City Council - Regular Meeting

Laura, if you could kind of get started and talk to us where we are and what we're going to do and

Okay. All right. So, um, all of you received this information that's on the screen. This is kind of our summary sheet. So, I want to kind of start here and just tell you where we are overall and then we'll go back and hit some of the high points on the revenues. And then um I really today just want to rather than get in the weeds of the smaller departments, I this is more important and I need to get some guidance on how you want to fill the gap. Um so um the bottom part of this where I've got inflationary, those are just our inflationary costs, the big ticket ones, the bigger items, the bigger increases that are built into our operating budget. Just so you know, for reference, um the operating budget overall, excluding personnel, is up about 2.72% over last year. To put that in perspective, the CPI, cost of living in December was 2.75 and for March it was 3.3 and climbing. So operationally, year-to-year, we're in our request, and this is just a baseline budget, no extras. our requests are in line with what inflation's doing at the moment. So that takes care of all the ones at the bottom. Does anybody here have questions about any of that part of the budget? Okay. So the gap is about 430,000 and at the very top the new debt that is the GA debt that we have for seven years that we will start next year. That's also the airport debt that we assumed and it is offset by the current year operating transfer. So that's a net increase.

Um the pay plan evaluation, we've talked about that for about a year. Um I have the proposal from Miss McGrath and it looks like it's running close to 11,500. Um, and I'm, if I read that correctly, I don't think that includes any additional if she has to travel, that'll be there. George clam, that's the util. The majority of that's utilities. There's a little bit of money in there for just routine maintenance if we have to have it cleaned or exterminated or anything like that. And then the school maintenance of effort is the 250. Um, I'm going to talk about that for just a minute. Does you, anybody have questions on the first three? Well, the pay plan evaluation that's just a one term. One time

that's a one time. That is a one time. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Um so the school maintenance of effort um most of you know Ellen Light, the school chief financial officer and I have been meeting for this is year number three. Um pretty much once a month. Right now we're it's every week and that's we're just really trying to bridge the gap on both sides. Part of the conversation and the change at the comproller level in Nashville has been a test when we submit our budget. So the schools's budget, general purpose school fund is within the town's budget when we submit it that whole packet and they have decided that the board the department of education and the local government finance office are testing to make sure that cities that have school systems are meeting their maintenance of effort correctly. Year before last, we came really close like 10,000 or less probably. It was really close of not meeting that. And so last year we were a little bit better and we kind of expected it to maintain. She has evaluated this two different ways. The her test that they do internally at the school system and then the department of education test and they both come out exactly within like $2 of each other. And so that's going to be a requirement. The comproller will not approve the town's budget or the school budget without us meeting that maintenance of effort. So that gets us where we're supposed to be without any additional anything for them. Okay. So the question has been asked, why are we why are they off? their enrollment's down a little bit and I will defer to Ellen when they come on the 13th to give you some specifics

about what that looks like and what that means. But every year the county takes a percentage of their the tax levy that goes to the city school system. In 2018, fiscal year 2018, it was 44.02% 02% of that tax levy. In 2026, it's 23.87% of that tax levy. So, they're reallocating pennies. And if I can get you a more detailed explanation, um Ellen couldn't be here today, but I can get you a more detailed explanation if you need me to. In essence, they're taking those monies and putting them in reallocating them somewhere else for capital, not sending them to the city school system. This has generated for this current year only an $880,000 loss in property tax revenue for the school system just in FY26. So um this is contributing

I'm sorry

explain that. So, I'm not sure I completely understand it, can explain it as well as she does, but when they allocate their pennies of the property tax levy, a certain number of pennies and percentage goes to the city schools and then they have capital funds and debt funds and things like that that they go to. Well, the pennies here are going over to a, if I understand it correctly, a capital fund, not the schools, not the city schools. And so over the last few and I'll get you all a copy of this so you can see the progression of it. And we've talked about this in the last couple years. I don't know if either any of y'all recall this conversation, but um that's the short of it is the counties just

the school the county schools. Oh no,

the county that capital fund is probably for the county school system. And I can verify that as well. I can get all the language and stuff. I'll get Ellen to write some bullets for you just so you can understand that better. But the reallocation of those pennies is has contributed to this maintenance of effort issue. Um that's considered local revenue and when their local revenues down, our maintenance of effort is going to be short. So again, I'm sorry I don't have a better explanation for you than that today, but I do have these numbers. I'll be glad this came from Ellen. be glad to give it to you and I'll get her to just do a bulleted synopsis for you.

Was the city school system at all putting any pens into maintenance fund? I know they're owned by the city, but I mean I remember when they had the study completed that they're not putting anything in. No, they would come to this board and say we need So this is two different things. This is actually I'm talking what they're losing. I understand that. But this is the city's obligation. So the maintenance is we've got those separate maintenance funds and we'll talk about that in a little bit. We've got that separate maintenance fund we set up to address what they what happened in that particular study that you're talking about.

And so they will be contributing to school maintenance under this new model. So like I said, we'll talk about that in a minute,

but that more or less just kind of explains this is our that's our increase the obligation. So, Ellen and I were surprised it was that much. We expected something, but not to that level. We're also glad that it's not the 880,000 and that it's 250. So, um that total gets us to the 4295 and that is we are seven pennies on our tax rate short of balancing our budget. So, um, Christina, can you flip over to There should be one that's general fund revenues. Yes. Thank you. I'm just going to touch on the the big ones, the important ones. So,

important property tax. I've got four pennies in growth there. Two and a half%. That's upwards of about a hundred new homes coming on the tax roll. 90 to 100 new properties coming on the tax roll just from the development. Um they go on the tax roll as of January 1 and then they're on that tax roll for that year. So if you're constructing a house and it doesn't get finished until February, it probably is not going to make it on that tax roll. So there may there's a little bit of a lag when we go through that process. So

they'll collect the property taxes February through January. They're going to be paying those. Well, they'll prorrate them. It sometime if they when they finish the construction and close on the loan, a lot of times they'll prrate those. Okay.

Yes. Now, if somebody owns a lot, they're paying property tax on the lot, but not until the home is completed and officially sold is when the when it actually hits the well, if it's on the market, it's going to hit the tax roll, but when they're when they're complete, when if new construction, as soon as they're built and ready to sell, the if the developer should have them on the tax ro at that point as a completed home. Okay. So then we would expect if it was John Q Public's developer, they're going to be paying the property taxes on that house while it's selling. But if they sell it in September, it's not going to come on the tax roll till January. Yeah. Let's take Johnson Farm. Okay.

Okay. Soon as the developer puts the streets in and we okay it okay the sidewalk, streets, whatever it comes off of Green Belt, it goes into that developer. He's not paying property tax on those lots. Probably on the lots, but not on the house. Yeah. Right. Right. Yes. On the lots. Yes. They're paying property taxes on the lots, but the full value of the lot and that home is when it's completed. And then that depending on what time of year it is will depend on where it hits on the tax. Shouldn't shouldn't it be large difference of what that farm was and now into lots for the developer to pay? Shouldn't we be realizing?

No, it doesn't work that way. It that seems like it would, but it really doesn't. It really doesn't. Um anyway, why

so why doesn't it Okay, so if you have something that is they're paying a different rate on their prop, different percentage or a different rate on their property tax or they have exemptions. Some of this farmland was agriculture and it's been exempt. So when it comes on the tax roll is when the developer purchases that. So we go from having nothing to having lots on there. So that's not it doesn't make any difference if it's it's not as much as you would think it would be. A $40,000 is not going to generate hardly anything on our tax roll for a lot. When you build the house, it's going to $300,000 house right now brings about $1,200 in property tax lot and home. So it's not as much as you would think it would be. Well, I know it' be more than what it was in Greenville, but I own a lot beside my house and I pay separately on it, right? It's just a lot,

right? Well, last well as to the difference of that.

Um, that's a question for the assessor. And I say that because last year we only all the building we had last for 2025 property taxes, we only gained $133,000 in property tax revenue out of 40 homes. So, it's not as much as you think it would be with all the building we have going on. And it literally is the timing of everything getting been on there. So, some of the growth when I say 80, 90 to 100 homes, some of that growth includes those additional lots and the houses on them because they're going up so quickly. Does that make sense? Does that answer your question? Sort of. Okay.

I'll talk later about it. A lot to go through.

Okay. No, it's fine. It's fine. Um, local option sales tax, that's not as conservative as I would like to be, but um, I've looked at the numbers four ways from Sunday. And so I'll continue to evaluate these as we go through the year, the next few months to see what the current year looks like versus I think we're going to meet budget this year. I don't know that we're going to exceed it by a lot, if we do any at all, local and state. maybe a little bit. Um, but I've got three and a half percent. And so, um, that's another conversation, um, Ellen and I both have about local option sales tax is the growth rate. So, we try to be somewhere comparable a little bit on that one. And then state sales tax, that's actually dictated by the comproller. We get um an assessment starting in February, March, and April from MTAS and Brad Harris who is been there for years and excellent at those calculations. And so those run through the comprollers's office and then if we deviate from those, it's fine if I need to go up or down based on what we've been collecting and what I think we're going to be. I just have to justify it. So, I don't expect the sales tax growth to change much, but I'll still look at that even up until the 1 of June on those. And all of our other revenues are fairly similar. There's not a lot of growth in a lot of the others. Are there questions on any of the other revenues that you're looking at?

Okay. So, basically our revenue growth covers our budget, our operating budget with the exception of the new stuff that we have coming on this year. So, questions on revenues. Okay. Um, do you want me to go I I really didn't plan on going by departments. Is there a certain department that you have a question about their expenses as far as not the bigger ones, not park and recck public works. They're going to talk to them next week, but anything else on the operating the expense side that you have a question about?

Why is it dropping 15,000 on 33550? that size. Thanks. That's state that's statemandated. That's the state calculation at the moment. Yes. Have they cut that rate or something? No, they base that on historical collections and then they that's what all this all those numbers we get from the state are per capita and they're all it's a historical average across the state and then he breaks it down by region and that's how we get the number that we get. other reimbursements, I guess. What is that at 20,000? Other reimbursements.

That's just historically where we've been, where we're going to finish this year and where we're at. And that's just a variety of it could be anything. It's it's it's just a variety of things that we get reimbured for. It could be anything from somebody knocked over a sign and they're going to pay us back for it. Something like that. FY 25 was 55,000.

It was actually Yes. And this year's more. So other reimbursements and the miscellaneous revenues, they fluctuate a good bit. And so I try to just base it off of where I think we're going, where we're at this year, looking back where we've been. And I take an average. and then look and see where I think we're going to be next year. Anything else on that part? We have recreation and rugby center going up a little bit from the county. Is that just open?

That's their ask. So his the last few years the parks and wreck has been a percentage of the county's hotel motel tax. So if their hotel motel tax revenues up then park and wrecks revenue has started to climb. uh ROI in this budget is um the ask and the same thing in the library budget. So if the county doesn't come through with that, we'll make an adjustment back

historically. Yeah. Let's go to historically. Historically. Yeah. Any other questions? Okay. So, my question, Go ahead, mayor. Did you have a question? We've talked about raising the tuition rate for county out of district people. If we could if they could raise it by $500 some 600 people, we would more than cover that deficit that we're getting from the Do could could that be part of the maintenance of effort? No. The maintenance of effort is what the town is responsible for contributing to the school system.

So if they're getting more from it, it could go up if the county went down. So are would tuition be considered a local pay local? No, that's it's not in their local revenue. That's not calculated in their local revenue. Okay. Their local revenue is considered property tax and sales tax. That's what they get from those kind of things.

So what is the what is that based off of the maintenance? So it's a big calculation. The short version is without getting into the weeds is it's based on their average daily attendance. So for example, if they if they lose students, then the cost the pool's smaller, so the cost per student goes this way. They have more students, the cost per student goes this way. It's just like in our TCRS pool. If you've got fewer people, it's going to cost you more per person. You got a bucket of money and you divide it by the number of people. And so they they do this the calculation on the new TISA formula. Actually, I prefer that one. I don't know. Somebody at the school system may shoot me today, but Ellen and I actually like that one because it's easy to follow and it's you can figure it out. Um, but part of that test came along with this t this new formula where you've got a base for every kid and then then they have another allocation per kid on that stipen. However, they're still looking at this at least twice a year. You'll hear them talk about ADA, which is their average daily attendance. They're looking at those attendance numbers couple times a year. And so, the attendance goes into it, the local revenue that they receive, all of that goes into that. And if you want the I think I sent you a screenshot of the one that from Ellen. I believe I included in your email. That screenshot has all those components listed in it that goes into calculating that maintenance of effort and they take things out like we gave them one-time capital in FY25. So they take that out of the mix because that's not recurring money. We gave them additional money last year in the maintenance of effort because the cost of the buses had escalated so much. That does go into their maintenance of

effort calculation because it's recurring. So you're saying if number of people in the school system goes down, we still have to give them the same amount of money that we've given them.

It it'll cost us more. That's that's So let me put it to you this way. Um if you if they have a pool of revenue including what the city gives them and they've got thousand students okay and we're meeting in our maintenance of effort that's great. If their number of students goes down, then in that calculation that they do at the state level when they're looking at that the cost to educate that you still got this bucket of money. You have less kids to educate with that bucket of money. You think it would go the other way, but it doesn't. And I get used the TCRS example. When we have our pool of TCRS candidates, we've got 250 people in there and this is our rate. When you take people out of that, you've still got that bucket of money. You're spreading it through fewer people. So, your cost per person goes up. That factors into that number. So if you look at that sheet that I sent you from Ellen, I think you'll be able to see that the way that picture looks and what goes into that. It's a very complicated for that's why we don't calculate it locally. They don't allow us to calculate that at the school system or at the city level. That's done at the department of education level and then the department of finance and the comprollers's office verifies that every year. I know it's complicated and I it's very confusing and I'm not I'm not I'm not going to pretend to understand it all. I just

bottom line is it's $250,000 we have statemandated. There's nothing we can do about it. So

Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, we've got about I don't know, we'll take a break before the next one. So, what I really need from the city council today is some guidance on how to bridge this gap. So, you have two options or we can do a combination of the two. In our unreserved or unassigned fund balance, our rainy day fund, that's where we take our capital money out. Usually, we just take capital out of it. We can in an economic situation and we've got inflationary issues that's created part of the problem. You can use your rainy day reserve for that. Comprollers office is going to want to plan to replenish that if at all possible over a short period of time. They don't require it. They just expect it. So, it's sort of like if you personally if I need to take $5,000 out of my savings account to repair my car, but my bank expects me to keep X number of dollars in there. I've got to have a plan to put that $5,000 back in there. Um, right now we're about 23 and a half% on our fund balance policy. The minimum is 20. The bottom dollar is 15%. That's the comproller got to cut it off at 15%. So you can take it out of the rainy day reserve. That doesn't fix anything next year. Okay? Because it these most of this stuff is recurring. You could take you could do a property tax increase where we're standing right now. That's seven pennies. And um

you could do that this year that gets us break even or you could do a combination of both. You could do pennies and somehow the rainy day reserve. I don't like that option at all. I think it convolutes everything and it just makes it very complicated. But so that's why I honed in on the two options in my memo to you is take it out of the rainy day reserve and just move forward with what we have in the budget or property tax increase if seven cents just to break even what happen next year if it's three or 4%.

So yes. So I do think we're going to be facing the same thing next year.

Well, we have to if it's just a break. That's correct. I think you're still going to be facing the same thing next year. So, if we're going to talk about a property tax increase, maybe we look at doing it over a two-year period to get us where we need to be or where we think we need to be because the following year, you're going to hit that certified tax rate, and I really don't want to raise property tax rates during a certified tax rate year at all. So, we've got 27 budget. They're going to reassess in 28 and that reassessment hits in FY29 or calendar year 29 for FY29. So you've got this year and next year to kind of get your bearings.

The reassessment's not until 29. It happens in 28. It doesn't hit the tax roll till 29. Yes, sir. J, excuse me. Well, and I also we've got $500,000 in the budget for road repairs. That's in state street aid. Yes. Okay. I think that's all we've got. Is that correct? All we have for resurfacing. Yes. Which is not going to cover what we need. Yeah. Not a lot. We don't have anything in sidewalks. for us.

It keeps going up. We've got some storm water things we need to address. Yes. So, were there things asked for that are not in this? Y'all cut back to try to make it closer?

Yes. So, resurfacing, I didn't talk to Scott about anything above what's in state street aid. Um, and if we're going to focus that's contracted paving so their guys can work on sidewalk projects or things like that. Typically those the larger ones are going to come out of our fund balance, their capital item. Storm water Andy and I, Scott and Andy did before I got involved and then Andy and I have spent a lot of time looking at numbers and we talked about it when we met with him on the budget. new programs, it just takes a couple years to get them going. So, there's a lot of money we could put into storm water that cost us a lot of money. So, initially what I'd like to do and is put some in our fund balance that from on the capital side that at least gets us a bucket of money where we can do some things or whatever that looks like. If we've got a repair, we need to do something, we know we've got something we've got to address. To build them an operating budget is more tax money. And so that's up to the city council how you want to do that and what that looks like. But that is more people and more stuff. So, when I'm thinking about this year and next year, I'm wondering if we just do some things this year and some things next year, especially on storm water. Maybe it's just a bucket of capital this year and we really hit the storm water next year or we hit the storm water operating this year and do the capital next year. I don't really know the best way to do that. That's a very large undertaking and a very large pro. We've got large needs in that area. Well, and and we actually started the project in 2017.

I I'm asking I'm 14. So, we've known these ne needs were going to be coming and we didn't address them. So, how long are we going to keep kicking down the down the road? And we've also got the school system. We talked about trying to put together a capital activities for it. So, do we need to put some additional monies in there to cover that? So, about the school maintenance fund include the highway. I'm I'm sorry.

You're talking about the school maintenance fund we established. So, where Ellen and I are their budget's so tight. So, where we landed last Wednesday at lunch was that they're going to take 50,000 out of what they would normally put in their capital and fund balance. We're going to take 50,000 out of fund balance and we're going to put it in there in the event we have something that's 100,000 we have to do next year so that there's an effort we made, you know, both boards made a commitment to kind of make that work. And then the following year, we're probably going to have to start borrowing money to do that. But to at least get that commitment going on both sides, their budget is just as tight as ours.

Well, and and Kathy just pulled up. We've got stuff that we need to get done on high on 11E. We've got a $10 million school plan, but we don't have any plan. That's the maintenance plan. Okay. Yeah, that's the school maintenance plan.

We're starting out with $50,000 on a 10 million plan. um senior center. That's one of the things that I really think we need to be thinking about cuz somebody's going to fall down the steps and kill themselves, I'm afraid. And then we're we're we're we're running out of space over here. I think there's people over here that are kind of running out of space. So, where is everybody going to go? And how how much longer can we keep kick keep kicking it down the road? And that's a rhetorical question. And but we've got some big needs. And how do we really prioritize which which is most important? Um, we've been talking about getting the the lights on 11E hooked together so they so it flows better. I think we've been talking about doing that at least since I started in office and still haven't really gotten moving on that. So,

a lot of those things that you're talking about come out of our fund balance and so we can only draw it down so much or we borrow money. Now, the roof Taylor is about the the intersection at Roof Taylor Road, that one is about to go out to bid. Good. And so, that's already planned out of our fund balance to take care of that one. And I guess you we we say that it usually comes out of fund balance, but we've taken everything else out of fund balance. So, how are we going to start re re refit re putting it back in? And those are the things that are kind of wake me up at 4:00 in the morning. And so,

Laura, over the last few years, how many of these fiscal year budgets have we had to dip into the fund balance over the last five years?

It's it been at least three. last three years. It's been at least the last three years this year. Well, four including this year probably. And is that not like is that standard practice to dip into the fund balance every year like that to to balance your budget? Uh balance our budget. I should have said that. Balance our budget.

Well, so we've not balanced the budget with fund balance. We've just funded our capital out of fund balance. That's okay. when you start getting into using your rainy day reserve or your fund balance for operating is really when it starts getting hairy. Bond rating agencies, they're they're okay with us dipping into our fund balance as long as we meet our fund balance policy and we're responsible with it. That's fine. The bond rating agencies do not like using that rainy day. So that's part of the reason that there's an expectation that you have a plan to put that money back in somehow. So

we lowered our policy fun last year. We did we did to make that it was a little more reasonable when we had really good years, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. That made a lot of sense. It just doesn't anymore.

No more of 6% can be used for capital. That's right. 6% only can be used for capital every year. And in the very on the third tab, you don't have to look at it today, but the third tab is the draft of our capital plan that in the that includes the schools is at the back. Philip did a great job laying that out. Um, for us, a lot of that is maintenance that needs to be addressed in that school maintenance fund. Um, and then, um, all of our departments have things in there. So, I don't have any capital built in the budget at this point because I really needed direction on how to handle the deficit.

We've got two ways to handle it. I mean, we can't make any decisions in a workshop, but I mean, right. So, either it's going to be a tax increase or we're going to kick the can till next year. And there's going to be a double tax increase. Correct. Well, we've got to do something this year. There's I I can Right. Yeah. Yeah. Do nothing and then have it double next year. Yes. I think we're going to have to look at a tax increase of some sort and then figure out how much it needs to be. Um, well, we know how much it needs to be.

Well, if if we're Do we need to start building more up in the school funds because it's going to get to us at some point? It's going to be reoccurring. Yeah. Correct. I mean, every year it's not going to go away. And

no, you can't. So, I would appreciate it if you just just email me your ideas, thoughts, like what you want it to look like. Um, what I would like to do, um, we'll have first reading the first meeting in June. Um, May the 12th, we've got another budget session in here. We've got one next Tuesday and we've got one on May the 12th. But I will communicate with you and then if we're gonna do a property tax increase, my recommendation for transparency is just like we did up here at the top is I'd like to make sure so our citizens can see where their money's going. As a taxpayer, I also would I mean I'm one of them. I'd like to see where the money is actually going. So apply those pennies for a purpose. Um, and then let me give you what it c what what the increase is going to cost. If the average price of a house is if you buy $250,000 house, you buy 300, you buy 350,400, what's that increase going to look like um on your monthly on your property tax bill?

You I think you told me if for a $300,000 house, if we put in the seven cents, how much was it? I don't remember. I don't know if it was four or seven, but it was like $20. a year. A year. But that can be a lot of money to some people. It can be a lot of money to some people. And I think it's important to relay that information as well.

Well, in talking to some of the other people that work in different communities who had $110 per 100, right? Seven cents per 100 on the tax, thousand per thousand. No, I I'll go. Let me I'll I can do it. My calculator. It doesn't matter right now.

No, I can tell you what it is. In talking to some folks, their comments were what exactly what you said is they they said that they were going to use this money for roads, this money for assign it to something. Yes. And I think it it just makes it Oh, I think it helps. Yeah.

The only other thing we can do is start cutting services. The other thing, nobody wants to see that. I hear it all the time. What do we get for our tax money? Then I start over police, fire, public works, trash pickup. Let's keep going. School system, school system is really costing us.

And it's not getting any cheaper. So, we have to do something. Um, and we're still, if you look, took a look at what Laura sent us on the tax percentages of our surrounding neighbors. We're still lower or probably more services than they're getting. Yeah. Because you and we all know that

Kingsport has I think they have have a different charge for their waste. a lot of a lot of communities do or they charge more if you've got 15 toers. It's more than having one. So, I do think we need to look at look at all of our fees. Are we charging enough for building plans? Are we charging enough to for taking trash out uh at the We don't currently charge Where's Bert? We don't It's $21, Laura. We don't currently charge impact fees

for residential or commercial development, right? I wonder if it might be something to look into from a residential development standpoint, looking at impact fees because I think a lot of the stuff that we're, you know, trying to take care of, roads, sidewalks, all the those types of things, they we have to do that because of residential development and other things. So, I wonder if that would be something to look at. Obviously need to chat with uh the folks. We don't want to do something to deter people from coming to our community, but if we could look at that, I think a way to get extra revenue in here to take care of

I don't think there's any surrounding neighbors that doesn't charge impact fees. That wouldn't be something that you're shaking your head. No, which way I say Sure. I mean, because I mean, we found that out with Johnson Farms. It's impacting us soon because we're getting ready to bid it. And that's the reason we're doing that intersection. We're not crying over spilled milk right now. We're not

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. because they pay for their dumpsters and everything else. But now it does get into storm water also if we have no but I don't know on a $300,000 house it's $106 a year. How do you how do you do that? So it's 300,000 and you take 25% is your assessment. Okay. I would have taken that. Yeah. It's 25%. Thank you. Yeah. And then that divided by 100 times your tax rate.

So they would it would go from 1280 to 1328 on a 300,000 a year on $300,000 house. That's about $110,000 $110 a year. So that's important. That's why I say it's important because you seven pennies, seven cents on property tax rate sounds like a lot of money and a lot of you know that 10 bucks a month may be a lot of money to a lot of people. But I do think that's why I said I'd like to give different housing prizes just to kind of give everybody an idea, a benchmark on what that looks like regardless of the number of pennies that we have.

Okay. So yes, it would be much appreciated, like I said, if you would just email me, come by, you know, call something and kind of let me know what direction you want to go to bridge the gap and what things, if any, you want to add and then we're going to add things, we'll put a cost to them and how many more pennies those are. I can kind of keep it building a little bit if that's what you need. Now, with anything this year that's new that's reoccurring, I'd like for you to think 2728. See where we're going to stand next year. Add 4%. Okay.

Which shouldn't be. Hope it's not more than 4% but if it is add 5% I guess in case something crazy happens. Okay.

Maybe we'll take that and split it between the years. And I think that's a good idea rather than hit everybody at once. I I've said it in private, I'll say it in public. I'm a as a taxpayer and then seeing this side of it on the town side. If we know we've got a gap over three years that looks like nine cents. I would rather just like our utilities plan it every over threeyear period. I would rather three years at a time than nine cents at one time. I just sometimes that's easier for everybody to plan for. It's easier to understand. Um and it just really conveys that we're watching what we're doing and not coming up at the 11th hour and saying

it's just like doing a rate study on it. It is very much so. Take the three years and you see where Yes. asked for that three years that just like we approved drink of waters rate studies. Yes, makes more sense to me. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you for nothing. What' you say? Thank you for nothing. All that great news. Thank you for your hard work. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Yeah, this one's been a struggle. It really has. has. It really has.

Got 10 minutes before the council meeting. All right.