City Council - workshop

It's 20 minutes. Good afternoon, everyone.

We're going to get started so we don't keep our council and employees here too late. Welcome. Once again, this is our third round of the budget talks. Thank you for our wonderful finance department that's been working very hard, doing their due diligence, trying to make sure that we get this squared away.

So with that, thank you, council, for being here.

tonight I know we've spent a lot of time together this week and with that we're gonna go ahead and turn over to Lynn and airports first I believe yeah before I turn it over to airport again going over I put a packet on your guys's front it's the same thing that we've been working on talking about with some changes in it from last week so I told you I would provide this to you every week so you guys were aware of it kind of see the changes that are happening and where we're going through, where cash balances are. As the departments are talking through, you'll have this in front of you, but the biggest changes that have occurred are going to be in general funds. Couple things got removed. The city chief operating officer, chief of staff position, that whole cost got removed. When I removed that, it reduces every other city's department budget because that's part of the cost allocation. So every budget got adjusted down. If you've not seen your email, I sent you an email about another position within finance. I did not want to discuss in a public meeting, but if you guys had questions about or wanted to move forward with, please let me know. That reduction is in here, but if you want me to change that around, I can. The other reduction that's in here is with working through with the chief, we moved the 12 firefighter positions from starting in April to starting in July. So that's three months of pay instead of six months of pay. So that has reduced fire's budget significantly in those numbers. So those are the big three changes. There was a little bit of an increase, like fire offset with the reduction of changing, but then we've kind of, finalized, I want to say finalized the pay on negotiations, not final, final, but come up with, I think, an agreeable amount. I don't want to speak for the union or get ahead of them, but that is recognized in this budget where we've been kind of up in the air a little bit. So that is now recognized in this budget of what they are asking for. So we saw a reduction, but also an increase. So it is still a reduction overall. So those are the big changes in general fund. And then, like I said, when we remove something from the admin allocation, we reduce that amount down. It impacts every single budget. So all other budgets have been reduced down as well. So I'd be happy to answer any questions, but just wanted to give you guys that update.

New position list that we had three meetings ago to a list that seems incredibly pared down and

That has fewer firefighters and some police officers including IT. Is that today's meeting or is that so?

So the first list I gave you I have removed this. So the firefighters are still on there. I've added two police officers to the budget, too. I forgot to tell you that. You guys requested that. That is now in the budget as well, two police officer positions. But the city chief of staff position was removed. So I have not added any positions for IT. There's not a position for IT on there. Are you looking? So when I gave you a spreadsheet, I gave you one that was approved in the budget, and I gave you one that was requested but not approved.

This could be.

are you looking at the one that was requested not approved it's not titled i'm going to assume it's requested yeah so in this budget since you guys did talk about adding two police officer positions that is now in this budget reflected in the police number so that's why the police number did go up a little bit so two police officers were added so And I can get you, I apologize for not getting that out. I can get you a full updated list of the number of positions that are in there and what's available. I did send it out to you guys earlier. It included 24s requested, 25s requested, 26 requested, and 27. So that 27 is fully up to date with what is in the budget. But I can get that to you guys again. That is all I have. So I'll turn it over to Scott to kind of start off with airport.

Awesome.

All right. Um, Good afternoon. Scott Swanson, Director of Aviation for the City of Caldwell. This will be fairly brief, moving from a staff of four to a staff of three next year. Overview slide right here, we have our mission and vision statements, and these were developed through the strategic planning process last year with the airport board. It really carries some weight as far as elevating the general aviation activity. for regional economic benefit. Also along with this is the airport as a whole. Colorado Executive Airport is here to provide the citizens and local area with economic, emergency, and logistical service potential. And while serving as that critical infrastructure in the area as far as being the largest GA airport not only in the state but in the nation without a tower at this point, Lots of things go beyond private flying with all the other impacts that come into the airport and out of. Key accomplishments for fiscal year 26. So the airport is able to secure a $2 million federal no-match grant, and that will be directly toward engineering and design of an air traffic control tower. And that process will be an internal RFP process looking for an architect and going through that planning. And then at the end of it, probably a 14 to 18 month process, have engineering and designs packet ready to go to submit to a firm to bid on construction over the next few years. We also accomplished a strategic plan for the airport. And that was in conjunction with the board and runs on a three-year planning horizon. And we are trying as much as possible to meet those goals established within that plan. For a budget summary, and this is fiscal year 26, total department budgets, you can see personnel is 472, operating is 476, and then capital is $100,000. And most of this operating money comes out of lease revenues, fuel flow, and property tax. And then this year's construction project under the airport improvement program being 43 and 44. is a $729,000 rehab to Taxiway Charlie. That'll run over two phases in August, September, October. And the cost to the city on that's $18,000, the rest of it's federal money. Challenges right now and moving forward on the airport, I think, as everyone knows at this point, is going to be electrical service, especially within the 200 and 300 hangar areas. And we're really going to get creative on how we're going to accomplish that with really a minimal amount of money available to expend on it. I also want to start looking at leasing policy adjustments. And this would be the overall leasing policy in general on the airport. This is not anything oriented directly at rates or anything of that nature. I did have an increase on leasing rates this year, but it was about 1.2%, really just to make a 44%. So it was 44.4 cents. It's going to become 45 cents and it was 33.6 cents for the inside. That'd be 34 cents. So really just zeroing out those numbers and just make future planning a little bit easier for myself and other staff at the airport. Another challenge is developable area. We do have about 87 acres on that north side, especially going back towards Ustick on the airport. However, none of it is shovel ready whatsoever to put buildings onto. And with costs increase and just developer ask coming forward and what's expected due to costs is trying to figure out how to get a project or multiple projects done in that area at minimal cost to the city. And then focusing on like hangar turnover, what's attracting people to the airport and what's the benefit of people coming into the airport, not only for the city, but for the users of the airport as well. Moving into FY27, I do want to explain a few things here. So a total requested budget at $2.8 million. Caveat is $2 million of that, as you can see in the lower right, is the capital. That is the grant, that's NOMADGE grant from the federal government for the tower. Changes from the previous year is an increase of 1.8. That's because of that grant. Major cost drivers and what I saw during my planning is a lot of internal city service costs and utility costs mainly with increases in MS4, irrigation fees, water, and electric are really increasing fast. PERSONNEL CHANGES I MENTIONED, WE'RE GOING TO BE A STAFF OF THREE NEXT YEAR. THAT'S GOING TO BE A REDUCTION OF $135,000. AND THEN OPERATIONAL INCREASE OF $39,000 FOR A TOTAL OPERATING COST OF 505,835. YOU CAN SEE THAT THERE. SO WE HAVE A DROP AND THEN AN INCREASE. AND THEN CAPITAL PROJECTS FOR NEXT YEAR. Starting this fall is going to be getting out and finding an architect to get the design and engineering done on that control tower so we can move forward with that project. I have a recap. So FY26 operating costs for the airport was just over a million dollars. FY27 costs is $2.8 million. However, if we do the reduction minus the grants, overall we're $195,000 less in operating costs and personnel than we were for this year. So from 26 to 27. And then also on top of that, um, with this is right now on leases, I'm expecting right around three hundred and forty five thousand dollars of lease revenue coming in. Uh, planned, uh, what I've not added in there is there'll be a ten K increase in lease revenue from hacker lease changeovers between now and December of this year. And then also property tax was a reduction of about 100 K. So 260,000 dollars in property tax, and then 12 to 15,000 dollars in fuel flow fees are expected over the next year. What all that does together is about 620,000 dollars. So what we can say right now is that the airport is generating enough money to operate. Now we're going to start focusing on getting the airport covered as personnel costs of the employees on the airport and really get out of the taxpayer bucket and get that airport paying for itself over the next four or five years. Also with that, I know when I started in 23, a lot of the talk was like there's no more area left to build on the airport. However, since August of 23 to now, there's 31 new hangars under construction. or completed and moving into this next calendar year of 2027, I expect 25 more hangers on the tax rolls for the airport to really push that property tax number up and gain some revenue that way for the city. I have no specific ask for projects outside of absolutely what is necessary. And yeah, I mean, very minimal budget is what we're looking for. And being over operating costs, I think, is a pretty good achievement so far for the department. And that is my brief and I am available for questions.

Council. Thank you.

I just want to add to what Scott said. First of all, in the electrical, because of the sins of the past of the city that we didn't do anything about it. Idaho power could shut us off anytime. Just like that. We've been fortunate that they've kind of turned the other cheek to us, and we are trying to get that fixed. That's an important part of our projects out there. And then the other thing, it seems as soon as we get hangers built, they're leased out, which is a good thing for the taxpayers. And number three, if we do accept the Brooks project, the airport's going to really play a big part in all the jet

supply them whether it's fuel or the restaurant that's going in we had some good reports today on the restaurant too and its progress so that's all important stuff for the airport and the city yeah thank you for that and we do appreciate the work you've been doing on the electrical project obviously there's a lot of depth and nuances to that but that is a huge improvement um counselor so a couple of things the two million is we have to match we do not know

That is a no match grant. So essentially what the FAA did with that is because it's an engineering and design grant 1, there's no match required on it. Um, as far as through fiscal year 26, there's no matches on the federal grants within aviation. But also they're allocating it as its own separate project. So normally on an FAA grant, you have to have a completed project within 36 months. The completed project on that grant will be the design and engineering documents themselves. And so once we roll into the tower and compete for the next grant and get that money, that expectation will be within 36 months of that award, you will have an operational control tower. So it's a little bit out of the norm for them, but it's a great show of faith from the federal side as far as getting us that control tower. And it's a step in the right direction.

What's your forecast? Because I know it's political at the FAA. It's all deals on who's in office, what's going on. What's your forecast of being able to get a grant for the FAA?

So I would say. I know you had questioned that before. That's why I asked. So I'd say 85 to 90% positive right now. So at the federal level, a lot of the committees have been in discussion about extension of the federal contract program. through the next few years with a beefed up surplus of money. Before it was $25 million a year. Now they're allocating this year $260 million to it. And those committees are going to be asking for upwards of over $300 million a year over the next few years within that contract tower program.

So I guess it's a behooves us to get the engineering done as fast as possible to get into that.

Yes, absolutely. Because that's not only is the expectation from the FAA to get it done, but to have it ready to go for whenever at what point money is available. But I, you know, I'd say best case scenario is we're able to contract with an architecture firm this fall. And then we would probably have completed plans by the end of 27, early 28, and then be able to put in for the actual tower construction spring of 28 with an expectation of late 28, early 29, starting vertical construction.

Then the only thing I would request or ask is that you do an RFQ. because we've already had problems with contracts that have come up that have not been qualified. People, I'd rather get with a spin, maybe even just a little bit more, especially since it's a federal grant. And let's make sure that we have a qualified contract. architect firm that's going to do this and do it right so that we can get through it.

Yeah, my recommendation on that, and I spoke with the board slightly about it today, would be a RFQ or RFP-ish nationally, 30 to 45 days to really get the best product we can to come into the airport here.

One other thing, too, Mr. Mayor, and my match is that we determined, too, that we don't have to build a federal cookie cutter type of tower, which anything comes down from the feds, it usually costs us more money. We can kind of do our own thing, so that's going to save us money. Yes. And Scott, you might just explain to everybody this split up on roughly the cost of the tower and who pays for what on that. I think that would be interesting.

Yeah, so the last estimates on the federal side is, and of course this was also with the federal PAU tower design, which was a green energy system tower, like geothermal and all the whiz banks that go on it for solar and everything. It's about $25 million. So say if it was $25 million, we can deduct $2 million for the engineering and planning. So you have 23. So worst case scenario on that, we'd be looking at a $2.3 million match trying to be split between us and the state. I think we can probably cut off another $4 to $5 million on design in general, moving away from what was required to what's not required now, really getting it down to about that $20 million mark. And then, you know, my goal is to put our match at no more than $2 million between us and the state. That's kind of what I've been saying since I jumped into this program and allocated everything out is $2 million I feel should be the max of any match for anything to build the tower. And so I know talking with finance over the years, that money's been kind of allocated and tucked away for that project. It really just depends when it's going to fall out and when we're going to be able to apply it. But I absolutely agree with Councilor Tillemont as far as national RFQ, really going out and finding the best person for the job. Because whoever builds this tower, you have to remember that tower is going to be here for the rest of all of our lives. So we want to make sure it's the best product available and really cut down on annual maintenance costs. But I expect, worst case scenario, I would expect probably a 1% match from the state and a 9% match from the city, just because of the lack of funding the state gets on the federal side for aviation.

We're going to prep, obviously, once again, letters of support for the next round of that grant when that comes up. So federal, state, any local, I would reach out to all of you two for a combined letter of support so we can come out swinging for that.

Yeah, we

and get their help too so absolutely yeah we got the uh letter from uh senators uh rish and crapo and all the uh all the big hitters up there that were available their signature is on a letter that went to sean duffy at the department of transportation for caldwell so moving in the right direction we'll just continue doing our best to ensure we get the best product

I'd like to ask.

What'd you just say?

In putting that tower in, will that demand the closing of Linden sooner, or will that not have a bearing on us? I know.

It would demand it sooner. With the tower, what you're going to open up is through a lot of business charters that require controlled airspace to go into the airports they do. With that, you get larger aircraft. And, you know, without really getting into the meat and potatoes, the airport we have in Caldwell is designed at a category of a Bravo 2. And that just goes into weight requirements and wing size and airplane size. With the tower, I would expect to see more Bravo three and Charlie level aircraft. So, you know, large Gulf streams and that type of aircraft. And once an airport hits 250 operations a year with those aircraft. they start to mandate safety area changes. So right now, we have a 300-foot safety area off the end of each runway. And that is for people to do rollouts on aborted takeoffs or rollouts on extended landings for whatever reason. With multiple operations from a larger category aircraft, the FAA will mandate that that safety area extends to 1,000 feet. And with that, they'll mandate that Linden closes, regardless of a runway extension or not. just for the safety aspect.

I think timeline right now, a tower, I would expect probably a two-year construction timeframe.

So starting mid-28, late 28, would be probably around 2030, 31, would be the earliest I would expect to see a mandated Linden closure. You know, I think for us, the best opportunity we could have is really engage with the public early and often to really get that out there. Like, yeah, it's going to happen at some point in the future. It's just really, you know, who do you want to control at the federal level or at the municipal government level? But I think, yes, Councillor Williams, it will happen quickly. And I would, yeah. Okay.

No, thank you.

Yes, sir. Sorry.

Scott, you made a comment there that just reminded me of something. You said control at the federal level versus control at the local level. And that's a broad spectrum of everything. So once this tower is built, who staffs that tower, the federal level or the local level?

So the federal level will staff the tower with the actual controllers, usually about three of them. The city will be responsible for the utilities and maintenance of the tower. The last cost on that was expected at $160,000 to $180,000 a year just for upkeep. Staffing is federal. And that's kind of the nicety of the program being developed for that, because most smaller municipalities do not have the funding to pay $600,000 to three people that work in a part-time control tower. So, yes. Thank you.

Just for the council, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't there some folks showing interest in bringing in larger planes, larger hangars? Mm-hmm.

There is, yes. Working with one individual right now who wants to build a 200 foot by 200 foot hanger. And myself and JUB engineering, we're kind of working on where that would go to not really ruin the development of a lot of the other areas. But he owns a personal Gulfstream 5, which it's like just over 100 foot wingspan. And there's a few other individuals that have very large planes that they want to get out of Boise just due to congestion and traffic. And then that goes back into meeting our obligations as that reliever airport to give the non-commercial traffic individuals a place to go to free not only Boise up, but then increase revenue potential between fuel flows and secondary spending within Caldwell.

Talking to the contractors today that built the hangers, it seems like as soon as we get one built, it's sold.

Yes.

They're selling fast. It's a problem to have. Expensive. Expensive, too. Yeah. Every size one is about $350,000, but you go up to Coeur d'Alene, it's, what, double that?

Yeah, so 50 by 50 here is about $350,000 to $400,000. And then Coral Lane, you're looking at 1.2. So, yes.

All right, anything else from council?

I just want to add one thing that Scott didn't talk about that we'll go over next week is we did allocate about $100,000 in the capital fund for airport projects. We recognize that the electricity is a project that's ongoing. And so there is funding set aside in the capital fund for that. But that presentation is not till next week.

Thank you. Yes, sir. We're going to go to the library. By the way, we went by the library today. We had a and there was a lot of hustle and bustle going on at the library, so programs.

What did you say?

Can you do it over again?

Oh, I know. Then we've got to harass her just for leaving. Thank God her hearing aid didn't come up.

She's ignoring me. I was like, be thankful her hearing aids are turned down or she'd be.

That does happen.

I would say we need to harass you all weekend before you leave. That's why I said, what'd you say?

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you a bit about the library. and share some of our goals, budget goals specific to FY27. Just quickly, I passed out a few packets to you. The first one is just gonna mirror the slides that you'll see on the screen. The second includes a few reports that you may have already seen. The first one is going to be revenues for FY27. The second, proposed expenditures for FY27. And then finally, you will see a document just included FY27 budget goals. As we were looking to prepare the budget in March, we took some time to look at how Caldwell kind of measures up, if you will, to some of our partner libraries in the Valley in terms of staffing, square footage, budget, things like that. So first we will begin just quickly with our mission statement. The Caldwell Public Library provides services and information to connect, enrich, and inspire our community. We obviously, as you're aware, do a variety of things in terms of program, resources that we provide, access to information, support lifelong learning, provide safe community spaces. So it's really our goal and our pleasure to support Caldwell residents. And then next, I just wanted to touch on this briefly as I will be speaking more to a position that's required in our adult services area. So I just wanted to give a quick rundown of our staff, our current staff. So we have 19 full-time staff and then one part-time staff that assists with youth programming. Additionally, we have a few support staff, seasonal staff that assist in summer during our busier months. So we'll just go from left to right quickly. We have one staff member, Selena, who does our marketing. We have three full-time staff in outreach services, so they're going out in the community, care centers, daycares, things like that, to deliver services outside of the building, essentially. Adult services, we'll talk about this more specifically, but currently there are two full-time positions in that department. Technical services, we have two Folks there that assist with materials processing, records management, technology services. Two gentlemen there that provide support in terms of software, hardware related to public and staff computers. And then circulation, we have five employees there. Answer a lot of questions about accounts, library cards. It's usually the first beginning start when you go into the library. You're going to be asking one of those folks to help you. And then youth services. We have three full-time staff there, as well as a part-time staff member. Fantastic staff. I go on and on about them and all of their accomplishments and the work that they do. But I will, in the interest of time, move on to the budget. So we'll get to that. All right, so I just wanted to start with kind of thinking about revenue opportunities for public libraries. They tend to be few and far between. Our services are free and open to the public, so there's not a lot in terms of investing staff time in getting some of those revenues. There's just not a lot of opportunity there. We do, of course, in terms of printing, copying services, if you lose materials, things like that, there is charges. There will be charges there, but that's more about cost recovery. Non-resident cards, we do charge for those as well. But one avenue we would like to pursue is passport services. This will be new for FY27. We have spoke with a few libraries, spoken with a few libraries, Mountain Home Public Library and specific Kino Library District. They have offered passport services through their library since 2019 and have averaged about $100,000 a year in revenue that they've generated there. So I think that is a good opportunity for us to try when we're looking forward to implementing an FY27. Just a few specifics there. Again, we plan to start offering it by appointment, hopefully in the fall of 26. We have the advantage of being open a little bit later in the evenings and also weekend hours we're going as we can during that time period. Again, they would be only by appointment. I think that there is a need, which is fantastic, but I think it could get out of hand very quickly in terms of the amount that we're able to take on. So just trying to be mindful of that. And then the fee, the execution fee for that would be $35, which is similar to the same, rather, to what the county offers, as well as some of the libraries in the area. So that is a new revenue that I wanted to share a little bit about for FY27. I will then move on to our proposed expenditures, and that report will start on the second page of that second packet that I handed out there. So for our proposed expenditures, we do see an increase of $251,818 over FY26. So considering that, we want to obviously look at why. Of course, where is that coming from? Is there anything that we can do to decrease that number? And the, I just wanted to touch the second, or I'm sorry, the first column on the left is going to be where the bulk of that 251,000 plus comes from in terms of the increase for FY26. The largest one is going to be the addition of the adult services position, which I'll speak to that a bit more in a moment. And then the remaining, of course, health insurance, that increases every year. Admin, attorney services, parks and maintenance services, those cost allocations have increased as well. So that's going to be the bulk of that increase for FY27. Over to the right are the items we have a bit, some of them we have a bit more control over, but they will increase or proposed increase for FY27. So I just wanted to touch on that. Software and computers, we have a $5,000 increase, I believe, for FY27 that we simply tried to keep up on replacement and maintenance of computers for public for the most part so we don't have to do that all at once we try to space that out year to year and there's a slight increase to outreach programs water sewer trash electricity not really negotiable there but those tend to go up every year I wanted to touch on travel and meeting There is an increase in that budget by $3,500. However, we historically and present have focused on receiving grant funding for any programs conferences, rather, that staff can attend through the Idaho Commission for Libraries. They administer those grants. So that's where the large majority of those funds come from. And what we have done this year is reflected those in the budget now rather than doing an adjustment or amendment as we have done historically when we've gone over. So it is an increase, but it's not an increase of more than we've typically spent. So I just wanted to note that. And then grants, gifts, and endowments. We are incredibly fortunate throughout the years to see an increase in support from our Friends of the Library organization, as well as different community organizations, civic groups, things like that. And so we're obviously going to be spending more as we're receiving more of those donations and gifts. And then just finally, the library collection, you will see a shift from the teen book collection materials budget to the youth services materials budget. And we're just doing for this year the children's nonfiction. It's a pretty significant refresh, so just a shift there. So I would also like to chat about the request for the adult services position. But before I do that, is there perhaps pause for questions for anything related to the expenditures or revenues that I mentioned?

Mr. Mayor? Yes. Just a couple questions on passport issues, just because I know that CUNA is... and Canyon County courthouses or areas where they can actually get it done. So it's more beneficial. We're right across the street.

We have before, yes, to your point. Before we chatted, or pursued this rather, we did connect with the county to see what their thoughts were. They have a high demand for appointments, so they didn't have any concerns that we would be taking business from them or that we wouldn't see any interest. So there is a high demand for those appointments.

My only other question is I do know that passport is a little different than most. So it tends to be more somebody who's more specialized. Yes. Will we be looking at a position down the road for that?

I think there is potential. I'm currently no myself and three other staff members are in the process of completing the training. And so we can go through that and then be audited and begin the process of issuing or assisting with the passports. CUNA I believe two years ago did hire someone part time to solely do passports because of the revenue that they're generating. So currently, no. That's why we're going to keep it very limited, just with what we can manage between the first round of three of us that will be trained.

So the hope is if it is needed, it would be revenue neutral.

That would be, yes, wonderful. If that were the case, yeah. Lacey, can I add something? Sure. Also, if you also come on, very wonderful evening and weekend services. Oh, no, no, there's an advantage to it.

I just know that from my travels and knowing what it takes to get them, that I've had to get most of my life, it's not as easy and it does take somebody who is trained and specialized.

And then I will move into the adult services assistance. just wanted to mention a few things about that. So the request this year is for a full-time adult services assistant. We had hoped to include this in our budget last year, but that was not attainable. So I'm back again, sharing a bit more information about that with you. Just a little background on the roles and the responsibilities. and departments. Currently, we do have, as I mentioned, two staff members that are full-time that work in adult services. A large part of their duties are staffing the information desk. We are open 62 hours a week seven days a week with the exception of a couple months in the summer. And the reference desk, including the circulation desk, those two desks need to be staffed no matter what. So a bulk of their time goes to making sure that is covered. That being said, the list of responsibilities below that that I'll talk about in a minute, the increase in demand for the adult services staff members' time dedicated to the remaining responsibilities there are kind of eating into what they would typically have available to cover the reference desk. So we're having to pull from outreach or youth services and some other areas to assist with coverage there. And then I'll just highlight a few of these other responsibilities. They do also assist with the adult programs, book clubs, technology labs, things like that, interlibrary loan, collection development, purchasing, weeding, in-depth, time-sensitive research questions. I did want to add here, I'm sure you're familiar with our Idaho room, but we do have within that collection many resources that are specific to Caldwell and Idaho. We've been working to get those digitized and cataloged. to dedicate a lot of meaningful time to those projects because we're spending more time on the immediate needs of those in front of us. They also assist with 3D printing and then administrative and community special projects. Caldwell Public Library does not have an admin, an administrative assistant, so a lot of those responsibilities that you would see typically associated with that position are kind of separated out and assisting with that and then one other item I skipped there the one-on-one technology tutoring sessions I know there is perhaps in some instances the thought that everyone has a computer everyone has internet everyone knows how to you know tell what is good information from bad what's a scam what's not but that is definitely not the case and it's fantastic of questions, but those are going to be more time intensive. It's not something you can just answer in a few seconds or automate in any way. So with the increase in demand for support, they're spending more time on those tasks as well. And this is just informational as well. services area for FY 26 obviously we haven't completed FY 26 so that's going to be an estimate there based on what we've seen but you'll see in the last few years there has been an increase in attendance and demand for events as well and then finally with all of the other of areas of service within the library we are seeing increases there an increase to visitors circulation transactions reference transactions patrons coming as a whole not just adults but youth as well and an increased need for computer assistance and wireless session computer yeah needs and assistance there in those areas Concludes the specific budget highlights changes that I wanted to talk with you about for FY 27, but I would be happy to answer any questions if you have those Lacey do we have any collections program at all? We do that in-house so we don't charge for overdue items so if they're going to be you know two days late we don't have any fee associated with that and But if it goes, I believe it is a month, and it's not returned, then we bill for the replacement of the item and the processing, the staff time associated with whatever that is.

Is that a big problem, though, you think?

No. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Libraries, please be able to focus on the question.

With the attorneys fees because of the allocation In the addition of the person paralegal that's really what caused that to go up there was turning fees or the attorney is really Level other than that new position and that gets allocated based off the same percentage which that allocation method I can tell you what it is.

I mean they don't So far this year going from 3,000 to 30,000.

Yeah, I did some adjustments. And so, Lacey, did you pull these numbers this morning or yesterday? This morning. So I was doing some adjustments. I can look at that allocation and make sure it's accurate and review it again if you'd like me to.

There's not a...

great way like to is based off of projects that just come to the attorneys. It's kind of based off of ours and it's not, and we only had about a half a year's data to really go off of. So some of that I will say is not the perfect allocation. I'll have to look at it and see if I can find something better that might be a more appropriate allocation to look at. So.

And then one more question. You know, sorry, Councillor Tillman, I just wanted to bug you for a minute. Our discussion was we're still trying to get with the senior center on a multiple building.

Right.

Have not had much luck talking to them yet. Has there been conversation from their board about accommodations with the library?

At this point, I don't think. that is on their radar yet. Just because it's so much bigger than where they're at, I can discuss it with them and find out where they're at, what they'd like to do. Because I do know that I was going to ask the question, you had Cush and Terrell designing or working on that come through yet?

with you as well, but it's a vision and needs assessment. So kind of looking at how folks utilize their library and then projecting what perhaps an appropriate facility size would be for the future.

And that's where I would be, I would like to take something like that to the board and go, okay, this is what they're looking at. Where are you guys at? What would you like to do?

They have put together a phased approach, not a build a big mansion all at once kind of thing. It's kind of a phased approach. And it's But kind of one of the dragging things is getting the senior senator involved.

I'll talk to them and see if they would give with Lacey and work on it. Because, yeah, I know that there was talk about jumping the alleyway and combining.

And I don't think this contemplates that.

This is just specific to the library at this point.

But, yeah, they did a whole presentation last month.

I've got a question that somebody can answer. So, just for the record, the library owns part of the senior senior uses building. I'm sorry, could you library own the part of the building that the senior center uses? Just the fact that they're next to each other now is the reason why this discussion about putting them together They they lease it from us for a dollar a year If I may yes speak to that because they have

facility needs that need to be addressed as well. We don't want to neglect that conversation and perhaps there is an opportunity where it would be more advantageous to combine in some fashion into one rather than two.

Not to mention if we do away with that alley we could gain some significant square footage on the overall layout of it both. Anything else? Five-minute break, but we change out for fire. I thought we were done. Yeah, aren't we going home?

I was like, let's get out of here. Everyone got jokes at home. Yeah, no, because I missed her last one.

final session tonight be our wonderful fire department chief daniels thank you all welcome and cobalt fire department thank you they're in the family we do this we do this stuff together um thank you mayor and council uh before you is is a basically a forward-facing document that uh we not only provide our city our council and our mayor but we provide Partner agencies or the other cities that would provide fire services to those are noticing green leaf We are their fire department as well. So we make sure that they also know What we're budgeting for and what our plans are That being said this was printed on Monday morning on Monday afternoon Ray Lynn and I met with the mayor and had a strategy session over budget so numbers shifted and Tuesday morning, I sent you an email which contained this spreadsheet, if that looks familiar. It's contained in your book. And Tuesday afternoon, those numbers changed again. Following on Ray Lynn's words earlier about moving personnel or delaying hiring rather than funding new firefighters at six months, we did move that to three months and realized some savings. ON THE FORM, THE SPREADSHEET CONTAINED IN YOUR BUDGET PRESENTATION, THERE'S THREE YELLOW BOXES ON THE FRONT EXCEL SPREADSHEET. THOSE ARE VARIABLE. THOSE WILL CHANGE. I DID NOT BACK OUT EXPENSES FOR HEALTH INSURANCE, WORKERS COMP AND PERSI. THOSE ARE STILL FULLY LOADED WITH SIX MONTHS WORTH OF COSTS FOR THOSE NEW EMPLOYEES. SO I ANTICIPATE THESE NUMBERS WILL CONTINUE TO CHANGE. And I want to reiterate the requests that you're going to hear today have not. So jumping into it, thank you. Our organizational chart in your budget handout just represents our full staff. I want to comment really quickly on where we're at with staffing. We do anticipate about three to four retirements to occur. throughout the remainder of this fiscal year with another couple expected in the next fiscal year and what that means for us as an organization is we have to promote people there are delays with onboarding there are vacancies and with vacancies come overtime expenses in addition to the 12 personnel that we may be hiring in addition to the rural districts potentially asking us to staff the notice fire station with three additional personnel So we are a big moving target. And I know that target is representative of dollar signs. So we're very cognizant of that. That all being said, we do anticipate a number of vacancies over the next couple of years. And we do have a number of people that are out on protected leave, FMLA, paid parental leave, workers comp. And all of those require backfill and increasing personnel demands. Some of our accomplishments following through, we did hire nine new firefighters last year and we held our first in-house fire academy for Caldwell Fire by Caldwell Fire. It was 16 weeks long. Those personnel, as you heard from I think our update earlier this year, they're doing great. We did start our ALS or our paramedic services. program. We're still not there, but I anticipate by the end of the fiscal year we'll be up and running. New Engine 13 and Squad 13 are in service and providing services to the city and the rural district. We completed our strategic plan, our standards of cover, our station location analysis, and that was presented to you from ESCI a few weeks ago. Land's been secured for Station 4. TRAINING GROUND IMPROVEMENTS ARE ONGOING. AND WE STOOD UP OR REACTIVATED OUR HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TEAM, WHICH WAS A DOWNGRADE FROM A TYPE 2 TO A TYPE 4 TEAM. ON THE NEXT PAGE, JUST A CURRENT SNAPSHOT OF WHERE WE'RE AT. FOUR STATIONS, THREE CITY, ONE RURAL. THERE'S NO REPRESENTATIVE OR REPRESENTATION OF STATION 4 IN THIS YEAR'S BUDGET WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE EXTRA PERSONNEL. We have a total on-duty firefighting force of 23 personnel assigned to shifts per day with 69 total. The annual call volume is creeping around 9,200, where we anticipate 10,000 next year. Population served with the city and the rural district, that rural space is about 85,000 plus. And our ISRB or our ISO rating, this is the rating that determines a homeowner or property owner's fire insurance rating. And it's a three ours is a three one is the best nine is not the best. There's a bunch of variables that go into that score staffing is a large part of it water systems communications fire flow fire hydrant locations are the other major components. Some of our growth drivers have not changed from last year. The exception of our strategic analysis was completed, and ESCI and our industry experts recommended increasing staffing. We'll touch on that in a little bit, but I'll get into the heart of the presentation. I'm sorry I didn't stay in line there with what I was saying, but here we are in the budget. again figures in front of you printed are different than what's on the screen I apologize for that and I believe they're probably they probably changed since yesterday morning when I finished this up so that all being said our total operating budget for the entire fire department with personnel fire admin operations is about sixteen point eight million dollars and that includes The prevention side of the shop, our capital requests this year are up about 200,000 dollars to 2Million and those do include. The purchase of a new fire engine for station for the upfitting of that and some capital requests contained on the spreadsheet that I was, I mentioned earlier. Station bond was recalculated, which I was appreciative of because the math wasn't working for me initially, but we anticipate. The good news is, we anticipate spending down or being under budget of that 20Million dollar guaranteed maximum price for the bond dollars or for for station 1 station 4 and headquarters being being built. So our station bond dollars, the budgeted amount is 16,500,000. And then breaking out prevention personnel and prevention operations. It's a unique division within the fire department. The prevention division is funded through fees generated from BUILDERS, BUILDING APPLICATIONS, ET CETERA. THEY ARE NOT FUNDED THROUGH PROPERTY TAXES RIGHT NOW. SO I JUST WANTED TO BREAK THAT OUT BECAUSE AS YOU HEAR IN LATER BUDGET PRESENTATIONS, WE ARE PROPOSED TO INCREASE THOSE FEES TO BETTER OFFSET THOSE PERSONNEL AND OPERATING EXPENSES FOR THE PREVENTION DIVISION. AND JUST RUNNING DOWN, IF YOU TAKE NOTE OF YOUR SPREADSHEET, IS THERE A QUESTION? If you take note of your spreadsheet, our personnel requests did go down from 1.74 million. We reduced that by about $335,000 by delaying those personnel onboarding by a few months. We do have the citywide COLA or CLA increases anticipated as Raelynn mentioned earlier. We are still in active negotiations with our firefighters union. They are the only bargaining unit within the city, which they are. We as a city have to recognize the firefighters right to collectively bargain. And we do have a pretty substantial overtime increase. I anticipate our overtime dollars going over budget this year by at least $100,000. That's this current fiscal year. And there's some costs that we can discuss. There's some strategy that we can talk about, or we can just talk about how it happened. We have a very generous paid parental leave program. And with a young fire department, we have people building families. And 12 weeks off is about 20% of the year. And we still have to put somebody in that seat on that fire engine. And that costs overtime. while still honoring vacation leave or training events, et cetera. And so we can anticipate a high use of paid parental leave as a benefit to our personnel. We also, as I mentioned earlier, we have a number of retirements coming. And it's unfortunate that we don't have All of the personnel in place for a good succession plan. I'll give you an example today. We just wrapped up captain's testing. We anticipate 9 vacancies in the captain's ranks. In the next year, we may only have 3 personnel ready for that. So, we are working hard to get our personnel ready. But the time it takes to onboard somebody. To fill them in the seat to train them to get them equipped and outfitted. That's all delays, which are all filled with overtime when that position is not not. Not filled following down operations increased about 526,000 dollars. We did realize pretty high increases in materials and fuel. And those are accounted for in this year's budget. Our capital requests are about $198,000 over what they were last year. Those are highlighted in the Excel spreadsheet. They include some SCBA replacements, Station 2 and Station 1 extractors, which are washing machines, basically, for firefighting turnouts. They get the carcinogens and the bad stuff out of our firefighters' ensembles. a turnout gear dryer, some advancements or some extra equipment that is timed out for the technical rescue trailer, some portable and mobile radios, which are not cheap, about $10,000 each, which are end of life, and ballistic protection, which bulletproof vests do expire, and we need to replace those, and our firefighters do wear those when they're called to some of those chaotic scenes. And as I mentioned earlier, our bond is on track to still be under that guaranteed maximum price of $20 million. Our staffing is, or our plan as we go to the next year. First, is there any questions on the budget? On the dollar amount before I continue? Okay. Our department focus for the next fiscal year is the onboarding and the hiring of those 12 suppression personnel. We expect to hire them by July, spend 16 weeks training them, and when Station 4 opens in November of 27, which would be fiscal year 28, all 12 of all those personnel would be ready to go. Essentially, we would have a fully operational fire station. We still plan to complete our promotional processes and succession planning. That is a gap that we have identified, and we actually lived that truth a little bit today. We really want to improve company staffing reliability. I know the council and the mayor have asked, how can we become more efficient? Our squad model is something that we just don't get the luxury to deploy all the time, and I'd really like to get that. 12 personnel helps with that program, doesn't always guarantee it, personnel would really help with that program but that's not our ask this year we're living within reality if I reflect on the ESCI study or the technical experts who said right now today we are 21 to 24 personnel behind that would get us that squad model developed and we know that that's not a reality we want to continue investing in risk reduction Prevention start to analyze some battered better data and take better care of our firefighters and with station one and four coming on board We have really identified some ways to do that Lastly fire district and governance evaluation. I know this is a question on everyone's mind Right now is I Don't have all the data to tell you all the answers. I have a whole bunch of questions myself And what that looks like? um i can say preliminarily it makes sense for us but our focus is number one the people our citizens and our staff does it make sense for them without a reduction in service without a reduction in force without a reduction in salaries this all has to make sense and so we are in the midst of big conversations um on the eve of a feasibility study and understanding what that transition looks like there's some benefit with House Bill 959 and some new revenues that would be possible for a fire district that aren't available to the city There's also the transparency and the non-compete of a fire district versus a city where we have to compete with police for dollars, where a fire district wouldn't have to. And the transparency side of things, citizens would know where their dollars are going if it's a fire district governance model. Not that they don't know now. But we're another form of government. We're another taxing entity with one focus. That all being said, as we continue through the presentation, we know our funding mechanisms come from primarily property taxes. Our partners in the rural district, we anticipate at least $3 million from them to continue our staffing models and fire services agreement. We did apply for about $2 million in grant funds this year through the AFG and SAFER grants. Both of those require some form of match, whether it's a staggered match for SAFER grant funding, 10%, I'm sorry, 5%, 10%, and then 20%, or AFG matching up to 10% for equipment. We did not apply for fire apparatus Everyone always asks us, please apply for a grant for a ladder truck or a fire engine. Those are very competitive and usually awarded to agencies that have 40-year-old fire engines or ladder trucks. We're grateful enough to not be in that position. But we did apply for SCBA and PPE and some of those capital expenses that are embedded in our budget. We may not know where the grant award comes until September. So it's a waiting game for us. SAFER grant program is a staffing for adequate fire and emergency responders grant. The city has been a recipient of that in the past. It was just expired last February, which helped onboard and fund six firefighters with a partial matching grant and something that we are hopeful that maybe can offset some costs for Station 4 when we stand up those services. Wildfire deployments are also a revenue stream. We are expecting a chaotic wildfire season. We never bank on those revenues. I'm sure we'll see some though. And independent billings. I know members of the council have asked before, do we charge for some of these nuisance alarms and these false alarms? And we just started in January. And I'm so proud to report that so far year to date, we've received about $800 in some FEES CAPTURED, WHICH IT'S A NEW PROGRAM. AND THE INTENT WAS NOT FOR IT TO BE AN ABSOLUTE REVENUE STREAM, BUT MORE SO TO BE AN EDUCATIONAL INCENTIVE TO MAKE SURE PEOPLE'S BUILDINGS ARE UP TO CODE AND WE CAN AVOID SOME OF THOSE INSTANCES. AND LOOKING AHEAD TO SCHOOL YEAR 2030, I won't go too far deep into this. Governance and sustainability is our focus immediately when we talk about fire district. Fiscal year 28 and 29, stabilize and sustain, expand and lead. Just last week at City Council, I believe the developer's agreement was approved for Aviary Heights. One portion of that was Station 5. which is something that we're going to have to identify in future budget years. One portion of our fiscal year 28 priorities are we're going to be back at the table asking for 12 people. In addition to that, we're going to be asking for operating expenses for Station 4 when it opens and is on the books for next fiscal year or fiscal year 28, something not in this budget. And as we talk about fiscal year 29, building capacity to serve 100,000 people, as referenced on the back of your handouts in the ESCI study, just further information supporting where we're at, where we need to go, and where I'd like to see the Caldwell Fire Department get to.

With that, I'll stand for questions. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate that information. Council.

Chief, I know you said there's a lot of questions still with regard to the fire district. Is there a time frame in which a decision needs to be made in order to best appropriate the opportunity that the State House has granted us with this new bill?

There are a number of time frames. I believe Ray Lynn's probably more familiar with those time frames as far as the budgetary clock on those.

tax property tax assessment you have to make a decision for it to not impact fiscal year 28 by december 31st there's a couple of days before that but that is like the last date of this year of this year and it would not go into effect until october of 2027. um so there would still be time to but that decision of whether fire is becoming a district with the rural or same with the city, really, is that dropped at the date of December 31st.

Okay. Raylynn, you had mentioned to me there were other benefits for us considering fire district. I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I'll wait and see if you help me out here. But there were ways we could help the budget In other general fund ways, if we did divest ourselves of the fire department by way of making them a district,

Yeah, so I've just been working on preliminary numbers and I don't have all the information from the rural, so I can't really say what would happen on the rural or what would happen there. I can only talk for the city side. So on the city side, what ends up happening is that the amount that we allocate, it's the specific dollar amount for property tax that we allocate to the fire department. is what would be reduced in our budget dollar for dollar. So it's not a value of property. It is just the budget amount would be reduced. The calculation on the rural side would be different. It is not a dollar for dollar increase to them. It's a different type of calculation to them. So my suggestion, if we were going to decide to do this is to leave the property tax amount flat for this year for fire, make police whole, make sure it's $500,000 goes back to streets and allow for fire to be funded with one time revenues. And the reason that is is because they would not be on our books in 2028. But if that decision does not happen, if you guys decide not to become a district, there's a lot of things in play. It's a lot of risk if we do that. So that's the other side of this. There's a lot of risk if that decision does not come to fruition. Because now we've put a significant amount of fire on one-time revenues not ongoing. Um, I haven't made those changes in the budget, obviously, because I don't want to get in front of your decision. Um, but that is something that I can do within the budget to help make it to where police is whole streets goes back to the 500,000 and fire still gets funded for fiscal year 27. So, but there's a lot of decisions and conversations I think need to happen and other points of view that that need to happen.

Thank you. But that's what I remembered you saying, but I didn't want to put you in a bad spot by saying something that wasn't accurate. So I think those are significant reasons why we need to continue to look very seriously at this and not miss an opportunity. December 31st is going to come very fast. And my fear is, well, let me put it in a positive light. My hope is that if we are able to do this, We are actually appropriating, again, an opportunity the state has decided on. For whatever reason, this is their decision, not ours. But this is going to enable us to provide emergency services, fire, and police at a level we might not be able to if we don't go to a district. And I think that's what's got my attention most of all. I know there are a lot of other discussions going on about what the impact will be, but that impact will be no matter what, because when we had station 5 and station 6 and. I'm sorry, how many times have you been at level 0 this year? Chief? You know, maybe you don't know. I mean, it's. It's too many to be excused already. And I don't want to be the city that, when you call 911, we tap out and say, there's no one else to come. And this will enable the fire district to fund differently so that that scenario is not as likely. So I'm advocating that we look very closely at this and make sure we don't miss a window, because when December 31 passes, we don't want us to look back and say, boy, we missed an opportunity to do something that would have made police whole, restored streets, and enabled fire to provide the services they need in the future. We're not going to be able to fund, especially with the direction that House Bill 389 is sending us. We're just beginning to feel that next year and the year after it will be worse. Am I wrong?

I think every year it gets tighter and tighter for us and it makes it to where it's harder for every department and every city to fund their services appropriately.

So this is the relief mechanism that the State House decided to ease House Bill 389, and we might not like parts of it and how it's going to pencil out, but this is what they decided for us, just like they decided 389 themselves. Thank you, Chief, for your presentation.

Thank you, Councillor Williams, for that good information. Councillor Timla.

Ray, Linda, there's probably going to be more for you, and I brought it up with Chief. My concern becomes where we might be a little different than other cities that have gone district. We have a bond.

The bond would stay with the city, so it doesn't actually go.

So the city residents are going to get hit twice, as long as the bond sits out there, because the bond then... would become a tax loan, correct?

So it would be, the districts is, so it's not a separate thing or double hit because the bond is just for a set amount for 20 years, right? So that amount has already been determined and it gets levied every year based off of the payment. That's what it is.

Only to the Caldwell residents.

Yes, and only to the Caldwell residents. Because that's who voted on it. That's who voted on it. If the rural went and the fire department joined with them and they had a bond, if they went to bond, that could be where it might be. It's a separate taxing district, just like if Canyon County did a bond. But the bond is specifically paying for the building of the station. That is it. It's not paying for any maintenance and operations. So it's a one-time build. And so when... The rural levies property taxes, it would be for ongoing personnel and maintenance, not for the one-time building of a fire station one or fire station four.

Right. But I guess where my problem comes in is that then that capital ends up going to the district. Well, I think that's the city's books, correct?

That's always a discussion on how to, I think that's all in the MOU and the discussion of how capital gets transferred, what capital gets transferred, what goes on the deed, like all of those are discussions and things that have to be worked out within these conversations. So it's not like this automatic, this is where it goes, or this is how it has to be. I think Those are all great questions and discussions that need to be ironed out on what we need to do. What do you guys want to see? Do you want to see where we allow fire to take the land with them, but if they ever sell it, it comes back to the city? Those types of things where it's a deep restriction. I think there's options, but we don't necessarily want to handicap fire so much that they can't operate or they can't go on with being their own taxing district either. So I think those are all good conversations and ideas and everything that needs to be discussed. I think a workshop is going to be a great idea going forward. Like I recommended to the mayor is a task force to really start having meetings and discussions so we can start documenting what we want to see, how we want to see it, all of that.

I just don't want the taxpayers to pay for an asset and then lose it.

Yes.

End up in a Idaho center type situation where we have an asset and then all of a sudden we're just giving it away.

I know another one that Jeff brought up was the training grounds. Like how, like that's something that's been, you know, that'll be worked out within the MOU, you know, whether it's an agreement of use or however that is. So those are other things that within that discussion that just need to happen and, and, and have those conversations. So, cause I'm not going to think of everything just like the chief's not going to think like we're not, We're not subject matter experts on this. We're learning as we go. So, yeah.

Ray Lynn? Yes. So, for this to happen, I don't want to get in the weeds on this, but since we're in budget, for this to happen, the city would have to buy out all the time in the books.

Say that one more time. Sorry.

I got the same thing. For this to happen, the city would have to buy out all the time on FIRE's books.

I don't know if that's necessarily the case. I don't think that happened in Nampa either. I don't know.

PTO and everything you're referring to. I had a conversation with Mayor Klain this afternoon.

Did they do that? That's the thing. Those are things.

I'm curious if that were to have to occur, where that money would come from. Is that something we have to put in a budget Well, we're talking this before August.

Well, the good news is within our budget process, if something happens after we approve the budget in August, we can always do a budget amendment. But where that money would come from, since it's a one-time expense, would be the general fund reserves, essentially, if we were to do that.

Yeah, I mean, I think it, I don't know, I'm guessing, Chief, it would be a really large number.

Can we get a current and projected? Yeah. I know you have nothing to do. Sorry.

No, that's totally fine. I can do that.

Right, that would be a lot.

Yeah, I'm just, if that's something we need to, this is going to be so fast, Chief. I mean, if this occurs, we're going to have to start yesterday kind of thing.

Yeah, and there's a number of strategies out there to negotiate or navigate some of the debt allocation and leases paid time off balances to where if it's right now on the city's books maybe it just stays there and there's an MOU and loans or repayment programs to keep the city hold to make sure the fire districts successful and so I think I think there's some opportunity there Nampa transition to a fire district was before the 959 legislation and immediately after 389 and so there was a lot of things that were missed and unknown and so 959 gives us some better guardrails for cities specifically looking to go to a fire district you can't raise taxes more than Reduction of the city of the city's costs if you if you form a fire district your citizens rates gonna go down this much and they're gonna have a new line item equal to that Reduction that pays for a fire district. That's what 959 says you can do You don't get to go higher on their on their tax dollars immediately I'll leave it with this If we're in this position right now, and I understand if this doesn't work, if this idea evaporates, we're still talking about a public safety levy, which is more than an increase in a new fire district by my math, by the expert's math. And so I'm going to invite Chief Carpenter and Chief Dominski into the room to be part of that task force to help us to help all of us make the best decision possible. Because they are the experts that have done this recently in the Treasure Valley. And three years later, they're in a much better position than I believe the city of Nampa is as well.

So another quick question unrelated while I got you. On the overtime. Is that overtime number all or is some of that number rural?

Some of it is rural. However, there's staffing agreement that we charge them just about a million dollars for per year. We do have 240 hours of overtime in there for each rank. So they contribute to the overtime bucket. So they're not just paying for – I mean, they pay for all six of those employees out there, including uniforms. So they're – it is a very – they're paying 100% of the cost for those employees.

But if we send an entire group out there for a large structure fire all the time, That's covered under rural or that's going to bleed into city?

Well, I think that would fall under our fire protection services agreement, the standalone agreement that we are the unincorporated areas. We're noticing Greenleaf's fire department already. We're already on the hook for that right now, with or without the staffing agreement. And that agreement highlights that. I mean, if there's costs to that, then there's costs to that.

I don't know how else to say it. Just let it burn down. Yeah, we don't want to do that.

Mary Lynn, I've got a couple questions. So if we're talking about a public safety levy, when would council have to decide on the public safety levy?

August? I believe that it's the beginning of August. Is Justin here? I don't see him. I believe it's the beginning of August.

So it would be the first council meeting in August.

I think it's even, yeah, probably the first council meeting in August. We have to do it in July. It's either end of July, beginning of August is when we would have to decide. And that's to put it on the ballot for November. November, that's right.

So we've only got, I'm guessing, 30 days to figure this out. Well, we don't have until December 31st. So we need to have a lot of meetings to figure this out. So public safety levy by the end of July. and the fire district, we have until December 31st. So let me play some math here. So what if we decided by July 31st that we pull the trigger on a public safety levy, and we back out Should we be raising the double barrel shotgun and pulling the both triggers at the same time?

The ballot submission deadline is August 28th. So we could potentially do it as far out as August 17th. That does only give us two weeks if we need to adjust any of the ballot language. And there are very specific parameters for what that language has to entail. So I can work with the county clerk on that as well.

And if you do a public safety levy, that's not going to impact anything in the fiscal year 27 budget at all. If it passes in November, so if we put it on the ballot, it passes in November, the soonest we would be able to levy those funds is for fiscal year 28. So there is a delay in those funds. Okay.

So that's my next series of questions. All right. So if we have until December 31st for the district, at some point, Our levy at, I'm just guessing what it is, and you may correct me, at 5236 or 5237 or whatever. If the district is formed, our levy stays the same at the city, or does our levy decrease by the amount that the new district would receive?

Our levy decreases because the property tax that we levy would decrease. by the amount that is lined out for a fire. But that would not happen until fiscal year 28. So it's not a mid-year adjustment. Okay.

So that being said, how does the district make more money in the long run, or how is the district better off in the long run if their initial year is the difference between what we would give up and what they get?

So my, at least, and this is where I talk to the task commission, so I have a little bit different take on it. But my understanding is that the values, so the district itself, the rural is going to have the same L2 where they get, here's your budget, you get 3%, and here's your values for new construction and annexation. So they will be able to annex. That's what they're doing is annexing city of our $9 billion in value. So that $9 billion in value, gets times by their current levy rate. Well, first it get times by 90%. So reduces to 90%, then gets times by their current levy rate. And then that amount is what gets added to their budget. So it's not a dollar reduction here and an increase here. It is that calculation of our value That $9 billion in value that goes to this calculation and that calculation, just like we do on our new construction and calculation or annexation, that annexation gets on there L2. But it is not capped at 15%. It's treated kind of like what happened with the closing of the urban renewal district. So it's like above that 15%. It's not capped at that amount.

So that number. So beyond the first year. Just on the first year. The district is going to see the biggest gain.

So that is my understanding of what, when I talk to the tax commission. So I will have to, we can double check and talk to the county as well to make sure. But that is my understanding of it. So that potentially could be more than the reduction in the city's budget.

So next question so we look at our our mill at five to three five or five to three six or whatever it is, and you have identified over the years that a certain percentage of that mill. goes to police and a certain percentage of that mill goes to fire. Yes. So is that the trigger when the new district creates, if we vote for a new district, that we say, okay, historically, what percentage has been set aside for fire out of our mill that gets transferred over to the new district?

So it's not a percentage of the mill rate. It's actually a specific dollar amount within our budget, within the property tax budget. So earlier today, I sent you a breakdown of all the property tax budgets. I'm going to pull that up really quick so I can just reference the amounts because it's a little bit easier for me. Start off as a percentage. It's not a percentage.

It starts off as a hard dollar amount.

That is correct.

$13 million is going to fire in 2028 because we've gone this route.

So, yeah. So, two different calculations, really. So, on the city side, it's a dollar for dollar reduction out of the property tax budget amount that we levy. which for FIRE, for fiscal year 27, I have $11,097,000. That's what that number is. So $11 million would be reduced. So our property tax that we levy right now is about 33. That would drop down by 11 million. On the rural side, like I said, it's that value calculation. based off of what their levy rate is. That levy rate is, I don't know what that is. So it's hard to say what $9 billion times 90% times their levy rate would be. But it should be, I would suspect, close to that $11 million or even a little bit more than $11 million is my understanding. But I don't know. Until I see, like, I'd have to talk with the mark out there to see what their levy rate is.

Well, I'm just thinking very, very simply that we don't have a lot of more money in government, a lot more, an influx of more money without somebody being affected.

There will be an impact. I truly do think. If that calculation, for example, the 90% annexation, just like when the urban renewal district closed, that calculation goes through whatever that calculation is, and that's the number. So if that number is more than $11 million, say it's $14 million, then there is $3 million in property tax that's being levied more than what was currently, which which is going to be impacted and shared among not just city residents, but the entire area of the rural and city residents. So to know that impact, there will be more money that could possibly be collected. There's a potential that the impact would be smaller than if the city raised our budget by $3 million, if that makes sense. Because there's more value across both the rural and the city to spread that out. there would be more property tax that would be levied. There would be more dollars collected.

Either way.

There's potentially, based off that calculation, yes.

But if we go with the fire district. So let me just talk about what's going through my head, just to be perfectly clear. So if we do, let's say we want a public safety levy, and we vote for it by August 17th, or we get the language and we vote for it by August 17th, And the first Tuesday in November, there's a vote and the people, the citizens of the city of Colville vote the public safety levy down. They don't want it. Can we turn around three city council meetings later and pull the trigger on letting them create a fire district?

I mean, based off the information I know, yes, but I don't know if there's more to the process. Like I said, I have only talked to the tax commission and understood that. So I don't know if there's more steps other than that December 31st deadline. There potentially could be. It could take more discussions, especially to get the rural online as well. I'm sure they have to agree to it too. So I would refer to Oscar if he has any guidance on it, but- He's shaking his head no right now. So I think probably more research is probably going to be needed if there are other steps or other dates. I've only talked to the tax commission as it regards to the financial and the lobby of the property taxes and those deadlines to understand that process of it.

So regardless of, I mean, right now we have three options. Do nothing, pursue a public safety levy, or pursue a fire district. Are there any other options? Any other options out there? Because you've made it very clear that this is not sustainable. The chief has made it very clear it's not sustainable. And if we take a look at what minimum staffing models would be, we are really, really kneecapped by the legislature on us filling our needs. Is there any other option?

Not any that. The only other option I can think of, and it's not one that's really on the table, is that reduction in staff. But that doesn't make sense because our staffing levels and service levels are so high that we're not even maintaining what we're currently needing to. But that would be the only other option that is not being discussed. So I don't think it's a feasible option, but that is. And like I said to you guys earlier, we can move more property tax around, but it will decimate other programs. or raise fees so significantly that it makes every other program unaffordable. So those are, I guess, other considerations. To me, it's not on the table, but this is your guys' decision. So if that's the direction, I can go through all of those impacts of what that would do, but it still would not necessarily resolve the police and fire issue of being in that revenue deficit.

Just real quick on what Councilman did earlier today. We don't have to be on November's ballot of Duke. We can be on May's and still make 28's budget with a levy if we needed to.

That is correct.

So we could technically wait and see if the district is a better fit by December, then still have the time to get on the ballot in May to do a levy if we need to.

Yes.

So that saves us the time crunch of trying to get on to November.

Yeah, but the information, I think, would be beneficial sooner rather than later. I'm not getting to December 31st and going, well, shoot, we missed an opportunity back in August. I just wanted to make sure we could still move it.

We'll line up dates. I sent all of you an email today regarding what NAPA did on the fire district.

The thing that really sticks out, I wasn't an official member of the negotiating committee, but they allowed me to be in because I was on the 5C committee just to observe. And the bottom line that they received from the accounting service said it would be revenue neutral. And now three years later, their budget was $13 million. Now it's $44.9 million. Something went wrong there, obviously. And they have little or no representation on the board. It's like people from Boise and some other places. So I suggested to the mayor that we might have to have a workshop on that and find out the details of why it went from 13 million to 44.9 million. Now the 44.9 million included all of that district. But if you look at Napa's population compared to Kuhn or anybody else, I mean, Napa's carrying the lowest period and they're pretty upset

We don't want that to happen. I believe you said you would reach out and then we'll obviously schedule dates and we'll reach out to all the dates and times. Anything else?

I don't know the answers to this because there's a lot of research, but there's a possibility that something went right in that. Because Nampa wouldn't have been able to levy that to sustain the fire, and clearly they need that money for what they're doing. So, but until we get all the data, I don't know if that's an accurate statement, but it's a possibility that that's what the district did. It enabled them to do what they needed. We'll find out.

Yeah, I believe the fire station. All right anything else on budget.

Thank you. Chief and then. Our next, yes. I ask for a motion for executive session pursuant title code section 74-206, section D, consider records that are exempt from disclosure.

No, that's not how this works. All right. I can't just, fine.

No, the statute says you can't.

I heard that.

Oh, am I reading this? OK. I move to enter into executive session for Sotai to hold code 74-206-1D to consider records that are acceptable.

You might want to say. Look at me that way. Look at her.

Well, I thought the second. Oh, second. Question second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. No.

Dillmont.

What?

Yes or no? Yes. Static. Yes. Register. Yes. That's fine. You can abstain. All good.

Didn't burn. You may enter. Thank you.

Listen.