Town Council - Special Meeting

order. Just a quick reminder, as I always do, first off, welcome everyone that's here in person and anyone tuning in or viewing later. Um, uh, first ask everyone to just silence your cell phone all the way all the way on silent you guys back here, please. That way we don't have any interruptions and maybe we'll meet Lisa's uh, departure time on time. Um, And I just want to thank the staff for their preparation and uh the meeting tonight. This is a special meeting held as a workshop for the budget. Um and uh as always, the meetings are recorded. And with that, we'll call and I have 6:03 p.m. for the record. I don't have the Gav down here, which is totally fine with me. So just note that. Thank you, Heather. All right, roll call members. All members are present. Do we have an approval of the agenda?

Do I have a second? Second. All in favor?

I. Any opposed. Okay. So, with that, we will move right into our budget workshop meeting. And I think Natasha, you'll be taking it away from here. Good evening, Madame Mayor, council members. Uh, so this is a first look at our proposed fiscal year 2027 budget and um I have some notes that I'd like to share with you and then I will open the floor for uh questions and discussion. Some factors that impacted our budget this fiscal year um is an increase in health care cost to the tune of 10.8%. We've received information that electricity is going to increase by 46%. Um that is quite a high percentage increase that we've seen this year. We're providing a school resource officer at no cost to the school. Um, historically, this position was funded jointly by the town and the school through a grant. Um, but that grant is no longer being funded and our operation costs just continue to outpace our revenue growth. Additionally, we are adding one new position and that will be a part-time public relations communication liaison position and we've also included a 3% cola for all staff in this proposed budget. At first cut, um I did have to cut some items from the budget in order to balance the general fund. Uh the that I made equal 465,5816.

So some of the staff positions that are deferred in order to balance the general fund was the grants writer position, the senior planner, the parks maintenance crew, a part-time park assistant, and a part-time admin staff. With those cuts made, we were able to balance the general fund. And so the general fund is being proposed with no tax and no rate increases. Moving on to the water and sewer funds. Greatest impact on the water sewer budget was again just like

are there slides that are supposed to be moving forward as you talk? Yeah. Sorry.

Water. Okay. For the water sewer funds. Um same budget. budgetary impacts that impacted the uh general fund. And so as a result uh for the water fund, we are at a deficit with the proposed 3% cola. Um our deficit is $73,2380. So in order to balance the water fun is a proposed rate increase of 6.5% um for the water service. So this will increase the quarterly water bill by $6.75 which is $2.25 per month. Similarly in the sewer fund uh deficit exists with the 3% cola of $381,77822. And in order to balance the sewer funds, there is a proposed uh rate increase of 14% in the sewer service rates. This will increase the quarterly service bill by $35.31, which is $11.77 per month. Now, these proposed increases do align with Zav's proform analysis from October 29th of 2025, where they projected a 15.5% increase in water rates and a 13.8% increase in sewer rates.

Next slide.

Yes. So this is just a comparison from last fiscal year with this proposed fiscal year. Uh so the total utility rate last fiscal year quarterly rate was $385.86 uh with a monthly rate of $12862 versus uh this fiscal year's proposed increase. So the total utility rate would be $427.92 and a monthly rate of $14264 um. So I do provide the comparison of the two fiscal years here for your review. So how did we um really get here um with these water sewer increases? I know we had to We recommended an increase last fiscal year and we're recommending another one this fiscal year. But if you take a look at this chart and from 1997 up until 2025, we did not consistently raise our sewer rates to keep in line with inflation. So when you couple that with deferred maintenance at the plant where we were faced to really address the plant and address the rising cost of inflation, we now have to um propose these rate increases just so we can stabilize the water and sewer funds. Um I do know that Davenport when they last presented they did provide some sort of mechanism to allow for the rate increases over time um so that it isn't some sort of arbitrary um number.

Um they discussed tying it to an index so that every year as inflation increases the rate increases would be tied um to an index. U with that those are the notes that I've prepared for you. We open the floor for discussion and questions. Okay. Um let's tackle the general fund first. And um obviously be proposed balance without any rate increases. Is there anything in particular we want to ask staff or continue to delve into on that before we get to our more problematic side of the water and sewer utilities? We're going to give everybody like five minutes just to look over anything that they want to highlight out and we'll see if there's anything after that.

I have one question on the revenue side. This might end up being a Lisa question line item 22. 01022 the interest IC account

22 is the account ID ending piece of it but it's 01501022

interest IC account 4732

that was a change. We changed from a traditional sweep account to an IC account. That's our interest. Yes. We haven't been anticipating any revenue and now we are that this is the first year that we're into that before was going into uh 015 01000001 just changed the type of Oh, got it. I see it at the top. Checking it was a traditional sweep account. Got it. This now is an IC account which is bringing us in a significant increase in revenue.

Yeah, it has a pretty good growth on it too. We're still expecting that. the budget was last year for 2029 on this IC account. So, it's just a change in the bank. Got it.

Oops. The top of my general fund expenditures print out says revised with no but you said there is a 3% cola included in this budget.

Look at the last column. Oh my god. Okay. I did not look all the way. Yeah. The last column has it's so far over there. I saw a lot of white space. Okay, thank you. Chief, so under police expenditure for therapy dogs, are you guys looking at a therapy dog? Yes. Would that be So, how exactly?

We're still working out. I've actually talked to a couple different places that provide the dog. But, uh, basically what we do is is once we obtain the dog, um, we have to send usually one or two people to work as an animal for the dog. Um, but this is this is something that we're looking for for community engagement as well because the dog would be used not only at the police department officers but also for community members that have suffered some sort of tragedy.

Would the dog like go home with somebody? Would the dog go home with somebody and or stay at the department? Um, we you kind of see programs with it works both ways. I'd like to see the dog stay at the department for long night. What kind of dog is that kind of dog? Is it like little and fluffy or you know actually um there's they use a number of different breeds for therapy dog. um you see a lot of labs,

but but you know that it's there's also uh pits. Now, I don't know if that's something that uh we'd be interested in when we get closer to to getting one. Um I know you got a worried look on your face. I did too originally. But one of the things that was pointed out to me is in certain communities that pits are very common. Um and so people may I know it seems a little bit I don't know, but that in some cases people really appreciate the breed, but and understand that no matter what breed you get, it's going to be trained to do to to be a therapist.

And you said there's certain agencies that you said there are specific agencies that you've been looking into. Yes, ma'am. I one of the ones I spoke to recently Senator And so he he's actually in the process of sending me some documentation. So understand

there's another one that's called Leashes of Valor out of Fredericksburg that they've had them like come to our church and do different things by that's a really established program if you want to look into them. It's run by a former military agent who suffered PTSD himself. Why is the dispatch services from the county so much higher? How about that one? I got that from Garrett over at the county. Did he justify that? Um was $115,000 increase.

Nope. He just gave you what it was going to be. I'm assuming that they're going to be giving raises to all their dispatchers and TMS. I don't know what their VRS rate is either. Yeah, that's a lot more money than VRS have. I like to dig into that a little bit more.

Yeah, absolutely. That needs to be justified. $15,000 increase needs some very serious justification. A lot of the local police departments are doing increases for their salary. If that's what it is, they still need to explain it. I got some comments, questions, ready? Yeah.

Um, well, first off, just for the benefit of anybody who's watching from It looks like we're kind of fumbling around here, at least on that's because we were given a a general review. I got mine yesterday, but we haven't actually received a physical copy of the the budget yet until we just walked in. So, we're kind of blindly going into this supposed to be making suggestions. It's going to be extremely difficult because there's, you know, hundreds, not thousands of lines in here to go through. But, um, I personally would like a quick overview like we got tonight and then go home, absorb it, get a get an electronic version of this so I can see where some of the big increases and decreases were and try to, you know, figure out if I have any suggestions for cuts or increases. But all that being said, as far as some things that are sticking out to me, um 2026 adopted budget 11 million 92,000 amended budget. Can somebody tell me the big difference between the 2026 adopted budget, the general fund expenditure total is 11,92, the amended budget was 12,875. Is that because of capital improvement expenditures being moved and stuff or is there something?

Yeah, the amended budget. Yeah. all those budget resolutions. We had a transfer capital improvements. That's fun 1.4 that we brought into the general fund or actually transfer from the general fund to capital improvements for our new policy on the capital um improvement fund for capital projects. That's what I was thinking. I just wanted to double check on that one. Um, last year I haven't had a chance to look through everything, but last year we had a crossing guard proposed. Is that in this budget? No, we did not. No, we did not include a crossing.

Okay. But we will provide some sort of um resolution for that. Chief, if you can speak further on what we discussed. Yes, what we we have a part where we have a parking enforcement officer that we were going to detail part time over there. Actually, I was just advised today that our current parking offic that's that's the intention.

Okay. Somebody in the community suggested maybe we could work with the school. I don't know. Does it make sense for the school to hire one or the town? But what's I think somebody suggested it's correct me if I'm wrong. It's not something that's police department typically likes to do because if we hire one and we're responsible then like anytime they call out you have to call what you may only have very limited number of officers but they have to be required to do that because we're responsible for it. Is that correct?

That's correct. So it might make more sense to possibly work with the school to have them hire one or would it still be the same situation where the police department would have to go in back? So yeah. So that would be something that the school could um potentially hire for our discussions it was just that communicated that there was no funding from the school to offer that. If the clerie She's when Sergeant Wright was out there, was that something that she was helping? Because at times I would pass and see her helping to direct on occasion she she did assist.

Oh, okay. But that was in front of her design. She was just assistant. Not okay. Good. All right. Thank you. Miss, when we sat down with the school board to look at their budget, didn't they talk about developing a volunteer program for that? Yeah, they've already put it out on Facebook. Request I think they're talking about a volunteer program to do it as well. So, so there's multiple things in the work.

Yeah, I saw that. But same constituent I've talked to that used to do parking enforcement and crossing guard activities said it's something we could we might want to consider not doing that because of the liability aspects of it. If you got people out there that aren't actually law enforcement or condone law enforcement, there could be legal implications. Just some You're right and I get that. But but they did mention a formal training program to go with it. But they still risk. I get it. The way I understand it, Chief, you can correct me if I'm wrong. That they technically are law enforcement when they're out there as crossing. Correct.

For the Virginia code, when you train them, they have special powers. Like they're not just an active citizen. They're they have

That's not the school's understanding. When we did our budget meeting with them. We asked a lot of these same questions and the school very much said our biggest thing is they know we can't do anything to them like the drivers, right? Like they know that us is out there is a courtesy and it's not like we have any we don't have a badge, right? And so their understanding was definitely that you know if if at least somebody with a badge could be around First Street that would help immensely. That seemed to alleviate a lot. I don't know that they really I mean they seem to be more flexible on whether it had to be some official paid crossing guard or maybe just a presence for that half hour before and after school, you know, seemed to make a big difference. I don't that was a feedback I felt like the school said when you when we were there.

I think I might be wrong. The person I spoke with who used to do that for for a job said that They have to the code says they have to have a uniform and they have to be trained by the police department. So those are the two um things that they told me and that's something I guess we can look into.

We don't have a formal training um program. Um so it it's was recently brought to my attention that that occurred and that should not have occurred without um the town's knowledge. I understand that um a couple of officers are trying to assist um in serving as a crossing guard um but we don't have a formal training program um for those efforts and I think the solution that the chief and I discussed with the um a parking the parking attendant helping to serve as that would alleviate um all of this discussion

because Because I believe if a volunteer got involved then they would have to make sure they sign a formal harmless or some kind of agreement to not come back on us and then something happened even though they're volunteering. Correct. No. Well, it's just like coaching or anything else. You'd have like a sign, right? Yes. Now, whether or not the waiver is worth anything, it's another story, but

Yeah. It sounds as if the solution that the chief and the town manager come up with at least alleviates the problem for the time being and I think we all agree we don't want any more liability for the town and you know if the school absolutely insists on the crossing guard I know I asked this in our oneonone meetings. Lisa, can you just kind of for public's information, what were the the largest increases in expenditures in this general fund budget?

Healthcare was one of the biggest ones. And then um the electricity, you know, we're anticipating a 46% increase power or electricity and I think you guys said that was partly state regulations and just overall general

Chris probably has more information on it they are doing a lot of these rate increases we were doing research for our budget and we found an article in the Richmond Times quoting that the beginning of this year there would be I believe it's a 26% increase And then next year there will be a second increase and we took that increase because it goes across two budget cycles. And we did the math and combined those together for this coming budget because we wanted to make sure we had to pay those bills to operate our town. So it is not a result of us for instance running more equipment so based on anticipated rate increases at the present usage right

at yes correct we have been putting more equipment online that has been out of service tagged out at the treatment plant. So part of that is based off of our usage this year as we bring the equipment online and get it functioning the way it's supposed to to correctly operate. Taking this year's time frame that we had six months of what we increasing it by these percentages back it was a combination of both.

Are there any changes in the healthare this year. I know every year that seems to be a topic. We have not met with um our respectively.

Um so I don't know if there's any changes other than the cost we're still offering the same plans that we're offering, but we are working towards a new solution. We're trying to work with the school trying to get to see if we can get into a group with them go out there a better rate and some more options for our employees. So that's not going to happen till 2028 at this point. Um so right now it looks like He hasn't he didn't mention any significant changes, but when we talked to him the first time, there was a lot of talk about the weight loss drugs and whether was going to cover them and what they were going to do and that was causing the rates to go up and that's been resolved. They're only going to cover them now if you have a doctor's

medical condition. Um he was anticipating a 14% increase at the beginning but came But we're we're continuing to try to come up with solutions on that healthcare because as you know it's has never gone down. We've had one year since I've been here in 14 years that actually stayed the same. U we had no increase but every year since then it's been an increase and that is something that we are working on to try to come up with a solution save the town money and save our employees who have families and plus ones because they cover that cost totally themselves. really cover the

So we pretty much hit most of the areas where there's any sort of large increase in expend. Yeah. Pretty much between one and five and depending on we had you know we had some communication from our vendors on the higher side where they gave us the 5%. But we looked at the trends and how it's going up every year um to get there percentage increases that we see with the inflation. Um I don't know like this is very small semantics but in the very end when it has where it has the transfer to capital improvements fund.

Yes. Um in the past I noticed that in um like the beach nourishment and stuff when we transfer that money that actually went to a specific line item within the department that go to specific line items. Okay. So it's just grouped in that right now for the look at the parks and rack where we transfer and then one question I had around that is instead of saying transfer to capital improvements fund should it say transfer from no this was a transfer to it's an expense we transfer that money into the capital improvements fund to pay for CIP items that was the new policy that that 1 million

oh is the transfer to I Got it. And then the expenditures is there. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. You look there might be one that says transfer from. Yeah. Yeah. I I understand now. That's why um Aelia was in there and Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Are we bringing the summer interns back? Yes. Yes. Um what positions are they doing? Was that what positions where are they going to be helping out? So, we haven't finalized that yet. That's all based on the application that I receive and after I've had a short interview with them. The summer interns aren't paid anyway. Correct. They actually are paid.

They are paid. Yes. Kind of like a thing.

Okay. Well, obviously we can also take this home and continue to study it. You You want to stay on this for a minute or we want to move forward to the water? We'll do water first. I don't want to mean to rush anybody, but I agree with David. Obviously, we have more time to anything that the staff needs, you know, that jumps out. This is opportunity. Use this opportunity to let them know if you need any more information. I do have question um I guess for Chris. A lot of times you get I get constituents asking about the town's equipment, how it's being maintained and stuff. Um, are you guys uh do you guys have a a program now where it's everything's routinely maintained and it's like in a system or is because a lot of constituents worry about whether are we really taking care of our stuff or we run the ground. So you have any reassurances done something we take our maintenance of our equipment and our facilities very seriously. I can tell you I have a jet truck down right now on site because we were on site and we pouring underneath that truck shut down pulled out of service and sent it go without

is there somebody over there that does small engine repair with I mean, we all kind of do a little bit here and there that we can to keep things from kind of designated that for a little bit. We do we will change hydraulic lines. We'll do everything we can ourselves and some things are just out of our ability. Does somebody come to us or we have to equip?

Depends on what it is. Sometimes if we can get the equipment to where it needs to be worked on locally we will do that some of our heavy equipment we will bring an onsite mechanic and we got that set up where he's doing it as flat rate there so if we have four pieces of equipment to be worked on in a day he will work on all four pieces and he's even been here while we were plowing because we had issues and he was here on site we had another piece of equipment come down because of the abuse it takes and we reprove that truck and put that truck back. We have also been, you know, we have these big major repairs and replacing big major equipment, our HVAC systems. We're getting maintenance service contracts with the vendors or another vendor to maintain those items, those big ticket items. We did with the water towers, we've done it with the HVAC, we've done it with the SCADA system. What? What else? The generators. So, we're actually making sure we have routine maintenance done on these big high dollar items in the past that have not been done before.

Um, one of the other things asked about, and really this is more of like bigger impact than sewer though is this article from the times about the Dominion power. Um, I'd like to verify that I mean an article newspapers one thing we got I mean they've done all of this litigation with Dominion power to get general assembly approval rate setting you know I'd like a clear answer in writing from Dominion on what to anticipate

I did actually reach out to one of my contacts he was going to research it but unfortunately he's currently on surgery I don't know who else to reach out to about this. I've done a little research. On average, it's $11 increase,000 kilow. The treatment plant, for instance, is using the neighborhood of 100,000 kilow. So that per Yeah, that's why I really kind of department um question, but um I would like to see something more concrete than a Christian article,

right? Validating that because it's such a big impact, budget impact.

And I have we have a Dominion contact, legislative contact, uh Reagan I don't know. I'm gonna butcher his last name. Um there's no reason he can't get us right.

Yes, we just weren't able to get that information within the time frame for this meeting. But yes, we'll continue to work on that for you. Yeah, that guy. What's the guy?

He's not short at all. And everybody is fully aware of when we said um budget impacts. We talked about budget increases, but everybody is fully aware that funding the school at the state budget calculator amount is uh $280,000 decrease to school budget. Just want to make sure that is budgetly clearly. She said decrease,

correct? We haven't said that since I am. Well, we haven't. That's true. Uh, I just want to make sure that is very out in the open and there's nobody thinks that number is in there hiding somewhere because that is a huge budget impact.

I'm guessing that's part of the reason why we're able to balance our budget this year. wanted to be clear on that. There's any discussion around that. Certainly open for discussion. If there's none, we keep moving forward.

I'm guessing we'll get our school budget presentation next meeting. Will we have a portion of our next meeting where we ask additional budget questions, bring up anything we found after we go through the budget? Is that part of the plan for next meeting? I can add that on agenda.

Then can we also get an electronic copy of these prior comparisons? Uh you can get we'll send you a draft of this.

Yeah. Yes. Email. You guys ready to move the water for a little bit? You can always come back if something else pops into your right. All right. So water revenue side as presented is in order to balance the budget. All right. Is the with the proposed 6.75%.

Huh?

6.5%. $6.75 a quart. Sorry. Got it. Still a lot of new water connections. See, we're averaging down though to be a little more in line with our actual All right. Well, this one's a little simple, more simple budget. Not a whole lot of places to get the revenue from.

We're looking at water first.

Water first. water first. We'll go with the clean water. And the biggest budget impact is this is just regular inflation and the uh power increase.

A little bit of help there.

How are we doing on those well pumps now? We made some improvements and some go on the well pumps on the pumps themselves. Yeah. Um they're all running.

We've lost our biggest producer. We've lost probably about It's really hard to tell where last time I know castle wood. So that might be something to be projecting on a CIP.

That's the abandonment. Is that what's the one going out for I just I'm looking at the revenues. See adopted budget 1.4 for projected revenue for 27 is 1.3. What's the big difference? Is it that carryover? No, carryover is not on the adopted budget. No. What's the big We have a reduction in our new connection fees. Is that the main reason?

That's that's one of the biggest reductions. You can see in fiscal 26 we have budgeted 160. We're probably not going to make that. Um and we we're seeing the the last few fiscal years we've seen a decrease every year new connection fees that what we're collecting on new connections. So we pretty much cut that in half for this fiscal year.

75,000 almost $80,000 almost 80,000 in cut revenue. The reason part of the production was so much higher was when Datson was doing all the homes here and the condos we were getting a lot more connection fees now that that's slowed out as much building property. So we've been over anticipating the revenue. That's what you're saying right? Yes.

And we haven't been meeting it. So this is in line with more of the actual like 25 instead of 180 and we only brought in 72. So it has been decreasing. We were over.

So the overall looks like the overall If you continue with the rate um the health insurance guy, will you be able to hone more precisely on the healthcare rate changes.

Did you say you're meeting with our health insurance first? Yes, he's already got the rate. I mean, 10.8 is what it is going to be. Um, it's just we haven't met with him to actually look at the renewal and go ahead and submit the renewal. So, the 10% is already in a contract price. Yeah, it's it's already what he's been given as our renewal rate. Okay. Yeah. Originally we had done it at 14 what he had projected to us but then he he actually had rates it is going to be 10.8%.

Was there a big increase in the water electricity that same thing we did 40 we did 46% on electric on in all departments.

Where can I find that in here? First page 5110 question. I think I asked this in the overview meeting, but um just for clarification, but the connection fees, they're cons they're part of our normal operating budget, not like capital expenditure, capital improvement budget.

I'm just connections. Yeah, I'm just thinking that would be a hard thing to budget every year if you're relying on new connections. Seems like they But is that part of our normal operating that would probably know that you're talking about the line that has 801 connections. Yeah.

So that that's partially based off of our estimated plan. We usually stock up intermittently throughout the year to make sure we have enough connection, but that would capital item because we're not spending all of that at one time. We bring in as much as we need to continue operating throughout the year and it doesn't meet the threshold. Our capital improvement plan is 50,000.

I wasn't even thinking about how spend the money. You connect spending money to do it and then collect money. So the meter box itself last time I ordered is around $700 for just box and then meters $345 for the meter and the copper has to go to it. It's actually more expensive included. Okay, thank you.

When we put the new water connection fees on the revenue side, the $84,7798, how many houses is that? How many actual connections is that? Knowing there could be businesses or other things. $84,000 is what the revenue is projected at. That would be roughly 10 connections. 10

connections are $8,500 a connection. So just simple math. So, should we be rounding that number at least to an actual 8500 or 85,000 since they are 8500? I mean, I'm just, you know, if you're looking at a couple different ways to try to get the rate increase lowered and in line with it, you know, that is have in here is 10 connections. I mean, I know a lot of it is redevelopment, so there's no Yeah.

Well, the other side to that too is is there's a possibility that that could start dwindling down as we go into the next year. I mean, we are running out of, right?

14 Because redevelopments don't get new connection fees because there already was a water connection there.

And then to line item 8011 that it just seems like the expenditure in that line item 2025 was very very low to that point. We're only expecting 10 new connections. Wouldn't that um expense be relative to having the connection fees? that also go down to, you know, 22 or something like that or 20k. Uh, and in that case, I don't know what uh a dollar means in this budget exactly, but would that put us any closer? Obviously, it's not going to balance it. Just making a point to look into it maybe see what you think about it decision on that tonight. Just something else to Consider anything else on water, guys? All right, we'll move into our favorite child of the three this evening. That's what I always call teach when he is being bad. I say you're my favorite. Come on, guys. Just add a little humor here. There is nobody likes to see a 14% rate increase, right? So, let's just get that out of the bag. We're obviously not, you know, that seems like a pretty considerable jump. Maybe the six and a half and water is maybe a little bit more manageable. But

uh this is the one where I um I'm most like uh I just really need the validation of the 46% increase in division. That's because it's such a huge difference in this particular budget. The other budgets you're not going to like, you know, we're not really kind of split the hairs about that number, but this budget that is where that rubber meets the road that so um I'd like us to compare I heard that the increases from this year have gone into effect already in January. I'd like us to compare the actual rates from this January to last year's January and see what that really was compared to, you know, what that was saying. Um and Not just the usage because obviously we used maybe a lot more this year because the ice came through but what the actual like charge was. We can check with the SEC too that was quoted in that article that the SEC approved that increase.

Absolutely. Verify with the SEC.

Yeah. And who does it apply to? Everyone you know are there any is there any going to be any assistance for municipalities, local governments or sewer treatment plants? I mean with Richmond knowing that Let's be honest, it's like all over the state with these treatment plants and repairs needed and everything else. Is there are they going to be are they thinking about that? I don't know. I just harp in on that one because I know that one is probably the biggest impact in this expense wise that sticks out like a thumb, right? Yeah. You want to see the article? You guys got a copy? You can email it to us.

I want to hear from research system and it went down.

Oh, they're going to get sued. Yeah. I mean, they're also a public um publicly utility. So, well, mayor, just so you know, so they actually wanted to do a higher rate and the SEC came back and said, "No, you need to do a lower rate." So, that is their lower rate compared to what they wanted to do. Well, yeah.

But yes, we can provide the article and we will do more research on

it. I'll just go I mean, we did go through the coldest January that are probably since 1991, but um you know, who knows the next ice age is coming. Global warming, no idea. No clue. Um I mean, other than that, we know about the chemicals and the sludge disposal and those are all part. Is any of that reimburseable by what we're doing with the ARPA money? So that is the normal operations sludge disposal

that is yes we haven't even started to remove the million gallons of sludge that are in the back we're actually in the process of working to do that and we're going to run that press for three months straight to get that otherion So that's a part and separate. This is just the regular slice disposal. Yes, ma'am.

And then same for some of these contracts. Um just make sure if there's anything with the ARPA. I have made this comment already to town. You know, if there's anything that is reimburseable or specific to what we're doing in capital improvements that it come out of the general operating budget like Bowman engineering, you know, He's not on staff.

Do you think we need to be disseminating this information and why and how and what the effects are people ahead of a bill cycle change to clearly for people I think I calculated it's going to be like $4286.

47924.

We would have communication to go out to the public in advance of any increases. Yes. What about the uh discount the senior discount or looked at? I think we rewrote that so it's proportionate. Is that correct?

So that we otherwise we have to go back and everything. More people qualify for it. That's what I was chang offer some additional detail for for you Maggie.

So the water in in crash was 33% off the total bill quarterly bill. Um the real estate is still set at $600 a year and the income limits are based on a very low income from so we now have I think last year there was about 45 applicants that were approved and were on the list. Um I expect to get a few more this year. Um I try all the seniors know and I even told them about the county discounts so they apply there too I know it's a lot of handholding

it is do they have to be seniors totally disabled there isn't anything from low income at this point no not for like you know are on minimum wage and running a house. No, they have to own their home. It has to be their primary residence. They can't have over $100,000 in assets. So, a lot of times I get people calling and this is their second home, right?

Wanting a discount. And I said, well, you know, it's not primary and you have assets over $100,000. Sorry. I don't have any other I don't know what else to do. You guys did a superb job of coming up with um reality making chicken salad.

Mayor, if I can add something real quick. You talked about how are we going to get this out to the public. You know, once we confirm the 46%, I think part of the story that we need to tell is with the 46% increase. That's almost half of our deficit, right? So without that, our natural increase, our deficit would be only to 7%. So that's a large that's 7% just from That's something we need to tell the residents. It's not necessarily due to us to pass along. We're not charging more than half of it. But I think just a little less.

I think we need to be straight with them about what is increase and what is a lot more

important. But it's not The way we talk about it sort of sounds like a very small a small portion of that would be equipment some of that power drop may go down some due to there's pumps from 2008 right now. So I have four 2008 pumps that I guarantee you a lot more than the pumps that were just installed in the last few years.

So what is pending verification else? What do you think the increase is going to be? The rate increase

that is a hard 46% is because what we did is we 11 to 13 I just looked at 11 to$13 per 100. So basically what it is is we took the last six months of running operating time and what we have paid out what we consumed from July to December. This is what our costs were. This is what we expended in pumps everything running. Then what we did is we took that and averaged that out across the year and then added the 46% increase from the minion. Okay.

So we were we already have our numbers of what it's costing to operate. What he said he said was that originally Dominion requested 14.76 $14.76 per 100,00 said no and they got a $11 whatever $1 change. It's $11 and change per. So, anecdotally, my home electric bill went from 250 to 450. So, I

guess in using that math, I just um is it possible to have the number in a slide, you know, maybe the next or something that says how many kilowatt hours, how many thousand kilowatt hours that plant used in six months that July to December 31st number. Sure. Yeah. Because when and one of the other question I have we're changing everything to LED and trying to save where we can.

Um but one of the things that I mean we just And I don't know, it seems like they you took the total amount and times it by 46%. If it's 46% increase in in the charge per kilowatt hours, is that also mean all the other little fees that are on my dominion bill are also 46% increase or are those excluded from that and in that way I just say let's narrow it to the actual kilowatt hour. We did it based off of actual usage over six months and then we that gets confusing too is the percentage is broken out across two full calendar years. So for us that's going to be across

right three budgets fiscal budgets. So part of that increase is affecting us right now that we did not anticipate or budget or plan for right so for this next coming budget because we will have six months at the current rate and then in 2027 when it goes up again we broke that out to account for a fiscal year with two different rate increases to make sure that we balance out. The 46% is the anticipated six months of the remainder of 2026 and the rate increase anticipated 2027.

Yeah. Okay, I got that. But I think we do need some slides that kind of explains that too. I like Kyler's idea. When we talk about the the utility increase to the citizens, we should say of this $35 increase or $50 increase or whatever, point of just from doing this increase. I mean, you know, let's throw the bus. That's ridiculous. Well, it is ridiculous, which is why I keep questioning it. It's not real.

It was real. I mean, I believe you, but I just like that's this is the reality is that half of the half of the deficit in the sewer department is directly related to this Dominion increase. So that's of the $35. That's Do we know what the other big parts were? Like of the 381,000 deficit, you say half is electricity. What's the other half? I mean, I know there's looks like there's a lot of little things, but are any other major increases pushing it up or is that just a bunch of

just just a bunch of small inflation? I'm assuming part of that deficit would include the most of it is literally the electricity and the basic routine inflation and I just got another article today saying that the national average for construction and utility inflation is going to be between 4.9 and 5.9% over the next year. It looks like everything was level funded or has a 5% inflation rate on it. Pretty much

to% was just a bunch of little stuff mostly besides Dominion and your healthare insurance 4K electrical for the sewer. 13, but they're all 163K for electrical plant. And we have a little bit more contingency. So that

44K in contract services, but that's on 1.3 million percentage wise, but that's the third contract for professional service or looking at sewer expenditure

that went from 18 to 30. No, he's looking at the third page. So 5016 3100 and a bunch of other things

that army group testing I'm not saying it's not justified I'm saying it's another big But it's only a 3% increase and considering all those contracts, right? Yeah. And frankly, part of that is we get a break with including being able to buy

Go ahead. Sorry. No, you can answer. Equipment the 10% increase we look elsewhere. Is this best we can do? Which one? For rental. Your rental on waste water treatment plan is a 10% increase on that.

So the reason we put a 10% instead of a three or 5% on that is we actually have mostly needed that. That's if we have to rent a bypass pump. We have a failure have to bring something in to keep it operating to make sure we're not spilling. Um we rent a man to do repairs over there if necessary and we try to bring that equipment on site, get it off site as quickly as possible.

You know, one of the things I think that we should all keep in mind is that the wastewater treatment plant was underfunded m for a long time and we want to save the taxpayer every dime we can but what we don't want to do is leave ourselves with insufficient monies to do

um so there is $100,000 contingency in the in the plant itself, right? And then which we hold there for emergencies, although we do have also the emergency funds for this. And then the other one is a contingency within the sewer department. Um it looks where are we at within the 26 year. How much of that 68 grand? This is line item.

Yeah, you're looking at it.

So on the sewer side 14,000 Right now they only coming out of that. How much? Another 21,000 waste water.

Okay. So I mean if um considering we are tackling a lot of these CIP items with CIP funds separately from the operating budgets. I wonder if there's some way to make those in line a little bit more with how we really use them because when something massive is broken, what we have is the reserve fund, right? So, I'm not saying that I want to go to zero contingency, but it's just another

opportunity. And then uh in a similar line item um thought process in the revenues side uh I know we're not taking septage receiving anymore that's going to continue in 2027 for the foreseeable future

forever. No, no, no. The plant has to be ready to take it and right now it is not ready to be able to take that septage and even at that rate if we are going to go back to looking at septage we need to look at charging at appropriate cost because 90% of the time comes into the plant as dead material which means it takes more chemicals more time to process. It's not fresh enough. Correct. Oh, it stinks worse. There are companies that are willing to pay because they don't want to have to drive all the way driving.

Oh, I don't disagree. I But right now, currently the plan is it we can't take that. It would upset the ecological system and they're so bad right now. And all right, I'm I don't I don't have any more questions about that one, but I do have two more things. wastewater processing fee is now at $813,000. Pretty significant jump on the revenue side. What are we doing? How was that number?

I can answer that. Why that that rate has gone up on charge in the county? So when when I did the FY2425 true up because of the um repairs we've done in town due to the INI um our water increased well plant decreased by like 95 million gallons which actually increased the county's rate which changed the rate from I don't remember exactly what it was something to sell might have been 788 to $1254 cents per thousand gallons. So they have to pay their part. Yes.

Okay. And then the line item below it that says county payments. That's not that. That's something else. So that that what that talks about is the upgrade fee. That's the that's the upgrade they pay every year. They're on a contract to pay, but we're scheduled to pay that. That was their upgrade when we did the upgrade. That was their portion 20 years ago. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. And they're almost through with that. I have to have to years they have yeah they're almost paying that upgrade. All right. And the capital share of capital improvement because in that same arrangement they also are responsible for a percentage of that capital improvement that we're making.

We can't estimate that. We can't there's no way to estimate that what we're going to spend in each year on capital improvements. What about the stuff we've already allocated? We are spending $3.2 million right now. 13,000. Some of that we still haven't gotten that upgrade. Some of that is some of it doesn't apply to Okay. So, but it's at zero right now. So,

yes. When we do the true up every year for the wastewater treatment plant and the county share of the flow, um we do charge them for their share of any capital improvements that are related to their portion of our operating for them. When they make a new connection on our sewer, what happens? Do we get any connection fee from their new connection to our sewer plant? Not that I'm aware of.

No, we do not. No. How many for the county?

When they connect someone else, we don't Okay. Placet is low enough. When you say we don't have a lot of infill here is not under the county. That's under Oh, really? Water supply. Yes. You are correct. The sewer. I'm talking about the sewer connection. I don't have sewer. Not every not everyone in class. There is not a lot of places to do that. A lot of I still maintain a septic tank. Berkeley and

remember I know most of that is all on vacuum system. I know bay is shores part of it. I mean, I think Epox has probably 50 new houses in the last two years.

We actually have three different divisions within West County, the Western Washington District, uh the Washington District, phase one and phase two. So, we actually three different districts from them. I don't mean to cut this short for anybody. Is there more people want more time? I was just looking at one thing. We already talked about the carryover reserve. We have couple years with it. I guess budget zero for this year.

Carryover reserve from reserves. budgeted last year. 831,000. Yes, we used reserve money last year to balance the budget and not have that. We were going to have a double digit rate hike. Okay. And you guys decided you didn't want to double digit 88 on the water sewer last year. We use reserves which is not best practice.

I would not recommend using reserves again for a second year in a row to balance the budget. That is also a decision. I guess that's part of the reason I guess. Well, yeah, you can say that because we're not using reserves to cover our shortfalls. Yes. Okay. Just want to make sure I have this one. need to dig some more, but I'm good for tonight as far as what I've got so far.

Anybody else? I don't want to feel good opportunity now to say anything. Obviously, we all sit with anything else you want us to look at, get more detail on.

Do we have any thought there was mandate to rate increases in the DQ consent order. There's also an expectation expected rate amount by DQ. I remember them talking about that or to be in line with what their expectations were. Is there any legal um I just asked that question to bring back some research of if there is any legal requirement for that consent order tied to rate increases and also like forecasting that way because I thought that was a part of the conversation that was correct Natasha but I believe part of the consent order was to be a certain percentage But it also was required to operating costs of operating the waste water treatment plant and the sewer collection system. Get some clarity on that. So that makes her in line and not um in staying comp.

Well, I mean we don't have a choice on that. That's not going to alo blank and pleasant messaging. Yes. The cascading problems if you don't what you need don't do what you need to do to be compliant. So I mean it's a legal order. Yeah, we can talk about that. We should always continue to be very clear about the legal order we're under and that is very serious nature of that.

All right. Anybody else? I'm kind of going once, going twice. So, all right. With that, I'm going to say a motion to adjourn. I got 7:32 p.m. So moved. Everybody in favor of that? I We are now adjourned at 7:32. Thank