Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon.

I would like to call to order this meeting of the Finance Committee for Monday, June 8th, 2026. It is 5.56 p.m. Apologies to those of you who are expecting us at 5.30. Municipal Services had a very long agenda. Please rise and join me 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. I'll let the record show that all members are present. And we have Alder Crote and Director Messerschmidt joining us remotely. Our first action item is the approval of the minutes from our previous meeting, number 26-0725, the May 11, 2026 meeting minutes. Move to approve.

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Are there any updates or corrections to those minutes?

Hearing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye.

All right. That passes 5-0. I got you, Alder Crowe. All right. We have no public hearings or appearances, so we will move directly into our action items, the first of which is 26-0726, the Board of Review member pay rate. Can I get a motion? Move to approve. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second to get it on the floor. Director Messerschmidt or anybody else in staff, do you have any comments on this item? I do not. Okay. I see Alder Hart's on.

Thank you, Chair. Just as a point of note, two of the council members are current members of the Board of Review, but that does not affect us at all because this is for non-Aldermanic members of the Board of Review.

Thank you. Okay.

I made a motion.

And I, was it Van Zee one second? I thought I did, but maybe I didn't. Okay.

I think maybe Brad did, but I don't know.

Okay. Maybe I did the minutes. I don't remember. Okay. All right. Okay. Did we vote? Oh, let's go ahead and vote. You distracted me, Attorney Behrens. All right. If there are no other questions, let's go ahead and take a vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. That passes 5-0. Thank you, Alder Crote. I've got yours. All right. Item 26-0769, request to approve a budget transfer of $350,000 from the remaining Library Inflation Reduction Act elective pay proceeds to the Library Solar Project, increasing the total project budget from $350,000 to $700,000. Can we get a motion to get it on the floor?

Move to approve.

Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All right, Director Flick is going to speak to this one, and you're on director three. All right, Director Flick. I like saying that for the first time.

Very much, Chair. This memo is loaded with a lot of information. We gave you a lot to process, but we wanted to show what the impact is for what we're asking for. First, the CIP is only to be completed in 2026 if we were successful in getting the improvement tax credit, which the city was very successful, and we received over $2.4 million. So kudos to everybody involved in that, and this gives us the opportunity to implement the CIP now. When we first wrote this CIP over a year ago, we did not have more than a couple months, few months of information on this building for its operational costs and how things function and operate. We now have over a year of information and that we can make some valuable improvements and changes in the operation by adding additional solar panels to the roof to the tune of doubling our savings from like $31,000 to low seventies. So, and our return investment goes less than seven years. Yeah, it's like 6.8 or nine from seven point, whatever. So without going into all the detail in here and all of our calculations, those are the high points of why we're asking to go from 350,000 to 700,000, because we can save a lot more money in our operational costs, our success of the grant, the amount of the grant that we received, we weren't expecting quite that much. So that was really nice to see. And then there is one more caveat in here that if we are successful in putting in this solar, we have an opportunity to get back another $200,000 in rebates for solar. So the net being less than $500,000 instead of the $700,000. That just gets a little more complicated. But just throwing out those numbers. Glad to answer any questions here.

Thank you. Before I go to anybody else, I wanted to ask, Director Messerschmitt, do you have anything to add to that or anybody else on staff? I do not. Okay, thank you. All right, Alder Hartzahn.

Thank you, Chair. I'm not sure whether Director Messerschmitt or Director Flick will be able to answer this or how this gets answered, but What was the other plan for this $2.4 million? If we're robbing from Peter, what are we robbing from? What was the other alternative, or are there other alternatives, or would this just sit in a bank account so it would be better to just use it for this project and see the return on investment?

I can give a high level example of what that money was intended for. It was just to assist with the overall project. If we were successful, it wasn't part of our, of our project plan to use it to reduce expenses or reduce debt or anything like that. It was, we're going to try to get as much money as we can. And we were very, very successful to the tune of, you know, shocked to what we received. Um, the overall project did come in a little over budget. I don't have the exact numbers, but I think it was maybe three, $400,000 that the project came in over budget. And we knew that throughout the construction process, this grant would help offset those additional expenses. So a little bit of this grant money, the 2.4 million went to cover the overrun of the overall project. The rest of the money was not allocated. to go towards any specific project or improvement until we put in the solar CIP back in 2025, contingent upon receiving the grant. So that was the only plans to use this money was for the solar project and then to make the city hold on our overrun of the expenses.

May I follow? Please. So, Director Flick, then you're telling us that we still have a large little pot of money, even subsequent to approval of this, should that occur. Are there any restrictions on those funds? To my knowledge, no.

Okay.

I don't hate that.

Thank you, Alder Hartson, for asking all the questions I have written down. Sorry, anyone else? Alder Berkus.

Thank you, Chair. I just think it's great that we're going to have an opportunity to do something that while it does have an upfront cost, it's going to allow us to have lower operational costs and does really have a benefit, both financial as well as the environmental impact of these. So great to hear. Good job. Thank you.

I just have, I have one ask for people who may be watching or watched the video and might not read the entire very informative memo that you presented. Could you just remind us what our estimated payback on this is? I think it's the last couple, last sentence or so of your memo.

I'm going to let project manager Shrage speak because he really put together a lot of these numbers. and I'd just like to him. Okay, thank you.

Yes, thank you. The simple payback after the IRA reimbursement is only 6.9 years on this investment. So it's got a really good payback. And the useful life of the panels that we're looking at for this project are 30 plus years. So we're going to get quite a benefit financially by putting this project together.

Thank you. That is really good news. And I just kind of wanted that repeated. All right, anyone else? Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Alder, Crote, I have you. That passes 5-0. All right, moving to our next action item, 26-0770, request to approve the purchase of one office trailer and one restroom trailer from Elk Creek Trailers for the Temporary Transit Center operations site in the total amount of $141,720. Move to approve. Second. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Anything from staff on this one? Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and go to Alder Hurtson.

Thank you, Chair. I'm not sure, well, I believe that this is germane, but why would this not come through CEA or something of that sort? Is it because it's a one-off sort of thing? And the other question I have is what happens at the end of the use of this project? At the end of this project, what happens to these trailers?

So the project's coming through finance as it's a part of the project. So this is the kickoff to the new transit center. With it being a part of the project, the project's paying for these trailers. So that's why it's coming through the finance committee. We've had some brief conversations among staff on what to do with these facilities when we're done with them. Anything from using them in a park that currently do not have restrooms that run on porta pots. We have to see... you know, more work in the, can we clean them? Can we keep the operational costs that we can afford it? We've also talked about that they would be available for other projects that the city are looking to do that we need temporary facilities.

It would be really good for Alderman Camping. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. I see Alder Crote. That passes 5-0. All right. 26-0771. Request to approve the sole source of contract to Chet Wessenberg Architect LLC for professional services needed to complete design, bidding, and construction administration for the 2026 City Hall Sixth Floor Office renovation project. Move to approve. Thank you.

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Anything from staff on this one? All right, Alder Hart's on.

It wouldn't be right if I didn't mention sole sourcing, but this makes sense. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. I see Alder Crote. That passes 5-0. Okay, 26-0777. Request to approve change orders number seven, number eight, and number nine to Rhody Brothers Inc. contract as a part of the Appleton wastewater treatment plant sludge piping. Move to approve. Thank you. Second. Okay. Anything on that? Director Stempa, you're on director two? Or director or district two? I'm sorry, I'm director. All right. There you are, Director Stempa.

For the record, item 260777774 and 775 were intended to be information. They're change orders, but per procurement policy, don't eclipse the threshold individually as these come up. So these aren't, these are all disjointed by time and approvals under my authority. So they were intended to be information. They're described like that in the subject line, but I didn't get a chance to review the agenda before it went public, so my apologies for that. We can certainly discuss them individually, but they were intended to be information.

Okay, thank you for that. I was a little confused when I read them. Are there any questions?

Chair, could I amend my motion to approve? Please, would you like to withdraw your second?

Yeah, I'll withdraw my second so we can move them all at once if need be.

Please, could I move 26-0777? 26-0774, and 26-0775 for approval.

I thought it was 7-7, 7-4, and 7-5, but... 7-7-7, 7-7-4, and 7-7-5.

Is that correct, Director Stempa?

That's correct.

Okay. Absolutely. What are we doing wrong?

Did I understand Director Stempa indicated these were mistakenly placed as action items, and they do not require action of the committee. Therefore, it wouldn't be necessary for a motion and a second in action. You could discuss them, but they'll administratively just be moved down as information items.

Okay. Thank you, as always, for your guidance. Certainly. Anything anybody wants to ask on these? No objections to just letting them? Go into the information place.

The void of information.

Okay, so that will take us down to 26, 785 is not included in this, correct, Director Stonefield? Okay, that'll, I'm sorry, Director Young, or if that was yours. 26-0785, request to approve change order number one to Krusek Construction, Contract 3-26, Unit U-26, Sewer and Water Construction. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any comments on this one?

So this would just be an increase. Oh, I'm sorry, Chair Director, one is already out.

All right, Deputy Director Neuberger. You turned us off. I didn't mean to. We're good.

So this would make use of existing bid items within the contract. We're just looking to increase the quantities to address some repair needs associated with the hydrant fittings and the associated mains.

Okay, any questions, comments from up here? All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. I see Alder Crota's an aye, that passes 5-0. All right, 26-0784, request to approve change order number one to Western Specialty Contractors, contract 17-26, unit S-26, parking rent, repairs, and maintenance, with an increase of $181,000 for a new contract total of $1,387,718.50. All right, we have a motion and Alder Van Zyl in seconds. All right, anything on this one from staff? Deputy Director Neuberger, anything?

Yes, thank you, Chair. The green ramp items for the additional waterproofing repairs would need to be done anyway. It's just we would like to expedite them because of the impact on the parking utility offices. And then the yellow ramp pedestrian bridge, these were repairs that were identified in a recently completed inspection by the consultant.

Any older hearts on?

Thank you, Chair. May I address Deputy Director? Please do. Deputy Director Neuberger, were we sort of planning on this in the contingency? Is it sort of filling the void that we thought maybe would show up? Or are we now going to be, without a contingency, in deep trouble because we've got these other things that we might be planning for?

Right. I would describe it more as the first case where the contingency was provided in this case as it has been on other similar ramp rehab projects. We know that items are going to come up during the work that the contractor is going to do. We're at the very tail end of the project, and we're not concerned that allocation of these funds for these items is going to keep us from getting at something that's more critical. We want to make use of the contingency dollars that are there to take care of these items that we really don't want to wait until the following year to take care of.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

And Alder, Curtis, and I, that passes 5-0. All right, moving to 26-0787. Request to approve new Fox Cities Exhibition Center management agreement between the City of Appleton and Appleton Hotel Holdings LLC. Move to approve.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Director Holman, are you speaking to us on that one? All right, Director Holman.

So we're really pleased to... be presenting this to you. Um, also thank you for giving us the one month extension to the memorandum of understanding. Everything in the MOU has been memorialized in here. Um, this was definitely a team effort between the city attorney's office, my office, our consultant, as well as the public works department and parks department. Um, happy to report that, um, revenue sharing is baked in here with the intention and, um, requirement to deposit it into a capital reserve account. The operator will be assuming the operating risk. We will be removing the legacy constraints as the MOU had outlined. However, discounts to our partner communities are still baked into the agreement. Required collaboration and mandatory booking visibility with the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which was something that was highly desired by our tourism partner. at the CVB. We've also ensured that there's market incentives and flexible pricing for the hotel as the operator so that we can encourage them to use the facility much more than we are currently seeing. The other benefit is this is an initial five-year agreement with a five-year auto renew and then additional mutual determination to extend it beyond that. So it's been a long time coming. We're happy to see that we're at this point. and just thank you for providing us good direction and giving us just that little extra time to nail down the final details.

Okay, thank you. Any questions? All of our time.

Thank you, Chair.

May I direct to Director Homan? Pardon me.

You okay?

You swallowed funny. Director Homan, this is the most loaded question ever, but when will we see the success of this? When... When do we anticipate seeing that this has come to, all the hard work has come to some greater successes for FCEC?

Yeah, so the way that tourism and convention bookings happen is typically, especially for the larger events, they're oftentimes looking one, two, three years ahead in terms of booking. So the benefit of this is now there's certainty and stability for the operator to provide clarity when they receive a request for a bid. I do think it will take decades almost the entirety of that first five year period to really ramp up and, and give it the time it needs to hit its market potential, which is why when you look at the revenue sharing on, um, let's see, it's page four of the agreement section four B year one, we're getting 1% of the revenue, but then by year four and beyond, we're ramping up to 6%. That's to reflect that those first few years, they're building their book of business and bidding on all of those major ones that are in the out years.

So it will take time. Thank you. I think it's good to have some expectation setting so that we aren't immediately jumping into this going, wow, it hasn't been successful at all in the first year or some crazy thing like that. Thank you.

All right. I saw Alder Meltzer down there. District nine.

Thank you. I have some questions or comments relating to Section 5J. One of the concerns that's been shared to me from local event planners has involved catering at the exhibition center. So I saw in there a description about a preferred list that catering type vendors could get themselves added to. So I just was interested in some more details about how That preferred list would be accessed if there could be communication to event planners about the fact that this preferred list exists. And so maybe with proper prior planning, events that have felt that they couldn't access the exhibition center space because of their partnership with a certain caterer could try to work ahead to get that caterer onto this preferred list. I know that that's not information that needs to be in the MOU, but I think that that's definitely information that needs to be available to community event planners. Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right. Kudos to everybody who worked so hard on this. I know that it's been hanging over your heads for a while, and I'm sure it really feels good to get it over the finish line. So, all right, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Alder Croat votes aye. That passes 5-0. All right, moving to 26-0776, request to award sole source contract to Full Service Organics Management, LLC, as part of the Appleton Wastewater Treatment Plant Anaerobic Digester Inspection, Maintenance, and Improvements Project. Move to approve. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Director Stimpa, do you have any comments on this one?

If there's questions, I can speak to them.

Okay, any questions up here? All right. Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. That passes 5-0. We note Alder, Krodus, and I vote. 26-0773, request to award sole source purchase of a Vulcan EWP 400-600 wash press to Vulcan Industries in the amount of $68,518. Move to approve.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any comments on this one?

I'll get our first questions.

All right, any questions? Alder Hart's on.

Sole sourcing. But... Again, I commend your memo for making it clear why it's important in this regard. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions? All right. Let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Alder Crote is an aye. That passes 5-0. Item 26-0786, we're getting there. Request to award project Z26, sewer and water main reconstruction. Missed one. Did I skip? I am so sorry.

You skipped my tower.

I so apologize for that. No problem. 26-0772, request to award sole source contract to Dixon as part of the Mathias Tower Coding Project. Move to approve. Second. Okay. Comments on this one?

I'm sure there would be questions on this one. Maybe not.

Okay. I have a question, and it's related to another meeting. It seems, looking at the agenda for the Utilities Committee meeting, that we had a big cost savings. We had a fortuitous event on the Lindbergh standpipe that enabled us to fund this before we thought we were going to be able to.

Yeah, and it really was, and the two are tied together, and it's in large part why Dixon was considered for the sole source. I don't want to suggest this is like sending somebody to Mars, these tower inspections, but there's something to be said for a company that this is all they do, and although we seek competition, generally speaking, there is a rationale and justification with somebody that has a history of these sites, in particular if they have That's their book of business. And they did find something that we didn't expect as part of a reconciliation of past coding work and an approach that made a lot of sense. And so we're going to go into that. We're going to save about $40-some thousand just in the engineering, not including the cost to recode. And we're going to be able to extend the life of that coding comfortably with some periodic inspections. And that does free up money that was originally intended for it.

I will say, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but... And I want to be careful not to talk too much about something we don't have noticed on this meeting.

Correct. But yes, the two are tied together.

All right. Alder Hartzog.

Thank you, Chair. My ad direct to Director Stepa. Director Stepa, warranty services, is this something having to do with them pursuing some warranty...

return for the city nobody is but as part of the specifications are the contracts global work we always have a one-year coding inspection and that's to ensure that once the power is quoted and does that be a tower could be anything we want to make sure before that standard warranty is up for the coding contractor and the coding products being used that they're doing what they suggest they're supposed to do What necessarily didn't work out, because we did that same thing with Lindbergh, is that failure didn't reveal itself in that first year. It was like two and a half years later. And so that's an example. I would love to get a five-year warranty and get standby, but they're not going to do that. So yeah, in every contract for this type of work, we build that in ahead of that warranty expiration date to make sure that what we paid for, what the city paid for, is holding up.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. And Alder Crote is an aye. That passes 5-0. All right. Now we go to 26-0786. Request to award Z26 Sewer and Water Main Construction to Crewset Construction in the amount of $546,000.00. with a contingency of $20,000 for a total amount not to exceed $566,000.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any comments from staff on this one? Okay, any questions? All right, seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Alder Crote is an aye. That passes 5-0. Our last action item is 26-0783, request to apply for a safe drinking water loan and to approve a resolution declaring official intent to reimburse expenditures for loan disbursement payments.

Move to approve. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any comments from staff on this one?

Yes, I do.

Okay, I see you, Director Messerschmidt. I'll withdraw my intent to speak. We will go to Director Messerschmitt. Thank you.

I just noticed that in the resolution, it's got the wrong name for the city clerk in the now there for be it resolved by Mayor Jacob Woodford and City Clerk Cami Lynch.

We'll have to get that updated. The one on the one that was attached to my agenda is correct.

Yes, it has been updated.

OK, so you already did it. I don't know. It's in it's in the chair. It's in the now therefore be it resolved. It's correct on the bottom. Thank you, thank you. Okay, okay, okay. The city, if you didn't hear that, city attorney advises us that that can be administratively changed. So we don't have to take action here on that. Okay, any other comments? I do have one question. I understand that we will not accept anything other than the deferred principal loans, but since these are for private service lines, have we already identified those and working with homeowners on those, or once we get the grant, knock on for Micah? All right, Deputy Director Neuberger.

So yeah, so we're working our way through the census tracts and we do have an inventory of the locations within each census tract, including this one where we anticipate that the work is needed to be done on the private side. So as we work our way through each of these annual projects, the remaining census tracts will, migrate from 100% principal forgiveness based on the status of the census tract to a lower number. And at this point, this is the first one we're anticipating that we would not be able to get 100% principal forgiveness. I believe this one we're anticipating 75%. And we've submitted an application to the PSC to make use of the water utility funds for the balance that would not be covered by that.

principle for you. So we will not be asking homeowners to pay for this service?

Not unless the PSC denies our application. That would be the only reason. If the grant is not approved and if the PSC does not approve our application.

Thank you for the clarification.

But we're putting in our best effort.

Anyone else? All right, seeing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Alder Crote is an aye. That passes 5-0. We do have one information item in addition to our others that were moved down here. Any questions, comments on that? Move to adjourn.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

We are adjourned.