Council - Special Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Agenda approval? Approved. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Okay, let's get started on the fiscal year 27, budget discussion and approval.

Okay, so the first thing on the door is the one with the mural logo on it. It's a letter from myself to you. It says, the following is a list of budget recommendations that I feel need to be taken into consideration and put into completion for the FY27 budget. You are reviewing a rough draft version of the budget report tonight, and I would like to address some of these concerns at this time. Budget recommendations for the FY27 budget are based on cash flow available resources during the fiscal year. If these recommendations are not made, the City is going to have to look at other avenues to fix our cash flow issues. As your accountant and financial advisor, I strongly urge you to please look over these recommendations and consider them. No new vehicle or equipment purchases for any departments. No replacement of employees unless they are in a supervisor position. Downsized through attrition. The city must cut wages through attrition. This is our large expenditure and includes getting new positions in departments. Recommending zero raises until the cash flow and budget can handle a larger increase. I want you to reduce all expenditures with spending unless necessary, even if they are budgetary items. Build your cash flow. You cannot have every department spending at the same time. There are certain bills that are going to have to be paid, and those bills should continue to be paid. Dues, insurance, natural gas, electricity, etc. Limit your training spending. Unless they are in training program or need to get certified, they don't need to go to training. Develop the following policies for the purpose of exposure to fraud and excessive spending throughout the year. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but what I am saying is we need protection in case of situational racism. A vehicle use policy. Uniform and shoe policy. Meal reimbursement policy. A transfer policy, which is recommended by your municipal advisor. A debt policy, as recommended by your municipal advisor. We need an updated purchasing policy. a credit card use policy, a training policy for reimbursement if they leave early, and an updated salary policy. I have examples that I'm working on. I just don't have them ready at this time. And we need these policies to protect the city of Cuba. We are continuing to dip into our reserves in the same departments each year. This is not a feasible or sustainable practice. It should not be something that we continue or expect to do. The time has come that we must focus on how we are going to overcome the shortfalls of the fiscal year. We must make the difficult decisions to overcome the budget shortfalls. I know that you guys are tired of me saying this, but it comes to you guys now. I have said this now, and I am recommending these recommendations. The top decision is lying in your hands, and you guys have to make them. We can no longer continue the bleeding that we are seeing. I said it up until midnight when I tried to make this budget work, thinking, how are we going to do this and make this work? When I say that some of these expenditures can't be made, they can't be made. We can't bleed any longer. You have to make the decisions that need to be made tonight. Yes, Ray.

Can I speak? Yes. For once, and I read all this, and I'm sure all you other councilmen have read it too, For once, I would think that we should take the recommendation of the person that we hired to look into this. We know that our ship is not afloat very good right now. We're going to get it back in shape. I just think it should be an overall do it what you ask. If we sit here and debate, every little nifty crook, we're going to be back in the same position we were this year over time last year. So let's just tie our two strings do what she says, and then if it doesn't work, we can blame her. But anyway. No, I just said, go away. But here's the thing about it. We have to try something different. You know, we look at our salaries, and just look at the salary statement. You know, that's our benefit. We have one of the highest, the 400th group of people, we're 1% higher than anybody in this town. And I'm not trying to preach to you. I'm just saying that if we're going to stay here all night and discuss nickels and dimes and how to spend money, we should, for once, take our recommendation and try it. It can't hurt us any more than the last four years have had. I'm not going to end the speech.

What were we sure of in 2024 when you got that buzzer back? What was that?

But I do have the numbers compared, 2026 to 2027, and that's on your, by 2027 in your operating budget submittal sheet, which is the next, should be the next sheet in your packet from what I just went over. And in those critical decisions, we have to make an annual raise for the city of Cuba. What are we doing? Basically, this budget that I'm presenting tonight has no raise for the employees. There is an attached list of recommendations, a requested list of items that are all departments. The increased fuel that we will experience in the United States, we are going to experience it as well here in the city of Cuba. We need to have a plan in place. I believe that that's something that you need to think about. I've tried to account for that as best as possible without over, you know, trying to go too far over. But I feel like the city probably needs to look at something to have a plan in place to overcome what the United States is seeing as increased fuel. Discussion on the animal control manager position. You need more information, especially constraints currently don't allow much room for hiring that position, whether you hire it or whether you contract it. Figure out what you need to do there. Uniform contracts. I think you can probably do better in public works on that. Currently, not many employees actually utilize the uniform contract. Many of them prefer t-shirts. So the only thing that you do through Uniforce right now that you would need to keep them on board with would possibly be masks and the cleaning supplies and things like that that we utilize in our arts department. So maybe you need to look at maybe just doing a t-shirt and giving it to someone else.

There's one issue with that, with the electric department, because they have to have their own.

They do their own. They do not buy it. They do not. It informs the universe. They order separately through another company. Because they have to have FRA. FRA, yes. And so Andy has already researched that, and he has gotten separate. They're another company. Okay. It's not done that way. The trash contract, as pointed out in the state audit, is $188,000 per year. I'm going to say recommend charging customers for trash service. I know everybody's going to say we're going to get a price increase, but that's a large expense to the general fund that You need to figure out how we can overcome that absorption.

What's your suggestion on the rate fee if we were to decide to charge residents per capita?

That would be a little more, I would need to think about that a little more. Because we're already going to raise water, sewer, and natural gas, correct?

So if we have trash on them, that's going to be a big risk.

Well, every city has to face that at some point. And we have not, we've been really good about not, well, that's the two-inch solar, about not raising rates for years. In fact, our electric has not had a rate increase since 2014. We're going to have a choice.

But it's all going to hit them at one time.

Well, I agree. I don't disagree with you. Well, we're trying to keep our rate increases for our natural gas and our electric and everything manageable. We're keeping them small. We're not taking that big jump. We're trying to keep them on the ground level.

About the trash pickup. In the beginning, we passed the one-cent sales tax with the idea that they would have free trash pickup. This was years and years ago. All right, I'm sure that that 1% when you get on that... It's more than it takes care of the $188,000. The only thing about this budget that I would want to amend or try to do is anything, this contract has stayed the same for years. Anything, if they decide to raise over the $188,000, I think we ought to pass it on. We cannot keep absorbing every time we get a raise, passing it on, or eating it, we need to pass it on. So it's the same thing here. If we keep what we told the people, and the people probably are dead if you told it to them, but the thing about it is they're kids, we promise them, pass the sale tax for $110, which is still in effect, Is that what you're saying?

I think there's some ways to definitely work that, but yeah.

Yeah, because the leachate fees and the permit fees are something that had not been raised in several years.

It's definitely got to bring in some revenue in your treatment plant department, and that needs to be addressed as well. Because even though we raise water and sewer, In the treated plant, you still have operational costs as well there. Very little revenue comes in to that department. So I think that revenue that comes in is on each age.

Yeah, we've had just passed a 7% increase per year.

Not on each age. I'm sorry.

Hold on. Okay.

So, we're, you know, you need, and also the permit fees have to go through DNR. We can get DNR approval for that. So, I feel like those are some things that maybe you need to think about doing and raising for increased, you know, operational costs have gone up. And when operational costs go up, you usually have to think about... You're absorbing them and you can't absorb anymore.

I'll give you one idea on the trigger plant along. David, what's the part right now that's struggling to maintain and the grout underneath it is going bad as well?

It's my smaller clarifier, but yeah, the floor is falling apart on it and it keeps hanging up the scraper arm, so... If you've got that scraper on, you can't put on a silencer either.

And what does that, what does the new one cost? That one's probably 15 years old or older? Oh, that one was put in in 99.

Okay, so it's even older. 28 years old and only been sandblasted and painted once, so it's all rusted and just falling apart.

What's the cost, David?

Just for a few pieces. I had budgeted $17,000 in this term budget, but that was just for a few minor things up top. Now we're having problems down low, and that's a complete rebuild of the scraper arm and everything underneath. That's going to be...

Here's the thing about it. We built in a reserve years ago if we hadn't spent it already to do that. So we should... That's something we have to... Without a treatment plant, the city goes...

Did you have a price to replace him? Yes, sir.

This is a new receipt I just sent last Friday. So I haven't called for quotes or anything like that because I know we're tight on money. But I was just going to try to... David, I got down here and cleaned out three buckets of concrete chips and metal chips from stuff that had fallen down in the floor and busted up. And that's what was standing up the arm. I think it'll run for a little while now, but I don't know for how long.

Thank you, David. I just wanted to give an example of just one thing in the water treatment plant that's going to cost us a pretty penny. We're not even much...

So, again, I recommend no vehicle or equipment versus for any apartment unless it's a, unless, again, it's a vile piece of equipment that obviously breaks down throughout the fiscal year and we have to absolutely replace it. I would freeze all those miniatures unless... necessary even if they are a statutory item built for cash flow. First, there are certain bills that are going to have to be paid, utility bills, insurance dues, limit training unless they are in a training program or need to get certified. There are certain assumptions that are built into this budget. No salary increase for all employees due to development constraints. I'd like everybody to underline that item, that there are no increases for all employees due to budget concerns. The reason is because I tried everything to put a budget in, or put an increase into this, put a budget into this budget, put an increase to this budget and it did not. it totally put us into the red so i want the employees to also realize that i did try to do something for them this fiscal year to be the budget concerns i did not this budget will not hold a raise if you try to pass one it will put us into the red you're a simple employee

In the past, what's the history of percentage raises throughout? Do you have any idea what they've been over the last 30 years?

I'm a recent city employee, but it's sort of maybe length, maybe the past, but I don't know.

I know I researched it 21 years straight at the university paper. Yeah. And you work with two and a half to three and a half percent, and at the same time, some people in the employee also receive a step raise in the same year. So some people are going up seven, seven and a half percent.

So once we went to the, once we raised the starting fee to $19.50 or $20.50 for all laborers, that stopped and ceased the step increases for all city employees. We were unable to give city employees step increases because it basically, and I'm using it very lightly, broke the pay schedule. So we've not been able to give those 11.5% step rates for six or seven years. We are also waiting for new rates in this for our supplemental insurances as well. Those come in until later in the fiscal year. So we usually kind of just budget at the old rate and then we have to kind of review the budget within the year. We've approximated 1% inflation on general expenses in all funds, but we kind of look at that and see, does that 1% fit, or do we need to lower it, or, you know, we stay at the 1%. Most of them I've had lower, but, you know, we kind of raise them to the 1%. Is that in the list? It's, yeah, 1% based on the formula. The annual budget was prepared to give up assumptions, income, and from partner managers and committee members if applicable. The current budget shows a 21% for police and 25.9% general law district that just came in as of June 1st. And we cannot change that. We've looked into it. We cannot lower those laws and regulations set by them. And we can't lower or we can't even want to add.

It jumped 3.3 points this year at 22. I don't have to go back. Well, police jumped one, right? You guys were at 20 before that. So you only jumped one.

So we should expect a slight increase in work comp insurance, property and liability insurance. All of those will go up, especially if things change and all that. So the changes from the prior submission summary is comparison to FY26. I'm sorry. It's basically there was a 0.3 million year over year decline. Sorry, I did this really late and that should be a decline not in fund balance net position and a 0.3 year over year decline in cash and a 0.3 million decline in net income in all funds. This should be, these are declines. And you'll see it on the next slide on the spreadsheets. Oh, it is an increase. I'm sorry. I did this a little late. I guess it did the increase. I'm sorry. The net income? Yeah, it increased slightly. I'm sorry. I did this a little late. The first one should be 0.3. It's an increase. I'm sorry. They're an increase.

.3, yeah, there were .3 increases.

I apologize, I did it really late. So everything kind of worked. We are expecting an increase, but cash, the cash is expected to decline. That position in the neck is going to incline the caches expected to decline. I apologize. I breathed my sheet wrong. This is what happens when you do a plank. So the 14.8 million ending fund balance net position is anticipated for FY27. This is based on anticipated ending fund balance of 14.5 million from last year. And you can see the breakdown there in the spreadsheet. It was 14.5 last year. We're asking it to end at 14.8 this year in that position. The cash is something that I really want to focus in on and rely on because that's what we look for in a lot of different departments is what we have is spendable. What we have that we can actually go to the bank with. And right now, It's saying that we're going to begin with 5.3, we're going to end with 5 million. Some of this is not correct because some of our, I haven't got all of our bank account balances correctly, but that's not the correct bank balance in the bank right now because that is basically just the gist of where we're going to end up. We're going to end up with 0.3 million dollars plus. Those are important things to keep track of when we're doing budgeting is we're losing money because we do a lot of capital projects, the spending on projects, the decrease in revenue, and personnel budgets and all that. I know the department still wants to hear it when I say your cash flow is low, we need to watch what we're spending. But this shows that right here on the spreadsheet. The next sheet for the list of requests that everybody requested, I wrote them all down for you so there was nothing left out. I even went back and added a few things that came in. So anything in yellow are the things that are not included in your budget. Do you want me to go over each item with you? And then the next sheet would be the, I guess at the end I had some notes. I didn't know if you wanted to go over any of those notes. I did not have the McBride phase two numbers for the natural gas. I'm still waiting on those. So those aren't really in the budget at this time, but we'll get those once we have that. There are some notes that I can add in here. The comprehensive plan is awaiting for audits to be completed. That's why it's color orange in your all budgets. We still need to decide on the contract for the third party drug testing for FSMA, for natural gas, CDL and non-CDL employees. USDI will do the program for $175 a person. This is currently budgeted for the pre-testing rate, so all employees will have to be retested if we go with USDI. The rate and rate will have to be adjusted as we see the program develop. We need to work on limiting the cost for the canine program. It costs us overtime and due every fiscal year. We need to find some food, not necessarily this. We need to find the safe food cheaper and need to purchase it if it is not being reimbursed. Still waiting on the LWCF 3x. Award to put anything in the budget for the revenue and expenses. Now major expenses this year, basic maintenance, only unless it's in the full or as a typical law board. That's what they've allowed at this time. Still waiting on the airport grant award for the hangar grant to place anything in the budget. And for this revenue and expense, I would expect to see something in the middle of fiscal year or towards the end. We received an ideal revenue for the police department post commission of $500. There's no request, but it's always in the revenue source. We always spent lifeguard training at $1,500. Full salaries with taxes for the two budget seasons are around $65,500. And the USDI training in Mango Conference is $7,000. And depreciation for electric waterworks and natural gas has been highlighted, but there's never a request for that. So I wanted to let you guys know that. It's a budgeted amount that's included every fiscal year. Starting in FY27, I'd like to start making monthly depreciation entries to give you an understanding during the five-day throughout the year of how much depreciation affects our proprietary funds. And we'll start stating that procedure this coming year. Next, we have an actual report. Do you have any questions over the report or anything specific that you would like me to go over or would you like me to start going down line by line?

Tell us the difference between the yellow and the orange.

So the yellow arms I requested or the transfer items, the orange was just something that I thought needed to be more highlighted out. So the comprehensive planning one was something that we were waiting on the grant to apply for. The canine expense, I kind of had to just, can we figure something else out? Because it's an expense that I feel that needs to kind of go down in the police department, like something that needs another expense that we didn't have before the canine, but can we make it go down some? On contract labor in the animal control, I highlighted it because it was just like a question. What are we doing here? There's no contract. This is what it would be. I had not put an employee yet, so I know what council wants to do. So since y'all voted not to re-bid the contract, I went ahead and renewed that from this year's budget. But until I know what you want to do with the employee situation, I did not put an employee in yet. Because I'm like, well, you didn't really say at the last meeting. So I'm like, I'm just kind of leaving it alone so you can see kind of what the contract labor with no annual control person looks like and how it affects the budgets. As far as in some of the gray blocks, those are automatic colors on the orange there. I don't control some of those oranges. They're automatic. I don't know how the report was set up. But most of the L's are highlighted requests and I put over to the site in the comments what they were for. So you can see those, each one of them and what they were for. And I think that's all the orange is just the one there of the report. And then after the report are your, is your capital reports that shows each one of them. And I call everything that's over five a capital item.

Can you go back to the ending on balance, the grade?

Yes, one out in each department, or do you want me to do one?

You have an overall, you only have one that's in orange on page two.

Oh, yeah. I, you know, I don't know, wait, oh, I bet that's because it's a, I don't know why it's in orange. Okay. I'm not sure unless it's something that got red-horned. You could just be able to say it was an accident and they got red-horned. I think that one was supposed to be orange. On the transfers, I tried to make sure for you that I listed the amounts, where they were coming from and where they were going to.

Which page are you on?

I'm on any of them. I'm on page 44 right now. So like 44, the transfer in, it shows 37.4 for Browns, 13.9 from Capitol through the end. 2,271,204 proprietary funds. Because a substantial amount on the general budget should be looked at in the AP. That's coming from a lot of proprietary funds and... You guys understand what proprietary funds are?

I'm gonna explain it to you.

And that is your electric, your water and your sewer, and your natural gas. So there is some amounts that I can account for that are administrative costs from the proprietary funds to the general fund. And then there is what we call fund balance transfer from the proprietary funds to the general fund. The majority of that is a fund balance transfer. And in order for that to not be in the red, I had to make a fund balance transfer from the preparatory funds to the general fund, or we would be in the red.

You guys see what that number is? Read that number off.

So from the proprietary funds, it's $2,271,200.

That means to make our government work, we had to pull funds from the enterprise funds or proprietary funds to make our general fund, our payroll, everything work. So we basically are taking our money that should be being put aside in reserves to improve our electric, our natural gas, our water, our sewer, and all the things that are getting old. Like David just said, we are now taking that money and trying to run our government off of it.

So I make sure that this is not money that is used for operating purposes. This is money that is left over after. This is their net income money. So I make sure that everything that is requested, at least for prior to rank on, is put forth first. So anything that they want to do, we try to do within a time and a reason. Make sure that their budget can withhold it. obviously this clarifier issue came up after the budget was done so that is you know but yeah if they request it we do everything we can to put through report their major projects first but most of their major projects are what we call capital and a lot of budgetary and their cash issues so

How are the reserves? Do you take money and put it in the reserves before you pull this money out or after you pull this money out?

It would be after.

So like I said, you're pulling your reserve money to increase their abilities to operate and pay that general revenue. That's just how it works.

I mean, that's just how the system works.

So I believe that

Your general fund should have a million minimum, probably more than that. It needs a million just to survive the day-to-day. It probably needs more than that. It probably needs a good two million to be good. I mean, you're saying it needs two million just to survive on your basis. It's going to take you a long time to build up that reserve.

And you're electric.

The electric passage is not, when I came aboard, the electric did not have a very decent reserve, but it's getting there. It's on there somewhere. I need to find that box. So your electric is estimated to end at 3.5. So your electric is doing good. I would say that your electric is sitting in a position right now to where their reserve or fund balance is sitting probably where they're good, but they could be better. They probably should be in the 4s. The water is at 5, or what is in the 5? It's in the 6s, 6.5. to water. The water is perfect. I don't have any issues with the reserve or their river pool at this point, but their cash flow is low. So that's the problem with water. So water has a two-fold issue. Another issue that we're worried about with water. And electric has the other thing. Electric has... The unexpected. Yeah.

How much did we pull this year? $400 or something, I think.

So yeah, you have street tests. The lucky thing with street tests is transportation sales tax. So it feeds into the street's fund. So it never really gains its own, the fund 04 never gains an actual reserve because it's got fund 22 that feeds into it. So fund 22 is gaining a reserve before fund 04 gains its own reserve. So that one's a little harder, but fund 22 should probably have over a million, almost 2 million in reserve because It's feeding fund four. And without that, you're not going to, those two funds are not going to survive together. They're copacetic.

What's their net?

What is their net now? 22, less than a million. Probably less, probably 600,000, I believe.

If I read your strike, you need about seven and a half to eight million in reserves, right?

Probably more than that.

I mean, on total all the apartments.

Don't we have a separate reserves account for the state?

Seven and a half to eight million on all apartments.

Now your reserves will become my balance of retained earnings. I'm called by a multitude of names, but they're made up of a multitude of things, not just cash. So what are your assets? I'll go over at the end of this later. So then the other part of your budget is, of course, your capital assets approval and your salary raise approval. And that would mean your capital assets would be anything over $5,000 for all the departments that were requested. And on that list was new computers for the admin and the police department. Those are all recommended by IT. In the business department especially, they have several computers that are not Windows 11 proficient, so they have to be replaced. He replaced one, I think, during the fiscal year this year, but the rest of them need to be replaced this fiscal year. And admin, and there are several that don't fit over the 5,000 in public works and that have to be replaced this year. But here, we have some of my IT that are over the five years. And according to IT, once they get that five-year mark, they need to be replaced. So we're at 6,500.

So is our IT in-house, or is it out-house? Out-house.

As of right now, the project's second phase on the electric is 55,363. That number is subject to change at this point. The electric has turned in a 2,400 volt to 7,200 volt conversion project to 60,000. They've also turned in the sectionalized OCR for circuit number one for 17-5. The sewer research, we have old sewer pipe I&I control for $100,000. The lift station, backup pumps for $30,000. For Paul Bryant, the root subdivision, new install for $50,000. There's a fence at the lift station for Paul Bryant, 10,000. Street overlay project, this is the one I want to really talk about and focus in on for the street department. We were able to look at and get confirmation from the auditor that we could do this 147,500 and use cap tax funding. So we were asking permission for $147,500 in this fiscal year for cap tax funding in addition to the RA 225 to do more streets in this budget. So that was a good addition to be able to use in this additional cap tax funding to do some more streets in this fiscal year.

Where is the cap tax funding? Capital. Okay.

The pre-treatment, their portable Stanford went down, and so he needs that in order to do his testing. That's $6,000. Treatment plan and possible order replacement for 50,000 and then these carry over as UV system repairs in 77-18. The waterways will be located for 12,000. Lighting protection for walls number one, four, 17-4. New generator for wall number six. You can use capital tax funding for that rate, 9,015. Some of these can be not approved or approved. I mean, you don't have to approve them. Fire agent replacement, 20,000. And well, number four. Oh, backup controls at B12, number six. 5,400.

Now, David, that piece of equipment you talked about earlier, that's not on here, right? That's not on here.

Not yet. It just broke.

It was just last Friday night. It's down here.

So looking at, like, the new computers, and that was IT's recommendation, because we're in such a budget crunch, what about remanning? That'd be better with that update. It'd be what? Remanufactured computers instead of brand new ones. That saves some money. Because I'm looking at a lot of things on here. I'm new at this game, but little things add up. A lot of little things do add up. Like I said, brand new computers can get reman. I was looking at a budgeted item here. We need electric, we need gas, we need water, we need sewer. We need those basic necessities for survival systems in our community. The bathroom renovation of black walls at soccer and football fields . Unless you get grants or delegations, I would rather have . I'm just spitballing here. I'm just putting it where we can Cut more, remanufacture, you know, you're cutting out cars, but for example, if there was cars budgeted for all apartments instead of brand new ones, used ones.

Let me sit back here on the remanufactured computers. The issue with many of the remanufactured computers is the fact that they use older motherboards, and that may be part of the issue, is the fact that the motherboards pushed for London already, being someone who has a minor in IT. I've bought remanufactured computers and reworked computers myself, and a lot of times they don't work for a while, but they're a band-aid on something that could be, you know, fixed for the long term for five years instead of pushing, you know, kicking the can down the road and having to work on a used remanufactured computer in another year.

So we get what is for business computer. They're about $980, so they are a business mini computer that is what we need. We replaced two in the office this year. We need to replace two in the office again this year. I can tell you my physical RAM on mine is at 80%. I don't know what language the city has.

And you're running DER4?

I don't know what mine is. It's so old.

It was here when I got here.

And I'm waiting for the day that it goes to Linda Red and it shuts down and it is my computer. I've already had to add more RAM in order for it to continue to work. So this is just from my personal perspective. Our laptops have to be replaced as well. So these are what we would compare to a truck in the field. So how many computers are you talking about, Doug?

Your budget for 7,400, how many computers do you have? Five.

Five?

Five or six? Five.

I don't remember how many it was. I have four sheets.

but they're about 900 a piece that's probably five and yours is probably four hours yeah the black tops are a little more a little more but they get us usually bigger vests good if we go for the middle the middle option so yeah they're not anything extraordinary they're something that will suffice and work and do the job but they're not anything that

So are we going through this list and deciding what we can and can't do?

It's up to you. You can do that or like Ray said, you can take my recommendations and we can move forward. The salary that he said is no raises. And that's up to you if you want to take that recommendation. But the things in yellow are the things you're not going to do.

No.

That's why they do not fit in the budget.

I myself hate the thought of not getting raises, but we want a choice. I'm an advocate for the employees in a big way, but we have to straighten out our fiscal mess that we're in and hopefully be able to give larger future raises rather than pennies now.

Well, I'm an employee, too, and I wouldn't do anything to harm the employees if I can't get it to myself, too.

I agree. You're slow.

And I did everything I could in the power to do something for all employees, and it just did not physically work. I start out with one out, one right way down, and it just works out to zero this year.

I think I appreciate it. I think it works. Money-wise, 25 cents. It's just not there. I've got a recommendation. I recommend that all these things, everything she has in yellow in these proposals be set.

I'd like to review the section that we were talking about in the pools and parks. That's this year. There is no page 100. It's a third page statement. Like I said, I want to review this. We need electric. We need gas. Especially electric right now because it's getting hot. And we need...

That comes out of the park tax, though.

Yeah, I will not affect the electric, the water, the sewer. Right, right, but that's our budget.

So, like, it says bathroom renovation, blackwall, soccer, football field, $7,500. And that is not highlighted, so that's been approved. Is that coming out of the park tax, then? Correct. So that means we have to do that, correct?

Well, that was recommended by the park board. You can see people in the bathroom.

Yeah.

Now, the sidewalk repair, I get that. That's a liability. Somebody should be involved. But paint and drywall repairs to recline carryover amount $1,700. That's $1,700. That's not related to anything. OK. I'm just trying to find ways that we could put a three-quarters drywall use finance.

So we, and maybe Jerry can talk a little bit about all the block walls and why we decided to go with the block walls instead of the drywall. I think it was... At the bathrooms? At the bathrooms.

There are wood walls now. It just needs to be renovated. We put walls everywhere else in our bathrooms.

There are less maintenance. Are they always deep? Yes.

In the football field. Update me on the Chimac Foundation. Is that specifically geared for certain things? It's strictly for football. We agree to ball court only. That's all I need to know. Right now.

They haven't been touched out there. I mean, they're painted. It just needs to be fresh enough. It's not the most sanitary. No, it's not.

They said you could see people in the bathroom.

It's basically, that money was to try to revamp the bathroom. That's what we had.

What is our portion of the grant for a vegetable court?

It's 50-50 grand, but we can get donations to cover our portion.

What's our portion? I pretend, you pretend, I pretend. It's 50-50. 50-50? So you're still selling a lot of money, $30,000.

Well, Shine Packet's interested in giving us more money, and all of the work that our employees do, and they're...

So this budget can be reviewed at any time, correct?

We do budget revisions quarterly. Quarterly.

So if we say donations for parks and recs, then we can go back over this again and go, hey, we have a donation, we can have this. We have a 501 receipt. Thank you. But we'll have to go back and review it if we get the funds for something like the million tables and barbecue pit. You know, for example, you've got marked here $60,000.

So none of those in yellow are the same price as what's included in the grant, and the barbecue bit and the pavilion tables were not included in that grant.

Right, but what I'm saying is, let's say somebody watching this tonight says, hey, I really love the parks. I want to donate $60,000 for this. Then we can review it after we get it and say we can handle it. We can get your donation. We can, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

and what it takes city council approval to take that donation and say yes go ahead and do it which would change the budget working nothing can be done at this time nothing can be done in that park at this time and so the award or not award in table creek is made the what i'm sorry So that thing can be done, major projects cannot be done in Tango Creek, and so the LWCF grant has been awarded or not awarded to us.

That's the grant they would import for the basketball courts, the pavilion, and two parking lots. Right.

Last meeting, we agreed to give you a Tango 13C for the animal shelter, too.

We can't change anything until we see that comes in.

We can do general maintenance, work in the pool, and work on the pickleball, but anything in the LWCF area that was part of that grant cannot be. Right.

Can't be tested until we see we get it.

Right. They're still doing environmental work. They're still doing environmental work, and so they want to be able to do that and make sure that that's all done from the environmental...

But every time we get money, it's a restriction. All of it. Absolutely.

It's at national parks right now, so they are in that environment.

Okay, we have a motion.

And we have a second.

I will prepare these, the big packet, and then, so I just need to know, and put in everything that's in here, and then I'll permit you with the official budget document at the next budget meeting for you to approve.

Nine more to one. If we get two right on the other, for her to move forward with what she gets.

Second. We'll call it.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, discussion approval of signing the work papers. What?

Siren repairs. We have a siren at the ball fields that is not working. So we had the company come out and they checked all the sirens and we found out that almost all of our batteries are over 10 years old. So we are looking at replacing batteries for the power for those sirens. And then there's also a bad guy in one of those sirens. And I think that's one of the ball fields that stopped me from working. Right now, we have... We went out, and they gave us a bid on what it would cost, and I don't have that number. Do you have that?

$10,495. How much? $10,495.

Yeah, $10,495. That company gave us that bid, so we went out and looked on our own for the same red-top batteries and the charger, and we found them for a total of five times for the... Batteries, it came to $5,611.46. We set up an account with Ellis Batteries. So we can get those same batteries for $5,611.20. So I would like approval, if at all possible, to purchase these batteries, and then we can install them ourselves. It's literally taking the battery and the cables off of your car and putting them back.

No question. So we're going to test the chargers and see if they need to be replaced.

We've got one that's bad, but I... We can get that same charger for $500, and I think they wanted... Do you have that code in front of you? No, I have the... We don't have the charger amount on here. So we'll just, right now, I know I can get the charger for, actually I do have it. Yeah, I do have it.

What's the voltage of these batteries?

The charger is $505.26.

And we can order that in. It's identical to the ones that are in there right now. And then batteries for $5,611.20, and we can install all of those ourselves. And the only thing that we're missing is the one diode that we can contract out for . Where are the batteries located in ?

I'm saying at the locations where the sirens are at, where are the batteries located?

Like they're in the lock box on the bottom of the pump. Okay. Easy access. 30 batteries total? Yeah, 30 batteries total. Batteries only? Batteries and the charger. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Anybody opposed? I do have one question.

What department is going to replace the EOC?

It will be out of the EOC.

And now we have a motion to use capital, capital group funds to fund that.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Anybody that's experienced with changing those batteries, I don't see any.

Very simple. All right. Motion to adjourn. Second.