City Council - Regular Meeting

4:00. If everyone would stand, we will call this uh city council work session to order. At this time, we have a word of silence. Thank you. If you would join me, pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And good evening, uh, council. Make sure if you got ask questions or so on, be sure to make sure that your microphone is turned on so we can hear it for the record. Uh good evening and and welcome to the uh for the April 14th, 2026. This is the uh city council work session. Um and call the order was made. And at this time, uh if you would do the roll call, please. Miss Wilkins Brent here. Mr. Crisp here. Miss Hamick present. Mr. Hampton here. Mr. Many present. Miss Lesby Mitchell here. Miss Tingle Sames

here. Mr. Stone. He's not here but he's coming. Okay. Uh item number three, if you would uh look on your is the approval of minutes from April 13, 2026 city council meeting. Uh, at this time I will uh entertain a motion. Motion. Motion made by Miss Mitchell. Do I have a second? Second, Mor. Second made by Mr. Chris. Do I have any further discussion? Further discussion or questions? Mayor.

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, correction that perhaps we can incorporate into the motion. Um under mayor's comments number three I uh 3D historical marker application uh says recognizing Alexander King Richards instead of King. Okay.

Um and then the second question I have is given the item number five the GMWSS customer usage update. Um, basically it talks about the information provided, but that was not included in our packet and it's not incorporated into this document. Can that be either amended to incorporate the slides and distribute the slides to to all of us? Um or the information that was in the slides be incorporated into the you make a motion to what you want to do and make an amendment to that to add

Well, you have a you have a motion and a second. So, I'm requesting that uh if that could be a friendly amendment. Okay. You all have heard that. Are there any questions to that? I I would like to have that as well. I think that's excellent information. Okay. So, uh so you all here. Do I need to take off the motion that was it? We'll just we'll go with that. We'll go with that motion if the motion include the correction of the name as well as um

I don't I don't know if this goes in council tell us if we need to put um the dissemination of the information that the water company imported. Does that need to be in the minutes or something? Are you all asking for a copy of what was presented on the screen as as opposed to an amendment the language in the minutes? Well, it needs to be included in the information because it's not

that it's that it's not. it just says it was given. Uh, and then the second component of that was that we never saw that ahead of time and it's not it was not included in the packet. So, we don't have that information. It was just shown on the screen. So, I would like a a copy of that. So, I don't know. Do we need to have a to change that there or do we just simply just uh add to that to make sure they get the copy of those? Would the council be able to answer that?

Whatever you want to do. So, uh we can just simply uh amend the mo motion amend the amendments to to include that a a report to be sent to this council on what was left out and included in the minutes. Included in the minutes attached to the minutes. All right. Okay. So, you got that Deon now sharing a copy of the report and incorporating it into the minutes. Yep. Okay. All right. Now, Did you say briefings? What's that? Did you have briefings? The uh and then the the King versus Keen in item 3D. Okay.

So, all right. So, you have heard the motion the amended motion. So, and it's been properly made and second. Is it second? Whoever seconded needs to second it. I thought I I made a motion. Did you make the second? I didn't uh let's go back. So sorry. Motion was made by you. Now do I have a second? Second. Thank you. All right. So are there further questions and comments to the this? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I.

I. Those opposed say nay. All righty. Again uh this evening we're going to look at the following. Again welcome you here. uh what you see before you what the task of this uh work session is is a preliminary um complete request of information. Uh again let me let me tell you from the outset this is not the final budget or anything like that. These are simply information that I'm sharing with you this council. So you will have this information and that you know the reason why we have these uh work sessions and reason why we're being very very digent and very very slow in adding these to the process because I want to make sure that everybody sees what is being presented to the to to me for consideration for the budget and that again want to remind you this is not the end because there are still some more um you know things we going to have to do with this. There are some more um uh information that's going we're going to have to look through some looking at marketing data of revenue and other factors that we going to have to consider before this this uh becomes where we're going to present this to you all on May give me the date again the 14th

date 11 what 11th May 11th thank you so that's what you're going to get here and like I said be if you want to ask questions be sure to do that as we go along uh But at the end when this is completed uh you will have some time to digest this and look at this and any questions or information that you might need further feel free to contact me and let me know or Stacy and then we will get that information to you in a timely fashion. Are there any questions and so on we have here with us. Okay. So Stacy I'm going to turn it over to you. let you start with this.

Good evening. So, we'll take a brief look at our agenda on the next slide. Uh we will talk about this is the same format we went through last year at our work session. So, we'll talk about a few budget assumptions that are incorporated throughout all funds. We'll look at the departmental general fund budget request, the capital projects that have been requested by departments or discussed among uh with council at previous work sessions or meetings. Uh preliminary revenue projections. We'll look at how all the budget requests impact fund balance. As the mayor mentioned, this is not his final recommendation, but just so you can see kind of the starting point that the mayor will then uh work towards as he presents his proposed budget in May. Uh we will look at a couple of our larger funds, 911 dispatch, cemetery budget request and then a couple of the other special revenue funds that have recurring revenue. So the next slide, uh as the mayor said, this is information only. The first thing um right now this budget includes a recommended 3.7% cola and I'll tell you how uh the mayor arrived at that. The department of local government issued as it always does the cola for elected officials back in January or February and that was 2.7%. So that was our starting point. However, the Kentucky Public Pension Authority, CES, as you all may know it, is increasing the employee contribution for over half of our employees by 1%. The ultimate goal is that all hazardous employees will contribute 2% of their paycheck to the health insurance fund and all non-hazardous employees will contribute 1% of their paycheck to the health insurance fund for the retirement

system. Currently, tier one employees don't contribute anything at all. So, they're going from zero to one or zero to two. And then the um tier 2 and three hazardous currently contribute 1% and they're going from 1% to 2%. So, the vast majority of our employees are going uh to increase their contribution by 1%. um that's not something we have a say over. And um the reason we did not break it down 0, one, and two is we've done a lot of work, especially in our public safety departments to try to work on salaries and and where they're at. And if you start changing um the cola for those departments, it starts to mess with compression between ranks or someone who's been here longer potentially making a little less than someone. So it's easier to do the the 1%. So that affects over half of our employees. So any questions? Didn't know. And then uh mayor, I think you were going to mention some additional salary um and compensation things we're considering if you wanted to mention that with the public safety. Well, on the public safety side, there were some uh there are going to be some uh positions that we're looking at and so on as but there was also brought to a possibility of a uh larger uh structural uh compensation which uh at this time I'm going to look at the market and also look at some revenue and other factors and and then probably look at that to at at a at a later time. So, we're we're still considering that um but it's not in the numbers presented at the moment. So, just so you're aware of that. Um that's we've had meetings with executive staff and then continuing

to have meetings uh I know scheduled with our public safety departments to keep discussing that. So, uh the CS rate uh is actually decreasing again by a small percentage. So for hazardous it's going from 35.73 to 34.72 and non-hazardous from 18.62 to 17.43. Again these are they do their actuarial analysis on the balance um what's being paid out what's in the fund. Investment streams have been a little higher in recent years. So we're getting another small decrease on that. That saves approximately 145,000. Um obviously there's other expenses taking up that savings but did want to let you know those rates are going down. property and liability insurance. Um, same as last year, estimated at 10% higher, mainly due to property values. Uh, the city itself is also not immune to property values increasing, which also increases our, uh, insurance rates. Uh, the next item is one that we were very conservative on. Um, we had our third party administrator of our medical plan, they provide us a fully insured equivalent. We're a self-insured uh partially self-insured entity, meaning we put money aside and we play pay our claims directly. We don't pay the insurance company. We we do that pay the medical bills directly, but they gave me a new fully insured equivalent based on expected claims. It was very conservative. It was a 12% increase, but I do think we'll continue to dive into that. I think that can possibly possibly come down some. We'll see where our reserve is at. We like to keep about a $500,000 reserve in the medical fund for the years when we have bad claims years. But uh the sharks program and some other things that we've done with our pharmacy benefits has helped over the last year uh or two year and a half I think we've had that now. So um so this was very

conservative on the high side that's incorporated into this budget. So if we can see some additional savings, we'll continue to work on that number. Stacy, yes. Does that 12% that's medical premiums or does that include stop-loss and all all the other? That includes everything. So I think our stop loss was going up about 15%. Okay. U I can't remember the exact number. They gave me a percentage on the administrative cost as well because we do pay for third party administration, right?

U but this was based on the claims data and so it was high. We also budget the other thing too we budget high for so this 12% this is a 12% increase in the medical cost uh for the budget total. So the other thing is any vacant positions we always budget for full family benefits our most expensive plan. So sometimes we do see some savings uh when people take those positions that have single insurance or other. So any vacant positions are always budgeted fully. So, uh, and just as a reminder, we have the fund balance policy that, uh, council has adopted, and we'll talk about this more later in the presentation, but based on the operating expenditures that are presented as request, that would be 14.7 million that we would be required to keep as our minimum fund balance if everything was funded that was requested. Next slide, please. City hall staffing. Uh, one of the things the mayor has been talking about a lot in the finance committee and is in here is an assistant finance director. Um, there's a lot of operational efficiencies that could be gained from that position. Um, some additional oversight at a higher level of the budget and policies and procedures. Uh, allowing to focus on some of those big picture uh, projects as well as succession planning and and etc. Um, so that is in there at a request as the only new position requested at city hall level. And if you'll go to the next slide, um, again, I've got to fine-tune that salary with Megan. This is an estimate for salaries and benefits total. You will see the increase in salaries and benefits of general government. The majority of that is the assistant finance director salaries benefits estimated at 156. Again, I've got to talk to Megan about that's I put a higher number in to make sure I had it covered, but it may be less. The

director of housing and homelessness prevention, if you recall, the city funds this jointly with the county, and we have been using ARPA funds for first three years of this program. ARPA runs out, we had budgeted for that through June 30 of this year. So, that will be incorporated into the general fund uh general government expenses. now, but there is an offsetting revenue for half of that. So, the county does fund still half of this position. Um, and as the mayor mentioned, you know, we always have requests for certain position uh adjustments and he will consider each of those individually. There was a request uh for an increased salary on the HR specialist and that's something the me the mayor will review the information presented and determine if that's something he wants to do. Operating expenses largely stayed the same. There is some increase for legal services because we had to amend that budget this year. Utilities now that we'll finally be back in there together. Um we'll have a larger utility budget. For the last few years, we've only been paying utilities down at Water Street and uh a couple of the other smaller buildings. So just making sure we have enough for that. Building maintenance. We'll need that again for when little things come up. So that is the general government budget. Okay. Next is information technology. This budget, the majority of the increase you'll see is in professional services. Uh we assigned our new uh managed services provider contract with net gain. That was effective April 1st. So we only had a few months cost of that contract in this year's budget. So now we have that fullear contract. If you'll recall, we added about 5,000 per month, 60,000 per year for essential security services citywide. We also added 7,500 a month for the staff augmentation. So,

this is reflecting a full year of those increased cost for that contract. Uh website services, there is a new service in there. Uh but some others have decreased uh called doc access. You can see that in the notes. Uh hardware software subscriptions. These are things like our phone system subscription with Avaia. We pay a certain amount a month for the phones themselves and then we pay a certain amount per month for the uh phone service. It's voiceover IP. So we pay that instead of your traditional phone line for most of that. Um you can also see it includes our Microsoft GCC licensing once that project's complete and our essential um that's where the essential security services are. The next one the computer hardware software. The biggest increase on this is we have virtual servers that require license renewals. So, a lot of those are coming due in this next year. So, that's an estimate for that. And capital projects include 125,000 for uh cyber security assessment and strategy um which includes our disaster recovery and carryover of uh just making sure we finish up that GCC tenant construction. So that is the information technology budget. Any questions? Okay. City council and city clerk budgets. So not a lot of changes here other than salaries and benefits for the travel and training. Last year I had budgeted for the training incentives um in salaries, but we're actually handling that as through accounts payable. So, that's that additional 4,000 you see there. That may need to be increased if u anyone is going to have two training credits next year. It's $500 per training credit. So, right now I have 500 per council member uh budgeted, but if anyone is able to achieve two training credits over the next year, uh

their payment would increase to 1,000. The city clerk's office um salaries and benefits is just cola. As a reminder, 75% of the city clerk's salaries and benefits are charged to the general fund with 25% being charged to the alcohol fund because that office serves as our ABC administrator. So, just want to make that note. And uh operating is increased due to additional we're going to double check on this one. We had anticipated an increase in the PVA cost. Uh but if we do not reach 6 billion, is that the correct number?

Yes. Yes. Uh once we reach 6 billion in property assessments, our fee goes from 60,000 to 100,000. We don't think we're going to get there this year, but Tracy had put it in there as a just in case. This is the service. Again, we pay the PVA when they send us our tax role. There is a fee for that. So, uh for the assessments they do for us for preparing the tax role, city clerk's office takes that tax role and it's imported into the property tax software. So, we may be able to decrease that a little bit. Tracy had gone ahead and put that in, but after talking about it in finance committee uh yesterday, Devin reminded that we're probably not going to hit that this year. It may be another year or two. We are up over five billion now, though. So, a lot of new construction going on. So, obviously, our property assessments continue to go up. Next, building inspection. Uh no new requested staff there. So just uh we included the staff sheet for each one. Go to the next slide. And this one you see an in decrease in salaries. And the reason for that salaries itself actually went up 18,000 but unemployment went down or unemployment contribution rate. We we do not do state or federal unemployment. We contribute to a unemployment trust. And so they change your rate every year to ba based on how much of a balance you've built up in that trust. Our rate for next year is actually zero and this year's rate was at 2%. So the reason they decreased is there was a $9,000 reduction in unemployment. Medical actually decreased by 27,000. They had a new permit technician that was budgeted this past year. Again, we budget full family benefits, but if that person does not take that, that's a decrease. And then if anyone else changes their medical plans, that can also do that. And then CS for this department decreased by 3,000. So just

wanted to explain that little anomaly if you're looking at it. Why did their salaries and benefits go down? But that's why their benefit decreases outweighed the salary increases. But just some minor uh operating inflationary type adjustments. Nothing new in building inspection. Next, police department staffing. Uh, police department. Uh, this is one department you do have. Uh, it was emailed and given to you as hard copy memos. Uh, especially from our larger departments. So, police department always does a great job of you have your regular budget memo, their staffing memo, and then they have a memo for their new position. So, encourage you to read those memos to gather um some information on the why behind why they've requested these positions. full-time police officers. They have requested eight additional positions. Uh as you'll see from the memo, seven of those would be allocated to patrol and one to the special victims unit if I'm saying that correctly. Okay, just making sure. And then they have requested an additional program staff, which is the crime analyst. And so this would uh assist the criminal investigations department or unit by doing a lot of the paperwork type investigating. Um there's a lot of I know Captain Lo can say it better than I am and I'm sure he's outlined it better in his memo, but there's a lot of paperwork that can be sent out to other agencies, things requesting information. There's a lot of things that can be done. This would be a civilian position. So, there's a lot of things that can be done by non-sworn person who can can assist and allow our detectives to be out doing interviews and more leg work, external work while they handle a lot of the paperwork stuff on that end. Uh, one correction I want to make on this that I caught when the mayor and Devon and I were going over

this this afternoon for the program staff. It should actually be three and a half current, four and a half requested. And that is because the open records clerk is split 50/50 with dispatch. So their authorized staffing would be 93 and a half and the requested would be 102 and a half. But the open records clerk is shown under the police department in the personnel ordinance, but it is funded uh between both agencies. Any questions about those new positions? Okay, next slide. Uh, as you can see, I've included the cost for eight new officers, uh, salaries and benefits would be 982,77 and for the crime analyst, it would be $101,186 for oper. And so, the bulk of what you see in there, that $ 1.6 $6 million increase. Uh obviously close to 1.1 million of that is new positions requested. the operating the 151,000 the majority of that is insurance building maintenance their equipment contracts as they add new officers they have to do new MDT leases new axon body cam leases all the equipment that goes with that motor fuel as we add additional officers additional vehicles to the fleet and also at the time of preparing this uh gas prices are on the rise so they've included an increase for that new capital requests for the police department. They have a computer switch UPS project. And then they have mobile radios and portable radios for the eight new officers. So if those positions are not fully funded, the number of radios would decrease um in relation to how many of our officers are included in the mayor's proposed budget.

Any questions about police? Okay. Next is fire department staffing. There is uh no new staff requested and we'll talk. We've had a lot of conversations about this with the fire department with finance committee and um I didn't put the timeline in here, but I'll let you know the nine new firefighters that are needed for station 4 with the architects with the design time, the time to bid out a construction contract and actually start construction. anticipate completion of fire station 4 around summer of 2028. So almost two years out by the time you get through design and bidding awarding contracts. So with the safer grant, if we apply for that in spring of 27, we would hear about hiring um we would hear whether we got that grant by October of 27. We have 90 days, it was 90 six months, 90 days to hire those new firefighters. And based on what they've said, that would give us plenty of time. 6 months is plenty of time to get those firefighters hired and trained. So with that said, there is no portion of the nine new firefighters included in this budget because we do not anticipate hiring them until late 2027, early 2028. Okay, the next page. talk with the numbers. Uh they did request a couple of salary changes on the they want to change the battalion chief of training to a division chief of training because they serve the whole department whereas battalion chiefs are ser serving a certain shift. They serve the whole department. They're responsible for in-house and external training making sure everything's tracked, everybody has their certifications. So, they have requested a slight title change, an increase to that, and uh their administrative assistant. They have one

and a half, they have a part-time, and then they have one full-time. So, again, the mayor will consider those as he said with market data with with how that falls on our salary scales. One other increase besides COLA, we've been talking a lot about uh code enforcement. I know those of you who are on the interlocal committee and some others. Um just that structure of code enforcement being built out now that we have a senior code enforcement officer, two code enforcement officers under them and the assistant chief of prevention based on the amount of time that they spend overseen. We had been charging 45% of the assistant chief of prevention salary to code enforcement. Really and truly they're mainly handling some highle administrative tasks. They do the budget, they approve uh some work orders, some purchase orders, budgetary things. Um so in speaking with our new assistant chief of prevention, we felt like 10% was more accurate. Uh so that increases the funding within the fire department from 55% to 90%. And then a corresponding reduction on the code enforcement side. And you can see uh operating they made a very good faith effort. They know they have a lot of capital coming up, so they wanted to um try to trim back. Most of the reduction in their operating is due to vehicle maintenance. That line item went from 300,000 to 150,000. So, with all of the new engines coming on board, the last two should be delivered this summer, I believe. Um that will help offset a lot of that. A lot of our trucks will be new under warranty. So, we'll have a little bit of a reprieve from vehicle maintenance that we've had the last several years and capital. You will see that some smaller projects um in the stations. I do want to make note of the station 3 basement. Uh this was requested in next year's budget, but one of the things we've talked about in finance committee with the next budget

amendment, this may get pulled in to our current budget instead due to timing because until this is completed, uh they cannot EMS cannot fully move into station three, which means we cannot fully take over station one. So maybe wanting to get that done a little sooner rather than later. So we may pull that into this year's budget. Uh the same goes for the ATV. They do have some excess funds in vehicle maintenance this year. They budgeted high. Thankfully, it's not hit that. So, they uh may be requesting as part of that budget amendment to move funds to their equipment line item and go ahead and and make that purchase this year. So, it would be a shift in years rather than um fitness equipment. The fitness equipment at all three stations is over 20 years old uh in dire need. So, we want to make sure we're being safe uh when working out. So, they've requested all of that. And then I can't remember if we talked about it at fire committee. I know we've talked about it at finance committee with our way we're trying to make sure we budget according to statute, making sure before we approve purchases, they're budgeted. Um there is the custom engine order time is down. It was four plus years a few years ago, which is why we're still waiting on those two engines, but it's down to about two years right now or less. So, they would like to go ahead um probably next month and order a custom engine for station 4. So, we would incorporate that into a budget amendment. It would not be paid out this year. And then we would carry it forward in each budget just until the time it's delivered. if we're able to take advantage of any prepayment discounts, we might look at that. But, um, we know obviously even if we pull that in to our budget prior to approval, it would be carried over till next year because anticipated delivery would be

spring, late spring of 28. So, so that is the capital. Any questions? And we'll talk about more about fire station for the actual construction as part of the capital projects fund. Uh since this is just an equipment purchase, it lives in their budget. Okay. Next, code enforcement. Uh there is one request for staffing change and code enforcement. Their clerical staff uh has been part-time. They are requesting for a transition to full-time. And we can go ahead and go to the next slide. And you can see that that approximate cost is 66,000 due to obviously uh twice the salary, but AC accounting for potential uh health benefits that they may take. Uh we don't know that yet. So we always budget again for full family benefits just in case the person chooses to take those. Um this is something they've probably needed for a while and um have mentioned for several years. So, this is something they've requested again this year to convert that to a full-time position. And as mentioned, decreasing the assistant chief of prevention's allocation from 45% to 10%. Um, so other than that, there's not a lot of changes here. Again, they're doing a lot of things internally. Uh, they did request one new mobile radio. Uh, they hadn't purchased one yet for their new uh code enforcement officer. So, they think they need to replace or add an extra mobile radio. Next would be Oh, sorry.

So, there was some conversation about separating out code enforcement from the fire department. Is that reflected here or

not a true separation? No. I think we're we're reflecting the true nature of operations at the moment, which is fire department still has oversight, but not necessarily the as hands-on dayto-day now that we have the additional code enforcement officer. So right now it would just be kind of a a high level of oversight. And then not to say that that conversation may not continue in the future, but probably not in the upcoming year. So just we've had a lot of obviously transition, we want to make sure everybody's good to go and then before we we've added a lot of new personnel, new roles and code enforcement. So just make once everybody's on good footing then that conversation will still uh public works staffing. This staffing slide includes public works the engineers office uh and since the engineering office also covers storm water you will see the request of five additional new staff. It is an equipment operator, a crew leader, a maintenance driver, and two maintenance workers to establish a storm water crew. So, this is something I know it's been talked about in council. So, Robert went ahead based on some conversations and and feedback he's gotten, he went ahead and requested five additional uh public works employees that would be dedicated to storm water. Obviously, if there's a natural disaster or snow removal needed, they will assist in those areas as well. But p the primary function would be storm water. If you go to the next slide, you can see that let's see, we'll talk about public works first. Um, so this is the general public works that falls under Bruin. The operating expense increase, the biggest line item there is road salt. We're still evaluating this one because as you know last night you did approve an additional order of 800 tons at the

current unit price. So we will evaluate now that we hopefully were able to place that order. Um whether or not we still need a full 1,200 in next year's budget. Um so we'll double check on that and again we won't know that final price per ton until the reverse saw auction is finished in May. So he he included a cushion in there uh to include to purchase more and also to account for an increase in the price per ton. Capital request the dump truck 300,000 that is a 20 plus year old dump truck. Uh we did provide one new one in this year's budget. So he's been requesting both of these for a few years. Um he has pictures that I can show you, but there there's a lot of rusted out parts and uh definitely for the use that they get um need to be replaced. The wheel loader with mower attachment. What this is is he currently has a tractor, a batwing tractor, batwing mower that he uses um for mowing a lot of rottaways, large areas. This could replace that piece of equipment is also around 20 years old and uh is probably used rather infrequently uh for the type of mowing. This wheel loader with a mower batwing attachment would take the place of that but also has digging and scooping functions so that it could be useful in storm water maintenance or other public works projects. So, it could be a multi-function uh piece of equipment that could replace that tractor that he needs just to mow rightways. And then a just a zeroturn mower replacement. We replace those every 5 to 10 years as they age. Continuing on the city engineer, this is the general budget for the city engineer. Um I have bolded everything that's kind of a one-time project cost. So operating has stayed basically the

same. We do keep around he's requested to keep around 85,000 in general engineering and this is because throughout the year there's lots of little projects that pop up uh that need a little extra design work from a third party firm. Uh so we keep that for that as well as maybe some additional CA services on small projects. The city most of these are carryovers. the city entrance signs, the East Main Extended, and the Washington Street sidewalks. So, um, we are getting started on those. I know the Washington street sidewalks, we have a formal quotes to evaluate right now to award those design services. So, we we'll have it started before the end of the year, but by the time we get to construction, it'll be close to the end of the year. So, carrying that over, continuing. Um, this was something that I think the mayor had requested Eddie to put in the street paving and traffic calming. Obviously, we get around 850,000 860,000 of municipal road aid funds each year for our paving. As you know, the life of our streets is 20 years. And several years ago when we did the big financial presentation, we talked about needing probably an additional 500,000 at the time to keep every road paved every 20 years. So, this was the mayor's effort to put an additional 250,000 towards some additional street paving on top of the MAP funds and uh those traffic calming devices that you all have been approving. Continuing the sidewalk cost sharing program and also doing another round of the sidewalk grinding. Uh that was, I believe, successful the last time we did it for some sidewalks that are not in too bad a shape that can do the grinding. Next, the storm water budget. Uh, so coming back to the fivep person storm water crew, that is where this salary lives as well as 50% of the engineering

office u salaries and benefits. So you can see 438,842 is the ask on that. And again, I have bolded kind of the one-time uh projects. We have our general uh engineering for storm water as well as our MS4 permit services together. Those total 100,000 the Clayton Broadway design. This is the property at the corner of Clayton Broadway in front of G. Um this would be to design a storm water feature there. So uh whether it be a retention basin I won't speak to it wrong. Eddie Eddie's back there.

So um so I believe it's a retention basin storm water type feature. So, it's for the design of that. For repairs and maintenance, we have our usual CCTV, curb box, BMP repairs and maintenance. Um, the Royal Springs dredging. Again, I'm going to note this is one that we may include in the budget amendment uh rather than next year's budget. Uh, trying to get that approved so that while the work is going on in Royal Springs Park, we could go ahead and potentially do this at the same time. um just to kind of get that out of the way since there's equipment potentially already down there. Uh continuing storm water uh repairs and maintenance in Indian Hills Tiger Way. And then the capital projects uh the carryover of the 503507 South Broadway Channel project um the Colony Swell preservation that was presented to you in the stormwater presentation last night. So, this cost is from that presentation. And then if we're able to design the Clayton Broadway storm water feature, um Eddie did caution this 450,000 is a it is a guesstimate on what the construction of that would cost, but we wanted a placeholder in the budget to have something in there. So, uh we don't have an actual engineered estimate on that, but that was to have a budget placeholder for the storm water feature there.

Thank you. Yes. Uh going back to city engineer and also stormwater. Yes. The design fees for both the entrance signs and the design for Clayton Broadway. Yes. Is included in professional services. Why is that not included as part of the capital cost? I probably should move it. We've always budgeted in professional services, but it does get capitalized. that much I can tell you is it does get capitalized for depreciation purposes, but I can I can change that. Um, we've always budgeted for that separate, but I can that's an easy change to make. Okay, thank you.

They are included in the capital costs when we depreciate and add those to the fixed asset system.

Okay, next is the interlocal budgets. Um, I'll make a a word of caution. Any of the budgets from the county, the mayor, Devon, and I did meet with Judge Cington. Believe it was early March. Um, so we haven't received any updated numbers, but the numbers from the county are subject to change if if they send us a new draft of their budget. So, just want to make that comment. Um, as you can see, most of these are with the county. We do have parks and recreation. uh our operating cost our share of the operating is requested to be 1 million83205 which is an increase of 146,000 from last year uh Ed Davis Center with the which the city funds solely uh that is requested to remain the same and then 683,845 of capital these are more of those smaller capital maintenance projects you have a flyer in the packet with the departmental memos Drew has circulated that multiple times. You have each column of planned capital projects for the next three years and then those larger quality of life projects at the bottom. And we'll talk about those a little bit more as well. The revenue commission, this is just a estimated amount knowing they'll probably have some increased operating cost and cola, but their budget is not um finalized yet. So, I just included an additional 25,000 28,000 to cover any additional requests that may come through. And then the revenue to the Scott County fiscal court, that is their half of our building inspection revenue and um code enforcement. So,

Stacy, yes. Do you know why the animal actually it looks like not much has changed from last year except on two different the animal shelter went up 50. Did they share with you why that and the parks and recreation went up 146? Did they share with you why? Uh yes. Uh I know there are some additional cola in the parks and recck budget uh just increased cost of motor fuel and other supplies talking about the 146,000 for parks and wreck.

There is a letter uh in there from Drew talking about some of those increases. Okay. Um, if the mayor wants Jerry to come up and talk about it, he can, but he'd probably explain it better than I can. Um, so I don't know. Do you want Easiest answer is add in a position. Um, and I forgot. Yeah. As we've grown, you sports is like its own animal now. So, trying to bring in somebody to help me manage all of our youth sports as a person instead of my staff trying to So, there's a personnel in there as well. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. That's a whole new Yeah. Another full-time position. So that's probably the biggest chunk of that. Got it.

Oh no. Uh the animal shelter I will I don't have that copy with me today. So I will make a note to give you that detail. Okay. Thanks. Okay, Stacy. Yes, I'm just make sure on So, uh, the request for the Adam show, is that our half of it? Yes, this is our half. Okay.

Of all of the interlocal budgets. Okay, next slide, please. These are just their other miscellaneous um budget items that don't quite fit into another department. The affordable housing does have its own operating budget. Uh this year it's 52,500. That reduction is simply during last year we had carried over the match from the previous year's grant and then the match for the new year grant. So that's just a reduction of showing just one year of match on our white flag shelter ESG emergency services and rapid rehousing grant. Uh the county also has a match of the same amount. So this is our portion of that match in a small operating budget. Citywide utilities. I have a note that includes street lights, signal lights, hydrants, uh an allowance for if we need to install street lights on any streets that are completed, and leech disposal for the Sims Road landfill. Uh community services grants, we have allocated 400,000 um when either during the proposed budget or shortly thereafter, the mayor will share his list. We're still we just received those applications. April 3rd is when they were due. So, those are still under review by Karen to make sure they're complete and they've included everything that they needed to and then the mayor will go through and determine which ones he's recommending for approval. We have talked about obviously I know the mayor's talked about with the finance committee um maybe not allocating the full 400 obviously so that we have some left over if there are any additional requests that come up throughout the year but a list will be provided to you all either at the proposed budget presentation or or sometime in May for that community services other uh that

includes our I'm sorry contribution to the airport tourism Scott County United um that also includes our voucher program with Rumpky that runs five or six thousand a month for that um sister city uh super recycling day just some other community services that we contribute towards transfers to other funds is 5.8 8 million. 5.5 of that we'll talk about here. I believe it's on it's on the next slide. Don't go there yet, but it's on the next slide. We'll talk about the capital projects, the big ones that are being funded. We track those in the capital projects fund, but they're funded by transfers from the general fund. And the difference is uh transfer to cemetery fund to cover uh any difference there. Debt service is approximately 1.1 million, an increase of about 8,000. The lease for the Suffeta Aquatic Center is officially paid off. Uh we received our last invoice for that. I believe it was March. So that is paid off. We are left with our two bond issues. Um the police department bond has a balance of 2.3 million. The rot refinancing bond has a balance of 5.1 million and we have until December of 34 before those are paid off. So about eight and a half more years. But we are past that prepayment point. Once you get past 10 years, you are allowed to pay down extra if we ever have funds uh available to do so. Um but just wanted to give you an update on that. Those are the last two the two bonds that we're paying on right now. Okay, next slide. So, these are the larger capital projects. Um, all of the ones that say new are included as part of that

transfer to the capital projects fund. I want to clarify on four of the items. The first three are related to the police department renovation and expansion and then the new 911 facility. Uh, as you all know, you funded a facility needs assessment for the police department expansion and a new 911 facility. They are in the middle of that. We asked the architect to throw out some numbers for design fees and this is just taken straight from that email. Um, so keep in mind we this is not a negotiated price. We would go out, you know, to to pursue a design contract. We would negotiate fees. Um obviously we would set a budget for what we expect for those buildings to be constructed at. So this is just straight from the architect um when we said can you send us some numbers as a guide for the budget. So we'll continue to talk about this over the next couple weeks uh and before we have first street in the budget to to see if we feel how accurate these are. Um, so as you can see, the first one is the police department renovation and expansion, a support building, and then renovation of the old 911 building, which would be then used for police department purposes. Uh, the fire department for design was included in this year's budget. So, but there was $56,000 of construction administration that would need to be funded in next year's budget and 4 million for the construction contract. Uh I will say uh when Seth spoke with our design team, they would anticipate no more than 25% of the construction being completed next fiscal year. But again, in keeping in line with the statutes regarding budgets, we'll budget the whole amount up front, go ahead and fund that uh in

our capital projects fund and then spend it as it um as it progresses to be determined. Um because obviously we don't know the exact property yet would potentially be 911 property purchase. That is the one that we don't have a cost on today. Um but we would most likely need to relocate that facility due to that type campus. There's not anywhere to put it there. uh in our current property that we own the and then I've noted on some of these the 911 facility design that would be funded with the county equally since that is an interlocal department. So of the 5.9 million it's a little over 5.5 that's actually transferred from the general fund to fund these projects. additional projects that are not included in these requested budget numbers, but have been topics of conversation. Um, bus stop shelters. We're looking into possible funding sources, uh, whether or not our LGA or other funds could be used for these. Uh, and we we do have some quotes. We just weren't able to get them in time. We'll get those updated, but kind of picking our three highest traffic uh, bluegrass rides stops and providing some type of shelter there. So, that's a project we're looking into. And the next one is the Senate appropriation and revenue request for the Dela Plane Anderson industry road improvements. Just keeping that in mind. Council approval would be required before we put this into the budget. You did a resolution generally supporting uh that I believe not without a dollar amount tied. But this is 10% of the project cost. So we use 10% of the project cost as our estimate and council action would be required to approve this uh before moving forward. Yes. So knowing what was approved in the budget for that project.

Should we not budget what we would actually potentially do? 3 million. Is that what

Yeah. So it'd be a million versus 500. So, we just included a placeholder based on just a percentage of the project cost. Also, knowing that I I know the council didn't the court did include a placeholder. They could they could amend it to uh allocate a larger amount, but that's following the session ending I guess tomorrow. Um the discussion for council at the next council meeting would be what level of support do you all want to provide? So, we included that for now. that number like between now and and May 11th can and potentially will change, but wanted to include that for visibility knowing that's something the council is going to be talking about.

And uh continuing just for visibility uh as we mentioned parks on the flyer that Drew has been circulating uh to the city, the county, the interlocal committee with those quality of life uh estimated cost on the lapole construction. Uh we do have a design contract out to bid for that right now. Um so the estimated construction cost on that were 4.5 to 5 and the Great Crossing Park the new Cloverleaf ball fields estimated cost was 5 to6 million. So if the county and city choose to move forward with those projects they would be shared 50/50. Okay. Next, preliminary general fund revenue projections. Um, as you'll see, it is only about 566,000 more than what was budgeted this year. The main thing I want to talk about is payroll taxes. Um, we had been trending over the last few years approximately 9% in our payroll tax increase year-over-year. That was what was used in this year's budget projection. Uh once we actually got to the end of fiscal year 25, the growth between 24 and 25 was actually more like 4%. Uh right now we're trending about five between five and 6% ahead of where we were at this time last year. So that's why I know during the finance committee I've said and I know Tammy mentioned it during the minutes or the committee mini update last night was I will be taking all of the revenue data up to the last minute up to the first reading to make sure I have his accurate projections. I did contact the revenue commission Scott Hall and he had one of his staff members do some research. Uh obviously it's proprietary information that I have that I can't share, but generally speaking, they looked at our top 10 to 20 employers. Uh and it wasn't just one, but there were multiple that

had decreased payroll this year compared to last year and 25 compared to 24. So I do think that is affecting us some. So I was more conservative in my projection for payroll taxes for the upcoming fiscal year. So I did a 5% projection instead of nine. So that's why you actually see the projection for payroll taxes being less than what it was the year before. So we've had a lot of strong growth over recent years. I know we've got a lot of construction projects that are just starting to get going. So, you know, those hopefully uh will continue to to increase, but as one construction project comes on, you know, another one's falling off. Scott said that's really hard to for him to track exactly where those are affecting our payroll taxes. But, you know, if we're able to increase this projection any at all, if I feel confident in increasing it before first treating, I will. But taking the conservative approach of that 5% which is more what we've averaged the last couple of years and and long term. So, uh, we'll continue to keep an eye on this one. I'll continue to be in conversation with Scott. I haven't had a chance yet, I know, to talk to Chase as well as Jack Connor uh just to see how things are moving with projects coming online with the uh wastewater treatment plant one expansion and then talking to Jack as well, what he knows. But for the purposes of tonight, I spoke with Scott and that was the information he gave me. So, keeping it a little more conservative uh for next year on that for insurance premium taxes. Uh I'll talk about that one. That's also a large. I have 9.5. That is a 6% growth projection. But over the last um probably I don't know 10 years it's been closer to eight or nine. So this is conservative. I would like to see where one more quarter comes in. Uh right now I'm working with half a year of data for insurance premium tax. The third quarter returns aren't due till April 30th. They

can be postmarked April 30th. So sometimes it's the first week of May or two before we get all those returns in. So I would really like to see one more quarter's data before strengthening that revenue projection uh beyond about 6% right now. Stacy is the very first tax on that list. Is that the property tax?

It is property but it also includes motor vehicle tangible bank franchise tax. So taxes I did lump together. property taxes. Uh you'll be able to see in the line item report I increased 4%. Which assuming if we take the 4% rate like we have typically property taxes increases a little more like seven to eight um because of new property. That's the other thing. We have a 4% potential increase on revenue from existing property but we also receive additional property tax revenue on new property as well. So, I tried to be, like I said, as conservative as I could in this first go round. If I feel comfortable going higher with anything, I will. Um, so that's insurance premium tax. Um, franchise fees are fa staying fairly stagnant. Um, the line item report, we can look at each one. One in particular I do want to call out is, and if you choose to look at the line item report, this will be on the second page. It says page one of 46 at the bottom. is um the cable. So, this one continues to decrease as you can see. Uh we we used to receive closer to 150,000 per year and now it's gone 138 down to 135 projected for this year. So, I have dropped that to 120,000 assuming about 30,000 a quarter which is where our last quarter was. But as everyone cuts the cord, so to speak, and goes to streaming, and we don't get franchise fees on that, uh, that one continues to decrease. So, I did want to call that one out. Um, and then you'll see the others are pretty close. Um, Kentucky American Water, the hydrant fee that has gone up, so we've got 175 there. KU is is pretty flat. If they've had some rate

increases, I haven't. Again, I've only got a couple quarters to look at there. So, just trying to be conservative with everything on the franchise fees. Um, investment income, that's about if we can keep 14 million invested, if we can keep that 30% fund balance invested, I put it around a three and a half% rate to be conservative. That's about 500,000. Rates have come down from where they were. So, if we can keep that invested at 3 and a half% or higher, uh we did receive some proposals that finance committee will be looking at at the April 27th meeting um for some additional investments to close out that $20 million CD at Central Bank um and try to reinvest in some other um opportunities. So, and then intergovernmental revenue that is just determined by uh typically the county's reimbursement of our interlocal departments, police uh police incentive pay, fire incentive pay that's reimbured by the state. So, the bulk of that is our ambulance our half of the ambulance revenue. Any questions on revenue projections? Okay, next slide. This is the slide where I will remind you this is not the mayor's proposed budget. This is as requested. So I wanted you to see the starting point that the mayor's working from, which is basically if we took these revenue projections, if everything was funded, you know, I don't want to speak for the mayor. I'm pretty confident every every single thing won't be funded. Uh so our preliminary revenue projections were a little over 47.6 million. I have broken out the expenses into operating and capital. So our operating budget is 49

million of budget request which would have us using almost 1.4 million in prior year revenues to balance the requested budget. Uh I do want to make a note the new positions that have been requested total 1.8 million. So that is that is obviously the vast majority of that. Um, and then of course you've seen some of the other increases throughout each one, just inflationary cost, especially with motor fuel, building maintenance as our buildings age and things. But the majority of that increase is cola and new positions. So that's the left hand side is the breakdown of recurring revenues compared to operating expense request. On the right hand side, I started with the anticipated beginning fund balance July 1 26, which is the start of fiscal year 27. This number was taken from the quarter 2 financial report that you all were provided. I do want to make the caveat that if payroll taxes don't come in where budgeted, this could decrease. Um, so our operating and then the next thing I did was calculate what would our minimum fund balance be based on the budget request. So if we have 49 million a budget request, our minimum fund balance would be that 14.7 that I mentioned on the first slide. So that gives you our projected excess fund balance for fiscal year 27, which is about 12.7 million. And then you can see all of the capital requests in the requested budget. So this is that $5.5 million of large capital items that would be in the capital projects fund as well as all of the equipment and smaller capital projects that are in there total 10.5 million and then carrying over the 1 almost 1.4 from the other side. So

again if everything that was requested was funded it would spend all but 827 827,000 of our excess fund balance. So keep in mind that is a council policy that's at the 30% minimum. Um you know the mayor's goal is to work within that policy to keep that minimum. Only uh council can approve dipping into that 30% or changing that 30%. So as again just reiteration this is not the final proposed budget. This is not the mayor's final recommendation. This is just the starting point and we will work from there. So all of this this slide or something very similar to it will I'll probably just use the same slide will be in your proposed budget presentation on May 11th so that you can see where the mayor's final proposed budget ends up. Next slide. Uh just to give a little bit of attention to our other funds, the dispatch center. I'll make the same note that I did on the police department. The open records clerk the authorized staffing should be 0.5 and they are requesting a second open records request open records clerk. So their requested staffing on that would go to 1.5 for a total of 30 and 31. So they have requested uh we just hired just filled that position not that long ago for the open records clerk uh to be shared between PD and dispatch. uh due to the volume, they went ahead and asked for a second one. So, that request is in here. The other one, I have an asterk by the shift supervisor. Uh when I looked at the personnel ordinance, it still says four shift supervisors, but only three have been funded. So, per the personnel ordinance, we wouldn't need a change, but it would be an additional budget cost. So on the next slide

you will see to reinstate the fourth shift supervisor salary and benefits would cost uh just under 126,000. That second open records clerk that would be housed solely in dispatch would be 97,000. And there is a memo in there's two memos from dispatching your packet. One with their budget information one talking about salary. Um, we know they're probably one of the departments that has the hardest time retaining, filling, and retaining positions. It is a hard line of work. And, um, so they've done their research. Uh, we're continuing to analyze what they've given us. They've requested an increase, uh, to starting pay to $26 per hour, which is an additional $3.89 per hour to the starting pay. So, that trickles up. If you increase the starting pay, it trickles up. Again, this wasn't a change in structure. It was just an increase to the starting pay, which then affects everyone above. Again, this is requested. The new capital request, uh, they're trying to upgrade the tower lighting systems to LED. So, they have four of those in there at 16,000 each. The CAD program, I'll do my best to clarify on this. And we, this past year, we completed the migration of the CAD to the cloud. So that's u really just hosting it yourself on a server to hosting it on the web through Tyler Technologies which is the vendor. This is a migration to an updated version of CAD called enterprise records. Uh they're they have police records or law enforcement records and some other modules that need to be updated. So they have requested uh for that to be changed. I don't there is a slight increase in the annual cost that's included in operating but under new capital request I did include the onetime fees that would be associated

with that migration. Um there's more detail about that in the dispatch memo and if you need any additional information beyond that you can let me know. And then the phone system refresh, we ended up that was budgeted this year, but due to the timing of finishing the CAD migration and we tapped into that budget to do some other things such as the prepared um by Axon and some other things. So they've carried over or readded the phone system refresh to the capital budget for next year. and the operating expense notes. The main increases there are prepared by Axon and the computer workstations and some other small increases. And the next slide, as a reminder, uh the city funds our half of the 911 dispatch center with a 911 service fee. We started at $6 per month, went to seven the second year, and then the third year, and every year since, it has been $8 per month per occupied residential unit. So, it's only charged if the unit is occupied, and um that is one of the fees that's on the water bill. So, uh in the first couple of years of that fee, the tower system maintenance was still included for the first few years. we weren't paying an additional fee for that. So, we built up a little bit of a fund balance in the 911 fund in the first few years. So, we've been spending that down. We've not had to increase that service fee. So, as you can see, um our beginning fund balance for this fiscal year was around 1.9. The current budget anticipates using about 330,000. That may not come to fruition because they do have a lot of vacant positions still. So they have about seven vacant positions, but as budgeted, uh we were going to use 330,000 of prior year reserves. So our anticipated beginning balance for next year is just under 1.6.

And with all of their operating in capital request, um that would require use of $832,000, leaving a potential about $765,000 balance at the end of fiscal year 27. Again, we want to be good stewards of those fees and spend that money down before we consider anything a couple years down the road. Uh, you know, council may have to consider whether we supplement with general fund if we get to that point or do anything else about that fee. So, Stacy, what is what is, if I over I may have overlooked it, what's the income for this expected for this year off of that uh $8 per month?

Yes. Let me I had the total revenue in there but not I didn't have it broken down in the line item report. Let me get that one moment. So this year, so the last two years we've collected just under and just above 1.6 million. uh we budgeted 1,608 for the current year and for fiscal year 27 I projected 1,660,000 as a conservative estimate. So we are collecting over 1.6 6 million. Okay.

In that uh and then we do receive about 440,000 from the state CMRS poured. Um we do share half of that revenue with the county. And then just um for a note, we um the total dispatch expense budget that the county contributes to is just under 5.4 million. So the county's contribution is just under 2.7. So the county is contributing will be contributing if everything's funded approximately 2.7 million. Uh we would be contributing the 1.6 million in fees plus spending down the balance of the reserves. So I just take the expenses we we have I'm sorry

I'm hearing I'm hearing what you say. we have plenty to cover 91 911 based on at least for this year and and probably the next year and then we may have to okay discuss whether you know in the past general fund covered these expenses um before we implemented the fees. So that'll be a council and and mayor policy decision when we get to that point. But we also have a capital expense for the expansion of the 911 center. Yes. Yes. So and right now the design fees that are in there would be covered by general fund as of right now. We don't have that capital expenditure being covered by the fees. It would be covered by the general fund. And

okay, our last department that we'll focus on will be cemetery. Um, not a lot to talk about here. There's no additional requests for staffing. Next slide. Um, I will make a general comment. In general, our revenue from cemetery has been decreasing. Uh we've talked about this at finance committee. Um an interament service that that's over $1,000 fee. Um but a lot of people are choosing to be cremated. So it has decreased our service revenue. Uh we're also not selling quite as many lots right now because space is getting tight. So, for a lot of the people that would typically come in and buy eight plus lots at once, we're not able to do that right now um because Jean's trying to to conserve until we're able to expand. Uh we did carry over again the 200,000 for potential land purchase. Um the schematic design was to expand the cemetery where the old I think Sephalapool was. And so we have the schematic design, but that property has land and water conservation fund restrictions on it. So we have to find a equally valued property. It can't be property you already own. You have to buy new property. Um, but I know Devon and the mayor have also been talking with the county about whether or not they'll be purchasing any prox parks property that we could transfer those to. Um, so still looking at the best fit for that in the meantime. So, and as always, um, cemetery does not fund itself. So, I believe the city and county each are contributing on that number. About 293,000 of general fund dollars are used to supplement cemetery and then the county supplements that equally.

Uh, last slide will be quick and easy. These are some of our other funds. Uh, next slide. Yes. Have recurring revenue. The alcohol fund. Um, I believe it's 13 or 14% of the police department salary and about 25% of the city clerk's office salary and benefits are charged to the alcohol fund. Um, this fund has been kind of stagnant with revenue. We seem to have kind of just hit a plateau. So, it's not growing. But I know there's been some legislation proposed regarding alcohol uh fees. So, we are keeping an eye on that and whether that would require us to reduce our percentages anytime in the near future. But uh I know Emily's been keeping a close eye on that along with Devon and the mayor. And so we'll continue to keep an eye on that legislation and see if it affects this. Um we're hoping maybe it'll just be some additional reporting uh requirements, but there's any questions, I'll defer to one of these ladies about that. Last, the MAP fund, the LGAA fund. These are estimates. I did contact the municipal road a department, but they didn't have uh revenue numbers for next year yet. They said those would be coming out in a few weeks. Um lastly, all of the project specific funds, grants, business park, uh drug fund, etc., those will be part of the mayor's proposed budget presentation. They don't have recurring revenue um for federal and state grants. We'll just be carrying over anything that's been approved by council at this point. So that is all I have. And then as mentioned, you've got a copy of the presentation was emailed and you have a hard copy, the line item report that supports all of those numbers and copies of departmental memos that were completed. So, as the mayor said, if you have any additional questions, please

email he and I and I will work to compile those and any responses to questions I'll send out to the full council so that everybody has any information that's requested.

All right. Uh, as always, De, excuse me, Devin, Emily, and Stacy, uh, thank you for your work on all this. I tell you what, this is it makes our job easy when you get when you know that you got somebody there or group of people there that are looking at things and working together to do what's best for our citizen, this community. Once again, this is not this is just information to be shared with you. Uh it's going to be a lot of sleepless nights going through all this, but that's okay. Uh we'll take our time, look through it, and we'll be very uh proactive on things. is also looking to be conservative and smart in what we do and making sure that we provide the services that is needed by this city so we can continue to provide those services which is needed by our and that's what our the public expects out of us. Uh we are service and we want to continue to do that and hitting the much needed things that uh so people can come live work and play here. That being said uh there is no other issue to be brought for this council. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.