City Council - workshop

Do you pledge and all that? Pledge in a moment of silence? No? Oh, we don't do that?

No, not for a work night.

Yeah, crazy.

I saw something last night, and I said, I just watched him. I said, you know.

Yeah, it had to have been late Saturday night, early, early Sunday morning. Something about.

Something about some other in his heart or something, yeah. Some what? Some kind of other in his heart or something. Who is that? I think they said maybe. Lindsey Graham.

Lindsey Graham out of South Carolina.

Oh, wait. I think...

He died.

I know, but it wasn't... I think they... Whatever John Ritter died from. Something to do... I was reading where they think it was the same thing.

Yeah, like an aorta tear.

Aorta tear or whatever.

It was pretty much...

The Widowmaker.

Yeah, well, Russia is going to bleed out real quick.

And I don't think you have any warnings.

Josh, you ready? Nope. You ready?

You ready, Mr. Smith?

Let's do it.

We'll go ahead and call the July 13, 2026 budget workshop. One. Two is here. Three is on the phone.

four is absent five is here at largest here and six is here and one is absent may join by phone shortly where do you want to store that mayor go ahead mayor uh you know we sent everything you know 400 out 450 out our utilities and our harbor want to start with them and Those are relatively simple throughout the year and all. We can get them out of the way and hopefully next week we'll have a general fund to go through and the rest of the time we can spend on everything else. So what we did, we proposed an increase on our minimum charge for residential. Water will go from seven to eight dollars. Sewer stays a flat fee of 17. And wastewater goes from 12 to 13, that's for the minimum. Old Ridge went up over 2,000 gallons. Old Ridge went up 5%. It goes from $2 to $2.10 for water, $3.36 to $3.54 for wastewater. Our garbage went up 5%, which brings us to about $19.50 for that. So on the minimum bill, you'll see a $3 increase. Old Ridge, I think... An extra 8,000 gallons will cost you $0.80 in water. And eight times whatever it is there, 18 would be another, it would be less than $2 for 10,000 gallons of water added for your wastewater and sewer. Industrial, you know, our gases stay, on both of them, residential and commercial, our gas stays the same. Industrial rate went up 50 cents for that. The water minimum stayed the same. Overage went up 5% as well. It goes from 2.25 to 2.37. The sewer, flat sewer rate went from 17 to 19. The overage will stay the same there. And wastewater minimum went from 12 to 14 and a 5% increase on the over to that 336 to 354. Garbage same thing a commercial has garbage it went up to 5% along with the residential to 1950. So with that we figured in expense wise we figured in a 3% raise across the board that's what we're looking at you know trying to get There might be a position here or there that needs to be increased with some of the people we have. So we base that on that. And on revenue, we think our revenue will grow on gas. Interest, we put in $20,000 just like we did this year. Gas, that's an in and an out, but we projected what we purchased will take in $1.2 million on that. With the increases in our water revenue and everything, we're looking at taking in $1.1 million. Service connections and all, we're looking at taking in $126,000 for that. But we're also looking at increasing our meters and all and pass that on. We hadn't gone up on any of that since 2024. So Debbie's putting that together, and we'll have that very shortly on that. Sewer income, we're looking at $950,000 from that. And wastewater income, we're looking at increase from $1,300,000 to $1,410,000. And we try to get that to match up with the total cost from the utility authority. So that's an in and out. Same thing with our gas. It all depends on the amount we purchase. If we purchase what we said, we think that's what we'll make on that. garbage you have to garbage collections they have one through the city one through the county we're looking at that and that's our two numbers what we project in 783 with the increase for the city and 299,000 plus from the county collection of the incomes all that state pretty much the same late fee penalties 58,000 Other funding, we're looking at $400,000. That's for leases. If we have to purchase anything, that's an in and out. If we don't purchase, we don't get that. So that's just an in and out on that. Beginning cash, we did put $300,000 in. That's to go into our capital maintenance fund. That's left over from this year. And we put some in there at the beginning of the year as well. Comes out to about $6,648,798 in revenue is what we're projecting. Do we have any questions on that?

No, sir. That looks good.

I was looking at the expense page real quick. Okay. Page two. I was trying to find utility authority. Are they going to pay $1.4 million?

That's a little over what our projection is, but we're running a little high right now. When we get on that, bring that back up again in a minute. Because we do want to discuss that.

Do any of our computer setup or whatever, any programs where we could go to paperless for the Billing? Like if people opt for paperless? Because I was just, I was looking at how much.

I think we have that ability and, you know, along with direct withdrawal, you know, to pay. But not everybody gets it.

Plus there's a fee. There's an extra fee we have to charge for that. Yeah.

So if you go to page two on personnel, like I said, we put a 5% increase in. We did do employee insurance at 10%, hoping for the best that we may not reach. So far, numbers aren't real bad. So we're hoping in the next six months we can stable out on that, and that settles down as well. Pretty much everything else, you know, is pretty much the same thing. We got a total expense for the administration of utilities. Last year we budgeted $283,349. This year we're $286,918 by expenses in the administration. On page three is the Utilities Operations Fund. Once again, we did do a 5% raise and 10% on insurance across the board on that for now. 5% or 3%? 3%, I'm sorry. Okay. 3%. Again, there is a few positions to meet that we do want to address to try to stay competitive with other utility authorities in some things and try to keep the people we have in these places Again, expenses throughout, you take the supplies and all that, it's up $8,000 roughly from last year, $425,000 to $433,000. Small increase in those. And then on the contractual services, you'll see as we go down, Josh, you brought up $700,000, $600,000, WWS, the wastewater.

Okay.

We budgeted 1.3. We're looking at 1.4 in the upcoming budget. But we think we're going to be pushing that this year. One of the things, as soon as they get through in this next phase, you know, we got the grant and everything from, was it the restore?

Yeah.

We have that grant. And one of the first things we'll start with is, go in and smoke test everything we can and see if we have any openings, leaks, everything. We'll also take some more of that to work on some things. There's some other things we want to look at doing as well on that.

Do we have an estimated time of when that's going to take place?

No, it'll be probably, they'll get through with this in September. And we'll probably bring them in anyway without this grant in place because we can, you know, we just want to get it done. Right. We don't want to linger on because whether it's not, we just need to find if we have anything open because that's a huge cost to us. Right. So we're also putting in some flow meters. On our 12-inch and 24-inch main line coming out to Waveland, we'll have flow meters on that. We have another one coming in for what's coming out of the lagoon that's pumped in. And we just installed one on what goes into the lagoon as well to compare those and see what we're doing.

Good.

So we think that's going to help. But that's the reason of that increase there. And like I said, we think we're going to be pretty close to that on that. some of the other big cause you know the gas for the garbage contract you know it's the 1.15 1 million 150,000 this coming year electricity not sure why but our electricity has not been separated out yet in all areas but We've seen a huge increase in our electricity in all departments So not sure they made rate increases I know they have but if that's what's accounting for all this or what?

We're still running up doing some research on that Mike today have levelized billing for commercial property wait one now levelized billing for For the electric rate on commercial buildings, like they do for your home. Yeah. Do they have that? I mean, are we eligible for that? We don't have it.

Okay. Yeah.

We don't.

That'd be something to look at.

Yeah. One thing a utility authority did, they went and got some solar at their wavelength down there. Put a pretty good little substation in there with solar power that's doing pretty well. Oh, cool. And I can do the same thing at the north plan also or increase it. So any questions on contract services for now?

Yeah. Okay. I'm looking at garbage collections, income, and counties. but it's only coming up to $1,083,000, but the expenses are $1.15 million. So we're going to have to raise rates or something there because the math will be losing money.

We're covering what they charge for each household, and that could be just a number just not matching up. Yeah. And it could be... Income could be a little more. Expenses could be a little higher. We'll have more numbers. Dawn's going to work out numbers where we're at and what's the projection for this year. So we'll see what we got on that.

$60,000, almost $70,000 negative.

Yeah, because they do show per household the cost. Yeah. And this 1950 is a few pennies higher than what they charge. So if they're collecting for 3,500 household charges for that, we should be collecting that many. Yeah. And if you go back on the revenue, it's hard to tell, but like Bay St. Louis.

I'm looking at the two lines, the BSL and the HSW. Yeah. I'm trying to see what we got.

So it's hard to tell what they collected up to this time.

Yeah, requested budget.

But the city is a monthly charge. So we projected $746,000. This is as of June, so we've still got July, August, September, three months to go. So this was for nine months. We collected $65,000. We should be roughly another $200,000 above. So that's going to put us at $805,000. That's going to put us a little bit $50,000 more than this year. So we only increased $783,000. I'm sure they're going to do that. That's going to be close to $800,000. instead of the 753. We'll adjust those numbers. In the county, I'd have to ask Jimmy where we're at. Most of that's collected yearly.

Yeah.

Excuse me. Because they'll probably do their increase to whatever this inflation was this time, huh? 2%, 3%? I'm not sure what it is this year. I think it said it was 5%. five percent this year yeah they're gonna get get the max then this year huh yeah with that with the fuel costs and all yeah all right all right just calling this thing okay Hey, you there, Jordan?

Yep, I'm here. Okay, thanks, sir.

Welcome. I was just going through utilities, revenue and expenses. See if you've got anything on revenue. Do you have anything on revenues on the utilities?

Did we lose him or did he? You there?

Jordan? Yeah, I'm here.

Okay, it sounded like we lost you. Sal, are you still there?

I'm here as well. I'm about a ten-second delay watching from the YouTube live.

Okay. So anything else on the expenses on the contractual services?

No.

And you move down capital expense. We have $125,000 in the budget for capital. And if you see below the lease purchase, $400,000 we put in there if we need any equipment, this and that. But that's also the end over there.

Hey, real quick, are y'all on a specific page? Page four. Page four. Page four, okay.

Page four right now. Okay. Sorry about that.

Page four, looking at capital outlay. Bottom column.

Any questions on page four?

I'm just looking at the gas revenue. I'm good.

Okay. Page five is our debt service. This is what's being charged that we are leasing in this. When we get in the general fund, we'll have some discussions there with the fire department and all and seeing we've got some opportunities there as well. And I think one of the dump trucks we purchased will be added to this here as well, so. That will be added for next year. Nothing there. Page 6. This is the expenses. This is indirect to the general fund. This is also the $300 to capital maintenance. That's where we'll carry that over and put that in there as well. If we see where we may have some extra, we'll put that in there also. So for this, revenue was $6,668,648,798. Expenses, $660,000 for the net to the good, $48,000. Any questions on any of that?

No.

And then through that, we'll have immediate deposits. There's nothing there to work. It goes on and there. Capital maintenance fund for the utility. We'll go through that as well next meeting. And then modernization tax, that account has been closed and zeroed out last year. So that takes care of the utility account pretty much. Anything on utility? Anything we need to look at? Jordan, we did send and fab but we did send out the rate increases for utilities. And that's what we're looking at now. And we'll put in play with the numbers a little bit more. See, make sure everything's covered in those calls. And just a heads up on a minimum bill, we'll see a $3 increase for minimum dollar for residential would be $1 on The 2,000-gallon flat fee and a dollar on wastewater, and then 5% on overage.

And real quick before we move off of utilities, are we setting aside or are we expecting any projects or infrastructure I know we just recently bought some. Yeah, we have 500.

We have roughly 500 meters on there that's out right now coming in. And as we take those off, we'll replace them as well. And... But we do have that into consideration.

Okay. I just wanted to ask if that was on there. I know I joined late, so... You know.

And... Besides the $3 increase, if you're a family or whatever and use 10,000 gallons of water, it'll cost you an additional $2.24 for the 8,000 gallons over the 2,000. It'd be 10 cents a gallon, 1,000 gallons on water, and 18 cents extra for wastewater. So that's the increase you'll see in residential. And commercial rates increased. Their flat fee increased from $11 to $13 for water. Went up $0.12 on overage from $2.25 to $2.37. Sewer went up from $17 to $19. The overage stays the same. And the wastewater goes up. from 12 to 14 for the 2000 gallon and anything over goes up 5% at 336 to 354. And then that garbage goes up the same, you know, to 1950.

Move on to the Auburn.

Did we go up last year with the rate?

We went up with the rate some last year. We didn't go up with the flat fee. That was not done last year. That stayed at $7 for water, $12 for wastewater, and we reduced the sewer rate from $18 to $17. Okay. And then we did go up on the rate itself, though, for overage. so um ronnie has mentioned the last two years like water tank maintenance program yeah would that be part part of this or no that's what he's trying to put that together to we have our the options on that you get into a 10-year rotation where this year you pay they break it down in 10 years and you they do regular maintenance on it but you pay a fee like you're talking about like a Break the cost down over 10 years instead of calling them in to come paint it. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. You'll pay extra amounts for those years now. So it's something he wants to look at. We talk about it almost every year, and we just need to move on. We saw them over at M&L last week, and our tanks are in good shape. But, again, if we get hit to where we need them all painted or whatever at the same time, we're looking at hundreds and hundreds of thousands.

That's a contract with the company. Yeah. Or it could look at putting it in a savings account and drawing interest to and taking it out of there.

Well, they do do maintenance in these years. Yeah. They come in and clean the tanks, this, that, you know, keep an eye on, you know, do what they got to do. Yeah. But you –

I don't want to say prepaying, but you're kind of paying a contract price. Paying ahead of time. Paying at the end. We have a company folded up. Folded up. Yeah, and then you gave them that money instead of putting it in an account that we control. Yeah. I'd rather have an account we control with interest.

We could do the same thing we do in the general fund. Create a fund that, you know, not to be touched except for the tanks, unless there's some type of extreme emergency. Yeah. Yeah. Just put funds if we can do that. I think that might be. Okay.

Just my thoughts.

Yeah.

That's, you know, again, these people, the ones we've talked to have been here a long time. Oh, yeah. But you never know. You never know. Good option there. So one thing, too, is the cost, you know, 10 years or 8 years. They can come in and tell us when we're looking at it and what we need.

Yeah.

I think they even have a 20-year where they guarantee to paint it so many years, but again, 20 years from now. Who knows? Yeah. We won't be here, probably.

Not likely.

I hope to be here, but not here on board.

Oh, not on the board. I hope to be above ground. Yeah, not on the board, maybe. Yeah. Anything else on on utilities? Power? Anything? Okay, Jordan, you good for now?

Yeah, I'm good for now as well.

Okay. So we're gonna move to fund 450 municipal harbor. With this, we also for expenses, looking at you know, put in for 3% raise for employees. We also looked at increasing our slip fees 5%. Sean has worked up a slip for 3% and 5%. So that's something we'll go over, put rates down, and see where we need to be on that to make sure we have everything covered, where we can also send some stuff over to the reserve account. So also we got the rate increases on some of this, you know, when Sean broke it down, showed what the rate would be and how much per year and different things throughout that. So on Fund 450, page one, is our revenue, this, that. Not a lot of change except for the 5% increase. We did a 5% on the slip rental. on a clean marina and slip utilities, same thing there. And that's one thing we wanna look at is the utilities on that to make sure we're covering the cost of our utilities as well. The environmental fee, transit, we stayed the same. We got a pretty good rate on that now and Sean just felt that we just need to stay the same there. And everything else, not a lot of sale, cost fuel, is what it is. It's an in and out.

Mayor, real quick on the fuel cost. Yeah. It looks like year to date it's 296 and we're expecting 540. Do you think we'll get to that?

Yes. This is their time of the year. Also, they just made some deposits with this. Because if you go back and look at that 296, I think we purchased 250 so far in view, if I remember right.

I saw 23, 24, 579, 24, 25, and 600. And I know where our current budget is. But I didn't know, with the end of the fiscal year coming up, I didn't know if you anticipated meeting that or not.

Yeah, last two months is big. But if you look back, and I called Sean about it last week, it shows we've purchased $263,000 of fuel, but we've only added $296,000. And that's just upgrades and updates that need to be done in the reconciliation of the bank account. But they feel like we should be there again. Matter of fact, I think last month might have been the single, or that weekend was the single biggest weekend they've had. So the revenues come out to $1.3 million. That's up from $1.269 million. Slight increase of revenues there. On expenses on the harbor, again, we did a 3% raise, 10% with insurance. We'll see how that plays out come January is when health insurance comes up. Supplies have stayed relatively flat, contracted services. Not a lot of increase there as well. As you see, we budgeted 652 last year, 658 this year. Not a lot of movement anywhere as any. We did put $12,000 for capital expense in the budget. And we have $1,300,000 in revenue, $1,157,000 in expenses, not quite $150,000 to the good. So anything we have that we can put into the reserve fund, that's what we'll do to the capital account. Oh, I'm sorry. Expenses, $1,292,000. Yeah. But that's transferring out $100,000 to the capital account. Maintenance fund for the harbor that's already included in that So for the harbor anything on 450 I

So with all the increases, we're looking at about a $30,000 overall revenue increase.

Yeah.

I think we're at about $32,000. And about $17,000 will go to the raises, it looks like. Yeah. So about $12,000 to the possible good that you put down in the capital, I think.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yeah, we have $100,000 going to that capital maintenance fund already budgeted in. Okay.

I just want to make sure we're going up enough. Yeah. Because the price of lumber and repair and the harbor and anything has increased so much over the last couple years that...

kind of where we compare and rate to other other harbors along the coast yeah sean gets that every year we'll pass that on he does that fuel they got a fee what they try to do on fuel they keep preparing that rate i wouldn't say on a daily basis but i would say weekly or so but you know every two weeks maybe they do a comparison of fuel costs up and down high area

So we were talking about fuel a little while ago. Month of June we did almost $100,000 in fuel.

In May, we did $87,000. Before that, April was $30,000. And you can see right on down the line, $30,000 in March, $15,000 in February, $4,000 in January. So we're into our big month. And if you look on here, it shows we've taken in $339,000 in fuel as of this date here. And I think on here it was showing $296,000. So it's about $40,000 added to that. And we still have some July, August, September, which is all pretty good months to go. Then we get into our grants and projects, and we're putting that together as well. That's an in and out. We just have to see what our cost is on them, and we'll have that put together. That'd be account 441. That's grants and special projects. We're working on some of that now with the deck and all that down that way. lot of these have already been closed out the dredging is very close if it's not closed out we do have the data repairs data data repairs to the south wall that's being put together to go out for bids on that and again we're in the process of the boardwalk working on that fuel dock pier 5 that's all been taken care of it just needs to be cleaned up on here where it doesn't show

The boardwalk would probably be more of a general fund expense for maintenance and stuff. I mean, I know it's going to be new for a long time, but that can be like a sidewalk, a general fund, or it can be a Harvard thing.

Hadn't been discussed.

Yeah, that's a good question.

Good one. Probably not really going to be much for the harbor, but it's going to be for the businesses and stuff upland.

Up top.

Yeah.

I remember when we first put in for it, we talked about it. That's been five years ago probably now. Yeah. And they bring up the fact that For the most part, half of the parking down there is for general parking. So why are they not responsible for that portion of the parking lot? Because as some like to believe in state false information out there, we've never spent a dime of our money from the general fund on the harbor. repairs to the parking lot upkeep of the parking lots or anything that's what i'm saying i'm thinking of the new boardwalk and stuff will probably be more of a general fund yeah right now what's good i don't know if anybody's been down there yet you can drive a mac truck on this thing i just yeah i mean it's pretty good it is it's it's built good good thing about it a couple things don't like you know as far as rails. I wish we had just used small stainless rails instead of the 4x4 post, 6x6, whatever it is. But the cable's going through it. But it's going to be very, very well made. Deck board to be used.

They're using that tricks or something.

Whatever that is. So that should last longer.

A lot longer. And where's it going to end, Mike? Where does the board work?

So its first phase is I don't know why it started at the end. It's going to be between the car ramp going down. You'll have an on-ramp that runs down the side of that along the side of Danby. You'll get on. And the projection was to go to the mountain.

Gotcha.

But we think we're going to be able to make it to Carolina mighty close in this first phase here of the deck. So there's also about every 35 to 45 feet behind each lot. there'll be a ramp coming off of it with a set of steps going down to get you off of it. It's going to probably be less than two feet high, but we'll have a set of steps, I think maybe eight foot wide, two steps down, whatever it is, to bring you down to each business in those areas so you don't have to crawl through the cables and hopefully stop all that.

Good.

All right. If we can make it there, the next phase, we've already been funding for it. It'll take us all the way down to Almond, and at the same time, the ramp at Almond that goes down will take us out to the water, you know, ADA accessible to the water. You know, something we need to talk about next phase is if we start wrapping around back to the harbor down low, you know, in the low areas, We talked about it years ago, putting parking down in that area.

We need that.

Coming off the north side of the harbor that's inside of our lease, be similar to what's at Washington.

Washington. We really need that.

I think when we looked at it, I'm sure cost is up, but we're looking somewhere around $600,000, and you get close to roughly 100 parking spots down there.

Right.

And that would come in from down low behind the harbor office down through there. So something we need to look at if we want to go after funding for that as well. But like I said, it would add about another $100,000. It would give access to the beach down there, more access to the pier.

Right. Yeah.

But as far as the boardwalk, it's all funded to finish. That's just the next phase. Hopefully we can get it out there and get it at the same time while they're down there. It'd be nice if they win it where they can continue on going down. Right.

That'd be good.

Pretty good bid on the budget.

Good. Any other questions on the harbor, Jordan, or fellow?

No questions on the harbor.

Okay.

Where does the Army Corps of Engineers come into play? Is that just the beach part or the harbor as well?

The Army Corps of Engineers, where do they come into play?

Everything. If I don't say so, pretty much anything out there. You know, they did turn the walkway over to the county, the seawall. So we still try to upkeep everything in that high area. But they have to say so on probably anything out from that seawall to the water.

Did you hear that, Balbo?

A little bit.

They pretty much have say-so from the seawall to the water. So even though they turned over control to the county of the seawall, they don't have any responsibility for it, but they still have say-so. Still got to get their permission. All right.

And then we go about the repairs.

Yes. Okay. And with this, you know, the cable that runs out there now that's been – broken tore down and all that'll all be replaced as well. And hopefully we can try to keep that release some sections open maybe for a walkway to come up. We'll have benches out there as well. Tables, I think they ordered some tables for out there.

Years ago, we discussed steps down the seawall, but we never did nothing. I don't know if they wouldn't give us permission, maybe, because them seawall ramps are probably 12, 14 inches. They big. You talking about putting regular steps? Like a regular step down the seawall, so you have a few spots where you can actually walk.

That'd be nice to put, say, behind the—well, you got a ramp right there 30 feet away.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you don't.

Matter of fact, you got a ramp on each side of that. Like Spine Tiger, you got a ramp on both sides of it. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. If you walk up a step, it would be nice to have just a regular set of steps.

I see a lot of people. I see a lot of people come up the seawall and through the cable. Yeah. So, they don't want to walk an extra 10 foot to the ramp.

Right.

Okay. Any other questions on the utilities or the harbor rates?

None for me.

Okay. So one thing, you know, tonight was our first budget workshop. Next week we'd like to meet. We have a meeting Tuesday night? Yes. So when is the? P&Z, that's Wednesday. Wednesday night? Yeah. Yeah, it's Wednesday. This Wednesday. This Wednesday morning. Right. So is Wednesday or Thursday after a meeting a better night? Thursday you could have it after the first meeting and the second meeting of the month. And then if we don't have a meeting, we can meet on Monday or Tuesday, whatever the best night that is for everybody. We'll try to put a schedule together. So we roughly got four weeks, maybe five weeks on this to go over everything else, the general fund, which it'll take a few times for that. But then on like the 14th of August, we need to start getting it advertised, public hearings and everything from there on out, second advertisement and all through that. So we're looking about trying to finish up before August 14th. But we figure at least this first one, if we can meet Next Thursday, is that good for everybody?

That works for me.

Valva? That works for me. Next Thursday, the 24th? 23rd.

23rd. 23rd? Okay, that works for me. Okay. 530?

Yeah, and that will be the, we'll try to have something with the general fund.

Just my thoughts going into the general fund. Mm-hmm. just me. I don't know what everybody else thinks. I would like to really be very conservative with this budget. I know housing slowed down a little bit. I think it's still building good, but just we financed a lot the last few years since I've been on here. I think it's just maybe time to kind of pause a little bit and let's see what we level out for a little while. And that's just my thoughts. Everybody else get their own, but I wouldn't want to see a ton of financing in this next budget, you know? I know we did a bunch of police cars recently in this last budget and the sweet streeper and all that stuff.

Yeah, we'll probably still do some police cars and try to keep that steadily going. We've got, you know, the way we can.

But don't they budget for that, right?

Every five years. Right, turnover. But once we get to that five-year range, we start running into expenses. Oh, yeah. You know, one thing, you know, something to be thinking about, A fire truck. They're a ladder truck. They've all about doubled in price since we bought them in the last eight, ten years. And so they're also maybe two years out, a year to two years out on the truck.

They had a good special on TV the other day about that. I don't know if you saw it. to where if you don't go in there, they're trying to start building stock fire trucks. You don't go in there and order all the bells and whistles you want. You buy an XLT off the line, basically, and you can get it in a couple months, and it's almost half the price. But it's getting so high, they give you all these options to add, take forever to build it, and the price will skyrocket. I had to pull it up online, but there was a national article because every fire department is facing the same thing on fire trucks. The cost is raised. went through the roof, the wait period's two and three years out, but they're saying if you just buy a stock truck off the assembly line, you get a lot faster and a lot cheaper and stuff, and it'll meet all your needs. You need to have it, you know, so something to check into, maybe.

Yeah, so. For sure. Yeah, we talked to them over at MML out there, some of them, and, you know, talked with state fire morgues and all them, and everybody's facing Oh, yeah. It's huge.

Because that's the problem. They're building them to spec for each department. This guy wants this pump. This guy wants this valve. This guy wants this. They're not just putting an assembly line like a regular car. If everybody ordered a certain car off the assembly line of the Ford, it would take forever to build them.

Let me tell you, we got hit pretty hard with the ones we got this year in maintenance. We're hoping that slows down a little bit. But I know they're not real happy with that. real happy with the service we've gotten out of these trucks.

You may have to consider going somewhere else.

They'll look around hard and shit. I like that, you know. You want to give them what they need and everything, but it don't mean you have to have a Rolls Royce to have a Cadillac.

As long as it pulls up and puts fire out and works. Yeah.

You'll see on the agenda coming up, there's a couple things for fire department hoses. We're going to go ahead and purchase them this year. We have the funds available for that. I think it's $20-something thousand for a set of hoses to be on the shelf. And when the rating bureau comes, that's something they look at, and I'll make sure they have enough supply if something happens. Okay.

Yeah, definitely.

Just a general question here. Do we have an outlook on what the increase of the value of the mill was or if it did or how much the increase was?

Yeah. I think we're probably looking at about I think right now a mill is $198,000 George, you remember what it was? It was mill 88.

I remember it increased 4% from what it was the year before. I can look real quick.

Yeah, I think we had like 188.

I didn't know if we were expecting to increase again.

We are. Probably going to be a little more than that, probably in that 6% range. I had those numbers. It's just an estimate they have right now. As you go through the budget looking, you know, general funding office, seeing that and asking those questions in. And, again, we hope to have something out very, at least by the beginning of next week, so we'll have a few nights to look at it and everything.

So a mill might be 203 if it was 198 last year or something? Was it 189 last year?

I'm thinking it was 189. 189, maybe. Because I think we're going to like 205 or something like that. We take 98% of what he gives. Yeah. And I think. I think that's enough.

If it was 198, we might be looking at 203 this year with 6% with 98% of that overall. How much? 203.7 would be. It was 199,562 last year. And 2024, it was 192.

And it increased 4% to 199. Okay.

Yeah, so let's see.

And then 24, it went up 6% to 24, and then 4% and 25. You said it was 199? The value was 199.

199.6 or so. Right at 205 this year coming.

Well, 199.6 would be 11,000.

Yeah, but then back that 98% out. Yeah.

But I think that would put us at what?

20 what, Coach?

10 would be 209. For some reason, I'm thinking we're going to be close to about a 10,000 increase in value. 8 or 9,000.

And it looks like that one went that night. It said that 98%.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like 11.9 is your thing total.

So we're going to see a little increase, you know, a good increase. And hopefully that covers some of the costs with everything going up and everything.

204? 205.

205? Yeah. All right. All right. Anything else you want to look at?

Inside of my house.

What?

That's at the inside of my house.

All right. Everybody good for tonight?

Yes.

Look, as you look to it, if you got any change, you don't see anything, you know, don't hesitate. Okay. Send it on.

I'll call for a motion to adjourn. Workshop, budget workshop. Motion. Motion, Smith. Second. Second, Davis. Vote to motion.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Thank you.