City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright, I will call to order the Belmont City Council workshop for 05/18/2026. Today, we do have a short consent agenda with the workshop. So I'll turn it over to Miles to go through the consent agenda items.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. Tonight on consent, you have two items. The first item is the consider approval to maintain criminal enforcement of city ordinances and this is the second reading. This is chapter 72 for stop standing and parking. The first reading was during the May 4 meeting and this is of course to recriminalize this ordinance given that several years ago, they removed that capability from municipalities.

So, second reading is tonight. There's in your packet all the information plus the ordinance amending the ordinance And we're to of going deadline was April 14. The And We had 12 firms to respond. And those are boomerang design, C design, Colliers engineering and design, CPL, Creech and Associates, DP three architects, Gensler, HelpDesign, Little Lores, Morrisburg, Pesaro, and Stuart Cooper Newell. The five firms that are being recommended for on call architectural services are Boomerang Design, C design, help design, Morrisburg, and Stuart Cooper Newell.

And the justification for choosing these five firms are for the following reasons. They each have a local office and are local ties to the city of Belmont. They have key projects identified in their statement of qualifications that were municipal in nature, which means that they had fire and police facilities, public works facilities, municipal office renovations. Their approach to on call services and response time was one of the justifications and their workload capacity. So we're recommending that we move forward with master services agreements for those five firms. And those are the two consent items. Mayor, I'll turn

it back over to you. Thank you, Miles. Appreciate that. Any questions for Miles on either of the consent agenda items? No. Alright. I understand before we set the agenda that staff has recommended removal of C5?

That's correct.

Yes. Removing solid waste and recycling contract discussion and putting that on a future council meeting.

Yes, that sounds good. Alright, so we will be removing item c five. So at this point, I will entertain a motion to set the agenda, the amended agenda with the removal of agenda item c five. Moved. Jason, seconded by Jim. All in favor? Any opposed? Alright. The agenda is set. And so at this point, that'll move us along to approval of the consent agenda. So I will entertain a motion to approve consent agenda. Motion by Alex. Second. Seconded by Charlie. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Alright, consent agenda is approved and that will move us right along to agenda item c one, the health insurance for fiscal year 2627. We have Hannah here. How are you?

I'm doing well. I hope you are.

We are.

Thank you mayor and council we are following up from the last council meeting. Where it was discussed that our self funded option we kinda had to take a pivot. From that. Donna Nixon is back from hub international she's gonna be giving a presentation. That goes over our new recommendation regarding our health insurance and dive into some numbers with that.

Thank

you. Over to Donna.

Thank you. Alright. I like to remind everyone, don't be shy that microphone does not pick up well. So people at home wanna hear. So You're Thank

you very much, mayor Jordan, and council members for allowing me to come back. City Manager, Mr. Braswell, it's a pleasure to be here. So tonight, I wanna walk you through kind of what we found with this year's market analysis, kind of what your renewal options look like, kind of what the strategic path is that we're recommending for the city kind of moving forward. So why self funding didn't win?

So we spent a lot of time talking about self funded, a lot of education the last time I was here about why we think that's the right move for the city of Belmont. However, we looked very seriously at this. We did a lot options and really wanted to see how the numbers would help dictate what the right decision is. And unfortunately, the numbers do not support making that move right now, even though we really still feel that it's the right long term destination for the city. And so what we found is that UnitedHealthcare came back unfortunately with the number we expected for it to come back in with about a 39.3% increase.

That's really significant. I won't minimize that whatsoever. But when we put the Pareto self funded model side by side, the UHC renewal still came in considerably lower. So the Pareto expected cost is coming in at about 18% above that UNC renewal, and the worst case maximum liability is about 39% above it. So you may be wondering why that gap exists.

So UnitedHealthcare is using a blended underwriting approach where they're mixing their standard manual rate with just the experience that you've had since you've had UnitedHealthcare since sevenonetwenty twenty five. So that blend is actually working in the city's favor right now, even though it probably doesn't feel like it. Where Pareto in a self funded model is underwriting purely on your historical claims data, which includes that high cost period, that huge spike that we reviewed the last time that I was here. Now that is really actuarially the correct way to do it when you are looking at a self funded arrangement, but it does make it unfavorable timing for Belmont to consider that at this time.

So how far back does Pareto go with their history of claims?

So Pareto goes back twenty four months.

Okay.

So that's a great question because that tells us, as time continues to go on, and why we still feel it's important to put this in this long term strategic depending on what claims continue to trend like, it could be that you're in a much better option twelve months from now because that prior twelve months that's really hurting you today will drop off and then new claims will kind of come into that spot. There's also one additional consideration. Pareto's stop loss quote includes a $250,000 laser on one specific high cost climate. So as a best practice, especially for municipalities, we typically will recommend that you fund at maximum liability, so that including if that trigger became real and that person did incur those claims, that would put the total maximum exposure at $3,200,000.

Can you

I'm sorry. Can you expand on that laser item? Is that a potential claim for that much or is that something that you're saying to build in that as a contingency? Yep.

So what they're doing is they're looking at your claims history

and

they're saying what conditions already exist in the population that is being covered. There were actually two people that they were concerned about, but the first one they said we're not going to put a laser on that, but the second person they said you know what, we anticipate that their claims are going to exceed $250,000 in this next plan year. Therefore, we're not willing to take on all that risk. The city would have to absorb that exposure for that one person. It doesn't mean that they will incur those claims, right?

And so that's where that risk tolerance comes into play, right? Some people say, you know what, that's okay, I'll take the laser. I don't think they're going to incur that much. Or maybe they know that they're going be going off out of leave and not returning. They might know some things that say, you know what, we're willing to take that risk.

However, my job is to make sure you understand the complete picture of what that rate exposure would look like and what that total liability would be. When you think about the budgeting that you all are looking to approve, dollars 3,200,000 is a far reach from where we thought we would be from a budgeting perspective. And so it's not our recommendation at this point to kind of move forward in that model. Because even if you went with the expected cost, say you didn't hit that maximum liability, you're still looking at about a $2,700,000 spend. And that's best case scenario.

Does that answer your questions about that? So the recommendation is really to stay fully insured this year and look for opportunities throughout the year to start building a reserve fund so that when timing is right, maybe twelve or twenty four months from now, we might be able to make this move from a position of strength rather than kind of the position that we would be in right now.

On that point, sorry I don't mean to belabor the questions here, but the point about the recommendation for building a reserve fund so that if we think that it's inevitable, eventually we're gonna have to go this direction. I mean, we resolved on that, Hannah? That's inevitably gonna be the destination for how we. So in similar situations maybe with other municipalities, have you found that maybe it makes sense to, if we're on board with trying to start building a reserve for that transition eventually, maybe you build in some future increases over the next two or three years working with our finance department and try to at least reserve for that delta because we know there's going be a front end pill to swallow.

That's correct.

And maybe at least building a reserve to address that because we know we're going to probably have 25% plus increases annually anyway on the traditionally funded plan. Is that a good

It is. I mean, and so you know, I don't know if you can do that right at this time. But you know, throughout the year, if there's opportunities where you are making adjustments to the budgeting, and you know, maybe some projects come in under budget, you know, allocating that money to a reserve fund would be a really great first step.

We thought about similar to what we do at the end of the fiscal year, you have like a healthy fund balance and that audit shows that we can move money into unassigned fund balance. Similar to what we're doing with like the capital project that we just did that budget amendment for at the last meeting. At the end of the year, look at it and then carve out some funding to start funding a program like this. I wouldn't do it at the beginning of the year right now. I'd wait until like our audit comes back next year to see if we could start that process. We kind of talked about that in house a little bit, how we would do that.

So

as far as the fully insured market goes, we did go to the market on your behalf. We approached Aetna, Cigna and Blue Cross in addition to UnitedHealthcare. Health care. Aetna and Cigna both declined to quote, and Blue Cross with Shield of North Carolina came back at 50% over current rates. So that means that the most realistic option is to remain with UnitedHealthcare.

We understand that this is a real significant increase, and based off of the surveys that you all have had in the committees, we worked with the leadership of the city to try to figure out how can we design a plan to satisfy the employees from a standpoint of not losing anything and really trying to make some enhancements for those folks that are covering dependents. And so what we're proposing instead is to now provide a dual option strategy. So we will keep the exact same plan design, which most employers, if you talk to them right now, what they're doing is they're increasing deductibles, they're increasing co pays on the plan and in most cases they're increasing employee deductions. Talking with leadership, we thought it was very important to try to hold that plan design stable, meaning that the employees won't have any further out of pocket exposure if they kept the same plan they're on today, and also have the city absorb the rate increase so that their payroll deductions did not change. In addition to that, we want to also try to satisfy the need for those employees who are looking to have dependents covered on the plan.

And so our option is to promote a new optional plan that does have slightly larger out of pocket deductibles and a little modification to the deductibles. However, this does decrease the payroll deductions for all the dependent coverages, all the dependent tiers as well. Under this model, we're kind of assuming that maybe 24 employees will change from the current plan that they have today and enroll dependents on that new plan. With the city actually still continuing to provide that employee only coverage, you know, at 100% under both scenarios. So what this slide is really showing you is kind of where the current plan design is and what the new model would look like as far as that dual option.

You can see the current plan design, the deductibles, the out of pocket maximums, the co pays, etc. So another request that you all had made through city leadership was for us to take a look at what it would look like if we did a salary contribution model. Hub is not recommending this model, but we did want you to see what this would look like if you chose to explore them further. So the concept is pretty straightforward. Basically, the lower wage employees pay a smaller share of dependent premiums and the higher wage employees pay more.

So based on actual enrollment, we tried to mirror where we think people will move to based on what the dependents are. And how this chart works is basically you can see the salary bands and you read across as to what those payroll deductions would be. Those in blue would pay less. Those in black would pay more than they do currently today. The reason that we're not recommending this right now and instead recommending that dual option is due to the operational complexity of having this type of a plan design scenario.

This does require significant lift from HR and payroll to actually, one, load this into the system because you would actually have to have 24 unique payroll deductions. And then you would also have to have a policy in place to monitor changes in salary throughout the plan year. So we don't think the timing is right to put this in. We think there's more value in offering a plan that lowers the dependent contributions for everyone rather than making some people to pay more. But certainly open to entertaining that smart.

Pause here for like a second because when I was looking at this, and help me just to understand this, again, insurance isn't my forte, but if I look at like the current plan, new optional plan, and then if I was just to layer that in to the schedule you have right here that you have displayed, like if you're under 50 ks and you want the employee plus your family, your monthly rate would be $2.23 if we went with this approach as opposed to how do I relate it, $4.76?

That's correct.

So I mean that's a significant change and if you're under 50 ks, I would anticipate you would need that that type of break for your insurance. Know what I mean? Yes. I just think about the general market and looking at where x amount of salaries are in the private world, I know we can't compare that apples to apples. I feel like this is more representative representative of of that that versus versus what what we we have have at at $476 a month for someone 50 ks and less. That's something seems a little amiss there. That's why I was one of the folks to ask for this because this is what I would anticipate a plan to look like as opposed to you make 50 ks or below and you're paying $460 $460

$76 The heading there on the salary bands says that this is actually for the current plan, not the optional plan.

That's correct.

So what that means actually compared to $530 a month. That's even more significant. Right?

Is that right?

So it's $2.20 if you're making under 50,000, the family coverage is $2.23 versus $5.00 2. So where is the I mean everybody's paying less than the current plan premiums.

Yes. So this is actually modeled off of the lower the new optional plan.

The new

optional Okay. Yes.

That makes sense.

I don't know, guys. What are y'all's thoughts? I do understand and appreciate the complexities, but like maybe it would be helpful for us to understand how do you mitigate those complexities? Like does it require additional headcount? Does it require additional software? Because I feel like this is a pretty significant comparison and very beneficial for someone 50 ks and under in this scenario. So I think I just need more information here.

So let me show you what the flat rates look like as well that we're proposing and then I'm happy to go back one slide. So this chart here is showing you what the kind of if we stick the same kind of flat contribution schedule across both plans, you can see down at the bottom the new optional plan versus kind of what they're paying in twenty five-twenty six, and then the renewal plan recommending kind of no changes. You can see that there are still decreases for every single tier. Certainly not quite as significant for like the lower earners, but here everybody would receive a reduction in the salary contributions, I mean, in the payroll contributions each pay period. So, depending on which bracket you're in, you know, obviously, that's gonna vary as to how much that variance is.

So I'm gonna ask a question. We may not know the answer to this, but of the total employees close to 200, right, how many are under 50?

So there are 60 employees.

That are under 50.

60? Six zero?

Zero. Okay. Do you happen to know how many are

Yes.

The next tier?

A 100.

Okay. And then

27. Perfect.

Okay.

How do you see the salary band taking hold in other similar sized municipalities? Do you see that much?

The number of people?

No, just the salary band model, the contribution model.

So municipalities that are not in the state health plan have really not adopted this model. Those that are in the state health plan were pretty much forced to adopt a salary band model.

I'm assuming for the same reasons because of the complexity administratively?

Yes. Yeah.

So maybe let's talk about the complexity because I think, again, it's a significant difference. Like what, when we say complexity, what would we need to do to accommodate this, I guess is what I'm trying to understand.

So the first thing is there will be eight different payroll codes that need to be created inside your payroll system. And then there will need to be a policy put in place to determine what you want to do, how you want to handle salary changes throughout the year and or a system to track and monitor that and make adjustments.

Okay. Understood number two. Like what's the labor intensive side of creating new payroll codes I guess? Very labor intensive. I don't know, that's why I'm asking. What do you like?

Well, I can't really speak because I don't know how to create them but I would say that every time somebody gets a pay increase, whether that's like the COLA, the merit, if anybody receives a certification and there's multiple people throughout the year in all departments that are in like programs where if you get a certification, your salary changes, we'd have to go back and change every single time for basically 187 employees. And so we have Hannah as the director, and one person that works with Hannah. And so that's why we were saying that it's a lot of work on top of what they already do, which is a lot of work for just two people 196 employees. And so we were saying, just physically by staff, we're really not set up to take a program on like this right now. And that's why we said, initially we're thinking through like let's consider the tier program.

And then we thought through that that would probably not be the best option. Let's figure out a way to not impact our employees by passing the 39% increase over to them. Therefore, the city would take that on and give them an option where It's cheaper. Yes, a cheaper plan or less expensive, I guess, on deductible. Oh, true. Yes. So that's what we said. We're trying to solve the problem of of hearing from employees wanting a different kind of health insurance model. And so, you know, the Pareto was the first thing we tried, didn't work. This was the second, probably too labor intensive for us to take it on.

What's the next thing, give them an option. So therefore, they could have more money in their take home paycheck by taking our optional plan at this point. So that's kind of how we got to the point of making the recommendation to have the option just because of the workload that we felt that that would come with if we did the salary band program.

I would also be interested to know, I'm just trying to figure out the way to impact the least amount of people. I understand to Alex's point, I mean, that's a big difference when you look at the banded model. But then, we know how many people are 50. The vast majority are 50 to 80, roughly 100 people there. But did we do any type of query to everybody and say, hey, listen, if this is available, would you do it? Do we know how many people are interested in the family plans, the employee plus children, employee plus spouse? Because the numbers are kind of all some of them are very close. So the savings could be huge to 60 people and the change to the 100 is modest.

I think you could maybe partially answer that. Do you have numbers also on similar to what you did with the salary breakdowns? How many we currently have in each tier of coverage?

You have very few people that have dependents covered today.

Okay.

I don't have the exact

Last time we talked, that was because of the cost, right? Yeah.

So and and I do wanna just Joe, not trying to point, but we just need to be careful when we say modest, right, because it's all in perspective of how much $200 or $100 is worth.

Yeah, well I'm looking at something like $2.40 to $2.70. Okay. I know that's a that is a difference. But then you look at the difference from the under 50, $1.60. I mean, that's a that's a big difference. So I understand. I'm just I would really be interested to know if this available, if we were to adopt this, how many people are going to sign up for these? I know that's hard to know. It's hard to do.

I think you could anticipate more.

Yeah, sure. Mean, we didn't send a survey out when we started through this process here. We sent a survey with the Workplace Climate Task Force, and that was was one of the things that they want us to look at was insurance. And so that's why we're even considering the optional plan and for the city to take on that 39% increase trying to keep everybody flat. So, we're absorbing that cost in our budget but we did not send anything out as far as like if you had this available, would you take advantage of it? We didn't we didn't send that out. Yes, sir.

Yeah. It's kinda for me, it's hard to know the whole picture of what we would be ultimately supporting by not knowing who what we would be subject to, I guess, my point.

The other thing that people will have to determine is is it worth moving to that alternate plan to change the benefits? So that will be another part that they'll take into consideration. Just because they get the salary reduction, if they know that they incur a lot of claims, at the grand scheme of things, their out pocket of spend at the end of the year may be still the same because they have now taken on a higher deductible and a higher out of pocket. So with the two plan options, right, our team will be here to kind of help them evaluate how do I use the plan today, what types of expenses do I think I incur, how much out of pocket do I expect that I'm going to need to use, and that will really help determine which plan they may want. They may still want the current plan because it has less out of pocket than the reduced premium plan because it has a little bit more.

So to your point, it is extremely hard to say, oh, we think this number of people are going to move. Because everybody makes decisions for different reasons. I think to Mr. Braswell's point, what we were trying to do with this option here is really make sure that no one was harmed and everybody has the opportunity to win. So in this scenario here, everyone can keep the exact same plan that they have today. They will have no change to payroll deduction or everyone will have the opportunity to reduce their payroll deductions if they want to enroll in the new optional plan.

What's the change in the employee only rate?

So the employee only is gonna stay a 100% covered.

I understand it's covered. Yep. Is there was there a similar change increase in cost if you only had employee coverage?

Yeah. Let me I don't know that I have that on here. I think I

might So that's where the bulk of our

cost is, independent coverage.

Yeah, so on I guess this is page two of the presentation, the blue chart here, let me go back. Down in that bottom right corner, you can see what the actual rates are, the premium rates. That very bottom right corner in the blue. And So $7.57.6 compared to 817.55.

But that's the difference between the that's just the renewal rates.

Right. Those are the rates for each of those two plan designs.

So what if you stayed with the current?

So if you stay with the current plan, the city will be paying $817.55

per person. What are we paying now?

$7.57.

No, that's the new one. What are we paying now?

It'd be less 39%.

Yeah. Minus 39.3% from that $8.17 55. Yep.

Okay.

So some good news is that all the other benefits will remain intact with no rate increases for the city nor for any employees. So the dental, the vision, insurance, critical illness, hospital indemnity,

all of

those rates will hold through the July 1 season. And they are all through rate guarantee. So that will create some stability on that ancillary side. And then as I mentioned, you know, our commitment to the city is to ensure that, you know, we don't just show up at renewal time, but we're here day to day. And so we have open enrollment plan with both on-site and virtual meetings, recordings that people can listen to.

We will get the electronic enrollment materials together. We'll also print some books. We'll do some one on one sessions for any employees who have questions. And then our account team is here every day to really not only help your administration, but also to take calls directly from employees or spouses to help guide them through their journey and rendering services through their benefits. So I am happy entertain any further questions.

Any further questions? Thank you for that. It's a lot of information, but we appreciate it.

You very much for allowing

me to be here this evening. Thank We'll be reaching out with more questions. Thank Thank you very much.

Question more from Miles.

Yes, sir.

So it's 39% increase. I thought we had said 43% potentially at the last regular meeting. I believe there was a couple of quotes

that were still outstanding and I think they all came in and it was the final was 39.3 and I'm kind of looking at hub but I believe that's what's budgeted is, what we have in this document here is what's inside the actual budget documents that you saw.

The 43 might come with you do pay some, you pay for the life insurance, you pay for the dental portion of the dental, you pay for some of the vision, I think when you add all of that in, that might be where that number might be coming from. But I'm not 100% sure.

Yep. And those are all budgeted. Yep. So the numbers that are in here is the numbers that's budgeted currently. Okay, thank you.

And the optional plan, just to summarize, is sort of our way of trying to address some of the concerns that were expressed in the survey regarding dissatisfaction with the UHC plan, which I understand makes the most financial sense at this time, but there was still that dissatisfaction expressed with it.

I mean, it's still the same health provider just because Blue Cross Blue Shield was even greater than United Healthcare, so we pretty much thought that we should stay with United Healthcare at this time. Plus, we kept them flat. So, that's another point. We didn't want to pass that increase along. City's taking on the difference there and giving them an optional optional plan. So, we're trying to do the best we can with the information that we have right now and then reevaluate it next budget season through hub and going out to the market again and seeing where Pareto lands at that point.

So we understand that does not appease the employees, right? And we wish there was other options for you. I think one thing we're going to really just be hammering home at open enrollment is the fact that if they are struggling to find doctors or to get the approvals, to please, please reach out to our team. This is what we're experts at doing is helping employees navigate through. So instead of them just kind of feeling that frustration on their own, reach out to us and we'll help find them the care that they need and help them navigate through the process.

One other point is if we had moved from United, all of the other lines of coverage also would have resulted in a rate increase. We shot the entire market there as well. And all of those rates would have also gone up on dental, vision, life, short term, long term disability, the critical illness, indemnity, etcetera. This really does make the best sense from a financial standpoint, but also from a point of trying to at least recognize that we heard what they said and we're making some small modifications to try to address those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Miles, when do we say we wanted to discuss this, Any other aspects of this one? Do we ultimately need to make a decision?

I think tonight would be the best time to make the decision given that we have to have all the information as far as the budget for June 1 for budget adoption plus we got to have open enrollment coming up. Hannah is raising her hand right now. But yeah, the open enrollment process would begin very soon. Hannah?

Well, think this is never

a fun topic. Mean, we see these kind of increases with health insurance the same year after year and I was just kind of thinking through, you know, if we got 80 plus percent of our coverage is for employee only, even if the city were to and I don't know that this would be probably unprecedented or recommended but even if we were to absorb more of the employee only cost and subsidize more of the dependent coverage, say, you know, if it's 39 percent, say we subsidize half of that increase. Well, they're still paying more than what they are now. So if the current rate is not, you know, if they're not amenable to paying for that now, to get dependent coverage, even if we subsidize half of that increase, you're still paying more. I don't know if that's gonna help attract people to.

Well that's why I

say this tiered approach, right? And I think that is, at least from my perspective, are pretty advantageous, right? And if you get, and again I don't know this, but if you get more of let's say family plus or spouse or family, kids, all that stuff, if you get more enrolled, does that not help the overall picture with subsidizing the program itself from what the city is having to pay out of pocket. Isn't that how it should work?

Your claims history is probably gonna go

up, right? Well, your claims would go up, but so would your participants on Right. The plan So like, let's say you have 10 additional people, I'm an insurance person, but 10 additional people join in on the plan and let's say only three of them have like claims, I mean you still have the delta just paying into the premiums without claims. Right,

right. The flip side of that is what if eight

out of There's a 10 flip out of side to it too for sure which I think they had a comment in there that said could go one way or the other but I don't know.

Really the tier option was that you all asked to see the tier option. I don't wanna set us up for failure staff wise if we try to do a tier option and we can't even manage the tier option. So that's my worst fears to say, hey, we want to do the tier option and we're scrambling. We can't manage the entire process, then it's a nightmare for employees. So we were wanting to show you what a tier option would be, but not recommend what the tier option is.

If you wanted to affect employees take home pay then like similar to what you're saying is that if you contributed more towards the deductible, the dependent coverage, it would be more that the city would have to pay using like unassigned fund balance or something like that, or either we go into the budget and try to reduce a line here or there somewhere. We don't do something because we want to reduce that amount for employees. Like right now, that amount is we're paying it. What if we paid more? Then we'll reduce it.

So, I think that would be the next best option other than what we're presenting is just the budgetary factor at that point, like how much more do we want to spend at this point, like how much more do we want to do with the unassigned fund balance based on the budget.

Let me ask a question to Donna. So the slide with the banded coverage says its staff does not recommend this option, is HUB in agreement with that?

We have seen more and a lot of private employers have this model. So we're very familiar with what this model looks like. Administratively, it is the bane of our resistance most of the time. Because people are going to have salary changes, and then private employers too. People get promotions all the time and they move from this job to that job.

And the timing of when that happens and when their payroll starts and getting the right deduction and the employee's not happy and then the administration's not happy. The coding in the system, it is real work that somebody has to take care of and do. And so it is difficult to administer. Normally groups kind of have dedicated payroll people that like this is their job. They manage the benefits and they manage payroll and that's the only job that they have. They don't have to do anything else.

And I'm assuming most of those, I mean obviously employers are different sizes, but would would it be safe to assume that most of the private employers would have more people doing payroll than two?

Yes. Yes. I mean a private employer of your size is going to have a pretty extensive HR payroll departments. They're not going to just have two people.

Was the rationale behind picking those bands?

There's really no science to that, but we tried to look at how many people were in each bracket of your salaries and tried to combine where it made the most sense. And then the percentages is kind of the best practice as far as how you tier benefits, as far as how much you're paying towards that dependent coverage, the twenty, thirty, 45. Mean, obviously all of those could be changed.

So the nightmare bane of your existence scenario you described is, I meant, let's suppose we rolled something like this out, are you saying that you end up with payroll deductions are all out of whack and it's just a constant trying to correct errors and Yes.

Because then you have to make sure that you get all of that built in that enrollment platform too. So the person then has to see all of these different bands in the system to be able to make sure they've selected the right one so that that payroll deduction report matches back up to put in the right deduction for each person after open enrollment at any time that there's an event. So it's the reconciliation of making sure that you constantly always have people in the right bands.

Sounds like a situation for

AI. Yes.

What could go wrong?

And it's your experience while you're familiar with this in the private sector, you not have seen much use of this option in the public sector?

No, so the state health plan adopted this back this last year, January 1. And so we do work with some groups that are part of that program and they still don't have it right. And it's April. April payrolls, May, yeah. How

about this? I mean, I think from my perspective, Jim, I get where you're going with this. I mean, if it's a matter of bandwidth, let's get a business case to look at it and say, does it make sense to add another headcount within HR to be able to manage this. I don't want to flip the script on you guys right now because obviously we're in the eleventh hour, but when I look at this and I know we're potentially talking about the other side of the plan for next year, I just can't back down on this one because I mean under 50 ks, I mean I would anticipate this is pretty aggressive and pretty competitive pricing for folks insurance. What I hear from what I've talked to with staff members is that it's just too expensive, right?

So I feel like this is an option and if it's just an administrative piece to get that fixed in the back end, let's explore and look at that and see what do we need to do to be able to fix that.

The other point is that you are subsidizing the rates, right? If all of a sudden it's so attractive and now you end up with 50% of your employees, now all of a sudden have all enrolled in employee family, that will increase the city's cost as well just from a premium And that's also hard to predict, right, until after open enrollment. So not only the claims exposure might impact you negatively at the renewal, if that swing is so great and you're subsidizing that, you're going to exceed what you're budgeting because your enrollment has now shifted that amount.

That's fair. Again, these are always like Jason said, hard conversations because we've got two pronged approach here. We obviously have to be good stewards of the taxpayer money, but we also need to take care of our employees.

Yes.

So, that's why I go back and forth and I feel like if there's a way to clean this up, I mean retention is a problem from what I've heard in certain departments, right? This could probably be a retention fix, right? Insurance is too expensive. I mean, that's why I'm bringing these questions because I think this is the time to have these types of conversations. Yeah.

And as we've talked about tonight, we're not really positioned, it sounds like Fair.

And I wouldn't wanna set that agreement up. I think it's something

I wouldn't wanna do looking basis, I think we need to look at even if it's part time. I mean, part time payroll position to just do nothing but that if it helps us to be able to accommodate something like this in the future? Because if we eventually transition to self funded, are we gonna I mean, would would the salary band model fit something like that too?

I mean, you're not gonna change your payroll angst there, but you certainly could. You certainly could continue to look at this over this year. Think one, we'll learn something as far as how many people actually enroll their dependents on that optional plan that is a little bit less. But then also follow that up with a survey to try to predict how many people would enroll in these different scenarios. If we gave you this much, if this is what the deduction would you bring your dependents on to the plan?

More vetting.

Once you found that out, then you would be able to make some sound decisions on, hey, is this a whole lot of work and we're not really actually going to see that needle be moved, right? Is it enough deduction for people to say, I'm going to take dependents from wherever they have coverage today to enroll them? I think some surveying with different scenarios could help us get a firmer understanding of what is the temperament of the employees that are here

I for next

feel like next year we're probably gonna be looking at a big change, because it's probably gonna be the tipping point for the self funded. So if we're looking, maybe, but if we're looking at that, that will also give us the ability to figure out the staff demand, but also the possible interest in each of those tiers. It would be a heck of a lot easier to plan what the capital outlay is going to be from the city standpoint.

Yeah, I don't disagree. So maybe we parking lot it now, but if it's council's direction, if you guys agree, let's ask staff to incorporate this into next year's potential option, right? And what would that require? Additional staffing, additional software, whatever it might be, just so we know the facts. Because this is hard when we flash this up and I appreciate you guys providing this, but it's hard to not want to investigate this further when you show this.

Oh yeah, I understand completely.

Particularly with my hat on of trying to do what's best for the employees.

And going down the path through the year leading up to this moment, it was Pareto and going out to the market and see where that landed. That kind of fell off the table at that point. So I think next year, if we have further advanced notice and survey employees and study like staff time and everything, it'll give us a better opportunity sooner than this.

Through And launch like I said, I don't wanna screw you guys, Because you gotta do it right. Thank

you again.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Alex, those points as well. If there's no further discussion on it, I think we kinda think we're gonna look at continue to look at the salary band, but it won't be in this fiscal year. I'll entertain motions to move forward with UnitedHealthcare at the model presented this evening. Well, it

was just information. I think it was just information.

Is it so we don't need to do anything else? Yeah. Okay. Alright. Great.

Alright.

Well, that makes it a little easier. Okay. So that'll move us on to agenda item c two, National Fitness Campaign grant opportunity. We have Jason Lomberger representing here and I can also help present a little bit because I was in on a few of these calls. So, happy to jump in as well.

Good evening, council and mayor. We were able to listen to a few presentations from the National Fitness Campaign, and we want to just present this as something as an opportunity to see if you would like to seek and take a take a new step or advance a step from it. Okay.

My fault.

Alright. So the first thing, we'll go over what this is, this national fitness campaign and the fitness court that we're gonna be talking about this is just a brief overview. Have funded over a thousand of these communities since 2026 so it is a national campaign. They partner with insurance companies. So I guess this is the ounce of prevention on the backside of what we're talking about.

Good segue. Right. I

think we all know obesity is up and obesity is related to life expectancy. These are some of their partners that they use. Get into that. But there are options here and there's there's more in-depth later on, but you can do just a fitness court, a stand alone fitness court. You can do a fitness court and a studio beside it.

The studio would be used for dance, yoga, all the things that that you could do there. Wanna skip through some of these. This is what the actual fitness court looks like. There are seven basic movements that come in these courts. There is a core movement, a squat movement, a push movement, a lunge movement, a pull, then they have an agility and also a bend or a hinge, depending on what you would call it.

And the the structure of this is you would rotate through this in a circuit style format, and there's also an app. There's a QR code at each of these. So it provides a video and a coach. All these are completely scalable based on ability level. They're ADA compliant.

Anyone could use this, depending on your fitness level. They also promote inner city use battle of the badges between police and fire. An opportunity for officers to lead workouts and youth mentorship. Supposedly making the making it more used for everybody.

Where's the two chiefs?

They have they have options on these. You can get make it shaded. There's some other options we'll we'll look at in a minute, with the configuration, but there is an option for shade.

Like if you if you did the shade option, is it like permanent or could you like take the canvas or the whatever you call it? You take it up and down as

You can the take it up and down. Think northern cities that get snow, they take it down in the winter

because somebody's using it anyway.

The snow build and it collapses like the electrodome or something.

Right. That certainly is option and they said it was fairly easy to take up or down. They have an option for art. So, I think on one of these slides coming up, it will show you those options. You could get a local artist. You could get a sponsor on there. They have art that you could choose from as they're building these. But they're basically four options for how you wanted it to look, the finished product.

The sponsorship

would be nice for a billboard. Those are some of your options there.

Is the basic footprint the same?

It is. And it's it's fairly modular in in that way. It's and it's a relatively small footprint. I think the total footprint, if you just did the stand alone fitness court, was 38 by 38, I think

it was. I

look for information on that, but it's not taking up a huge amount of space.

Is it possible to, whether through this company or later on, if you decide to bolt on other units to I don't know if

it has that kind of

This one in particular would not have really that ability. If you decided to go with the two sided, you could do that and you could just make a double if you found that people were using the fitness court side but not the studio side. That would certainly be an option but I do think it would be tough to expand the existing if you needed it just based on the nature of it. Okay. So, I'm going to I'm going to go through some of this quickly.

I guess these are these are some of the benefits that I think are are probably fairly obvious to everybody. And so that's just a little pitch. They have they have a a little three minute video that I thought was really kinda shows you what it looks like in action. It's hard to picture unless somebody's using it. The scale of it and the way multiple people could move through that.

But on the website, they do have a a three minute introductory video that I tried to actually load on here and was not able to export it onto this. So This is basically outline the process. We'll go through that too. I'll I'll go back just so you can see what it looks. This in step one now.

We're seeing if you're interested in pursuing this. And then step two would be a site location. We have talked about that. There are multiple sites where this could be a potential, and we'll bring that up just later too. And then there would be a funding match.

The grant funding available is 30,000 to 60,000 per site, and the local funding requirement is 160,000 to 270,000. So we'll talk about that too. Then there's a The one thing that appealed to me about pursuing this grant is it's a non binding grant. So we could apply for this, we could pursue it, and if we weren't able to secure funding, it's at no cost to us. And so that was, I thought, a benefit.

Is there a deadline?

Well, there's a phase. So there's a phase one. You would have one hundred and twenty days from the time of the grant application to secure funding. And phase one on our end, our cost would be $145,000 regardless of which configuration you chose, and that's a material order. And cover that a little bit more later, but move on here. Okay. So this is basic overview, and we just talked about that. 30,000 to 60,000. Our funding would be 160,000 to 270. You have multiple configurations.

That's why there's a variation in the grant funding. If you did just the standalone fitness court, then it would be the 30,000. If you did a double sided one, you're more likely to get 60,000 on that. And there you see phase one is the non binding grant application in one hundred and twenty day period. After that one hundred and twenty days, if you could not secure funding, then you could just bow out. Immediately

starts as soon as you're like select it. You have one hundred and twenty days from that time to go forward. Correct. Not like whenever we did. Okay. I got it. Right.

I got it. So you do have a little time to secure funds there. Okay. And they would like for phase one to be completed completed this calendar year by January 1. So that would be the timeline. I was told that we would have an extended timeline if we got through phase one on that.

What's the grant application deadline?

They didn't give a specific deadline, but it would definitely be

They kept saying it was rolling.

Right.

So that's a rolling deadline. Okay. Alright. It's like, so they never really

Is it because it's so new and they're trying to get a word? I'm not I'm

not real sure. It's an interesting concept. I like the idea of it. As I I've sat through two phone calls with them and I think there were three or four, I think. But anyway, so I sat through two and so it is they call it a grant. But there's no deadline, really. It's just like, well, once you start, we put you through the application process, you get it, then it starts phase one where But they want

a monetary commitment this calendar year. Hundred and twenty nine.

They want us to apply, then to be approved, then to do the order. So I don't I don't know if it's more of a grant than really like a discount. If you do their product.

The grant seems to imply that you'd apply for it and they could decide whether you get

it or not. Yes.

So the concern would be, will we raise or commit $145,000 are we actually going to get

Yeah. The Yeah. Greater. And they kept alluding to the fact that I mean, I I don't know if we ever specifically do we ever ask, does anybody apply for this and not gotten it? I don't think we asked that.

We did not ask.

My guess is if you apply for it, you get it. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? So, and that's that's no, that's not to poo poo the product because I think the product is neat and I think there's definitely some fits for it. But that's just kind of a 100 foot view of that process.

And they did say that they award up to four per state. They've already awarded two, and there are multiple I don't know if there were applications, but there were multiple considerations for the other two. And I don't know if that's just trying to put a little pressure on the

back now.

Sure. Within the next

twenty minutes,

had the two big more. Right.

They had the two people on the call and they're like batting back and forth. Hey,

Jim. Hey. Is this brand new or I mean, obviously, they've shown pictures of it being open and and utilized. So long has this been?

It was established in 1976. It has Mount Holly does not. What

is the base made out of? Not to get too granular, but I think

like a rubberized we just build it ourselves. It is. It's padded rubberized surface. We would be responsible for pouring a concrete slab

Okay.

And they would come out

the 100

with their material, but it is on a slab. But it would be very similar to playground Mhmm. Type material.

Is that a is the slab an additional cost to us, or is that included?

It's included in our $145,000 or it's included in the total cost of the project.

So

we've talked about some of this, but these are some of the benefits we see to adding a fitness court. All residents can use it. And there's a relatively low maintenance cost. We were told that most people to maintain these pressure wash them twice a year. It's

If you're allowed. Unless you're in a drought.

Right. Right. If you're a drought, you'll have

to stick to the blower. If it's an area that's got a lot of leaves, a wooded area, you would have to pull it off more. And it does fill a void. What got me interested in this, I was looking at the park horse at Stowe Park. I think we got a grant for that twenty years ago, maybe. There are a lot of those pieces that are damaged, obsolete in several ways. So I do think that there would be a need for this.

What's the park course that's so far? Is that the one up near the field in between?

Yeah, the individuals, they're like broken up,

you walk to them. Yeah.

As you

go around.

I got you.

I remember those a lot growing up. There was must have been a big push to do those. Because I remember when every park they had the different places you could walk. Never used them appropriately. I was usually just flipping around on but I remember them and this is like, if you took all those and consolidated it into one spot.

Coach, have you thought like, have you

put any thought into if

we just did it ourselves?

I have and we're gonna talk about that. So we've already done that. These are some possible site locations. There's an area at Stowe Park, Davis Park. They do have some restrictions because of age restrictions. It can't be within 150 feet of a smaller kids design park. Not that it's that it's I don't think it's dangerous. I I I didn't really get the rationale behind that, but there is a restriction You on

would have kids like my son over there getting in people's way and

climbing all the damn stuff.

That might be

it. Where in Stoke Park would you?

We looked at near the railroad tracks between the fountain and the railroad tracks and Upper Stowe, that little corner tucked away right now.

Only suggestion if we're looking at suggestions is maybe to be a little bit careful with Stowe Park, particularly, again, that being the centerpiece. Not saying this is a bad product, but right next to the fountain, know it's very like picturesque place, people go out there picnics, I don't know if that would be an appropriate

Yeah, it's kind of that back. Place. That back area. You know, if you're walking down the the long drive, that area that's back right before it goes uphill real quick. Yeah. Kinda tuck back that way is one of

the areas. The key with Stoke Park is the walkability though, right? Because you've got like run clubs that meet there, cyclists, like all that stuff. I just will be very cognizant of the the Stove Park proper.

Yeah.

From there. That's right.

What what made us real well, I mean, what made us think of Stowe Park? Were like, what parts do you have? But Stowe Park being one that we really discussed a lot is because there's so many groups that go down there and work out now.

They do. Yeah.

You know, they're under the kind of amphitheater, little, you know, place and there's a bunch of them there. We're like, that makes sense and then, we kind of talked about what about the expanded model which would have that flat area on the back for people that wanted to do yoga or whatever it was that are kind of doing it in the covered area now. So, that's the expanded model. The one, the pictures really showed you the the half model which is the smaller square. Just has the workout stuff on

it. Yeah.

There's kind of a doubling of that that would come off that art area. Yeah. Go back to the one more. One more. Yeah, it would come off

the back side.

It doubles that. Except it's Yeah. It's just There you go. Right there on the left. The studio. See, that area is kind of reserved for whatever it may be. But it splits the two, but it doubles the size of it.

Well, you're thinking kind of up towards the hill and so far, not down in so far.

Well, as you, you know, you come down, you're walking down, it kind of goes down and then it goes steep up like that, tucked to the right back there like behind the trees. There's a pretty good sized flat, just grass area that it would fit. Now, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't fit at Davis or anywhere else but this was what they like to do is they come in initially and they like to earmark spots. They say, okay, you've got these spots. We think, then they put a score on it. They say, okay, yeah, we think from a walkability standpoint or what else around it standpoint, we think these are the best spots for you. And those were the ones that came back.

Is this something that needs to go through Parks and Rec board for their advisory or the advisory board on that for them to give suggestions to counsel ultimately, I guess?

Well, we could certainly get their opinion on it.

Think that would probably we would probably need to do that right for sure.

Thinking about Davis to especially if you got to be 150 feet away from the smaller children's play area. I mean, probably do some grading. Right, right.

There is an option near the tennis pickleball courts.

Okay,

a possibility there. So we've considered that as well.

That's what

that looked like to me. It was just an existing tennis court.

Like a pickleball court?

Yeah, and

you just put that divider right in the middle. Don't take away any pickleball.

Don't worry. No, no, I

am not going to take away pickleball. Might be a Davis Park might be good because you've got the baseball, you've got the tracks and stuff or excuse me, playground and the courts there for exercising. So don't let us keep you from your presentation.

Right. Well, point being, there are options because this is a small footprint, and there are a lot of places you could put it in. There is a benefit to having it at all of these places. So we have reservations about this. First being, as the mayor described, the discount, the grant funding total being less than 20% of the cost. Also, the timeline constraints of them wanting to push us to do this by January 1 or secure funding this calendar year. And then it is a limited design option. I mean, is kind of a cookie cutter. This is what you get. There are other options out there in this.

These are not the only fitness courts available. Some fitness courts, have even strength plate machines that are on a rack that you just slide to use, and they never come off the rack. So they're they're very safe, but you're using actual weights and plates. So you could make it more strength oriented than body weight type stuff. There are a bunch of different configurations that you could do if we did not pursue this.

The questions are, is there a need? What's the best site? And can additional funding be secured? Given the point we are in the budget, we obviously don't have money to fund this internally this budget year. So it would be a matter of could we find a sponsor that was willing to do this? And is it worth pursuing filling out an application and doing it? So we're asking for your direction, if you would like to pursue this or something like,

I think we definitely need to kick it to the parks and rec board to get their input on it. But what's your thoughts on us doing it ourselves versus this program?

I think we could do it. I think we could do it for close to the same cost.

Would it be better? You think like a better design or like,

potentially, it could be the good thing about this being a turnkey project, they've done a bunch of these, they're able to anticipate problems. They the I think the QR code with the online coaches with the videos would be a benefit.

That's true.

Be very user friendly. So if we did it on our own, we would have to look at educating,

drinking and miles get miles.

Yeah, somebody demonstrate the workouts.

Right. Well, those are options. I

imagine there's got to be some competition out there though in this market that may not do exactly the same thing, but you know, something similar, maybe come with their own, you know, workout guides and things like that that you could probably similarly access through a QR I can't imagine they're the only ones.

They're not. And and there are ways to customize it to fit your needs. So again, this is not the only option in this. This is just the opportunity we had right now. And we wanted to see if you want to pursue it.

It's a neat idea. I think whether we do it ourselves or through someone like this. I think there's probably the opportunity. I think there probably is opportunities for corporate sponsorship.

I think if you put it at Stowe Park, it's definitely going

to get used a lot.

Yeah, I agree. My only reservation again, just me speaking, I we just got to be very careful where we put it. I just am very sensitive about the aesthetic of losing that. I need to get a little escape around it. Have to see Randy

or his partner back. Ashish, I appreciate that point. I also do love the thought of giving adults more things to do in the park. Yeah. Because there are a lot of parents or kids running around doing things. I see a lot of parents standing around and kind of like, you know, would they be doing, would they come down there and actually use it? I think a lot of people probably would. So, I like the ability to have expanded options in Stowe Park whether it's this or you know, something else. I do. I appreciate you putting the time in to. Yeah. To pursue these things because it's something I would love to see us continue to pursue. Have you seen

Goat Island and Cramerton what they have?

It's like

stretchingexercise equipment.

I've seen that. I was actually impressed by one. We went to a convention in Charleston, and Charleston has a

South Carolina or West Virginia?

South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina. They a part similar to this, but it's also got a kid's element beside it, which is almost like an American Ninja Warrior type an obstacle course type thing.

That's pretty cool right down your alley miles.

I could do that. And

so, again, there are a bunch of bunch of options, but when when we saw that at the convention, we thought, well, you know, that's one thing we're lacking. We don't Yeah,

we don't have anything like that. And,

and that piqued my interest.

To your point, I'd be interested if this does come back to counsel, like, okay, here's like the, you know, the cookie cutter, option here. But like you just said, like the piece for the younger crowd, I mean, that would be something interesting to add. So if you want to kind of brainstorm on that of what you would prefer, because I think counsel at least for me is indifferent. I think it's need. But if you think that there's additional things you could add to that, then maybe it's better we just do

it in house, but I'd leave that to you for your discretion. I'd be open to it. Is it Freedom Park in Charlotte? They have the Play 60.

Is that the big one?

Yeah, they have the yard dash?

Yeah. Yeah, you can do like stuff like that. Think that's really cool.

Yeah, think the Panthers

sponsored that one. Yeah. Yeah, that's an NFL initiative. I think Play sixty.

So they'll sponsor one in Belmont.

So it sounds like we all would like to see more thought put into something like this. Whether it's this specific project, I don't know that it would be this specific one. I don't want to speak for anyone. So please pipe up if it's if you feel very strongly about it. But I do like the idea of adding some services in in a way that integrates in obviously with the park as it is. I mean, that's my thought on it. I'd I'd like it. I like what they've done and I was impressed with when I sat in and I listened to what they did. I did come away multiple times thinking that it had there was a salesy side to it to the presentation. Is that how

you said discount?

Yeah. As far as I'm like, okay, is it really a grant Or is it, you know, what? And that's not to say that the product, you know, the end result of the product is not good. Yeah. And they may be able to do it for less. When we really looked at it, know, could we could we do it for less? Maybe, but it probably wouldn't be drastically. And it's all turnkey, there is some value to that. But whenever I get that always kind of. Yeah. Step back and like, okay, you know, what what is it here? So, I don't want to, you know, burn the time that you put into this. I think this is something that we're definitely interested in pursuing But Jason, to your point, I would kind of like to see what else maybe some competitors or maybe see what they're doing in Charleston. That model sounds amazing.

Pretty awesome. Maybe it's options, right? Maybe next time it comes, it's ABC. But again, not to sound repetitive, I definitely think it needs to go through Parks and Rec because we've had these situations pop up before and questions from Parks and Rec have arise why it didn't like go to them. Do you

have any concerns with some of the like I saw a picture of the exercise equipment that had like, like a cable. Do you have concerns with that?

There those are the things that look like a cable are actually chained rings. Yeah. And and they're basically like gymnastics rings that you can you depending on the angle you stand is the resistance that you would get

on them. You don't want cables.

Right. And so they are chains. I was looking at the warranty. There's a twenty five year unlimited warranty on the surface itself. There's a ten year warranty on the structures. For example, those gymnastic rings, they have a five year warranty, and some of the smaller things have a one year warranty. So there there may be some replacing of some of those smaller parts and pieces, but it is modular in that it would be pretty easy to replace them if you had something like that.

And you said this specific company has been around since the 1970s or something like Yes.

Started with just they didn't look like this. It looked like parallel bars of various sizes and places. And that's kind of how they got their start. And they've evolved over the years.

Got it. Thank you.

All right. Well, maybe goes to Parks and Rec as sort of a general discussion item that this is one option. What do we think there's, you know, I mean, let alone should we choose to pursue it, we have one hundred and twenty days to raise $145,000 Perhaps the Parks and Rec Board could discuss their thoughts on that too because, you know, I would be somewhat skeptical as to whether, you know, unless we really thought about it beforehand, well, hey, let's fill out the application and where are going get 145, You know, I'd be skeptical as to whether we'd be able to realize that goal,

but

perhaps, you know, I will be surprised should the situation arise. But, I agree with Alex that this is in their purview and they can I'd like to hear what they have to say about it, whether it's the specific one or just such a device more generally or facility perhaps would be a better word.

The other questions?

No, I did tell Miles maybe we hit up the insurance companies to sponsor this so that we can

get some big art, the art installation thing to do. Thank you. Thank you, judge.

You're nice.

Appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

By the way, I know you're you're hearing this probably through the community. Bang up job. Yeah. You and Jonathan Oh my gosh. And your departments on the fields and the facilities. Thank you guys for all that you've done to the rest of our fields and improve their appearance and performance. I'm hearing that even the adult leagues apparently now are overflowing with new participants. Lot of excitement.

You are, Kevin.

Thank you.

Great job. I had somebody ask if Reed the upper field at Reed Park, was real grass.

That's a good compliment.

They're about to find out in this stage too, so.

Thank you again, Jason. Thank you. Alright. That'll take us to agenda item c three twenty twenty six red white Belmont discussion. Who's heading this up? This is us discussing, Miles. It's Cassie. Okay. Cassie. Yes, Cassie.

Good evening, everyone. I promise to be brief. I don't have a presentation or anything of that nature. Just something I wanted to bring to everyone's attention as a potential, I don't wanna say the word issue but as we approach July 4, since there was a recent burn ban as that was put in place, we put our team into researching all possible alternatives for fireworks. We know that's recently been lifted, but in discussions with the fire department, we understand, obviously, if we don't get much more rain, there's a pretty highly likely chance we could reenter a burn ban. So we just want to be prepared for Friday night light. I mean, I say Friday night.

It's still

on your mind.

It is. It is. It's hard to get out of that mode. Be prepared for red, white, and Belmont in case there is any possibility that we cannot shoot fireworks. One, from an idea standpoint, our team's looking at everything. But if you guys have any ideas, suggestions, know people that do things that people might enjoy in lieu of fireworks.

But what did they do last year?

Last year, our finale didn't go off. Yeah.

Aren't we due some money in it here? Exactly. Last year?

Well, that's the the other portion of this that I wanted to bring up. We do have some funds because we did not have to pay for the fireworks that we do have scheduled this year, but it may not be enough to cover something like a drone show, which we've only got one quote back so far. They were not available on our date, that was for $100,000 so things are really spanning.

How much are your fireworks?

Since we didn't have to pay this year, I couldn't tell you off They're the top of my

probably gonna give us a low,

but this is just a contingency. We're making the decision to kill the fireworks.

No, not at all. I don't hope we don't have to, but it's gonna depend it's on the burn

square the circle like, you know, I would always tell my students, so implied but not specifically said if there's a burn ban, then we would not be allowed to shoot off firewood. Correct. If that would There's not a way around it. There's a waiver for everything.

So just something I wanted to Yeah. Bring your attention from a Yeah. Option standpoint and a budgetary standpoint.

And the options you guys have looked at are drones Lasers. Lasers.

Flyovers. We had somebody talk about a neon foam party. I mean, we're just really Neon foam? I know. Was a kid focused

It's a Michigan thing.

I'm aware.

But just any entertaining option to give folks an experience.

Neon foam. What's the chances that we actually have someone lined up as a plan B? Who's gonna take that? That's a good point.

That's the tough decision, and I don't know if it comes to it We did get one quote for an option if it would be willing or worthwhile to go ahead and book that in addition to and just maybe we have a double up, say the situation goes well and we can have fireworks.

What does that

There were a lot of logistics. That was about 20,000 for that, which we can cover in the Yeah. Events budget that

What is that?

That was a laser light show.

I mean So fireworks and laser lights.

But we would just be out of pocket for $20 if we went through with the fireworks show.

No. We're out no money for fireworks. We have a taxing to

hold us on not know maybe two weeks until ahead of time that Well, the fireworks had

been booked Yeah.

No. He's talking about

the vendor from last year.

He's talking about the plan b. I'm talking about the I

I don't imagine so. I haven't gotten that far. It's getting responses to folks with availability for July 3 right now is also not easy. Yeah. So all that can be looked into, certainly.

So it sounds like it's either gonna be fireworks or fireworks and laser show. Right? Because if we're getting the laser show as a backup, we gotta pay to get it.

Paying for it.

Right? Yeah. We're paying for it.

Yes.

So I mean Or is the man Here's the February. And it's 50. What can we do the lasers during the fireworks?

Both would work out. We still got some things to look into on that end, but as an option.

Okay. We're really thinking too is that just given that the fireworks were free this year, and to go ahead and start the discussion if if something came about where we couldn't shoot fireworks, we're gonna have to bring like a budget amendment potentially to you all and you see it on the council update, I mean, on the council consent consent for the June 1 meeting or something like that. We didn't want to have a full presentation at the June 1 because our meeting is packed already. So we wanted to go ahead and like get this out and get y'alls minds thinking if there's anything else that y'all think of to pass that along to staff so that we can start researching that. But as an interim, go ahead, we're going to go ahead and try to get quotes for these other items too.

If, of course, I don't think like $100,000 drone shows will make it to like a budget amendment, but it's something similar to a cost of a fireworks show shows up on the consent item, then y'all know why. But just

to be clear, we're still going to contract with a fireworks vendor. We already have. Okay. And okay. And that is the first choice.

Yes. Perfect.

And while we're talking about the fireworks show, since we're not having to pay for this year's, are we assured that we're gonna get a comparable show to what we should have gotten last year? It's not gonna be like, you know, less than stellar because they're having to eat it.

No. Plus more.

Plus more?

Yeah. For pain and suffering. Alright.

Any questions for Cassidy? So sounds like it may come up. They're gonna keep looking at some options. Yeah. Thanks for letting us know that. But if nothing else, maybe we'll have two instead of one. Don't know. We'll see. Yeah. Clock fingers.

There was lots of rain. Lots of rain.

You know?

Because right now, we're doing it on Friday night. Right? It's the fourth on Saturday.

Right. So we can

do something like that.

You could wrestle a bear or two.

Wrestle a bear. That would

be awesome.

There we go.

Cassidy's done on that one. I'll keep that in mind, Jim. I'm going go home and start stretching.

I like that actually. Yeah.

Alright. That'll move as quickly along to Cfour of the quarterly finance update.

Mayor have a top hat on.

Jared here with us. Yep.

Good evening, mayor and council. So, this quarterly finance update is through 03/31/2026. And we'll jump right into revenue. Tax collections are currently up 9% over the full year anticipation, peak months for revenue in property tax is from November to January. So this number is pretty much what it's going to be for the full fiscal year.

Typically, only collect between 80,000 and $100,000 over the last quarter. This time last year, we were $1,700,000 over anticipated. This year, we're at 1,400,000 so very similar metrics to last year. Intergovernmental revenue includes sales tax, utility franchise tax, alcohol tax, and power bill. Those are all coming in as anticipated.

And other general fund revenue includes sanitation fees, investment earnings, and miscellaneous revenue. No issues noted there. In the water sewer fund, charges for services are coming in slightly over anticipation. We're averaging about $525,000 per month billing water and $420,000 a month billing sewer. Other operating revenue includes interest on investments, penalties, system development fees, and grants. And in the stormwater fund, stormwater fees are also coming in as anticipated. We're averaging about $80,000 per month in billing there. And those fund balance appropriation lines, those are budgetary only. So, we'll clean that up at the end of the year. So, basically, as needed.

So, like in the general fund, for example, if we are coming in over anticipation that will reduce the amount of fund balance appropriation needed to balance the budget this year.

But that's not to say that we're just moving cash left pocket to right pocket to offset any expenses within the

No, this is all on the revenue side, yep.

Thank you.

Any questions on revenue? Local option sales tax, the March numbers were just released on Friday. So total to date has changed from the 4,400,000 there to 4,956,000. The March distribution was 497,000. And we need an average of 98,000 per month over the next three months to meet our budget projections. So trending really well there. We currently average about $550,000 a month.

So through February, I think we were about 27% over budget over the annualized.

Yep.

Right, on an annualized basis. You're saying now with the March numbers, it's even more than that, 30%? So

I guess going back to this, if you recall in our budget discussions, we budgeted a 3% increase over what we were anticipating to collect this year versus baking in a percentage over the prior year budget. So likely this coming year, for this next fiscal year, these margins probably won't be as vast. But I don't have a crystal ball. I can't predict what it's going to look like. But we are doing a much better job of capturing that in this upcoming budget.

Well, do want to say, just to make a point, because this is the one that at the most recent budget cycle, we never really kind of circled back on. But with this overage here, if we remember at the last budget cycle, we had the whole situation with the police department, everything like that, particularly with the fundings and stuff like that. At that time with the proposal that I brought up was anticipation of overages and revenue that would be able to go towards the operating expenses of that. So in this instance where we're coming over significantly higher, we've covered that, have we not? Other than just pulling that straight out of the general fund.

Yes, and it was baked into this year's budget using

general I know, I realized that. But it's baked in instead of just pulling it out, it's baked on a projected revenue. Correct. So I just wanted to circle back that that thesis or that thought, that proposal was correct and we've made the right decision at

that Right. If you look at it from going back to what I was just talking about fund balance appropriation, let's say we appropriated $05,000,000 in fund balance budget and then our sales tax revenue came in one and a half over budget, you never had to tap into your fund balance to fund that, your sales tax.

Which was what

the equity If you isolate it in a vacuum to just that revenue source.

Right. It

Most expenditures here are looking really good as a percentage of the year. The few that pop out would be our city attorney. Those are billed a month in arrears. So there's gonna be a little bit of a variance there. Sanitation, that contract is fully encumbered. So that's why you'll see a variance there. Otherwise, things are in really, really good shape. And if you guys have any particular questions, I'd be happy to answer. But at this point in the year, think we're trending in the right direction.

Any questions for Jared?

Good job, Jared.

Good job, you. Thank you. Alright. With agenda item c five removed, that will take us to agenda item d, adjournment. So I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Motion by Ty.

Jason. My

gosh. Broke my record. Seconded by by Charlie. All in favor. Not expecting that. You know, I'm not gonna vote. All in favor.

You can stay.

All in favor? Yes. Yes. Any opposed? Alright. We're adjourned. On the record now.