City Council - Regular Meeting

The March 9th, 2026 Auburn City Council workshop will be called to order. Uh, we'll have the counselors introduce themselves, starting with council Gary. Good evening. Belinda Gary, city councelor at large. Good evening, Tim Cowan, city councelor for W 2. Good evening, Matthew Duval, city council, W three. Good evening, Jeff Harmon, mayor. Good evening, Kelly Butler, city council for W 4. Good evening, city councelor Leroy Walker, w five.

Good evening, Adam Platt, city councelor at large. Good evening. Rachel Randall, city council, award one. Uh, Phil Croll, city manager. Kelsey Earl, finance director. Dennis Dotay, assistant city manager.

Thank you very much, everyone. Um, the for the public, the um workshop tonight will be focused on the FY27 budget. At the conclusion of the workshop, the council does have an executive session item to take up. There will be no council action following the executive session and we intend to adjourn uh at the conclusion of the executive session. Uh so the first item um for the workshop tonight is the Norway Savings Bank Arena and the Ingresol Turf Facility. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. With me is uh Mark Goslin. He's the executive director of sports tourism who manages the Norway Savings Bank Arena as well as the Ingresol Turf facility. Uh both of these entities are what we consider what we call enterprise account. So when you're working through your budget, uh you won't find these two departments in your budget. Um because they are enterprise accounts. We set that up separately. I could let Kelsey go on and explain why the auditors require that. Um, and if you want more information, she can do that. But what we do, um, like to do is bring forward their budget, uh, through the budget process, so you know what's taking place at these two entities, what we're anticipating for the upcoming year, and uh, questions that you might have. So, one thing that I um as we the team was working on uh this information, we wanted to make sure you had you had access to as much of the documents uh before tonight's meeting as possible so you could be familiar with um some of these numbers so you could take a look at um where we're where we're focused. There's a few things that Mark will get into as it pertains to uh Norway that we might not be included in the budget regarding revenue. U because there's sometimes where there's an entity that might be renting or we're in an agreement with that's not multi-year. It's yeartoyear, but we're always sometimes those contracts they come when they come and they might be midstream. and if they're mid-stream, we're not sure where it's going to go moving forward, but we want to make sure that um we know what some of the costs are. We work those into the budget. So, um and and Mark can get into those. So, uh Mark, why don't you just give us a really quick highlight of where we are with these two accounts and some of the work that's done.

Sure. Uh pleasure to be in front of you guys. Uh I don't get to do it all that often, so it's nice to see all your faces. Uh, so thank you very much, Council Mayor. Um, I'll start with Norway Savings Bank Arena. Um, and I will actually jump into those that are not necessarily on the budget sheet as it relates to the revenue side. Um, if we're not 100% sure of whether that's going to get renewed, we don't from a conservative standpoint, we want we we're not going to necessarily put in the budget. And there's two things right now that are kind of outstanding. One is our our gym rental agreement. I actually just met with them today and that's looking very positive to move forward which would be an extra 12,000 um added to that 52,000. Uh that would be another year lease for our gym space that's up up above in the mezzanine. Um the other outstanding of course is the junior hockey team and the junior hockey program that plays out of the Norway Savings Bank Arena. Uh the junior hockey space is very convoluted right now. They're trying to figure things out as it relates to all the different levels ever since the NIL agreements and honestly it's affecting everything from the little kids all the way up to major junior hockey. Um so uh right now the main Nordics were tenants of ours this past year. Um we are going to be work we're right now in the midst of negotiations for them for next year. So, that's the one outstanding piece there. Uh, that is not seen on the revenue side, but the gym space, like I said, had a great meeting today with that group. They're looking to renew for another year uh moving forward. So, I'm going to be getting that paperwork to them soon. Uh, the purple highlighted space on on the budget is uh those are increases in our revenue that that you're that we're expecting for this year just because we've increased our ice rate. Even though we increased our ice rate, we're still actually very affordable across the state. Um I some

of the ice rentals run from 280 an hour to $300 an hour. Um and right now we are still just a little bit below that, which is from an accessibility standpoint. Allows us to stay very active, but also allows those people that might come from other areas that look at us to come and travel to our area and use our facility simply because of our cost. Um so the purple that's what you saw in the in in the revenue. Um from an uh from an expense side the increases that you see are mainly our our cleaning services. We do have a small increase in our cleaning services because of the use of the facility and how active it is. Um it's it is a constant battle to try to keep that place as clean as possible. everything from cleaning from emptying the trash cans to cleaning the windows to cleaning the locker rooms. So we actually have a outsource group the outsource individual that comes in uh three times a week in the morning deep clean get ready for the evening um and then our staff piggybacks on that. So it's not like our staff doesn't do any cleaning. It is he comes in does the deep cleaning in the morning and then our staff is able to do facility functions in the a in in the morning and then in the evening our staff picks up where he leaves off where he leaves off. Um solid waste disposal, you're going to see a big increase there simply because this past year we found out that we were only paying for our dumpster. We weren't paying for the weight that was being removed from the dumpster. That was coming out of another budget. We're not sure whether that was our maintenance budget or from our public works budget. We're not sure, but that got put on us this year. Um, so that's that's why you're seeing that big increase just because that $600 was actually just paying for the rental fee of the dumpster. So now we're paying for that tonnage to that that waste disposal. And then um the other increases that you're seeing are just

the increases that I was that was provided to me as it relates to natural gas, electricity, bottle go uh bottled gas um and our insurance premiums. Um and I will say actually our partner United Insurance did a great job in helping us trying not to increase that because insurance premiums right now for ice rinks are very very difficult. Um and they're actually a lot higher than that. So he did I I I believe he did and his team did a great job in helping us. So that made sure that that wasn't such a substantial increase.

Can you scroll back up the revenue minute? So one thing that for especially for new counselors coming in just as a as a you know snapshot of history. Um, so the when the plant when the uh sorry different different business. So when the uh arena was uh built, it was really built for youth hockey in our in our community and and so you can see where our priority when you look at the revenue that comes in is really gladiators are our number one um uh tenant. Uh because that was by design when it was built. It was built to make sure that we are providing space for our youth programs for hockey. That hasn't changed uh in the 11 12 years since being operating. Uh that focus is still on on youth hockey. What Mark does a great job of is filling those other gaps throughout a day

because most of our youth hockey programs were on weekend, right? They get prime time. It's evenings and weekends. So we work uh as a team on identifying how do we fill those other um gaps within the day with other programming. So that's the sometimes it's the adult programs, sometimes it's the learn to skate, sometimes it's especially uh with Nordics or uh prior to that our other tenant being there using that facility during the day for rentals. Um and then also we try to keep a good balance with um there's there's benefit in bringing non ice um uh initiatives um events to the arena and it's a good space for that and we've had great success in that. Mark really works through those relationships to ensure that's another stream of revenue that's coming in and uh but the focus is always making sure that we are available for youth hockey because that was the intent when it was built.

And then al also to piggy back on that is also the high school hockey piece with Ever Little uh Poland Levit Oakill Grey Glouster uh our girl our the Red Hornets this year had a great hockey season on the female side. Unfortunately, we fell a little short. Um, we hosted the high school uh state champion, high school girls state championships this year. Um, but to the non-event side, we really try to focus on a couple months because the rest of it is really hockey. It's really hockey based. It's camps, it's clinics. um talking to Cent Main Community College right now about doing a summer camp, overnight summer camp, uh for the first time at the arena, you know, where they would house the kids at Central Main Community College and then they would come skate during the day uh for the camping clinic at at the at the arena. Um the the roller hockey uh the National Collegiic Roller Hockey, which we hosted a couple years ago, which was a great big success. Um we're looking at possibly bringing them back in 2028. Uh, so we're always looking forward in the calendar. It's not just about what's going on now, but it's it's, you know, some of these bids we need some leeway. Um, we're submitting a bid to host a USA Curling National Championship for 28. Um, those are all little things that are kind of in the works that we're again keeps the building relevant. One, um, but two, it just brings a different element to the to the arena. Um, and we're very fortunate. We got a great staff. I mean, we have a great GM who takes so much pride. Um, you know, Robbie Burby does such a fantastic job at the arena. He's, you know, he makes us all look very good in regards to his knowledge in facility maintenance, uh, facility repair, uh, machine repair. Um, and, you know, our part-time staff is just as wonderful. So, we're we're we're very fortunate on that side of things as well.

Uh, let me jump into Ingresol. Um, Ingresol Turf facility uh, used to be our ice rink. Used to be a very cold ice rink, right? Leroy, very cold ice rink. [laughter] Um, it was something that we repurposed when we um, built the Norway Savings Bank Arena. We felt that there the community needed and wanted and was asking for an indoor turf facility. And there wasn't there was a lot of them, not a lot of them, there was a number of them across the state, but they were all spread out. Um, one of our feasibility studies that we did for sports, recreation, and tourism shows us that uh about 74% of the state's population is only an hour drive from Auburn. So, it allows us to not only just get Auburn residents and local residents to use the turf facility, but we're also getting people as far as uh we've had Pres Skyle. Um we've had Rockport, uh we've had people come from Kennabunk, York, um just to use the facility. Um and then just like the just like Norway, we try to and do our best to focus on those core commun groups, right? And then we back fill that with any anything extra in regards to outside rentals. Um so we got some great groups that rent from us. Everything from baseball groups to uh Central Main Community College softball and baseball is in there right now getting ready for their season. Um and what's nice about a turf facility, you know, we've our batting cages do very very well. Um, if we had more of them, we certainly that line, you would see more money in that line if we had some more batting cages. Um, you know, and our rental income has has always stayed pretty consistent and just like the arena, now we're starting to backfill those spots that are empty. Um, our part-time salaries line did go up a

little bit. um you know, but there's other areas where we found that our general professional line, we were able to save some money there and eliminate just a little bit there to help offset um as well as some of our program expenses. We found that we're able to take a look at the budget line sheet and able to get a couple thousand out of that as well to help offset that budget a little bit on the expense side. Um, but what's again, what's nice, you're going to see um in your in the capital request, you'll see um a capital request for new turf. Um that turf has been in there since day one. Um and we're starting to see some major tears. We're starting to see some major issu not like things that could be major issues. And if that turf goes, then that everything that we see here goes with it, right? Because that's our core core product with uh with that facility. Yeah. So, we won't get into capital site. That's okay. But we'll we'll stay focused on operating. Um, but this gives you a good good overview. I think one thing that we made a change maybe two years ago just aligning management of the Ingresol and with the management of Norway. Um, it just this is what they do. It's very similar. It's it's rent rentals. It's but it's also building relationships with users and sponsors. So there's times when when Mark has a little bit more to offer a sponsor. He can say, "Hey, not only can I put your ad up at the uh at Norway Savings Bank, but let's work on an agreement that we can include Ingresol. Ingresol is getting this many people in every annually. This is what we're seeing." And so he's able to kind of expand on what he's able to offer as we work on sponsorships. So

yeah, I mean that's a great point. And you know, Robbie goes out to um Rob Burby goes out to NARS every year for uh for professional training and he always sits in a sponsorships/marketing class and people are just like, "Oh, we had a good year. We had 50,000 50,000 in sponsorships. Oh, we had a good year. We had 40,000 in sponsorships." And then Robbie goes, "Oh, we had a good year. We had $200,000 in corporate sponsorships." Um and a lot of that is because we have multiple facilities that we can position to uh you know a business like Ropers Jesse St. Lauren a great partner of ours you know um you know other partners that we're that I meet with we always I always bring up the conversation of like hey don't forget you know we also have an inosur facility but we also have the softball fields as well that we're also looking to support. So I'm also helping Heath Crocker and the recreation department with some of the recreational signage as well. So, it's nice when you have a campus when you have a campus like this and you're able to position those types of things they're you're able to talk about multiple touch points, multiple families, multiple sports and it's very valuable.

And the last thing I think we'll cover just that if you take a look at our sponsors, um most of those sponsors have been with us since the beginning. Um and so Mark just works on renewals with them, talks about other opportunities for them, but there was a large uh business support in building this arena and they committed to it and they're continuing to commit to it y since day one

to their sponsorships. So um so yeah that's again enterprise accounts you won't see this in the budget but we want to make sure that you're aware of these as we move forward so you you know uh because you'll be asked or somebody will ask a question when we look at uh the the overall budget. Well, where's Norway? Well, this is this is why I'm having this up first. questions from the council. Council, thanks. Mark, um, you mentioned the batting cages. If you had more, you could have more income. Is there space for more? No. No. Okay. That's why. Bummer.

I wish we I wish we did. I wish we had more space, but it would creep into um it would creep into the soccer field. Um, and at that point, we're already we're dealing with a hockey rink size surface, right, that we repurposed into a soccer field. So, if we we basically use the extra space outside of the hockey surface to put the two batting cages in. Other questions from the council? Council Walker.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, a couple questions. Uh I don't know if I'm not seeing it because of my eyes are not clear here or what, but uh our people that come in and have for years bought signs the the uh Norway Savings Bank, the money that they give you, I I'm not seeing that pocket. Am I missing it? It's on It's I think it's it creeped on to the second page. Okay. The sponsorship. Yes. Sponsorship 200,000. Yes. It it is that just signs is that is that a mixture of everything?

No, no, that's that's just signs. I don't include the inkind services that we also get. We also work with some partners who help provide budget relieving items such as pest uh pest control services. We do an inkind trade where he gets uh that company gets assigned. We don't get paid. We don't get charged for our pest control services. So that's not in because it's not cash related. I don't include that within within the budget. Thank you. You're welcome, Council PL.

Thanks, Mark. Um, I've got two questions. The first one might be for Kelsey and might be maybe something you can look into and we can discuss at the I know we're going to discuss this all at the end, but I'm curious where the uh Norway Arena and Ingresol have fallen in years past. If they say they're going to make $50,000 in last year's budget, where did they fall? If they said they were going to lose 25 the year before, where did they fall? How accurate have we been historically? Um, and then my second question is for you, Mark. Um, you know, I look at the increased expenses. We could all guess electricity, natural gas, um, your HVAC systems are only going to get more expensive over time. What are your plans for the next one to five years to to combat that? So, you're always coming back to us with a solvent budget. Um, you talked a little bit about filling holes, opportunities for revenue growth there. How about sponsorship efficiencies with with electricity? What types of things are more long-term?

Right. It's a great question. It's also why we haven't been overly aggressive with increasing our ice rate. So that increasing of the ice rate has allowed us to see where we needed to stay flat, right, in some years because we saw we saw we saw positive, you know, forecasting positive, right? Um and then when we see a challenging year coming up with utilities, coming up with different things, we're able to communicate ahead of time with uh communicate ahead of time with all of our users and say, "Hey, we're going to go up $5." We've never increased rate by more than $5 to uh to our current user groups. So, that's one thing that we're going to be constantly cons uh watching in regards to helping us in the future years because right now we're still kind of under we're still under rate compared to compared to the state, right? Um and then other other things is is the event side is the event side of things where we could increase between the months of April, May and June. Right now we have four events. The whole idea is also to increase some usage around those events that are not going to cost us money. I've looked into concerts. Concerts are not cheap cheap uh uh then they're not cheap to run. Um, so you finding the right events that could possibly help us push past 55,000. So we're constantly looking at those types of things. Recently had a good really uh good conversation with the promoter who does Eric's Church and um uh down in Hampton Ballroom Casino. Um and that group handles a lot of smaller acts which are a lot less which are more affordable for us. So, those are the things we're constantly trying to figure out is how can we increase that non-event line to help that because you're right, utilities are not going to they're not going to go down.

They're not going away. I guess my only followup a little bit of a loaded question in that I my thought was revolving around, you know, ICE fees. And I guess just for my perspective here, I just want to say that

I think what we've seen in a lot of different either enterprise accounts or just different organizations within the city, uh, emotionally, nobody wants to raise fees. and I don't want to raise fees, but I do think as part of a a solvent long-term plan, it is important to understand that you have to and that over time it's better to do it a little bit over time than to wait 10 years and then double it. Uh it gets organizations into trouble. We're we're going to be talking about, you know, several organizations like that in the budget process. So, you guys are the pros at this, but as I was looking at thinking about increased uh utilities moving forward, I'm thinking, you know, I think being as diligent as we can and as fair as we can in the increase in fees, I think that's like the safest way to buffer a budget. But,

so, Adam, just let you know, we started at 235 back when we first opened the doors. Uh, we're now at 260. I I think to build on that the other piece is um so we use uh we use some placer so what's called placer software right we that's how we're able to provide for you a lot of the reports when we have an event well there's benefit to that for Norway as well when there's when we're using that space Mark's able to take that data and be able to share that with sponsors because we've got to make sure that we're always demonstrating there's an economic value for you to buy this sign space or whatever it is that he's, you know, he's working through with a sponsor, why is there an investment there that's going to have a return for you? Well, Mark's able to take a lot of that data and be able to put together a great slide deck for most of the sponsors and say, "Look, you're where you're located and he's got a whole map that he does for the arena where you're located. This is how many views you're having. This is how many people we have coming in." And uh and then for the region, what we try to make sure that we're also doing when we go and speak to a sponsor is that there's an economic return to your business that's in this proximity. And Mark rattles off numbers pretty easily as far as the distance from where we are to how many people we reach and and kind of works that through. But that economic benefit, we have to be able to demonstrate that as well. But one thing that we do with the those who are renting, what's that benefit for that rate that you're paying and to remember that that timing for when you're renting comes at a premium as well. And so so we do work that through. So you know your your your price and you know off season or you know we do think about those things as we're as we're negotiating some of the agreements to make sure that it's meeting their need but it's meeting

ours. But I agree with you. We we cannot be in a business where we wait four years and then say, "Oh, now we're going to raise your rate three times of where we had it." Because these are parents that are paying for programming and that's where that money is coming through. And so those small increments, staying on track, making sure we're we're passing down some of those costs are really important, but it they cannot cover the whole cost. So that's why we look at some of the non ice events to help control some of that for the for our youth programs. You're welcome. Other questions from the council? So council walker.

Yeah. My my question is with the solid waste. You were saying that we paid $600 for the dumpster. Correct. And you're saying now we're going to go to $12,000 to get rid of the That is correct. waste that we have. And and you're saying you don't know where that where that money paid for it, how it paid for it. He might not. I can we can tell you. So, well, that's my question. I'd like to know how we paid the $12,000. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So, that's right within our solid waste line item. And so as we started working towards uh really the facilities component of what we've started taking over as far as schools, as far as all the entities, we've started breaking down those bills so that we're covering those entities are covering those costs. It's really important for an enterprise account for operating costs to cover all costs associated with that enterprise. So that's why that has been because that's an operating cost separate from what we do sometimes with personnel because personnel's we look at that a little differently other than their cost of actually being on site. Um when it comes to operating costs like maintenance costs um we make sure now that we're we're pulling that out. But I don't know Kelsey if you have any more. So there's $11,400 less in our city solid waste line item that's been moved to Mark's budget. Is that what? Yeah. Okay.

Other questions from the council. So one one item that comes up every year regarding Norway Savings Bank um is regarding the debt service. So I just wanted to cover this and make a few comments about it because I'm sure council is going to hear this question. So you'll notice in the um financials that Mark provided that they have an operating profit every year. Um that operating profit gets transferred over to help offset the debt service. So the debt service for the arena, we're going to get to this here in a minute. uh what is on the debt schedule and around 20% of that or so every year round numbers is being paid for by the uh operating profit from the arena. So, you know, a lot of times I'm asked, well, why is that on the city side? Look, that was a decision that was made a long time ago. I think that the the best way to look at this is that it's an economic development investment. So, I'll just give you a couple quick examples of the impacts you get. So, you know, I like to drive around, see what's going on. So, I stop in the arena. I was in there once earlier this year. There was a hockey tournament going on. Everybody was from out of state. Everybody participating in the tournament was from out of state. They're all staying in local hotels. They're here for several days. Um, couple weeks ago, I was in a local restaurant. Couldn't get a seat. Had to wait a few minutes. There's at least 50 kids with coaches and parents in there. I have to stop into the same place again yesterday. And the owner says to me, "Our week was made again. Same thing last night." So the there's some real uh benefits outside of the recreational

activities that go on at the arena for a lot of the local businesses in the area. So um you're likely to get this question. Um that's how I've answered it in the past and um you know I think uh it's it's a really great uh benefit to the community even though we're in effect helping subsidize the debt service. Um, Council Walker,

Mr. Mayor, I'm glad that you uh brought that up because when we were trying to build this arena, that was the way we were selling it. And there were so many people on on the left side and so many on the right side. It it took us months to convince the people sitting out there that this was something we needed to look at. We needed to bring people to our city and to show them that we have something that is is probably one of the best at the time and and it was worthwhile. It was going to pay for it in a different way. Not just selling the ice time, but bringing people to make sure they use everything we have in our city. And I'm glad you see that.

Thank you. Uh anything else on this item? Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Uh we'll move on now to the debt service schedule. All right, I'm gonna have Kelsey go up. She'll walk through the sheet with you. Um I think that um yeah, I have paper copies if you don't have your digital with you and you need a paper copy. So while Kelsey gets started, I'll come and hand you those.

Yeah, you can. It's kind of tiny on that screen there. So, uh, what we did was since we're speaking of city side only, that's all you're seeing on this debt schedule is city debt, uh, we can get further into city and school combined and things like that later if you so choose, but right now this is city side only. And this is showing everything on our books. So, you'll notice that the grand total principal and interest um, does not match what's in our debt service. And you'll see a little little note on the right hand side that says without a AR a and that debt total matches our total debt service in the budget. The reason for that is because we have on the far left that 2009 AR which is a sewer district bond. Uh it was taken on behalf of the sewer district at that time. They pay that. So it's city debt but the sewer department actually pays that. So, we do not include that in our debt service total when we're adding up our budgeted amounts. You'll also see a highlighted section that's highlighted because that's very specifically an estimate for the upcoming debt service year. Um, no principal is included because the principal doesn't come until the next budget year. But that total principal and interest as we've stated when discussing the budget does include the uh estimate for the interest of that general obligation bond. If you look on the bottom section of that highlighted it says 6215889. That total is included in our debt service total right now as an estimate for our capital coming up which I know we'll talk capital later but I just wanted to note that that is in there and show you where that's included. Is there anything specific anyone would like me to go over? We've seen this you seen this schedule last year, although like I said, it was combined with with

school and this is city only that you're seeing right now. Council PL, could could you walk me through the the public safety building? Um, yes. I'm just seeing 32.5 million in principal for that bonded amount. Am I That's correct. Well, go back to 2024 and you'll see the 5.8 85. So you'll see 2024 go bond twice. That second one says 5.85 psf. That's 5.85 for public safety facility. That was drawn down. And that was 13 + 32 is 45. I see it. Thank you. You're welcome.

And that's separated out because there were some initial charges, architectural work, design. Correct. There were initial design and permitting costs that needed to be paid for at that time. I know it's a lot of information. So, and just to confirm again as I look all the way to the right, the decrease in payments assumes a future in which we pass no additional CIP and that's what the retirement of debt would look like correct and how it would affect payment. Yes. So that difference between the total above it and the total underneath that difference is what's so the whole total gets retired but that difference is your debt to debt total reduction amount

right I think that's really important for the council to look at you know this is an item that um council plat and I have talked about for the last couple years which is there had been a lot of deferral in uh the past for capital items Lots of those things have gotten to a point where they had to be done. So what falls off your um your retirement and debt service each year in the next few years is very little. It makes it very challenging because there's still going to be ongoing capital needs for equipment, paving roads, whatever. um that the council need to think about. And as we get further into the budget, we'll see that um the probably the principal driver for the the pressure on the budget this year is debt service.

And you'll notice with our debt service, we generally stick with the principle of a 10-year term with our general obligation bonds, unless it's a major infrastructure project such as the public safety facility. You'll see that debt service goes for a 20-year term. um not for the 5.85. It actually worked in our favor to go with the 10-year term for that amount, but the larger amount is with a 20-year term. Other questions or comments from the council on the debt service schedule? Council count.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. just to add in addition to you know some some projects beyond besides the public safety facility that kind of needed to be taken care of because they we had to wait we waited as long as we could. I think there's also the reality that the costs of some of these major capital purchases has gone up tremendously in the last few years. And so I think that's also something that we have to factor in is uh we have regular things we have to purchase but those items are more expensive in the last few years than they had been 5 10 years ago. So

yeah, great point. I think that you you do see that added cost. you know, cost of an HVAC system is certainly a lot higher where than where we were, you know, back in 2007 even when we're replacing some of these. And then the other piece, as you said, councelor Cowan, I think you're seeing some at least in the last three bond years, you're seeing uh the engine 2 uh facility. We broke that up over I think four years. Um and then you see Mer Road, you see the PAL center that the share with the PAL center that was about a third of the total project is what you see in the bond. Uh so you're you're right, you are seeing that. I think the piece kind of pull out um because I know we'll be talking a lot about the public safety um building impact, right? So, if you take you take that 2004 bond and you take the 2006 bond that was pulled on that public safety, you take a look at the principal on both of those line items and you take a look at the interest. We're sitting at about total payout. We know what the total payout is now, right? But we've gone out to bond on that. We still might to have we might need a um a gap bond for once all the pricing gets done, but for the majority of this, we know what the cost is. And we're coming in at about $66 million for that total project. If you look at the bond documents that were done when we went out to bond, and Kelsey can bring that up, but we we were projecting a lot higher than where we are. We were able to make some good financial decisions on on the bonding. We wanted to make sure we're very conservative when we put it out because you're you're estimating what you're going to be for interest rates. You're estimating um what kind of return we could get on a on a bond uh ratings as well as uh the sale of those. Um but you're seeing a substantial um less of an impact. Now, this is a big number. $66 million obviously is a big number, but know that it's a lot less

than what we communicated to the public for that total project. um because of some of the financing structuring that we did. And we'll get you that, but um I'll make sure that you have that. I was just looking for it just now and I couldn't put my finger on it, but I know um I know we're at least 10 $10 million less than what was what was shared when we went out to probably more than that. Other questions? No. Uh so we'll move on to solid waste.

Yeah. So, I thought uh this would be good to pull out uh from our discussions uh because it's such a uh such an impact that we currently have when it comes to solid waste because there's there's a couple moving pieces with this, right? It's not just uh our increase on what our tipping fee will be in FY27, but it's also the impact of uh or the changes I should say with our contract for solid waste collection. And so, um, that was a a a major lift last year on on getting a contract, getting going out to bed, ensuring that we had all the things items that we wanted as a city as we uh looked to expand recycling opportunities as we wanted organic waste worked into the the contract. So, there's a lot of moving pieces that came uh with with the contract. And then there was also a um a demand on the provider for automation. And so um we were not going to and we did we tried to go with a different vendor but we we were not going to be able to avoid this. This was coming um due to the labor costs uh inefficiencies with um our current collection process. Um, so we knew that we were going to be seeing this. We wasn't we weren't sure exactly what year. Even just prior to this budget, we weren't sure whether or not uh the trucks would be delivered to uh Pineree Cassella. We weren't sure if they would have those if we were going to be looking at this this timeline, but all their equipment's in place and so

they are on track. So that's why uh the bin collect bin purchase. And so I did break that out a little differently than what you would what you would uh see in this solid waste line item just so that you can get a good handle on uh the overall uh changes. So So we're looking at about just over $500,000 increase in this line item. That's broken out with our disposal increase going from the $516,000 uh last year to 812,000. Basically, that's taking take our tonnage that we bring in, multiply that out by um going from $54 a ton to $88 a ton. That's really that's our change. And so, uh so that increase was factored in. And then our solid waste collection because we're we're changing and we're going to automation, there was a there was a decrease in our contract for what Cassella would be charging for us to collect um our waste. So, we're experiencing that decrease of about 131,000. Um, but you can see where there's there is an upfront cost and we'll see this over the next four years of this agreement. And that's the bin purchase. And so, uh, the bins will be two um two bins per uh resident that we're currently looking at. You know, we'll need to dig into this a little more because there's that's what's factored into this cost. Um but then um you know how we how we work this is going to be really important. These are I was I think I had mentioned the size of the bins the size that I gave you at the last meeting um of around 90 gallons. That was for some of our uh more municipal facilities. Um it's actually residents at 64 gallons per size. So uh which will be a lot easier for residents to be able to manage. However, that's going to really require a lot of

residents to say, "I need to make sure I'm shifting some of my waste into the recycle bin, that's recyclable materials, so that I'm [snorts] not filling up my my solid waste bin that I have because it's one bin per household." And so, um, we'll need to work through that. Other communities have, we're not, this isn't, you know, we're not the f we're not blazing a trail here. Um there's other communities that have worked through this and they figured out how that's going to work. Um that's not to say we're going to have a lot of education challenges and a lot of um um people participating in the way that we need them to participate as far as where they place their bins, what they put in those bins. All that will need to come about because we're changing um we're changing a lot of habits here over years of what I do with my leaves. Before it was just bag your leaves up and put them on the side of the road. That's not there anymore. There's no there's no one coming by picking trash up on the side of the road bags and throwing them into uh the hopper. It's bins. That's where we're operating. doesn't mean that we don't look and say, "Okay, where do we provide some leaf drop offs in the future and do we do we provide that like we do now with brush and and how do we incorporate that so that way their residents still have access?" Um, moving down is the recycling uh disposal. We're still staying about the same amount. we won't it's going to be hard to target this. If we start seeing people shift their um their usage of recycling, then that's gonna that's going to move that that needle up. Um and right now it's costing us more to recycle materials than it does for us to um take it to main waste energy. So that could shift those numbers based on we we'll start tracking it. We'll start looking at what uh people's use is. Uh

but that's been pretty consistent that number for us. And then the collection uh because we're going and we're collecting every week on recycling. There's the change that you see with the $167,000 increase. And then the the organic waste, even though the header on this line item, that's changed. Right now, it's just looking at the the 19,000. This is the line item that we were using also. It was basically miscellaneous waste in the past. And so, um, that included, uh, the spring cleanup, um, disposal costs. If you recall, we ended that last last June. And there's no, um, we did that's not in this budget. And so, as we developed this budget, we did not include any uh, spring cleanup in this budget for your consideration. But, a little more detail for you. So, you get a little more breakdown of exactly where that that line item is impacting us. But certainly um Dennis worked on negotiating this contract and working working through this with Cassella. So between the between the two of us, we can answer any questions that you might have.

Questions by the council. Council Butler, if we consider the um education component, are there anticipated costs to misplaced items through that process? So something ends up where it shouldn't be. Oh yeah. You want to cover that?

Do you mean just in the if they were to put something in their trash or in the recycling containment, what happens? Yeah. So, so there is some penalties. Um I wouldn't say there's an int increased cost. There's increased enforcement in that regard. So if somebody is putting let's say non-recyclable materials in their recycling bin, it's actually pretty neat. These automated trucks have a camera. Um, so they actually see as the waste is going into the truck and it's dumping in and that's how they identify if there is any contaminated waste, the the home would be tagged, so to speak, reported that there's an issue. They would be notified that they can't be doing whatever they're doing. Then I suppose if they continue, then there could be fines and and those kinds of things, but ultimately they would have an opportunity to be an education component. Um the part of the package from Cassella um is um putting a truck or or some folks in front of the solid waste truck. So especially on the implementation of this from an education standpoint, that's all baked into this that their fees. [clears throat] Um that essentially is the education bonus. So they'll be going ahead if the bins aren't placed correctly. um if they're not, you know, that's going to cause a problem for the truck, they're going to make the adjustments and then notify the resident. Um, hey, you put your bins out there, they they would not have been collected normally, maybe the way you had it. Um, so the education component is that Am I answering your question on that?

You are. I have one other question. Um, if I happen to be someone who has bins at home and I have extra and those are put out, how will those be managed?

They will be left there. So the only bins that will be collected would be the bins that are issued. Um the the two 64gallon bins that will be issued are the only bins that they can collect. Uh speaking to what manager Croll was talking about was um leaf collection. So somebody could if you can fit a bag of leaves in your bin along with your other trash, you'll be okay. Um but traditionally people like to put their bin their bags out and just kind of line them there. Those will not be collected going forward. Um, we will have a drop site location for things like that. Um, same place Phil alluded to our brush goes. They actually take leaves the same way. Um, so we'll be able to do some things like that, but has to be in the bin for that to be collected.

Thank you, Council Walker.

Thank you. Uh, I'm going to guess that numbers are going to come to us of how many people going to get buckets and all of that because you you've got an awful lot of increased numbers here. I would hope that not half the city's going to be left out and be picked up in a in a back of a compactor for instance. Yeah. that everyone will be getting those, you know, those bins. And there may be a a period in the roll out where some of the city is getting the automated service and some of the city is is still on a traditional um just as the roll out may not be all at once. But I expect that um once it's complete, everyone has those bins um issued to them. Blake,

I guess my second question would be uh the increase that I'm seeing with the solid waste and I understand the 54 to the 88, but I would like to see a breakdown of exactly what that 88 is going to do for the waste to energy so that we understand why we're taking such a drastic increase and and getting rid of our trash out Yeah.

Yeah. And just to follow up on that, I know the manager has been working with Main Waste to Energy. Um the 54 to 88 uh is the member community. There's going to be other tipping fee increases for non-member communities and commercial. And I think that's a good question uh council Walker that we could follow up on is what what's the size of the challenge financial challenge at main waste to energy and [clears throat] uh how are fees being raised tipping fees being raised to cover that uh across the whole user community?

Yeah, I think I can um schedule something in the future with a main waste to energy update. There's a few things that are still being worked out. I think the uh obviously the initial um change for member fee was the 54 to 88 and then um the the um the other source is the commercial um fee and um that has moved to 133 a ton. And there was a um there was a member commercial rate and um as we as we looked into that um there really was no obligation to have a member commercial rate and so we now just have one gate rate. So if somebody's coming in it's commercial rate it's $133 per ton and so that's consistent across the board. So there won't be if you're a commercial business in Auburn, you're not getting a different price than if you're a commercial business. It's all consistent. [clears throat] The manager will get us some additional information on this, but I think fundamentally the idea here is to avoid what we just had to do a week ago. I guess a week ago now uh when main waste to energy has an operating deficit the member communities have to in effect bail them out. Right. So um [clears throat] our understanding in Auburn when we did that with the board was that that would not be recurring and they would take actions that would uh balance out their financials in the FY27 budget which is driving a lot of this um increase. Uh, Council Platt.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I guess just for further understanding, so I see the budget. I I understand the contracts that we signed. None of this is a surprise to me, so it all looks good. Um, just for my further understanding, really, the only or maybe Mr. Mayor, you want to answer this. The only power we have over these numbers is to encourage people to create less waste. uh to encourage people to get their organic waste into that collection stream and out of, you know, out out of main energy to waste. Other than that, there's not much we can do. We've committed to weekly pickups. We've committed to solid waste and recycling. Um, you know, I guess I'm really saying nothing other than that. After this budget cycle, I think there's probably some discussions to be had about, you know, how how might we as a city encourage people to create less waste? I I personally have a lot of issues with this notion that as humans we're allowed to consume as much as we want and it's up to our municipalities to pay for that waste removal. Um that doesn't have bearing on the budget discussion, but that's my takeaway from looking at these numbers. So

yeah. Yeah. So I I think fundamentally that's correct. You know, we have a contracted price here. I I think that there's some things that are important to understand about how we got here. So, um, the I' I've had people raise questions about, well, we don't have weekly recycling now. Let's just cut the budget and only have it twice a month. Well, well, the issue here is that the equipment that's being used are split trucks and they're going to be doing recycling and they're going to be doing waste and you're not going to save any money uh by switching your recycling rate uh re you know the the schedule. Um the other thing is um the follow-up people have said was let's just keep doing what we're doing now. Well, I'm not sure we could find a vendor that would keep doing what we're doing now with having manual pickup. And even if we did, the the the disposal rate would be a lot higher because the significant increase in labor to try to do this the way they've been doing it now. So, I think you're right, councelor Platt. Um the the primary way people could reduce this is by reducing the amount of waste that they produce. I the only thing I would add to it which you you might see as we move forward you know as we roll out new programming it always uncovers stuff right I think there's um as we look at our list as we look at who's um using the service currently I think that the team's already working on as a commercial business that's also a home but getting curbside so we'll work through those as we find them but policywise what you might see come back to you as a

recommendation regarding policy. If we see that, you know, we'll look at how many unit multi-unit um homes we're looking at, what's that number that should be part of the regular household waste, and then what really is that tipping point that that's probably more commercial. And so, if there's we we're going to assess that. We're going to look at the numbers, how many we have, and then you might see a policy decision that comes back that might shift some of that out from u what our costs are. And so, but those are policy decisions that we'll we'll bring back to you. But you're right, for the most part, what you're seeing right here, fixed cost.

Yeah, I I see garbage creation analogous to energy cost. It's it's just getting worse and worse. And I think it's going to be we're going to be having discussions we've never had to have about the generation of of refues. So, council count. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, just um make sure I'm correctly thinking if if say multif family or you know housing areas if it went to commercial be larger bins for example or it would be on their own. Currently, I believe that it's three units.

Three units are considered part of our costs what we collect. If it's greater than three units, well, I'm sorry. They do have to pay pay for that difference, but we allow them to be part of our collection at a at a fee. But what we're saying is, okay, should that continue or is there is there a number that makes more sense that that's just commercial and we probably um especially as we look to roll this out and we're looking at where are these bends going? How are we applying them on the street? is there, you know, that's going to be part of our decision-m uh as we move forward, but we need to give some runway to this for those who own these buildings.

And just one quick followup, um sorry if I missed this, but the bin purchase, there's going to be some additional yearly cost, but will it be lower than this or is this is your number for four years? Okay. And then it's been management after that, Council Walker. Yeah, I think my last question is, are we going to keep some of the recycling bins that you have up near public works? I think so. I think that makes good sense. We've got it worked into the agreement. Dennis, you got more to add to that? Just

I I just think yes. I mean, at this point, they intend to stay there. I think it's a part of our data analysis and avail, you know, and checking on that as we go. What do we see? Does that with weekly recycling does that start to really drop off in terms of the uses at these drop you know drop sites if we see the equal we'll just have those will be some decisions we'll make as we understand um what the usage is and the data tells us.

We we've also looked at do we um do we move a bin um over to 67 Kittyhawk um that would be in a gated area. it would only be when the operations when it's operating. Um, but that might help with that end of the community to be able to have access uh to recycling as well. So, they're not driving all the way to Grace Lawn or maybe they just don't even take advantage of that. So, we have some we have some opportunities there once we start assessing how much are we actually bringing in once we roll out the animation uh the automation.

I like that opportunity, but I I got one suggestion. And I don't know if it you probably thought about it, I'm sure, with all that we've gone through. I I I believe cardboard is probably one of the only things that's given any payback at all. I was thinking that maybe you could look at having one of them types of dumpsters because we we really need to get that out of the regular waist stream. That takes up way too much room and in holidays it's just crazy. We know how people are shipped everything. We need to, I think, have something on maybe two different parts of Auburn that they could crush that cardboard and we can send it out and make a couple bucks on it. I know you have to invest to do that, but it's a thought. Well, our investment would be to to build on our relationship with our provider to say there could be a cost benefit to you on providing us a bin, a you know, a dumpster that is only a compactor for cardboard. So, you're not having because this is a we do single sort. This is where they bring it, they sort it all out. So, you're not getting that c contamination, but you're also eliminating a lot of labor when it comes to that. So I think that's where we leverage our relationship and we will leverage a cost benefit to our partner and uh and try to see if we can if we can make something like that occur.

Council Dwell. Yeah. Just um another wedi question but uh as as this transition happens I think initially a lot but even then going on people will still be able to bring their excess household waste to MWAC. So yes. Okay. Because I can imagine people are going to not put out the wrong bin. They're gonna have there's just Yeah. Okay. Good. Y

other questions from the council. The last thing I would mention, it's not in the budget this year, but just to remind the council that part of the contract that the staff negotiated includes uh the vendor haveing to meet the extended uh producer responsibility law. when that's triggered. It's been passed by the legislature uh DP and rule making and the way that's going to work is that uh if we support recycling of the items on the EPR lift, the city will receive revenue back from DP that comes from the EPR uh fees that they charge manufacturers. So, um hopefully in the out years we'll see um some additional revenue coming in on the solid waistline here from recycling. Um anything else on this item? Not seeing any. We can move on to revenue. Great.

So, you have the um the revenue sheet. I'll break these out into classifications. We'll start with general government. If you take a look at the first four categories within that line item, those are reimbursements, direct reimbursements that are factored on a formula. And so our homestead exemption, our personal property reimbursement, tree growth, and veterans, that's all based on a formula. We've worked that through. the the driver on the homestead. Um I think a good um this is a good one for us to discuss is that it's based on what our our certified ratio is. The city assessor came in and and gave a presentation talked about that certified ratio. That certified ratio drops then the percent the the amount that we get back from the state also drops. And so um so we know what if it's a full 100%. We know um we know that you know what guaranteed what our return will be based on um on that 100% ratio. Uh we know what that looks like based on the state's formula as that drops. And that's that piece that we work through and as the mayor I think gave a good good overview at the last meeting as it pertained to some of that is determined all of that rather is determined after we approve this budget. So, we are pretty conservative with the amount that we put in here. Uh, we want to make sure that we're hitting it. You can see where we were, you know, for the FY the actual for FY uh 24, you know, we um I'm sorry, FY20 25 uh was just around 1.7. There's some some built-in changes there. We won't have the the actual for FY26 till after this year, but you can see where where we're we're estimating this pretty closely. Uh personal property is another one that uh always has some changing impacts to this. We we tend to lose lose revenue on on personal property because

of some of the changes that the state worked into the formula and so but we try to the way that we've been able to consistently hold this we're we're staying pretty consistent. Um and then uh tree growth and veterans again that's veterans will be really driven by who applies for that. But there you got a question. Yeah. And before before you move on, just so the council's aware, there is very active discussion going on the legislature regarding um some of these exemptions. Um it it um a lot of this is being done um to address the policy issues surrounding uh the burden that property tax has on people. Um the issue for a municipality like Auburn is that um if the exemptions are increased, the city still has to make up the difference right in your budget. So, um, a number of the advocacy groups that represent municipalities have aren't opposed to, um, additional veterans or blind or homestead exemptions. But our point has been that if the state wants to increase those that that difference needs to be made up through state revenues because if if you think about this if you increase let's say you increase the homestead exemption to $50,000. We get reimbursement for part of that from the state but the balance you've got to make that up through the rest of your taxpayers. So, it's really a situation where um I if if they if the state wants to change these, that's great. They just need to make up the difference through

state revenue so it's not having an adverse impact on other property taxpayers.

We'll continue monitoring that. We um we do it now. There's like the mayor said, it's just it's a constant battle and there's a constant push and pull when it comes to a lot of these uh excise taxes. This is money that we actually collect when we do process uh vote uh boat registrations, vehicle registrations, although so we we do collect a fee on the excise taxes. Uh questions on that, Kelsey can can provide more information for you on that. The other um the other the largest revenue stream that we have within the this revenue line item is the uh state revenue share. Um and again this is one where um constant bills on this as well on what is that formula? Should it change? Uh how does it impact us? These are things that we're want we're monitoring. I think that um monitoring the formula. I think there's a bill this week that's regarding uh the school funding formula. So there's uh and those are good changes that are happening within within that that formula. It's probably been outdated by 10 15 years now, but it's these are we're we're monitoring these, but we are being as conservative as we can on the state revenue share. What the the state revenue um office does for us is they provide us a projection. They're they're for they're economists that are forecasting what are these impacts within the state as far as tourism coming in as far as um you know how much people are spending within their households. So they're going to give us an estimate based on the formula of where they believe we're at. We we usually get one we got one actually in February. Usually it's March, but we got it a little earlier. We got a we got an estimate and you know we we look at that as exactly that. It's an estimate. So, we try, we have not said, "Okay, we'll just take that amount and we'll paste it

in here and that's that's the amount we're going to go to because Kelsey one wouldn't allow me." And she would um give you a lot of reasons why there's a lot of variables that go with that and we shouldn't do that. Uh we're we're we're landing currently at 7.7. Um it's about a million dollars less than where the state's at. um but we in their projection but we think this is um you can see where in FY25 we did collect 8.3 um but again there's so many moving pieces with this as far as what's happening in the economy

I think it's important for the council to understand how this is calculated right so when you think of revenue sharing you know we have the school aid school aid is a there's a formula but it's an appropriated amount state has appropriated the funds to pay that general revenue sharing. The uh revenue forecasting committee is looking at a crystal ball and saying this is what we think the economy is going to look like over the next year. This is calculated monthly. The estimate is just their estimate by applying a formula with the factors that um uh pertain to Auburn and saying this is how much revenue sharing we think that you'll realize over the course of the year. It could be more. It could be less. It's calculated every month. They send you the check every month and you get what you get. So, um, the the council's been quite careful on this before because it's really difficult. Um, you know, as we've seen just in the last couple weeks, the economy can have some significant changes quite rapidly.

And then the um the only other one that I think I would highlight under general government would be your the last item, which is the fund balance uh contribution. I've we've kept that the same. We're keeping it the same here. You know, at some point does it make sense to reduce that? It certainly does. I think that we uh we want to make sure that we we look to reduce that. Uh you'll see actual revenue uh is zeroed out. I think that's just uh probably a timing.

Yeah, it's just a timing. So, we still we still are we'll pull that in so that way there it closes those books out. But um you know I think that it makes you know we really don't have the capacity in this year to reduce that but we certainly do not want to increase it. I think we have we have the amount that we have right now we should continue whittling that down. I think the council has taken a good policy approach with fund balance so that if there's those one-time um kind of uh allocations from the fund balance that should be done once you have the amount or obviously if there was an emergency like like we had with main waste to energy you can go ahead and shift that that's why it's there. Um, but then really your decision- making should be when you receive the report back from the auditors, if we happen to if we're over the 14% threshold, that's where you should take a look at that and say, "Okay, what do we do with that?" But I'd rather see you do it there on one time than to allocate it here because all that does is it creates a cliff that we may not have that revenue that that additional fund balance in a future year. So now we're we're forced to reduce that. Right? So two things um going back to state revenue share I just wanted to make note for um example in fiscal year 24 we budgeted 5.975 and the state had projected uh almost 2 million more than that and we ended up with 6.6. So that's why that projection um is really important to not take that as an actual number. I know it looks nice and we really would like to, but um a lot of what goes into our fund balance actually comes from that state revenue share and it is important that we continue to put money into that fund balance to stay within that 10 to 14%. Back to the fund balance discussion, uh it's in the current budget as revenue as a carry forward because we know this is such a difficult budget. However, I will

say we do not transfer fund balance in unless we're not meeting our fund balance contribution percentage at the end of the year. If for some reason we've we've over spent somewhere or uh we didn't get expected revenues, that's when that fund balance contribution actually gets transferred in to that general fund or gets used. Uh we did not use that. We did not overspend. We did not uh obtain under projected revenues uh in the last year. So, uh 2025. So that was not transferred in or used. So while it is budgeted, it's very rarely actually transferred and used. That said, as city manager said, it's preferred to not continue budgeting that revenue with your budget. We did include that again this year because we know it's such a difficult budget. There is a large jump in debt service. So there are some variables that we felt comfortable including it in this budget. But that note of not continuing to do so in the future is really important to keep in mind as we move forward.

Thank you, Kelsey. That's a a great point regarding what when and why we bring it over. PL. Yeah, I have a question on the general government section here. It seems that most of um obviously there's a couple nuanced issues like homestead exemption if it becomes a unfunded mandate from the state that becomes an issue. But things like personal property reimbursement, uh, excise tax of vehicles, some of our larger revenue items, seems like those will tick up over time. You know, personal property might go down, but then it goes up and then it goes down, then goes up. Yeah. So, personal property, for example, uh, only goes up if valuations go up. So, if we're not having valuation increase, we can expect that to reduce.

Just depreciates and then we revalue. Correct. It'll just continue. My question is for I guess specifically for state revenue sharing only because I have a memory of the mayor somebody saying that as we grow that percentage share could go down. Is that correct? City manager mentioned that at the prior budget workshop that there is a potential for us to go above a threshold where we won't get that second portion of revenue share. We would still get an initial portion but not that second portion. the city is still under that threshold at this time. That's just something we keep an eye on.

So my question, I guess, is just long term. Of all these large revenue line items, what's the one or two that in a year or two or three or four or five might not be as robust as it is right now? I know on the school side, you know, those are some of the discussions you think about when when you look at the funding line items, but are there any on here that we should be looking at as a a future time bomb, or is that not how this is really looking? Yeah, I mean the mayor probably has some some thoughts regarding Homestead and some of those initiatives. I think we're we're I think we're locked in regardless of what happens with a change in administration. I think we're pretty locked in with u certain, you know, we talk we talk about and when we talk about legislation, we talk about protecting the core, right? As municipal governments, we statewide, we talk about protecting the core. Part of that is that homestead reimbursement. Part of that is the state revenue share. Those are the that's those core items that we want to make sure that we we're advocating that there's no leg legislative changes that are impacting that. That so we we are that's what we advocate for. As far as threats, I think you know, Mayor, I don't know if you want to cover some of those, but

I also hope I didn't open up a can of worms. I don't want to get too far off topic.

It's fine, but it's a really important topic to think about, right? So, uh the city manager is correct, right? the the um as an example at the main mayor's coalition, we spend a lot of time messaging to leadership um of the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee and with the governor um about the importance of some of these items. So, you know, we're feeling very comfortable at this point um in this current budget cycle um where things are with with uh revenue, general revenue sharing, where things are with school funding. Um it wasn't that long ago um that revenue sharing was slashed, right? We had an administration that uh decided that the way to balance the budget was not to worry about changing the state portion of the budget. It was just reduce the revenue sharing. So, uh, I I I don't think that, um, I I don't think that there's a foreseeable event given that what happened in the Leage administration and what the impact was for municipalities. um that there's an appetite for this, but I don't think that people should just assume you're always going to get re revenue sharing at the same rate. I think that the municipalities need to work hard to keep making that case about why it's important and [clears throat] why it uh helps alleviate property tax burden. um some of these other ones. Um um we're always advocating for an increase in the GA reimbursement rate,

the homestead reimbursement rate. A lot of these things that are split um I I think it's unlikely to see any significant changes to those in the near term. I think the property tax task force that just brought their interim report in and they're going to report next year. I I think you could see some significant changes to um um how property tax is handled. I I think the goal of that is to be revenue neutral, meaning that um we may um receive less property tax revenue, but we would be expecting revenue from the state to increase um for broad-based taxes. So um especially general purpose aid to education and general revenue sharing I just uh have catastrophic effects on municipalities. So you you have to advocate for this all the time.

We're constantly monitoring. Sometimes there's some really good initiatives that are being brought forward, but then when it comes to appropriations on how they're going to pay for that, that's when they're usually pulling from a revenue stream we already have. And so if they're now going to pull from that revenue stream or a county revenue stream right now, it's like, okay, now that's going to reduce or it's going to increase what we have to pay county tax or it's going to reduce what we're getting in some other line item. So, those are those things that we're constantly chasing, I guess, would be a good good uh illustration on that is that because it's it's to the 11th hour with the appropriations committee that you might see some kind of sweeping change and you have to make sure that we're we're monitoring it and that's why we are involved in coalitions that have people there and they're constantly monitoring it for us as well. Um just a brief comment about uh the second part of general revenue sharing which is called rev 2. So rev one you know is the bulk of it. It's driven off of uh the monthly numbers the state gets. Rev two is an an appropriated bucket of money. It's fixed. Um how the pie carved up is the issue. And um it's it's a fairly complicated formula, but um we've seen some abnormalities in the outcome over the last few years, mostly driven by uh communities that had really rapidly escalating property values at at a greater rate than Auburn. So, um I would we've seen some significant increases in some past years here in Rev 2 um where some other communities have have dropped off. Some some have zeroed out. They didn't even get any Rev 2

money. The Rev 2 money is really focused on the service centers. Uh so I would expect that um if we see any softening of rev 2 money, it's because of the changes in the rate of property uh valuation growth in some of the cities south of here. So I would I I would not expect that you're going to be seeing any uh it's unlikely you'll see significant increases like we have in the past in Rev 2. Uh I I because they're now getting a piece of the pie, right? And the pie is only so big. So I I I would expect over time that that could be flat or diminished somewhat, but it doesn't it doesn't have the impact of general revenue sharing.

Yeah, there's very few communities that have uh demographics like Auburn that we can even begin to compare with. So we have, if you think about how our tax base is really broken out, we're well balanced. And so when there are some of these major swings with market for some of these other communities, if that major swing is 80% of their tax base, they're going to see a much a larger impact on that than we would if we're we're very well distributed as far as uh the balance of our tax base. So some of those swings we don't we don't impact we don't see that impact like other communities do which is a great thing. Al Auburn is very well well balanced within our tax base. Not many communities can can uh really build on that. And if you look at some of those other communities that their um revenue share too dropped. Some of those communities had oceanfront um properties that had some pretty high impacts that we we we're not going to experience. Council K.

And when you say we're well balanced, you mean by the class of our properties, correct? Yeah. Sorry. Yep. I do have one other question. If I uh the investment income, the money that's here, that's dividends often base of right. So that is a combination of both the interest we're receiving off of the funds that we have with our our banking system as well as actual invested in CDs. So we do have an investment portfolio. Um so that's a combination of those things. Thanks.

And I've had a recent conversation with our uh investment portfolio rep about changing rates. Um it's a little bit of a moving target based on what's happening with the economy in the world. Uh so we tried to be as conservative as we could while still also noting that we've seen an increase over the last several years and we're we're getting some good interest rates at this time.

No changes really in the next few categories. So unless there's specific questions there, I'll jump down to uh under business and community development. where you see the uh general assistance uh state reimbursement. Um if you recall, I talked about this as one of those drivers of why our expense line item decreased. Here's that offset. Your revenue also increased. So we increased by $115,000 as a result of we are anticipating that we will pay less out in general assistance. The state reimbures us at a 70% rate for actual costs that we pay out, not admin. So the actual cost that we pay out to recipients. So that's you're seeing that that's the 70% of that uh of that expense line item that we reduced.

But it's a it's a good it's a good negative number to see, right? Yeah. Every every 70 cents that we aren't getting there, we're saving a dollar in expense. So it's a a 30 cent net benefit to the

That's right. Yeah. Okay. Um and then if you jump down, you'll see a lot of our departments have small miscellaneous fees. Those have been incorporated to ensure if it's something beyond uh just general um resident um services that we provide, if it's added costs to different reports or funding that we're getting in, then then you'll see it listed here. Uh if you jump to fire and EMS is probably the next one. Um we did a small increase in EMS transport and this is one we'll talk probably more when um we get to public safety. We talk about their budget. We can talk about um the EMS side of the fire operation. Um there's a lot taking place with insurance companies on reimbursements in the state regarding main care on reimbursement. And so this is a constant fight to uh make sure that we're collecting what we need to be collecting. Um I think we Kelsey can probably if there's somebody wants further detail, we can make that available in the future, but talk about what we uh what we actually bill and what we receive and and then we also pull money um that goes to the EMS uh capital as well. So that when you're paying for some of that EMS capital expenditures, you're going to see in the um when we talk about CIP, you'll see different funding sources. One of them is bond. The other one comes from our EMS uh reserve account that we've created to uh to reserve some of those dollars. So we're not bonding any of our EMS dollars.

So each quarter in your finance report, you get an EMS billing page that gives you a little update of where we're at with collecting those payments. Any questions there? Um the other uh piece is uh the next category which is police. We talked about at the last meeting about incorpor uh including uh the MDE agent and you see that we've added that that revenue uh line item for that expense. It's going to offset the expense. But you'll also see where uh we reduce two other line items. One of them is the transfer into the opioid from the opioid settlement. Um we had been carrying that in there for quite some time. We're going to have a workshop where we just talk about the opioid um funds that we currently have. How should those be distributed? Where are our priorities? So, I pulled that out of this so that we can have a conversation about that because we see that probably sitting best in just a a revenue line item that as you approve items, it'll go into that that revenue line item as an expense and as new dollars come in and you'll be able to get a report on on where we currently sit with our opioid funds. But that's why you see that uh $60,000 removed even though you had been budgeting a revenue coming in um transfer in from opioids. We had never had any expenses and I think this is a third year of putting it or there was at least three years of putting in there because there was a grant through that offset that cost for us. We're still 44 weeks somewhere like that left to spend in that grant. And so we've got that time uh to really have a larger conversation regarding the opioid funds and how would you like to distribute those. So we'll do that um at a future workshop. I believe we're going to look at April for that uh for you to be able to have that conversation. And then the

last one is regarding fines for parking violations. Um this is one where parking's been um there's parking that's in a special revenue account because we collect um parking permit fees. Um, but then there's also expenditures that the way that that revenue account was set up is that the maintenance of that parking garage that we have never hits into your any of your expense because that was developed and designed and set up to be offset by revenues that come in through the permitting. And so we've started moving some of our expenses regarding parking into that same revenue account. It just makes sense to move this into that. So now what you'll start seeing is a parking special revenue account report and you'll be able to see all transactions in and out of that and just puts them all in one place for you. So

and remind me we move we move the this is sort of a follow on from last year. My recollection is last year's budget we moved the parking officer into that special revenue account out of the police department. Is that correct? Makes so now this is taking the revenue with it

because that's that balance you know where the um if you just said look we don't want to do you know we don't want the enforcement piece um just we'll just have the parking permits without the enforcement arm people aren't not going to buy permits you need to [clears throat] have that balance and so there is there's a cost to that and that's built into the enforcement questions from Sorry. Go ahead. No, good. No, that's it. Questions from the council. Council Gary.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This isn't so much a question about what we've just heard, but I've had several constituents asked if we have officers out on the road to try to catch those that are going well above the speed limit. Certain roads in Auburn make it very easy for them to take for some drivers to take off like they're flying a plane where where the wheels hardly touch the ground.

I do have a and I think I just mentioned it to councelor Cow when we met earlier today. I do have a report that's been due to you. I have it already. I just haven't forwarded to you. I will do that. It's the uh traffic enforcement plan and uh and then their quarterly report. I'll get that to you. We do have officers that are out there. Um I think there's always that um you know part of the I think I shared part of the main drug enforcement um shift was that our pace officer to be focused more on some of our traffic initiatives and work there. But then there's always that balance of um call volume and availability and and uh you know the mayor and I have had a lot of conversations regarding changing culture, right? what is that culture within um the PD as far as enforcement and um and what we do regarding that. But the report will give you a good a good summary of um traffic stops um tickets written and types of types of violations as well. So,

are we still having officers out by the schools during the time that kids get dropped off and stuff?

We do. Yeah. Yeah. Fair view. Fair View has been one of the the real target areas for the PD uh recently. Um but yes, I'd say we do that during certain peak peak times when available. I think that's the other piece. If they're on a if they it's unfortunately, you know, school starts at the same time that we have our spike in call volume because of its commuter hours. That's when we're going to have most of our crashes. that's when we're going to have other calls for service. And so sometimes that's that pulls away. Um but when they they are available or any special details they work in to make sure that they're hitting that. Um you know, as a reminder, especially for new counselors coming in, um municipalities receive zero dollars on those fines that are issued. Um that goes to the state. So there's no uh for every ticket we issue, we don't receive a a portion of that back. Um what the state does provide for us are grant opportunities. And so uh so we u were very aggressive in our grant opportunities to be able to provide um distracted driving or um OUI grants um speed grants. And so we'll we'll apply for those. And when we do that, the officer that's working that detail, that's their priority. That's what they need to be doing. They need to be uh demonstrating that they are making those stops. We provide report back to the state on how many and um what that looks like. Challenge is that you could have an officer out doing a detail and doing a speed detail and their first stop is an OUI. That's it. that officer is now consumed with probably a two-hour processing of an OUI and it really takes away from that that grant opportunity. But so those are that's just some of what we have to work through when that happens. But um but I I would say just as a

reminder that there's no revenue line item anywhere regarding the amount of citations that other questions from the council.

Um any any further discussion by the council at this point? Uh if not, Mr. manager, do you want to talk about the forward-looking schedule and I'll make a few comments about how we'll approach the um next few work sessions.

Thanks. So, just as a reminder, so we're we're scheduled and I definitely have items for you uh for um each Monday in in March. Uh I think we've left the last Monday in March as tentative, but I think we'll probably end up using that time. Um and so if you can just continue planning on each March, I think the um just looking at my um what we have for for you uh moving forward is that uh tomorrow night I will be in in accordance with the charter. I need to present the CIP plan to uh the planning board and receive feedback from the planning board regarding the CIP. So, I'll be doing that uh tomorrow night. And um and so on the 16th in the council budget workshop period before the meeting, we'll talk about the 5-year CIP and then we'll also talk about public safety. Uh and that as time allows, there again, like the mayor mentioned at the last meeting, some of our agendas because we know we have a lot to do with with budget. We'll we'll look to build in time if we need to um after the council meeting to to finish up any of our budget workshop items. Uh but that'll be goal at the next meeting uh on the 23rd. And I I'll send you a full schedule for you, but on the 23rd, we'll I'll kind of give you an overview of where we are with public works. Um and then general government, we'll talk about all the general government line items and then the intergovernmental programs. And I'll have those reps. I'll email those reps and ask them to be here or provide you a report. Some we've already got a report from them, but if they want to be here in person, uh that's their opportunity to come in and and answer any questions you have on the intergovernmental components. Um the by

charter um getting the CIP plan to you is um is prior to March 30th and so I'm already hitting that by providing that to you on the 16th and getting that to you. And then um then like I said, we'll have a a tenative um budget workshop at that date. And really, I'm leaving that open for as items come up that you might need for a follow-up or just general discussion of of budget, where we're at, where we're heading. That'll be time for you at that at that meeting. The uh school budget presentation will be on April 6. That's when the school will come in and talk about the work that they've done. And then I'll provide you the actual final city manager report. Um, and again, that's to ensure that I'm hitting that before the charter deadline, which is April 30th. I'm getting that to you in advance. Um, as well as uh that will be when you adopt this the the uh CIP plan. And again, it's the plan. the items that we've identified that are maintenance uh projects coming forward, all those things that's built into that plan. You'll have that well in advance. We'll have time to talk about that and uh we'll make any adjustments that we need to in the plan. And then um then the April 20th workshop, we'll talk about the actual CIP for FY27. What does that look like? And um we might actually be able to work that in in a in an earlier meeting based on where we're at for time and the schedule, but I want to at least make sure we're we're listing it so we know at least by this date we will have talked about that item and discussed it and we'll have a conversation about what's that bond number you're looking at. You what do you want to ensure that we're covering? You'll have my recommendation. I'll put that in there where I see as priorities, but ultimately you'll need to make that

priority list. And um and then the um and then that leads us to um adopting the school budget on May 4th. And our reason for hitting that is that there are some all some requirements as far as getting that adopted by the council, getting that available to the public so that um so at their um the June 9th budget school referendum, all that is done and we're in that timeline to be able to make that referendum available to the public. So um and then as the mayor said, you have all the way till uh June 30th to work through the budget. So, we'll we'll build out the schedule as we need to, but that's the uh that's the timeline that we have right now. Um often the work is done by that May 4th. Often in the last couple years, we've been able to complete that work by May 4th. And then um and so we've had the uh the council's public hearing and first reading of the budget at that May 4th date if we're there. If we're not there, then we'll we'll push that out. So,

y

sometime in the next week or two, uh we'll have some budget books available. So, if you've been on the council in the past, you're familiar with this, but uh any documents that we're giving at workshops are going to be part of those binders. So, don't worry about having all this loose loose paper kind of hanging around. Everything that we've provided and will be providing to you will be included in those in those binders. So, uh, if you bring those binders with you to each workshop when we have new documents, um, you can either leave them for me to place where they need to go in that binder or I can just hand them to you and you can put them in where you'd like. But, uh, that'll be in the next week or so that you have those binders to be able to just have everything in one place and be able to, uh, follow along and and be able to look back at things that we've discussed before.

Uh, a couple of the scheduling items. So, there'll be um, uh, public forums regarding the budget. The first one is tomorrow night, the 10th, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. across the hall here in the community room. And on Saturday the 14th, 3 to 5:00 p.m. at the resource center on Mil Street. Um, this is an opportunity for members of the public to come in, ask questions about how the budget works, uh, share their thoughts and concerns about the budget, uh, what they see as priorities. um it's uh it's a more uh conversational approach than what you can get through the public hearing. So again, tomorrow night 6:00 to 8 here in the community room and Saturday the 14th 3 to 5 at the resource center.

Um

can I just add one thing to that mayor? So that's those are the the mayor puts that form on which is he's gotten great feedback encourage councils to attend staff we're not part of that only because it can really distract the conversation if staff's there it's like well let me try to answer that question and that's really needs to be here at this at this setting and so um the mayor collects that and a lot of times some of you will also get that but then the mayor says hey here's some some questions that might have been asked and we'll get those answers but we're we we're not at that table only because it can it can distract the public forum. We want people to come in and talk to you about, you know, their concerns regarding the budget or their support of the budget, things that they're seeing. So, that's just a little snapshot of why that's set up the way that it is.

Great. Thank you. Um, I think I think the other thing I would want to mention tonight is some expectation setting for the council around how these workshops are are going to unfold. Um, you know, as the manager uh has presented, there's there's going to be parts of this budget that uh the council really has [clears throat] no means to control. You have to pay a debt service, the county taxes, what it is. You have to um uh pay uh you know, we talked about solid waste tonight. Some of these things [snorts] um aren't in the control of the council. A lot of the budget when we get into talking about the programs and services provided through departments is where the council have to be thinking about how they want to prioritize the delivery of programs and services. Um as as you saw when the manager talked about budget drivers, you know, on the city side, um we're at a 13.6% increase in the budget, right? So there's going to be some discussion about this. Um I've asked the manager as we um have the workshops regarding departments um to take the difference between his proposed budget and the 7.5% target that we set in dollars and aortion that uh by percentage of the budget equitably across the departments. Not to say that the manager is recommending that that's the cut, but I think that will help people understand when we get to a department and we say, "Okay, you know, I'll just make up a number for illustrative purposes." The department uh request from the manager was a million dollar. If we have to close this gap to 7.5, you got to cut $180,000 out of this. And just in general terms,

excuse me, in general terms, what that would look like, it's not going to be specific because there's a lot of staff work that goes into this. If you start prioritizing things and identifying cuts, I I think that'll just um help uh people understand the nature of the impact on the department and it be a good starting point for the conversation. Um, again, it's not the manager is not going to be saying, "I'm recommending that cut." He's provided his recommended budget, but just helps you frame up the discussion. So, any any questions on the forward-looking schedule and the work sessions that are coming up? Council Walker? Yeah, I I would like to ask that uh we have the people that run the solid waste come in with their budget, show us why that they need a million dollars. We're talking 56650 from just the city of Auburn. There's 11 other towns or 10 for sure that are paying the other half of this amount of money. and and that's a lot of money no matter how we look at it for this city to have to throw into that budget not seeing why we're almost doubling our budget. So I think what they need to come in explain to the taxpayer of Auburn and this council of why we're going up to an 88 uh dollar increase for instance for a budget that has had problems for the past 3 four years that has come to the point where we've spent some around $3.5 million and we're trying to make up $1 million in one year uh on top of what we've already given that facility which

you just wrote a check for around 600,000. The other towns wrote enough to make a million dollars up, whatever it may have been. Uh I feel that they owe us at least where they're going with this money and what that money is going to really do. So, so just to just to be clear for the public, so the the council Walker where the 623,000 I think it was uh that we uh funded at a designated fund balance was basically to cover an operating deficit in this fiscal year. So I I think when they come in um these are very good questions the counselors raised. When they come in the the the focus will be on the FY27 budget which have they have they adopt has the board adopted it the FY27 budget they have. So I think if they come in with the FY27 budget and explain it re really the point is if in FY26 they had a budget for which they had an operating deficit that required the member towns to catch that up. What's taking place not just for the fees that Auburn's going to have to pay, but what's the revenue and expense situation in that budget overall? um to to show us what's driving the tipping fee increases and um why that's necessary to be able to operate for the year without Auburn having to spend fund 62% of whatever an operating deficit might be so that this doesn't occur again in the next year. So, um,

yeah, the only thing I think I would say is, um, so I'm the municipal rep on the on the board. Um, I'm not sure, uh, counselor who we would bring in. I mean, I think I could I could bring their executive director in, but these are this is this is the history and I think we'll we'll get right into it. They have been underbudgeting almost $2 million for the last two years. So when we talk about where is this money going, it's because it's been going out to major maintenance costs and they had not been anticipating what some of those costs would be. And so that's why it was such a drastic shift because if not you're you're going to see if we we didn't start making these changes and these ma these changes even though you cannot balance the deficit of main waste energy on the member municipalities there there's no we just can't make up that cost right but I think that we needed to increase it we've been paying $54 a ton or just this last year we've been in the 40s for a long time $54 a ton last here if you look at a comparison which would be main way I'm sorry um ecomain uh their member fees are somewhere around 10und 105 I think 110 that's their member fees and so we've been really under that for quite some time and we've had a great I think council walker has been on this board for a long time we've had a great uh reserve that um cash reserve at main waste to energy it wasn't until the last three years that these major maintenance issues started impacting and really plaguing the plan. And so, um, you know, as I said when I voted on the FY27 budget, it I'm not, you know, I'm not, um, 100% certain that's the budget that's going to carry the end of the day because it I'm not we're putting guesses. They have not fix

the problem yet and they're still working through it. They've got people coming in looking at the boiler trying to determine what some of the uh the issues are. There's one boiler with some of the most recent changes. It's operational and it's being effective. Fingers are crossed that that was the solution moving forward. The other boiler's down. They're working through that and they're trying to figure that out. But um you know I I still think we're um we're going to be somewhere around a half a million dollars short just on the projections that we're seeing. And so um but we needed a starting point with the FY27 budget. I think we made the best conservative effort based on revenues that we have. Any other revenue that comes in has to come from its members through an assessment. There's no other way to make that work. There's you can't you can't go and say uh you know we I mentioned earlier we were able to move the co the commercial to 133. As council Walker will tell you, you're you're you're at market. You can't actually we're a little higher than market, but we're banking on the fact that you know what, if you had to go somewhere else, it's going to cost you more to drive that somewhere else. So, we believe within that sweet spot of some of our tipping fees. Um, but then you you know, you just can't you just can't come up with a plan now that's going to outpace what the market will will pay you for that because then you're not going to be bringing in the waste. And if you're not bringing in the waste, then the plant's not operating at its efficiency. And and so I I'm not sure how much more I I can I can walk through this budget with you. Um I I probably have spent um the last month hours in this budget. I can walk through this budget, tell you all the changes you're going to see in the budget are all the recommendations I made. 100% of it. We are the we are the deciding vote on that budget. So, I made the recommendations. If people weren't going to go for it, then I could easily

put the veto vote in and that budget's not going to go forward. That's how the system was set up and we leveraged it that way. Right or wrong, we took the initiative to say you are not utilities. Good example. Council Walker will tell you when that boiler goes down and you got to turn it back up and get it going again. Your utility cost for natural gas skyrockets to get that heating element back to where it needs to be. it costs a lot of money. Well, it's showing that we're shutting down that one of those boilers pretty consistently over the last four months. Well, then you need to put more money in your utility cost. You couldn't carry the same amount because we haven't hit that amount in three years. And so, don't carry that amount. Increase that amount so that we know that we're at least looking at our scheduled shutdowns. as council Walker would know, the scheduled shutdowns, at least you're covering those costs and some emergency shutdowns that might happen. And so those are those are just a few of those line items, but I mean, we can walk through it. I have no problem inviting the executive director here. He can he can talk about why some of these issues have happened and and challenges and and we'll share the budget. Um it was just approved on Wednesday. So, uh I think it was Wednesday, we had a board meeting and that's that's where it was approved at. Um, we also approved the revised FY26 budget. I think the meeting prior to that that allowed for the assessment to take place. Um, and uh, and I think you'll see it's a pretty pretty conservative budget. Um, but trying to take into account that we have been budgeting, you know, le a little less than around two million, a little less than two million in and major maintenance, but send spending over three million. And so, um, we made that, one of the the changes that I made was increase that major maintenance line item, um, to that $3 million mark because that's ultimately what we'll be spending. Um,

and then the great thing would be if we're not, great. Let's bring that back and put that money back into building the reserve account. So, um, really that's I understand Council Walker's point is that you would hope that that tipping fee, like we were talking about ice rental fees, right? That that would slowly gradually increase, but it just the the cost to run the plant exceeded where we were when I worked through the numbers. We're operating that plant at about a it's costing about $125 a ton cost to run that plant. Well, the majority of what we're bringing in is not collecting $125 a ton. So, you're not you're not making that up. And so, it's getting all the users closer to that amount. um and really getting our cost closer to the cost we could as members we could be paying $54 a ton but if the plant's not operating to full efficiency and we're hauling well we're hauling now at somewhere you know greater than 80 I think it's 85 or somewhere in there uh a ton to haul that to the to the landfill we at least need to cover our costs and so that's that's how that was built in there's some other things that are happening now that I'll either myself or the executive director will be able to report um on the changes that we're making regarding other contracts. And so we're uh we're moving forward with um non-member contracts covering this this impact that we've had within the plan as well. So just a brief summary. We can I can certainly have them come in and and review the budget with you. Um, but that's um that's what we're faced with.

Council K.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I I just want to reemphasize I appreciate the the efforts that you all are making to try to get closer to real costs so that it's not the members that are having to pay the extra dollars, right? And that's and that. So, it's an abrupt increase in our in our fees right now, but it is to try to avoid what just happened where we had to pay and a fewer number of people were paying for that. So, I think we really, you know, it's it's I'm not going to ask you to calculate this, but if we added the 600,000 into what we had, add that into our tipping fee, it was more than 54 last year, right? Realistically. Um, and the second thing, um, Phil, you've mentioned, uh, in the past that that there's, uh, plans to do an assessment of the plant. Is that part of this coming up?

Yes. So, we're having conversations about when the the next scheduled shutdown of the plant to have uh a company come in and take a look at getting a good assessment for us on um what are the um what are the issues and then also what are the potential major maintenance issues moving forward. So, we have a good understanding of that. I think our plant operation people um the the manager for that I think he's spot on. he's working through some of a lot of that and I think with him and then having um an assessment of individuals that run plants like this to also have another set of eyes take a look at this um will give us a a good idea of where we're going. I think the important piece and and this is um you know council Walker certainly knows this. I think a an important piece is that if you go back to the mid80s when the city took a bond out for this plan, um there was that repayment that took place um and then we've had several years since that bond's been paid off that we've been experienced really um a cost for our solid waste that no other community has communities other than our member communities have experienced. There's a lot of value that or cost savings that took place over that span of years that the plant was operating well, efficient. We were only spending somewhere between 30 and $40 a ton for many years. That was money in the bank that we weren't spending out that other uh me municipalities were paying um those higher costs. We hadn't had to pay that. Well, now we're paying. we're back to um we've got these major maintenance issues and now we're paying. And so um I had this conversation with one of the other um member municipalities just to say, you know, you don't, you know, I really would encourage a member municipality not to

not to jump ship on this. This is, you know, you've had years of good savings. um we need to write this, get the plant where it's operational, and then even moving forward, if you go and try to be a non-member somewhere, your your cost for your um tipping fees will be will be increased. And so, and you think about what that is over the long term. So, I think if we were to we were to run this out over um even a 20-year period from when we've paid that bond off to now, you're going to see the city has had significant savings um as a result of those early investments back in the 80s. Um paid off for m for 20 years and uh but now we're in this we got to get the plant back to good operating efficiency.

Any other questions from the council? Uh so that concludes the workshop session. Uh we have an executive session pursuant to 1 MRSA section 405 sub6A for discussion of a personnel matter. Is there a motion? So moved. Moved by Flattened by Council Cowan. All those in favor? Council be in executive session.