City Council - Regular Meeting

For public safety. The logic behind it, I think, is sound in one regard. And I've had Tasha said this very thing to me many times over the years that we ought to fund our entire public safety out of property tax. And I think the sound part of that argument is public safety of all the city services really does protect your property. That's what the firemen do and the police officers do. And so I can see the logic, and I know I've talked to the mayors in those communities and that's one of the reasons they do it. When you do it like that, you have a zero general fund property tax. You have no city property tax. What the city of Riverton does is they run their public safety off property tax and they run the rest of the city off their sales tax. I want you to know where we are on the sales tax?

Where are we at? And where's Riverton? 13. Yes. So there you go.

But obviously that would make our tax rate much higher than it currently is to do it. We don't necessarily need to do it, but it's something we could think about and consider as we go forward in time. But so the the current budget reflects the current public safety system, which includes the step pays, the other additional officers. This budget also includes one police officer. The chief would have liked more, but we're getting one because the Canyon School District is opening this fantastic tech center that's going to be the state of the art tech center for or for their students over at the eBay facility, and we have to protect it by state law.

We've got to provide an officer there. So anyway, the size of our government. We are at full time employment, two ninety eight city employees. The new additional employees that we've added over the years have been increases by seven fire seven police officers, number of firefighters, Clint, how many? I can't remember. I think we've had at least seven firefighters probably over time. And we've had a few other positions. We have current positions in our city government such as financial economic development director. We have not staffed We're trying to be lean. But I think that two ninety eight full time employees, are very lean and we are very small government.

Let's talk a little bit about costs. I put into my notes every damn thing has gone up. I don't really know how to say it better. We kind of hit on that already. All the trucks, asphalt, Cooley, how far has asphalt gone up since COVID? 100%? A lot. Our budget reflects public safety fully done how we have it. Our budget reflects our road system. Before Mr.

Cooley joined us, we really didn't have a road maintenance program. We sort of fixed it kind of as it needed. We would go respond to problems. We have a fully developed maintenance program where we go out proactively treat these roads in a manner that makes them last longer and a lot less money. Hats off to Mr.

Cooley who has developed it. But that is a standard that we are using. This budget reflects that, reflects the continued road maintenance. In the budget is a $50,000 request for what we call transportation impact fee study. Now that was a battle fought by me personally at the legislature with the league last session, the session before last, where we will have an opportunity to study the actual transportation impact of businesses and homes and we can assess legally a fee that goes only directly to funding road maintenance.

So if we can pass a transportation impact fee that's relevant, we can take some of our general fund money that we spend on roads and put that back into other things. So it's a way to offset it, but that's in the budget. Like I said, everything's gone up. The cost of a mile road, I think I remembered, I'm probably saying this wrong, when I first elected a 60 foot wide mile of asphalt was about, don't know, a couple 100,000 to pave. Now it's probably 800,000.

It's gone up a lot. It's just everything we've seen has gone up. We all know it in our own homes. And so one of the things this budget doesn't reflect is really any extravagant things other than just operations and operations at a level that are good. Our police department, is operating and enforcing traffic laws like it's never done in my recollect in my memory.

The amount of traffic enforcement that we have done that they're doing on a regular basis is outstanding. Enforcement has led to taking drugs off the street, drunk drivers off the street. But more importantly, the enforcement has caused less accidents at these problematic intersections and has made better public safety. So all that's included. We don't have in this current budget at this level of service, a community center, an ice ring, or any any new parks that would be other than the ones we've already funded.

This is really it. This is this is where we're at. So look at this this slide here, and you can kinda see, the sales tax increase, franchise tax, and you can kind of see where we're going with the transportation utility fee there. School resource officer, we're bringing them on mid cycle, so it's not the whole full amount. But the the body camera enhancements.

You all both you all know that the new body camera that we're buying, it'll it allows a a foreign speaking person to talk to an officer and it translate their language so the officer can have a conversation with someone who might speak Spanish with an officer who doesn't. And it will also take what the officer says and translate it back to the Spanish speaker, and it makes for a much more effective and safer interaction with the public. It also allows them, and I've seen this in Herriman, to transcribe the reports with some AI assistance. It makes for a much better report. Three firefighters at 415,000, but we're cutting that overtime back down.

Part time code enforcement. You've all said over the years that we need to enforce the code better and we need another person to do it. That person will be doing that. Okay. Now let's go to I think I've hit everything there.

Go to, if you would, my property tax notice.

It's like I There read your

you go. Yeah. This is my tax notice. I wanted to use my own because I wanted everyone to know that I also will be feeling this pain should we adopt this budget. But at the same time, do believe and I have always believed that living in Draper is one of the it's probably the single best place I've ever lived.

The the amenities that we have in this community, I I don't even know how to describe it. I don't know any many places that have the parks we have, the playgrounds we have, the trail system is unprecedented and undone in the world. I can ride out of my front driveway and on a safe paved trail be in the mountains and it's phenomenal. Okay, so in 2025 and I know that as we talk about tax increases, we're not the only entity out there that may or may not be doing this. But we provide the paramedic when you have that heart attack.

We provide the pothole filled. We provide the repaving. We provide that park and that playground and that Draper Days and that Cinco de Mayo and all the events. And we provide someone's breaking into your house, we provide a a well trained police officer to save you and investigate the crime. So my tax on my house, I guess $20.25, $645.71 for the year. That gets gets Clint's people to my house for my coronary in four minutes and saves me for $600.41 $645.71 All right. So and it's gone up that one increase in 2025.

So where we That was the proposed increase that we did not get.

The $59 Correct. For the year. Okay. So go to the current how it affects the mayor's property tax. So we do not actually have that slide, but that will be generated.

So that's a statement that the county and the state generate once everyone has told them what they're going to do with their taxes. That is due out by July 22.

So that gets mailed out in the July prior to a truth and taxation hearing. My recollection running the numbers against my house was about $15 more a month at 25%, roughly. Keep in mind that the assessed value my house is a little bit higher than the mean assessed value, but the average home value in the city of Draper or the median the average home sale price by the Utah Realtors Association was $990,000 a couple of weeks ago. It's important to note that obviously get we all get a break on our assessed value. So you only get taxed on the what do you call it phrase, John?

The taxable value. The taxable value. So anyway, what I'm proposing is essentially an increase to me of maybe $15 to $16 a month, but it puts couple it puts that 2,900,000 in our budget. So on the average home value, which is $8.00 $7 that's what the new rate will. So the difference is $103 Probably for me, it's probably 100 and

They're about $1.5.140 dollars $153 150

then the business, you can see. Let's talk about and I'm wrapping up 13 a

month. Right.

Yeah, dollars 13 a month. And I know that there's people on fixed incomes, I know that nobody likes taxes, but everybody likes the service that we provide and it costs money. Let's talk about fund balance for a minute. Right now, the state allows us to have 35% of our budget in a reserve or we call it fund balance, general fund balance. We are at the 35%.

Over the years, we have spent our fund balance down and we've had good years and we've put money in our fund balance and we've kept it high. We've also put money when we've had good years in CIP funds. And a couple of those CIP funds are funds that we a big construction need for a public works facility primarily because we're going to lose most of the current place we're at due to a lease that we're on. And so we've got money to do that. We are currently renting our fire logistics facility for some $14,000 a month roughly.

I would like to get out of renting the facility and get that taken care of as part of our CIP funds that we have available. Fund balance this year was a topic at the legislature. The legislature, based upon someone's recommendation, decided that maybe a way to help with taxes was cut back fund balance from 35% to 25%. And the proposal was that if you cut it, the cities would have to spend it down. And so, you know, it it it didn't pass the legislative session.

One of the other proposals well, let's stay on fund balance for a minute. We we're gonna spend our fund balance down. If you adopt my proposed budget, you're gonna still spend $3,295,700 out of the fund balance. So it's gonna come below 35% no matter what. If you do nothing, it's gonna go down 5,000,000, so it's coming down.

Why do we need a healthy fund balance? And this is why I think we do. We had a storm a couple of years ago. I think the total storm was twenty four minutes of complete torrential downpour and that thing did about $3,000,000 damage to our infrastructure. And I mean it laid bare Bangor Highway Extension above the church, like, to the point where there was, like, a hundred and two hundred feet of bare pipes laying on the ground because it washed the whole road out.

The storm water vault up at the temple literally blew up off the mountain out into the road. Just immensely expensive. Now luckily by the good work of our assistant city manager and pursuing opportunities, we were able to get back $2,900,000 of the money we spent. But we didn't ever expect to get it back and if we wouldn't have had it, would have been in real trouble. The other reason we need to keep a high fund balance, in my opinion, is we have probably the most complex municipal water system of any state, of any city in this state, maybe in the country.

You don't know, if you don't live in Flat Draper, if you live in Elevated Draper, which is South Mountain or anything up the mountain in Suncrest, your water is all delivered by pump. And that pump system is complex and it's really expensive. The pressures in line are even beyond what you can imagine in some spots. So we always have the risk and the worry that we're going to have a water main go. And if it does, it could be really serious and we need the money to be able to take care of that.

I also think that the other thing that's unique about Draper and why we need to keep our fund balance as high as we can is the wildland urban interface. Not every city has that, but we do. And we need to be ready to fight one of those fires that might have come. We've had two in my time, and they've all been expensive. Thankfully, they've been on Forest Service property, which is delightful from that perspective.

But we still spent money gearing up and fighting them, setting up setting up our command centers and all that. So we've got a lot of stuff that's expensive to maintain and protect, and I think we need to consider that fund balance needs to stay high. One of the things the legislature talked about this year was capping property tax. Property tax was a big issue at the legislature. President Trump tweeted I I was in a meeting with senator Dan McKay for a couple hours talking about property tax and what we might tweak to the system, what the legislature wanted to do.

We talked about various things. By the time I got to my truck, Donald Trump tweets, let's abolish property tax in the country. And so there's a lot of talk about it. One of the proposals that I personally testified against was a 5% maximum property tax cap on the ability to raise property tax at 5%. I think that would hurt a city like us, a city who's gone a long time, not taking more money than we needed from anybody and running a lean budget and doing all we can to not go to the property taxpayer, but to do everything we can.

And then we now are in a position where we need some little bit bigger increases going forward. If we got capped at 5%, if cities were capped at 5%, you'd have to raise your property tax every single year in order to just stay on top of it. So I don't know what will happen this year with it, but there's a lot of talk about it. Sales tax revenue in closing is limited in the space and places we can do it. We do have really good upside and that's one of the reasons I'm okay with not trying to balance it all in one fell swoop.

We do have The Point coming on and we do get our share of sales tax at The Point. I'm excited to say that although not relevant maybe to this discussion, but in a couple three weeks we're about to make a big announcement about a great tenant and it's going to kick the point off. That's going to be a future source of revenue. And it may keep us from ever having to get into that Rivet inherent scenario. We may be able to keep our blended budget and keep doing what we've been doing as we increase our sales tax.

Your choices are really right now you can do nothing and just spend the fund balance down. You could probably do that for a couple of years, but then you'll be into a position where you won't have any emergency money and you're ultimately going to have to either change the level of service or raise taxes. The real way that you can look at our budget and you can find areas and think, we could cut 50,000 here. We could do away with our events. We could cut this.

We could do a bunch of little things. But the only thing that really takes the money out, the millions that it takes, is really to cut public safety and road maintenance and park maintenance. The things that everybody relies upon and wants in order to really do it, would have to significantly change our level of service. I personally think our level of service is at the right level. I think we need to get ourselves over the next few years to where we're covering all of it, if not all of it, most of it, maybe we set a percentage and we wait and work and continue to improve our sales tax collection, which we're doing.

And I think as we go forward, that's what we're looking at. So that's my 2¢, sorry, if that was too long. Anyway, open for debate and questions. John, do you have more do you want to add? Go ahead.

I don't know that I have a lot more to add. I will add just a couple of things. One thing is that within the Water Fund, we are also proposing sorry, let me get back to that page a rate increase in the Water Fund. We receive an increase. We buy our water from the Jordan Valley Water District.

And every year we receive an increase in the rate that we pay for the water that gets used within Draper City. Many years, you can see on the chart there, that we did not pass that on to the residents. It put us in a deficit within the Water Fund. We've adopted a different plan going forward. And so this year, we received a 4.5 rate increase from the Jordan Valley Water District and we are proposing to pass that on in the variable rate that is paid within Draper Water.

So that is one item that I want to make sure that we note. And then the other is that we have currently set a truth in taxation hearing date. One of the resolutions you will adopt directs me to do that. We've already worked with the county auditors and the state tax commission to set forth a date and our current date is set for August 13 at 06:00. Is it the twelfth? It's the Wednesday. The twelfth? It is the twelfth. I've been corrected. August 12 at 06:00.

And the one good thing about water increase, you can actually change it by using less water.

Is You

can actually kind of control your level. Because of

the way we are raising the rate within the variable rate, it really is dependent upon your use of the water. I'm trying to make sure I've checked all my boxes. I'm getting a thumbs up.

For Mr. Veik?

Can you go back to the chart that shows Draper's property tax comparative with other cities? If looking at this one in the past we've been the second lowest would that be correct?

Correct.

And if we were to move forward with the proposed increase we would become the third lowest?

Correct.

Not counting for possible tax increases from other cities. No. But we know many those.

And I'll be like, so South Jordan, I'm trying to think of the other ones that are really close. South Jordan and Holiday are very close, Cottonwood Heights, but we do know that they have proposed a tax rate increase. It's possible, as we've all discussed, we know that property tax rate is typically on a downward trend. It's possible that some of their rates will decrease, that they might drop below us or very even with us. But currently at the 25 rate, our proposed rate would be the third lowest, only behind Bluffdale and then Sandy.

Which is actually a fairly good position to be in. Which is kind of our overarching policy, right?

Don't want to

be the highest. We don't want be the very lowest. We'd like to be somewhere below the middle.

I've been in training meetings and they don't want us to compare ourselves, but I think we always compare ourselves, right? But agree with what the sentiment that they're trying to say is, we really need to focus on the services that we're getting. And as we've talked in lots of meetings, the theme of what we're trying to get to is to pay for our ongoing expenses with ongoing revenue streams. We no longer want to be paying our mortgage with the bonus that we get at the end of the year. We want to be able to make sure that our salary is sufficient to cover the mortgage and then we'll use the bonus to go on a trip or maybe put a roof on the house or some of these one time needs that might arise instead of using that one time revenue source to pay for an ongoing expense.

Well, it's a risky venture, right? It is. You don't know what's going to happen with sales tax revenue. It could crash at any moment and we have to pay police and fire.

And it's no different in your personal budget. Maybe you don't get the bonus and then what are you going do to pay that mortgage payment that last month of the year? So I really believe that this is the correct thing to do. But I also, like the mayor said, believe that doing it in increments is the right thing to do as well because we do have new revenue sources that are possibly coming on and we don't know what fund balance initiatives might come from the legislature. I really applaud the mayor in what he's done as far as the budget goes and you as city council members for your work together in creating this budget. Kudos So to all of you.

I would say to you, I'm not necessarily looking at this in a comparative manner. I'm more looking to see if someone has it figured out better than we do. And I don't think that they necessarily do. I mean, we can see from this chart that Bluffdale is lower than us, but we also know that they are not fully funding fire as they ought to be. Didn't they have to close a fire station? Yeah, that's not dreamy for Bluffdale. I would much rather have a fully functioning fire department.

Absolutely.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Am just learning about the budget, feel like. And so I have a lot to learn. I am concerned. I'm not sure which is better. It's concerning to me that we are living on deficit spending.

And it's concerning to me that we're trying to raise our ground. Like, don't love either of them. But I do think there is a lot of evidence that the increases that we've made in public safety have helped our community, have made it better. And I continue to quote and be impressed by the statistics the mayor gave in the state of the city just about our crime rates going down and a lot of things going so I do think that the proof is in what has happened. And we added a bunch of police, and it has had a positive effect on our community.

So I think that's really good. One concern and we've talked about this that I have just is that we have increased personnel, and we're not really paying for it, or we're paying for it out of our general fund and so it doesn't feel sustainable. I appreciate all this information and find it. I don't want to go the Riverton way when I look at their numbers and how much they're paying for police and fire and and where we are I feel like we're doing a better job and But I do think it probably makes it easier to go to the public and say this is an increase just for police. So I think it makes it easier for the politicians, but I'm not sure it's better for the residents.

Anyway, I appreciate all this information. Super helpful and interesting to compare but not compare.

I think to that point I actually had just asked Mr. Barker about that. I said when did they switch to that kind of system? And he said, it's because they were always outsourcing police and fire. So it had always been a separate budget. It wasn't like one day they just decided to do these special service districts. They had been using UPD and UFA, and so they had to do it that way.

Well, they did go in house with their police department. They're still with UFA, but they chose to stay with that model. Even when they were with UPD, correct me

if I'm wrong, Herriman had a police fee. Yes, that's correct.

Both so in Herriman specifically, I lived there and was on the council for a little bit so I can speak to both of them were previously serviced by UPD and UFA, and both had made the decision to go into the taxing districts created by both of those entities, which was Slovisa and then UFSA at the time. But because they were part of the broader pool of how that money was collected and distributed, they wanted a little bit more control over the money that was collected locally. So they both created their own local taxing entities to replace the ones that were already in place through Slovisa and UFSA. And that's where the Herriman Police Service area and their fire service area in Harriman both came from. So they basically left the one and created duplicates with the same tax rates in place to keep collecting the same amount of money via those two vehicles.

The same essentially that and then once Harriman did that, Riverton essentially followed suit and and withdrew from both of those taxing districts, created their own to continue to collect those same amount of money that they had been collecting to pay for those services. And Riverton, again, followed suit also in eventually creating their own police force but staying with UFA as as the fire provider. But that's where they both chose to join those taxing districts and then replaced it with their own taxing districts to maintain that same funding mechanism to pay for those services.

And I don't think they saved any money doing it. They just switched.

Doesn't seem like it. It's higher than ours. Quite a bit

higher,

No. Both of

what I mean is is when Slovisa and UFA were doing the districts, they were the same high rate. They were still paying. They just got local control which is what they wanted. But I don't think it saved them any money like over, you know, but

they did not change their tax rates in doing that. And in fact, they've both had to increase tax rates in both of those taxing districts to continue to pay for the services in each of those entities.

There are at least two cities right now thinking about looking at going to that model. So there's a few considering it because it is easier on the politicians. I think ultimately is the right view.

It does seem like the price tag is higher. Definitely seems like the price

Agree. And I think that's what I'm saying. I think we can keep our blended budget. We just need to make sure we're covering it. Covering what we need to cover is a lot less than that. I mean even at max, even at a 50% increase, it's a lot less than that, which would balance us. So I think we are doing a good job.

And to that point, I do, as someone who's just come into the council, when you look at our numbers and our sales tax numbers like as a resident of Draper, a long time resident and not long time member of the council, I really do appreciate the work that's been done over the last couple of decades to create that really strong sales tax base so that the requirement of our property taxes is quite a bit lower than a lot of our surrounding areas.

Yeah, you mentioned to me earlier that Sandy was bringing in more and part of that is their Costco. They make almost $10,000,000 a year on sales tax revenue off of their Costco.

Lots of that's from me.

Might be their sales. Primarily bringing in from property tax.

And South Jordan and also have a Costco.

So we need a Costco

or just another Trader Joe's.

Or another. Well, I think there's another important thing to note on this too that I think is deceiving. We're looking at a 25% property tax increase, but all we're doing is increasing our budget by 2.6%. That's lower than the way inflation is. So we're really only increasing this budget by 2.6%.

And I know that there's a lot of comments that people might say about that we're growing government when you raise taxes. But for me, I think this is the way we're gonna sustain and protect our government and the and our city. And the reason why I say that, just a couple of observations that I've made on mayor, your presentation was very comprehensive and great on that. If you look at just adding three firemen, that protects our city more because you are not burning out our existing firemen from overtime. And we're actually gonna save much more in the overtime to help more than pay for those three firemen.

It's only like a $165,000 difference. There's no way, chief, you could hire three firemen for a 165,000. And so you're gonna get three more firemen and you're gonna have a more healthy group of firemen. So that to me protects the city. If you look at the equipment increases of all of that, that's an average of like 154% increase. And we're looking at a 25% increase to protect that, right? And then there's one last thing that I wanted

Can to I comment on what you just said though, I think, gosh I might be the council member who's been here the longest now. Well, when I started we were understaffed and that went on for a long time. We did not have enough police officers or fire department members to fulfill the needs of the city. We really didn't and we could not hire them. There was this huge gap and year after year we'd say, oh well we're short eight and we'd hire three. So to be where we are now fully staffed really just means we're actually meeting the needs of the city, which is why you're seeing crime go down. Like this has been a need for a long time and we're addressing That happened

as we had that property tax increase two years ago to help fund public safety. Right. Right. That helped with that.

Like I'm

sure it

alarming to someone new but if you see the history of it, we're just finally getting to where we've needed to be.

Right. And so can I add to that too the important thing that a lot of people aren't gonna understand, if we don't sustain and keep that many firemen and we end up having to eliminate positions, you talk about that ISO, it's an ISO fire protection rating? That is critical in our city. In an area, if that ISO protection rating even drops from a two point o and goes to a three or a four, the homeowners insurance costs will be more than what this property tax increase is on each of the individuals. I guarantee you that's how it would go.

And then actually we even would risk in some of these areas that they would not be able to get insurance or it will be much higher.

Because people have been dropped, but they've been fortuitous enough to be able to be picked back up by another vendor. We could be looking at a position where they could not find them.

So sustaining that ISO fire protection rating is very important that a lot of people or residents might not be aware of how important that is.

If we didn't have that fire station at Suncrest, don't think they probably wouldn't have insurance up there. But that fire station, if you looked at should we have built it for the number of homes up there? No. You know, if you were looking back, you were like, what? We're putting a fire station. We're only well, there's supposed to be 5,000 more homes. But now you can see that it makes it was it was good thinking by the council members at the time. No. I don't know. But I I don't know.

I the other thing is I think it's important for people to understand is and we have this in that last truth and taxation hearing was we everybody you know, our houses are going up in value, and everybody thinks we're getting the the grow. And if if we did, we would never do these things because we'd we'd grow. But we our our specific now our I think our property tax system is Cameron, Deal, and I from the the league director of it's a pretty good system. It's actually pretty awesome because you know you're gonna get the same amount next year, which is really good. There are states that are trying this weird stuff. It ain't working. I mean Florida, it's not working. Our system is good. But yeah, that's important. We don't get the growth so that's where we're at.

Well, don't want to take up too much time but I appreciate the work that's gone into this budget I appreciate John who's been so willing to meet with all of us to ask you know answer our questions that we might have mayor I really appreciated your presentation because I think it breaks down all of the important components of this budget makes it digestible. You know, I am one of the fairly new newer members of the council and it is kind of drinking from a fire hose when you're looking at this money. When I was a treasurer for the PTA, was I thought it was a lot of money and then you come to the city it's really a lot of money but I think this is something that we've all taken very seriously we know I mean my mother lives in Draper she's on a fixed income you know we don't want to raise taxes unless we feel like we really need to. And I think breaking it down to show how we rely more on the sales tax, that we're only doing these increases when we absolutely feel like we need to. And I think the time and energy that the city staff and even us on the council and the mayor have spent I think really shows our dedication to providing high quality services for you know the in the most economic way that we can

We have three resolutions that need to be adopted. I think they are I gotta remember which items they are.

Which page is it on? Let me look. 10H?

Let's start

at the first.

So the first

one is 10A, which is a resolution adopting the tentative budget. This is required by state statute. So the proposal is to adopt or not adopt the tentative budget.

Do I have a motion?

And that is resolution 20 six-twenty one, I believe.

Can we make a motion to approve all of these at once? I make a motion that we approve action item 10A, which is resolution 20 six-twenty one. 10E, Resolution 20 six-twenty two.

And just to note, that resolution notes that we met all we complied with all of the requirements that were put in by the legislature this year.

And then also 10H, Resolution 20 six-twenty three.

And that resolution directs me as the budget executive to schedule a public hearing, which as I mentioned we have proceeded to do already.

All right, have a motion by Fred to approve all of those separate resolutions together. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Who seconded? All right, any further discussion?

Can I just, as far as further discussion, say I think that this is the right thing to move forward with and we're approving that this is the budget but we're not approving the budget, right? We're approving that this is the draft budget? Correct.

This approves the tentative budget and we will which also schedules a public hearing for June 2, which is in two weeks. And so we will notice that public hearing at which point all members of the public can come and be heard on the budget.

And that's not the truth in taxation. Is not the truth

in taxation. That is just for the adoption of the budget. And then after that, we will adopt the interim budget. Well, at that point, the council has the option to be able to change that tentative budget to include or not include a property tax increase. If we include a property tax increase, we will adopt an interim budget which will carry us from July 1 through the time that the budget is approved and adopted following the truth in taxation hearing, at which point we will then adopt the final budget for the city.

We have that currently on the calendar for August 18. I'm doing math in my head and I think that is correct. August 12 is the truth and taxation hearing. We will not adopt the final budget until the following council meeting which will be August 18. So the tentative budget that we're adopting today is really adopting a placeholder budget so that we can now move forward, have the discussions with the public and amongst yourselves to come to a final or interim budget and then move forward from there according to the state statutes that require either a truth and taxation hearing or an adoption of a final budget.

Thank you.

Yep. Any other comments or discussion? Hearing on Fred, how do you vote? Yes. Tasha?

Yes.

Catherine?

Yes. Bren?

Yes.

Items approved unanimously four to zero. Next item is 10 I. It's consideration of resolution twenty six twenty four. It's resolution of the city council disposing a surplus personal property in accordance with the Draper City Municipal Code 50.

These are surplus vehicles. I forgot to include that as an item in your packet and I will get a list of that if the council would like to see it. But these are the surplus vehicles from Fleet that we have replaced and are now going out to auction.

John, that's in the packet.

It is in the packet? Okay, good.

I saw it.

Alright, have a motion.

So moved.

Motion by Tasha. There a second?

I'll second.

Second by Brynn. Is there further discussion? Seeing none, Tasha, how do you vote?

Yes.

Brynn?

Yes.

Fred?

Yes.

Catherine?

Yes.

Alright. Items approved unanimously four to zero. Takes us to item number 11, would you need a motion to recess that the Draper Community Reinvestment Agency meeting.

So moved.

Motion by Tasha. Second?

Second. Second

by Katherine. Tasha, any vote?

Yes.

Katherine?

Yes.

Fred?

Yes.

Bren?

Yes. Alright.

We will convene, I'll call to order, the Community Reinvestment Association Agency meeting. First item on the agenda, second item is items for consideration. Item 2A is a motion to approve the 10/21/2025 committee reinvestment agency meeting minutes. Item 2B is an action item CRA Resolution 2,601, a resolution establishing the committee reinvestment agency of Draper City fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven tentative budget and setting a public hearing of 06/02/2026 to receive public comment.

So that budget was sent to the council. It's also in your packets, and it's as presented here on the screen. So if there's questions on the CRA budget, I'm happy to answer those. If not, we are again adopting a tentative budget and we will hold the public hearing on June 2 with final adoptions of the CRA budget scheduled for June 9.

Motion.

Mr. Murray, I'd like to move to approve item 2A and 2B.

Motion by Tasha to approve two a and b. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Second by Bren. Is there further discussion? Hearing Natasha had a vote?

Yes.

Brynn?

Yes.

Fred? Yes. Catherine?

Yes.

Items approved unanimously four to zero. Is there a motion to reconvene or adjourn the city council?

So moved.

Alright, second?

I'll second.

Motion by Tasha, second by Brynn. Tasha, do you vote?

Yes.

Brynn?

Yes.

Red? Yes. Catherine?

Yes.

Alright. Back in the city council meeting minutes, we didn't do any council manager stuff. Does anybody wanna do anything? Is there a motion to adjourn?

Can I just ask, is there any direction that the council wants to give staff between now and and the public hearing on the on the June 2? Anything to look into? Any numbers to come back or, we just proceed with the public hearing? I just wanna make sure. So far, I feel it's pretty thorough.

I would say I think having the mayor present something like that was really helpful. I think something like that would be great.

We can do that again. I'll

make it shorter.

Think it would be very interesting to know as we move forward what the other cities are considering, if we can collect that data?

We will in each of the meetings that we hold regarding the budget, will have multiple agenda items just like we did today. We are required because of the new statutes to make sure that we include in the budget an intent to make a public statement, a public statement, and a property tax impact schedule in each of those subsequent meetings. Following that, we will hold the public hearing. So it will again be a very full agenda.

And John, the list of the other entities, do we need to do that at the Truth and Taxation meeting, not on the meeting on June 2?

So the final time we will need to do that is on June 9 when we adopt the interim budget or the final budget. If we adopt the final budget, we actually probably wouldn't need to because there would be no tax increase. But assuming we adopt an interim budget with a property tax rate change, we will need to have each of those three items again on the June 9 meeting. When we go to the truth in taxation hearing, that will be some other separate items, one of which the mayor mentioned today, we will include the full statement of what our so our advertised rate will be changed by because right now we're using an approximate or an estimated number. So we'll get an actual number from the state that we will display an advertisement from.

And then we will also show the advertisement for all of the county entities, both in Utah County and Salt Lake County. So don't have to hold those. As far as my recollection of the new laws are, I don't know that we need each of those items in that truth and taxation public hearing. But I'll consult with legal before I say yes or no final on that.

All right. Any further items?

One thing that I do think we need to contemplate is the missing piece of an economic development director. We haven't had one of those in many, many years. And I think we're seeing some businesses leave Draper. I think we're seeing some empty storefronts. And I think it would be wise, as we've seen with our sales tax revenue if we have someone in a position to be recruiting businesses to take those empty spots. I know that we're maxed out with the work on a lot of you. Maybe it's something we can contract out but I think we need someone doing that job.

And we can come back with some proposals or some opportunities for that as well.

I would agree and support that, Tasha. I think it's really important.

I do too. I think they could probably generate their own income honestly.

It just seems like low hanging fruit, but I also worry about blight. I mean, we look in Sandy and we see a lot of empty storefronts. And Joann's has been empty for a long time now. I think we need to address it.

Alright. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second?

I'll second.

Alright. All in favor of adjourning say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? All right. We are adjourned.

Super bummed about short term.