Ways & Means Committee - Regular Meeting

ready. It going. Okay. So, good evening and welcome to the October 2nd uh 20 in progress. Welcome to the October 2nd, 2025 Ways and Means Committee meeting. Um roll call, please. Aldwoman Gold here. Alderman Gold here. Alderman Urgger is absent. Alderwoman Ty

here. Uh that brings us on to approval or amendment of the agenda. Does anyone have any changes to the agenda? Seeing any uh opposition to having it approved by acclamation. Seeing none, it will be so approved. Uh this brings us on to citizen comments. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to uh speak to the committee? Um, you have up to three minutes and come give your name and address. Is there one online? No one's online. No one's online. They have ability for the citizen budget forum. And there's also a citizen budget forum. So there's a separate area where you can speak, but this is just if you want to speak on anything. Uh, but since there's no one here, we will move on to report of committee chair and alderman. I have no report. Alder alderwoman go. No report.

Alderman Gould. Uh, no report other than we usually can see the this TV monitor is off. I don't know if that's typically we can see who's okay. Okay. But it's being recorded. So when we have presenters though, we we just won't be able to see them. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Then uh that brings us to item five, the city administrators report. Ola.

Thank you, Alderwoman Ty. Um the first item on here is just a recap of um the budget proposed budget timeline. Um and so I'll just jump to today where we have um scheduled overview of the um fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. Um we'll discuss the fund balance policy. Uh give an overview of that. um the different fund bal uh the different funds, general fund, capital improvement fund, the equipment replacement fund, the storm water parks improvement fund, um sewer lateral, economic development, sales tax, and then there will be a presentation on just the entire budget overview, um operations and capital, and then we will go into each department um presentation. So, tonight we have scheduled it. Larry Cavey is here. Um, planning and development. We have Whitney Kelly. And then I'm going to cover the balance. I'm going to cover municipal court. Um, I'm going to cover administration, community services, municipal operating expenses, and legislative. And then, um, on October 28th, we continue with departmental presentations, um, parks and recreation, public works. Also on that agenda, we have carryover items from the last meeting, which will be the vehicle replacement policy and then the vehicle commuting policy. And I believe we have one new item that will also be added to that agenda. And hopefully um on November 6th we will have fire and police um give their presentation and possibly at that point if the committee is ready a recommendation can be made to the board of alderman. We will post for the public hearing and then November 17th will be the first reading and December 1st will be the second

reading and hopefully the adoption of the budget. And then we have one more meeting this year December 4th. Um and so we can either find things for the committee to discuss or you all can uh take a reprieve after having all these special meetings. So uh just an overview of the timeline u for the remainder of the proposed budget process. Thank you. Uh and that brings us to the citizen budget forum portion of the meeting and of the year. So, this is an opportunity for citizens to come and express and share any ideas they have of things that Brentwood should fund or focus on this year or in the future. So, if there's anyone here to

comment. Oh, please come to the microphone and just introduce yourself and give us your address. [Laughter]

I'm new here. Well, I've lived in the in the city for like four years. Um, and I am a participant in the superal program. So, I am curious if you've thought about increasing that amount because currently it's only $3,500 for the year. Um, and there's a lot of old pipes in Brentwood that are starting to deteriorate. I can just speak for myself and my experience. Um, $3,500 while it was amazing to have, it did not cover much of my bill to replace everything. So bringing that to the forefront um even doubling that would help because as you all know that my property and my pipes that's I'm responsible for. So yeah any feedback there? Well, do you want me to take this or I can I So, one of the um it's actually something we could consider. Uh the the fund got into a negative because it's funded by a a um $50 property tax on every home. So there's only so much there only so many funds and the the um fund uh got into a negative and was borrowing money from the city which is not like the city then has uh replenished um or that the this fund has replenished the funds that um the city had loaned it over the years. Uh so now we're just back to even and we're getting a little bit of a surplus. So I think it's something that we could talk about. Uh, but I think doubling it would then take the fund into deficit and the $50 per year is something set by the state legislature. So, we couldn't ourselves decide to increase that. It's a state uh legislative uh thing. But good but thank and tell can you tell us your name and address just for the record so we s 8924 Pine Avenue, Bretwin, Missouri 63144. Um, thank you for that insight. It's good to know that we are not negative anymore.

Yes. Yes. But I can't speak for anyone else, but if the state were to raise it even to a hundred bucks a year, I would pay it. Yeah. So, okay. Okay. Good. Thank you. Okay. Well, and and I I'll just also throw out and I'll I'll mention to Mayor Dimmit, he is uh involved with the St. Louis County Municipal League and the uh Municipal League um statewide. And so this might be something that he could take to Jeff City and or just talk to his other fellow mayors and see if this is something that is being considered. So thank you for uh bringing that forward and uh sometimes things change slowly but we can definitely look at that. So thank you. Any anyone online? I don't have anyone online.

Okay, great. Um then that moves us on to department reports. Uh first we have the investment report. And Michelle, are you taking this? Oh, I don't we can't see. So Brad must I hear he's online. He is on. Okay. Hi Brad. We can I'm here. Okay. Good. We can hear you and everything. Okay. Great. Hello. Good to see you all again.

Okay. You guys have the same or very similar document that I provide each month. Um and uh uh you see at the very bottom of page one that number stays consistent. All the all the money that has been earned in each of the various accounts since uh we started to January of 24 2.7 million and then all of last year 728,000. So far this year uh we're at $553,000. And I'm delighted to tell you that when you add those three numbers together. We have just crossed over $4 million in interest earnings for the city since we started working together in towards the end of 2018 almost exactly to the year. So, um that's pretty cool. 4,27,271 we're exact. So, all to uh help the city and go towards all the much needed endeavors of the city. Um, page two gives you kind of a a month-to-month chart of approximate earnings each month. Um, again, we're at 553 for the year. That gives you an average of about $61,000 per month. And, um, I'll give you a little bit of a of an update on the market. I would like to do that a little bit. I've been talking a lot with you all about uh, the Fed Fed funds rate. Well, they did lower the rate a quarter of a point two weeks ago. You probably saw that in the news and so that will affect money market rates all around. Um in addition to that, there is a 95% chance that the Fed futures market is building in that they're going to lower it again at the end of this month. 95%. Then there's another meeting in

December, the last meeting this year. the Fed futures market is building in an 89% chance that they will lower it another quarter of a point. So if they do that all of those it'll be three quarters of of a point 75% reduction in any money that we have sitting in cash. So it's a wonderful thing that you all have this money invested and had it that way. Um and we'll just keep on getting it invested and doing the best that we can for the city. Any questions for Brad? We don't see any. Thanks again. We enjoy your reports every month and and like to see the results. So, thank you. Wonderful. Okay. For me. Oh, yeah. Thank you.

Uh now it's time for the financial statements. This is Michelle.

Um I would like to follow up on some of the things that Brad said. I know that we've been talking about the FEMA SEMA funds and sort of replenishing some of those funds that we've taken out of investments. I'm happy to report that Eric has gotten some notification that we are sort of in the final stages of that and hoping to receive those funds in the near future. So, wow, congratulations.

We'll have discussions about actually receiving those funds and then sort of replenishing and talking putting those funds back in that ladder um and then replenishing the ones that we have asked for recently. So, that's good news on that. Yes, I'm sure Brad will be glad to hear that as well. Um, in your packets, you actually have the August financial statements. Um, and the highlights and low lightss. I know that in the August financial statements, it continues to say that it's 5% below in sales tax. We're going to have this conversation. If you put in the 415,000 that sits as that adjustment, we actually are 5% above. So, that above where we were at the same time last year. And then it sort of also says that the use tax is currently trending higher than the same time last year as well. So the 415 once again is not rolled up in that number because of it being placed as an adjustment from the dispersement from St. Louis County, but it is the sales tax that was collected from the closure um of the tiff and now we're collecting it at 100%. But so it sort of is that misnomer. Um, I thought about actually just moving it all up into sales tax, but once again, when audit comes, it needs to be placed in the adjustment category. Um, but it is an actually 5% above the same time. I know that we're all watching that closely, having those conversations and even sort of trying to decide how do we me, you know, start to put put the budget together based upon the things that we know. Um, and we're going to dive into the budget um later, but the budget is really at a 1% growth and that our sister cities are doing the same um despite the trends of where we're at today. So, back to August, there aren't any real high highs or lows unless you have any sort of immediate questions on that. I think sales tax is sort of the one that looks like that misnomer, but the 415,000 of that account that holds those adjustments and settlements belongs in the sales tax.

So, I have one question. And so next year will once those adjustments have been made because they're coming a different way from St. Louis County right now, will they be coming the normal? The the collections are already being collected at 100% right now. So then that 415 will actually show in the collections as we as we continue to move forward. Yes. Okay. So we won't have this thing. We won't have it in sitting in two separate accounts. No, because they have closed and reconciled the tiffs. Um I believe we've closed two of them and they were reconciling those items. So, we won't have any of those. Okay, great. Thank you. Alderwoman Gold, I was gonna get through this whole meeting except when Jeff answered the wrong name. I can

Yep. giving you permission. Everybody um I had a question about the rental property line. Um we start when does it I know it's not in um August, but it's starting in September. Do we start seeing the payment on the public work? September and September you'll actually see it increase and we actually got first and second month's rent. Um so that will be that will be noted in there. Um so yes and then that's sort of why we did the adjustments for the budget. Um noting that that rent at least for the year and I believe into the second year as well just knowing what we know at the moment. Perfect. So that's when it will pop up as next month.

Yes. You'll Yes, you'll see it in September and like I said it will be double the payment because it's first and last month's rent and then it'll start to even itself out as well. Okay. Thank you. I at a one number that jumped out to me was the plumbing permits that were so so much higher um in revenue. Um I and I I think I saw in your analysis was because it was a big project, but this is not do we think that this is something we need to budget for an increase of revenue or and we met with all of the department heads and sort of had those conversations and I think that some of those permits are unpredictable. So when meeting with planning and development and Whitney is more than welcome to speak on this um she didn't feel comfortable sort of thinking that that would be adjusting it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um all right. Thank you.

Any other questions? Great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh moving on. That takes us to the consent agenda. You know what? I I did have one more question. Sorry. Minor minor thing. Really minor. um the the expenses the revenue and expenses for the tree um plaques or something like that. Do do is are is that a I'm sorry I had I had a question and then I didn't write it down. Um it's it's in the I think the park the parks Uhhuh. Um is that basically just kind of a wash that we look at at that like donations for I'm going to let

plaques and all that and then the expenses of it. We're not we're definitely not generating um revenue and gains on it. I just want to make sure that analysis if if there's an increase of expenses and we haven't adjusted the the fee for for that, you know. Yeah. And this is line Oh, I just clicked on it. It was It's line It's in fun 50. It's 50. It's like three down and I clicked um

Yeah. So, that is part of our tree and bench program. Yes. Obviously, the the plaques are a small expenditure, which is about $45 a piece. And obviously, we have a little bit more in trees and uh benches. I'll let you know that this year, we just did a review of the tree and bench program. We actually increased uh both the trees and the benches due to expenditures that we were receiving to make sure it was still uh a beneficial program. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Welcome. That's all I was interested in. Just making sure somebody was watching expenses and the and the cost of of the program. Y

so now we'll move on to the consent agenda. There are uh three sets of minutes from July, August, and September. Has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes? Any changes? Uh all in favor? I so approved. Um, moving on to new business, the overview of the 2026 budget. Ola, is this Eric? Eric is presenting.

Great. Eric. All right. So, this just be a quick overview of the budget. Obviously, as we move into departmental uh budget reports, they'll do a more intense uh review of their budgets, but this just kind of gives a general overview of the whole budget. So, the kind of first start of 2026 budget, as always, uh we are we do have a balanced budget. So, all of our funds meet the fund balance policy in addition to that. Uh so, we're quite You know, this only happens when Larry's here.

Larry, it actually happens when you're not here, too.

In my defense, it was working. It was there. It was there. It started to fade. It was It was kind of grayed out. Yeah. All right. My defense, I come early to make sure it's working. And uh and I should have known that with Larry here.

Let's start this again.

Is it up? Mhm. and up over here

as long as you guys can see it. So, uh there is a 5.6% increase in citywide revenue if you look at all the revenue that's driven by really two main factors. There's a 25% increase in fund 40 which is a capital fund and that's uh related to the Hanley Road TDD uh that is uh just a tax district that's paying off that we will then be using for streets uh for street work. And then there's about a 7% increase in parks and recreation and fund 50. And that's related to two main reasons. Fees and charges were increased that were approved at the public works meeting. And then also uh every two to three years we shut down the ice rink. Uh that takes away four to six weeks of operation. We did that this year. So obviously next year we're back to full uh full year of operation. So we have uh more revenue there. Other thing that was done this year that uh HR and finance did an itemized review of each department for benefits. So they basically went employee by employee to make sure the benefits were appropriate for that employee. And that did create changes to uh the benefit lines and if you see a lot of times uh it's strange to see benefits decrease from year to year. Uh it was strange to me, strange to Michelle, but that's the reason why is that is that itemized review that they did. Uh in addition, there's in the budget is reclassification of two positions. One is the city planner position for planning and development. Uh Whitney will be speaking to that tonight. And also there's a reclassification of the in the police department of a position up to corporal. Uh and the budget includes things like the comprehensive logo and branding development of design for that. Uh the construction complete construction for the fire training facility. And then also we have funding in for the public works and park maintenance facility design. This just gives the general overview that's kind of page 25 26 in the budget book. Uh the basic thing that just shows uh the fund our beginning fund ending fund balance and kind of just shows that

we are meeting the fund balance as you see spec specifically in the general fund we're at a 63% uh operating reserve by the end of 2026 estimated. And I might not have the right page exactly, but I know it's around there. Uh capital improvement fund uh and the storm water parks uh improvement fund. You'll see one new line this year, which is the uh the equipment replacement reserve. So, I made sure to kind of highlight that. Uh and and what we're happy to say is that, you know, we started that equipment replacement reserve and we're working toward making sure it's it's implemented and fully funded. Uh so that means taking some money each year and making sure it goes into that reserve so that we have money in, you know, well this year to buy a firetruck or next year to buy a fire truck and that we have that money already so that we're not having to uh lease anything or take out uh debt for those type of things. So student improvement fund you guys already talked about and then uh the economic development fund uh it still continues to make somewhere between 200 and $225,000 each year in uh net profit. So that see you see that kind of increase over that 3 million mark this year and up to about 3.5 in 2028. Just quick uh talk about the revenue sources. Obviously as you guys know we are sales tax driven. Uh 57% of all of our revenue comes in from sales tax. It is by far the largest piece of the pie. uh you know those other sources, a lot of those different things uh not only in the general fund but in wreck and store uh and all those uh different things. So it could really go uh sales tax then fees and charges investment income those are kind of the biggest pieces of that pie. And firstly expenditures again not a surprise that is personnel and and we've talked about this for a few years now. So personnel is the largest chunk uh followed quickly behind uh real closely behind uh a couple areas which is debt service. Obviously we have the the debt

we need to pay off from Brentwood bound and and the capital uh the capital cop and as well as material and supplies which is the basic material and supplies that each department needs to run day-to-day operations. So the highlights in the general fund uh you do see a 2.2% increase. Uh we are very conservative. Michelle even mentioned that tonight. Uh so a conservative 1% increase on most taxes, license, and permits just to make sure that we feel comfortable with the revenue coming in. The big increases that you saw is uh the rental property line and that's obviously because of the lease agreement at 288 Hanley. Uh a 70% increase in trash pickups and that's due to the new process of for collecting household pickup fees. So that's exciting. And 38% increase in fines is just uh due to an larger enforcement of traffic fines as we move throughout the year. some highlights for expenses. You know, people will touch on these, but just kind of the basic ones. Uh in the admin department, you'll see that reduction employee benefit and that talks that's that itemized uh review that was done. The funds are allocated for branding and development. And then another one is kind of that newsletter cost and that was kind of increased because of printing and postage. Uh we kind of saw it this year, wanted to make sure it was in the budget for next year. uh the fire department you do see the reduction employee benefits again and then uh the training costs are reduced because of completion of the central core training facility and the credit they they receive because of that and then you see the uniform decrease in one year in 2026 because that PPE replacement is being funded through uh fund 40 the capital fund. So in planning, we talked about the code enforcement position already and then also increased legal fees due to ongoing code enforcement and zoning cases, making sure that we have enough funding for that. Police, we talked about the retail liaison officer being promoted to corporal. Uh the one thing that does is eliminate the need for shift officer pay. So you'll see that zeroed out in next year's budget. And then the other thing of note is kind of the locker room shower renovation. Uh those materials

supplies are being funded through the asset forfeiture fund. that's what could be funded through that fund. And so that's what you'll see in the budget. And then uh public works remains consistent pretty much year to year. Uh the biggest change is always kind of forestry and that depends on which ward. So we went from ward four which has the least amount of trees to ward one which has the most amount of trees. That's the the big difference of of that right there. Capital we've talked about the increase in revenue is primarily because of the uh Hanley Road TD payout. Um you'll see like we talked about already the sales tax is a conservative 1%. You do see increase in sale of city property and that's because we're going to be selling the firetruck this year. So we see we think we'll see a bump in that because of that onetime purchase and I think we go back down. uh expenditures. Again, the equipment place reserve is fully implemented. And what's in that reserve program this year is the fire engine for the fire department, uh police cruiser and the handheld radios for the uh police department and four trucks in the public works department. Uh there's other small capital expenditures. We talked about the PPE for the fire department, things like that. That's not all those are not within contained within ERR, but we do still have the funding for that. And then we still have funding for streets and uh we're looking at the mill and overlay of uh Eager Road and concrete slabs of Kier Hanley Industrial Court and ukulele. So storm water parks we talked about the 7.8% increase already due to fees and charges in the full rink. Uh a couple things of note. Uh the ice rink was hit the $1 million mark in revenue for the first time ever. So we're kind of excited about that. Uh you do see rental revenue increase 14% fees and charges and both the pavilion the the the Brentwood Park main pavilion and the playground pavilion still continue to be very popular. We're still getting people renting it out in November December even though it's colder and they don't have the water feature just because they want to be out there for a a rental program revenue. Uh we do see kind of overall

about a 5% increase. There's a lot of variation uh this year and for a lot of reasons. I know that got emailed out to you guys, so I won't bore you guys tonight. I'll bore you guys on October 28th with that. And uh one thing we did put in is $410,000 for grant revenue. Uh we've been applying for a grant for the Hanley uh Hanley Park pavilion and parking lot project. We feel pretty good about being able to get that. Uh I will say, as I say to most people, I won't put funding in for grants if I don't think I'm going to get it. Uh, and if we don't get it, then we'll have to kind of readjust because we won't have full funding for that project. And last is OCMI and Prop S. Uh, Dan had talked to MSD and we expect to see about $239,000 in revenue this year if we want to use it. Uh, so that goes to expenditures. We allocate another $250,000 to the Brentwood Park Maintenance Liquidity Fund. That brings that balance up to 500,000 a little bit plus. We have to talk to Michelle about some interest earned on that, but primarily we're seeing that year after year. Uh we'll be funded by the end of 2028 with that full million dollars that we want to have to help start that fund. Uh we ensure that equipment replacement reserve is fully funded. Uh it took us that three years to kind of get there. We are putting away about $150,000 each year of our revenue into that fund to make sure we can make sure we uh fully fund that and that we have all the ready to go for future projects. Uh and then we do have uh some funding this year for some storm water master plan projects. Uh you know, I know Dan's working on those and that that funding will be there for that. The last thing to talk about for me is a little bit about capital. Again, I'll talk more uh next meeting, but the the basics is that as we talked about when we started Brentwood Bound, is that capital was going to be tight for a few years and and it we've got to that point now in parks and recreation. We do have uh that Hanley Park pavilion project for this year and um we think if we get that grant uh we'll be able to fund that

project and move forward with that. And then in 2728 we only have about $90,000 left in our fund. And usually what we have left in our fund is for capital. So what we're going to do is kind of bank that money over a couple years. And then when we have enough money to move forward with the project, we'll move forward using our uh our capital plan. But most likely we're looking at phase one of Mount Calvary. is kind of what we're earmarking it for right now. That takes us just to the budget schedules. We're here tonight as you see everything. Uh the 28th, you'll you'll hear from parks and public works and again as Bola talked about, we hope that we can move forward on November 6 and then we'll be able to kind of uh approve the budget with the board of alderman on December 1st. So again, a brief overview really kind of the top end highlights and you'll be hearing from a lot of people over the next couple meetings. There any questions for Eric about the big picture things? I

older woman older woman go. Uh first great presentation and thank you for the conservative approach especially with everything going on with Target opening in U city. So that's awesome. I did have one question about the newsletter costs and in addition to postage and printing costs going up. Is there any concern about the fact that the pulse is going away and so are we cons is there a thought about how we're increased printing to get word out? I I mean I don't think we're concerned about that in that line. That would become more in advertising

and so some of our advertising dollars that we use have gone to the pulse for the ads of everything that we do. I know that Michelle and Bola are looking into other options of how we get those things out. Right. So um go ahead. You can. You're the chair. We've talked about this at the communications committee meeting and and um uh we believe that we can um publish things in the c the county end, right? The county end

the county in um and and fulfill the the requirements that we have for things that we didn't necessarily we don't necessarily need to put in things like um the the minutes every time like we did with the with the pulse. So there's I I I don't think we're going to need to see an increase of it of of it. We we have an outlet for for it that's legally um uh available to us. So I think that's where we are.

I mean we're also looking at um the Kirkwood Western Times. So we have that as well. Um but like al Alderman Gold said Gould said um we are not going to be publishing the meeting minutes like like we did. There's no requirement to do it in the city code. Um but in the code there is a requirement to publish quarterly um the financial statement. Um so we will continue to do that. But if we need to advertise for recreation programs um or a fire openhouse or things like that, we might use that avenue. So I I think we're we're going to stay within the budget that's in the document. So, I have one big picture thing and it may be something that needs to punt to um the public works committee, but uh thanks to our wonderful comment today, I really focused on the sewer improvement fund and we actually are replenishing it at this moment. So, um I'm wondering if uh we could ask uh Dan or Bola if you if we could look at increasing that a a little. I know we we wouldn't increase it a lot, but there is some there are some leftover funds each year and maybe even if if it was just a few hundred dollars on those um homes u that need lateral sewer work, that might be something to do, but I would imagine it would be something that the public works committee might need to dig into to see if that makes sense. So, I know this has been a long um arduous issue. So,

okay, great. since we have the chair of that committee here looking out at at Alderman Loch Miller. Okay. Thank you. Oh, I just I did the OMCI funds that seem and and Prop S. It seems like uh maybe more revenue than we anticipated. I think it was 60 something thousand that we expected. And I'll let Dan correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we were under the assumption that the OCMI would go away with props and and it turns out that we're going to be able to correct both of those. So that's why we see that increase in OCMI and yeah, it was like a quarter quarter um percent adjusted for the uh OMCI. Okay.

And those numbers came straight from MSD. Okay, perfect. Thank you. They're big picture questions. Great. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Um so moving on are we doing them in order is Lar is uh so we'll move on to it and Larry KBY is here. See if his IT works. Note this uh monitor doesn't work.

Not aware of that. So I already sent myself an email to check on that tomorrow. Hello, I'm Larry CVY. I'm from the IT department and I'm just here to present uh the IT budget for fiscal year 26. We'll start with some of our accomplishments, our projects we did this year. Uh we're currently in the process of implementing a new cloud-based phone system in the city. Um, we implemented two new network firewalls that uh protect the city from uh the public internet. We assisted the police department with implementing a new uh body and incar uh video system this year. Brentwood Park, we had to implement a a

new video surveillance server there. It was it's actually a an additional one due to more cameras being installed from when that project first started. We weren't able to keep 30 days of recording. So, we had to basically give those recordings for 30 days. Uh we're working with Dan to possibly implement fiber uh into the new public works facility. It's still kind of up in the air if that's going to get completed this year, but it is something we're working towards u possibly this year with some with some funding uh some savings that Dan had elsewhere. Uh we finished implementing badge access at all the remaining doors here at city hall and then we just uh continue to do our our annual uh network security audits and our cyber security and user training uh which is no before that most people get an email to and uh watch a video. And there's monthly fishing tests that go out to kind of see if people are clicking on things. So that brings me to two of my two of the general fund accounts, utilities and IT repairs and maintenance. Uh this is on page 94 in the draft budget book. At least it was in the the book that I received. uh utilities are all uh think of all the um wireless telephones, televisions, wide area networks uh and all the connectivity, the internet connection for all departments in the city. That's what all is build out of that uh utilities account and IT repair and maintenance is um a lot of break fix throughout the year. uh things you just

cannot plan for. Uh broken printers, broken monitors, uh computers that need repaired, and that's the the the funding that we use to to do those type of things. Are you guys able to find that on page 94? Was it there? I see you flipping. Yes. Okay. The next account, it's it's goes into capital improvement. It's on page 180 and 181. And uh these first set of account numbers here are basically just the computer and printer replace life cycle replacement plans. Yeah. So I think our numbering is different than yours.

Okay. I can pull up. Let's see. It up.

Last line on 81. Oh, there. Yeah. 130. Last line on 81. Yeah.

Oh, okay. But there's several accounts there under administration under fire under judicial and so forth. And uh basically we we replace all computer for So we we replace computers on a five-year life cycle. Generally we do have discussions every five years with those departments to see if we can extend the life of any computer. Sometimes uh we even replace computers uh sooner than five years if it if needs have changed or if a uh device becomes problematic and printers uh we give a seven-year loose useful life too. Uh same same thing there. We do follow up and see if we can extend life just as a general rule. That's that's how we plan for the replacements. Then I'm showing on page 181. It's all

the contractual expenses that we budget for out of it under uh that that account number 6210. Uh this is basically all the subscriptions and contracts and maintenance agreements for the different software and hardware u that are located in the various departments. So there's there's all the different departments and how much each department has for those contractual and maintenance agreements. So while you're there, yeah, can you explain why there is a significant a 34 almost 35% increase from uh last year to next year, but then it goes back down? So, what's the

So, I'm making a little bit of an assumption here, but if you look in the budget book, there's a line item under public works that it says for um signed services, and I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it's didn't come from my budget from what I submitted. Oh, so is this the planning for the new building? And it got put in here. Got it. Okay. Michelle's standing up in the back for those watching. but it wasn't what I submitted uh in my IT button. I wasn't sure what that line was. Okay. So, you don't you don't own that amount. Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Uh one page should be one page down uh under account 6330 is all the different projects that we have scheduled for fiscal year 26 in the IT department. Uh you'll see the top one there is the the fiber again for the public works building that we just spoke. We're trying to complete it this year, but we it is budgeted for next year uh to get that installed to get that building on the city network. And it's uh quite the cost savings. I don't know if this uh has ever came up in discussion, but I've had people ask why would you bore put conduit in and install your own fiber to get that basically over to the police department is what we're doing just right across the street. But if you look at what AT&T or Charter will charge you, there's about a three-year uh return on investment after three years. It's money in the bank a after that owning our own fiber over to that building. Uh that's on that. Speaking with Bola and truthfully other cities that we support uh AI is a big a big topic of discussion anymore and some of the use cases and uh some of the ways we could implement it. So uh working with Bola we spoke with department heads and I I don't remember the staff but there were key staff uh working with department heads. We decided we're going to budget for co-pilot for 365 uh deploy those this year and provide some training for those people. And while I don't know what all the use cases are just yet uh for all of those, I'm I'm hoping everybody comes with their ideas, but uh we're we bought uh I think it's 22 licenses if I remember correctly that we bought uh of co-pilot for 365. The next one is it's Microsoft Defender Advanced Email Security. So, basically,

we have pretty standard email security right now that comes with Office 365 and some of the the caveats with it. So, if you get an attachment in an email, um, it'll send it right through without actually scanning that attachment. Or if you get a an email with a URL, it doesn't look at that URL. It just sends the email right through. And what Defender will do for us, it actually puts them in this sandbox environment to where it'll go to that URL and see if it's malicious before it ever lets the email through. It'll look inside the attachments in that same sandbox environment to see if it's malicious. And our hope is to stop even more of those type of emails from getting through to our end users uh with that product. The wireless access points here in the city are up for replacement. They're eight years old at this point. They're on wireless uh six for or five for the most part. Some are at six. We're going to Wi-Fi 7. When we upgrade, we should see some increased speeds at least on newer devices. Uh because of that. And um so that that's why why we're upgrading age and just technology uh kind of driving that we have a few I think it's like 12 uh standalone versions of Microsoft Office. Uh we don't have Office 365. It's mostly the shared computer scenario where there's multiple users that use that computer and it could get really expensive to buy everybody that uses that shared computer license. So we just put office on the computer itself and uh those have right now it's office 2019 which is end of life uh at the end of this year. So we're upgrading office on those 11 or 12 installs. Uh we have a third party network security audit coming up this this year. uh we basically do a third-party network audit every three years where we'll hire

a third party company to come in uh kind of a set of ethical hackers scan us from the outside they'll come on the inside scan they'll look at our policies and make recommendations uh and that's this is that third year usually we self audit every two years and just do a third party on that uh city hall the video surveillance server here it's uh all servers get a seven-year useful life. It's at that point right now. It's 7 years old. Um, so it's up for replacement this year. In the fire department networking closet, there's a smaller uh UPS a backup battery for the networking equipment that we're going to replace next year. Public works uh has a network switch that is eight years old that is up for replacement based on its life cycle. And then every year we look at city-owned cell phones and once they get to be three years old, we we look at upgrading them. You could do it for free or almost nothing. Very low cost once they get to that age because the provider wants you to get a new phone anyhow, right? That that's all of our projects that that we had for fiscal year 26. That questions? Well, I'm going to ask the question that I ask a version of every year. So, your stuff's sort of spread out through all the departments and it's I mean, some of the lines look sort of flat, but are but we've we're adding a lot of things. So, what are we taking away or how do we really

trust that um we can monitor all the new um it adding? So, I have this all laid out in spreadsheets, line item by line item, where I could go, you know, account by account. I plan out for five years, and it's usually somewhere between a 3 to 5% increase on things like contractual items or computer replacements. Um, we're actually seeing close to a 5% increase. Now, the the account where it is not the same every year is is this one that we charge all of our projects to under 6330. And that's just because replacement life cycles are different and some some years this account can be a lot and the next year it could be low, but uh overall this is really my only account that fluctuates a lot. The rest of it is a a gradual three to five percent increase year after year that I can and even this I plan out five years on on the budget. Uh it's just it it varies on what's up for replacement from year to year. So I don't think I answered your question. You're

well I I ask it every year because I think well maybe there you know I just um it's just harder for us as elected officials to monitor whether we need all these things. And so, um, I guess I I, as I've said in prior years, I think we just have to trust that that the our city staff and and the IT department are working really well to make sure that we're just using and adding helpful um, and necessary Yeah. it things.

Um, I I definitely meet with Bola. I meet with every department head every year. uh we we go through what you know what I currently have in their budget for an estimated budget then go through the future years to to see what they have. So I get feedback and I I meet with Michelle then I meet with Bola to go through the budget in detail. I do have you know hundreds literally hundreds of line items behind every one of these accounts that I could show exactly where that dollar amount comes from in more detail if if if I need to. Um, other than that, yeah, I guess there there's I mean, we do support three cities. So, it is a thing where we'll see what some other cities are doing and and I I get outside of the three city box, right? I I'm part of there's this IT manager group and it's all the IT managers in the St. Louis region uh that we stay in touch with each other, go out and have meetings and talk about what other cities are doing. and there's an email group where we bounce ideas off one another to see what other cities are doing and it's a good resource from that perspective. Um, yeah, I'm I'm sure what else I can say.

No, that's great. No, that's that's great. Thank you for attempting to answer and and actually and I just want to say that I think it's a really good thing that we have this um this coordination with three cities and that that you serve three of us. I appreciate that. You have a lot more uh knowledge of what's going on other places. So other questions from Alderman Gold.

I mean I'm I'm I'm encouraged to see that that you're looking into how departments could leverage AI tools. I mean those are those are in the what's coming on the scene now is pretty incredible. I'm curious as you start to look at that anything that's Microsoftbased is always going to be more expensive. It's going to be somewhat clunky. it's gonna be, you know, so there are other tools out there. I'm just curious on whether or not you've looked into some of the other tools that and and maybe this is as you as you get more familiar with how the departments could use it, you could start looking at

other ones that are maybe less expensive to for subscription or even even free as long as they're secured. Yeah. So, I could tell you what what's driving the the co-pilot here and it is sec from a security standpoint. So, we've looked at the chat GPTs. Um, Jim and I wouldn't make much since here. We're not a Google customer. If we were Google, yeah. And and then you get into some like department specific AIs that are uh like I know police has this AI that I' I've talked about more than once that can help them write their their traffic reports and stuff.

The reason why we're really keying in and and I believe we should standardize on Cold Pilot, it's it's from a security reason. So say you're using chat GPT and you ingest data into whatever that is into chat GPT, you pretty much just made that data public, right? And so there's a hole there, right? That even though I understand it and you understand it, I don't think everybody understands and it's something I actually lose sleep over this piece of it. Sure.

Uh understands how easy it is to quote unquote leak data unknowingly out of your network. The other thing when you're using something like chat GPT, it doesn't see your internal data unless you ingest it into that engine where if you're using co-pilot for 365, it accesses all your internal data. It can look through Yeah, the closed workspaces is is critical for for that.

Yeah. And and it keeps it in your Microsoft tenant. It doesn't let that data leak out and and it follows Windows permissions. I I at a high level I'll leave it at it follows Windows permissions. So if if I open up co-pilot and I ask co-pilot a question, it's only able to access areas on the network, server, sharepoint, one drive, mail that I have access to already. I will be denied access to areas I So some people kind of get nervous thinking because it's it is powerful. I I've tested a few things like, hey, how is this employee doing? And I realized the places that co-pilot's looking at that I would never think of to go look at on it's almost snooping quite honestly when you when you get into it at that level. And so part of the the project of implementing this is looking at those that security before you ever deploy and trying to shore up your data to make sure there's less chance of that happening. if you not that you shouldn't have access to it but it's almost reviewing who has access to what and ensuring that the data is you know secure at that level because once you release something like an AI engine on it it's kind of fair game after that to to find that data. So from a security perspective to kind of guard the internal data, I'll agree with you. I use chat GPT personally. I I really like Chat GPT, but from a security perspective, I feel Cold Pilot is is especially if you're a 365 user already,

it's it's to me the best choice from a security perspective is where I guess that decision came from. And I know some of the other cities you support are on the Google system, Google suite. And I know we've talked over the years about, you know, when and if and and should consider migrating away from if if the departments aren't using the office suite tools. Um, you know, we could look at potentially down the road, but I I'm just curious on the the cities that are in the Google uh platform that are secure, right? Secured Google platforms, what your experience is with.

So, Richmond Heights are Google Workspace customers and um they use the Google Workspace features pretty heavily, the the meetings, the chat and and all of that. They use some people use Gemini a a little bit. They create agents, Gemini agents that like you could give it your um police. There's someone in police, his name's Shane Placeway. He does it and he puts like the general orders for police into this this agent and then for new officers or I guess even old officers that don't know they can go to this agent and ask this agent questions about their general orders and instead of having to find it or maybe you know go to whoever their supervisor is to find that information. Uh the one thing I will say about Google G Suite, it has became from a cost perspective the same cost as Office 365 at this point. Uh there that was not always true and that's probably a development since uh for whatever reason since the pandemic in 2020. But every year we have seen a price increase. And at this point, we're signing three-year agreements with G Suite actually to lock in that price because if we don't, the price goes up year after year. And it's it's on par with 365 as far as price point goes right now. U compared when you compare the two. And

just talking with with staff, the the point of contention always with going with Google over 365, it comes down to Excel, right? Nobody wants to get 100%. The finance department always wants Excel. Well, and I can tell you in Richmond Heights that our full Google Workspace, they have over half their staff, we pay for an office license. So just so they can have Excel still. So it's even elevates the cost even more when you do something like that. That's fair. Okay, great. Again, another benefit of having you uh see oversee several cities, bring those learnings to us. Anything else? No. Old woman code. Yes.

Um question about So we're upgrading video surveillance servers and we're adding more video surveillance with some of the work you do with the police. How are we looking as far as capacity on our storage service servers as well as any processing needs we have because of the increased use in video which I'm assuming is driving up file size storage.

Uh so our camera system it's a vigilon. they have their own uh video servers. They're not on like the servers that the file shares are on. And so when you buy uh an Avigilon video surveillance appliance, it includes, you know, so many terabytes of storage and once you hit that, the only way to increase it is to buy either a bigger one like swap it out or or add on. Um so which it's just something we monitor as time goes on. Uh, a lot of what you see here, there's no new cameras. It's just this the server that there there was two projects. There was one we did this year where we added a se a second server to Brentwood Park and that was because from when we first spec the server and cameras for that park in the planning phase, the cam we added more cameras after the fact and it made that server no longer capable of storing at least for a 30-day retention period all the video we needed. So, we budgeted and and added a second server this year so we could get our retention period back to 30 days. And then this one at city hall, uh yeah, this this one here at city hall, it's just replacing an aged uh surveillance server that the the version of is going to no longer be supported after this year.

So, it's an age issue more than a um capacity issue. Yes. Okay. Yeah, it really only becomes a capacity issue when you're adding cameras. Uh, and I'm I don't think I have any camera like additional cameras this year. Yeah, great. Thank you, Larry. All right. Thank you.

Okay. I think that takes us to planning and development and Whitney. Okay. So, good evening. So, I'll go over our accomplishments so far for the year and

then get into the uh revenue and expenditures that we're requesting. So from January to September, there were 1536 permits and 7,128 inspections. Of those, 915 were plan review services and 4,940 inspections on construction projects. Um the residential occupancy permits were 621 and um between January in September and uh 2,188 occupancy inspections. Code enforcement then provided an additional 694 inspections um for a total of on 282 code enforcement cases. And we have the continuation of the architectural design guidelines. Those were adopted. The residential were adopted on a August 13th. And we were working on the commercial side which we will send out I believe tomorrow that we're scheduling the open house for the commercial on October 14th at the recre at the community center. We also have pending before the board is the adoption of the 2024 codes. Um and those were presented at the public works committee at June, July and August. And we held numerous workshops with contractors and um the multif family developments in the area. Um there was 12 conditional use permits and site plan review and text amendments and a resoning request at the planning and zoning commission. There are 27 projects that were been reviewed at the architectural review board and 14 projects at the board of adjustment between January and September. Um, all of that included drafting and sending out approximately 78 different

public notice to meet the requ legal requirements. Um, we also presented text amendments at the public safety committee to address policies for the federal fair housing act and the Americans with Disability Act and for the dance studio. Um, that is a special review required by the code at the public safety committee and in the future we it's one of those things we want to change. Um, we also do uh work well with our police department and fire department and reviewing particularly the fire department reviewing fire systems and we've had nine flood plane permits and 12 block party permits that we also route to everyone. We've also had and reviewed 67 617 active business license for renewal and for uh of that 74 were new where I review those against the zoning code and we also coordinate with the fire department on the new ones for occupancy inspections because commercial requires fire occupancies. Um we coordinate with the um St. Louisis County on the community development block grants and we also implemented at the public works committee um the Lommo April which as part of the 2024 will become permanent as part of that code update. Um we also worked with Michelle Ber and the parks department Eric on the getting the designation of the bronze and working towards the silver. Um, Monday has a text amendment regarding the solar energy. So, that's coming up. And we've had issued the RFQ and entered in a new contract for grass and weeds abatement. And um, our assistant Jessica has

provided notary services for 27 residents. The department provides professional support to the board of alderman, the architectural review board, the planning and zoning commission, the site plan subcommittee, the public works, ways and means board of adjustment, the redevelopment corp, the economic development sales board, sales tax board, public safety on those two specific projects. And in 2026, with the adoption of the new codes, we would look to establish or reestablish the um board of appeals for building codes. The 2026 goals and objectives include providing superior development and applic um application processing and permitting and inspections continue with the development of the architectural guidelines and next year we would have text amendments along with that and continue making progress in the support and the long-term flood plane management and redevelopment goals of the Manchester Road corridor. Um the revenue highlights you can see here uh last year is or this year we're estimating 1.659. So we've pro proposed 1.675 for next year a slight increase. Building permits we kept at 250 as we've discussed. We are seeing a little bit of a slowdown right now just because of the tariffs and the cost of the um new materials. So, we wanted to be conservative and moving next year to see how that played out. Um, and most of the other things are kept in line with last year's budget with only a slight increase where at 1%. salaries were um I'm seeking for the

reclassification of the open code enforcement position and with the elimination of the part-time permit clerk that we have a senior a city planner position that would assist in the planning and review of projects um reviewing projects at at the architectural review board or proposing the text amendments so that it be staff review and doing those reviews and general zone phoning questions that from residents and applicants um on that I receive on a day-to-day basis. Um we did increase the legal fees from 1500 to 30,000,000 to 30,000 due to the ongoing code issues that we've been have and zoning um issues related to the projects before the board of adjustment and at the planning and zoning commission. engineering costs were lowered from 36,000 to 30 largely um that is due to that since we adopted the uniform code that eliminated the need for engineering on the resident side and therefore also on our side if they just meet the code requirement and generally um the miscellaneous contractual expenses was also lowered. We increased it this year to 125 from previous years that were at 100. Uh that was for the development of the architectural design guidelines. We're expecting that to end by the end of the year. So I've lowered it back down to a 100,000. And uh everything else was pretty much kept in line with this year's budget. That was from our city hall selfie day and it includes courts. So, that's not all of our staff, but if you have any questions. Yeah.

So, thank you. And um you might not believe it, but I don't have any questions. So, I'm going to see if any of my Oh, wow. So, neither does Alderman Gold. Alderwoman Goat. No, I have one small question because you kind of touched on it already in the legal expenses. So, it's the ongoing case for this year and then I noticed it stays at that higher $20,000 for the next two years. Is that just with all the anticipation? Yes. Um, we wanted to see we're seeing more of the legal expenses for this year. We wanted to see how that plays out. Moving upping it to 30,000 of if we don't see it go up that high, we can adjust it for the later years, but we just wanted to keep it consistent at this point.

Okay, that makes sense. Perfect. Thanks. Also, I do think your biggest win was those guidelines. Those are great.

You'll have to come for the commercial ones now. Okay, thanks Whitney. So now moving on to Bol Good evening. Um I am presenting a number of departmental reports uh budgets that aren't necessarily administration. Um I've taken the liberty of presenting for judicial. So, if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I've asked Chris to help me on that. Um, I'm also covering legislative, but the primary ones that I'm I'm going to focus on the most is administration, municipal operating expenses, and community services. We will be making these presentations available to the board of alderman. So if you all want to go back and review it as we're going through this process, you have the ability to do so. And I'm sure alderman Gould would be happy to hear that we have try to maintain consistency in in the design. So Michelle Ber has been very instrumental to helping us make sure we we do that. So starting off with administration um on this slide is the mission statement which is to provide leadership management, financial planning, information and policy implementation. basically to support the elected

officials in um implementing their vision and their goal for the city of Brentwood, making certain that we um are financial stewards of the money that has been entrusted onto us to help make informed decisions, making sure that we have a physically sound organization and follow generally accepted financial management principles. Um look for efficiencies. um embrace technology and continue to provide excellent um services to our residents. Um and then the the rest of that talks about risk and inventory management, tax licensing, acquisition management, and um economic development. Um the city administrator has a role in that and making sure that we continue to be a progressive community. Um that is known as the city of warmth. Next 13 items are the goals and objectives for the administration department. As you know the administration department consists of other sections within that there is finance, there's HR um there's um even though Eric is the primary lead on sustainability um it's still a section within administration. There's always communications as well. So those are the divisions within um administration. There are a lot of accomplishments and those are on pages 81 through 84. Um I just wanted to highlight the different things that um staff members have worked on throughout the year. Um, you know, I want to brag on the team, um, and overall brag on all all our staff members in in the city. They do an

awesome job, um, and and help make my life a little easier. So, I I am thankful for for all of them. Um, so starting with the expenditure overview, there are no new positions in administration. However, there has been a reclassification of the deputy city clerk um to the city clerk and we've talked about Octavia and how when I first started, Octavia was um my first deputy city clerk and we're happy to have her back and it's it's been tremendous because there hasn't been it's it's been flawless so far. So, thank you. Um, you know, Larry talked about how we want to embrace greater technology and AI and, you know, I I do meet with Larry monthly and he talks about things that other cities are considering. Um, and I know a number of us are using different AI subscriptions out there that we're personally paying for on our own. So the ability to secure our data I I think is is a worthwhile expenditure by using Microsoft C-Pilot. And you know we talked about this at the management team meeting and trying to make sure that there is true use for departments and we're not giving every staff member a subscription to this. It's just key personnel, maybe a department director, an assistant, um that we feel that they will truly use it and we will see dividends um as a result of that. Um salaries to some items that Eric mentioned, minor um 0.21 21 decrease in that. Um employee benefits that also is going down because of the comprehensive review that was undertaken to make sure that um we are truly

showing the um the plan level that each person has whether it's just individual coverage or family or spouse or dependent. So that that is going um down. where we're seeing increases is our professional staff and the membership that they have with the different professional organizations um and how that continues to benefit the city long term. So, we're seeing 44.28 increase. There's very little mileage reimbursement um that we're expending. It's just really our membership with all the different professional organizations and how that continues to benefit the city. Then we have miscellaneous contractual. Um I believe you all would agree as well that hiring the sales tax monitoring consultant is worthwhile expense for the city. Um they have truly assisted us in even discussions with St. Louis County from a couple of years back. Um and then the other things that we pay for out of this the comprehensive annual financial report, the government finance officers association and then we have um dues and subscriptions. Um and despite that we're seeing a decrease in that. But overall in administration we are seeing just a 1.7.8 reduction in total expenditures over the prior year. Larry talked about computers when they've reached the end of their useful life. So, there are some uh funds being allocated in um administration for the replacement of staff computers and printers. Next is community services and this is um a budget that's really overseen by Michelle Ber. Um so in here we have we talked about the pulse earlier. Um and it's been a ongoing discussion at the

communications committee. Um we talked with the city attorney Jim Hetlage. Um publications that legally we are required to continue to publish. We will continue to do those in the county and like public public notices um for the budget coming up. There's a public notice requirement that we will post. Um, but we're going to be very careful and not go as robust as we did with the polls. So, I expect that there will be some savings there. Um, but I think we'll be bringing back some information um to the communications committee now that we have a legal opinion on what we need to do, but that expense remains flat. Then we have all the other events um that we um undertake to engage with our public. the annual open house, the annual employee appreciation lunch, and the um seriously, wildly attended monthly coffee with the mayor. Um and and then ADA accommodations for public meetings when we do have them. Um the orderly residential paper shredding, um which our residents love, the quarterly electronics collection day. Um then sustainability initiatives. So this that's then the newsletter. Um we do see a 50% increase due to just general cost increase. Michelle reminds me that we've um I think we're scheduled to release she's working on the next publication coming out, but that has um become more robust than it used to look. So, um, kudos to to Michelle on that. Then miscellaneous contractual minor reduction in that, and I list everything that's covered in that. One significant project that that I want to mention that we're going to continue to undertake

next year is the comprehensive logo and branding development, and we've been working very closely with Alderman Gould and the communications committee to roll out that RFQ um, coming up here soon. Um, last item on there is the festival expense, the annual Brentwood days. Um, I asked Eric to help me understand why that cost um, went up a little and, uh, he gives the explanation that's on screen. Um, obviously we've had a change in the operations to the carnival rides and we've moved from a free model to charging for rides last year and that continued this year and even though that expenditure did increase, the revenues also increased because we're now charging. Um, and then we have all these inflation related expenditures over there. But overall there's an 18.8% increase in that line item. Under personnel, we have employee benefits and those items on the screen are are what is covered in there. Um, an increase of 6.13%. Um, no increase for retirement benefits, no increase in utilities, minor, very minor, slight increase under insurance, um, no increase in advertising or accounting, um, legal services, miscellaneous, contractual, but we are seeing um, an increase in repairs and maintenance for all our IT equipment. I know that um, thank goodness for the help desk that we have. We see a lot of our IT staff who come to city hall to to help us. Um there have been days where I can't um my my computer doesn't power up. Um it's it's not a time for celebration because that means I'll be working late. So they they have been very helpful um to

address that. Then we have training. Um no increase in the remainder of those line items that are showing up on the screen. Legislative is really the elected officials and the appointed um officials, the mayor and board of alderman whose pay is set um by ordinance and they're paid monthly. Planning and zoning, they're paid upon attendance of meetings. Same goes for board of adjustments. Um and then there's related benefits to their compensation and you know planning and zoning pay um fluctuates because either they there's a vacancy. They don't they don't attend the meetings um for whatever conflict or we don't have as many people as we did on on those committees. Um, then we have capital expenses, iPads for elected and appointed officials, and we're not looking to replace those anytime soon. Um, you all are taking good care of the ones that have been issued to you over the past several years. Then judicial. So, the Brentwood Municipal Division Court and Violations Bureau, they are committed to providing the independent administration of justice. Um this department is headed by the municipal judge. Um and then we have our court administrator Chris Schwarz and um Shantel and there's a list of all the goals and objectives for them and the accomplishments um meetings reporting deadlines whether it's annual bianual or monthly and maintaining their certifications for the two staff members there. no new positions. We're seeing a um 6.1 increase in salaries for full-time.

There is a part-time employee that assists them and I I believe that the 1300 will be restored back to that line item because I know I do see that individual on court dates. Um you're noticing that the employee benefits has decreased. um similar explanation um particularly I think when your child hits the age of 26 they roll off your health plan and I believe that's the situation here overall the department expenditure um we're seeing a 3.78% increase um there are dollars for replacement of scanners and computers um we don't expect them to reach the end of their usual life, but we just don't want to be caught flatfooted if they were to stop working. So, you might see that um money roll over into 27 if we don't have to use it in 26 questions. Great. Thank you, Bola. Again, I don't have any pressing questions. Uh older woman go.

Yes. Uh one small question on page 94 of the booklet. Um they uh there's a one time bump in um it's where you go in the bump in um up to 19k but then it drops back down. Is it like a one-time thing that we're bumping up that high? Um it's the trap the repairs. Yeah, because you said you needed more needs. I just wondered if that needed to be continued on. Will Yeah. We'll re-evaluate that during the next budget cycle. Okay. So, it's a place more of a placeholder. Exactly. Perfect. During this presentation, thank you.

Any more questions? Oh, okay. Alderman Gold. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

Um just a general um comment or question. I I love that you all have taken a a sharp pencil to figuring out whether benefits are being uh budgeted for appropriately. And I and I like that it's we're able to kind of see maybe some reduction in in those those expenses. Do we run a risk though if if um personnel changes and then they participate in benefits that we've you know put a a number on for that maybe that position. Is there or or when we've done that, have we factored in some percentage of fle flexibility in in that?

I'm I'm seeing a headshake. Okay. So, no risk.

Again, I applaud the the intent behind it. I just want to make sure that we're Yes, we did. We did um take into account the opportunity of some of the people changing in those positions and potentially acquiring a higher level. So there are some who would have had lower levels that we actually just built in for higher levels on the off chance of these types of fluctuations. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Anything else? Nope.

Great. Okay. Well, thanks to the we're we're through a chunk of the of the budget and more to come at the end of the month, but uh we're through a bit of it. And then as you're walking back to your seat, Bola, I think you're going to talk about this Blue Shield city grant agreement or or

Oh, okay. Um so at the last special meeting, board of alderman meeting, the police department um applied for a grant for radios. So in the budget there are funds to allow them to purchase radios, but they were awarded $50,000. I'm trying to pop uh bring up my laptop. Um they were awarded $50,000. So what they would like to do is to use that 50,000 to buy radios and keep what's in the budget to buy additional radios because then that gets them towards the total number of radios that they need to buy. So that will be another year or so before they fully buy all the radios that they need for the department. So the reason why we're putting it on this agenda is there needs to be a resolution that's approved by the board. Um and so we wanted you all to review it and then take it to the board on Monday so that we can sign um the agreement and accept the grant funds. Any questions for Bullet? Is there a motion to accept the uh 2026 Missouri Blue Shield Grant Award?

A motion? Second. All in favor? I. Uh any opposed? Motion passes. Uh and now this is our second opportunity for citizen comments. So, if anyone in the room or if there's anyone online who has a hand raised. I don't have anyone online. Okay, great. Well, uh, seeing no further business, this