interest rates continuously reducing. We were at like a, when I first, last year, this time last year, we were at like a 4.5 and we're down to like a 3.25.

Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is I expect the balances, because of the increased rates, that the monthly balances will be higher. So even though the rate is lower, that it would offset because of increased collections.

I mean, generally, I just try to do this as conservatively as possible. I can definitely go back and increase that a little bit just to be on the same. I just would prefer to be under than over.

Yeah, that's fine. I prefer to be accurate sometimes is my approach. I don't know if you were just modeling, if you had data to be able to model a balance basically with the new rates per month.

Generally, when budgeting, whether it's for a utility fund or a general fund, revenues, we budget conservatively. So if there is a decrease in sales, we weren't expecting X amount of dollars in revenue. And then the charges for service have gone up, but most of those are pass-through. They don't sit in the... sit in an account gaining interest. The reason that this one has interest on idle funds and none of the other three is because at a time a year or two ago, it was decided to take some money from the sewer fund and invest it. That's why that's the only one that shows interest on idle funds. We don't have the... That's the reason.

I guess... Go ahead, I'm sorry. You'll notice that...

In our budgeting, in all of our funds, our revenues, we budget conservatively. Even if we expect to have, you'll see that in the general fund, I think last year we brought in $1.8 million in sales tax, but we'll only budget $1.7 million. If we get more, great. If we don't, then we're not expecting that and building expenditures based on an inflated number. So it would be great if we could budget with everything as exactly and accurate as possible. But generally, in municipal budgeting, you budget revenues conservatively so you're not caught off guard.

Kind of along those lines, I assume that there is some sort of investment happening with the stormwater funds that are in reserve. Are those just 0.0% interest all day, every day?

Not currently. There's, there are no funds that are specifically tied to the stormwater in investments currently. And that was from when I, even way before me.

So it's not even like a 4% checking or something like that?

No, all of our funds are in one public checking except for those investments. And the majority of those investments that we have are the 10 million from the temporary notes.

I want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly. So that money is in an account somewhere, probably earning interest. It's just not being reflected in this account?

Sorry. So when I took over this position, we have several investments where they had taken out funds previously. I cannot tell you why they chose those funds for where they put them, right? But... They were all tied to, there is one in sewer, there is one in special streets, and then everything else is either general interest, all the interest goes into the general fund, or all the interest goes into bond and interest to help with our debt service. There is every, all of the remaining dollars that are not in investments are in one checking account, and then they are divvied out to their prospective funds.

Is that where the $1,000 is? Is that in the general account?

No. I'm sorry. Oh, yes. Yes. I'm sorry. For stormwater, correct? Yes. In the general checking. Yes. It has not been invested up to this point.

So that cash that we're sitting on is not making money and could be.

Is that what you're kind of... Well, I guess I might be... And I'm sorry if we're talking past each other a little bit. We do get some interest on our standard checking, right?

Very little, but yes.

Okay. And I thought...

It's about 50 bucks a month.

And forgive me if I'm not remembering this correctly, but I thought we put out an RFP or something to be able to get a favorable rate on that. And I don't, I mean, if that...

Newer call being that Kelsey goes out every time an investment matures and looks to see what... what's favorable, you know, show, reach out to all the banks and say, you know, what, what can you give us for this investment? So also look at the municipal investment pool, um, in an ideal world, when you have money set aside in a capital improvement fund and equipment reserve fund, which we don't, um, that money would be sitting over there, uh, So the money that's for the projects, the $10 million that was borrowed because we've not expended that, that sits over here and is earning interest. So it's not like we just have the money sitting, you know, earning less than 1%. The things that we can invest because we know we're not going to spend it is invested. And she looks at that regularly to get the best rate possible. The money that we use regularly to write checks every two weeks to vendors is is in a one checking account, it gets minimal interest. Kelsey did reach out to all the banks about money market to get a higher rate for that money that we go through regularly. But because of the volume of checks that we write and stuff, it won't fit into a money market. At least that's my understanding. But we do get interest on that. The big interest that we get is for like the $10 million sitting aside.

I guess I'm clearly not remembering this correctly, but it was my understanding that we had to actually ask them to do an RFP for the checking specifically. And I thought we had gotten, and I'm not saying it was phenomenal, but I think it was more than, it should have been more than 50 bucks a month. Like 3% or something.

I know before we went on the Tyler system, there was talk about going out for a new banking system. And we wanted to make sure we were switched over to Tyler before we did that. And so to my knowledge, we have not gone out for the RFPs yet, but... It was talked about, but it hasn't happened.

That's absolutely right. Yeah, we did it for all the investment accounts, but I think we were holding off on that one.

What is our average daily balance?

It really varies. I mean, it depends on how many checks we're running that. But I want to say anywhere between... this is going to be a big range anywhere between 6.5 and one point or, you know, 650,000 and 1.5. And that's dependent on when we get, like, I think we're sitting a little bit higher right now because of we just received a distribution from the County. But it really fluctuates. Correct. Yeah. I mean, it fluctuates daily.

I don't know. Do you feel comfortable going out? bids on that for just the banking to see what we can get on that i mean that's an abysmal rate i think i don't keep 1.4 million dollars in my checking and i think i get more than 50 bucks in interest a month no yeah we never did we never actually went out on the operating account

Yeah, there was a money market that was sitting out there with, I think, like $100,000 or $200,000 on it. And I just reached out to the bank and said we were getting a penny or two a month. And I just reached out and said, is there anything we can do with this or can we move it into something else? And they gave me 3% on that. So now we're gaining like $30 a month on that compared to the penny. So, I mean, we can do whatever you guys want.

I definitely, with that volume of carry, I think it's worth a shot to see if we can make money on our money.

That's easy money.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

And depending on the bank, I mean, they'll have fewer charges for, you know, transactions and all of that too, just on those types of larger operating accounts. So I don't know when the last time it actually was bid out, but that operating account.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's been a while.

Yeah, I don't know if, would you want to put that on the next agenda to send that out, to send out an RFP for banking services? Is that a reasonable timeline?

Are you to direct us to, or?

I'm asking you if it's a reasonable timeline. If we were to say, hey, could we put this on the agenda for next meeting?

Are you wanting us to get your committee to put out an RFP, or do you want the responses back?

I, um, I was just suggesting we, if we needed to have a discussion item next meeting and then go forward with the RFP after that, that's, that was what I was asking. If you want to do the RFP, if we don't need to have a meeting, great. I, if we could see it in a month or whatever, I think that'd be great.

If we do whatever the commission as a body tells us, you know, I, I don't think we need a direction to put out an RFP to get a good rate. If we can bring those back to you and give the banks a couple of weeks to a month, bring them back and say, here, what it is, uh, or we can put it out. And if you want to make the decision, but I do believe that the budgetary policy allows the finance director to put out the RFP and go with the most advantageous rate. I mean, I can look at the budgetary policy. I don't, I have it here. If you want to make that decision and maybe I read it wrong, but I believe it says that it directs her to, you want to put out an RFP for investments and pick the best rate. I can send that to you, but we'll gladly put out an RFP. Yeah.

And just, I guess just to clarify, it's specifically for that operating account.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. She's got everything else invested. Yep.

Yeah. I think that was the one thing that we didn't touch.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And if you guys wouldn't mind putting out an RFP for the operating funds account, that would be wonderful. See if we can't get some easy money.

I'm good with that. I guess then to that end, Kelsey, would that be then distributed like pro rata back to those funds that contributed to that general fund balance? Or how would you account for that? Just general fund is easy enough?

Ideally, if we're talking about the public checking, anything that is not invested, whatever is left in that public checking would be a portion, a percentage of what their fund accounts hold would be where I would put the interest. Okay. 0.2% in X, 1.3% in the water.

What seems like a lot of it is probably in the stormwater fund.

Yeah, I mean, the stormwater has about half a million dollars, so it would be a portion that would go in there for sure. But the general fund would also hold quite a bit of it too. Okay. That would be my course, but I can be directed to do something different as well.

I know a lot of times you can do a, you can have like an operating checking account and then have a money market tied to it that sweeps into it as checks are written out. So that way if it's sitting in the money market that's tied to the checking account, it's earning a higher percent interest rate. And then daily that money sweeps into the operating account as checks are clearing. There's kind of a way to,

Yeah, everybody kind of does it. People just pay interest on a checking. Some of them do not. So I guess I'll offer if you want our feedback, I'm more than happy to do so. If you've got it under control, I'd say let's do that.

Okay.

So I'm clear. We'll do an RFP. It makes perfect sense. See what's the best thing we can do. But based on the comments I'm hearing, And I'm reading the city's investment policy to maximize net earnings consistent with the constraints imposed by safety objectives, protecting the principal, cash flow considerations, and state laws. Management responsibility for investment of funds is delegated to director of finance consistent with this policy and subject to the approval of the city manager. We can go out for an RFP and bring it back to you And have you pick, well, this is the highest one, we'll go with it, or we can follow the policy, put out an RFP, and we pick the one that has the best return and report back to you. Which one do you want us to do? Follow the policy or bring it back?

I think it's a little, it's kind of ambiguous where it says investments, which... I don't know, again, we might be splitting hairs here, but the operating account really isn't an investment. Again, I don't know if we just want to clarify the policy or...

This says the cash management portfolio means all of our funds.

Okay, okay.

And the objective is to maximize net earnings consistent with constraints imposed by safety objectives and protecting the principle, cash flow considerations, state laws, etc. then it delegates that to the finance director with approval of the city manager. But we'll be more than happy to bring that back to you. This policy's 14 or 15 years old, but that's how most cities operate.

It is my general practice too, even with investments, I always go with the highest policy.

highest return on my on the investment basically so i i would do the same thing with this would be my consideration again i'm not trying to get into your biz here other than to say if there is like i said there are banks do things differently if some are going to charge you more per check or money market well if you don't want to mess with multiple accounts and say hey this one's been you know 10 basis points less but they'll do it in one account we don't have to do any Goofing around. Like I said, I'm happy to provide input if you want it. Otherwise, I would say do your thing.

Will do.

Okay, then we've got various department reports.

We're going to finish with the 7500 on that one item. I just wanted to point out, if you still have your audit in front of you, um and it's on page 45 that's the water utility you can see in there that in 24 the actual revenue was two million dollars and the expenditures was 2.5 million which means we spent 477 000 more than we brought in it dropped our unencumbered cash from 900 000 to 437 then in 25 the uh We budgeted $2.1 million in revenue and $2.8 million in expenditures. Again, we budgeted to spend $700,000 more than we brought in in revenue. We've talked about that plenty, but I want to point out to what Kelsey has presented you in your packet. If you look at the water fund, the proposed budget for 2027 shows resources available of $3,100,024. Total expenditures is $3,100,000. So we're not over budgeting. We're not budgeting to spend more than we bring in. And you may ask, well, why are we budgeting exactly to the dollar? And the purpose for that is to have the budget authority. So if you do need to make an expenditure that you don't have to amend your budget. And for example, transfer to water improvement of $637,000, we have the authority to do that If we can't because revenues are down, we don't. But if we were to make that less, so it looks like, then we'd have to come back if we could. And amending the budget, you can do all day, all year, but you try not to. So that's the reason. So she's done a great job here where you can see there that it zeroes out.

I think you have done a great job, Kelsey. I think you're doing awesome.

Do we have anything to add to our department reports that weren't in the packet? You do?

Yeah.

Just to get it back in front of you again, remind you all, last year we applied for SRF funding through the state of Kansas and KDHE, and those were for SCADA and networking upgrades at the water treatment plant and wastewater treatment plant. We got confirmation back officially. Mr. Quinday has maybe a copy, but we got just the wastewater treatment plant contract sent back to us at this time. And that amount was in $400,000. I need to double check with KDHE and Olson since they helped us fill out and submit the applications. The clarity of whether or not we did get the water treatment ones also. So just so you know, this will be coming back around and you'll hear more about it. But just to give you an update where this was at. These were supposed to be finished up last year before the calendar year, but State of Kansas acknowledged that they were way behind in running through the application process. And when we visited with them in person at the Rural Water Conference in March, they still hadn't completed any of them. So they're obviously way behind in their system and everything. This was the loan program, right? Yes, State Revolving Fund. Yeah, so just so you know, we need to get confirmation of whether or not the second application is coming. Did we get it? Did we not get it? So we'll be checking in on that, but more to come. Just to put it back in front of you that we've seen some actual movement take place. Okay, thank you.

Before we have a motion to adjourn, do you have 10 minutes prior to the next study session? Do you have a preference?

515. That's perfect. I would make a motion to adjourn and start the study session at 515 in City Hall. Second. Motion has been moved and seconded.

Do we have any commission discussion? Seeing none, I'm going to roll call vote. Commissioner Koloff. Aye. Commissioner Lytle.

Yes.

Commissioner Meisenberg.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Taylor. Yes. Myself, yes. Motion carries. We are adjourned.