City Council - Regular Meeting

Um, we're a little short today. We've got one person traveling and another one at a doctor's appointment. So, we'll just go ahead and get this workshop going. Laura, you gonna lead us up or out? I think the schedule for today to best use our time is we're going to let you talk to Aaron about the library budget and then um we'll go over the allow the city schools to go over their budget and then we'll have um the appropriations, the nonprofits, the quai submissions and then the hotel motel tax submissions.

Thank you, Aaron. What would you like to know about my budget that you don't?

Um, well, I didn't come prepared with any like fancy speech or anything. Um, I was asking for an increase of um $11,500, which is 5.1%. Um, over last year um, and that increase would go to continue to pay our operating expenses um, and provide um, funds for staff salary increases. We are not on the town's pay plan, so we automatically do not get the step that everybody else does. So, it's um the library board um when they met in April um recommended that that that that or I don't know if it was a re recommendation, but they would like to be able to give us um a cost of living increase in July. They did vote for that. If I'd ask you just a minute ago about the um

miscellaneous revenue and it's gone from 48,000 in 2021 to was it was it 3,000 last year that was that's what was budgeted um that miscellaneous revenue column um has historically been used I don't know if you all can hear me um for our book sale income as well as and now we use it also for the big spring room rental income. Um because we don't we never had a a specific category made for either of those items. Um

last year, well, not last year, but this year when we were um doing the budget, um we had moved to George Clem or as a storage facility, but we were not sure that we were going to be able to use it to hold our sale. So that book sale is always sort of iffy at best and that I don't feel comfortable using a big number in that category as revenue because if that doesn't come through then I'm out that money or you had a good year this year though, didn't you? I'm sorry. Did you have a good year this year?

Um so I mean it was still going on. Um this is our our last weekend of the book sale which is the $3 bag sale. Um so we've currently made about $25,000. Um, I would like to point out that it takes um a lot of volunteer time and a really big community effort to do that. Um, and I also would like to point out that that money is specifically raised by community volunteers, not necessarily to support library operating costs, but to provide programming for the community, to provide things that we need that we wouldn't able to be afford, you know, we do need some new furniture. A lot of our furniture got um a lot of wear and tear during COVID when we had to clean it so much. So, a lot of our furniture is looking shabby. Um that's not anything that I can add to our regular budget. So, um so the lot sometimes that money is nice to have to be used for that. Um

I just wanted I want to make sure it hadn't gone down that much. Yeah. And then that 48,000 in that one year was because we didn't have a book sale during COVID for two years. Oh. And then we were able to have a book sale um with three years worth of community donations and we made quite a bit of money that year. So um Okay. Well, y'all do a great job. Well, thank you and we, you know, certainly love what we do. We love serving the community. We appreciate the support that you give us. Have you had the opportunity to go to the county yet?

Um, not yet. I have not heard when they're going to do that. Um, so the last year I did look I did look at last year and it was the end it was at the end of May. Um, I don't know what the countyy's going to do. Um, obviously they have not gave us an increase in the last three years. It stayed steady at 138,000. Yeah.$1 138,000 which is substantially less than you provide than the city provides. Um, but they also did the county also did this year pay 46,000 some dollars to fix our sewer system. So, and there's some discussions about some work on the roof.

There is discussion about them um providing funding to get our roof fixed, which is going to be at least $100,000. Um, because there's not only the roof, but a lot of the woodwork um is in desperate need of repair. I mean, it that building has really not had a lot of maintenance in its 50-y year lifespan, and it's coming it's coming to a head. So, the 67 year old's kind of coming. Um, anybody have any questions or comments? Thanks for all you do. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for all you guys do for us. We really appreciate it.

The activities with the kids in the summer is awesome. Yeah, I have 70 kids tomorrow coming from Highland Elementary for a field trip all at the same time. What time? What? What time? At 9:30. So, you're welcome to stop by. Well, I might just show up, please. And the back and the last weekend of the book sale is this weekend and summer reading starts the Tuesday after Memorial Day. I hate to admit, but I went this year on Friday for the first time. It's crazy. It is crazy. It's crazy. There's people. It's

If you've never been on the first day of the book sale, you need to go because it's it's crazy. And tell them about the um people that will come in and search through and find treasures.

Oh, there's lots of treasures to be had. Um I I don't even I mean, I don't even know. I mean, we, you know, there were DVD. Well, we decided that if it was a set of books in a hard case or a set of DVDs in a hard case, it just sold as one item. If they were not in a hard, like, you know, in a slip case, just to make it easy for the cashiers, it's like if it's one item, you know, hard hard things are $2, soft things are a dollar. So, um, and then we had a, um, White Pine Books always comes. Um, they, you know, they know what they're getting, so they know how to look for treasures. Um, but in five hours that Friday, we made $12,000. So, so anyway, thank you so much. I really appreciate everything. Thank you.

Thank you. all of our budget documents. Thank you. You're very welcome.

Um I know that there will be some discussions in the future, but I just want to say thank you, Steve. Um, this will be your last budget hearing and I know that you are hating the fact that you will never get to do this again, but you've done a good job and I appreciate it. Also, those of you that don't know, um, the new director of schools, Dr. Drenin, is sitting back there also. So, welcome him. But thanks, Steve. Council members, mayor, madam, city manager, thank you so much for allowing us to present to you today. Um, the budget document that you have in front of you is 40,642,330. You can see the revenue by source here. I won't read each of those line items to you. 15% is our allocation from the city of Greenville and 58% state of Tennessee, 24% local taxes. I guess I did read them to you

real quickly. The 24% local taxes, that's both from the county and from the from sales tax from the town. No. So, the any county taxes that flow through us or I'm excuse me, any city taxes that flow to us will be through you all from that allocation. Okay.

Yeah. that local taxes is just our county taxes. Good question. I know that Miss Laura, who by the way I very much appreciate all the time. U she's just great to work with. I know she always updates you all on sales and property tax. So I wanted to do the same for our budget. This is our sales tax um a graph representing our sales tax collection since 2018. Um, you always hope that your major sources of revenue look like this. You like to see a a line going up to the right for anything that you depend on because your costs are always in a line going up to the right. So, you want to see that that match. Our local option sales tax right now is down 1.43% over last year. Really, that's because of that sales tax repayment that we had to make to the state. And with 3.5% projected growth, we budgeted $84,482 of additional sales tax revenue in our budget for next year. Property tax unfortunately doesn't look like the linear line up to the right that I like it to look at. Um, I always say you want your revenues to look like that line, not like your heartbeat. Um, because they're fluctuating too much if you see a heartbeat instead of a linear graph. And just a little bit of explanation why, and I know that that we've discussed this before together, but when it concerns the county tax rate, the percentage of the property tax levy that goes to education has decreased quite a bit since 2018. So that's why the graph looks like a heartbeat instead of a linear line. Just let you look at that for a second.

And can you explain why that happened? Yes, I'm happy to. So, within the county property tax levy, there are pennies allocated to different endeavors such as um the general purpose school capital projects fund, self- insurance, solid waste, general capital projects. Any of those pennies that are allocated to the general school fund are split by the two school districts based on weighted full-time equivalent average daily attendance. And weighted full-time equivalent average daily attendance is really a fancy way to say how many students are in your schools and what classes they take. So when that pie of funding that is devoted to the general purpose school fund in the tax levy is decreased then the two school districts have less to share. So in 2017 there were 77.53 pennies allocated to the general purpose school fund as part of the tax levy and now there's only 39 pennies to split what based on weighted full-time equivalent average daily attendance or the fancy way of saying who's there and what classes are they taking. Does that cover anything you think? Yeah, I think the school the county schools are going down between 130 and 150 people a year. How will that affect things? You look to see how that's going to hit us if it keeps keeps that downward trend.

Well, really, their enrollment doesn't affect us as much. It's the pie of funding available that affects us. if their if their enrollment goes down or if their weighted full-time equivalent average daily attendance goes down, we get a bigger piece of the pie. But if that pie is smaller, we still don't get as much of the pie even if our piece is bigger.

And and I guess if if there's 5,000 kids in the county now and next year it's 4,850 and the year after that it's 4,700 and the year y'all can add and subtract. Is that going to affect us? But the since the if there's 7,000 or 8,000 total K students and we go down 150 or 200 people a year, that's going to it's all going to go smaller, isn't it? Well, the the thing the thing that sets the pie is the property tax levy. Okay.

Doesn't have anything to do with the enrollment that divides the pie. So, it's really about how big the pie is. Is the pie small or the pie big? Once the PI size is set, small, medium, large, doesn't matter, then the PI is divvied up based on weighted full-time equivalent, average daily attendance in the school, two school districts. So, we're really lucky. Um, over the past decade, our weighted full-time equivalent, average daily attendance, we need some kind of good abbreviation for that. Um, it has increased over the past decade. So, we're our share of the pie is bigger when it comes to the property taxes. But the pie is just quite a bit smaller. It's very considerably smaller.

Why is the pie getting smaller?

Because they u the county commission sets uh the property tax levy and between the two school districts have gone um in 2017 it was 77.5 cents and this year it's 39 cents. reappraisal that happen every reappraisal most of the time without action by a governing body or a funding body that shrinks to bring in the same amount of revenue before. So the tax rate when it was 77 cents was $1.98.

And that's why we presented it as a percentage of the property tax levy because if you just looked at pennies, it wouldn't really be apples to apples because the property tax level levy in total is different each year. So, how is the county's m um maintenance of effort man um maintained if they keep dropping these pennies? Well, if you and I I can't speak to if this is exactly what's happening, but I know that you can decrease your maintenance of effort if you're dropping in enrollment.

Have you talked with um Dr. Malone about because I saw where he's concerned about their funding also to see if there's some way we can work together to help conver uh convince the county commission that there needs to be funding changes.

Actually talked with Dr. Malone today and he said that and a balanced budget they have to be amended because unsuress of that basically when a county goes into session they have three things tax rate tax rate set the tax levy divides up how the tax rate is going to go to fund each apartment death in the family but you very soon as well.

Okay. Okay. You mentioned reappraisal year, Steve. That shouldn't really have anything to do with what we're calling the pie because the tax rate on an appraisal year, your tax rate goes down. Even though your property is worth more, your tax rate goes down.

Right. And that's why we presented it as a percentage of the tax levy because like when I tell you 77 pennies used to go toward education and only 39 do now. It's really not apples to apples because in the year that 77 pennies went to education. The total tax rate was only $1.76 and now it's uh you know it's a different rate. So

like a$1714 right now. I'm And I'm just I'll I'll be close in saying that the county is $1.71, our $1.72. Just say that's what it is. I think there's a penny difference. So why is that pie in eight years almost cut in half? That that would be because reappraisal year doesn't have anything to do. Right. Exactly. Taxes are really higher. I would I'd think because your house is worth a lot more than it was within the tax levy. You can move it around in the county like you can you can move tax parts of the tax levy to different pots. Oh, like their general fund instead of education. Yes.

To where we're not getting it. Correct. The the pennies now are mostly in the general purpose school capital projects fund which goes only to the county school capital projects. Got it. I understand now. It's it's a a complicated thing to wrap your head around, honestly. No, that's not too complicated. If they can move that parts of the pie around. Yep. Exactly. Okay. That's a good way to put it. Correct. Correct. No, it's county commission.

Yes. Our county residents, believe it or not. So, on that note, speaking of the property tax levy, um it's down 9.53% from 2425 with uh 2.5% projected growth. That was a reduction in our revenue budget of $297,680. Our TISA funding was up, however, to the tune of $587,646. However, as you can see, $372,33 uh went to a required teacher raise. So, all of our teacher certified employees will receive a $500 raise and uh our non-teer certified employees to match that will get a 1% raise.

And what is that TI? That's that's the OB money. It is. Is that what That's exactly right. Thank you. Tennessee investment in schools achievement.

Tennessee Investment School Achievement. At least they've come up with a good act appropriation that we currently receive from the city of Greenville. And I'll let you look at what those what the breakout of that is. I did include the additional maintenance of effort funding that we've been discussing in the general that top line the recurring annual general. So there's a lot of different facets to our allocation. These are the our expenditures by category. One of our board goals and I'm so thankful for our board members uh for setting the goal that over three4s of our expenses should always go directly to the classroom. Not that we don't feel that maintaining our buildings and driving students back and forth to school, you know, directly affects the classroom, but we like for 70 over 75% of our um budget to go directly into the classroom. So, I like graphs because they just they just bring everything back to an easy way to understand. So, our sales tax looks linear. Property tax looks like a heartbeat. Rate of inflation is a little steeper than we would all like for it to be. Every time we all go to the grocery store or get in our car, we know that this we have this graph memorized every day, don't we? So, um, that's kind of you always want

your major sources of revenue and your rate of inflation if you laid them down on top of each other in graph form to look the same. So, including our additional maintenance of effort funding, we are at a balanced budget with our revenues and equity and expenditures. And um of course we're happy to entertain any questions and we we thank you for the opportunity to present.

How many students are you expecting next year? Students we're expecting our current enrollment is

286 last year. those auto one together in one classroom kindergarten through three you might be able to reduce spread that out it doesn't affect okay anybody else or have any other questions All right. Thank you. Thank you. It wasn't too bad, was it?

Oh, okay. That's what we'll tell the people going next. That would be me. Oh, Laura knows better. Okay. I know this is a little Y'all can go if you want, unless you just want to have fun with this. We do. Okay. She's gonna try to blow this up. Sorry. Okay.

Okay. So, um we have this is the list in the 27 requested is the list of um our nonprofits and quai governmental agencies. quai governmentals or city county funded. Um they are in red and so when I built the budget initially um the nonprofit fundings were not in there. We didn't know what everybody was going to request. Didn't know where we were going to be. Quazis are at the same level as they were last year in the current budget. So um as of today in our budget, we do not have any funding for the nonprofits. That decision is up to city council to leave it that way to add to whatever that looks like. Um I'm not sure do we have who is anybody here nonprofit

at least one Jeff is quazi and Jan that the only three and oh Jerry okay so there's a handful of them that are here that are going to want to talk to you about this and then once we get past um this section on the nonprofits um we've got hotel motel tax to talk about after that. Does anybody want to speak? You want to go ahead?

Before you start, I guess we had a little discussion today about the new building at our planning commission meeting. So, you're in the process of moving over that way? Well, hopefully in June they will have it completed and we will get all of our regulatory approvals to be in there and have our summer program moved over there. So, great. Thank you. It be a wonderful thing for the kids and our community. So, Bert was very um proud of the building and and how it looks in there. And so, thank you.

Thank you. So, I'm Scott Blunt with the Boys and Girls Club, and we've asked for a $30,000 allocation in our new facility, and basically uh we found out in a hurry that having a $27,000 square foot facility has higher bills. We've had um 2,300 and up for the first three months of the year, and we're not even in there yet, which they've been doing construction in there, but once we have all the kids in there, we know it'll be higher. uh with all the additional rooms as we're going from 10,800 ft² to 27,000, we're going to be hiring more staff. We'll have more children signed up. We currently have a waiting list. So, our summer program for this year is full by May 1st. And uh I hated that because I thought we'd be in our new building and be able to take more children. But with the waiting list, when we do get to move, we will be able to add them at that time in June. But we don't know which date in June we'll be moving. So, our expenses have gone up about 40,000 as we can guesstimate it best. And um we also are looking at, you know, grants and other things to try to fill in all the holes and gaps that you'll have in the budget during the year. But um what we were asking for was the 30 that we got last year and we would use it towards general expenses and serving more of the youth in our community, especially those from socially and economically disadvantaged circumstances.

Anybody have any questions? What's your during the school year? What's your daily average on kids? It's right at about 150 because that's all we can handle. And we're certified up to 150 kids. Fire code. Yeah. And the new building will be 320. We're looking at doubling our capacity. Yeah. We'll double the capacity. And right now we probably have about 30 on the waiting list. And we just started the waiting list a couple days ago. So

So how many are in enrolled now? 150. Well, we usually enroll right around 200 225 because over historically how many kids come versus what's signed up. They don't come every day because they might have ball practices, they might have scouts, they might have a lot of different things going on. And usually our attendance is within 135 to 155, but we have kids that come in and are picked up different times. Some of the school buses don't drop off to about 4. You have some parents that come quicker at 3:30 because they get off work and they want to pick their child up and leave. And then we have some kids that at 6:30 we're ready for their parents to come get them. So everybody comes and goes at different times. And in the summer program um we have a it's a a unique dropping of kids. There may be 180 kids that come during the day, but we're lucky enough that we don't have more than about 150 52 at a time that are actually at the club. So we've juggled that pretty good over time. But main reason we wanted to build a new club during the pandemic when the schools were closed and we were open and we realized we were only allowed to have x amount of kids per room and we had to cut some kids out of being able to come that if something like that ever happened again or or we were in a different circumstances that we needed more space. So in the new club we have we have our gym is bigger than our whole club that we currently have now. It has 12 drop down goals. It has a stage performing arts room. Then we have a STEM, CTE, workforce readiness. We have 40 plus computers in our computer lab. We have a big huge arts and crafts room. All the rooms are so much bigger than what we have now. The the smallest rooms that we service kids in now are bigger than the biggest room we currently have at our club. So, it'll be able to serve a lot more kids and serve them better in a more, I guess, modern facility. And um we have uh a lot of programs that we do for the kids that aren't just they don't just come there and hang out. We try to get

them prepared to be productive adults of our community so that they'll be success in life. And and how many will you be able to handle now? About

between probably 320 to 325. Once the building is completely done, they come back and reassess how many kids based on the square footage of us putting this and that in the building. But I feel pretty comfortable it's going to be around the 320 mark. So in our attendance, we're going to we're going to do some continued growth in it. We're not going to open it up right off the, you know, we're not going to go from 150 to 300, but we're going to go from 150 like 225. Once we service that good for a certain amount of time, then we'll move it up to 250 and move up. So we'll try to, you know, gauge it and plan our growth so that we don't put oursel in a situation where we're not being giving them the best service with their children.

And help me again. What's it cost to be a member? It is $40 for the calendar year for school year and that's for January through May when school's out in August through December. And then to go in the summer is a $200 fee and that's for about 58 days. So, how many scholarships come during the school year at 17 cents a day? How many scholarships do you do?

Uh, we give away about 60 to 70 scholarships a year because there are a lot of families that just can't afford to pay those fees. And so, we we do fundraisers like our golf tournament or auction or dinner and then we base it on the needs of the child that's trying to get the scholarship. So, nobody's turned away because they can't pay ever. So, right, the only way that they get turned away is when we don't have spots and that's why we're moving into the new facility. That $200 usually doesn't go straight to the boys and girls. You use those for fees and activities of what you do.

Oh, yeah. And I mean, what that's why we do fundraisers and write grants. I mean, if if we were really going to sit down with pencil and paper, you're going to have $500 to a,000 per year in a kit. So, you know what kind of a business opens up and knows they're losing with everything they're selling? Well, we're here for the community. We're a part of the community. You know, just like your schools, we're your after school program. So, we're the place to keep them with professionally trained staff to keep them in a secure location, to keep them safe, keep them out of trouble, keep them busy, and then give them activities that they can do to enrich their life and grow as a a young man or woman into adulthood. Do you have fundraisers? Yeah.

All the time it seems like. All the time. So, is is there any funding from the state since there's not I don't think there's really ESP programs in the c in the city any longer? There's some funding. Um, sometimes when you apply for funding, they um trying to think of a nice way to say it. The state rewards those who fail. Is that how you say it in the school system when they give extra points to people and you're going against them for grants?

Okay, I said that right then. So sometimes we're at a disadvantage when we might apply for say against Memphis or somewhere and they count their low graduation rate and their high team birth rate and stuff and give them points. So if I'm applying and and over here's grant two, they're plus seven points before we apply. We might lose out by one point, but we really had more to offer. But the state's redone a lot of the grants. We've gotten a LEAP grant for about 18 straight years. This year they changed all the parameters in it and uh we went in with uh Severe County and with Jefferson County to apply for our grant because to meet the demographics and everything that's required now, we didn't meet it in Greenville as a community because we don't have the high minority population that was required by the grant. And so we've looked for ways like that. We do apply for state grants. They're all pretty competitive, but a lot of those grants are getting smaller. kind of like her pie, the pie that nonprofits can pull from is getting smaller as well because if you look at 20 years ago, even here in Greenville, how many charities there were versus now it's tripled. And if you look at it statewide, there's thousands more charities in each one of these little communities. A lot of communities have a whole bunch. It might be a walk for this, it might be a run, but there's so many people reaching out for so it's all good causes. There just a lot more people that are raising money for a lot of different activities and the costs are going up which makes the dime not go as far as it used to.

Well, I've been think looking and thinking I was on the um United Way board many years ago and I think our budget was $700,000 at that time and now it's about 250. So, it's just it's changed and and I hope there's some way we can there are a lot of people given a lot of things, but if we can get the word out on on what opportunities are for pe people to contribute, I hope we can build on that. Um,

any comments, Tim? Overall, not boys and girls. No. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you. I guess Jeff, do you want to come up?

I still wasn't quite prepared to speak today. Okay. Sitting to listen.

Uh, as always, we appreciate the support of the town of Greenville uh for what we do u collectively for economic development. We've had a good year. uh very proud and very excited to help American greetings secure 200 jobs uh this year along with uh the transition of Sergeant Suds who has been bought to retain those jobs here as well as working with Ford Air. Originally they were going to move 326 jobs out of Greenville and um those jobs will be staying here. Not all 326 but probably close to 200 of them. Um, you know, economic development is a challenge, especially when you're faced with uh tariffs that came out of nowhere. But we're now starting to see since the Supreme Court ruled that those tariffs were illegal uh activity within the state of Tennessee. We've got two very active projects in the works. One of them is for Harden Industrial and uh another one is at SNAP, actually three. Uh one's at Snaps Ferry and then one is also out in the county. Uh all of those obviously contributed jobs and uh salaries as well as sales tax ultimately. And of course we're very excited about what's happening out at Green Valley. Uh we did get another 300,000 to continue the master planning uh for Green Valley that we know that's a long play. Uh however, we already have uh you know an investment out there with Eternal Water that's uh went ahead and doubled the size of their building uh from their original investment. So again, that employment is going to highly automated robotics. Uh so we continue uh to do those things, but beyond just the economic recruitment side, workforce development is another piece of that. And so, uh, working regionally as well as statewide, uh, to

bring programming, uh, as well as connectivity, um, and working with like GA, you know, originally we were, uh, if you go back several years, probably one of the first couple weeks I was in this position, uh, I presented at GA the black hole of broadband. And so we've worked very closely with GA, we being the partnership uh working both angles of this to bring broadband to to Green County. And so again, we do not just economic development from a job creation side, but also working literally just had a meeting with uh another community partner uh that we're not as close aligned with, but we will be shortly uh with the u you heard this morning about the great expansion going on at the YMCA. there's stackable funding out there that we can help bring to the table through the Department of Labor and also DHS and also WEOTA. So, oftentimes a lot of people don't know how far our uh tentacles reach and how many of them that we have. So, it's not just about uh industry and manufacturing, but it's also about other services that provide, as Scott mentioned, child care, but we're also working with parent care because that's another piece of the pie that or piece of the puzzle of why workforce is decreasing in our county and also statewide. So, uh we appreciate the support. Uh as the school system pointed out that fantastic inflation number, it's gone up 32% in five year five years. Uh we have continued to manage and look at our expenses. Uh you know we switched to GA which saved us considerably. Um but I also have gotten creative with staffing. Um you know we brought on Amy Williams and Amanda Wadell as part-time employees. Uh we're currently managing gosh

close to $5 million in grants right now. Actually that's not true. We're very involved with Davy Crockett which is 62 million u which is important to our total economy here. But if you look at the number of grants that we're bringing in and managing it's significant. And so we continue to do that. that Amanda has sent out over a half a million dollars to other other partners in the community to find those dollars because we know they're out there. No one has a grant writer or the time to do it. And so I took that on at the partnership. We took that on when Amanda became available to research and find them. So we're sending them to the Y. We're sending them uh Scott and I share emails back and forth. Hey, have you seen this grant? Main Street uh school system CTE. Uh, but we're digging for them to find additional dollars because they're out there and we should get that share of that pie, too. So, we appreciate your support. Uh, big week this week. If y'all want to come volunteer, uh, plenty of opportunity to greet uh, hopefully the thousands of the weather is nice. Uh, the car we are expecting probably another 15,000 people in two days. So, heavy impact there. And uh the Firefly Festival that uh has launched out that has been very successful. It's we expanded to two weekends. Amy Phill has done a magnificent job there. Uh and then Jesse Beth as you see with Keep Green Beautiful. She's been leading a lot of the charges uh to clean clean up the Noachchuckucky River which is helping us uh both state and regionally. We're in conversations with Appalachin Region Commission to do a um multi-state whitewater rafting uh community. Uh we've got multiple rafters involved. We thought we had them ready to go till hurricane hit. So we've backed off Irwin's got to get up and running first. But also on the other

side of that um out at uh we call everybody calls it the Texas Roadhouse development, not the shops at Green. I don't think until they get a big sign they'll ever know what that is. Uh we've got two LOIs out there. Uh working very closely with Andy Brawls on those. Um those probably will be four to five months out before anything is said officially, but there are LOIs on the properties out there where leaves one piece of property and then we've got multiple people looking to do multiple projects. Um, and literally our retail recruiter is in Vegas this week having conversations to try to get a couple of other LOIs for larger retailers. So, a lot of activity. The problem's going to be where are they going to land with ready dirt and infrastructure. So, but we'll work through that as well. So, thank you. Thank you for your support.

Jan, do you want to kind of like I come I'm kind of like Jeff. I just thought I might be an observer today. But um thank you all for giving us the opportunity. Can I say something? Sure. Downtown looks great. Thank you for co coordinating that this past weekend.

Thank you. It's a labor of love. Kathy knows we we did a we did a lot. Um, it's nice to have some of the extra um, pot selfwatering and that was part of what I was going to um, also say here too because uh, being a partner with you guys for what 44 years and stuff, we've gone through a lot. We've had a lot of projects together and stuff and it's um, it's nice when we all work together and pull some stuff off. So, we thank the fact that with the addition of the flower pots and everything like that, we've got some ongoing assistance with the town of Greenville and public works on that. Um, we're very much like everybody else. We had asked for an increase, but most of that's everything that we're all facing is increases um increases um in everything that we do, insurance, all those basic necessities that you have to have. But I think the important side of our um opportunity to serve the town and the community is some things that as a Main Street community you're only offered because you're a Main Street community. Um some of those are the grants, facade grants that we've done. We're in the we're in the middle of six of those right now, which is great. One includes the pocket park. So we're really pleased about that. Then we were just recently selected as one of 10 communities in the state of Tennessee to do a food and beverage initiative with a company called Proof of Chattanooga who has teamed up with Tennessee ECD which is where the Main Street program comes from in the state with funding. Um, I've pulled Jeff in and the partnership with that because it makes good sense. And that initiative is to help folks that

are not only in the food and beverage industry, may have a cottage home business, may have a food truck, or even could be that atome entrepreneur that we can help train, give them opportunity to study, to learn at no expense to themselves. that will help them in their business and perhaps even help them go from um their small operation to brick and mortar that we can bring to downtown and some other buildings and facilities. And then another opportunity we had with the uh Tennessee Entertainment Commission is an initiative called Make Music Day, which is on June the 21st. You'll hear more about that next week. Um and that is a global music initiative. Everything from if somebody if if council member um Teague and Ward want to get out and play the kazoo on the 21st the summer solist and they make it publicly known then Kathy and the mayor can go and see you. So it's a great initiative that really spreads started in Europe. Sounds funny but it's a it's a lot of fun to do. The only requirement is everything has to be free and open to the public. So, that's another um opportunity with Main Street um that this community has. And um what uh what questions do you have for me? We've known each other for a long time, so I'm I'm here if you've got questions. If you don't understand something,

I don't think I do. Tim, thank you. Thank you for coming up.

Thanks. Thank you.ed back there. But mayor, uh, council, councilman, thank you all very much for your continued support and your past support for 911. Um, we couldn't do it without you all's help. Uh we did have a big blow from veto from the governor on an increase in our monies this year. But as this meeting had been going on, I had received a letter from the state board that they are u sending a letter to the governor requesting uh to reconsider. So hopefully we'll get that money. Uh that was the $333,000 that we lost due to the governor's veto.

So do you feel like you're going to be able to manage it this year without that increased in? We're going to try our best. Yes, mayor. Also want to thank u Mr. Ward here for his assistance with the EMS and all the work that he does with you and for you. Yes, he's he's he's a good chairman, that's for sure. Now, now Okay. Working on that budget now for weeks

about four four or five weeks. Yes, sir. We had it good. cut down about as lean as depend on what math we're using between a one and a 4% cost of living increase for employees.

Next Wednesday is the 20th. Yeah,

that we we've we figured the budget with no cost of living from from zero to to 4%. Like a lot of these things that we've been dealing with in all our budgets, it's nothing we have direct control over. Uh that is outside of our our hands. costs as they up our equipment costs, our our maintenance costs. We have large equipment purchases on the horizon uh because they're items are are ending their life challenge. It's as everybody sitting in this room knows when working on your budget, it's challenge. So, putting the response from town and malls in the county. One of those one of those examples of everybody pushing in the same direction.

Very positive, huh? Okay. What's your total? 2.6 million.

That 333,000 is going to be a big hit. Yes, sir. And it was included in the budget because we thought everything was good. It overwhelmingly passed the city and the the city the senate and the uh and the house of representatives both legislators by a wide margin. And it was just surprisingly that uh how you going to cut 13%. Well, just do the best we can as trying to find understand that and I know you do. I mean, yeah, as far as give us specifics, it is Tim, if I may. So, this was going to be new funding for us this year. Um, oh, it's not been No, we were very very fortunate in the fact that that it was not

cut from us. It it just didn't didn't happen. U should have didn't. Uh so we were looking at being able to make some some headway on getting move towards uh buying those things that we're going to have to have or at least saving in that direction and being able to look at taking care of our people uh and a few other odds and ends. But we're going to have to make it was it was new money. It wasn't my budget. Was there any Was there any kind of a reason that he felt that it was time?

He he wrote a letter um explaining his reasoning, which I don't necessarily agree with, which really doesn't matter to him at all. Um end of the day, he's the governor have to veto on it. So, we're we're stuck until they decide what they want to do from that point. One of the things he he looks at it as a tax for the citizens of the Tennessee. It's not a it's a search charge. It's not a tax rate. It was going from $1.50 to $186. 36 times 12 months, $4 and some odd change a year is what it would have cost.

Yeah. Cell phone. Any any phone you have. Cell phone. Uh V voice over IP. uh your landlines if any anyone has landline phones all the business office phones and all everything is that search charge rate of a$150 it was going up to $186 which there again it was $4 and something 432 thank you Bobby $432 uh per per line is all it would per month per year per per year difference of less than $5 a year a cup of coffee pretty much at a lot of places. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Good questions and thanks Tim. Yeah. Thank you. I'm standing back Jerry. My apologies. He said, "Do I need to come?" I said, "Ah, sure. Why not?" So, am I gonna have to speak? Nah, I'm gonna speak. Thank you. Sorry. Thanks, Jeremy. You always do a good job. So, there's no reason to worry. The mayor spoke. Thank you all very much. Tim, you have some comments? I do not till we get to Hotel Motel. Okay.

Okay. Um, I do appreciate Miss Murkoff, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Bird, and Mr. Bullington taking the time today to speak to you. Um, hotel motel tax. Um,

thank you. 27 requests for hotel motel tax were pretty much the same as they were last year. I did move the new northeast Tennessee tourism um over to hotel motel tax. That's one that was it's not a lot of money at $1,700. It was just in our our regular appropriations and last couple years that's been mentioned. Do we need to put it over there? So, I did put that over. And then we have a new one. Um, the Magnavox Historical Preservation Association has requested some hotel motel tax funding as well.

Can you go down or up or Yes. So, um, with the requests that we have, there's that's what if if everything's funded as it is, no increases, no decreases as on that sheet, that's what we think we're going to have about 61,000 in hotel motel tax at the end of FY27. Do we have is there any kind of a number that we're targeting for that or is it just

No. Um and I don't know if you remember last year um I had several council members ask me for what the what's the practice for hotel motel tax? And literally across the state of Tennessee, it's kind of all over the place. Some people don't give any of their hotel motel tax money to another entity. Some of them do. Um the common practice is a third, a third, a third. So whatever your um revenue is, you give a third away. Um you keep a third in the reserve and you do a third for whatever a town project or something. Um again, there it's it's all over the board and there's no right or wrong. there's no legislation as to whether you have to give it away, you don't have to appropriate it, you have to keep it. Um it's just different philosophies and a lot of that depends on the community itself and what the drivers are in the community for hotel motel tax. So us appropriating that money in a particular way or having money in a reserve, there's not a right or wrong way to do that.

Do we have a um allocation or explan expectation if we get that holiday in down on U 11E what that will generate next year. No idea. I mean did we put any number in?

No, not until they're actually built and then we'll look at capacity. So as soon as they start booking rooms, um Kelsey Darnell is back here. She's my hotel motel tax guru. She does all the reporting to the state and just kind of monitors that. So she'll be reaching out to them once they're established um and built. and start um taking tenants and um visitors that come into town. They'll be filling out their monthly sales tax report. Did you ask about 23? Is that what's exit 23? No, actually down next to Aubry's y I mean Huh. So we don't need to look forward to that this year.

No, I think the last I heard from Bert, I think their plan may be by December of Is it December? So halfway through the fiscal year and that, you know, sort of like property taxes, homes being built, they have to start leasing those beds before we're going to see any revenue. Yes.

Yes. Because they're taxed on the amount of hotel rooms, their revenue from their hotel room stays. And our form, just in case you don't know, our hotel motel tax form, we duplicated the counties. They were gracious enough to share. So when these um business owners at the hotels when they're reporting they're reporting the same information on two it looks exactly the same and that's kind of a standard form across the state as well. Okay. We're not quite doing a third a third a third are we? No. Pretty close. Well I don't I don't the ending balance.

Yes. So, um, we have, if you'll go up just a little bit, Christina. So, in 25 and 26, we didn't draw any money out of that reserve. So, it's just kind of built a little bit up. It has. And where did you move Dixon? Dixon Williams did not send us information this year in the last one. So, am I correct? We did not hear anything. We moved them to Hotel Motel. Yes. Yes. Which would be the same thing as I mean Magnavox historical preservation. That's a museum, correct?

I didn't have as many questions as I thought. Cal. Okay. Okay. Questions, comments? There's a lot to think about. Yes, there is. Um, so will we have our first hearing, budget hearing at the first week of June? Yes. And then the final will be the third week. Yes. Or our second meeting in June. Yes. And we need to have it completed and approved by the end of the year.

Yes. So, just so you know, and since we doing Facebook live today and um I've got Bobby here, um our state of Tennessee requires that our budget in total by the by fund. So, solid waste fund, landfill fund, general fund, schools has to be advertised 10 days before at least 10 days before that meeting on June the 2nd. I believe it's June 2nd. So, I have to have that to the newspaper next week and it has to be a balanced budget. So, I'm gonna ask for some your face.

Sorry. I'm so sorry. I promise you every everyone in this room that is affiliated with any entity does not like the word balanced budget this year. It's just been really rough all the way around for everybody because of that linear inflationary line that you saw from um Miss Leipe. So um my goal is to Kathy and I sat down this morning and looked at some things. We've gotten some feedback from some of you. So we'll have some when we come to first reading before then before I put the advertisement out. So in the next few days, city council will get it. I'll give you all an email for some potential cuts. I just need yes or no if you want to add anything. Do you agree with that? Do you not agree with it? I've got to put something in the paper. As I said the last meeting when we had this in 23 years that draft budget that goes in 10 days before first reading has never been accurate 100%. It just doesn't work that way because those in those 10 days a lot can change. But that will be the proposed budget that we will look at on June the 2nd. And then if there at that point in time there's discussions if you of course you can make changes on first reading you can make changes on second reading um as part of the approval process on that ordinance questions comments how much

goodness gracious um I can't think now but anyway Um, how much have our revenues gone up? Just the pro property tax has gone up two and a half% some. I mean, do you do you real right off speak um top built in the budget? Yeah. So, it's about two and a half on property tax, about three three and a half on local option sales tax and about two somewhere around two 2.2 on state sales tax. And the the increases that we've seen have been more than that. Yes.

And then we've had talks and I one of the things I I think we've got to talk we've got to think about is we've got $500,000 from stu state revenues. Mhm. And $500,000 takes you about a mile and a half, two miles. We've got 130 miles of road. So if we're doing two miles of road every year, 65 years, we'll get them all finished. It's time to start all over again. Heck, they probably I think they live they 30 to 40 years maybe.

Depends on the base. Yes. Some in the last five years.

Um and the track and the track of traffic. And we've got we've got some we've got some things to really think about. Um what can we do to generate more addition uh more revenues? And um it it the property tax that we look at, we go up like this and then back down. What happened? Did all the land go away or did it die or did it all burn down or what happened? Um, we have a new building on Church Street. Did we get in that included in our

I have all the new and the potentially things that will be completed between now and the end of December are included in our property tax revenue. Okay. A projection for next year. Um, we got the schools this discussion. I don't think we've really put anything. We we put a great plan in to start building reserves for u maintenance, but I don't think we have anything budgeted this year. So,

for school maintenance, yes. So, Miss Leip and I, we've put 50 in good faith to honor that with budgets being as tight as they are. Each entity has $50,000 from their capital fund going into that school maintenance debt at least to get us started. Okay. Well, what did we talked about doing? We talked about 200 for each entity and it just didn't the the math didn't math this year. Well, and is the math ever going to math? It m it might. It might, but we're just going to have to we'll just have to watch it and see.

Okay. Um, if you haven't had the opportunity to sit down with Kathy and Laura to talk about this, I'm sure you have, but I if if you've got ideas or suggestions and we'll share them with us. Um, it's sometimes a little challenging to sit here and talk about some of these things. So, be happy to hear what your thoughts are. You have anything? We created a sheet today that she's planning on sending out soon that kind of goes along with just some that I share with you on ways that we might be able to offset the the imbalance of where we're at currently.

Um, as long as it's not kicking the can down the road anymore, which some of it could be. Yes.

So, we probably different revenue sources and Yeah, we were talk talking at the planning commission this morning. Uh, do we need to start having businesses or or Airbnbs and bed and breakfast require a permit before they get that in place? How many are we missing? Are there a bunch out there? And it's not a lot of money, but a little money will help in other things. So, I think Ry's or what's your name? Andy. Andy. Andy's got some ideas also. Also, it was a year ago when I

I think it was the next wind Tuesday, but um I was talking to somebody about it yesterday. Glad you're still here.

Um me, too. And I think my mom or my wife is certain days. My mom is and I I I'm pretty open about my heart and it's stuff. I had an echo cardiogram yesterday and my ejection fraction went up significantly from where it was. So that should help. I also had a some mitro valve issues and they've gotten better. So, I think that there have been people that have been praying and doctors that have been working on me and I sure feel better. So, anyway, thank you everyone for coming. Uh, sorry to put you on the spot. Jerry ran away because he was so upset about it. Um, but anyway, who you got back there, Josh? Has he figured is he gonna help us with our budget?

All right, come on up here and let me know. You're hired. Yes. Thank you everybody. Huh? He's got a better shot than I No doubt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.