Council - Regular Meeting

for the village of Franklin regular council meeting of Monday, April 13, 2026. We do the pledge, please of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I see Evan is not here today. Stephanie, thank you for filling in. Stephanie, could we do roll call, please? Trusty King here. Trusty Sala here. Trusty Hansen. Pam said she'll be a few minutes late. Oh dear.

Trusty Ferris, he said the same. Trusty Gates here. Trusty Sally here. President Goldber here. Okay. Next item is adop adoption of the agenda. Uh, anybody have any comments or requests for changes? All right. Hearing none. Can we get a motion to adopt the agenda? Motion to adopt the agenda. Second. Motion by Sally, second by Gates. All in favor say I. I. Opposed.

Motion carries. Okay, we have three sets of minutes. The first is from our regular council meeting of March 9th. Anybody have any comments? Nobody. Okay. I will entertain a motion. So moved. Have a motion to approve the minutes by Gate, second by Sally. These are the minutes of March 9th, 2026. All in favor say I. I. Opposed.

Thank you. Next are our close session minutes of March 9th. Anybody have comments on those? Pretty simple. No. No. Okay. You get a motion in a second. Motion. Second. A motion by Sally, second by uh King. All in favor say I.

Opposed. Motion carries. Last are the special village council meeting minutes of March 27th. Anybody have comments? Pretty simple. Yep. No comments. Okay. All right. Somebody want to make a motion to approve. Second. Motion by King, second by Gates to approve the minutes of March 27th. All in favor? I I opposed.

Okay. Uh public requests and comments. Anybody would like to address council on something that's not on the agenda, please do so now. Hi, I'm John Simon of 3032 King Carton. To refresh your memory, I have asked the council twice to develop a code of ethics similar to what 22 other surrounding communities have already already have. But the council declined because they did not think such a code was enforceable. I responded by emphasizing that a code of ethics need not be about punishing those not in compliance, but is valuable as a document to encourage good behavior and that points out to the residents and to the council when unethical behavior is being displayed. That said, a group of villagers that believes that a code of ethics is badly needed is currently is presently developing such a code and now has a general outline and a partial list of ethical concerns. We are now asking to input. We are now asking for input from villagers. Any thoughts or recommendations that villagers think should be added to our list is welcomed and will be considered. Because I do not have time to read our entire document, I will now read our introductory paragraphs and and uh the codes major headings. We are in the process of adding the specifics to this outline. When we complete our final document, we will make we will make it available to villagers for final comments including modifications, additions, and subtractions. So here is the opening paragraph along with the major headings. Please text any proposed s suggestions, additions, subtractions, or modifications to 2487564884.

And here's the paragraph. Code of ethics and standards of conduct for Franklin Village. A code of ethics is a statement of standards of behavior agreed upon by the members of the of the group that serves as a guiding framework for conduct outlining the principles and the values that shape responsible decision-making and beha and behavior. It reflects a commitment to integrity, accountability, fairness, and respect in all actions and interactions. By establishing a clear expectations, the code not only helps individuals navigate complex issues with consistency and transparency, but also fosters trust uh strengthens relationships and upholds the state standards essential to healthy and principled community. It does not necessarily involve punishment. Rather, it should be used to recognize and complement good behavior and criticize behavior that does not live up to the expected standards as described in the code to to this um this code of ethics represents our behavioral expectations of all trustees sitting on council. It will be incumbent upon the members of this council to create measuring tools and compliance and sanctions for non-compliance. And here here's the outline of the

John, you going to wrap this up soon? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very little. Our our outline includes first integrity, honesty and transparency, respect for community, accountability, conf conflict of conflict of interest, fairness and equity, community involvement, confidentiality, compliance with the laws of the state and the charter and continuing education. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Welcome,

Carrie Cini, 26590 Wellington Road. I just want to start off by thanking each and every one of you for advocating for the stop signs at Brandingham and Wellington. Um, I've lived in Franklin since I was 2 years old with a brief stint in Farmington Hills, but raising my kids here now. And those stop signs mean a lot to us as parents. I'm at Welling I'm at the corner of Wellington in Irving, and our walk to the park feels much safer where my son plays baseball. My daughter's going to be playing te-ball. Um it really helps with the blind spot that's right in the corner going down um Wellington. And as you know, I've always known Franklin to be a very safe community, but as I started having kids, I realized how it's not super walkable. So I just want to emphasize that those stop signs, something that seems very minor, has really impacted us as parents. Um not taking a back way to the park anymore, crawling through the brush and everything. So again, thank you. It's a very positive change and we're so happy to see that.

Thank you. Thank you.

One written public comment from Miss Shu. It's been presented to all of you.

Okay. We received lengthy call communication from Natalia SH. to do with this. We have Stephanie, you have a copy of this.

Do you not? All right. We'll make sure we'll make sure Evan has it.

Okay. Anybody have one of this? Anybody else have public comments? All right. Uh, ports of village officers, our chiefs. I think all of you have a copy of our monthly report that was put together by Stephanie. Did a great job as usual. Uh, again, a productive uh, busy month. Uh, any questions on the report itself? One question for me. Do you guys do year-over-year comps or averages on these numbers? I guess we have the 2025.

So, we do the annual report. Let me get you a copy. There's one out there that you can see compare this year to last year. Sorry. Uh and you have we have it by month, too. Okay. It's good. Thank you, Kurt. Sure. And I just want to update everyone. Uh today we had a suicidal subject uh within the village and our co-responder responded um with our two officers and it came to a successful resolution. So I just wanted to shout out to her and the officers did a great job today. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thanks, Chief.

So real quick, are you asking for Jeff like October or sorry what month? February of last year compared to February of this year. Yeah, I mean I think that's included in the annual report. That's year to date. I'm just curious to see monthly trends and how the three-month average looks generally like during the holidays if there's an increase every year. I I'm sure you have. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So, obviously there's yearto date um that's on there. Um, so are you looking specifically for like like instead of saying your date next to it, it can be like Oh, I was just curious about monthly trends like

January just to understand the variability between the months. Sure. Absolutely.

Can I jump in real quick? I think I know where you're coming from, but go with so if you could like why you're interested in because what I would imagine is that you can start to strategize based off of like predictability of in these months these crimes go up. Why? I just I just I just want to see like a breakdown of trends by the types of stops we're doing, all those types of things, so I can get a sense of, oh, is this a peak this month out of the norm? Or we saw, you know, this type of uh either stop or service call, they come more frequently in the summer. They come more frequently uh that way. And I guess I probably can, these are in every monthly report. Yeah.

So I can probably summarize that if I just go through each one. Um, but it would be nice to see too. We'll circle back to you and and try to fully understand exactly what you want. Yeah, I think most of the data is there. It's just a matter of synthesis. Okay. Anyone else? Chief Tony, hello.

Good evening, everyone. Uh, you also have our uh police report uh on your No, I'm kidding. You have our fire report that's part of your packet. Um, the one thing I'd like to highlight rather than talking about bees and spring and all of this other stuff, uh, I'd like to highlight actually the department, um, through Evans, uh, taking over the newsletter. Uh, we have, uh, put an article in that'll, uh, that came out last Friday, uh, highlighting some of our department activities, but I want to actually put print to the to the road. Um we started transporting in EMS capacity uh last June. Uh for the last two days we've had three runs per day. So the run numbers are ticking up, but that doesn't mean anything about tomorrow. One of those runs though today uh indicated a patient who was suffering stroke-like symptoms. Uh we were on scene uh with a minimum amount of time. We were able to transport directly to Bulmont Royal Oak and uh through communications with the emergency department, bypass the emergency department directly and run right up to CAT scan. So this is something that um is a uh for those who responded it is a absolute wonderful job that they did uh for the patient. Hopefully we were able to diminish the amount of time that they were uh suffering and I would say uh for the overall system provided to the villagers uh their residents and guests uh this is something that we can uh all take credit for uh for having that capability. With that said though, I'd also like to say uh we are facing a little bit of an issue in that uh we from time to time get people who don't understand what they're facing. Um who would rather not wake their neighbors up by having lights and sirens

and things like that. Um I would say our first run of the day uh excuse me uh not today. Uh we've had previous runs where they've been called in as lift assists that have turned out to been actual uh true emergencies. Um for people who are taking blood thinners, uh whatever the medication is, any fall could be very dangerous and requires transportation to the hospital. Whether you go yourself, somebody takes you, or you call 911. These are things that I would rather you say, "Let me wake your neighbor up for the sake of us getting there quickly, for the sake of us treating you quickly, for the sake of you seeking definitive care quickly." Um, while it is impressive for that people think about their neighbors, the reality is understand what your medical conditions are and when you are in need, seek assistance. Um, this goes for um anything whether it be medical related, trauma related, what whatever. So, I can't stress that enough. No matter where you live, if know your own history and be able to uh act accordingly uh if the need be. Please don't diminish it. The price to be paid could be on you literally. So uh pending that and your questions, I'll conclude my report.

Just for the record, do we charge residents when they call if it's a false alarm? False fire alarm. Yeah. Um the fire department does not. The village does have an ordinance uh that covers false alarm uh charges. I believe each resident is afforded two uh two false alarms uh per calendar year and then moving forward and that false alarm needs to be something that uh could have been controlled. Uh but if someone called because they're having a medical issue. Well, that's not a fire alarm. Okay. Well, what you were just talking about, you're encouraged people to call. Yeah. So,

but if they don't want to cuz they don't want to get charged. Oh god, that should be the very last thing is money's important. I totally get it. But yeah, I mean maybe people think they can go to what's their life worth? So, um if if they call, we we do get calls from time to time uh for things where people they're kind of kind of riding the the seessaw on whether they want to go. If they call and don't want to go, no, they're not charged for that. if they're calling for a non-emergency uh situation, a lift assist, no injuries, and the the whole call is based on a lift assist. Uh each address is provided to responses per calendar year. Beyond that, there is a there is a fee that is charged uh from the fire department through the village. Do you know what is

I'm sorry. Do you know what the fee is? The fee is based on uh time. It's basically time and materials, the people that show up and the apparatus that are used. I in terms of the the non-emergency uh calls, I can't remember the last time that we have uh ever I I won't say ever. I can't remember the last time that we've actually used it. Okay.

Um we are just like with fire inspections, I would rather be someone's friend than not, and I would rather work with them. I can recall a Franklin resident years ago who was calling for lift assist and as it turned out this person no longer resides in the village but as it turned out in trying to work with them because pushing off a problem to someone else or paying for it doesn't solve the problem.

This person was a veteran. This person had issues related to their health conditions and I was able to secure assistance from the VA uh to get them the the in health uh in home health care that they needed. um which is much better. Obviously, if I'm looking for dollars, it's horrible in that respect, but I'm not looking for dollars. I'm looking to to find the person the help they need. Um I've had other folks who've had issues and I've tried to work with them uh on things like uh durable medical equipment in the home, things like taking the rugs that have been in the house for 50 years and maybe putting something down so it sticks to the floor. uh bed rails, things like that where if they're falling when they get out of bed at 3:00 in the morning as they go to the bathroom, uh I would rather them have a rail that they can support themselves with. And we've done uh we don't supply that equipment, but I would love to be able to work with with people. And then there's another organization that you support. Uh it's the I can't next I believe it's called out of Birmingham

and we've used them in the past to uh elicit information on uh agencies that can support uh the needs of some of our elderly residents. So we've done that. Sorry, long answer. No, you get you get two free. Yes. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. Sorry. Okay. No, it's okay. It's okay. For each of the um the mark March response information table. Yeah, I think it's in the table up here. Are each of those coded as unique calls? So, are there 46 unique calls in the month of March or is it could it is it possible that one call could be coded as multiple ones of these categories?

No. So, um uh that's that's a great question. So, in terms of reporting, uh the fire service uses a pro uh a system called nearest. Uh it's a national level system and this system initiated back in January of this year. Um it it's kind of it's a nightmare for the fire services because where we used to categorize calls into uh number classifications now there's a whole lot more. So uh if you were looking at this chart you'll see uh where we would usually just call something a medical or a basic life support run something like that. Now we get into very specifics uh but each run is only is only counted once.

Okay. So that medical alarm on the Franklin side for instance wasn't also cardiac arrest. Correct. Due to a fall correct. So they're all medical alarm is Yeah. Typically with the medical alarm what we're finding now uh from time to time is the alarm will go off. Uh we'll get over to the residents to find out. They have absolutely no idea what caused it. uh they have don't even have a medical alarm, it was someone else's. Uh we've even had them where the medical alarm is tied into an internetbased system and in the wintertime when they're in Arizona or Florida, wherever they go, uh they set the alarm off and it calls 911, reports their location as their home because they never change the uh system. So that's a false alarm.

Anyone else? I am welcome. Thank you. Sorry I might Hey, thanks. Thank you.

All right, next item is uh consideration of approval of the consent agenda. Two items on the consent agenda. The first is our monthly check run. The second is considering re renewal of the uniform video service local franchise agreement with Direct TV. Anybody have any comments on this that you want to take it off or just the information presented? Pretty straightforward. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. I have a motion from Sally, second by King. Any further discussion?

Oh, I have a question. What's the Franklin Community Church $4,000? That is the money that you approved a while ago from Meg. We never approved money from

Yeah. So, we may want to look into that. That's a grant, but that's not to the did CDBG not the same as the Franklin preschool and we gave No. Well, that what what it says. Contribution for resealing the church parking lot. That's what that is. We never approved that. We never approved that. Never came to council. I'll go back through the notes. I believe that you did. Not in the past four years since I've been on and it never came on an agenda. And that's against our policy, right? The purchasing and procurement policy. Well, regardless, I mean,

hold on. Be I I don't know what policy you're talking about. What um but maybe Rachel, could you comment on that? My understanding was that we've we've this is a contribution that we've made in the past. And um and is your authority, what is your check writing authority again? Up to $10,000. But this money came out of the main street funds. It did not come out of the It did come out of the general fund, but it wasn't surplus general funds. Out of the Main Street fund. Mhm. But the Main Street directors who on the church Mark. Yeah. So that's not a comp. Well, he's the main street president.

Okay. Can we see the bill and let's can we remove that from the approval until we get notice of the bill the approval and when that was agreed upon? Could I ask before we make do an action, tell me, let's be clear about what the problem is so Rachel knows what problem to address. I've heard about four of them. Yeah, we we never approved 4,000. Rachel Rachel's under the impression that we approved $4,000 to go to the church. Okay. That did not happen. That was not approved by council. Okay. Is there another issue? She said it was paid out of the main street fund and you but you were raising some objections. I want to understand what your objection was other than the one that David selling

that if we're using the Main Street fund to pay the church and the Main Street president is also on the church board, there's a conflict of interest there. Why would it come Why would it come? Let me synthesize this down. Why would it come out of the Main Street fund? That was in Meg's notes for where she projected it would come from. Okay. So, I just think the core issue is whether or not we approved it because we didn't. And this is something that was back in June of 202. No, I don't know. Right. Cuz me's notes would have been from June 2025 and that was the budget meeting. We were all at that meeting. So,

that means in 10 months we never addressed it and then it was it came due or something. Another point of clarification, Rachel, when it comes to um writing checks, um I'm clear that Mark Cooper is is the board chairman, board president they call him. We have um Evan acting as the Main Street liaison.

So what that means is that you are actually acting as the main street director in lie of us filling that job. Is is that correct? The board did not appoint me as the main street director. You named both Evan and myself as Okay. So, you're picking up on an old bill that was authorized by Meg or budgeted by in this current year's budget by Meg, which isn't out of the realm of possibility. No, that wasn't in the budget. I just reviewed the budget line by line over the weekend. There was no Franklin recealing in last year's budget. Was it earmarked within the Main Street Franklin budget?

We earmark anything in the Main Street Franklin budget. Okay. Okay. So, it sounds like it's I just want to be clear about what the what the objections are because suddenly we talk and there's lot because we're allocating $4,000 to an external organization that none of us had visibility into. Okay, fair enough. And do you do you and you support? They did request it. They wrote us a letter. We discussed it at meetings. I cannot tell you. We'd have to go to agendas to see whether we took action on it. It was absolutely discussed at meetings.

We all had we had discussions on is there still an active license agreement regarding the parking lot. Let's not all forget that every single person in this room at some time or another parks in that parking lot and without a license by them to do so, they could tell us all don't do it. So that's a separate conversation. understand, but there's a lot of this person and that person's be careful what you ask for.

We either do things correctly or we don't. We have to follow process when we're spending money. That's the concern. If we have a conversation and we say we need to enter into a mutual agreement so that we can continue to use parking, that's a completely different conversation than one person on council noticing in the line item that somebody allocated $4,000 under a mistaken pretense that it was approved by council. Those are completely separate conversations. So maybe a place to look would be um do we have an active agreement with the church? We do not.

We looked we do not. And that's why this discussion was never had because President Goldberg asked the village to find the agreement. They can never find the agreement. And so that discussion ended and now we have a check. Found the agreement. The agreement's expired. Okay. So we don't have an active agreement with them. But that was never even circulated to council. the expired agreement. We never talked about this. If you can find it in the minutes, please correct me. All right. So, we're going to take the check run off of the consent agenda. Uh, anybody have any comments on the renewal of the uniform video service franchise agreement?

I the only thing going back to that really quickly, the only thing I remember talking about was the Franklin preschool. We talked about um whether we would refill the the sand or the the mulch like replacing that, but that was the grant that we talked about offering. Isn't that the preschool? The grant that was done in December for CDBG. That's not this right. Right, Rachel? Right. Okay. So, that's completely separate. The last discussion we had on this was the letter we received from the president of the church or might have even been from the pastor thanking us for the $4,000 that me had promised to contribute towards the parking. So Meg had made a promise and we got to thank you for that promise.

So that that said is entirely true. My point is this was discussed in council. We were aware of the fact that they were asking for $4,000 and that Meg had allocated it. We all received that thank you letter and then when we asked what is this for? No one knew the answer. So then it was never brought up again in the last six months. If you can find me a vote of this council to ratify that promise that yeah hang on two different issues. I agree with David that that there we need to find out whether or not we actually approved it. My point was your comment on we never knew about this. We knew about this. No, because we all got the thank you letter and we said, "What is this about?" And then you said,

"We got the thank you letter, so we knew about it." All right. You're making it seem like you didn't know about it today. Well, my suggestion would be you didn't know that Meg had promised it. So, none of us knew that when they wrote the letter that we received several months ago. So, they could have said, "Thank you for giving us 20,000 and none of us would have known about it." path forward here is let's just get more information and then we wouldn't want to allocate out $4,000 on the pretense of an agreement without an active agreement either. Right? So, we have a policy decision on whether or not we want to enter into an agreement, then we enter into the agreement, then we make the pay like we approve it and make a payment. Right? Otherwise, it's just $4,000 free and clear. Yeah. Do we have Meg's email exchanges when she um

I don't think we need that. We don't need to go hunt and look for that again. It's just did we vote to approve it? If not, let's have a look. It should be at least approved or taken in front of of us to say yes or no, right? Because it would be an agreement which we would have to vote to approve. Y a procedural question, Rachel. Um, it's possible, I don't know, uh, that this contribution was made, um, uh, out of the $20,000 line item

for the Main Street Franklin organization that has been there for years. Uh, I'm I'm there's an it seems that there's an assumption that we're approving everything on this bills list directly by the village council. But if this was the Main Street Franklin contribution to be taken out of their allocation in that line item in the general fund, why would a council need to approve that? We approved of the $20,000 for their their budget

which h um historically has been uh allocated the way that the director and the and the board president have chosen. Uh the board president is who? The board president is Mark Cooper. The who's affiliated with the church. That's where I'm saying like let's just pause the conversation. I'm pretty sure it didn't come from the Main Street Fund. I'm pretty sure that it was coming from us. It was coming I Well, it came from the Main Street Fund. So, the $20,000 that we allocate to Main Street. Mhm. Yeah. Which we've approved.

So, someone can sit on the Main Street board and sit on another board and allocate money from one board to another to the organization that they're affiliated with. And that doesn't raise any conflict. No, we weren't present at the meeting. We don't know whether he abstained or not. The the issue is that if they approved it, they approved it. That's their that's their body. Agreed with that. That's true. If if we allocate $20,000 to them

to their organization, their separate 501c3, and they then allocate those funds, we can't come over the top of them and say no. Now in future spending I think or future allocations I think we this serves us well to restrict those funds but but as of last budget meeting we hadn't given Main Street any of that $20,000 for this year. It was still whole. Yeah in February it was still whole. So we didn't give Main Street the $20,000. That's not how that works. Money that's in our funds in our general fund. It's in our general fund. So they have to come to us for the money. That is not something that's ever happened. Well, that that's what happened this budget year.

Just a procedural question again. So, if we and um uh if and I'm thinking is there any other organization that we do this for? The planning commission. We do we approve all of their expenditures directly? They're they're they are under our purview. That's a completely separate and we have no spending authority. When I was on zoning board, we had no spending authority. It still doesn't matter. It's under the purview of the municipality. So this $20,000 was the it it used to be the 20k that we the village wrote a check for to to Main Street, right? And that stopped in 2021.

Since then, they have what we've done is we've had a Main Street director of one sort or another. And that person in addition to occupying the seat got had a $20,000 expense budget that she or he need were was able to use to carry out their job. So my understanding is that that's that's happened. Um, I think the contract with the church may be a separate item and I agree that that needs to be cleaned up. But are we now saying that the expense budget for the Main Street program that that is it's not the board's money to spend it's the program's money to spend the director

which normally happens in conjunction with by mutual agreement with the board. Are we saying that that now needs to come every when they spend money that needs to come to the council? That is what I am proposing in the new Main Street contract that I'm going to bring to you. Okay. It's not complete yet, but that is part of the contract and that's how the procurement and spending policy that we approved in fe in January is written that organizations, commissions, committees of Franklin are subject to this policy. Okay. And that policy is in effect. Yep. Y'all approved it. We all approved it in January. And that was Rachel's first order of business.

Yeah. So, so one thing that I want to call out is previous part of the process for Main Street is doing their allocation of budget. So, they have their an in their annual report. It includes the expenses. The expenses show our $20,000 allocation historically, which means that that would be in their possession, not it's discretionary use of the Main Street director who's an employee of the village because then that would be a budget showing that would not show on their side. That would be village expenditures. So the baseline assumption is is that $20,000 was in their like that was theirs regardless of whether it had been transferred at the time.

It was allocated to the way we've done it since 2021 is we've set aside a $20,000 expense budget to support the work of the economic development. That's not what their annual report shows. He was just at the Cardia meeting. Okay. I can't speak to that because I haven't seen their annual report and just just as a point um when this commitment was made by the previous administrator so we need to understand what her intention was and if she made the decision she made the decision

so I'm not sure why we would be well there was I mean that there would have to be a form agreement signed to bind Rachel, right? I I believe the actions of a previous administrator don't bind the actions of a new administrator. The issue is the work was already done. Well, then why did we get a bill for it? They did send their bill to us. When was the work done?

I don't know off the top of my head. Let's remove it from the bills list and we can approve the rest of the bills and then we can put this on an agenda or you can send it to the infrastructure committee and we can decide how we're going to allocate funds because then we should give to the FCA and we should give to the preschool and we should give to other communities whose infrastructure we use.

That's an well I I can't address the infrastructure committee because I don't know what your scope is. the it seems to me that this is something that could go back to Rachel and and Jody to figure out and if there's a gap in our policy, then let's address it. Um, but what I'm hearing is that the previous administrator earmarked or up or she doesn't have the authority to do that. And if she did it in June, then it would have been with last year's money, not this year's money. for the she built the budget for the year that we're in, right? But it wasn't earmark. That's Angelina's point.

So I don't want to use a term that's it's I'm not using that is was intended to be used from that budget. But are is this an assumption or you know from I don't know I but based on what Rachel said that is what I'm concluding. I that is also why I'm suggesting that we send this back to Jodie and Rachel

and then if it sound and and let's let's work together to figure out what process what's I'm hearing about processes I don't quite understand. Well, the process that I am particularly concerned about is that monies decided monies that were allocated to Main Street, which has several representatives from organizations within the community are making allocations that directly benefit the organizations they represent. That's the first policy that's problematic. It is significantly better for us and the residents that we represent that we would specifically make the decision for those allocations.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I I don't even know if Mark was the board chairman at that point when she did the budget a year ago. I have no idea.

I I don't think so. But I guess I just think there's some homework to be done. Let's look back. easy to easy to trace it back and and uh I think the discussion about what the role of the council is in in in the main in improving Main Street Franklin expenditures is probably worthwhile and we should do it in conjunction with the contract that we're going to be considering. So, let's just be clear for the record. So, are we I'll make a motion to remove the $4,000 contribution until we understand what is. It's been paid once once this comes to us. It's been paid. This is just a record of what's been paid. So, no, we have to approve it, but moving it off.

That's not the way it works here. Correct. We've ran into this previous correct. Do we have a $4,000 payment to the church in previous years? I have Let's just let them take that away. I'd like to let them take it away because they're they're not going to know. They're not specifically looking for that. Take what away? Take away to look at whether or not we've made that $4,000 contribution annually. We've made it every He says he doesn't recall it for the last four years that he's been on Comaw, right? A one time ask because they paved their parking lot.

Oh, that was not what Pam said. Pam says that you guys give contributions to the church. No, I'm saying that we have paid as a village because of the use villagers make of that church parking lot. We have written, we have supported, we have contributed to the costs of repaving and relining that parking lot over the years. It was a license agreement between the FCA and the village and the church and the baseball league. And there's there's evidence of that. We've seen the previous contract.

The contract expired. That contract had all of the parties I just mentioned contributing to things like the repaving of the parking lot. Contracted expired. Didn't have a new contract. Time came for them apparently to redo their parking lot. They asked Meg for money. Meg uh agreed to give it to them. That's where we stand today. Uh I I don't know that that's 100% accurate. I agree that there was previously a contract. I don't know that it expired. It came up to the point. So, we quickly just paid it as we've always done. I know at one point in time there wasn't anything as we always done. They asked apparently they asked me for money. None of us were privy to that conversation and she agreed to give it them. Kirk, do you have some light you can shed? It looked like you wanted to speak.

So, I the last couple days that Meg was here, we did have a discussion and she said that she did agree to give them $4,000 to split the cost of that paving project because we share the parking lot with them. Um, I never cut the check uh just because we were doing other things at the time and I think I even passed that information on to Rachel that that's what I was told by me. So just to to clarify that did come from me

which is also sorry but really just to establish that's equally concerning that we're that we have an administrator who's provided notice that they're leaving making obligations on the future council. Yeah, final days. It was her interpretation that she could spend up to $10,000 of something that was already budgeted. That was what I was under the understanding in the final days that she was able to give partying gifts. Is that what Well, we don't need to use a huge Hang on. We don't need to use inflammatory enough. We have a motion on the table to remove $4,000 check from the check run, but we can't because we already paid it. We can but well you can remove the approval

but that's that that's the extent of what you can do. What we can do is in the upcoming budget take that $4,000 out of whatever we do allocate to Main Street if you want to do it that way. But this isn't an annual expense. All that I would like to do it was a one time ask because they rep you don't pave your parking lot every year. It's not one time. It's a cyclical ask. Correct. Rachel, my my request to the administration would be that we write a renewal of a contract

and then we try and get some type of an agreement. I I know we already paid it, but I think what we do say as our leverage point is if we can't agree to this now, then we will reduce the amounts by 4,000 future obligations by 4,000 because again, I agree. I want to be able to support shared assets and that parking lot is definitely an asset, but what I do want is an agreement so that because we're paying for it as a shared asset that come tomorrow, next month, next year, they don't all of a sudden say, "Oh, just kidding. You guys don't get to park here anymore." Okay. So, what you're asking for is an agreement between the village and the church to use the park.

Let's just renew the agreement that we've had for 20 years agreement. No, because what if it's not an accurate she's got she's got to re she's got to review it. Got to start somewhere. Attorney looks at it. I mean, just just bring it up to date. I I heard from the Main Street Board that the contract hadn't been renewed. Somebody's mentioned it, you know. Okay. So, let's let's clean up our act and get the new get the get the agreement up to date. That seems pretty straightforward. Okay. So, what's the motion currently on the table that we are we just going to approve the consent agenda?

Uh, let me So, I'd like to direct a question to our attorney. Is there any tacet authoriz authorizations or presumed approvals of actions by accepting it in the check run? Yes. I mean you're accepting and approving the expenditure. So okay. So then Angelina Trusty Slaka you still have a motion on the table to remove it from the check. I have one more question. Does this represent any conflict regarding church and state that we're giving forth?

I'm more concerned about it's a 501c3 is is involved. So there are there are restrictions on donations if that's what it's called. It looks like this is payment for services. So, that might not be an issue, but there are concerns whenever you're contributing to churches and or 501c3s. Um, it doesn't prohibit you from doing it. And just from hearing the discussion, it looks like you're paying for a service. You're allowed to park in that parking lot. So in that circumstance without looking at the facts or underlying it makes no difference who owns the whether it's a church a 501c or any other entity if you're getting something in return that would not be a violation of state.

So my recommendation in reaction to that advice would be to support removing it off of the check run until we have a contract signed. Therefore we can tie the actions of payment directly to services because without the agreement we don't have that. Yeah, that makes sense. So, make it cleaner because we would be paying for a service or for a license to use the parking lot, right? Okay. All right. So, do we have a second for that motion? Second.

All right. So, we have a motion and a second to approve the check run exclusive of the $4,000 check to uh the Franklin Community Church. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I move. All right. Sorry. All right. So, the next was the uh local franchise agreement, Rachel. This is the same agreement we've used in the past. It is. All it is is a renewal of the agreement.

So, we can collect PEG fees for anybody that uses Direct TV in the village. So you have an actual proposed resolution. Can we just move to approve the resolution as presented? Yes. Motion to approve the resolution as presented. Second. We have a motion to approve the resolution regarding the uh direct TV uh local franchise agreement. All in favor say I. I. Opposed.

All right. No presentations. So the first is our review and acceptance of the 2025 planning commission annual report which was in our packet. Uh as usual, thank you to the planning commission as well as Chris Den who we are graced with his presence today. Nice to see you Chris. uh for your ongoing work uh on the master plan and everything that you guys do. Uh this is the annual report that sets forth the things you did this year and that the at ZBA did. I assume everybody got a chance to review it. Does anybody have any questions or comments on it? Two site plans approved this year. See more in the future. So Chris, I see you're here today. Uh are you joining us for this or I'm assuming more for the master plan update? That's what I figured.

Um all right. So, if we don't have any further comments, if we can get a motion to uh review, well, I should say a motion to accept the 2025 planning commission's annual report. Motion to to accept the 2025 planning commission annual report. Second motion by Si, second by King. All in favor say I. I. Opposed.

Thank you, Stuart, and everybody on your commission. All right, we need to uh begin the budget process and along with what Rachel and Jod and the finance committee are doing, we have to schedule a public hearing and our next meeting is May 11th. So, we are we need to schedule a public hearing for the fiscal year 2026 2027 budget on May 11th, 2026. Can I get a motion to that effect? So, moved. Is it at the meeting?

Yes. The public hearing would be at at the regular at our regular council meeting. Yes. All right. I'll second. Motion in a second. Motion by Sally, second by Salaka. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. Any opposed?

Motion carries. Old business. Now, uh after a lot of hard work by the planning commission, couple stop and goes for procedural mishaps, we are finally happy to say that the 2025 master plan update has found its way to the council. Chris Dusen from McKenna is here, our planning consultant. Chris, again, welcome and thank you. Fill us in on what was done.

Well, um I think um when I came back as planner, that was about uh 2021, believe it or not. Um this was underway. And um so this is the culmination. So, um, the master plans 125 pages. Hopefully, you've all spent time, uh, putting yourself to sleep at night. And, uh, there's 10 chapters deal with dealing with the village character and neighborhoods, historic areas, the village center, community facilities and open space, trees and vegetation management, traffic and circulation, and implementation. Uh the master plan was prepared in accordance with the uh guidelines and requirements set forth in the Michigan Planning Enabling Act which is public act 33 of 2008 and we followed all the procedures for adoption. Um I'd like to talk a little bit about the uh vision uh that was set forth in chapter 1. The vision statement starts out by noting that Franklin has moved into the 21st century as one of the most desirable places to live in Michigan in part because the visual, social, and economic characteristics that initially attracted residents to the village have not only been maintained over time, but have been enhanced. And the vision statement talks about the neighborhoods with widely spaced ho houses with large lawns, thickly planted trees on uh treeline streets, naturally vegetated ravines and protected wetlands and curve linear streets. And in contrast, in the historic center of the village, uh, period homes sit comfortably on small lots among huge trees in a mix of bright flowering ornamental trees and

shrubs. The vision statement also talks about the small, thriving historic commercial area with its variety of businesses in a setting of architectural and landscape beauty. Sidewalks and street lighting have been added to enhance the walkability and connectivity in the village center commercial district. The vision statement emphasizes that residents are brought together by a series of seasonal community events steeped in tradition. And the village green is the center of uh is the central outdoor gathering place. But the village center includes several other public facilities including the library, the creger house, the village hall, and the Franklin Community Church. All of which provide residents with a diverse spectrum of activities to participate in. Now, I've provided a brief overview of the vision statement and I encourage you to read the entire statement because it provides uh the basis for the overall plan. Also in chapter one are um the community values and planning goals. And some of you have been on the council for a while remember that when the first draft of the master plan was pre presented to the village council. Uh we received several comments regarding the planning goals. We had I think about uh 10 planning goals and as a result of that input um they were split into uh community values which are defined as attitudes and behaviors towards which residents and leaders of the village have a long-term lasting positive emotional regard. and then three planning goals which are highlevel aims towards which the village

leaders and residents wish to dedicate a concerted effort. So, I'm not going to go through all those uh 10 planning goals and community values, but uh we did respond to the uh village council and and um uh did amend those uh as a result of the village council input. Uh the master plan um contains an existing land use analysis which shows that nearly 73% of the land is occupied by residential uses and the next most uh predominant land use category is transportation uh consisting of dedicated rightaway for roads and utilities and this category accounts for 16.2% of the land. I should mention in terms of uh land use, the one big change uh from the previous master plan was uh a lot of the uh vacant properties along the periphery of the of the village got developed. Uh for example, a number of uh vacant properties along Telegraph Road and also along 14 mile road uh got developed with single family homes. So that was a change. public and uh quasi public and recreation lands which are located primarily in the village center account for 3.9% of the land. Now in terms of the village center, the master plan focuses a lot of attention on that particular aspect of the village emphasizing that it is the vibrant core of Franklin life. And in the village in the vision of the uh village center on page uh 66 68 uh the plan states that the carefully preserved uh 19th and early 20th century buildings are filled with one-of-a-kind

special retail shops, restaurants, a coffee house, an ice cream parlor, and other locally owned and operated businesses. Shoppers, uh, children on bikes, families with strollers, joggers, and dog walkers are among the people enjoying Franklin's sense of place and the diverse amenities it provides. Uh there's an entire chapter dedicated to the commercial portion of the uh village center and the health of the retail base is a major focus of this element of the plan. We did an inventory of uh the 37 non-residential uses in the village center and we found uh the inventory was done in June of 2023 that only seven uh were commercial u that being retail, a gas station, a restaurant. Another seven were serviceoriented including a beauty salon, nail and spa establishment and a personal trainer. and nine of the uses were offices. So, um, and then perhaps of greatest significance, there were at least nine vacancies at that time in the inventory. So, I I think if you did the inventory today, you probably wouldn't see uh too much difference in that uh inventory. So, it's really I think we compared it to an earlier inventory. there's sort of a transition away from retail which is sort of interesting. And the master plan offered eight recommendations to strengthen the village center commercial district. I won't go through all eight but um I'll mention four of them. Uh continue to participate in the main street fourpoint approach. Encourage coordinated parking behind buildings.

um active act actively encourage uh retail development within the village center and leverage village investments into securing grants and other funding for revitalization of the village center. Now there's an abundance of additional ideas and information contained in the master plan u more than I can uh probably review this evening. I wanted to conclude by uh talking about the final chapter which is the implementation chapter. This chapter emphasizes the need for a continual planning process involving close cooperation among the planning commission, village council, village administration, and other village organizations such as the historic district commission. Toward that goal, the implementation chapter sets forth special implementation tasks on a chapterby chapter basis. And the implementation chapter also suggests methods the planning commission can use to advance the planning process. These methods include preparation of special studies, special workshops, and public meetings and an annual workshop. In retrospect, if there's one thing I believe the planning commission wishes they could have done differently in the preparation of this master plan is engage the public at a greater scale. Uh the inclusion of these methods in the implementation chapter reflects this desire. Now I um I hope that the uh resolution for adoption made it into your packet. If not, um it's a simple resolution. It basically um states that the um

master plan was prepared in accordance with the uh Michigan Planning Enabling Act, public act 33 of 2008. Uh the planning commission uh prepared the master plan uh which consists of research and analysis dealing with land use, demographics, village character and neighborhoods, historic areas, the village center and commercial areas, transportation, community facilities, trees and vegetation and and pertinent topics. And the planning commission has used the master plan analysis to prepare a future land use map that allocates land and appropriate amounts for continued residential, commercial, and office and public purposes. And the planning commission held the required public hearing on December 10th uh 2025. and uh the planning commission adopted the master plan and forwarded it to the village council for review and consideration. And um so the resolution um says as this final paragraph, I think that's the final paragraph. Uh now therefore be it resolved that the village council of the village of Franklin hereby adopts the village of Franklin 2025 master plan update based on the recommendation of the planning commission and resolves to use the plan and future land use map together as the guide for the overall development of the village. Are there any questions?

Thank you Chris. Yes. Um, thanks President Goldberg. Um, that was really good. And I just note that we're on this parking um, page which relates to our previous discussion during the bill's run. Um, that maybe in a service agreement we discuss whether you know whether the church parking lot is available for public parking. Um because this says that there was a um the committee determined there was effic there was sufficient parking but yet there's still complaints by businesses that we don't have enough parking. Right. People don't like to walk. Okay.

We found that out. Yeah. If you add up the total amount of space uh parking spaces that are needed based on the square footage uh in the commercial area in particular, we didn't look at the uh the church in particular, but uh the commercial areas we focused on uh in this particular section of the master plan. Um there's sufficient parking,

but there there's two things. people don't like to walk. And secondly, um, uh, businesses, they operate in silos. And so they want their parking to be for them and not for others. And so, uh, even though there'll be a parking lot that's empty and, uh, all day, they don't want others from their next door neighbors to park in that parking lot. It's very frustrating.

So, compared to other villages with um retail and restaurant businesses, Franklin has sufficient parking if you include our public parking. Overall, there's sufficient parking. Yes. It just requires a lot requires cooperation and people to walk. Okay. and not walk too far either.

Yeah. Okay. Um, no, this is really good because we just did a priorities meeting in February and a lot of the infrastructure um and council strategic pillars that we agreed to are sprinkled throughout this plan. So, I feel like it'll be a good like guiding document. Thank you for your work on this. Thank you. Yeah.

Yes. Uh, one quick note, really appreciate that um, at the beginning where it's noting the people involved, it also included the former um, because on this one in particular, we had a lot of former planning commissioners who did a lot of good work on it. Um, so really like that aspect. I also know that historically, or not historically, I think at one point we previously talked about um, condensing because it obviously is a long document nearly 200 pages. Um, is this in line with what other uh strategic plans look like? Other master plans,

sorry, ma what other community master plans look like? Or are they starting to condense down a little bit? It varies, but I think this is pretty consistent with what other plans look like. Okay,

yes. Uh I have a kind of a doublebarreled question related that's a kind of a follow-up to what David Sully was talking about. So uh I'm interested in how we're going to act it act on the goals and and who owns those. How do we funnel the goals that the planning commission has proposed in the master plan to the work of the village and other organizations that have the h their hands-on uh activities that could help accomplish those goals. I think it's a gap that we've had and I'm interested in your and Stuart's uh views on that. Given particularly that we have done one pass at setting some priorities, we probably have more to do. Uh but this seems like an a an an opportunity,

right? I think well uh the master plan um of course is the uh docu the the document itself is the responsibility of the planning commission. So

uh first off the uh the ownership is with the the planning commission but I think uh the ownership goes beyond that and I think the way to um um make that responsibility uh go further is uh through um the uh cooperation with other uh um commissions and boards here in the village. And I think um Stuart in particular has uh been a a proponent of that. He's worked for example with the historic district commission. We've done some great things uh in that regard with the R3 district. So I think that's one way uh to make the ownership uh broader than just sitting with the planning commission. Stuart, do you want to

Thank you. Good job, Chris. I really appreciate um your advice as well as your your support over the last six year, five years working on this. Um no, I think I think it's a good question. Um part of the reason why we have this implementation section um for implementation of tasks um was to kind of address that question that was proposed a couple years ago by the council. Um and the idea is that yes uh the master um planning commission is responsible for creating the document, organizing with other community groups to implement these things. Also, um part of the master plan is to help keep at a forefront in our mind when we have site plan reviews, when we have um initiatives that are going on the village that we can have a point a document we point to that we can coordinate with those other organizations as they're implementing tasks or make recommendations to council based upon things. And so it's really it's more of a opportunity um for um council to to also look at um doc um these these initiatives as well as us coordinating with the other organizations and implementing them. Um I will say um some of the some of these items are actionable um set set at a cadence that we talked about but other items um can be rolled off and rolled on depending upon um the need of the village over time because the document is going to be the document for the next 5 years but in a year and a half two years we're going to start working on the next one as the village changes and as council changes and as priorities of the village change. Um and so that's where some of these activities that are annual coming about. We can help um bring about the next wave of initiatives that we go forward doing. So I don't know if that helps. I mean specifics are difficult in that um only because um the master plan is is an overall governing document but um the initiatives we talked about la in the last chapter um and for and how we can achieve different things for the within the different chapters. That's really kind of the

guiding guidance for executing the the master plan. Thank you. Um I the group uh the the the work that in the area in the village that comes to my mind immediately is the commercial district which has been you know a struggle since the 60s here.

Yeah. Um and uh it seems to me that one action that could be taken is to make sure that the main street board, the business people, the village staff assigned to economic development would should should understand what's in the master plan document because the main street board produces a work plan and they will be updating that work plan I think as part of to deliver it to us prior to us approving the budget. Uh so this seems like another very timely um action that could be taken.

Right. So it we have we addressed some of those points in the village center commercial for chapter 6. Um what are some of the implementation plans and I think you know some of the onus is on us to make sure that they're aware of that of what we're recommending for the for the commercial district.

Um so and that includes participating with main streets approach. Now at the time they had their own they had an approach that they're looking at and as that evolves we have to coordinate with them on that. So but no that this is I think ultimately after looking at this and working on this for a while we realized that um we don't want our commissions in the village to be siloed and that's one of the problems that we would run into we've run into in the past. think that we would show up to historic district commission for um to discuss a a proposal or an ordinance or something and and they had no idea what we were talking about that affected their area specifically. So um no, I I think you know we just need to continue to try and work on this as a planning commission to to reach out. I know that you have seats or representatives on all those commissions already. Um, but even then there's still not a

as much cross-pollination between of ideas that we we could probably achieve. Thanks for the answers and thanks Chris for your work and Stuart yours on this. It's a really good document. Thank you. and Chris. Um, one of the things that really stood out to me was kind of as you and I think piggybacking off of what Pam was talking about was the the statistical breakdown of what the commercial district looks like and in the fact that we have actually a very few number of retail spaces.

Um, and even services, I still think retail obviously draws in people from our community, surrounding communities, services, same thing. Um but then a high degree of offices which don't right um and I guess my question and you don't may not know this answer off hand is in order to have an office within the village do you have to be within the commercial district? Yes.

Okay. The reason that obviously I'm asking that is because are you able to support offices in the building without occupying our limited spaces that could be otherwise retail, right? Just to think about foot traffic and the flow because I think that's one thing that we don't talk enough about is how when you do community planning oftent times the businesses that are allocated within an area create the sense of, you know, you create that natural flow, right? Um and so offices to a degree can help populate some of those uh retail spaces, but oftent times doesn't attribute that to that as much. Some downtowns will even uh they'll limit the proportion of office. Yes, we had discussed

that was something that Rachel Yeah, we never did. So is the office south of 13 on the west side of Telegraph? That's not in the commercial district, but that's a carveout. Could you say that's in a commercial district? You're using zone commercial. It's zone commercial. Okay. Yeah. And that's an addition. So that office space south of 13 west of Telegraph and then this downtown area, correct? Are the two commercially zoned districts, correct?

Okay. So just Pam to from my experience on planning imple although council can always implement an idea but typically the planning commission did own implementation the ideas of how to implement. Yeah. And then brought those to council particularly when it required the implementation of spending money.

But I think the original ownership of implementation was with the planning commission to take the goals that were established and marry those with actual real life situations. So Rachel, do we officially do we actually adopt this? Is that something that we do or is this something we just recognize? Yeah, you are accepting the master plan. Yeah, I'll make a motion if we need one. Yeah. And there is a the resolution was provided to you if you need a copy of it or you can just pres accept it as a take care of it. Yeah. Can you see

and I'll second the motion. Okay. Um I'll move to Oh, it's official. Okay. Um, so I'll make a motion to accept the 2025 master plan update. Whereas the village of Franklin Planning Commission, pursuant to the Michigan Planning Enabling Act, has studied and prepared recommendations for the development of the village. And whereas the planning commission has prepared a master plan titled Village of Franklin 2025 master plan update, which wait before should it come should this come from the planning commission leaison? Do you want to do this? He said he was going to second it.

Okay. Which consists of research and analysis dealing with land use, demographics, village character, neighborhoods, historic areas, the village center, commercial areas, transportation, community facilities, trees and vegetation, and other pertinent topics. And whereas the planning commission has used the master plan analysis to prepare a future land use map that allocates land and appropriate amounts of continued residential, commercial, and office and public purposes. And whereas the planning commission held a public hearing on December 10th, 2025. And whereas the planning commission recognizes that the master plan and future land use map are guides for public and private decision-making that will keep the village in motion towards its vision to maintain outstanding quality of life for all residents. Whereas the planning commission adopted the master plan and forward it to the village council for review and consideration. Now therefore, be it resolved that the village council of the village of Franklin hereby adopts and accepts the village of Franklin 2025 master plan update based on the recommendations of the planning commission and resolves to use the plan and future land use map together as a guide for the overall development of the village of the village.

I'll second the motion. Excellent. Thank you Angelina and David. All in favor say I. I opposed. Excellent. Thank you so much for being here. Stuart, thank you again. Thanks, Stuart.

All right, so the next item on the agenda is a request to enter close session pursuant to MCL 26818 to discuss a client privilege legal opinion. Uh Rachel, we still need this death. Uh how are we going to effectuate this? I'm sorry. How are we going to effectuate this? Um, you just need to vote to go into close session. But we also want to note that uh Rick David and the chief of police will be joining us. Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry. And our finance director. Okay. All right. So, we need a motion to go into close session. Do we need a clerk or no? Uh, no. I'll take Okay. Okay. I'll I'll make a motion to enter into close session. I'll second. Motion by Hansen, second by Sally to enter into close session. All in favor say I. Roll call. Oh, you're right. Roll call. We've done this already. Sorry, my bad. Trusty King. Hi. Trusty Salaka. Yes.

Trusty Hansen. Yes. Trusty Ferris. Yes. Trusty Gates. Yes. Trustees Sally. Yes. President. Yes. So that's what I meant by how we effectuate this. Are we are we staying in people leaving or are we leaving and people stay? I think we should go next door. Okay. Okay. Do that. I think it'll be easier. Okay. Can we leave her stuff here?

I'm going to call back. Uh we're going to uh we we came out of close session. So it is 7:58 and we will re reccommence our regular meeting where we left off was uh the next item on old businesses a millillage discussion and recommendation. Uh how do you want to present this Rachel? Do you want to give some background on what specifically we're doing? You want me to do it? Um actually Jody has an entire presentation. Kurt's going to start off and talk about the police department. But what we are doing is bringing before the council to consider a police mill for the next 10 years at a max of four mills.

And I have copies for you up. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I'll talk about the other one. Okay. The first one we're looking at right now. Thank you. Oh, what? One of these. I'm trying to figure where to put it. I have one. I'm trying to wonder where to put it. That's perfect. Right on my

I kind of want it, but I did it wrong. It should have been the other way, but I don't see it. All right. So, I'll begin. Uh, I'm kind of the warm-up act and it'll go to the Jo Jody and Rick David. So, uh, first of all, I'd like to once again thank the village council and our residents for their continued support of our police department. We truly appreciate it. When I left West Bloomfield and I considered what my next stop was going to be as police chief, one of my top priorities was finding a department that values customer service, professionalism, and strong partnerships with their community. And I can say without any hesitation that this department embodies those values. They are not just goals. They are ingrained in our culture. And importantly, our community recognizes that. They appreciate the level of personal service, the professionalism, and the accessibility of their police department. In return, our officers, many are here today, understand that trust is everything. We are committed every single day to ensuring that that trust is not tarnished. We also recognize that maintain maintaining your own police department can be a significant financial challenge and a commitment. And I want to assure you that we take that responsibility seriously. And every day we're focused on delivering a strong return on your investment through high quality service, proactive policing, and meaningful community engagement. It was just last week, one of my officers was in my office and he said, "I really think we have one of the best small police departments in Oakland County." And I tend to agree with him. And that's nice and something that we're proud of, but it's something that we

don't take for granted. It's the result of your support, your commitment, and the dedication of our team. And because of all that support, we are now halfway through our accreditation process. We have significantly enhanced our training and we've expanded our focus on problem oriented policing, working not just to respond to issues like a lot of police departments do, but to solve them and prevent them from reoccurring. Our team of 11 officers remain mindful of fiscal responsibility. We understand the balance between maintaining excellence and being good stewards of public funds. As we look ahead and we discuss tonight about funding options, I simply ask that you consider the value your police department brings not just in costs, but in trust, safety, and community partnership. And on this first slide, um, I'll take you to was I kind of called around and talked to different chiefs about comparable police departments. And I wanted you to see that we are in line with our current staffing uh with what I believe to be these four police departments that are closely aligned with us. Specifically, Orchard Lake, which has a similar uh per capita income. Um we're a little bit bigger as far as uh if you look at the 4,800 that includes Bingham Farms. That does not include the roughly 5,000 people that come in daily to the commercial district in Bingham Farms. So um I wanted you to see that for the number of officers that we have um we are budgeted for 12 but we currently have 11. Next slide. It's been pretty consistent since 2010. We did have 10 officers for uh five years but we also had two part-time officers at that time. That model did not work well for us at all. And Chief Roberts and I agreed that that model isn't something that we should move forward with. So, we uh removed the two

part-time officers and the board uh very graciously approved two additional officers which brought us up to the 12 officer total that we have today. Next, please. Um like I said in at the beginning, we really do try to save as much of the taxpayer money as possible. Uh the staff and I have come up with some some savings over the past year uh year and a half and we're going to continue to do that in the future. And this is just a list of the savings that we have uh implemented so far. And with that, I'll stop talking and turn it over to Jody. So, for the 2627 budget, um uh I have a a few of my own little disclosures here. Um, one I've been here for two weeks. So, if there's, you know, numbers like something that is, uh, you know, we had some some small variances. This number gets updated. It didn't update. Should be good now. But, um, the, uh, the budget um, in your charter, it says that the the budget is to be proposed at the first meeting in May. Um, in the financial statement notes, it has been noted previously that um, that's not in compliance because it is supposed to be submitted to council the first meeting in April. So, focusing on millage and tax settlement in the last couple weeks, the um the the budget was completed. It's not completed in a we went through this line by line kind of completed. Um, it takes the historical figures, it computes, um, an addition onto them. Um, big anomalies that stood out to me as one-time things or things

that may not be happening this year. I may have changed or deleted. Um, it doesn't mean that that was necessarily accurate from an outsider's perspective, if that makes sense. So, this is just a presentation. This is this one. That's correct. She's walking us through like you have a presentation on this. You're just giving context on this. Correct. Correct. Because that does lead into this. Yeah. All right. But this is the first time we're all seeing this. Correct.

Okay. Yes. And and this is a um something to just start working on. Um we have it proposed for the public hearing to be May 11th. Um so so that will be the the first official where we will start walking through and and discussing full budget items and stuff where the where the budget becomes the discussion. Today really isn't that's that's not the discussion. It's a preliminary for one. We submitted it the first meeting of of that's part of the charter. Correct. Yeah. That's part of the the state uniform budget and accounting act. The charter is May.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Although language does it does say presented in May, the other language is submitted in in April. Either way, we're going to follow rules and create policies as such. So Jody, yes, we'll do budget workshops. Yes. So we will schedule budget workshops so council can get together and discuss the more complete proposed budget down the road.

Okay. And I I don't know what that looks like here. That's a little bit different system each place that I have been familiar with. So, um I kind of left that one out because I don't know what you guys are used to as far as workshops, but that is a a coming up thing. I do know that part. So, going through the budgets, um this is one of the the first things that that I see in a budget. Um these are um I use caution in the word deficit. These are when your expenditures are greater than your revenues. When that is happening, it can be because of a it doesn't it doesn't create that in itself doesn't create a deficit, but it creates um if that was because we did a large project and we were we saved up for it and we that's how you spend your fund balance when you when you build these fund balances. that's how you spend them is having that um you'll see a negative of the net of appropriations and revenues um

specific year

you can't have your your fund balance can't go into negative that number can so a little bit of just discrepancies on the or what people think it it means so that's that's what those two things mean um here for the last uh the current year that we're in and then what we're looking at for starting in July. Um you have in the the orange is police and the blue is the general fund funds and you have both of them being um expenditures exceeding revenues. So, sorry, I'll let you.

This is based just on the operating standpoint um for for what was budgeted for this fiscal year and what it's looking at for being budgeted for next fiscal year. We're these aren't like there's a large project in here. They are maybe like small capital items, but not anything that should indicate this. Right. The way that we're breaking this out though is general fund, police fund. Correct. And it's showing for 2025 2026 that they're sufficiently under. Mhm. What's the deviation from the previous years? Because the police are funded largely out of our general fund,

right, with a supplement of the current police millage. And so what would this be representing and why was it previously not that spike? So the the general fund has been supplementing it as costs increase for the police department. And just to be clear though, I think it's hard to say that the general fund is supplementing it because the current millillage for the police would never be able to support a force. I don't know that we ever relied on that to actually fund the police. There are other sources though such as such as um Bingham Farms and an the special assessment. Correct. I think forfeiture they get a little bit

right but I think the premise of it is that we always start at the general fund and then when we I don't remember when we went to the the vote on the police millillage I don't know that it was represented that this covers the full balance of the police right because it's such a small amount correct and I think that it's I think that that this when you see this towards the end of it means that you've outgrown that model of in the past but there's no way that from 2024 to 2025 we outgrew it by 350,000. There's the the numbers are in the budget for what that where those numbers are coming from

the delta. Do you have a breakdown of the deltas between the year like what lines may be contributed to that between 25 and 24 25 and 25 26 also this might be unfair to ask her on the slide. No, she literally we just got this information like I don't want but you can see very good to you see the answers in the proposed budget there is a column for the um projected activity for the 2526 year and um it's labeled as the requested budget for the 2627 year. So,

do we know? Sorry. And again, thank you for calling that out, Trusty Salaka. I'm very analytically minded. So, when I start to turn that part on, all grace given, like if there's any answer that we don't know right now, that's totally fine. Um, it's just things that I, as I'm digesting this, I'm processing in real time and out loud. Um, so do we know what the revenues generated out of the current police millage equate to? Um, so this is actually a con kind of a long presentation and it's probably going to be touched on there instead of answering it up front. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Um, could could we just but I've got questions to agree with moving on. Would you could we just sort of put a pin in this one because it's not completely clear to me as either and uh but but I don't need to get questions like that answered tonight. I would like to circle we can answer them. Um, my plan was to go through a a couple slides and then stop for questions so that it because they all do kind of flow together if we stop at each one like it's we're going to kind we may get a little lost. We also have budget workshops to answer the questions.

Well, this stuff is it's you know to when we start discussing like where this comes from like it is important for you to have the information on this. So, it's not that your questions will be a different day, but um maybe after or when there's a time where it's not quite as connected, we can stop for questions at that point. Perfect. And apologies.

No, no problem. Um also because the the I will say that this is going to be a factor in in this in this chart too is that in comparative to a different municipality the amounts aren't large as as large as like this isn't a million dollar difference of that like a small difference creates a bigger difference when you're in a in a small village versus that sticky book. So out of the the general operating millage the the revenues that are received from that um this is a a chart to show where those funds are allocated and where they have been being spent historically. And you see that the the largest portion of it is the police department which is not atypical. Um but again it is a point where from a finance perspective appears to be outgrown. The um so so the options with millages to to do when you're looking at um how to fund these things and they they come through millillage options. Um the the discussions that uh were brought up during um legal and finance committees um had to do with these variations between um charter mill uh chart the the millillage in the charter uh is currently specified at 3.5 to do a charter amendment would also require a vote. Um the the the differences between the two are a a charter mill once you approve that um it's an it's an

indefinite approval. It does not have an expiration date on it. It's not going to it's not considered permanent because it is sub it's still subject to roll backs and things, but it is indefinite where it does not expire. Um it's it's kind of a um it it puts the the um it puts it a lot more in the hands of the the village council versus the taxpayers to to make those when you have um an an extravillage. In that situation, you're going to set a an expiring term. And in the expiring term, it's, you know, if if you're not doing steward things with what is given, then they can they have options with by voting. So, um, and then also when it's a millage for police, um, it can only be used for what is listed in the ballot language for, um, and I believe the proposed language has for police services only. So should the residents um should should you decide to request the mills the the residents pass the millillage then that ballage language specifies and they don't have to worry that you're going to take this money and you're going to do whatever you could do with it. It it gives them that assurance that this is it's placed in this pool and it can't go anywhere else or be used for anything else for that. the um the thing that uh when you're when you're putting a police language, we've kind of talked also about um like hybrid options of still supplementing with charter and having a police millage and from a finance perspective from from my perspective I don't know if this is a residential perspective but it's not as

transparent because you you if you had a a three mil police levy and uh three mills on your charter, but your police is using six mills. Like that's not really quite apparent on your on your um tax bills. When you see how much you're paying for those things, when I see a police millage, I assume that's the cost of the police is this is how much I'm paying. Not that I'm paying this plus a good portion of this. from paying the you know once you start having different types of millages um it's it's a good practice from my perspective to have it broken into the categories to which those things are actually being used and levied for. So when you decide an amount um this is and and this is an explanation because it is a there's there's not a a total science to it. There's a lot of um a lot of different variables a lot of to try to um first is when you're looking at um proposal A and Hudley um we've seen how the rollbacks and the capping uh can affect the values and how they can affect the millages and what you're receiving on that. We'll go more into it. um but to be able to um account for that in a in a um guesstimate sort of way. And then if we're if we're looking at a 10-year millage, the next part is not how much do we need right now. You know, if we need one mill right now, that doesn't that's not going to help us at the end of this millage. Uh the I think one of the most scrutinized things that I hear about for boards is that you

go through all of the work, you get support from the residents, you have a millage pass for 10 years and five years, seven years later you're asking for more. Um, and that's um I feel like that creates more divide than looking at the full perspective of it and being upfront and transparent about what you're really going to need throughout towards the end, not just in the beginning. And then um the the process for levying the annual mills. So if you have um like currently for the charter the the millillage rate in the charter for general operating is 3.5 during the roll backs from Headley millage rollbacks then um those decrease and then you're given annually a maximum amount that can be levied. So here it is it's presented um it will be part of a budget process. Uh the timing is is going to be with the budget that those things will will coincide together. And at that point you would decide on each of the ones that you have that um authority on to decide of how much you're going to levy up to the maximum amount of it. So that's kind of how it's structured to be able to get to the end of a millillage is by you have to set it higher. But that doesn't mean that you levy here. It it means that that's also available for emergencies, contingent plans, other things that come up that communities

don't know about. Those things are there, but that's decided and voted on annually of how much of that millillage is actually going to be levied for that year. does um are there any questions on that stuff before we go forward? We're gonna now we're going to kind of break down those things a little bit more. Just one item on that. So effectively, you know, for every millillage we run, rubbish, fire, general fund, police, uh what else is there? Not library. We don't have the for that

but we would so the maximum will be presented in the budget cycle and then each year we would assess a you need to decide up to the amount that is written in the language plus given from the state based on headley correct is that right say that again so just that part we there's a maximum amount you can levy yes that's given to you every Yes. For each one that we have control over. Correct. Yes. And then we would be like, okay, based on the budget and based on the tax rate, you can levy up to a certain amount.

Correct. And that is um that information is not a treasury function. That comes from assessing. Yeah. So the um assessors are given the computations and stuff for the U millage reduction factor for that year and then they're placed from that. Okay. And that's a county function assessment. the county. It's an assessment function here. Um the assessing is done in the county. Um it it it also could be at the township level. Um oh like Southfield. Mhm. But but the this township utilizes the county and so therefore so does the village. So do we. Okay.

But some municipalities have full-time assessor on site. Some have a part-time. Some have contracted assessors that work at it's it varies from um municipality to municipality. Okay. Thank you.

So um this is just a historical trend for proposal A. Um these numbers that we go through I began this in 2009. So um that's the chart is going to go from 2009 through 2025. Um so here you can see with proposal A uh proposal A is the portion that has the capping and uncapping and and determining the difference between your um assessed or um state equalized value and your taxable value. So the the difference between that is um anytime there's a decrease both of those numbers can decrease and and they will the assessed value decreases the taxable value will follow it and that was something from 2009 through that trend in 2008 when when it started with the the homes and for high foreclosure rates and market prices were dropping Um, so that dropped down and it took quite some time for local municipalities to be able to recover from that because once things started going back up, this this blue line is uh

moving much faster is is when they move up, but your taxable value doesn't get there. So the amount of money that you're able to collect on is per is not permanently decreased, but it's decreased and it's capped at that's capped at the 5%. It's either the rate of inflation or 5% whichever is lower. So typically inflation for for a long time was two or less. So it's a small amount of growth. And um then we'll go to the values of what that looks like.

And so can you go so proposal A and this is for can you go back to the previous slide please? So this would be it's capped at 5% and this is the if nothing happens there's no home sale. This is like your standard issue just properties in the village they will be capped at 5% at a maximum if the house is not sold. So there is no meaningful taxable value growth when houses don't turn over.

Well, even when they do and we'll get that will be that's headly. So um so yes, when a home is sold um it does uncap and the value can will increase to the assessed value and the assessed value is often updated at a sale as well. Um, it's it's not typically updated based on a sale. It shouldn't be based on a sale, but it's usually based on more so of like information found during a sale because you now create a listing and make public all of the interior photos of a home that assessors don't typically have access to. And so now we found out that there's another bathroom, the basement's finished, everything's updated. And so your assessed value when they start computing and adding those changes to it a lot of times will come close to the actual sale price. But it really is just bringing it up to market price based on the other evidence discovered in that.

But that's when real taxable value growth happens is when it's uncapped upon sale.

No, when new construction is what where the growth comes from. Um so the the effects for Franklin, we can go back to the next one. For the effects for Franklin for the the proposal A and the difference of um those variances between the assessed value and the taxable value um are they are they labeled? No. So I I mean I think it's obvious the assessed value on the left um the taxable values historically on the right and you'll see throughout the years to greater growth on that from 2009 through 2025 there was a a 60% increase for the assessed value of homes basically um half of market value is should be this the equalized value How does that

Sorry, I think I might have the same question. Sure. Go ahead. Is that because of new homes? What part? Um the 60%. Explain the 60%. The 60% is really just um it's it's like inflation. The cost of the market prices of homes increase. That's not um not based on what's the assessed Sorry, it's hard without the labels, so I just forget quickly. The assessed value is the bigger one. Assessed value, taxable value on the right. Yes. And that is what is you know that gets hit by the caps on inflation plus that's it right so far. Okay. Thank you.

And so and so Franklin's home values have increased 60% since 2009. Yes. How does that compare to other villages municipalities? I don't know. Okay. But that seems very good for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that means if you bought 15 years ago, your home value would have increased 60%. Okay. And the but the taxable value obviously doesn't go up at the same rate. That's correct. So, and that's sitting at 42%. And and so when municipalities start running into this like we need more mills

and and there's you know the the like what are you doing with the money? what are you know there's there's like a a broad perspective of that and that's why I wanted this it was important to me to include this because I don't know historically what Franklin has I will I wouldn't say in one way or another that things were managed or mismanaged in in any kind of sense except for like this is just the numbers of and there are um this is a great portion of why communities are are struggling having the funds to pay for things because the the cost of goods and services typically follow with home market rates and so when you have them growing a lot faster than what revenues can grow you can't keep up with it

and then sorry the the numbers in the SEV and the TV that's the is that calculated at the general fund mill rate or what is that what are those numbers state equalized value state equalized value, taxable value. What are the like what does $900,000 mean in this context? One second. I think that's the average, right? That's a general fund revenue, right? The general fund revenue assuming that state So the the first the first column is the um assessed value or state equalized value of the property in Franklin. Yep.

The second column is the um taxable value for those same properties. And then the next inside the box is the monetary effect of both of those. Had you been able to with your same mill levy at the assessed value, what's the delta? This is what that amount would have been. So that taxable value in dollars is like this is what the general fund mails get you every year. So throughout this part of it, it's been a difference of almost $3 million. And that's because of Headley. This is proposal A.

That's the you can't raise the value the the taxable value more than the rate of inflation or the capping. The capping. We don't raise them. Yeah. The assessed value is correct um changes based on market values and there's a lag and all of that stuff but that that changes it only can go up

now um Headley used to have a roll forward option. There was the roll back, but there was also a roll forward until proposal A. And proposal A kind of like double hit with capping it. You'll see when we go to Headley that you're kind of being double capped, but with the um Sorry, I can see you like getting ready to say something and I No, go ahead. The double cap and following. So, um it And it eliminated the ability to be able to roll forward with it as well. Okay. And this impacts every community in Michigan.

Yes. The proposal. And does Headley have an expiration? No. No. It is enshrined in the Michigan Constitution. It's so there's a lot of arguments. If you can Can we go back to the the chart of it backwards? Yes. So um you can see in the chart where this became a conversation in 2014 2013 20 okay

like hey wait a minute so so it was an older thing I believe 94 is proposal A um but it it wasn't really a big difference of conversation until this happened and then it became where um it was becoming critical and there were a lot of municipalities ities that were having shortfalls and stuff because of these impacts. Um, and then COVID happened and there were a lot of grants, funds, and extra monies during that time that kind of sustained and pushed along of where we're at again now. Like it kind of Do we know how many communities have done an override of the Headley roll back?

No, we wouldn't know that. It would I mean it would that's community by community. Yes. Yeah. And that's just a it's doing a Headley override um is is kind of the same as requesting a new millage. Yeah. Yeah. So, which we did in 2022. Yes. Okay.

Okay. And now this one shows now we go into Hedley. And Hadley has the same impact except for you take your the value of your mills at your taxable value. So you can't change the the mills don't stay the same and your value is

and now you're capped at 5% again and it's uncapping is not exempt from that calculation. So when a lot of homes uncap in one year it rolls back further and roll backs are permanent. So it's not a great benefit for uncapping. Um, it can be in in certain, you know, if it gets you right to a 5% then it would be it it would be like that's the only time that it's going to be beneficial. If it gets greater than that, you lose that or you don't get to real you don't realize it. And that's why you told Trusty Gates the new construction is where it's at. So the new construction is exempt.

What's that? Got it. Well, I was just thinking for new construction, you would also be increasing the value of the home in of itself. So, you almost get twice the effort.

So, yes, and it is new construction is exempt from the Headley roll back. It's not part of the calculation. So, anything above your roll back that new construction goes on top of it. And um again it's kind of a a thing that you see a lot where a lot of um I see anyways I'm up Jennese County so um but there's a lot of um new businesses and stuff that are being allowed and causing a lot of controversy because they're they're not businesses that the residents want in the areas. But the municipality needs the revenue and that's the only way to get it is with new builds. So if somebody wants to build like they're like yes you can you know it it kind of creates that too.

So uh this shows too where Hudley where it started to roll back and then where that line ticks back up to it is when you um did the the uh override of Hudley.

Thank you. And then the the cost effects on for for Franklin for oh first we're going to do the millage amounts the um so this shows the original levy amount and this is just based on the general um operating for charter because it's it's across the board type of thing. uh if you see it on one, it's the same principle throughout each of your millages and shows the Headley um reduction factor. And again, once it is rolled back, it doesn't go back to zero the next year. That amount the next year adds on to it adds on to it. And that's how you get those drops and drops on that.

Yeah. And then if you just one more question. This shows us the heavy impact and also what the village decided to levy each year. Correct. So every year except for 2016 and 2020, we pulled the full amount from the general operating. Yes. And I will say that like to point out it's um you see the the it's the same but it's lower. Yeah.

It's so it's unfair to say that you know well it was the maximum every time. It's the m the maximum threshold as costs go up like the the threshold is going down

as cost go up. So, it's not a situation where, you know, oh, we had this many and we just over um overlevied beyond what our needs were. It's a like it was needed in those from what I've seen in budgets. So um the Headley costs in dollars um you saw the the proposal A um was almost 3 million and um Hadley is almost 4 million and this is just for Franklin just since 2009. Does sorry doesly impact every tax millillage like the county, Southfield Township, our schools.

So I'm not sorry I know you

an assessor. Um I do see on on the um L4029s that you you probably see because they you vote on them or you if you're new you haven't yet but will um gives each of them and in each of the each column it gives you like where it came from if it's by charter by vote um the date of the election of it the original um mil the original millillage authorized Um, and then it shows like the 24, the uh 25, and then the permanent reduction across it. Um, and then it gives you a a roll back fraction and then the maximum allowed

and that's for what we vote on. But sometimes I see them like yours for example for the roads. Uhhuh. One does not have anything in those columns. So it must not It says NA. So I would think that that means it's exempt. Again, I'm not an assessor to to but I would think that that is what So we'd have to So we we don't obviously don't have authority over schools and Oakland County and all of that, but they may or may not be impacted by Headley. Those for schools and those ones are impacted. Yes. But some reason the road but some but not everything is. Okay.

I don't think it's a village. So then we go to the um police budget and this is a a projection. Um and I I can give a better disclosure on on this one. Um the the chief so kindly before my arrival created a 10-year proposal of those. I have reviewed it. I have entered it into the system and stuff but I didn't actually um do this which means there was more work put into it than two weeks of time. So this these are I would say like something what you could count on to be an an accurate as accurate as forecasting out 10 years can be. And in this uh computation it shows in the top line what the the forecasted total amount of revenues is. The next line shows how much revenue is collected from that SAD and the next one shows the amount of revenue that equates to the 35% Bing on farms payment. And then what um so that would be the the funding needed for the police department from that point. Um the taxable value is the next line and then the value of one mill to divide out just simple computation of like how many mills would be needed each year for the police department

and that's into the funding need column. Correct. In which column? So funding need goes into the value of one mill. Funding need over value of 1 mill equals police mills needed. Yes. Um and then the assumptions that were used on it. Um the average historically was 7%. Uh when I calculated what the the overall average was for going back through um I think on budgets I went back 10 years.

Yes. Um and so but that's that was seemed a long time to go 7% and for the last three years I lowered it to 5%. Um there for taxable value increase um I did 3%. uh we've had such a huge and I'm not this is no predicting prediction like this is just an opinion but we've had such a an large increase of value and homes that um it can't keep it can but it shouldn't economically keep trending at that high of a rate.

Yeah. Don't make assumptions based on especially knowing that the max that it can be is 5%. So that's so even if three is a little conservative, it's it's the largest it could be is five. The largest it could be is five. And then um this is not a capital plan. This these are this isn't looking out well maybe there's some capital for him probably. maybe. Yeah. Um but overall types of larger like purchases, any other kinds of things. This is just like a a

straight straight projection. Um and then I totaled up um over here again the uh revenue totals from that SED and being in farms. Okay. Does that have one or two officers? Officers two. The the two officers. Two officers. Okay. I couldn't remember. Um then it kind of goes to a same type of computation um of what's available and forecasted expenditures for the general fund. Uh when we

Sure. In that previous slide it was 3.9 mills or sorry four mill whatever it goes off the screen. The last number we see is 3.9. Four. It's a four. Yep. Okay. So 36 37. And based off of the four is the four us plus Bingham or is it us minus Bingham? It's it's us, right? It's the Franklin contribution needed. Franklin. Franklin only. um that that is computing with their contribution with the revenues continuing as they are correct assuming 35%. Assuming the SAD yes we need in year 10 for mills on that forecasted police expenditure for Franklin.

Yes. Thank you. Question chief. Did you bake in any staffing increases? No ma'am. Okay. Thanks. It assumes 12 officers, right? Yes, sir. Do you think you're going to need more than any more officers? I mean, I know it's looking out, but it's kind of material. I'm comfortable with the 12 officers. All right. Okay. Okay. Thanks. You're doing a good job, Jody. Yes. Thank you. Like, this is Thank you. And I was really appreciating the break so I could This is like a very dense topic. If you have more questions for him, like I do not you like

do you a cold beer? You're trying to make numbers fun. This is like This IS FUN. I WAS REALLY WHIPPING THIS stuff out. I'm like, "Oh, yeah." And they're This is the most honestly this is the most important stuff of the village. So it it should be fun and it's stuff that um most people don't know. And so that the like having like knowledge is power, right? Totally. Um, very impressed. Like two week work product, good hire, HR committee. Good hire, Rachel.

So, the the general fund kind of shows the same. Here's just your expenditures and um the taxable value again. Uh, and those are pretty easy math to kind of see which is which of you know how much. Pretty easy in math. Well, I know someone that can help you. It's not me. There's a big inside joke on that one. I'll tell you after. So explain what you're So forecast expenditures.

You're saying 2627 while we would not have a separate police millage. That's the general fund expenses. Once the police budget comes out of the general fund, it goes into its own millillage. That's all we'll need to spend. historically for from the general fund, but then in the bottom you're showing what's available. Can does anywhere do you show us what a a reduction is? Meaning if in 2627 to get to the 2,700,000 we had to levy 3.45 mills to get to 793. We don't need 3.45 mills. We need

Yeah, I 2.5 2.5 and I actually that's what we're trying to show residents that that's what we won't have to it's out of the general to angle that many ways to to and to combine them to create that is um it's difficult because so much of it is a guess and and when you're Well, don't don't you have it here? It is, but I'm saying that when you think it's not as accurate when you combine it together and say you need this, you know, like here's your your total. I mean, this is um

But you have the value of I guess are you saying you're not as comfortable with saying the 793 divided by the value of 1 mil, which Oh, to say what you how many mills are needed on here. Is that what you're saying? What I'm trying to see is how much less we'll need if so across a lot of them is is around um it comes out to be I would say average throughout it by memory was around a mill the general for basically

that number is 30% roughly 30% of the bigger number So if the bigger number takes 3.45 45 reduce that by 28.5. Thank you. That's the mills. That's what we would now what we would levy out of the 3.5 to get to the 793. Got it. Yeah. Before you start seeing that, there are a couple there are a couple things that I would like to address before because

to what you want to do what what councils and boards typically want to do is um please taxpayers because I mean that's who you're working for. So it's naturally like you want and and they don't want their taxes to go up and so you want to set the bare minimum and then other things kind of get pushed and pushed away. Um, these numbers don't include any type of larger capital things that may come up. And not saying that those things have to be done, but it gives you a basis of where your minimum would be. And then if you this year you want to do this project and it

you're not making promises to your taxpayers and then can't fulfill them because something comes up and

you may have an emergency. Bingham Farms may not, you know, you don't know what is going to happen. And so it provides um a safeguard and some leverage both. And how that's used or not used is annually going to be up to the council and it's as part of the budget process. it'll be something discussed through that. So when you're having like a public hearing then then um taxpayers get to have time for their input on what is being discussed on those things too.

Yeah. No, that makes sense. It's a cautionary safeguard. Yes. So this is my biggest um uh talking about not uh I understand longterm um in the far right column that's the liabilities is the unfunded yes the unfunded liability and that number has grown 1.5 million since 2015

and and the payments making the payments that you know um I have worked with MS for a lot of years and I have worked in a municipality that was a lot worse than this and for they were making extra million dollar payments every year to try to make ground on it and it was barely noticeable beyond what is given to them for what you your the payment that is um calculated for you to make addresses your current and unfunded liability amounts. Mhm.

However, when you make all of those payments, it's you're still moving backwards on it. Say more about that. Well, from the the unfunded amount is still growing every year. the if you just do the bare minimum. Is that what you mean? It's like paying the minimum on your credit card. So you have an Yeah. Okay. You're not I guess the the time that it you don't really Okay, I understand. Yeah. Rate of growth is happening faster than the revenue contributions.

So from from a finance person's perspective that creates part of the when people are like oh but we would only do the minimum. We would only do one. And I'm like, but you should do something with this, too. Because what is simple is that when you have a balance that you see that just keeps growing larger and you know, the longer you put it off, the more it's going to cost in the future, like that's no longer being good stewards of the finances to to pretend like that's not there.

We have some obligations based on the grant that we received. So, the grant for it um did go directly. You do have to continue making payments and stuff. It's been a few years since the since it was um released of what of what all of the it wasn't a lot of

a lot of the things you had to meet at that moment. going forward there was I know that you had to continue making payments and you couldn't um make any changes unless you were at a certain percentage or or just by memory but um there wasn't a lot but there were some things with that now what happened then with MS is it's they picked a valuation that it was based on and initially it took a while before we knew What number were they? They they they're going to bring us to I believe it was 65%. Um and but 65% based on what

a specific because here we're here and then we went here and then we went here because we had two really bad years in the market and so our MS so it actually was down down well well they kind of picked here. So when these are the other municipalities I've seen, I haven't I don't know that level of detail here, but across the board like usually their their markets and investments and results are are pretty across the board municipality to municipality. But by the time this payment was received, all it did was really bring it back up to here. It didn't really get people in the market.

Yeah. Um, so it's something to consider when you look at the um overall of what your needs are. You have your needs and you have some other needs that aren't necessarily budgeted, but things that could be looked at to to make it better. The the budget that's put together doesn't really change this trajectory. It's really just keeping stable. Correct. Correct.

It is. And actually um I did look at that part of it because that is critical um because if you take the if you take what the annual contributions are um by the end of this millillage and everything like the things going forward I based on the number of years through the through the end of the millillage and um so projecting that out from historical patterns um was over a million dollars. it was more than doubling the annual payment from what it is currently. And it was, you know, it's one of those like gez like that's I mean when your when your total levy is $2 million, a million dollar payment is a big deal

is a very big deal. Um and so I did go back to the budget and and chief actually did not surprised but accounted for that and it is it is listed and accurate in those numbers but it the percent funded doesn't improve partic right I mean you can kind of see where it goes down and down and where there is an improvement is is small and kind of coordinates with when that um grant happened. Y yeah.

So if we go to the next slide, um this shows a computation of um the the tax year, the budget year. Um the estimated taxable value uh at a 3% increase. Um it just shows what the the old millillage for police the current millillage for police is. um in here just refers to as the old and then a new and options and what the total um well this is what the millage amounts would be and estimating at the millillage reduction fraction at the bottom which is where it currently is just kind of

rolling down with that and then if you go to the next slide it's the dollar amounts related to those millages compared to the taxable values is right. Leave it there for just a second. So, so leaving off the the um 10,000 marks, it's, you know, 1.5 million to 2.5 million available to levy. It's not a huge difference, especially when we go back and talk about one payment being that amount annually

in a 10-year future. Got it.

Still doesn't mean that you need the full amount. Um there's and there's there's different strategies and that's something for a board each year to decide on um how to do that. I think that it's important for boards to know historical process and trends because um you know something may not make sense but was made if you have a a a plan. So either you can trend it like you know in an upward motion as things increase you levy more or you can try to calculate averages and create stability and different people have different preferences different boards vote different ways on that and it's just a um it would be kind of a disservice to change that in the middle of a trend um to to try to average out a balance would be easier than trying to if if somebody was trying to balance and they just dropped it like you you may create a shortfall at the end by interrupting a an average cycle. Does that make sense? That may have been too much.

I too much. I didn't Can you say it? I'm sorry. One more time. Yeah. So, let's say um you have up to four mills to levy. Yep. And in the beginning you need two and it's a a equal um slope whatever and then at the end is four mills. So you go from two to four. So you could start with two and you could increase every year as you need or you could start with three and always do three and then in 10 years people don't have four it's still three because you you roll over based on a you kind of at Yes.

So there's there's there you're stockpiling in earlier years to pay for the later years. And I'm only saying that because I just want to be clear that I'm not trying to say you should do it this or this or this. That there's options and things to discuss and things for boards to decide. I just am giving you like here's the information and the numbers and then the rest of it is a whole series before you actually get to where anybody would make a decision like that. But y and you can decide what fund to use. We could use the police millage for the unfunded pension or we can use the general fund for the unfunded pension and you can switch back and forth. No.

Okay. Explain. So you can use um the you would be able to you can use the police millage for anything police related. So the police unfunded or funded payments. Yes, you can use them for that. General operating amounts can be used for most everything. You have to be careful with some utilities and anything that are like enterprise funds. But can they be used to fund the pension a transfer from the general fund because we are right now now it's not restricted

if there are payments that are for um general fund anything the police cannot pay for that. with their millage money. So that's what it can go to police. It's not both ways. The everything in the police has to stay in the police, but the general operating can fund any general operating. Mhm.

So, this is probably not relevant right now, but when you were talking about the options of how you lay things out, if you were to frontload it and then putting into a could you put any extra into a money market account to capitalize interest?

Yeah. So, um if we go to the next slide. So that's kind of like that would be my recommendation of like if I was deciding how many mill should it would be four because at the end of it you need you're going to need four at the end of 10 years you may still need some from the general operating to go there. Um it won't be significant if it exists. It could change, you know, something could change along the way. And, you know, um, we we did look at the difference here. What was the difference? Oh, sorry. The difference between the, um, uh, taxable and assessed value because that's so when you're guessing, the unknowns and surprises are the risks and concerns. And um one of those being if things start going negative in any of the projections I did I I was saying like this it's a sunshine and rainbows projection. You know there's not um there's no negatives in there. Uh the last time that you went 10 years without negatives in any of those kind of things or

never say say more. So, so this is a now things don't always increase at that rate, but they I didn't use any backwards like oh 2039 is going to we're going to take a hit goes down or something like this. There is a pretty big cushion here between the taxable value and assessed value. So even if your assessed value um Yeah. So e so even in like a housing crash because the assessed value is lower than the or sorry because the taxable value is lower you kind of get to that taxable value you don't go lower taxable value

it makes sense now to to again I'm not an assessor but that's what like if there if it's based on a taxable value and this is that you know even if your house value crashed 50% you'd be at the taxable value depending on yes circumstances how long you've been there who he got it from. Family immediate family transfers are um exempt from uncapping. um certain agricultural things are um

there are exemptions from uncapping but um but with that you have money to make money like like setting Franklin up for a positive future of having like the fiscal health is sometimes gonna require more than the minimum like you're not going to get the best with the minimum amount And it

it's harder here. I can for me to look at the numbers and understand like it's a it's a small village and it's a small um but unfortunately like there's there's minimums for expenses, you know, for staff for police. You you still have a department. You still have, you know, uh full staff. You still need educated staff to be able to do these things. And it um so just because you may be a lot smaller than this person, it doesn't mean that you can have somebody that knows less about finance than that place does, you know. So so some of those caps are going to have Right. So you don't scale as well.

Exactly. Um, but it's it's, you know, seems like it's a great community and um I love how much I've seen people involved and people coming in and and talking and the um, you know, having residents that are involved in things. I've been in municipalities with population of 30,000 that um, all of their board meetings is just vacant. There might be two people that always come that what, you know, don't participate or anything, but there there's not public participation in any of it. Like the the taxpayers aren't involved. And so to have that and to to be able to um truly have that input and then then be able to get those services because if you you know eliminating any types of those eliminates the control over being able to provide it and having a good service for it.

Can we interest you in building a new construction home in Franklin? I will need a raise. But yes, a big one. Real big. Um, real quick question, and this is directed towards our attorney though, if this is something that should be handled under attorney client privilege. I don't anticipate that it is. Is there any issue with the way that our ballot language is written then being placed into a money market account? um not with the ballot language, but there are restrictions on what you can invest in as a municipality. Right. Right.

So, uh money markets, you know, that's not specific, but no, as long as you're abiding by state law with regard to your investments of the fund balance, yeah, the ballot language doesn't need to be changed. That is all through public act 20 will specify what those things are. And we'll get there tonight. No, once you get I need you need some money and then we'll talk about it was going there. I'm like this is some cognitive load.

So this is just a comparative. Um on the left side is um isolated to Southfield Township. Um on the right side are other villages in Oakland County. Um this is the the amount that most taxpayers are most familiar with is the total amount. Um, there's Franklin could possibly be one, but I haven't really met other locals that the taxpayers really know how much is going to their local, how much is going to the county, how much where all of that stuff is. They know like how much their total taxes are and if there's an increase. So, we pay Southfield public schools. I think there's two different

So, it's it's broken into two different juris jurisdictions. Um and the the schools have um they some schools when they have like millage requests, scing fund requests, like those types of things. So different schools are going to levy different amounts. And so if you're in a different school district, your total is going to be so they these Yeah. they would have the same village, same township, same county taxes. Um but the district is different. So then it breaks it into two different totals based on the school district. If you're in the Southfield district, you're at 30.8. And if you're in Birmingham, it's this. I was in a city that had seven school districts. Yeah. In a small city.

And it's like the I mean, not small, but like 29,000 small. It's I'm surprised that Are you saying that people in Franklin some children attend Southfield public schools? No. No. that there must be for it to be listed as both. There must be part of the part of a I don't I'm I don't again know the area, but for it to the way that it's broken out implies that there is part of Franklin that is district sure does. Yes, it could be like the unincorporated. Now, could it have been something that somewhere along the lines the school changed their boundaries and it still just shows that way? Maybe. But yeah, um

this is the most current information from Well, it also might be I I don't know how they break out public schools, but if you Well, how does it Never mind. That's not relevant. So, typically I would know that because I usually pay the the taxes. Um but here is just the village taxes. The school portion goes to the township for them to for them to um distribute. So, I don't know. Is that number right for Southfield and Bingham Farm? Well, right. That's what I that was the point that I was like curiosity not really relevant here. But why is there discrepancy between communities on how much of the millillage goes towards maybe it's like um like a for per capita contribution like

no I assume that that number is also 30.8 maybe. I mean I don't I don't want to assume. This is if they're from their um Oh, 40. It's probably just a Oh, okay. No, it is. It's here. I see. Yeah, it could have been the air title, but Yeah, I see. Do you have what we pay to Southfield Township broken out? We don't pay anything to Southfield Township. Yeah, we do. What our residents pay? Our residents do. Sorry, they pay directly. So, no, I have not gotten that. No, this is and that number is not included in that 35.

No, this is just for schools. This is total. This is the total amount. This is the total amount. This includes Franklin. This includes the township. This includes for all of purposes. Let's just eliminate Southfield public schools and the and the because they don't exist. It's 39, 35, and 35. That's it. That's all we need to look at. No, that's the No, in total. How to 6 million?

Oh, okay. Okay. So, um it's the 35 puts the 6. So, yeah, looking at where it where it lies comparably and then um in in the um proposed ballot language um is replacing would be replacing the existing millillage. So from this number, what I computed to be the the actual net difference, if it were to be at four ms, the net increase would be 3.62. So you wouldn't add, if you did four, you wouldn't add four onto that. It would be 3.6

because you're reducing you're eliminating that other one. Correct. to the village portion of the t total tax bill. So it's Yeah. And it's So it wouldn't when you're eliminating two, it's when you're looking at it and you say like, "Oh, 3.5 like you do have to consider that other one is Yeah. So right now 35 mills of our kids go to Birmingham city schools and we live in the village of Franklin. This is in 2025. This includes Franklin local taxes, Birmingham public school taxes, everything. Oakland. Okay. Yes. Now this is if you're homestead.

Yeah. There's I mean there's this I mean this stuff is this is like public information from the state equalization of who what the totals are. Um 2025 is the last published one for comparative. So that's what I use for it. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And that's all that's what I have. Um and uh Rick is going to um give a uh talk from the finance committee, right?

Somebody just Yeah, somebody just went in there. Yeah, there's an additional one. Yeah, we can talk more numbers or we can just uh uh

again the goal tonight on behalf of the finance committee and and Jody did a great job was kind of set the table from a revenue side and we talked about during this process she talked a lot about expenditures and and that's that's next month's meeting when you talk about the budget and how you choose to spend the available money that you can levy of our taxpayers. The recommendation, as Jod indicated, was that we put a going through the different options. She identified the charter amendment, the millillage, separate mill, a charter amendment, whatever. The the recommendation is to do a a standalone police safety, a police services mill of up to four mills. And as Jod showed in that example that by moving the money you currently fund to the general fund which has ranged from 70% if I'm sorry even more than a few years ago in 2020 you spent put more money into the police fund than you raised in the general operating revenue. So you you used other funds available to the village to help fund the police services. And then it's ranged from 70 to over 90% of your general operating millage was transferred to the police in addition to the existing police mill. So the idea of putting a separate mill in place to allow that be more transparent and have council every year focus on the police millage the police budget and set an appropriate levy of their available mill focus on your general operating opportunities and set a separate mill a levy at that level. It gives the council flexibility to make a decision. you you you you already are spending more in expenditures than you're taking in revenue as a as a as a community. Last year, actually, there's $84,000 surplus. This year, you projected the budget you adopted had a revenue expenditure increase in excess of revenues of about $235,000

going into this year. 26 27 is probably gonna have another uh uh projection to go and spend more than you take in. In the past, you had a fund balance you could utilize to to fund those things. Right now, your fund balance is under pressure. So the need to enhance revenue for the community is important to be able to address the funding pressures on the fund balance. Your excess expenditures over revenue, the large unfunded pension obligation of over $4 million that is sitting there and continues to grow even as you meet the minimum requirements. you have no funding for any significant capital opportunities or improvements for the village or to meet your council priorities of how you want to spend some of the taxpayers monies for the enhancement of our village in the in the citizenry. That's in essence why this proposal came to you. It allows you every year to go and and look at the expenditures you wish to make then determine the millillage necessary to support that those expenditures. It is not expected that in year one you will go and take and add 3.6 mills in total to the taxpayer burden. It's just it's a matter of giving you the flexibility. We're trying to establish a platform, build a foundation, put a canopy of expenditure of revenue, if you will, for a 10-year period. and we had the chief and and Rachel go through the police budget since it's it's the big piece of your budget to get some idea of what kind of expenditures may be needed. So, we've recommended the police millage that we have. We can at least give you some idea that we think this is the number you have to have in order 10 years from now. And who knows in 10 years what's going to happen, but it's our best guestimate at this point that that will be sufficient to fund the police operations in the year 2037. That's what we're talking about tonight. Any other questions? I'm happy to respond and uh

great. Yeah. Um so if you had to distill it down into a problem statement, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Deficit of revenue. You need revenue. You you're right now you're currently at the bare bones that you're operating the village. You're spending more money than you're taking in. Mhm. And it's it's and and you know and that's that's the bottom line. And how do you prevent that? You saw you've seen multiple years of this excess revenues excess expenditures over revenues. It's a multiple year issue and it's getting bigger and bigger right now.

Okay. And uh with these increases and the projected increase, this may be a question for you chief. Um so Rick, I don't know if you can answer it, but what is Bingham doing to match? Not in the sense of if you're if the police budget goes up for us, it's going up for them. And so that's 35%. That what they'll be at 35% when we're right. But that's something that they're going to have to account to in the increase. So they need to be doing similar planning to us. What are they currently doing? So I did provide them with that document. Yeah. Um so they're aware of it. I didn't get the impression there was a great deal of concern over it. I don't know if they have a plan moving forward, but it was presented to them. They fund everything

10ear period. They fund everything through their general fund. They don't have a separate police millage and they haven't come they they have they're not anywhere near maxed out on their available millillage. I think they can draw it's either seven or nine a year like we can do three and a half. So yeah, they would just draw more out of their general fund.

Yeah. And again, as as Jod said in the projections, chief's projections, you know, over the 10-year period, it's between 5 and 7%. She also talked about proposal and Headedley, which limit the revenue growth on property taxes to cost of living or 5%. Lower of 5% or cost of living. It's and uh you uncap the new the new sales uncap it but then the headley will come down and reduce your rate to maintain only a limit of 5% overall growth your taxable value in the last year just got the numbers came out we're up 4.4% for the

how is how's Bingham at I mean how's Bingham's so if you look at Bingham's total they're at 35.6 6 ms we're at 35.13. So that's a difference of.5 ms. That's overall that's that 35 includes intermediate school district OC but they still roll up to Southfield Township. So their general field if their general fund is pulling in nine mills they're pulling in 10. How there is they're o the overall village related fees. We have the roads. We have the rubbish.

They don't have other They have no other villages. They pay everything through their general fund. They're doing 10 mills right now. Yeah. The village itself for the general fund that basically does well for all their whatever you know our our our nine we're at 9. Right. 9.6 total. But that includes the library rubbish. Uh road the road the road the the bonds down the road which will expire in a few years now. And fire. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know their breakdown of the 10 mills. They're at 10 and we're at 9.8 village. Like they're about to do their roads. They're not going to do a bond like we did. They're just going to write a check out of their general fund.

Right. But I mean I this honestly just point if they're able to take on these hits at the same mill rate. The issue is the charter. Issues the charter because they have more fungibility between accounts than we do. David said they have up to seven. I think it's even greater. And we and we have at we're limited right now with the 35 plus 3.37. So we're limited to 3.8. But if we change the charter, you change the charter or if you raise the other millillage, you're you're either going to raise one faucet, raise one wall up to seven. Yeah. Seven and a half. Or you'll have three and a half and four. You have two buckets or they put in one bucket.

Yeah. No, I get it. But that what I'm saying is that they're doing better capital planning because it's all in one account. Yeah. I don't think it's a capital planning issue, David. It's it's it's spending the money. It's the expenditures. It's not a capital planning issue. I think the expense matters. You would have the same revenue as well. I don't think it's capital based on how much you choose to levy from it. you're that is the issue is that it's it's low and it's limited and your max is going to cover what you're doing each year. So you don't have funds to um invest and have capital plans and and leverage money with it. Well, and they have a commercial tax base.

Sure. So that's the big difference. Like Yeah. This we go to the same schools. We have the same police department. They don't have a library. I think they're allowed to use that library. They don't have a library. No, but like we have reciprocity all things equal, but they have a huge commercial tax base. We have half as many residences and maybe even the same if not larger tax base because they have all that because our village has 20 commercial properties according to the assessor and then those commercial properties pay for those police. Well, no our our community only has 20. They have a much more you know those office buildings as chief said 5,000 employees going out of there every day. Right. But that's why they pay for two. Yeah. I think about officers little shacks. Yeah. So, did they

Sorry. Sorry. Did they pay the pension for those two officers? It's part of the It's part of 35%. There is an annual pension payment in in the police budget every year. So, they're paying their their 35% share of that. They're so they're probably overpaying if you look at that. They're underpaying. They're underpaying because we it would be the way that you would have to do it if they're only paying out an aggregate of the total amount that we're delivering. They are supposed to be funding 100% of those officers. So if the punching gets rolled into the aggregate, then they're only paying 35% off of those two. And those officers are two two of 12. So the officers are less than

but they're 100% dedicated to it's only 20% of the force. No, especially our entire force supports them. So they should be paying 35% of 10 and 100% of two. It's a contractual issue. They're not totally dedicated to the sad. They're assigned to the SE when they're on duty, but they still respond to calls from Franklin and other parts of Farms. What percentage of the time do they respond to calls? 25% of their shift is in the sed.

No. Yeah. I mean, uh, right. So, I think contractually it says that it's setting aside 100%. That's what I was doing the calculation off. Not like because same thing. It's not like your officers who aren't allocated to that like hit that part of the road and they're like ignore ignore ignore, right? Like they're going to pay attention to it. So that's I think it came through the SAD. It was all basic. Are you the SAD officer on shift? If not, don't pull me over.

So that's where it's like again it's not necessarily the allocation of time towards it. It's what's laid out contractually. But again, that's not something we're going to solve here. That's something that needs to be contemplated in the renegotiation of the contract. I think the thing that I struggle with with the 4% and I want to give at least confidence I hope to the entire police department is to me the question is not do we fund the police department it's do we create a separate millage to do the full payment that then frees up that equal amount in the general fund so however I don't know what the total amount was for 2025 2025 2026 1.5 1.6 6 million. It's Franklin's contribution million. What's the general fund? Fair. Yeah. Property tax.

That's that comes out. Now, our general fund has 100 1.5. I'll just conservatively say 1.5 million. And I know the answer is we don't have to levy that. But I think anytime at least as my personal perspective when I'm at the booth voting my assumption is that full amount will be levied because that is my opportunity to speak my voice one time. That is up to the discussion with the voters prior to the election as to how this is being done and what why you set the millage rate where you set it was for the future not for tomorrow. I still think there's multiple options and we've been given one.

That's where there's two options two and there's less millage and more are the general options up front are the two options and then after that the discussion was just how many. Yeah. So you can apply how many to whichever option that you want to. It's A there's two options and then B here's your options on amount. So what and how much? So there's like a mechanism decision. Is that what you're saying? Like option A, option B, and then there's a millage setting discussion the charter mill

and and those are those were where I gave that perspective of it. There's there's pros and cons with either it. If if you add this, it frees it up, but then the next board has could say, "We don't want to fund the police. You guys are done. We're going to do something and now you have all that extra money to play with because I have all this money that I can do whatever I want to do with." And it's hard for the public to change that because it doesn't expire. You don't have to deal with

renewals. From a policy standpoint, good luck to the politicians that go up there and say, "Hey, you just approved a police millage. Now we're going to cut the department." But well, here wait. You're talking about the alternative. The mill of what is what's optional? Not that you would do that of like but a future board then could

when it's general operating, it can be used for whatever. It doesn't have to be used for the police department. So, so it still could be where when that's what the issue of funding is, it restricts it. But on the on the opposite side of that, then you can try to target your exact need and have an overall charter. So, so there are this is trade-off.

There are advantages on each side of it and there are negatives on each side of it. So that that was the basis. That one is was a quicker portion of it between charter and voted because it's pretty easy to explain. It doesn't go through like the whole things of what mills mean of when you're trying to decide how many mills do we need like you know of going to 10 years but subtract half of it because you're going to get rolled out. It's easier to explain one side of the equation, right? It's easier to explain the police. It's harder to explain the freeing up on the general fund.

If you if you look at the numbers that were up there, if you did just the two and a half mills, I think by year two of the 10, we're already into the general fund. And by year 10, we're right where we started, right where we are today. It wasn't until the three and a half where when you got to year 10, you were fully funding just from the millillage Kirk's budget in year 10 in between the 3.5 and the four

were there like in 3839 or something again it's all forecast. So the hybrids that your guys are proposing, we're right out of day one, we're going to already be you have to mix funds very mixing funds and and balancing between the two. And again, it comes back to the same concept of I guess the trust of our residents that we're not going to expel or ask for more money or or what's the term levy

levy more money than our anticipated budget for that particular year. And I I don't think I think that both of you are right on what where you're at and what you're thinking. It's the policy difference. Totally 100%. That's what it is. And that's not Yeah. Right. That's for us, right? Well, here's the Well, the difference is when we have it all in a police millage, we can only spend the money for police. And if any particular year we want to not levy as much as chief's asking for, we can say, "Chief, you got to adjust your budget this year. We're not giving you as much."

But I this is this is where again this is the spirited debate that's needed cuz this is the two policy considerations. When I hear that, my reaction is but we never not fund the police. But we had a conversation today that was like we just allocated $4,000 to the church and we didn't know about it. Right? So like when I look at the controls between the two, it seems like we always do prioritize. No, go ahead. But you're you're making presumptions that of you mean

No, I'm not. We are literally under we need additional controls. David, you have to be able to have a conversation without losing your mind and becoming agitated. At the end of the day, again, these are two different policy decisions. We have never had an issue with supporting and funding our police. We have had issues with decisions being made of, in at least my mind, expenditures going out the door that we're not as council accounting for. And so I believe we are more likely to increase those opportunities by opening up more general fund because nobody up here likes to make a hard decision. That's the truth. Because when people are unhappy, I personally am emotionally impacted, but as a somebody who wants to serve on this council year after year after term after term, they're thinking about, well, if I can make the residents happy on this thing and just spend, then I'm going to go ahead and do it. And I don't there's a difference between a going to the residents to say and again this is not about the police is the general fund side to say okay we need an additional million dollars a year so we can fund this project we intentionally are asking the voters through their vote do you want us to invest a million here or over five years a 5year plan $5 million instead what's happening here is you had your opportunity to vote that one vote and there's a whole lot on the general fund side that I I personally don't think that as of right now we have proper controls on in process

we're working on that

and you're wonderful absolutely best thing I mean if you go back through the record since I've been on council every single time I get to the budget season I'm frustrated because I'm like we didn't do enough planning we know this is coming every year and we don't do any planning and last year I said I would love to see us hire a treasurer and you've executed exactly what I had concern about. So, I want to absolutely praise you and Rachel for coming in very quickly with a plan. But that is where my side and my policy side is thinking is concerns around well if we can just a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, a little bit there, all of a sudden we're maxing out again on the general fund side with those tiny little cuts, the paper cuts rather than intentional large projects that we're asking voters about. You are correct in that this plan any plan where you have a millage cap that you are not expected to get to that cap for a while it will require a disciplined approach by council and they'll have to be held accountable every year to approving the budget and setting that millillage levy. That's that's right. And the accountability to the voters is every year at the ballot box. But to go and not give some room there so you can do some long range planning instead of having to go be you've been at the at the top of your millillage for the last 10 years except for one year and it's and you you right now can't operate your village with any kind of capital planning long range planning because there's no money there. The question you're we're bringing to you is can we will you allow the residents to give you a cap and have council through the years have the discipline to set the levies at an appropriate level underneath that cap.

But do we have that? We don't. That's my concern is I don't I don't think we collectively have the discipline to do that. And so it's to me my concern is as a resident are we I'm sorry. Did you have something to say David? No, I'm still confused by your assumptions that everybody sitting up here is going to do what you're suggesting. I'm saying I'm saying we collectively over time have lacked the discipline to plan. That's my concern. Could you give me an example? I I just don't The number of years we've ran a deficit that's empirically proven. That's the evidence you needed. How many years have we been violating the charter?

No. Again, no. is Jody Jody Jod will tell you it's not I'm not going to that. It's just saying we're look I'm I like have spent the last two weeks looking at math. I I want to make no assumptions around behaviors or what anything other than numbers in front of me that show me we've lacked the discipline we have gotten to today because of the decisions that have been made and I don't care what they are but the fact remains that we are here because of what has happened and my concern is do we have the discipline to give ourselves that runway and to execute on that well that's my concern Yeah, decision you got to make and

because it is the easy the easy thing to do is spend that money. Agreed. Easy thing to do. You can spend $4 million tomorrow on your pension. You could and that you're right. It's easy to do. I'm not saying we would do it poorly, David. I'm making no assumptions for anyone. My concern is do we have the discipline and the governance and the policy in place to do it. My concern is our predecessors had the opportunity to levy more than they could have and they didn't

because they were had the concerns that you had which was they didn't want to spend more than they needed and as a result of those savings in the past we don't have the surplus that we need. So historically our predecessors levied less than was available. Well the real issue is the headley. I mean that's the answer. If you go back and look it's not that they weren't levying the full amount. It's that they were restricted by Headley and that's why we did the roll back. So again, it goes back to the core issue and again we

we it is the charter amendment having such a low cap on mill because we could solve this if we we could solve it by doing exactly what Bingham does. But this is the question that I was looking at you about is that if we leverage two mills for police that splits two for police frees up two in general it's the equivalent of four we immediately you get what do you get what I'm saying right because nobody's having the conversation about all the freed up funds that are within the general frees up two it doesn't free up four frees up two and two

that's that's what David's saying% I see your point with that. For me, I don't say it frees up two and two because I start at if you're going to add if it's 10 years, look at year 9 and 10 of how much you're going to have there and you're not going to free that much. If you are lower than that amount, you're going to be short there. But just bear with me on this. Yes. Okay. So, this is where I'm going. leveraging two immediately and then that way you're starting at a surplus because they don't need the full four right away.

Not four, David. Because if you go if you're three and a half mills now and you say we want to put two for the police, right? That gives you seven that gives you five and a half mills total. Mhm. And currently we have like 3.5 38. So it's not four. freeze up two and change. It would raise it would raise two two mills. It's not full we're fully spending the That's That's the issue. You're not going to free up four. Can you play that back? Can you tell like right now you're at three I'm using the unrolled back numbers. Correct. You got 3.5 general. You got 37 police. 3.8. Three. That's 3.8 total. Yep.

And you want to put two into police. That takes you up to to 5.5. Yeah. you. So you're not there's no four points there. You've moved two million. So you've created you have $2 million more of revenue that you can expend only. Okay. But then what happens on the general fund? The general fund is still tapped in that scenario, right? It's still tapped pretty much. It's tapped. I think the number you had was 2.1 mills or 2 the first year. How many mills are funding the police right now? I think it's like 3.5 is what is needed to get to that number. We transferred out last year 1.5 mil or 1.45 mil

million dollars million sorry the estimate is 3.1 mills to fund the police in 2728 3.1 mills this is for the police. So and then if you did two you would be at 5.8 and you have 1.1 of the of the two. Yep. You you'd eat up 1.1 of the two. You'd be you'd be up and that's the reason little under a mill. Yeah. Be little under a mill more revenue. 1 mil more of revenue. Mhm. It's you there's which is not sustainable over time. It's not easy. Eventually you're going to hit you're going to hit a deficit or you're going to hit expenses excess expenditures over revenue in deficit. And Jody tells me I'm I'm speaking wrong.

It's in in the Headley thing. if if the police department or the police services whether that's done through the department or through an outside agency you're still going to have to fund public safety. So the the actual the police department that's not the question we're looking at we're looking at you know we're going to fund public safety somehow whether what you know the question came up do you want to have our own department or do something else that's not affecting this discussion on millillage I just want to make sure that people go through that

if you're if you have a department that has 7% a year increase in expenses which is not ch that much challenging when you have your your contracts in place you know what those It's personnel and pension related pretty much for pension for police costs and you're capped at 5% max on revenue increases every year you're already in a a tough spot.

So you're going to no matter what happens you're going to be dropping. So it requires you to increase your levy over time just to stay even without any investments without any capital kind of things without priorities. just the way the numbers work because you're you're penalized by you know except for new construction the taxable income can go up but the assessed value is going to go down because of the the 5% cap proposal and Headley work together one of them uncaps and Hadley takes it back down. So what's the number we have to get at in order to if we set aside this linear progression with their funds? If we just said this how much we're going to collect from day one forward, what could we move it to?

What was the last part? You mean like if to get to the number everything contemplates that we're only collecting based off of the projections of the police, right? Not levying the full form four four mills and not levying the full 3.5 of the general fund. Correct. Right. Dropping the general fund down to some extent to whatever number you feel necessary to fund your operations to uh fund priorities to put to build the fund balance whatever those may be. That's another number you got to come up with. Yeah. What I what I'm saying is let's even go on David's I'm just using you and I as the two policy considerations because we had a and b. So on the okay we're totally pulling police out, right?

Okay. My point is is that you can you could frontload the four mills right away and continue to collect it. Then by the time you hit year 10, you have surplus because you've been collecting four mills the entire time. But based off of the current baseline of doing the increase as it increases we land on four mills because the time we hit 10 years that matches the increase right that's how we landed on I presume that's how the number was landed on four figured it out

so if we rather than progressing with the police we just said we are going to write a proposal that says three 3.3 whatever the amount is that in the aggregate it all balances out. You'll have this and so and then you'll you'll you'll want to assess the full le levy the full mill at day one constantly. Yeah. And then you're going to have the discip will you have the discipline to not spend it elsewhere. Well, you have to have the discipline either way because you could levy the full amount anyways. And what why would in the intent then would be for you for the village to go and invest the money in money markets and stuff and let's set money markets aside. Well, whatever. invest it somewhere

because now I'm at least dropping the total cap on the potential increase in overall hit that it has on residents, right? Like if we draw that out for 10 years, Mhm. then there's we have a buffer from the risk of what my policy decision is, which is, oh, they can just take it to four and then open up the general fund to the amount that they would otherwise have. the three the three five take three five the entire time and four and now we're at seven and a half between the two

that it's a way to go at it philosophy to go at it you're saying then you you would want to you would want to ask for a 3.5 mil no I'm just saying like I'm what the answer can be we didn't do the calculation but if you collected the full amount of whatever we're proposing what is the number that we we would need to sustain that 10 year Mhm. at a baseline like to in total in total not just like okay four funds the police you're talking about like between the general fund and the police what's that number no I I do want to know that number too but you want the police number

well yeah what I'm saying is if we went with the policy of completely pulling out the police there are multiple ways to calculate it but one of the ways that you can calculate it to absolutely minimize the potential risk of somebody trying to take it to the cap immediately is to presume the cap is hit every single year. And so there's a number there where you take the 10-year projection and you are able to base that off of taking the full amount right away. It's probably going to be again just roughly looking it's probably around a 35. 35 was the average. Yeah. The average around 35. So, wow.

And so, the question becomes, does council want to go and let the taxpayers pay 31 and then move it up over time or put a significant increase day one? You know, it's it's the same as so I nod when you're talking because I get completely what you're saying. It's a a thing and I you know, and then I nod with that because it's it's two sides of it's not a you're wrong or you're wrong. It's it's a different perspective. based on your own experience and we that's why there's a full council instead of you know one person making decisions like that's so um

I in my experience I've had more issues with boards that are afraid to get the money that they need and things get start going backwards and it's harder to recover from that versus being in a better situation I think That's what the history of Franklin is. Yeah, I was going to say you're here, right? Yeah. Welcome home, Jody. Because it it's it's like that fear and I am all about um like that the control and for me there's

from my perspective there's a lot more control on a police village than there is on increasing the charter and and that comes with that accountability because the taxpayers are now continually involved in that process. It's not one and done and now it's forgotten and you guys are doing what you're wanting to five years down the road where there

it's in 10 years there's going to be voting again. So if you didn't do it right through the first 10 years then you're not going to get it back again. So so like the accountability comes from that perspective in my view. Yeah. But that doesn't make a different view wrong just different. I have a a comment that's sort of a little bit um it's not a math it's not a math question or

I'm not a person. So, so, so I think that part of the decision process to make to for going one way or another, sticking with the general fund or and and going going for a charter change and uh versus the the separate millage for the police. Uh, also I mean I think we have to be honest with ourselves and ask if the voters will okay that and if not why and if so why. You know I I'm listening carefully to what Aby's saying about we don't have the discipline. I don't happen to agree but I need to hear that. I would also say that uh I think the council based on feedback that I've heard from residents um has some credibility problems. Uh and I frankly think that the and it always has but it seems a little magnified now. It seems more than a little magnified. I wonder and I think it's worth a a discussion among us. Uh what are our success? What are our odds of success if we go to the voters and said, "Gee, guys, we want to bump this three and a half mil cap to um seven." Would you go for that? I personally don't think it would pass. I think we have a better chance of funding our real expenses if we can if we show the community that the discipline uh or rather um not the discipline the

that the separate police millage would allow transparency into the actual costs of having this class A police department. uh do you really want that kind of police department or not? We sense that they have. So that's what people get here, but they'll know what the cost is and have visibility into that more than they will right now in my opinion. Uh that leaves us with the the budget to operate the village. Councils have been very reluctant to be candid with be residents about what it costs to operate the village. That one and a half mil police millillage in 2012 was called a police mill so that you could obiscate the costs of what it really took to run the village because they didn't think voters I know this because I was there. They didn't think voters would support that. And I don't want to, you know, I I would rather bet that we do have the discipline to manage the actual operations of the village and and demonstrate that to the community through some good budget planning and a a drop and and what we think will be an um an a drop in the uh actual MI millillage for those operation. ations. So, to me, it's cleaner and and uh but I I just wanted to make the comment about voter confidence. I I'm I'm twitchy about it really.

Yeah. The So, the one thing that I don't want to get lost cuz you have the context of living through it. um is that you're saying that passing a police mill was an easier cell than just how much it cost to operate the village. But I do want to be clear that our charter currently contemplates funding a police department through the general fund.

Right. So, so the way that they were looking at it at the time of that vote is the same way from a policy standpoint that I'm looking at it now, which is like there are increased costs that are going to come with having the police department that we have rather than moving it out completely separate. We're still increasing the amount that we want to provide to funds so that we can give the police department. We're only we're just I think I probably have a similar mentality to what they had. There is a our future council is going to be disciplined enough Yeah. to not draw that.

It's a good It's a reasonable question. I just don't know what 1954 dollars are in today's world. And and I would love to know what that is. I just don't. But But it really it it doesn't matter because it's 5 mills, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's trying to guess what the majority of the population here thinks. Yeah. And Right. You know, you're you're each here to represent a portion and that's where the the comes in. It's not not a unanimous type of thing because the public isn't also going to see it unanimously in their same thing. So, whatever you do, somebody's going to disagree with.

Yeah. If we did do the option of splitting it between the two, what would that mills be? Splitting. Well, you have again just using for reference point, so I apologize. President Goldberg, but President Goldberg's position compared to mine from a policy standpoint. We talked about the four mil option of pulling it out, making a separate, what is the mill amount if you were just to combine funds coming out of the general fund plus an additional millage? It's the same it's the same amount that you the the same structure of the presentation between like here's how much each of them

but right now I mean the the question is the assumption in this chart is that this fund forecasted expenditures go from 2.7 to 793 and so I think what David wants to know is what's the delta between correct what do we have to make up right because we want to fund a police department and we also want to make sure there's discipline And we want to understand how much are we at really what is the number we really need to get to there.

That's where I can't tell you the answer to it. I can't give you an answer because we're all going to come up with different answers. I would like to pay down the liabilities. You maybe want to not you might want to do different than me. I maybe see that like investments can generate more money without taking it from the the taxes. Um I think that resident would rather pay 3.5 starting tomorrow than to pay four in 10 years based on what their property value is going to be in 10 years. Four bills is going to be a lot more than what four mills is going to be today. So like we're going to have our we're going to have different calculations and that's why when I was trying to say earlier that it's like hard for me to come up with a combined number based on what how much do you want me to include in that and and then with it all being guesses sunshine rainbows no

thing and I don't know the board or the residents here. So, this is like it's a I get the variability, but couldn't you use let me put it this way? I don't interrupt. Uh, if you do a back of the envelope, if you looked at an increased and just in general operating cost for the village of 50,000, if you put another 150,000 into your fund balance, you got to it's under pressure. Yep. If you put a 100,000 into capital improvements, that's not really doing today. It's $300,000 there based on your existing

or say up to a half a million dollars. It's three want to increase your total spend by half revenue by half a million dollars. It's going to be 1.8 mills from today. And the question then becomes that that's the that's the delta you're asking about 1.8 mills more. Where do you get it from? How you want to structure to get it? Because it's a really a question of hey this is what we do today. We can't continue to do that today. We need more revenue, right?

How do you structure it with the most sound I don't know trying to be transparent to voters say like this is what it costs to get what you get today. Not even like considering hey we might do something in the future like this is what it costs today and that number is what. Mhm. And then I think the challenge is there's some assumptions being made about us actually drawing down the number and and making sure that we're we're good on that. It'll be around 1 1.5 to 1.8 mills. And is that is that

sorry just to clarify in the 1.5 to 1.8 8 does that include and contemplate the elimination of the current police millage or so we're talking actually 1.8 to 2.1 no I'm talking the question was what's the delta in the overall tax bill right now you're at 3.8 eight.

And if you want to raise another half million above that for those three items or so, not counting the need to go and maybe want to do more capital, maybe you want to go pay down that pension to help stop that clock from ticking as a ticking time bomb that keeps getting worse and worse. But for half million more of revenue, we've got a $466 million taxable base. It's one it'll be 16 to8 when you look at the whole you run it all through the parameters. That's the number we need to like think about is what we're trying to achieve. That that's your budget number. That's your budget discussion next month. Okay.

When Jod and Rachel come with with their budget and say, "Here's here's where we where we think we want to allocate our resources and council's got to say, "Yeah, that's enough or that's too much." And then you'll set the levy accordingly. You Now, this year is going to be a challenge because you don't have room in the millages. What we're trying to do with this proposal is to give you that canopy to allow you to go and explore and plan, do some long range planning, plan for the future, and understand you have the ability, not the obligation, but the ability to go and assess a higher levy underneath the millage cap. So you don't so in 10 years for 10 years, you don't have to worry about this this the charter holding you back. I do have a comment just to answer something you asked earlier that I was like didn't and I

something was the um of the initial graph where it shows that now um there's these um expenditures over revenues in in general operating and in police and um from 2012 to 2020 uh there was actually an additional um general operating extra voted millage that did not get renewed in 2020 and um that was uh the max initially I don't know where it started in 2015 was at um 3936 so

that was the one Roger didn't know it's gonna it's like that would equate to be I just about $200,000 and if you take $200,000 and you where you see back where it was like kind of zeroing out and then yeah and when you walk in 2021 so your increases you have that loss plus an increase in cost this number going up to the right where both of them are down but this we got the roll back right no that was artifact American Rescue Act during co.

So that one is the the general operating one was always going to be like that because you're you're this is just okay. This is

taking it in and then sending a lot out places and it and you're you know you're taking fund balances and spending them on projects and things like that. like it's not um it's not it's uncommon to see it in general fund so long as you know where it is and what's happening with it that it's that it's a spending and I think a lot of the control part of it um from my experience of what works better in those and where those constraints are internally built are from um like fiveyear forecasts in and longer range planning for budgets and things and when you have that. Then if you have a a council come in, it's all new people and they start wanting to make changes to it. It's really stands out and it becomes a contentious thing to that that brings awareness to the public that like just that's how I've seen that kind of stuff play out historically. This village may be the opposite of what I've seen in my past. I'm not saying that like that's how it is but that's my experience

and that's I think what it is is it's the what's the north star what are the priorities what are the priorities we can act on and are we self-disiplined enough in order to um keep our eye on that prize that that's the concern is it I mean and I agree with everyone here like of course we want we want to have these things Are we set up to get them and maintain them is my big question. You know, it's like of course these things make sense. I understand cost rise. The discipline and the northstar

like the less money that you have, the more cost rise is is a general

it's expensive to be poor. it. it is um you have um you know again the the future value of something is is a lot different and when we look at how much things have changed and how much you know these liabilities have increased and how much these revenues have you know like it's it's clear to see that in 10 years the value of this is going to be like the sooner that things go in a different direction like that is that's like fiscal soundness enough. Like that's the that's the pie. So, of course, that's going to be what I advocate

as the accountant, you know, like that's just like that's what my nature is on that. Um, and then, you know, I have some experiences with other things like that. You know, I've seen I I saw a water fund um be bank being bankrupted and not be able to make bond payments because you had a 20 years of council members that wouldn't increase the water rates and like so it's you know this isn't like that kind of

thing extreme but it's like those are my experiences to where I have those. And what's the benefit of tenure over five other than an additional vote in five years? Um there's five is is an option. It's not it's not it's the benefit is that it's more certainty for some and it's um it's a it's a longer range thing to be able to plan longer range to not wonder now like when we're doing fiveyear forecast

I don't know what's going to happen in five years it depends on a vote it depends on a renewal or a whatever Um, so it's it's not um I guess that wasn't really a a necessarily a topic of timing, but

Okay, thanks. All right, guys. It's 10:00. Uh, I get the feeling we still have additional questions and thoughts. might have presumed we're not ready for action on this and we're going to have to schedule a special meeting and come back. I mean, or

I'm ready to vote on it. You can take a vote. I mean, we can certainly take a vote and see how it shakes out. And if it we need to come back because we don't have resolution, we certainly could do that. If you're ready to vote, you want to make a motion. Yeah, I'll do so first to share some thoughts from my perspective because I haven't spoken on this yet.

Okay. Um, I appreciate the concern about council being responsible and whatever has transpired in the past that has to some extent caused those concerns. I can't speak for that. I wasn't on the council, but this is a different council and I am confident that this council can be responsible in part due to raising those concerns shows that we are a responsible minded council. I also don't want to have to go back to voters and ask them to raise taxes again potentially if we shoot too low and find ourselves in a tough spot at at some point down the road. Um I' I'd rather be conservative with our ask. Um I I think that just the concept of asking is is a is a big thing and and so you know I don't take that lightly and so I'd rather be conservative with our ask and and again I I have the trust that we are going to be responsible and not be spending more than what we need. I'm also concerned about the the unfunded pension liability and I'd like to be responsible about that and be making a dent in that over time rather than be scraping by in kind of a a bare minimum position while that problem continues to grow. And and ultimately, you know, we're just authorizing

what will ultimately be a decision for the residents to make. And so I'm not of the mindset that we would hamstring ourselves in advance um and ask for for some lower amount um when we we might wind up needing it. You know, the the sunshine and rainbows comments I think are are um worth noting in that, you know, rewind to 2007. No one saw 2008 2009 coming. We don't we don't know what the future holds. I'd rather be um conservative now w with the confidence that we are going to be responsible. And so with with that said, I I would uh make a motion to approve uh the millage request at the four mills. If you'd like me to We don't necessarily have to read the the whole statement, do we?

No. No. There's a motion presented to you on one of the sheets that I gave you. Do you want to just pass that? Yeah, just pass that. Thank you. Sorry. So I would move to approve the resolution to place on the August ballot a police services millage of up to four mills in lie of and in replacement of the current police services millage of.3711 mills for a period of 10 years together with any minor clarifications or revisions deemed necessary by the village attorney.

I'll second it. Point of order just for clarification again. No offense, but point of order. Can a president second? Yes. So, do we discuss now? Mhm. Yeah.

So, all the information presented tonight is super helpful and insightful. Um I think um you know this council like thinks a year about blight ordinance language. Um so to like Russia millage um for essentially raising our local taxes like 45% and then what's going to happen to the 1 and a.5 million that we'd be collecting every year in the general fund that doesn't have any plan or idea or restriction to it. I think is like something I want to think about and talk to residents about and just kind of like I'm not as quick with the math as you and Trusty Sally. So, I just want to like um work through those scenarios and understand like what it would mean, the different uh pay tables, the different mill rates, how the Headley amendment works. So, I think just um having time to digest that data is really important before I make a decision. So, when I'm asked, you know, why did you make this and now we have all this extra money and what are you going to do with it? I can answer that question.

Yeah. Um, I want to just I know that uh I want to speak to a couple things that Dan you said, which is you have full confidence in this council, but what I want to call out is come November, four of these seats will be up for election. And so again, do I have and actually that doesn't even matter because by the time we can actually fund this amount, it's 2027, which means that will be uh after four people are up. Um and so my concern still remains my concern. And I also want to address a topic that like is been pervasive in our community since I moved in and since I've been on council, which is we take questions as questioning the character of the person the questions are asked about. It is very hard for us to have two separate opinions up here and it to be civil and and to be an opportunity for education. So I very much appreciate you calling that out of like there are two separate opinions and both are valid. It's just consideration of policy. Too often it becomes I believe in this position. If you disagree with me, you are them and we are we right. And that is a behavior and a cultural issue that we need to work towards getting better about. but equally true that makes it really really hard to make those hard decisions because it becomes unnecessarily personal. Um, and so as of right now, what I wanted to come in today to do is to keep an open mind and educate myself and trying to figure out my end goal was to make sure that our police department gets funded and then it becomes a how. And so I needed to get educated on what is the options that our staff has all considered. And then uh and I don't know

today because again I'm somebody who likes to really go deep and contemplate what are the options for me to have confidence in saying yeah I'm just going to go with it. Um, so my preference would be to come back after having an opportunity to think about it more to figure out what is the best solution to put the police in a position um to continue being the amazing police force that they are today while still addressing the concerns that I have. Um I uh believe that the um decision to go with the to levy a four mill um police millage is the right uh way forward uh for the reasons I stated which is the opportunity for great transparency and um and to adequately fund the police. I think the um the burden of doing a disciplined uh budget budget process every year is on this council and future councils. That is where we're going to control the spend in the village. Uh if we can't do that, then you're right. We will go down that rabbit hole that no one wants to go down. Um uh so I'm uh so so I guess that's about it. I but I have confidence that the coun council can do that. I do

I have more I have more confidence now and hats off to you Jod that was incredible and um I think when Rachel and I talked I was like we need to operate from the same the same set of facts. Um, so that was a massive help to me in understanding. It was a very heavy cognitive load tonight for me. Um, my brain does not naturally think in this way, but it makes more sense to me now and I'm closer to that realization that that might be the best move. Um, but I think there is just an element of like sitting with it and understanding what that means moving forward and and I think I need some more time. I mean, again, I'm I'm feeling more confident, but there are the controls. You've you've only been here two weeks. We talked about that when you were interviewed that it was important for me to have structural guard rails in place and I don't know that we have them yet and I don't know that we've established a really good process for northstar planning being aligned on priorities um and moving toward those priorities measuring those priorities. Those are the the things that worry me um but I'm closer. I just need some more time.

Got back. Yeah. Noodle len I'll withdraw my support whatever yeah I respect that

I want I want this council to move forward as close as possible as presenting this to our residents as a group project and that we for the most part all believe in what we're doing. We're not there right now. Um, I will say that based on the numbers I've seen in using your analogy on the Goldberg scenario, three and a half mills as the max instead of the four can still work and doesn't put us in a position where in year nine or in I should take that back. in years three and four and five were already short. At three and a half, it depending on how well taxable values increased over the next 10 years, it it would possibly work. More importantly, I feel there's others up here that are maybe just behind where I'm at, and that's fine. I that's that's I'm not going to I'm not going to hold that against somebody because I got to a place quicker than someone else did. So assuming that this body is in a position to be able to come back here in between seven and 10 days because we don't have a lot of time to play with. as a as a matter of goodwill amongst ourselves, I'm gonna withdraw my support of the motion and it doesn't change my belief. I believe that's the way to go. I will in the course of the next 10 days ask you to because the numbers we have are unless I thought I saw one at at finance committee. I've seen two, three, and four. I don't know if I've actually seen

the three and a half what that gets us to, but I I I I feel like at this point we're forcing it down the rest of your throats. And I don't want that. I I I want us to have I want you to feel like you've had an opportunity to think it out. And I want us to come forward with a with a position of it'll never be unanimity, but a a position that we vetted this out and that the the decision that this body makes is the best one that the majority of us believe and I don't know if we're at a majority right now.

Yeah. And and I agree, by the way, before David spoke up, I was thinking the same thing that I respect what both of you said already. And if you need more time with this, then by all means, I can leave with that. So, just since I haven't spoke, but Jody, it was really helpful. There's a lot of what I wanted to see. I just need a little bit. I want to digest this. I'm

No, that's fair. I I now that I thought about it, I think both of us now that we've thought about it are in agreement. I like you know I came I don't know what I'm going to see. I don't know what I want. I think we all are aligned that we're trying to get to a better place for the future. There's a lot of ways to get at it. And I think we're generally pretty close. But I want I agree with David like I want it to feel like we've sat with what this means, where we've how we've gotten here. And and I I agree.

Thank you for all your hard work. That was amazing.

I think we all got way more educated. I think we all need to do some thinking, some soularching, some beliefs in ourselves. Um, a lot of the things that were set up here were speculative on our ourselves not being able to control ourselves. And I'd like to hope that that's not the case. David's right. Six months from now, there could be four completely new faces up here, which is a majority. So everything that we just did, four new people could run on a completely unknown ticket that we're not foreseeing and there's four new people up here making decisions based on what we just decided. So I think we I want to be able to bet that concept out as well, what that means in the big picture. So I will pro I want Rachel will probably maybe send in the next day. We'll float out a day or two

within the next 10 days to to come back and and can we do this again? Can we decide? We can if everybody can knows their schedules and stuff. Eddie doesn't know tomorrow. Yeah, I got a I got new like spring support schedules and Yeah. Give me a minute. We have our Don't make me make anyone out of the country. Do we want to We have a couple things on the agenda. We want to continue with these reports. Do we want to hold them off? What do you guys want to do? I'm tired. I'm tired, too. My brain's kind of shot. I Yeah, I don't. Unless there's something material that needs

Well, Rachel, that there's nothing I'm going to say. I had something to say. I can hold off for next meeting. It was personal. Unless you have something to report to us. That's the most important one. Go ahead. Sorry. really quick. The special meeting is to get something on the August ballot, but we could still and we could still pass something to get on the November ballot and it come at the same time. You could, but I really think it's important that you think about what happens if you wait until November. If what you're proposing fails in November, then you either do not have a police department or you need to run a special election, which is also going to cost some money

or we wait till the next election in 2028. No, you will not have a police. No, we see what happens on August 4th and if it doesn't go well, we have a week to figure out new ballot language to go in. Show us that your budget shows you that. Okay. Okay. So, right now we're transferring up the amount of the fund balances. You can see it if we keep the all the budgets the same like our general operating fund and our place budget. Yeah. Yeah. Like if we don't if we don't take budget cut if we don't do any budget cuts in our general fund

in two years, we will be out of money. Yeah. No, next year. Next year. Meaning we need the money to come in in September of 2017. Starts coming in in July. We'll need it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because if not, it would come in in July 2029. structuring to get to July. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I can already tell based off of your demeanor. Absolutely. Absolutely meant that. Yeah. And and it's, you know, I know that it feels like we need to know right now.

But when I look at this, like that comment doesn't like it's I'm not saying that it's I get where you're coming from, but for me to like it's like you've had tears. It should have been looked at as soon as this happened back there. So, it's like this is a very delayed conversation. So, and I only say that because I hope I don't make you feel pressured or rushed, but it but there is some urgency at the same time, you know, but that's coming from somebody who can look at it and see that there that should have happened right there. This should have been talked about then like when like two years ago. Yes. Yeah. two years ago, three years ago when you're forecasting out, you see these things coming.

Yeah. So, yes. I mean, I remember distinctly, not to hold us captive any longer, but like the intention when we did the Headley roll back. I remember the discussion was like realistically we should be increasing the overall millage. We talked about, right, didn't do anything about it, right? And two years ago, Plant Moran did that forecast. Remember, they said we're going to be out of money in 29. Yeah. And now it's before then. So we knew and it was an intentional decision just not to do it. I mean like intentional decision just not to raise taxes. I don't think you would get I mean it was because it happens fast.

It was a full mill that you were changing by that. So it wasn't No. I remember the Headley roll back conversations was this is to fund our police department because 58 cents of every dollar goes towards police. Like it was we were talking about that

always happens. All right. Uh someone want to make a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. So move. All in favor? I excel. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Good discussion.