Town Council - Regular Meeting

And I'll turn things over to Mr. Vaught Warner.

Yeah, and of course, since you guys have a memorandum, gee, a long time ago, kind of outlining what's before you, what you have is a balanced budget proposal. Not a lot of changes in revenue structure. The one significant thing is the B poll. We're looking to go up 5 cents. Current rate is 15 cents per $100 of gross sales on businesses. Is it $1 million currently? I can't remember. The change we're proposing is to raise it to $0.20 per 100 on businesses with a gross of $10 million.

So right now it's $250,000 and up. It's a gross receipts tax up to $2 million and then a higher one at $10 million. So this just raises the $10 million.

And we'll get into this. Again, this is your day to ask whatever questions, have conversations you want to. One thing I'll tell you is in the current year, what we've been doing with the BPOL is kind of ramping that up to get back close to where we were at the time of reversion. Those revenues are performing very well in the current year, and we're projecting that if you adopted this increase, it would add another $40,000. Let's pin $750,000 in our head as we have all these discussions. We know that revenue goes away in two cycles. We are trying to make headway there. A lot of what we're doing is strategic to deal with that. We're making a little bit of progress, but not much. That 750 is still operating here. We talked about that with the departments as well. But we do have a funded contingency. We're not using prior year reserves, but that contingency could be tied up with carryover costs, debt payments, And those sorts of things. Now, the other thing I want to bring to your attention is one of the strategies deals with the transfer station. Getting out of the commercial solid waste service was the right decision financially, and we're seeing the benefits of that already. In fact, one of the things in this budget is solid waste fund is making money and transferring the general fund. I don't know when that's happened, ever. We still have the transfer station that we don't need. So I want to talk to you about that. We're negotiating with somebody about a potential franchise. But one way or the other, we probably just need to get out of that because we're subsidizing that service. The other part of that is, as county taxpayers, we have access to excellent services provided by the county. That we are paying. So that truly is a duplication of services, and it's something that we are paying for. So one of the things we want to talk to you about, it's not really reflected here because we don't know what the franchise is going to look like, but we would like to go ahead and plan to shut that down and get the savings from that. So that's... not really included here in something we can talk about where we can chip away at that same thing.

No, I think we should in that I've said all along. Anything that we're duplicating that possibly someone else can do better or the same at a same or lesser cost, we need to talk about. And that's one of them. Of course, there are some repercussions there also. But we need to look at pros and cons and figure out what is best for the town to move forward. in the long term not just short term long term 750k is one of those things that i like to think we have a plan to address that when that time comes and i'm going to say leave it at that and leave it to staff to figure that one out which i think you are and we'll refer to that several times during the day as it comes up yeah yeah so anyway another thing just a few other things before you all get started whatever it is you want to do um

Electric's going to be its own discussion. We've restructured the budget to kind of isolate costs as much as possible electric to try to present a true cost of what our customers are paying for and all the operations and all the procedures. And we've eliminated the transfer from the electric fund and the general fund, but we've included what we call payment in lieu of taxes calculation. And that's based on what we would estimate If the electric company were a private utility within our boundaries and we were able to tax them, we're estimating that we would see over $500,000 in tax revenue if they were separate. So that's, this budget is built on that. Isolating those costs, restructuring the revenue flow, because, and you can talk about this, even if we were to get out of the electric business and that needs to, if you're even going to consider that and that needs to be a very long, well thought out discussion we'd still have some revenues it also involved a massive restructuring of the entire town operation so willing to go there today or start that conversation i'm

Well, I don't mean to keep interjecting here, but I would say on those lines, it's kind of like the comp plan. You need to look 15 years down the road to see where we want to be or what we want to continue doing. And not that I would like to see that happen, because this electric department is longstanding and has proven itself how valuable it is. But times change. Situations change. And as we see, rates and transmission costs change. So that is one thing that I would welcome the discussion, not that we are intending to do it, but we do need to probably look at that as what I call a vision, something that we could envision down the road.

Could I also add just to that, sir? I think that we have to have the discussion on levels of service. Yes. to go along with what you're saying.

Yeah. So I've just got a few things that I'm aware of and talking to some of you and talking to staff. Now, within the electric fund, our administrative process, we're talking about absorbing credit card fees, which would come at a cost currently calculated about $250,000. And that is updated in here, right?

It's $500,000 in this one. So we actually have $250,000 up out there.

That would, again, and that's a matter of practice. Different places do it different ways. We did that in a meeting with one of our large utility customers that pays by credit card, and they asked us to consider it. We've included it for discussion. Going back, one thing you'll see too, you'll see some things over time that have increased. One is the police department budget, and we'll speak to that. A lot of that relates to the fact that we do things differently in our hiring and management processes. We do not really compete at the entry level. in terms of salary in fact we're probably out of market on that however if you come here and work we do offer career ladders and we offer people opportunities to pursue different certifications and develop different skills which costs money there's training involved there's also a risk involved we can train them up and they can go elsewhere but uh what we're finding in practice is we now when we have a vacancy at the officers level we actually have a wait list of people wanting to come work for us But we're paying for that. So we acknowledge that that is a premium level of service that we're trying to provide the community, but it costs money. Also, parking enforcement may come up, too. It will. Great. We'd love to have them talk. We need to have all kinds of conversations about that. If you want to fund a position, that's great. We'll just have to find a way to do it. And I don't want to get ahead of you. Also, just a couple of, well, relatively minor things, but they have impact. We continue to talk about management of our property up by Stony Creek Reservoir and to pursue conservation of that property and ways that that could generate revenue. Now, that's a complicated discussion and... The details of it involve some legal things and some negotiations and would probably have to occur in closed session. And for anybody who's watching this later, it's not that we're hiding anything. It's just when we go to negotiate on behalf of the public, our hands are already tied behind our back. So if we're completely up front, we don't get a good deal. And I hate to say it that way, but that's as long as I can do. So we're having those conversations as well. Also, kind of down in the weeds, some of the issues we've had with our electric utility vault billing. We had an issue with our mailing service. We may have another current mailing service issue. We can talk about a change there, but it would involve more effort on the part of staff. In fact, one of the things we can talk about is buying a postage machine. And I'll tell you, I know how to run it, so I'll do it myself if I have to.

Well, people can be trained. Someone else can be trained to back you up.

So those are, in addition to my memo I sent you way back when, those are things we've talked about. The staff has been great. We've had a committee review this. I feel like it's been a good process for them to understand how things work too. Those are the introductory comments I had. Basically, we're kind of at your disposal today. My thought is you guys can talk this through and see where it leads. What do y'all want to start at the beginning and move through it?

Or how do y'all want to do it? You want to start?

We'll start at the beginning.

OK. You want to get through the living areas and go to?

I don't know if we need to do line to line. 22 or positions?

What say you, Dave? I just had to, I mean, first of all, thanks to the staff for putting this together. I mean, it's been really helpful. And then just being able to ask questions, provided enough lead time to For me, at least, I can get questions asked and answered, and I appreciate y'all doing that. I just wanted to note that, again, like in your financial piece on page 62, it does talk about the town having limited revenue resources dedicated to capital investment. And that's been a concern of mine. I mean, this is just kind of a leap to lead up into a discussion later on that we don't have.

Really a funding capital improvement plan so anything we do would be I'm sorry day now forgot to mention with the reservoir discussion You also identified a list of potential properties that could be identified as surplus that could be marketed I haven't forgotten about that and Mike did the title research so our thought was we get the bigger issue with the reservoir kind of squared away before we present that to you, but I can present that to you. The thought is, if there are properties that could be surplus, we could sell them and dedicate that one-time revenue towards one-time capital. So didn't mean to interrupt, but one by . I appreciate it.

Thank you. A quick note. In this year's budget, we do have $260,000 of cash funding for capital.

And then Barb mentioned the 750. We all know that coming up. There's one thing I wanted to ask a question on, though, on page 73, Ann, about the pie chart. Yes. It shows operating at 60%, personnel at 23%. And I appreciated the note on the next page, but if you take, like you said, the electrical fund out of that operating personnel and operating about 50-50

It should be. And actually, personnel may jump up higher. It's just purchase power costs such a large number that on this chart, it really drives the operating percentage.

Because my point would be that I'm not about anything about personnel, but I know, again, from previous experience that... As health care costs and everything go up, the projection for personnel is going to be taking a large percentage of our budget. And so our percentage of operating capital will go down. So I'm trying to lay the groundwork because I've got some. issues about revenue that we need to talk about. So, okay, that's my introductory stuff, too, so I'll shut up now. No, you won't. No, I won't. You know me too well. Keep on going.

Okay. What else? Anybody else have a spot?

Seems they want to play it.

Also, IT is another operation in the current year that we've seen great inflation and additional cost over what we budgeted. A lot of that relates to guidance from our insurance about our management of security issues and the fact that, well, we I can't really neglect those. It's one of those things where when we are over in one area of any budget fund, we talk about this in our staff meetings. We let the department know we have to move some things around. And Versa, back in the fall, identified some things we need to do to improve our cybersecurity. So we did it. And we kind of talked to the departments about it. chorn it up to move forward. But information technology is another call center that's a little problematic right now. I can understand that.

It's always changing. I'm going to go ahead and disclose that since the proposed budget, we've found the need to add another $15,000 each fund for another service. Essentially, it would be an off-site backup that's cloud-based. So if we were ever attacked, we've had a secondary server essentially to just prop it up and continue operating.

I'm sorry. I did neglect a big one that's hanging out there, and that's collective bargaining legislation. The reason I dropped it is the governor did not sign the proposal by the General Assembly to – allow collective bargaining, but looks like the General Assembly sent it back to her and said give her the ultimatum of you have to veto it or sign it. If she signs it, my understanding was her proposal was to kind of defer it for a couple of years, which would be helpful to us. If she signs it, we've got to prepare for that process.

Well, and I wanted to follow up that's not going to become. That's not going to hit till 28 or 29. most likely. As a personnel cost, I have to admit it's going to be a legal cost and that's why 28. And so you got because frankly, just negotiating collective bargaining agreements against monster labor lawyers is difficult. But that's something that's coming and so when you think ahead about the five year swing of how things go, we don't know that people will unionize because Frankly, your employees are happy, and happy employees tend to either not to unionize, or if they do unionize, it tends to be a smooth, relatively easy and reasonable CBA negotiation, but you don't know that for sure. The other thing is that large construction contracts are going to be subject to some prevailing wage provisions. So we can expect the cost of construction probably to go up a little bit given the cost of construction over the last 2 or 3. well, really, since. The beginning of cobit 21, maybe 2021. Construction contractors have been paying prevailing wage for the most part for this region anyway. But we don't know what wages are, again, going to do over the next five year period. And so as you think about construction, you might see it go up over the next five years to be having to deal with prevailing wage as well against other things. And the reason why I mention that is I had another client who had English Construction do some construction for them and for federal grant reasons they needed to have compliance with prevailing wage and that came into the deal pretty late in the contract and it had almost no impact on the cost because English was already paying its people essentially prevailing wage. But again, you don't know that that's going to continue to be the case over the next five years.

and i like you said it very nicely there's there's can be a very negotiable good side there and also a very rough side at appalachian court where i worked was union so i dealt with that my entire career so i've been in union grievances uh negotiations and all that so Some, for the most part, went very smoothly and a lot of back and forth, but there can be some that can be rough.

Let me note, we're not flying completely blind on this. Mr. Wagner actually in his prior career had direct involvement in a union situation. Yeah. With my HR certification and my education, I've been trained. I know what the process is. And I've had family members who were in the mine workers union, so process-wise,

know what to expect but the outcomes of the process can i just add that the ibew is already here so they're they're already lurking let me put it that way we're the missing piece right yeah i know that that has been said in years back but but you're right that's something we've got to talk about and think seriously because it's on the horizon yeah next year's budget's going to be complicated already just fyi what else i'm going to add my little piece here through each department i'm going to come from a different perspective okay i'm going to in my own way challenge each department here okay so i don't want anything to be taken personal but when i started out here and this is the way i i think and the way i view things i looked at on page uh 37 the town manager Okay, and each department had a department mission and a department vision, which is good. You have a mission, but then you have the vision. So the vision is a separate thing. Sometimes they get blurred, but a vision is something that should have a measurement tool involved. you ought to be able to measure that in some capacity to say, okay, I can get this done in two months, three months, six months, or long term. It's kind of very similar to comp plan, where the comp plan has things laid out to where they're going to be done in this amount of time or two years, three years, four years, whatever. And I know from my experience, I had goals I had from year to year, budget to budget, review to review, that I was expected to get done or have a very good reason why it wasn't done, and month to month also. But what I'm saying is, in my view, the The department mission, and of course I think in ways of cars and engines, the mission is the engine in the vehicle that runs it. The vision is the road map. That's where you want to be or where you want to go. But it also needs a driver. to get it there because just not going to go by itself so the department is in town manager you all are the drivers of this vision as to where you want to go what you want to get done in your department so as we go through all this i'm going to probably point out some things and i look at the town manager again page 37 goals and objectives Page 38, measurement tools, right there, as to how he's gonna measure this. So I'm coming from that angle in this discussion, or this budget session, because I'm a result-oriented person. You've heard me say that. And I think the general public expects results. So we have got to show results. A lot of departments do. But there are things that stand out. And we have to come up with a way to get these done. And by putting something on paper is great. But you've got to have measurement tools to get it done. Like if I say to Ann, okay, in three months could you come back to council and give an update on what you've done? Sure. Or tell us why you couldn't do it. Or just let Bart know you're not ready. Whatever. But it's called, in simple terms, accountability. You all are the leaders of this town. Leadership is what it's about. So you've got to take that on, take it by the horns, whatever you want to call it, and move it forward. Make it happen. So I'm leaving you all with this order, and I'll continue with this. But I hope next year this time, whoever's here will say, okay, we've talked about this, so where are you now? What have you done? They'll say, what have you done for me lately? So again, when I look at page 38, the town manager has put out a way as what he's going to do, how he's going to measure it, and what is expected of him. Now, some things you're going to achieve, some things you're not. But you ought to be able to say why it was not. Like in the electric department case, a lot of times it's the weather related. goals, objectives, and measurement tools, a way to measure it. Because that's what the citizens see. That's what they either like or complain about. I'm not seeing anything done. Like electric rates, well, we know how that goes, but we're going to press look in on that. So we just get beat up and go on. We're used to it. But nonetheless, I'm planting that seed, so as we go through different departments, I'm probably going to discuss that in more detail. So that's my little spiel.

And I agree with you 100%. We need to have measurable goals so that somebody knows where they're going. Because if we don't have goals, you can't measure them.

That's right. You're going to go down a wrong end, dead end road. You don't know where you're going.

It'd be like the electric department saying, keeping all of our customers happy. You really can't measure that. So that would be... We have to have something that we can measure, that we can keep track of.

Can we measure that by how many people come to the meetings and complain? Nobody shows up, everybody's happy, right?

Or the number of complaints compared to the total number of customers.

Well, yeah, you can measure it that way.

That's a measurable way. I mean, it's probably very low.

Yeah, and the way you'd write that goal is decrease complaints by a certain percentage or something like that.

Correct, and you're spot on, Todd, and that's what I'm getting at. Those are the things you work on to improve on. Those are your goals that, okay, once you reach that, what's your next goal? You keep on challenging yourself. in your own way. So I appreciate you saying that.

No, I really like what you said. I think that's a great idea.

And it's different things, different departments. So it's going to vary, but you all can talk amongst yourselves and get ideas. Don't go it alone. Don't ever go anything alone. When you're stuck, call for help.

Well, I was going to say, do you want to start going through what you were just talking about? I mean, you've got us at that section with the goals.

Yeah, well, start there, page 37. Bart, tell us what's on your mind.

Mainly what we've been trying to do is to be more transparent, more proactive, and engage people, which sometimes leads people to show up and yell at you guys. But we intend to continue that effort. Yeah. From my perspective as a manager, we really want the citizens to fully understand what they're paying for. So to the point about satisfaction, we know when people are upset, they show up and they tell us for sure. Rarely, it has happened recently, but sometimes people will stop by the offices and offer compliments. But the vast majority of citizens we never hear from at all. So that's, we don't want to assume things. The assumption might be that everybody's satisfied. Not going to do that because we don't know.

Get that word out of your vocabulary.

Following up on my discussions with you guys personally, trying to do what we can to improve communications and coordination.

Yeah, and I totally agree. And I think all in all, you all do a great job in dealing with the public, the positive and negative. But how can that be measured? How do you measure those goals?

Well, again, we have our efforts pretty well quantified. I guess I'm going to allow Woody to help me with some of the data, and he does do that. He lets me know some of the responses and feedback. Okay.

We can note the number of complaints versus number of... Well, I would think you would do that per department would look at that. Correct. Is the way I would look at it.

And, again, we'll get to this, too. Yeah. I'm certainly prepared to talk about measures for each department. I know we'll get to it, but electric. One of the values of our electric department is our response and restoration time. Now, I think we need to start measuring that if we can, but I'm positive that we are much quicker at restoring power outages than anybody else. And that's a focus. I'm not going to deny that. So anyway, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but those kind of metrics are.

Yeah, there's reasons. And we'll get to that. But, yeah, I mean, I think, of course, we had a meeting with you and gave you a few marching orders. But at the same time, there are a number of things. To me, we're always looking for ways to improve. How can we do things better, differently? And some people don't like this word change. We've got to change to continue to improve. You've got to do it. Sorry.

That's one thing I have to – change is happening. I didn't do a presentation, but our demographics – are radically changing. A lot of that's due to the Phase 2 annexation, frankly, but the Census Bureau just published updated figures that reflect our new boundaries, and we're quite a bit more affluent than we were. In terms of straight-up numbers, you know, we've got over 800 units of housing that have been approved and are coming out of the ground. Poverty rate decreased from 20% to 10%. Yeah, look at page 11.

We got the updated figures on there.

Yeah, so... I guess, following up on your points, change is here. It's really not a matter of what we – well, we can feel about that any way we want to, but it's here. And we probably – I'm sorry. We do need to change the way we're doing things in our operations to reflect.

That's my whole point, yes. Thank you for saying that. Sorry. That's what I was trying to – get to and that the way we're doing things may not always be the way we continue doing things. So you've got to think out of the box at times and look at what else is out there, technology, whatever we can tap into there. And yes, it will come at a cost, but it's out there. Miguel, thank you.

I'm making myself known. On my section, you know, response tracking and some quantification, further quantification. What kind of feedback? We're trying to initiate reaching out, but we need to quantify what we're hearing back and report that to you.

Well, and one thing we've heard a lot about, all of us have, is that the communication process, I mean, and I know it's, some people just don't They want to be told everything face-to-face. But there's a lot of things we've put out there, like Woody, the online things. It's information out there if they want to understand it, but some people just don't want to go online and read it. So I think we're doing what we can. Outside of mailing some monthly letter, which would be costly, here's what we've done.

Of course, the other thing you already know is oftentimes we have to tell people things that they do not want to hear.

And that's all part of it. That is all part of it. And I speak for myself and I think the rest of us. We're ready to take that heat. We're being upfront, honest, and transparent. But we always refer back to the code. That's right. Objective reasons. I don't mind that a bit when we're doing what's right. That's the key. Well, okay. That was pretty interesting. Whatever.

interrupted you guys.

We'll get to the meat of it, but if y'all want to just go through that to page 39, finance. Church's office. Ann's submission there and her vision. Again, her goals, objectives, performance measures. What say you, Ann?

And part of our vision and mission, I had a staff meeting with my staff last year, and we kind of all felt this together. This is where all the department saw our vision, where we want to be in the future, and kind of our short-term mission. And same thing on some of our performance measures and where we want to be. We really want to be more efficient because things are getting harder. There's more accounting standards coming down the pike. It's getting more complicated. and we're not getting more staffing. So we're trying to be more efficient with what we have. We're also trying to help with, basically, collection rates. The more we can collect, the less they have to write off, the more efficient. So we've done a lot of focus in the recent years. I know our deputy treasurer just got her designation as a master governmental deputy treasurer. And then we're sending other staff to different classes, like delinquent collections and bankruptcy. So we're working really hard to train staff on how to collect and how to do it appropriately and with empathy. And then the audit, as I said earlier, is taking more and more time as more standards come down. So we're doing everything we can to keep it on time and out with the public with a pretty limited number of staff. The audit is mostly done by the assistant finance director and myself. So it's about two accountants really working through most of the audit. But we have a lot of performance measures here that focus on the town's comp plan, and so we've focused on financial stability and health through these performance measures and how we can assist the town in seeing are we meeting that metric.

So number two on there, it doesn't look like it's in good shape, the electric fund.

Yeah, I mean, we're going down in reserves. We're still at 91 days cash on hand as our target for fiscal year 27. Industry standard is 90, so you're right on target.

Yeah, so if we go below that, then we're in trouble. And then the debt service was the other one. So will that go up if we approve this budget? That's going to increase. Do you know what it's going to be?

It's not going to be the 5% that we've had in the past. I think it's going to be closer to about 2% or 3%. Okay.

So the question on the days of cash on hand, the electric fund, is that directly related to decisions council made?

That's true.

So that's our fault.

Oh, yeah, no, I agree.

I'm just saying, though.

Yeah, no, it is. That's not the fault. It's just the circumstances.

We've made that conscious.

And that's a good point, Dave, in that we have to understand. Decisions we make have a great impact on other things. They make it go or slow it down.

And that's where the tax question is going to come up because From what I understand, what John said, if we approve the PCA increase, it's going to be $24 per 1,000, correct? 1,000 kilowatts?

Yes.

I'm not 24%. $24. Correct. Per month, per 1,000. Per 1,000 kilowatts. So if somebody uses 2,000 kilowatts, they're going to end up having their bill increase $50 a month, basically, to round up. So that's a pretty big... And probably, I don't know, what's the average? Is it average 2,000 kilowatts across our customers, or is it less?

It's around 1,000, but it depends on the season. In the wintertime, it's much higher. Spring and fall, it's low. But across the state, 1,000 is the standard we measure against everybody else.

Yeah, that's where most utilities measure, around 1,000.

How long has that standard been in effect?

As long as I can remember.

So maybe that needs to be updated.

Most of the bills that I'm seeing going out are higher than $1,000. I'd say that for our customers, it's more like $1,200 to $1,300.

Yeah, I was going to say mine's always over $1,000. Yeah. Yours is well over 1,000. So that's where I think our challenge to our citizens is going to come if we do anything differently. If we go with this, then we're going to challenge our citizens with increasing their power, their monthly rates by 50 times 12 months. You've got $600 a year that they're going to be spending on electricity instead of on taxes. But if we don't do it, then our potential cash on hand is going to drop.

And we kind of revert back to what we've been doing.

Exactly, yeah.

So it's going to be a tough decision. Yeah.

And that's where I lean in, honestly, if we can't be in the positive on the, if we can't have that going up or staying equal, do we stay in the electric business?

You're going down that road that we have- I'm ahead, yeah.

Gentlemen, I did want to remind you that by statute, we are required in a long term matter to have what we call 1.0 debt coverage of our revenues versus our power purchase agreements. Which is to say, we can't sell you electric for less than we paid for it. And that's by state law. And if you wind up falling below for a few months here and there, as long as you make it up on the other side here and there, it's not a problem. But the long-run debt coverage is going to be 1.0.

So we actually pay off our debt in May, and we will not have any debt in the logic fund starting May 31st.

But that covenant is still part of our PPAs.

ah so this year so we are definitely made this year this month however what mike is saying is it's still in our purchase power agreements it constitutes this debt so so say that again so i didn't quite understand what you were

So 1.0 debt coverage for a revenue debt. And PPAs are not constitutional debt, but they're debt for the purposes of the statutes of 15.2, 1133. So it provides that on a ongoing basis, you need to collect as much money for selling electricity as you are paying for that electricity. And that's both your O&M costs, which our O&M costs are, and our direct debt costs, which are things like Snowden, all right? That's a direct operating cost that we have that's within our budget, plus any PPA costs, needs to be, you need to have a match up of 1.0 between how much you're collecting and how much you're paying to operate the fund. Which is to say that you can't be subsidizing your electric fund out of tax money or in the long term even drawing down your reserves because that's considered to be pledged to the PPA holders. And again, that's not even something where we can negotiate with the people we're purchasing power from. That's something the General Assembly's told us we got to do.

And you're right. I figured there were some technicalities or directives from Richmond that we would have to go by.

And obviously there are special situations, right? If you had a raft of logs hit Snowden and you had to spend a bajillion dollars to try to fix it, That is what it is, but. Long run, normal operations, you've got to have the 1.0 ratio between what you collect and what you pay. And that's what the PCA does? Yes. Okay. So we're stuck.

Really, imagine paying what the PCA says.

In the long run, again, you want to delay it two months, you want to phase it in over six months, whatever you want to do. But in the long run, and I don't mean the five year long run, I mean the 12 month long run, you need to make sure you've got a 1.0 ratio there.

Let me just add a little bit there, Mike. We pay certain grid costs which are in the PCA but are not part of that covenant, okay? And they're significant. They're $800,000 a month. So I don't think we have any trouble covering that. It's just how do you define it? And those grid costs are not part of the purchase power agreements, okay? So we do have some room there.

I suspect that those would be categorized into the O and M costs that you're required to have 1.0 coverage as well.

Well, that would include our base rate as well. It doesn't, right? It's all collections.

All collections. Basically, the enterprise fund needs to be balanced. Yes. Is essentially what I'm telling you.

Yes, and we are, essentially. There may be some differences between what the PCA recovers and what base rates recover when you put it all together. Now, we want to have the goal of having the PCA cover all power costs. But there's wiggle room between those two because nobody's perfect in setting the base rate versus the PCA. And remember, we just had a whole new rate design in October. So we're working our way through that now. But I do agree, in the long term, we've got to cover our power costs.

So have we not, so for my understanding, limited knowledge. It looks like we haven't been doing that over the past three years if we go from 151 days down to 91 days.

And part of that is what triggered the rate study.

Okay.

So because we were not covering it, we had an independent rate consultant come in to design a rate schedule that was supposed to be a 1.0 or above.

That's right, and remember, in the past- I know, yeah. Three or four or five years, we've been saying, okay, we're going to eat part of that. Yes. Rather than pass it along to customers, because we're trying to be as sensitive to customer cost as possible. So, I mean, that's a conscious decision that we made.

Yeah. We just can't do it anymore. Yeah, and that's where I'm just bringing it up because that's where the challenge is. We're going to be raising our rates up again.

And we're going to be looking at this again in, what, October, November of this year, right?

November 1st is when the PCA gets reviewed.

Correct.

So there is some leeway within the wording of the PCA to give you some leeway on how to pass the cost of law. But we'll get to that at some point.

And what I'm trying to say is this is the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. So get used to it.

Yeah, the only reason I'm bringing it up is because we've got all these other challenges, but this is another challenge for our citizens we need to think about.

Exactly right, yeah. And I was wondering, the last one on page 40 is, Maintain a collection rate of over 90% on personal property and electric bills. Doing that?

We are. Yes, we're very proud of staff.

I see 99%.

Yeah, they're doing an amazing job.

Good job. Thank you. Maybe now it should be raised to 95%.

That's true. Industry standard is normally 90, and that's where we pull that from.

Of course, I'll say the same thing probably with electric. Y'all really do seriously need to consider. It's vision. It's vision on the vision side. The AMI metering. That will be a big game changer. This will take care of some of your problems. It's costly, yes, but you'll love it.

I agree.

So what else do you have for us? Anything else?

Before we move on, I just note that both the town manager and our director of finances said that obviously personnel don't have enough staff to do what we need to do. It's going to be always an issue, so I'm just going to bring it back up again because I'll be keeping this drum about volunteers I mean there's I mean you know Bart mentioned a minute ago about if we had to do the postage meter well that doesn't take a rocket scientist to run postage through I mean if we so my my A goal would be to try to, a vision would be to try to get folks to think more on volunteers. I mean, your statistics here are great. 91% high school graduates, 28% that are half-batchers, about 60% are in the labor force. That probably means about 40% of our folks are retired. So if we would take a look at, departments would take a look at what volunteers could do and maybe just come up with, I hate to say job description, and once that person gets in there and doing things like administrative stuff or whatever, they'll be out there, you really don't need to supervise them that much, I know. The supervision's on the front end, but it pays dividends on the long run. So that's just my two cents on trying to get help staffing.

You're exactly right, Dave, in that you get the right people in the right positions once you get them trained. They need very little supervision. And I've seen Ann's group. Ann is a very good group. They know what they're doing. They go at it. And when they have a problem or a question, they come to you. But they know what they're doing. But, yeah, you're right. But then some don't work out.

It's the same as hiring employees.

Good deal. Good comments. We'll come back to the financial side. Don't get me wrong. Oh, I know.

I just, since both of them had that comment, I wanted to just comment.

Yeah. Page 42, information technology.

Yeah, Daryl's the ops guy. The budget stuff, basically, Ann and I kind of cover for him. But going back to what we're saying, the mandates and the needs for security and the fact that software is not being supported and there's planned obsolescence, I mean, We're drinking from the fire hose on several issues there. Operationally, well, I'll tell you, we're frankly struggling to handle that. We've got two full-time employees. We're also contracting out with Magna 5 to provide a safety net, but those safety net activities are almost becoming as prevalent as the day-to-day stuff.

Well, information technology is one of those things that, of course, I'm not involved as much as I once was, but you buy a computer now, a laptop, it's obsolete within, what, one to two years. So, I mean, things are changing that quick on the technology side.

And I hesitate to mention this because, frankly, I'm a little superstitious. I've got colleagues who have dealt with ransomware issues, and I just don't ever want to have to do that. But frankly, you're going to pay one way or the other. So that's it.

We have big projects coming, like a Microsoft transition to the cloud-based software, a very large project, our phone system.

It always updates.

Well, our phone system will be out of license, I think, in that meeting they said in the next three years. And they don't sell any more phones. So he's got a lot of issues he's dealing with now with that.

And that's one of those things. You have no choice. You've got to look at other options. And it's costly.

And the option there is we're looking at the mobile phones that the town owns and issues. We're not just throwing problems at you without solutions proposed behind it.

Yeah, because the mobile phones could be as much of a liability, too, if they're connected to the Internet. If they can click on a link, it'll actually, yeah, it's dangerous. But you do, and when I was here, there's really good training that the town provides to its employees so that they're not. To all of us, we all see it also.

And we do monitor that, and we test everybody, and we send them up a report on our passing study rate. Yes. I mean, our IT staff is constantly going out of their way to try to trick us.

And I've seen that, yeah, you're right. But that's the way it is. When you get an email that looks legit, but it says warning, don't open the thing, you know.

The other thing operationally, too, is with the software systems we have in place, they age out, they become less functional. We're encountering that. We've encountered that with the electric phone, right? recently where our online payment system had a glitch that we had to resolve. The other thing, too, is these systems are not cheap. And once we're invested in them, it's hard, well, You can't just pull out. I mean, you can't get your money back, I guess is what I'm trying to say. In any service discussion, particularly electric, we're committed to upgrades that are ongoing. So if we decided to come to a completely different direction in terms of service, that's going to impact IT as well.

Oh yeah, that's right. And it's kind of a process for individuals and everyone. You have to learn the basics of what it is. I mean, it may be very similar to what you were using, but it's still different in its own way. One thing I meant to ask you, Ann, earlier, the credit card for electric bills. Are we there or where are we on that?

So we received a proposal with our new software where we basically have two options. You can either absorb credit card fees and that would be no charge to our customers. I estimate that would be around $250,000 a year to do that. The other option is that we can pass all fees to our customer and it would be at our existing credit card rates, which they have told us is 3.95% or $2.50 minimum charge. So those are the two options associated with it. The benefit of absorbing fees is that you get a lower negotiated rate that's not offered if you pass the fee alone. What that means is that when you swipe your card, instead of it being around a 1% charge, it would be around a 95 cent per transaction charge, but that's only available if you choose to absorb the fee.

Because I'm thinking, okay, if I'm in another state for a month, and I realize, oh, my electric bill's due on the 10th of each month, how can I pay it? Could I call and... Put it on a credit card?

So today or in the future? Right now. Right now you can call. We do have an IVR system to do that. It's a $4.95 per transaction charge today.

But it would cost me more to be reconnected, right?

Yes. Well, then let's add it all to your bill. Yes.

I don't want that. But yeah, that's what I was wondering. I'm out of state for a month or longer. And I realize, oh, I know what my election bills do. Can I call and pay?

You can. You can't call into our staff because we don't have the security on our phones to do that. But we do have a phone number that takes payments for us.

Well, I could call John and say, John, I need a favor. Go pay it, and I'll rebut you.

And I would do that for you. But the other option you have, Mr. Mayor, is you just put it in the mail. And of course, you're $0.50.

One thing we really want to push, too, is that we offer an in-house ACH program. And if you sign up for that with a voided check, we run that in here. And we really want to push that. It's a free service we offer.

But if I'm in another state, I'm not getting my mail down there. I'm kind of monitoring what's going on. Somebody may be telling me, you have this bill due on the 10th, and today's the 9th.

And also, my staff, we don't have an automated system, so they are calling in-house to people on the disconnect list, and it does take a lot of time, but we found it really helps.

And that's another long-term vision.

So I have a question. So, you know, a lot of places now where you can go sign in to the account online, are we... and scoring that possibility down the road, or do we have the technology to do that yet?

So we do have the technology now where you can go online and register your account. I will say that our system is what I would call a legacy system. We're trying to upgrade it. We've started that project. We plan to go live with the new software in April of next year. The new software will be like our tax software. So it's modern, up-to-date, cloud-based, and I think it'll be a much better customer experience. It'll also offer a lot of things we don't have today. So one of those is disconnects. I mentioned staff is picking up the phone and calling. We'll do something called call campaigns. So we'll tell it what to say, and it'll send out automated messages to everybody on the list. And we can do that a couple times. It'll send emails, text messages. So it's gonna be a much better service than what we have today.

I mean, because I go online. I've already set up for automatic pay, and I can go online. I did the e-bill, so I get the e-mail notice saying my bill is this, and it's all seamless.

Good. Thank you. Yeah.

And that's kind of what we're doing. Yeah. That's good. All right, Diane. Information technology. I see Darrell had his goals, objectives, vision statement, and he's put on page 43 ways to measure it and so forth. So, you know, that's, again, that's what I like to see. I mean, you've got that vision and you're going down that road. You've got your, where you want to drive that vehicle. You've got the driver driving it and your destination, so. All right, police department. What say you, Jim? You're taking care of criminals, correct? Lock them up. Book of Dan Oaks.

Customer service.

There you go. But I should not leave the keys in my car tonight, right? That's right.

We're basically still operating off of them. three-year strategic plan that I have not had a chance to we've achieved a lot of those goals but discussions with demand said we're going to start doing yearly smart goals and make our strategic plan a little bigger or we can actually do measurable goals every year we do not have our 27 goals yet, but I've found in past agencies I've worked for, if you do that, you're able to be more responsive and a little more agile in how you plan your next year's work.

Yeah, I saw where you put two to be determined. I just wondered how long that would take, but you're working on those now.

Well, in the strategic plan that was created before I came, we're still You know, we're up about the middle of that three-year plan, but we're going to go in a new direction. A lot of that we're going to continue to pursue because it's good stuff, a lot of good stuff in there, but I found a lot of it is, I found in the policing world, a lot of times we'll do things like we're going to reduce DUI corrections, for instance, but we only play a small part. controlling that and things like that what we can do for instance is increase our gui special controls and things like that so yeah there's a few things that need to be tweaked and remapped and again probably broken down a year here rather than a three-year block i would think some things just what

From the outside looking in, like crime trends, what kind of crime is going on in this area? And what kind of drugs are being run through here? I know we've heard that in years gone by. I don't know what the main drug of substance abuse is now.

Yeah, that's funny how that, over the years, it cycles through, and something will be the flavor of the day, for instance, crack, for instance, big in the 80s, coming back again.

Yeah.

And then all the designer girls are coming in from overseas.

Yeah, hopefully some of that is being cut down, but it's still going to find its way through, no matter what is done. And, of course, response times to calls. I mean, there are little things you could monitor. A lot of it takes to get...

Yes, when I looked at the response times to calls, it's really kind of hard to quantify that. And even the type of calls, you might have, for instance, you might have a call about an alarm going off in business, and it may be the fact that, you know, just a false alarm, or you might have a burglary which takes... may take hundreds of man hours to solve. So it's hard to quantify a lot of the calls and even the response times come in different tiers. There's a difference between an emergency call and a call to that dog rather than to a neighbor, for instance.

I'll tell you this little funny story. It wasn't this funny then, but it's funny now. Back in my meter reading days, back in the downtown Westbrook area, three quarters of those meters were in those buildings down in the basements. So we had keys to a lot of those buildings when they were not in service or when we had to get in to check the meter. And unbeknown to me, I went in one building. It was a restaurant. Just went down the front door. We had a key. It was not open. I hear this little buzzer going off. I think, what is that little noise there? So I go down and check the meter and come back up. In front of the door, there's a couple of police there. What are you doing? I said, look, I'm out of cover. I'm just checking the meter. OK. But it had alerted the police to come and see who was in that building. So believe me. It works. But those things are good. I've got my hands up. Don't arrest me.

That started your criminal career.

Started beforehand. That's why I made that long good face back then. But that sounds good, Jim. Do you have anything else to add?

No, but I'm obviously here to answer any specific questions. What do you all have?

I got two questions. So we're fully staffed now, everything? We're completely fully staffed?

Fully staffed, but we have three that still need another five weeks in the anatomy and 12 weeks of FTO. And then a good order of other will be fully staffed with 24-some-more on the road.

Cool. And down here it says right under the authorized physicians, it says $100,000 CIP request for improvements at the Liberty Lake Park facility. And what new improvements are we looking at to upgrade you?

I don't know exactly how that got in there. I do have plans, long-term plans for some improvements we'd like to do up there as far as an actual locker room, washer dryer, things like that. And then maybe split up for a couple more offices up there. But yeah, I certainly have a long-term wish list on that.

And speaking of that, of course, that was a temporary approach to offset the need for a new police department. Temporary in government terms often spans many years.

Give me one second.

I'll try to pull that request. I want to ask a quick question, Mayor, for you. I mean, right now we're going through the, you're just going through visions and stuff. We'll go through the budget separately.

Correct. It was at the bottom of the page.

I'm curious as to...

I'm going to beat up Jim for a little bit.

We can talk about that later. We'll get to that. Once I get through this...

It just popped out. You look through all the other stuff. I just wanted to make sure.

I'm just kind of understanding the goals, visions, and as I said earlier, who's driving the car? I get it.

I do have that request pulled up if you would like. It has continued improvements to the support services building to include the knowledge to paint, renovate office area by adding, oh, it just disappeared. Give me one second.

Okay.

All right. Renovate office area by adding a POD partition or wall, renovate interior of building and building locker shower rooms for gym decontamination if and when needed. That is the request.

I think Chief does a great job. I think with police presence on both sides of town, I think it really helps a lot to keep what's going on in town down.

You certainly focus on just being in neighborhoods. Yep. I'm always reminding the guys that just somebody seeing you drive down the street provides a lot of comfort and safety.

The presence goes a long way. You're right. Anything else? 46th Fire Department. Stacy, what you got for us?

Kind of along the same terms. We have 26, 27 goals and objectives to be determined more or less. It's a little bit more difficult for us to kind of portray that being a volunteer system but as far as like outside of anything normal then you're providing the best service to the community to the town residents as well as our response area and the county we're really getting into a position where a lot of our tools equipment and stuff like that it's time to start really like getting with the times so we've really looked into that we have quite a few uh members that part of committees and stuff looking to just let's start you know working for it what do we need or like excretion tools, hand tools, anything, hose, nozzles, stuff like that. What can we do to better ourselves to make things run faster? The fires are burning a lot. The fires are burning faster, they're burning hotter. We're already behind the heat wall when we get the call, so they don't burn like they used to. Even in my school career 16 years ago, a lot of these older ones may have a little bit more time to get there. so we're looking at more equipment that's lightweight more efficient but still puts out the output that is needed again just working towards that with the goals and objectives and then as far as performance measures really just continuing to improve morale mental health and overall volunteer commitment and participation, really. It's out there that we answer the calls, that we put it out there. We're answering a lot more calls outside of our first due. That is not our, I'm not gonna say it's not our responsibility, but we are not the first due company. In this case, however, those companies are not answering it. um so we are next in line more or less and we're right there on our home to be burning 30 minutes from here so it's only about 30 minute response time for us and we're the first ones on scene our members are tired but yeah it's it's invaluable what they're putting out there so

Well, it's called dedication. I mean, when something like that happens, that's what they're dedicated to do.

It's more and more frequent. We see it in more parts of the county than others. We know when it calls dispatch to a certain area, that company is more than likely not going to get out. But if they do, they're not going to have sufficient manpower to handle what was at stake. So that's one of my personal performance measures is Does anyone provide that service for everyone?

How many volunteers do you have?

Right now we're at a roster setting right around 55, 56, all of which are trained to at least the minimum Fire 1, Firefighter 1 level, except for four. Three of those are in a current Firefighter 1 class, which they're actually on their first We've had a big influx in applications for membership if people want to do it.

So we're constantly monitoring those, interviewing, setting through those.

Really just kind of just painting the picture for them. Because some people get in and they sound great when they interview, but once women get there at our house culture, on the streets, actually start running these calls that we'll run. They decide it's not for them, and that's perfectly fine. That is perfectly fine. Is the morale pretty good? They're doing a good job of it. Culture is there. Like I said, it's hard. We're running more polls than we ever have. It's already, what is it, the first of May, and we're destined to reach over 1,400 polls this year.

You know, I say this all the time, but that fire department there, the Bedford Fire Department, has a long, rich history. of volunteering and commitment and dedication. I mean, it stands. That probably goes a long way in getting people to come here and volunteer. I mean, there's a history, as you just said, Stacey, of going 30 minutes to a fire that's really not in your geographic territory, but no one else has responded. I mean, that says a lot about the fire department.

We have to change our entire runway, for just for instance, not to get off on a tangent, but that requires us to change our entire runway. Instead of taking the ladder out, that would be first out on that. You know, we're having a lot of photos of Peter the wagon, the tanker, and the ladder truck with a sufficient amount of manpower, which...

I think you're doing a great job and we will continue to support the fire department any way we can.

You mentioned that sometimes you guys get tired and stuff and

And I think from parenting to public service, we're all tired, you know, that type stuff. But do you think you were staffed enough to, you know, minimize fatigue and that kind of stuff?

Yeah, I believe so. We have a And I was naive when I first got in. I might not have seen it. You know, I was one of those young guys. I didn't have kids or anything like that.

And now it's moved more towards the big core group of us. We do have young kids and we're trying to make it.

softball games and school dances and plays and on top of that my calls and that we're up most of our calls we get a few during the day but most of them in the evenings so yeah they're tired but we make sure that there's a relief factor there um if i get there and i know that they've been up all night So I mean, it's there. You always have one. I have a question. How many current merits EMTs do you have? Without knowing the actual number off the top of my head I would say 75% of our department is minimal EMT-based nationally registered service. I would say we probably have more paramedics on the roster than Bedford County Fire and Rescue has hired staff. They run 500, 500, 600 trucks a day for 24 hours. We have a lot of paramedics.

No, no, you get a lot of EMS calls, so it takes up a lot of more time there.

From the first responder base, and that's another thing, you know, we try to continue to, you know, people sign up to provide a fire truck, you know, and we do provide a first responder thing. You're close to many trucks coming from Berry Island at the 122-501 intersection. It takes them 30 minutes to get here. Somebody's either falling in the driveway. There's 20 degrees outside. We're going to get off the pantry that call. We're not on the outright dispatch. We're going to step up. My guys know what to do. We'll start. Or, you know, unfortunately, somebody's cardiac arrest or something like that. We'd be first on scene, so... or to do grants and stuff like that. We try to get the best equipment that we can to help the leading people. But, you know, guys, they want better trucks and stuff in the station, but we're not going to do that. I hope we don't. That's not a... They don't understand what all that was.

Yes. We do provide that turf as long as you serve us, too.

You serve the public well. We try. Yes. We try.

Anything else? Just a quick general question. I mean, you obviously provide excellent service to the community. How does the community support you? How's the annual fundraiser? Has it been, has donations increased?

I would say, I don't know if they've increased. They've been pretty steady throughout the year. And we're very fortunate. We do not have, our community supports us very well through our annual mail out. We're not like other departments that have to do, like Storrsville just did their ham dinner. They've been doing that for 100 years, and their chief complains about it every year, but I'm like, you're in trouble with that, right? Or spaghetti dinner, or chicken, we don't have, we're very fortunate as a community. And a lot of our paid contributors, donators, they actually come from either out of state or they don't live in this area because they own homes and stuff here. So we make sure that we put their fingers out there and stuff. Now, not everybody can do it. Times are tough.

But they're there. They're there. That's cool. Thanks.

Good. Appreciate it, sir. All right. Public works. Come on down and speak to us. Or stay there and speak to us. I know you've got goals and performance measures to be determined. Just tell us what's going on.

Then you'll hear from Tom Tuesday night again anyway.

Oh, that's true. Don't divulge any secrets.

Now, the main thing about mine is I've got a number of questions that need answering. Where we're headed with the transfer station, where we're headed with trash collection. Those are two big things because that rolls over into equipment needs that I have and that I have requested. Going forward, so that's a big budget request. Probably have to be funded. So, those are my biggest concerns. I do have a list, you know, like I said, equipment is an issue transfer station. Adherence to the fees, that was a concern that I had. I deal a lot with the parks and the special events, and quite often people just expect it to be done at a cost.

Right, right.

So that's one of the things.

Tom's the other duties as a side department, pretty much.

It kind of rolls down the hill. But that is one thing that I think we are talking about discussing at some point.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm all about community service and that kind of thing. Nothing is free.

No matter what is said, you're exactly right.

And then one of my other... Concerns goes along with what Ann was saying about the fee collection. And I had spoken to her a while ago, Ann, but one of the things we want to work on, I'd really like to take the fee collection from Cheryl, if we continue with the transfer station and from the cemetery, out in the individual's hands. Where I come from, I've been doing this 30 years, no one touched the money except for the finance department. So just as a chain, you know, it's a legal term.

It's a risk management issue.

Yeah, it's risk management, and it's a chain of who has the money in their hand.

Are we looking at that? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Okay, okay. And, you know, as you all may or may not be aware, I had a terminated employee because he was stealing from the transportation company. So that was kind of the part, and that was probably months ago. Got to do what you got to do.

The one operation that's still collecting cash outside of finance is cemetery. If the transfer station closes, then there is no cash collection there. But the cemetery is still collecting cash and checks.

Okay.

But like I said, my main concern is where we're headed with sanitation.

And how many employees do you have? 23.

Are you full staff?

No, sir. You're short? Yeah, I'm short. Okay.

but but that was a discussion that i agreed to hold off until at a later time i mean we're able we're able to do what's needed to be done but but it is it's constant there's not unfortunately there's not a lot of room for extracurricular and i don't mean fun stuff i mean knee jerk reaction like A, I need somebody here now kind of thing. It's about time.

And that hiring market is particularly challenging right now. Yeah.

One can imagine, yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Tom, I will tell you, I do enjoy visiting your employees. They don't mind speaking up, and that's what I appreciate. I mean, last year they were more talkative than this year, but they still like to talk. But that's why I come, to listen to them and hear what's on their mind. I mean, I can't snap my finger and change everything, but we can address some issues or concerns.

You know, when you just asked Stacey, you know, how's the morale? And I was thinking about that for myself. I'm like, how am I going to answer if he asks me that? It depends on the day, really.

Well, it depends on the bonuses.

Yeah, it depends on the day. But I think for, but you know, it's human nature to, complain or hurt, you know, whatever. I don't want to put anything into their mind. But yet they stay. And they're there.

That's the key.

So there's got to be something to it. Some of them, it's just their nature to negative, negative, negative. I'm going on my second year here. But I'm figuring them guys out. It takes time. Some of them you just never... That's it.

As you said, it's human nature. Everybody has a bad day. For whatever reason. But Tom, you're doing a good job. Just keep it up.

Thank you so much.

Do you all have anything else?

You'll hear more from me on Tuesday. Good deal. Thank you.

All right. Next is community economic development.

So Mary stepped out. But let's go ahead and talk. I don't want to hold you up because I have some familiarity with this. I've done it before. Mary stepped out for an event on the Hillside CDBG project. Actually, it's good. I feel good about the fact she's not here and the reason she's not. She will be back.

Trash pickup.

But what I was going to tell you is, well, C.G. and I talked about this. The department heads know what they're doing and can report. So basically, my approach today was to let them deal with you directly and then fill in the gaps if they need to. So if May were here, she'd be doing that. But I just want to let you know, you see all the list of things that that department takes care of. The most obvious thing we're confronting is the growth and development that, frankly, we've never seen before. you know the process for all that before it gets to you guys for approval it's vetted and reviewed by well mary i mean she does that she negotiates with the developers based on the zoning ordinance and what we want to see and tries to get them to present something that's palatable and you know frankly she can't force that so oftentimes There's probably going to be a subdivision coming to you within a couple of months that's going to feature elements of things that you're going to have to talk about when it gets to you, but she's already tried to get those things in place. And I know that because we did it before.

Is that a subdivision or is that a rezoning? It's a rezoning because... Let me fill in that for you.

No, you go ahead. This is all about process.

Yeah, it's all about process. The General Assembly basically forced us into a straitjacket with respect to subdivisions and site plans. Last year, we got ourselves into line on that, but the principle thing was that, historically, subdivision plots and site plans have gone to council in Medford, and we were certainly not unique that way. I don't want to say it was the majority way to do things, but it was not unusual kind of in the west of Charlottesville region of the universe. But the General Assembly, in their infinite wisdom, decreed that that needs to be undertaken by a staff member and that neither council nor the Planning Commission can have the final decision on those. And it shortened the timelines for approval such that it would be extremely difficult for the council to do review even if you wanted to so that was per state law that was moved to being a staff function which means that your role in the process is really limited to the legislative actions of doing rezonings and actions on conditional use permits So you're not looking at the final product. You're looking at the parameters that the final product's going to have to fit into.

Thank you. Now, sometimes there are cases where we have buy-right zoning. Let me mention that, too. In Virginia and probably most places in the United States, if you have practice zoning, there's got to be something that you are allowed to do by right, which means basically we might have to document a permit for that, but if you're zoned single family and you meet all the regulations and zoning ordinance, we have to allow you to build that house. Again, comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance revisions we've done, we have to do the best we can to anticipate what the community standards are and establish that. But somebody enforces that, and in development terms, that's Mary. I'm going to refer back to Mary. So the planning and zoning administration stuff, particularly with what we're seeing now, is pretty intensive, which is a good thing. We're seeing growth. We say we want that. Now, sometimes there are cases, and there's going to be a case coming to you soon where – There's a property zoned R1, and there are certain lot sizes that are allowed by right, but developer says they want to get slightly smaller lots. So they're going to request a rezoning to an appropriate category that allows that. That's where they have to go through planning commission, come to you guys. There's a public hearing process. It's somewhat negotiable, but we also have to make sure that we manage everybody's rights. And I can tell you process wise, having done it myself. You meet with the developer, they tell you their plan, you review it, and in light of what we've established and the changes they're proposing, you try to give them some guidance without over-stopping. Because the other thing that changed since I started as planning director 26 years ago was we used to make recommendations. Well, those can kind of get you in some trouble legally, particularly say staff recommends approval or something, and then it doesn't go through. About the only thing Mary can do is tell people, you know, this might be a problem or that might be a problem. And then you've seen it before in other processes. Sometimes things come to you that you have to turn down because they didn't follow the advice. But all she can do is provide the advice.

Correct. But she has to make that decision. She does make that decision. She does.

She manages that liability.

Well, I mean, I'm not. I think the home department has done a great job. I know Mary has a lot on her plate, and I know there's areas that stand out, but it's a whole lot she does that people don't know about, don't see.

And I'm just talking about the planning and zoning part right now. If you approve something, then it has to be billed. Subdivision has to be. We have to calculate a surety to make sure that the things that are obligated to provide that we're going to take over happen. Mary manages that. Then on the zoning side, she manages the individual zoning permits for each unit. Again, you have to review it. On the other side of that, there's the building office, which zoning says you're allowed to do a building is how you do it, and there's a separate set of codes. It's got to be saved. So we have two people doing that now managing, we know 800 units that have been approved that can happen anytime. So that in and of itself in most places, zoning and building or full-time positions in and of themselves. So I know I've heard a lot of chatter and you guys have too about what does Mary do? That's one thing she does. That's just one hat she wears. In addition, the Authorities and commissions that she serves as staff to, of course, planning commission I mentioned. Housing authority is actively engaged. In fact, Mary's not here right now because they're doing some work to rehabilitate houses up behind. And they can do that because they have the authority to do that. Council cooperates. But Mary's a staff person for that as well. Economic development authority, they're on the ground and running right now. The middle school project, they were instrumental in working out the performance agreement, managing that, leveraging grants. Right now, they're marketing Winoa as a metalworking education site with a steelbook. Mary's a staff person with that as well. There are a lot of metrics that, and I'll talk to an individual, but in this document I'll tell you we need to provide. Some of those are in the economic vacancy rates downtown. That's a metric we can report. The other thing is we have an enterprise zone, which we've had for years. That's an incentive program geared towards distressed communities. The good news is we're probably not eligible for that anymore. So the next time it's up for renewal, actually the program may go away. But there are a lot of metrics involved in that report that we can peel out and put here.

So what will take its place, or will anything?

Nothing, because we're not economically distressed anymore. Congratulations. That's the bad news.

We're doing better. some of the incentive programs that are tied to Enterprise Zone we might have authority to do on our own, and we may decide that we want to continue some of those things on

a local basis or on a more targeted basis but i think probably we can talk about that once we become more sure that that program is actually going to go online yeah and uh the next renewal cycle is pretty far off i would say 20 34 but don't quote me on that but also we can provide you with metrics about number of permits and inspections code enforcement also anything that's not a criminal offense jeremy and daniel handle that Mostly grass complaints, which are more fun than you would expect them to be. Those are the kind of things, again, I'm just kind of covering that to keep you guys on track. And if you have any questions of me, I'll try to answer them. But when Mary gets back, you can.

I know we brought Woody on.

Yeah, thank you very much. Let me mention that. So Woody, who we have under contract right now as a consultant who does, well, he's broadcasting this horse right now. And I guess you hear me back there. In fact, Woody, if you want to come out of the bat cave there and talk about what you're doing. As of July 1st, as part of this budget, Woody will become an employee of the town. His title will be marketing and communications director. We have that description drafted and ready to go. He'll continue to do what he's doing for us at about the same rate just with the benefits that town employees get. I'll also tell you, though, Woody provides a lot of services to the community with his business, MediaSquatch. We've talked to him about that. And I've had a few businesses come to me and express concern about him coming to work for town and no longer providing those services. We're going to manage that through our own processes, through outside employment, things like that. But my direction to Woody is to continue to provide those services to the business as long as they don't interfere with our needs and his role as an employee. And I'm on the hook for managing that. But really, as a kind of concession to the community, Woody provides a lot of value to people beyond us. And we want to allow him to continue to do that. The degree to which that's scaled down as he ramps up things with the town is something we'll manage.

Well, that's a skill set that we'll benefit from.

Also, you had talked in October about hiring a downtown marketing person. Woody volunteered to take on those resources, and because I'm cheap and you pay me to be cheap, I'm letting him do it. So we've incorporated the downtown action strategy as part of that job description.

All I can say is turn him loose. Turn him loose. And, Woody, if you want to come out and say anything, come on out.

He's smart. He just wants to stay inside. He's the man behind the curtain. It's all a little delay.

i was asking jim maybe wake him up but never mind yeah it's like a 10 second delay so yeah do you have any questions i mean it's it's a great transition for me though because i've worked for um i've worked with businesses for the last four or five years as a studio and had a lot of community leaders community businesses community organizations come through. So I'm really, I don't know, I feel, I feel blessed in the head of the game because I've already had a relationship built that I can work with, you know, for downtown and for an official marketing communications capacity. So it's, I think with the town growing as much as it is, and Martin and I have talked about it for a couple of years, it's necessary in the fact that I will say this to you, Woody, and I don't know if Bart passed this on. Of course, my office when I was working was in Lynchburg.

So I saw a lot of change, and 85 flood changed the lower basin forever. But it rebuilt and came up to what it is now. And you're very familiar with that, as to how it got started in the 90s and what it is today. And once he told me you knew people that were involved in that and all that, I thought... put him to work. Because that's the one I refer to all the time. After the 85 flood, most people thought the lower basins should just be bulldozed into the James River. There was no hope. But they took those old warehouses, converted them into apartments, and all that. And it is just amazing what they have done. And where I used to go, as I said earlier, we had the keys to all those vacant buildings. And we'd go in and meet on the first floor, second floor, third floor. So you know, old buildings, I like to explore and look at them. didn't do any harm, but at the same time, you ought to wonder what could ever be done. Well, the 85 Flood did that for them to where it's just amazing. And with that mindset, you can look at what does downtown Bedford need, what can be done, and what will work. So as I just said, turn your list. Yeah. Any questions from y'all?

I have a question on Enterprise Zone. I remember when we done that, but I couldn't remember if we were getting any kind of funding or anything like that.

Basically, it just opens doors to two specific grants that I'll mention. One is a real property investment grant, but you have to spend $100,000 to get the benefit of that from the state. And the other is the job creation grant. For any job you create above the prevailing market rate, I think you get some money for training and things like that. But the other thing is it also authorizes us to waive certain fees. So within the enterprise zone, we waive some zoning permit fees, sign permit, things like that. Those are the incentives. They're basically authorized, and then when people invest a certain amount, it does open up other things.

I was just trying to remember. I couldn't remember, but we talked about it numbers of years ago.

And I know Mary's got the numbers on how many incentives we've funded through that.

Okay. And any more questions that y'all have for Mary, when she gets back, we can ask them. But anything else, Mark?

Not just some of the marketing and communications, does that include just overseeing events and stuff in town as well?

Well, yeah, but I do want to get your direction on events today based on our current policies. Now, I will tell you the administration of events right now goes through Tom. Okay. As far as direct assistance with marketing and promotion of things like Centerfest that we know about, Woody would do that, and I think we've written that in the job description. But if we haven't, we will. But I do want you all to talk about the way we manage special amounts. Because it is a budget issue.

And there are things done today, like the website. What do you mean he needs the website for the town and the Facebook page and social media? That includes all of that as well.

And just in case anybody asks you, the contract we have with Woody, we did bid out. So the other bid we received was three times what we're paying Woody currently. So we do know what the market is for what we're going to pay him. All of us are, but we know that and we're here for bigger reasons. But he's doing what he likes to do.

That's right. That's a better way to put it. So what you're asking us is to talk about the special events because of the cost we're paying for the recovery. Well, our fee, I'll tell you. Our fees won't cover the cost of what we're spending.

Our fee currently recovers 20% the way it's written. And then oftentimes we waive the fees and we get...

And then all the law enforcement costs, all the different costs we have in the... And then my other thought was, since we have Woody, do we manage them on our own and do our own management of them that way? I mean, because I think he can do as much as some of the organizations we have managing possibly. I know it's putting a lot on Woody, but I have a lot. Well, I don't know if it would be any cheaper, because the others work. We pay a little bit of a fee to them.

Yeah, well, let me just, since you brought up Centerfest to be a good example. The Central Virginia Business Coalition does that, and it's a pretty involved event. They inherited it from Main Street, which is bad. And we do heavily, we do not charge a fee for that. That's also in our special events policy. And we also are a sponsor of the Central Virginia Business Coalition. I think $5,000 or $7,500.

$7,500 last year.

Thank you. So... Yeah, we're getting an event for $7,500, but we're probably paying $15,000 to $20,000. So the net is about a $7,500 cost. Now, to the point, could Woody do everything that Heather Alto does with Central Virginia? I don't know, and I don't want to. I mean, if you want to respond to that, you can, but my initial response is it's more than one person.

it's a big they do a great job yeah and and it's it's a it's a lot of ranking but i think that part of what i would like to do is it's just for the town to have a bigger presence in those events to then market the town and to be more present for the community to come through because centerfest is a Well, maybe working with the businesses to capitalize on that as well to give them advice about staying open.

participating directly or selling.

So we do receive the $20,000, does that come from food tax or where?

Are you talking about the expense?

No, I'm talking about do we get any funds? Do we get food tax?

Oh, what's the benefit of those events? Well, we do get meals tax from food trucks and things like that.

It's not a substantial amount.

OK, so we're, yeah. So we're really, yeah, so it's more of a marketing side is what we really need to use it for.

I would agree with that, yeah. But we're going to talk more about that.

And there are certain events that we've identified as the institutions of themselves. the fireworks on July 3rd, which we pay for, Centerfest, and then the first Saturday in December, there's the Christmas parade, there's the Bedford YMCA 5K, and there's been the tree lighting thing. All of those are things that we do not charge fees for because they are legacy events from either Main Street Indoor or Recreation Department or other things that We think the community has come to expect the town to provide.

And I will say it's kind of like Centerfest. Heather and her group does a great job on the parade also. They get it organized and it's pretty tedious. I mean, when you have 100 plus contest people who want to be in the parade, and you get them numbered. And when I was in it this year, this last year, last December, she told me exactly what I needed to be behind, what person and all that. I mean, she had it down to a T. Woody, good luck on that, isn't it? Yeah, they do a great job. Yeah, they do a great job. I think there are just some things that we'd have to think good and wrong about if we wanted to pass it to someone else.

And again, I understand at least one of you is involved in a parade event coming up, and that's quite an exercise in herding cats, isn't it?

Yes, it is. All right, anything else? We'll talk to John on electric, then we'll take a break. So John, what you got for us? I can see no goals or no measurements, but tell us what's going on.

Well, obviously our number one priority is keeping the power on and trying to do that at a reasonable price or the lowest price we can do it. Also, safety of our employees is- Number one. Paramount to us. Yes. I always tell our guys the most important thing you're going to do today is come home safely tonight. So that's where we're going. Obviously, we're trying to focus on our power cost, which has grown over the past. But we've taken some steps, the first one being the purchase from Potomac. to hedge a greater portion of our costs so we know what those costs are going to be. They will be fixed once we go forward, so they're not going to be increasing. We also have a whole slate of short term purchases which Bart is going to approve or has approved, I don't know where it stands, but that will help hedge our future costs for the next year. Those are all short term purchases of one or two or three months, they're not long term. We look at the market continually. I feel like sometimes I'm standing in quicksand because the market changes so much. Not only from day to day, but hour to hour. There's all sorts of world events, this thing going on at the Strait of Hormuz. How does that affect the town of Bedford? Well, it pushes prices up. Pushes market prices up, it pushes diesel fuel cost up, all those things. So we have a whole range of things that impact our budget. But we have a limited control over those things. So it's very hard to say, okay, one of your goals should be to reduce power costs. Well, if I control all the factors that impact power costs, I'd be comfortable with that. But I do not control those things. Those are things that just come at us. The one thing I want to point out in this budget is we've always paid a certain portion of administration, treasury, finance, all those things, but that was always buried in the actual accounts. This year, I think it's a good idea that Ann has broken that out separately, so you see it now laid out clearly what those are. And I think that this year our allocation has probably increased a little bit. So that's another area of our budget where all these things come at us, but we don't control that, okay? Now I'm not saying anybody's making improved decisions. I'm just saying that everything you see in our budget is not under our control.

I think we have learned that.

Right, right. But we're working diligently to make our energy supply sustainable, as low as cost as possible, and to try and further insulate against those events like we had last January and February, where we had a mini polar vortex, where we had those cold temperatures for such a long time. This year we're going to have a greater portion of our energy hedged, so we'll be immune to those effects. So as I look down the road, I don't see power costs increasing in a step way the way they have in the past, like when our capacity cost went up by 500%. I don't see that happening in the future.

So it's a little more stabilization.

A little bit more stabilization, greater percentage for energy hedging. So as a result of that, and it's not really reflected in this budget, we'll probably be selling more energy on the market because we're hedging a higher percent to reduce our risk. So that means we'll probably have a little excess energy to sell from time to time. But we work diligently with AMP and all the planning people there, all the weather forecasting folks. And by the way, we subscribe to a high level weather long term forecasting service, which I can make available to you folks because they give us regular presentations on what's going on. This summer they're expecting slightly warmer than normal temperatures and slightly drier than normal. Okay. So what does that do for us? More air conditioning, probably more fires as a result of that. More air conditioning loads and less water for the hydro plants. So that's probably not a good thing. But I'd be happy to share all that information with you if you find it interesting.

How about more wind?

I wish, I wish. Well, Stacey's praying he doesn't want more, because that makes the fires worse. That brings up an interesting point, which we haven't talked about in the past. In California, for example, where they've had all those wildfires over the past few years, many of them have been caused by electrical failures. A power line gets shorted out, it sparks, it starts a wildfire. Well, in California now, they're making the utilities pay for those costs. We should check with our insurance that we have some protection against wildfires going forward. It hasn't come to that point here in Virginia yet, but since Virginia's becoming California East, I wouldn't be surprised if it hits us at some point. So we want to make sure we have some insurance against that. Stacy, you probably know more about this than I.

Well, we have the recent advance up towards Big Island. Make sure the fire hydrants work.

And while we're in the start of our hydrant season and all that, unfortunately where this happens, there aren't any hydrants.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah, it can happen anywhere.

Yeah, so with drier conditions, probably have a pretty healthy fire season coming, unfortunately. So that's basically what I want to say. As Bart said, we concentrate on our response times. And that's one thing we do get complimented from our customers is they make a call, we're there within 15, 20 minutes. And they find that very comforting. And I think our outage management system has gone a long way to improve our response times because now after hours, for example, the duty person will get that information immediately. He doesn't have to wait for what happens at dispatch or anything like that. He gets that information immediately and he can roll as soon as he gets it. So that's been a big help for us is our outage management system. We do kind of have our own internal IT because we have our own SCADA system, which is completely separate from the outside world, and that's for security purposes. But there will be more internet security, cyber security requirements coming down to us and probably to the town in general, but definitely to us as an electric utility. And then within PJM, which is, Mr. Mayor, you know what PJM is. Yeah, all too well. It's kind of the overseer of the grid in our region. There's all sorts of turmoil there now. We just don't know what's going to happen. And prices are kind of topped out for the next year or two, but after that, we don't know what's going to happen. So all we can do is be as prepared as we can. At the same time, we're trying to move forward with several projects, one of those being expanded capacity at Snowden, which is going to take a long time. It's going to be a long term project. We got some tobacco money to address that. The other is working with AMP on more local generation here in town, peaking units like we have on Orange Street. Of course, we're always looking at things like battery storage. I'm hoping that some genius like Elon Musk comes up with a new battery system that changes the world. So we're constantly looking at options. It takes time to evaluate those options, and it's even slower to implement them. You hear the train now? Let me give you an example. Yesterday we were scheduled with Norfolk Southern to make a crossing over the railroad to get to the Winoa property. This has been in the works for six months at least. So there's a process you go through to permit to get time to work around the railroad and get across the railroad. It requires a flagger, believe it or not, the railroad has flaggers. Anyway, we scheduled all this through the railroad, got all our permits, paid all our fees. We show up there yesterday morning at 9 o'clock. The flaggers show up and say, you're not going to be able to get across today. What do you mean? We got a permit. It says right here we can get across. No, there was a derailment in West Virginia. And now we're going to have more trains coming through here than normal. You have no time to get across. So we had marshaled all of our people there. We had set up everything. And also some people from Norfolk Southern showed up and said, hey, what are you doing? You can't be here. Well, wait a second. We have a permit that says we can cross today. Can't do it because of the derailment in West Virginia.

It would have been nice if they told you that.

It would have been nice. But that's not the way the railroad works. They have their own set of, their own world that they operate in.

Yes, I understand that.

And everybody that's not affiliated with the railroad is your insignificant. So we had two crews there, we had all these people, all this equipment. And we kind of wasted our morning waiting to get across the railroad, which we never got the clearance to do.

So that's still a project to be done.

To be done, and we're going to have to pay again for another set of permits and to try and coordinate with the railroads. Finally, the workers said to us, you know what? It's best if you do this on a Saturday or Sunday. You might get across that. But the people in the office in Atlanta, Georgia, no, they don't want you to come on a Saturday or Sunday because they have to schedule somebody on overtime to be there with you.

And so do you.

And so do we. So I don't know when we'll get it. We'll keep trying, but that's the world we live in.

It's the nature of the beast.

We don't have control of all of these factors.

That's right.

So most of the time, we feel like a punching bag. We do our best. We follow the rules, but it doesn't always work out the way we hope.

Thank you, John. Any questions? Maybe we'll come back later on. Y'all good? Thank you, John. I appreciate it. And your employees are good, too, even though they don't talk as much as Tom's. But they're still good, but they're a dedicated bunch, and by being around them a number of times, they know what they're doing. And it's like me, again, as a bunch, they know their job, they know what has to be done, they just go out and do it.

Now let me just add one thing about employees. We have a great group of guys now. We have a bunch of younger guys going through the apprentice program and working their way through to get experience. We just lost another fellow to Salem. So since I've been here, we lost 10% of our workforce to Salem.

Are you fully staffed now?

I think we have two slots open.

A lineman?

The guy that left was an apprentice. Okay. We'd like to hire an A lineman, but we just have no luck hiring A lineman.

What are your numbers fully staffed?

25 or 26? 25, okay. Yeah, I think we have one slot on the tree crew and one apprentice, or a lineman if we could hire him, but we just have been hiring apprentices.

So we are- We did just have somebody join us who took a pay cut to come here. Now, obviously those results are not typical, but I think it does speak to the fact that John's doing something right.

Yeah, I think as far as morale goes, it's improved greatly since I came here 11 years ago. When I got here, they were ready to kill each other. Which is not unusual within a lineman culture, but I think we've got a much better morale now. Our basic thing is, of course, salaries are always an issue for us. And every one of those guys could go someplace else and make more money.

But they're not doing it.

They're not doing it, right.

Well, I mean, you're right, and I've said this a number of times. have their own language and their own way of doing things and their own attitudes so you have to understand that but very true but they work together yes they do we appreciate what you're doing don thank you all right let's take a 10 minute break come back we'll get into the meat of the thing and i think deborah will probably have a lunch for us all right go stretch out some Is he learning to stir the pot? All right, everybody's back. Let's get going again. It was asked to me do we want to look at community agency funding on page 54. So whatever comments you all have, let's take a look at it. I think that's pretty simple. That's my thought.

Yes.

Any comments?

But because we have access, it doesn't mean that everybody else doesn't. I think that's pretty much me. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Are we okay with that? Yes. Okay.

That's a grant anyway.

Yes, it is. Okay. From this point on, you all, whatever you all have on your plate, don't come out and let it go. Or do you want to go through each category? CIP and so forth. How do you all want to do this?

Also, let's just go through the categories. Yeah. Make it easy.

We ain't be jumping around.

Exactly. Make sure we cover everything.

I'm with you. Okay. The next is financials. Let's do that, Ann.

Well, I mean, it's, you know, we kind of, we just did the third quarter report to you. Current year, we, the biggest adjustment is where we're, recording these expenses more than the electric fund.

Yeah, this section has trends, graphs. It discusses processes. It's got a chart in there about the different general budget codes and who is associated with those codes, like . This section really is to help you understand the general budget reports that are at the back of the budget.

It talks about the enterprise funds and all

Page 64, ma'am. I just had a quick question of why, like under the general fund on the side fund balance, there was a big jump in the 22 to 23. I was just wondering what that was.

Yeah, that's really when we used American Rescue Plan Act funding to recover some of our public safety expenses. All righty.

The 100 business top activities self-sufficient fund says that the solid waste fund is at 89%. So will that look, that's going to look better this year? Correct.

Yes. This is based on the last audited financial statement.

Okay. So based on what we've done, it'll probably be closer to 100% or closer to it.

I think in 26 it's still gonna be slightly under 100% as we're still making changes, but as of the budget that we're putting forward in 27, it should be at 100%. I do want to make a comment on that graph on page 65 for Solid Waste unrestricted net position. You'll see that we had a rather large negative balance. What's included in that is unfunded pension liability, so it's VRS. Also, when we closed the landfill, we had a very large payable recorded to the general fund. And so we used cash to basically pay that off and say, you know what, Soloway's time you no longer owe us this liability. And so that is why that increased greatly in 23.

The trend will stay the same in the out years. I mean, they'll start to be negative.

It will as long as that's on what we call a full accrual basis of accounting because we're seeing those net pension liabilities out there that are rather large. And that's BRS. When you hear me say pension, it's the retirement system.

I did like the note on page 66, your long range financial planning tool. I did like the note down toward the last paragraph about the ever-increasing inflation in both personnel and operating costs, while revenues are not growing at the same inflationary rate. So we're spending more than coming in.

Absolutely. I know we had that discussion in a department meeting with the new construction coming on, off independence, and what that will bring in real estate taxes. And when you calculate what our $0.28 brings in, it's so much smaller than you can imagine. Very little revenue compared to growth.

That's another topic for discussion at some point.

Okay, so I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm going to do all the talking. I think you guys will jump in. That's why we're here. Okay, but where it says no additional debt is included in the forecast, I guess that's general fund stuff, but we are including looking at debt for capital improvement, right?

That's right. So it's included in contingency because we don't know what that is yet. We kind of have forecasts of those numbers and what the annual payment is, and we've set it in contingency for that. Okay.

So do you think on page 67, current real estate tax, as I said, we won't get it, we don't anticipate a huge increase then based on, how about the reassessment? We'll get a little bump there.

I'm hoping we will because every time we do a reassessment, it does go up. I mean, the last two times, it's gone up about $20,000 a year. So I'm thinking that we'll get another bump like that again.

The last one, did that include when the real estate Values went kind of high or?

We had a blend going on that year because we had the boundary adjustment and we had a reassessment. Okay. So we had two factors that contributed. You'll see real estate taxes went up greatly from fiscal year 23 to 24. Yeah. Okay.

I'm just saying as you're talking about taxes in here, I'll flip back to the page 14 comparing us to other communities. Ours is probably behind Lynchburg and Benton. Ours is probably one of the higher ones. And so I was kind of that, how are the other ones performing as compared? Yeah, how are they keeping them so low? Yeah.

And the other thing that I noticed on that same graph is our town's contributions to the total tax town and county, it seems to be a little higher than what the other towns are paying for the charges for the taxes.

It just depends. Every locality has their own flavor, I would say, of how they charge revenues to pay for services. And I think it depends on what the community can afford to pay and where they are willing to pay it. So ours has been on real estate tax primarily because we were a city and when we reverted, we had a stable rate with the county. And so we said, okay, our citizens are used to paying with this real estate tax and we want to keep it that way. And so that's where the reversion had us at a higher rate than most towns. Now, there's other things that other towns are charging that we are not that could blend. So, for example, our neighbors in Benton and Rocky not have a license fee that we are not charging. That brings in around $120,000 a year. I mean, there's other things that they are charging that we are not, like machinery pools. And the issue is that those localities are used to paying it. There's a certain steadiness involved in it. And so whenever you talk about change, you're changing what people are paying and what they're used to paying. So in Bedford's case, I think we have had a higher real estate tax because our residents were used to paying that combined total rate as a city. And so it's just kind of continued. But there are other ways you could become more competitive, like a vehicle license fee. You'll see many accounts charge that. We don't. And then machinery and tools, many accounts charge that. We do not. And then the business license, we have much lower rates than most of our neighbors, although you have to go to each individual locality to see their rates because there's such a difference in how people are charging what. I hope that helps. The other thing is our next door neighbor, the town of Benton, they have a really low tax rate, but they also have special legislation that allows them to get a full percentage of sales tax from the county. I believe they're the only town in the state of Virginia that gets that, but their sales tax coming in is more than double what we were receiving. They get about a million a year in from the county. That balances their budget.

But don't they also pay tax to Roanoke County? Yes. Which is what, a dollar and something?

$340.

Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, I've heard people talk about how low that tax rate is, and I don't get into any back and forth on that. Just like the town, we pay the county tax also. So they're doing that to Roanoke County. Correct. That's right.

Okay. Yeah, and that's where, when I was talking about real estate tax, I was comparing the town and the county together for all of them, and that's where. The town of Vinton actually is the highest, it looks like, other than Roanoke City and Salem. But out of the towns, Vinton's was the highest.

Yeah. All right. So meal tax. We got... Mom, I mentioned this, asked us a while back about looking into it. Are we training now? Are we making money on that? Or do we need to look into that?

It's still overall down. We're hoping in BLS's reopening, we're hoping that will help growth that we're going to see next month. But at the moment, the last time I checked it, we're still forecasting to be about $100,000 less than last year.

We're sitting at 5.5% meal tax now. The average is six, some is four, but the average is about six through the whole damn meal taxes. So I didn't know if we'd find that next month. Do we need to look into that or whatever?

And I'll say half a percent on our meals tax today is around $170,000 to $180,000 a year.

And that may be something we wait until a year from now and then look at, because that could be some of the recovery costs, the $750,000.

You kind of weigh what is usually done the previous year.

Yeah, to see if we need to raise it to make up. Because it may increase, just like Ann said, with the Beeson opening back up and some others.

And I hear someone that's doing pretty good.

Mm-hmm.

So are we going to talk about revenue later? I mean, I don't want to be jumping around. I kind of, if we go through expenses and stuff and then talk about revenue, that'd be fine.

Well, when we go to the budget, I think, well, the revenues are the first part of the budget. Okay.

Well, I mean, when I talk, when I mean revenue, I mean additional revenue.

Increasing taxes. Well, like I said, the challenge for me with increasing taxes, we're going to start charging people $25 to $50 more a month for electric bills now.

be careful yeah i mean there's a balance but there's also a balance of we're we're losing money and not bringing enough in and at some point the town's not going to be slow i agree i don't disagree i do i think i see it with both sections with the yeah theory the weather this year no i didn't have time yeah no i understand what you're saying that's why i was comparing you know that's what i'm saying i think we need to we need to have discussion and then have maybe have a road map of what we're going to do because we're losing 750 000 in a couple of years we're going to you know and there's other things coming down the pike and it's just if we don't do something now and we wait till later to put a plan in place it's just going to be harder later on to make up and what would it be now so anyway well i mean we talked about that taxes and fees or yeah that'd be great yeah

I mean, what I was looking at, I was looking at like, you know, the meal tax, the lodging tax, and stuff like that, because, you know, I don't want to hurt our citizens or anything like that, but I want to catch that revenue that if we had visitors, or we had people coming through the town, or coming off the peaks, or come and visit D-Day, or come and visit our little town, that would be revenue that we could catch right there in the process, and then that won't be directly towed personal property or nothing like that. That's what I was thinking.

One thing I would recommend is if you do want to do a meals tax change, give about three months notice for vendors so they have time to change all of their merchant processing devices and update the rate. I know it does take time.

All right. What else? Are we okay on the rest of this?

I'm sorry, but I've got a quick question. Keep it going. The same with the mill tax. The comment here says that the current rate is set at 5.5%, with excess collections over 5% designated and spent solely for economic development for town code. So if we happen to raise, let's just say the meal tax is 6%, does that mean 1% goes to the economic development? It's up to you.

So it's designated by town ordinance that half of it goes to economic development. So you have full control over that. You could also say that half a percent would no longer go to economic development.

You just have to adjust the... Yeah, we could actually say that that half a percent would go to...

uh future to uh account to hold for the cover for the 750 000. because because mary and the economic development authority get that half percent yeah i don't i don't just i just didn't know if it was automatic that if we you know if we wouldn't if it said it was yeah about one percent extra would go just that just that point yeah i just i agree with keeping the five percent definitely for half a percent rather so well while we're on taxes

All these home-based businesses, they don't pay any taxes when they do the stuff out of their house, right?

Well, they do apply for a business license, and they have a business license tax. So we do have that, but it's only the application fee unless they generate over the $250,000 a year. So it depends on how much they're generating out of their home.

But they don't pay taxes like we do, like I do.

If it's food they should, shouldn't they?

Correct. If they're serving food to eat on premise. If they're serving it to go away, then probably not. It would just be a retail sale.

So if they're delivering food or meals, I'm just curious, then they wouldn't have to pay the meal tax?

Actually, you know, it depends. So one instance is when somebody who wants to go around town with a cart of prepackaged factory foods. So on that one, they're itinerant, vendor, peddler, perishable. They don't pay anything other than our fee. for doing so. Now, if you do have an at-home bakery, that's probably what you're talking about. That's prepared food, so they would pay.

Or somebody that's preparing meals on the other meals.

Right. If it's packaged food for sale off-premises, like factory packaged, then no, we do not charge a meals tax on that.

Was that the kind of business you were talking about? Well, yeah, because so many home-based businesses now way more than it was before. Because when you go through there, there's like tons of people doing stuff out of their house now. And if they're not paying taxes like we are, then that's a lot of tax loss.

Well, it's also a planning and permitting issue as well because they're supposed to be applying for a permit to operate a business out of their home. So it becomes both a business license issue and I walk next door to Mary and say, hey, did they get a permit to actually do this?

And zoning too, I guess. They'd have to be zoned properly.

I know when I first started, the health department would come to my house and inspect it and stuff and everything when I used to do cakes out of the house and how to get all that stuff. But I mean, not just picking on people that bake out of their houses, but I mean, there's a lot of other things that people do out of their houses and sales. But if we're not collecting taxes on one, I mean, that's a huge...

There's a homestead law. I'm not super aware of it, but it exempts some of the health department inspections, I think, for small sales. There's certain things that are associated with that, like poultry and eggs and small things. But Mike may be more aware of that than I am.

I was just thinking the same thing that you just said, that the distinction between a prepared food and a food sale where you're basically a grocer, it gets really, really complicated. But to your point, they are supposed, most are supposed to get, if you're selling prepared food, you're supposed to have the health department stuff. you're supposed to have a home occupation permit from Mary, and you're supposed to be paying your meals tax again, which meals tax, people tax can depend upon your size. But to your point, I would strongly suspect that there are people who are evading the rules or just aren't fully aware and are just going off and doing their own thing and getting away with it. But they're not supposed to. They're supposed to be under the same rules as a standalone establishment. Again, a standalone establishment with similar receipts, which can vary a lot.

What page should I ask?

I'm sure we'll talk about it separately, but under on page 70, the recovered costs that we've been talking about with special events and stuff. We aren't capturing, just like Warren said, we're not capturing the true cost of the events we're doing. I think the PD, Tom's folks and everything are taking a big hit because if we're recovering anything, we're recovering 20%, right?

Per policy, yes.

And do we recover 20%? We don't recover 20% like Centerfest or those other events, is that right?

And then, yeah, I've got a... Some of the biggest events, it's also within the policy, we don't recover anything from that.

Because I think you said it was like $27,000 we spent on Centerfest.

Yeah, and I'm sorry. The most recent figures I had from Public Works and Police, actually it was just Public Works. Centerfest cost $8,300. Now Police is in addition to that. And then we also had some one-time costs for electric, I know. But at a minimum, it's costing us $8,300. Plus the $7,500 sponsorship. Yeah.

Well, and I guess, John, you pay some people over time to work at Santa Fe School.

We haven't done it in the last year. You haven't had- No, but we used to have a crew up there in case they had problems. We installed a bunch of power boxes around for people to use. So last year we just had, if something came up, the on-call guy would just come over, but we don't put a crew over there anymore like we used to.

and when you were doing that.

Back in the old days.

Back in the day. Back in the old days, yeah.

Well, Barton, do you have any thoughts on if we raise that percent, what would be comparable, 50%? I mean, just throwing thoughts out there for discussion here.

I will tell you, we didn't have a policy until four or five years ago. And then when we did, 20% was just a number that came out of thin air, and that's what we adopted. That's kind of what I thought. Anything more would help us recover costs. I don't know how much impact it would have in terms of chasing events away if we said, well, actually, I will tell you, this came about a few years ago because there was somebody who wanted to have a 5K race. On Memorial Day weekend, we calculated what the cost was, told them that they didn't want to pay it, so I told them no. Then they came to council, not just council, and asked council for their answer, and council said no. But then the person came back and made an impassioned plea, and council said yes. So we ate that. The next year, that's what prompted this policy, so the next year, When I quoted them, 20% of our cost for that, which was about 20% of our cost was like $300 or $400. They didn't want to pay it, but we had a policy. The issue is whatever policy we adopt, it's like anything else. I'll enforce it, but they can always appeal to counsel. And we have to go back to the policy. Yes, we all should go back to code of policy. Yes. Now, did you feel sorry for it? I mean, certainly 50% is reasonable. We could poll the ones that we deal with and ask them if 100% would chase them out. Again, the assumption is, I have this conversation in my house. Why did you charge Liberty High School a $50 fee for homecoming? Well, really, I should have charged them $180, because it costs something.

Well, and I think... In today's changing times, and that's where we are, we have to always constantly reevaluate these things because we cannot continue to lose money, or at least that much. We're going to make donations here and there, like the fireworks, and probably center fest, Christmas parade. But we should be able to recoup a larger amount.

So give me y'all's thoughts. So how much is all special event policies do we lose a year back? You told me about six or something.

Yeah, let me. So when we figure in the sponsorships as well, we also pay D-Day. We spent $69,550 based on what the departments reported, and we recovered 8,200. We're planning to recover 8,200 of that. 7,500 is the county willing to pay for fireworks. So it's bordering on $70,000 in cost for what we provide in services.

I know me and you had a discussion. We talk about fireworks, too. I mean, that's a big chunk of money recently that's come up where it used to be split between three different.

And the county is participating this year, Robert. All right, good. And this year, since it's the 250th, it's going to be a bigger show than normal. So having talked to the vendor, by the way, we've all said you go through procurement with that, that cost should go down after 26, 27. And as long as we continue to play well with the county, they probably will help us out.

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad to see that relationship come back to some degree.

And for people who ask. We do have a really good working relationship with Bedford County and do not underestimate the value of that. Yes, I totally agree 100%.

So, okay, let's... What are the biggies? The Centerfest, Christmas Parade, and fireworks?

Yes, let's see. Centerfest, again, if you throw in the sponsorship, it's $15,000. Christmas Parade's $4,300. The Peaks of Otter 5K race is $5,500. The Independence Day thing apparently is going to be self-supporting, the job that Aiden is doing.

He's not charging admissions. He's got sponsorships.

And the fireworks are going to be $35,000 in the budget, I think. But that's typically their... 30,000 or less, and it's trended upward with costs lately.

It used to be around 17,000. That's going to be double those years.

It's a bigger show, and they cost more because of things like tariffs and the Strait of Hormuz and shipping in from China.

For the events, I just wanted to throw in now that we have the carnival. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and we're still trying to peg that.

But they did pay their calculated $20,000. I was going to say, we'd pay some of those costs off at the end, though.

Yeah, but once they currently were at like $3,000 or something, does that sound right?

Well, my thinking is if you pull those three out, how much do you have left then?

Really, it's... The homecoming parade, LHS, $750. That's the baseline. Then if we have to shut down the loop for a 5K, that's about $2,000. So the range is anywhere from $750 to a couple thousand for individual events. The big ones, like I said, we just talked about.

So why don't, well I got two things. One, I think your idea of polling and talking to each one is a good idea to see what would drive people away if it was too much. But the other thing is, and I think Mary could answer it, is there a lot of benefit to the town

with these events and what the benefits are or do you know could you quantify that at this point without polling businesses to see if their sales go up on any of an event day go up or if they go down that's what for the past that actually doesn't help some of the street as close traffic so we can hold them and find out well i know what that's on centerfest and christmas parade we do triple like our normal

sales because i ordered like that whole the food and stuff and everything and there's been that some of the time we've had to close it in one didn't even stay up the past one or two because we ran out so i mean it does because like heather leaves the front of our store she doesn't put anybody's center fest our storefront stays up and we do do really well for That's because our prices, you know, because food truck prices are more expensive than regular food. So it does help for that. The Christmas parade, before it starts, yes. Once the Christmas parade is over, it's a regular day. But then if you stay open for the tree lighting and all of that, then you've got your people coming back in. So it does give you better sales, but you have to stay open for it.

so that i would think that would be some of the stuff we would want to hear from all of you sounds like it's beneficial to you to have the events yeah but i mean you know i'm like right there in the middle of it yeah it could be different when you're off today some of these events that the town is sponsoring or co-sponsoring with other people yeah let me speak could we actually we don't we don't really sponsor anything because we don't have a staff to do it

Anything. This kind of goes back to the argument, too, that there are other organizations that have events, and our only involvement is we allow them to use the strength. Now, that said, we do pay sponsorships to organizations, currently the Central Virginia Business Coalition and the D-Day Memorial. So I just want to make that clear. Right. We don't sponsor them because we don't really have anybody who can.

Understood. But the point of the question was, as opposed to paying a fee to be listed as a sponsor, those in-kind services that we pay, could that be used to offset whatever that sponsorship level may be?

We can ask. I think that's a great idea.

And of course, the other option is, OK, if that's not good, then you're going to pay a third or half of the cost of our services.

Our costs are mainly in... barricading the roads and streets and all that.

Yeah, law enforcement, public works, and actually we have the cost that's not counted is the cost of the firefighters that are volunteers that are out there. Correct. Spending their time out there because they don't get compensated for their time. They're just volunteering to be there.

Right.

And it's taking away from them from being able to respond to other calls and again wearing them out and having them.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's a good point in there. Okay, we... can calculate the cost or we the poll probably is the right way to go first but i dare say some may say absolutely not but you don't know you need to get the bowl you need to get the numbers but for the sponsors that's a great idea yeah we'll follow up on that as well yeah correct that is a great idea yeah

And she will be interesting for you if you could calculate it. So when we have special events, what the what the cost would be for the manpower that you have out there. Yeah, because that would be a good number to have, even though it's not a cost of us. financially, but it's a cost on the manpower that you have and their ability to respond to the calls.

Theoretically, for something like that, that would be an overtime kind of thing because you can't take services away from them. Right.

And I'm sorry, let me just explain the process for any special, and it kind of comes through me first. The application forms involves anybody that wants to do it, fills it out. I then send that out to each department and ask them to evaluate that and calculate the cost. And I haven't been including the fire department, but you will be added to the distribution list. I compile the, well, I'm sorry, let me go back. There's a $50 application fee up front. to cover our costs of just evaluating that because everybody has to stop what they're doing and figure out schedules. Then we go back and calculate the total cost. I figure out 20% and send them a quote saying, this is what the event fee is. Once they pay that, we put it on the agenda. You approve it. If they don't pay the fee, then I'd tell them no, but then they could still come and ask it.

And we've got to say no.

Yeah. We've got to stick with what the policy is.

Correct. That's what I'm saying. We've got to let Mr. Warner do his job. We've got to support him. Yep.

Yes. Or should. Yes. Yeah. So what's the flag? I mean, y'all want to poll it? Or what direction do we want to come here?

Well, I think dad's information is always. Yeah. Okay.

Is that okay? Yep. We can do that this week. All right. Carry on. What's next? I didn't know if Dave had something.

Oh, I'm sorry. No, I haven't. What do you got? It's human. Poland's fine. Human nature, if I'm a business and you say, hey, could you pay 100% or would you leave, I'll leave. That's what I was getting at. And so the polling to me is going to be not even beneficial.

Well, I think it's the other side of the polling, too, that Mary could do to find out what benefits there are to the businesses in the community.

My part's easy. I'll do it when Mary can do it.

Yeah, her part's going to be more difficult. See, they're going to say to Mary, are you serious?

Some of them may say there's no benefit, I would think. Some would say there's none. And then others, like Jay, are going to say there's some. And that's where we've got to find the balance of where it is in there.

That's the good news for any poll, the accuracy of it. Yeah, I know.

But it's a good story. And then you're exactly right, Doug. Then you have to analyze it and see the accuracy of it.

i guess yeah i mean because we got to start somewhere and figure out where we're going to go from there i mean if you you know we could always say we're going to charge 100 for whatever every event but then we might not have any events in town after that i do agree that yeah i think we're on the right track bart's on the right track and then we've got to figure out okay

Where are we losing money? And how much is too much? And then tighten the budget. Tighten the belt a little bit to stop the bleeding as much as we can without stopping events.

Well, exactly. That's where I was thinking. Because I do think there are benefits to the events, even though I may not sound like what I'm saying, the things I'm saying. I think the community benefits and the town benefits from the marketing of the events and people seeing the town while they're here. I think there's a benefit to that.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. We don't want to seem like a grinch and nobody wants to come here.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm asking these questions not as a person that's saying there are benefits, but how much so we can try to quantify some of it.

That's what I was trying to think of. I'm going to say about the Dane. do talk about this. One person said they're not going to charge any fees this year on one event, but all the other events, there's fees, entry fees, registration fees. And then that group makes that money from that.

Yeah, do we gain any tax? Do we gain any tax advantage from that when there's people charging to enter the events and we don't have? I'm just curious.

We haven't been charging the admissions tax now.

But we don't have, do we have one in the books for, or is there one, do we have an ordinance for admission tax? Is there a tax to give to that phone? Yeah, yeah. Or do we need to create one?

So certain events charge an admission fee. Can we get some of that benefit? Yeah, that's exactly right. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what I'm asking.

We don't have an admission tax in the books, and I'm aware of it. I mean, we could have an admissions tax.

Yeah.

But then it's also tricky, because if they're a non-profit, a lot of times they're exempt from admissions tax if the nonprofit agency is putting on the event. Or school, you can get into the school situation. That's a good proportion.

Yeah, I will tell you, Liberty High School wasn't happy about paying $50. I thought I'd bankrupted some.

Well, we wouldn't charge nonprofits, but then that would at least, honestly, it might drive more nonprofits to doing the events, but then it would benefit the nonprofits and may not need some of the, it may help them. So, I mean, because I know there are some events that are privately funded that are still out there that are still charging for admissions. The carnival could be one of them if they charge for admissions to the carnival.

I think they used to years back when it was at the JC field, make sure it's admission, but that's long gone.

Yeah. It's appropriate to mention that we're, in our engagement with the carnival, we're talking about them providing some benefits to the facility?

Yeah, please do.

So the Bedford Carnival first instance was last year at Liberty Lake Park. They're coming again. They've talked to us about a long-term arrangement at Liberty Lake Park and making some improvements to the facilities they use that would exist permanently and benefit us and benefit our maintenance efforts so just want to make you aware that there's another so we have repeat customers we've also executed i'm going off topic a little bit also executing mou with county rec we're in they're the most consistent user of the fields they're going to step up more with maintenance to offset our costs there's an idea that somebody has about duplicating something like aluminites on our trail, we can engage them to fix the trail and maintain it. That's different than the fee discussion, but I just want you to be aware that part of our attempt to reduce our maintenance and capital cost relates to following up on these relationships where we can.

And I will follow up on that in that Tom and I met with Joy Powers and what was the other lady's name? Carolyn Fellers. Carolyn Fellers. Someone must have asked about the county fair. Very good meeting. And they went off on these ideas. They would like some kind of building in the future. And not just a building where you put up and take down. A metal building to put all their things in. Their arts, their crafts, different things to expand the county fair. And so they talked about partnering with the town on these things, which Jonathan Hayden also said that, about the land that we currently own and are not doing anything with. Talked about additional parking, additional ideas on that. So there are ideas out there. that they are serious about.

And we could capture that as an in-kind cost on their part and follow up on their one. That's why I brought it up.

So yeah, I appreciate that.

And that's what I would say was an in-kind cost. I think that would cover.

But that's what I've been saying about a lot of these things. If we can get partners to go in with us and help out and not the town go it alone, that's kind of what we're looking for. And with Jonathan and his group there, they are more than willing to help out or do what they can. We just need to get someone, as I said earlier, to start driving that and moving forward and seeing what we can or cannot do.

And I think all these partners that we're talking about really do benefit the town. Absolutely.

No doubt.

You're right.

So I'd like to mention that. Deborah's back there pointing to the hall. Do you all want to finish this one and then go eat, or what else on the financials do you want to ask, or what's on your mind? I can finish this section. Yeah, finish it up.

Yeah, finish it before you eat.

Your stomach must be growling.

No, no, I might actually shoot. I've covered everything that I have, my notes on that. So, yeah.

I mean, anything that y'all think about later, we can come back to.

I guess the only thinking question I'd have, Ann, just as a point of clarification, there was some page 71, the refuge collection of these civilians. I know the trend shows it down at 26, but I guess that's due to the amount of conversion. Correct.

Exactly. And I'll say the decrease in the fee is a lot less than the decrease in the cost.

All right. What about page 72? 73? 74, 75? As I said, anything we can come back to if y'all want to. Yes, you got anything? You okay? I'm good. You good? I'm going to ask one question.

Please do. We got till 12. They won't take that line. On 7-4 and the proposed 27, the contingency, will that, I mean...

If nothing goes wrong, we just roll that over as a general fund thing. That's the hope. And almost all of that is either debt funding that's planned in the general fund, solid base fund, and then the electric fund has a healthy contingency this year.

And that's all I have. All right. Anything on 75? 875? All right, then the next one when we come back will be the CIP, Company Improvement Program. Everybody good? Yep. Then let's break for lunch. Yes. We were fast tracking.

Darryl and I discussed everything else in between. Yeah.

I think we left off the page 176. Real quick, Mary is back. If you all have any questions about Are you enjoying your meal, ma'am? If you have any questions about community development, we'll wait until she's finished and then ask her. Any questions? I think Mark pretty much answered it.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I don't know.

Yeah. Mark did a great job. He did a great job for you, Mary. All right, I think we're left off on page 76. Moving forward, the government's movement programs.

But there's a lot to talk about in the future. One thing I just want to mention strategically, just go on that list. In public works, we're looking at doing some work in the parks. in two places. One is Beulah Payne Park. We have to do that. There's some legal obligations related to when we took over ownership of that that we're wrapping up. Talking about the literally park restrooms, Tom and I have talked about this. And here, I want to share our approach to that. The idea of port-a-johns, nobody really likes, including us. So we're talking about the idea of maybe constructing permanent facilities that, OK, they're restrooms with water fountain facilities. at each kind of pod or sector of the park. And the first one we've talked about is up by the tennis courts and the playground up top, figuring out how this works, doing it one year, not to be one seeder each side, that kind of thing. Then maybe the next year doing it at field one, and the next year at field two, and maybe the next year down at the pavilion by the lake. Kind of incrementally as we can afford it, respond to some of the concerns of the public that, frankly, we have too. And restrooms were things we heard about. So that's our approach to it. And Tom, you can jump on and smack me if I said something wrong.

I'm not sure I missed the first part of that. Are you talking about permanent?

Permanent, yeah, something with running water and probably electricity.

I think that's a great idea, a great thought, and we need to... Now, we don't know what that looks like yet.

We're looking at modular options, obviously.

Yeah, I'll just joke. There are some modulars that operate like a port-a-job. They... And I had already talked to Brad Bates, who utilizes and maintains the port-a-johns we have, where the truck comes in, cleans it out, that kind of thing. But they are a building. They just don't have water in the sewer lines that have to be run to them. They're self-contained. But it's a building. It's not a port-a-john like a platform. So it's upscale, but... No water needs to be run to it because frankly, we were talking about, I mean, that'd be the preference, but that's going to cost quite a bit, especially per unit. I'll give you another example. There was a standalone water fountain by the tennis courts and that was there. It's been existing for years, but It wasn't working. We started researching and getting into it. We found where the valve was. The valve was shut off. So we turned it on and the thing started spraying out. So, you know, we get farther into it. Long story short, it needs to be replaced. The components that are underground are either worn out or rusted out or whatever. a stand-alone, the cheapest stand-alone water fountain that I can find, and I've had Whit look into it, I've had Select Air look into it, and I looked into it myself. The cheapest one I can find is $9,000. Just for a stand-alone water fountain. And from the two contractors, it was much more than that, it was closer to $15,000. So... So that's why that's going undone right now, because 10 grand for a plot of land is hard to justify. But yeah, we're gonna do something. But like I said, it's the cost, it's a little cost-prohibitive in front of the water and the sewer lines and all that. So we were looking at other options. The cost for a standalone, self-contained unit is much less, still a little bit.

I got to speak to her. Do we have defibrillators at our parks? No, sir. So it's going to be required.

Yeah. That was a discussion that came up not long ago about the lack of, throughout the whole city, you know, or town. Yes, sir.