Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Awesome. Good afternoon, everyone. We're live.

We're going to start today beginning budget season that our finance director and staff are working very hard on over the last couple of weeks, months. So thank you for all those that are here this afternoon. Okay, with that, we're gonna go ahead and lead it into city council budget review for 2026. With that, we need, I'll take the roll. Thank you. Good answer. All right. I got to check. Good to see you, Councilor Stoner. For a long time today. With that, I'm gonna go ahead I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you guys. And everybody knows the microphone's right there, so it picks up everything. So we're going to talk about quite a bit of things today. Voting over revenues, cost that impact the entire budget, new positions, capital requests, and then we're going to get some feedback and some recommendations from you guys as well. With that, there's a handout. I mean, it's an extra copy of that. That's available to everybody. Talk about each one. First, we'll talk about different revenues. So there's property tax, sales tax, gas tax, some fees, and then transfers. These are very generalized. I'll go through some specifics on each one of these. But these impact us in a lot of different ways. So obviously with fees, that impacts our entire budget depending on what type of fee and what type of service. I'm not going to dig in specifically to all the fees. I want to give you an overview of charges for services, and then we'll talk about the fees because I know that's an impact on your service budget.

It will impact your service budget as well.

So, for property tax, I've done some estimates from the county. Normally, I give you the formula. I didn't really get the final values from the county. I did not want to bring the formula here. So, this is really the changes in general fund property tax and all the different who got what allocated where. The big changes I want to talk about here, so you can see on the very right-hand column, is a difference, positive and negative. Yes, and so...

Is there any chance that you could get us a copy of this? Because I want to be absolutely truthful with you. I can see none of the screens here.

Yeah, I can. Let me get that. And if that's okay, can I make a copy of the PowerPoint?

In about five minutes.

Yeah, five minutes should be fine.

Ten? One minute? Yeah, let's give it a minute. And if we're back to the original... And my apologies. When I was 12, I could see that.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. Sorry, we return for the break. Thank you for those copies.

Okay, so within the property tax, within this table, this kind of shows, like I said, this is not specifics because I have not yet got the final values from the county. This is just estimates of every single county.

And then it's allocated among the different waste buyers by .

The big changes that I want to kind of reference here, you'll see in the street fund that some of the variance I can call is a negative 522,000, which means that we are changing allocation on the street fund to be 500,000. by the general fund amount is so much higher. You'll also see a negative amount in the airport fund. That was due to, there's been a reduction in an FTE over there due to retirement. And so that property tax doesn't go through to the general fund. It's a general fund. There's three sources of property tax revenue in a general fund. Place, buyer, and a very, very small amount that goes to the highway.

So when we get those specific budgets, we can talk further about the place and buyer revenues.

But this is where the estimates and property tax is. You'll also see an increase in a fair bond. This is an exempted on top of our 8% cap, so it's separate. This is due to, we pulled that second portion of the bond, and so they can quote the 2024 bond payment and the 2026 bond payment. So that's why you'll see a decrease from 1994 to 2 million on that. because that is just the bottom line. A lot of the property tax funds have stayed stagnant. For the most part, there's not been a significant increase. Percentages have mostly gone to try to balance place and fire. So that's what you see here within the program.

Any questions about property tax, I guess, before I move on?

I know that I don't have specifics on new construction annexation. I will tell you that new construction is about $1.2 million is what we're getting from new construction based off of the information that I got from the business office. That still is a preliminary estimate until the beginning of July.

So we'll have a good July. Good numbers.

Yeah, so yeah, that's when we get the final values. So this property tax takes into account 3%, taking the 3% inflationary, taking the full amount of new construction, and taking annexation. We will not hit an 8% cap here. I think there's further discussions that are going to need to be had. We'll get into balancing about foregone, if that's a discussion that we're needing to take. but I do not have that in my budget projections currently. Moving on to sales tax. Based on the information that I have received from AIC, who received it from the state, and looking at current trends, there's a positive trend with inflation so high, cost of goods are so high, that we've seen a positive impact in sales tax, as well as because the calculation is a complicated based on growth, we've also seen more increase. And so this number is still conservative. Definitely not what AIC is telling us in our budget book. So it's still lower than what AIC is projecting. But I think the sales tax is always something that I'm very conservative on because we never know what we're going to get. And as you've seen from state reports, it ebbs and flows every single month.

So whether it's good or bad.

Those are very conservative numbers, though. You'll see the increase. And the big thing I want to talk about here is There's still growth that's happening in funds like the library and Parks and Rec where we need to fund those. And though I'm not giving them property tax, I am giving them as much sales tax as I can. So you'll see in the general fund where the general fund is not giving any sales tax and it is all going to the special revenue funds to fund new personnel and current operations that are needed. So that's why you see this significant increase in sales tax in those and not in the general fund. So that's kind of where it goes out because they're going to help fund personnel, help them with operations as property tax is not going to help. In addition, In the general fund, the sales tax goes to pay when we talk about admin allocation and all the internal services, finance, city attorney, facilities, Mayor, council, all of those. That's what sales tax pays for in the general fund. So 60% or 40% of the cost of those is in the general fund. And that's sales tax covers that cost. That's why it's not allocated to police and fire. It is to pay for those internal services. So any questions on sales tax? The big one that's going to have an impact on the street fund is gas tax. So we talked about moving $500,000 out into the general fund and property tax. In addition, based on the estimates and the state funding work, there's going to be a significant decrease in gas tax to the street fund of $25,000. And so that is also a decrease in revenue effect because of this state financing their budget that we're not going to be receiving as well.

In the past year, it's been very close to 5.6. And based off the new legislation, that amount is what we get. So that's something that is going to impact future state projects.

It's going to impact your parent maintenance industry fund as well. When we go over the couch, you're going to see where their fund balance based off the funders that need to get done is very, very low. And there's concerns there from my point of view. So discussions there as well. So just going through the different revenue sources. Fees charges are for services. So these are very limited and these are just one revenue code. It's our charges for services. So this doesn't necessarily include building fees. This does not include like permit fees. This is specific like water service fees, sewer fees, sanitation fees. Those charges that we're providing are direct service or That makes it up. And so I know there was some discussion of why our budget is made up majority of these. And these are the funds that are impacted by those rates. So when we change the water rate fees, this is not connection-based even. So when we change the water rate fees or the sewer rate fees, this is where it goes up. When we add new accounts or new homes, this is where it shows up. So that revenue growth is not due to this increase in fees. It's due to adding new residential commercial buildings. And so I just, this is just a conversation point just to show you guys like there is, every single one of these funds is dependent on these fees. Most of these are enterprise fees where we only charge fees and they don't get property tax, sales tax. or any type of pass through funds from any other. It is mostly just fee sending. So I just wanted to talk about that. I did receive all the fee requests that are coming in. This budget currently, as it's shown, does not recognize all of the fee increases. It recognizes some, but not all. So as I'm working in the next couple of weeks, that is something that's going to be revised. I always do a revision in June and July. to make sure that the fees that we're looking at increasing are projected in the reference . So as these conversations happen, you'll see the unexpected in those numbers as well. But this is where they currently stand, and just kind of showing you the trends on . Building revenue. This is a big discussion as we look at general fund. So, first I want to talk about the lower chart on the right-hand side. You've seen this chart before. I looked at it several times this year. And so this is year to date through May 31st cycle this this morning. And so this shows total number of permits year to date on every single one of those fiscal years. So you're going to see we are down definitely compared to last year, but over the last five years, we're definitely down on total permits. And in the lowest year, when I look at fiscal year 24, year to date, like, yes, that was low, but the revenue that permit values were high. And so that offset that. And so we are still seeing that slow down. IN ADDITION, YOU CAN SEE THAT REVENUE DEFICIT THAT I TALKED ABOUT THAT WE ARE MEASURING WITH CANCELING SOME OF THE PROJECTS AND HOLDING BACK SOME OF THE BUDGETS WITHIN THE GENERAL FUND. Now up to that 593,000 just in building permits. There are other revenue permits that are a little bit higher when you look at plumbing permits or electrical permits. Some of those trends are higher. I know in engineering, we've seen some trends as well that those are coming in stronger. And so some of this will be offset, but not all of it in general. So there's still discussions, but that's how... And that top chart shows for fiscal year 2017 what I'm projecting for revenue for building. And so you see that there's a reduction in revenue and building of $826,000. And that I don't think is aggressive or too conservative. That's probably not conservative enough. But I want to give a chance to see if there's more data that comes in and says, hey, we're going to get more permits coming in. The summer is going to kick off stronger than ever. But I haven't seen that yet. So that might decrease. But I just want you guys to be sure that that is number is decreasing and not increasing. Any questions on that?

any crystal ball reasons why it's down there?

Any specific reason? I don't think there's a... I can't say that there's one specific reason. I know that there's a lot of entitlements that are coming. I know that the building community, like, there's just a lot going on. And I've talked to our neighbors, and I know NAMPA's seen a significant increase. And so, you know, that was unprojected. And so, you know, our builders choosing us are choosing NAMPA versus Caldwell. because of fees, because of, you know, political spectrum. I don't know. I can't say that because I'm not in that discussion with the builders. I can look at the data and say, this is what I'm seeing. I would turn to Haley and Robin to see if they have any input or feedback on the trends that they're seeing. I would just say that building is a government.

It comes in cycles, so as Ray said, in engineering, we're seeing increase in permits right now. We've already had the total amount of permits this year to date as we had for all of last year. And so it might be slow now, but the civil infrastructure has to get put to the ground before building. So it could also just be that there's a lag, because we have all of these projects in time, but they're just working towards getting the water in the city roads constructed. And then once those are constructed, then we'll be able to start seeing projects.

Where will we feel this deficiency first?

So if we're seeing this decrease, I will say right now there's been specific cuts in the building department that don't mean that we have to lay on flex positions. I think there's been operating costs that we've cut. Thank you. Another source of revenue, because a lot of funds interact with each other, and I think a lot of government accounting that can be confusing is when we use transfers. It can look like our budget is doubled sometimes because we transfer into one fund and we transfer out of one fund. So we're recognizing a revenue expense, but it's just a transfer of cash. And so I just want to identify just how we're using our transfers. We've had several transfers in previous years. And so this year, just kind of identifying like, because I think this is just behind the scenes and you guys don't necessarily see some of these. And they're just within our budget and just to put them in different accounts. So when you look at general funds, like some of the transfer funds on some of these are due to LIDs, which we don't talk about LIDs a lot, but as people make payments, we transfer funding back from the LID payment to the funds where the infrastructure was originally purchased at. You'll see we're going to transfer, and the plan is like in 27, transferring a million dollars from the general fund to have a building fund as we're planning for future buildings, whether that's the airport tower or a new library, whatever that decision may be. That's the fund we're using to hold on to those larger dollars and plan for that bigger infrastructure fund. The other big transfer that's there is to police capital. So because of how the DFRs are funded out of police capital, and there's not a dedicated funding source for police capital, we're using a transfer to cover that, the drones and the police, the police. So that's what that transfer into police capital means. because those are contracts that we have, and we have to fulfill those occupations, and so that is what they're transferring. So just... And then for transfer outs, it's not, right now it's not dollar for dollar, but it is something that . The transfer outs in general fund, some of these are going to be balanced by CFC, because CFC fees don't cover the full amount of the CFC budget. When we look at total budgets, this is one where they'll balance in and out, but this is a conversation that can look like a budget is more than it actually is. We're using internal resources. They're just in separate funds, and we're transferring those funds from one to another. So just making a room that is more for information purposes.

Next, I want to talk about cost stats and cost of care budget.

Obviously, there's going to be eye cramp right now with that. is $1.1 million. This is spread out among all departments based off of FTE. And so every department pays this cost. It's not just for one fund.

And so that $182,000 increase is definitely an impact across the city wide.

It's actually There's also a policy change that not only is that the increase, but any time we add more than $5 million in property, so as we add vehicles, they actually will bill this for that every year. thousand dollars to its premium that i currently end up on this as we've seen in domestic orders an additional five thousand essentially that was not necessarily budgeted and that we do have to pay so i'm trying to be correct if i'm not COLA, as we discussed, this is just the salary cost, but COLA, obviously final negotiations aren't final, but what we have currently budgeted in the numbers is 85 cents per employee. So it's a flat amount.

What that means is that anybody that is below $35 will get more than a 2.5% increase.

Anybody above $35 will get less than a 2.5% increase. And that's what we started out. So originally I budgeted at 3%, and then we brought it down to a 2.5%. working with the mayor, the decision was made to do a dollar amount to help lower paid employees to have a bigger impact on them. So the 85 cents is per employee. Obviously, the 800,000 have about 25% in benefits that is already budgeted for, but not in that dollar amount. So that was kind of a determination on the formula that's going to impact their personal Health insurance right now we have budgeted at a 4% increase. I will tell you that when we first started budget discussions, our health trust was looking really good in our claims and we were talking like 4% was actually almost over coming in. We've had quite a bit of high demand. claimants recently, which is going to change the projections a little bit. And actually, we're looking at negotiations of, you know, how our stock loss is looking and trying to keep within a maintainable cost. However, average across, I think, nationwide is staying at 10%. 10 percent increase so pretty significant um so that that's why you'll see that we have budgeted for a per se increase because we were aware that we were going to increase it so we just got news that they are no longer increasing it so we're going to take that savings and move it to the health insurance to cover what we think is going to be the cost and not have to put it on employees So as an alt trust, we are looking at what we can do as cost containment, cost savings, stop loss, all of those things to try to keep our health insurance affordable to the city and affordable to employees at the same time.

So those discussions are still ongoing. Nothing's been final as of right now, but that's what we have to do.

The other thing that impacts all funds, I talked about in a little bit, was the admin allocation, cost allocation. This is something, it's an allocation to cover internal services. It's pretty... You know, there's two different ways to do this, I look at, but it's cost sharing, because example finance covers all departments we utilize. You know, we track all funds, all departments, we have conversations with all departments, and so that cost should be borne by all departments. How we do that allocation is fair. It's updated yearly, so we use updated information. That way no fund overpays or underpays. It's updated to make it as fair as possible. So that enterprise funds are the majority of it. It's spread out at once every time, including general fund. So I just want to bring that because I know that there's always confusion and even complaints about it because, you know, sometimes it's like, well, why is this amount so high? Or why are we having to pay this? And it's like, you know, the cost of service. internal service departments are always trying to control costs. We always come in under budget. And we only charge for the cost of the service. We don't overbill those accounts. So if we budget for a million and we only spend $900, then we only bill $900. So those are

Those are something that we only look to cover the cost and not from the general plan.

So I just wanted to have those discussions, make you aware of it. If you want to copy it down on the admin allocation, I'd be happy to provide it. It's pretty complicated. It's about 15 different Excel tabs and how the data is used and information on it. So happy to provide that.

So...

So yeah, if anybody would like that, I'd be happy to provide it, but it has a lot of data and multiple people look at it, so try to make it as fair as possible and allocate those resources appropriately. As we get further into the budget, I know that each department will go into their request, so I'm trying not to go deep into the department's budgets, but it's just talking about new positions and personal costs. So as you can see within the jungle fund, there's 18 new positions. There's actually within your budget a list of all the positions.

I think it is the fifth, sixth page.

Has a copy of all the deposit conditions and the cost of each position.

This includes salary and benefits.

I did not forget that, but I'd be happy to. I'm pretty sure that based off the last time I looked, we were pretty steady.

So within the positions, the general fund, the 18 new positions, there's quite a bit. I would say 12 of the 18 are firefighters. The firefighters are only funded for half a year, starting in April. This is too full due to COVID. That is part of the reason. And then we're talking with the chief about planning and stuff. They would like to have one academy, so that's why we're not funding six this year and six next year. We'd like to get all 12 on board only once with one academy instead of splitting it up into two different fiscal years.

So that's the approach for 12 positions.

In addition to that, there's three engineering positions, one city attorney position, and then the new position that I believe was requested by some of the counselors is a city administrator. So those are the 18 new positions in general plan. And then there's one position in library, two in parks and rec, and then six positions in water, four in wastewater, and then one new electrical position. So if you have any questions about each, why the positions, we don't do a lot of detail on like adding new positions, why they're all needed. I, you know, as departments are coming up, they should go to a wide, why the need is there.

So if you have those questions, feel free to ask the department heads on them. The other thing that just is within personnel costs.

As you know, we pay place and fire longevity. This increases whether we give a COLA or not, but with the COLA, the longevity, this increased the total longevity cost salary only to $114,000. That's between place and fire. And then the police staff increases. These are the years of service increases. That's the additional cost of $125,000. And then across all departments, There is request for reclasses, whether that's, you know, somebody is working in their position or that's most likely the main reason why, or there's a construction issue. That's across all departments for salaries about $49,000 and $30,000. And so we look at those very specifically. Michelle and I do. We look in the budget. We get requests year-long. And a lot of times the discussion is, well, we have to wait until we get to the budget. We cannot give somebody a pay increase until we put in the budget. And so some of these discussions are over year-long. We try and see if people, they're paying the max budget amount. And so if you have specific questions on those, I'd be happy, Michelle and I would be happy to discuss them offline. But we don't want to put the cart before the horse, and I can affect specific employees.

Yes. Maybe waiting until police make their presentation is the right time to ask it, but I noticed we're not having police positions. Maybe that was their choice. Maybe they'll go over that. But it's unusual to me when we're talking constantly about how many police officers that here's and here we're not adding this thing to. Is there an explanation for that?

I think that's definitely a concern. When we get to general fund, I can go over what we're looking like in general fund. I'll tell you right now, in general fund, we have a $2.5 million deficit between places of $1 million in revenue deficit and prior years, like 1.7. And so it's concerning. And I mean, that's why I think in this presentation, I have recommendations to take forward and you know, make changes to the budget after question. Right.

And that's, sadly and admittedly, that's the tough decision really this body has to make because some of these positions are general fund positions as well on this list. So we have to choose where we put those general fund positions to go. And so I'd be curious to know if there was a request for positions Maybe that's the question.

There was a request for a position, yes. There was?

Yes. And they just weren't down at big values. If they were requested, why aren't they on this list?

I think my understanding was the priority was the child fire positions as getting those funded.

So who made that decision is my question.

The priority came from the mayor.

Yes, the fire station.

And again, I guess my question is, from these other positions apart from the fire, which are what are they not?

Yeah, so at the 18 positions that are in the general fund, so... The engineering position. So let's just take those. Those are not funded. They're funded by engineering fees and an allocation directly to water, sewer-based water sanitation, the departments that engineering supports. So they are not, they don't use general fund in like sales tax or property tax. So when we talk general fund positions, they're kind of separate, I would say.

That is the same with mapping. Mapping position is funded by

mapping themes, and the department side is supported by mapping the water-based water sanitation policies. So those two positions, that side of general fund. The ES3 position is allocated among all departments. So it is funded similar to the admin where 40% is funded within general fund and sales tax. So that one is funded that way. And then same with the city administration for the admin allocation. on this page. There's a page right before the position. You can go up and pull that up. And it has general time in the departments. And I think that will help bring some clarity. So it has a cost, it costs me $3,000, $24,000, $25,000, $26,000, $27,000. Yes. So I found a great general fund up into kind of four portions. It is still when our balance have to balance by total general fund, obviously, and that's how we budget. But if you didn't know, each department has their separate budgets and everything like that. So in the first portion, there's 9.4 million revenue. What that includes is sales tax, what I talked about with the reimbursement of admin allocation. And that amount funds all of those departments, city council, mayor, community projects, mayor, admin, city admin, all of those. And then the final portion for low place environment, those are our fee coverage. So anything to do with building permits, planning and zoning permits, engineering fees, and then like I said, engineering and mapping also get a cost allocation that charges enterprise funds because they support those parts. And so, those are more fee-based. The competition is not here. Finance doesn't collect fees. City attorneys do not collect fees. So, those are not fee-based. Those are sales tax. The other two are police and fire. So, I also, I balance that as a whole. So, if you look at funds, the state general fund revenues is $52,264,000. General fund expenditures right now, as we have budgeted, is $54.9 million. That looks conservative, right? I totally understand that.

But I will tell you a million dollars use of fund balance because we know that we're transferring a million dollars of fund balance from general fund to the capital building fund to set aside for... the airport tower, the library, that's what we have right now. So a million dollars is that, as much.

The other thing that I could consider one time is going to be under city property, you'll see 700,000. That request is for safety upgrades at City Hall, which also includes two economic development offices, one engineering office, and window UV, like glass UV. So it includes all of those plus the safety features. So that's what that $700,000 is. That also I would consider one-time and non-one-time. So when I look at that, we have about a million dollars that's, that we're gonna be short on ongoing funds on that side. In addition to that, we talked about the police and fire department, and that's it. We're trying to figure out how to quit farming from HRU. Obviously, as you can see, I allocated all property tax to them, and they were retired. I would tell you, police and fire do great jobs on their budget. Thank you. when do their budgets, there was no request to cut. I didn't know how to go through and be like, you don't have to cut. That was not, it was like, what can we do to help increase rent? Where can we do that? And so I think there's still those talks and that conversation. And there's no, I don't see right now, a path forward where we're at right now, unless we're gonna decimate other departments. Or lay off people. And neither one of those are things I want to do. And so I think there's gonna be some other conversations that need to happen, and decisions. I think one of the bigger decisions and discussions that's gonna happen is, whether FIRE is going to become a district or not. I know that's in the preliminary discussions, but that is a discussion that will impact our budget and change how we budget. And so those are things that need to be ironed out. And so if these numbers are not set in stone, they can still be changed. But I think those are all discussions that would be relevant to the general fund that we need your input on.

So just, I'm sorry, just for my sake, back to the new positions page. Those are ongoing, not long-time positions. And you started to break it down for us. The positions on this sheet that are coming from general fund, the city administrative position, the city attorney position, the library, the parks and rec, is mapping. Yes. And the rest are not. Am I wrong? Wastewater treatment plant?

Yeah, the parks is under parks and recreation, so it's not in general.

But we pay for that out of?

So the parks and recreation is able to add new positions because I increased the sales tax to parks as well. And in my brewery, this was the same request that Lacey asked for last year. And she specifically said, please do not cut me this year.

Thank you. I have a follow-up on Council Williams. So my concern is this. We've both fired on police being people. We've made the decision to fund a fire. But this looks like a two-year study. So next year, I mean, of course, if we continue to see the economics the way they are this year, moving into next year, and we've made this two-year plan to fund fire, two years with no police officers, I don't know that I can live with that.

I mean, there's a lot of masks. And I think there's, unfortunately, in police budget, there's a lot of requests that are almost uncontrollable out of their hands. There's, I want to say, $600,000 in increases that are out of their hands that they really have no say in. And I think that's probably the most frustrating thing, because it's like, how do you absorb $600,000 in increases that you can't cut and you have no sale. Like, it's just, you have to do that. And at what detriment? And so, unfortunately, it creates this deficit in services.

So, I don't know, just, you can't combine wages with wages are set. So, any money savings comes out of B-side.

There's like an echo, so.

Wages are set up. We can't really cut wages. So any savings that we could scrape out would be on the B-side, right?

Yeah.

Well, I think we look at, like, is there ways to do savings on And the general fund, like, COVID, right?

I think that's a conversation we have. Like, do we get COVID or not?

And then the general funds, because I've been playing with the kids, I've been playing with the kids, I've been playing with the kids, I've been playing with the kids. I think that's too bold, and if you don't do polio, you don't get wages, that reduces longevity, that reduces, not necessarily the step increases, but the longevity, and it has this controlling effect, right? We can do that. And if that's the direction, we can do that. But then at what cost do we do other cost savings? Are we going to lose that because we're not getting COLA? Are we going to have more cost of training? So all of those factors come into it. And we've had those discussions. It's just trying to... What's the passport for Caldwell? That's really the question I used to be asked. What's the passport? Because I don't want to see where we keep borrowing from next year because that just keeps us in the pool. And that does a disservice to our residents. That does a disservice to the departments because then they're not funding what they need either. They're not truly getting what they need. And so what's, I've been recognizing, there's a lot of discussions and I think that's why. on what you want to state, especially in the general fund, when it comes to place and buyer. Also, when it comes to property tax, having that put on a discussion, because like I said, we don't have that in there. That's not an option. And then I think the further discussion, which you can talk about on the 18th or... and fire is going to move to a district. And I don't, it's hard because we're in this budget process and I don't want to get in front of you about this decision-making process. But there are truly things, if that decision was to happen, that I can do to make this budget work, make police whole, make fire to get through this next year, and actually get us into where the city as a whole is looking for in 2028 and fire is set up in a good area in 2028. But that decision hasn't been made, so I can't put that into effect here. So I'm trying not to get ahead of you guys, but I think those are conversations that we're going to have to have and see where it leads. Thank you.

I appreciate it. I'm sorry. I want to be clear. We understand what you mean when you say criminal. But for anybody out there listening, we have a balanced budget. We're required by law to have a balanced budget. And specifically speaking of police and firefighters. police especially, they did not overspend their budget. They underspent their budget. Is that correct?

That is correct. It's not a matter of like overspending budget.

I understand that. Because when you say we're in the hole, borrowing from next year, we understand what you're saying because we've been doing that for a number of years, some longer than others. But sometimes that gets cloudy out there in the ether world. And so I want to be sure I say that. And I, you know, it's a dirty word, but I think we're going to have to consider, we're in this position in part, we keep saying it because we're 89, we're getting kept in more and more. And our tools are being diminished, and that is still a tool. And so I think that needs to stay on the table.

That's good stuff. I just comment, you know, I know you don't have control over that, but, you know, when you look at fire and um for police officers if my numbers are correct thank you you had what three percent of their phone calls were fires or something like that was low percentage was it actual flame fires and the rest of it was rescues or whatever it was when you look at the whole program as far as what Mayor Mrakas, We have a fire there's a certain circumstances for safety issue, please have to be called first. Mayor Mrakas, Right, I mean that's just. Mayor Mrakas, And i'm not trying to. Mayor Mrakas, But. Mayor Mrakas, We have to look at the safety of that too because it's. I don't know if we can split the number of positions that you have for fire and make some of those in place or whatever. But safety, to me, would be an issue. But we'd rather have a safe environment for the fire department and the firefighters and everybody else versus not having one.

I will say, even though it wasn't an added position, we did have... Police last year had a position that was on hold to the drug program. And that position is no longer in 27 article. And it's something that they had access to. So that is not in that copy, but it will be available to them to fill.

So we've been in the right direction, but not the greatest.

We've got some more discussion to be had. Sure. Thank you. So I have a question. I can go to this page. I think it was page one.

Yes. We can definitely go to page four.

It's just a kind of a policy of Councilor Williams.

That is, we do have a balanced budget. According to this page here, we are dipping into reserves to make ends meet.

And so from the

we save, because we anticipate times will be bad, and now we are just dipping into those things because times are not as good as we'd like. Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, I would say, so we have our 30% reserves, which is, you'll see, is that 15 million at the bottom of that column, and that's And so we're not dipping into that 30%. But every year as we go on, sometimes like when you heard Michelle talk about financial statements, we put about 330,000 at the end of 2025 into fund balance in the general fund. So that is cash that's available within the general fund spend that is not designated in this budget. 26 or 27 and so That money, kind of like the million-dollar transfer that we do, that's where we're not dipping into reserve, but we are using that. And that gets smaller and smaller as we use it. It's kind of like an extra cushion used for if the budget went over, if it was one-time projects. Because I will tell you, I've been very, very conservative on our investment revenue. We get over a million dollars in investment revenue, but I only budget half a million. So unless we're, if the budget stays tight and we're staying within budget, that additional half a million of revenue that I am not budgeting for is going to go into fund balance to be able to use for a one-time project in the future. And that's okay. That's an appropriate use of how we use fund balance. The big thing is, is that I don't, you never want to use one-time money for ongoing expenses. So adding positions. And so that's why you'll see on here, I have it calculated out of like, what is capital and what is maintenance and operations and, and also what's transfers out. So you can see within the proposed revenue versus maintenance and operations in the general fund. We have $52,264,000 in proposed revenue. We have $53 million in maintenance and operations. That is where there is a small revenue for ongoing operations per se. And so that's the number that I plan on it on and be like, okay. are we going to be able to sustain this going forward? And are we setting ourselves up for success in future years? Because there's no guarantee that revenues are going to grow. Yes, property taxes grow, but I can guarantee you that expenditures are going to grow. Inflationary costs go up, health insurance costs go up, insurance costs go up. All of those are going to go up, so I can guarantee you that. we have to just think about the future of protecting our revenues and what we can do to make sure that we are staying within our means, I guess. Especially as it comes to ongoing expenses. I'll go over this just a little bit to kind of, this isn't just a full budget of cash. So this looks like cash. starting from the end of fiscal year 25, takes into account fiscal year 26. Now, I can't predict what the end of fiscal year 2026 is going to be, but I predict that we're going to stay within our budget and we're going to estimate the revenues of what we're getting at. And so this looks at a full, yes, we're going to get all of our revenues and we're going to spend all of them. Here's all the revenues for 27 and here's all the expenditures. At the end of this is what I project at the end of 2027, so we're talking September 30th of 2027, what our estimated cash balance would be. And then in the number 15, that is what we currently have as reserve in the policy.

in policy.

So, for the general fund, we're not being okay. We're down to cash balance until reserve is over. But there are some funds in here that are concerning. When you look at the street fund, there are reserve is 1.5 million. That's based off the revenues and equipment for each project. I'm estimating that by the end of 2027, it's going to be $11,000. To me, we really have to, that makes it difficult for the street fund to move. We have to really look at different options. There are other ones on here that I can start reading. As we go through it, as we talk about each budget, we can go through these. And that's why I wanted to get through these at the beginning, because they kind of are aware of what's been requested total as a whole. And then as people get into their budgets and as they go through them, you can kind of see cash-wise where it's going to end up. But we have general and special revenue. And then we have the capital funds, which the capital funds don't have any reserve on them because the point of them is to spend them down. So as they get closer, they're going to get involved on those. And then the enterprise funds, which we always want to try to keep above our reserve on those. It's something that I've been looking at, but you can see, and I'm working with daily and putting on the blood water and rice water. There's a lot of projects that don't look like that past, but this is when I feel seen as for being increased blood water and rice water because the projects are, are going to use that blood balance and we're not going to have to push them. And I think those are the discussions that we'll cite. either you have the cash or you're going to do that for it. So I think those are very timely discussions to have as public works come forward. And we have those discussions going forward. And then the last thing I would acknowledge is the Internal Service Funds, and it comes through the Health Trust, so you can see them as well. So as departments present their budgets, and as changes are made, I'll show you down every version so you have the most updated copy.

Maybe I have specific questions about funding. Sorry.

a copy with all of the capital requests in it. These are out of all different points in that whole request. The only amount that's in the bundle is the fiscal 2027 request, but sometimes we forget projects out for 2028, 2029, 2030, and 2031. So I've included those amounts so you kind of know the future of what's coming on board. The department will have these for you to talk about. So if you have any specific questions on them, please talk to the department. When you're looking at the book, we try to talk about what the department is first. That's the electrical department, electrical, power, air, I-R-R is air nation. So if you have any questions, let me know. I'll try to provide those. Because usually we don't get a call in the conference on this stuff. These are all budgeted for, is that 73 million dollars in budget budget or capital? And then this is kind of a breakdown. We wanted to show you a trend of where we are for 25, 26, and 27, and what we're doing and where we're going. So 2025 is an actual of where we kind of end of the year on our personal coverage. Other are transfers. That's the majority, but also lease payments is another thing there. So that's kind of what other is. So you can see within our budget, we're still, how it is proposed right now, there is still an additional increase from the 181 to 203,000. That's the total budget. This is all funds. This is not just one fund. So increase in personnel, increase in operating, significant increases in capital as well.

So... That's my last page on that. That's kind of what I have to do to prevent you today from having to do that.

Is anyone still talking about potentially putting forward public safety laws?

Public safety laws.

Oh, sorry. There's like an echo and that's all I get. Public safety bonds. So I think the public safety levy, if we were to do that, as soon as that we would be able to have those funds available. So it would also, so it would also raise our public money. So depending on the amount that we took, but I look at, like, when I did the calculations last year, it was about $5 million. And to do that, $5 million would reach that goal of $1 million at the $9 million for the same year. I mean, I think, and it's definitely doable if that's the way the city wants to go down that route. I believe we have to, if we were to do the general election in November, we have to have that decision by August. And then the May election is a different time frame on that. Okay. I think those are all, and there's no guarantee that public will agree to it. That's the other thing. It's really up in the air. So if I say, yes, that's what we're doing, we set our path on it, there's no way that it's going to be approved by the voters. I can't guarantee that. And so in 2018, I still would be like, this is what we have to fix in 2017. We have to move forward and make decisions on this without saying yes to that. But if that's something that...

You guys wanted us to pursue an accord with, like, we've talked about it internally if it's an option, but I don't... Timeliness of it, I don't know if it's a possibility because...

But I know we talked about it last year as well as an option, and we didn't move forward with it. And whether that was the right time or not, I don't know. I mean, those are discussions that I think are going to be prevalent as well. But that's something that's going to be important.

Well, whatever year, if we ever choose to do that, the benefit of this revenue is still going to be a year and a half, two years down the road. We're continuing to be hemmed in now, and as we look at trying to dig out for public safety, everything has to be on the table. The nice thing about the bond is providers get to decide. They're the ones that get to come in and say yes or no. But even if, If we don't do it this year, then we're not having those zones until 2029 if we choose to do it next year. At what point do we throw this out there on the table seriously so that the voters in Colville can make a decision as to whether public safety deserves more of their resources so that the response can be there when you dial 911?

And then I... You know, I truly do think Meridian went with their public safety levy, and that was all fine. However, the 99% rate is, how do we compete with that? It's something we can't compete with. And I think that's a difficult discussion because then we're going to lose good personnel to other cities. because we can't pay them back. I'm sure it's true for both chiefs. I mean, it's a big concern for them, and they've argued for it.

Thank you. I think really the bottom line here, again, is what brings in more taxes, residential or commercial?

Well, I think that's always the discussion of, you know, more growth and, you know, more commercial growth. But at the same time, with how House Bill 389 is, so we could add I mean, plenty of value, but if we, for example, if our value, if we add $500 million, let's just take that, our preliminary levy rate reduces that amount that we get. The 90% that we can only take reduces that amount that we get. And then we're capped at 8%. And so all three of those are reducing that amount. So even if we're adding all this value, we're really not getting the true amount of that full value. In addition to that, I think what people don't understand is there's a time frame of when that, you know, if something comes on board in December of the previous year, then it's calculated and it takes about 12 months for them to let me taxes on it. But if it comes in January, it's about 18 to 24 minutes before we let the taxes on it. So there's that time frame where... There's people receiving services, but not paying any toward those services.

I mean, when these commercial projects come on board, we have to consider it, too, and make sure that our clients are ready.

So, yeah.

So, these fire levies, what complexity, I think, does that have?

Is that a decision if we decide to bring that to the ballot? yeah so i think you know those are all discussions of like if tightrope is really different

Like I said, I think if that was the decision, there's things that I can do in the budget, and we can make specific decisions because our budget is probably going to be reduced on the property tax level to help make police follow up on the deficit without burning bodies. And so far, what FIRE needs for this year, with that acknowledgement of the 28, FIRE won't be part of this budget. But I think those, like I said, I'm not always, I don't make that decision. There's a lot of other people that make that decision. So I can't make those changes in the budget until that decision is done.

Yeah, so right now, will there be a department-by-department budget published that we can see?

A department-by-department budget.

Their ask is for the 2027 budget. LINE BY LINE. DO YOU HAVE TO SEE THAT?

YEAH. SO DEPARTMENT HAS PART OF THEIR PRESENTATION THAT YOU'VE ASKED THEM TO GIVE THEM EACH OF YOUR LINE BY LINE DEPARTMENT MEASURE. WE HAVE AN ACTUALLY APPROVED REPORT. IF WE CAN GET IT IN TIME. IF YOU WANT SOMETHING EARLIER, I'D BE HAPPY TO.

YEAH. I DON'T WANT TO STRESS ANYBODY OUT.

yeah yeah the whole thing and i think that's why we are doing that department so that department can talk about their brother to you instead of me just helping you

I have another question really, as I was purchasing this list of proposals, I noticed $800,000 in the sewer fund for the county jail sewer extension. Has the city communicated any kind of commitment to the county to do that? Why would we pay for their sewer extension that they need? Doesn't the county pay for itself? That's a lot for us to put out there A COUNTY'S BENEFIT WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN WANT TO ANNEX INTO THE CITY WHERE THEY'RE INSISTING ON A MUNICIPAL SERVICE AGREEMENT AND STILL CHARGING US MORE IN WORK FOR THE SERVICES THEY PROVIDE US. I'M NOT REALLY SATISFIED WITH THIS $800,000 IN OUR POCKET.

ANYTHING YOU WANT TO TAKE? I CAN TAKE THAT.

And so we wanted, if the council chose to move forward with it, to help us in our line, we wanted to have that. So we have their next proposal next year. If the city chooses not to proceed with it, then that's what we're going to do.

So we've made no commitment to them. That's right. Or otherwise, we're going to do that. Thank you.

Any other questions or any recommendations that you'd like to see maybe that I can bring forward in the next three days or?

There's everything.

Yeah, that's pretty bad.

Excuse me, it goes back to 2025.

Could you go back a couple of years further? Say that one more time, I'm sorry. Could you go back to maybe 2023?

I can, yeah.

Through this Easter renewal sunset, I believe it's 2023.

Yeah, 2023. I realize growth has been astronomical, but our growth in the past year, our increases are also extremely astronomical. And I'm wondering,

where we got, how we got there so fast. I realize growth is going like crazy, but I'd like to figure out how we manage to go from $143 million to $203 million, $60 million in two years.

I think one project alone would be pretty comfortable. Sewer is $25 million alone.

but that's your project and that is not. This would be a time. Yeah. Yeah. So I just want to clarify that that would be.

So one thing I would say, maybe what I can actually give, because 2025 is actual, like what we actually spent. And the big thing that I see is that they said, let's see, it's going to be capital. Capital is one of those ones that we budget for the whole project. And those are the ones, you know, we budget for a whole project and maybe the project is $5 million. But it takes a year and a half or two there. So we are not spending that $5 million right now. And the entire project here, but that is currently how we have. And so I would say probably those 2 budgets. I'm a little bit overstated and 26 when we get them back. So that's one nuance, but I can see where the other two, I'd be happy to go back a couple years to conduct this in the actual.

And in my mind, there's a difference in capital between enterprise-run capital, which is streets and roads and sewer, which is paid for by police and connections, and capital in firing police and others, and direct competition in wages and personnel. And that's probably it.

I will also say in the three years that I've been here, I feel like we've probably added 75 plus people.

Yeah.

I don't know if that helps, but... No, no.

We understand. I was here for that. So, yeah. Thank you.

But I'd be happy to do that and bring out more people.

Well, that's all I had. I know we have time on the phone list. I tried to keep it as quickly as possible.

So if you guys have information you need, any other questions, if you guys have my information, please reach out. If you have questions.

Thank you, counsel, as always. I appreciate you guys coming out. Thank you for

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