City Council - Regular Meeting

a lot. Okay. Um, calling to order this, uh, meeting of the Ellsworth City Council for our budget workshop. Uh, we have opening remarks and welcome from the city manager.

Yeah, thank you, council. U, we'll see how far we get along tonight. Thank you for the staff for coming out. Um, as we know, just kind of a process update. All of our our new things we put into the uh first session here. So, a lot of the things that we'll be discussing tonight is really uh mostly operational. Um, council, feel free to chime in anytime if you want to bring something to the end. I think at some point there's a couple flags we already have. It seems like the uh emerald ashbor bore we're going to bring back towards for more full discussion uh at the end of the the cycle here that seemed to be still a bit of a question mark on a difference between potentially the manager's recommendation not to move forward with that and um council there seems to be some interest in moving forward with that. But we'll put aside that until kind of the after we get through all of the departments and budgets because there might be a fair amount of things that could come up in here and say hey we um like I said that's mostly operational now. We've gotten through the new things. Um, but uh, you know, council uh, if they they don't agree with uh, things that come through, Ashley's keeping a change log and she'll continue to keep a change log as she has. This is the third budget cycle, right, Ashley? Were you Did you do the first one?

We didn't do one for the first one. This is the second one.

That was the second year edit that we decided to go with sort of a defined change log through Ashley. It worked out great last year. Um, so we'll get through that. Um and beyond that we have for the order we're going to do recreation facilities then uh police, dispatch, fire, public fire protection. Uh and then if we have time, we're going to try to get through human resources and employee benefits as well. Um Carrie's uh here from that. As mentioned previously, if we feel like we're uh kind of lagging and it's getting later in the evening, uh you know, and we need to take a break, I did build in some flexibility into the schedule so that we could add another meeting the last week in April and then if needed uh maybe another one uh the second Thursday in May and that still gives us time before the May city council meeting for finalizing the budget. If we really really need it, we can. It's um without having to go to continuing resolutions in a new fiscal year. We can push this out to to June. We had to do that my first uh year as city manager when we rebuilt these entire books. U I hope we don't have to do that. Hopefully we can uh settle things by the May meeting. I think we've put together a a good plan. Another big thanks to Ashley and the finance team um and all of our department heads who really uh stepped up to get all these things together even without a finance uh director this year. But um really proud of the work everybody's been doing. And uh with that, I think we'll send it over to Rody in recreation as our first one on the list. Uh page 454 I think is probably 451 is when it starts, but 454 I think is where the details are. Um just want to note kind of off the bat, you know, there all of the lines seem to be a a large increase over a prior year, but this is an entirely new budget. We're working on

pulling out kind of the previous year's actuals for um some of these GL codes. We had to do all new GL codes over here. But you know, when Rody and I were talking, he I mean, this this is really a consolidation in the entire parks and recreation budget of a bunch of different line items from the entirety of the budgets um that have been here actually for a long time. There's really not a lot new here. Uh we hired a parks and recck director last year uh as the sort of foundational piece of the parks and recck department. Uh we uh utilized uh three members of the highway group to kind of help out in parks and wreck activities uh over last summer to really uh clean up Milton Park which was an absolute mess and dis in incredible amounts of disrepair as was our harbor and a bunch of our other parks assets. So, the highway and parks and recck team really um did an incredible job to get those facilities back up and running um including fixing the slides and um our splash pads and you know got got through the the fall uh time period um highway and and parks and wreck kind of fused back together for a lot of our winter maintenance. Gosh, it was a heck of a snowy year. Um, and we uh we're we're we've worked out kind of, you know, highway used to take uh pretty much all the parks and wreck type activities under their belt. So, we've sort of divided a lot of the activities. Uh, and we're going to be pulling over to from the highway department into parks and wreck. Um, there'll still be a lot of cross collaboration um between those two areas. And you know, in the summertime, uh, we're probably going to need some more highway folks helping out in parks and wreck activities at certain times. And in the winter time, we're going to need parks and wreck folks to help out, uh, with the highway piece. Um, so even though this is kind of like payroll is budgeting for three people. And we also didn't backfill one person in the

highway this year. So just seeing this tough budget cycle ahead, uh, as much as I hate to do it, there really is an endless amount of backlog in our highway and parks and wreck needs um, around the city. Um but you know, we really kind of want to um stay where we're at, see um where where with this kind of light split, we're really not building a big parks and recck department here. We're really kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul from another department and um hopefully that'll help out with divisional work a little better and prioritization. Um Ronnie's been doing a great job at that so far. He put together a budget at many ways at my request to be like, what do you really need? Um and then I cut them down to basically like what do we currently have? Um I I hated to do it. So some of those um you know, you'll see that off the bat in the payroll full-time on, you know, that was meant to be three. I really feel like three is necessary in parks and wreck, but we're going to live with just uh two um uh dotted over from from highway, but to be in full-time parks and wreck with um Rody's salary. Um so that's not we're not adding 273 or $225,000 to the budget this year for parks and wreck. It's just what the three employees that are currently doing those types of activities are currently costing us. Now, it's just in that parks and rec budget. So, with that very long introduction, I'll send over.

Well, I think you just said everything that I had to say. So, moving on.

Um, Rodbach, director of parks directing facilities. Um, so I just wanted to give you a really brief overview. Like I said, Charlie hit most of the the talking points. Um, but I will go back to this is the um the first budget reflecting a parks and recck department and in the work uh that department is responsible for. Um, it was a little tricky. I opened up the budget book from last year and Charlie was like, there's parks and wreck monies earmarked on literally like dozens of pages throughout the book. You get to find where they are, where they exist, and pull them in uh onto one page. The other thing I would highlight is um while we're taking line items from parks, trees, and cemeteries, some labor and equipment costs from public works, um some money for turf management and care for miscellaneous city property, um some lines from parks, trees, and cemeteries. We're not completely shutting those budgets down. They still exist. We're just pulling some line items over that it makes sense to have fall under parks and wreck as far as operations, maintenance, and management. Um, as Charlie said, uh, and this is largely a reorganization of those existing resources. Um, there's no increase in spending. It's literally just being classified under a different name. Um, currently, these are just spread across multiple cost centers and departments, making it difficult for us to see what the full picture is. Uh, what does it cost us to maintain our green spaces and our parks? uh not just the labor that goes into them and the equipment that's used in those spaces, but the materials that are being used. Um you know, soil, compost, mulch, all that stuff. How much is it costing us? And and specifically, where does it go? Um Charlie also mentioned the key change is payroll, uh vehicle and equipment costs. Uh those are all directed, uh directly included in this budget. Prior

years, they were spread everywhere. So there's really no indication of how much labor we're paying to maintain Nolton Park, how much time does it take to mow the lawn there, that kind of thing. Um, operationally, the structure will better reflect how work is already being done. Staff, equipment, and responsibilities are shared across three different departments. Currently, we're going to bring that all into one so we can reflect those costs. Um, this budget does not assume a significant expansion of services. Uh it establishes a clear and transparent baseline that will support better planning, budgeting, and decision-making moving forward. Um overall, the approach improves visibility for the council and the public. The positions uh of the department uh hopefully will more effectively manage our assets, pursue funding sources in the future, uh and plan for future needs. And just a small kind of edits that I'd made in here, you know, was Rod's was sort of based on three, brought down to two. Um, we didn't backfill. So, you'll see things like payroll overtime, I didn't fully, you know, I brought 10,000, but, you know, we might need to do some more overtime because we have less people working on things. Um, the pest and disease management, that's the emerald ashbor that I brought. So, that we'll have a larger discussion later. The grant match as well. Um, you know, I know parks and wreck, I think that's having Rody here, having the team, like we're already looking at a variety of grants, you know, um, probably a dozen or so that could be really, um, impactful. It might require some match, but um, I think we should look to, um, potentially bond for that in a future um, future date if it would require significant grant matching. Um, you know, I actually the it brought gasoline down from 15 to 10, I think, across the board. I'm going to reook at gasoline and heat this year with the increases in prices. Um, we also didn't get the solar credits this year. That'll be a consistent theme you'll see with some of

our power overages um that we didn't get some of those solar credits. It's like a dual hit. Um, the solar credits from our renewable energy didn't come in the way they were supposed to. The uh um due to some geopolitical events, the um fossil fuel part of our energies are exploding in costs. Um so it's uh uh gosh um actually to if I don't if you don't mind um just to add to what he's saying um we participate in an annual fuel bid that process has been postponed um by seven weeks

to date because there's so much fluctuation in the markets none of the vendors feel good about entering into that process. Um that's actually supposed to take place next week we hope. Uh typically that takes place uh either the last week in February or the first week in March. You're saying six bucks a gallon by summer? Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm probably gonna be just, you know, work with it Nate as we Although, we don't have the other Nate here anymore. So, I guess we could just call him Nate. Um, he's always going to be it. He's always be it teammate. Um, I think we might just look through the whole budget and just pull out those lines and see if we need to increase him a bit in anticipation. So, um,

the, um, the only other thing I wanted to point out, if you, if you look through some of the pages, the lines, um, one of the things I tried to do with this new budget is, um, be more clear about how how costs are broken down and distributed. Um, you'll notice, um, we have a planting and park maintenance line, and that is covering like all of the park maintenance for every single park. So if you go into the miscellaneous city property and you see Nolton property, those line that that line item is not specifically for the maintenance and upkeep of the lawn in the plantings. That is for the structures at Nolton Park, the bathroom, the light fixtures, what's the electricity, what do we pay for domestic water going through there, the the irrigation system, um stuff like that. So any of the physical assets in property in those properties are reflected in miscellaneous city property while the cost to maintain those spaces as parks is reflected in parks and recreation. You'll also see a couple things. Um it's not in this budget. When we get to facilities, they'll be there on insurance and uh I guess like insurance is here. Um but uh IT services and there's another IT yline you should do or IT subscriptions. Another change for this budget is we we're pulling that out as just a big line item in it and putting them more into each of the departments. said, "Hey, if you have this many subscriptions, this is what your department costs." Just to it's part of our ongoing effort in the budget to try to put the costs by the department within the department so you can see the increases and decreases as opposed to it coming in here. Hey, it's this, but like what what drove that? Um, next year there might be a change keeping employee benefits um, all in one category for this year and K will talk about that later, but next year I do also feel like we're going to insert those in the departments as well so that we can see how employee benefits fluctuates um, from one department to

the next. You'll see that kind of throughout here. Another um another thing that I wanted to point out um in the past the city's paid out nearly $30,000 annually for third-party turf care, turf maintenance for overseating, fertilizing, aeration, uh pesticide, herbicide, insecticide applications. Um we're now set up to do that all in house. Um so there there is actually a cost reduction if you put it all together. Um, we're anticipating paying about half, maybe as much as twothirds to do that same service in house rather than contracting it out. Great. So, we have an employee that's got a master.

We don't. We have a person who's um going to be going after the license. Um, at this point, I'm not going to be putting anything on the ground that you can't buy over the counter with no license whatsoever. Um, if we get to the point where we want to um go that route, we will. Um, we're not there's a lot of liability with that. It's better off to I mean, no. No, if we get if you if you if you're if you're putting herbicides and pesticides out, um you've got to store the materials and you there's a lot of deeprooted laws and rules and when you can and when you can't and who can be on it and when can't.

Essentially, we're just not going to do it. Um the amount of the amount of that type of work was done previously was minimal at best and I just don't think it's necessary. we're not we're not maintaining a world-class golf course.

Um so we don't really need to concern ourselves with that. Um in the event we discover that that's a route we want to explore, there are still people in our vendor list that we can contact to do just that aspect of turf care. I think this was more in the Riley and I noted when some of our analysis of the parks last year um you know gonna buy a bunch of seed this year but u you just go to Nol and other things and just see like it would just been cut to like nothing that might and just dirt spots everywhere and other pieces. So um really having our team here now take care of it, you know, like they take care of their own lawn. You know, if we if you set it up so that your your mowers, your riders are all at 3 in, you'll be fine. That's kind of a little bit experience I had from when I was a supervisor at the cemeteries. Yeah.

Making sure that mowers don't scalp. Yeah. It's not like you're grinding the road, you know. It's not like up sugar golf course, you know. No, not yet. I have a couple questions, Ronnie. Yes. What's the difference between the planting and park maintenance and the beautifification?

So, planting and park maintenance is um for money for um equipment, supplies, resources that would be spread um to be consumed at Demire Field, Nolton Park, um Harbor Park, those types of areas. Beautification is the money that we spend in places that aren't easily identified as a green space or a park. So anything we're doing on Main Street would come out of beautifification. Anything we're doing in the high street corridor would be beautifification. So if it's not and that's to be spread across the city in multiple areas, not any one specific location, but it's separate from what we're doing that would be considered traditional planting and park maintenance.

Excellent. Thank you. And then I have another question about the cemeteries, the veteran flags and the cemetery repair, which I support, but can we not get that? Do we not have a big cemetery reserve fund? Yes. I just curious happy. I wanted to answer that one. You like me to to I have them highlighted on. Perfect. Okay.

So, as the council representative to the cemetery commission, newly formed in the past year. Make sure your understanding is the same as mine. So, this is in the middle of page 454 for those of you following along. within the expenses. There's veterans flags at 3,000, cemetery repair at 5,000. Um, an interesting note on the veterans flags. I met with a gentleman named Fred Erland. You may have heard of him. And one of the things that he's the the Sexton um down in Trenton and I was not aware that the state reimbures municipalities for flags. What the commission needs to do is reach out and do a reconciliation. They will reimburse for the veterans graves they have in their records. So, the commission has been very active in making sure that we're documenting all of the veterans and that they're all getting their flags, but it is feasible um we'll get some of it this year and then reconcile for next year so that all of the flags there's a reimbursement from the state. And I also learned from Mr. Mr. Fred Erlmbbach that um the municipality receives the reimbursement and then it's distributed to the cemetery commission for the cemeteries we oversee and any others um for instance Woodbine is independent if we work with them to get their registry they take care of their veterans the um reimbursement would flow through the city so we need to the commission will get a hold of the um the state and find out what that inventory is and um see about reimbursing that I don't know if by the time we're voting in the budget, we can get that to zero, but we'll do our best to get there. And then secondly, with the cemetery repair, to um councelor White's point, we are getting closer and I hope by the time we're voting on a budget, we um the the commission has been working on this.

There are four active accounts for um that under that are within the cemetery commission and um we're working with Tina Vanadstein and we need to have clear understanding on what the uses are, what the incumbrances are on any of these, but we're talking with the city about anou where the cemetery commission with these funds will be able to reimburse the city for the expenses they've used and catch up from last year because again until we as with the um reserve account in the city until we really know what's here, what the incumbrances are, and what we can use. But it is a significant um it's a million dollars plus $479,000 with the Higgins Trust. And the commission members as volunteers are very conscious of making sure that the funds are only expended in the way that they're intended to do for long-term care of all of these cemeteries. So, it's not a lot, but it's 8,000 in your budget that the commission will be working between now and then see how close we can get that to zero because the commission has the funds and the state reimbures

for some of those funds. So, it's only eight grand, but I'm I'm checking all the couch cushions to see where we can find savings for the city. And this is one place and because they reimburse the cemetery commission, does it does it make sense to put this stuff in the cemetery budget? We need to find out what their inventory is because they'll only reimburse for the number of veterans flags they have recorded in the city. So they need to reach that reach out and and the federal government the federal government reimbures has for eligible certain eligible veterans. We're all veterans but there are certain criteria the

the se VA has on who gets plot allowances. Yeah. I didn't know if it was like the ceme like is this in the cemetery wheelhouse at least in the future potentially. Well, they're working on it now. There's a lot of as with many things we're finding in city government, there's a lot of clean up. Yeah. Yeah. I would keep that here just because like Rody, it's one of the things here for now and we'll see if we can come back with solid numbers before we Well, I meant like the Yeah, the line. Huh. I wonder how we do this as a revenue. Maybe it just nets out as a revenue. It it is one of the things councelor Smith and thank you for I know um since right when I was starting you were already starting to get involved in the cemetery and taking those other pieces.

My first meeting I started in on cemeteries and I was I mean it's sort of an interesting fact maybe a sad fact that the cemeteries in Ellsworth are more capitalized with reserve funds in the entirety of the city. Um, and so and but also I'd noticed that like yeah, we keep spending new taxpayer dollars on something that you know really has enough kickoff funds that should absolutely so I do feel like we can reliably like you know um that's like probably 1% of it's a conversation to have with Tina because she wants to Tina Vanderstein she in her role wants to make absolutely sure okay

that we have that ability. So I I'm talking about you and I and Tina and um the chair of the commission being able to have a conversation so that Tina is comfortable moving that forward. So um I I respect Tina's wanting to make sure that we are taking care of this and the commission all feels that way. This those funds have grown because they've sat there quietly and nobody knew they were there. Yeah. So we have an opportunity to continue to know that the cemeteries are going to be taken care of. So, and I will note that yeah, it's one of the reasons we're kind of putting some of these lines that used to be in those other areas here is just for sort of ease of responsibility of the budget. Like there's clarity in it this way.

Team will do it. They'll, you know, um and we won't take you through all that, but if you go to we kept it in there just this year, but if you go to parks, trees, and cemeteries, like everything's zeroed out. Um but you can see the planting and park maintenance, the um the cemetery repair, the garden club. Now, the garden club is an external organization. So, yes, we keep just trying to make it as easy as possible so that nobody whoever comes in here will be able to read these budgets and be like, "Oh, that's mine for this." As opposed to a treasure hunt,

right? And so, at our April council meeting, when there's the moment for updates from council members for commissions and and committees, I'll have a good update from the uh cemetery commission. and they've been meeting monthly and really getting their hands around the work ahead and prioritizing and moving it forward. Great sign. Yeah, Councelor Smith did a great job explaining that. The one thing that I would add as well with the cemetery repair is the state also reimburses certain repairs for any cemetery that has graves of veterans in it. So, the cemetery repair is also reimburseable by the state. Okay. Look at those early box. They know they're

well and it's Yeah. question. Um, professional services is that does that include the turf people and the mowing people that you said the stuff was going to be done in house now? Um, no. What's a professional service? Um, professional service is any contracted service that we're not providing ourselves. Like if we did use those people, that's where it would come from. My my answer of no is that's not where that was accounted for previously. Okay. Yeah. But if Yeah. If we did if we did hire somebody to do that, they'd bring Okay,

that's where it would happen. If we had like somebody there was a like modern pest, we could get them in to do a service at the Milton Park if there were mice in the bathroom or something like that. It's a contracted third party service. some of our like open gov uh so Rodia I think they're in this asset management piece which will be the first kind of significant department to start managing their asset through a digital platform of uh labor distribution you know doing GIS maps of all of our assets park opening plans so that um so that's that's going in there this year and um looking forward to previewing that with the council it's like when you see a modern city like management digital systems like Oh, that's how you keep track of how to open every park and it's not just in somebody's head.

I'm simultaneously working on implementation from Open Gov and Civic Plus, which is specifically a recreation management software platform. So, the last two weeks have been very intense. Any other questions for Rody or on this aspect, the recreation budget? I think's also got some facilities. We're ready to move on to that. I just wanted to touch on the tiff revenue. That's just where this is where we're going to allocate some of the current tiff.

Yes. We kind of had we talked with Twi um you know and one of the things that in the discussions with Reagan and the consultant was just that the city is um you know eligible for TIFF in some of these areas that um and we had some uh pretty significant amount of undesated surplus. We haven't used all of it. There's Sarah's probably going to be coming back to apply some of it to the Bayside road um as a big grant match and debt service there so we can do that road piece. But um that's one of the things that there's you know we ideally we'd be putting more into those areas but there's a lot of economic development adjacent activities from our Rodney calls it uh reconomics um so certain areas like this uh finance that does a ton of work on the tiff assessing um and there's a couple other areas that you know have a a small item planning um as well that helps reduce as we mentioned during that tiff cycle it's 59 cents of the dollar to use that those types of funds that we have surplus. Um, you know, it's we're not adding anything new. We're really just subsidizing that category. So, that's a better value for the taxpayer.

Great. Uh, question Rody, you've got sub departments within your budget. Are you going to go through those or just make a mention? Yeah. Um, just for clarity, I'll just start by explaining what each one of those contains. Obviously, the one for city hall is city hall. Um, but so you're moving on to facilities. I'm still in parks and wreck. Oh, sorry.

Um, so I have a question for you related to the budget for the harbor. We had one food truck who has now got his um bricks and mortar um space. What is the plan and how does it impact the budget trucks at Harbor Park? We um put out an RFP um earlier in the spring uh for a new vendor um that I believe closes the first week of May. Um we haven't had any responses yet, but typically you don't get a response from anybody until the due date.

Um so um if I remember correctly, the contract with Salsa Shack was $600 a month for what we would consider rent. Um, and it's it's basically broken down in the proposal in the RFP. The the vendor basically demonstrates how much they're willing to pay for quote unquote rent. Um, it's not a price that we put out there. Um, it's up to the vendors to come back to us and say what they're willing to pay based on how much they anticipate making for profit. And that's take into into account when we score the RFPs. Okay. And where will that show up as revenue in Harbor? I I see harbor park

miscellaneous property rent. There's a harbor property rent or park rent, I believe, is where it should show up. Ashley better than it's the third one up from the bottom of the revenue. Thank you. We did harbor the last meeting, right? We did two weeks. Yeah. Two meetings ago, we talked about all of the subs, the commissions and the harbor. So, the harbor was a commission. Okay. I'm happy to talk about it whenever you'd like though. Top of mine because it's right here. So, Thank you. Okay. Are we Rod's also our harbor master, I should note. And that was one of the other things I do, as much as they tried to push that off by hiring a new one.

Yeah, I do think, as I mentioned before, some people call Ellsworth, you know, one of our union presidents that Ellsworth is a slasher city. Um, there's some folks that just say, "Wow, there's just so many people in this and that." And it's like, "Yep, our tax collector is also our city clerk. Our public works director is also our wastewater superintendent. Our parks and recck director is also our harbor master, our facilities director. Um, you know, so they uh people hold a lot of hats in each of the departments. Harbor master gets a cool like captain hat. Admirals. Admirals. I got on my hand. So, okay. Um, so I think we're good to move on to facilities if that works for you. Yep.

Um, yeah. So, as I was beginning to state before I we were pulled back to wreck, um so um the city hall budget is accurately, you know, cover city hall, uh miscellaneous city properties are, um cost of operations for the the buildings and the infrastructure for Nolton Park, Deerfield, Simmons Pond, Pump Station Point, uh the North Ellsworth Tower, and I think that's all of them. Um the new one as of this year is titled outside facilities and that uh is almost specific almost um exclusively the Moore Center. Uh we thought it was important to break that out and kind of have its own budget because it has revenue lines as well as expense lines and there was talk I don't know um if it's going to be I don't I don't believe it's reflected this year but as we move forward with there's possibility that the cost of operation would be brought into that budget as well. So when you're talking about more center, is that page 515?

I'm sorry. Say that again. More center. I'm trying to follow what you're saying. 520. So what is 515 the total miscellaneous properties, right? But it goes on for pages. Do we want to start with just facilities? Maybe 510 and then we can go through each of those pages. Just I want as he's giving us the summary, I'm trying to follow it in the budget and it's not going well. So if we start with facilities at 510. Yep. City Hall.

City Hall. And I should note tier two again, you'll see like, wow, that's a big increase over the previous year. Well, insurance is $70,000 on that. We've been paying insurance in this this building, but now we're putting it into the uh um the facility that is holding the you know, that's the insurance for this building. the um I I believe the only significant cost in increase here that I'm aware of is the building maintenance line. Uh we were funded at 30,000 this year and we've already exceeded twice that with unforeseen uh maintenance expenses. Um we had uh I'm trying to remember the exact word of what they called it. It was an environmental assessment of the inside that discovered some mold downstairs in the fire department in the U mechanical rooms. um that added I think about somewhere between 10 and $14,000 um that was not budgeted for previously. Um we have some other repairs and expenses um that have come up. So um just to try to get ahead of that a little bit um I increase that number from 30 to 50 um just to reflect the last three years actuals. Um and that still if we average everything out puts us barely where we need to be to cover um maintenance on the building. not taking into consideration the increase of goods and services that were we've already mentioned. So

yeah, there's really not a lot of there I don't think there's any city manager adjustments here already. Nailed it on this one.

Well, except for tuition reimbursement. Um that brought that to zero. That is a program the city offers. It's also a TIFF eligible fund. Um it's actually it's built into our our TIFFs for Ellsworth residents have this. We do have a few departments that utilize it. Rody kind of put it in there like hey we might want to utilize this for for me that's you and we gota be probably a little better with the staff too that's really more of a hey you've been approved for the program you've applied for it we've discussed it as a city manager with the department heads and others it's not like a you know the training funds that can be like that hey we should do some training sign up for these courses but the tuition reimbursement is really a more of a defined process um so that's it was a small pull down but um in the future I know Rodney's got some talked about it with some of the landscaping things um in some of the training budget areas, but in the future, you know, it isn't eligible. We get employees to stay around for a little while. The city's had some turnover issues in the past, so um it's a good program, but it really needs to be for a defined city use over a long period of time. A little bit more of a commitment there. Yep. The um the other change um was the increase in the vehicle lease line. Um we began leasing um a new vehicle for facilities this past year when we brought on the new uh facilities assistant position. Uh currently we have a 2019 Silverado with less than 100,000 miles on it. Um that increase is reflecting my intention to trade that in before it loses more of its value um and to enter into a lease to replace that vehicle. I I brought that down um just because we're in sort of a no new leases, but um you know, I actually think at the 10,000 level with the tradein value um it'll still probably net out and I have talked to Enterprise uh a bit about that program and um I I still think it would be at 10,000 for this year. It would go up to 16,000 probably next year. Um but uh that's we've had a I think discussion

with this council too on the general lease program and you gosh you see it with maintenance costs and gas. There's um you know having vehicles that are more gas efficient um and more of a a stable lease cost for things has been helping the city. So um I still think we could stick at 10,000 and maybe still do that switch riding. We're freeing up a fire truck if you'd like to use. I think my I think my staff would have to pursue some additional licensing requirements. And we just cut the training. So that's out.

Shall we go to miscellaneous 15? Um Yeah. So, um, for this one, it's a lot of reductions. Um, the, um, Nolton property reflects some some works, some work we're looking to do, um, for the infrastructure there. Um, this actually came up in our capital improvement planning project the other day. I don't know if you're aware, but the only sign in Nolton Park that addresses rules of engagement for that park and how it's supposed to be used is an 8 and 1 half by 11 piece of printer paper that's laminated and taped to the side of the bathroom wall.

There we go. So, um, we're looking to do better there. Uh, because you really can't enforce rules if you haven't made anybody aware of what the rules are.

Um, yeah. And again, this is just reflecting what it costs us to um to maintain and operate uh the buildings around town. Um Pump House Point, Simmons Pond, North Ellsworth Tower. Um those are all the cost of insurance, heat, electricity. That's that's pretty much it. Um SK Whiting Park has a a little bit in here. Um and that would be basically maintenance on the clock if anything were to happen to the clock. And there's a couple small edits I made. Um, we pulled the Norton Park capital off um from 50 to zero and that's going to go into Sarah's capital improvement planning uh discussion. So, we'll keep any kind of capital changes there. Uh, we're a little under on some of those areas. You know, as I mentioned previously, Nolton was in tough shape. That's why teams have a great job on it. We were going to hopefully add an asset. I know we talked about that recently uh to save funds. One of the reasons and I think the news story was a little bit um misleading a bit about this um you know and Rody's you know as he mentioned before to save some funds in this category. were on overages on some other areas. Um, and kind of freezing things and like one of those these issues is actually like we prefunded the parks and recck department by 49,500 knowing that we wanted to get a parks and recck director but we didn't move forward with the parks and rec director and FY25 FY26 you know we put 49,500 for um Rody Sally but the way the budget works is like that 495 from the previous year is in the general fund. it doesn't care. Only capital things carry over. So, we're under like we only budgeted 495 of what really should have been around a $90,000 budget in that category. So, a lot of the reasons that we're holding back on this is, you know, we're um we're just looking at a tough budget cycle with some increases and everything's freezing and areas like that where we can hold off. That's what

we're doing. Um, you know, I hate to hate to do it. I want to invest more in our parks and and places, but we, you know, we gota maintain our own, which you didn't think I wasn't gonna bring it up, did you? Is there any money in any of these requests to deal with the carving on the wall on the outside of the building? So, um, we are still working with University of Main Orno. Um we're I believe if we do move forward with it this year, it'll come out of capital projects. Um it's

the frustration I'm having right now is uh we do scans of the seal and send it up there for them to create a mesh and it always comes back that it's not accurate and detailed enough. So I've asked them like can come we we'll get a man lift. You can go up and you can scan it. and they were like, "Well, it'd be great if you could bring it to the ground for me and we could just scan it on the ground." We knew that three years ago. Yeah. And recommended that.

Yeah. So, my my concern is until we have a plan to replace it, I really don't want to leave that space empty. Um, and when we take it down, I would love to be able to put the replacement up at the same time because to do that, we're going to be contracting out with a crane service and there's a mobilization fee and a per hour fee and having them come here twice to do what could be done in a phased project on the same day would be. And when do you anticipate that happening?

Um, I'm hoping we can get them here um in the next few weeks to complete the scan and then they'll present us with a couple of options on how we can go about printing something. um until we know the details of the scan, they really they have they've given me like three or four different options of how to go about doing it, but they can't tell me which one is going to be the most cost-effective until they have that scan. So, okay, the um that should come up in the capital improvement planning portion of the budget. And do you have a plan yet for where the wreck coming off the wall is going to go? I would um default to the Historic Preservation Commission. I would default to the Historic Preservation Commission on what their wishes would be with what should what we should do with it.

You're serious? Yes. That's very nice of you. Um let's just leave it there for now. Yeah, I think we'd have to get a storage unit for the near term on it. Um the judiciary didn't seem interested in it in their new courthouse building. Um, but I don't uh the school might be able to have a place for it to um for an interior space, but um we can we'll keep it under discussion. Anything else? Um on miscellaneous or

I just wanted to know what the north Elsworth Tower was. If you go by the north end of Red Bridge Road, I think it is in North Ellsworth. So by the church, there's the the wood the firewood place on the left and immediately across the road is the North Ellsworth tower. Um and that is as far as I know communications tower, right? Oh, okay. That's okay. Thanks. Anything else? All right. Outside facilities.

Nope. This is um uh outside facilities as I said is um for the purposes of this budget exclusively the Moore Center. Um these figures were all derived off of the numbers um that we came up with when we were uh in the terms of creating the new lease structure that went into effect on January 1. So this is all um numbers that were approved by city council when we moved forward and executed that lease. Um this will uh under the lease agreement um all of the expenses here. Um we basically will give a report of those to the uh to the tenants, the long-term tenants there. Um and their costs for commonary maintenance and um building maintenance and all of that um will fluctuate based on what the average of the past three year actuals were. So, this will go up and down with the cost of what it costs us to maintain that building. No changes here as well. I think this one in some ways is going to this is going to be a year to monitor this. This is our first year fully owning um operations and maintenance of that building. Um and we'll uh we'll see how these hold up to actuals and revenue projections, etc. And can I say it?

Yeah, you can say it. Um, so, uh, this is really exciting for me personally. It's like a little checkbox. Um, at the end of the first quarter of 2026, the more center is budget positive. So, we were bringing in more money from the tenants and the short-term rentals and what it costs us to own the building. Fabulous. Where are you putting the debt? Huh? What about the $27,000 a month payment on the debt service? Yeah. That I That's not included in here. I know.

Good job. Thank you. Great. Shall we switch to police? Anything else for good? All right, let's do it. Thank you, Rowdy. Thank you. Thanks, Ronnie. As we're shifting, I think the clarity of having a parks and recck department is really helpful. Yes, great. Yeah. I know Tabitha, you um it's one of the first things we talked about at the arbor commission meeting, I think before your council. It's just like Mhm.

Yeah. There's parks stuff here, there's stuff here, there's trees here, there's like, oh my goodness, that was crazy. public safety.

Okay, we are on to police and we have chief. Yeah. And I should note, sorry, let me um at the top end here, um we've got a few I think budget positive errors um that came from the uh the city manager report um or the city manager recommendation from the police recommendation. Um, so just to uh so in the cruiser lease uh you know it was it said it was at 164. It's actually at 153. Um after talking with the um

so if I'm sorry it's really helpful if you tell us where you are so I don't spend time looking. So this is page 206. 206 halfway up cruise release. Correct. I just if I'm going to update the book, I need to know where we are.

And so it was uh it was a little bit high on where it was at. I thought that was for new leases as opposed to the current kind of some of the older vehicles were sort of coming to retirement and just swapping into a lease. So I think uh the the cruise lease at 164 uh the the requests for the department for 75,000 for cruiser equipment is at 75,000 should be updated to 64 as well. Um the capital outlay was um should be updated to 81,000. Um, and there and so there was a few discrepancies in here that were kind of I I pulled back down on um and like the capital outlay account. We really should change the name on that. That's really not like a capital request. That's just for the Axon contract and the Motorola contract um for vehicle and other things. It's not like they're doing some new capital thing. It's just really a service um contract. Um so we're we're going to keep that where it's at. And uh to be honest, there's really no no discrepancies between what the police and the city manager report uh following that conversation. They there's no new staffing request. Uh the police as always run a good ship with um how much detail and work they put in their budgets. There was some small mistakes we kind of found out after the manager recommendation. It came back. So I I apologize for that. I um thought about printing out a whole new sections here. But um it is budget positive I think by about $40,000. So, um, and there's really not a lot of new in here, but

So, what was it just on the cruiser lease, Charlie, what did you have for final number? Uh, cruiser, um, 153712. Okay.

And again, that was kind of my mistake. I thought that there was new vehicles being added, but it's really just this on the current plan to swap the the aged ones out. Um, so we don't have a a big unexpected cost. So, With that, I'll send it over to the chief. Right. Um, thanks everybody for having me. Um, I just like to I'm just going to quickly go over um I just like to say, you know, the deputy chief did a lot of work on this um getting these numbers um so I could come up here and give these to you. Um, so we've gone over this both of us several times and I think we finally got it rolled in and I just wanted to So first of all is a payroll budget um which is all contractual. Uh the payroll uh budget would be up 7 7.9% this time up 164,627 and again that's all through the CBA contract. Um our overall operational budget um operating budget is actually down 5.44% which in dollar amounts for is uh 42,788. Um so our total revenues was 62,500. Um so new for 27 we have added into our budget we have uh IT subscriptions and IT services um 19,000 for the subscript 19,341 for subscriptions and IT services was $18949. Um so our overall 27 budget um increase without the new IT subscriptions was up 4.32% uh 121,000 to 339

and with the new IT services increases up to 5.68% at 159 629. Um so you know in the end I think we've done done pretty well keeping our budget down. uh operate within our cost of our budget and I don't see that it wouldn't happen.

Chief, um when you say the understanding payroll is all contractual, does that include overtime? Is that that's contractual as well? Yeah. So that number you said was full was everything including time. Okay. And to confirm, is this this is keeping staffing at the same level? Yes, we didn't uh we didn't put in for any new staff this year. Say not that they don't need it, let's say. Yeah.

Um all staff were pretty cognizant of that. I know. Um you know, I'm very thankful to the teams. It was kind of a a team effort looking at things just seeing with the $400,000 odd dollars that we need increase in debt service on roads that we've already paved. Um you know Carrie will talk a little bit more about employee benefit increases, collective bargaining agreements across the board. Um just you know we really try to be as close to a maintenance budget on current investments as possible and um you know even with that we're overly 7%. So thank you very much to everybody. It's not necessarily they don't have a request they don't need it. you see the service call volume

um with the police department. I'd also note that uh when I first arrived uh a lot of the departmental budgets were on Microsoft Word documents and all over the place and you could tell especially police and fire um you know they are very good stewards of the public dollar and um my first meeting with Sean and Troy they brought in I think it was their first budget too but you could just see on like how much um care and thought they put into all these things they made sure they arranged multiple pre meetings with me um they flagged immediately when We put the online budget on some of the mistakes. They really are in here all the time and um are always keeping things keeping things together.

Yeah. Unfortunately, there's always a curveball that comes out throughout the year that we just have to deal with as we go. But in general, I think our budget's usually pretty much on based off last year's budget. It's nice seeing the sign up. What's that? The sign. It's nice to see the sign up for sure. Yeah. Thanks. Seeing that in last year's budget, so it was exciting. Took a while to get that going. Seen it in person. It looks good in person. So, how many cruises are we leasing? 12. 12.

And how many do we own? And is the any specialty cruisers? Yes. H we have specialty cruisers. Yeah. Any special function cruisers?

Yeah, we have some that are set up for the drone pilots. We have a K9 vehicle. We have one that's assigned the mental health worker. Yes, we have uh uh two vehicles that are set up for the uh drone pilots. We have a K9 vehicle. Uh we have two that are set up for the detective with all their equipment in them. Uh we have one that is set up uh for the AMHC mental health worker that we have. And those are in leased vehicles or they owned.

Uh some are leased and some are owned. And following up on councelor Sha's questions, is the I think is the intent eventually that it will be fully leased fleet or are there some vehicles that the department would want to own? No, the intent is that it will be fully leased and um in fall of 28 we will start turning in vehicles and start seeing um the money coming back in uh because we will have actually had vehicles five years. That's how long we we lease them for. So we'll start seeing the return come back in 2028 which would be FY29.

And we'll have a further discussion on that in capital I think or on continuing that lease switch over so that it goes from a very highly variable cost um in the budget to a predictable lease cost. We've started a lot of that over the last two years. U chair lines and I think we've had two or three presentations. Um there's been a significant amount of cities actually who have um begun joining in this program uh as well. So it's been working out well. I also um as we expand it further and we've as we've done in some of the other public works and uh code I believe um we also want to start potentially adding some um uh transponder type uh things. The police already have all of them. And we can put in all of our other vehicles to know and make sure people's seatelts are always on. Um uh we, you know, uh to monitor um mileage immediately, uh fuel, all kinds of other things that'll be really important. We talk to the police if there was ever an accident in one of our vehicles. We'll have pretty um extensive data on those accidents. So really just getting and obviously location tracking on where any of our vehicles would go. I think uh that we'll talk about that more in capital, but as we continue this lease project, I want to make sure that um you know, we just have better monitoring of all the vehicle usage or reportage so we can say, hey, that one's really not getting a lot of use. Um you know, where else it's going to be better. I think that was one of the other surprising things arriving. We have this huge what they call it rolling stock in terms of your capital assets. We had an incredible amount of rolling stock that was just, you know, never knew and five vehicles totally uninspectable. um rusted out and hey, what do you want to do? You want to replace all these right now? And sort of internal policy just to keep driving uninspectable vehicles. Um but we can't do that. It's a big liability. We had an accident with a um a public works truck getting t-boned and I shudder to think if that happened and it was a uninspectable one

of our lease vehicles. an uninspectable, unsafe vehicle. Could have been a much worse situation if we didn't have um you know this lease vehicle that's safe and fortunately there was a very minor injuries, but that would have been an enormous financial liability for the city if we would have allowed um those sort of prior practices to happen. So, uh it's been a good program, but we'll talk more about it at the um the council side of things. The reason why I'm asking that you know the certain departments you got to have certain specialty vehicles for certain situations. Okay. Now obviously the canine vehicle that's uh you got two officers in one walks on four legs hopefully. So that's a special vehicle and if that's leased that's okay. If we own it but it doesn't matter that if it's leased good.

We we do own it and that's getting replaced this year because it's got 106,000 miles on. Mhm. That's that's the plan. So good. Um you know um and I'm pretty sure if you needed to lease pickup trucks, you could do that if you needed to. Yeah, because sometimes you can't carry enough cones and barriers and stuff to

question about I mean back to Charlie's comment about how it's in all likelihood gasolines could be more expensive than potentially budgeted in here. Um but on that note, am I correct that we you guys have an account with certain vendors for gasoline and that's where you fill up? I'm just Yeah, we use uh what's called the wex fuel system. Um it's a through source well uh it reports to enterprise so they monitor everything and we get the whole city get as a whole gets a certain percentage off. So it's the whole city not just

the whole the whole city is on that uh same fuel service. allows us to get fuel wherever we can, whoever we need to. Um, so that is monitored there. And, uh, our fuel budget, I think, is 55,000 and has been pretty spot on here the last few years.

I wish that's what mine was. Well, come on now. That Volkswagen you got runs on the temple full of fuel. Uh any other questions about the big ones? Any other questions for the chief or deputy chief on uh this on the police budget before we move to dispatch? Seeing none. Uh that's right. Thank you. Uh chief dispatch. um dispatch budget is uh really

which is 223. Thank you. 226.

So our dispatch budget is pretty um pretty standard. We go run down through it again. Any most of the increases on the dispatch are all contractual with um payroll. Um again we've added IT services and IT subscriptions into that which increased it um oh from the overall budget was 526 220 and with the new line items it increased it to 54580. Um, so but uh nothing nothing real new in dispatch. We are we still have our position that you gave us last year that we're working on filling. Um so that that position's something we're going to be working on pretty soon. We just got um one of our guys filling in there part-time right now. So

does this budget reflect full that hire that full-time employee? Yes.

Yeah. No, no changes here. It's easy when there's no new requests. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this dispatch cover this budget cover more than just the police department? Well, dispatch, our dispatchers cover uh cover for the fire department, uh water department. Yeah. Any any of the stuff in the city needs to be dispatched.

So, they also get like a lot of almost 311 type calls as well. We have a fix it system that's more and more utilized than our Docker system, but um they're always they seem to be kind of command central with a lot of those. Hey, there's a pothole here. There's a this here. Any other questions for the chief on dispatch budget? Thank you. Seeing none, thank you guys. Yep. Thank you. We will dispatch you from the R I ch there.

Okay. Fire. I didn't say not. There's not a fire. Thank you. And we're not firing anyone. Yes. We're not firing anyone. uh Chief Gillo and we are on page 231 which is really 234

chief. How are you? Um, so one item to note, uh, before I dig down really deep, uh, there was a line that I had requested to be added to the budget, uh, out of vehicle and equipment maintenance, and I wanted to split those into a vehicle line and equipment maintenance line, uh, more so for better tracking on my part. In the budget, when it was put online, it only reflected the equipment line with what I had budgeted for, pardon me, what I had budgeted for the vehicle line. So, it shows I dropped $15,000 out of that line that was supposed to be added into the new line, which was never reflected in in the uh online budget. Um, and I had worked with I had worked with finance earlier this spring uh and put in a request to make that line change. So, there should be $15,000 that should be allocated to an equipment repair line. So just to clarify, chief, so there is there an equipment repair line or that you would

So currently if you go down through the 5.1065, which is the vehicle and equipment maintenance, I believe shows you $65,000. Yeah, that's supposed to be split and there should actually be an equipment line that should reflect $15,000. Okay. In addition to the 65, correct? Last year's budget. I I basically I didn't do any increases moving from last year to this year between vehicle and equipment maintenance. I just moved them across and then split them. That's all I did. So, this will be up by about 15,000 when we do the correct. Correct. We'll we'll actually put that in the change log and we'll get it in there.

Um, as far as the oper I'm going to go backwards. So, as far as the operations budget, I did everything possible to keep the operations budget at status quo. Um, there is actually some lines that I reduced. Uh, I think overall I wound up with a negative 2% increase on my operation side. Um, that being said, my my personnel costs went up considerably and most of that is directly related to overtime within the fire department. There is no new request for full-time firefighters this year. None. Uh the full-time the full-time line is strictly the contracted amount for the 4% increase that they're allotted this year. The remaining is the adjustments in the overtime. Uh I've gone back through the past three or so years worth of overtime and we've been considerably over every single year because of the overtime between uh emergency call backs, sickness, vacation time, uh injuries, military duty, and it's really really hit our overtime budget. Uh so what I've done is really taken that and reflected it into this coming year. uh what our real overtime should be. The only other item that you will see that had a pardon me a large increase was overtime training. Uh the reason for that is by contract um new hires are supposed to go to training within 3 years for advanced EMT training. I have three firefighters that coming up on their end time that they have to go through this training by contract. So that's why the overtime training line is increased. Um the cost of those programs we'll be able to absorb through our regular uh training line uh and workforce development

and chief that's because they have to work a full-time shifts. Correct. Training is an addition and they get if they go if they're not on duty and they're in training they're paid they're paid while they're in training and that's contractual. that's contractual.

And just to kind of broaden out a bit too, I know this is one of our bigger increases as the chief has mentioned, there's this is really just reflecting the collective bargaining increases which are contractual. We can't edit those down. Um nor should we. They're um the firefighters do an incredible job and um they are worth every penny. Um, I'd also note that, you know, the uh a lot of the change and increase u and I've talked about this in previous budget cycles when I did like a five-year look back um has been you know in large measure two uh pretty significant increases in the public safety departments um and really a good bulk in fire. I think you go from 12 to 20 firefighters over the last six or seven years. But that's not just you yes call volume. you can see the call volume, but it's also we switched to a full-time ambulance service um and advanced life support capabilities. Uh so it's, you know, it's really uh um due to some service disruptions. I believe uh chief and previous counselors have been uh given full presentations on kind of what that shift uh has meant. And it's, you know, it's a significant cost increase uh uh to the city, but also as I've talked about before, this is best-in-class uh EMS services here in in the city of Ellsworth. Um and uh it's uh very worth it. And I think, you know, Scott, this last year we added an additional two firefighters. I think that's kind of the piece of this too. There was last year we added a I think a one and a half firefighters. So this year we're actually adding the other half. we're not adding an employee, but they, you know, they staggered six months in before they hired. Same thing with police. You heard about, you know, we're going to hire a dispatcher at this time, so it's only half a dispatcher, but you know, when you hire that half, it becomes a full in the next cycle. So, this this year we're actually in some ways we're, you know, we're going from a we're adding a half police officer, we're adding a half firefighter. Um but uh as Scott knife talked that's that really completes the shift right from

four to on this puts all all four shifts at five personnel. So this year we'll actually be able to have true data with all four shifts fully staffed um and what you know future uh overtime costs are going to be related to having full staffing. Um and that's what we've been working towards right by five. Yes. currently. Yes. Yeah. I think there's been one and a half added each year. Yeah. Um for the last three or four years and then I think this year too like well this is now that we're fully there we're going to

um stick at this manpower level and then really analyze like is you know the costs here. I think some ways this is kind of like the parks and recck department and just this will be the first full year for FY. I think there was a military leave. Of course, police have had this issue too with you never know.

I'm about to lose one person here June 1st for uh extended deployment. So, could be six to nine months before we see him back. I've got two guys out on injury that are long-term injuries. So, it could be 6 months before I see them back. So, okay. Any questions from the chief on the fire budget?

Next year you'll have a debt service line.

Is Carrie here? Carrie just stepped out. Just stepped out real quick. I was about to say she waited all this time. I think we can if the council's okay with it. I think we can get public fire protection. Oh yes. Got to talk hydrant. That's all. That's all. Charlie, Charlie, you want to do that? Thanks. Come on, Scott. Can't you keep that? Well, he can't retrieve one anymore. So, we need to give him this one. Good night. Look at him run. Look at him run. Wouldn't Wouldn't you if you could, Ted? Yeah. Um, public fire protection. One of those fun ones. 247 200 or 249 is probably the page we'll talk about. 250

250 sure. It's only one line item. So 249 and 250 are kind of the same on this one. Um this one's up 13%. It's around $60,000 increase to the city. This is just another one of those fun ones that you start off in the hole adding nothing new just for the force you currently have. This one is part of the um you know the public fire protection budget. There's a requirement that the city

own 30% of the cost of the water um and fire system. The city had because we'd had so much growth in the city. The city was actually much lower than that. But we're trying to prepare for some new debt service on the new $20 million plus water treatment plant which is at max capacity now. Couldn't come sooner. We've got a whole range of um grants and uh very low interest road loans that we've pulled together for this, but we don't want to just have a big spike. Actually, I just saw in Bar Harbor, they had a 30% plus spike in a single year. PC didn't like that either. No. Although they kind of did the residency.

They kind of approved that I think though like there was a process. They had a consultant,

but yeah, then they kind now they're looking into it more. So, we're at like a 7% increase I believe. Um but it's a you know it's a 13% for us because we don't just get a 7% like all the customers once you do the rate um case you have to immediately go up to your 30% again. So um the clock kind of starts over. So this year we're you know uh we're a $60,000 increase. We're not getting anything new for it. It's just um kind of a regulatory thing and we're, you know, we're so sucking away money um paying the water department our fair share um as as a major payer and um holding that whole system and helping the water department prepare for that debt service that's going to be on those um $20 million and uh upgrades that treatment supply. So hoping to keep kind of a seven, then I think we go back to a one and a half and then a seven um so we don't have that huge spike once the debt service starts here. So, that's it for that one. Um,

and now we can go to Carrie with uh, we're going to make it, Carrie. Yay. Uh, page 151. 154 has the budget breakdown. Maybe a process edit for next year. Ashley, we'll do the pages as like the detail page. You could do a range and then you can do a range. Well, even I mean the starting point is great when we're digging into line items. That's when I want to know like what page are you on so I can and I will say in terms of processes, you know, we'll wait till the we get through these things, but we've had much less previous years on thus far anyways. So,

okay, good evening. Carrie Taylor, HR manager. Um, so the HR budget's pretty straightforward. Um we are not proposing any new initiatives, no staffing changes, no significant increases for uh FY27. Um with the manager adjustments, overall budget is actually less than FY26. Um this budget just supports the day-to-day operations of the department payroll um and our payroll services uh for paychecks, our payroll company. Um and just overall the budget is pretty steady steady and consistent for the upcoming year. Um just focusing on supporting the department, maintaining compliance, managing collective bargaining agreements, and helping other departments with recruitment and retention across the city. You actually know my only manager change. I hated to do it. Um but I dropped the professional development uh which is really all of our leadership training that we've been doing the last couple years um from 35 to 15. Hated to do it for two reasons. one is I think um management training you know which is is pretty consistent in a lot of our other um like our public safety departments but really was absent from the city um and a big uh I always say you know culture eats strategy for lunch every single day uh and if you don't have a good culture in your teams um you know people are policy you won't accomplish anything um but we've come a long way over the last couple years uh we've got a great culture um trying to do best-in-class services really anchored in purpose and how incredible able these jobs are to do missiondriven work um taking per personal responsibility across departments for the success of the organization. We're doing a lot better. Second reason I hate to cut this back um is it's alon grant eligible. So when you you you know you spend 20,000 on it and then you get half of it as like back you know so it's

really all of these things are like a guaranteed grant of a 50% match. Um, so just to me there's like actually a big reason to keep the gas on good leadership training across the board because it comes with such big match. But we, you know, we kind of train the trainers too. Uh, Carrie and Lena um have got an incredible amount from a lot of our leadership training. They've been taking state of Maine leadership training. Twilight economic development was in the leadership Maine class this year. Um, there's other opportunities for that. Um Carrie and uh and Sarah the deputy went uh we got a Libra Foundation grant for them to attend the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's adaptive leadership program uh fully paid and we'll going to keep applying for that program. Hopefully our um HR specialist this year and uh we're thinking about our public works director attending that program. So we'll be able to keep sending cohorts into some additional leadership trainings both in the state of Maine and externally and get it funded through grants um in future years. you know, um, and but having Carrie and Lena too, they they're doing the trainings internally. I mean, we our management meetings, other offerings, uh, they really kind of have the knowledge base and, uh, the resources, I think, to kind of lead culture internally in ways that don't really require as many external resources going forward. So, that was the big change here. Um, everything else was pretty much the same.

Is legal the other one that's uh, note? Yes.

Um, One of the big changes from last year that we made was they just used to be a bulk legal item across the board for the city which has been increasing. You heard that from the school department. Their legal costs are increasing pretty substantially. Um I uh so last year, you know, I wanted to get better visibility into like what departments are triggering more legal so we can more appropriately budget. I feel like that's you probably recognize it across the board here. If it's just one big bucket of money, you know, it just seems like, okay, okay, there's an overrun. But if it's in the departments itself, it's like, oh my gosh, you've got a overrun. Why? Like a little bit more. There might be a good reason. This last year was we just took the big bucket of legal and then said, hey, 2,000 here, 5,000 here with really not, you know, um, a lot of guides. Now we actually have actuals, um, HR, as you can imagine. was one of the the larger uh legal items as as many we probably as the whole appropriation needed to budget a little more so we put that in here. City council as well. City council requested items oftentimes trigger um legal input and a variety of things. Um code also has a lot of these things. uh you know we just um there's they but at least we can track it going forward as to which departments have and then conversely some like economic development didn't use any legal like a lot of the smaller ones we can just maybe get rid of

I don't know what the total number is that we're spending on legal every year but to have the conversation have we looked into um the cost difference of having in-house legal versus contracting legal Um, yeah, I think we'll we'll pull that out to get that full number. I think maybe Ashley, let's pull that out as like a a larger conversation. I think it's twofold. One is I've also reached out to our legal firm on a new contract arrangement that could maybe have a maximum and then um you know, there's basically a different rate once you hit that maximum to move forward. You know, some things are just unavoidable. You have to have legal or else we could have an enormous consequences. Um we're currently in a lawsuit with Mean Organics. that's not necessarily anticipated, but you know, we need to um fund those types of activities. Even last year, it was close to being able to have it in-house council. Um there's two issues of that. Patrick will probably um one is if more cities and towns start doing that, the Patricks of the worlds will be out of business. But um no,

we'll be okay. You'll be all right. Um lots to do. But I think, you know, the town,

you you really need to be like and and we could do an analysis here like, you know, we could get a a pretty reasonable royal, I think, for that, but you're still going to be going to have to contract out for some of your bigger lawsuits, your other pieces. At the same time, there's also a huge benefit in having just in-house counsel on every single thing. the what we had today with the school like you know uh the budget resolutions and having those pieces hey just having and all the state agencies I've worked with um before just having in-house counsel um it's just you know having that so the vast majority of things we are we do in that regard are just you need somebody with the time to do that and to like manage the legal flow of things we we're doing some operational organizational pieces and we have legal as like a report. Um, but you know, every when you have it kind of going through each department and they're working on things like you really don't have somebody internally who's looking holistically at all of your legal activities. So, you really from a budget perspective, it's have you reached that point where you could hire somebody. Maybe it's a new lawyer that I think most new lawyers for the 90% of the stuff we could do is really just a ton of deep research on ordinances and other things. And then 10% needs a lot more expertise or else you're going to be in an enormous amount of trouble. And if that did person didn't have decades of experience, we're still going to have to go out. Um, and when I say 10%, I mean like of the day-to-day activities like not 10% of the cost. That could be 60% of the cost, 100% of the cost for that. So, I don't know, Patrick, what do you what are your thoughts?

Well, I think yeah, I mean, in an ideal world, the city would have an in-house attorney on staff that's integrated with the teams. Um I you know but then the the flip side is you know the cost right but also um you're always going to end up having to need to contract with some but in Maine there's not a lot of communities have full-time um in-house legal council. I mean I'm only aware of three um yeah Portland, Lewon, Bangor. I I don't know of any other towns that have a full-time staff attorney. Um,

and that's just like one attorney for those cities. Those cities I think have two. Yeah. I mean, I think I know Bangor is they kind of have like a chief and a deputy. Um, which is a good way to train, but yeah, there may be a few others, but I'm not I mean, when I was, you know, in law school and thinking about things, I looked around then and it may have changed, but, you know, it's been a decade. But, so it's a Um but yeah, no, there's real value. I think there's real value um especially for larger municipalities or growing municipality like this. But um yeah, it's it's a big cost, but we're already Do you want Do you know what our total legal budget is?

That's why I flag for Ashley to to pull that together um on on where we're at. I know we're over in a lot of individual lines. We're under a couple. So, I don't know. That's top of my head. Yeah. I just I'm thinking I've been thinking about that a lot and like where I'm seeing the numbers. I just didn't know if somebody else was looking at it

and all it has I mean I think we come to that a few times, right? Where it's just like you got to call, you got to make and then it costs money and you know there's there's that piece too which is like like you really be nice to have a lawyer to tell you yeah we need more or just you don't want to have that. I don't want to spend this money on this. Um like because if you don't call the lawyer and you need should have called the lawyer and somebody did something um to save a little fund and a and a line item, you might have just cost the city half a million dollars. Um and a lawyer could have avoided that with one, you know, if they were in house. Um so I worry about that, too. Is it possible to have a part-time inhouse council?

Maybe. You know, that's that's interesting. you you'd have to you'd basically contract with a um practicing attorney in private practice that would just be willing to you know commit x amount of hours or whatever and have like a flat fee which I wouldn't be surpris we don't have to get too far down this road but um AI is having a big impact on the legal field um and I think in a really good way but um it may start to um change how lawyers in practice and how fee structures are are structured and so that may be something but

um yeah the it will I mean my own observations is I'm seeing more it just towns are dealing with more um legal issues and everything's getting a little more contentious so I my municipal practice is getting busier and busier because towns are reaching out to me more and more for stuff

yeah and we'd me the school mentioned that too on their legal cost being up I don't know if there's some synergies where we can share that cost um and they can do school I don't know enough about the schools legal pieces but um I'm assuming it's actually probably pretty similar to a lot of the requests we get maybe not as much on like the policy initiative side where you know look into this you know is it legal to return the car money on this side of things you know there was a significant amount of legal fees associated with that project this year um you know school probably doesn't have to deal with that type of um sudden legal expense. But um

yeah, and then there's schools insurance more. I bet school law is a very specialized area. There's like very few there's even fewer school attorneys and then municipal attorneys in Maine. I say they're basically all like two firms in Portland. So really, yeah, we need no one likes to hear it, but we need more lawyers, especially in rural Maine. Yeah. But they wouldn't want we wouldn't they wouldn't have to deal with the law against perpetuity. It's true. That's a big draw. Okay. Shall we switch to the big

Can I just ask one small mundane question after the legal talk? Um I see in the budget even well that was kind of interesting actually but um MMA dues halfway down on page 155 is 11,500 I assume that's all for the whole that's not divvied up that's what we pay yeah that's our city yeah okay and you get to hold that expense this year

and this is one of those there used to be a whole like miscellaneous budget that included like three or four line items um and again part of those things Like if somebody doesn't own it like you know this was a tougher one like could clerk could city manager's office own this one but like if it's in somebody's then when we get the bill they can look at be like this is outrageous why is MMA up you know x she's got chosen to be somebody clerk got to be somebody code everybody shellfish MMA dues um the garden club was in there right yeah so yeah it's good to see it pulled out to so we put that to outside organizations shellfish went to the clerk's office and

Carrie you got a $11,500 increase to her budget

actually sorry to but on that point for main municipal association I don't know that they there's a lot of resources they provide in their their handbooks and there's a wealth of knowledge there and the more staff are familiar with it especially in their subject matter areas that might help mitigate legal costs because there's ways I mean, MMA has been updating these manuals for decades and um I often look to them, you know, on a new question as like a good place to start. So, um I don't know what the city's processes and practices, but there's that that could be a way to, you know, potentially mitigate um need for legal counsel in certain situations.

Yeah, I haven't found that helpful. Yeah, I think it depends because it's it's like a I should say we do find it helpful. I shouldn't say the MMA dues, the trainings, the programs. We like for the I think the election is actually a good example of why this from a financial perspective isn't helpful, which is like we ping MMA about the recount, here's our policies, here's this, can you give us guidance on like how the city should run? And they're just like, no, talk to your lawyer. Yeah. Which I like that aspect of their approach. But u but no, but I I think more so like Yes. I I I I get that and then they have to do that. Yes.

But for just like there the man if people kind of you know I know everyone's super busy but if more time you can actually sit down with manuals that are on your subject matter. It's just a matter of people getting experience but there's a lot of good information in there. And I would add to that for elected officials that you know uh early on the cemetery commission we reached out and yeah sometimes they say we we're not going to help you but sometimes they they do and you know I deal with them in my day job through the advocacy work they do but they're very clear they are member driven they serve their members and anyone who asks a question who isn't associated with municipality they turn away. So it would be interesting to know from our perspectives when you're working with different commissions like what resources we get what three a week emails on trainings that they offer.

Yeah. Um I have not gone to the um their annual meeting in years but I so I wasn't questioning I mean it's it's a lot of money for dues but the value that we get from it just making sure that it was all focused here and then some thought on how elected officials can better learn what are we um able to tap into for the resources that you mentioned. Yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah, with incredible amount and also like our insurance and a bunch of other things. is huge

is huge to them. That's not the the the piece that I haven't found as much luck in is that yeah to reduce the legal like it's always such a specialized um I had three of them today. Um and you know two of them you'll hear about at the city council meeting coming up and you'll be glad that we talked to the lawyers and um and one of them's a little bit more outlook while I had them on the call and we're paying for the hour. Um, but none of those questions could have been asked of of MMA. They're incredibly specific. Um, but but an in-house lawyer, all three of those questions an in-house lawyer could have solved. We wouldn't need to go out outside of things. And in smaller stuff, too, like um procurement, we we don't have a master services agreement for all of our contractors for the city. We should have that on every single procurement going forward. like you know that's um that's a very valuable thing to have these and they're and we really Redmond's been doing a great job um both Tim Peas and John Hamer who was was Bangor's I think previous council um you know they uh they're really excellent

they're a good showers great all right so moving on to benefits um just a quick overview uh 1114 oh sorry 114 14 from 111 to 114. That's just a warm room.

Okay. So, employee benefits are a fundamental part of supporting our workforce and ensuring that the city remains competitive in recruiting and retaining qualified employees across all departments. These benefits include health insurance, retirement contributions, and other required pay payroll related costs. Um, it's important to recognize that many of these expenses are not discretionary. They are largely driven by external factors such as state and federal requirements, collective bargaining agreements, and benefits that are calculated as a percentage of wages. Um, as wages increase, so do these costs. Um, accordingly, um, this budget reflects a consistent and responsible approach. Um there are no major changes to the structure of the benefits or the level of service being provided. Instead, it represents the ongoing commitment to maintaining competitive, compliant, and sustainable benefit offerings. Um overall, this is a necessary investment in our employees, which directly supports the city's ability to deliver services effectively to the community. Um, so everything in the in the benefits, you know, in terms of of each thing, you know, we're not offering anything new uh to employees. These are the same uh benefits that they've had. Um, of course, as usual, there is increase with health insurance. Um, in January of 26, we saw a 6% increase in the premium, which in terms of, you know, comparison to private insurance is really not

not that bad. always good.

Um, yep. So, we do partner with the main municipal Employees Health Trust, which is part of Maine Municipal Association to provide our health insurance um to our employees. Um, you know, the health trust is essentially it's a a group of 450 municipalities and and county governments throughout the state um that pull together to provide health insurance. So um you know it's it's not an a for-profit organization um when it comes to insurance. So um the increase um is a projected 8% for next year. This is an estimate. Um it is the typical estimate that we use every year is 8%. Um you know ideally it won't be that much. Um, but we just try to to estimate enough to ensure that we have enough in the budget when when the increases come. We don't typically know what the premium costs are going to be until around October or November of each year. So, we do the best we can with the information we have to try to come up with a um an accurate estimate this time of year, knowing that we're going to have to wait several months before we know. Um everything else in terms of FICA, um retirement, um the RHS, uh paid family medical leave, those are all percentagebased um benefits. So your your state retirement is a is set by the state of Maine. One positive this year is that the rates are not changing. Um so it is on a fiscal year uh calendar. So that's kind of help is very helpful for us, but the rates are going to stay the same as they were for FY26 going into FY27. So no increase in terms of the percentage that the employer has to contribute for the employee but the increase that you see here is just based on projected increases in wages.

Um everything else is pretty much the same. I um there is some additional costs as we anticipate um a couple of new positions for parks and wreck. Um but I believe the there was the IT person was taken out of this. Is that correct, Ashley? Thank you. Yeah. So parks and wreck shouldn't be in there either because it's just a transfer over from the highway department. There's no new employees. Um, so I don't know if we need to pull this further. I'd love to. This is over a half a million dollar increase. Um, but it should be reflective of

this just reflects that two employees are pulling from highway over to parks and rec. But it's not I don't think there's Yeah, I don't think there's an increase for two new employees, but we can double check it. Yep. We can look at that. Yep. So, um Okay. I'd be so happy if you had made that mistake. Oh, it would be. Well, I should say it was bigger when I got this budget. Um, originally much bigger. Yeah, we made a big mistake. So, it wasn't Yeah.

Yeah. So, I think I mean in terms of the percentagebased benefits, you know, a lot of this is driven from your collective from our collective bargaining agreements. We have five unions in the city. Um a couple of which are very small but uh public safety um collective bargaining agreements um are are big drivers of costs um and um you know our highway department is a large department as well. They are also unionized. Um their health reimbursement account uh for those unions, police, fire and highway, the HRA accounts are significantly more money than the non-UN employees. So um you know that's a big driver of these costs as well. Um everything else is is pretty standard. Um and like I said, it really is just based on those wages and projected costs. we take the actual overtime earned in in the calendar year um and use that to try to estimate what what we'll see in the next fiscal year because it's an actual number. So um that is you know is the best that we can do to estimate um but at least with the collective bargaining agreements we do have actual wages and we know uh what the those wages are going to be on July 1. that does help with with projections.

A big picture question for you on this. Sure. There's been a lot of work in the this is what my third budget now on getting the salaries out to the departments and fully like understanding that. Is there a plan to get the benefits out to the department so we actually know the full costs and that's the plan for? Yeah, that that's next year. I I wanted to be this year and that'll kind of be the final piece of like this budget is locked expenses are in the departments that you need to be in.

Um if you add a you know somebody in the general government side it'll be reflective in whether it's code or planning or the city manager's office not just we saw that a lot before hey it's we're going to increase uh one person in this department 75,000 actually no like how much do the uniforms cost? How much is the laptop cost? how much is the health insurance and the benefits for that type of employee cost? Um, and then factor all of that in. So, that that's really the last big piece, but it's an enormous um time, especially down to finance director was kind of one of those things, right?

I should also note that gosh um very very very lucky to have we got a lot of great new people that have um joined the organization, but we have a lot of great legacy employees. I don't know if I should call you a legacy employee, Carrie, but um longstanding employees. Carrie worked her way up from the um uh from the utilities coordinator into planning into HR um like absolute cracker jackack top-notch employee uh in the budget process when we had to revamp this whole thing. I can't tell you how important she was to that initial project and bringing up things that she's seen in the budget and that she like things like we weren't budgeting for overtime uh taxes which we were paying for thank god um but so we every year all the overtime on police and fire we weren't budgeting that as FICA and all these other things and Carrie had spreadsheets she was doing the payroll she hadn't taken a week off in over a year um and you know she is holding this entire place together. So, we are able to even track this and have these numbers here and next year we'll um we'll dial those into the departments. But I think kind of like legal too, we'll we need to also like think about the holistic cost of the employee benefits, but then actually see it. So, it's that's why it's a little more complicated like you got to put in the formulas, but you don't want to double in the formulas. So, um right now we're kind of keeping it all together to keep track of it. Um,

and the key point, Charlie, is you do not refer to her as an olden Kennedy. Legacy, I think. Well, legacy is good. Legacy and old. We did not say she's one of our oldest employees. Yes. Legendary. I think legendary. Absolutely. Legendary. One of the legends around here. We also have a legacy legendary person that's managing this in it right now. I mean, that's the other big part of this budget process. He's come in a lot less so far. I mean, for a couple years, he'd have to come in and we'd be like, "Ah, how did that work?" And Nate would come in with the answer. So, awesome. Any questions for Carrie? The legendary Carrie?

That even rhymes. That's like a jacket. You need an embroidered denim jacket with legendary Carrie. It's not the budget. Yeah. Excuse me. It's not in the budget. It's not in the budget. Employee recognition. Everybody pull your money and get her. Apparently, a denim jacket. Is that what purpose? Yeah. Um, it needs And I just wanted following up on that conversation, the fact that you guys don't have a finance director and like this has been the smoothest budget process we've had so far as far as I think mechanics and the flow of the meetings go. So, just well done. Just having the right information is awesome. Yeah, this is Yeah, it's a tough process, but you guys have set it up really well.

It is. The budget pieces is going well. Um I was not to just to you know yuck on your yum. Um that might be another jacket. I don't know.

Um the uh the reconciliation I mentioned this a few times like it's um you know it's vexed you know for the last five or six years in the city and Sulasard's um you know with the absence of finance director we're having her come in to really dial into the reconciliation get the audit piece back up um to date. you know, we caught up on three years of audits on arrival, but we need to next, you know, I have that audit before we even start this whole process from the previous fiscal year. Um, and uh it's been a priority of mine, I thought we were making some pretty good progress. Um, the more I dig in, we're not we're not there yet. Um, I want perfectly reconciled accounts amongst all pieces so we have a true undesated fund balance. So you'll see that this cycle. So we don't have to come in and when one department goes over budget or is looking like they're going to on an unexpected expense, pull from a cash reserve account that we'd have an und designated fund balance that we could use for potentially those types of activities. Um it's super important. I do feel like our reserves are comparatively low um for the size of the city and you know we've got some with Sarah with the 10-year capital plan coming up. You know we got some headwinds coming. We also have an enormous amount of growth and I was at the chamber talking about some data analysis I've done. I mean, we probably have $550,000 every single year in new tax revenue. And that's not valuation growth. That's the Hilton Home to Suites. That's new businesses coming to town. I know some people like to talk about Ellsworth as if it's like a another world dystopia of anti- business activity. Um all evidence to the contrary with housing growth, um new tractor dealerships, new hotels, uh you know, the housing growth isn't affordable. We talked about that recently, but it is exploding. Um and it's and stranger things too, like new substation for power that were 5560 million. Um there's an enormous amount of new growth, fastest growing population in the entire state of Maine.

A lot of people want to be here. um that's a absolute lifeline to this city um you know to not be in a place like Milanit with population decreases with lacks of investment. So we'll do this budget piece but it's also offset by the fact that there's so much new business um and I had thanks to um some new statistical um and and our permit software that goes back to the 1990s so you can actually analyze through a longitudal based database how growth has changed in these permit categories. um and we're adding a lot more into the tax revenue. So yes, this you know these increases right now around 7% for school and for city but that doesn't anticipate that um that new tax growth just from new things. That's separate also from we saw last cycle 30% increase in the valuations of the waterfront 18% commercial 16% in the residential. That's just valuation increase. Um that one I don't like as much. Um, sure it can lower your mill rate and actually was talking to a developer that developed housing today saying Hills got a great mill rate. Um, I'm thinking about building there. I like at base compared to I think Bangor he said or no I think it was Oldtown 20 22 20 this um you know for new development that's 1566 this kind of growth that's really helps inspire that kind of development to come in here. Um, but when it's just valuation on current property owners, unless you're looking to sell your house today or your business that's had your valuation increased by a lot, unless you're looking to sell your business or that piece of land today, especially the higher end, they're taking a larger share of the um of the tax burden. Um, so it's really that new stuff. That's the stuff that broadens the tax base that current um business owners, current residents, um, if the new stuff's coming in, new residents, new uh, commercial growth, that's what lowers the people who are here now is tax um, tax liability. So that's what we really want to angle towards, which is why econ grants, planning, all the stuff we're

doing is really let's keep that ordinance reform, tiff reform, new districts, captured evaluation. This is going to lead to um really a lot of good setup for the city of Ellsworth um at a time when most parts of rural Maine are not seeing this kind of growth. So good good things and tough things. I guess I yummed my yuck at the yuck sandwich bread harsh my melon. I don't know why but yeah. Okay. Um

does that cover our discussion and questions? Uh I think so unless there's any other discussion or questions for counselors on what we discussed today and I think next week we just have there's finance on Monday and then we have the workshop on Thursday

another workshop and I'm out next week so you'll have Sarah and team um I have a I'm heading down uh on a family vacation for school vacation week with my kids and wife. So, I'm going to uh teams in to the uh to the Monday meeting. Sarah will be in this chair for the city council workshop that following Monday. I'll be here for finance on Monday. Um but uh I'll be in flight on that Thursday budget meeting. So, okay. Good. All right. Let's adjourn.