City Council - Special Meeting

15 years ahead. Yes, sir. How about you? every day. Can

Yeah. Thank you. Very nice. I got a haircut. You guys know you like that.

I don't know what it is. All right. All right. So, you see I don't know how to do it all the way. I want to get somebody to do it. Okay, this me Where are you?

Hello. When you said everything you I didn't know

and I had He's got Can I speak? What's this? I didn't know that.

I call worth the uh special call meeting for the city of Rocky Mount um to discuss our budget needs as it relates to our financial challenges. Uh this is a meeting that will not have any public comment to it. Uh public comment is welcome on Monday night during our schedule. Uh during the period of time we will consider uh all options as it relates to our budget items. Uh everything from revenues to expense cuts. uh our professional staff has made a couple of recommendations and we'll be hearing from our city manager and his team as it relates to those particular matters. Um the council will then consider whether or not we want to vote on CH enact today or if we're going to defer that until Monday. I'm going to ask that everybody please maintain the quorum in council chambers as we go through this meeting. With that, I'm going to turn the meeting uh over. I'm going to ask actually cler please call the role. Councilman Knight

here. Blackwell here. Robertson here. TJ Walker here. Harris here. Javarus Walker here. Okay. We have a quorum at that time. What I'll do is I'll ask Mr. Manager if you'll you take us over take us take us down the road of training that you've prepared for us.

Uh thank you Mr. Mayor and uh good morning everyone. Uh first uh thank uh my staff and uh council for guidance and then staff for input. Uh again, this is truly a team effort. Uh we've been meeting uh this week, last week, and having late nights and staying at city hall at all hours trying to get this done. So, we just want to uh thank you all for all your hard work and uh helping us put this together. Uh we're going to start off with our utilities because uh as it's been noted uh in the public uh the public releases that we are considering uh adjusting our rates across the board, across all utilities. And so to lead us off, we'll have uh Mr. Bradley uh Walters uh our energy resources director.

Thank you. Good morning. Morning.

Can assure you my presentation today will be a little quicker than it was last week. But if you remember last week uh we talked about the ongoing electric cost service study. Uh we were able to complete that over the last seven days and I've got a formal recommendation for each of you today. So this kind of will show our uh agenda for this particular margin presentation. Um and so we're going to go straight to our rate class margins. So when we do electric cost of service study or gas cost of service study, one of the things that we look at heavily are how each rate class is affected whether they are over or under recovering based on what it costs to serve them energy in this case electricity. So what we have here is in our fiscal year 2017 current margins the difference between what we bring in from that rate class and revenue versus what it cost to serve that rate class. So you'll see here in our fiscal year 27 current uh margins that that's what the rates recover or underreover today as it stands the rates that were implemented July 1st of last year. And you'll see that those numbers in the red means that that particular rate class is underreovering what it costs to serve them. And those that are in the black are over recovering what it costs to serve that class. Our recommendation today will shift to this the second column is actually the third column. And you'll see that there's not a single class that changes from a under recovery to a over recovery or vice versa. But what we tried to do is to make that a little more equitable across the board of all rate classes. Essentially, if if a rate class is over recovering, they are subsidizing a rate class that is under recovered. And so, we try to balance that out. And so, you'll see here that uh there's some changes as far as how this rate uh path will provide a

path forward. There are changes there where we're um moving that back towards a more balanced approach. Next page is our electric projected revenues. And so you'll see that with our current revenues with the current rates again that were implemented uh on July 1st of last year. Each rate class has the revenue that we expect to receive from that rate class totaling almost $85 million. That's what our revenues recover as it is today. the rate path that we're proposing uh to move forward with will recover almost $92 million. And so this is an 8% increase across the board. So an 8% increase electric rate increase is what we're looking at collectively across the utility system. This will get us an additional $6.8 million. Now the the the reasoning for this uh additional revenue, the need for this additional revenue is for the replenishment of our currently zero fund balance and to also offset the Nika wholesale rate increase of 4 and a.5% that is going across all NIMPA members effective April 1st. So our proposed rate class increases based on the the slide a few slides ago and where we stand as far as what over recovers and underreovers. This is percentages that we're going to uh proposing to implement across each rate class to make sure that we can recover those fundament. Yes, sir.

Mr. Walters, with the um proposed rate increases throughout, it's it's obvious that the small general service we basically everyone besides residential uh as has increase and there was an increase back in July that if I remember correctly did not hit the residential um service or it did it was smaller. Is that accurate? Yes. as the rate increase that was implemented last year was uh heavily balanced more heavily balanced toward the large industrial class and the large general services classes

and and um you don't recall the percentages Steve not not right off I you can see basically off the that first page those current margins right okay thank you question. So the 4% rate increase that you implemented in July, you are you saying that that did not hit the um residential? So the the 4% No, it did. It was 4% in July of last year. It was a higher percentage on the commercial class and industrial class last year. What was the percentage on the residential? It was 4%.

4%. And also in addition to that 4%, you had a PPA up there, correct? 08. Is is that additional can you say 6%.

Yes. So I'm going to talk about the PPA in a minute, but yes, the PPA was implemented October 1st. That was the the reasoning for the PPA was to recover the true up that we had to pay last year. It was originally scheduled to be paid out of rate stabilization, but there were no funds available to pay it out of rate stabilization. So that PPA was implemented last year, October 1st. that PTA was implemented equally across the board in terms of price per kilowatt hour but that affected rate classes different the8 kilowatt hour charge of the PPA impacted our large industrials up between 12 and 15% whereas it affected our residential class between 6 and 7%. So is it safe to say that in 25 residential receive about a 10% um 10 11% rate increase

including the base rate and also the PPA which will come off in July. I mean at the end of June so residential got nearly a 10% rate increase. Yes. Thank you. Yes sir. I recognize you council I Yes. Is it uh true to say that up until last year that he hadn't had a rate increase until July 15 of 2025? Yes, sir. July 1st of 2025 was the first electric rate increase since 2012.

2012 12. That's right. there was a rate change which was a slight reduction in 15 due to the asset sale and another slight reduction in 2017. Now uh but during that time when uh after 2017 up until 2025 anytime we get a wholesale rate increase we would absorb that rate. We were able to absorb that rate due to the establishment of the rate stabilization fund. So that means from 2012 up until 2025 there was no rate increase passed to our residential customers.

That's correct. And is it true to say I know this important time we were struggling with this huge debt which was to be paid off in 2026 until dude bought us out of our percentage that I mean the large textiles industry left Rocky Mount Burlington um other uh textile businesses that that debt was heavily on uh residential residential uh customers uh to carry their debt to the sale assets to duty

that was before my time but from the records that I reviewed Pat from the point that you were correct so uh so I'm saying that to say this that you just stated that uh in July the increase was more heavily balanced on and commercial businesses. And what I'm trying to bring a historic perspective to our citizens prior to July of 2025 uh when we had this huge debt I forgot how much was the debt to the how much? $500 million.

$500 million. That was the debt for Rocky Mountain. Uh it's three cities that has the largest percentage. that screams to Wilson and Rocket Mountain. And when NAFTA came and all these textile industry left Rocket Mountain and some of us know that our parents work there and some of you work there that that burden shifted to our residential customers and that was the the fight during that time to lower our utility rates for our citizens because the burden carried on their back and up until July that's going to be that same shift.

But now today we're trying to even out with residential and commercial. They had to even across the board where the burden is shared by all of us. Correct. In a perfect model scenario, everything's zero. But that's that's not practical, right? Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Council Harris. Thank you, Mayor. Uh Mr. Walter, I want to go back to a statement you said a little earlier. Last year when we realized there was no funds available and the rate stabilization fund zero, the PPA had to be initiated and you also said that it's going to be rolling off this year. Is that correct?

Yes. If if you let me skip ahead, I'll go ahead. But I I just want to emphasize this point. Right. If they were were fine and that roll off occurs, then the net effect to the residents would be just a 4% increase. Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. Yeah. If you look at the the budget that was approved and put before for fiscal year 26 last year, it was a $3.8 million uh rate day appropriation that was supposed to come out to pay for that true up. And that's true. Obviously, the rate stabilization was not there. So, we have to we So, that six to seven% increase is rolling off. Correct.

Is rolling off effective June 30th. Thank you so much. And I hope our citizens keep that in mind as we further discuss today and Monday what we need to do. Could you explain the true up for those who don't know what the true up is?

Absolutely. So Duke sets us uh Duke gives Nampa an idea of operating costs each year and the revenues that are going to be projected for that and each system pays a proportion based off the size of its system in comparison to the 32 member uh agency and what happens is if Duke if Duke's expenses to provide power to the Nika agency exceed what their revenues they give the Nika agency a true up that true up is an additional cause that our membership has to pay. It is proportionally based on the amount of power we use across the agency. So that is a a a increase in due cost that they pass through to me which is then passed to us. So that true up is what we call it and it's and it's every year.

All right. Thank you. So again across the system 8% increase we see how it's going to affect each particular rate class here. But what does that look like for a typical residential customer? So this comparison that we have here in the blue column shows our current rate path what we have approved what we're utilizing today on a customer that uses a 1000 kilowatt hours in a month. They can expect to pay $128 approximately per month. Now, this does not include load management because I wanted to make sure we were comparing apples to apples. So, we have additional load management credits that can help lower that, but the majority of our customers do not utilize load management credits. So, I wanted to make sure that we see this as it is $128 a month with our current rates. With this proposed rate increase to the residential class, that that total bill goes up approximately 14.75% to $146.90. So, this is about an $18 or $19 increase per month that our our customers can expect to pay and with this proposed rate increase.

Yes, sir. Council Blackwell, thank you. How how did you come up with 14.75%.

Absolutely. So going back to the rate the cost margins when we're looking at the cost margin you see that currently our our rates underreover the residential class by 11.2 million and so when you're looking at m making that balanced across all rate classes you kind of see what that percentage needs to be. This particular percentage lowers the uh margin the negative margin to 5.3 million for the residential class. Now to make that zero and and again to match that into a perfect zero model which is not practical that would include probably a 30 plus percent rate increase. uh that's obviously too heavy for our our customer base to bear especially at work. And so one of the things that we look at in the culture service is where we can try to balance it out, take a step in a positive direction that we know it's going to take time to get that balanced over time, but to do it in such a way that it's digestible for all rate classes. And so when we were doing our cost of service study, what what uh we came up with was this particular rat.

When he's talking about your cost of service, can we break down some of those expenditures? Um specifically, I want to talk about the um administration charge. could you give us um the audience and um everyone up here what are those administration charge charges and um how do they break out? So specifically when we're looking at operating budget a total budget and to try to determine what amount of revenue we need. We look at four major pieces of our operation. The obvious one is the wholesale cost of energy. All right, that totals about 55 56 million a year. So, of that 91 million that we're proposing to recover, over half of that is the actual power cost.

Uh we also have uh capital outlay that we're projected to be between seven and 7.5 million a year. That's what our 5year average is. Explain what capital.

Capital is what we spend to replace our substations. We have 12 substations. The equipment that needs to be replaced, um it's part of a multi-year project. When we renew our substations, the transformers can be very expensive. uh substation uh upfit would cost between seven and eight million dollars generally and that's only going to go up. And so anything that we spend to actually uh stabilize and increase uh our system capacity potential uh is is considered a capital outlay and so we have to replace those things. So seven about 7 to 7 and a half million of our operating cost is for capital outlay. uh in this particular what we're asking for in this rate, we're also looking for $5 million to help replenish the fund balance because we're down to zero. So, uh an electric utility uh that has zero money in savings

sees us a huge risk is a huge risk to us. And so, we're trying to we have a plan to establish that back to a 90-day operating uh fund uh over the next four years. And so, that's 5 million. Why is lack of fund balance risking?

If if we have zero dollars and we're not in a position to finance these large assets, these capital outlay, and we have a failure at a substation, then we have to pay for that in cash. If we do not have the cash and the revenues don't recover the cash that we need to pay for it, then that service does not get maintained. The quality of service that we've always been able to provide will not continue to be the same. So in other words, if there's an ice storm, if there's a hurricane, if something takes out a piece of equipment which we do not manufacture in Rocky Mountain, which has to be purchased from the open market, which is now subject to international tariffs and global blowback from our national policy. We have to pay for that from somewhere. How often in Rocky Mountain when power goes off, how long does it take to get a reconnect?

Less than an hour on average. I said average out with people who would not be in Rocky not. It's much quicker. Much quicker. Anyone else? You know, can we maybe get through the presentation and then let's drill down? And I know that a lot of these answers are in the material and uh but I think it's important that we almost over explain to everybody including me so we understand.

So we just looked at the comparison of what our current rate is and what our what the proposed rate path would be and what that looks like for a typical residential customer. Now I want to show how that compares to our investor own and local co-ops. So you'll see here you'll see a a column for Duke Energy. You'll see Dominion HCO Martin and Halifax. their average cost. Even with this increase that we're proposing, we will still be less than three of those four, Dominion being the only one. Now, these uh utilities are also looking at their own internal increases. I don't know what they are, but these numbers will not stay the same that we're comparing them to, but this is this is what our cost would be atund approximately $147 a month. And you see that we're below three of the four. To do a little more closer comparison to our Nika peers, again remembering that our the four and a half percent that Nika is passing on to us is buried by all 32 members of Nika. These are our closest Nika members here at city of Wilson, town of Tarborough and Ring Utilities Commission. And you can see that what I've included here is our load management because each of these systems also provide load management. So we're again comparing oranges to oranges on this case that their load management u credits are included and so are ours. So you'll see here that we are and again they they are looking at a 4 and a half% increase effective April 1st too. These are their current rates as of March. I don't know what their plans are to move forward, but they will change as well because they're incurring the same wholesale increase that we are. But this kind of gives you an idea of where we're at when we compare all of those factors.

All right. I know I said let's get through the presentation, but I haven't questioned it. That's a proposed rate that should that that is showing our increase 128.40. What is that number today? So that number today without it. So that number today is 128. It's 128. This the proposed increase that I'm showing here is with $18.75 worth of load management credits. So $18 from that to come up with you add $18 to that to make that 146. So roughly $110 a month. No, you would have to add $18 to

but in comparison, we would al also have to add back their load management credits for each of the those systems as well. Okay. Got it. questions. Well, Mr. Mayor, since you Yeah, I know. I know.

I I know. I You know, I want to emphasize what Mr. Walters is saying here in his previous slide. In this current slide, you know, in the news, Duke has been talking about a 10 and a half% uh increase that they're going to fur um for their residential customers over beyond what they currently charge their residential customers. I do know in the news recently, I know Kinston has gone up. Um I'm not sure the exact amount, but I remember seeing it recently, but each one of these utilities is having to increase. Um, and some of the some of the information are obviously we've all been contacted by the public and I appreciate the contacts and I just want to make it clear that um, we're going up on this mainly because we're not covering our cost to operate the system. And I know you're going to emphasize that, Mr. Walters, but um it's important to know that that we have to operate the system because not only you know the lights we have on now and the HBAC but we got to remember the hospital UNCC Nash we supply them with electricity and as well as Willis um all the other large companies in this area. So, we need to be aware of that and we have not been covering our cost to operate this system and it's like anybody um you have you have to cover your cost. We just uh you just have to and and unfortunately the timing of this is just awful. And um and I want to emphasize that these folks here, these are the rates as of today and after today or more than likely when their budgets go into effect July one, they're going to have higher rates, I would imagine, which and that's just a um because they're experiencing the same thing.

They're experiencing the same wholesale cost increase than we are. Okay. I'm sorry to to do that, but I just wanted that. Thank you. That was kind of where I was trying to get a point of clarity as well, so I think it helped me. Councelor Robertson

because um I appreciate councelor um Doris and all the work that you've been doing um and are we why what's the reason we're not recovering our costs and I know you've been asking these questions for a long time regarding administration charges and those fees and I think you was the one that said it went up 270%. Is that correct? 200 I don't have my spreadsheet in front of these but since 20 since 2013 it's gone off 2 56% I believe actually I've got it right here 260% but that's a separate issue from from what the the question I I just had

yeah well my issue is that why aren't we recovering our costs and our expenses to um break and um that administration um fee I think it was $34.2 million um this year that we that you have to pay in administration charges and we administration cost that was transferred that's the entire enterprise system pays that not just electric he would have to Mr. Walters would have to explain that just for electric. I don't have an Well, not just for So, we're deviating here. Can No, I'm just saying. Um, I'm sorry. Sorry, Councilman. We're deviating here. Can we can we just finish the presentation and and and you are the first person I am going to recognize. Cop.

Okay. So, this is this is how we compare to our Nintendo members. So, we're going to be we're right in line with where they're going to be. We expect them to go up some. I don't know what they're going to pose to their their boards on their rate increase, but they are experiencing the same wholesale increase that we are experiencing effective April 1st. Last piece to the electric side. Um again, you mentioned the PPA earlier. The PPA has been in place. It's been a mechanism that we have had in place for a while. We've this past year is the first year we've used it. And essentially what it was is again we had this true- up cost that we were planning to pull out of our rate stabilization fund. We realized that was zero balance there. We had to implement a PPA across the board. The way this PPA was implemented, it was effective to October 1st. It was approved to go through June 30th. And the revenue received from that increase in PPA was enough exactly to cover the true up that we had paid this year as part of our NMPAO uh contract. that PPA was 8/10 of a cent per kilowatt hour across all rate classes. And again, that did affect rate classes. So that PPA will roll off June 30th. And then effective July 1st, we have a new true up rider 25. Rider 125 is $1.8 million. Okay? So it's less than what our uh true up was for this this current fiscal year. So next year's uh true up is $1.8 million. We will collect that as part of a PPA because it is a temporary charge and so we want to make sure it's a temporary mechanism in our rates. We don't want to bake that additional 1.8 million into our rates when it's going to fall off possibly the next year. So the way we have this set up is that effective July 1st and through the entirety of fiscal year 27 uh to recover the $1.8 $8 million which is the remainder of router 123 and 9 months of router 125. It's going to be a 3/10en of

a cent kilowatt hour charge for non-demand customers and um a little less than 2/10 of a cent for our demand customers. Demand customers being our large uh our large industrials. So that it balances that uh burden of the PPA more a little more evenly across all weight classes. Okay. So, we're we're done with the election. So, I'd like to recognize you, Council Robertson. Uh, thank you for your patience. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Um, across the enterprise funds, we was talking about an administration cost, right? I don't think you fully understand what that is and I would love for you if you could um break down exactly how the administration discharge for each enterprise fund um are calculated and what specific services are you paying for those do those charges represent?

Sure. I understand exactly what it is. What it is is we in utilities do not have an HR department. We don't have an IT department. uh we don't have our own purchasing department. We utilize the city departments of those types of things for those types of of office and and and administrative services. Because of that, we have to pay for those services. We reimburse the city for the use of those services. So there should be a cost allocation model that states we're using X amount of each department and we pay that amount. And so that's what that admin service charge is is created for. There's also the interfund transfer. Inter fund transfer is dictated by state statute that it can be a certain percentage for a public utility. They can they can transfer a certain percentage to the general fund to the municipality based on a formula. That's also included. So when I mentioned earlier the four big parts of our operating system, you've got wholesale energy purchasing. We've got our actual capital outlay for our capital projects, our big fixed asset projects. Then we have our operating cost, what it what it takes to actually run the utility, paying our line and paying our gas workers, uh maintaining the system, meeting compliance regulations, and then we have what we pay as a transfer to city. And that's again for use of services that we do not have in energy resources.

And I'll just add one thing to that. uh uh slight adjustment terminology instead of city. They are part of the city just transfer to the general fund. Yeah. And I'll recognize you councilman you talking about the cost of utilities. What you're talking about is the cost of goods sold basically in a general vernacular and it doesn't include the overhead expenditures that would be dropped down in the form of the uh administrative. So it's still cost is what I'm saying. It's a separate component. One is a gross margin contribution margin line and in particular that I'm more accustomed to. Um but I just want to clarify that.

Yes. So it the admin service charge and the transfer are considered to be part of our operating budget which covers basically everything it takes to operate the system. But there's no cost associated with the utilities in the form of purchasing department accounting or and whatever else the allocation looks like. And that's what that that's what that general that admin service charge goes to uh the general fund to reimburse them for the services that we use of this general fund and staff.

Got it. Thank you council. I'm sorry. and it's just the cost of doing business because if we compare ourselves to Greenville which they're part of the Kemper consortium I think that the largest percentage then Wilson Rocky Mountain um then those when you talked about the transfer administrative because you have HR so forth and so on Greenville utilities um what they call it Greenville utilities commission commission um they would handle all of that in house and their board. They don't see this on the Greenville side that you're doing now because they got the utilities commission, right? They they are a standalone entity,

right? And they provide some funding to the city of Greenville, but it's by way of a um it's not for it's more of like payment in le of taxes and those sorts of things. It's not for uh services that they're paying for from city of Greenville employees. So they they they have their stuff internally to their commission, right? So that's the there's difference there. That's the difference between Ring Utilities Commission and say us and the city of Wilson, right? Us and the city of Wilson, our utilities are under the municipal umbrella. So again, the services that we use from the general fund, we pay and reimburse by means of the admin service charge.

Council option. So those charges um we're more comparable with Wilson, correct? That's right, sir. And Wilson pay this admin service charge as well, right? They do. Um I'm pretty sure you know the industry and the market. Um what is Wilson paid to that admin service charge compared to us? I've not looked at their recent budget to determine what amount they contribute across all their utilities. Um and it's going to depend on what their cost allocation model is. Mhm.

So, do you feel that you're paying your fair share of administration um service charge or are you paying um more unrelated um to what you're using? Now, your I know it's 32.4 million, right? This your enterprise funds that you paid out administration service charge. some of those service charges you say you're paying for what you use of the HR department in these different departments but um when I added it up the 32.4 4 million is actually paying for the whole operation of some of these departments. So are you paying your um fair share of um those administration service charge?

I think I think that question would be better asked to our finance director because it's an allocation of central office overhead as it relates to it and it's divided by some sort of unit of measure whether it's um kilowatts or whatever and I think that you know what we're hearing today is what you know to be the cost associated with it. So I think if we can defer that question to a much later time I think that would be a more appropriate time to do we are provided we are provid just to get let you know what where it comes from the utility side we are provided the number as part of the budget which is what we have to account for when we set our rates so I don't see that we provided a number

and what I'm uncomfortable with is you know do you think you're paying your fair share or not? I mean I think that's something that really I mean it's just non-controllable Bradley I think from the utility side we're provided a number and that's what we have to make sure we okay Mr. Mayor. Yes sir. Councilman Dress.

Well well okay these are this is a great question about the service admin service and everyone knows that I've been questioning this for for years. I think in the situation that we're in right now, um because it, you know, I've kept track with it since 2014, um and it is a concern not only to council members, but I think also the public. But I think what we need to do is move on from where we are right now. But I would request, Mr. manager and we get a detailed um accounting for how it's calculated and essentially you know piggybacks on what I've asked previously um the formula there's got to be a formula there and make sure it's consistency so we can understand and I don't think honestly it's fair to ask Mr. Walters if he thinks it's fair or not because um he's just presented by management um I guess the city manager of what his allocation of the admin service fee because it's not only it it falls under the total amount's 34 million and change but it falls under the electric and um water and sewer and um the rest of the enterprise funds. So, I think it's better suited for the city manager to answer that question, but I it sounds like and I appreciate the question. So, Mr. Manager, can you get back to us maybe during the budget portion with the formula so we can understand it as a city council and as the public?

Yes, sir. And that is the direction uh from the council as a whole uh staff. We'll do our best to try to provide that information. And I'd also like to add that part of what we're trying to do for the overall budget, not just with the enterprise funds, but with the general fund as well, is to examine our entire financial position to get to where we are uh reducing our overall uh costs across the board uh with regard to adjustments in uh personnel costs, uh salary, benefits, operational costs. So if we lower that cost down, then that allocation could uh have the potential to go down. But part of the reason of why we're in the financial position currently is because personnel cost, operational cost has uh increased over the last several years and we have not kept pace. Mr. Mayor is that satisfied with you. Council Robertson,

I just wonder because I would love for this council to um ask the manager with me because I asked for itemized breakdown of those administration service charges so we can see exactly what we're paying for because that's a huge part of your your expenses. So, if we can see an itemized breakdown of what those service um administration charges are going to pay, then we we will um want I want to have to ask those questions and if it's fair because us as a council can see exactly what he's paying for. Well, I think we just asked the manager to produce those costs and so they'll be for itemiz what what we're there for

at least what the allocation represents in terms of cost and what the uh the denominator and the numerator are relative to the calculation. I I'll recognize you councilman Blackwell.

Thank you. Um I'm not defending or supporting anything but basic knowledge about what it takes for us to run our business. not just as a utility but as a city. And I would like to remind everyone who's listening and all of us who are here that it's been the policy of many councils prior to us ever being said that city use utilities, electric, and gas to fund city operations as opposed to tax increases. That was the policy before we ever got here. And if you want to know how we built this system, that was built when I came here in 2000. The philosophy behind it was use utility cost to keep taxes low. And we argued about that for years. For years. 4 years. So when we're examining whatever it is that we're going to be looking at, it's an entire city economy that we have to exact. We can pick apart if we want to about paying a bill here. You don't pay a bill here, you want to pick up for it late. The bottom line is that what is it going to cost to run a city the size of Rocky Mount? Where do we get the money from? And what services do we provide? These are components of a whole picture. And if you don't like the component, we have to change the whole picture.

Let's not change the picture. And if we can change the picture, then we can talk about what it is. But I do want to emphasize that you said one thing. You mentioned when Councilman Robertson asked you about the cost related to energy provisions and you said 55 million was the cost of wholesale energy, right? And then you said 77 million. Is that Did I hear that correct? 77 for what? For for the capital investments. Seven between seven and seven and a half. Okay. I thought I heard 77 million for capital investment.

That's what I wanted to hear. You know what what what's the percentage of the whole these components which I think Councilman Robertson asked and which we'll all get later on. So what is what is it that we can control and I think that's what our question is I think that's the intention of everybody. What can we control here?

Right. So as as from a utility standpoint, we can't control the energy cost. We have to we have to account that we can control our capital outlay and our operating cost to some degree. We have to to maintain a certain uh quality of service and level of assurance on the system. You know, money has to be spent on it. And so we know what those are and then there are uh numbers provided by the budget office as far as what our portion of what you're saying goes to. And so what we did when we came up with this uh cost of service study, come up with this rate proposal is we kept those charges, we reduced those charges anywhere we could to try to offset the burden of an increase. So we have cut some cut some expenditures operationally, cut some expenditures from the capital side. Um, and we've kept uh the the the particular transfer at at the same level as what it was last year so that we could accommodate and actually uh calculate what our rates need to be to cover our revenue because again, as a utility, we're not we're a nonprofit utility. I hate to say it as a nonprofit, but we're not we're not there to um make more than what it costs to serve our customers. is one of the benefits of public power is that we can provide a true cost of service to all rate classes to what it cost and and if we can do it that way without any type of uh uh without any type of motive to make more then what that does that benefits all of our customers across all classes when you compare them to say an investor utility and do

yes recog And we all have to be mindful that this whole fight across North Carolina uh would do you look at what their profit is. They're not a nonprofit. They're a forprofit

and their stakeholders. They get I think forget what they goes back to those who own the company. And so that's the difference here. Even the money that we if we make money off utility, it still goes back into uh not our shareholders but into projects and other things that provide for our citizens and other amenities. And so uh you carefully read uh this whole utility piece about Duke, you can see what their shareholders are making. They are making profits from what they do. If we make a profit, we invest it back into our citizens community with projects.

Uh yes, sir. Councilman TJ Wall.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh thank you, uh Brandon, for the presentation thus far. I just want to piggyback off uh the last comment I think that um Council Member Robertson made as it related to admin charges and appropriations. Um, and I know our deliberation started to head towards um, holding off on information, but with a a situation so sensitive and the timing of it, um, I would ask that we don't hold off on any information. I've been on this board since 2019 and I've seen us in situations that have been less dire and have uh, demanded of staff to do and to find and to bring. Um, and so and I know Mr. Mayor, you called on our finance director to answer the question, but uh, Mr. Manager, he knows his staff and who who knows information and who is competent to answer. So, if there's anything that we need answered today, especially with the public being here, u with for with this meeting not being a um a meeting where the public has uh the neighborhood, which that'll be Monday, but

a meeting where the public is here for such a sensitive topic, any question that can be answered today needs to be answered today. Uh we don't need to to to wait. And uh I think Councilman Daltry said about fairness. Well, there there's a we could play with that word a lot of ways, but um I don't want us to overlook getting these answers today if you did that.

Yes. Uh thank you, mayor, and Mr. Office. Thank you. As a reminder, a large part of what the city provides the all the enterprise funds is business services. That's a large staff and only a small amount of time each year is devoted to property tax collection. So, let's just keep in mind uh there are a lot of services the city admin department does for the enter fund. What I want to say is, and I want to be careful and say this, last June in the budget session, a discussion was made of 4 cents increase in property tax, $2.4 million. I've been advocating for quite some time in in June of last year. I said, "Let's not build up on property tax. Let's cut." If we can just cut 1%. That would be more than all 72.4 million because the budget that we were given at that time was $279 million. as council revenue is on one part of the equation. There's going to be some cost reductions that are going to be happening between now and Janu 30 and there's going to be some others proposed between July 1 and December 30. But the council has control of the money. I had discussions with the manager about a more detailed breakdown of all

expenses. Just last week, I asked for a detail of the breakdown of $3.8 million in outside audit report for the event center. I don't know what they are. So, all I'm saying is we're gonna be working hard late at night over the next three months as we really scrutinize what we plan to do with some cost reductions now, but it's going to be incumbent upon all seven of us. I've been asking for cost decreases. Now, we're at the cliff. It was so reminded to us point blank last week and right now the car is being blocked by a barrier. If we don't cut expenses and we still got to monitor ways for improvement along with some revenue increases. do not want the LTC to come in. None of us do.

But if they do, there's going to be worse decisions that are going to have to be made. So, there's a plenty upon us as a council to go and find where we can save money and and we've got raise revenue. And I hate that personally. I hate it. I've been in that way since September 1, 2025 when we were afolded by our cast position. I had been appalled, been sick.

But I'm the fighter and I'm going to work with everybody along with the guidance of our uh new finance director along the guidance of the LGC and the um North Carolina Lee. We are going to get there, but we have got to look at both sides of the balance sheet and the PNF and I thank you for what you're doing. Okay, Mr. Walters, get you back on track.

Let me savor I probably should have asked this question last week. I seen in your presentation where he was looking at the small general services and the large general services and I should have asked last week the street light part of that. Can you break that down if you don't mind? I just can't really like make it make sense. Can you break that down for me?

Yeah, absolutely. So, um obviously we supply power to our street lights that light our city streets, our parks, our our general communities. And so, uh some of those costs are uh from our public works department. Some of them are uh by us as the energy resources. But yes, we have a there's we have to recover that rate. So in our rate cost to service study, we we have a we have a cost to provide that that service and then it has to be compensated for um in revenue. And so that's what that is. So for example, you know, what you're seeing here is an increase in our street light rate will offset a little bit back towards the mean of what they're under recovery. Right now, the street lights are under recovering what it costs to have them on and be utilized by our community.

Just a clarification. Yes, sir. Councilman TJ Walker when I spoke about fairness, I was talking about fairness to um Bradley up here because he doesn't know how the admin service fee is calculated is provided to him via I don't know whether it's budget finance to Milton who then tells him what it is. I said out of fairness to him, I don't think we should ask him to explain how it's calculated because frankly I'm not so sure he knows. It's just provided to him. So when I was speaking about fairness, that's what I was talking about. Mr. Walters, let's let's get you at least through gas. How about that?

Gas is quick. Um, you know, so essentially, you know, obviously we're coming into the summer months, very low very low volumes of gas being used. Most of our system is a heat uh heat load peak uh winter peak system for heat loads. And so uh we've got a 20 cent PGA in currently. So if you look at this chart here, we've got two different rates. We have a rate um and it's really not a difference in our rate. Uh we we have a facilities charge from April through October of $14. We have a a facilities charge of $34 November through March. You'll see here that uh a $20 increase is equates to about a 20 cent PGA which is what we have in now. So uh currently what we have in place and again is to uh recover cost of purchasing wholesale gas on the market which is a fluctuating uh commodity uh to make sure we cover our expenses there. uh we are re uh proposing that as of April 1st through the end of June we increase that 20 cent to 35 cent to cover the additional cost of the polar vortex that we in the cold weather that we experienced in late January and early February. Again, our entire winter is about 20% colder than our 5-year average this past year. So, it's been a it's been a tough winter uh in regards to that. And so uh that obviously affected the market in a negative way for us. And so this PGA that gets put in place is simply to recover our wholesale natural gas cost uh that by by the end of June for this fiscal year. And so the proposal here is to increase that from 20 cent to 35 and that's going to be an additional average of $15 a month um for the average customer. But again, our natural gas usage during April, May, and June is significantly less. So it would it would not probably equate that. And then this is with that PGA in place.

This is a comparison of how we stack up to our nearest natural gas systems, which is the Ram Utilities Commission, City of Wilson, and Pedmont Natural Gas. And you can see that even with the 35 cent PGA in place, we are still significantly lower. um than all three of our speakers.

Anybody questions as relates to the

uh thank you Bradley for that presentation. Uh next we're going to have uh Mr. Bronson B. He's going to go over our water sewer utility. Honorable May, members of the city council, manager Daniels, um staff members, citizens of Rocky Mount. Good morning. Good morning.

Uh my name is Brenton Bent and I am very proud to serve the city as your water resources director. At our manager's request, I am providing an overview of the proposed rate changes for water and sewer services. Um, we will examine how this will affect households and the community to foster understanding and trust. My fellow directors will address storm water and environmental services. Uh please bear in mind that these proposed RA rates are geared towards addressing the city's critical water and sewer infrastructure and general market increases in operational cost as chemicals and such as chemicals and replacement pumps. I am grateful to the city council for their unwavering support over the years in addressing infrastructure needs for water resources as we seek to provide the level of service that our water and so customers have come to expect. Within the water system, we have different rates inside and outside customers for regular and irrigation services. We are proposing a 15% rate adjustment across all tiers including our wholesale customers. Now we do serve customers outside of the city limits of Rocky Mountain, Nash County, Edgecom County, Sharburg, Micas and such. At our current rate, the projection for FY27 is 14.1 million. With the proposed adjustment, we are looking at 16.3 million, a difference of over a little over 2.1 million. On the source side, with a proposed 15%

adjustment, we are looking at an additional 2.46 million in revenue. To get a little more granular, the current incident facility charge for water is $1123. The proposed adjustment will bring that up to $12.91, a difference of $168. With the change in the unit charge of 35 cents, a customer who uses 3,000 gallons of water per month, we'll see an increase of $38 on their water bill. Similarly, on the sewer side, a customer who generates 3,000 gallons of sewer will notice an increase of $3.83 per month on their sewer bill. We took the liberty of comparing our proposed adjustments in facility, unit, and customer charge for a typical 3,000galon user with some of our surrounding towns and cities. It is important to note that the adjustment to 2351 cents would replace would place the city above Renault graphics and Tarbor but well below Wilson, Nashville and Gbor. This comparison helps reassure the community that our rate remain fair and competitive within the region supporting trust and transparency. Before Before I take your questions, you may recall in October 2022, the water resources department conducted a detailed cost of service rate analysis that clearly indicated the city's rate

structure was grossly inadequate. Faced with aging infrastructure and rising operational costs, the city council approved annual rate adjustments over four years as recommended in the study. These adjustments are vital to ensure we can continue to upgrade and maintain our water and sewer systems effectively, thereby inspiring confidence in our water quality and our commitment to infrastructure improvements. We we trust that you and our most valued water and sewer customers will recognize the importance of supporting water resources in maintaining our water and wastewater plants, sewer pump stations and collection and distribution system. Thank you. You know I take your question please.

Yes sir. test with nurse. Just as an example, the last I think it was a main waterline break maybe occurred on Sunset Avenue. Do you recall that happening a year or so ago? I think it was water line and not so long. Yes sir. We have had several of those especially during colder months when we have expansion and contraction of the soil and um the pipes with limited flexibility tends to break. generally what's the repair bill to recover a major waterline break?

It it definitely depends but um one that we recently had was in the region of $100,000 based on the size of the blank. So what we are trying to do as a city is do our darnest to keep up with surveying and looking at our water and sewer lines to be ahead of the game rather than to be behind the game. We can't prevent early break. so that we can continue some infrastructure improvements then hopefully we can be as best as we can to prevent major costs down the road. Is that fair statement?

Absolutely, sir. And I will add that on any given day that you walk around the city of Rocky Mount, you're actually walking on 6 million gallons of water beneath your feet in pipes. We have over 500 miles of water lines and over 425 miles of sewer lines. Some of these pipes are 60 years old. And so the importance of maintaining this system, it cannot be overemphasized. And hence the reason why when we seek these rate adjustments is not to create pain but is to improve water quality and improve infrastructure so that we can continue to serve our citizens. Yes, council don't do recognize you and I'll coun you.

Mr. B, thank thank you for your presentation and and I just want to emphasize and you mentioned it and I'm thankful that you did about the cost of service study that that occurred in um the the decision was to incrementally go up on on the rates and I think we're at a different point now. Um but also for transparency and for the public because I know the public is is certainly um questioning what the city mount does and and rightfully so. Um and I appreciate that. But but if anyone can go to the UNCC school of government um they have a it's called environmental finance center and you can pull up a a dashboard and you can go and compare Rocky Mountain or any municipality or county that you want to that has a water system and compare um to any other municipality you want to. Uh it's it's a little dated. It's about a year old information, but it gives a good insight um about Rocky Mountain's water system in addition to how we compare to our piv um and it includes stuff as cost recovery and and financial p benchmarks and um you know this is very important water is to the health and safety of our community and I appreciate what you and your staff do and so again this is a an impact no one wants rates to increase, but it's but it's the reality of operating a system and whether it's the city of Rocky Mount or another uh entity um rates are changeable. So, I appreciate what you do. Thank you.

Hey, recognize you, Councilman Walker. Thank you for your presentation. Two questions. I know you said that we have outside customers that we do provide water to. Um do you know how many other cities we provide or how many other towns we provide water for? Yes sir. Uh we are a supplier of water to Nash County, Edgecom County, Shabsburg, Whitas and um Nashville. Um so yes, we have we have services for over 80,000 customers. So my question is I know you saying the 15% increase. Would that go to those customers also?

Yes, sir. um they're considered wholesale customers and we are also going to be making that adjustment to their rate. Thank you, Cas. Oh, sorry, Castle Roberts. Um do you know what admin charge you're paying? I have currently around like 725,000. That sound right or is it a little more than that? Right. I'd rather defer that question to the finance team. Okay.

Um how about grants? Have you leveraged any grants? cuz I know some other cities such as um Princeville and uh even Spring Lake has received some grants for their water infrastructure. Have we received any type of grants? We have pursued options for a grant um and particularly on the sewer side and recently we were able to secure a grant for a study of our entire sewer collection system um to help us to identify areas of vulnerability and uh capacity needs. Um so yes, we have uh uh been able to secure some grants. Um, one of the thing that I like to add regarding grant um, acquisitions is that if your rates are too low, then you're at a disadvantage when you put in your applications cuz you lose points and securing those grants. Um, so this will help us also in our effort to to seek additional grant funding.

And uh, Brenton, with regard to the pump station that's on road, was there a grant fund associated with that? Yes, we were able to secure some grant funding. um through Nash County for the old mill road um sewer pump station that is currently under construction um that has an anticipated completion date of um in August.

I appreciate you um good presentation. I just want us to be mindful that uh without a good water system um you can't grow without water. Um, we also have to be mindful of those who are not uh water towns that don't have their water system. Uh, a lot of people are on the whales and eventually wells be contaminated and so it's important to have a newer system and a water system. You talk about going to the well, drawing water and going to the out house. I sure don't want to go back that far. So, I appreciate what you did. I'll say just for emphasis to the to the public and all our viewers out there. Um as we speak there are probably 2.2 million people in this world today who do not have access to safe drinking water. 71% of the earth's surface is covered with water but 95% of that is tied up in the ocean which 97%. So of the last 3% of fresh water, 2 and a half% of that instead of in glaciers. So technically speaking, only.5% of the world's water is drinked. Hence the reason why it is such a precious commodity. And I just say that for emphasis because water is indeed life. It's not just a cliche statement, but without water, no without good quality water, we won't be able to attract industries to rocking. we won't have economic development cuz water is indeed life.

Council TJ, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much for your presentation and for your service. Um, and this is uh, Councilman D. This is just another a point back to earlier uh, about the fairness coming. I knew I know exactly what you meant about the fairness. Uh my point was uh as we just saw with Councilman uh Robinson asking another question uh that was deferred. You're right. It's it's not fair uh for us to pose questions to staff uh that may not know the answers. However, when we have staff that does know the answers uh the fairness is to have those answers for the citizens and for this board. So um I would if uh Mr. manager, if you could direct whoever or who may uh can answer Mr. Rob's question so we can have those answers uh to move forward.

Thank you. I'll let the uh finance staff speak for themselves, but anybody that is available uh in the audience today uh working for the city of Rocky Mount uh if if they ask a question with regard to uh your department or division, feel free to uh chime in or raise your hand and and the mayor will uh forly appoint you recognize you. I I I just want to say um when we talked about fairness, where we are today, if it was fairness, we would be where we are today.

And remember that for such a long time, previous manager Rogers certain certain one of certain council members would ask for information. He would say, "I would get you a what?" Full report. Full report. And never got the full. That's right. And so it's important. Yes. To be transparency.

Transparency and to have information that we can deliberate. But why we here today? because we didn't get the full report and it was said in the public square and uh the last thing and I was going to say this at the at the end but I'll save it.

All right. Uh thank you uh Bridgeten. Uh, next we'll have uh I think they're going to combo it uh Donald Perry and uh Tim Farmer with uh engineering and public works. Yes.

Good morning, honorable mayor and members of council. I'm Donald Perry, director of engineering, and the Stormwater Enterprise falls under my permit. I'm here today to speak with you about a proposed rate adjustment. We're proposing a rate increase of $2 per equivalent residential unit per month. Now let's talk about proposed projected revenues of that FY 27 projected revenues for a current rate is a little over $5 million. The FI project 27 projected revenues for their proposed rates is a little over $6.6 million. electricity.

And on a stormwater residential rate comparison of current versus proposed, the current base rate is $6 per eru. The proposed base rate is $8 per eru. And there's a cost difference of $2 per month per ERU. Now, let's talk about our stormwater residential rate comparison. So for the equivalent stormwater rate comparison um for a single family home um the town of Nashville is $2.50, city of Goldsboro is $4.75 and the town of Tarburn is $6, city of Wilson is $6. The proposed rate adjustment is $8 and the city of Greenville is at $18.70. I do not have any data as to where they're going to propose that rate increase for FY27. But also, we got to notice the level of service and how it varies by jurisdictions. Some different municipalities do not remove provide maintenance on open ditches on private property. We provide maintenance on over 70 miles of open ditch on the property. Also, some municipalities do a three-month leaf collection of October, November, and December. However, we do the traditional decision and we supplement it through the entire year on a requested basis. With that, I'll try to answer any questions.

Any questions? Yes, sir. Counc Harris. Uh Mr. Perry, thank you for the presentation. Um what impact will this have on businesses with their storm water charge? So per u which is 20 2519 square ft. It will go up $2 per u per month. But I think businesses need to know that they going to see it increase if this is approved. focus was on residential but it's all across the

So why don't we explain what storm water means and why don't we explain what kind of cost we have ahead of us to maintain a system much less improve it and how much it's going to cost if we could do everything now 5 years, 10 years, you you choose the increments, but um what why is this important? Because and how is it calculated? I've heard a lot of commentary about I don't need storm water. What is this? I'm paying one thing, my neighbor's paying something else,

right? So there's a lot of questions rolled up in there, but I think you take us to the basics about what storm water is, how it's calculated to the user, what kind of cost we have looking ahead of us, and what we have to deal with the challenges and cash flows. Okay, storm water is rainfall that um falls on the ground in a per area and it runs off and it goes to the guitar.

What does impervious mean? I think period is areas such as asphalt, concrete and um other rooftops that does not um allow the rain to um I'm sorry does not allow the rain um to go into the ground and basically one of the things I explain to people when they call about storm water that says they say I don't have any storm water in my yard or I only have it in a ditch but then if you may drive the food line which most people food Harris tea or whatever the grocery store then you'll have you'll have to go over colors that we maintain and that this the maintenance of that comes out of this fund. What was your next part?

My next part is how is it calculated? Is everybody paying the same amount everywhere? Um how do you calculate? So basically we calculate it on a eru basis in every single residential equivalent res equivalent residential unit and it's 2519 square ft and in general that is the average impervious area on a single family residential. So what we do is we charge all single family residential include duplex we charge them for per unit of $6 per year. What does storm water fund fund? You said you talked about ditches.

Yes, sir. And how does a person distinguish between um sewer and storm water? And do they use the same pipes, the same lines? And what happens when areas are being flooded or with regular rainfall? And what happens when higher than usual rainfall occurs? Where do we get the money from to address that? Okay. So, um, basically we need we our storm operations is around $3 million per year. Our stormware admin is around 1.7 and our stormware capital is around 0.7. And um sorry to help me rest your question.

I guess he uh don't know if he would elaborate with regard to what happens when we have flooding in certain areas due to the uh impact of storm water or lack of with regard to capital expenses.

Right. So um we had a a large rainstorm event which has been proven that our our rainstorm events are getting more intense and more frequent. Then we have flooding um that can cause people problems driving down the road. We have flooding out here in at the our parking lot um in the front when we have a large rain event. That can be very dangerous. Also um covers that really need to be replaced. We already have we have covers that are over 80 years old and we have some um downtown drainage that is over 100 years old.

Um it's actually held up pretty well for that long. Um, and we have to get the money to fix that. And um, also we can have water backing up in people's yards, maybe stage in those yards and start mosquitoes and that kind of stuff. The last comment I just want to make is that there are whole communities literally underwater. Battleboro, right, which falls in my district. Yes, sir. Um,

we've had meetings with that community. for the last however long I've been on city council about inadequate uh strategies from the city to help mitigate runoffs that occur standing water people's yards underwater and our biggest challenge has always been we don't have the money to do the level work that needs to be done and now the city has no funds anywhere to handle So, you know, we're going to challenge that's more a statement than

I I agree with you in fact that we do have um storm basin studies and I I've always hated what I call shelf studies and basically but we don't have the money to implement what was what was recommended in the uh study. Thank you. Councilman, would you like to be recognized? Oh, no. I'm sorry. Your light was on. Okay. Well, it's uh it's 11:21, I guess. Or Councilman Harris.

Thank you again, Mayor. One one last statement then entering the season where landscapers going to really start being busy, homeowners starting cutting their grass and I ride around this city and see homeowners as well as land skate operations throw grass clippings in the street. Right. I would like for the city to send out our notice that this is really not but tell us the impact of grass that accumulated in a catch basically.

Yes sir. So when people put residents put grass clippings in the curb and then when it rains it it just washes those clippings down and then they go in basin and typically stop up the basin. But then when the a storm a bigger storm didn't come that basin's already stopped up and so um it can cause a flooding situation and on streets where like comes across the street or mostly across the street that's a traffic hazard. I I would like for us to somehow inform our residents as well as commercial operators, but this is really not what it

Yes, sir. Any other questions?

It's uh it's currently 11:23. We're going out this about an hour, a little less than an hour and a half. Let's take a 10-minute recess and uh reconvene here at 11:33. Thank you. I won't miss that part. Did you say that's you I let him come to work. I look really

fantastic. This was here by New

the other way to do it. He said that's one of the things is maintain Why not? How do you make it out? What do you think?

Um, we do we can do it topography. We can do it by topography. We can do what they call the rational method. You can do SCS method. There's a number of different ways that it's accepted by the engineer.

Okay. Seriously, no blood. I mean, I need Well, I think it has to be There's a lot of

Hey. Hello. What do you think? Careful. Thank you. Yes. Come on.

What's up? 48,000 number. Yeah. What's going on? Thank

Shut the other day. You don't need it. That's 11:34. Everybody places Mr. Good morning, members of city council. Tim Farmer, director of public works. Um, standing before you this morning to present and propose environment services rate adjustments. But I just want to take one quick moment to step back to the storm water piece

for the um $2 storm increase per eru that also supplements um storm water operations that include um ditch maintenance, street sweeping and new sneak collections. All those collections that are vital to keeping water flowing into flooding. As we look at the environmental services proposed rate class adjustments, we're looking at our three core services plus our city own municipal transfer station. And unfortunately, without the support of our enterprise funds, it's become necessary to propose a rate adjustment. And we look at our three services plus our transfer station. We're proposing a 15% rate adjustment for our three collections, garbage, recycling, yard waste, a 5% rate adjustment for a municipal transfer station. As you look at our projected revenues for solid waste, as we look down the total, we see our services and our rate classes on the left. As we go down to the total projected revenues, our current at our current rates projected revenue is 8,531181 with the proposed rate adjustment of 15% then it moves to 9 million or 69610 with a percentage difference of 11%. looking at rate comparison. So our residential rate, our current base rate total per month is $1850. Proposed increase or adjustment will take us to 2125, which is a current difference of $2.75 a

month, which is 14.86% increase. 275 equates to about an annual increase of $33. said annual did I hear you

monthly increase of 275 which equates to about $33 a year total for single finger looking at how we compare to our surrounding cities and towns as far as our rate studies and you know that there are different levels of service provided and right mount provides a premium service in my opinion and Since coming on board in 2019, I want to thank council for their support of works and solid waste operations to get us where we need to be with our equipment and our needs. But looking at how we compare to our surrounding citizen times, the city of Greenville was at 1925. Our proposed adjustment will take us to 2125. City of Wilson's at 2350. Ron Rabbits 2458. Gossboro 26 and the town of Harvard 28 60. So looking at the level of service, we're not the most expensive. We're actually on the lower end. And looking at the time of year for the budget preparation, a lot of these municipalities and towns will actually make adjustments in their fee rates schedule as well. So we're not the lowest, but we're definitely not the highest. And as I've stated, some of the jurisdictions will be working on their rates in the near future. It's a very labor intensive business. And we look at global markets. As you look at oil situation, strives cost diesel fuel. We look at the global markets for plastics. As China is our biggest customer that purchase our plastics from our recyclables. So, as we look at the lower markets, we see the volatility and we have to account for the increased cost of doing business.

Are there any questions? I have any questions, Councilman Dress?

Um, well, I'm going to I'm going to make a comment and my first comment is contrary to proper belief, I don't have any ownership in any sort of commercial um waste industry type business. uh to stuff on social media and it's false. But my comment is going to be um it's one thing increasing the fees that we need to and recover our costs at our transfer station. One of the concerns and one of the things that's even came out the audit and even the LGC is uh talking about is our inflated revenue numbers. our revenue the transfer station are we meeting the revenue numbers that were projected in the last budget are they down and in what percentage are they down um do you have do you know that

I don't have those numbers prepared at this current time I'm working with the finance team and budget office to prepare to look at and analyze those numbers so we can get a better clear picture of what those numbers look like because I know it's a time thin line between charging too little charging too much. Right. So, is the volume down or up? The volume is down slightly down.

So, um based on what's being presented, um we've got some of the highest transfer station rates um in the state and that's fine, but if people are going to other municipalities to their transfer station, we're losing revenue. And I think you strongly need to look at that because which is why our revenue is probably inflated in that particular line item. I would imagine but but I don't know that. So you need to confirm it and um and and review the rest of it. And when is the last time we've done a cost of service?

I will have to get the budget off to see what year that was since being here. I came on board in 2019 and it hasn't been one done. So I would, Mr. Manager, I would strongly encourage if not a formal cost of service study, I at least compare to other municipalities and other jurisdictions on both on residential and on the commercial side of it to make sure we're covering our cost uh in this particular area.

Yes. And in hearing uh that direction and I was actually going to recommend the council uh for us for staff to uh do what we can from an internal standpoint with regard to our peers but also do cost of service analysis across the board for all of our city services because it seems that's consensus of the council with regard to the other uh departments as well including the other enterprise funds. So I think we should just look at getting a third party to do a cost service announcement across the board. But we but we've done cost service on water and on electric, haven't we?

No, I'm I'm referring to with regard to the different administrative fees that everybody was asking for and all that stuff. I'm just talking about incorporating it all, doing what we can internally and then uh also looking at a third party to do what we can from a uh internal standpoint. Okay. Council had a question. I think uh you mentioned about the C that the transfer station rates were much higher than others.

Yeah. If if you take a look see Rocky Mountain as we sit today uh including the $2 tax 8850 Halifax County $75 GFL Welen is $72. GFL Wilson $65. Edgecom County is the closest of $80. And if you go to Wake County, the range is between 35 and $40. So, you know, um we don't need to give a service away, but we need to be competitive. So, if we're people aren't going to, you know, Wilson or to Halifax County to we're losing revenue is what I'm saying, right? It just seemed like if I was in that position, if I had to drive to Wik Harbor or Greenville, you're probably paying it would equate to all in transportation or as gas,

right? We're look we're looking at our current business model for the transfer station, but it is a additional cost for the travel to to travel to those other transfer stations. Yeah. And I'm quite sure they would rather pay a little bit more here to to dump their trash than they drive it to save all the time.

That's correct. And also um just looking at the environmental service rates, uh it looks like uh even with the increase that we're right in line with neighboring neighboring city and I like to provide to try bagging up a 100 bag of lead. Okay. um you know so it's it's it's a good service. So I appreciate all that you do. Thank you. We we want to definitely even though it's the worst time, we want to definitely continue our level of service to protect the health and safety of our residents. Any other questions? Any other questions? Yes, Councilman Black.

Thank you. So um explain Transfer Station. transfer station is is located the city owns and operates his own transfer station. It's located on Thor Road behind the YMCA. It's simply a transfer point for solid waste or garbage. Trucks come in uh weigh in, dump out, and they weigh again. And that's how the outside customers private orders are charged by the team. So what happens to the waste that is dumped in our locations?

Uh all the waste that's collected by city crews along with what's brought in by other towns and private haulers. They're hauled they're loaded onto trailers and hauled to an approved solid waste land field in Burgie County. We don't have a permitted landfield in Edgeorn Nashville or Wilson County. So all Wilson will take stairs to approve landfill as well. Do we pay them or do they pay us or we have to pay for the disposal costs of putting it in the land? So you pay a cost per feed to Bertie County. Yes, sir. To fill up. How how large is it?

It's it's humongous. It It's got 20 It's got a 30 year life path on it. It'll hold 30 years worth of garbage. 30 years worth of everybody's trash. Yes, sir. And what happens to that trash? It is buried in that approved landfield which is lined and and regulated by federal government regulations. What other options do we have? So, we got to do what we got to do. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Councilman Harris.

Uh for the general public, um when a new person moves into the city of Rock and requests a regular garbage bin and uh recycle bin, what are the costs for those bins? Uh the cost for residential customers, the cost of an additional rolled out cart is $53. We provide the cart for new residents based on moving into the city. You have to start at a utility. Go to the utility office and set up an account with solid wastes added to that account. But the cost is $53. If someone has a broken car

and wants to wants it to be replaced, is there a charge to the to the property owner or do we u replace it without a charge? We replace it without a charge. But it's got to meet a a good definition of brokenness. It's kind of the threshold of brokenness. If you if such a if we can repair it, we we also stock parts to repair carts. You stop the lids, the wheels, the bars. We can repair it unless it's basically been melted down by how actions most of the time. Well, I appreciate the public knowing that that's that's should be informative news to the public. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilman Robertson, regarding our recycle, are we generating revenue um from our plastic? I hear you say selling it to China. Are we um generating how much are we generating for the sales of of plastic to China?

The revenue is based on the volatility of the market. When China is not buying plastics, we have to pay. when they are buying we get a reduced rate on our tonnages which lowers our costs which kind of equates to revenue in a sort of kind of way but it's based on cost reduction that we don't have to pay and we encourage right now with the volatility of the world China's up and down you know most of us know about this not to get off but most of us know about t-u and China the time wait on the recyclables could vary based on how much they're buying. So, it all depends on the market, whether we generate any revenue or cost savings or whether we have to pay what we have to budget for the worst case scenario to pay questions. Thank you. Yes, sir. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I'm going to attempt to try to present here because I have a lot of things. I'm assuming I'm going to get some questions. I'm going to be able to write them down, but if not, if it doesn't work from up here, I'll I'll go to the podium. And uh thank you to the staff for all the work that you've done with the presentation. I think you've done a great job presenting information as well as interesting portions. So my portion of the presentation kind of brings everything together and uh this slide right here kind of depicts the overall agenda for the next couple of slides. So over the last several weeks, you all have seen our current

cash flow projections for the calendar year of 2026. In order for us to improve our situation, we're going to have to take some uh very uh dramatic cuts. We're going to have to reduce the spending. We're going to have to look at amending the current fiscal year's budget. And you all can expect to have modifications in the uh next couple of weeks for the fiscal year 27th budget. I call it a tree uh uh a trifold approach because we can't just look at one. I think some of the council members up here stated uh council member Harris you talked about looking at expenditures as well as looking at revenues and everybody's made some viewpoints that I am along the staff taking those. So I think that's the only way we're going to get out of this recovery. We can't just look at one side of the equation. We're have to look at reducing our spending. We're have to look at ways to uh increase our revenue and we're al also have to look at making some drastic cuts for the fiscal year 27 budget. Some of the things that you'll have in this packet uh in this presentation with regards to the expenditures capital outlay operating salary benefits and then you've already had the uh presentation with regard to the utility rates. Over the next couple weeks, we'll continue to evaluate the current fiscal year and then look at the prediction uh predictions moving forward. This is uh the current cash flow projection for calendar year 2026. So this goes from now up until uh the end of the calendar year, December 2026. This is if nothing changes. So you all have seen this the other day when the local government commission was here when they presented. You've seen it from myself as simplistic. This is if nothing changes and you'll notice in July we will begin to operate in the grid which is something that we cannot do. So change must occur.

In regard to the capital outlay reductions, no additional projects unless critical to our operating uh as a as a city uh will not be approved. We've also limit for the remainder of the fiscal year any uh active uh incumbrances. We will also reduce uh expenditures for operations and we've hopefully uh if it gets adopted, we will improve the utility rates effective April 1st. This chart shows the impact for the rest of the fiscal year which is different from the calendar year. The fiscal year ends June 30th 2026. So based off of the expenditures that you will see uh in the presentation if if approved if adopted we will end the fiscal year at above uh the negative mark. Here you you'll see a presentation later on in the slide deck that that shows that actual figure. But if you see on this one in the third column at the bottom uh based on the reductions we will be uh in the black by approximately $7 million. this is the impact for the rest of the calendar year being in our situation uh when it's such a a serious financial uh position. We can't just predict or try to project where we are for the end of the fiscal year. We have to try to look out a little bit longer than that because there's likely going to have to be again some drastic changes. And so if those changes are adopted, we feel confident that we will be uh in the black uh by the end of the calendar year, which is our number one goal. This line chart shows the difference. So the red line depicts where we are if we currently stay on the path that we're on

without any changes. The upper line which looks a little black, that reflects where we start to rebound. And our goal is to implement changes. Now, uh again, these are just some of the ones that are recommended. There'll likely be more that we'll be recommending over the next uh couple of weeks or days. But if approved, we will start to rebound and go up uh for the rest of the calendar year starting uh again in in July, which if we do nothing will be negative 3.4 million. But if we implement some of the recommended uh suggestion changes, we will start to improve and have a a balance. Uh this is our unrestricted cash balance of about 6.7. This is where staff will need uh direction from council and consensus on where we go past today. uh at the at the retreat uh I think a couple of members talked about uh you know what they viewed as uh from an individual standpoint as core services and so what staff will need direction on moving forward is what the governing body as a whole as core services because that's what we will look at when we look at additional cuts in our expenditures so again I stated at the retreat and I stated voting multiple times. Uh for the the only mandated uh service that we're required to have is the development service department with regard to building uh building and inspections. That's mandated by the general statutes. While all the other services are are alike and uh some may feel that they're needed, they are not mandated. So we number one, we have to keep that quadrant uh where it is. Now that doesn't mean that we can't make changes within that department, but that is the only one that is required by law. Other ones are uh if you go to the right the

core obviously you the government body city clerk's office city manager's office finance e 911 police fire human resources public works and technology services those are what we have gathered over the last couple of weeks and uh what I personally deem as our core services doesn't means they can't be adjusted but those are the core services the bottom right quadrant is the quality of life you use your housing and community development human relations, park and recreations. Not to say that those things are not important, but uh most would agree that they are not considered core. And then we have our enterprise services, which is business collection, fishing resources, storm water and water resources, which you just heard from

clarification. Council, business and collections technically is not under enterprise. Why are you putting under enterprise? Well, if you look down at the bottom, placement may be uh pertaining to components of a department. So, because they service our bills, we just put it in there, but it's not necessarily an enterprise department. I got option. Is this an addition to the four scenarios that you um produced to us at the retreat?

Uh no, it's not uh necessarily addition. It's based off of the fee that that staff received from the retreat. So it got narrowed down to uh three four scenarios initially and then it was narrowed down to two because the first two scenarios did not keep us in the black. So scenario four and scenario three kept us in the black even though it was uh a small amount that kept us from going you know bankrupt. This uh presentation that we're about to continue showing you where the reductions are incorporates uh scenario three and four. So it's not an addition. It's just based on the feedback that we received at retreat, we added more uh reductions. So, going to those uh reductions with regard to expenditures, one of the things that was recommended was to suspend the city's contribution to the 401k starting in April. And so, uh, what that means is currently, uh, by law, the city is required to pay 5% for all sworn law enforcement officers, but the city is not required to contribute to, uh, I guess what we consider the general employee uh, to their 401 uh, K. Right now, regardless of whether employee uh that's labeled in that general class contributes or not, the city for the last several years has contributed 3% on that employees behalf. What the recommendation coming before you today is to discontinue that match but still allow general employees to contribute on their own. If we are to do that, that would generate a savings of approximately $50,000 a month. So over the course of a year, it would generate savings of approximately 1.3 million. The next line item is eliminate downtown grants. This is not the same thing as the the four major incentive grants. These are our ancillary grants that we

have given out for certain economic development project downtown and elsewhere. Uh right now we currently have a budget uh a remaining balance of 230,000 for the current fiscal year. The recommendation is to not accept any of the applications and uh book that as a savings. Next line item was one of the ones that was in scenario I believe it was four at the time and at the time we were recommending to try to hold on to certain uh festivals or community events. But based on our financial position, my professional recommendation is that we eliminate those or not doesn't necessarily say eliminate but I should say suspend them until we get on better financial footing. If we are to do that this year, that would be a savings of approximately um $128,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year. Next item is a big ticket item. These are the major uh downtown investment grants that I was just speaking of. Right now, we have four of those. Uh two of those are currently underway and we have two that have not uh yet officially started from a construction standpoint. And so the recommendation is to uh extend those, eliminate those or renegotiate those. I currently have meetings set up with the with the grantees and uh they are currently negotiating with me to try to see if they can work with our cash flow situation. Possibly not starting the project at a late possibly starting the project at a later date or renegotiating the terms, but that's still an active uh process. That uh it would be a savings of about The next one is uh just eliminate non-essential paid by the city. This will go across the board for every city department.

And then the last one uh is just reduction uh across the board identified by uh individual departments. Over the last couple of weeks, I've worked with department heads and asked them to submit uh recommendations on where they view they could have more reductions. Uh again, as a manager, while I'm responsible for the entire city, uh I'm I'm not the technical expert in any of the individual fields. So, uh that's a a team approach. Whenever I made the introduction earlier, I talked about how we work together as a team to come up with these uh recommendations. And while everything uh did not get approved from uh their standpoint, uh they did have the opportunity to make the first flight. And then I assume that over the next couple of days, we'll be looking at that uh even more detail with the gathering council. But that's where we are with that. If we are to uh reduce that by that percentage, it would be a savings for the rest of the fiscal fiscal year of about uh $720,000.

Mr. manager. Yeah. Can you go back to the top with the 401k and you mentioned it's mandatory with certain departments. Repeat which ones are mandatory for the 401k. It's only uh mandatory uh by the state for a law enforcement office. The city's required to uh pay 5% uh for law enforcement officer sworn officers for every other general employee. It is not mandated that we contribute at all.

And and then with these uh suspended public events, I guess staff could go out and see if they can find sponsorships for those. That is correct. Now, some of that is with regard to time. So, some because uh when you're dealing with the events and artists, they have to have schedules and it's a timing thing. I think be hard for us to do anything for the June and July time period, but may be possible for us to do something at the end of the calendar year,

but I think if um if we knew how much each event was um you know ballpark, I mean things changing since I don't know someone may, you know, business may step up. I'm thinking more the job for it this year. Well, I can tell you uh and we do have that explanation if it's if you don't already have it, we can make sure that you get it. But just off top of my head, I can tell you that the fireworks alone for July 4th over the course of the last couple of years have been in the $20,000 range just for the fireworks. That's the reason uh and that's actually a discount because historically the city has had that uh Independence Day celebration on July 3rd because it's even more expensive if we actually do it on July 4th.

For some of the other festivals, uh I know over the last 5 years the city has had what we consider uh end of year celebration go-go festival. uh that uh event we've been man managing to do all of it playing all the vendors all the employees for under uh $20,000 but again it varies just depending on on on the event. I I understand that but if we can get a ballpark you might find a sponsor and someone that we can

Yeah I welcome that opportunity and we can provide you uh with those details. I'll reach out to uh Joe Dunn. He's our parks recreation director and he has the cost for every event. Thank you. Right. The other um reductions that are that are recommended is reductions to uh some of our uh partnerships. So right now we have uh partnership with the gateway uh the Carolina Gateways partnership. Their baseline uh expenses for the current fiscal year is $353,000. And then we're recommending that we reduce that uh for the rest of the calendar year by about $14,000. We have a a downtown lease for our downtown uh business office uh that currently is about $40,000 and we're looking at terminating that lease or at least renegotiating that lease uh because due to our recent reset that we had in the fall. We have a lot of vacant spaces within city hall. So the goal was to if that department is still going to be a department that they would operate out of city hall at the current uh at the current structure. Uh the city uh recently entered into agreement with uh lobbying services at the federal level. We also have lobbying services at the state level. Uh those are not mandatory while they are helpful. But if we are to get out of those uh that would save us about 13 that would save us about 69,000 for the remainder of the calendar year. We have other uh professional service that are offered. you see the savings with those. Uh and then also reducing our operating expenses by a certain percentage that will get us about

600,000 in uh savings for the rest of the calendar year. And then uh if you recall over the last couple of months uh the city council adopted a new longevity uh policy uh that changed it from a percentage to a flat rate. uh when we had when that item was presented to council there was a line in it that says subject to availability of funding. Obviously we are not in the position where we are confunded that. So we are saying that as we move into the calendar year uh or to the next fiscal year that we do not uh fund that as well with that I'm hoping to silence

um in in your original presentation last week you included several things and obviously the one that a lot of a lot of calls and a lot of concern is the imperial center. Could you address that please? Yes, based on the feedback that I received from council that was not included in this. So as of now that is to remain uh funded. Uh I will say that the Imperial Center does have a lot of uh capital need that they need to address. So even if it is a continue to decisions made that they are continue to be funded, it will likely still have to be closed down for repairs for uh at least a few weeks if not a couple of months for for repairs.

Uh that is correct. Okay, Harris.

Yes. Uh that was my initial question. I'm very happy that we are going to continue the operations of the Imperial Center. We do know some improvements and repairs do need to be made and hopefully we can keep that uh repair period as short as possible. But I just want to briefly ask and I'm looking at the scenario is presented to council last week during the retreat. We didn't take scenario number one nor number two. And I don't know uh what these costs may be. But in number two, you were thinking about eliminating internal audit. You know, in my opinion, we haven't really had an audit program ever since I've been on the council. And I don't know if we have one position open or two, etc. I think we need to seriously take a look at that and uh I think you as manager over all the operations of the department and working more closely with your department heads and and other staff members, we can probably do a better better job of making sure our policies and procedures are are followed. And then a police virtual call center. Um, that was under scenario number two and it's it's no longer there. I wanted to ask that last week, but I forgot. But just just FYI, if you again, we're going to be looking at hopefully some other potential savings, etc., especially during the budget period. Um, we just need to be open-minded to any and all things. And I just just want to bring that to your attention.

Yeah. And I just want to uh clarify, you know, this is a working document and this is hopefully to get us to the current uh end of the fiscal year. Uh when we last heard from the LGC, they requested that we take uh immediate action to reduce expenditures and uh increase revenue even though those revenues will not be realized for a couple of months because if the new rates are adopted, it will take us time to get that revenue in. And it's also based on our collection rate. Uh I want to be clear though uh these are just recommendations and there will likely be further recommendations in the next couple coming weeks as well as dates because again uh our largest expense has been our capital and our personnel costs and unfortunately I think that when we get into fiscal year 27 27 budget discussions we I will be recommending uh further reductions across the board including uh you know starting at the top and city manager's office with regard to restructuring and every other department. Again, I won't be making those uh decisions in a vacuum. We will be coming from each department because they understand their operations better than I do. But as a whole, uh there's likely to be significant cuts across the board.

Councilman Blackwell, I think the manager asked my primary question, which was um this is where we start, not where we end. That's exactly right. And when we start having conversations about uh what the city of Rocky Mount is able to invest in is concentrating on what we have to be able to work with and then priorities that are being set first of all by the state of North Carolina. I think we've been dancing around that topic the whole time you've been here.

We've been dancing around it. You know, we're not just making changes because it's time to make changes. We're in a deficit position, a deep deficit position.

And we are being guided and focused in areas of reductions as well as areas of fee increases. These percentages and the strategies that have been incorporated have been done in consultation with the state and they've made it very clear to us that we either do what we need to do or they'll come in and do it for us. commentary.

So the calls to commentaries about the options that we have are conversations that are rooted in posturing and not rooted in grounded truth. And while we can and while we will do everything we can, I believe as a collective body to keep as much as we can in place, we've all got to realize that things might get tighter before they get back. I don't know what else to say other than budgets must be reduced, fees must be increased. If we don't do it, the state will do it. You can make a political decision not to do it, but it won't change any difference about what's going to get done. And so I just need us to know from this point forward what are our actions that we're requested to take today and what are our decisions that we can make today and what will be deferred to later dates to consider what

yes with regard to uh what can be made today uh staff can get uh direction on some of the uh items with regard to like the 401k. We can go ahead go ahead and implement those things. Now, with regard to the rates, uh we're required by law to have a public hearing period. And I think the idea is that after the presentations today, we will have that public hearing uh next week. And then there there are likely there's likely to be a special call meeting uh I don't know that day uh but maybe it's the 30th I think the 30th and then at that point council can officially uh adopt adjusted rates which will uh then in fact go uh into effect on April 1st. Then the budget amendment uh we hope to have if these uh recommendations are okay, we hope to have that before uh the council for consideration on uh March 23rd. And at that point you would vote on amended budget which we will take with us to the local government commission when they've requested for us to meet meet with them in person on April 1st and show that the city is in fact trying to correct this uh situation even though we do know that it is no silver bullet. It's going to be a multi-prong approach. Could it be a long approach, but we are headed in the right direction. I think if we show that they will continue to allow us to uh have a little bit of discretion and uh that's my goal.

Thank you. Um I'll recognize Councilman TJ Walker and then Charles Roberts. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Manager, for your presentation and for um the overview of the operating expenditures. My question uh twofold uh consensus on core services will you be looking uh for us to um provide direction in that today for Monday what is our timeline that would be healthy today.

Uh secondly was uh the 401k as it pertains to our benefits. I just want to make sure I'm clear because I know we we've it's several things uh package and bundle those but does that include like our HSA and um for other staff like educational incentives and things

um right now uh education say uh they've already been suspended uh before for today with regard to HSA uh that has already been paid out for the current year. So we will not be able to realize those savings until uh calendar year 27. So if I would uh add to that again it's not mandated. So that would be something that we looking at but at this current state because it's already been uh expensed it won't we can't realize the state sizes in the upcoming calendar year. Thank you.

Thank you Councilman Robertson. Thank you for putting this together and um I want to thank um let y'all know that LGC the local government commission is in the room right now Miss Canada and I appreciate her for being here. So but I want to be very clear. She said at at the meeting this is a cash flow problem that must be solved by reducing expenses not by increasing revenue in the short term.

That's was stated directly. you're not going to solve this problem in the short term with revenue. You have to solve this problem by cutting expenses. So with that guidance in mind, I want to start um looking at what you presented to us today. And um one of the largest expenses um in the state audit that he released last Monday was personnel. But yet in this plan there's no furlows, there's no lay layoffs and no meaningful restructuring of salaries and benefits.

So instead we are cutting programs, reducing services and considering rates and rates on residents while leaving our largest cost category lar. This is not a balanced approach. Before we raise Before we raise rates on our residents, we should be looking at furloss, personnel adjustments, renegotiation of contracts, temporary closure is necessary.

We asked for um I think Councilman Harris, we asked for um Allen Cart, we asked for a menu of things we could cut along with the budget impact, the financial impact of those things. Um Mr. Manager, do do we have that? understanding that you have it. We presented information for you for the last several weeks inside several months and I stated at the beginning of this session is that this was just not the the end result. I think council member Blackwell stated that that we would have to make further cuts and I also stated that uh when we start looking at the fiscal year 27 budget which we should be in the process of doing now we would be looking at restructuring across the board. So I don't disagree with the statements that you made under stating that we just said that literally about 5 minutes ago. Well, I don't I don't see it because we was talking about like the you had the Imperial Center which you've taken off. I'm happy that you are, but I asked for like the event center if that wasn't a freeze on that cuz I believe that's I wanted we all wanted to know what was the charge on that because we was getting it was losing $4 million a year. Um, Councilman Dor got it was losing seven and something million a year. So I don't know how we can make informed decisions if we don't actually have a menu allet cart but this is like a fixed menu. We want an alley card approach where we have

things that we can close and the financial impact if it's because this it's affecting a lot of we putting it on the back of the citizens with the utilities and we're not doing the cuts that the LGC this is nothing political the LGC themselves we can't put that they say said raise race I don't see anywhere in that statement where they told us to raise utility race so we have to look that a balanced approach and that menu will help this council make informed decisions of what's the financial impact if we take certain actions. Thank you, Mr. M.

Yes. If you will, I'd like to recognize Councilman Taris Walker, but Absolutely. I'm sorry. Do you want to do you want to respond?

No, I was going to respond. I said this is a slide where I I specifically asked for what you just requested. uh is the the issue that the staff has had over the last I'd say couple of days or couple of weeks is that you know we hear from individual council members but as a governing body I need to hear from the majority and give me directives. I don't have a problem doing whatever you say as long as it's legal and ethical. If you get four votes staff will implement it. My job is to carry out what you all recommend that we do as long as it's uh ethical and uh legal. So that's the menu. Tell me what you want to get cut and we will evaluate that. Thank you, Mr. Manager. I recognize Councilman Forest Walker.

So, I have two questions. See, man. One of them, what's the what's the saving cost for the longevity cuts? Thank you. Uh, right off the top of my head, uh, the initial longevity cost the city about uh over a million dollars. I think it was about 1.3. Uh, but again, uh, that information has already been provided to council. I don't have that today, but I think the new policy uh with the current amount of people that we have still for longevity, it would be a savings of about 500,000. Okay. Another question too. I know

I see the period center was taking off with the summer camp. We are still going to have summer camp at this moment. Correct. Uh that is not uh on the table at the current moment. I think uh in the budget we were going to have uh one summer camp available but uh again that was not a mandatory service. So, uh, the current recommendation is to not have all the summer camps opens at this point in time. It's about $30 to $40,000 to host, uh, each summer camp. And being that it wasn't mandatory, the recommendation is not to host that. So, not to host, not even. So, right now, as it stands, there's no summer camp. Uh, my understanding is that there is one one summer camp.

Council, thank you. Um, I think it's very important to represent not pieces of information but the whole uh bundle.

Um if you want to get technical which it sounds like we are the LGC the letter from the local governing government commission read you face a dual challenge. It says the first bullet says you must immediately reduce spending to improve your cash situation. This cannot wait. Your staff's estimates show that as of July 2026, you will no longer be able to make your debt service payments, pay your staff, or operate key services unless you make budget cuts. Now, the second bullet, which we're acting like did not exist, you must adopt an austere. That means

closely managed, no frrills, structurally sound, structurally sound, balanced budget for fiscal year 2627 that is built on accurate revenue estimates which we've been questioning and trying to understand. And that improves the cash position of every fund. Every fund. Every fund. Do y'all hear that?

Every fund. We have had extensive presentations in council retreat and now in the public that have showed us we're operating our utility funds in the deficit in the red. And we've been told by the local government commission which is the state that we got to cut the budget significantly. And that's why I asked the question of the manager, is it the beginning or the end? It takes time. We had this letter given to us within a week. And when we start asking departments about what to eliminate and who to eliminate, it takes more than five minutes to do that.

It takes time. We've had more study time to evaluate if we're operating revenue utilities or revenue from utilities. We've had more time to figure that out and we've had commission studies and you've now heard what those studies have proposed. So from what I see, this is a phased approach. LGC has said and and the manager has reiterated and we got a letter to say so that on April the 1st, they want to see what this city council is going to do to reduce expenses and increase the revenue. And they're calling the manager, the mayor, and the mayor prom to stand before them to see if we got the guts, the backbone, and the decision making ability to do what needs to be done.

Am I right or wrong? So what I'm saying today is that some of these questions that are being asked cannot be answered quickly. You can't throw around big numbers without understanding other implications. And if we going to have a debate, let's understand what we're debating and not confuse people with pieces of information and posturing cuz there's an endgame that somebody else wants to see.

I just want to see Rocky Mount stable. I want to see us not have to change and shift everything that we do and who we are. I want to see us operate in integrity and I don't want to have to pay no more than I have to and not you either and at the same time we got to pay our bills just like everybody else. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I recognize Councilman Harris and Councilman Knight. Councilman Robertson, you have your mic lit. Is that something you Yes, I want to speak with you. and I'll recognize you afterward. Council Harris,

I'm going to make my remarks uh short since uh Councilman Blackwell so eloquently stated what I heard from LGC last week as well as the letter we received. Again, we're at the cliff.

I can't make it any clearer than that. I want us to put that car in reverse and get it as far back as we can away from the cliff. We cannot find I don't know what be additional revenues. I hate this. I personally hate it. I hate it for all of our constituents. By golly, I've been a part of this council for four years. I have skin in this. And I wish I could have done things different. I wish I could have spoken more broadly and and more passionately about this and this and this and that is my mistake and I apologize. But by golly, we are going to work to make this right and we going to have to increase revenues. Last week I also heard that there is two sides in the balance sheet

and there's an operating statement behind the balance sheet

since 2012 long before most of us on this council utility rates were not increased. Looking back, I wish they had done incremental small increases, but in times the city council saved our residents money by having the lowest possible bill possible. But right now, we have got to work together. We're going to look at continuing ways to see what reduces expenses can be reduced between now and June 30th. January, excuse me, July 1 is a new day and we going to continue to look at ways to reduce expenses, but by golly, I know there are some ways that we need to look at increasing revenues. One of them, we issue code enforcement fines. There's a lot outstanding in code enforcement fines. We don't have a staff right now to properly collect those. Let's hire a third party and pay them one/3 and let us keep 2/3. 2/3 of something is better than nothing. So there are ways that we can look at increasing revenues and we going to look at that because at the end day in a few years I want us to lower our property taxes possibly. I want us to lower or keep level our utility rates. And that's what I'm committed to do. is a hard decision to make. And I appreciate Denise Kennedy being back here today, but by golly, I heard last week if we don't have something to her by March the 24th, she's going to put something on the agenda for April the

1st to take over this city. She has given us some more time. She has asked as councilman Blackwell four people including our finance director to be at the LGC meeting April 1st and I'm hoping that what we have done and I commend the staff all the hard work they have done over the last six seven days they have been uh hard at work overtime in putting this together. We're not finished. They're going to continue to be revisions. As it said right there up there, we're going to look at revisions from what coming to us on the 27 budget. We're going to scrutinize those to see where we can make further improvements. But we're at the stroke of midnight and I'm like council Blackwell. We got to do what's in the long-term best interest of this city. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank the council.

Thank you, Councilman N. I'll recognize you.

Yes. Uh, thank you uh to the manager and the staff and to the LGC for being a part of our discussions for the last couple of weeks. And part of the discussion from the LGC was stated few minutes ago and post on social media, but the entire response and conversation was not because we didn't want to make it um political or even bring that out um in a way would be um to to drag the LGC into that and and thank you Rubin for clear and clarifying the rest of the response that council member Robertson read. I just want to say second Timothy 2 and 15 is a study to show thyself approval unto God. a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of truth. We know how we got here. You read the auditor's report. You read the minutes from 2023 to 2026. look at the council's videos of committee of the whole and council meeting of various statements that all the council members made. I'm very adamant about the former keep manager Rogers. I said it in the public. I'm going to

begin it today and say it again. Council members in Dumprey said early on it comes to a city this size or larger it's going to be 10 times as worse is what happened in Dump it was said repeatedly reports and information were asked frowned upon say get a full report. So we know how we got here. We look at our financials and start from 2023 from 115 million to now. read the information rightly dividing the word of truth and I appreciate the LGCB and you because we are elected to make decisions and they clearly stated if we don't make the decision

then they would make the decision. We gave our city manager the direction to bring us back a plan which was four scenarios. He recommended at least scenario three and four. Only one that um part of three and four I was really concerned about was not the only one but the interior center and I said that up front and I thank you for working away to keep that. I think that is important and it is a complimentary to our event center that brings thousands of people here to our city. Regardless of what people say about our city, this is a good city. Regardless of what has happened in the past and what's happening now, it's still a good city. And this complements our event in our children. I'm still concerned just a little bit about the summer camps because if we don't have those, that's a camp that started when I was young at South Rocky Mountain. They kept me out of the streets. And we can see the violent crimes with youth. And I would like to see how we can at least keep those camps to keep our youth engaged. So again, the data is out there. If you really want to know the truth, stop reading this stuff on social media.

Oh, come on now. Most stuff is garbage to create division and brother division.

Just pick up the manual and read it. The last thing when you're doing your Bible study, you know, you just don't read the King James version or whatever you study or whomever you studied in the Bible. You always have a reference point. Some have King James version, the NIV, they have all these and then they have other reference to be able to rightly divide the scriptures. So, I'm just using that as a parable. Today, we know what happened. We got a report. Read the report compared to the minutes compared to the videos and rightly divide the truth. and where we are today. We have to make those decisions because of the failed mistakes that we did not oversee our city manager and the numbers that we presented in the budget sessions saying that we had plenty of money. That's how we got here. And I'm like, Council Member Harris, I don't want to put it in reverse. I want to go over the mountaintop to the other side because we can do that. Thank you.

Just to pro Tim, I just want to add u so we did mention about the summer camps and right now possibly only having one open. Uh but the the goal right now for a cost saving measure is to to just have that one open but continue to have the centers that that most of the uh camps are held to still have those operable. So it won't be like staffing a summer camp, but kids will still be allowed to go to like South Rocky Mount, BTW, that type of thing. Yeah. And then the other thing I would like to mention with regard to our costs moving forward as we talk about uh adopting the revised budget for this current fiscal year and next fiscal year, I re reiterate uh what was stated in uh our financial audit and the audit that was done by the office of the state auditor. Our biggest expense is our capital and our personnel. So, while this plan uh we try to incorporate all of the things that were discussed over the last couple of years, uh a lot of what was mentioned in this presentation are one-time expenses. My goal is to work with council and staff on identifying the reoccurring expenses because that's where we're going to get the biggest bang for our buck with regard to savings now for the short term and the long term. And so we're going to have to look at restructuring the organization from top to bottom, citywide, and see what savings we can find by combining positions, eliminating positions, and seeing what uh we can do basically uh more with less. And then delaying some of the capital uh projects and only focus on the mission critical projects. And then if we uh review what we have coming in from a revenue side, hopefully we can continue to build back our fund balance and not delay before we get too far down the road. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate it. I appreciate that. Looking at cutting the expenses, but um we can hear it straight from the horse's mouth because we have the LGC here. Um and oh, she left the room, but we have a great our great finance director that work with the LGC. if these um the 15% because I don't want you to get caught in scared tactics or and that we have to increase the utility 15%. This is what the LGC told us to do. Um it's the LGC recommendations for us to increase the utilities by 15%. And I would love to hear that from the LGC or either our finance director that work with the LGC because what I'm saying is the first thing that was read was to reduce expenditures. So if we reduce expenditures and one of the biggest expend expense and I know Bradley um you said that at the retreat is that um administration cost that administration fee right that's taking up a big portion of your money. So until we're able to look at that and what the LGC did say is we had structure deficiencies. So if we have a bucket that have a hole in it and we keep pouring water in it, that's not going to fix the issue. So we had a reset moment. So clear that the LGC said we that um raising revenue at this time is not going to fix the problem. I would love to hear so it's not anything political if the LCGC is recommendation of us raising uh utilities 15% or is that staff recommendation?

So uh I I will take the first stab at that and uh Cheryl please feel free to come up to the podium but the LGC is not going to tell any local government at the current state uh where they're not taking over the books on a specific percentage that needs to occur. that is the governing body's job based on the recommendation of professional staff and consultants. Uh that percentage is what was recommended by staff uh which uh most of the staff had outside help with consultants and that's what you have before you today. uh that percentage could be more, that percentage could be less. But again, uh where we are now, the financial audit that was recently conducted by our outside third party, Morgan Jenkins, uh showed where each of our funds had no fund balance, including the general fund. I think the general fund was at a negative 13%. And so, you can't cut your weight out of that. It has to be a multi-prong approach, which is why the first slide that I have up here says trifold approach. Reduce spending, amend the current fiscal year budget, plan for fiscal year 27. There's no silver bullet. If it was a silver bullet, we would have done it a long time ago. But we have to be realistic on our uh expectations. And again, as council member Blackwell stated, this is not the end. This is just the beginning. But I want to be clear that uh no outside organization uh from the state is going to specify what a local government percentage should be. Our percentages are based on the calculations that were presented in the financial audit as well as outside. And sure, if you want to follow up with that, feel free to

Thank you.

Thank you. um talk a little bit bit about enterprise funds and um and what the expectation of enterprise funds are. Um when we've done the services, it is imperative from a financial um perspective that um that those services are um can that the revenues cover the expenditures. And um and as we've talked earlier today, there's there's two ways that um public um services are are provided. Um and a number of organizations, especially those who that only have water source um and storm water, you know, keep those within, you know, within the city and um and then um other or then some organizations do decide to, you know, break that out um and have a sort a separate organization. Either way, uh the utility funds have to be self-supporting and they have to in include the services that are either provided um under the city umbrella um or se you know or separately um such as green utilities commission. Um for a number of years I worked for um a public utility um the um that public utility is Capefir public utility authority and it's in New Hampshire County and um and New Hammer County and the city of Fatville and city of Wilmington, New Hmer County, city of Wilmington um were under some federal consent decrees that were very expensive because they were allowing sanitary sewer to go into um the the pristine water that uh that they have in um in New Hmer County and what um so

they decided to combine their utilities um into a separate organization that only handled water, sewer, storm water and then the collection of um for some of the other city services a separate organization. So that's separate organization had to have a CEO, they had to have finance director, they had to have all you know all the services that some services that in that um those of us who choose to have our enterprise funds u under um the city or the county government have have to pay for. So um so it is imperative that um that we have self-supporting enterprise funds and they include those services that a non you know that a you know enterprise fund like Greenwell utilities or Cape for public utility authorities are having to pay for um would separately that is not it's not a savings but they should once that happened. We we had I was there six years and there was six years of um lots of customers hating Cape Pier Public Utility Authorities because our rates went up every year and they didn't and they were not small rate increases either. But we had because we were forced to we had to you cover our services. um in um the way that we are set up, we have some leeway in um and how you know how the how we make these self-supporting. But the the things that I saw presented today um they have to you we we've heard we haven't raised rates since 2017,

one or the other. and um and the cost of providing you services has gone up. So rates cannot stay the same if the cost of services goes up. The um the main focus um you know and some of the um

discussions today has been the administrative cost. Well, the administrative cost are those type things that um our enterprise funds have to have. And um I look in our in the audit report, you can look at the general fund and you can see which fund which um departments have a utility administrative fee coming out of it. And um and it's and um some of the departments it's a large percentage. If they if um if the organization was standing on its own the 100% of that charge we need to suggest that we do um a a good calc you know a calculation an independent you know a calculation of what the service fees should be for for each department. Um, right. As as one of our council members mentioned, um, the the less that the lower percentage of the, um, utility fee, administrative fee that is paid by the enterprise fund has to be paid by taxes. It's that it has to be paid.

So, is it safe to say it's another tax on? It's a it's the it's it's know it's a it's a cost of service to the utility fund. And the reason I went through that my whole um conversation about the independent ones. These are the type things they're have you they would have to pay for anyway. and and they include such, you know, like the um you the governing board, um community services, city manager, community, um communications and marketing, downtown development, business and collection services, technology services, network administration, um system administration, um project management office, um finance administration, accounting, purchasing, central services, um community development, neighborhood redevelopment, human resources, human relations, engineering, and public works. So, it's a that's, you know, it's a large dollar dollar amount, but it's covering a portion of the cost of each of those um departments that unless those departments go away, they got to be paid, you know, for somehow. But um so that's kind of what the administrative fee is. um which organiza which department should be the ones paying it. Um that's we should have and um and it should um it you should you there should be kind of a a formula that's developed that that you know it determines what percentage it is and um and it's my you know suggestion and I believe it's you know you know hope hoping it will happen that we have that done right now any of these that we pull out of the enterprise funds again being paid. So they had you the the bill has to come somewhere

and that's what I was saying earlier when I was talking about doing like the cost of service analysis. I think we need to you know have someone do that for us do what we can internally but just look at across the board citywide and you know allocate appropriate but again uh you know I don't think we can act swift and just say okay we're going to start from scratch and just pull the plug because as just stated the you know the funding has to come from somewhere. So over the course of the city's history, uh they have relied uh heavily on the enterprise fund to support the general fund. But what that means is that the taxes were too low. So regardless of whether you call it a tax or fees, the way local governments work, we get we get our revenue from from the government from the from the government at the federal state and from the citizens of Rocky Mountain.

Thank you for that because there a lot of those departments you name. I'm thinking what do they have to do with utilities? But I guess with what he said that they're paying for other departments. So that our utility bills are paying for other departments in the city. So if we was able to cut some of the expenditures and expenses in those departments, then our utility rate may not have to go up as much. Is that correct? If cut the overall cost, the sharing Yeah. the the amount that it's a shared expense.

It's a shared expense. Every department that she mentioned uh relies on each other. You can't separate one department from another. They are enterprise fund because that's the legal structure in North Carolina. But we're all a part of the city. IT department, for example, if Bradley's department, if a computer goes out, I'm not saying you don't have qualified staff in there to fix that computer, but guess who they're going to call? It is a water leak out there. Not going to call me the city man. Actually, I do receive several calls when there water leaks, believe it or not. But we're going to call the water department. We're all in this together. You can't separate an individual department out. It's a city. We're a full city and it's collaboration across the board. Now, what I will commit to is like Cheryl recommended looking at that cost service analysis to figure out how we can allocate the appropriate amount. But it's not something that's going to happen overnight. We have to have incremental change.

What percentage of the utility funds are going to those departments? I heard like the downtown department and the different departments you was named. Um cuz I asked him what's the he paying his fair share. Are they paying um what percentage is being paid from utilities to fund those other departments? Yes. Standing here at the podium. I can't tell you the percentage, but I just said it save. You um look at the um the draft um audit report that you that you have

um of which we expect to have the final draft tomorrow. Um but but these numbers haven't changed. If you look at um in you know the general fund, you'll see a utility fee coming out of each of these departments and um and so that can be calculated. Thank you, Council D. I recognize you. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Councilman.

Okay. Um, I appreciate you. You can you can sit down. I appreciate what you said and and um surrounding the admin service fees and I've been working on this even before I was on city council and and I appreciate the work that's going to be around that. Um, and I, as much as I would like for it to be addressed today, we don't have time to address it today. And I recognize that. Uh, don't don't like that, but but it's the reality that we're in, especially with your finance department. Um, and it would be nice if we had a consistent uh percentage moving forward um, for each department and uh, the impact it's going to have on our enterprise. and it sounds like that's what you're going to do. And that way each year we can determine um it's not pie in the sky, which is what it seems to be. And so um I applaud the work that you committed and Mr. Mr. Manager, what you've committed to do. So I appreciate that. Um earlier I think there was um we're going to act today or act on Monday. I I'm of the uh opinion that we need to act on Monday because um we need to first of all we haven't had public comment. Um and I I don't think there's much sway or we don't have many options quite honestly.

I mean we it's been Councilman Blackwell and Councilman Harris have certainly described that and I agree with what they're saying on that. um our options are limited and um and the time is is limited but I think we could at least wait till Monday and I would request Mr. Manager if you could because there's some things that we can vote on on Monday or today but I'll prefer it on Monday. That's that's my preference and we need that probably very succinct with how we make a motion. I know the city clerk will probably appreciate that. Yeah. Our goal is to have a revised budget based on the feedback that we get today and then you will have that available on Monday to vote on.

But also also the motion to make sure that we're legally compliant and everything. Yeah. I will I'll depend on the clerk and the city attorney for that. But I'm just focusing on the the line items. We'll have that ready for you.

Whoever does it, I just think we need to make sure we include because some things can't be included until after we um have the the announce public hearings and so forth. The one thing I will ask uh the mayor and the council consensus today that we include on Monday is that um each one of us receive aid and we receive a travel siphon. And I think that we need to um suspend that um until we get into a position to where it can be reinstated. And I would like a consensus today um from this council and the mayor um where that can be included on Monday's um

agenda. I'm obviously in favor of it and um I think it's only right if we're asking the staff and we're asking the public to step up. That's the least we can do. This is not an interactive event. This is a business meeting. And this time I'd like to recognize Councilman TJ Walker. Thank you, mayor. Um, I know the manager was asking today, and I don't know if this was one of the items that, uh, Councilman Dress was asking that we uh, defer to Monday, but the consensus on core services, uh, the manager was asking us to give him direction today. Was that what you were requesting? Was that one of the items you're requesting to wait till Monday?

No, no, no. I was saying uh get direction today because again uh as I stated earlier today is just the first step. This is not the end. This is the beginning. And so we will continue to be evaluating uh operations across city uh citywide and looking for further reductions. I think I what will help me be able to make some decisions about this being able to associate um as one as we heard I get the enterprise uh funding percentages from each department but then also the um operating cost of each department. I see listed uh what is essentially deemed core uh as far as your perspective enterprise obviously that's where community comes from the mandated and quality of life these would essentially be the only two departments that uh you feel right now are quality of life I'm looking for direction for the board this was just a a conversation starter but that's up for you all to decide what you want only thing that's mandated by the state is the uh building inspections. But uh again, in in most cases across uh the state and the nation, uh things like parks and recreation, some of your quality life departments aren't necessarily essential. And I will add that uh when you're looking at a quality of life situation, uh across the board, uh from my experience in parks recreation at the county and uh at the local government level from a municipality, uh they are not uh intended to make a profit. uh they are uh not even intended to have full cost. Those are things that jurisdictions do for the quality of life. Now, we are in a situation unlike other jurisdictions of our size where uh we can't afford to do a lot of those things. And so, unfortunately, we're going to have to uh make some difficult decisions. Uh staff will make some difficult recommendations and what you all decide on we implement. But that that's really the purpose is to kind of separate and get the

conversation started kind of guide you to uh where we feel uh we can make some potential cuts but again at the end of the day it will be uh you know council dispers one more thing and so uh while staff will provide you with with all the information that you requested in a in a timely manner some of the information you can already have because uh it's in the previous year's audit. So the audit that we just done even though it won't be exact it will have the operation uh numbers for every every division counor

one of the main things too uh councilman doctors I know when you say like travel that's fine I think but I've since I've been on council we got called about 2720 Red Lobster when it closed down um highway down and when it was knocked down. So when you look when you go to economic summits, you got to let them know what Rocky Mount has to offer. So I think if one of those opportunities come and somebody on council can go and bring them back, I know people say we got a lot of chicken spots, but those will spike. Those was locations that people were complaining about. I know Red Lobster uh at one point I was running a lot. A lot of homeless people was taking that over. So you look with when we go in the room, I think me and TJ go in the room with Rais and Kane and they agree to come. He not only agreed to knock it down where the city don't have to pay anything, but he was willing to knock the building down to put something there. People was complaining about it. So it's not a blighted blighted area anymore. Same thing with Slim Chicken. You look at out the Rodell Group, which is in my ward, people were saying with the land like you said you was going to do this, going to do that. We was able to bring investment back here. So I think if along the way while we are in this situation of even if the mayor somebody who's economic developments Rocky Mountain something to offer and we can go sell it and make it bring it back and bring tax dollars back. I think that's key that we should be able to make that happen. So I think people sometimes think that council travels and it's like a party. It's not a party. It's work. But I do think of something that can be talked about, but also we have walked things back when we have traveled since I've been on council every single time. So that's my stance on that.

Council, I just want to say uh again the comment making about utilities. You know, one thing, you know, I hope hopefully we all respect veterans. that been on the front line, especially those been out on foreign ground in Boston um to protect the lives of the American citizens so we could have freedom and this whole utility piece which started a little over 20 years ago with this council and this council when they made a decision to enter into this agreement u with the kemper but you have to know your history so you won't repeat your history and I don't want the story to be said that the council rates and utility rates on the backs of customers citizens because we're broke we have seen the presentation We have tried to hedge off any increase with rate of stabilization which we no longer have. Um, even with the rate increase, uh, we vote on it Monday, we still are compatible to surrounding cities, towns, and that we have to raise the rates because of what Duke is doing, not just to Rocky Mount, but to everybody. You have to understand that is it's if we go to the gas station when we leave here, you know, you got to pay if you want to drive, you know, you may go back next

week and the prices are going to go tremendously because of this for, you know, the the the the business owner of the gas is not going to absorb the cost. He's going to pass it on to the customer. So what I'm what I'm saying is that's not true that we just raising utility rates on our citizens because we need all this money. We need the money but then we are basing as Bradley said um that we have to pay for it ourselves. And so I just I just want to be clear on that. You know, for some it's just saying, you know, we've been very and I know I've been very passionate about it and the fight in it. And I just don't want that to be spreading across this city. And that is not true. That is not true. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to take a moment of executive privilege here. We've been debating this and hearing information from our staff for the past 3 hours. And I want to say to each member of staff, thank you for the work you put into this. This is no small task. Thank you, Mr. Manager, for we're coordinating all that. I would like some specific clarity from council as to whether or not we're going to extend this to Monday. However, I'd like to say one thing. Uh I appreciate the uh reductions that we have and I understand that it's not the menu that perhaps we would all like but I have seen nothing in the list of proposals to reduce the expenses that shouldn't be voted on today and implemented today. So I like to remind you that time is the one thing we don't have much of at the moment and execution matters. It requires that our management team execute anything we say go forward on. And expense reduction is just that expense reduction. Uh we can't go up on the utilities until we've had a public hearing which is scheduled on March 30th. I think that's right. March 30th. And so at this time I'd like to entertain a motion that either we take this vote for the budget, the amended budget or these expense reductions either today or Monday.

Before you give a motion. No, sir. I'm not recognizing you. I'm looking for a motion. So I got a motion. Council 52 take the vote. Second Monday. Monday. I have a second for Monday. Is there a need for discussion on this? Yes. What's this? Yes, sir. Councilman Robson, I recognize you.

Well, if we're going to push it to Monday, I want to know, do we have input on some of these reductions? because I was just sitting with the homeless shelter and I told them based on what I was told that they weren't get any money and they have start setting a way to close the homeless shelter. If they close that homeless shelter, there's going to be a number of homeless people out on our streets. So when I see reductions and I see some people still in here giving money, is there going to be a way that we can have input and these reductions and suggestions? Question.

Okay. Uh questions been called. All those in favor of pushing the MO uh this uh budget amendment or I guess a reduction or proposal to Monday, please say I. I. All oppose like sign. Okay. Motion carries. The uh issue will be resolved on Monday. With that, I'll entertain a motion to go into close session. So move. Is there a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. We're now in close session. We're going to close session for economic development. We're going to close session for economic development.

Yes. Oh, I saw a lot Yeah.

Uhhuh. You've joined Just Yeah. I didn't say that. Fernandez.

So they basically That's