City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you for attending the meeting tonight. I'm glad to see so many people here. Let's bring the meeting to order. Where did Doug go? He's right there.

Making sure you were here for the meeting. TJ, would you mind offering our invocation tonight?

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to gather. Lord, we ask that you guide us and lead us as councilmen and women and mayor and decision makers. Lord, we ask that you continue to watch over our community. Bless it. Guide us and give us the strength and the voice to stand up for what's right. Lord, we thank you for all that you do for us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So we have two council members out tonight. One of them I believe is working and the other one is with her husband. So please pray for Laura's husband for a speedy recovery. And items of community interest. I have something to say. The last week of June in our city every year is the Jim Bowie Days Rodeo. and all their events that go with it. It's now stretched out to over 11 days. And it's run by an all-volunteer organization. They spend thousands of dollars getting ready for it. They've spent thousands of dollars in our rodeo arena over the last several years, and they continue to bring money and put it back into our rodeo arena. It looks better this year than it has, especially back where the animals are, than it has looked in a very, very long time. We had standing room only. for all three nights of the performances. It was probably one of the best attended years that we've had. And I and my husband got to meet three young men from Austria that were in Dallas for the soccer. And they looked at the closest rodeo event and the Jim Bowie event was the one they came to. They were fabulous young men. One of them I think was nearly nine feet tall. It seems like that when you're under arm level with them. But they were amazed at what we do in America to our children when we put them in an arena with wild animals. They probably saw the most exciting thing they had ever seen and wanted to take this calf scramble and the mutton busting back to Austria with them and start a business. My husband was smart enough to say, I'm your consultant, I get 10%. So it was wonderful. I loved seeing all the people there, but mostly I'm a I'm very proud of the volunteer group that put so many back into our city owned property. And we're not talking just a little bit of money. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars a year. So I want to personally thank them. They are led by Scott Head and he's been their leader for several years. I cannot say how much I appreciate the money that's brought back into our city each year for that event. So if you're listening, thank you very much. Anybody else have any items of interest for the community? All right.

The first day to sign up for the election is Monday the 20th.

It's that time of year, Monday, the 20th, you can sign up for, um, three, one of three council positions. You have to live in your district in order to sign up. And the last day to sign up will be August the 17th, August the 17th. So come one, come all TJ. Anything else? All right. Well then let's go in to, uh, the city manager's report.

We're currently getting bids on two projects. The Glen Hill lift station, which is part of the sewer line project, is financed through the Texas Water Development Board loan. And the Rock and Pillar Street drainage project, which we plan on financing a house. I will let the council know the dates of the bid openings and how the bids come in. Look for an email to know that. As you can see from the budget being passed out later on tonight, we have a draft budget. The draft is in capital letters. We still don't have all of the numbers and the ones that we have, we don't know for sure if they're correct or not. The area shaded in yellow, if you'll say you have a question about them or it highlights a large purchase. I've talked to the chief appraisal district and Kim told me that they should have the final tax valuations by tomorrow. I've included in the budget the Rock and Pillar Streets drainage project at $2 million. Hopefully it will be less than that amount, but if it is, at least we'll have it budgeted. We have the funds to do this project without jeopardizing our financial stability, and I've consulted with our financial advisors and our new finance director. and they both agree that we can manage the cost of the project. The council can also pass a resolution when we award the bid, if we do, that will allow us to borrow money if we need it at a later date. However, I do not recommend that we borrow the money because we have so many projects that would require borrowing in the not so distant future. I have also been working on the Texas Water Development Board grant application Hopefully we will get all of the $10 million we are asking for, including in the grant application is a greatly expanded raw water pump project, which includes several new items, a request for our water reuse project engineering plan, and a request for engineering plan for the expansion of the water treatment plant. This application is due on the 30th. of this month and the awards will be announced in the fall. I have finished our grant application. I'm letting our engineering firm review my application to make sure I didn't mess up anything or whatever. So as soon as I get back back from them, I'd like to turn it in early because if you have to wait till the very end, it gets to be a scramble. The water department field crews are laying 837 feet of a six-inch water line on Session Street from Caulfield and Roberts, which is being fed now by a two-inch water line. After they finish the water line, they will replace the curb and gutter of about 408 feet, and eventually they will pave the street. Yesterday we received notice from Waste Connections that their rates will increase 2.61%, which is the amount of the Consumer Price Index increase. Our contract with them states that they will increase the cost of garbage fees each year using the CPI as the standard measure to increase. Because it is in the contract, the council does not have to ratify the increase, but it will be on our next agenda for discussion. Any questions?

None. All right. Let's move on to public comments. Do you have any public comments in the gallery? Hello, sir. All right. Then let's move to the consent agenda items, which tonight only requires the approval of the last minutes at the last regular meeting on June the 23rd. If you have read so and would like to make a motion to approve, I would accept. Some post. Do I have a second? Second show post Holstein show.

All right.

And McEwen.

All right.

I pass the next item on the agenda. Is the second reading of Ordinance 2026-07, an ordinance of the city of Bowie, Texas, amending Chapter one general provisions by repealing Article 1.1700 Office of Emergency Management in its entirety and adopting a new Article 1.1700 entitled Office of Emergency Management, providing a savings clause, a repealer clause and providing an effective date. We went over this the last meeting. This is the second reading for this. Do we have any discussion in our motion to approve?

I'll make a motion to approve.

Thank you, Mr. Holstein. Do I have a second?

Second.

Host? Shaw? Shaw?

I still have the problem with the one clause in there in Section C about the continuity and defund and all that required by the voters. So I'm no.

Still a no. Holstein. All right. Post. I McEwen.

No. Okay.

I'm still going to go with a yes. So the mayor breaks about. Thank you. All right. So the next item on the agenda, we have an update on an agreement for automatic aid assistance between the City of Bowie Fire Department, Sunset Volunteer Fire Department, and the Bowie Rural Fire Department. And Doug is at the podium.

Good evening. May I interrupt? We passed this back in February. February 1st is about when it started. And these numbers go through July the 8th. Automatic aid that we've given to Bowie Rule or Sunset have been nine times. Five for grass fires, four for structure fires, eight to the Bowie Rule area, and one to Sunset. The one at Sunset was a structure fire. And then we've received automatic aid one time inside the city on a structure fire. So has it caused us any trouble? Staffing hasn't been an issue? Everything's working well. Do you have any questions?

When we, cause I think that was one of the concerns was, uh, Hey, we get people out there or something happens here. How many, how much of the crew was responded to these in general?

Uh, typically two, two out of five. Uh, that's just pretty typical. We also, we, we wait in house for volunteer firemen, uh, to also arrive at the station to respond to the rural areas. Okay.

Obviously there's no vote on this. He's just bringing us an update. Thank you.

So any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. It's been a good thing. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

all right the next item on the agenda is new business to consider medical access and service advantage the mesa program i believe we have someone here from mesa tonight too and uh i will tell you that bert has visited with these uh gentlemen or one or both of these gentlemen um so they had a packet in your some information in your packet they're now going to go over

Mayor Kelso, good evening. Thank you for having me tonight. I'm Rodney Dryden. I'm your consultant with Hub International. We work with the city on your employee benefit programs. Tonight, we're here to discuss a specific program called Massa, and it's an emergency medical transport program. This program was created in conjunction with Hub International, my company, and Will's company, Massa. It was born out of the need of one of our municipal government clients that offered a specific emergency medical transport program through a regional company called CareFlight. that CARE Flight program didn't service the needs of all of their residents because of their limitations in geography. MASA is extraordinarily unique in the sense that their program is available in all 50 states. and Canada so if you require emergency medical transport this program would cover you in all 50 states the territories and Canada if you were traveling what makes this program unique it's the only one like it in the United States and it is available to residents of cities through water billing and This program for the city of Bowie is unique in this sense. And I'm going to let Will explain it because it's his program. But what makes it unique is the city of Bowie operates its own EMS transport. If a resident Bowie is transported, it will pay If they have insurance, the insurance will pay. As a Massa member, they submit a claim and Massa would pay an additional amount. As you know, ambulance transports, your insurance doesn't cover full amount. Massa will supplement that. And to the city of Bowie, it's a revenue stream, an additional revenue stream that you do not have now. In fact, we're conducting a study right now for one of our group's clients that's a suburb of the city of Fort Worth and they use Fort Worth EMS and they pay Fort Worth an annual fee for that service and the potential to increase revenue to the fort worth ems system on a small city similar population to buoy is almost a hundred thousand dollars of revenue that would be available through this program to help supplement the ems of fort worth so the same would hold true in a situation with buoy but at this point i want to turn it over to will let him go through the program answer questions and we're both available to answer any questions i've been doing these types of programs health care benefits for a long time this is one of the first programs in a long time that i see that is solving multiple problems it's solving the balance billing issue for people who have ambulance transport And it's also generating revenue for my clients through them for their EMS departments. So that's been a really, really positive program. So, well, Winters Massa, he's going to take care.

Are are those.

Yes. And I wasn't sure if you received this, but this is the actual proposal. The official. The official.

Did you say Will Richards? Winters. Winters.

Well, as a Mr. Cunningham and I were talking about when I got here, uh, it's been a long time since I've been here, but, uh, I can say my grandfather grew up here and, uh, we've had a lot of family, extended family, I guess, uh, still live in the area. So it's kind of reminiscing coming back, uh, coming back to Bowie. But again, my name's Will I'm with Massa and, um, as Rodney really mentioned, this is. a unique solution. And it's one that we're really excited about. I can tell you before I came to Massa, I guess a few years before I came to Massa, I actually worked EMS myself. 14 years I ran an EMS service in a rural community. So I definitely understand the struggles there. Flew in a helicopter, I did all that fun stuff. So Uh, but one thing that always bothered me was seeing people make decisions on whether to be transported or not, because they're worried about that bill. Um, and so really the way that this particular plane is designed, it's designed in a manner to really help take that sting out of the middle, right? So it's not always going to necessarily cover a hundred percent of wherever their out of pocket responsibility is, but it takes that sting out of the bill so they can have that confidence. and kind of reassured in order to feel like, hey, I can get the care I need when I need it without waiting. And again, to me, like I said, that's something that's very, I guess it really hits home to me. Because once again, I've seen so many bad outcomes as a result of that. And also, as Rodney mentioned, With this, I guess when he mentioned it covers all providers in all 50 states and Canada, it's for both ground ambulance and air ambulance. And so again, that's something very unique from that standpoint. And just to give you an idea of how large that is, there's 23,000 ground ambulance providers in the US and roughly about 300 air medical providers that this one solution covers. So it's pretty substantial when you think about it from that standpoint. And then we start talking about frequency of transports. Statistically, there's an ambulance dispatch every second throughout the US air ambulance every minute. And furthermore, this roughly about one in 15 families need a ambulance sometime throughout the year. So again, it's something that gets utilized. Obviously, I don't know what the call volume is here. But it's just kind of giving you an idea as to specifically where that is. So, and it's not necessarily just here in the city of Forge, right? If someone's going to Wichita Falls or they're going down to Decatur, Fort Worth, something may happen there. So again, they have that benefit for that. In addition to that, when you start talking about just the charges of the transports, there's been a 32% increase in the ground charges nationally on average for ground EMS over about a three or four year period. And our data, we're not really seeing any indication of that slowing down at all. In fact, in certain areas, it appears to actually be accelerating and climbing even faster for it. So with this, again, it's a solution to really help kind of take not only this thing out, but also provide a solution for EMS itself when it comes to collections without feeling like you have to start getting quote, unquote, aggressive at some point in order to try to get back selection from individuals. So it's just a nice little benefit for that. In addition to that, as far as what the benefits are, you might, I've got exactly what page it is in your packet, but what this does, it has four different benefits associated with it. Number one, it has emergency ground. And what that means is that for any transport, We'll cover up to $1,000 out of pocket for that. So if someone has a, for example, has a $1,300 bill that they owe, then we're going to cover up to $1,000 of that. They still may owe that additional $300. But we like to try to work with that provider to get that $1,000 considered payment in full. There's obviously no guarantee behind that, but it is an opportunity to, again, help alleviate that out of pocket. In addition to that, the air ambulance transport benefit, it covers up to $10,000 for that. The good news is, with the No Surprises Act in place, that was four years ago now, five years ago, with that in place, there's no true balanced billing like we used to hear of, right? Where people are getting these $60,000, $70,000 bills that they owe because the medical plan basically has to pay. And so that $1,000, or $10,000 in most cases, will cover a majority of that transport bill. that they will offer by your ambulance transport. The one caveat I will say, if they are uninsured time of transport, there is a 20% out-of-pocket cap on the benefit. So in other words, that $10,000, so if it's an $80,000 flight, we'll still cover up to $10,000, right? If it's a $40,000 flight, we'll cover 8,000 of that 10,000. Does that make sense? So there's still a nice benefit in there for. And from the EMS perspective, For those that are uninsured, I can tell you from experience, you're lucky if you collect a few pennies on the dollar, typically. And so this is a nice way, again, to help accelerate and improve that reimbursement when it comes to that. In addition to that, there's a hospital-to-hospital benefit. So if you're at a local hospital or at any given hospital, you need to be transported to another hospital, whether it's by ground or by air. Those same benefit levels apply, the $10,000 for air and $1,000 for ground. And just recently, we actually added another benefit to this. It's treat-no-transport. Are you familiar with that? Did we say treat-no-transport? No, you are. Basically, EMS is called, shows up on scene. They provide treatment. They say, I'm not going to go to the hospital by ambulance. And they basically refuse and say, we're not going to transport you. And with a lot of services now, they are starting to charge for that particular service in the scene, although they were not transported. And typically those range anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to $500. So we include a $200 benefit in there that's basically you can use that twice a year within a 12 month period for it as well. So it's a nice little additional kind of perfect value for that. But to put it in perspective, for a $1,000 benefit, with what the cost of this is for an entire household, you're paying on it for nearly 11 years to cover that one ground transport. For an air transport, you're paying on it for over 107 years for that $10,000 benefit. So if you really feel that it's something that really helps provide a nice, again, just that peace of mind and that reassurance, and there's a lot of values, it really does benefit there, period. One question I get asked a lot is, all right, if someone's transported, you know, how do they get that reimbursement taken care of, you know, with that provider? And it's very simple. All they have to do when they get the bill, they get the EOB, all they have to do is send a copy of that to us. There's no claim forms they have to fill out, nothing like that whatsoever. So it's a copy of the bill, along just with proof of residency, like basically you live at that address. So it could be a driver's license, it could be a utility bill, anything like that. And at that point, then we reach out to the provider, Just verify, hey, bill us as a potential payer. Once we get that, then we work with that provider to get that paid up to that benefit level, if not fully relieved of the responsibility itself. And of course, once we get that done, we do let the member know that it's been resolved, or we just basically tell them how it's been ultimately handled when it comes to that. One nice thing, too, about this that we found is something that we understand that especially in smaller cities, you have communities, you have limited staff, right? And so we wanna make this as simple as possible to really be able to get rolled out. And the big thing with that, and I believe it's probably in your proposal too, it's just, it's very simple. If the city were to approve this, and then we can just work directly with the staff in terms of, getting language from the website, for example. We can create inserts that can go out to the bills. And so we can handle all that communication from that standpoint. So you don't have to worry about it. And then, of course, then the residents are enrolled. And then it's a simple file that we receive from the city. We can upload our system and communicate with them directly via mail at that point and let them know that they are enrolled for it. With the way that this is set up, it's set up as an opt-out type of program. So in other words, everybody's kind of quote-unquote automatically opted in to start with. And I say that just so you're aware that whenever we do that, like if you're an improvement, we're not gonna say it's gonna be an 8-1 effective day. We're talking about like a 9-1, 10-1 day out. So that way we can provide a clean education plenty of communication up front to the residents, so therefore that they have that ability to make the educated decision on what they want to do as far as being enrolled or staying enrolled or staying, or I'm sorry, or opting out before it ever does affect them for that. Is there any questions to this one?

I've got a question. Yes, sir. If they fail to opt out in the first round out of the box, how long do they have to opt out so they don't get charged anything?

So it would be 30 days. So they'll have another entire month, basically. So hypothetically, we're saying it's a 10-1 effective date. We'll have all the information in the system before the effective date. There will be communication from us. That's another touch point. So if they want to opt out, they have time to opt out ideally right before 10-1, first of all. Second, it doesn't even have to be on the first water bill until the water bill that goes out in the month of October. So if they see it on the water bill at that point and they say, want to opt out, they can contact the city and opt out. And simply, if you don't submit us, if you don't submit payment to us for that individual, just to be frank, after 60 days, it goes to suspension. Another 30 days, it gets canceled anyways. And so it's kind of by default, kind of opt out. So if that shows up on their bill and they don't pay for that particular amount, so let's say to our bill, $100, you know, with this on there, it's $107. If they only pay you $100, you're not going to remit payment to us for that $7 in change, right, for it. So it's just another kind of way to help kind of protect that. Does that answer your question?

You might also cover that it's a total household benefit in the field of arrears.

Yeah, so it is, this does cover the entire household. So if you have mom living with you, if you have grown kids living with you, grandkids living with you, as long as that's considered their permanent residence, they are going to be covered as well under that one single membership at that one single price point. So it's a nice way to just ensure everybody under your roof, in essence, is covered for that. Secondly, when it comes to actually remit payment to us from the city, it's building arrears. So again, take about October 1st effective date. We're not going to expect payment until November 30th. So there's really 60 days from that initial effective date before we would even expect to have that first payment. So in other words, we're not asking the city to outlay any money. There's no cost to the city to offer this and go this route. It's just an avenue for you guys to really provide a service and an opportunity to residents that they normally wouldn't have. Because we do have a consumer division that does market to a very targeted population. But I can tell you that price point on that on a monthly basis. It's like around $60 a month because it has a whole plethora of other benefits and very comprehensive solution. And so the only other way anybody could be enrolled in NASA is really through their employer. I would have something like this.

Okay. I have several questions. Do you require I got all not require a certain percentage of our water bill customers to be on this plan in order for it to be successful?

No, we do not require a certain number. So, but the reason we do the opt out is because we, you know, number one, based on the experience, my personal experience being here before Massa, just really understanding, you know, even different types of communities, what kind of population wants to be enrolled and how we want to be enrolled. We're able to really kind of help hone in on what that price point will be. And that's what we look at. In addition to that, we're looking at this more than just, you know, say from Sydney to Louis. This is something for, you know, fully anticipate this growing rapidly. We're already starting to see that occur with, you know, more and more municipalities really gaining interest in this. And so we see it as basically one master kind of or one big pool for that. So it's not, again, it's not individual city by city.

Okay. Secondly, how many times can they use the hundred, the thousand dollar claim per year?

There's no limit on. The only limit that there is is on the transport.

So the $200 limit.

Just to go to the ambulance ride for medical necessity every day.

OK. All right. So when we look at the no balance billing. if you get an ambulance bill from Medicare or Medicaid patient, do you still pay that even though the Medicare Medicaid doesn't allow the no balance billing or do you refuse to pay that?

So if they are on some Medicaid recipients, They should be enrolled in the plan. So Medicare recipients should not be enrolled in the plan. Okay. And that's, by the way, that's included on the communication that goes out. And for Medicare recipients, there is, it's really twofold. Number one, we're seeing an increase in denials happening throughout the country for Medicare, for those transports, because Medicare is coming back to say, hey, you didn't meet the medical necessity threshold, so they deny the claim. And so now that individual who took the ambulance that has Medicare, has Medicare, is now stuck with that entire bill. Again, I'm not familiar with what the billing practices are here, but that's just generally how that occurs. And so with this, again, it's a way to help kind of cover that cost form, or at least part of that cost, so they're not stuck with the entire, entire bill for that. Now, if Medicare does pay, Again, it just depends on it's based on the Medicare allowable. Right. What Medicare pays. So it just depends on whatever they owe still within there, if anything. But whatever they owe, there's that possibility. Again, they can have something out of pocket at that point. And so we will pick up whatever that is.

So yeah, I'm going to refer to Doug for a moment.

One question on that. Medicare does their payment. Are they going to treat the MASSA like supplement insurance and file against it as well? You're talking about the individual?

The individual or the billing company? Yes. Or are we just treating it like a supplement? It's just like a supplement.

So there's a, so Doug, correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, so there's a difference in out-of-pocket responsibility that you owe.

Right, obviously there's deductibles during the year. Correct. But once you get past that, there are still patients that receive balance bills from billing companies that shouldn't be receiving those bills. So how much research is done as to whether or not MASA is going to pay the bill that that customer receives?

So for clarity, so for ground ambulance transports, that does not necessarily hold true. It depends on what kind of plane they're enrolled in. for that. For air ambulance transports, that's where there is no balance billing itself that should occur. So in other words, just for clarity for everybody, the balance bill is above allowable. And so historically, if you heard about air ambulance transport, people, $60,000, $70,000 bills that they owe, because that may have been, they call it an $80,000 flight. The medical plan only paid $10,000. And so as a result, the individual owns $70,000 for it. So they owe that entire balance because that provider was out of network. But with the No Surprises Act when that passed, what that did is prevented that balance billing and it made basically the provider and the medical carrier have to come together and they worked an entire process in essence for an allowable level to be determined. And so whenever your plan designers for your medical is really where that kind of will determine, in essence, how much someone owes out-of-pocket for that. But they can't be billed anything past that amount. So take that $80,000 flight. That allowable may end up being $60,000, but you may only have a $10,000 out-of-pocket max, for example. And so once you get that $10,000 out-of-pocket max, the medical plan has to pick up that difference. Not you as an individual. And that's on air? That's on air specifically.

Go ahead, Doug.

One more question. Go for it. Nursing homes. How does that? You got 160 residents. One bill. Are they included in this? Are they precluded from this?

Yeah, so they will not. So great question. So they will not be included in this. specifically now i know this actually came up before and so it's something that we can look at potentially doing and create some kind of opportunity or some plan for those care facilities whether it's retirement facilities to nursing homes things like that we just don't have that in place yet so it's really for your any residential I guess meter that there's as a single quote unquote household that's living within that meter or on that meter.

So all your aggregates are excluded if they're all falling under one bill commercial.

Yeah. Yeah. Commercial. All that's excluded. It's residential.

So what happens if you have a child that lives in your home that does not have a utility bill to prove that they live there or a driver's license?

Basically, if we know that they're your child, that's

So children are still covered?

Yes, children are still covered.

And children don't necessarily mean a 15-year-old. It could be your grown child living with you with their children. But if they're living in your residence and can prove that maybe they get mail at your house, that's proof of residency.

OK. So you're not actually a transport service. Correct. You are an insurance company.

For lack of a better way, it's actually I think it's considered a membership membership insurance company.

So this doesn't affect us in any way as far as ordinances go. All right. So you want us to do the billing? You want us to collect the money? And you want us to send you a check?

That sums it up.

How much do we get paid for doing your billing work? now I say that so so what okay and and if you look at our community and the age of the ambulance user yes I would love to see the 1.4 million dollars that we lose each year on non-paid billing but I I, I say about us doing your billing because another example is waste connections is our trash company and all of our water customers have to have trash service. We do the billing, we do the collections and we write the check, but we receive a payment in a percentage back each month. Well, we actually, we deduct it from our payment for the, doing the administrative work. Right. So nothing comes back from y'all.

not from that standpoint at this time.

But I will say that because we're going to get a lot of phone calls on this.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

You agree, don't you? Yeah. So so there's a lot of different ways also to kind of address that. Again, number one, and I'm not I know you're going to get phone calls. Right. Um, and so we have very, I guess, very high level information to help support any of that. Once, um, I know Rodney and team two, um, you know, before it gets launched, is there a help kind of answer any questions that we have, uh, our number two that people can be directed to. Um, but like what we've done, uh, with, uh, really the first one and not a next one and plan doing moving forward is also on the website itself, for example. We have the ability to provide just all the language that all you gotta do is basically just drop it onto the page within the website that it will answer a lot of questions that people have, which I know not everybody's tech savvy and have the ability to go there for that. So that's one thing. And secondly, also on the website, for those who don't want to opt in, what most people want to do is they just create a form on the website that's labeled like their name and their address. a confirmation that they want to opt out and click it and then that way that everything we can handle behind the scenes so you're not having to handle like you know however many phone calls people wanting to opt out uh for that so it's another avenue to help take some of that uh calling off of it uh there is the our very first community they had about 79 about 7900 8 900 meters um and out of that They said over the first 60 days from the time it was announced until 30 days passed, there was less than 100 phone calls, if I remember correctly.

And they're still at about 97% adoption. We just did another one, very similar. 53% have opted out after 90 days. Most of the communities we've talked to, they've seen the value in it. We don't discount in any way that there is some level and some degree of lift for city staff. And what that equates to is name, address, account number in an export, send it to Massa. Massa generates a bill and sends it back for your audit. So when the city goes through its audit process, it has substantiation. the classes team is there if your people have questions my team is there to support city staff field questions for residents what happened so the goal here is really twofold to offer a program to the residents of the city of moving and they can't get on their own and secondly for our municipal clients that have ems emergency medical transport services a way to generate revenue because to your point i heard your comment about a million 1.4 million i think you said um one of our cities and i didn't get permission to use their name before i came i should have that implemented this program almost the exact same number, almost 1.5 million was their cost. They're billing about 1.3 million in charges. They're collecting about 260,000. And what their hope is is that they can increase that collection number from 260 to something greater. that is they're quoted because they had a similar comment to yours about getting quote-unquote paid and their comment from their mayor city manager fire chief was that would be payment getting more collection rate up getting more money into our budget and not having to basically have EMS as a loser on the budget every year.

It will continue to be that, but maybe we can slow the lead down a little bit.

That was their goal. In the studies that we've done, it's really remarkable the amount of money that is out there. And I don't know, Chief, if you use a billing service. I suspect I know who that might be. It starts with an E maybe. And so they charge you a percentage of what they collect. We're working on that aspect also because this would be a direct payment from Massa to your billing entity and then to the city.

So they're collecting more funds and faster. So in our view, there should be a lesser amount being charged by them.

So we're working that also. Again, we believe that this is a great solution, not only for residents, it provides something that you don't have access to now, but for EMS, it provides a revenue opportunity that you just don't otherwise have. And not to mention the fact that We're talking about the borders of Bowie, but we're also talking about if you have a resident that's on vacation in Oklahoma or New Mexico or wherever something horrible happens or they have a health event, they have coverage there. So it's a broad reaching program. I think your chief would agree that a treatment, no transport reimbursement at any level is unheard of. We're seeing on the Treat No Transport, on the data that we're seeing, a less than 5% collection rate in the data that we've been looking at, and I'd like to hear his comment on that.

I don't know what the rate is, but we do collect on Treat No Transport.

Okay, so what we're seeing in a broader,

We bill for it. You bill for it. We bill for it.

So most of those are paid. So those are paid. So if I can use an example, if you bill $500 for treat and no transport,

that person could reduce the amount they owe by $200.

If you go out there and you put a mandate on someone's finger and you leave, that's treatment of transport and a benefit would be paid back to the city through a TMS. Our goal was to not sell you anything. Our goal was to bring a solution to the city for its EMS and for its residents. That's our goal. And we believe that we've accomplished this. When we look at our more complex clients that have large self-insured plans, they're beginning to embed this program into health plans because it's mitigating risk for large self-insured plans. So it has a lot of value to it, and we believe that this is something that the city and its residents would benefit from. So thank you for listening to us. We didn't cover this, but on the export for the billing you brought up, name, address, account number in an Excel file, submit to Massa, they generate a statement and send it back. But Massa looks at it and does a controlled audit, as Will said, if money's not available for 60 days, the account's suspended, therefore the city's no longer being billed, and the city's not liable for any of that money.

Before you close, I've got a couple more questions. I see, I'm thinking about the older population, and I can see that filing a claim might be difficult for them. Can we file a claim for them?

Anyone can file a claim. you know, if that person authorizes that, yes. I mean, you have people, I mean, I have family members that probably couldn't file that claim on their own.

My parents. So, yes, they could be assisted in submitting a claim. Doug? Is that information that can just be provided to the billing company? So we do have to have it coming from outside the billing company itself. However, one of the things we are working on is Number one, in order to remind them that they have it. is having included on the bill itself, saying, you know, for example, it looks like you're a resident of Louis. You know, don't forget, you probably have an asset. This is how you submit a claim. So it's a friendly reminder on that front. So that's the first thing. But the second part is really against it has to come from someone outside the building company itself for the services. So that being said, file the claim again is it is simple. It's not complicated, but again, I do also understand. Heck, I have a hard time using email half the time. So there could be some complication there, but I mean, they could have their family member, they could either email it or it uploads it to the member portal, one of the two ways. So it's very straightforward and very simple. So to answer your question in short, if the city wants to take that on. I'll just let Rodney do all the follow-up. Perfect. I'll let him. And I'll be honest with you.

We have clients that have asked that exact question. And I think you know how we handle your employees. When they have problems, it would be the same. If you had a person that needed some assistance, we'll help you.

Another question. A lot of our utility customers live outside the city limits. Does that affect it at all? Not if they receive a water bill from you. Okay, we realize that covers Silver Lakes Ranch. That's fine. So we we have I have one city that I'm talking to right now.

I think it is a CNN. Is that or was that code for the water? I'm probably going to say CNN. Thank you. So CCN where, you know, they have their their city and then their ATJ and their CCN is 10 miles from anything. Yeah, that's how are they. And they're still they're still coming.

So what are you looking at? Is this 775 what you're looking at for our customers?

$7.75 a month. And again, that covers the entire household for that 775 a month. And again, like I mentioned before, it depends perspective. You're paying on nearly 11 years for ground transport and seven years for one single air transport. I think a really important thing, Mayor, to point out with this, I don't think this is a program that we say, okay, great, let's approve this, let's start at 8-1.

It's my opinion that if we did it, we would start it like October 1st. It gives us at least 60, 75 days to communicate to your residents. Any social media post, Massa provides all of that information. Post it on your website. If you wish to have community meetings about it, we can do that. So it's my opinion that we give plenty of runway, 60, 75 days, and then, so you've got that, plus you've got, as Will pointed out, another 30 to 60 days before the first payments due. So we're talking about a four month window, roughly, for communication and decision. And plus, we have to read this twice. We have to read ordinances twice for approval. So we'd have to have that time built in too. So under the Texas Water Code, 13.162, I think is what authorizes this type of program to be offered to residents.

So you talked about a period of time for someone to opt out.

Right. So what we could do, so for example, the city voted on tonight. and it was approved what the next steps are at that point is once we know that that happens you know if it's approved i work with the team internally and typically within a couple days we can have a like a billing insert already created customized with the city's information all that that will go out in the next warm bill potentially depend on timing of that of course but then in addition to that as Robbie mentioned social media posts, information on the website, however you guys want to do that, or, you know, the local paper, you know, we can have certain stuff put in there for that as another method or another avenue to communicate. And so they have, if it's a 10-1 effective date, you can vote online for a 10-1 effective date, then technically, we're talking about from now, technically, right, until 10-1 to opt out, but then there's another 30-day grace period on top of that. for them to opt out. So by that time, somebody should have at least had probably two or three touches of notification. Or if it's, again, coming to do like a city, like a community kind of town hall type event, where I can come up and I can do two or three in a day at different times. just walk through this explain it answer any questions and as ronnie mentioned for us it's not trying to sell something necessarily but it's trying to bring value to the residents, really to the customers, you know, to see through the water bill itself.

Just because, like I mentioned, when we started for me, it's I understand what you're saying, but I promise you to a lot of residents of this town, you're selling something. If you're charging money on a bill, you're selling me something.

No, I understand. But again, that's what I'm saying. That's the opportunity for them to opt out. If they don't want it, they don't have it. So I've always been a big believer if they don't want it. I'm not going to try to convince you.

So I've had it for 11 months and I my job changes or something happens and I got it. You can opt out any time.

That's what I personally you can. If you opted out October 1st and in March, you decided this was important to you. You could opt back in.

Could we have a program that you opted into?

We just don't have the ability to do that.

I see that.

I mean, opting out is going to get your attention faster than opting in. Let's face it. It really will, because they're going to see 670 or what did you say? 725, 775. They're going to see 775 and they're going to wonder what it is without seeing it. They may never.

Well, no, that's not the purpose of that. Just.

I know, but it's easier to opt out.

Yeah, it's easier to opt out.

Than it is to educate everybody enough to get an opt-in.

Correct.

Yeah.

And honestly, too, an opt-in actually creates a lot more of an opt-in.

I personally would like the opportunity to have some sort of town hall or some way of allowing the residents time to know what the potential is prior to us making a decision for them. That's me.

That's. That's the desire of the council. You know, we're happy to do that.

How does the rest of the council feel?

I agree with point, but on the other hand, we've all seen how town hall meetings work around here.

Yeah, I said, I agree with you, but I'm with her. I struggle to to get anybody to a meeting.

I think one of the things that we should do and the approach and make sure that we're giving adequate lead time, adequate communication. And where it's been successful in the communities that we've done, the folks in your positions have been I don't want to say promoting it because that sounds pushy, but they have been informing their constituents of this is coming and this is important and you need to be aware that this is going to happen and you need to take these actions. I'll tell you, Town of Northlake did it and they were very, their council members were very active

well received by their residents.

So I think it's just like so many things in life, communication is hugely important. And so I think that 60 to 75 day runway and then that 30 to 60 day window after that, that's a substantial amount of time. And if between the communication pieces that NASA creates and the billing stuffers on your socials, Offer the community a meeting before the effective date. We'll offer two or three or a day of that. Do everything that we can to communicate. There is 100% certainty that someone is going to walk into your utility billing department and say, what is this charge on my water bill? I've never heard of this. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that is 100%.

Barbara would be the best writer for an article on this.

I'll come to you. You mentioned taking the notice out in the local paper.

That's a good idea also because you talked about a specific segment of your population.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we pick it up every week to see who's in the police blotter.

So make sure you put it next to the police block.

I think we need to present it in every media we possibly can.

Yeah. All right. So let me test the waters.

Okay.

Do you guys have any more discussion? Would you like for me to ask for a motion to see where this goes? Because I will be happy to ask for a motion to see if the council is leaning in this direction.

I'll just speak my piece. I'm not... I think there's a lot of things that we ask our citizens for, and me providing them insurance is not one. No offense to you, I just don't think that's the right time or our right responsibility as this council, but that's my two cents.

TJ, do you have anything to say?

Benefit to the city would be payment if there was non-payment, be insurance correct. Yes, and you're going to see a number. So there's opportunity to pick up.

proceeds that we haven't in the past to help cover some of those costs and not just non-payment but if an ambulance ride is twenty five hundred dollars and they get it up and an insurance company paid a thousand this would pay another thousand so not just non-payment but over and above what an insurance company pays through your health plan for ground transport good good good and that comes straight to the city okay

The billing company. Do you pay us straight to the city, or do you pay the billing company? Well, the billing company gets the...

Member submits the claim. Billing company submits the invoice. Payment goes to the company that starts with E, and that money comes back to the city.

Minus 7%.

In other words, it's not a reimbursement. It's not going to the member.

Oh, no, it'll definitely come to us.

Correct, and there's...

and my assumption is we run into those situations where we have some sort of non-payment or in other words it would benefit yeah because the 1.4 million dollars that i mentioned is actually our write-off so we bill more than that so if it i mean i got to tell you earlier today i was having a conversation with my city secretary and i'm like i don't think i'm on board with this um but i mean if it were to bring in a $150,000 more, it's $150,000 more that's payroll.

Yeah, absolutely helps. And the backside of that is it is a benefit to the community. Um, one that they would be willing to accept or not. So it's not, you have to do this. Yeah. The price seems to be reasonable. Um, and then I think it's up to each in the community to say, yeah, you're nay on that, given that they have the proper time information, all of those things, which it sounds like these guys are more than willing to do. Um, so I think it's a win-win on both sides. Um, and that being the only catch I think is again, you know, added work for staff, um, or website build to have, you know, that option available and the questions and comments, so on and so forth. Um, but other than that, uh, know it's kind of hard to make a decision for staff to to run through and work that but as far as the other two positions i think it's a win-win for the city as well as for the those that live within the community given that they have that choice and of course they do so well i know you know my dad had two ambulance rides in february both of them came with a balance too so There's nothing medically that's cheap. And I'm not a big insurance fan either. I don't necessarily care for it. But at some point, it just makes sense. And again, it's an opt-out. So if they don't want it, they'll have the opportunity to do that.

Stephanie, do you have anything you want to say?

I agree with everything TJ just said. I like the idea of the fact that it's not something that's you know they're forced to do they have that option that you know opt in or not um and then also on top of that um this this plan may be more uh what's the word i'm looking for more budget friendly than it would be a different plan that you know to sign up it's 200 right off the top for a year you know 400 or whatnot, so I like the idea that it's more like a payment plan, I guess you would say.

It's a budgetable number.

Yeah. So, OK, with everybody having spoken, I'm going to entertain a motion to consider the medical access service advantages. I'm assuming after we do our public promotion, if you see zero interest or if we see zero interest, which I can't imagine that happening, but they could, then we could probably make a decision that this might not work. So do I have a motion?

So moved TJ.

Do I have a second second post Shaw? What are we, we're making a motion to accept the medical access program. Okay.

No.

Um, Holstein. No. Post?

Aye.

McEwen? Aye.

I was like, I got thrown off for a second. Something didn't seem right. Wanna try that again?

I'm doing like they do. I'm making them wait. I think it's a good service. Only because it's an opt-outable service, I'll agree, yes. So we've got a three to two.

the only thing we didn't address in the motion.

Okay, it's kinda late now.

Start date.

Okay. It's too late. So, I think we're, I kinda lean towards Boyd on the how much information is gonna go out in the next 60 days. I don't, I personally do not want it before October 1st. Because I don't want it to happen to, yeah.

It could be 11-1, it could be 12-1.

That's part of my hesitation. We get this big book right here that we're still calling draft and we got a long way to go before we can start. Yeah.

So what are we, what if we do like Boyd said, and let's really push for the, we know we got an agreement for our council to do this, but let's get some feedback and let's do the, at least 60 and maybe push November one. Do y'all have a problem with that?

I'd say the more time, the better to get the information out. So everybody's educated to, do we have to make that decision for that?

No, we'll just add it in.

Okay, we'll push for a start date of 11-1.

Oh, it's perfect.

Thank you. Good information. That's okay.

We appreciate it. Thank you. You too. Be careful going home. Okay, thanks. I'm pulling her hair. All right. The next item on the agenda is ordinance 2026-08, an ordinance providing for a general election in the city of Bowie, authorizing the Montague County Elections Administrator to officially conduct the November 3rd, 2026 general election, setting forth council positions and terms, establishing regular and vote early voting places and establishing an effective date. This is our second reading, isn't it? That was our first reading. So that's our first reading on this vote. Let me get to the right pages now because there's so many of them here. I don't even have any of the right pages. Here they are. Y'all got me all flustered. I don't have a vote page on this one. Here we go. All right. The ordinance providing the general election. I would entertain a motion, a motion to accept. As you know, we do this every year. Monte County handles all the election administration.

So move.

So that was second second post. Why is Ashley on here? That's Holstein. Holstein?

Aye.

McEwen?

Aye.

Post? Aye. And Schall?

Aye.

All right. All right, so the next item we have is an amendment to the finance department's cash handling policy. And Robert, you submitted this, didn't you? Yes.

So let's go to you.

Basically, this is just an amendment that says employees are prohibited from exchanging, substituting, or removing any cash, coins, currency, checks, or other negotiable items received on behalf of the city for personal funds or property. Any exception requires prior written approval from the head of the finance department and shall be documented and retained with the applicable daily cash records. collectable or unusual coins and currency shall remain with the city's receipts and less than approved exchange is authorized. This amendment basically is just, it enhances accounts, accountability safeguards, public funds, and reinforces the city's internal control procedures.

So curious question. Did you just happen to find that we were missing this? Or do we have a need for this?

We had an incident that happened where somebody brought us some coins from the swimming pool receipts that were extremely valuable. And one of the employees decided to take them and put money in the cash drawer. We found out about it. got the coins and tried to find the owner of the coins and couldn't. And so we sold the coins for a substantial amount of money and put that in the city's savings. So that cash belongs to the city, not to the employees. That's where it came from.

And somebody paid to get into the city pool with those coins?

Do what?

Somebody paid to get into the city pool with those coins?

Yeah.

Really?

A silver coin. I guess they thought it was a dollar. And it was a little one-out silver coin. Two one-out silver coins.

Wow. I wonder if mom's figured that out.

We tried to locate who it was and couldn't.

After tonight's meeting, somebody's got to claim them.

Hey, they're already gone. You left those in your car, did you?

Yep.

Okay, so we call the vote for that, please.

Okay. Somebody want to make a motion to accept that?

So moved.

Anybody want to second that?

Second. I can't get them to vote at all.

Okay. Shaw?

Yes.

Holstein?

Yes.

McEwen?

Aye.

And Post? Aye.

OK, well, the next item on the vengeance on the vengeance on the agenda is what we've all been waiting for. Now, I want you to all to note that tonight is a presentation of the draft budget. That's very important.

Yeah, it is. It's great. The numbers that you see in front of you are not the permanent numbers. They'll change. For example, Hub International does our bidding for us for insurance, the health insurance. We've already got numbers from TML, IRP, and stuff. But I haven't even got the tax numbers yet, the final tax numbers. So there's a lot of things in this thing could change. This is our best estimation. You see the first page, page one, is the utility fund detail. I've tried to be conservative on the revenue. because I just feel like that that's the best way to go as far as revenue goes. On page two you'll see a highlight in the water department where it says insurance. That's our health insurance for employees and that number that I've got there is an increase and all of them are an increase of 25% which is what suggested the number I use a 25% increase. We got some numbers today from Blue Cross Blue Shield and it was a lot more than that, but we got some to do with them and we're gonna try to hold it at that 25% increase or less. We just got to do some, like I said, wheeling and dealing. On page three, there's three things that we're looking at. Repair the actuator, which we repaired the actuator in one of the basins at the water plant last year. to the tune of about 300,000. Of course, the prices have increased, and so I put 400,000 in the budget for that. That's a good guess. The actuator itself is about $300,000 again, but there's some other things that we need to do. So I've put that much into it. You'll notice purchased skid steer for the distribution system. The old one is in bad shape. Not bad shape. It requires a lot of maintenance. Would that be a good phrase, Tony? That's a good analogy. So it will last another year, but it'll be crippled. So we may have to spend a lot of money on it, taking care of it. The next one I'm almost going to say we really need to do it. We have been mowing the lake dam with a tractor and a back wing mower, and it's a dangerous operation. And I have a company that... has a remote control mower that's going to run around $80,000. But nobody rides on it when it's mowing. And it'll mow on embankments up to 50 degrees. They brought it down. We played with it. Jerry drove it on the dam and stuff. It'll take out saplings and grass and stuff. We're required by TCEQ to mow that thing. But personally, I don't want to put anybody's life in danger trying to mow that thing with a tractor and a batwing. They constantly have to have their foot on the brake to keep it from sliding down the hill and things like that. The guy that's been doing it is retiring in August. So I just insist, it's a life safety issue. Also on page three, You see down there, interest on notes. That's some numbers that Robert's working on now. The water department pays a portion of some of the borrowed money. Again, you'll see on page four, the 62,000 for the insurance, that again, health insurance. I don't know why And I'm not an accountant enough, and maybe Robert can explain it better, why we put depreciation in the budget, because it's not a physical outlay of cash. And then there's also an interest on the note, and the sewer department pays the sewer line replacement program and all that is, that's gonna be the interest on that and on that note, and that's a sizable portion and we don't have that exact number yet. Same thing with electric department on the health insurance. Our bucket trucks require a lot of repair to make them safe. On page seven, the, you'll notice i've got fifty thousand we only spent ten thousand on last year hopefully that'll happen again but i put fifty thousand in there and again the interest on the notes and the depreciation figure on on page seven uh is something to take note about and i want to talk with uh austin henderson who is our finance manager about that to see if we need to put depreciation on it that's something they used to do and i just Personally, I don't see a need for it. As you can see on page eight, in the utility fund, we're about $1,750,000 and change to the good, above revenue, above expenses. The general fund revenue detail is on page nine, and you can look at those numbers again. I'm trying to be... somewhat conservative on those. I may or may not be correct, you never know. On page 10, or I'm sorry, page 12, in the administration budget, I'm gonna quit referring to the insurance deal because it's on every department. But on purchases on the administration, you'll see a purchase, a PD reduction. What it is is we're gonna help the PD buy the body camera software and get some that it's easy to redact out of because Sandy has to do the redaction and she wants that software. Is that right?

That's right.

It saved her a whole lot of work.

And there you have it.

yeah uh and on page uh 13 uh we've got the mhmr donation opioid you remember we've got about 40 000 in an account that came from the attorney general's office which is a settlement with the opioid companies and i just put it in the budget it wasn't in the budget last year in fact when it uh when we wrote that check they broke it and then credited out of the police department, which is not where it belongs, so I made sure we had that in the budget. The police department budget, nothing special there. Fire department, On page 17, that $100,000 is the ambulance payment, and there's some other things that we might have to put back in there. And again, interest on note, that's the ambulance payment interest on that one.

On the ambulance, that's the ambulance payment?

The $100,000 is the payment, correct? On the 2023 ambulance payment right now? Yeah. On page 18, there's a purchase of a A truck and a spreader for the paving department. And the truck is about 120,000. We've got a 12-yard dump truck that's how many million miles we got on it?

1998's got 525,000 miles.

Yeah.

So we really need to replace that.

And we need a gravel spreader, too, for paving and stuff. And so that's in the budget. That's a 90 model.

So let's back up. This is a truck and a spreader.

Yeah, there's two different things.

So but it's a dump truck. We can't afford to do this. I want to talk about you. And what's the spreader will be new. We're working on the 19th.

Okay. All right. On page 19, the drainage repair on Wilburger Street at about 80000. That's Wilburger and Green Street. We've had problems with that drainage over there, and so we're going to have to address that. Our guys can do that. And if you'll notice, again on page 19, the Rock and Pillar Street improvements, I've put $2 million in there for that. Again, the library, the only thing that's out of whack there is the insurance. Meet us before. Pretty much the same thing. There's some numbers on page 25 about collections. We recently changed who collects our traffic periods and stuff that don't get paid. And so there should be a number there, but there's not. And I'll have to get with the judge to see exactly what's going on there. On page 26, we're talking about purchasing a tractor and a mower, which would be a tractor and a bat wing. But they also, for less money, they an auto mower that is available where it uses GPS coordinates to mow straight lines. He's shaking his head no, but he don't like it, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than a tractor and a batwing. At any rate, Both of those may get taken out of the budget, don't know. We'll just have to see what's there. And then there's an excise tax deal on fuel that I meant to ask you about. Okay, so it was in the previous budget. For y'all that don't know, I had to completely rebuild the budget sheets from last year and previous years because For some reason, they weren't in the computer when we started doing this. In Parks Department on page 30, nothing special there. We need to put some picnic tables at the swimming pool, and I had not loaded that in, and I'll probably load that in If you look on page 30, the account number 64400 is a purchase, so that'll be increased. We did a lot of work at the pool last year, the filters and stuff, and that's why we spent that much last year. Parks Board were programming in $50,000 just like we did last year for them to spend. Again, the finance department is pretty self-explanatory. The hotel tax money is the same thing we did last year.

Wait a minute. Hotel, I mean finance department.

Okay. Robert Terry, he can answer any question you do.

How did the salaries go down so much?

Do what?

Do you already have the raises figured in there? Yes. How did the salaries go down so much?

Because... No, it's... Well, my salary was substantially less than the prior finance director's. But Austin is figured into the professional phase. So the professional CP is going to be increased a little, but the salary is deepened.

The professional pays $603,000 on page 13. That's a combination of the budget and what Austin is costing.

And Austin is at $54,000?

Yeah.

Is that $54,000?

Any other questions about that? Next one is okay.

There is a question. Okay. Page 34. You've got equipment maintenance. We budgeted 116 and we spent 192 this year. What happened? Did we ever figure out what the equipment maintenance was in the finance department? I can understand it in anybody else's department, but

I think that, I don't know if it's a roof or the air conditioner or something. Roof, I believe. AC, wasn't it? Yeah, it could have been the AC.

That would have been under building, wouldn't it?

No.

Shouldn't that have been under building maintenance?

Well, that's where it was at when I was putting the numbers in. We can move that. Is that it? Yeah. Okay, emergency management. The two things that we need to point out is on the building maintenance, we need to do air conditioning compressor for that department. That's what the 10,000 is for. And then there's a purchase on the equipment, which is, what all does that involve? I don't have my dollars in front of me.

Is that the equipment purchase? Yeah.

No, it's the equipment. The siren system maintenance?

Yeah, I think it's going to be the batteries and maintenance. So that's the siren.

By the way, I need to bring this up. We were talking about with TMRP, the insurance company today, and our sirens are not insured, but they are now. We're gonna make sure about that. Anyway, they're covered now. Evidently there was a lot of damage and they asked us about that, pointed out to us that they weren't covered, but they're covered now. Code compliance, the abatement contracting, it was 20,000 last year. We spent 23, 24,000. All we're doing is cleaning up other people's messes, is basically what that is. But in order to make the town look decent and for health and safety reasons, we've increased that.

And guys, when I first got here, when Bert and I first got here, that budget was $8,000. So that tells you how much it's gone up over these last eight years, and you can still use twice that.

Well, for example, we had, what, a month ago, We had to mow the hospital property. And of course, we get liens when we mow the property for that. And most of these liens are paid eventually. If the property sells or anything like that, those liens, they pay us for that. But we did the hospital a month ago. And weeds were five foot high. And they had to pull them out. They couldn't just mow them down. You think that you're going to mow everything, but you can't. that was over 1500 bucks just to build the hospital. Now all the big tall weeds are gone and stuff, but it'll be less than that. We're fixing to have to do it again. And so in order to make things, I just don't want that to get overgrown and stuff. Always in a situation like that, wish for the first frost, you know, to stop that. And commuters, There's two things. Cindy asked if we could increase the improvements, which are the grants for the grants. She wanted to increase that to 35,000 from 30,000. And most of these I've left in. I hadn't cut anything out of them. And also in 69300, I thought, Lord have mercy, we spent $27,000 last year and we only budgeted $12,000. What the heck's going on? I had a heart attack. Well, it turns out it's any rotor collect sponsorship money. and that shows up in the revenue, it doesn't show up here. I'll tell y'all about it so you won't have the same heart attack I did. Anyway.

She more than balances that out.

Oh yeah, more than balances. She collects a lot of money there. On page 43.

So hey, on Cindy's deal, do we need that to go up? Would she expect that to be the same?

Well, she'll bring, okay, so this is where you go back to city funding. I know. we'll budget the first 12 for her, and then she'll bring in that one and a half times to two times during the year for her events. She doesn't get credit for the overage that she gets.

It more than covers the cost of the stuff, so it's a good deal. And then on the community center, under entertainment, that's $60,000. Personally, I don't think that we need to be spending that much money, but that's a decision not for me to make, but for y'all to make. And then, again, the bond principal and the fees on the community center, that is a note within itself, and that's probably fairly accurate on that.

When does that pay off?

About eight years. You remember we refinanced it a couple years ago and got the interest rate down and and save some money there.

Anyway, go ahead.

On that community center, the maintenance we spent so much this year over budget and then... Well, what happened at the community center, what that is, is that's an insurance claim for the building. We spent $23,000. I increased it to $21,000 because there might be some other things that need to be repaired up there. but the 23,000 was for the ice damage after the ice storm in February. And so we got, that was an insurance claim and we got paid back from the insurance company. If you'll notice on page 45, the general fund has a deficit of 1.6 million, so you might call it a balanced budget, but I'd like for both of them to be balanced, not just one of them, but anyway, with cuts and things like that, we can take care of that. But the main thing is I wanted to get you in your hands and let you study it and ask questions or whatever. And we need to, on the agenda, we need to set up public hearing on the budget on August 11th, and then schedule a budget workshop sometime before that.

Okay, let's talk about something since you brought it up.

Okay.

Because you and I had this conversation the other day. You want to go ahead and outlay the $2 million out of our pocket for the Pillar Street Bridge. I actually want to finance for five years. Make payments.

I'll tell you why I want to. is because I can see after we get the plans for the reuse water project, we're going to have to pay for that. We're going to have to finance that. I don't know if we'll have enough cash back in reserves then or not. And then not very long after that, we're going to hit 85% capacity on the water plant. And that's going to be probably $20 million expansion project. That's the reason. I can see us borrowing a lot of money down the road. That's the only reason I'm against it.

Where could we recoup? Say we're pulling up in Texpool, I assume. Do what? The $2 million.

Yeah, it's in Texpool.

So where areas do you think we could start recuperating that as far as building that back up for the next major drainage process? It takes years to do that. Sure. But I think we've got to start there. If we're going to pull it, same with the payment or something, where would that come from?

be my thought because i'd like to see some of that go right back into it one thing i didn't mention on page nine in the general fund revenue detail i am showing a five cent tax rate increase of 0.593 in revenue i did have it at the same Inflation has outpaced our budget, and so we're gonna have to have a tax increase to get it within reason. And I stuck that number in again, if that's your decision to make, it's what level, but.

I'm sorry, what page were you on, Bert?

Page nine. Thank you. The general fund revenue details.

Okay.

It's very top, ad valorem tax, and you'll see right there, 0.593, that's the tax rate, which is a nickel increase.

Today's tax rate is 0.5454. It will be the first tax rate increase in over five years.

Actually, seven years.

And it was over five. So that is one thing that we've held steady. Bert and I are going to TPPA next week. We don't expect to hear a whole lot about rain increase for electricity between now and the first of the budget. But we're going to go communicate.

The next time we do these, please bring your binder back because we may have some other She's printed out to go into your binder to replace these as we get more numbers and whatnot. So don't forget to bring those.

So we would like to have a workshop.

And you are welcome to mark these up because you'll get a clean copy.

It's all said and done. So if you've got questions and stuff, you can highlight it or whatever.

Are these emailed? Are they going to be emailed?

They were not emailed to you because they weren't done in time.

I'm still gathering numbers, and that's the only reason I didn't email. I can email them to you, no problem.

Do you mind doing that? Wonderful. Even though it's a preliminary draft.

I've got your email address. Anybody else want them? Yes. You want one?

Please.

So we have to have a public hearing on our budget August the 11th. So needless to say, we want to take a budget, which puts us in the possibility of definitely setting a workshop. Because at the workshop, all your department heads will be here. So you can discuss with the department heads the questions you may have. Plus, I suggest you contact Burt over the next week. Well, we're going to be out of town next week. But over the next several days. If you see numbers and you don't know why they're there, he can tell you those numbers.

We're just going to be out of town Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so I'll be here next Thursday.

So what I would like to do is set a workshop. Now, you have a choice, Monday before the meeting on the 28th or the night of the meeting on the 28th. but we would need to do the workshop right after the meeting. Right after the meeting.

If it's not inconvenient for y'all, I'd rather have the workshop on a night by itself. That's just my opinion. I agree. That's all we talk about. That's it.

So the 27th is actually that Monday.

I would prefer that we do it on that Monday.

Sandy will be feeding me that night. I don't know what. Should we feed you something? So can you guys all do Monday the 27th as a workshop?

What time?

6 o'clock. Yeah. Yes. TJ, can you do that?

To the best of my knowledge, as I sit here, yes.

Yes. Yes, ma'am. And you can too. Well, that's four of you. All right. So let's go ahead and plan Monday the 27th for a workshop and look at your numbers. Um, I would say if you had something updated, go ahead and email it to them by. Hopefully by the end of this week we'll have insurance numbers, am I wrong?

Yeah, probably. The insurance is gonna be the last thing. We're negotiating with the insurance companies, so it's gonna be the last solid number we get.

Hopefully you're close, though.

I'll have the tax. Well, I don't know.

No, the tax number is tomorrow.

Tomorrow. She said she'd have those tomorrow.

Yeah. So we can update those numbers.

They had the final tax contest meeting today.

That workshop is going to be here?

Yeah. At what time? Well, we'll probably do it. Well, okay.

We may do it in here because I want all the department heads here. So they'll have an audience out here.

At what time?

Six o'clock. We have six o'clock. On the workshop? Yeah, I knew we had to do that.

I didn't know I had to do one on the workshop. That's July the 27th at 6 p.m. Okay, Sandy's going to call for a vote on the workshop. Okay.

Okay. Who wants to make a motion for Monday the 27th at 6 p.m.? So moved. And the second?

Second.

Okay. Shaw?

Aye.

Holstein?

Aye.

Post? Aye. McEwen? Aye.

All right.

All right. Now we need to do the same thing to set our public hearing on the proposed budget for August 11th, 2026.

That's the legal requirement. Just so you all know.

Yeah. Someone like to make a motion.

So moved.

And a second. Second. Shaw.

All right.

Holstein. All right. Post.

I am McEwen.

Okay.

Okay, everybody's got their schedule. And I'll adjourn tonight's meeting. 742. That's the longest meeting y'all have in a while. But it sure was fun.

Boyd, you're joking, aren't you?