City Council - workshop

5 o'clock. Anderson.

Let me call to order the June 22nd city council workshop that some council members promised was not going to go until 8 o'clock, just for the record.

Did anybody sign up to speak?

No, sir.

All right, Mr. Stokes, we've got agenda item number one. It shouldn't take very long on that one.

I make a motion to adjourn. I second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. That's all she wrote, folks.

So I will kind of kick things off here and kind of outline what we're going to do over the next 10 minutes or so.

That's half of our allotted time.

That's right. That's right. And kind of outline what the process is going to be. I want to begin by thanking everyone in this room for their hard work and diligence in putting together the budget that's presented to you, particularly Tracy and Nicole and Sarah, who work with me to have this budget presented to you all. And all these directors and assistant directors work very hard as well. We really try to manage our dollars and make really good decisions with what's presented to you. The mayor had asked me if I would begin by talking a little bit, perhaps for those who are new, Eric, about, in all seriousness, about kind of the last 15 years or so. I'm going to go back a little bit. I've been here 16 years, but I'm going to go even a little bit further than that and talk about what the financial landscape of Deer Park, the city of Deer Park, has looked like for a little bit and how that plays into where we are today and how we do things today. If you go back probably 18 years ago, there was kind of good and there was bad. The bad was the city did not have a lot of reserve funds. And no one loves talking about that more than Thane Harrison. Thane would always talk about that the city had less than 10% or less than 20%. And he insisted they create a policy, and we have a policy to this day that calls for 25% reserves. And we'll go over that in a minute, but we've far exceeded that. But relatively speaking, again, not that long ago, we didn't have nearly what we have now. Back then, for a brief period of time, and we won't spend too much time on this, but we had a few years where we had enormous industrial district agreement collections, the highest the city ever received. was back in 2008, 2009, for lots of different reasons that changed. So there was kind of good times and bad times back then. But in my time here, and I can speak to that since I was here, it's all attributable to me in any way, just what I know. A couple of things, we have budgeted very, very, very conservatively on both ends. And we continue doing that. We budget very conservatively on revenues. And that generally leads to more revenue coming in than we planned. So we cushion that. And then we almost always underspend what was budgeted. So you're gaining on both sides. We went for a very long period of time with a lot of two different mayors, Mayor Riddle, Mayor Mouton. When Gary was here, when Donna was here, they principally led the budget efforts back in the way Nicole and Sarah do with me now. When you go a decade of underestimating revenues and overestimating expenditures and letting that build up, we took those numbers up substantially. We went from 10% to, in some cases, 100% or more. And the advantage to that, there's lots of advantages to that. The biggest one is what we're doing right now. We just had a bond rating. And once again, for coming up on 10 years in a row, we have the highest bond rating that you can have. has a lot to do with the fact we have so much money in reserves. At the same time, when we borrowed money along the way, we did a lot of really smart things as city council and staff. When interest rates were low, we borrowed at the floor of where to borrow. And that let us pay for projects in advance and pay as little interest as possible on that for a generation yet to come. So we kind of saved money and saved money and saved money and socked it away. We've always had the position that we would keep a $0.72 tax rate. And there have been years where, back in the old days of the effective tax rate, it was above $0.72. And we said, no, we're going to stay at $0.72. There's been years where we took on extra debt to keep it at $0.72. The biggest advantage of keeping this tax rate at 72 is that the industrial district payments come from industry based upon what we charge our citizens. They pay a percentage of that. And that's going to remain true for the next 15 years beyond this one per the new IDA. And the percentage that they pay is going to go way up. But for a long time, that's a decision that this city council and future city councils are going to have to make about sustaining that tax rate. But again, we've been very conservative. It's served us very well. And over the past, you go back maybe eight, 10 years ago, a lot of times when budgets got a little tougher, and we're doing that this year too, we take that savings and prepay capital expenses, prepay things that are needed now, not have to raise new money to pay for those. So we've created other funds along the way. We've spun the golf course into its own fund. A lot of things. The DAC is a new fund. I've done different things like that. But you add that up, and I would very much argue our citizens, for the most part, like Deer Park the way it is. We're very slow to change here. They like the services that we provide. What I think is providing Cadillac-level services. Everybody knows that Houston just went to charge in a fee for trash service for the first time. We don't charge a fee. We give you trash bags. We have senior citizen meals. We have a theater program. We have all these things that we're very blessed to have. And a lot of that is because of how we budget and the conservative mindset that we've held that allows us to have these things. So that's kind of a little history of where we've been. And you're going to see a lot of that come out in the budget that's presented tonight. Any questions? Or Mayor, any comments you want to make about that? You've been here for almost all of that time as well.

Couldn't have said it any better.

OK, well, thank you. So with that, the process tonight is going to be exactly what you've seen in the past. We have put together a budget. Sarah's going to talk about parts of it. Then Nicole's going to talk about parts of it kind of in the big picture. And then we have lots of different directors that have been asked to come up and present some things that are highlighted that we think would be of interest to council. If there's anything that we don't highlight that y'all want to talk about, by all means, let's talk about it. Any questions you have along the way is fine, or at the end, however you want to do it. We want to be very open and transparent and answer your questions, or if we don't know the answer, we want to get you answers to your questions as quickly as we can. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Sarah.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Council. Before we get started, for the rest of the presentation, I just want to very quickly walk you through the workbook that you received via email ahead of time. And then that was also placed at your seat for this evening. So this is an updated version compared to the antiquated binder that Council used to get. Finance, Nicole, has done a great job with this. This initiative was started last budget year, I believe, two budget years ago. Thank you for that. But if you flip to the second page, there's a very simple, easy-to-follow table of contents there. Beyond that, you've got Jay's memo, which he writes and provides for council every year. And then once you get past that next page, which is the budget calendar that you've seen several times at this point in the budget process, On the back side of that, there is just a run of show for tonight's presentation. And then everything beyond that is the information at the line item level for the budget. every category, every account. So with that, just a little more in depth about what Jay said. We're not going to present this evening at that line item detail. Just to reiterate, if you have any questions about anything specific, please let us know. The things that we have chosen to highlight for council where we came to that determination for a variety of reasons. Some of them are dollar related. Some of them are things that we think y'all put a particular interest in. Just because something was a high dollar item did not mean that we chose to present it. For example, maybe it was something that y'all approved last budget. And for whatever reason, timing, issues, approvals, et cetera, maybe it wasn't able to get done. And so we re-budgeted it for the next year. Y'all have already seen that. And y'all have already discussed that. So we didn't want to bring those types of things back to you. So if there is anything, again, that you're questioning, please don't hesitate to interrupt us and ask as we go on. So with that, we will get started with some just high level information, specifically as it relates to our capital requests and PSLO options. So PSLO, just as a reminder, stands for Program Service Level Options. So we have a base budgeting process currently. So every department has a set base budget amount, and how that's allocated amongst their accounts is up to them. And anything that is not able to be covered in that base budget, they have to request additional money with a PSLO request. So overall, citywide, across all funds, You can see that we had $25,000 in total requests that was comprised of both capital items, big ticket, one-time expenditures, and regular operating PSLO stuff. Of that 25,000, not thousand, million, excuse me, I misspoke.

I know, I wish.

I wish.

I know, my goodness. I know, I'm telling you. None of y'all get paid this year. I know.

Sorry, guys. Yeah, strike that. I'm just kidding. 25 million. Okay, so of the $25 million in requests, We, starting about mid-April through the very beginning of June, we have department meetings, budget meetings with each department where we go through these requests at the line item detail where things are, their requests are justified and we ask questions and of that, those have been cut just over 12 million and the items that are being proposed to be funded are just under 13 million. So almost 9 million of that is capital and 4 million of that relates to operating EXPENDITURES, PSLOs. SO MOVING ON TO JUST GENERAL FUND. WE DO HAVE INFORMATION IN HERE ABOUT OUR ENTERPRISE FUNDS, BUT OUR GENERAL FUND IS OUR MAIN OPERATING FUND. SO WE WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE DEFINITELY HIGHLIGHTED THAT FOR YOU GUYS. SO OUR OVERALL GENERAL FUND OPERATING BUDGET PROPOSED FOR 26-27 IS JUST UNDER 59 MILLION. So if you think about that 25 million in requests that we got against a total budget of just under 60 million, that's substantial. That's a lot of requests that came through for budget this year. We had a lot of difficult decisions to make. Of that almost 60 million, the way that's broken down, the majority of it is by far in public safety. That's almost 21 million in public safety alone. And then the rest is spent in administration and finance, and that's the back office stuff like city secretary, human resources, IT, departments of that nature, and then community development, and then lastly, public works. We do have $1.5 million budgeted for transfers to other funds needing support from general fund for various reasons. The two that I specifically want to highlight are the golf course fund and the grant fund. And so for the golf course fund, I want to give props to Kenny and Jacob. The golf course always requests, they've been doing very well lately, but they always request a very hefty wish list and budget. And to Kenny's credit, and I think Kempner Sports Credit, Kenny and Tyler sat down and had a very realistic and conservative budget conversation this year. So that is actually a very healthy and conservative transfer to golf course, which we were very happy to see. And then we have a planned budget transfer over to the grant fund, which we have a lot of grants applications out there right now with Precinct 2 and some other agencies that require match funding. So if we're awarded any of those grants, we have to fund 50%, sometimes less, sometimes more of those projects. And so we have that budgeted over there in the hopes that we get those funded. GREAT APPLICATIONS APPROVED BECAUSE WE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE MORE HIKE AND BIKE TRAILS AND THINGS OF THAT NATURE AROUND THE CITY. SO INCLUDING THE TRANSFERS, WE HAVE TOTAL EXPENDITURES OF JUST OVER $60 MILLION. OF THAT, ANECDOTALLY, JUST OVER $38 MILLION OF THAT IS JUST IN PERSONNEL, IN RELATED EXPENDITURES, HEALTH INSURANCE, THINGS LIKE THAT. $12.5 MILLION OF THAT IS IN SERVICES, AND THEN THE REST IS IN SUPPLIES, RNM, AND THINGS LIKE THAT. Just real quickly, so some future considerations for general fund, things that are not funded right now out of general fund. So the DAC is something that we just want to make council aware of. Currently, they're getting a transfer from CDC to help sustain operations. DAC has been performing very well for their first year. When the business plan was made and the pricing structure was made, It was really unclear how all that was going to go. And they've been performing very, very well. But they're still not completely self-sustaining. The hope is in the future, as programming grows and things like that, that will happen and come to fruition. But right now, they are still needing support. We may not always fund that from CDC. We may have an opportunity in the future where we shift that back to general fund. So just for information purposes, in this current fiscal year, we're planning to transfer almost one and a half million from CDC to DAC to support their operations. And next year, it's similarly just over 1.4 million. So that may be something.

CDC has a healthy balance.

They do. So we purposely did not fund a lot of projects out of CDC for several years for two reasons. One being that we knew the DAC was coming online, but two, we were building the community center and we wanted to leave a contingency balance in their fund balance just in case the project ran over or anything like that. And so now that that's finished and it came in on budget and all of that, we've been able to fund more stuff out of CDC. But the hope is that we won't continue to have to support DAC operations from there and we can continue more Parks and Rec projects. We'll see. We may keep that in CDC. We may shift that to general fund. There's other considerations that go into that decision, like the tax rate calculation and stuff. So depending on where we need to put that, we may change that conversation in the future. But that's something that general fund may absorb in future years, and we wanted to make sure that y'all were aware of that. hot expenditures as well, our hotel occupancy tax. Ever since COVID, our hotel occupancy tax, right after COVID, took a pretty direct hit, which was unfortunate. The past five years, we've just now gotten up to a healthy, sustainable revenue and activity where it was pre-COVID numbers. And we've very strategically made decisions in the past several budget years about what to spend hot funds on because we're restricted on what we can use that money for. So it made sense to spend it on certain things like the Christmas stuff with DecroLite, our annual contract with them. But the result of that is we've drawn down the hotel occupancy tax fund balance. So this is the last budget year, the upcoming budget year that we're proposing, where we keep certain expenditures in HOT. It's likely that in future budget years, we'll need to shift some of that back to general fund. Some of Caitlin's department, for example, their salaries are split funded between HOT and general fund. So we'll need to pull some of that back into general funds so HUD's fund balance can get healthy again. And so that's something that we're already looking at and planning for. So we don't have any surprises there. We just wanted to make council aware that that's probably coming. But we don't have any concerns or anything about being able to absorb it. And lastly, this is probably employees' favorite topic every year. They want to know whether or not we're getting a COLA. Jay came up with a new, not phrase, but answer this year. And it was, if you ask if we're getting a COLA, you yourself specifically don't get one. And I think Kami is the only one that's received that answer so far.

Who was the one person that asked?

Kami. I know, yeah, yeah. It was pretty funny. Hers is zero. Let the record reflect. So there have been many years in the past before my time where we were not able to have COLAs or let employees move a step on the salary plan. But we've been very fortunate and very blessed that we've been able to sustain operations in a healthy way that we've been able to do this for the past several years. So in order to determine what cost of living adjustment we typically do is that we go off of the current CPI for the Houston Sugar Land area. We look at that consumer price index. It's a little high right now. Unsurprisingly, it's gone up over the first half of this year every time we've checked it. A new CPI comes out every two or three months. And just with the current economic factors and the price of oil, it has started to go down a little. But from the April, I'm sorry, the... February to April, CPI went up. But right now it's sitting at 2.8, which is the COLA that we've budgeted and the budget that you have in front of you this evening, which is almost $1 million citywide. And that's just over $800,000 in general funds alone. So the rest of it is sprinkled through the other budgets. But there will be another CPI. The June CPI will be released in July. And in the past, sometimes we've kept it at the April CPI, depending on if July's goes up or down. We'll look at all of the budget factors. We still have to get final health insurance and things like that plugged in, and we'll see where the CPI lands. But right now, we have a 2.8% COLA budgeted, and that's what is proposed this evening. When we come back to present the budget to you in July, and certainly when the final budget is adopted, if that has changed at all, we will have an update for you for sure. With that, I'm going to shift over to Nicole. She's going to give an overview of fund balances and revenue and our beloved CIP plan.

Yes, thanks, Sarah. And thank you, Jay, for that introduction. Good evening, Merritt and Council. I'm going to take you to take a moment to walk us through where we're expecting to end the year and then also next year if things go according to plan. So if you wanted to follow along pages 12 through 14 of your workbook, It's our general fund revenues. They're listed there. If you go about three lines from the bottom on page 14, you'll see our total revenue there for general fund. That is a number that doesn't include prior revenue. This represents what our actual collections are without using fund balance. And so you can see the 25-26 budget for general fund, we budgeted to receive $56.9 million in revenue. And we're estimating to receive $59.4. So that's about just under a $2.5 million surplus. And as Jay mentioned earlier, that's conservative budgeting. Sales tax did come in higher than what we budgeted. We always budgeted that very conservatively. Industrial district revenue came in a little higher investment revenue as well. So it's really just a culmination of things that led to that surplus on the revenue side. And then on the expenditure side, due to conservative budgeting practices, we're looking to come in $3.5 million under budget. So to the good in that way as well. So that equates to a $5.9 million budget surplus, and that's our estimate right now. A conservative estimate as well. Hopefully we come in even better than that. But with that, that would put us at a $54.5 million fund balance at the end of the year. That does include a few discretionary transfers. That's a $4.5 million transfer to the Capital Improvements Fund to fund future projects, according to our CIP plan, and $800,000 to our Asset Replacement Fund. So we've been sitting at about $54 million, $52 million, at the highest $58 million in our fund balance. So this puts us kind of right where we've been, and it's kind of a comfortable spot for us to be. And then looking ahead to next year, if we adopt the budget as is, everything goes according to plan, revenues stay exactly as we expect, and expenditures as well, we're looking to have a $52.7 million fund balance by the end of fiscal year 27. So our budget does include the use of prior year revenue. Historically, we've done that. Almost every year, we budget to use prior year revenue. And then once the actuals come in, we come to the good, just like we are this year. So this year we are budgeting to use prior year revenue, and that is made up of several capital projects, like one-time expenditures, that are not being moved to CIP, so like IT projects or other smaller things. And then also our transfer to the grants fund for hike and bike trails is in that fund balance used for next year as well. So we can move on to property taxes. OK, so for property taxes, we always receive preliminary values in April. Those values came in at $4.68 billion. That is a very, very, very slight increase compared to our certified values at that time for last year. Typically, we see increases in values. This year, we are not. And that is primarily due to House Bill 9, which is a business personal property exemption of $125,000, which the legislature passed last year. So this is the first year we're seeing that come on the roll. So it did affect our values. But the good news is that the market values are still very healthy. So our residential property values went up 2.28%. So our values are still healthy. The market is still healthy. Lack of increase in value is due to exemptions, not due to the market. But regardless of what the values are, truth in taxation does allow us to increase our maintenance and operation by 3.5%. So we are still going to receive that. It's not going to affect our revenue. We are budgeting to maintain a $0.72 tax rate. And of that, that should generate $31.3 million in property tax revenue. Of that, $22.6 million is for maintenance and operations, and $8.7 million of that is for debt service. So we will receive our certified estimate in July, which is what we base our tax rate on and is really our truer values that we can expect. Our April estimate is very, very preliminary. OK. And regarding sales tax, as I've said in my financial reports this year, it's performing very similarly to last year. We're projecting to collect $9.8 million this year, which exceeds our budget by about 19%. to receive $8.2 million. So that did perform very well. Next year, due to positive sales tax trends year over year, and then inflation possibly going up, Fed rates possibly going up, we felt comfortable bumping that up to $9 million. You know, for the longest time, they thought the Fed's fund rate was going to cut. By the end of this year, new projections are showing one to two increases, possibly more, in the next 12 months. So it is likely that we'll have favorable sales tax collections and investment revenue going into next year. And then for the industrial district, we contract with Hugh Landrum. He provides those values to us. It's very preliminary. We don't have a lot of information right now. But his advice to us was to expect values to go down for real property. So we did budget a 5% decrease in real property. And then taking into account House Bill 9 exemptions, which will affect the IDA as well. And then as far as inventories go, It's so early to tell. It's very, very difficult to know what inventories are going to do. But looking at the price of oil at January 1 of this year compared to last year, it was a $15 decrease. Even though the price of oil is high right now, January 1 it was low. And so to be prepared that inventories will go down, we did budget a 10% decrease in that as well. So hopefully it comes in better than that. It's a very conservative estimate, but we want to make sure we're being conservative since it is so unknown.

I want to interject, too, though. Keep in mind, this is the last year of the current agreement. The new agreement that they're all signing, that are starting to come in signed, we're currently getting 65%. It's going to go to 72%, then 78%. then 81 for seven years, eight years, and then 82. So if you look at this year that we're working on now, it's kind of the new base. And it's a low year. It's a relatively bad year. If that's just the base, just by ticking up those percentages the way we said, we're going to realize a whole lot more money in a very short order. And then if you see that come up, which we hope it will, and the price of oil and all the things that Nicole mentioned, there's going to be some good years ahead, too. And that's what's going to help pay for some of these things that Sarah was talking about earlier, when we're going to have to transition Caitlin's office, for example, more of those costs coming from the general fund. In future years, and very soon future years, we're going to be able to afford those things.

Yes. Yeah, so hopefully this is the last year of it looking quite like that. All right, so water sewer rates. We have contracted with Nugent Strategies and Solutions. We are on a plan with them where they refresh the rates every year. This is year three of them looking at them. They started it in 2024. And if you remember, last year they introduced a new rate structure that included meter equivalency. And so the plan for 2027 is to move forward with meter equivalency and bringing that online in 20% increments up through year 2030. So the plan is to continue that. In addition, they're going to come in July and give us a more detailed presentation. But just the plan as it sits right now, this is a snapshot of what they're going to talk about in July, is increasing the meter equivalency another 20% in 2027. No water rate increases. and then a wastewater increase of 3.75%. So we aren't expecting actual water rates to increase until 2028. 2021? 2028. And it would only be 2%, the way it sits, because meter equivalency is very effective in raising revenue. Like I said, they'll come in July and give us more information, but that's a snapshot. If you have any questions on that, I'm happy to dive into it a little bit more. All right, so I'll briefly talk about our CIP plan. Our budget workshop last year, we introduced the five-year CIP plan. That spans fiscal year 2026 through fiscal year 2030. This is an initiative of our strategic plan, which we developed in 2024. So this year we included the updated CIP plan in your workbook, and that can be found on page 63. The methodology for the updates remain the same as last year when we first introduced it. We consulted with our department directors, We considered funding capacity and priority levels as well. So the layout of the document remains the same. We have a summary page on the top. And then each page past that is details of each project. So if you have any questions on the project, the page should explain that and tell you where the funding source is and then the timeline for it. So it may be fiscal year 28, 29, 30 before we get to that particular project. So you'll see the majority of our projects are cash funded. We're very fortunate to be able to do that through our capital improvement planning by moving funds over to our CIP fund every year. We're able to do that. Our CIP fund, Deer Park Community Development Corporation, and our water and sewer fund are cash funding several of these projects. Some of our high priority, high dollar water and sewer projects are projected to be funded through CO issuances. which our first round, we're actually in the middle of issuing that first round of debt right now. And that is going to go through the next five years. Major changes from last year to this year. We included several projects So several drainage projects You'll see the South Pasadena Plaza College Park and G 105 ditch project are included the X Street pavement improvements our grant funded hike and bike trails design work for East and West City gateways piping rehabilitation at the library, and sludge removal, which I know David's going to talk more about later on. So those are our major projects that we've included in this year's plan. Other than that, it really hasn't changed too, too much. Maybe shifted funding to a different year based, like I said, on priority and capacity. So if you have any questions on the CIP plan, I'd be happy to answer them, or directors as well would be happy to answer them.

And we do still plan for the CIP plan to be readopted by council annually as part of the budget process. So when budget is brought back to council in September for final approval, it will include the CIP plan. And we plan to update that annually. Yes.

OK. All right.

Thank you.

OK. The first step of the individual presentations will be D with engineering.

Good evening, council and mayor. So I'm going to start talking a little bit about the CIP, the capital improvement plan, what falls under planning and development. So the first one that we have here Here is our yearly sidewalk project this year. So we have $375,000. We have started communicating with a contractor that is part of one of the Cooperatives, we have identified out in the field a list of sidewalks that we are planning on either improving by making them level to eliminate Tripping hazards some some other Spots around the city do not have sidewalks. So we're gonna build new sidewalks in another places. It's gonna be Corner ramps With that we are expecting to Pretty much get rid of the list that the complaints that we have with the public works helps us with the list of complaints, so hopefully with this Year's project we'll get rid of that list And of course, as we move into the future, that list will probably grow again because of the normal wear and tear that the sidewalks suffer. And a lot of it is due to trees, which is something really difficult to prevent. So with our drainage program, we are starting with, we have also been in communication with contractors that are part of these cooperatives. We have already met with those that are going to be dealing the ditch structure that is here in I'm thinking Luella, but this is St. Augustine. So we already have determined, we have a good idea of what is needed in that ditch. We have identified, like I said, a contractor. So those are about to start in the summer months. And those are going to be part of the storm water fund. The library plumbing. So a few months back, we had a contractor take a look using cameras to see the condition of the storm sewer. sanitary sewer of the library because the age of the building and there have been some shifts also due to the type of soil and the presence of trees and how those have affected the existing piping. So we have a good idea of what needs to be done. We already have sent out for the whole package of the scope for advertising. We're going to have a meeting. It's going to be a mandatory meeting next Monday. So every proponent will be clear on what they have to do, how they have to do it, because the goal is to maintain library open during the time that they need to do this hopefully they can do this while the library is functioning we we have discussed about having restrooms portable nice restrooms outside so nothing needs to be altered in terms of the reading programs and the function of the library hopefully that's going to be the case we're going to have a better understanding of how we're going to do this as we speak to these contractors next Monday And those proposals are expected to be open on July the 2nd. And then we will decide which one is going to be the best value for the city. Any questions? We good?

Thank you. Before we move on to HR, just real quickly, I just wanted to highlight with that annual drainage program, that's another just strategic decision that we have made to fund out of stormwater. Just as a reminder, there's only a few things that we can use that money for. And so hopefully starting an annual program like this will help us eventually reach a point that we're able to proactively maintain the ditches instead of reactively. So hopefully that's something we can maintain and continue in future years.

Okay, so you've heard a little bit about the physical infrastructure. I'm going to talk a little bit about the human infrastructure, basically the employees that put out all the things that we see for our residents every day. So those investments look a little different than sidewalks and drainage projects, but they're just as important for our city's long-term success. So we'll start off with the salary survey. As you recall, in 2023, we made major investments with employee compensation following that last salary study. And because of those actions, we're in a much better position today than others have in other major market corrections. So public sector personnel consultants is who we use right now in our current fiscal year for the compensation study. And they're finalizing that citywide salary benefit and salary study. And what we're seeing so far is encouraging. We are not anticipating broad changes across the organization. Instead, preliminary recommendations appear to be much more targeted, specifically in the Public Works Department, looking at their assistant supervisors and their supervisor positions. As the labor market continues to evolve, those positions have seen a little bit of compression and a little bit of market movement. So those are things that we will likely need to address. At this point, we're estimating the impact of approximately 100,000 split between the general fund and the water sewer fund. But we'll bring forward, once that compensation study is complete, we'll bring forward those recommendations in the July budget presentation. So the good news is that the investments that we made in 2023 are working today. So compensation isn't the only thing that is part of being competitive as employers. Particularly benefits in health insurance are huge as well. So industry metrics are showing right now that across most employees are seeing increases approaching 20%. Average increase at the Texas health benefits pool, which is who we use, they're seeing an average of 11.5%. But fortunately, Deer Park, we're in a good position. BASED ON CURRENT PROJECTIONS, IF WE MADE NO CHANGES AT ALL, WE'RE AT 10%. OKAY? BUT RATHER THAN SIMPLY ABSORBING THOSE INCREASES, WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT IS EVALUATING THE PLAN DESIGN CHANGES. AND BASICALLY, THAT'S HELPING MANAGE COSTS WHILE CONTINUING TO OFFER A STRONG AND COMPETITIVE BENEFITS PROGRAM FOR EMPLOYEES. SO THE CHANGES THAT WE'RE LOOKING AT UNDER CONSTRUCTION WOULD BE CHANGING OUR CURRENT PPO PLAN TO A COPAY STRUCTURE. currently is not a copay structure as well as changing the deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums okay but there's multiple things that we're looking at so we're trying to make sure like i said that keep that competitive make it affordable for employees but also have that long-term sustainability for the city so as a result we've conservatively budgeted a five percent increase for health care uh insurance and fy27 based on what we're seeing today though we do think that it is going to come in lower placing deer park in a favorable position So managing health care costs isn't just about plan design changes. It is also about helping employees access care and supporting their overall physical and mental well-being. One of those strategies that we implemented was our program designed with Next Level Prime. That was a very proactive strategy that you all implemented two years ago as a pilot. We're still using it. We do want to recommend that it still remain an external supplemental program benefit for the employees. Next Level Prime doesn't replace our health insurance company. Like I said, it's just a supplemental program. It gives our employees and their dependents convenient and timely access to health care when they need it. Like I said, you implemented it two years ago as a pilot program. And it's helping to address health concerns before minor issues. become major issues for our employees. So the results have been positive. What we have seen is that employees are less likely to delay treatment. They're less likely to go get costly emergency room visits. And they're more likely to come back healthy and productive coming back to work. So we've seen consistent participation. We get quarterly reports from Next Level. Like I said, consistent participation, which shows that the program is meeting the needs of the employees. And it's helping improve access to care for them. So beyond utilization, it's become an important wellness benefit that supports physical and mental well-being. Employees value the convenience, the accessibility, and the ability to receive care. While the program investment is looking approximately $220,000 in FY27, like I said, we do think that it's going to be a value with improved access to care, employee satisfaction, and reduced health care utilization costs. So for those reasons, staff is recommending that we continue participation in that next level program. So when you look at compensation and the health insurance, as well as the wellness initiatives together, they all support that same objective, ensuring Deer Park remains an employer of choice while being fiscally responsible. So these investments that we've made over the last several years are working, and they positioned us in a really good position in all those areas. Any questions?

I'll say a couple of things to kind of reiterate what Sandra said. If you remember those of you that were on council in 2023, the cost of moving everybody where they needed to be was a couple of million dollars. And this time it's $100,000. And that says a lot about what y'all did for the employees three years ago to give everybody up. We're paying very competitive wages. And then with health insurance. We've been very appreciative as city employees for a long time of what's been afforded to us. And we've known for a long time that, unfortunately, it's very likely the day's going to come that we're going to get hit with a big increase and we just can't keep the same plan. We can't ask the city to absorb that increase. It needs to be shared between the employees and the city. And unfortunately, this is that year. I mean, when you see a 10% increase, there are cities all around us. I've heard about one today that's getting a 19 and 1 half percent increase. Private companies are getting increases like that. So while ours was half of that amount, it was 10%, and lower than the pool-wide average, which to me says the next level is working for us. But even then, rather than try to absorb The city absorbed a 10% rate increase. Now is the time to go ahead and lower the plan, do some of the changes that Sandra mentioned, and make it more affordable for the city. And so the directors and the health insurance committee have spent a lot of time on that. We've had several meetings about that. And we'll be coming back with a final plan here pretty soon. But just wanted y'all to know that we were mindful of that and equally appreciative of the years that we had a very, very nice plan.

How many employee plan choices do we give?

Whenever we lock into one, you have two. You have a HMO plan, PPO plan, and HSA plan.

I think your binder hit it. Sorry, James. No, no, it's great. And I couldn't resist this, so we've had to. That's kind of funny. It is funny. He probably hadn't even done his mandatory training.

And I can't resist this. So we've talked about the physical infrastructure. And now we've talked about the human infrastructure. Now we're going to talk about the digital infrastructure. So honestly, ours is real short. So I'm going to just get right to it. More specifically, the purchase installation of a 100-foot communication tower to be located at the wastewater treatment plant. So the total cost of this tower is $150,000. And it's a one-time purchase. And it includes the tower itself, but also the cement base, which is about 20 cubic feet of concrete. So pretty heavy weight down there. And then the actual hanging of the equipment on the tower and the wiring that goes with that hanging. And so what this does, this tower finishes out the city infrastructure ring. It shores up the ring so that it can handle 140 mile an hour winds throughout the whole city. It also allows the city to run a 10 gigabit network around that ring. And it just gives us a better line of sight for this particular location to the Avon Water Tower and to Fire Station 3. And we kind of expect the life cycle of this tower and the rest of the towers, 25 to 30 years. So it's a long-term investment. It's a good thing for the city and just builds redundancy into our network and digital things that we rely on more and more every day. So sorry I'm out of breath. With that, if you guys have any questions, I'd love to answer them.

OK, thank you. All right, good evening. I have a few projects I was going to discuss related to Parks and Recreation. One is the restroom renovation at the adult softball complex. This is a combined project with expanding the parking lot. The 750 is specific just to the restroom. The parking lot is, I think, additional 1.4. But this $750,000 is to renovate the existing restroom, which has been around a while. It definitely needs It needs to be redone. But we'll take the existing restroom, pretty much demo it, and put in the new restroom a little further north, on the north side, a little covered pavilion that's existing, multiple stalls in the men's and women's, and then create like a little plaza seating area with seating and shade as well, just to make it a more family-friendly type environment. So that's kind of the plan with the specific to the 750,000 and make it more ADA compliant as well. OK, any questions on that one before I go to the next one? OK. Our next project is the redevelopment of the mentioned field five. So this is the field, the small ball field that's right next to JBAC. So it's a smaller-sized field, and it's been underutilized by the baseball leagues. So we had a conversation with the league president, and they're aware of our plans to basically take that area and just make it more of a redevelopment into more of an event space, festival space, with the growth that we're anticipating with the new Jimmy Burke Activity Center. with all the large conventions and events that we hope to be getting, having that area out there to be used by participants of the J-BAC, girls softball, and baseball, to have an area where people can recreate whether it's playground or event space, lawn seating, performance space, and so much more. So we don't have a specific formal plan yet. Once it's approved, Jacob and I will meet with some companies on design and then put a potential design together and bring that back to council for review and approval. Any questions on there? Third project is a Park Meadows playground replacement and the Dow Park fitness equipment replacement estimated at $250,000. So Park Meadows, the park's been there, last installed in 2012. So we're on a replacement rotation system at our parks. And Park Meadows is up for replacement. It's basically updating the existing playground with a new, better, more modern, up-to-date playground. It's usually, once you get about 10, 12 years, we start looking for a replacement. And that one's just last installed in 2012. So it's past time. And also the fitness, the little fitness playground or the fitness equipment area at Dow Park over by the Brownfield. That little area is, it's been 2014 since that was last installed. And there's a lot of opportunity. That's one area in Parks and Rec that has really, a lot of advancements in the last 10 years in outdoor fitness equipment. The things that's available now is light years better. And we want to take advantage of that. And so we'd like to update. Please replace the fitness equipment in that area as well.

How much is light years ahead? Way better than before. Oh, OK. All right. That's all that matters.

That's the scientific definition. I understand. That's all you should have said to begin with.

I apologize.

Well, when we're done, it'll look like a beacon of joy when it's complete.

How far does the beacon reach? Spreads Christmas cheer.

And the last project that we're focusing on is a replacement of the shade structures and seating out at the outdoor pool. So over on the east side, over by where the slide is, there's a couple. shade structures just to the north of that and a couple just to the south of that. We want to use bond funds to replace all four of those. Those have been around probably over 20 years, I think. About 20? Yeah, like over 20 years. And those are definitely in need of replacement. So we think that's a much-needed project that we want to do as well. Any questions on any of the projects? I think that's my last one.

We've had a lot of requests for additional shade at that pool, so we're very hopeful that we'll have a lot of positive feedback about that one.

Thank you very much.

The new guy's not making the presentation. Two-star general over there.

Didn't want to throw him in the deep end right away, Mayor. I have the privilege and opportunity tonight to speak about the flock cameras. Approved. I'm sorry? It's approved. It's approved. We've already had calls. Just go ahead. I would like to highlight it a tad bit. Recently at the Texas Police Chief training, my layman that I went to about a month ago, one of the chiefs in there made the comment that this is the greatest invention we've had since DNA. And I commented that it's far greater than DNA because DNA was a very narrow... applied science to just a few crimes. This applies across the board to so many. DNA is very expensive, time-consuming, meticulous, and was attacked relentlessly during especially the early days where this applies to almost everything. And so it's revolutionized, no doubt, 100%. the ability to catch criminals in our community, no doubt about it. So I'm going to give you some numbers and then about three stories. You've heard some of these. There's plenty more. At lunch today, one of the officers said, well, every one of these that we catch lately, they're all involved with Flock, every one of them. I think I can remember one in the last year, one significant crime that we were not able to solve. Every other one we've solved with this technology, and most of them, many of them, we would never have gotten out of the chute without it. It's just phenomenal. So let me give you some numbers. They don't mean a lot, but they'll give you a little bit. Since we've had this January 1, 2024, to June 17, 2026, We've had 81 hits that we've been able to utilize. But the stories, I think, tell the story a little better. A couple of years ago, back in 2024, you'll remember we had the woman coming out of the back of a store down on Spencer. Her son was with her. The man tried to carjack the vehicle and kidnap mom. And the son jumped out of the car, came around, and was yelling at the guy, and threw something at him, and he shot him in the chest. And the suspect jumped in the car and took off. In short order, because we knew the plate and the video, we picked it up on flock and tracked it everywhere it went until units were able to get into pursuit and capture the suspects. We had them within an hour, hour and a half, at the longest. That just wouldn't have happened before. We would have put out the information. Maybe a cop comes across it, maybe not. But when you can sit here and say that car just passed this intersection, just passed this intersection, you'll get people there. And so that was one. That guy was taken into custody, charged with aggravated robbery, and the victim made a full recovery on that one. We also had a sexual abuse investigation with the father and his daughters. And the captain... The suspect, the father, was a captain on a boat. But Detective Reed was concerned that if he found out that this investigation was moving forward, he might come back early and try and harm the family. So he put the man's information into the flock camera system. Sure enough, weeks before the guy was supposed to come back, we got a hit that he was in town in his vehicle. The officers immediately went to his house, stopped him right in front of the house where the family was. We have every reason to believe he was probably going to go in and kill all of them. Instead, they contained him in the car, tried to negotiate him out. That ultimately failed. He ended up taking his own life in the car. But success for us is that we kept him out of that house. That would not have happened. We would not have known he was in town without that camera system. So that one alone just brings goosebumps up on you. But the last one I'll talk about is a bank jugging investigation. And we had a female that had taken a large cash withdrawal. And a guy attacked her in her front yard, takes her money. And we have basically nothing until we start running some video camera in the area off the ring cameras and got An image off the car was able to go and start doing concentric circles and finding that image. Then we got the plate. And the long and short of that is that we were able to trace his movements and then found out that through flocks all over the state that he was showing up at different banks around the state and sitting there for an hour. And they got to calling and saying, have you all had a jug? Yes, we have. Well, let me tell you who your suspect is. And I don't remember if you may remember how many cases end up getting solved out of that, but it was all over the state. So it's just a tremendous tool. We have 11 of these cameras. We're asking for eight more. The total price is about $46,000 a year. Unbelievable for what the return is on it. So this is an easy one to present tonight. So if anybody has any questions, I'll try to answer them.

First of all, I think I agree with you. It's a tremendous asset of what y'all do in helping people. But I have seen online people complain. But in general, I'll be honest, I don't care, so I haven't really clicked on it to see what. But out of curiosity, the people that are complaining about them, do you know why? Other than being a criminal?

I know in a number of places the issue of privacy has come up that Big Brother is watching. And the standard response to that, obviously, is you are on a public street. So you don't have an expectation of privacy as far as your license plate or your vehicle. The Supreme Court has ruled that way for decades. That's why an officer can see you out there and run your plate. This is just doing it without an officer actually being there. Secondly is that there's an assumption this information is being sold to people, is being kept. It's not. It rolls off. If we don't pull it and use it for our criminal, it just rolls off. If we're not going in and looking for a particular person, we're not. If we have an officer that's out there using this, see what his girlfriend's doing, we will deal with that on disciplinary action. But the safeguards in place, that would be very difficult to do. And like I said, if we found that, we would deal appropriately with that. But Flock Camera listened early on about the— When all these came out, LPRs, the license plate readers, came out, the big issue was are they selling this information? Lo and behold, some of them were. And so that kind of got a bad taste in some folks' mouth, and Flock has really done a good job of listening and not doing that and keeping the information and then letting it roll off. And so I think the privacy interest in terms of the return on investment on the positive side, it's –

So the only time the flock is actually reviewed is in an incident that you're looking for a specific time frame? I'm just trying to understand. And you could put the license plate in, and when it tags, like you said, that's how you knew where people were, if they're entering the city.

Right, and if you don't have that, you put the car description in. Okay. And it will narrow it down to those. And then, of course, you have the time frame. And you may or may not know which entrance they entered. You may have to. A lot of time goes into this as well. They have to go pull, a lot of times, ring camera footage. But like some of these, we have followed them to, they cover the plate. They cover their face with masks. We've been able to track them to a convenience store or Target or somewhere else. where they have video, and now they get out of the car without their mask on, or they've uncovered their license plates, and now we have their plate, we have their mugs. So a lot of follow-up to run these cases down. But FLOC is the key determiner of us being able to follow and get to that place where we can do that.

You only need eight? Eight more?

To cover the rest of the major entrances into the city, yes. So all entrances and exits are going to be covered? Major ones. Yeah. Not every street at all, but all the major ones are. Ones we think that people will be using to come into our city and leave, yes. If we find out they're using other ones, we'll ask for some more.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council. Am I controlling this? Yes. OK, public works. I HAVE SEVERAL PROJECTS FOR YOU TONIGHT TO TALK ABOUT. COY WELL, ONE OF THEM IS $3.4 MILLION. WE CAPPED OFF THE OLD WELL BACK IN 24 BECAUSE THE SCREEN WAS DESTROYED. IT WAS TOO MUCH TO FIX IT. SO WE HAD FILLED IT IN, CAPPED IT OFF. And we need the well water, as you know, probably know that our wells are our backup if something was to happen to the plant. Let's say we can't get raw water, the plant goes down, something like that. This is our backup, is our well water. We had the fire, we were using the wells as a backup because we used about a million more gallons a day. So we were using well water there. So we need this extra well because it's really not extra. It was in place before. This will help us with what we call the ACR, which is a mandated TCEQ. We're supposed to be able to put 0.6 gallons per minute per connection, which is a lot for the city. But this will help us do that. So we've already done the design, and we were getting our approval from TCQ. We had to do an amendment for the surrounding areas. You have to have a 150 feet buffer. So we got an amendment for that. And we're also working to reduce the size of the well. We're going to go to TCEQ and request that they lower that ACR requirement down so that we don't have to build such a big well. So hopefully it'll come in a little cheaper.

I got a question.

Yes, sir.

Did you say you capped the wells? We have no current well right now? We have wells. We have two wells.

Okay. But we used to have three. You just capped a well, not? Yeah, a well.

Okay. Well, Coy well.

That's the one we capped. We do have well.

Good question.

Traffic signal cameras. We're going to spend $1.63 million. Just as we were talking about, we're going to go from the, we have some of our intersections are looped. which goes in the ground. It's a loop system. Very unreliable. They go out quite a bit. We're going to cameras. They're called Miovision. And speaking of flock cameras, these cameras also come with free memory so that we can use memory from those cameras. You know we support the flock cameras, so you had to mention that. Yes. My eyes got this big. So we're planning on doing, next year we're going to do two intersections. fourth and center, and eighth and center. We're going to put up new masks. And I think we talked about this before. It's going to be more decorative. It's going to have a decorative luminaire, which is just a fancy word for light. We're going to take off a lot of the communication stuff so it's not hanging on those masked arms. It's going to look really sharp. It's going to go in real good with our decorative signs that we've already put up. And we're also going to do a little beautification on the corners of those streets, put in some paving, things like that. The design is fairly almost completely done. We're meeting every two weeks to talk about just the details of the plans, and then we're going to have it out to bid. And so that's going to be really nice. We'll get those two done, and we'll continue to do that every year to get the whole center straight looking really good. Stop me if you have any questions. Sludge removal. This is at the surface water plant. And just kind of give you a 30,000 foot view of why we need lagoons. The way we treat the water, the raw water comes in as particles, silt mostly. And we add chemicals to coagulate that, and it settles out in the tank. But when we get too much of that sludge that settles out in the tank, we have to get rid of it. So we've got these three lagoons in the back of the plant that nobody really sees back there. But the thing is, we're putting solids into that. And the water evaporates. And sooner or later, there's too much sludge in there. We've been trying to clean out one of these sludges. And they're fairly expensive, because the sludge, you don't really know how much is in there until you actually get to it. Usually, you'll do a project like this. And you think you have 10 feet of sludge. And you get the water out and start pumping it down. It's a lot more. And the price is more expensive. So this is not a cheap job. It's $1.25 million. But we really need to get this done.

All three or just one?

We're going to do two. Oh, we do one. I'm sorry. We're doing one.

Yeah, this is for one legion. And if council will recall, we've done this periodically over the last several decades. In fact, Ardura did a big study for us about six years ago. But it's just reached the point where it's time to do it again.

A STREET IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM, MUCH NEEDED. WE HAVE A LOT OF STREETS THAT WE REALLY NEED TO WORK ON AND IMPROVE THEM. AS WE TALKED ABOUT EARLIER, WE'RE GOING TO DO X STREET, REALLY BAD SHAPE. SO JUST $600,000 PART OF THE CIP, AND WE HAVE A STREET IMPROVEMENT PLAN. SO WE WILL BE ABLE TO MOVE ON THAT WITH THIS PROJECT. Getting a new trash truck. Every year, we rotate out a trash truck. And we use the old one. We keep it on as a spare. But it keeps our fleet going good. It gives us more dependable fleet. And so this year, we're asking for $295,000 to buy a new trash truck. And we are getting rid of Unit 708, 2017 truck. So that will be left as just a backup.

And before you go on, David, I just want to add, we certainly had some higher priced items in the budget. And we wanted to make sure that we highlighted this one for a couple reasons. One, as conservative as we made a point to make sure that this budget needed to be, we're very fortunate that we're able to continue programs like this where we intentionally replace these assets every year in our fleet. And point number two, the reason that we're that intentional is because our community loves our sanitation workers. They do an amazing job. They're always the first ones out there any time anything happens. And so we want to make sure that we're putting our money back into the community. or not our money, the money back into the community where it truly matters. And so we were very fortunate. We're happy that we're able to continue doing this every year, and we wanted to highlight that and make sure you all knew that we were continuing to do that every year.

Thank you. Clarifier rehabilitation. This is the wastewater treatment plant. We have three clarifiers. If you look at this picture, those are the round tanks that you're seeing from this aerial photo. We did one number one clarifier last year. And what they're doing is they're just taking the guts out. And these clarifiers have a rake that goes around in a circle, collects the sludge in the bottom, and takes it back to the head of the plant. So it's a lot of gear reducers and mechanisms, motors, stuff like that. So we'll gut that and replace it with all new equipment. They're about 30 years old, the clarifiers. So this is just a full rehab with everything except the exception of the concrete tank itself. So we'll have two new clarifiers, two rehab clarifiers after we do this. And so that's going to be about $268,000. Illuminating Water Tower, we're going to do Pasadena with these funds if we get them. This is kind of like what we're doing here at City Hall, but a little bit more grandiose. It's the same type of thing, though. We're going to be able to do Deer Park football games, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day if we wanted, Mardi Gras, anything we want. The lights are not intrusive. They will go up to the tower and shine on the tower. They will not go in anybody's yard. But it'll be really colorful. We'll have the ability to actually use an app on a telephone to change it if we want to. So we have some special event. I didn't want to warn anybody.

You could have Christmas color. Here's that. July 4. This is good as text.

In all seriousness, we wanted this one presented to you all specifically to make sure you want to do it. To me, as David showed, we're doing the masks on Center Street. He's about to talk about the decorative signs that we're doing. We're trying to do things that are consistent with the strategic plan where, as I like to say, when you're in Deer Park, you know you're in Deer Park and you're not in the Port of Pasadena. And if y'all want to do something, this is definitely going above and beyond, and it's nice. If it's too much, then just tell us it's too much, and we'll back down.

Is that $2.25 per year?

That's a one-time expense for one tower.

OK. I said that, and then it said budgeting light at one tower per year. So I was making sure that that wasn't.

It'd be just one time for one tower, but we have more towers. And over the next three years, we try to do more, if y'all like them.

Yeah. It'd be really nice. I have the app on my phone. We've been talking about this for, I don't know, since last year. Jay will text me and Matt in the middle of the night. Hey, I'm out of the city and they got a great tower and send us a picture. And we want to do it. It's exciting for us. And it highlights our water system. You know, I always get upset when I see other cities that have rusty towers and stuff like that because what coffins do you have in your water if you have a rusty tower that's not been painted, not taken care of? And this is going to look beautiful. And hopefully people will be able to see it when they're in other cities and stuff. And it's way better than La Porte. So you said the one on Pasadena Boulevard was the first one? Yes, that's our plan. Decorative signs, this has been very successful. The response from the community has been great. I drive from Beltway 8 through Pasadena to get here on St. Augustine, and I know immediately I'm here in Deer Park when I see those signs. They're beautiful. They look so much better than the, I'm not trying to say anything about Pasadena, but the green signs in Pasadena. You can say all you want about Pasadena. They're really ugly. So we want to continue this. We've done Luella. We've also done St. Augustine. And we also, when we did Deer Park Terrace, we just did amendments so we could add the decorative signs because we were already going to change the signs anyway. So we've done all that so far. People really love these signs. I think we got it down to the right font and everything. So we hope to keep on doing this every year, spend $150,000 to continue this project.

We had the Boy Scouts here recently. I think I had more questions from the parents about are we going to make sure that we were going to do their streets? I get those calls all the time. That was a bigger deal than anything else. We're going to do our streets, right? And I'm like, yeah, we're going to. Eventually, yeah. How long will it take to do the entire city? We had it on a three-year cycle or something like that?

I think so. Maybe five. If you want to do it quicker, obviously we'll have to spend a lot more money. This is just the major streets. We haven't even done all of those yet, let alone the smaller intersections.

I think the 150 in the current fiscal year covered all of Luella and then San Augustine. Is that correct?

Yeah. I want to say it was 82 signs altogether, just for Luella. But if we put more money, we can do it because it's all contracted. So all we do is we order the signs, and then SKE puts them up for us. So it's not any of them taking any of our personnel off their jobs. So.

What was it? Did we ever answer, Eric?

Yeah, we're good at that dollar amount. We'll just keep going. Absolutely. Or do you want us to increase that? Stay with it? OK.

If you ask me, I want to increase it.

I'm literally asking you. I'm literally asking all seven of you.

I agree.

I think the quicker you do it, the better it looks. Can we do one more tower? Everybody wants a tower.

Everybody's been asking for it.

What's another $375,000?

So we may take a second, look at the budget, and come back with something stronger, and y'all wouldn't be opposed to that.

I don't think nobody's going to be opposed to that.

For street signs and the water tower? No. Is that a joke?

Do you want the water tower? We're going to do one water tower with more street signs. Yes. We'll find more money.

Thank you very much.

And the flock.

Yes, it's in the CIP plan to have that designed in the upcoming budget year. And then when we get to budget next year, we'll be at the point where we can talk about what that looks like and where we're going to go. And their money, the cost. OK, so with that, I just want to first off, again, thank all of everyone in the audience and all of you. We start budget. I mean, budget kickoff's the beginning of April, but it really starts before that. And by the time it's adopted, budget consumes half of the fiscal year. A tremendous amount of time and effort goes into it. Does council have any specific questions about anything that was presented or not presented? Anything you've seen in the workbook or anything that you would like?

What are we going over tomorrow night?

More information and clarification. We're having crabs.

Do we have anything in the budget for a vacuum cleaner for the golf course? I'm sorry.

We'll figure that one out.

How much longer do we get the lights on the pickleball courts?

We talked about that today.

That was a Centerpointe narrative, right? Yeah.

Have they not hooked up yet?

They have.

They have? All the strains down in Summer Street and underground. Oh.

We've looked into that. Yeah. We actually had a grant. All that budget to fly cameras.

The water tower lights and the street lights is what council is most excited about.

Street signs.

Yes, street signs. Street signs, yes.

Yes, ma'am.

I just want to say, you know, I think the thing I enjoyed most tonight is listening to the employees because it's not just your knowledge, it's your enthusiasm about what you do. That's what makes the city what it is. You are very much appreciated.

Thank you very much. And it's 620. As we got told this weekend that... Justin said something about you don't have to worry about saying anything because you don't have to worry about getting reelected.

That's true. I don't. Unless I decide to run again.

So think about that one. Justin, you need to shut your mouth.

I've got to sit next to her. A smart person has the right to change her mind.

That's damn right.

Are we gonna have when they do the beautification on over the streets I

With the lighting, are the streets going to be lighted? The name going to be lighted?

Yeah.

Are they going to be lighted?

You're talking about the street signals? Yes, sir. You're talking about the name, like, let's say, Center Street, be eliminated? Yes, sir. Perfect.

Because that's going to be cool.

Perfect.

What, do you want to have a grand ribbon cutting in the middle of the street? Yeah, we can.

Absolutely. We can shut it down. Put the mirror out there, and we can dodge traffic.

How many calls did we get on that? The chief can run interference where he can stop the traffic.

I think we've either lost the meeting or we've come to the end of the meeting. I think we about ended it, huh? Are we good? Is that everything? Council, are y'all good? Good. Good to go. All right. This meeting is adjourned.

Not only did you not have to run, you got an hour and 20 minute budget maybe.