Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone. We'll call this meeting of the Finance Committee to order on Monday, 02/23/2026, at 05:30PM. Let's rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

All right. Roll call of membership. Let the record show that all members are present with the exceptions of Alder Kroat and Alder Fenton, who are both excused. We'll move right into approval of the minutes from the previous meeting, twenty six-two twenty four.

Move to approve. Second.

Alright. Have a motion and a second. Any comments, questions? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Alright. That's three ayes. That passes. We have no public hearings or appearances tonight, so we'll get right into the action items with twenty six-two forty five. Request to approve the following 2026 budget amendment for the WEDECSAG grant award.

Move to approve. Second.

All right. Any comments or questions on this? I guess Oh, go ahead, Alder.

Thank you, Chair. May I address Director Holman,

please? Yes, please.

Director Holman, can you refresh my memory on what local amount was needed to match for this? You state that the Calumet County EPA grant will serve as the local match. Was that a one for one and how did that all work out?

District 4. Oh yeah. I'm just scrolling into the grant agreement where that language is.

I apologize that I did not easily find that.

I was

hoping that was a quick one.

If you take a look at the draft grant agreement, there's a budget code. There's 150,000 for SAG funds, which is the grant, and then 40,000 in other funds. So that would be the EPA Calumet County grant.

And did we get more from Calumet County than that 40? No. Okay. So it's just a directly solves that problem that we had there.

Totally.

Excellent. Thank you.

Alright. Anything else? Nope. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? That passes three to zero. Twenty six-two fifty eight, request to approve 2026 budget amendment for Lindbergh's standpipe recoating project.

Move to approve. Second.

All right. And are there any questions or comments on this? Director Sempas, unless you have anything you want to share, I'll let you off the hook here and, we'll go ahead and vote then. All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Abstentions? That passes three-zero. 20 six-two 57 requests to approve contract amendment number one to Donahue as part of the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant anaerobic digester inspection, maintenance, and improvements project to support phase five construction services in the amount of $209,479 increasing the contract amount from $293,755 to $503,234 with the following budget amendments. Ahead.

Move to approve. Second.

All right.

I have a motion and a second.

Just trying to Yep. Save you,

I appreciate it. So for those falling from, you know, afar home, this is really just carrying over $20.25 dollars to $20.26 dollars amounts, so nothing real exotic here doesn't seem correct. I'll take the nod as a yes. So unless anyone's got any questions or comments specific to this, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Extensions? That passes three-zero. 20 six-two 23 requests to award the Alicia Playground Equipment Project contract to Lee Recreation LLC in amount not to exceed $130,000

Move to approve. Second.

Alright, we have a motion to second. Any comments or questions on this one? Alright, seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? That passes three to zero. 26Dash0229 requests to award Unit B 26 asphalt paving to Triple P Incorporated doing business as Peters Concrete Company in the amount of $1,244,583.86 with a 3.6% contingency of $45,000 for a project total not to exceed $1,289,583.86

Move to approve. Second.

Alright. Have a motion to second. Any comments or questions on this one? Alright. Seeing none, then we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Abstentions? That passes three to zero. 20 six-two 43 requests to award sole source purchase of Rockwell Automation Allen Bradley variable frequency drive equipment to Werner Electric in the amount of $203,197

approve. Second.

All right, motion is second. Alder Hartzey.

Thank you, Chair. My favorite subject is sole source. May I direct to Director Stempa? I assume we have to sole source this because that's the only supplier that will give us the controllers that we need. Is there sort of a baseline that says that can tell us without having to go out for other quotes that we're not overspending on this sole source.

Director Tuoh, I got it. It's green. They are the regional distributor for Rock wall VFD drives. We could probably price point to see. We haven't done that recently.

We've done that for a couple other items, but that only generally involves questions regarding distribution. Some of these providers, they may be the regional distributor or authorized vendor for industry or municipal. They have their own sectors. So sometimes there's some confusion on who's selling what to who, in which case the entity may be out of Minneapolis. We had this happen recently with some pumps which we got a cost comparison without intentionally getting for an authorized distributor. And those price points didn't vary that much. I mean, they weren't substantial.

Otherwise, is there some sort of municipal database that would allow us to say just cross checking. No. I'm not concerned that Werner or any of these other sole source providers are trying to get one over on the city of Appleton, but I do want us to always sort of have this baseline, yeah, this makes sense. Because from this, I don't know if it makes sense.

Yeah. And to answer your question, no, we haven't. Werner hasn't had a history of doing that. If there's any variation in some of the services, it's the services, not so much the equipment, right? Because it's like buying a new car in a way, right? The dealer has to sell it at a certain price point. If you get into services, that's a different thing. And so when we get into services to do an install, we can maybe work with some other entity to do an integration, for instance. And we have done that where we've solicited quotes. We buy the equipment through a Werner and then for the other part of it, the service end of it will solicit quotes because other folks can do this.

But there is actually a benefit to this specific item and then providing some of those services because with that comes a better warranty.

Thank you. I appreciate it. This is again one of those general questions and I appreciate that you were giving us some specifics to this. But I'm glad that we are kind of keeping an eye on all those other things as well.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? That passes three to zero. We have three information items on the agenda tonight. Director Blick, I know you're here. I don't know if you wanted to share anything with the Facilities Construction Management Review or if you just want to just here to answer any questions anyone may have. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. The report is pretty self explanatory of what we do for all of the departments throughout the city. I would just add there's some numbers in there that really stick out in '25 and that's the increase in the number of work orders that we received in '25. I think it's 600, 700 more work orders in the year. And we still were able to complete those at a high percentage compared to '24.

We've been trying to do some different ways of utilizing our staff and time and it's and it's working out. Teaming up with our labor end and having them tackle larger work orders together is really paying off. So we're doing a lot more work with the same number of staff. So hopefully, can continue that. Good to hear. Excellent.

Are there any other Alder Hartzheim, go ahead.

Thank you, chair. May I direct to interim director Flick? Tom, that number is higher, but why? Do we do we have a root cause of how why we've got this exponentially larger number of work orders required? Or is it just that people are being more specific about, here are the things we need to do, not just call you up and say, hey, fix this.

It's a handful of things that are contributing. Facilities that are aging require more daily maintenance and attention, a little more TLC, but also with new construction. We've had a lot of renovations on 5th And 6th Floor. We've had a lot of you know, Valley Transit got a a remodel addition. A lot of work at wastewater has been going on over the last couple years.

So even though it's new construction or remodel, there's still a lot of little tweaks and and twists that need to happen, you know, to get everything in line after the project and even, you know, a good year afterwards to get staff everything that they need, you know, whether it's an office chair or the lighting needs to be adjusted or, you know, follow ups with the contractor to close out a project, you know, warranty items. So it's just a a combination of a lot. You know, just look at the parks department division amenities of that have been added. You know, Lundgard Park wasn't there a year and a half ago. Now it's it's a lot of work with plumbing, electrical, landscaping, you know, just everything that runs a facility.

So

But on that same note of your feedback to us in this regard tonight, you feel confident or you're continuing to feel confident that the existing staff is able to handle that demand at this point?

We're okay at this time. Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else? Alright. Seeing none, we can move on to item number eight.

Move to adjourn. Second.

Alright. We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

That's three ayes. We are adjourned.