Planning Board - workshop

But if you want to put money aside in like a disaster relief fund or something like that, you can .

We need to go ahead and start the meeting, gentlemen. OK. That's all right. We'll call this meeting to order. This is the fiscal year 26-27 budget workshop for the county, city, and county board of commissioners. It's Wednesday, August 12, 2026, 1 PM. Don't make me use my gavel. Okay, Commissioner Burt, so will you do the invitations, please? And Commissioner Griggs, lead us in the pledge.

Thank you, God, so much for bestowing this upon us, Lord, that we have business to discuss, to go over the budget. I think you... just for allowing the people of Callaway to, again, place this trust in us. I pray that as we go through the budget, we'll make wise decisions and continue just serving you properly. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice,

City Court, please. You're welcome. Commissioner Bartzell. Present. Commissioner Griggs. Here. Commissioner Palatier.

Here.

Commissioner Ayers.

Yes, ma'am.

Mayor Anderson.

Here. OK, public participation. I don't think we have anybody here that's not been to a meeting before, so you all know the rules. So we'll go on to our agenda, which is the draft budget for fiscal year 2027. And I'll let city manager and Mr. Thompson take it away wherever we wanted to pick up.

Originally, in the budgets that y'all received, there was a, that was representing a $1 increase. I will tell you, we found an error in your budget that y'all have in front of you. Our illustrious former finance director, David, we're still finding all his little tweaks. That did not indicate a raise for the firefighters. So in your budget that you have in front of you, it was a dollar for all employees and 75 cents for firefighters. The calculation in there was based on the fact that if you give a dollar to a regular employee that's based on 2,080 hours, if we don't change the other number, that equivalents down to the firefighters would get a 75 cent increase because that's based on 2,700 hours. So it's the same amount of raise. It's just monetary. It's because the firefighter shifts are based on their longer. So the one that you have in front of you that has $1 for employees, and it would be $0.75 for firefighters. We have now figured out why and where he does all that. Just little cells that are highlighted everywhere.

So is this correct? If we're going to do the dollar, is this correct?

That is not correct. That is a dollar for the employees and 75 cents on the firefighters. That's on page 37.

And that's not correct?

That is not correct. Well, it can be correct if that's the way the commission so chooses. Most of the time, we have never taken and not done as much for the firefighters as we do for the regular employees.

I mean, that's it. It seems fair to make everybody equal.

So it just depends on how you want to look at it on that aspect. I do have the calculations for doing a dollar across the board, 75 cents across the board, and 50 cents across the board. We just did those as culminations. Of course, the budget that you have in front of you

Yeah, I think it's page 37 where I see your $0.75 is highlighted for the firefighters. Where's it at? Yeah, page 37. Yeah, we found that. I saw that. I'm like, what do we know? Yeah, it goes all the way across. So when you go a dollar amount, that was a word that didn't, because it didn't point to the chief and the assistant chief there.

It took three months.

Can I add a couple of things here? I've done a little bit of homework on salaries. When we started this whole salary thing, we wanted to be at $15. So I asked for a list of all the employees and what the salaries are. Right now, we have 11 employees that fall between $16 and $17 an hour. We have seven employees that fall between $18 and $19 an hour. We have nine that's in the 21 to 22. And then from there, it goes all the way up. Obviously, the salary is on all that good stuff. So I was talking to city manager today. When you look at the average salary in Calaways, $14 to $15 an hour still. But I can't compare the retail side of the house to what we do here in the city.

But I just want that the first- We are still, it has gone down a lot. and over. We do lose an employee for a dollar. It happens all the time. I can make a dollar over here before. A lot of these employees are my younger employees and they don't understand that There is a benefit side to it. Exactly what I was going to say. There is a benefit side.

Health insurance and retirement, they're worth a lot of money if they just realize it.

Yes, and the benefit side is a lot.

But I will tell you, we are becoming more and more competitive in a major way. I would just out of, and once again, I'm thinking ahead. of what's going to happen over the next two or three years based on the November. So I'm going to take worst-case scenario. I don't foresee major raises. There are going to have to be smaller raises because we're going to have to. And it's not going to be just us.

No, it's going to be everybody.

And so we looked at it in terms of once we got our budget, where could we fit this for next year? And it fits. Yeah. You can keep my raise.

You can keep my raise. We did. Yeah. Yeah, they keep all of our raise. Yeah.

I'll give you all raises. I love it.

Can't do that. We took care of that. Pam and I used that rent.

But that's where I get so frustrated because people talk about the property tax. Well, they'll just have to quit giving themselves big raises.

We're talking about Windhaven, Panama City.

Well, but they're talking about places all over the state. So I just want to throw those figures.

Well, we did 75 cents last year.

And no matter what we do, I always look at the liability as we go forward. It's the liability that we're going to, and then hopefully next year we don't have to make the tough decisions of, you know.

That's why, in a way, I wouldn't mind doing the dollar this year, because this may be the last time we're able to do that. Next year, it may be a quarter, if it's anything.

You have to realize, too, that the dollar affects the lower-level employees way more than it affects anybody up here. So at 3%, of course, the higher. we get a little bit more. Right. But I think the dollar would show a little more, you know.

Yeah, but you only have 11 employees in that category, everything else. Everybody else is... When I'm looking at it, I was kind of doing an analysis of all the salaries, and I can take out all of the salary employees that are in the 50s and 60s an hour. But just looking at the hourly salary, when you look at it, I think we're pretty competitive, but they may want to leave us for a dollar, but

You're looking at the $17, $18 an hour worker. But you also have to worry about compression as well. So when you raise $1 to the $17, $18 an hour workers, you still have this 20 guy that's been here for 10 years and only makes $20. So you've got to deal with compression on that as well. I understand.

That all trickles up. I understand that totally. And some of the corporations out there don't care. Correct. You know that. I work for a company that doesn't care that way. They gave employees $2 pay raise. This guy's been there 15 years. You know, so I'm not saying we need to operate that way. I'm just saying is that I understand, you know, the compression issue. But I also understand that when we started all this, that our goal was to get to 15. And we're beyond the 15. And we're going way beyond, you know, not way, way beyond. But, you know, you don't have that many employees at the, you know, below the $20 mark.

I don't think we can hire an employee at 15. Well, I understand that.

Well, if you do, that won't last long.

Yeah, they don't.

Not the kind of work that they have to do. So I understand all of it. My thought is that a dollar was kind of low high, but that's just my opinion.

I'm in agreeance with the mayor there, though, that we might not get to even do it next year. It might be a quarter. It might go back to when y'all had very lean years where it's like it's zero.

Just for something real quick, every quarter adjust the budget about $47,000. And that's everything.

So your 10% below will go away?

Well, it'll get a little lower, but we're still close to that 11%.

We're still going to be where we need to be budget-wise, but we're not going to be 10% lower than last year. At a 75% raise, we're going to be sitting at a positive $85,000. At a dollar raise, instead of the $59,000 that you see, we're at $38,000.

like this, it's like, okay, we could have this argument, the dollar is more than, you know, a lot. If we were sitting here and saying, okay, we have to cut something else and make the budget work. We're, you know, we cut so much that I think the dollar works and we still have some, a little bit of wiggle room here. And then, so I think when we're looking at it, we have to look at, okay, this is affordable to us right now. And then we can argue next year that, hey, let's afford what's not affordable. We still have, again, the dollar would be an argument and is a great, and I think it's a good push for our low-level employees, especially going next year if we can only give a quarter. I mean, I think that's, if it was my vote, I'd vote on the dollar myself.

You're waiting?

I'm done. I know we have some employees that have been here long enough. They remember those years when there were no raise. They remember those years.

Yes.

Before there were no raises.

I'm totally for the dollar. And also, here again, I come from industry. You want a higher wage, you improve your skill level, you improve your certifications. You have that somewhat set up here in the city, so if somebody on the lower end wants to get a higher wage, improve their skills and go to a different grade.

And, Mayor, you were talking at the last meeting about utility billing. Our CSRs do have steps.

Yes, you told me. You did tell me that.

I'm currently in the middle of a job description review, so making sure that.

What did you just say about the CF?

At the last meeting, they were talking about the CSRs, the customer service representatives and utility billing. Right. They do have steps also. They can do CSR 1, CSR 2. Right. We do have steps built in for them also.

Because he was talking about, you know, public works can do it. And I said, does utility building have different levels that they can improve themselves and go up a step? And at the time, they weren't. But he said, yes, they do.

And then we do have the senior CSR position. Well, if we're talking about salaries, talk about the city clerk position. How much more time do you have for you?

I'm about... Three quarters of the way done with the education points.

Right.

And probably about halfway through with the experience points. Those are a little harder to get than education. But from what I've been told, that if I can get all of the education points and I still have some experience left that I need, I can use more education points in lieu of experience points.

What about time frame?

I don't know. I have the Fall Academy this year where I would get probably the majority of the rest of the education points. And they have recently cut back on the amount of webinars that they have available to be able to do at any time. I've done several of them. But they used to have about 30 of them on the website that we could choose from. And they're down to six right now. So as long as I can, I'm hoping by the next summer academy, I should have all the points that are needed.

Have you done those six that are available?

I've done three of them that are available now. The other three weren't available before, so now those are ones that I'll work on.

Now, one of the reasons I'm asking that question, as I did again last year, we have an understanding with our clerk that once he does that, there's a sizable raise involved with those certifications. Now, whoever follows me behind all this, they need to understand they can't fool with that. I mean, it's out there, so everybody needs to remember that. I want to make sure it's out there in front.

Yeah, I was ready to give her the raise directly.

It has nothing to do with the dollar or anything else. It has strictly to do with the certifications, et cetera.

And they do not make the certification easy.

No, that is actually a very difficult certification for her.

And there are some other things in other departments that are somewhat similar that Bill has to deal with, you and Bill. And I'm all for it. I'm for people... getting raises and improving themselves on that, which apparently, as Commissioner Pelletier continues to point out, Walmart could give a damn, but we do. So you improve yourself, we're going to reward you for that.

Well, I know y'all already know this, but I would put Ashley against any city clerk in Florida, and she'll excel overall. Oh, yeah. By far. And even the ones that I've dealt with, she's way more thorough than what I've seen, even in other states.

Not to mention leadership skills. I think she has some of the best leadership skills I've seen.

So since we're talking about certification, where are we with our HR director certification?

She has been insurance certified before. She let it lapse. So we did put it in the budget this year. She wants to get recertified for that. So that will take a conference, and then we put money in there to also pay for the certification, which I think is like $250. So we're there with her?

Are we there? Not completely. But we're discussing actually her longevity currently right now. There's been some discussion about retirement. Okay.

Okay. Because that was one of the goals, too, when we hired her, was to get certification. And it's been four or five years now, and I haven't heard any progress.

And that's still built in?

Yeah, there was a sizable raise from that. But it's in the budget every year, but we haven't had to spend it. So where are we? I think you've got three dollars.

Well, I think the three of you have spoke, so it is. We have the liability issue, long range, that we need to be looking at. Because this is something we're going to carry from now on. Unless we start cutting positions, because we have to cut positions. Or we have to cut whatever in the future. Salaries. That would be bad.

No, I don't want to get to that point. I think a dollar is very generous.

Without growth, I don't see us actually cutting positions, because we're already in many cases, to use the phrase, lean and mean already.

He's talking meeting a budget. Right.

A lot's going to, well, to me, a lot's going to depend on what happens in November. Right. And we wouldn't just fire anybody, you know. No, no, no. If we had to do it, it would be through attrition. Right.

Yes, sir.

So we'll just have to. We'll have to see what happens in November. No, but we'll have to see in November what happens, which is one of the reasons I'm in favor of the dollar because this may be the last time we'll be in a position that we can do it.

If I may, looking back on the years, we don't, really when you look at it, the taxes, yeah, we're going to lose. a little bit of money, but really it doesn't pay for anything in all reality. It pays for the police department mostly, and that's about kids, so the fire and everything else we pick up on that. So looking back on me and him looking on it, just what we're going to lose, I think we're going to be fine. It will be tight. I agree with you.

For the first year, the second year will be a little bit. Well, after the first year, we'll have a good understanding.

I think that we'll be able to fine pass that second year as well. The second year is going to get a little harder.

Yeah. But we are still growing. Yes. The base cost of the house is well over $250,000 for these new houses. So they are going to pay taxes. So I think we're in good shape. I think so, too. I think we should be a little more conservative. I'm with Bob. I think that 75 cents an hour is good. That's what we did last year. We do it this year. I think in November, well, that's just speculation, but I think it's going to fail because DeSantis pulled his endorsement.

And what was the dollar value difference between $0.75 and $1? You said $47,000. $47,000. I'm good with the dollar.

I'm good with the dollar. If we stuck with $0.75, I think we can...

Correct the fire department part because they're going to be at 75 so that would be a what a dollar an hour race for them, but 75 across the board for regular employees and that would be even all the way across the board If that's I would like to keep it at a dollar across the board this year And I think that is still being conservative because like you said

I think a dollar still stays relatively conservative considering how large our budget is and that $47,000 is a small token of appreciation kind of toward our employees and our citizens. And hopefully it'll alleviate some turnover. I know we have less of it, but if we can have even less turnover over chasing that dollar somewhere else.

on the dollar, that's still cheaper. I know we were looking at whether we did merit or not if we do a percentage. Your low end people don't get that much. But then your higher end people, if you're doing a percentage, they get more. So in a way, that skews things. Your higher end goes up more. Your lower end doesn't. So this way, it's equal.

I don't have problems with doing away with percentage. I agree with you there.

This way, everybody. And to me, that everybody would include the city manager and the city clerk.

I don't understand why we're separating the fire department to $0.75 an hour. Make me understand that.

Because they get paid for more hours. So they're actually getting, if they get $1, they're getting a $2,756. raise for the rest of the employees are getting $2,080.

We're back again comparing our fire department to the rest of the employees and the certification that the fire department is getting.

So one of the things I think that Mr. Kirk said was an issue, that was just an error in the sale they put it in. I know, but they're still looking at $0.75.

I thought you said $1. I said $1. It's going to be $1. As long as it's $1 cost, I'm okay with that.

That was formulating. Well, that was dated. Yeah, it was just that. That was dated.

It was us going through going, what in the world? Why do these numbers not look right? Well, I saw the other page 37. I'm like, what the heck is that? 75 cents?

Yeah, it didn't show on the other ones because it was hidden. So I didn't see it. And when I put it in, like I said, those two, so it did change the third part, as I assumed.

And if we're talking pay, I think we're settled on the dollar.

Yes.

Now, I know I said my thought would be city manager and city clerk also get that dollar. One thing I was looking at, because I checked to see What city managers in the other cities in the county will mention? Well, our city manager has the most experience, even with a dollar an hour raise. He's still going to be one of the lowest paid. What I'm thinking is most of the others, besides getting a higher allowance, they either have a take-home vehicle or they get a $500 a month auto allowance. Would you all consider increasing his auto allowance? Because I know you know, Ken, how he's all over the city in his truck because you ride with him a lot. But he's using his personal vehicle, checking all these jobs. I know you put a lot of miles on that truck, don't you?

Why don't we buy him a vehicle? I'd rather give him a little bit more. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, I don't really think we don't need to get a better take up.

Hey, the assistant chief's got a vehicle that he's not going to get.

Yeah, give him the old one that's not good enough for the deputy chief, but it's good enough for the city manager. That's right. No, I'd rather, I mean.

It's already got lights on it.

Yeah. I think just giving him $100 more a month in his auto allowance would be a lot cheaper than giving him a take-home vehicle or something.

It's a digestible number. That's $1,200 throughout the year.

Are we good with that?

Yeah, I'm good with that. See, the alternative, I was going to bring up the point that, number one, Our city manager does not have the staff and all the people that are managing all the grants and everything that we're getting, where the other cities have multiple almost people, if not departments, doing all this. So when you start figuring what those are costing the other cities, we could double Eddie's salary and be about equal to what he's doing is related to the other city.

Look at Panama City. They have a city manager, and then he's got two assistant city managers. Well, why don't we fire Eddie and hire me? I'll do it.

No, that's OK. No offense, but I don't think you have his knowledge about matters. He's been for four years.

Rather than do that, I'd just as soon give him another $100 on his auto allowance.

You OK?

Whatever the group wants to do. I think he gets enough now.

Well, now tell me this. When you get an increase in your Social Security or in your military pay, do you say, no, no, no, I already get enough? Or do you just take it?

Well, if they would. where I'm at right now. So that's me.

Oh, I don't have a problem.

But you can't give it back. You can help Eddie out, Bob. You drive him. Why don't we all help him out? We take 1,000 off hours. We go down to 9,000. And give it to him.

If you're suggesting that, I'm all for it.

I'm for it, too. I've been for it for quite a while.

I'll go down.

If we give it to him. We're set in the charter, so we can't give ourselves a raise, and we'll have to do some other things if we're going to do it. We can give ourselves a decrease in the charter, so we'll put it on the ballot.

I'm good with it. I think this position should be voluntary, and if we have expenses, okay, you can chip in a little bit.

on with that, too.

Well, some of us are not necessarily in the same position as you are, since I live on Social Security and a small retirement and all that business. That's what you mentioned. And the amount of my automobile and everything else that I do and the things that we end up paying for.

We've had that discussion. Our municipalities are paying down. We've not raised our salary in 10 years.

Except for Parker, and Parker doesn't have it.

Yeah, right. But we're not Parker. We're not. $55 million, we're not Parker. And the beach. And the beach. They're way, way, way. And they keep on giving themselves pay raises.

And they pay for their benefits.

They get benefits. We have no Florida retirement. We did away with Florida retirement. We did away with medical benefits we used to pay. And we did away with pay raises by changing the city charter because I saw that They're going to give themselves a pay raise, so let's put it in the charter. So we put it in the charter, and now we have to go to the people to get a pay raise, and none of us want to do that.

No, we don't want to ask for a pay raise.

And we've been at the same scale for 10 years. Panama City, Lynnhaven all get medical benefits. They get Florida retirement, same as the people who used to be up here. I start saying, wait a minute, they're getting medical benefits with their spouse and the commissioner for, you know, I didn't see that that was right. The citizens were paying for that.

For part-time employees. For part-time employees, yeah. Part-time employees aren't eligible for that. I probably spend that money just on gas and paying for tickets to events. Because I represent the city and stuff, but I pay for it.

I noticed there was a charge in our area for disability if we were Do you need that? Yes. You have to pay it.

Yeah, we're covered by workers' confidence. Hey, Mr. City Manager, you know you've got to have workers' confidence. You've got to have it.

I'm just curious about that.

That's a requirement. Because workers' confidence is talking to our department. Yes, we might break our leg walking down the stairs here.

Somebody might push you down the stairs after a meeting and make you hurt.

Just listen to me. It's required by law.

That's wrong. They're just big. So if you get hurt, you can claim against the city.

Okay. So by what I hear, we're at a dollar and a $500 car allowance.

Right. Okay, so that's where we're at? That's it?

I think that's it.

That's cheaper than doubling the salary.

Just a little. I was going for the note. So I think that gets us through pay.

Now we're done with that.

So now what do we need to go to?

I think we finished page two as far as that.

The only thing that we really got to talk about on revenue We checked again this morning. We actually checked twice a day. And we're still waiting to get the numbers in from this day.

But we feel like we're good. Before we press on from the car thing, we do give them $4,800 a year now, right? Yes. We're going to bump it to $6,000. An extra $1,200. $500 a month? Yes, that's what the mayor said yesterday.

Which is what most of the other cities get. Or they get a take-home vehicle. Well, we don't need to do a take-home vehicle. I'm not big on take-home vehicles. I don't care. I think it's a lot cheaper to do it.

We don't have to pay insurance on it.

That's exactly it. That way he gets a little more to cover his insurance and upkeep and gas. Because gas right now... $2.00.

It dropped 20 cents the other day. Hopefully it keeps dropping.

It'll probably go back up, though.

Circle K is going down 40 cents tomorrow, by the way, just for one day.

Is that all you wanted to say about revenues? Yeah. So we can move over.

Do we need to put something in there? Is anyone interested? Do they need to go to training or conferences? No.

OK. Too old for training.

Is there stress in here anyway?

Page 9.

That's something I want to commend. do in city clubs primarily on the decrease in our legal fees. That's quiet. And code enforcement.

Because they're doing all the legal work. That's true.

That's true. We try to do as much in-house legal as we can. And I hate to say it, it's not rocket science. And I love Kevin to death. But we can draft most of our own.

One of our other cities in the county just hired a new attorney. And my understanding is that his contract is for $275,000 for the year. And it's not like a max of, no, I think it's just $275,000 and he'll do. But we've never spent $275,000 a year. Even way before you, we never spent that much.

I think it was $160,000. Yeah, I think that's it.

It was $200,000.

And I kept going, what?

And now I don't think it's hit $100,000 since you've been here.

We've dropped it.

I think first it was 80 and now it's... So the Coppins Monroe, is that the fellow for Beacon Point? Is that what we're doing? No. You had a 5,000 increase. What is Coppins Monroe?

Coppins Monroe is a... Is it employment? That's the employment attorneys.

Employment attorneys. Right.

We use dollar charge if I have an employee situation come up and I want to find out what real you know I will call my which they are also the Florida League of Cities attorney but if it's outside of a litigation issue I can't use them on that so we just keep a

I bet we have the lowest legal fees of any city in the county.

We would hope so, which is good. It's a good thing.

It's a wonderful thing, but I just, I know our city manager gets beat up about some things and money stuff, so I just wanted to mention how we keep legal costs down, and it's because they do so much stuff in-house. But we used to have this city attorney did all the ordinances and resolutions.

But I'm not going to take that. It's half her. Well, that's what I said.

You and her and code enforcement. Yes. The three of you are doing that to save money.

I remember when I first got here, we had outside people drawing our bid docs up. And actually, we do it all in the house. I know. It does keep down on conflicts.

Well, and it keeps down on costs, too. Saves the city money.

Yeah, we make sure all of our contracts with even our engineering firms, they most of the time at the end try to throw in the legal part, bids and stuff like that, and all that stuff gets thrown out. We do it all in-house. Ashley can do it cheaper.

That's right. Ashley can.

So the IT equipment and software that covers that new 10,000?

No, so this is for just to recycle the old equipment, keep everything up to date.

Where is that 10,000?

We actually talked about it at the last meeting. It's in contractual services down there. It's already included. So I think we did leisure services last year.

That's what I was going to say, leisure services. Yeah, it's there. In their control.

administrative services through OnSystems, which has provided us very, very good service. Even though it's managed IT, we do have an in-city tech that comes out for anything that's an emergency or something like that. But other than that, those guys are great. I'm not concerned about our system. We're not concerned about malware. We're more concerned about you guys clicking on an email link that you shouldn't

Yeah, I get them all the time. Just ignore them now.

I'll quickly say this, and I know we're in a budget meeting. Don't click spam.

Never.

Click phishing. Yes. Okay, yeah. There's a little shield up there. Click that because that indicates to our IT tech, our IT company, that an email has went out, and then they will automatically search the system, and if anybody else has got it, they'll delete it. Okay. Okay. OK. We don't have any elections this year. Law enforcement won't have 5%.

Well, we do have elections. We have elections, but it's going to be free from the law.

Yeah, it's free for us. I have a question on the law enforcement. When we hired the new deputy last year, how much does that run us a year?

We haven't hired a new deputy.

We haven't hired a new deputy. How much is that recurring cost?

I know it used to be they said it was like $70,000.

That's about $80,000, I'd say. $80,000 to our overall? Yeah. Yes. Just educational.

Yeah.

Page 10.

I just have one correction there, if we could. Since we already gave City Manager a $100 increase, we need to reduce that travel in per diem.

for whatever, the hotel. And nine times out of 10, I do not stay at the host hotels most of the time. I stay at the host hotels.

I don't think we can lower it for DM anyway. I think it's a state thing. Well, no, I'm just saying that.

No, but he's saying in our budget we can lower it. And I can attest to that because I always sign his travel things, and it'll be for a rental car and a hotel.

No, wait a minute. We just gave him an increase on his car loss.

Yeah, but that's not for out of town. Yeah, that's right. He goes out of town.

I've already got three years. Yes. And it never leaves the city.

The county.

It never leaves the county. It never leaves the county.

Yeah, it doesn't leave the county.

Finance. Can you skip right over this? I am going to, Adam's going to go to Springbrook. Orlando, it's close. So we're going to let him go down and continue training on Springbrook this year. Well, that's good. A lot of times they have them way out west or something, don't they? The Springbrook, the conferences and the census conferences, they're not like a normal conference that y'all would think where it's just a bunch of vendors. They actually have dedicated classes. and I think you'll know that Lisa has been to several Springbrook conferences. The only thing we've had to pay for is her travel there because she generally has been asked to speak at the Springbrook conferences, and they donate the rest to her just to come and sit on panels and speak because she's got such good knowledge of Springbrook. Anybody got anything on finance?

But can I ask one question going back to the raise? How does that work if somebody's only been here for a short time? Do they get the full dollar, you know, if they've been here a month? Are we back on salaries?

Yeah, I just had that question. No, no, no, no, no. Six months or longer?

That's what I thought. You had to be here a certain, so that decreases a little because I'm sure we've had some people.

For a dictionary, Chris? Superior to six months? Correct.

Yeah.

Well, we have 90-day probation, but we generally do. It's kind of the same way we do with the holiday bonuses. If you've been here less than six months, you don't get half. If you've been here less than three months, you get none.

I just thought about that in my thought. Yeah, so that will make some difference, too, in the amount. Okay, sorry. Keep going.

Okay.

I didn't read that. Can I ask why we're continuing to increase the budget on audit? That's a set fee.

Well, so sometimes you have a single audit, and then also with the CRA next year, we're going to have to have a single audit out of the CRA as well. So this, we do charge a little bit out of the CRA, but most of it comes out of this right here. Right. It should come out of CRA again. single audit, whether it's in CRA or not, it does the whole city. So if we spend $750,000 of federal money, which we will be guaranteed to do that next year, so it just fluctuates. And this year, I do a little extra with that W, the AWT. Yeah, AWT.

And it's based on a lot of times the grants tell us what we have to do.

Do we have any grants coming up? We have a ton. And they're very, you know, and they... They make sure that we are online with it. So they really audit me or whoever's sitting in this chair. So that's good. But it's really just a, I increase that only because there may be something coming up. If we don't use it, we don't use it. But if we have to do a single audit or if we have to do a single audit in each, you know, in CRA and in the general fund, it might increase costs a little bit.

And with all the grants we're getting.

So we amended the budget for 26 to 60,000, but the projection is 32. See what I'm saying is that your numbers just don't jive in my mind.

We keep on what I call padding the budget. So the 32,000 is as of June, and we just got another $25,000 to finish because we just finished. $25,000. That hasn't been inputted yet? No, because this is only just as of June 30th. So we just received it, I want to say, a couple weeks ago. So it wouldn't hit this. It won't hit this until next year.

So that'll get us to about that $60,000.

I mean, I can lower that, but it's other things. I'd have to come ask you for it. I'm fine. I'm fine.

You've got to ask. I'm just looking at... Threms. Yes. Well, you're hoping you don't have to use it.

That's right. And that's why that money goes into the reserves. Yeah. City clerk's office.

Any questions?

I had a question on city clerk. Hold on a minute.

Well, I've already asked about the rating, so I've gotten clarification on that. Right. Training of the assistant clerk, yeah.

Also, if you'll notice under other current charges, we will be doing that ADA compliance module. That is a requirement for our website.

Right.

And so we have to budget for that.

Okay.

Yeah, because we sure don't want to not be in compliance. Yeah.

Okay. Answers my question.

If you'll notice up under the salaries, there's a complete reduction. So that was what was, at one time, we were taking the maintenance department and we were splitting it with general government and with leisure services. That's fine and dandy, but it's still the general fund, still general government. It gets difficult to start splitting people into two different groups, so we just went ahead and moved all of it over to leisure services. The full employee instead of half employee. Still the same fund.

The only time you split anything is if you're going out of a different fund.

Yeah, if you're going from a different fund, which we do in the enterprise funds with some salaries.

Why did you leave off all the explanations in the upper part?

Right.

In the what?

The notes.

And those salaries, sir?

For the salaries?

Because there was nothing there.

It's all. We just removed one employee. All we did was remove the half employees. It's all negatives.

Yeah. So there's nothing. There's nothing. I can put it in there and say we moved it to.

Yeah, just put move full employee. Okay. Move maintenance, which is leisure services.

I do have a question on, you knew I was going to ask this question on bag transportation. That's about, if I calculated right, about 150% increase from last year, is that right? Yes.

Why? I look back last year, and it was very, it was lower last year.

It's a 150% increase. Yeah. And that's way too high. I don't know if that's something we negotiate with them.

We don't have to pay that.

That's the trolley. The trolley's 13. 14? Yeah.

See where the red is?

discussions about the trolley and um you know trolley has gone up a tad but uh you know the bay transportation has gone up 150 percent just because bay county is asking for it doesn't mean we have to pay for it it's not bay county no it's not bay it's bay transit yeah have they split off mayor let me That's way high.

Can I check on that?

Yeah.

It makes no sense to me. No, I'm surprised at that. I did not realize that it had gone up.

So let me- What's wrong with that huge red increase? Because I noticed it, too, and I had to research it. Because it was actually trending on that way. And then last year, for some reason, it just went way down. Yeah, and I see.

I know why it went down last year, because they did an actual allocation. And our ridership, they do it across the whole county, all the cities and the beach and the county. And they look at how many riders in each city. by their accounts, and they did the allocation last year, and we actually had a decrease. So it went down. I'm not sure why it went up this year, so let me check on that. OK. And I can let you know, and you can send it out to everybody once I have the explanation. I don't want to email it to everybody, so I'll send it to you and Ashley, and you can send it out to everybody.

When do we pay that?

Usually pretty early in the year, October, November.

October, November.

Yeah. I mean, we won't pay it until this budget is approved.

Right. OK. So we have time to cancel. Well, it's not going to be a cancellation.

We're going to pay some, but I'm just trying to see why they increased it 150%. We've been paying it for years and years.

Let me see if they did a reallocation and our numbers increased. It could be that there's more riders

Well, there was nothing about that in the letter they sent when they put these numbers. They didn't say anything about increased riders. Of course not.

Yeah, but they didn't say anything. It sounds like they just sent a bill. I'll find out. I will find out.

And the advertising, city manager, where's that $7,000 going? $7,000 for advertising.

That's for newspapers. So when we put anything in the newspaper and stuff. Who reads the newspaper? We don't do newspapers. Well, we're required by.

There are some for lab grants and CDBG grants. Very few, right? When we do those bids, they do require us still to put it in the newspaper.

But that's very few.

Yeah, I mean, well, those are the only bids that I have to put in.

It's not $7,000 worth. Well, and two, our trim notice, it's got to be. thousands of dollars, because you've got to do a whole quarter of a page, and it's got to be sitting there. So those things are, and I didn't. Which note again? The trim notes.

The trim notes.

Yeah. That's a huge thing.

Okay, we've got $3,000. Oh, that answers my question.

Are we still on page? Yeah, page 13.

Okay. Promotional activities. Okay. Yeah, it's in the same paragraph with the page. Oh, okay.

And then going up one more thing on social media, $4,200, where's that going? Going up all the way up to- Okay, I see it. Social media.

Yeah, where's that going?

So we are required to Everything that gets posted on social media is archived into another outside source that they keep. So it's not social media, it's archiving. It's archiving for social media, yeah.

So your Facebook, everything you do on Facebook has to be saved.

Right, yeah, I know.

$23,000 for the trolley.

We can get rid of that and the social media page if you've got liable. All of them. And that, and the house, the apartment, every, everybody has to be, every page of the city sponsors has to be archived.

Fire department.

And that's not afraid to get rid of it.

However, that is the outreach to our citizens for, that's how a lot of people consume contact and get information. I would say, you know, we should keep the social medias.

I'm done by then. I don't know about the rest of them, but I'm done.

All right. I guess we move to 15.

Yeah, I have one question on 15. Go ahead. Why are we still leasing printers? You can buy a printer for $50. That's a huge cost of money.

We have a printer company that takes care of all of our printers.

I understand that, but that's $1,000.

Well, I don't know how much you've used commercial printers versus the home use. I have a nice home use, and it is nothing like the one at the office. Yeah, I know that. All the speed and quality.

And they are very nice. They print, they scan.

In our lease, does it cover? If anything breaks, they show up. They either replace it or fix it on the spot. All our leases cover it 100%. Plus ink?

They come in once a month.

Plus ink? Yes. All right.

Ready to move to 16? Code enforcement.

Let me ask you just a stupid question. Go for it. When we do boots, isn't that really for our maintenance people? Why do we have it in code enforcement? Boots and uniforms.

It's just, that's the name of the law. They don't get boots.

Well, that's what I thought, you know.

We're just buying... No, it's just uniforms only.

Okay, all right. It's just a footnote that needs to be taken out. Because boots doesn't belong here.

on that, you know. We did have a 200% increase. Why did we have that? On the printer? Why did it go from 300 a year to 960? So, you mean human resources? So, that printer was a 15-year-old printer. Oh, human resources?

Yeah, that was a 15-year-old printer. It broke. I mean, it splattered so We've got a new printer in there. Not anything more? No. Actually, the one we replaced was color. This one's just black and white. So the cost will go down a little bit on that as well.

Nobody has color printers. They don't need them. We have the one major printer up front.

It prints color, and everybody can remote print it. So we needed a separate one in human resources? She needs a printer, yeah, definitely.

Well, you've got information here that you don't want to go down the hall with. I don't know anybody had, I don't have any questions on court enforcement.

Just the boots.

Yeah, I know.

This is going to be a lower level maintenance position to end mowing. And these guys don't just mow whenever the other crews need them. We pull people over to do that. We run mowing and storm water. And then we have basically our construction crews that do roads, sidewalks, and everything else. We had cut them back several years ago. It's just, we're growing and grass is growing quicker. You can say that. You can say that again. I'm going to dedicate this one employee to the Sekoshi ditch.

Other than that, it's just business as usual. You know, I would have thought that since most of all of our streets don't have LEDs, that our cost would be coming down on street lights. Well, it did a little bit. No, it's going up.

They have not changed doors. It hasn't gone down. It's going up. You know, originally we talked about doing that complete changeup. I don't think they've been changing that.

They're just changing out the houses. We should have more with the new neighborhoods and everything.

That should be LED, though, when you put them in. I know here... Those are solar. Yeah, as you're driving up, they're solar.

And we do not own those.

Yeah.

The HOA owns those.

So that's just here. This is a $3,800 reduction from last year's budget. So I took the average... that's where i got the 175 we were budgeted 178 800 last year so yeah it did it did decrease a little bit but also you know it's a fluctuating thing as well so projecting 150 and you're at 175 and and we came in at uh um we came in at one step okay yeah you're at 117 you got three months left at about fifteen thousand dollars a month so it actually may be

We pay for all the street lights in the new development, right? Yes. So we're increasing our street lights. Yes, that's what I said.

Well, we haven't had any major developments yet.

But at the same time, we're also in the middle of that change in our process, too. So that may be a high number.

Right.

It's just hard to tell right now. We did the contract to change over to LEDs. And if y'all are saying they've changed out a lot of the neighborhoods, I haven't seen them. So, I mean, yes, that will be a cost reduction. 22, we've already done leisure services. Unless you all want to roll over to Ken.

I still don't like that $50,000. And I think Commissioner Greaves didn't like it either. With 50 grand, we've been spending 15, 18, 20,000 with 30,000 over budget, over normal expenditures. Well, I just think that, again, we've never spent more than $20,000. And we're at $50,000. And I know you're talking about what's coming in.

We're on, and we're going to try to start some things out here with the amphitheater. We'll do some partnerships with the sheriff, bring in some concerts, start with some locals. Ultimately, I would love... And this is kind of quiet, but it's been discussed. I'd love to see us start a festival out here. A who? A festival. Yeah. That amphitheater is going to be what will be the takeoff for that. But when we start doing that, you can bring in a local band all you want, but you really need to up it a little bit. Yes. And that's going to cost money.

Well, we don't. And like Mr. Belcher said, we really don't like that much of an increase in budget when we hadn't spent that.

I think it should be lowered to about $30,000 instead of $50,000.

Well, we know, as you just explained, with the amphitheater and our real interest, the city's real interest in doing more things,

I mean, as y'all can tell, you see what we spend out of that line item. We're very careful. You won't see any expenses out of that line that's not attributed to promotional activities for the city.

So really, the $50,000 is a guess. I mean, we could say, how about cutting that guess to $40,000 or $30,000? All we're doing is just dropping it. I'm speaking for myself, not Commissioner Pelletier, any guidance as to where to go on this outside of history, but I also know what we're planning in the future.

So when you look at this from a new perspective, when you look at this, I mean, we are growing and we want to grow and we want to push those things. We're also pushing for, you know, leisure services to be a good revenue boost for us. So we use this as a catalyst to push them to get more things in here and do things and make us a little more money, get us a little more out there and things like that. So I would feel good at a $50,000, and then we have the same conversation next year when we only spend $20,000 out of it and we want another $50,000. But we have so many things, the amphitheaters coming in and things like that. This just gives us a little extra boost to say,

we're just not using it and we go on from there but there's just so many unknowns here with this and the things that we want to do next year I mean we have plans so I think that 50 is a number and I wouldn't know where to go from there we can always I can go down to 40 or 30 and I feel good but I'm really cutting the budget but very honestly I'd rather have that end there and save it later we're also cutting a budget that's got a positive bottom line

Nothing wrong with going to reserves. Which, if we don't use this, this will just roll right back to reserves.

On this money in this budget right now, that's not used.

We'll roll into reserves. I know. That's the beautiful part about it. And you talked about bringing in bigger name acts.

but I'd rather have a number in here, a little bit bigger number, than in six months have you coming back and saying, well, we want to do this, but we need to up the budget. I'd rather have it in the budget.

Well, I would rather ask for more money for something that's going to be positive for the city than, you know, trying to ask for more money to put more lights, you know, somewhere, you know.

And very honestly, Leisure Services, the management and the people in Leisure Services have done more for less for years. Yes, they have. So I'm not worried about them overspending for something.

We good on Leisure Services, Dad? I'm fine. Page 24. but they're enough to talk about.

You missed something somewhere along the words.

Lisa Kipke.

Because I know we talked about it on the last one, leasing. We did talk about it, and most of that was things that didn't make sense to buy, such as the sod cutters and things like that. We rented them on short term.

And we do have to do that.

Because on leisure services, if that's what you're talking about, Commissioner, there is the rentals and leases for $2,500 for equipment rentals.

You may, probably you're going to, probably on water or sewer.

It was $150,000. And I'm trying to figure out, maybe I had the wrong line item. I'm just, it's just in my head. Yeah, that's what I did. It was under streets. And I was looking at the street lighting versus rental and leases.

We try to have that grant.

Yeah. We keep it. We do push it. I know. Everybody that comes in, I go, hey, we'll do this.

Well, I think if it was 100%, they'd do it. But people don't want to have to pay that 50%.

No. Something for nothing.

I mean, if.

They won't sell it for nothing.

Yeah.

Let's just go through there and paint everybody's house and give them a new yard and sod it.

And if we pay 100%, they'll love it.

And we're not thinking of the citizens when we're not giving them 100%. I know.

Yeah, we've only had a couple of citizens, but probably we've had maybe less than 10 in the last eight, 10 years.

Yeah. The demo grant did come in handy.

That's the only ones we've done. We've not done. No individuals have come to us and said, I want to apply for that. It's just been businesses, which is good.

And I've talked to some of them, but they don't want to pay the other half.

See, that's it.

They want the CRA money, but they don't want to pay the other half. They want to make the improvements, but they don't want to do it.

Yeah, if we were to be paying 100%, yeah. But they don't want to spend money to improve their own property. So we just do commercial if they'll.

Mm-hm. Yeah, some of them. As far as the yard is concerned, instead of maintaining the yard, they just covered it with sand. Just cover it up. Or rocks. Yeah, that'll do the Arizona thing.

The code enforcement has a problem here.

The grass grows up, but if it doesn't have any grass growing, we don't have a problem with it.

That's right, if you put rocks, there's no grass. Moving right along. Cap and improvements.

I can't remember.

Page 26.

Yep. Anybody have anything on page 26?

The last one we bought, I see it's always in the shop.

It just got out of the shop about two weeks ago, yes, sir.

Yeah.

And it's its next appointment in the shop.

Does the lemon law apply to fire trucks?

It was working 30 days a week.

treated like over the road.

And what's the mileage on the first one that we bought?

I'm sorry.

I'm just curious. It's off subject here.

I guarantee if we didn't have Rescue 1.

Yeah, Rescue 1 is running majority of the calls.

Good.

But do we have the manpower for that? Yes. Well, you say yes, but I hear others.

Unfortunately, we don't. With someone off duty, I have enough.

Right. It's an issue of the number of people. Right. Because I hear, unfortunately, I work at Walmart. We run the rescue when we're full staff. Right. I've got to have the folks. You've got to have the folks. OK, but I know we're having issues with people still to be able to do that rescue. It's helping, but not the way we intended it was going to help, the way I see it.

It is helping.

Sorry, I got off subject.

They're saving on the big truck. Right. Or they'd have more miles. They'd be in the shop more.

So we're okay on CIP? Yeah. The grants? Yeah.

Okay.

You know, we need to upgrade that water main on Laney Road. And we'll do it all in-house, and we'll do that out of impact fees. That's just going to be cost of materials. A couple of fire hunters. You're welcome, Chief.

Thank you. That says use of retained earnings, R-E-S. I just didn't understand the abbreviation.

Anything in water?

I know it's not a budget thing. What's the turnaround time on that landing road project? and they'll still have water the whole time. Momentarily shuts off, but nothing.

The only time they'll lose water is when you switch over. Basically what we'll do is they'll go through and they'll lay the pipe, put it up, charge it, pull the bacteria samples, do all that, send it in. You know, we have to send all that in DP. Once it passes, then the water's charged. Then they'll go in and start putting the services up, removing the elements.

Yeah, so like very temporary turnoffs like that. Awesome.

Long enough to unhook a hose and hook a hose.

Cool. When do we think we'll be able to start it?

We don't have it on the schedule yet. I mean, right now with Cherry Street, they're going to finish Southgate this week. And then Monday, they're planning on starting on Beulah. We're going to do the row cuts first because we've got the bids out. So we've got to get all those crossed. Everywhere where a service line crosses, we've got to get those sleeves.

And there's not an issue with water and landing row. This will just make it better.

That is correct. That line is a teed-off dead-end line on both ends. That's two inches galvanized, and if you hit it with a hammer, it's going to shatter.

But they'll have water like they've always had water up until we do this.

Their water pressure will increase when we go online.

And by the way, your notices on the roads and the water and that type of thing. Of course, the only site that I'm on when I'm looking for information concerning the city is the city website. And y'all are doing a great job of at least putting the notices out.

You know, it would be nice to have in this area, which I'll have to go back and look. We have costs, but it would be nice to have a footnote somewhere as to what the revenue is. I know we've got to go back to revenue to find it. It's on the first page. It's on the first page.

Yeah, page 29. Look at the top of page 29.

There's revenue. I move by it.

It's got revenue at the top and then the expenses start at the bottom.

Yeah. Yeah, I get your total revenue. Then on the last page you have revenues over expenditures. So that's where that $140,986 comes in. So we're to the good on this.

Yeah, we're to the good on water.

I have to say something concerning the water. The way customer service has been notifying obviously our people, as far as delinquency, as far as late fees, particularly late fees, late fees are down. And it's a tribute to what they're doing and the systems. that they're now using.

We're actually now, when somebody hits the late fee list, the utility building is making personal phone calls to every customer. And that has really tremendously. Our shutoff disconnects, I mean, they're for a while. Y'all remember when it was 500, 600?

No, I remember when it was about 1,000 plus. When I got here.

We've been under 100 a couple of times on disconnects.

I remember when we had hundreds of citizens who weren't even paying.

Right, true. And they're constantly auditing. And Lisa's done it. She's done very well for that department.

Since we've tightened up on procedures and they're really checking on these, the ones that are The ones that just skip out on the bill that we were sending to collections. And we're looking closer now at why is this property being rented, but it has a... Are we getting much money, do you know? Are we getting any money from the property appraiser's office since they're going back and checking and these ones that should not have had that exemption, are they collecting? Homestead. Yeah. Homestead.

Thank you. Well, I mean, so every... And you're aware that we check every... Oh, and I know that you're sending... We pull and we print. And if we find out that somebody's homesteading a property and it's being rented, that whole entire file gets printed, stapled, and goes in a box. And I think it's once a week. They're sending that to the property appraiser.

Yeah, that's what I know, that our utility billing department is doing their job. I just wondered if once it goes to the property appraiser, is anything resulting from that that the city's got any money coming back?

I don't even see the checks that come in from there.

We've been getting some delinquent, but, I mean, they're not crazy. You know, we always at the end of the year, you get those delinquents and some from last year still being paid. They don't differentiate. They don't tell us. We can call and find out.

I was just curious if... if it's worth what utility billing they're spending time sending it to the property appraiser. So I just wondered, is the property appraiser doing something with it that we get money back? You know, those people that shouldn't have a homestead exemption.

Just sitting there talking with him, as he said, they take that, they investigate it. And what would he say, about 50% are legit, 50% aren't? Because military can homestead their property. Right.

I know there were some that are exempt, that they can have a homestead and still rent it. But those 50% that aren't, are they going back and connecting? Yeah.

Blatantly said they're going after them. Right. And they'll be hit with penalties and everything else. I doubt we get the penalties.

No, but that's what I'm asking. If they're doing what they said they're going to do, are we getting any benefit of that?

Well, we should be getting the delinquent taxes that they're paying. Right. If they don't.

I mean, that's the beautiful part about it. I was just curious if...

I mean, I would probably say that whatever we've done this year probably won't go on until next year.

Until next year.

You know, because we just started that this year, and tax rolls have already been sent out and everything.

But I'd be interested to know, you know, down the line.

We just need to contact you and see if we can find out. Or maybe next year we see a massive increase.

Well, I just wondered if, you know, whoever gets the checks, if we see anything coming in, I'd like to know.

I couldn't tell you if there's a difference in it or not. I know we've been getting some delinquents, but that's not, you know, off from what normal is. But we will, well, when Lisa comes back, maybe I'll talk to her and we can kind of find out what's going on.

Just to see if we're getting anything from it. That's all I'm curious about. Okay. That's all. I just wondered. That really has nothing to do with the budget other than if we get any additional revenue from it.

One of the big cost savings in water is we are splitting the cost of meters between water and sewer. That's something new for this year's budget.

Yes. Yep. We talked about that.

And we are starting our slip line so we have money on the insurance budget. We have a 400 foot section and a small section.

I'll go ahead and bring it up. You pointed out early on, because you knew I was going to bring it up, about cost of repairs of the... Shared across. Yeah, so you all have taken care of that.

Yeah, rather than asphalt.

Yeah, it's been split. When mortar would have a problem, you'd have to cut up the road there.

Anything else on sewer?

Where we at? Water?

No, we just...

I just have a quick question on sewage. I notice that our overtime in sewage is going up. What's causing that? You know, we were at $700 two or three years ago, went up to $15,000 to $23,000. Then we're jumping up to $10,000. And now we're jumping up to, we were at $18,000 this year. What's causing after-hours sewage? I understand water.

And it's not always after hours. It may be having to work over in a day. But it's just... business. There's really no anything that I think can cause it. We do keep no overtimes authorized with that or is taken without it being authorized.

Okay. I thought they're getting phone calls for sewage and surely they're not.

Well it's projected at 18 but we're only budgeting 10 for next year.

But I was just curious why overtime and sewage, that much overtime and sewage. Regular hours, regular hours.

And if we have a massive break, we have a force main break or something like that, you can't walk away from it. No. They'll work on through the night.

Yes.

And we have had a couple of those. all through Saturday and into Sunday to get fixed.

That's right.

And that's not one person. That's a whole group. It don't take long to eat up some money.

Now, all the underground power they were putting in and all the damage they were creating there, did we get reimbursed for our repairs? We bail it out every time.

Every time somebody hits us. We haven't got reimbursed, sir.

Has the bill even gone out on the repairs? I asked that question. And why would our public works send a bill out? Wouldn't that be coming out of the county?

No, public works prepares the bills.

Prepares it, yeah.

They prepare everything and then- Where does it go from there?

Bill? That last break that we had was a $10,000 cost to the city. No, because we keep on talking about this, you know, SEC, that $10,000 we were supposed to get from, you know, when they screwed up, they messed up our highway, Tyndall Parkway, with that new SEC code. And nothing ever became of it. half ago to see the invoice and to see the check. And here we are, nothing has been done with it. So we talk, but we don't, there's no action.

Yeah, because that was a long time ago. That's a long time ago.

It's been almost two months now.

Well, they tore up our median.

So why are we, you know, that was over two years ago, and nothing's happened. The attorney got involved with that, and we never got anything out of that either. So we talk about it, but, you know, talk is cheap. You know, we need action on it. We need to get it done. We're spending tax dollars to fix items that were created by contractors. So I'd like to see a copy of that invoice, please.

All of us do. Yeah. We'll pull the procedures and everything, and I'll get that emailed out.

Well, it just needs to be done. taxpayer expense, and they don't care because they continue to tear it up. You hit them with a bill, maybe they'll care a little bit more.

Yeah, maybe they'll be careful the next time.

It's just that you guys keep on telling me this, and here you are two years later, nothing's happened. And we keep on talking, and nothing happens. And I'd like to see action on that, please. Yes, sir.

I would suspect that part of this 8,000 increase

That's what I'm saying. And a lot of it was after hours. And we're not doing anything about it. You know, we talk. But again, I'm done talking about it. I'd just like to see an invoice sent out and when we're going to get that money.

So I know. Yeah, I'll check. I'll check and then wait on it. I'm new. I know you're new. Yeah, I'm just saying is that.