Common Council - Special Meeting

I will call this special common council meeting to order. Um, September 23rd, 5:30 p.m. Can I have a roll call, please? Stubby here. Hill here. Nick Bur here. Boy here. Prisball here. Sorenson here. Okay. All here. Thank you. We'll move on to number three which is the 2026 to 2030 capital improvement plan presentation of draft plan and discussion. You do have a physical copy of the presentation that the mayor got to come up on our screen over there for

everybody should have one of these. This is now your fun and exciting CAP book that you get to write in, make notes, do whatever you want with. Um, obviously you also have the PDF version, but then in there should obviously be a packet that looks like this. Uh, that's going to be kind of the presentation we're going to kind of be going over with you here tonight. Uh, and then kind of go from there. So, first thing I guess we'll go to the next slide here. So, this is me. So, I'm Adam Regal. I'm with Barrett. Um, I've been working with the staff now for a little over probably about six months here kind of putting this together um, so that it can be presented to you tonight. So, we'll go to the introduction. So basically the reason why it was recommended to kind of do a long range capital plan is it's a vital tool for any organization really number one it allows the room for forward thought and discussion so you guys can start seeing all those projects that essentially are there and start to kind of better prepares you as an organization for change so you can see the things that are coming up things that you need to keep in mind and it also creates opportunities that may be otherwise overlooked. So when you don't have everything kind of down in a formal policy, that's when things kind of slip through the cracks and you don't realize, man, we really should be focused on this, we should be focusing on that. Obviously, the next one then is when we're talking about government entities. So obviously with the city, you are faced with increasing expenditures and revenue limitations. So what a CIP does is a creative solution must be developed to obviously meet those demands. So you need to continually be seeing over the next 5 years what should you be doing and then start to kind of plan out okay that's what you should be doing what now can you do or what are those items now that you want to pull out of this CIP that become the musts that you need to do and then again long range planning is the key to the entity success so with this CIP the goal is we understand that there are probably going to be things in here that you're not going to be able to fund if that's the case we don't want them to essentially drop off the map we want you to continue to see that and so that we continue to kind of build this thing and have it be ever flowing and ever evolving in a live document. Also, we

want to look at the funding sources and the uses to essentially kind of road map out, okay, what do you need to do over the next 5 years and how could you do that or how would you do that? That also then helps to kind of the bottom part here when we're talking about grants. So, potentially going after grants, looking at different sources there as well as also this is a key part for your rating agencies. So, when you are going out and if you are going to take on municipal debt, one of the questions that always comes up is, well, do you have a long-term plan or are you just kind of, you know, deciding, ah, we're going to do this project here, we're going to do that one. They don't like to see that. They want to see this where you have a long-term plan. Um, so do the grant agencies. They want to see that as well. So, basically what this now becomes is kind of an integral part of your budgetary process. Usually, your capital improvement plan is the first part. So as you can see we're kind of talking about this first and then it kind of es and flows into the future conversations of okay well what does that mean obviously then for the rest of the budget. So kind of planning process how that works is we create a timeline we kind of organize the partners involved we do an inventory assessment so essentially what happened here is we kickstarted this process in about May we had the organizational meeting with obviously Jesse and the staff to kind of talk about okay let's work on that. We then brought in all of the department heads, had opportunities to kind of get them involved in the process and then they basically spent the month of June and July kind of doing inventory assessment where they looked at all the projects that they thought would make sense. They established priority rankings for those projects and then essentially in July and August we did kind of the due diligence work of looking at the financial forecasts. So thinking about okay, what are those items? What are they going to cost? We then prepared project requests. So kind of detailing what was the description of those projects, what's the justification, what year should they go in, and then essentially we drafted the plan that now is in front of you tonight. So one of the things that goes into a capital improvement plan is kind of the policies. And this is something that you're going to see probably as we continue to do this. This evolves all the time. So there's multiple

organizations that continue to kind of pingpong back and forth about what is what you should put in a policy, what you shouldn't, but generally these are kind of the key things to remember. So they're individual tangible capital type items. So what we have you do is we actually had the the council adopt a capital threshold policy or a capital improvement policy. One of the things that continues to change is kind of what is the minimum value of what should go into a item that right now has a lot of debate as kind of Jenny and I are learning um depending on the the organization it depends. So for instance the public service commission will say that that threshold is $5,000. If you're talking about generally accepted accounting principles, which is typically what your auditors kind of look at, that says it should be $10,000 and the GFOA is kind of somewhere in between. So the policy or the actual resolution that you guys adopted is 5,000. But what we tried to do to look at this to kind of get you in line with everything else is we have it as a minimum value of 10,000 just kind of going forward. Again, it's a useful life of more than one year following the date of the acquisition of whatever that item is. And then typically it applies to item individual items rather than groups of similar items. But this kind of depends. So for instance, if you're going to be doing a large project, so like in the future there's the possibility that you're going to need to do new department of public works. Well, we're not going to have you list out every single item of furniture. So in that situation, it might make sense to actually combine all those. But typically in your CIP, they should be individual items. So that's just something to kind of keep in mind with that. All right. So, what we have here is kind of essentially the summary of what is in the CIP. And if you're looking in your binder, this actually starts in tab number two. So, tab number two is where this is. You don't need to look at that in your binder right now because it's up on the screen and you're obviously going to have time to kind of look this over, but that's kind of where this starts. So essentially what this is doing on the

top here is showing you all of the funding sources that would be necessary if you decided to take on every single project that is in your capital improvement plan. As we've talked about, it's very possible that you are not going to be able to do all those projects. But if you did, essentially you can see here are the funding sources. And just like most municipalities right now, there's really only a couple of options in how you're funding things. You're either bond proceeding those. So, as you can see here, that is the majority of your capital improvement items. You are either using water and sewer bonds to cover kind of those utility projects or other sources of funding. So, either you have cash on hand, so that usually falls into kind of your sewer utilities, they normally have cash on hand, or potentially you have some other options there as well. The goal hopefully in the future as we continue to kind of update this is you'll see some of those other items as far as grants, we want to see that grow. So, our hope is that now by having this when the staff starts to submit potential grant projects, this will help you become eligible and we can start to throw those in. But we also want to be realistic when we're showing this. So, that's why we don't right now have anything showing grants because we want to be as realistic as possible and show what you would need to do in order to fund these projects. So, we have a use by category. So, every single department essentially has their own section here, which we'll get into in a little second, but you can see we've now listed all of the various departments. And then if you were to fund these projects on the bottom, we have kind of beginning fund balances. So, some of the goals with some of these particular items is that they may not be occurring in one year. It's you're slowly building up a fund to essentially get to the point that you can, you know, have that fund and cover those projects. So you can see that kind of falls into like, you know, server replacements, financial software, some badger books, things down on the line, those type of things where that essentially is you may be borrowing money, but you're not going to be spending it right away. It's slowly going to be building up in order till you can get to a point. So on the next

one here, you can just kind of see on the next slide, we got some graphical information for you. I'm working on it.

Nope, you're good. So again, this just kind of shows you depending on how you are. Here's the different graphs that we have. So, we've got kind of the chart here showing you over the course of five years. You know, what particularly are the sources of funding? Not really surprising. The green is your bond proceeds since that is the majority of the projects. You're seeing that tends to be the bar that is taking up the most. And then we've got a little bit of other sources of funding there and kind of the purple. And then the orange essentially is water and sewer bonds. The next one here just kind of shows you it in a different format. This is your pie chart showing you the majority of if you were to fund the CIP would have to be done through bond proceeds and then a split of kind of water sources and everything else. All right. So then we kind of look at then the use category. So going back here, we're now focusing on the second part. So yep, keep going down. So now we're going to get more into the actual department area. So if we go to the next slide,

you'll see here this shows you generally your department years by cost. Not surprising, public works is the highest just because of the fact that unfortunately they have one of the most expensive items which is roads. So they are usually going to be one that is showing the majority of projects are kind of occurring there. Very typical then utilities is the next one that kind of shows particularly the area that has a lot of you know potential costs and then all of the other departments there. The next slide then just kind of shows you the bar chart shows you the pie chart factor here. So you can see the costs that essentially are slated in the project plan in the CIP here for public works, parks and facilities, police, utilities, city administration, the fire department, cemetery, and the library. On the next slide, so now what you'll see is then starting basically in your book on tab three, that's where we get into each individual department. So every single department is going to essentially have the same thing where they're going to have their own summary page. So for here we pulled public works. So you can see the funding sources right now we have estimated for public works are essentially bond proceeds that in order to take on the projects over the 5 years it would be bond proceeds. And you can see then how we've kind of mapped that out where we have roads that are occurring in 2026. There's some replacement funds that essentially are being estimated over 5 years. Some chip and sealing of roads crack filling and then some various equipment then that kind of goes through different ones there. We've got the connecting highways that we're not quite sure what the cost is going to be for that yet, but we want to start identifying that as potential project that is very common. So other things that you'll see in there that potentially would be, you know, as you can see, as well as the DPW building, we have that in 2030 for 10 million. What that starts to do is again gets you understanding as we talked about that you may not be able to do that in 2030, but you want to start putting that in there. So that way then when you're talking about grants, when you're talking about, you know, conversations about state funding that may be

available, if you have it in your plan, you are better obviously listed when you're applying for those grants or having those conversations or eventually it's going to be a topic that you know you're going to have to take on that if that continues to be pushed off into future years. It's only going to get worse. So eventually it is something that you're going to have to have a conversation on the next tab here or the next slide. So then what happens in every single department here kind of in section three or tab three is there is going to be a project justification classification section. So with public works you can see here we pulled you an example. So this is East Park Avenue. Uh this is one of the projects potentially slated for 2026. There is a description section here that tells you what it is. It's the replacement of East Park Avenue from Wisconsin Street to North Sweating Street. The justification is the current road essentially has reached its useful life. Is it in need of replacement? There is then an expenditure and a funding source section. So you can see here the estimated cost for what that road is potentially in 2026. The funding source then is bond proceeds. And then every single project kind of has a budget impact. Um and other section that talks about what is the impact to the budget and potentially then what funds are going to be used. On kind of the top section there you can see then the justification. So, it shows you the department, what's the useful lights of that item, and then essentially the priority. Typically, when we're talking about the first two years, most things are going to be ranked five and fours, and then as you get into future years, that's kind of when you get the three, twos, and ones. So, the next slide kind of shows you then this starts basically tab number four in your books. So, this is then potentially the budgetary items for every single department. So, what you have in here then are the requests. So you can see all the projects that are slated for each single department. So again, this is public works as the example. They've got about seven possible projects that could be done in 2026. The requested funding sources. So a little over $2 million is kind of what is slated there. Then on the next one here, we then get

into tab number five in your books, which now is the beyond five years. So the reason you want to do this or what we try to do is every single department that potentially has projects into the future, we want to start putting those down for a couple of different reasons. One, again, this is your grant opportunity. So if you have something that is slated in your plan and it has been in there for, you know, multiple years, but the funding source isn't there, that's your opportunity to essentially go for grants. The other thing is hopefully, knock on wood, you get a pot of gold, you get the sky falls down, you know, money rains down on the city of Berlin and you guys have an opportunity to fund projects that potentially weren't there. That's what these lists are helpful for. They allow you to look at and prioritize. Okay, is there maybe a project that potentially might, you know, need to be looked at or could be looked at. The other thing you're going to notice here is depending on age of equipment and age and things that could occur, there may be items that suddenly will get flipped to needing to be fixed right away. there may be a road that you didn't, you know, think would need to be replaced for 10 years and now all of a sudden there's a gigantic pothole that was never there before and now it's moved that priority. So, this allows you really as kind of council members and also the community to kind of see those continual possible projects that could occur, but then also allows you to kind of keep that comprehensive list so things don't fall through the cracks. And also the main reason then too is it's not something that isn't identified. So if you have something in here that you know you've been slated for 2030 or outward and then you get to that point and usually you always get that question from somebody well when we never knew about this or this wasn't coming about. You have something you can point to and go well actually no this has been in our capital improvement plan. We've been talking about this for a lot of years. Okay. So essentially again tonight is not we're not expecting you to approve anything. We're not looking for that. The goal with this now is you now have this book. Essentially, what we want you to do is take some time, look through this, look through the projects, look through the costs, you know, see what questions you have. Obviously, if you do have questions, pitch them to the city

administrator. She'll get in contact with me and Jenny and we'll obviously look through that. Um, but this is kind of the process here as we like to do this presentation. This is the book that's in there. And then essentially what we'd be looking for is in your October meeting is an adoption of the plan. Now, what I will state with that is by adopting the plan, that does not mean you are committing to do all of these projects because that's usually one of the questions that you get from the communities. Well, you just adopted this, that means you're going to spend all that. No, what this means is you're adopting a plan. The step then is you're going to take this adoption and then take 2026 and try to put that into the budget and see where that goes. And that's going to be some future conversations about as we continue to update this capital improvement plan on a yearly basis. There's different ways we can take it. Usually your first year is you kind of throw in the kitchen sink. So we ask all the department heads to look at think of all the projects think they're in there. That is a perfect rationale and one that I typically try to argue is that's what your CIP should be is every year you should be updating that and keeping that going. That obviously is a conversation for you as a city. There are other municipalities where they want their CIP to be almost deadon with whatever funding decision they make. Um there's pros and cons to that. one is when you do that you're going to lose a lot of projects. So that's where we try to you know I try to advocate for that but at the end of the day that's the decision you guys have to make. So one of the things we're kind of have to be discussing in the future is essentially you know what how do you want to start trying to chip away at this rock and either it's going to be you're going to do a borrowing annually you're essentially going to do a borrowing you know every year every two years those are some of the things but the answer is you have we have to do something. So, it's a matter of, you know, starting to look at you're seeing the projects that are in here. What have I identified from the staff? And now this kind of starts the conversation of, okay, how do we fund this or what do we fund this and what does that mean? Um, so that's kind of the goal here over the next month for you is to kind of take a look at this document, look through it, see what questions you have or concerns, um, and then we'll try to answer those. But then

hopefully we'd be looking at, you know, at one of your meetings in October, um, formally adopting this. So then the staff can essentially use that to kind of plug into the budget and see potentially what you're going to be doing here in the next couple of years. Great. Anybody have any questions for Adam? Adam, would you just talk a little bit about the scenarios that you put together for the uh every other or every year borrowing just in case anybody has any questions as to what that actually is showing because they're if you don't look at these every day, they're a little little complex.

Yeah. So, essentially what you should have or what you kind of has been communicated is you got scenarios that probably look like this that kind of show you different options. Um, so what we tried to run is kind of some different scenarios we see in the community. So I guess we'll start with the smallest one. So the smallest one is a $750,000 scenario that shows you if that's essentially what you would borrow annually.

Um, what does that do? So when you're looking at these sheets, the way to kind of do this is we're going to go from left to right. So you can see here the first thing we have is essentially the existing debt service. So this is the debt service that you already have on the books. So this has been projects that you have already done, you went out and you bonded for, and you've got those principal and interest payments. We then get into kind of the blue section, which is the preliminary. So right now, what we have this showing is that in this scenario, for $750,000, we'd be looking at doing a state trust fund loan. So we actually wouldn't be going out into the market. One of the reasons for the I guess the positive for that is by going through the state trust fund loan. You don't have to do any of the, you know, kind of due diligence with going through the process of trying to find investors. It's through the state. There is no issuance cost for that. It's essentially we work with the team, we submit an application, you get it approved. The downfall to that is their rates tend to do be a little bit higher than what you potentially could get in the market. So, these are all things that we would continue to kind of play and run scenarios if this is the route you would want to go. But what this essentially does then is shows you for a $750,000 debt issuance, you're looking at about $103,000 a year in princ when you combine the principal and interest payments. So what that does then is essentially goes into the next section where we have hypothetical future borrowings. So the intention would be then is that if this is the rate that is to kind of determine that every year you want to fund about $750,000 worth of capital improvement projects, we're going to be doing that every year. So we essentially have that layered in. So what happens then, as you can kind of see here, is you've got the hypothetical future borrowing section. The total combined debt service then takes the existing plus the new and then continues to layer in every year. you're adding in that 750,000 and then you get to kind of what's the

important question here? Well, that's the combined mill rate. So, as you can see right now in 2025, your mill rate for debt service, so this is just for debt is $22. So, whatever your total mill rate is when you consider everything else that you essentially levy for, the debt portion is 202. What you can see there is as this kind of layers out essentially the goal is that we want to get it to a point where it's pretty much it tries to get level. So there is a little bit of an increase as you can see once you take on that borrowing it essentially goes up a little bit to $2.16 $2.37 and then it starts to kind of level out and roughly you stay in that kind of $29 $25 range. And what that means though is that means every year you're still doing $750,000 worth of capital improvement projects you're borrowing for that. So that's kind of the goal. So essentially what we try to do is get it to a point where there is going to be a little bit of an increase in that debt service levy, but then eventually as we're paying principal and interest off, we get it to a point where it levels out. So that kind of shows you the hypothetical of if you were to do $750,000. Then we essentially looked at, okay, well, what if you do a million dollars worth of capital improvement projects? So, you can kind of see the same thing. We take the existing debt service, we throw in the hypothetical principal and interest, and then we throw in future kind of principle and interest payments that would be made to show you the total debt service there. Obviously with a million dollars it's going to be a little bit more is going to be that cost but essentially as you can see there once we kind of get going on the plan it eventually kind of levels out and you're anywhere between about you know $240 $2.50 is what's related to that and you're continuing to do about a million dollar worth of projects. The last scenario then we kind of ran was looking at what is becoming very common for a lot of municipalities is they essentially will

do two years of borrowing. And the reason you do that is obviously then you save on issuance cost. So this would be the same thing. You'd still be doing about you'd still be setting aside about a million dollars worth of possible CIP projects, but you're borrowing $2 million for every two years. So you can kind of see here what that does and basically is is pretty similar. So this just kind of comes down to strategy. it's looking at eventually it's going to get it to about $245 kind of becomes the average. Um but this is all kind of the different kind of scenarios and things that we can kind of look at and run. So obviously again there's a lot of kind of opportunities and different scenarios that we can kind of look at. Um the key for you guys is now to take an opportunity to look at all of those projects that are in there and start to think about you know what is something that is palatable obviously for you as the city to do because you know the answer is it can't be nothing. It's that you know that that's not realistic is there there's projects that has to be done. So it's kind of now coming up with working you know we're going to work with you we're going to work with the staff and obviously you as the council to come up with strategy of again I always say we're chipping away at a rock. It's we can chip away at it fast, we can chip away at it slow. It's what again is that kind of comfort level and what does that mean? So as you're looking at this and kind of coming to you know some conversations and questions um let us know. But we wanted to run three scenarios so you could kind of see typically how that kind of plays out um or potentially what that would do to the debt, you know, cost portion of your taxes.

Anybody have any questions? If not, Jesse, do you have anything else for him? Not on this part, I don't think. Okay. All right. Well, then we will move on to number four, which Thank you, Adam. Um, which is a 2026 budget staff presentation of draft departmental budgets and display.

Yes. So, um these are kind of colorcoordinated by um staff members. Um but couple of things um for you before we dive in. Um for each of the budgets, there are two proposed um amounts at the end. One would be to consider a 3% wage increase and one would be to consider a 1% wage increase. Of course, you can set that at any level you want. 0 1 2 3 whatever um the council deems appropriate. But to give you an idea of what those costs look like um that's what's been provided. Those numbers that are in the dark green or the blue um are numbers that are generated from my spreadsheet based on that increase health insurance. These are employee costs. So those numbers really the department heads don't have any control over. Those are just dictated numbers uh based on other things. So, um, your black numbers, if that makes sense, are are things that, um, could be tweaked outside of what the what the right what the wage is. That makes sense. Okay. Um, additionally, we did see a bit more cost savings than is shown in here for health insurance um, from people choosing between the focus and the broad. So, I will um, have a little bit of updating to do, but it's not huge. But, but it's good, right? It's it's it's some um so that that hasn't uh been incorporated through these numbers yet. Also, these numbers assume a couple of things. They assume that we are going to move forward with the recycling um which is another item for us to discuss. If we don't, then we need to put about another $150,000 into the levy um because we are currently showing that we would shift that cost from the levy itself to a special charge. So, um it would have to if it's not on the special charge, then

we have to put it back into the lobby. Um the wheel tax is reflected in here that was already approved. Um so, does anybody have any general questions before we dive into things? Nope. Okay. And I think the first ones in your packet are the green which is which is Scott. Um and so this is made up of several different budgets. U public works is pretty much the first packet of green. The second packet of green has the parks and the pool in it just um but I'm assuming you will start with general public works and this is proposing a total um slight decrease from this year's expenditures.

Okay. So I'm basically going to touch on the line items that were changed, not so much the benefits and the insurance and stuff like that. Okay. So, in general streets, there aren't anything other than the the insurance or benefit changes that are occurring. Um, public works maintenance, the same thing. Uh, move down to snow and ice control. Um, that one is also the same. Uh, next change is going to be the street lights. Uh, there was a small change of 4,000 to the utilities part of that. um from 64,000 63,000 to 67,000.

Is that just rates? Yeah. Yeah. Actual spending. That's rates on the electricity that it costs or that's rates from people hitting them and them needing to be fixed. The cost of them being lit. Yeah. Okay. Uh moving on to garbage and refuge. Um other contractual services. Um, that's the estimated increase from 243ish to 255. Oh, I think you skip a page. It's back. It's behind. There's a Oh, it's Oh, no. You don't have that. Oh, it's just one over just a page. Sorry. Maybe I got them in a different sidewalk. Oh, okay. Did I go

sidewalk repair? Did you I found it. Okay, you're good. Did I flip-flop? It's okay. Okay, we found it. Okay. Okay. Garbage said increased. I'm sorry. Garbage increased. Should we just go back to the sidewalk? Isn't that where you guys Yeah. Let's Let's go that way. Okay.

So, sidewalk and repair maintenance. Uh there was an adjustment of from 5,000 to 4,000 per operating supplies. That's the 340 account. Um storm sewers, there was no change. Uh municipal building, um there was a change Indian equipment and structures line 380 um from 7,500 down to 5,000. Uh, moving on to building and grounds, there was a increase from 14,000 to 26,000 for the utility side.

And that's all just rates. When I looked at what was what's actually being spent versus what was budgeted, it seemed prudent to put more money in that line. And ideally, some of those utility rates should go down on next year's because of all the LED um retrofits that we had put in this last year or this year. So, okay, now I'm on now I think I'm on garbage and refers. Okay,

so like I mentioned earlier that increase from the two 243 5 to 255ish um based on the the increases that they give us um annually contract.

Per the contract. Yes. Uh same goes for recycling. Uh that 290 line. Uh weeds and nuisance control was lowered from 5,000 to 4,000 in the operating supplies to 340 account. Um there were no changes in a cemetery. Um, you'll see in the revenues at the bottom of that page, uh, there's going to be a decrease in state transportation and our state connecting streets should stay the same. Once we have the actual numbers, we'll of course update it. But

yeah, they should be coming out relatively soon here. Any questions on that, guys, before I move on to the next one? Yeah, there's two lines. There's two lines that just are highlighted that say motor vehicle registration fee and special recycling charge. These are new revenues. New revenues. So, I highlighted those because this is the motor vehicle registration fee is the wheel tax that you implemented. And then the recycling special charge would be if we move the recycling off of the lobby to a special charge. So I highlighted those just for to show that that's a difference this year than we've had in the past.

Thank you. I have a general I don't know if you'll know the answer to this. I don't even know if I can ask. When somebody hits a light, do they get charged for it? Depends on if they have insurance. So if they don't have insurance, we're not charging them for it. We try to Okay. We do our best to recoup our cost. Definitely. Yeah. When's the most recent one? Like, did that happen recently that that sparked a No, it was literally him saying that it went up. Oh, okay. I didn't like Did I miss a bunch? No, you didn't. Lately, now if I'm not mistaken, I believe we're on the parks and swimming pool. Yes.

Okay. Yep. So, uh, the parks, um, there was a suggested change to the flower beds and fertilizers from, uh, 6,500 to 4,900. Um, what number process there? I'm sorry. 353. It's a 353 line. I'm sorry.

So, you see a six $1,600 difference lowering it. uh thought process there is eliminating the hanging baskets on the uh light poles downtown. Um it's not only just the cost of the flowers, it's a little over $6,000 for Andrew to water and maintain them for the amount the period of time that they're up there. That's time he could be spent doing more important things. How many total are there?

There is 16. So just so I heard everybody gasp. So there's 16 hanging plants and what is our total cost by the time you you factor the cost of those and Andrew's fees or buzz was over eight grand. So that's two grand each and the flowers are going to go up. they do every year.

I also am sad about that, but maybe in the future a fundraiser group could sponsor some or some I'm just an idea. I even was thinking um when he mentioned it that um in the future, I know Budafy Berlin had raised some some funds for when we redid downtown. um that that could be a possibility to help. But also, I wonder I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this. How many people see them hanging up there? I think everybody does versus a maybe something that was lower that we could if there were any more statement pieces, whatever. That's something that can be decided in the future.

Would that possibly be an idea in the future if a group wanted to sponsor them? Like could we that we approach you and try to do that to get a blower to the ground? No. No. to like sponsor the FL like if we can like if a group wants to raise $8,000. I don't know if anybody watches Andrew go downtown and have to water every single one individually. You see that in the morning? I see it. I don't know if anybody realizes how heavy those baskets are either

and when they have to hang them and take them down. Are we okay with that? Can we move on or is there going to be anybody have any other questions or suggestions? I feel like if a group wants to step forward and pay for it, then they're more than welcome to. I think we all knew cuts had to be made. Fortunately, it's a pretty I wasn't I wasn't expecting the sticker shock with every I was. I think and I'm a flower person. I didn't 8 grand is a lot of money.

I think because we hit a lot of the things that make Berlin unique or personal or beautiful and it's taking away all of the character and we're doing these little things and they're hitting onesie twzies, $1,000 here, $1,000 there, but they're not like great but budget impact. But I don't know. I guess that's what it feels like. It feels like we're hitting every little thing but not making a huge impact. I think they're all going to add up the little things that we are doing. And that's kind of where we have to start with this. Okay. Where are we at with that swimming pool? You're on a swimming pool.

Move along. Okay. Uh the next cut for uh under uniforms, that's a 391. Just lowered it from 500 to 250. Basically cut it in half. And then the swimming pool. Well, I don't know if you have any discussion on that, but I think we all know where that lands right now, right? This assumes that we do not open next year. So, the costs that are inc are in here are for the utilities and other hopefully minor maintenance or repair that would need to be done. And of course, we still have to ensure the pool. So,

so when we're looking at $7,500 for utilities, uh I'm assuming that's more winter related. Is that it? Yes. Okay. Okay, believe that covers it. Anybody have anything else for green pages? I I guess one of my things I was trying to look at is um I know we got some new snow plows and stuff. Has that affected um like how much manpower you have to use on your snow plows and things?

Um potentially yes. It should cut down on the the time that they're going to be out on the roads. Obviously, it depends on the storms situation for the duration of it. Um, but knowing that they have wings and plows instead of just um two of the trucks had three of the trucks just had a front plow. So, it'll be covering a lot more ground in quicker time. So, the prognosticators are calling for a lot of snow this month. So, true. True. True.

I just want to point out based on last year's budget cutting the pool, that's a little over $165,000 savings, getting us closer to a somewhat nearly balanced budget. Okay. Purple. Purple. Purple is public housing assessment, economic development, zoning, Tim's realm.

Okay. Well, um, as has been the case, I think in previous years, there's quite a bit that's just, uh, remaining the same year to year. Um the one thing that will jump out at you is uh in the second page I have here under the land use planning the professional services is down from 30,000 because that was the comprehensive plan. So obviously that's not needing to be repeated another year. That will hopefully you know run according to plan no pun intended. Uh otherwise, I mean there's some modest um ones that were just trimmed down to more what is in line with what the expenses have been the last couple years as far as operating expenses and the like could go through those but um are there any questions or comments?

Um just to note for the comprehensive plan that does have to be redone every so many years by um statute. We also have a couple of other plans that um if we find the money for would not be a bad idea to do such as the park and recreation plan um that too would potentially afford us more grant opportunities because a lot of times you have to show these things in a plan in order to get credit to move forward with grants. However, we don't have anything slated for next year. So that's why this is because the comprehensive plan is it required every 10 and most communities do it every five. So, it'll be a while before that one pops back in, but okay. Anybody have any questions for Tim? Also, once you've presented, if you would like to leave, you're more than happy to leave. If you want to hang around, I do have a question.

Hang around. the bottom of your um revenues, it talks about miscellaneous inspection permits, business and occupation licenses and those are zero across the board. Is there we don't they have been for several years. I think they were put in at one point and it's just carried through because I showed you know the last couple of years as well. Yeah. And I guess I should mention there's also the and I don't know why it was in there previous but the there was like a WDF that was a disaster fund from flooding that I think would have just be one time or regular type of uh revenue source. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions for Tim?

Should fire department red. Sorry, pink fire. So, for fire and emergency management, um basically we're just trying to match this a bit more with how um things are operating now. So, uh, for emergency management, which is the second page, this used to be a shared position, as you know, um, Gary, with the county, and now we have a fire, uh, fighter who is also the emergency management person who's been appointed by, um, the chief. So, as we currently have it, the chief can be the emergency management person or they can designate our emergency management person. So those costs rather than being an onstaff person are um a monthly stipen I believe of $500 a month to cover um the emergency management. I'm pretty sure it was 500 a month for emergency management. Um but those wages are actually in the fire department stuff.

I'm questioning the health and life insurance though. That is a cobra. Okay. And that's why it also has the matching revenue at the bottom. Okay,

it's a Cobra. Um, we probably wouldn't have to show it, but just for me to keep things straight, that's what that is. It's It's not an actual employee. Um, so we assume um the same increases if the council deems that appropriate uh for the fire department. Um, a couple of things that uh were were changed um that are going to look pretty significant um are the um from 17 to 27,000 the property services and vehicles um uh interim chief Dhurst has been tracking over the last several years what those costs were and this is just a better match. I think um the total as you can see the total numbers are not changing a lot. It's just where things are to try to match a little bit better of what he actually has seen and what it anticipates for for future. But I I mean that one that one was a pretty pretty um significant one. I'm trying to just look if I I've looked at them so many times to try to remember if there were any other real big

Would it make more sense for the office supplies and operating supplies to just completely come out of the fire department since it's under them anyways instead of having it split between emergency management? I guess they just are or would they really going to track who's taking which pen? Sure. I mean to be perfectly honest if if you wanted to just eliminate the emergency management and completely combine it with the fire at this point I think you can because we're no longer you know I think this was mostly separated because it was a joint effort with the county you know so it made sense to track everything separately that way but you I don't think we'd have to at at this point the only thing that I'd have to confirm though is our contracts with the other municipalities because the towns and stuff when we work with them, they pay a portion of our fire department budget. So, so that's the only thing is I'd have to look into it. I don't I don't know if we I don't think we do any of their emergency management. So, now that I say that out loud, we probably have to keep that separate. But, if it truly is, you know, a few dollars, I guess,

just to make it cleaner, [Applause] said operating office supplies and operating supplies. Yeah. Okay. I can move those to fire.

Okay. Any other questions on fire and emergency management? They're hoping to increase their numbers. So, there's a little bit more in there for meeting some things like that. That's an as needed cost. So, I'm going to um mess up your order. Oh, and pull PD next and then library since they're here in case they want to go and also your EMS and EMS. Sorry. Sorry. Blue is the next one. Brian, you're up.

As you can see, there's pretty minimal changes from uh 25 into 26. A couple notable exceptions being in line 119, which is a crossing guard wages. That's about half. Um, and the reason for that is that we no longer have the crossing guard up at the corner of Washington Street and Broadway Street with All Saints, um, now being outside of the city. There is minimal child traffic for school in that location. Um, moving down to line 160, public relations, instead of having $1,000 and and we had that for 24 and 25, that's really money used for things like at National Night Out for handouts with children and things like that or even buying Halloween candy, for example. Um, we ultimately dropped that down to zero for next year. Um, I think that the paperwork you guys have shows line 210, the professional services to have a significant jump. And that was an ongoing discussion with the city administrator and I about whether or not the city prosecution attorney's fees would be included in that line. Um, I think the consensus this morning was that it would remain on the city hall side. So, that is actually going to remain the same 2,000 that we had in 25. Is that accurate?

Yes. I am going to move that over into one of the orange sheets which we'll get to um under the uh special legal counsel. We'll switch it. We'll move it over to there.

So, with that said, line 210 would remain the same 2000 that I had in in this current calendar year. Um really with that, any of the numbers in black are virtually unchanged from from 25 into 26. the uh green ones or the blue ones would ultimately depend on whether or not there was a wage increase for some of our staff. And I say that because some of my staff is covered by the the bargaining contract with the union. So they they get their wage increase whether the rest of the city does or not. Yes, the 3% for the uh for the contract is in these numbers. Um how many staff are not affected by the union? Three. Three.

Myself, the assistant chief, and then the secretary. Okay. Are there any questions?

Which I'm sure all aware if you do a different wage increase, it will impact compression issues with the with the removal of the public relations budget line. Does that mean you guys aren't planning to do any of that next year? No, we'll continue to do it. We just may not have items to, you know, for a child to grab a a pencil or whatever it is that we have if if we had items for them. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Okay. Thanks, Brian. Sorry, Evan. Chris, it's the light green.

Light green towards that violations. Where did my light green go? There it is. Okay. So, there really is minimal changes in mine as well. Um, biggest things that you'll notice are under the contractual, there's $5,000 less. Um, we have two sources of electronic resources, which means the online books, ebooks, um, and then other, um, formats that are available in there. Um, one of the sources that we have is called the Hoopla. um they are significantly higher per circ per circulation um than another source that we have called Libby. So I have been contemplating dropping that anyway. Some of the library local libraries are dropping that and that's like a $5,000 per year. So that's why that one is that much less. Um and then we just kind of looked at some of the other ones fine-tuned a little bit as to comparing what I've spent other years, how much has been left in those accounts. And um we also are fortunate that we have the friends of the library that helps us support um a few of the things that we need and um that's one reason why some of these areas can be decreased as well. Um just for instance with the conferences and training um we are there's three of us that are going to the um Wisconsin uh library association state um conference that's coming up and we have asked friends to cover mileage for that which is almost $500. So, we're very fortunate that although we have a very small and mighty group, um, and Missy is on that. So, thank you. Um, but they're able to help us out in little areas that, you know, we might not be able to do. Um, we're also fortunate that we have the Winfax Library System that provides a lot of the training um, and support for some conferences um, within our uh, contract that we already pay. So, they cover some of that. So, we didn't

really need any increases there. um operating supplies is probably their biggest budget other than the salaries, etc. Um and we we thought about, you know, do we want to decrease that? However, prices are increasing and they're starting to add on fuel charges to every single purchase that we have. So, that line covers everything from all of our materials in the library to programming, um you know, all the things that we do for the public. So, that's a big part of why are we there? if we don't have those things, people wouldn't be coming in the door or they'd be going to other libraries. So, if you're wondering what that is, and then the other um line item that's kind of a larger part of my budget is the professional services. That is the Winnifox contract that we pay to use and belong to Winnifox Library System. Um they provide our um our ILS, which is all of our computer software for patron materials and um keeping track of all that. they do all of our IT um make sure that we're in compliance with the state statutes and and as I mentioned some training etc. So other than that there isn't a lot of changes over I mean with the um changes that we have we're about 7500 that I was able to take off. So, um I don't know for those of you who are new, um the bottom portion of the revenue, the library aid from C counties, um just to briefly explain that anytime a patron outside of Green Lake County uses our library. Um we keep track of that. The library or the county rather that person came from, um we have a a formula that figures out how much that county owes. So at the end of the year we figure out we have x number you know 100 people from county that use the library and then we have a formula that

we plug in and then we biller county for that amount. So h do we get a bill? Do do other libraries do that to us? Yeah. So we have it's pretty complicated. I mean our um the county pays it.

Yeah. Our uh records that we have for patrons keep track of what township they live in and then we keep track of circulation for every single person that that comes in and checks things out. Um that does not include unfortunately any programs or anything that we do not do that can't be recorded by the computer. Um so you know some of those things we just have to kind of it's a wash between some of our patrons are going there some of their patrons are coming here. So that part we really can't keep track of but circulation we can and all of that is kept track of through Winox thankfully we don't have to do that. up. Any questions?

Nope. Thank you. All right. The red Just kidding. Evan,

just to just to note, this is not part of the levy. Okay. This is not part of the levy because we have a contract with the county and the county reimbures our costs for EMS. So that's why it was kind of at the back, but we should let Evan have his moment. But just so so that you understand that. And there's a couple of nuances in here because we are proposing to the county to move forward with an additional EMT and um an additional and moving to protected status, which we've talked about before, and there will be another meeting by that um committee on Monday. So, we don't know the answer to that, but

do we know how we're leaning on? Okay. 5050. Okay. All right.

So, um like many other people, uh my budget pretty much just move money around. Um we took some money out of personnel services, which we use for paying for people to go to school and get their lensures. U move some of that into conference and training uh because UW has been uh having more training there than we have to send out for. So, uh that's kind of coming out of there. Uh move some money to operating supplies because everything goes up and uh yeah uh you'll see gas, oil, property service and vehicles that gas and oil is zero. We moved everything to one account because it doesn't make sense for us to have two different accounts for that. And many many times it's hard to account for oil. As many of our vehicles go in for oil changes, they come out with costly repairs anyways. So it all gets shoved into property services vehicles. So those two line items are going to combine into one. So you'll see that. Um yeah, other than that, it's just moving money around. There's no increase into that. All the increase would be if uh the county goes with 3% would be uh basically into people insurance and and that kind of stuff. And then if we go to the protected status with the extra EMT, that's the one highlighted in blue. Uh so that would be the additional. So, but that meeting's on Monday.

Um, sorry, protected status. Does that mean union?

No, that's the WRS or the the Wisconsin retirement system has two different programs. Uh, one that's a protected and one that's unprotected. Uh, protected status is usually for uh fire, police, EMS, correctional officers. And I I don't have the state statute in front of me, but it's all written down in that. And when we moved over to a full-time department, I think that just got missed and we never really looked at that. So, we've been unprotected uh since. So, we're trying to move into the protected status so that way um it helps with uh disability benefits and things like that if you were to get hurt on the job for employees. So, and a lot of other EMS agencies already have that. So, it's just kind of we're competing against uh that as well. It's usually something I get asked in interview if we're protected or unprotected.

I remember you saying that last time. Thank you. My brain just forgot. No problem. Any questions for Evan?

Nope. All right. Thanks, Evan. Red. So, red is the senior center and um recreation. And the reason that these are together is because the um position that is currently being advertised for the senior center and recreation facilities director um as the budget has been set up for years. That um position is split between these four different accounts. There's three for the senior center, one um general senior center and then they have a transportation program which uh provides rides uh to to people which actually we work um with the county uh for that. And then um the senior center nutrition program which covers like your meals on wheels as well as um in-house meals for senior senior citizens. Um we also partner with the county on that. Um, and then recreation. Um, as you can see, there's not a ton to that other than a portion of wages, and that's how it has been, um, for quite some time. And that is because of their that portion of their salary being actually the facilitation, the admin part, and not so much physical recreation stuff. If that makes sense. Um, I didn't put in uh the wage as advertised for this for that for the uh position as well. When does that close again? 29th. So, Monday. Are there any questions?

Um, I think this was asked before at a budget, but okay. Why did the donations to the senior center continue to say zero? I know um in the past there was some talk about it but like money like people donate money after their meals or things like that and yet our donations to the senior center remain zero. So as so the money that comes into the senior center for meals that goes directly back to the county even if yeah the because technically the the meals are all donation. Um so that money goes to the county then?

That money goes to the county. Um they they um keep keep track of that. as far as the on-site meal manager um who's also the cook um has to submit all that back to the to the county and then we have reimbursement from the county based on um the number of meals that we prepare and all that kind of stuff so it doesn't come back to the senior I just know that some people have said like oh like we give donation and then it just continuous says zero so maybe that's something we can look into or okay I just for the budget purposes. I don't plan to get money for donations.

Um, but you're saying your actual I can Well, like in the revenues. Yeah. Reflecting the actual dollars. There isn't anything shown in that budget line apparently. What? Oh, of course.

Um, for the senior center too, they have got their own checkbooks over there that are for that. So like Jill, if she gets a donation and they want it specifically like for her flooring that they just got and things like that, that money goes into their checkbook. So it doesn't run through ours, which is going to change this year so that we will be able to see all of that. But I think that's why because there are I agree with you, there are donations that come in, but they're going into their checkbooks that we don't currently man. And if that's the case, isn't that why we have friends of the senior center?

Right. And I just went to the aging meeting last night and we looked over those three accounts. And they do they kind of treat it like a pre- buy, like they have a slush of money and then they go do the things and then they recoup if there's like an event from the city or from the county, but it can be like a two-month lag. And so that's why they have those accounts. But you're right, there is monies in there that are not accounted for on here. Probably like $9,000. Yeah, that's just the same. And Why? Again,

we're figuring that out. I It had to do with the needing to like buy the or rent the bus, for example, like on a trip. They'd had to pay ahead and then figure out the ch the cost for it and charge everybody for the cost and then they would go to the city and say, "Here's what it costs." you know, but it had to do with the availability of I and I I understand that we're hiring somebody right now and that should and needs to be a new protocol that that stuff needs to be transparent and should be included on here. There should not be money floating around that none of us can see on a piece of paper, right?

We're working on getting all accounts into AcuFund. It's been that way for a while for a few different things and we're trying to tackle it. Yeah. Um, but just going back on to on something they had mentioned about donations and grants and stuff too. Like I know the fire department just had a small grant. Is this just because we're not budgeting for it or Okay. We're not expecting money, but if it happens, great. They actually have a line um for matching funds for a grant if they were to get it in the expenditures. Okay. Uh but yes. Yes. I apologize. I thought you were talking about meals.

I apologize. I thought you were talking about the meal fund. No, just the revenue per senior or donation. I just like there's a jar with money that sometimes people donate to. So that was my example. And so if they're thinking Yeah. And so maybe that needs to just be something as easy as it's labeled then that that money if they think they're giving it to the workers or to the the the senior center. It needs to be labeled that that money isn't going to us, it's going to the county. I'm guessing that's what this other account for donations, right? Okay. But again, We should have that documented and the fact that it hasn't been over the last several years is not okay either. Okay.

Well, and budgetarily, I mean, some some of these donations might be for furniture or things specifically for things which would also help in the budget, you know, if it's for a couch or you I would agree with Jesse on this one. You don't budget for donations because you don't know what they are. So that line should revenue though. Yep. More. That should be a zero because you don't want to plan on it. If you get a donation, great. But we're not planning on getting we're not budgeting for it. Yellow BCDC.

Yellow BCDC. Um the only changes added a little bit more for miscellaneous because of some more fees and things that they had to just better reflect the actual costs. The rest of it is um our contract for the person who fulfills that role in BCDC reimbures the city for it. So for the position, okay, orange, city administrator, clerk, elections. Yes. So um the biggest change on the administrator portion is that I'm um proposing to shift an employee who currently is working halftime um city administration and halftime utility due to the needs of the utility, the needs of the city and um the workloads and things. I'd like to this reflects moving that to 20% city and 80% utility. Years a I don't know how far back but previous that was two full-time positions. Um they cut it they cut it back and switch software and all that kinds of things. And I think we're just trying to figure out what we actually need. I think it's a lot closer to 1.8 than it is 1.5. So, and we are finally um have a quick treasure both at administration. So, we've been able to shift a little bit more of that workload to just help staff out overall. So, it just better reflects um the needs I think there. Um for elections um just really the number of elections next next year is a big election year of four. This year we got to have three

instead of four or instead of two but or will um but are there any are there any questions? Most of the changes here are are simply um wages. Although we did increase the computer maintenance agreement um to look at what our actual costs are as well as um publication fees. There just a lot of things that we need to um as part of being the city put in the paper and and other places um to keep the public aware of what's going on and meet statutes. So any questions?

What is the cable TV franchise fee? Yeah. And why did it go down? Oh, wait. I was going to ask about that one. the cable or TV franchise fee we are given to um from the state and looking at what we've actually received um that's a more realistic number just for my curiosity what is an amusement device license for the gaming

like your okay I'm charge your kids to play their Xbox. No, no. Okay. Um the next one with all the list of I won't like name them all. Starting with city attorney, special legal council, independent auditing,

right? Um, so as I said previously, we're going to in we're going to add the um municipal court attorney fees to special legal counsel, which I apologize for the spelling error there. Um, so that one will take that um money that was in the police department's budget and slide it over and add it to the 8,000 that was already already in there. Um the audit um quite honestly I think we're going to end up uh paying more for an audit um than we have previous years. Just you know we're we're going out to RFP and we had a lot of time and effort on this last audit. So just a more realistic number for that. And building inspection and codes. Again, looking at what we've actually what we've actually spent, there hasn't been any animal pound fees for some time, but just for comparison purposes, I took all of the budget lines that were on this year's budget and made sure that they're in this year's bud in last year's sorry this year's budget, the 2025 budget, and made sure that the 2026 budget has those budget lines. So that's some of these are

the animal pound feeas line. Mhm. Why do we have it anymore when we we got rid of the the dog catcher? That was a position we got rid of. Is there some When would we pay for the pound fees? We won't. Like I said, this is just okay. Completely comparative to to last year for consistency. We can make the decision to get rid of it. I mean, it's a shirt. Needed a useless line, I think. Yeah, there's a few of those in here, but

Yep. And then the last set of orange um basically is your catch all for citywide uh things as well. So, um, and some of the employee benefits for people who have, um, upon retirement, um, employee assistance, things like that. Um, your central duplicating, that's splitting, that's the cost for copies and postage and all that kind of, computers, um, that we all share. Um, quite honestly, illegal taxes and funds. I don't know why we have that, but like I said, I was staying consistent to what you had seen previous years. Um, contingency, I think with a budget over $6 million, um, contingency of at least 50,000 makes sense. It was at 20. You can certainly change that, but I mean, this is this is your your things come up and we didn't know and all that kind of thing. So,

feel like that's happened a lot this year. We can increase it if you think it's necessary, but like I said, I thought on this size of a budget, 20,000 I I I wasn't real comfortable with. 50,000 is um a good start. Let's hope we don't have as many surprises as next year.

Yes, fair enough. um hydrant rental fee um as you've discussed before that is now at zero because the hydrant rental fee has been moved over to um the public fire protection fee on the utility bills. So that's why that's uh not not in there anymore was and 24 was like half of the payment, right? That's why it was

Yeah, it happened mid year. Yep. Okay. Yep. Um, are we I just want to make sure obviously we're making cuts. Are we only give one grant? We had one more in the last couple years. Didn't we cut it out? What was the other one? I thought it was. Oh, yeah. That's right. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't see. So, historical society still Yeah. Okay. And fireworks were still Yes. I just want I'm just verifying.

Is that something that we should talk about? I mean, we just got $8,000 for downtown for flowers and everybody gasp. I think the historical society won't continue if we don't offer them this. Just my opinion in there. I was talking about fireworks. Oh, I thought you were talking about the historical society.

I feel like the fireworks have a bigger impact than the flowers do, but with the event that it brings in and the amount of people it brings in. Okay, there's no other discussion. We can move on. Okay. Um the revenues Right. I'm glad you changed the media outreach. What were we paying $1,000 for? Cuz I didn't get that.

I did not see anything under that budget line being used. So, it was probably from our cable that we don't have. So, I just want to make sure we were not paying. But, did we pay anything last year or was that just what? I will double check.

Yeah, double check that. Okay. Um for revenues, um these are of course our best estimates as of right now. Some of the numbers we have received from the state and if I have those numbers, they've uh been put in here, but there um are some that uh we'll tweak if we get uh a better number from the state. They send us estimates of what they anticipate. Usually beginning of October, we have all those numbers. Like I said, we've received some of them. If we didn't receive them yet, then kind of based on what we had from the previous year. There are a lot of lines in here that I think were kind of one-time use many years ago and they have just been maintained.

A lot of permits. I don't believe we do that. Went from 150 to 40 now down to zero. We don't have Yeah. What is um shared revenue video? Yes, that's a that's a payment that we get from the from the state. What's the rest of the word those s video what?

Thanks Adam. I know it's not budgeted in here. Um there used to be a button on the website for donations for fireworks. Did we ever receive donations via that button? get put on there. I didn't know there was It was on there was a big red button. I was just curious if it did anything. I apologize. I didn't know that ever existed. Yeah. So, I don't know the history on that one. Okay.

I was just curious if we if we gained any to help offset the cost of that. I didn't see anywhere um that anything was recorded as having received any donations specifically for fireworks.

Okay. Any questions on the orange sheets? The reason that the number at the very bottom um is so significantly different is because the tax uh the levy is not in there yet. So if you look at the very top general property taxes um because I have that as a plug number right now so I will do that. But that's why when you look at the very bottom,

we had 5.2 last year and only 2.6 currently. We'll put that approximately 2.4 in there. And then that'll change that a lot. Okay. Just in case anybody was wondering why that's like that. All right. The cream colored council commission committees and mayor Yes. Um, operating supplies. Why did we go up? So, uh, we cut cut about $1,000 out of the council's operating supplies. Why was that so high before?

I think they printed more paper probably. We do a lot of email now. They used to print everyone a packet and deliver it. That's still a lot of paper. 200 200,200. Yeah, that's $1,000. I don't know what they anticipated for this year, but we just put it back to 200. I mean, if anybody's aware of something where that was in there, then certainly Is there a fee for Zoom? Oh, any of our operating expenses in there because

I'll double check, but I don't recall seeing it in that line when I was going through everything. I think the only time you pay a fee to Zoom is if you have like a large number of people. Yeah. Like if you want to post I thought we Yeah.

Okay. So something to look at. Okay. Okay. Any questions? Okay. Flash. So on the total sheet um you can see expenditures versus revenues, what our estimated allowable levy for 2026 is uh based on our first attempt at um filling in the levy worksheet. Um just so everyone understands the levy as you know can only increase for two reasons. One you can be increased due to your growth um and equalized value. So, our total amount of additional dollars that we can levy for due to our growth from last year is $4,000. So, as I know you're aware, expenses do tend to go up a bit more than $4,000 on a $6 million budget. The only other way that we can increase um the levy is through borrowing. um we as you know we have certain borrowing limits and all of those types of things but those are the only uh two ways that we can increase the levy. So, as this budget is presented with the 1% um employee uh increase, we are about $100,000 um short of what is needed from the tax levy versus what is allowable under the under the levy. Um,

so to increase that uh 3 to 3% would be about another $34,000 total. And um if you were to not shift the recycling fee, which we'll talk about in a bit, it'd be another $156,000 um that would need to be put to the levy.

So when do you need us to make a decision about um wages. The sooner the better as far as getting these numbers back to you. Obviously, everything has to be approved in November. Um, so I can get you even closer to where we'll actually be for October uh with more decisions made. A couple of things um to keep in mind when when you're looking at how much to include for an increase, if you choose to include an increase, are some of the costs um to employees. As we talked about with health insurance, um the city saw a slight decrease in our total cost of health insurance this year due to changing um providers. So, that probably won't happen again. Um usually cities are looking at closer to a 10 to 15% or more increase. So we were fortunate there and then additionally employees are now paying will starting January 1 with this budget will start paying up the percentage and set that at 7 and a half% versus um just the flat 25 5075 depending on which type of plan they take. So that coupled with WRS changes, if you are in the unprotected status, WRS changes every so many years to keep that program funded. And how it works is employees pay a percentage and employers pay a percentage to the Wisconsin retirement system for the employees based on their wage. And currently it is 6.95% paid by both the employee and the employer. Next year it's going to go to 7.2. 2%. So, a little bit more of their paycheck will get sent to uh WRS and um if they are utilizing the health insurance, they probably are going to

contribute about twice what they are currently contributing because if you were a single, the plan, you're currently contributing 25 a month and the plan options were about 50, a little more, a little less depending on what which plan you chose. And then for the plus ones it's at 50 it goes to about 100 and for the family it's at 75 and it goes to around 150. So it's it's not exactly but just so you understand. So employees as currently if if there's no increase will see a decrease in their net takehome.

Okay. So that's not a decision we need to make tonight unless anybody has questions at or any input for Jesse. questions, additional information needed, anything like that, please let me know because I certainly want to get you to the place where you feel that you have all the information needed to make the best decision for for this community. I have a very unpopular question. Okay. Does the are we mandated to do a raise in wages? No. Okay. So, the 1% and 3% were just estimated.

Correct. You can do any amount you want. 0, one, two, three, whatever you deem appropriate. Um, I wanted to give you an idea of what uh those raises look like. And also, like I said, it's about $34,000 total to go from the 1% to the 3%. Um, so half of that if you go to, you know what I mean, right? Um, so no, it's it's not required. Any other questions, comments? If not, we will move on to number five. Can I request a recess for a bathroom break? Sure.

Recess at 654. [Music] I need a motion. I'll make a motion to recess. Second. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Five minutes. Sure. Now that she mentioned it,

do you see it? I lost one in my car yesterday, too. Although I didn't probably get Hopefully it That's why I lose them.

I said it didn't have to [Laughter] terrible hand. I guess I should have the city pays for the fireworks. I thought that was all donations.

They just raise money for it. Yeah, they have their own stuff that they pay for. I think a lot of it is like trees put a lot of money towards that make stronger

but they they also like sponsor bands right and then they'll do food and beer sales to make some money right right the fundraiser I guess I just figured fireworks came out of it be a newly we doubled the budget few years back. Yeah, it was only 5,000 which got a lot of flack from the community for help. But then they thought it was then they go on Facebook. Yeah. That it's not awesome still and

well and to be honest you can't win. We've been told by the um the company that you know they don't know what everything's going to cost next year because of especially some chairs and all that kind of stuff. So it may not be the same show this year for that. Right. So but you know we've put in the same amount with them to hold our spot. Not that we can't change it, but how many other communities are they fireworks sponsored by city fun? Oh, I don't know. I'd have to ask that question.

I mean, like it depends on the community. I know when I was in Slinger, the um Speedway did um a lot of fireworks on various nights and stuff, so they just made one of their big nights as close as close to that as they had a event. And and Yeah. So, I mean that was just kind of cool of them to to do that for them. Is anybody here on the ABC group or no? I just wonder where their situation is at with how much they're bringing that night. Well, I think they're definitely making money. Would they like would that be something that they could maybe

Oh, I don't know. I don't know if they're because the people are there for it. Sure. you know, kind of a thing. Or they could host fundraising events throughout the year to help out. I know they Well, they have a night at the farmer. I think they did this year. I don't see didn't do a food night, did they? This year, right? Okay. Yeah. It must have been the animal shelter that Ashley was helping with. Yes, they did last year. She did glass. Right. But we're just talking about, you know, the whole fireworks part, you know, how many community like

the only other thing I would like to have um um adjusted. No, I didn't. I don't want that one talking about um when it comes to picking who does the fireworks if we're paying for it. I feel like we should have I don't know if anybody else heard comments this year performance. No, we have quite a spectacular performance up at camp. I don't think was as spectacular as it's been. But we're going to spend money. Yeah. Well, the used to do it out. Yeah.

Okay. I didn't I didn't hit it for last time. Um,

what are we on? Six. Um, can I get a motion to reconvene? I'll make a motion to reconvene. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Okay. Okay. On to number five, which is my least favorite for tonight. Update on the 2024 year end audit. Yes. So, as you know, uh we've been working on the audit since the beginning of the year. Had a conversation with our auditing firm this afternoon. Um close but not done. And this is on from my perspective on both parties shoulders. Um, as you know, you've heard many times, we are learning our software and it took us some time to get all of the information out of the software to the auditor and we've used a third party to help us with a lot of that and but hopefully we have crossed that bridge now and we did finally get them the fixed assets uh list. unfortunately did not realize that that was in Banyan. So we

Banyan meaning the old soft the old software my apologies. Um so our new software ACUFund had a module for it but it was never set up. So we had to get that set up and then we had to get all the information into it and all that kind of stuff. So that's been completed now and they have it but they were waiting for that last piece. So unfortunately we are required to file our audit and our budget um for Emma which is basically filing showing our financial status for future borrowings basically for rating agencies for

Adam sorry yes and it that has to be done by well technically Saturday but Friday and I'm not certain that we are going to make that. However, I am hopeful that they will be close enough to give us something that we can say here's preliminary numbers and we will have it filed by a certain date. And I'll let Adam explain the fallout for something like that.

Yeah. So, what this is is whenever you obviously take out any type of debt there, it's what's called continuing disclosure. Um, so part of those requirements are essentially that for you guys, you fall under the calendar year. So whatever the calendar year is, from 270 days from the end of the year, you have to put information out on EMA, which is the municipal securities rulemaking board is what it is. Um, and what you have to put out there is really financial information. So typically it's three kind of components. It is whatever the current year budget is. So like for this year, your deadline, the deadline is 9:27 of 2025. On that day, you essentially have to put out three things. You have to put your current budget. So that' be your 2025 budget. There's some what they call operating data information that goes out there. So typically that's like your tax rate, what your equalized value is, um you know, what's your current debt status, and then essentially it's your audited financial statements. Um those are the three things that have to go on there. And the reason you do that is obviously when you take out any type of debt, investors have the ability to go and see, well, how is that, you know, debt that I took out, how is it doing? Is the municipality going to no longer exist? It's not realistic, but those type of things. They can kind of see what's going on. What's the cash flow position? Um, so what happens is essentially if you do not have all that information in by that deadline, it kind of starts the clock on a couple of things. One of the things that I help obviously the staff with is put that information out on Emma. And if we don't get everything out there by the deadline, I have to file what's considered to be called an event notice. And essentially that's just saying exactly what Jesse alluded to is that we have some of the information but we don't have all of the information. And that really then starts a clock for kind of two things. One, it's the investors start to look at that. And if that's a pattern that continues, it could be one of the reasons they may not want to then obviously purchase your debt. The other thing that it also looks

at is that's your rating agency. So standard pores and Moody's also looks at that to see are you continuing to get your finances in on the cor the right amount of time. So if it's something that continues to delay past that deadline and you don't have that information out there, you then start to get into the area of what's considered to be the negative watch. And you don't want that because essentially if that continues that potentially could be a downgrade that you'll get. Um, so what we want to make sure is we get something out there if we're not going to get it. So obviously, um, Jesse and I are working obviously with the auditors to see if we can at least get some draft information out there by Friday. Um, that will be better. And then essentially the goal is we want to try to, you know, at most try to get it done and out on that website by the end of this year. Um, so preferably we could get it, you know, next month would be ideal. Um but we don't want to delay further on because then obviously that'll have some long-term implications.

Is is it possible to post uh as you say like a a draft or proposal and then amend?

Yes. So that is what we're kind of hoping for is understanding that they may not have it done if they can give us some of a draft or information. Um that puts you into a better kind of category. um it's not ideal, but then at least then that's one of the things that you don't necessarily get dinged on is it goes under an event filing, but if you have some information, the rating agencies and investors understand, you know, this unfortunately is something that's becoming more and more apparent that auditing firms are struggling to get staff. So, it is causing delays in obviously getting things done by those deadlines. Um the goal is again we would want to try to get everything in there before the end of the year because if it goes into 2026 um that's when the rating agencies will start to kind of go we got some problems. So

thank you. Any other questions while Adam's close? No.

Second. Sure. All right. Then we'll move on to number six, which is a 2026 recycling fee to be moved from the levy to a special charge on the property tax bill. Staff presentation and discussion. Okay. So, in order to move forward with the recycling fee being transferred from the levy to a special charge, there are a few things that we need to do. One, we'd have to update the municipal fee schedule to show that this fee is going to be charged. And two, we'd have to update the city ordinances because the city ordinances actually say that we provide that at no charge, which is interesting because it's on the levy, but it's not a fee. Um, and then we'd also need to notify anyone who is receiving these services that isn't eligible for them because we won't be able to charge them for those services. Um, that is one of the that's the piece that is taking us a bit right now. So we h get a bill from um waste management of course for so many um for so much each month. So we anticipated that we could go ahead and transfer that and and use that. However, the contract's a legacy contract that's been around for prior to waste management advanced whoever had it before that. And um things over the years um probably were not perfect as far as who gets service for for what and how that recordkeeping is. They're currently doing an audit where they are geollocating all of the cans so that they know, you know, and then from there we can figure out exactly hopefully or really really close whose cans are for which property and all that kind of thing. So we need to make sure that we only have residential properties of one to four units that we are providing this service to because those are who under the ordinance um receive

it. It says by statute anything less than five residential units per structure. So 1 to four. Um so if there are any commercial businesses that are receiving that service or larger units um then we would need to make sure and take that off. Also we have to get this into a format that we can dump this information into the county's um system for the taxes, right? Because we need to provide them all of our special charges. We currently do provide special charges for other things too, like your utilities. If somebody hasn't been able to pay their bill for some time, that can get put onto the tax ro and I'm sure you've heard of that before. So, this would be a well, this would be a different um line that would say something similar to recycling fee and um there' be that that charge there. So, we have a deadline to get this done midocctober. Um, we're hopeful, but honestly, we have to work with Waste Management to ensure that we have the right names on the list um or that we're confident enough to move forward. I mean, I'm not going to guarantee 100% because, you know, but we certainly want to make sure that we are as darn close to that as we can get. I also suggested to Jesse that I would like us to be 100% accurate on this, that we're not rushing to try to make something work, that I would rather do it right the first time.

So, if we can't get it we can't get it right and we're not close enough or 100% sure that we're accurate on it, I don't we don't need to add any more um issues. That 150,000 156,000 though is shown as the special charge. So, as I mentioned before, if we don't move forward with the special charge, then that money has to come from the levy. But either way, the consumers getting charged.

They are. However, um one would be probably by a borrowing and one would be through the special charge, if that makes sense. And we'll talk about some of the how the short-term borrowing would work. Um but you're right, they are they they will pay for it either way. It's just how to pay for it. Anybody have any questions for Jesse? When you say that it can only be uh affected by residential properties of one to four, does that mean that the businesses are paying the old way? Okay.

We have a contract like businesses have their own contract like we contract separately with GFL for our business to have them come pick it up. city doesn't cover it. It comes out of anyone else is responsible for their own. Exactly. Yeah. So, anyone So, if there was anyone on the list that we are providing service for that doesn't qualify, we'd need to notify them and let them know you need to find the provider of your choice and get something in place to to go ahead and So, this is just more like an audit to make sure we're not servicing something that shouldn't be serviced.

Yes. And that we're covering everybody who who should be. Yes. Yep. It's an it's a good practice and waste management was going down this road anyways, but we're trying to work together to get the information in place so that we can move forward with this as well. But this is something that they are also doing. Um, as we've talked about, this should give us a much better number of exactly how many pickups for garbage and recycling that they're doing. Um so basically what has been said is that there would be no retro you know if we've been underpaying for a few years or overpaying but moving forward it would be correct is what the the plan is for that and understand too and it's in here both ways there's a garbage portion plus two and there's a recycling portion it's the the same provider but within the contract it lists how much it is for garbage garbage collection and how much it is for uh recycling per bin basically. So it's the same provider, it's the same contract, but it's a different fee

for recycling and for garbage. The garbage portion of that contract will remain on the levy no matter what. It's just the recycling portion that that we could pull to the special charge. And just so we can answer questions for people. Um, we have to keep the recycling on to get the grant. We have correct like we can't remove recycling. Oh, right. We we I we required to provide rec. Okay. That's what I thought. I just want to make sure my facts are correct. Yes, you are correct.

For the grant, it doesn't matter if we collect that money through the levy or through a special charge. We can still get a grant from the state. It's doesn't cover Yeah, I think it's but it's still like $20,000. I mean, we don't want to lose it, but it doesn't cover recycling.

Any other questions? If not, we'll move on to number seven. Requests for proposals for municipal court attorney services. Recommendation, issue an RFP for municipal court attorney services for services to commence upon 60-day notice to current provider. Um within your packet you will see the current charges for um both municipal court attorney as well as um charges um from transition from the um previous city attorney to current city attorney. Um, I suggest that it just makes sense every how often to go out and see what is offered by other other options for municipal uh court attorneys. Um, I have asked Matt provided some excuse me, attorney um provided you some additional information um to answer some of the questions that I had put forward. So hopefully you've had a chance to review that information that was provided yesterday. Um, are there questions or to our knowledge? I mean, we've never gone out to RFP for municipal that you can remember.

Well, I mean, none of, but since I've been around since you've been. So, other than when I removed from the regular city attorney last year. Yeah. All right. Right. That RF is for just for that. Yeah,

just for I would just echo that it's not a bad idea to go out to RFP. Um there's nothing wrong with it. Um it's a I think it's a good practice to set some um I don't want to say limitations but um we've learned this over the last couple of years. Um just gaining whether it's our auditor and all the other different services that are provided to the city. Um you know I don't know that not that anything is wrong with it but what else is out there? What um kinds of fees? what kinds of um services are provided. It I don't think it's always meant to be a bad idea, a negative impact. Does anybody have any questions or did everybody have a chance to read over everything? I read over everything, but it I think where I'm confused is I thought that the discussion in the email seemed to be a justification of invoicing and and I'm confused why we're talking RFP now.

Yeah. So, a little back history. Um Jesse received um the invoice for the last several months for municipal court and um city of Berlin stuff um um invoices and thought that they were a little steep. Um, I know that there were some questions and that stuff was addressed in um, Attorney Sh's responses

and at just the mere fact of tidying up our trying to tidy up our budget. Um, which is why we've gone out to RFP for a lot of these services over the last year. I think there's there's a certain wisdom in RFP on a scheduled basis. However, um in this time where we're transitioning so many things with the city, I feel having um a steady hand at the rudder of that knows the city that knows that has the experience of attorney Shire that has all of the data at hand and easily, you know, and he's holding that municipality role or the municipal role, sorry, municipal court attorney role. Um, to me it makes sense to have it flow through a time of transition and then maybe you set a schedule and you say every 5 years on the 30, the 35 or whatever we go out to RFP, but I personally don't know if now is a great time for that. I I will note that um I requested the numbers to do budgeting and um I had numbers in in the budget just assumptions. So, as I understand, the invoice were approximately $10 to $12,000 a month for municipal court attorney fees, which would be a budget between 100 and 120,000, and I've got about 55 in there right now.

I do think it's also worth um the suggestion was made of um looking at our fee schedule. Mhm. You called it something else. So it was a different term. Forfeite amount form deposit schedule. Yes. Um is obviously not a bad idea. That is that we should be looking at that we should talk with the chief on also. Um so there I think there are um adjustments that could be made to help us

come a little bit more is even the word. I don't we we've discussed that in the past too. And I and I thought it was more recent. Maybe Sam or Christina remember um I thought it was mentioned that it's been a while since we've done something like that, but I thought we did that more recently because we I remember specifically bringing the question of why is why are these forfeitures or these tickets costing us more money in the long run? Why should somebody else's wrongdoings cost us money? That we shouldn't be in the red um by something somebody else did wrong. Great. So, I thought we did that more recently. I don't know, Chief. Do you remember what I'm talking?

23. Yeah. But there was no across the board increases. The min the basic what I mentioned in my report, the basic three-point speeding ticket, as long as we've had municipal court, which I don't even know how long we've had municipal court, 10, maybe 10 years, I don't know. Um, it's always been the $30 base, which is just whatever the court fees adds up to be about 988. Right now it's 98.880. We've always been at 30 bucks. That's never gone up. So we only you're saying we only recoup $30 out of the 98.

That is what we recoup. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but when you but a lot of communities are prosecuting through circuit court and the ultimate payment that a person pays for a speeding ticket is usually around a couple hundred dollars in a lot of communities. So we I mean you if you wanted to equate something like that, you could boost your base foreure by double or triple and still get up to about $200 and still be equivalent to what a lot of communities are doing just because they're in circuit court as opposed to municipal court. You're just missing out on a lot of revenue if you do it that. Do you want

Brian? Can you come to the mic? Sorry. To maybe help illustrate what attorney Shy is explaining is in the event somebody gets stopped in front of Badger Mining, you know, or down within city limit, so by South Street, um 15 miles an hour over the speed limit, the base deposit for that ticket, if I as a a Berlin police officer, write it is 30 bucks. If a county deputy writes it, it's going to be $178 after the court costs are applied. Our court costs would make it a $98 ticket. $98 and change.

There's a lot of things in the city of Berlin that the income level or the cost to operate has stayed the same for many, many years. We were even just talking about that at the senior center, how prices haven't increased on a lot of things in years and years. So, I think it's definitely worth revisiting. What would be the benefit of having municipal court versus circuit court if it's going to be the same amount? Attorney. Whatever. But to the

but from the defendants's perspective, they're just seeing 180 bucks. They don't care where it goes. Benefit of a municipal court is we get a bigger chunk of it. If it's in municipal court, the city gets a larger chunk. The fees are less. Well, not if they don't live here. Okay. Point. Basically, you you were passing along the the savings of doing a municipal court to the defendants rather than collecting that benefit yourself. Excellent idea, Jesse. Is there a cost to Excellent idea. Is there a cost to RFP? No. No, it's staff time.

Staff time. No, I would um propose sending the RFP to the um attorneys that serve the Lakeside Municipal Court and posting it on our website and anybody who is interested could therefore u put in a proposal and and then you can determine which proposal you feel is best for the community. I know it says in here that like upon 60 days notice, but do we have a current contract for like x amount of years with you handling our municipal or it's just an ongoing That is my contract now. Just

it's just ongoing until the 60-day notice is given by either party. Yeah. Y and really the even with the 60-day notice, I think it's something we just have to work out because

the way municipal court works, if you're going to make a switch, um I have I well courts, as I you'll see in my in my outline, I kind of explain what's all made up into municipal court work, but there's the first part is really what's called pre-trials. If somebody pleads not guilty, they get what's called a pre-trial conference. And uh I have gone through pre-trial conferences through Wednesday. I just did a bunch on Wednesday or um last Wednesday. And uh a bunch of those have gone to trial. Some of them don't settle because we don't we don't make a deal. So they go to trial. Those trials are I think Trina, my assistant, told me yesterday are into February, March of 2026. So

there would be an overlap

if you transition and want to go to the new attorney. I would have to sit down and have a lot of transition time kind of like what you're deal with dealing with that was what the whole issue is on non-municipal court that was surprising apparently that even though I mentioned it many times last year that there was going to be a massive transition cost. Um there would be a similar situation. it wouldn't be as big, but I would have to sit with the new attorney and and give them an update and and give them all my synopsises from all the pre-trials that I've had so far so that that attorney would come in and finish the finish the cases. It's also subject to whether the judge will allow it. We have to get permission. We have to file a bunch of paperwork to get permission for me to switch. Um or we can just pick a date and then have all pre-trials after that date done by the new attorney and I would still finish out my trials and then the new attorney would be running concurrently. That's another way. So that's something we would all have to discuss but certainly the 60 days is meant really built into that that transition period if it's needed. So that's the reason for that. So we would be paying two attorneys for a period of time.

Definitely. Even Well, yeah, for a period of time. Yeah. However, it should be the same amount of cases. I guess there'd be some overlap to talk through. But if you went from a date where the pre-trial switch, I don't see why there would be any need for it would just you'd still be paying for the same number of cases. Gotcha. So we could put a RFP out. That doesn't necessarily mean that that would impact or change.

You do not have to select one of the proposals. it would every RFP I think I've seen or at least the vast majority of them say right in there that they're not required to choose a proposal. So no, you would not you wouldn't have to. Okay. I think that that would also require Sher to put in a new proposal if he wanted to.

Well, I'm not going to other than what I am. I It's an hourly rate. It's 225 an hour. Your other municipal attorney, I think, is almost equivalent. You did that last year and got an hourly rate. You came out to I think it's 220. You pay him. It's a matter of you. If you want to find someone that gets a lower hourly rate, I don't know what else to propose other than what I don't think that the hourly rate is the I I will be very clear that

I don't want to argue and I feel like you kind of just blew up when I was just trying to clarify something. I I want to make sure that if we don't pick one of those proposals and we still continued to go with you that that was a thing. If if it's not required that you put in a new one, that's okay.

The point here is is this is being looked at as a negative thing and it's not necessarily negative. This could also be to make sure that you are in line with other lawyers at this point. My next question though, Jesse, is how much transition time were we build for by Eric? Is that something that I his bills are itemized. I don't recall anything that specifically says transition, but I can certainly go back and look.

I I I know um Matt, you mentioned that it was discussed that there was going to be a transition fee period. I I will say right off the bat that I was shocked. I didn't I guess numbers were not discussed. I don't think that numbers were not discussed or at least with us obviously that was a different administration also we were when some of those conversations would have been had um I think there was a lot that council never saw um and so I think a learning curve and and Jesse seeing some of the obviously the the billing coming through Um, I don't know. It's just hard hard to see, I guess. I don't know that it's a

mayor. I think I I don't know what else to say. We had a meeting in my office, you and me and the mayor in October of last year, I believe it was. Yep. At that time, I was over the annual hours for last year, right? I said that every single bit of my time from that point on was already being build at another full hourly rate, right?

And I I could I don't think I could have been any more clear during that meeting uh saying that it's going to be massive next year. I went to the budget meeting and I said it multiple times. I don't know who was all here on that, but I said you need to budget. The decision was no, let's wait until it's we we can't there was no there wasn't a a desire to budget for it last year and they said wait and we'll deal with it when it comes up. It's now coming up. So I apologize. I I could not have warned more that this was going to happen. Uh and any sort of calculation of my my regular hours going forward would have told would have would have concluded the numbers. I guess I don't I don't know if we never we didn't sit down and actually calculate what those numbers would be, but I I I literally said I I I I showed a pattern of of billing. I haven't changed that pattern of billing. Um, I don't know what else to say and I I apologize that it is so it was so shocking but it as much as I can say

I think part of the shocking part of this is that we were not build in a timely manner and so we are getting a huge pile of thousands of dollars set at one time and we asked we had to ask for it and so I think that part of that is running a business and run part of it is holding your staff and yourselves accountable too. And in the memo, you told us all of these reasons why it didn't happen. But

biggest reason was I almost lost my practice last year because of the city work. That's why I backed away from the city from the other work because I was so overcommitted doing what I needed to do for the city. I I lost almost all my other clients, my regular clients. I have a few solid ones that I'm still doing. I I am fine and I made that decision, but the fact the reason that we have not focused on sending out bills is because it takes a tremendous amount of time to do it and I have been focusing on digging out of the hole. I I'm not trying to that's not your problem. But it wasn't I also didn't think it was harmful to hold off on sending a bill when the time value of money you didn't have to pay me any earlier. I I don't see the downside to having you wait a few months to get a bill. So,

but when we're seeing what I'm saying is is if we're seeing it in smaller chunks, we may not have noticed it like we did here. I'm glad you've noticed it. I'm very happy that you've noticed it. Uh I've been trying to ring the bell for a long time, but you seem very upset by the facts we are going out for.

I really am not upset. I I don't like that there's a surprise thinking that I suddenly spiked a bill or something. That's what I don't like. Nothing has been different. Um everything has been exactly the way I've been doing it and and as fair as possible. Um, it's just last year was an absolutely horrible horrible year of catching up. Uh, and then a transition. I It's in my contract that says transition. I I just don't know why any of that was surprised surprising. So,

I I do have a question. Attorney Sher mentioned that and all we could do is ask for hourly rate. What else would an RFP instruct us in? Well, I guess it depends what you want. You can't you can ask if they have a different uh billing format that they'd prefer to use. I mean, you could have a a straight uh monthly, you could have some sort of retainer, although to be perfectly honest, normally your hourly rate is considered your most fair because that's supposed to be based on, you know, how much work they actually need to do. So, you pay for the work that they need to do and they're paid for the work that needs to be done. Um, so I not that you can't. I mean, some when I talked to a couple other communities, there was one that said that they just have a a monthly amount that they that they pay. I don't I'd have to get more detail as to how, but um I I don't know, but I would assume most attorneys would put that forward as a hourly rate. But you could you could ask if there if they had another preferred billing method or scenario that they would be willing to to show. Does anybody else have any questions for Matt, Jesse? Anything else that needs to be cleared up? Any suggestions, comments? I guess I would just say in the future I wouldn't mind timely billing. Um if health insuranceances and hospitals don't bill out in a timely manner, they don't get paid. So or any bit obviously that's what I do for a living on my real job. Other jobs is billing and posting and taxes and all that good stuff. And um I don't think that we're being

unreasonable asking for a timely bill for not only our staff to go over so that it's not months later when it's harder to recollect or or go through stuff. Um and I know that that's um you I hate the term how it's always been. We're a whole new board. We're a whole new staff in the last couple years for that matter. um change isn't always bad and that I think that there's more efficient ways for all of us to work together. Um

and don't get me wrong, the the delayed billing is not how it's always been. I have always regularly build. We've been very regular. The reason that this time now is because of what happened last year. I was buried. I know that one of the other issues and I've heard this

not catch up. I heard this in the past. Um, I I think I probably asked about it years ago when I was an older person starting out probably 5 years ago that the whole all the all the miscellaneous stuff and I know that it was mentioned that um case case numbers names that stuff can't be attached but as the client us being the client I mean obviously if stuff was um was requested via open records request or whatever stuff would have to be redacted but I don't think is it that much of an ask to have some kind of miscellaneous to me is just a really awful word and I don't like especially in the billing world that to not match anything up. Miscellaneous is really hard term to um to let fly. I guess I know you said that it would take more time um in your memo that to take more time to record what you're doing, how you're doing it, or whatever, but anything more than miscellaneous at this point would be a perk. Does anybody else have any other questions?

I just wanted to check all of the city items are wrapped up now, right? Correct. is just municipal court that you have left.

Yeah, the only ones that I'm doing that are non-municipal court are things that that we're that Jesse knows about. couple there's a couple items that we decided to continue just because it was easier than transitioning, but there's only I think a couple of them. I'm weary at this point, like Victoria said, of doing an RFP. Now, I like the idea of scheduling something and saying, "Yes, let's do this." I mean obviously communication on both parties has been an issue. Um but just maybe maintaining communication with the municipal court and cases. I love the idea of bringing that back to the constituents who are committing crimes. Mhm.

And I'd even be willing to say get us through the one year of transition and then project that we're going to go to RFP and then in the meantime look at those revenues uh possible recouping some of those costs in the meantime in the course of this next year to just keep some better data and see where we're at this time next year. I apologize. Just short clarification. you do or do not want to change the fee schedule. We will be looking at changing the fee schedule, but we would not go into RFP until next year, right? So get us through this year of transition

with our with with Attorney Sh. But in that year, let's project that 2026 we're going to go, you know, end 2026 we're going to go to RFP after we review our fee schedules, after we look at can we increase revenue, how does that balance out the costs of everything? And then we have more data at the end of 26. But then we're projecting RFP, so it's not a surprise to anybody. I would also argue that we should probably be looking at the fee schedule next month since it's supposed to be done in 2025. So

the other thing I mentioned in there was also I and I can meet I can talk to Jesse about it and talk to Eric about it is the ability to pass on more. It required probably more administration work, but to take a lot there's a lot of legal fees for various types of files, developer files, zoning, CS, any of those types of things. The there's a lot of ordinances that say that the city has the right to pass those on to developers. Uh there's been a philosophy over the years perhaps right I just think it should be considered that that kind of stuff chills development and and and scares developers away when we really want to promote it and the city has chose to eat that kind of stuff more than you know maybe other communities that are have more developers knocking down their door. So it's just something to consider though uh that there is more opportunities for reimbursement of legal fees that were not hasn't been happening. And on my billing, those are the starred items. And historically, I just have never had Jody or anybody come back to me and say that they're billing those out. I don't really know if they're billing them out and and it's just something that and I haven't been tracking it. All I know is I identify it on the bills. Um whether that was being transitioned into an invoice out to the out to people, I don't know. But it's something that could be done more as a as a revenue generator.

It is being done now. What's that? It is being done now. It is being done. So good. That's good. Okay. Yes.

Okay. So, unless I hear any motions, I've heard that we're going to take this next year and really look at the data. trying to hopefully get on the agenda next month, Brian. Um to look at that schedule um to re-evaluate what increases we can make or should make with cost of living over the last 10 years increasing um is not obviously a bad idea. Um something we probably should have done a long time ago.

I will adjust the budget accordingly. Is everybody okay with it? And Matt, I I know that you put a lot of time into the the memos and the um I appreciate all the itemized. Obviously, nobody questions that you take great notes and we're thankful for those. Um or I am at least. Um none of this was meant to be negative. We all appreciate your work over the last 28 years. I think with a new council and again new administration um going out to RFP for a lot of these services every few years should be respectable as us as a council looking to make sure that we're doing the best for the constituents. So it wasn't meant to be a negative. Yes, I admit I was shocked on a lot of the things, but I think the shock was the time the the time that's gone by since um since you've been with us and out of sight, out of mind. Sure. Um, as far as the billing, not you. I didn't mean it like that.

Definitely commit to more regular billing, which we're we're definitely trying on that. We're going to be improving. Okay. Does anybody else have any questions, comments? No. Okay. We will move on to number eight then. Thanks for coming, Matt. I appreciate it. Number eight is the short-term borrowing options to balance budget. Yes. So, another Adam.

Yeah, he can he'll fill in the gaps for you here. Um, but as I said before, our options for raising the levy are of course increased growth, which it's going great, or of course is borrowing. So, one of the options we've talked a little bit in the CIP about, you know, long-term borrowing, right? for major projects, you're going to, you know, take out a 10 20 year loan or whatever for for your long-term projects or equipment and things like that. But if we are going to utilize borrowing to increase the levy to pay for operations, what uh we would propose to do would be a short-term borrowing. So, you would borrow the money in the previous year. So, we would need to have this borrowing done this year so that it can be put on next year's levy because your what you need to pay the um debt back your debt service is what you can put on the levy. So, we would take out a loan for however much that would be 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 depending on where we shore up after we add things in and get better numbers in certain places, right? Um we would need to have that borrowing done for sure by December 15th in order to put it on the levy. So, I would suggest that we do that in November. So, we'd get that money and then um once we got the first set of tax payments to start rolling in, we would basically return it with um the interest rate, which on 300,000 we estimated was around $3,700.

About that. Yeah. Um and then of course we would collect that money as part of the tax rule and have it available to pay expenses. Was there is this all we're looking at or was there something else that um this I this was going to be verbal term borrowing. I do um and Adam and ran some numbers about how it impacts um the mill rate and all that kind of thing because just like any other like when we were talking about the long-term borrowing and how it impacts the mill rate any borrowing because you were increasing the tax anytime you increase the the levy you increase the mill rate unless your value went up right

because it's a two-part equation right so um it would of course have an impact per thousand for any borrowing that we would do um the 24 tax bill our mill rate was 5.56 what was 23 do you know anybody know I'm sorry I did not bring that with me I'm just trying to compare everybody's going to ask and the easy question or the question that's asked the most is what is it going to cost the taxpayer what is it going to cost the average home homeowner sure so for every $100,000 that we borrow um on the short-term borrowing um estimated about a 3 cent mill rate increase.

30 cent 3 cent. So if we borrowed 300,000 that'd be 9 cents per thousand. So on an average home, let's say an average home is 180,000. So it be 180 times 9 cents is what the increase would be due to that borrowing. Just that borrowing, right? Does that is that calculating for everybody? So yeah, 15 bucks roughly. Mhm. And that would get us to a balanced budget.

So that essentially, yeah. So this is where it comes into long-term strategy. So really what that does is you're plugging a hole. So consider, you know, whatever your deficit is, what you're it's allowing you to do is essentially go out and your short-term borrowing to allow your levy to essentially be ra to increase the debt service. Um because the only way you can put it on there is you have to basically have principal and interest payments paid off. So, you're doing a one term, you know, you're doing a one-year essentially you're paying off the entire principal that's allowing you to increase the levy and cover that deficit. Um, this is not uncommon. This is the big problem obviously with levy limits. Uh, so there are plenty of other municipalities I can tell you bigger ones go out for almost $4 million a year um just to cover their operations. The reason why it's done short-term is because generally that is something where you can long-term you can go out longterm for kind of operations but the problem is from an investor standpoint if I'm an investor I want to be investing in equipment and long-term I don't want to be usually investing in operations. Um so you can do that but then your interest rate usually is higher. So that's why typically most places will do short-term. They'll go to a local bank um and just do that because that way then it's it's the most economical way to kind of cover that gap.

Can you help me with this calculation because I'm afraid I wasn't educated in this area. 9 cent mill rate on 180,000 comes 9 cent comes out to 16,000. I'm not getting where you get $15. It's a it's per thousand times 180 not times 180,000. My apologies. Yep. It's per thousand. So, it' be times 180. Gotcha. Just Well, thank you for explaining that because I was lost in the sauce. Okay. No. No. Yeah. If you had $180,000 home and you did a $100,000 borrowing, that essentially comes to a three cent mill rate increase. Okay. Which then equates to about $5 that that homeowner. So, mill meaning a,000, right? Okay. That's the thou. Yeah.

I now follow the law. There you go. Okay. Yes. So essentially for every $100,000 that you would need to increase if their home valued is $180,000 the estimate is it's about five bucks that it would go up each right time. So at 9 cents it's $16, right? You're about Yeah. 1516, right? Yep. That makes sense. Thank you. So that would be my suggestion for wherever we end up for

total needs to cover expenditures whatever we can't cover with the anticipated revenues and the levy that we're allowed to go to um to increase that levy by short-term borrowing. Well, especially we don't know what we have in reserves because of that wonderful audit. That's not and it's not a good practice to keep draining our reserves. We know that, right? This is one of the best and only options then to cover the deficit to cover cover the deficit. Yeah. Right. And I really do and you mentioned it's legal, but I really do want us to have a balanced budget at the end of the year. So,

it's I mean I think it was eye opening especially when um our interim administrator was here and I hate using that term. It's the way it's always been done budgeting for a deficit. Why though? We never should have done that, right? Well, I think we also need to look at the fact that we have other mill rates listed, right? And green city of Green Lake is at $4.99 per 10,000, but everybody else is $6 and above. So 9 cents on 5.56 we're still significantly under. That's true. It you do have to take that with a grain of salt. That is why I also input the assessment ratio, right?

Because if your assessment ratio is lower, that number times the mill rate. You know what I mean? If your assessment's higher, your mill rate can be lower to come to the same number. So that's why I put that on there. But you're absolutely right. Our our mill rate's not crazy. No, but that that's why I included that because it it's these are these are complicated calculations that most of our our constituents have had no reason to ever learn about. I mean, not saying that they don't understand. I don't mean it like that, but if you don't have any reason to go out and learn how all of this works, you probably haven't. So, reading your tax bill 101.

Yeah. I mean, it's it it is complicated. And so if you have questions, please ask them because it's it's not obvious right there. I mean, ask ask it because if you're thinking it, a lot of other people are asking have the same question in their mind. Well, it's true. Most of the questions I get out in the wild, it has to do with like why is Walmart getting charged this and I'm getting charged that? And it's such a more complicated answer than base rate. like

or even just understanding the stuff, you know, like I I know being on school boards, same things. The well, it says you raised at 22%. Well, no, that's not exactly how that works out. Just understanding your tax bill is a whole another class. Um, a lot of people until you were on in this seat, I didn't know how to read my tax bill. You learn a lot when you come into these positions. And the average taxpayer probably doesn't understand it fully because it is so complex. So, I think it's not a bad idea. I think this is our only option. It's the fiscally responsible option. But we're not making a decision today until we have the final once we once we kind of figure out what your final number is. Obviously, we can true up a better analysis and show you what the true impact is. But this was just to kind of give you again, it's the vision of just like you said is everybody thinks their tax rate, they don't understand. There's tranches of that. It's debt service. It's general operations. It's this. It's the point of this is there's a lot of, you know, it's a puzzle.

Yeah. How do you how do you get that puzzle to connect and what does that mean and what's in the best interest of Bruin? So, now I'm really going to ask a question to screw all of us up. Okay. Um, the total expenditures for next year have no road projects. Correct. You are correct. There is no capital in there. Okay. So, so when when we come back together, I'm hoping um at our our next um committee of the whole to get some more input from you. The first thing that we started out with tonight was the capital improvement Yep.

projects list, right? That plan. So the question is how much do you want to plan to budget every year to borrow every year towards chipping away as Adam said when you do that it directly impacts the mill rate just like we showed well so the reason I'm bringing that up is because where is it [Applause] right now on In this sheet, it says we wouldn't make a payment until 2027. Correct. Correct.

Which means that there is a huge difference between 2025, 26, and 27. Is there a way to even that out yet or am I getting way I going

Yeah. So I mean the way that's where we can look at that where once you decide kind of what projects you want to take on and what that number is that's where we can analyze and we can talk about how you want to feather that debt in because that's the legitimate question. So there's ways where you know if the game plan is you're going to do either every year you're going to start borrowing that or it's going to be every two years we can look at how to structure those principal and interest payments. So just like you said it's either there's really kind of there's two approaches. One is just as you said, it's you bite the bullet and you have that increase, but you understand the goal is eventually to get to where

there's no way to keep it even for next year is what I'm saying cuz it's like a.7 drop 07 drop 07 drop but there is no way at this point to feather that because there's Yeah, there's no you have no technical projects that you did this year that would be going into that gap, right? What about short-term borrowing for that? I am trying to think of what may like I'm trying to start positioning what to get for next month.

Yeah. Um trying to think how we could structure that. I mean we could certainly look at it. The only thing is you'd be tied. I don't think in the long run it would be better to loop that into a long-term borrowing than short-term because you're going to pay more in you're going to pay more interest costs if you do short-term than versus long-term. That's the advantage to long-term is you can spread those. There's ways where just like you said, if the concern comes to that increase in that, you know, from going from 2026 to 2027, I guess I was just thinking like, okay, so if we're looking at only 300,000 and that's only

9 cents. What if we did like one of the smaller road projects or some of the chipping that's further down on the CIP list and get those for short-term borrowing, get them taken care of and off the list and keep the rate kind of similar like closer to what it is now. I mean, and really people people really were outraged at the jump this year, thinking it was assessments that did it, but it was really our $2 million borrowing that finally hit this year, right? I just

So, it's going to be one of those jumps where, oh my gosh, our taxes just increase. They in Well, we made those decisions a couple years ago or a year ago. feel like if we don't some like if we don't really try to feather something in for next year, 2027's going to be really rough. Yeah. And that but that's then goes to the long-term conversation of the reason then is the point of doing that is now we're starting that and so yeah there always is going to be some initial hurt but then the goal is you're now consistently going to do projects

and this is stuff that should if this was in place years ago we wouldn't be in this position. the yeah, this is the long-term financial strategy is the goal to get it to a point where eventually, you know, there's always a little bit of a roller coaster, but the goal is to flatten out that roller coaster. So now that every year that as we show in those long-term projections, you know, there is a little bit of a a bump and then it flattens out and you stay there and it's not a guess anymore. like this is something we should consistently you know as a council that you are going to have this is the CIP here's your projects any any resident anybody moving in anybody can see these you know

dare I say shame on us for not having something like this in place for how many years this is easy to point to it's a tangible this is our plan and all of our decisions are now based around this right this is something that would have made life a lot easier if this was just in place but here we are well and to to Sam's point, I think what Sam is saying is we're gonna kind of see a decrease and then bam, it's going to go up. So, I think she's saying if you so if some of that on ahead of time and get some of these projects, we're able to get some of it in 2026 yet, like there were super simple, easy ones.

Oh, yeah. Crack filling chip and seal,000 pickup truck, stuff like that. If we can get that in for 2026 yet. Mhm. It's not, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe combined it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe it's only $400,000 or $500,000. Not 750, 1 million, 2 million. But then people aren't going to go, "Hey, my tax bill went down and now it increased by way more." It's going to be a sticker shack for sure. Mhm.

So, I I do have a question only because we don't have old business on our um agenda and I I wanted to revisit something on the CIP which I didn't mention at the time, but uh Adam had said and I think rightly so that we put everything out on this. This is kind of our wish list. Um and I noticed the glaring um missing pool on here. I know that we had talked about uh closing it for the year to figure out where we are, but why are we not even considering the pool as a capital project for the future? We haven't even sent it to referendum. Are you guys already deciding that you just are going to close it and keep it closed?

That honestly I haven't even looked even. The last time we discussed this, it seemed like the council was moving in the direction of the pool would not be owned by the community. Would not be what? Owned. Owned by the community. Like we were talking about a potential sale or a gift and therefore we wouldn't have capital expenses for something that we no longer own. right? If that's not the council's

direction um to staff at this point, we can put that back in the capital plan. But honestly, the last time we spoke, I was under the impression that it was the council's hope or plan at that point that it wasn't going to be a city facility anymore. Therefore, I we didn't put it in as a city facility.

I don't know if any other organizations have stepped forward. I know that the friends of the Berlin Aquatic Center declined um but I don't know if you guys have received um uh offers from any other community members for that. I think if that's the desire of the council, then we can talk about ways to garner proposals and you can go out to RFP and ask any group, business, anybody and you could define that a bit. um what they would do with it and for and what they'd be willing to pay for it or whatever and then make a decision from there if if that's the next

you put it on the next um just the next agenda for us to talk about for possible next steps with the yeah I think it's either discussion on it it's not a five minute obviously we've discussed it a lot but I think now that things have changed it's worth a discussion yeah and I wasn't trying to rehash the pool discussion I was merely saying that if the CIP is our capital project wish list and everything can go on there doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to do it. I think it's important to get the pool included in that. So it's important we all know what we're deciding to do with it.

No, I think you hit it on the head. That was one we originally had in there and then it was where when we talked it was that has to be a you decision before we propose putting something in there. So Frank, the last go round that we had, it didn't appear that was the current strategy. So let's add the pool to the agenda again. Next. What? Well, we would have to anyways. What? Right. What does Just so everybody's aware timeline wise,

when are you hoping to have um budget hearings, budget um adoption? What does your timeline look like? I'm just thinking what is next month's agendas already look like or the next month's

for the next month's committee of the whole. I am hoping to have this discussion so that you guys can provide the feedback on the questions that we kind of went through and I you know if you need additional information and that kind of thing so that we can start putting together a final document for you because you have to adopt it in November. So we'll get as close as we possibly can for the October meeting, but some of the numbers might not be in yet, but if we can get that direction from you at the committee of the whole. So you have, you know, not a lot of time, but couple of weeks. And you said adopt in November. So we would have a special budget hearing for that or is that at the committee of the whole? Oh, because we have the hearing. So when is the

in November? I'm asking is that October? No. I know we have to have the hearing and then we have the adoption. The hearing is usually they're usually the same meeting though. Okay. Like right before, right? Exactly. But so that's all in November, right? Okay. Yep. So next month's agenda is a lot of narrowing down.

Yes. Committee of the whole I'm hoping that you can get me your thoughts and direction on those questions that we talked about. How much for the CIP do you want to consider? You know, what what does that look like? quarter million, half million, threequarters million, million, two million, whatever that is. Um, you know, now that you have this information and if you do need additional information, what is that so that we can so you can feel prepared to make that those decisions? Um, wages of course and um we have we'll have to take some steps for recycling if that's ready to go too. Mhm. Um, so I need to know if you're if you are comfortable with moving that off of the lobby.

I thought we had already decided to do that. So what are you need? There's been no official action. Okay. So um I just I know I I mentioned the same thing. I thought we were already doing this. We've talked about it several times. We've never had action on it. Are we not taking action because we really want to hear back from Waste Management first? Is that why we're not taking action? Well, I think that we need to be confident that we can move forward. Well, so yes, but okay. Yeah, we're going to have to make that decision sooner than later because they it needs to be entered into the tax ro information in October. Okay.

So, staff's been working on this project for quite some time and it has it about as far as staff can get it without some additional information from waste management. Waste Management has been trying to help us as much as as possible and we'll see if we can get it done or I have files or if it'll have to wait till the the following following year. They have to be done by October 15th, but they haven't answered me. But that's where where we're at. So yeah, and please if there's anything that you feel is missing, doesn't make sense, whatever, reach out. I

we will do our very best to get you. You know, we certainly want to make sure that you feel that you have the information you need to make the best decision. Now, that may not be a decision that you're excited about, but a decision that has to be made and hopefully made in the in the best light that we can. Okay. Any other questions? Anything else we need to I was going to ask you one question about the um budget lines? Okay. I didn't see anything in there or what line would it have been under? What are we budgeting for our third party um help for our acupun? Is that in there? I think that would be

I didn't know what it fell under. Professional services, I believe, is where we have that. [Music] Sorry, I had to find the right because I can barely keep them straight in church. I tried looking but I thousand GL's. I knew you'd be know where it was. Okay. I I really wanted I have to think I will I definitely will find these. Um I just want to make sure that we're budgeting enough. I know what the last couple years have looked like and I want to make sure that there's enough so that we're not running into the same issues.

No, that that's fair. I I do think to be honest that we've fallen off a bit um since the beginning of the year, but I do anticipate that next year um during the audit again um we're going to be way better than this year, but I'm sure there'll be some minor things that we only having done it once. So, probably going to need a little little refresher, a little a little help on that type of thing. foot. Okay. But we we're we're getting closer to um having seen seen it all. Right, Deb? So, can you find a different term? We're getting near.

I hate that. We're almost there. It's getting closer. Since August 21 months, what's that? Was I clear enough for what I want for short-term borrowing? Yes. Just checking. Any other questions? Let me write that down. Number nine. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second that. Any All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion. Meeting adjourn to 808. Oh my. Thank you all for your perseverance.

Thank you. Thank you. [Music] I like that we can get that positive in the city and that's what